by Joan Aiken
As soon as the last of them, puffing, straining, and snivelling, had been squeezed through the gap, Wally and Dido ran to the locked wooden door that led from garden to street. Wally began to batter it with the axe, Dido thumped it with one of the posts that had been chopped out. Both of them yelled at the top of their voices.
‘This way! This way! Come along! Help, help! Save us! Hurray! Hurrah! Down with His Nabs!’ And Dido added, ‘Podge! Now’s your moment! Don’t loiter! Beat it!’
They made a terrific row, banging and bawling; soon they heard alarmed shouts and running feet on the other side of the wall, as the guards came racing to see what was going on. By now Wally had made a hole in the planking just about large enough to let a person climb through.
‘Best we clear off now before they nab us,’ said Dido, ramming her spiked post through the hole and into the stomach of somebody who had just arrived on the other side. ‘Don’t forget the axe, Wally!’
They scooted back across the garden to the gap in the line of posts and edged through. By now snow was falling fast.
‘That’s handy,’ said Dido with satisfaction. ‘It’ll cover our prints, farther on. – Here, give us the axe, you take the ladder.’
Already she could hear the Margrave’s guards, who had either broken through or opened the door in the wall, and were now busy searching the garden for escaped prisoners. It would not be long before they found the gap in the river fence.
Dido, swinging the axe with all her strength, chopped a hole in the ice, which was not so thick here, because of the fast inshore current; part of it suddenly gave way with a loud squeaking crunch, and the portion on which she herself stood tipped sideways; she only just had time to leap back to safety. The hole she had made was about four feet across. Stepping back, she began to hack at the edge of it, and managed to dislodge another large section.
‘Watch out, girl – don’t take any chances!’ called Wally.
‘Just a bit more – so they can’t jump across –’ panted Dido, and whacked a third time with the axe.
A much larger piece came away, and tipped her clean into the water – if Wally had not been lightning-quick, thrusting the end of the ladder against her, she would have been swept under the solid ice by the current.
‘Quick!’ he yelled. ‘Grab hold!’
‘Thanks – blp – I got it – here I come –’ Dido gasped, and, spitting out Thames water, was dragged in triumph to safety, just as a group of guards came scrambling through the gap in the fence and along the ice – only to come to a dismayed halt at sight of a twelve-foot stretch of black water which Dido’s chopping had created.
‘Let’s go!’ she gulped. Wally and she scurried along the ice, hauling the ladder between them. Despite its weight they managed to keep up a good pace, and soon overtook the group of escaped prisoners, who were limping and hobbling amid moans and cries of ‘I can’t keep up!’ and ‘Won’t somebody help me?’
‘We’d best turn up here,’ said Wally, at the first creek. ‘Don’t take ’em to Bart’s.’
‘Where’ll we take them then?’
‘Once they’re rested they can go to wherever they came from; I don’t reckon His Nabs will go looking for them, do you? But they can come to my dad’s place for now,’ said Wally.
12
‘IN THE REIGN of Queen Anne, it all began,’ sang the children, dancing in a ring in brilliant moonlight round the fountain in the forecourt of Bakerloo House.
‘In the reign of King Jim, it was fairly grim
In the reign of King John, it still went on
In the reign of King Bill, it went on still
In the reign of King Fred, it came to a head
In the reign of King Bruce, they called a truce
In the reign of King Walt, it came to a halt.’
What the children were doing, Simon could not see, and hardly cared; he was greatly astonished to find them there still at this late hour of night.
‘Don’t you ever go to sleep?’ he inquired, as they left their game, whatever it was, and came flocking about his horse, which had limped behind the hackney cab, all the way from Tower Hill.
‘Can’t sleep out o’ doors this weather,’ they told him, laughing, ‘and you need a farden for a lollpoop’s lodging.’
‘Well – here – split this among you – that’ll house you all easily –’ and Simon gave the nearest boy a gold guinea.
‘Lud love you, sir, if I was to give that to a lodging ’ouse keeper he’d think I’d prigged it; he’d turn me over to the rozzers and I’d be in stir before you’d had your breakfast! Anyhow this night’s almost over; ’tain’t worth a farden now till dayglim, thanking you kindly all the same –’ and the boy handed back the guinea. Simon searched for smaller coins, but recollected that he had used up all his supply of change on the mouse he had bought from Penelope.
‘We ain’t come to beg, but to give you a warning,’ the boy said.
At this moment the door of Bakerloo House burst open and Dolly Buckle erupted from it, apron strings and cap ribbons flying distractedly.
‘Oh, sir, oh, sir! Oh, your grace dear, oh, I’m that beshrought! Lady Sophie’s never come home! And Jem’s gone down to Wenlock and Mogg’s gone to Bow Street – Oh, my lord, oh where can she be?’
Simon experienced a horrible sensation inside him, as if his heart had fallen through a hole into his stomach; now he began for the first time to understand what Sophie went through each time he went off hunting wolves.
‘When did she go out?’ he asked the tearful Mrs Buckle.
‘Ha’ past sivin – to a musical swarry at the Margrave of Hodmedod. Didn’t I always say that man was no better than he should be?’
‘I’ll ride to his house directly – only I need a fresh horse,’ said Simon.
‘But Mogg’s been there – to Cinnamon Court – and they said she’d gone to Wenlock –’
‘Why in the world to Wenlock? Where is Mogg now? Oh, at Bow Street, you said – Well, I’ll get a fresh horse – and clean clothes – then I’ll go after Mogg.’
Simon rode to the stable, rubbed down and fed his horse (Sim and Sam being both in bed), went indoors for a quick wash and to change his torn and blood-stained clothes, then led out a fresh mount.
He had not altered his intention of going to Cinnamon Court, but Dolly Buckle, though a well-meaning woman, was a gabster; half Chelsea would, by breakfast time, know anything he told her. So he said nothing of his plans.
The children were playing a new game as he rode back towards the gate.
‘Limbery, limbery, lag lag lag,’
they sang
‘We’ll put your head in the bag, bag, bag,
We’ll turn you once, we’ll turn you twice
And we’ll send you off to Paradise . . .’
It seemed to be a kind of blind man’s buff; a line of players ran through a ‘gate’ made by two others, who grabbed one of them and blindfolded him by tying a kerchief over his eyes.
As Simon mounted and rode towards the gate, one such blindfolded player came racing straight in the direction of his horse, who shied and snorted and had to be soothed.
‘Hey! Watch where you’re going or you’ll do yourself a mischief!’ called Simon, but the blindfolded person – it was a girl – continued running till she stood by his horse’s rein, then said quickly in a low voice: ‘And the same to you, sir! Cinnamon ain’t a bit good for you, sir, not this time o’ day. What you want is a nice drop of Early Purl.’
‘Oh I do?’ said Simon, staring very hard at the blindfolded girl. ‘And where will I get that?’
‘At the Two Jolly Mermaids in Wapping, sir; my uncle Benge keeps that tavern, and he makes the purl really arominty.’
‘Thanks,’ said Simon, ‘I’ll remember,’ and he rode out once more into the black streets of Chelsea. A bank of heavy cloud had swallowed the moon and it was snowing again, hard.
Early Purl, thought Simon, riding eastwards, with the snow biting his f
ace. Is that a trap, or is it good advice? On the whole he thought it would be good advice; he knew that the children were Sophie’s friends.
The Two Jolly Mermaids turned out to be a sailors’ tavern, open and active all night as men came ashore from ships that had just tied up in Shadwell Basin or the London Docks. A large bright fire roared in each tap room, and a bottle over the private bar contained a lifesize mermaid; Simon was interested to notice that it looked like Penelope Twite’s handiwork.
When the landlord, a little brown gnome of a man, said to Simon, ‘What’s your wish, guvnor?’ Simon said, ‘A blindfold girl told me you make very good Early Purl.’
‘Oh I do, your lordship, I do; the best you’ll come across this side o’ the River Leafy. Just you give me five minutes with a red-hot poker and a dram o’ wormwood . . . ’
The little brown man bustled away, and presently came back with a steaming silver cup which smelt bitter and fragrant, like the bank of a brook in June.
‘You look as if you’ve had a long night, your honour, but that’ll wake you up for sure.’
Leaning close as he handed over the mug he murmured, ‘Sampan Stowage, my lord. Off of Green Bank. My Bess’ll show you the way; ’tis a mite hard to puzzle out, on a dirty night such as this.’
Simon drank down the Early Purl, which was amazingly powerful; paid for it, and left. Outside, holding his horse, he found a small girl, who looked extremely clean, as if she had recently been washed, hard, all over.
‘You want to ride up in front of me?’ Simon asked, and she said, ‘Oo, that’d be lush!’ and reached up her arms. Simon swung her on to the pommel – she was light as a feather and he noticed that she smelt strongly of lavender.
Fairly soon, in fact, Simon was obliged to dismount and walk, leading the horse, while Bess, in the saddle, directed him through narrow precarious ways, around boat basins, and along catwalks, behind warehouses and over footbridges.
‘Shall you ever be able to find your way back on your own?’ he said.
‘Lord bless you, yes, sir, I’ve been scoffling round these parts since I was out o’ my cradle. I sells lavender to the sailormen, see; they dearly likes a bunch to take to sea, or give to their sweethearts. Here you are, your worship; now this-ere warehouse is Sampan Stowage, that’s Mr Greenaway’s place – and I thank your honour,’ she added gravely, as he gave her a sixpence after lifting her down. She skipped away into the gloom, lifting up a small powerful voice in a piercing cry of ‘Sweet lav – en – der!’ just to keep in practice, Simon supposed, for there were no customers about in the snowy dark.
He found a place to tether his horse under a lean-to, then tapped at the big warehouse door that Bess had indicated.
‘Who’s there?’ cried a voice inside.
‘Lavender Bess brought me,’ replied Simon.
‘Oh she did, did she?’
With a grinding of bolts a small wicket door in the large one was slowly unfastened.
A tall, massive man stood in the doorway. Simon saw first that his hair, outlined against firelight which shone behind him, was white; next, that he was blind.
From over his shoulder a startled voice cried, ‘Simon! Why, it’s the Duke of Battersea, father!’
‘Good lord, Podge, is that you?’ exclaimed Simon.
‘Pleased to meet you, young feller,’ said the tall man, taking Simon’s hand in one that felt like a large flexible rock. ‘I’ve heard a deal about you from my son Dave here –’
A sort of human whirlwind at this moment hurtled forward and engulfed Simon; this turned out to be Dido.
‘Simon! We thought as you was galloping twenty different ways inside of a pack of wolves! The papers said as you’d hopped the twig! My stars, ain’t I just glad it’s not so. And look – look who we’ve got here, just wait till you see –’
Her skinny hand pulled him forward across the floor of the warehouse, which was a vast, dark, warm place. Round the walls were piled coils of rope, every size from thin cord to massive cable as thick as a man’s body; there were also chests and casks and barrels, many of which gave off a pungent smell of spice. In the middle a round brick hearth had its own chimney which disappeared upwards into the dimness. A space around it was kept clear, to avoid fire risk probably, and in this space quite a number of persons were sitting or squatting or lolling; some seemed young, some much older, wearing Chelsea Pensioners’ uniforms; among them Simon was greatly amazed to discover his sister Sophie, reclining in a basket chair. A boy and a girl knelt beside her, rubbing her arms and legs.
‘Dearest Sophie – am I glad to see you! How in the world did you get here?’ asked Simon as Dido tugged him forward.
The blind man moved leisurely back to a great seat, obviously made to measure for him, from a massive oak cask divided into two semicircles which were nailed back to back.
‘Simon! Thank heaven you are here! I am so very happy –’ Just for a moment Sophie’s composure faltered, and a tear slid down her cheek. She clasped Simon’s hand tightly, then said, ‘Aren’t we lucky to have found our way here? Mr Greenaway has been so kind – And his apple cider punch is like nectar,’ she added, laughing.
‘You, there, Wal – make up another jorum of apple punch for the dook!’ instructed Mr Greenaway. ‘And fetch him a bit o’ bread-and-cheese – he looks worn to a ravelling. – We keeps apples and foodstuffs in the other shed, where it’s cool,’ he explained as Wally ran off. ‘This loft has to stay dry, for the spices, you see, sir.’
Simon sat on an upturned cask and was given food and drink by Wally, while, in chorus, they all told him about the rescue of Sophie and the musical patients. At this recital he was so stunned that he could hardly speak – he hugged Dido speechlessly, and thumped Wally and Podge again and again, so hard that they almost fell down.
‘If I’d only been there –’ he kept saying. ‘– Not that you needed me, I can see that! You managed so cleverly. But – to think of that Margrave – just wait till I get my hands around his throat –’
‘And just listen to this, Simon!’ interrupted Dido. ‘Listen to what Sophie was just a-telling us when you began rat-tatting at the door – listen to what His Nabs has planned!’
Sophie then described again the Margrave’s design to replace the king with an exact duplicate, the change-over to be made during the Thames tunnel procession.
‘He has it all completely arranged. Though where he can find a man who is the exact image of King Richard, I cannot imagine.’
‘Oh, the man’s found already,’ said Dido. ‘He ain’t but a bowshot from here, lodging with my pa. I believe he don’t exactly know yet what the Margrave has in mind for him to do; thinks it’s more of a stand-in fit-up, I reckon; just for times, now and again, you know, when the king has toothache and don’t want to open Parliament. He ain’t a bad cove – Mister van Doon – but he ain’t right sharp. My notion is that by the time he cottons on to what he’s in for, then it’ll be too late for him to get out of it.’
‘We must let the king know at once!’ said Simon, half starting out of his seat.
‘Just a minute, young feller,’ said Mr Greenaway in his deep voice. ‘Before you go rushing off like a bull at a postman, we gotta reckon the ins and outs of this.’
Dido noticed how respectfully Wally and Podge attended to what their father said. Wisht I had a pa like that, she thought sadly. And she thought of her own father, sitting by the Margrave’s bed, playing his hoboy, keeping the Margrave alive . . . Better he should let the pesky bloke die, thought Dido.
She came back from her reverie to find that Mr Greenaway was asking her a question.
‘Lady Sophie allowed as how the Margrave suffered some kind of fit. But you said later on the doctor looked hopeful – as if he was mending?’
‘Yes – he did,’ Dido said slowly, remembering again the view through the keyhole. ‘My pa’s music seems to do His Nabs a power o’ good. Dr Finster sets a lot o’ store by it, I know. Maybe the guy just takes these fits ever
y now and again; maybe they don’t amount to much.’
‘So we have to reckon that the Margrave will be back on his feet by tomorrow. ’Tis lucky you thought to put that skeleton in Lady Sophie’s cell – we’ll hope that makes him think she is dead. Any other road, her life’d not be worth a groat, now he’s told her all that’s in his mind.’
Podge’s eyes grew huge at this thought. ‘We’ve got to hide Sophie!’ he cried fearfully. ‘She can’t go home to Bakerloo House. Nor stay here – it’s too close to Cinnamon Court. But where can she go that’s safe?’
‘I think I know a place where she could go,’ Simon said thoughtfully. ‘But – Mr Greenaway, I see what you mean. If the king sends for Eisengrim and accuses him of the plot – of course he will deny it all – and there won’t be any proof –’
‘He’ll ship van Doon back to Hanover directly –’ agreed Dido, nodding. ‘And then he’ll just wait for another chance. And, once he knows you’ve not been munched up by wolves, Simon, he’ll be planning to do you in – like he done Lord Fo’castle and the Dean –’
‘That’s so; you’d best stay dead, dook, along with Lady Sophie,’ advised Mr Greenaway.
‘Put on a false beard,’ suggested Wally, his crossed eyes sparkling. ‘Podge can get you one. Podge is pals with a cove who sells false beards off a barrer. Or a wig –’
He and Podge began to discuss different methods of disguise for Simon.
Mr Greenaway said to Sophie, ‘’Twere a piece of luck, ma’am, that my boys were able to get you away from Eisengrim. The man come to me once to have his hand read; I can read a person’s hand with my fingers, ’tis a gift came on me when I were a sailorman and blinded at sea; Eisengrim heard tell of it, and he come to me for a reading. He’s a one that sets store by such matters,’ Mr Greenaway said with a touch of contempt.
‘Then I won’t ask you to read my hand, Mr Greenaway! – He is a strange, dreadful man. I shall be grateful to your sons all my life – I would not have my life at all, if it weren’t for them and Dido. What did you find in his hand? Oh, I believe I remember something – I remember that he said – he said it had been foretold that he would have luck in his sixty-first year – was it you who told him that?’
