“Yes, I’d heard that,” Alinor confirmed, thinking of the man who had told her of the waiting fleet, of the chance for the prince.

“Our navy, the parliament fleet, has chased him out of the Thames and all the way back to Holland. He won’t wait off our shores again.” Ned chuckled. “Must’ve been hoping his father would escape from Newport and that he’d pick him up at sea, take him to France. They must’ve thought that the king would break his parole and escape again. So that’s overset, too. The king’s ships’ve gone, and he’s trapped in Newport, the parliament men telling him how it’s to be, and nothing for him to do but agree.”

“The king’s ships have failed him?” she asked.

“Driven back to Holland. He’s got nowhere to go now,” Ned said with satisfaction. “He’ll have to agree with parliament and return with them to London. And I tell you, he’ll find a dusty welcome there.”

“But what’ll become of him? And what about all the people who followed him? Those in France and Holland, those who went into exile with the queen?”

“Who cares for them?”

“It’s just . . . what will happen to them, I wonder.”

“You know, I think they’ll reprimand the king,” Ned said thoughtfully. “I think they’ll take him to London and make him into a king like no one has ever seen before, a king who has to work with the parliament and the church, not one who’s set over it. I think they’ll give him back his house but not his throne. Maybe they’ll make him Mr. King!” He laughed at his own joke. “I would bet you a shilling that they don’t give him back his throne, and for sure, he’ll never command an army again. He can’t be trusted. Everyone can see that now: he can’t be trusted.”

“So will the queen come home to be with him? Will she be Mrs. Queen? And the prince? And what about the lords and ladies and those who followed her to Paris? What’ll they do?”

“They’ll all have to beg pardon of the people of England,” Ned ruled solemnly. “That’s what I’d have them do. Beg pardon. Pay a fine, swear never to bear arms against Englishmen again, and then live privately, quietly. We should treat them all as bad as papists: fined and banned from public office. They can live in England without rights, silent: like wives and children, like the madmen that they are. They can work but not command.”

“But they’ll be able to come home?” she pressed.

“If they want a half-life,” Ned predicted. “But it’ll never be the same again for them. And us. Nothing’ll ever be the same again.”

Alys came out of the doorway, a hank of raw wool on her distaff. She sat beside them and twirled the spindle with her foot and started to spin.

“You’ve got a spindle in your hand night and day,” her uncle remarked.

“Dowry,” she said shortly.