Tom fell off the chair.

Outside, standing on the walkway which led from St. Thomas' Tower to the inner complex, the two Yeoman Warders on guard listened to the riotous laughter. Then, looked at each other.

"Jolly lot, I'll say that."

His comrade nodded, smiling. "Aye. I think the earl is worrying himself too much." He jerked his head a little, indicating the unseen occupants. "Hardly the sound of a new Gunpowder Plot in the making, eh?"

Silence followed, for a minute or so. Then, after glancing around, one Warder spoke in a lower tone. " 'Tis said they're rich."

"Said truly too. I've seen the silver meself."

Again, a period of silence. Longer, this time. Finally, the one who'd seen the silver spoke again in a half-whisper. "Can't see any harm in it, Andrew. Not to the king, not to us, not to anyone."

His comrade, nodding, slid into the status of partner. "Aye. Even split then, Will? Whichever of us is on duty?"

"Done. All the woman wants, she says-the one who showed me the silver-is to have packages brought and delivered."

Andrew frowned. "Small packages only." For a moment, leaning the partisan against a shoulder, his hands made quick motions indicating the acceptable size.

"Oh, to be sure. Anything else's too risky." Will shrugged. "But I think that's all they want anyway. Just luxuries, you know."

"No harm in that."

"-see the harm in His Majesty's, ah, foible," concluded Laud. The bishop of London shifted in his seat. "So leave it alone, Thomas, it's not worth irritating the king over any longer. If it pleases Charles to think of Oliver Cromwell rotting in his dungeon instead of a grave, what of it?"

Strafford started to argue the point; then, pressed his lips shut and satisfied himself with glaring down at London from the vantage point of his chambers in Whitehall Palace.

"I suppose," he growled, after a few seconds of silence. "With Pym now dead-God, what possessed the man, anyway? Fighting off soldiers, at his age! What was he, fifty?"

Laud's face seemed to tighten, as if he'd bitten into a lemon. The earl had to restrain himself from laughing aloud. For the bishop, clearly enough, knowing the age of a rebellious parliamentarian was as foreign to his nature as knowing the inside of an Ottoman harem.

The momentary amusement lifted his annoyance at the king's stubbornness. "Well, perhaps you're right. True, Hampden slipped through our fingers. But he's certainly off the island by now, and I can't really see what harm he can do us from the Continent. Oliver was-would have been-the soldier amongst them."

"There's Monck."

Strafford's smile was not quite a sneer. "Ah, yes. The estimable George Monck. There's a piece of work."

"You've spoken to him, then?"

"Two days ago. I sat him down, showed him the relevant portions of the history, and brought him to the light of reason in less than half an hour. What's the point of it all, I asked him? He'd start as a Royalist, switch sides halfway through-and then, in the end, wind up putting the Prince of Wales on the throne after Cromwell's death. So why not eliminate all the mess and confusion?"

Laud looked slightly alarmed. "I trust you didn't-"

"Certainly not!" Strafford laughed. "I took the book from him before he could turn the page and see that Charles the Secondwould reward him with a dukedom. That man is quite ambitious enough, thank you!"

Strafford's face, for a moment, looked as lemon-sour as Laud's had done. He had no chance at a dukedom, he knew full well. When all was said and done, the king depended on Strafford… but didn't like him, and never would.

" 'Duke of Albemarle,' " muttered the earl. "Granted a large pension and made Master of the Horse, to boot. Died of old age, rich as Croesus, in his bed. While I went to the block. So did you, not long after."

Silence fell on the room. Both the earl and the bishop had studied the history books brought to England by Richelieu's agent, as well as the copies of pages from another brought back by the king's physician. William Harvey, that was, who had been given something of a hero's welcome when he visited the Americans at their capital in Grantville the year before. It seemed he would become famous also, in the future.

The bitterness in that silence was almost palpable. In that history, the king had handed the faithful earl over to his enemies. Then, after doing the same with the archbishop, Charles had pronounced that Laud's execution at the hands of Parliament would be viewed by God as the king's atonement for betraying Strafford.

The logic was… something only a man like Charles I could follow.

"We mustn't be filled with rancor," admonished the bishop. "It borders on sin."

Strafford shifted his shoulders, and clasped hands behind his back. "No… you're right, of course. But that doesn't require me to like the man." It was unclear, even to himself, which man he was talking about-the future duke of Albemarle, or the present king of England.

He decided that was a thought best left unpursued. Turning his head a bit, he added: "In any event, I saw no reason for George Monck, son of a minor landowner in Devonshire, to become a duke in this… what would you call it, William? History? World? Universe?"

Laud shrugged, somewhat uncomfortably. "That's for God alone to understand. Fully, at least. I simply think of it-" He made a little gesture with his hand, indicating everything around him. "This world, that is, as the true one. That other, as God's image to us of falseness."

Strafford barked a laugh. "Easy for you to say! You aren't the one who meets with Lady Mailey and tries to explain to her exactly how their stay in the Tower is a 'courtesy.' I assure you, William, if the lady herself is false, her brains certainly aren't."

"She's not a 'lady!' " snapped Laud. "Nothing but a commoner." The little bishop's face, habitually red to begin with, was flushed brighter than usual. Like many people born to common stock-Laud's father had been a draper-he tended to be even more sensitive than noblemen on the subject of "good breeding."

Strafford started to make a retort, but held it back. They were now verging on a subject which was one of the few-perhaps the only one-that Thomas Wentworth could not discuss with William Laud, for all that they were good friends. William, and Bishop Laud, were one and the same man. The earl of Strafford, and Thomas Wentworth, were… not quite.

His eyes moved toward the Tower, which, though he could not see it directly, he could imagine in his mind.

No, William-she is a 'lady.' If that name means anything beyond a mere title. I've met her; you haven't. She has a poise, a self-confidence, a sureness of self, that would be the envy of any duchess.

The image of Queen Henrietta Maria came to him, a giddy Frenchwoman married to an English king who, in his own way, was perhaps even giddier. Or a queen, for that matter. And the young sister of her ruler who came with her bids fair to do the same, if I don't miss my guess.

"How do they do it?" he murmured.

"What was that?"

Strafford shook his head. "Nothing, William. Just talking to myself."

The bishop chuckled. "Bad habit, that. Best you rein in it before it takes you over."

"Aye." Wentworth-no, the earl of Strafford-tightened his clasped hands. "Aye. Our course is clear."

He turned away from the window then. But not before, in a last flash of imagery, seeing the figure of Oliver Cromwell huddled in a cell. And remembering something else he'd read in those books. A line from a letter which would have once been written by that same prisoner, appealing to his opponents.