“What were your orders?”
“We were told to take the Palace, sir. We were told to find the Queen and the Duke and…”
“And what?”
“And kill them.”
“Did you think you would be able to just run through the Palace, just like that?”
“He said the Queen’s Guard would not be ready, sir. It’s late. They would not have time to react. And there are those among the Guard who believe as we do, sir. They pledged to help us.”
“What about the army?”
“He said…” Bertie glanced up into Julianus’s face and looked down again. “He said the army wouldn’t be a problem. He said he had made an…arrangement. And he said the Pontifical Swiss Guard would not get involved either. He made sure of that.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What were you supposed to do when you had killed Her Grace and the Duke?”
“We were told to flash a light out the windows, sir. Two from the Duke’s window. Three from the Queen’s. And then listen for trumpets, sir. When we hear trumpets, we are to withdraw to the courtyard.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
Margaret rose, her face white, hands clenched tightly into fists. “Is my brother still alive?”
“I don’t know, Your Grace!” Bertie said. “Please, you have to believe me, I don’t know anything else!”
Julianus looked down at him for a long moment. “I believe you,” he said finally. “Thank you, Bertie Meaker. You have been very helpful. The sentence stands.”
He lifted his sword and, in one quick motion, shoved it through Bertie’s neck. The boy’s eyes widened in surprise. His lips moved. A wet bubbling came out. He slumped to the floor, still gurgling.
Eleanor cried out in horror, her hands over her face. Margaret nodded curtly. “We must send that signal. We have to make them believe the Duke and I are dead.”
“Your Grace, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Julianus said.
“They are killing us!” Margaret said. “Go upstairs. Find a lantern. Send the signal. Then find my brother.”
“Your Grace—”
“That is not a request, Guardsman. You are a member of the Queen’s Guard, are you not? We have given you a command.”
Julianus nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. What will you do?”
“Your clothes,” Alÿs said. “We need to get you out of your clothes.”
“What?” Margaret said.
Alÿs waved her arm. “Look around, Your Grace. There must be servants’ clothes that will fit you. Eleanor, you too. If we dress as servants and go out the servants’ entrance, we have a better chance of getting away.”
Margaret looked Alÿs up and down, examining her own blacksmith’s outfit. “Very well,” she said. “Eleanor, Alÿs, find us some clothes.” She gestured. “What’s through that door over there?”
“Boiler room for hot water,” Alÿs said.
“We will change there. Alÿs, you will assist us.”
Julianus sheathed his sword. He picked up his gun. “Where will we meet?”
“Hammersmith Street,” Alÿs said. “There’s a place called Bodger & Bodger Iron Fittings.”
“I know it,” Julianus said. “I’m a little curious how you know it.”
“It’s a long story,” Alÿs said.
Julianus regarded her. “When this is all over,” he said, “you and I will have a conversation about that.” He turned to Margaret, bowing deeply. “Godspeed to you, Your Grace. We will meet again soon.”
27
Commander Skarbunket picked up a milk bottle and turned it over in his hands, admiring its deadly efficiency. It was filled with a coarse black powder. The neck was stopped with a bit of rag. “Somebody was up to no good,” he said. “Curious. I’d really like to know who it was. Does anyone have a tinderbox, or perhaps some matches?”
“No, sir,” Mayferry said, “and might I add, sir, I find your question a bit alarming, given the present circumstances.”
“Hm,” Skarbunket said. “It would be a shame to ride heroically into battle with a carriage full of black-powder bombs and no means to ignite them. It does take away a bit from the dramatic flair, don’t you think, Mister Mayferry?”
“Um, sir?” Bristol said. He’d been looking out the window for most of the trip, lost in thought.
“Yes? Something to add, Mister Bristol?”
“I don’t think lack of matches will be a problem, sir.”
Skarbunket leaned over and peered out the window. A flickering glow lay ahead and to one side of them, reflecting against the low-lying clouds.
“Looks like someone’s got quite a fire going over yonder.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“I can’t help but notice, Mister Bristol, that the source of that rather lovely glow seems to lie in roughly the direction of our destination.”
“Indeed it does, sir.”
“Would you say, Mister Bristol, in your professional opinion, would you say that it seems probable that Lord Rathman’s estate is on fire?”
“In my professional opinion, that does seem likely, sir.”
“Ah.” Skarbunket rapped on the top of the carriage with his truncheon. “Mister Tumbanker, a bit more alacrity, if you please! We don’t want to be late for the festivities.”
“Sir,” came a voice through the ceiling, “need I remind you that the carriage is full of explosives?”
“A fact I cannot help being cognizant of, Mister Tumbanker. Still, the situation is urgent. Drive faster carefully!”
The carriage picked up speed. Skarbunket set his bottle down. “You look like a man having deep thoughts, Mister Mayferry,” he observed.
“I’m wishing we had firearms, sir,” Mayferry said.
“A man with a gun is incautious, Mister Mayferry.”
“A man in a carriage full of black-powder bombs is incautious, sir.”
“You make a wise point.”
The carriage slowed to a halt. “Gate’s open, sir. Do I just drive right through?”
“Good Lord, Mister Tumbanker, are you waiting for the Earl to extend an invitation? If there’s a fire, that gives us cause to investigate. Go!”
The carriage moved forward and stopped again. “Oh my G—” Tumbanker said.
There was a crash. Something heavy landed on the roof. The carriage shook.
Skarbunket tried to open the door.
✦
Julianus opened the door at the top of the stairs. The hallway was deserted save for the tangle of bodies. He knelt beside Max for a moment, crossing himself, then closed the man’s eyes. He picked up an oil lamp that had fallen beside the body of a boy who looked no more than fourteen. The lens was cracked, but the tank was still half full. He pulled the striker lever. A small point of flame flared to life.
He encountered no resistance until he reached the corner that led toward the Queen’s chambers. There were voices in the hallway. A quick look revealed a group of red-coated soldiers going from room to room, kicking open each door. They had dragged several women out of their bedrooms, still dressed in their nightclothes. The women were huddled together on the floor in the center of the hallway. Two men with rifles stood over them. He saw none of the lords who made their residence in the Palace.
Julianus withdrew around the corner, thoughts churning furiously. There was a door next to him, edged in blue and gold. He turned the knob. It opened. He slipped inside.
It was a dressing room, furnished with richly upholstered chairs, a table with a long mirror, and, in a row in the back, stalls for sleek modern water closets in white and green porcelain.
He pressed his ear to the door. He heard voices, coming closer.
He dragged the table with its mirror a
cross from the door. Then he set his stolen lantern on the ground, facing toward it. He extinguished the gas lamp in the dressing room.
When he was satisfied, he thumped on the wall. “Help me!” he called. “What is going on out there? Help me at once!”
The voices came closer. He stood against the wall next to the door and held his breath.
The knob turned. The door opened. Two men wielding guns burst in. They raised their weapons toward their reflections. “Do not move!” one of them barked.
Julianus’s sword flashed, once, twice. Blood splattered the walls. The men buckled and folded gracelessly in a tangle of arms and legs.
Julianus stepped around them. Both of the men were too preoccupied with dying to react. He risked a peek down the hall.
Still too many.
He closed the door quietly and relit the gas light. One of the men looked up at him, hand on his throat. Julianus ignored him.
He turned to the other man, the one whose soul was already flitting toward its final reward. He unbuttoned the man’s jacket and stripped it off. By the time he was pulling the dead man’s trousers off, his compatriot was likewise winging his way to the hereafter.
Julianus rose, dressed now in the uniform of the intruders. He picked up the dead man’s rifle. He adjusted the dead man’s hat, then stepped out into the hallway.
He straightened, took a deep breath, then ran around the corner toward the cluster of Rathman’s soldiers, waving his arms urgently over his head. “Oi! This way!” he shouted. “Over here! The Queen! This way!”
✦
Alÿs led Eleanor and Margaret, now dressed rather frumpily in clothing that had been patched to the point where it seemed it was more patches than original, down the hallway toward the storeroom. She had, much to Eleanor’s dismay, chosen the most nondescript, most shabby clothes the laundry had on offer. Eleanor had complained about that. She had complained about how the clothing fit. She had complained about it bunching up between her legs, about how the fabric felt on her skin, and especially about the rag Alÿs tied over her hair. Finally, Alÿs had had enough. She took Eleanor by the hand and led her to where Bertie Meaker’s lifeless remains still stared up at the ceiling. “Do you want to end up like him?” Alÿs said. “Because that’s what the soldiers will do to you if they know who you are.”
Eleanor, face white, had not uttered another peep.
The hallway was narrow and floored with heavy timbers, stained and rough from long use. Gas jets hissed quietly along the stone walls. In stark contrast to the rest of the Palace, there was not so much as a single fleck of gold to be seen.
They still heard occasional muffled gunfire from somewhere a very long way away. The distance didn’t reassure Alÿs much.
The hallway ended in a massive wooden door, as wide as the entire hall. “That’s the storeroom,” Alÿs said. “Stay here.”
She put her shoulder to the door and pushed. It groaned open. On the other side were rows and rows of great wooden casks, stacked in heavy brackets of solid timber that reached from floor to ceiling.
Alÿs beckoned. The other two women followed her into the room.
She crept cautiously through the narrow aisles, each only barely wide enough for the barrels. “That’s the door up—”
“Who’s that now? Come out here or I will shoot you!”
Alÿs felt her blood freeze. She peeked around the last row of barrels.
A soldier stood in front of the door, eyes alert, holding his rifle in both hands. “I see you there!” he said. “I won’t say it again! Come out or I will shoot you!”
Eleanor shoved her knuckles in her mouth, her eyes wide as saucers. Margaret jerked her head urgently back the way they had come. Alÿs shook her head.
She reached into the borrowed blacksmith’s shirt she wore and touched her handbag. A thought formed in her head.
“It’s only me, mister!” she said. “There’s no need o’ shooting anybody!” She came around the corner. “Who are you, mister?”
The soldier looked at her. “Move away from the barrels.”
“D’you have a shilling, mister?” Alÿs said, moving toward him.
“A what?”
“A shilling. D’you have a shilling, mister? Please?” Alÿs held out her hand. “I’m ver’ hungry, mister. D’you have a shilling?”
“No!” he said. “I do not have a shilling. Stop right there! I—hgk!”
Alÿs was surprised at how easily the dagger entered his chest. He was taller than she was. She stabbed upward, from under his ribs. The blade sunk deep. Something hot and wet poured down over her hand. His body shook. He looked at her, face frozen in an expression of surprise and horror. His lips moved soundlessly. He twitched. Life fled his body.
A moment later they were outside, running fast, keeping to the shadows of the Palace wall until they reached the street behind the great stone building. Alÿs’s fingers were curled so tightly around the dagger that her hand hurt. She ran, Margaret and Eleanor beside her, until she could not run anymore.
Then the tears came, a great ocean of them, and she was convulsing with sobs that left her gasping for breath, and Margaret’s arms were all that kept her from falling.
✦
From the pandemonium Julianus had unleashed, a casual observer might be mistaken for believing he had just tossed an angry wolverine into a chicken coop. “Show us!” a soldier with the fringes of an ensign on his shoulder demanded.
“This way! Down here!” Julianus said, voice urgent. “Quickly!”
“You men! After him!” the ensign said.
Julianus ran down the hall at breakneck speed. He turned the corner before any of the other soldiers had caught up to him. “She’s here! Look out!” he cried. He opened the first door he came to and darted inside, closing it quietly behind him.
Soldiers raced by. Many of them stopped when they encountered the bodies of Max and their brothers. “Watch out!” someone called. “The Queen’s Guard is here!”
The soldiers slowed, raising their guns to their shoulders, made cautious by the warning. Julianus held his breath as he waited for them to pass.
When they had gone, he quietly opened the door and moved quietly back down the hall toward Margaret’s quarters, sword in hand.
The ensign was still there, watching over the group of women. Behind him, the overturned table lay where it had fallen. Percy slumped behind it, eyes wide and unseeing.
Julianus snapped to attention. “I have news, sir!”
“Well, soldier? Did you find her?”
“Not exactly, sir. Look at this!” He held up the sword. “I think this belongs to one of the Queen’s Guard, sir!”
“And? So what?”
“I think he’s still holding it, sir!” Julianus thrust the sword through the man’s chest. His eyes bugged. He sank slowly to the floor like a collapsing zeppelin.
One of the women shrieked. She was tall, of operatic build, the wife of Lord Pottsmatter, second cousin of the Duke of Barnstaple. The shriek built rapidly in volume and tenor, encompassing the entire litany of horrors of the evening, beginning with her being dragged out of her bed in her nightclothes and ending with the murder of a man right before her eyes.
Julianus put his finger to his lips. “My lady, all of you. I am Julianus, of the Queen’s Guard. Find a place to hide. Wait until you hear trumpets in the courtyard. When you hear them, the soldiers should withdraw. Until then, stay out of sight.” He looked around. “Blast. I’ve forgotten the lamp. Do any of you have an oil lamp?”
The shriek cut off. The Lady Pottsmatter’s eyes remained wide, and her expression suggested she was open to the possibility of carrying on shrieking at the slightest provocation. She shook her head.
“Move now. Go!”
Julianus opened the door to the Queen’s quarters. There was a soldier in her si
tting chair, going through her drawers, stuffing their contents into his pockets. He had, Julianus was relieved to see, a lamp at his feet.
He looked up as Julianus entered.
“May I use your lamp?” Julianus said.
“Why? And what was that dreadful screaming?”
“The screaming? Oh, that. Some lady somebody. She saw something she didn’t like. You know how women are.” He bent over to pick up the lantern.
“What did she see?”
“She saw me do this.” Julianus straightened and, with a flick of his wrist, impaled the man on his sword. There was a ghastly burbling sound that ended with an abrupt finality.
That left one task to do.
He opened the shutters and held up the lantern. One. Two. Three.
Outside, a trumpet began to blow.
✦
The carriage door opened halfway. Something outside slammed it shut again, sending Commander Skarbunket careening across the small space inside. Then it wasn’t so much opened as entirely ripped off its hinges. Then a thing tried to scramble in. Skarbunket noted, in some small corner of his mind, that it looked like something from one of those medieval paintings designed to warn men away from the path of wickedness. It was horned, and its mouth was entirely too wide and filled with entirely too many teeth. The thing’s face was quilted with scars.
It reached a black-taloned hand toward him. Mayferry’s truncheon came down hard on its head. It shrieked, claws slashing. The truncheon rose and fell again. Blue gunk splattered across Skarbunket’s uniform. The third time it struck, the creature jerked and stopped moving.
“Thank you, Mister Mayferry,” Skarbunket said.
“My pleasure, sir. What have we got into here?”
“I don’t know. Better grab a bomb. Wait, on second thought, grab several.”
They stepped out of the carriage into chaos. They had stopped about thirty yards from the burning stable, of which little was now left. There was a group of people huddled together in the remains of the stable, though it seemed clear they would soon inevitably be forced out into the open, where all the denizens of Dante’s Inferno appeared to be having a class reunion.
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