“It’s as if none of us is here,” he complained to his landlady in the cramped little inn that evening. “It’s as if none of it ever happened at all. He’s not even listening to the evidence against him. He’s not even attending now. They’ve let him off his own trial. He’s—well, I don’t know what he’s doing. Playing golf at St. James’s?”

“We’re nothing to the likes of them,” she said.

“I’m not nothing,” Ned said doubtfully. “On my ferry, on the mire. I’m not nothing there.”

On the evening of Saturday, January 27, James wrote his last letter in code and sent it to the unnamed man who had asked him to report, but not told him what he should do in the case of a disaster. Now the disaster had come and James wrote slowly, feeling that the time for urgency was past, and either they had an escape which they had not troubled to explain to him, or they had heard his warnings and done nothing. Either way his purgatory of misery had been completely wasted.

I regret to report that they have found him guilty and, with the verdict, they passed sentence of death. They recorded that they judged him tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of the nation, to be put to death by the severing of his head from his body.

If you have influence for mercy or pardon or a plan for escape it should be deployed now. They have not set a date for execution, but he is to see his children, Princess Elizabeth and her little brother Prince Henry, on Monday. His execution must follow unless you have prevented it.

James paused, wanting to believe that his part in this had been so unimportant, that all along a conspirator with a great name, or a man with a great fortune, or the French ambassador or the Prince of Wales himself had been meeting with the judges, or with Oliver Cromwell, and an arrangement had been made for the king’s safety. Perhaps even now a secret door in Whitehall Palace was being opened to the stairs down to the river and a ship was raising her sails and taking him away.

I truly believe that they intend to execute him within days. Of course, I beg that you save him and prevent this terrible martyrdom. Send me orders as to what I can do. Tell me at least that you have received this?

TIDELANDS, FEBRUARY 1649

The iron bar clanged loudly on the horseshoe and Alys rose up from the breakfast table, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and went to the door. The cold wintry air swirled in as she banged the door behind her. “Lord, is that you, Uncle Ned?” Alinor heard her call. “I thought you’d never come home!”

Alinor threw open the front door to look out, shading her eyes against the bright wintry sun that burned low, just rising over the harbor. Against the white brightness she could only see the outline of a man, pack on his back, hat on his head, soldier’s boots, but she recognized her brother as he stepped down into the ferry, kissed his niece, and let her haul him over, solemnly paying her his fee.

“You’re welcome to your home, Brother,” Alinor said as Ned stepped ashore. She moved into the warm hug of his cape. He smelled of London, of strange stables, of damp beds, of beer rather than ale, fires of charcoal, not wood. “You’ve been gone so long. We’ve had no news. What happened? Did they finish the trial? We only heard that it had begun.”

“Aye, they did,” he replied, sitting down on his stool and pulling off his boots.

“Never!” Alys exclaimed. “I swore they would not dare.”

“They dared do more than that,” Ned said wonderingly. “All the way home, I’ve been puzzling about it. But they did more than charge him with betrayal, they accused him of treason, with a death sentence. And it’s done. He’s dead and we are a kingdom without a king.”

Alinor gasped and put her hand to the base of her throat and felt her pulse thud. “Really? Truly? He’s dead? The king is dead?”

“Yes. You’re like everyone else that I’ve told, all the way down the London road. Everyone acts like it was a shock, but he was on trial before a court, in full sight of the people, and he had it coming since Nottingham. Why should anyone be surprised that time ran out for him?”

“Because he’s the king,” Alinor said simply.

“But not above the law, as it turns out, as he thought.”

“How did they do it?” Alys asked curiously.

Alinor went to the foot of the staircase and shouted for Rob to wake and come down, for his uncle was home, poured her brother a cup of ale and sat beside him. She could hardly bear to listen, knowing what this would mean for James. But she had to know: a kingdom without a king was a puzzle that the people of England would have to solve. And how would a people as diverse as the minister, or Mrs. Wheatley, or the Chichester apothecary agree as to how they should be governed? Or would it all be decided by the likes of Sir William and nothing really changed at all?

“They did it lawfully,” Ned answered his niece. “In a court of law, though he denied it to the last.”

“I mean the execution? We knew that he was on trial. But nobody thought he would be executed. We had sight of a news-sheet after the first day, and then nothing.”

He sighed. “I was glad to see it done, and it had to be done, and it was just that it was done. But, Lord knows, it’s always pitiful to see a man die.”

Rob, tying the laces on his breeches, came downstairs, shook hands with his uncle, and sat at the table to listen.

“Where’s Red?” Ned suddenly asked, looking under the table, sensing an absence where his dog should be.

Alinor put her hand on his. “I’m sorry, Ned,” she said. “He died. He was in no pain. He was just very tired one morning, and by evening, he was asleep.”

He shook his head a little. “Ah,” he said. “My dog.”

They were silent for a moment, and Alinor cut Ned a slice from the breakfast loaf and put it on a wooden platter before him.

“What about the king?” Rob prompted.

“They beheaded him?” Alys pressed.

“They beheaded him. Quickly and well, on a cold morning. He stepped out of a window of glass so tall and so wide that it was like a door to his palace of Whitehall. So he was never in a cell, though they found him guilty. He was never chained, though they named him a criminal. He spoke for a little while, but nobody could hear him—there were thousands of us there, crowded in the street—and then he laid himself down and the executioner took his head off. One blow. It was well done. He did not give the executioner pardon, which was sour. He said he was a ‘martyr to the people.’ I heard that much: the idiot.” Ned coughed and spat into the fire. “He died with a lie in his mouth, as was fitting. It was us who were a martyr to him. He lied to the very end.”

“God forgive him,” Alinor whispered.

“I never will,” Ned said staunchly. “And neither will any man who ever fought against him, over and over, still fighting after he had declared peace and admitted he was beat. Over and over. Never forget it.”

“God forgive him,” Alinor repeated.

“So what happens now, Uncle?” Rob asked. “Will everything change for us all?”

“That’s the question,” Ned said. “Everything has changed, everything must change. But will it? And how?”