III
Freya’s head dropped and it almost knocked against the table before she jerked it back up again. “How long this time?” She unclenched her hand and let her pen drop. Her fingers ached. She began massaging her palm.
Vivienne, standing at a bookcase, wrangled with the books in her arms and checked her watch. “Five hours.”
“Five? This is taking forever, and it’s so exhausting. Please, no more.”
“But we’re getting valuable material.”
“Vivienne-I didn’t get to tell you about the mirrors. There’s a room in this tower, and it-”
“Contains mirrors that allow you to see past, future, and possible versions of yourself. Yes, I am aware.”
Freya was stunned. “How?”
“I told you, I’ve explored the Langtorr before,” Vivienne said, flipping open a book.
“How many times?”
“Just once. I didn’t come too far-just down to this room, in fact. I took only the briefest of looks around and heard a noise, which I now know must have been Frithfroth. I got spooked and ran back up the tower. Ecgbryt was there-he was the only one who could keep the doorway open past dusk-”
“What else is here that you haven’t told me about?”
“Let’s keep cracking on, shall we? Come on, these are from the seventeenth century.”
Freya rubbed her eyes. Using the pansensorum was mentally exhausting, but not physically. “Okay, in a second. But, Vivienne-if what you’re not telling me about is important. . you’d have let me know, right?”
“Correct. I believe this is the best way we can help our cause right now. Far more than further exploration of the tower.”
“Okay,” Freya sighed. “Start it up again.”
IV
London, Whitehall Palace
Ealdstan paced the corridors of the massive palace. It truly was enormous. More than fifteen hundred rooms meant it could hold the population of a town. It was not as magnificent as his own realm, he reminded himself, but it represented an idea that had been growing in the surface world over the past few hundred years. An unconscious desire, more than an idea-a desire for separation, which was now becoming assumed and ingrained. The magnificence of the palace existed in sharp contrast to the poverty of the citizenry around it. There was none of that in Ni?ergeard, he noted with pride. The smithies lived in rooms as fine as his own-much better, in fact.
He wondered what it meant. He couldn’t imagine all these rooms were actually needed or vital to the running of the nation. They were an excess, and an excess meant things were running inefficiently. It was good, then, that he had found Cromwell. Indeed, if he hadn’t come across Cromwell, then it would have been necessary to invent someone. As a rule, Ealdstan hated instability and revolution, but the nation had been wobbling on its axis for the last couple hundred years. Kings were hard to control, even in the best of circumstances. Republics had potential, though they’d need more attention.
It was then that Cromwell found him. He walked into the courtyard where Ealdstan sat, his ruddy face beaming, his oddly unmilitary build-narrow shoulders and protruding gut-gangling into view.
“Ealdstan, you old relic, how are you this morrow?” He clasped the wizard on his shoulder as he stood, giving it a vicelike squeeze.
“I am well, and seem to have found you in high spirits.”
“I tell you, man,” Cromwell said, “these are-” He was interrupted as a door into the courtyard burst open and a flock of harassed-looking men-armed soldiers as well as politicians and a couple clergy-entered.
“My lord-”
“Sir, if I may-”
“Your honour-”
“Permission to-”
“Out! Out you beasts, all of ye!” Cromwell shouted at them. “Quit the doorway! Shut that! Quit my presence and my sight. Give me peace for just a half of an hour or I’ll loose dogs upon ye!”
Faces blanched, a few arms saluted, and a penitent clerk closed the French door. Faces peered in at them from behind the rows of glass panes.
Cromwell shook his head. “A bevy of badgers.”
“Let us walk this way. . eh?” Ealdstan faltered. “I seem to be at a loss for a title for you.”
“For me?” Cromwell turned back to Ealdstan with a grin. They began to walk a path in the courtyard. “Why, I am just a lowly MP in the service of his country. Call me Oliver.”
“Not just that, also a general and. . more, if I am to believe what I hear of the feelings in the Parliament.”
“So?” Cromwell said, his face brightening once more. “News
“I am glad you are pleased. With you ends the era of kings, and their confused, misguided folly.”
“In truth, Ealdstan,” Cromwell continued rapturously as they started a circuit around a rectangular reflecting pool, “when you and I talked and laid plans of revolution, I doubted. I was an unbeliever. Forgive me my foolish youth, friend.”
“Enough of that,” Ealdstan said. “Let us talk of next steps. What would you consider to be your fiercest regiment?”
“We will talk of payment later. First I must discuss my campaigns against the Irish and the Scots. You believe it is vital that we bow them to our rule?”
“Bow or break,” Ealdstan answered. “They must join. As must the Continent.” Ealdstan was drawn back hundreds of years by his thoughts. It once seemed possible-the Dane lands, the Frankish lands. . ties had been made with them that were to last until the end of the world. But the map was fragmented now. He had thought that familial bonds would strengthen ties between nations, but that was an error. Where there used to be family ties, there was only enmity. All the houses of the royals-boiled down to one big, ugly string of family disputes. This new return to a meritocracy, the way it used to be when England was young, was the way forward.
“This is the start of a golden age. I envision a union of nations across the earth. A commonwealth of spiritual holiness.”
Ealdstan blinked and bowed his head. “And then we may be able to weather the storm I see coming.”
Cromwell pursed his lips and nodded solemnly. Then he smiled and gripped Ealdstan’s shoulder with his massive soldier’s hand. “Such an ambitious vision, and one I doubt will be realised in my time,” he said. “I will try not to let you down, but this new order of government-it is a delicate thing and needs much protection. I will need all resources at my command.”
“Be not intractable,” Ealdstan said to him. “You would pay a man for giving you a house; would you not pay me for giving you a kingdom?”
Cromwell laughed. “Cursing me with one, you mean. In truth, I pay for nothing these days. What I need, I am given or I take. But worry not, old friend, due payment will come in due time, as my mother was well used to saying.”
