Now she understood the reports of destruction within the palace, chambers torn apart. Vidar was not merely searching for the London Stone; he was trying to break the enchantments of the Hall itself. Or at least creating the appearance of it. Lune had no doubt he would prefer to be the Onyx Hall’s master, rather than its destroyer—but if it ever became more beneficial to his own survival that he bring the palace down, he would do it.
And if he found the London Stone, that choice would be his.
Urgency flared beneath Lune’s breast. Living forever, it was easy for faerie-kind to take a patient view, and see nothing in the delay of years. This robbed her of such complacency. Delay, and she might not have a realm to retake.
The Onyx Court would die as surely as the Kingdom of England had.
Antony had removed his hand from beneath hers; now he said in an unemotional voice, “Then we must encourage Nicneven’s disaffection. It will risk her sending someone else to finish Vidar’s task, but if she withdraws her support, he will be vulnerable.”
Lune opened her mouth to ask Irrith a question, but swallowed it when she realized Wayland was there himself, standing just inside the doorway. He had entered with his usual, unnatural silence, and now he heard what she had been about to say. Wayland shook his head. “I understand your fears. And if the Scots withdraw from the Onyx Hall, you may have the war you desire. But until then, my answer is unchanged. My people are too few, and this is not their battle. I will not ask them to throw themselves into defeat.”
“I understand,” Lune said, and she did. But the desperation clawing its way up her throat made her add silently, Then help me find a way to prevent that defeat. Before it is too late.
HAM HOUSE, RICHMOND: September 3, 1658
Dressed in the rags he wore about the City, Antony might have encountered trouble as he rode along the south bank of the Thames, and so he had changed out his clothing for the sober respectability of a minor tradesman. With his hair and beard trimmed, and the fortification of a recent visit to the Onyx Hall burning in him, he looked and felt more like himself.
He was alert enough to ride warily, and to depart from the river path well in advance of his destination. Picking his way along smaller lanes, he came at the palatial manor of Ham House from the back, through the gardens that lay on the far side of the house from the water. After tying his horse in a thicket, he slipped down the broad avenues of the wilderness to the well-manicured lawn below the south terrace, and a gnarled old sweet chestnut that stood to one side.
Antony laid his hand on the bark and murmured, “I am here.”
The trunk had a protruding burl like a drunkard’s nose, and a gap below like a mustached mouth; when Antony took his hand away, the wood moved, and eyes blinked open in the bark. “Good evening,” the chestnut tree said with grave dignity.
Though not one of Lune’s subjects, the spirit of the tree had proven more than willing to help Antony. Ever since Kate struck up a friendship with the Lady of Ham House, in fact; he rather thought the spirit liked his wife. “Is all quiet?”
“Yes,” the tree said. “The harsh one has not been here in a long time.”
“Nor ever again.” Antony felt a surge of relief. “The harsh one, my friend, is dead. As of this afternoon.”
After pondering this, the tree said, “Good.”
“Are they expecting me?” At the chestnut’s affirmation, he touched a branch and said, “Thank you. I will see to it that my Queen rewards you for your aid.”
The old tree retired into sleep, nodding, and Antony climbed the stairs onto the south terrace. Silent approach was impossible; the gravel crunched beneath his feet, and so he was not surprised when the doors swung open, revealing a small, familiar figure.
He crossed the last distance at a half-run and caught her up in his arms. The house on Lombard Street had been a house, nothing more, and the Onyx Hall was simply the place he must go to survive. This was home, as much as he had one anymore: within the circle of Kate’s embrace.
She buried one hand in his cropped hair, the other holding him hard about the waist. Neither of them said anything; their kiss communicated all that was needed. She feared for him, hiding in London under a series of false identities, all the more so because she did not fully understand why he did it. Even now, he could not tell her the reason they had fled nine years ago, nor who it was that hunted him, nor why he continually went back. His political sympathies made him suspect, but no more than others who had kept their names and their homes.
Those were issues they had fought through before; she did not raise them again. Instead Kate smiled up at him and brushed a strand of hair from his eyes. She was about to say something when the door on the opposite wall creaked open, and a young man stepped through.
Antony’s heart ached without warning. He might have been looking at his own elder brother, stepped straight from decades past, so closely did his son resemble the man for whom he had been named. Has it been so long since I have seen him?
It had. Any of his children, in truth; the last he had seen of his daughter Alice was at her wedding, and Robin had gone to sea with the East India Company, helping to maintain the trade that was the family’s sole remaining source of support. And Henry…
Kate had tensed under Antony’s fingers. He gave her a reassuring touch before crossing to take his eldest son’s hand. “You are looking well,” he said.
“As are you, Father,” Henry said stiffly, and falsely. He was clean-shaven, and his hair neatly trimmed; his clothing was sober, as befit one of his ideals. Not Puritan, but a Commonwealthsman to the bone—never mind that the Commonwealth of England, like the Kingdom before it, had fallen victim to these years of instability.
Kate broke the silence before it could stretch long enough to be uncomfortable. “We had word you were coming, and so dinner awaits. I’ll have a servant bring water for you to wash up.”
Clean and surprisingly hungry, Antony presented himself to Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart and lady of the house, who reigned in solitary splendor with her husband gone. The first words out of her mouth were, “Is it true?”
He studied the woman with some curiosity. Though in her thirties, and with unattractive strawberry-blond hair, she was still remarkably pretty—a detail that had not gone unnoticed by those who marked her friendship with Oliver Cromwell. Despite his best efforts, Antony had never been able to puzzle out just how true that friendship was, at least on her part. How true could it be, when Elizabeth Murray worked in secret with her Royalist father to end the Lord Protector’s rule and restore the Stuarts to the throne?
Now was hardly the time to ask. “Yes, my lady,” he said, with as much kindness as he could muster. “Lord Protector Cromwell is dead.”
Henry made a satisfied noise. “Perhaps now we will have the freedom we once enjoyed, and no single person to rule England as King in all but name.”
His son was right about Cromwell, at least; in the streets of London, they called him King Noll, and celebrated his death. And the House of Lords might have been abolished, but earlier in the year the Lord Protector had created a new upper house to control his unruly Parliament. Only the bishops had not been replaced, after the dismantling of the episcopacy. Many of the Commonwealth’s ideals lay in tatters, thanks to Cromwell’s establishment of the Protectorate; naturally Henry would see his death as a chance to lift them up once more.