For his own part, Antony was more concerned with the question of whether Kate would like the bottle, or whether she would laugh at being presented with yet another gift. Pondering that, he heard too late the voice calling his name. The man trying to press through a knot of people outside stumbled and fell into him. Antony caught himself against the edge of the table, dropping the petition and setting the bottles to rocking dangerously.
He twisted to curse the man who made him stagger, but swallowed it at the last moment. “Sorry,” Thomas Soame said, recovering his balance. “God’s blood—everyone and his brother is packing in here. My foot snagged another fellow’s, I fear.”
“No harm done,” Antony said, reassuring the glass merchant with a calming hand. “I did not see you.”
“Nor hear me, it seems. Come, let’s away, before someone else jostles me and disaster ensues. What is that?”
Antony sighed as he collected the scattered sheets, marked with damp patches where he had clutched them in his sweating hand. “A petition.”
“For what?”
“No idea; I have not read it yet.”
“Might be wiser to keep it that way. We could paper the walls of the Guildhall with the petitions that get shoved at us.” Soame wasted no time, but turned and bulled his way carefully through the corridor outside. Following in his broad-shouldered wake, Antony hoped his friend did not mean to stand out in the courtyard and converse.
He did not. They descended the staircase, and so out into the clamor of Cornhill. Soame paused to let a keg-laden cart rumble past, and Antony catch up to him. Settling his hat more comfortably on his head, Antony asked the younger man, “Where do you lead me?”
“An alehouse,” Soame said feelingly. “Out of this accursed sun, and into a place where I can tell you the news.”
News? Antony’s attention sharpened. A tavern would offer shade, drink—and a degree of privacy not to be found in the gossiping atmosphere of the Exchange. They went down the sloping mire of Cornhill and onward to Cheapside, where stood the Nag’s Head, Soame’s favorite tippling house. His friend planted a familiar kiss on a serving-wench and got them a table in a cool corner, with cups of sack to wet their throats. “Best watch your wife doesn’t learn of that, Tom,” Antony said, with a smile to cushion the warning; Mary Soame was a Puritan sort, and not likely to turn a blind eye to philandering.
Soame dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “A harmless buss on the cheek, is all; nothing to it.”
On the lips, rather, but the younger man’s behavior was his own problem. Antony let it pass. “What brought you after me? This is hot weather for considering anything of import.”
The broad features darkened. “And likely to get hotter,” Soame said, not meaning the weather. “Have you heard Abbot’s latest woe? Our woe, I should say.”
Which made it political, not personal. Soame was an alderman for Vintry Ward, as Antony was for Langbourn, and while the list of things that might bring trouble to the Lord Mayor of London and his Court of Aldermen was long, Antony felt unpleasantly capable of narrowing it down. “Don’t drag it out, man; just say.”
“A loan.”
“Again?”
“Are you surprised? The King pisses away money as his father did—though at least he has the decency to piss it on war instead of drunkenness and catamites.”
Antony winced at the blunt words. “Watch your tongue! If you haven’t a care for yourself, at least think of me; I’ll be hanged for hearing your sedition, as you’ll be hanged for speaking it.”
Soame grinned, pulling out a roll of tobacco and his pipe. “I do no more than quote our Lord Mayor. But very well; I’ll spare your tender sensibilities. Returning to the point: it seems the five thousand pounds the Common Council gave our good King Charles in March—”
“Were an insult at the time, and not one I imagine he’s forgotten.” Antony pinched the bridge of his nose and reached for his wine. “What has he asked for?”
“A hundred thousand.”
Coughing on the wine, Antony fumbled for his handkerchief to wipe the spittle from his beard. “God in Heaven. Not again.”
“You’re quoting Abbot, too.” Soame lit a spill from the candle and touched it to his pipe, drawing until the tobacco smoldered to his satisfaction. Exhaling the fragrant smoke, he went on. “We are the King’s chamber, after all, are we not? The jewel in his crown, the preeminent city of his realm. For which distinction we pay handsomely—and pay, and pay again.”
With compensation, to be sure—but only when they could squeeze it out of the royal purse. Which was not often enough for anyone’s peace of mind. The Crown was chronically short of money, and slow to repay its debts. “Are the securities any good?”
“They’re pig swill. But we’ve a war on our back step; unless we want to be buggered up the arse by the Scots, his Majesty will need money.”
Antony sighed. “And to think—one sovereign on both thrones was supposed to solve that problem.”
“Just like it did with the Irish, eh?” Soame sank back on the settle, wedging his shoulders into the corner of the walls. “Must be like trying to drive a team of three horses, all of them trying to bite each other.”
An apt analogy. Old James, Charles’s father, had dreamt of uniting his realms under a single crown, making himself not three Kings in one, but one King, ruling over one conjoined land. Or at least of Scotland and England conjoined; Antony was not certain whether he had meant to include Ireland in that happy harmony. At any rate, it had never come about; the English were fractious about a Scotsman ascending their throne in the first place, and not liable to agree to any such change.
With separate realms, though, came a host of inevitable problems, and Charles showed little delicacy in handling them—as this morass with the Scottish Covenanters demonstrated. Antony had some sympathy for their refusal to adopt the Anglican prayer book; the King’s attempt to force it upon the Presbyterians up north had been as badly conceived and executed as this entire damn war. When they ejected the Anglican bishops, however, it only hardened the King against them.
Antony began to place his fingers one by one on the table’s stained surface, mapping out the political landscape in his mind. The aldermen of London rarely refused the Crown, but the Common Council had grown more recalcitrant of late. Their response was certain: they had balked against a loan in March, and would do so again.
Could the City raise the money? No doubt. Many aldermen and wealthy citizens were connected with the East India Company, the Providence Company, and other great trading ventures. Antony himself was an East India man, as was the Lord Mayor Abbott. The companies had loaned money to the Crown before. Their resentment was growing, though, as more and more of those loans went unpaid.
And religion played its role in the south, too. London harbored more than a few men sympathetic to the Presbyterian cause in Scotland; Antony knew full well that many of his fellow aldermen would gladly see the Church of England discard bishops and other popish trappings. They would not look kindly on the attempt to squelch the Scottish dissent.
Which was stronger: religion or nation? Ideology or economy?
“How fares the army?” he asked. “Is the King’s need legitimate?”
In response, Soame beckoned for more wine, and waited until it came before he answered. “I drink to the poor souls up at Berwick,” he said, and toasted the absent soldiers solemnly. “Half can’t tell their right foot from their left, and from what I hear they’re armed with pitchforks and profanity. Starvation, smallpox, an infestation of lice ... I would not be there for all the wenches in Christendom.”
“And no chance of peace?” Antony waved away his own question before Soame could answer it. “Always a chance, yes, I know. But it requires diplomacy his Majesty may not be inclined to exercise.” If by diplomacy he meant a willingness to bend. And Charles was not renowned for his cooperative nature, especially in the twin matters of religion and royal prerogative. The Scots had steppe
d on both, with hobnailed boots.
Soame drew again on his pipe, staring mournfully down into the bowl. “Be of good cheer. The King’s Majesty has not chosen to sell another monopoly—beg pardon, patent—or find another three-hundred-year-old tax to reimpose on us instead. At least a loan might be repaid.”
“God willing,” Antony muttered. “Peace may be likelier. Do you think these Covenanters in Scotland will accept it if the King promises them a Parliament?”
“When he hasn’t given us one these ten years? What chance of that?”
“A delaying tactic,” Antony said. “It allows the King to disband the army, at least for now, and prepare more thoroughly for his next move.”
The other man pondered it, chin propped on his fist. “It might serve. But if he calls a Parliament there, you know people will demand one here. That is a Pandora’s box he will not wish to open.”
True enough. Parliaments convened at the King’s will, and Charles had made it abundantly clear ten years ago that he was done with them. They argued with him too much, and so he would rule England personally, without recourse to that fractious body. It was his right, but that did not make it popular—or for that matter, successful.
Soame quirked his eyebrow at Antony’s pensive face. “You’ve had a thought.”
Not one Antony wished to share. He drained the last of his wine and shook his head. “The war with Scotland is not our problem to solve. Thank you for the warning; I shall sound out the common councilmen and our fellows, and see if opinions have changed since March. Will you join us tonight? Kate has recovered enough to go out; she wishes to ride into Covent Garden for dinner, and she would enjoy the company.”
“Perhaps. I will call at your house this evening, at least.”
Smiling, Antony stood and took his leave. But once outside the Nag’s Head, his steps did not lead north, to the Guildhall and the chambers of London’s government. If he was to effect any change, he would have to do it from elsewhere.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON : June 3, 1639
The lesser presence chamber might have been a portrait of well-bred courtiers at leisure. A gentleman flirted with a lady in the corner; others sat at a small table, playing cards. But the lady wore a farthingale that had not been fashionable since the days of old Elizabeth, while her paramour seemed formed of living stone; at the card table, the stakes at hazard were the forgotten memories of a silversmith and a midwife, a carpenter and a maidservant. The only mortal in the chamber was all but ignored, a musician whose flute struggled to be heard above the chatter of the faerie courtiers.
His melody went up, and up again, its tone increasingly piercing. Seated in her chair of estate a little distance away, Lune hid a wince behind her fan. This will not do.
She raised one hand, rings winking in the cool light. The flutist did not notice, but a nearby lord, eager to serve, hastened over and stopped him with little attempt at tact.
“We have had enough of music,” Lune said, more diplomatically than she intended. The man’s face had bunched in anger at the interruption, but at her words it faded to disappointment. “We thank you for your time. Sir Cerenel, if you would lead him out?” Not Lewan Erle, who had silenced him; that would see the mortal player dropped unceremoniously on the streets of London, lost and bewildered after his time among the fae. The man had played well—until the end. “With suitable reward for his service.”
The knight she’d named bowed, one hand over his heart, and escorted the musician from the chamber. In his wake, the chatter of courtiers and ladies rose again.
Lune sighed and laid her fan against her lips to conceal her boredom. In truth, the player should not be faulted. She was discontented today, and small things grated.
From the door to the chamber, the sprite serving as usher announced, “Lord Eochu Airt!”
Or large ones.
The three who entered stood out vividly from the courtiers filling the chamber. Where the fae of her realm mostly followed the fashions of the human court, with such alterations as they saw fit, the Irish dressed in barbaric style. The warriors heeling the ambassador from Temair wore vivid blue cloaks clasped at one shoulder, but their chests were bare beneath, with bronze cuffs around their weapon arms. Eochu Airt himself wore a splendid robe decked with feathers and small, glittering medallions, and bore a golden branch in his hand.
“My lord,” Lune greeted him, rising from her chair of estate and descending to meet the sidhe.
“Your Majesty.” Eochu Airt answered her with a formal bow and a kiss of her hand, while behind him his bodyguards knelt. “I hope I find you well?”
“Idle. How liked you the play?”
The Irish elf scowled. His strawberry hair, long as a woman’s but uncurled, fell over one eye as he straightened from his bow. He might be an ollamh, the highest rank of poet, but the Irish expected their poets to be warriors, too. The scowl was fierce. “Very little. The art of mortals is fine enough, and we give it favor as it deserves. But art, madam, is not what interests me.”
Had she expected him to answer otherwise? Eochu Airt had arrived at the Onyx Court not long after All Hallows’ Eve, replacing an ambassador who had been among them for years—a sure sign that Fiacha of Temair intended change. If she could endure until November, she might be rid of the newcomer; the yearly cycle of High Kings in Ireland meant change could be ephemeral.
But not always. This impatience had been growing for years. Should Eochu Airt be replaced, she might find someone worse in his place.
If there was to be an argument, Lune would rather not have it in the more public space of the presence chamber. “Come, my lord ollamh,” she said, taking him by the arm. Feathers tickled her wrist, but she concealed the irritation they sparked. “Let us retire and speak of this more.”
The elf-knights on the far door swept the panels open for the two of them to pass through, leaving the Irish warriors behind. Several of her ladies made to follow, until Lune gestured them back with a flick of her fingertips. She did not want them standing at attention over the conversation, but if they sat at their ease with embroidery or cards, Eochu Airt invariably felt she was not considering his points as seriously as she should.
Faerie lights flared into wakefulness around the privy chamber, and some prescient hob had set out two chairs on the figured Turkish carpet. Lune indicated that the sidhe should take one. “You seem to have perceived your afternoon as an insult,” she said, settling herself in the other. “I assure you, I intended no such offense. I merely thought you, as a poet, would appreciate the artistry.”
“It was well-written,” he grudged, and laid the golden branch of his rank aside in this atmosphere of lesser formality. “But the journey reeked of distraction.”
Which it had been—or at least that was the idea. Lune had hoped he might become enamored of the playhouses, and spend more of his time there. It would mean supplying him with protection against the iron and faith of the mortal world, but she would account it well spent, to have him out of her chambers.
She frowned at him. “I would not belittle your intelligence in such a fashion, to think you so easily led astray. I know you treat your duties here with all the reverence and dedication they deserve.”
“Pretty words, madam. Need I remind you, though—I did not come here for words. I came for action. The ‘thorough’ policy of your Wentworth is an outrage.”
Not my Wentworth, she wanted to say. I had nothing to do with his appointment as Lord Deputy of Ireland. But that would only play into Eochu Airt’s hands, raising the very point she was trying to dodge. “Some of Wentworth’s notions for governing Ireland could be beneficial to you, did you but acknowledge it. Catholic rituals hold a great deal of power against our kind. Their passing may be a good thing. The hotter sort of Protestantism poses its own danger, true—but what Wentworth would institute is no more than lukewarm.” In truth it was half-popish, as the Scots kept screaming. But not in ways that mattered overmuch to fae.
Eochu Ai
rt’s expression darkened. “What he institutes is plantation .” He spat the word like the obscenity he no doubt considered it to be.
Had she really expected to divert him from that issue? Lune rose from her chair and rang a bell. “Some wine, I think, would lubricate this discussion.” The door opened, and her Lady Chamberlain Amadea Shirrell came in with platter, decanter, and goblets. Efficient as always. Lune waved her away, pouring the wine herself, and waited until the door had shut again, closing out the low rumble of the presence chamber. “I do understand your concern. The New English—”
“New English, Old English—they are all the same to me. They are English, in Ireland.” Eochu Airt accepted the wine from her hand, but paced angrily as he spoke. “They claim our lands for their own, driving off those whose families have dwelt there since we fae lived outside our hills. Our hobs weep without ceasing, to see their ancient service brought to an ignominious end.”
The ollamh’s voice flowed melodically, even spurred by anger. Lune answered him evenly, trying not to show her own. “I cannot undo England’s conquest of Ireland, my lord ambassador.”
“But you could act against Wentworth and his allies. Put a stop to this rape of our land.”
The figures chased in silver around the outside of the wine cup dug into Lune’s fingers. “I have acted. Charles confirmed the Earl of Clanricarde’s title against Wentworth’s challenge. His estates will not be planted with settlers.”
It only gained her a scowl. “Which helps Galway. But what of the rest of Ireland, madam, that still suffers beneath the English yoke?” He was an Ulsterman himself; she had chosen her defense poorly. With a visible effort, the sidhe moderated his tone. “We do not demand assistance for free. All of the Ard-Ríthe, and any of the lesser kings beneath them, would be glad to grant concessions in return. We have information you would find most useful.”