The brief but telling hesitation wounded him. “She and I have served the same cause for years. Since before the wars.” A dangerous admission; the face Lune had showed here was young. But Antony was loathe to tangle himself in more lies.
“And what cause is that?”
Antony flinched. What could he tell her, to ease the pain she held behind those walls? “Kate…” He reached out and took her hands. “The Sealed Knot serves Charles abroad. They operate in secrecy, working underhand to achieve a restoration of stability for this land, and it is not for those who aid it to speak openly to others. The woman who was here…she is part of another group, one that has existed longer, and for a simpler purpose: the well-being of England. When Charles declared his personal rule, they worked for the calling of a new Parliament. When Parliament arrogated royal authority for itself, they struggled to restore the ancient balance. And now that the Army stands over England with a naked blade, they do as we do: they seek the sanity this land has lost.”
His fingers tightened on hers. “And I swear to you, in the name of the Lord God and His most holy Son, that she does not hold my heart—nor I hers. You are the only one for me, Kate, and I have ever been your faithful husband.”
Her chin hardened, a sure sign that she strove to keep her lips from trembling. “Faithful to me in body—perhaps even in heart. But this woman, this Mistress Montrose…you have given her a piece of yourself withheld from me. I have not even been permitted to know it was gone.”
He had known it for years: Kate hated secrets above all. By keeping this one, he had betrayed her trust.
All he could offer her now was his own truth, simple and insufficient as it was. “I am sorry.”
She stared at him, and then the hardened jaw gave way; Kate buried her face in his shoulder, tears soaking through his linen shirt to chill the skin below. Antony held her close, laid his lips on the kiss-curls at the back of her neck. Forgive me, Kate.
He would not say it. Forgiveness was not his to ask.
“I almost lost you,” she whispered.
His arms tightened around her shaking body. “I know. I—I fought so hard for my cause that I almost lost hold of my purpose, my reasons for fighting. I was so tired…it would have been easier to let go.”
She came up, then, and gripped him hard. “Do not say that. If it is rest you need, then you shall have it—if I must carry you out of England to find it.”
How long had it been since he laughed? Kate knew as well as he that such exile would be the end of him, not because of the Onyx Hall, but because he could not abandon London. But he believed with all his heart that she would throw him over one shoulder and drag him bodily onto a ship if she thought it necessary. His Kate was a fierce one.
“I love you,” he said, tucking an errant strand of her hair behind her ear.
“And I you,” she replied.
She did not need to say she forgave him. The message was there, unspoken. And with that, Antony could truly rest.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: August 13, 1659
From Lune’s elevation on the dais, the greater presence chamber was a sorry sight. The rubble of the ceiling lay in piles beneath the arcaded galleries along the sides, and raw earth showed above. The intricately laid patterns of the floor were cracked almost into gravel, and stained with Sir Kentigern’s blood.
Nor was the damage confined here. Bedchambers had been ransacked, and gardens despoiled. The obelisk in the night garden was shattered, the apple trees burnt—but some force in the Onyx Hall, still loyal to its former master, held firm; the soil had refused to yield up Michael Deven’s bones to desecrating hands. That one salvation, amidst all the destruction, reduced Lune to tears.
They came so close to destroying it.
Not just his grave, and not just the palace. With the help of her allies, she had saved the Onyx Hall—but what of the Onyx Court?
The battered, broken remnants of that stood before her as well. Looking out over them, Lune could not delude herself into thinking she had won some great victory. At best, she had regained the ground she held ten years ago: mistress of her realm, still threatened by enemies without. But along the way she had lost friends, power, and the Kingdom of England itself.
Vidar had escaped. Nicneven sat untouched in Fife. Conchobar was in check, facing the wrath of Temair, but that was small consolation for the wounds inflicted on this court. Her people were fragmented now, divided from one another, no longer the unbroken fabric she had once believed them to be.
But that had always been an illusion. Traitors lived all this time amongst them, and their betrayal had torn rents that would be years in the mending.
Their common purpose had united them long enough to retake the palace. But it did not make them whole.
What can?
“Stand,” Lune said, and her voice carried like a bell.
Her subjects rose. There, the surviving remnant of the loyal Onyx Guard, under Sir Peregrin Thorne’s command. Clustered around one of the fractured pillars, the Berkshire fae. A glowering clump of goblins, Bonecruncher’s followers—she would have to watch them carefully. They had tasted blood, and wanted more.
Lune curled her fingers around the arms of her throne and spoke. “We shall address three matters today.
“First: the succession of the Prince of the Stone.” Several fae shifted at her words; a few had the temerity to look eager. Lune wielded her contempt like a whip. “Those who have eagerly anticipated Lord Antony’s death shall be disappointed to hear that he yet lives. Let me make myself clear: those carrion crows who think to profit when he passes shall find no favor in this court. The Prince is no pawn to be manipulated by those seeking advantage. When the time comes for a successor, he and I will choose that man ourselves—or I alone, should he be gone. None other.”
Some looked abashed. Not all. They would continue to place humans in her path, hoping one would catch her eye. The prospect curdled her stomach. She was determined to take none of their candidates, when the time came.
How soon that would be depended on Antony.
“Second,” Lune said, when the last whispering echo had faded from the chamber. “We shall hear a plea from the traitor Prigurd Nellt.”
The doors were still warped and unusable. Prigurd simply appeared in the opening, flanked by Bonecruncher and an escort of tough goblins. She had to send them; the Onyx Guard, betrayed almost as badly as Lune herself, might have chosen to expiate their failure by murdering its architect.
The giant advanced slowly, hobbled by rowan-wood chains that gave him barely enough freedom to shuffle his feet. No strength could break those chains, not even his. They were one of the less pleasant objects Vidar had brought out from the treasury for his own use—things Lune had ignored for years, to her detriment.
When he fell to his knees, the graceless impact shook the floor.
Lune gazed pitilessly down upon his head. “You are a condemned traitor to your Queen. For years, you worked to undermine the Onyx Guard by bringing in disloyal knights at the behest of your exiled brother Kentigern. Your betrayal led to the deaths of our loyal subjects, both mortal and fae.” Of this, everyone was aware; but the litany of his sins stoked their anger, against the pitiful sight of his bowed shoulders. “Why should we grant you mercy?”
His voice was a broken rumble, audibly wracked with guilt. “Your Majesty—I helped you escape.”
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “You claim so? Had we not slipped your grasp in King Street, we would have been prisoners from the execution onward. Later, by order of the traitor Ifarren Vidar, you were marching our person and that of Lord Antony to the cells beneath the Tower. Were it not for Benjamin Hipley’s intervention, you would have carried out that order. Wouldn’t you? ”