The girl’s fire diminished. She blinked, glanced at Billy, and then nodded.
“Have faith, Mistress,” said Billy with all the confidence of an old sage. “She’s a proper Cunning Woman, she is. Mister Eff knows.”
“I pray you are both right in that,” she said, her voice subdued.
Silence fell among us, an awkward stillness with doubt, unseen, but still heavy, in the strongly scented room. Billy plucked a posy of dried lavender from a ceiling beam, made a few cautious steps, and handed it to Isabel. She took it from him with a raised eyebrow, a small shake of her head, and then a wisp of a smile.
“What will you and your father do now, mistress?” he asked.
And the look on his face made it clear to me, as I suppose I should have known from the beginning, that he was love-struck for her. He stood square, well-illuminated by the warm sunlight of the front window. He had sprung back to health in but a day it seemed. His features remained hard-favoured, as always, but now his complexion shone hale and hearty as when I had first met him. And it was as if years had passed since our meeting in Plymouth town, so much dark adventure had we shared together.
She inhaled deeply of the purple flowers and then offered the posy back to Billy. “We will do what we have always done. We will do what needs must to survive. We are marranos.”
Billy reached out again and took it back. He gave her a smile, trying to hide his disappointment, though his face flushed pink. “But General Cromwell has promised to look after you. Look after your people. I heard him say it.”
“A promise remains only that, a promise, until it is fulfilled. And we have waited a very long time. I’ll not depend on anyone but myself.” Isabel turned to me. “I will wait outside with Mister Ashmole. Forgive me, but there is something dark about this place, something uneasy.”
I gave her a slight nod and she smiled and moved to the door, pausing to briefly touch Billy upon the arm.
Once she had gone, Billy let out something between a sigh and a grunt and pushed his crumpled brimmer back on his head.
“What will you do now, Billy Chard? Will you go back to the Ranter colony?”
He shook his head. “Nah. They got it wrong they did. At least now I have my answer to the truth of their creed.” He looked at me. His grey eyes were somehow older, more tired than the rest of his face. The price of what he had seen. “There is evil and sin in this world, Mister Eff. And it comes by the cartload. But there is good too, in men. And I have seen Heaven’s Grace with my own eyes.” He scratched at his long crooked nose. “I guess you can’t have one without the other, can you, Mister Eff?”
“Did I do what was right, Billy?”
“You did the best with the cards we was handed and you can’t ask better than that. General Cromwell is pretty much all this sorry kingdom has left these days. Why didn’t you accept his offer of pardon?”
“And give up one death sentence in exchange for a new one from the Royalists? No, I’m happy with the lot I chose.”
“But you didn’t choose nothing, Mister Eff.”
I folded my arms, set my backside against the opposite wall, and dropped my chin to my chest. “I’m my own master, Billy. And that is no small treasure in these times.”
Billy let out a chuckle, as light and free as I had heard from him these weeks gone by. “Guess that means I’m a rich man too!”
An hour passed. And then another. Light and shadow slowly altered the little room as the day wore. My mind wandered, filled with hope one instant and despair the next. And then Billy bolted upright off the floor where he had sat cross-legged. I heard Maggie’s shoes clopping and scraping along the gritty floor as she returned, Anya at her side.
I turned to meet her, struggling to glimpse her face in the darkening chamber. And slowly, she came into my view. I saw that there were tears streaming down her face. Tears that I had not seen since the day I had wounded her, abandoning her to d’Artagnan and fate. But she was looking at me, and she was seeing me. Remembering me. She rushed to my arms and I swallowed her up. I pushed my lips to her ear.
“Can you forgive me? For everything?”
She hugged me tightly. “I remember everything, or nearly everything... But I can forgive you for all. If you can forgive me my foolhardy adventuring.”
I lifted her away and cupped her face in my hands. “Maggie, you’re as brave as any man I have ever known. And I will not let you from my sight again.”
“But what will happen to us now? Where shall we go?”
I smiled, feeling freer than I had since I was a boy.
“Maggie, my love, we can go anywhere!”
About the Author
Clifford Beal, originally from Providence, Rhode Island, worked for 20 years as an international journalist and is the former editor-in-chief of Jane’s Defence Weekly in London. He is the author of Quelch’s Gold (Praeger Books 2007), the true story of a little-known but remarkable early 18th century Anglo-American pirate.
“What’s the first thing you think of when I say ‘angel’?” asked Mallory.
Alice shrugged. “I don’t know... guns?”
Alice isn’t having the best of days - late for work, missed her bus, and now she’s getting rained on - but it’s about to get worse.
The war between the angels and the Fallen is escalating and innocent civilians are getting caught in the cross-fire. If the balance is to be restored, the angels must act - or risk the Fallen taking control. Forever. That’s where Alice comes in. Hunted by the Fallen and guided by Mallory - a disgraced angel with a drinking problem he doesn’t want to fix - Alice will learn the truth about her own history... and why the angels want to send her to hell.
What do the Fallen want from her? How does Mallory know so much about her past? What is it the angels are hiding - and can she trust either side?
‘Dark, enticing and so sharp the pages could cut you, Blood and Feathers is a must-read.’
Sarah Pinborough
www.solarisbooks.com
This omnibus eBook contains the first two novels in the Monarchies of God series - Hawkwood's Voyage and The Heretic Kings.
THE WESTERN WORLD IS BURNING...
For Richard Hawkwood and his crew, a desperate venture to carry refugees to the uncharted land across the Great Western Ocean offers the only chance of escape from the Inceptines' pyres.
In the East, Lofantyr, Abeleyn and Mark - three of the five Ramusian Kings - have defied the cruel pontiff's purge and must fight to hold their thrones through excommunication, intrigue and civil war.
In the quiet monastery city of Charibon, two humble monks make a discovery that will change the whole world.
Aekir, the Holy City, has fallen and all now seems lost, but even on the eve of destruction the Faithful still war amongst themselves...
Hawkwood and the Kings collects Hawkwood's Voyage and The Heretic Kings, the first two books in Paul Kearney's spectacular The Monarchies of God cycle.
www.solarisbooks.com
THE TIME OF THE WOLF IS AT HAND...
Struck down in his moment of victory, Hebrion's young King Abeleyn lies in a coma, his city in ruins and his fiancee and former lover vying for the throne. Corfe Cear-Inaf, now a colonel, is given a ragtag command of ill-equipped savages and sent on a hopeless mission by a jealous King who expects him to fail.
Richard Hawkwood and Lord Murad return bearing news of horror on a savage new continent, with something terrible lurking in the hold.
The Church is tearing itself apart, even as the champions of truth fight to bring peace between Ramusian and Merduk; but in the far West, a terrible new threat is rearing its head...
The Century of the Soldier collects the final three books in Paul Kearney's explosive The Monarchies of God series, revised and expanded for this edition: The Iron Wars, The Second Empire and Ships From The West.
www.solarisbooks.com
Table of Contents
Title
Indicia
Dedication
Quotes
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About the Author
'Blood and Feathers' by Lou Morgan
'Hawkwood and the Kings' by Paul Kearney
'Century of the Soldier' by Paul Kearney
Gideon's Angel Page 29