With the man gone, Antony took a moment to straighten his doublet and settle his cloak on his shoulders, before he turned and ascended the steps.
Groby whispered in the colonel’s ear, pointing at the list. When Antony reached them, the officer swept his hat off and greeted him with hypocritical courtesy. “Sir Antony Ware. I am Colonel Thomas Pride, and my orders are not to permit you within the House, but to take you into custody.”
Antony met his eyes, then Groby’s, willing some doubt to be there. But he found none. “You have no authority save that which your swords and pistols make. By barring me from my rightful place, you trample upon the very liberties you swore to protect.”
Groby said, “We are liberating Parliament from a self-interested and corrupt faction that impedes the faithful and trustworthy in the conduct of their duties.”
He sounded almost as if he believed it, and perhaps he did. If there was one thing Antony knew from all these struggles, it was that men could come to believe in anything, no matter how absurd.
Pride said merely, “Do you refuse to go?”
The eager-handed soldiers wanted another fight, but Antony would not give them one. He would be ruled by choice, not by the sword. “You will not need your weapons,” he said. “Under protest, I will go.”
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: December 6, 1648
Lune was playing cards with her ladies when Ben Hipley slammed through the door, trailing an offended usher. “They’ve taken him.”
She stared at the man. Where had he been for the last week? She had quarreled with Antony over sending Hipley to St. Albans; she had another use for their mortal spymaster. But she had been willing to accept it so long as Hipley was sending useful information. For days, though, nothing—and now he showed up utterly without warning, unwashed and bristling with unshaved stubble.
Then his words sank in. “What? Who?”
“Antony,” Hipley said, confirming the fear already forming in her mind. “The Army. They were waiting at Westminster. They’ve taken Antony to Hell.”
The cards slipped from Lune’s nerveless fingers and fluttered to the carpet; she had stood without realizing. Her body felt very far away. All she could hear was that final word, echoing like thunder.
“It’s an eating house!” Hipley exclaimed, putting his hands up.
Lune returned to herself with the crack of a bone popping back into its socket. “In Westminster. There’s three of them—Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell. Someone with a twisted sense of humor put them in Hell. Lord Antony, and about forty others.”
Nianna fluttered at Lune’s side, fan in hand as if she thought her Queen would faint. Lune gestured her away, irritable now that the fear was gone—or at least reduced. Her trembling, she hoped, was hardly noticeable. “Members of Parliament?”
He nodded. “Anybody with a record of voting against the Army’s desires has been excluded from the Commons; the worst offenders are arrested. But there’s more, madam. They’ve moved the King to Hurst Castle, under strict guard. They’re going to try him.”
Hence the arrest of those in opposition. Even with the open Royalists driven out these past years, and recruiters elected to fill their places, the full Commons would not vote for the Army’s desired aims—not to the extent of putting their anointed sovereign on trial like a common criminal.
And what sentence would they pass?
That was a concern, but not the first one. Lune had no immediate way to stop this coup; she had to focus on getting Antony out. She cursed the choice of Westminster. The Onyx Hall did not extend beyond the walls of the City. But the Army had already occupied London once, during the later part of the war, creating much ill will; they would not be so stupid as to imprison their opponents among their enemies.
The cards were long forgotten; all her ladies were on their feet, hovering uselessly. I let myself be caught here, idle, while outside the world changed irrevocably. “Get out!” Lune spat, flinging her fury at them; as one, they curtsied and fled.
Leaving just her and Hipley. Lune paced the chamber, fingers curled under the point of her bodice. “Can you get in to see him?”
The plan taking shape in her mind collapsed when he shook his head. “I’ve already been caught asking too many questions around St. Albans.”
He made no explanation beyond that, but the mystery of his absence was solved. Small wonder they had no warning of this beforehand. Snarling, Lune spun back to the nearest table and grabbed a mask Nianna had left behind, intending to hurl it across the room. Then she paused.
“You can still go,” she said, fingering the mask, and gave Hipley a thin smile. “You only need a different face.”
HELL AND WHITEHALL, WESTMINSTER: December 7, 1648
“Wallingford House, my lily-white arse.”
Soame muttered the words under his breath, a profane counterpoint to the psalms some of the other men were singing. The holy music grated on Antony’s nerves, but there was little else to do; more than two score men were crammed into a pair of upstairs chambers, with nowhere to sleep but benches or the floor. A few read, by the light of what candles they had been grudgingly allotted; others talked in low voices in the corners. Prynne was pacing, threading his way carefully amongst those trying to rest.
Antony wondered if it was a misunderstanding or a deliberate lie that made Hugh Peter promise they were to be taken from Westminster Hall to suitable lodgings at Wallingford. Instead the coaches deposited them scarcely a street away, at the aptly named Hell. A handful of the prisoners had been offered their parole and leave to go home, but to a man they had refused. He was not the only one taking a martyr’s pleasure in facing this outrage.
Morning light peeped through the shutters, lending slivers of brightness to the otherwise gloomy chamber. Light-headed from lack of food and sleep, Antony nevertheless crossed the room and threw open the door.
The pair of soldiers outside jerked around, hands on their pistols as if eager to strike. Antony carefully stayed inside the threshold, making no threatening move. “You have been holding us since yesterday morning with no food, and little to drink. Unless it is your officers’ intention to starve us, we need breakfast.”
“And if it is your intention to starve us, at least have the decency to admit it, so we can begin trapping pigeons and rats.” Thomas Soame had come up behind his right shoulder, and his stomach rumbled loudly in accompaniment.
The soldiers merely glared. “Get back inside.”
The hostility was nothing new. Who spread the rumor, Antony did not know, but their guards believed them to have pocketed the coin that should have covered the Army’s arrears of pay. I can no longer even tell what might be faerie interference, and what is simply the madness of our own world.
“Some of these men are ill,” Antony said. As if to demonstrate, Sir Robert Harley sneezed miserably, huddled on his bench. He was one who could have gone home, but refused. “I do not imagine your Provost-Marshal would be glad to hear that anyone came to great harm while under your watch.”
One soldier sneered, but the other said, “We’ll ask,” and slammed the door shut.
The Provost-Marshal agreed to request food, but was gone for hours, and when he returned it was not to give them breakfast. Instead the arrested members were shoved back into the coaches and taken to Whitehall. Nor was there anything waiting for them on the other end but a cold room without a fire, where they waited for hours longer. Supposedly the General Council intended to interview them, but Antony suspected that message was nothing more than a delaying tactic, something to give hope to the men who still believed that if they just protested the illegality of their treatment loudly enough, the officers would come to their senses.