Marie Brennan: In Ashes Lie

Vidar let out an ugly laugh. “So your fine principles have fallen to expediency after all. Or was your heart too soft to keep me in that box?”

They had taken him out the Crutched Friars entrance and around the outside of the City; though he must have smelled the smoke, in the darkness he could not see the pall that still hung over London. Locked in iron, Vidar did not know the great changes that had befallen the world outside.

Lune faced him with tranquility. She did not have to convince Vidar of her principles; it was enough that she knew them, as did those around her. “The Prince and I merely remand you to the justice of the Gyre-Carling, as a gesture of our goodwill.”

That got a curled lip from Nicneven, who showed no particular evidence of goodwill. But she surprised Lune by saying, “You shall have your part. Vidar will die, but not by my hand.”

Lune blinked. “You wish us to execute him?”

“Not you.” Now the other Queen did smile, and it held all the hatred that had been thwarted in the Onyx Hall. “Let the mortals kill him.”

“What?” Vidar snarled.

For once, the Gyre-Carling’s wolfish look was not turned against Lune. “I have no love for such dealings—but it is a fitting end for you. Let those you despise be your executioners. The Onyx Court can arrange it, I’m sure. A stoning, perhaps; I imagine you have folk enough afraid of witches and uncanny things.”

Fury and fear were mingled in equal parts in Vidar’s expression. The Gyre-Carling could not have devised a crueler sentence for him had she tried. The passion of her hatred was fierce indeed.

It made Lune uneasy. While she could do what Nicneven asked, it smelled too much of revenge, instead of justice. Antony’s fine principles left a mark upon me, after all.

But it was, as Nicneven said, fitting. Vidar had always used mortals in pursuit of his own power, without regard for their well-being. And he went beyond the ordinary cruelty of Invidiana’s days during their own years of war: fostering riots, encouraging the Army’s madness, feeding all the worst impulses of England’s people. He was not the sole author of their suffering, but he played his part.

Perhaps she could consider it their justice, too.

But bringing mortals into the process meant bringing in the Prince of the Stone. Lune turned to Jack, and he shrugged. To him, Ifarren Vidar was a name accompanied by a curse, and now a bound prisoner rousing hatred that began long before his birth. Whatever opinion he had, it would be more impartial than hers.

“Mortal affairs are yours to decide, my lord,” Lune said, and enjoyed Nicneven’s expression of disgust. “The fae of this court accede to the Gyre-Carling’s request. Can a suitable way be found?”

Jack gave it a moment’s thought. Then a smile spread over his face—a strange one, equal parts amusement and pain. “Yes. I think it can.”

TYBURN, LONDON: October 27, 1666

A festival atmosphere prevailed around the gallows at Tyburn. It mattered little if four-fifths of the City lay in ruins not far away, and an area outside the walls as large as that remaining fifth; or if thirteen thousand houses were reduced to charcoal and ash, along with churches, livery company halls, and most of London’s centers of commerce. The author of it all was soon to hang.

“They don’t believe it,” Jack murmured to the woman at his side. “And yet, they do; they choose to believe it, because it’s what they wanted someone to tell them. Now they have someone to blame.”

“And to punish.” Mistress Montrose stood straight and solemn, hands clasped over her plain bodice. “Because no such disaster could be pure accident.”

And yet, accident it had been. The committee set up by the House of Commons knew it full well, despite the scores of accusations that had poured in. But if it was not the work of papist conspirators, then it must be an act of God: a second judgment for London’s sinful ways. They had not learned from plague, so now the Almighty tried fire.

The godly were happy to believe that. Others—the ones who enjoyed their sinful ways too much to give them up—insisted on a papist conspiracy. And Robert Hubert was its convenient author.

The man swore blind to the judges, again and again, that he had thrown a fire-ball through the window of Farynor’s bakery. Farynor supported this wholeheartedly, for certainly such a disaster could not be due to his negligence, the slovenly keeping of his kitchen. Never mind that Hubert confused details, sometimes contradicted himself; led among the ashes, he could point to where the bakery had been, and that was damning enough.

The judges believed him simple. They knew Hubert wasn’t guilty; they tried to get him to admit it. A strange sort of questioning, when the prisoner’s jailers wished him to retract his confession—but they didn’t want to hang an innocent man. The people of London, though, wanted blood, and Hubert seemed determined to offer it to them. In the end, what could they do but accept his martyrdom?

By this disreputable means did Jack tender London his services.

They were leading Hubert onto the scaffold now. There was no trace of Vidar in his body or manner; the enchantments binding his mind might confuse his behavior at times, but there was nothing to show him for a faerie lord. And though Lune had promised Nicneven that the traitor would scream inside, fully aware of the fate he suffered, in truth they had done what they could to confuse his thoughts as well. Lune did not have it in her nature to torture him thus, enemy though he undoubtedly was.

For the Onyx Court, justice. For the Gyre-Carling, revenge. And for London, a sense of peace: with the guilty punished, they could turn their thoughts from accusing their neighbors to rebuilding the streets they shared.

Soon enough the clearing would begin. Charles had already laid down rules for the restoration of the City; streets were to be widened, all the houses built of brick, so that this calamity could not happen again. Half a dozen men had submitted plans for a comprehensive change, seeing an opportunity to sweep away the detritus of London’s ancient past and make it a city worthy to stand alongside the brightest gems of the Continent. Jack didn’t know if any of them would bear fruit; too much of London was bound up in its shape, the parishes and ward boundaries and the encircling wall.

But even if no such changes occurred, the City he had known was gone. The half-timbered houses, the overhanging jetties; the churches hundreds of years old. All would be made anew.

What that meant for the Onyx Hall, they would just have to wait and see.

The rope jerked tight. Hubert swung, kicking. Jack closed his ears to the roar of the crowd, and took hold of Lune’s hand. Disguised by her glamour, it felt like healthy flesh.

She still could not tighten her fingers on his, but she covered them with her other hand. “We will recover from this,” she said, and he nodded. A year of calamities had given him a difficult start in the Onyx Court, but he had no intention of leaving. They had far too much to do.

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON: June 21, 1675

For nearly seven years the ground here lay empty and hollowed, after the last of the rubble was cleared away. The corpses jarred so rudely from their homes were removed to a place of more respect, and the unknown body found in the east end given decent burial. Piece by piece, the shattered remnants were demolished. Yellow flowers now starred the earth, as if a tiny meadow would flourish in the heart of the City.

Other gaps still remained, scattered here and there along the newly marked streets and lanes. But London had risen quickly from the barren ground, and a casual eye could miss the empty lots, the gutted churches still awaiting repair. The Fire Courts did their work well, with a fairness that disgruntled many but betrayed few: those who lied or tried to move the boundary markers of their property were punished, and tenants placed in balance with their landlords, so that none would lose more than they must. For those who worked in brick or stone, the surveyors and carters and above all the architects, this was a golden age indeed, full of opportunity and wealth.