The psalm broke harmlessly over Lune, deflected by the tithe, but the other fae cried out. Whirling, she saw Mellehan drop his rapier, and Essain staggered. Lune thrust her hip beneath his, and sent him stumbling into his companion. Benjamin Hipley, still singing, appeared from behind a dying bush. “Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me…” He had no patience for the tactics of gentlemen; his hilt-weighted fist cracked Mellehan’s head, and then he disarmed Essain and clubbed him in the neck with the pommel of his own blade.
A basso growl brought Lune desperately around. Prigurd had collapsed to his knees, one broad hand planted on a pillar, but before he could struggle up again, Antony was there. Supporting his weight somehow on his bad leg, he kicked out, with enough force to knock the giant sideways, then staggered forward and slammed the same boot down.
His knee gave out from under him, but the work was done; Prigurd lay senseless on the floor. Hipley cut short his psalm. “Your Majesty—Lord Antony—”
“Help him,” Lune said, jerking her chin at the fallen man, and Hipley rushed to unbind his hands and mouth. Only now did her heartbeat catch up to the sudden excitement, pounding hard enough to make her shake. I should kill these knights.
It was a thought worthy of Invidiana. Vidar forced her back into those dark habits, the days when bloody ruthlessness was the only way to survive at court. Lune flung the notion from herself in revulsion. But half the Onyx Hall would have felt the force of Ben’s holy song; they had to move quickly.
Hipley came to untie her hands. Antony, supporting himself against the pillar, met Lune’s eyes again. More then twenty years they had reigned together; there were many things they need not say. “Go,” Lune told him. “Before they think to.”
“What of you?” Antony asked.
Her hands came free, and she chafed life back into her fingers. “Will you stay with me?” she asked their mortal spymaster, and Hipley nodded. “Vidar intends to take the Onyx Hall for himself. We must make certain he cannot.”
LOMBARD STREET, LONDON: January 30, 1649
Antony’s sweat-soaked clothing froze against his skin the moment he levered himself up out of the flagstone-capped pit. He thanked God—or rather, the power of Faerie—for the charms that concealed anyone entering or exiting one of the passages from the Onyx Hall, replaced the flagstone, and staggered grimly away from the Billingsgate house, toward Lombard Street.
With the Queen and the Prince captured, would Vidar still spare a force to patrol the streets in disguise? Perhaps, depending on how many more he needed to subdue. And if he guessed their escape, then definitely.
He limped faster.
O Lord, Almighty Father—I beg of You, protect those I love. If that usurper struck at more than the Onyx Hall—if they harmed her while I was gone—
The house was quiet, with candles burning against the early winter night. Antony heaved himself through the clerks’ office on the ground floor and up the stairs, gasping. “Kate? Kate!”
No answer. His breath coming faster, Antony made for the next floor. She could be out—
“Antony?”
Her clear, bright voice came from the top of the stairs. Then a sudden clatter as she rushed down them, slipping under his arm and supporting his weight. “What happened? I’ve been waiting—”
“Kate,” he said, pulling free of her so he could take her face in his numb hands. “We must leave. Now.”
She went perfectly silent and still. A hundred questions shouted in her eyes—what was wrong? Who was coming for them? What had he done? But her mind worked fast enough to recognize that if they were in danger, staying to ask why would only increase it. He loved his wife intensely for the good sense that made her say only, “Do I have time to prepare?”
I do not know. But a modicum of practicality won through; if they fled without any preparation, the bitter January night would kill them as surely as the fae. “Essentials only. Warm clothing, and coin. We’ll return for the rest later.”
I only pray we can.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: January 30, 1649
Shouts and the occasional feminine scream echoed through the stone reaches of the Onyx Hall. Perversely, they gave Lune hope. How many of her court remained loyal, she did not know, but it sounded as if Vidar was having to subdue more than a few.
Which meant he did not yet have the leisure to enjoy the spoils of his conquest.
She knew the faerie palace like she knew her own body, every passage and hidden door as familiar as her hands. Hipley, judging by the small noises that escaped him, never suspected the existence of half the paths they took. But otherwise he followed in silence, until Lune paused at what seemed to be a dead end.
She listened intently, but heard nothing from the other side. Empty? Or a trap?
Waiting would not improve her chances. Holding her breath, Lune pressed against the wall, and it slid aside, silent as only charmed stone could be.
The chamber beyond already glowed with faerie lights, illuminating the gathered treasures of the Onyx Court. Jewels and boxes and stranger things, most of them gifted during Invidiana’s reign, half of them unknown to Lune. Reluctant to touch them, she had never taken the time to discover their various purposes. But she had no eyes for them now; all she saw was the figure in the center of the room, clasping something to her body.
Amadea Shirrell gaped at the sight of her Queen, standing in the opening of the secret door. She had time for only one undignified squawk before Hipley was there, one hand clamped over her mouth; the other controlled the hilt of the sword she cradled in her arms.
The main door to this, the innermost treasury chamber, was already shut. Lune, coming forward, kept her voice low. “Lady Amadea. Do tell us—what did you intend with the London Sword?”
Warily, Hipley unclamped his hand. The Lady Chamberlain gulped and whispered, “Your Grace—they are saying the Scots have overrun the Onyx Hall. If it be so—I could not let this fall into their hands!”
She slipped free of Hipley’s grasp and knelt, offering the blade to Lune, gripping it by the sheath. Amadea offered no resistance when Lune took it from her. Hipley’s eyes were full of doubt, but Lune knew Vidar as he did not. Amadea was not his chosen kind of pawn.
“Get yourself to safety,” she told her Lady Chamberlain. “The Onyx Hall is not safe at present—but we will rectify that, never fear.”
Amadea rose, curtsied, and fled through the opening by which they had come, closing it behind her.
“Was that wise?” Hipley asked, then added as an afterthought, “Madam.”
“Guard the door,” was all Lune said, and turned to the case from which Amadea had taken the sword.
The weapon rested ordinarily in a glass-fronted box on the wall, nestled in blue velvet. Showing none of the care she had before, Lune dropped the blade she held, and ran her fingers along the oaken sides of the case, whispering under her breath the key.
The whole structure swung outward, glass, velvet, and all, revealing a niche carved into the stone behind. In that recess hung another sword: the exact duplicate, in every respect, of the one Amadea had come to rescue.
Lune breathed in relief, and lifted the true London Sword from its concealment.