The Song of the Underground

by Wendy Reakes

  “And…?”

  “He gave me keys for the deposit boxes. The money was there, with the bags.”

  “Where is the rest of the money?”

  “We…my friends…we shared it out.”

  Byron rose from the bed and paced to the other side of the room. She turned and pointed at Heron shrinking beneath the cover of the bed. “I knew this would happen. I told your father you had too much freedom. He trusted you…and you have betrayed him.”

  She put her hand in her pocket and felt an envelope in there. Elizabeth’s letter. With everything going on, she had forgotten about it. She went to the window where the broken shutter was hanging off the wall and then she stepped onto the veranda. The rain had stopped and now the city looked clean and fresh again. The giant candlesticks in the market place had been lit and the homes in the distance were aglow with flicking lights. It was night time now.

  Byron leaned on the balustrade of the balcony and pulled the letter out of the envelope. What was Barnes' motivation for finding Elizabeth? What good would it do any of them?

  The letter was two pages, scribed with a gentle intelligent hand in blue ink. In the top right hand corner, Elizabeth Breakspear had written her address, it was Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey.

  My dearest Annabelle. What can I say? I am overjoyed at this wonderful news. To know you are alive and well, as I have always suspected in my heart, fills me with such happiness I cannot tell you.

  Mr. Barnes (What a good man) has filled me in on the details of your life in America and he has promised me that he will get this letter to you personally.

  Byron looked up to a noise in the distance. It was nothing. America? He told Elizabeth she was in America. She went back to the letter and carried on where she had left off.

  You must have guessed how I have never forgiven myself for losing you that day, my dear girl. You were so precious to me, and to your family, even though they hardly showed it. I cared for you as a mother would her daughter, so for those men to take you as they did...

  Well, it was a long time ago, much has happened and I know that you have made the best of your life after they released you. Mr. Barnes told me you were afraid to come home, but you shouldn’t have been. Nothing could have made us stop loving you. Not even...Well never mind. It’s over now.

  Byron could feel tears stinging the backs of her eyes. She squeezed them shut, willing them to go away. A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped. It was him, Cannes. She hid the letter behind the folds in her skirt “What is it?”

  “I wanted to see if you were all right. The boy is ready to go.”

  She nodded and turned her back on him, praying he hadn’t seen the redness of her eyes. “One minute.” She heard him leave as he went back into the room. She picked up the letter once more and scanned the next few paragraphs as Elizabeth talked about her life and the fate of Byron’s parents.

  ...so when your father died and he left it all to your mother, she and I lived together for many years, until she, too, passed away...she left me the money...I put it away for you, for the day you would come home. I never believed you would never return...somehow I’ve always known you were still alive...

  The money is in an account for you and I shall make arrangements to have it transferred as soon as you provide me with your address. This is good timing because the good Lord will be claiming me too soon...Cancer I’m told...

  Byron couldn’t read any more. She put the paper back into its envelope and stuffed it back into her pocket. She raised her head and inhaled some air and then she walked back into the room, gracefully, as if she was floating.

  “Come,” she said to Cannes and Heron as she placed her hand on the door handle and opened the door an inch. She stopped, turned and regarded Heron who looked like a little boy lost. “We must go and see your sister.”

  Chapter 83

  They were all still asleep when the door opened and he slipped back inside the room.

  Ben’s confrontation with the colonel had enraged him so much he had stormed through the corridors as if he’d had the freedom of the palace. He suddenly remembered his place when he heard a voice as he passed one of the state rooms. We must go and see your sister...

  Ben ran the rest of the way and when he finally reached the room he closed the door softly so as not to cause a disturbance. There was no key, no lock on the door. He ran to the bed and shook Mark and the princess and finally Charlotte. “Wake up, wake up...”

  They stirred but the only time they really awoke was when Byron the Bird Catcher strode into the room.

  The three sat up in bed as she charged in with her emerald green robes trailing behind her. The princess squealed and jumped across Mark’s prostate form as she dived onto the Bird Catcher’s body. Byron pushed her away and kept her at arm’s length as she scrutinised the princess’s face for an answer to the events unfolding. “What is this..? What is going on?”

  Wren was holding onto her gloved hand as she tried to walk towards the bed. Cannes was standing behind the Bird Catcher, rubbing his hand across his tired eyes, and Heron, behind Cannes, was smiling as if he’d just struck gold. “And you thought you had problems with me, Byron,” he said.

  “You!” Byron said to Mark. Her voice was filled with bitterness. “In my princess’s bed.”

  Mark reddened. “Technically...on it, not in it.” He got off and stood at Wren’s side. Wren released her hold on the Bird Catcher as the scarred faced woman loomed above Charlotte with a formidable stance. Charlotte was open-mouthed. Her jaw had literally slackened at the sight of the Bird Catcher at her side. Ben rushed around the bed and pulled Charlotte off. Now they were all standing as a silence fell upon the group.

  Chapter 84

  “Who are you?” Byron stared at Charlotte as if she was an entity. Down there, in that place, next to that woman, she probably was.

  Charlotte was in a daze. Things like that didn’t happen every day. There she was, sent on a mission by the Prime Minister, no less, to a city underground, where she’d been arrested and thrown in jail with a bunch of vultures, then taken to a palace by a princess via a wind tunnel. There she bumps into her estranged husband and now she’s being confronted by a woman with feathers in her hair. No, things like this didn’t happen every day.

  “My name is Charlotte Croft. Ben Mason is my husband. I was sent here to find him.”

  Cannes stepped in. “She is the woman we took to Bedlam, Bird Catcher, along with the stranger.” Cannes looked at Mark as he held Wren close to his body.

  “Who sent you?”

  Charlotte glanced at Ben, who gave her a curt nod of the head.

  “The Prime Minister, Alice Burton,” Charlotte answered.

  “Alice...” The Bird Catcher frowned. “We were told the Prime Minister was a man...” She looked at Ben and scowled.

  “They thought the king would have no faith in a female,” Ben said.

  “You mean Minister Barnes thought the king would have no faith...I am a female, Mason. He should not have lied about that.”

  “The colonel has lied to you about many things.”

  Byron turned back to face Charlotte who was chewing her lip. She was thirsty, but she didn’t want to admit it. “Why did the Prime Minister send you?”

  Ben placed his arm around Charlotte’s waist. “She came to give me a message. The Prime Minister instructed her to tell us that we should return and that the negotiations with your people should be terminated.”

  Charlotte watched the bird lady search the eyes of the people standing about her.

  Mark was holding Wren in his protective embrace, and the prince; the one who had issued instruction for her and Mark to be sent to Bedlam was sprawled across the bed while he twiddled with his long hair. He had a smug, arrogant look upon his face.

  “So we will leave,” Ben was saying, “We can take the colonel and his men with us.”

  Byron shook her head. “That is not possible. We have been compromised,” she looked at
Heron lying on the bed. The king will have to decide what to do now.”

  “No,” Wren called as she rushed to Byron’s side. “He will punish the Jellalabad, Bird Catcher. You know this. And my Mark...what of him?”

  “Silence.” The Bird Catcher pushed her away and walked to the other side of the room, as if she wanted to distance herself from them. Cannes went to her side to consult with her.

  Wren turned to look at Heron, lounging on the bed. “Why are you involved here, brother? What have you done?”

  Byron answered for him. “He has betrayed us. Don’t confuse his childlike behaviour with his desire for repentance. He is a fool, but he realises that now.”

  Ben interrupted. “What did he do?”

  Charlotte watched her pause before she said, “Minister Barnes is planning to take our city...tonight. We believe he has weapons. They were smuggled in.” She spoke directly to Ben. “Your Prime Minister knew about Barnes' intentions?”

  “I...look, I don’t know much. All I know is that the colonel holds no regard for you or your people. Whatever he has planned, I have not been privy to. Look, Byron, let us get Barnes out of here and make all this go away.”

  She shook her head. “It is too late. Even you, Mason, are in danger of the king’s wrath now.”

  Charlotte stepped in. “No, you can’t send him to that place...to Bedlam. He is trying to help you. He hates Barnes. He will do anything to prevent him from taking the city...you can trust him.”

  Ben nodded his assurance. “I can talk to Barnes. He doesn’t need to know that we know about him smuggling weapons into the city. I can make him stop.”

  “No! Enough.” Byron’s words charged from her lips. “We will do this my way now.”

  End of Part 4

  Part 5 - Chapter 85

  Byron took Charlotte to the northwest corner of the city, to a darkened alcove where old worn, narrow stone steps led upwards. “This is the original entrance to Sous Llyndum,” she said. “It is not used anymore.” With a lantern in her hand, lighting the way, Byron began to climb while Charlotte trailed close behind her. The staircase was blackened by age over laden with cobwebs and mouse droppings in each corner. On a small landing, it turned after sixteen steps and twisted into another direction...and then again and again as if it was zigzagging its way up to life in the real world. Charlotte’s calves were aching. There must have been two-hundred steps or more. It was never-ending. She stopped and the Bird Catcher looked back. “What is it?”

  Charlotte was leaning against a wall where cobwebs lined the sides. She was huffing and panting. “I...I just need to get my breath back.”

  A spider crawled along a web next to her. She pushed herself away to the other side where a rat ran along a natural ledge. “Arghhh...When was the last time these stairs were used?”

  The Bird Catcher looked impatient. She was brushing off her robes. “Maybe three hundred years or more. Although I have been known to used them once or twice. Come on, we don’t have much time.”

  “I’m pregnant.” Charlotte didn’t know why she said that. Only that she was beginning to think of the foetus as a baby now. She had no idea at what point that had happened. Maybe it was when she saw Ben again after her plight in Bedlam.

  The Bird Catcher nodded. “It’s not much further.”

  Charlotte put all thoughts of the baby out of her mind. There were a lot more important things to deal with and they were running out of time.

  They came to the top as the staircase took one more turn and finished on a landing where a great ancient wooden door barricaded their way. The Bird Catcher unhitched the two keys dangling from her belt and slammed the first into the giant lock. Charlotte saw some writing etched into the door, now blackened with age. Go no further or be damned. Charming, she thought as Byron pushed the door inwards.

  The door creaked to a stop, halfway. Byron tried pushing it harder but it wouldn’t budge. She turned to look at Charlotte’s body. “Do you think you can get through?”

  “I got through a crack in the wall. I can get through that.” Her sarcasm was lost on the Bird Catcher but it didn’t matter.

  Byron slid through first and held the door at the other side allowing Charlotte to follow. Inside, Byron took a disposable lighter from her pocket and lit a lantern protruding from the wall.

  “Somehow a yellow plastic Bic doesn’t suit you very well,” Charlotte quipped.

  “One of Heron’s finds. He gave it to me before we left. Otherwise, I have no need for such devices.”

  Charlotte smiled and turned about as the flame from the lantern illuminated the place they had just stepped into. Below an intricate vaulted ceiling, coffins and crypts lay in rows amid broken masonry. Discarded marble statues stared at them from dark corners and stacks of empty crates and old digging tools lay strewn about the place. “Oh my God, where are we?”

  “In the bowels of St. Paul’s Cathedral.”

  “No way!”

  Byron nodded. “Yes, it’s true.” She frowned at Charlotte’s question. “I sometimes use this entrance to go out into the city. Come.” She walked as if she knew the place well, weaving between the crypts as if she had never imagined the ancient bones of notables buried there. Not as Charlotte had. They turned a corner and arrived at yet another door. Byron took the second key and inserted it into the lock. She took more care than the first, to prevent unnecessary noises disturbing anyone on the other side of the entrance. After she’d turned the key and unlocked it, she stopped.

  Charlotte was impressed by the Bird Catcher’s resources. “How do you have these keys? They’re ancient aren’t they?”

  “These are the originals. They are passed on to every Bird Catcher through time. We always hold the keys to these, our most sacred entrances.” She placed her finger on her lips, as a noise could be heard on the other side of the door.

  “When I open it,” she whispered, “you must go quickly and quietly through the storage area to the stairs on the other side. The staircase will take you into the cellars and then up to the vestry. Through there you can go into the cathedral and mingle with the people as you make your way outside.”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Before you leave...” Byron seemed embarrassed. She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a letter written in her own hand. The envelope was handcrafted and it was tied with string. “Please post this for me. I do not have a stamp.”

  “I don’t think you can send it like that. Shall I put it in a proper envelope for you?”

  She paused, no doubt wondering if she could trust a woman, she had only met an hour before.

  “Byron,” Charlotte stated, “you’re about to trust me with saving your city, you can trust me not to read that letter.”

  Byron relented. “Yes, please put it into a different envelope. Can you read my writing for the address?”

  Her handwriting was beautiful, twirling with gentle scrolls. It was addressed to Elizabeth Breakspeare with an address in Richmond. Charlotte went to put it in the pocket of her trousers, when Byron stopped her.

  “Please...if anything happens to me...or if all this goes wrong and they take the city, get my princess out and give her this money. It is explained in the letter. I have made Wren my heir. My dearest girl will be hard pressed to live up here, but if she must then let her be comfortable.”

  Byron pulled open the door and she bid her farewell, as Charlotte slipped through the gap.

  She wasted no time. Charlotte ran like a ghost in the night. Up stairwells of wood and stone, into the cathedral, and down the aisle where tourists ambled about watching its ceiling under the great dome, then out through the massive entrance to the steps that took her onto the streets of London and its nighttime air.

  As soon as she reached the pavement outside the cathedral, she took out her phone and switched it on. As she waited for it to light up, she looked back at the entrance of St. Paul’s. It felt as if she had just been tele-transported from a distant world. It was hard to be
lieve that it had only been thirty minutes before that she had been with Ben in the underground palace.

  She was about to dial Charlie’s number when she stopped and decided against it. She remembered the words of the Prime Minister’s aide when she was being taken from Number 10 to the embankment. It won’t work below ground, but the battery is fully charged. You can use it when you come back to let us know you are above ground. We will pick you up immediately. Now, Charlotte wondered if it could be traced if she used it. Better not to risk it. She pulled her jacket together and crossed her arms to keep out the chill of the sudden appearance above ground. It was raining. Strange how she didn’t know it would be. She spotted an orange light and stretched out her arm. The driver spotted her and the taxi pulled over straight away.