After a while he could look aloft once more and say with a degree of steadiness: “Thou foreordainest everything which is, and everything that Thou decreest is good. Thou plungest me into this lake of fire to burn the dross out and make hard my steel, until my soul’s a swordblade for Thy war”—his words quickened—“that holy war Thou call’st on us to wage, to humble haughty kings before Thy might, cast idols and idolaters in dust, then take possession of the whole wide world—the promised land of Thy new chosen people: redemption-blazing English Israelites.”
He sprang to his feet. “I hear Thy voice, Jehovah Thunderer! I’ve strength to smite, remaining in mine arms.” He lifted them, fingers crooked as if to grasp something. “Or if it be Thy will that I not fight, but forge instead the iron thews of power… why, I am doing that already, Lord. But this I pledge, to work with doubled force, and make vile lust the fuel of my zeal.”
After standing for a few minutes he added calmly, Tonight I’ll quench my fire and balm my burns in the cool chastities of measurement amidst Thy stars, till sleep returns, or dawn.” He unfolded the tripod of his telescope.
VII
Trees were a darkling wall around, with frosted parapets. Moonlight whitened grass, daisies, cow-slips, primroses; dew, which chilled and soaked feet, made shards of brilliance. Near the middle reared a monolith, twice a man’s height. Though the weathers and lichens of none knew how many years had softened its edges, it remained a stern thing to see.
Two horses stood at the border of the opening. Common farm beasts, they bore nothing save tethers. A steady crunch-crunch and sweet smell of broken herbs rose from their jaws.
Will Fairweather lounged against the stone and used an eating knife to pare his nails. He had put back on his dragoon’s outfit, sans Royalist tokens, in spite of its woeful condition. A cavalry sword hung at either hip. He sang to himself, low enough that one might have called it a mumble were it less off-key:
He broke off. Rupert and Jennifer crashed through undergrowth, out beneath the sky. Their clothes, snagged, soaked, stained, were worse for hard travel than they themselves. Nonetheless she sank gratefully among the flowers.
Rupert bounded through them. “Will!” he roared. “Thou old rascal!” He seized the man and hugged him till ribs creaked.
The other staggered. “Whoof! Your Highness overbears me. A month’s baitin’ by Roundhead dogs ha’ lost you no foa’ce. Pray take caere, lest you make my breastplate into a buckler.” He recovered his balance, to stand in front of the prince’s height and bulk for a span of silence before he asked: “Did Jen—Mis’ess Jennifer’splain how’tis, in tha note she smuggled you?”
“Aye.” Rupert’s glance went admiringly to her. “I wish most of my officers could write such a dispatch, clear, complete, and terse. Our cause would be in better case. She even revealed thou’st no blame in what happened to Boye. Not but what I couldn’t forgive thee that, or anything else this side treason, which word I do believe thou canst not tell the meaning of—after what thou’st done.”
“Not done; begun. We’ve starvelin’ little to go on, my loard. Zee, I plucked an extra weapon for you off tha battlefield. I marked where yon two hoa’ses war kept outdoors, an’ this night liberated’em; but they ben’t any Pegasus, no zaddles came in the bargain for them mighty sharp-lookin’ backs, an’ we’ll have to cut bridles from this roape you carry. Nor could I hoist moare’n a chunk o’ bread an’ stale cheese from tha dame who gave me barn-room; she war eager to visit me there after dark, aye, but her own zausages she keeps under lock an’ key. How much money has my lady got together for us?”
“Why, I never thought—” Rupert turned back toward her.
She touched a purse at her waist. “No better than a few florins,” she told him sadly. “I’m never allowed more at a time.”
“Well, we’ll forage as we fare,” Rupert assured them.
“Across half of moare of England, acrawl with ill-wishers?” Will protested. “Tha word o’ your escape’ll splatter as fast as relays can gallop—or faster, unthanks to them damned zemaphoare things along o’ tha railways. No doubt there’ll be a whoppin’ price on you. An’ a man o’ your Highness’ zize an’ bearin’ ben’t just easy to disguise.”
“We must try—travel by night—”
“An’ if we do zimply rejoin tha Cavalier cavalry, what’ll we find? All tha news can’t lie,’bout how Cromwell an’ tha rest be smashin’ our zide like with sledgehammers. You’d rally’em zome, no doubt, my loard; but I fear’tis too late to do moare than stave off tha endin’ awhile.”
Rupert scowled. “What else does honor allow, save a return to serve the King?”
“There be ways an’ ways o’ zarvin’ him, loard.” Will plucked Rupert’s sleeve. “Come, let’s rest our feet by Mis’ess Jennifer. She needs to hear this too, I be toald.”
“Told?” Rupert asked sharply. “By who?”
“Thic’s what I aim to tell you, my loard an’ lady, if you’ll listen.”
Rupert peered about before he shrugged and followed. When he settled into the grass next the girl, she took his arm. He kept stiffly motionless. Will Fairweather buckled at waist and joints, like a folding rack, as he joined them.
The moonlight streamed, the horses cropped, a sighing went through unseen leaves.
Leaning forward, his big hands flung now right, now left in awkward gestures, Will said, unwontedly earnest: “My loard an’ lady, I be a Christian man. You must believe’tis zo; else we be done. Oh, aye, I’ve zinned tha zeven zins, an’ moare; ha’ broaken Zabbath, stoalen, poached, caroused, an’ zee scant hoape I’ll ever mend my ways—yet still tha Faith’s in this ramshackle zoul, an’ I repent me that I can’t repent a longer time than from tha mornin’s headache to tha first bowl o’ yale what drives it out. I do believe Christ Jesus is our Zaviour, whose blood got shed for even zuch as me.”
He filled his narrow chest before going on: “But shouldn’t than God’s oaverflowin’ grace wash oaver everything what’A has maede? If human flesh be grass, tha grass itzelf should liakewise be an object o’ His love, tha fish, tha fowl, tha beasts—all what’A maede. I wonder if maybe tha fiends in hell be just too proud to take tha love A offers.” (Rupert stirred and frowned.) “Aye, aye, my loard, thic’s heresy, I know.
It ben’t for me talk o’ zuch-like things. Zave this one pw’int”—he lifted a finger—“that there be alzo creatures what reason, talk, yet be not whoally men. I speak not o’ tha angels, understand, but bein’s in an’ of our common yearth, though ageless an’ with powers we doan’t have. Well, we got powers tha’ doan’t, an’ zome zay we got immortal zouls an’ tha’ do not. A simpleton liake me knows naught o’ thic. I only know that many, if not all, mean well, however flighty oftentimes. They be unchristened; zo be animals; an’ neither kind war ever in revolt against tha will o’ heaven, war it, now? If’tis no zin to care for hoa’se or hound, why should it be a zin to have for friends tha oalden elven spirits o’ tha land?”