Marie Brennan - In Ashes Lie

Which left him caught in the middle. Standing on the floor of the chapel, with the tiers of seats rising around him in a horseshoe, Antony felt briefly like a bear staked out for baiting. Then he took his seat with the other members for London, near to the Speaker’s chair. He felt no allegiance with them: Penington and Craddock were firmly in Pym’s camp, and Soame was increasingly of their mind. But Sir Francis Seymour sat behind them—an old friend of Antony’s father, allied with him in the last Parliament, and a comforting presence in this maze Antony had not yet learned to thread.

As he slid onto the bench in front of the knight, murmuring a greeting, Antony marshaled his resolve. It has only been three weeks. I will master this dance. Neither for the King’s demands, nor for Pym’s turbulent reforms, but for a moderate course between the two. It would not be easy, but given time, it could be done.

Then an oddity caught his eye. “Where is Glanville?” he whispered into Seymour’s ear. The Speaker’s chair stood empty, even though it was nearly time for the opening prayers to begin.

Seymour shook his head. “I do not know. Nor do I like the look of it.”

Neither did Antony. Glanville had spoken with some force the previous day, which could not have won him favor with the King. Would Charles go so far as to depose the Speaker of the House of Commons? Pym was overfond of declaring everything a breach of the privileges of Parliament, but on this point Antony would have no choice but to agree with him. Surely the King would not give such flagrant offense—not when the House was already at odds with him. It would destroy any hope of conciliation.

He worried about it as he bowed his head for the prayers. What would happen, if Glanville had been removed? Speakers, he knew, had met bad ends before; there was a reason the chosen man was traditionally dragged to his chair. But Antony had thought that all in the distant past.

“Amen,” the assembled members said, some with more fervency than others. And then, without warning, the doors to the chapel swung open.

A man bearing a black rod of office entered and positioned himself before the Speaker’s table. The clerks who sat at one end paused, pens in the air, staring in surprise. Maxwell, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod for the House of Lords, had the duty of summoning the Commons to attend any full meetings of the entire Parliament. Given Glanville’s absence, it was not a promising sign.

In a loud voice, Maxwell declared, “It is his Majesty’s pleasure that you knights, citizens, and burgesses of his House of Commons come up presently to his Majesty, to sit in assembly with the House of Lords.”

Antony’s own oath was drowned out by louder ones around him. A few men stood, shouting questions, but Maxwell ignored them all; he simply waited, impassive, to guide them to the greater chamber where the Lords met.

“You have more experience of this than I,” Antony said to Seymour, under the cover of the shouting. “Tell me—is there any good cause for which his Majesty might summon us now?”

The older man’s face had sagged into weary lines, and his eyes held the bleak cast of hopes on the verge of death. “If you mean good for us… unlikely. A terrible defeat in Scotland, perhaps. Or rebellion in Ireland; these plans to arm the Irish against the Scots may be reaping their expected reward. Or some other disaster.”

And that is the best we can hope for. Antony gritted his teeth, then raised his voice over the clamor. “It does us no good to argue it here! We are summoned to the Lords; our answers lie with them. Let us go and be done.”

Still muttering in confusion and anger, they formed up and let Black Rod lead them through the Palace of Westminster. Antony’s blood ran cold when he entered the Lords’ chamber and saw Glanville at the far end. The dark circles under the Speaker’s eyes stood out like bruises.

Near him, in a richly upholstered chair, sat Charles Stuart, first of his name, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, et cetera. The dais on which the chair sat elevated him to a position of prominence, but could not disguise the King’s low stature. Antony sometimes wondered if some of his obstinacy were not born of that deficiency, which put him at perpetual disadvantage against taller, stronger men.

Certainly obstinacy was writ large in his expression. The members of the House of Lords were in their seats; filing in, the Commons stood on the floor between the peers and the bishops. Antony had a poor view, blocked by the men who had crowded in front of him, but by shifting his weight onto his left foot he could just see the King’s face. Behind his luxuriant mustache and pointed beard, Charles’s lips were pressed into a thin, impatient line.

When the doors closed behind the last man, the King spoke.

“There can no occasion of coming to this House,” he said, delivering the words in a measured cadence designed to minimize his unfortunate stammer, “be so unpleasant to me as this at this time.”

Antony’s stomach clenched. And the sickness in it only grew as Charles continued to speak, thanking the Lords of the higher house for their good endeavours. “If there had been any means to have had a happy end of this Parliament,” the King said, “it was not your lordships’ fault that it was not so.”

Whatever hope old Seymour might have clung to, that they were called forth to be told the Irish were revolting and the Scots had overrun the North and the Dutch had sunk all their ships and Charles had sold England to Spain, it must have died in that moment. For his own part, Antony was not surprised. Not since he had seen Glanville.

Glanville, who led the House on which Charles was squarely placing the blame.

Oh, the King made a passing nod, as he went on, to the Lords’ part in presenting grievances. “Out of Parliament,” the King added, most unconvincingly, “I shall be as ready—if not more willing—to hear any, and to redress just grievances, as in Parliament.”

No, you will not, Antony thought, fury and disappointed rage boiling in his gut. If you were, we would never have come to this pass.

Charles could claim all he liked that he would preserve the purity of religion now established in the Church of England; he could remind them that delay in supplying his war was more dangerous than refusing. None of it mattered a rush, for everyone heard the words, even before Charles commanded the Lord Keeper to speak them.

The words that burnt to black cinders all Antony’s victories, and all his hopes for the future.

“It is his Majesty’s pleasure,” the Lord Keeper said, his words echoing from the walls of the chamber, where less than a month before they had conducted the opening ceremonies, “that this Parliament be dissolved; and he giveth license to all knights, citizens, and burgesses to depart at their pleasure. And so, God save the King!”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: May 5, 1640

Lune tapped her fan against the arm of her chair in time to the beat of the allemande, watching the fae of her court swirl past in their finery. The music this time came from an entire consort of mortals, which rumor said had been snatched from one of the fine houses along the Strand, where some peer or other had contracted them for his own amusement.

But the musicians did not look unhappy to be here, and so she let the matter pass. So long as no one was mistreated, the occasional temporary theft did not bother her. They would be returned no worse for the wear, and in time might even come to frequent this court. That would please her immensely.

Which her courtiers knew. She was therefore not surprised to see the black head of Sir Cerenel coming her way, with a man in tow behind him. The stranger, a human in ragged clothing, gaped open-mouthed at everything around him, devoting his attention impartially to goblins and shoes, her ivory chair and the sharply arched ceiling of the hall in which the fae danced. Cerenel had him firmly but not unkindly in hand, and with gentle pressure convinced the man to kneel with him before Lune.