“Then come,” Antony said, reaching for his son. “This alley stinks, and I am hungry. We shall have supper together.”
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: February 9, 1660
A shiver ran down Lune’s body. She broke off what she was saying midword and closed her eyes, reaching for the source of that reaction. Something in the Onyx Hall…
No. Not in; above.
“Lord Valentin,” she said, and heard him murmur in reply. “Send someone into London. Find out what is happening at the gates.”
“Which gates, madam?”
Another shiver, like bones grinding in their sockets. “All of them.”
She opened her eyes to find Sir Peregrin regarding her with a strange mixture of reverence and disturbance. A faerie monarch was tied to her realm, but not until the retaking of the Onyx Hall had her subjects realized how far that went here. They seemed to fear she would drop the ceiling on them, next.
She could not do it without the Prince of the Stone; though she could sense things when she tried, the Hall only answered to its master and mistress in concert. But there was no profit in explaining that.
“Carry on,” she told the captain, as if the interruption had never happened.
He blinked, regathering the scattered threads of his thoughts. “We have found no sign of Vidar in England, madam. Your cousin Kings and Queens would not give him refuge after Invidiana’s downfall; they are no more likely to do so now.”
“And Ireland?”
Peregrin shrugged helplessly. “He is not in Temair, nor in Connacht, Lady Feidelm tells us. Leinster and Munster claim they do not harbor him, and I see no reason to doubt them.”
“And Ulster,” Lune sighed, “is not likely to answer if we ask.”
“No, madam.”
She brooded over the fan she held, trying to weigh her enemy’s mind. Would he flee to Ireland? Conchobar was disappointed with Vidar’s failure to control the English government, but the traitor lord was still a closer ally to Ulster than Lune would ever be. Then again, Conchobar was busy with his own troubles over the Claíomh Solais.
Her heart told her Vidar was not in Ireland. No, he would crawl back to the same hole from which he had emerged to devil them before.
Fife.
To which Cerenel had returned, after Lune released him from his vow. His brother Cunobel was there, living in relative peace, separate from all the squabbles between Nicneven and herself. Lune wished them well, with sorrow. Cerenel is no resource I can call upon. Not anymore.
Which left her with no intelligence on Nicneven’s movements, and what Vidar might be planning.
Blind again. Have I won nothing for all my struggles?
Valentin Aspell returned, giving her some small relief from that question. “What of the treasury?” she asked him; as Lord Keeper, it was his province.
“There has never been a thorough inventory, madam,” he admitted. “What Vidar may have taken, we cannot tell; but we are finding a great deal we did not know we had.”
Vidar had once been Lord Keeper himself. He would know precisely what to take. “Anything that may hunt him?”
She watched Valentin’s face sharply as he formed an expression of regret. Aspell had been in the company of the late Sir Leslic, but more, she believed, out of a desire to protect his own political influence than because he had any alliance with Nicneven and Vidar. He had drifted away during the exile, rather than stay under Vidar’s rule. But he was greedy, and ambitious; Lune wondered, as he denied having found any such enchantment, whether he would tell her the truth.
I should have councillors I can trust.
But she could not afford to replace him. Lune listened to his account of the things he had found, then made arrangements with Sir Peregrin to hear pleas from other traitors who were tired of their cells. “But not until I may arrange a joint audience with Lord Antony,” she said, remembering at the last moment that the Prince wished to be a part of it.
The captain of the Onyx Guard nodded, and then her usher opened the door to the privy chamber where they sat. “Your Majesty, the mara Angrisla.”
“I sent her above,” Valentin said, and Lune gestured for the usher to show her in.
The nightmare’s narrow, slitted eyes were uncommonly wide as she knelt. “What have you discovered?” Lune asked.
“Your Grace—those soldiers are in the streets. The new ones, from Scotland.”
“General Monck’s regiments.” Largely English, as their general was, but everyone thought of them as the Scottish troops, as that was where they had marched from. The news of his advance south had been threat enough to put the Rump back into session just after Christmas, but after a mere six days in London, it seemed Monck’s men were already interfering. They are, after all, part of the Army. Did I expect otherwise?
Angrisla nodded at the name. “They say Parliament has ordered them to unhinge and destroy the gates.”
“What?” Lune startled in her chair. London had long since grown past its defenses; during the war, Parliamentary forces had dug a great ditch some distance out, in recognition of the wall’s uselessness. To destroy the gates, though, meant rendering the City incapable of even the slightest resistance.
Which must be why they had ordered it. People wanted a Parliament, but they were tired of the Rump. In the City especially, they were not well disposed toward England’s illegitimate masters, and had thrown up chains at the gates to announce their discord.
She was surprised that Monck would agree to cripple them thus; as a rule, he seemed honestly concerned with defending the liberties of the people, and not merely mouthing the words. But she was more concerned with its effect on the Onyx Hall—
Lune’s breath stopped. Could it be Vidar? It did not take a clever mind to know the City wall was part of the faerie palace, since the Hall did not extend beyond that boundary. And Monck had marched down from Scotland. Lune pressed her fingertips into her eyes, striving to sense any weakening in the enchantments.
“Madam?” Sir Peregrin asked quietly.
Lune sighed. Or perhaps Monck simply is obedient to the Parliament he restored. Not everything has a faerie cause. And I could easily drive myself mad, looking for one.
She lowered her hands and found everyone watching her. Whatever Angrisla had said in response to her startled cry, she had not heard a word of it. The Onyx Hall was not crumbling around her ears, though, and showed no sign of doing so anytime soon. They were opening the gates, nothing more. That would not destroy the palace.
Still, she would ask Antony about Monck’s decision. If there was some hidden influence there, she would like to know about it.
“Thank you,” she said to Angrisla, and made herself smile. “The news startled me, nothing more. Carry on, my lords; we have business to conclude.”
GUILDHALL, LONDON: February 11, 1660
So this is the man in whose hands England now rests.
George Monck did not look remarkable enough for the burden of fate that lay upon him. The general of the Army’s regiments in Scotland dressed as a soldier, and his fleshy face was stolid as he listened to Thomas Alleyn, the Lord Mayor of London, belabor the obvious. “Given the recent unsettlements of the City, you understand, the people are most uncertain as to your intent—the soldiers gathering in Finsbury Fields—”