In Ashes Lie (24 page)

Now, they might not have even an undeserving monarch. Earlier, one of Ben Hipley’s beggar-children informants had found Antony where he and the others waited on the steeply gabled roof above the artillery platform, overlooking the scaffold. The execution was delayed because the Commons was rushing a bill through, rendering it illegal for anyone to proclaim a new king. It was a defensive tactic, a futile attempt to protect themselves against Charles, the Prince of Wales, who was young, energetic, not hated as his father was, and roaming free on the Continent. But Antony feared they intended something more permanent.

Movement drew his eye. Men were filing out onto the scaffold: soldiers, a couple of fellows with inkhorns and paper, and the executioner, who along with his assistant was heavily disguised. The noble windows of the Banqueting House had mostly been blocked up, but one in the annex on the north side had been torn out and enlarged, and it was through this they came.

Whispers ran through the crowd, rippling the deadly tension. And then a gasp, as the King stepped into view.

He dressed plainly, his only jewel the George, the insignia of the Order of the Garter. He seemed composed, but asked one of the soldiers something with a nod toward the block. Though the crowd was fearfully quiet, a sharp wind blew, bringing winter’s bite and carrying Charles’s voice away. Even from his nearby position, Antony could only catch stray words; the rest of the onlookers, held back by the thick ring of mounted troops, would fare little better. When Charles drew a small paper from his pocket, he addressed his final speech to the men on the scaffold, the only ones who could hear him. But the men with the inkhorns took notes, and it would not be long before the King’s last words were published all over London.

I must get their notes,
Antony thought, biting his lip.
If they censor anything out—the people must have the truth.

With the help of the bishop who had accompanied him out of the Banqueting House, Charles donned a nightcap and tucked his hair inside, leaving his neck bare. What the bishop said to Charles was inaudible, but the King’s reply came in a stronger voice, carrying to the now almost perfectly silent crowd. “I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be—no disturbance in the world.”

Antony’s stomach twisted in agony as the King removed the George and handed it to the bishop. “Remember,” Charles said, and Antony thought,
Yes. I will remember forever this moment—when a man convinced that God has ordained his authority is murdered by men convinced that God has ordained
theirs
.

Always they laid it at the feet of the Almighty. Charles believed his defeat proof of God’s punishment. Parliament’s leaders believed their victory proof of God’s favor.

Or was it simply proof of Cromwell’s military genius, and the effectiveness of the New Model Army? What if all of this, every bit of it, was the work of men alone—their choices and mistakes, their dreams and ideals—and God watched it all play out, letting them rise and fall with neither aid nor hindrance?

Someone had to be wrong; God could not be on both sides. And watching Charles remove his doublet and cloak, watching him raise his hands in prayer and then lay himself flat with his head over the low block, Antony felt with cold certainty that
both
were wrong. God watched, nothing more. His hand was nowhere in this day—nor any other.

This is the doing of men.

A frozen, silent instant—then Charles stretched out his arms.

The axe flashed through the air, and a groan wrenched free of the crowd, horror too great for words.

 

The disguised executioner lifted up the severed head of the King by his hair, the nightcap tumbling to the boards. Weeping and praying filled the air as the soldiers dragged the body clear and loaded it into a coffin draped with black velvet.

Before they were even finished, a clatter broke the grief. Horsemen advanced from the far end of King Street and the interior side of Holbein Gate, not too fast, but with enough deliberate menace to achieve their aim: the people broke ranks and scattered as best they could. Some brave few dodged beneath the scaffold to dip their handkerchiefs in the blood—a few even dared the soldiers by vaulting the railings—but most began to flee.

Even the rooftops were not safe. Shouts arose from the gate; turning, Antony saw soldiers climbing over the leads. They paid little notice to the people around them, though, instead moving forward with purpose.

His hand moved without him thinking, closing around Lune’s arm like steel. Then he realized she was looking the other way, toward the buildings that fronted the Privy Garden behind them—toward a second troop of soldiers, approaching from the other direction. And they, like the others, caught his eye in a way he had come to recognize.

Even before one of them pointed and called to his men, Antony knew their target.

“They—” Lune began to say, but he cut her off.

“Run.”

The Banqueting House rose to their right, but that would only trap them on the roofs. Discarding propriety and her pretense of age, Lune kilted up her skirts and leapt forward. Antony didn’t let himself think; he just followed her. For an instant he felt weightless; then the artillery platform below rushed up with terrible speed. White heat flared through his right knee as he hit and rolled to the side. It was more by accident than design that his momentum carried him off the boards and onto the street before the soldiers could recover from their surprise.

Lune heard his cry of pain and moved to help him. Antony shoved her forward. “Go!” She needed no second encouragement. Around the base of the scaffold, through the scattering crowds—a horse blocked their path and they dodged right, into the arch of the Court Gate and the Palace Court beyond it.

“Sir Prigurd—” Lune said, twisting to look back.

“Will buy time for us to get away. Those were fae, Lune, and I do not think they were yours.”

The Palace Court wasn’t empty. Nor were he and Lune the first to come through; ahead they saw other onlookers being wrestled aside by the soldiers stationed there. Antony swore a blistering oath and hurled himself left, into a narrow passageway that ran past the Comptroller’s rooms. Whitehall Palace was a God-forsaken maze; when the passage ended, they had to go right, into another courtyard.

One glance at Lune told him it had been too long since she came here; she was more lost than he. Praying his own memory served him correctly, Antony went left again, through an even narrower passage that twisted almost back on itself before ending in yet another courtyard.

But this one opened back onto King Street. They were far enough from the scaffold now that the soldiers paid them little mind, and the convolutions of Whitehall did them one service; their faerie pursuers had lost them for the moment.

He would not count them safe, though, until they reached the Onyx Hall. “The river,” Antony said.

Lune shook her head. “A wherry would make us easy targets. They’ll watch for that. Can you continue?”

“I will,” Antony said grimly, and limped toward Charing Cross.

Something ached beneath Lune’s breastbone, deeper than grief or despair. She felt as if the ground beneath her might fall away at any moment, as if the world had lost some fundamental solidity.

The King is dead.

She hurried through the streets with Antony at her side and her eyes burned, dry and unblinking.

The King is dead.

It shivered through her marrow.
The King is dead; long live the King—
But no. By decree of Parliament, young Charles did not yet succeed to his father’s place. The throne was empty. It had sat empty before, between the death of one sovereign and the coronation of another, but that was a different suspension—the hesitation between one breath and the next. This was purgatory, without a promised end.

It meant nothing. The news would reach the Prince, the new King, soon enough; people would declare him regardless. He was King by the grace of God, not Parliament. Their law meant nothing.

And yet it meant far too much.

England had no King. And on some deep level, the spiritual bedrock of the land, that absence rang like a terrible brazen bell.

She could not afford to think on it, not until they reached safety, and they were not there yet. Despite the fierce cold, sweat stood out in beads on Antony’s face. She hadn’t stopped to think when she leapt from the roof; he was human, and no longer young. His limp worsened with every furlong, but he forced himself onward—now that she had made it clear she would not leave him behind.

The closest entrance was the only one to breach the City’s boundaries; the tunnel opened inside the wall, but gave out into the filth of the River Fleet. Even were she willing to brave that sewer, the hag of the Fleet might not let them pass. They would have to go through Ludgate to the Fish Street arch—

No. Feidelm had been unable to guess the purpose for which the Red Branch was sent to London, but it seemed clear they intended to strike at either Lune or Antony. Or both. Which meant, if they were clever, they would place a force at Ludgate, where the Queen and Prince would be most likely to pass.

How many knights had Conchobar sent? There had been eight at King Street. But the oak man might have seen only one group; there could be more. Surely, though, they could not be enough to guard all the entrances, or the gates into the City.

They were already on Fleet Street; she had to make a decision. Glancing at Antony, seeing his clenched jaw, Lune knew he could not make it to Islington and the Goodemeades. They would have to risk it.

“Follow me,” she said, and turned north on Fetter Lane. Passing the lesser Inns of Court, they crossed the Fleet at Turnagain Lane and came in through Newgate. The skin between her shoulder blades crawled, expecting an arrow at any moment, but none came. They reached the butchers’ shambles, and Lune helped Antony down the steps into a cellar that ceased to be a cellar as they traversed it.

Her breath came back in a great, relieved gasp when they reached the safety of home. The iron wound stabbed with new pain, and she had snapped the busk of her bodice in her landing; its broken ends ground into her stomach. Antony sagged against the wall, dead white save for the hectic flush in his cheeks, and did not even manage to straighten when the door banged open and admitted two armed knights.

Lune leapt in front of him, dropping her mortal guise. The pair who faced her stared in astonishment; she spoke before they could overcome it. “Come. Lord Antony needs help, and we are under attack.”

She blessed Valentin Aspell for disturbing her with news of the Red Branch; the Onyx Guard was prepared. These two, Essain and Mellehan, were newly recruited to its ranks, but they responded with alacrity. Mellehan helped Antony upright, supporting the mortal man’s bad side. “We’ve heard disturbances, your Majesty,” Essain said. “Your knights are gathering in your greater presence chamber—”

Lune swore foully. “Not at their posts? I gave orders to guard the entrances! Sir Prigurd is still outside—” They were a ragged procession, hurrying through the maze of galleries that led to her throne room, but it mattered little; there were no courtiers out to see. Ahead were the double doors, open for her already. “I do not know what our pursuers intend—”

The answer awaited her inside.

“Hello, Lune,” Ifarren Vidar said, from his comfortable seat on her throne.

The bony, long-limbed fae looked like a spider, one arm and one leg draped over opposite sides of the silver throne. He sat without the cold grace of its former occupant, but his pale skin and black hair were all too similar; for one wrenching instant, Lune saw Invidiana.

She could not control her flinch, and it widened Vidar’s smile. Laughter came from the faerie lord’s right hand, breaking the spell; Lune realized Sir Leslic was standing with drawn sword, displaying a smile more like a snarl. Antony’s seat had been knocked down and shoved to one side, its cushion slashed in half. Leslic’s fellow prisoners also stood free, ranged about the dais.

That much Lune saw before she spun. But the doors were already swinging shut, and Essain was there, his sword leveled at her breast. “Do not, your Majesty.”

Mellehan still supported Antony, but with a dagger at his throat, while a goblin knotted a gag across his mouth. Lune met the Prince’s eyes briefly, and saw the confusion and horrified disbelief there. She could not answer him. Instead she pivoted back to face Ifarren Vidar.

Doing so, she marked for the first time the fae who stood along the walls of the presence chamber, beneath the silver filigree and crystal panels of the vaulted ceiling. Some—too many—were knights of her own Onyx Guard. But others...

Vidar’s narrow face split into a merciless smile. “Did you think the Scots my only allies? You have disappointed the Irish terribly, Lune. So many broken promises, so many missed opportunities. They desire an Onyx Court that will not hesitate to use every tool at its disposal.”

Nicneven lacked the might to attack. But others did not. Red Branch knights: Ulstermen, led by Eochu Airt. The former ambassador was there, standing well back from the drawn swords, out of possible danger. Now she understood why he had left her court. This had been planned for at least two months, and likely longer than that. But by Temair itself, or only King Conchobar of Ulster?

Surrounded by swords, and yet politics are all I can think of.
Because they were the only weapon she had. Drawing herself up as if she cared not a rush for the blades all around her, Lune made herself meet Vidar’s gaze.

She had never known where he came from. Lune was not certain if he was even English. But the rumor was that he fled his original court after his ambition earned him the wrath of his lord, and she believed it. Ifarren Vidar would do anything to gain power. This was only the latest attempt—and, she feared, the most well laid.