by Barbara Kyle
“To the cellar!” DeWitt shouted again across the hall.
It brought Adam to his senses. He grabbed the terrified children and headed for DeWitt. Ramos turned and saw them and yelled, “After them!”
Adam and the children and Curry followed DeWitt through to the kitchen. DeWitt held open a door. “Down to the cellar!” he shouted. “Quick!”
A soldier charged Curry from behind and Curry whipped around to fight him. Adam gritted his teeth at leaving Curry, but he barreled on through the door, making sure Kate and Robert were behind him. It led on to a staircase and as he ran down the steps, the children scurrying after him, he heard Ramos shout again, “After them!”
The cellar’s gloom enveloped the three fugitives. Dim light, dank air. Adam stopped at the bottom of the stairs just long enough to usher Kate and Robert into the shadows where barrels and casks and crates were ranged like irregular tombstones in the murky light. Above, the scuffling sound of men fighting told him the Brethren and Curry and Morrison were keeping the soldiers at bay. Keep them back for just a few more minutes!
“Father,” Kate cried, breathless with fear, “there’s no way out!”
“Come!” He plunged ahead, pushing over crates and casks that smashed and rolled as he cleared a path all the way to the far wall. A high stack of crates rose beside a shadowy door. Adam rapped on the door and said the password: “Brielle.” The door opened and Kate and Robert gasped as two men with pistols stepped out. Then Fenella.
Adam had never loved her more—nor been more afraid for her safety. She was risking her life for his children. But now she and Kate and Robert could flee. That was the plan Fenella and Adam had agreed on. He gripped her hand and felt how cold hers was, yet her face shone at him even in the gloom. How brave she was, and how clever! The Brethren knew their enemy. All residences where Alba’s commanders were billeted had escape passages in case of insurrection. Fenella had explained it to Adam last night. The tunnel that she and these two Brethren had come down led to a church. That’s where she would take Robert and Kate, then to the canal and away. “Thank you,” he said quickly to her and her friends.
A thunder of boots sounded above in the kitchen. Ramos and his soldiers were coming. Adam pulled the children toward Fenella. “Go with this lady,” he told them. “Down the tunnel.”
Robert froze in fear. “What?” he cried. Kate looked just as apprehensive. Fenella was a stranger to them, and the tunnel was a frightening black maw. Robert’s tic claimed him, his head jerking frantically.
“Go!” Adam told them. “There’s no time to waste!”
Ramos burst onto the top step, a monstrous ghostly form in the gloom. Robert lurched backward in mindless terror. He ducked behind the stacked crates. Adam tried to snatch him—they were steps away from freedom!—but the boy was frantic to hide and skulked back farther. He squatted down, huddling, his arms wrapped around his knees, eyes closed, head jerking.
Panic swarmed over Adam. No more time!
“We have to close the other door,” one of the Brethren grimly told Fenella. “Now. This is our only chance.”
She cast Adam an agonized look. “Adam?”
He almost choked. But the man was right. Unless they dealt with Ramos and his soldiers no one was getting out. “Do it,” he told Fenella. He grabbed Kate and pushed her to her knees beside Robert. “Stay down!” he whispered fiercely to the children. “Don’t make a sound.”
“Close it!” Fenella commanded down the tunnel, her voice a croak of dread. The boy’s terror had exploded the plan! “Bolt it!” she said. The door midway along the tunnel banged shut. No way out now, she thought.
She dashed back and ducked behind the stacked crates where Adam and the children and the two Brethren were hiding. She hunkered down with them, her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
Ramos and his pack thundered down the stairs. Fenella’s muscles trembled as she peered through a crack between crates. Ramos didn’t even pause as he charged into the gloom, his bloodied sword raised, and set out across the path of overturned crates and barrels toward the open door to the tunnel. “Don’t let them escape!” he yelled to his men.
They raced past the stack of crates so fast they sent a draft of dank air that hit Fenella like a net. Sixteen men . . . seventeen. They poured headlong into the tunnel . . . twenty-three in all. Then, no more. Fenella held herself back, felt Adam and the Brethren holding themselves back, too, until she heard a shout of surprise down the tunnel. The first soldiers had reached the door midway. The Brethren on the other side had already closed it and bolted it.
Adam sprang to his feet. So did the two Brethren. Adam slammed the cellar door shut, then dropped the iron bar to bolt it. Ramos and his soldiers were now trapped between the two doors. Fenella felt a dizzying flood of relief. This part of the plan had worked. Adam had lured the soldiers to the cellar and straight into the tunnel.
The two Brethren cocked their pistols. One slid his barrel into the spy hole in the door, a hand-sized square at eye level. He fired. A scream sounded beyond the door. He stepped back and the other man took his place, aimed his pistol through the hole, and fired. He stepped back. They took turns, each one with his pistol reloaded as soon as the other had fired. Faint pistol shots sounded from the far end, too. Fenella knew the Brethren there were firing through the far door’s spy hole. The muffled cries and thuds and scuffling told her that Ramos and his men were dying, one by one. She and Kate and Robert were on their feet, still behind the crates, the children white-faced at the sounds of the slaughter. Fenella took hold of the girl’s icy hand and wrapped her other arm around the boy’s shoulders. He was trembling. So was Fenella.
It was over in minutes. Adam lifted the bar and opened the door. The two Brethren stepped into the corpse-filled tunnel, and Fenella heard one of the Brethren shout the password, then heard the far door scrape open.
Adam came to her and the children. “Hurry, take them out now,” he told her. They shared a look of apprehension that the children would have to go past the soldiers’ bodies, but that horror could not be helped. “Kate, Robert,” Adam said, “you must go with this lady. She’s our friend. You’ll be safe with her. Do exactly what she tells you. Understand?”
Fenella thought she had prepared herself for this good-bye with Adam, yet she felt her heart crack. She managed a sham smile. “We’ll see you at the harbor.”
He nodded and said quietly, “God keep you.”
“What?” Kate cried. “But, Father, you—”
“I can’t leave my men,” he said. Backing up toward the stairs, he pointed to the tunnel. “Go with the lady! Now!” He bolted up the steps.
Fenella took the hands of the two children and they watched him disappear through the open door at the top. She heard the scuffling of men fighting above. And she smelled something. Smoke—an unmistakable acrid whiff snaking down the stairs. Fire. Dear God, what is Adam heading into? She squeezed the children’s hands as much to steady herself as them. “My name is Fenella. I’ll get you safely out, I promise.” Letting go Kate’s hand, Fenella pulled her dirk from its sheath at her waist, ready to take them into the tunnel. “Come along now.”
Kate balked. “Listen to that! They’re attacking Father! We can’t just leave him!”
“Your father is a strong fighter. He’ll get through this and meet us at the canal. Come!”
“No!”
“Kate, it’s what he wants.” She turned to Robert, who was trembling so much she bent to reassure him. He looked as dazed as a sleepwalker in a nightmare.
“No!” Kate snatched the dirk from Fenella’s hand.
Fenella said as steadily as she could, “Kate, give me that. You’re not thinking clearly. You cannot fight soldiers.”
“I can’t leave him!” She turned and darted up the stairs.
“Kate!” Fenella tried to think. She had to go after the girl but could not send Robert into the corpse-filled tunnel alone. He would never go. Nor could she leave him here in lonely
terror. “Robert, we have to get your sister.” She grabbed his hand and together they ran after Kate up the stairs.
At the top the sounds of voices and scuffling feet got louder, the smell of smoke stronger. Holding Robert behind her, Fenella looked out into the kitchen. She saw no one. But danger blazed on the far side. The hall was in flames.
The smoke was so thick Adam was coughing painfully as he swung his sword at a young soldier. The soldier parried weakly, as exhausted from the smoke and heat as Adam was. Flames leapt around them, the heat so intense Adam felt as though his face were cracking. A chunk of blazing ceiling crashed between them. The soldier flinched, cast a frightened look at the wall of flames getting closer, then turned and ran.
Adam stumbled, gasping for breath, looking around for more of the foe. Looking for Curry and Morrison. Were they dead? The fire roared like ocean rollers. He saw no one, only smoke and fire. No one but corpses. Four soldiers. Two Brethren.
Then, through the acrid haze, a shape he knew. “Curry!” Adam bolted toward him. Curry was staggering, a vicious gash in his thigh, blood soaking his leg. Adam slung his mate’s arm around his shoulder and hauled him toward the front door. It was hard to see through the blanket of smoke . . . hard to breathe. Adam stumbled on a body and almost slipped on blood by the man’s head. It was the blacksmith DeWitt. Glistening blood smeared his neck. His throat had been slit.
Coughing, his chest on fire, Adam guided his limping mate on toward the air they both craved. Soldiers might fall on them the moment they stepped outside the burning house, but they had no choice. Adam only prayed that Fenella and Robert and Kate had made it down the tunnel. From the church the Brethren would get them to the canal. Staggering on with Curry, Adam saw a rectangle of misty light looming through the smoke. The front door. Open.
“My lord!”
Adam whipped around. “Morrison!” He rejoiced to see his skinny boatswain stumbling toward him through the smoke. Morrison was bleeding from a wound on the side of his head and Curry was hobbling from his gashed thigh and Adam’s forearm bled, but they all were still standing. “We’ve licked ’em, my lord,” Morrison said with grim glee, panting.
“All?” Adam asked, hardly daring to believe it.
“All this lot. When the troop went down after you, the Dutchmen and me and Curry made quick work of the ones up here.”
“But where are the Dutchmen?” The Brethren.
“Gone, vanished, soon as the outcome was clear. And now we’d better get our hides out, too.”
Curry coughed. “He’s right, my lord. We already lost Toth.”
Adam was barely listening, his eyes on three faint figures near the staircase that led to the second floor, mere shadows in the haze. Fenella? And Robert! “Morrison, take Curry. Go!” Transferring his mate to the boatswain, Adam plunged back into the smothering smoke.
“Kate!” Fenella found the girl on all fours, coughing, overcome by the smoke. “Robert, help me. We have to get her on her feet.” Fenella took one of Kate’s arms and the boy took the other, though the heat of the fire around them was so painful even Fenella’s clothes were baking and Robert’s face was a horrible red. He helped her lift Kate and she silently blessed him. The boy had found his courage in the need to save his sister. They dragged Kate to her feet.
Dizzy from the choking smoke, Fenella felt a hand on her shoulder and jerked around, ready to claw at the soldier. She gasped. “Adam!”
“I’ve got her,” he said, lifting Kate in his arms.
“Father . . .” Robert fell against Adam’s side, coughing, almost too weak to stand.
Fenella was stunned with joy at finding Adam alive, then saw Morrison dragging Curry through the smoke, joining them. She’d never been happier to see two salty seamen!
“Come with us, Robert,” Adam said. “Fenella, the door’s this way. Follow me.”
Fenella took the boy’s hand, about to follow Adam with Kate in his arms, when a shriek stopped them all. A figure hurtled down the stairs, screaming—a woman, the back of her dress on fire. Adam’s wife. Fenella stood transfixed by Frances Thornleigh’s eyes, a lurid orange, reflecting the flames. Robert pulled his hand free. He seemed caught by an impulse to run to help his mother, who threw off the blanket around her as she ran. It was the blanket on fire, not her dress. She reached the bottom of the stairs and Fenella saw a beefy soldier following her, coughing, his face streaked with soot.
“My son!” Frances cried, pointing. The soldier lumbered forward and snatched Robert. He threw the boy over his shoulder and turned and disappeared with him into the smoke. Frances Thornleigh staggered after them, disappearing, too.
“No!” Adam cried. He set Kate down. The dazed girl rocked on her feet. “Fenella, take her!” Horrified, Fenella saw that Adam was about to plunge into the smoke and flames to go for his son. A blazing post toppled across his path. Flames on it leapt higher than his head. Morrison grabbed him, stopping him. Fenella held him back, too. She was breathless from the heat, the horror of seeing Robert taken. Adam strained in their grip. “Adam,” she said, “I know you would die for your son, but these men will follow you. They will die for you.”
Kate whimpered, fainting. Fenella caught her to support her. Adam turned, and Fenella saw the anguish in his red-rimmed eyes. He picked up his daughter again in his arms.
“Back the way we came,” Morrison said, hauling Curry.
They made it to the front door. As they staggered out, no soldiers fell on them. Fenella gasped breaths. Never had pure air felt and tasted so sweet.
The courtyard was a chaos of people running and shouting, neighbors streaming in—real neighbors this time, eager to stop the fire spreading to their houses. They ran with buckets of water, some already sloshing water up onto the walls.
Fenella and Adam and the others merged into the mêlée. Adam had carried Kate out, but he was as weak as the rest of them from the near-smothering smoke and he set her down. The girl looked as white as sea foam, but the fresh air revived her enough to stand on her own. She clung to her father, though, and he kept his arm around her shoulders.
“We can slip out to the street,” Morrison said, tense but eager as they watched the noisy activity of the people around them.
“And right quick, my lord,” Curry said grimly. “More soldiers will come soon.”
Fenella saw that Adam had frozen. She followed his gaze past the running people, all the way across the courtyard. Frances Thornleigh, bedraggled as a witch, stood beside a horse, frantically pushing Robert up to the rider, the soot-streaked soldier, who dragged the boy up by his collar. Robert looked dazed, tears of confusion glinting on his cheeks, as the soldier flung him on his stomach between the saddle and the horse’s neck. The soldier kicked his mount and the horse bolted through the crowd. Out the open gate he flew and cantered up the street.
Fenella looked up at Adam’s white face. People ran this way and that with their buckets, shouting about the fire. When she looked back, Frances Thornleigh was gone.
25
Home
The French ship had sailed through the night and reached Gravesend as dawn streaked England’s pewter-colored sky. Carlos had been up before dawn and was the first to disembark. He was eager to finish his journey. His fast ride out of the Low Countries into France to shake off Alba’s men had been wearying, and in Calais, Carlos had laid low in a rat-hole alehouse for a week in case they were watching the port. But that was all behind him now. He’d sent Isabel a message to her mother’s house, telling her he was coming home.
For the final leg upriver to London he took the long ferry, as Londoners called the big barge, crowding in with fellow passengers and a cargo of bawling calves. He could have hired a private barge with four rowers for five shillings, but he saw no reason to waste even that much money. In Calais he’d had to sell his stallion, Fausto, to raise enough to buy passage. Having burned his bridges with Alba, he would have to watch every penny from now on.
Despite the early hour, the
Thames was busy with watercraft on the approach to London. Small boats under sail skimmed past oared wherries and tilt boats, the watermen calling out to one another. London snugged close to the river, and as the turrets of the Tower came into view the city’s familiar smells wafted across the water: sawdust and fish, wood smoke and dung, the pungent tang of the tanneries, and a whiff of brewhouse hops. The passengers’ chatter around Carlos got more excited as London’s three great landmarks loomed ahead: the Tower, the Bridge, and St. Paul’s. The Bridge was a prime location for commerce as the city’s only viaduct, and the three-story buildings that spanned it were so tightly packed together that not a sliver of daylight squeezed between. Sheep bleated on the Southwark end, their drover waiting for the Bridge gate to open. On the other side swans rocked by the water stairs of Billingsgate, and from a wharf came the creak of a crane lifting barrels from a wherry. Smoke curled from the chimneys of bakers and brewers and housewives. London was starting its working day.
Carlos watched a squadron of swallows flit across the roof of St. Paul’s, the massive church that lorded over the sprawl of houses and shops, alehouses and livery companies. When he’d first arrived in England as a landless mercenary eighteen years ago he’d been impressed by the church’s magnificent spire, one of the tallest in Europe. It was gone now, struck by lightning a decade ago, the roof rebuilt without the spire. Still, that roof was an imposing sight, long as a battlefield, its lead expanse glinting in the strengthening summer sun.
The long ferry was headed for the legal quays just before the Bridge, where its cargo would be landed and assessed for customs. They passed the crowd of oceangoing ships forced to anchor in the Pool before the Bridge, and the rigging on the forest of masts jingled tunes in the breeze, a cheerful discord. To Carlos it sounded like a welcome. It was good to see boisterous, easygoing London after a year in occupied Brussels. Though God knew he had little enough reason to be in such a happy mood. He was hobbled with debt, his lands mortgaged, and the only way out was to start selling some of his encumbered property at a low price. That or ask Isabel’s mother for money. Isabel had assured him the lady would happily oblige, but Carlos loathed the idea. He pushed the money worry to the back of his mind as the barge came alongside the quay. This was the kind of morning that made a man feel glad to be alive. Soon, he’d be with his family.
