“You’re John Makepeace?” The man came in so quietly that James had not heard his footfall.

“Yes.”

“Password?”

“Godspeed.”

“God Will Not Fail Us,” the man replied. “Have you come from the queen?”

“Yes. I have this.” James passed a thick letter.

The man broke the seal. “It’s in code,” he said irritably. “D’you know what it says?”

“Yes, I was ordered to memorize it in case I had to destroy it. It instructs you to reach the king and get him to Deptford. There’s a ship waiting for him, a coastal trader, that will take him to France. She’s called the Dilly. If you tell me when it will be, I can send a message to His Highness’s fleet and see that you are met by them, to give you safe passage on the seas.”

“And the two royal children?”

“I have no instructions for them.”

Startled, the man looked up from the sealed letter. “What? Do they understand that the army will never let the children out of the country, if he gets away? He will never see them again? Are they to be abandoned among their enemies? Are we to just leave them here?”

“Those are the instructions,” James said steadily.

The man dropped into a chair and glared at James. “He was supposed to get away at Newport.”

“I know it.”

“It failed.”

“No one knows that better than me.”

“And from Hurst Castle.”

“Hurst?”

“Yes, there too. That miscarried as well. And at Bagshot he was supposed to have the fastest horse in England, but it went lame the day he was to go, and nobody had a second horse. Or a second plan.”

James forced himself not to reveal his contempt for these half-baked plots. “You speak as if it is hopeless.”

“I think it is. My hope has drained away month after month. No one decides what to do and does it. All we can do now is pray that they give him a fair trial and that they listen to what he has to say. That he can put the case for all that he has done.”

“And then?”

“God knows. That’s the madness of failing to get him away. We don’t know what they intend or even if they have any intention beyond shaming him. Will they limit his power as they think best? Or will he agree to hand the throne over to Prince Charles? Is he to live quietly and let his son rule? Will Prince Charles be bound by them? And will both king and prince swear never to raise an army, outside the kingdom or inside it? Parliament won’t stand for anything less.”

“It is to unmake royal power. For him—and for his sons. For all kings everywhere?”

“I think he has no choice. This is the army in power now, not parliament, and they are ill-disposed to the man who killed their comrades, surrendered, and then marched out again. They’re men of action, not endless words. The army is a different beast again. They speak a different language, they come from different worlds.”