Then the King's face softened.
He looked down the lens with an expression of something very close to sympathy.
"I know this will have frightened a great many people tonight," he said. "Particularly in Ireland. So I want to say this to the ordinary people of Ireland, directly. I bear you no ill will. None at all. You are not my enemy. You never have been."
He held out his hand toward the camera, palm up.
"You can end this. You don't need to suffer. You need only tell your leaders to accept what is being offered. Encourage them. Write to them. Stand outside their offices, if you like. The safety of your families is in your hands."
Behind James, his mother made a sound that was not a word.
James had watched Alice smile at people she was about to kill, on a floor where she meant every bit of it. He had never once watched anything as false as that hand.
