As suavely as ever, Strafford glided on. "The restriction is for your own safety, do please understand that." He turned his head, scowling at the river visible beyond the southern windows. "I'm afraid there's been some turbulence in the kingdom recently. No way to know how much of the sedition may have spread into the Tower itself, and who knows what madmen might think to do?"
He straightened a bit, bowed. The gesture-very well done, as everything the man did-conveyed, simultaneously, regrets and cordiality and firm resolve and… I've done what I had to do and I'm getting out of here. Adios, amigos-and don't even think of messing with me.
A few murmured words of polite departure, and he was off. Moving more quickly than he had arrived, perhaps, but still with that same, solid, dignified tread.
When he was gone, and clearly beyond hearing, Melissa blew out a breath and stifled a curse.
More or less. "Damnation. Wentworth! And they've already made him an earl!"
Shit-shit-shit. But she kept that vulgarity to herself, from the lifelong habits of a schoolteacher.
Everyone was staring at her. Melissa turned to Gayle. "Can anyone hear us?"
The stocky woman shook her head. "Nope. While Darryl was busy playing macho-man with the guards, I checked everything. So did Friedrich. There's no place for hidey-holes or listening posts, and the guards outside can't possibly hear anything in here short of a shout or a scream. Or a gunshot."
Melissa nodded. "All right, then." She moved over to a nearby armchair and plopped herself into it. Very plush and comfortable, it was. "Gather round, folks. Let me explain the situation-as near as I can figure it out, anyway."
When they were clustered about, Rita and Tom perched together on a small couch and the rest standing, Melissa pointed a finger at the entryway through which Wentworth had departed.
"That man is probably the most dangerous man in England. For us, anyway. Sir Thomas Wentworth, later to become the earl of Strafford. Except in our universe, the king didn't make him an earl until…" She groped in her memory. "I can't remember the exact year, but it sure as hell wasn't as early as 1633. He's supposed to be on his way to Ireland right now. Just recently appointed Lord Deputy of the island."
The name finally registered on Darryl McCarthy. Melissa had been wondering when it would. For all that Darryl had the typical Appalachian working-class boy's indifference to history, there was one subject on which he didn't. Darryl's father Michael had been a long-time supporter of NORAID, the Irish Northern Aid Committee, and the whole McCarthy clan were rabid Irish-American nationalists.
"Black Tom Tyrant!" he snarled. "The fucking bastard! He's the one who killed the Men of '98!"
Melissa sighed. And, as usual, he had his history all jumbled up. She could remember a test question, years before, which Darryl had answered: "George III, first president of the United States."
"He's forty years old, Darryl!" she snapped. "So he'd have been five years old when he 'killed the Men of '98'-assuming, of course, that those had been the men of fifteen ninety-eight instead of 1798, which is when the rebellion actually happened. You're almost two centuries off."
Darryl was glowering. Not at the reproof-water off his back, that; always had been-but with the glower of a man who knew what he knew, dammit, and don't confuse him with the facts.
Melissa rubbed her face, reminding herself that she was a diplomat these days, not a schoolteacher. No point in trying to correct Darryl's grasp of history. For whatever reason the young man detested Strafford, the detestation was probably good enough. She wasn't certain yet, but all the signs pointed to an England which was already lost to them. She'd come here looking for peace-even, possibly, an alliance-but with Strafford now an earl, and all the rest she'd seen…
"The point's this, people. Wentworth was always-by far-the best adviser and official King Charles ever had. But, in the world we came from, Charles never much cared for the man. Basically, because Wentworth was too smart and too capable and too efficient."
"Didn't trust him, huh?" grunted Tom.
Melissa shook her head. "No, it wasn't that. Wentworth-Strafford-was loyal to the bone. When the time finally came, oh, when was it? In 1641, I think, give or take a year. When the time came when the English revolution demanded Strafford's head, King Charles let them have him-even though he'd sworn to Strafford that he would stand by him no matter what."
Melissa, unlike Darryl, had a sense for the grayness of history. Heroes were rarely simply heroes, nor villains always "villainous." Strafford, like Richelieu-like Wallenstein, even-was a man of many parts. Some of which could only be admired, however much the men themselves might be enemies of what she stood for now, in this time and place.
"Strafford's quite a guy, actually," she said softly. "He sent-would send, years from now, in that other universe-a letter to the king absolving him of his vow. And by all accounts, even those of his enemies, went to his death with great courage and dignity-and not a murmur of complaint about his-"
There was no reason to be diplomatic. "His worthless, treacherous, useless, incompetent, feckless, shithead of a king."
There! I feel better.
Darryl was grinning at her use of the vulgar term. Miz Mailey!
Everyone in the room chuckled. Melissa grinned herself.
"King Charles the First was-is-one of the dumbest kings the English ever saddled themselves with. Well… 'dumb' isn't exactly the right word. Frankly, that's giving him too much credit. He was-is-probably smart enough. So he doesn't even have that excuse. But he's got the temperament of a child. He sulks, he pouts, he always wants to have his cake and eat it too. For years he neglected his French Catholic wife, in favor of his infatuation with his favorite courtier, the duke of Buckingham-who was an even bigger jackass than he is. Buckingham was assassinated in 1628. That's happened in this universe too, because it was before the Ring of Fire. Since then, Charles has been doting on his wife. And-never fails!-Henrietta Maria is another royal twit. She's Louis XIII's sister, and she's pretty much cut from the same cloth as her brother. If Louis didn't have Richelieu running France for him-at least he's smart enough to know talent when he sees it-he'd be in a mess."
Tom chuckled heavily. "Are there any kings or queens who can tie their own shoes, in this day and age? Outside of Gustav Adolf, of course."
"Several, as a matter of fact. King Christian of Denmark is quite an impressive monarch. The biggest problem he always had was trying to bite off more than he could chew. But-capable, no doubt about it, even if he is drunk half the time. And if the current rulers of Spain and Austria aren't anything to write home about, their younger relatives are something else. Don Fernando of Spain-they'll already be calling him the 'cardinal-infante,' I imagine-is just about to start his impressive military career. That's the Spanish Habsburgs. On the Austrian side of the family, Emperor Ferdinand's son the King of Hungary is also on the eve of coming into his own."
She twirled her fingers in the air, trying to depict the confused workings of space and time. "In the universe that was-would have been; hell, probably is somewhere else-the cardinal-infante and the king of Hungary would lead the Habsburg armies that defeated the Swedes at Nordlingen in 1634. Of course," she added, comforting herself, "they didn't have to face Gustav Adolf himself, since he died at Lьtzen."
Tom Simpson, if nothing else, knew his military history. "November of last year, that would have been." His thick chest rumbled a little laugh. "Not in this universe, though. We pretty well put the kibosh on that at the Alte Veste."