“He wouldn’t come? Not even for the password?” Sir William repeated incredulously.

James shook his head. “No, sir, he would not.”

“You warned him of what might be?”

“I warned him, and I told him that it was his wife’s own plan and his son was waiting in his ship offshore. I begged him. He wouldn’t come.”

“God save him, this is a damnable mistake.” Sir William held up his glass in a toast. James clinked glasses and sat back in his chair.

“Are you sick?” Sir William cocked an eye at the younger man’s pale face.

“Perhaps a little fever. Nothing important.”

“So d’you think there’s any chance he might be right? That parliament will come to an agreement with him?”

“Newport is filled with royalists who boast that it doesn’t matter what he signs. They say he will sign anything, and once he’s back in his palace he’ll avenge his advisors that parliament executed, restore the queen, and bring the royal family back to London. He’ll take back his power and destroy his enemies. Everyone says that it doesn’t matter what he signs now—he will restore himself.”

“I doubt it. I really doubt it. The parliament men aren’t fools. It has cost them dear to get here. They’ve lost sons and brothers, too. They won’t throw it away on an empty agreement when he has given them every reason never to trust him. My own ferry-man doesn’t trust him! Anything they offer would have to be binding. They’ll tie him down with oaths. They won’t just hand him the treasury and the army for a handful of promises.”

“I was told that he will consent to nothing less,” James said wearily.

“Impossible!” Sir William said scathingly. “Besides, it’s not his army anymore. This is the New Model Army, they’re all Cromwell’s men. They’ll never serve under a king; they have their own ideas! They’re a power to themselves, they think for themselves. Not even the parliament can control them—how ever would he?”

James clenched his hands on the carved arms of his chair, trying to master a wave of dizziness. “Yes, sir. But that’s the very reason that parliament will have to agree with him: to avoid the demands of the army. Some parliament men hate the army worse than they doubt the king. Some would rather have a tyrannical king than a tyrannical army—who wouldn’t? They’re divided among themselves, whereas he is determined . . .”

The older man nodded. “It’s a gamble,” he said. “A royal gamble. You have to admire him for taking it.”

James, very far from admiration, took a sip of brandy. “I don’t know where it leaves us,” he said. “I don’t know where it leaves me.”

“I’ll wait until I’m summoned again to serve him,” Sir William spoke for himself. “But I’ll never put my son in danger again. It’s hard to accept that he would let us come to his door before refusing. Did he not think of the danger to us? And what about you? Will you have to go back to your seminary for your orders?”