‘Where are you going?’
‘Down there.’ Abel pointed to the cellar. ‘Provisions!’
Ed watched the Elder slip round a fat, pox-faced Londoner to the open cellar doors. One quick look into the darkness down the steps, before venturing in, and he disappeared …
Eyes attuning to the dark, damp underworld of the cellar, Abel spotted a water barrel. He ladled up some cool, clear water and supped at it. It wasn’t the best water he’d ever tasted – metal-tainted – but then the source was not a pure spring but the roof of the house above. It would do. After a week on the road, it would do. As would some grub. He’d only had a bite of chicken in the last two days, guts were roaring like a dragon. Wat had announced that the Londoners might barricade their front door, close their shutters, but would open their cellars, so that the True Commons could help themselves to provisions and water … This wasn’t looting.
‘Dear God,’ Abel said. He laid hands on the salted leg of pork hanging from a meat hook. He smelled the pungent odour of hog – mouth-watering – then took it down. The first bite of flesh was the best thing he had ever tasted, and he wolfed down the rest; sod the thought of sharing it, he was no quartermaster.
VII
Princess Joan had summoned Sir Simon de Burley to her chamber because here was a knight errant she and Richard could trust. He had been her Edward’s staunch friend and advisor even though he was lowborn, and was her husband’s choice of tutor for his son. Sir Simon would have been known as “the King’s Knight” if Edward had not died a mere prince. He had earned himself the once-removed title of “the King’s Father’s Knight” from her little Richard. Or from her actually. She had cultivated Sir Simon because he was unmatched as a court politician; he was a powerful ally because he used the wealth from his ever multiplying honours – Lord of Chiltenham, Lord of Llanstephan, Constable of Windsor, Master of the Falcon, Keeper of the Mews at Charring – to expand a formidable web of spies. The spymaster was known to his spies as Sol Niger – the Black Sun – a most powerful symbol in alchemy and in the excommunicate military order of the Knights Templar, which of course had been disbanded and did not in any way wield occult power as the most secret society in the world.
Sir Simon was ushered into the room by a smiling pageboy. ‘Majesty,’ he said, opening up his miniver-trimmed mantle and bowing to the King. ‘And the most beautiful Princess in the world.’ His bow was deep and as adoring as he could make it.
Princess Joan was struck once again by Sir Simon’s magical eyes. Gleaming amber. Ageless, even as the rest of his face had sagged and lined with age. He had the most beautiful eyes a man could have. She almost wished she could steal them from him, have a jeweller mount them and wear them as twin broaches. ‘Sir Simon,’ King Richard said. ‘Do inform us, however did the rebels get into the city?’
Sir Simon put a hush finger over his lips – one of the little foibles he had cultivated to amuse the King and gain his confidence. ‘You will not shoot the messenger, Majesty?’
‘Pax,’ said King Richard.
Sir Simon was always mindful to be the bearer of bad news to the King, lords, knights, any man of account. Though in truth, there was no such thing as bad news! Information for the keen mind translated into knowledge and scientia potentia est when it was wielded. If one was at all clever, that is. To take a king into one’s confidence was all in how one made one’s mind up, for the angle of one’s thinking determined the slant of one’s telling. ‘My intelligence would lead me to believe that they contrived to build a new Trojan Horse to get into New Troy, Majesty.’
‘How so?’ asked King Richard.
‘The Trojan Horse was a legend, a poetic image, used to cover up a betrayal of Troy from within. Yes?’
Princess Joan nodded. ‘As I vaguely recall it.’
‘As London is sometimes called New Troy, it is no surprise that history has repeated itself and we have been betrayed from within.’
‘Who did this?’ asked King Richard. ‘Their names?’
‘It would seem the Alderman of the Bridge, one William Sybyle, has conspired to let the Kentishman enter, but I cannot confirm that given the situation in the streets—’
‘Why would an Alderman so blatantly betray his king?’
Sir Simon was a man of many faces, many humours, a political actor, and so had many laughs at his disposal: he chose to laugh his least patronising laugh. ‘I imagine he felt he had much to gain, Majesty. When he is brought to book, doubtless his excuse will be that he feared he had too much to lose if he did not open the gates.’
‘If the Aldermen are turning traitor on us, can we rely on the Mayor?’ asked Princess Joan. ‘Or, has he gone over to the rebels?’
Spat from the mouths of myriad informers, the venom of adders, those snakes in the grass, Sir Simon knew a great deal about Mayor Walworth’s private life. The man was a whoremonger more than he was a fishmonger – he had run the Flemish brothel on London Bridge before the rebels demolished it this day – but he was as loyal to the crown as a Mayor of London ever could be – because he was in the pay of the King’s spymaster. ‘Walworth is with us – for now. Should our position weaken …’
King Richard nodded. ‘Now that the rebels are in the city, what do you think should we do, Sir Simon?’
‘I would advise, Majesty, that we publicly keep to Archbishop Sudbury’s counsel, Majesty. Conciliate. Negotiate. Take the wind out of their sails.’
King Richard sighed. ‘I cannot, I will not, sit a moment longer and do nothing!’
‘You won’t have to. I also advise, Majesty, that we follow Sir Robert Knolles’ advice. In secret. Gather a force to be reckoned with.’
‘That’s better, Sir Simon – I like the sound of that!’
‘Majesty, I know you favour Sir Robert’s position of taking decisive military action to end this rebellion, but have patience. It is my view that you have no need to fear the rebels—’
King Richard frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
Sir Simon cleared his throat. ‘My agents inform me that the rebels have risen expressly against The Duke of Lancaster and your Regents lest they seize the crown. The rebels object to the Regents’ corruption, unfair laws and war-taxes, not Your Majesty or your rule. In your minority you are, in their eyes, entirely blameless. They are utterly loyal to you, and believe only their rightful king can restore justice to the land.’
Princess Joan dared not smile. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that this rebellion might be advantageous to Richard?’
Sir Simon smiled, broad as a summer’s day. ‘I am indeed. For a while. If the King is subtle. If the King is utterly ruthless. Which, the King is, oui?’
‘Oui, oui!’ King Richard replied.
VIII
It was like the criers had been calling ‘Plague!’ There was not a soul on Farringdon Street – the rich residents having barricaded themselves in their stone houses – as Kentish marched up it towards the Fleet. Four gaolers lit out of the door in the main gate of the prison, eighty strides away.
Jack dropped the leash and let out a cry of: ‘Get them, Nobody!’
Unleashed, Nobody took off.
Jack and Wat led the mad dash after the barking mastiff, horses in tow, everyone shouting and shrieking.
The last gaoler out the gate had been Warden Nicholas Launde, reputed to have “the deepest pockets in London” and mighty proud of it. He’d stayed to the last to secure the prison and, of course, protect his interests.
Hundreds of people may well have been charging down the street after him, but he was possessed of a cool head, and they had much ground to cover. He clanged the door shut, fumbled wildly with his main ring of keys. He had to lock the gate behind him! The biggest bow key. Where was the damn thing? There! He slotted the stem in, the wards on the bit clicked in the lock.
Secure.
Livelihood saved, Warden Launde turned to run for his life. Then he saw Nobody heading straight at him, teeth gnashing. For a second, he indul
ged the fantasy he might get away, run pell-mell into the nearest church – St Martyn’s – and plead sanctuary. The rebels would dare not defile a church. Then Nobody was upon him, the terrible jaws opening and closing, sharp teeth puncturing and savaging his arm, dragging him growling to the ground.
It was a while before Jack caught up with the dog. ‘Nobody. Leave it!’
Arm half-eaten off, Warden Launde was mewling like an infant as the mastiff ceased its attack.
Jack dragged the stunned man to his feet. ‘Well, what have we here? I’m guessing the Warden himself.’
‘Are you the Warden of the Fleet?’ Wat demanded, trying to keep a firm hold on a stroppily nodding Sleipnir.
Warden Launde’s head was reeling from the mauling. He sniffed blood in his throat, but still had the sense to answer: ‘No. I’m just a common gaoler, sir.’
Jack took the man by the jowls, gave him a little throttle. ‘Your fine-furred cloak tells another story, sir. As do the gold rings on your fingers. Now, before I set Nobody on you again, admit … you … are … the … Warden.’
Choking, Warden Launde managed to rasp: ‘I … am.’
‘The truth shall set you free,’ Jack said, and let the man go.
Warden Launde dropped to his knees, gulping in air in great wheezes. They had been forewarned. He had known, and still … A gaoler had spotted the mob marching up West Cheap. He should have fled. Left the prison open. But it was his duty as Warden. He served Justice. He couldn’t just flee.
‘Let’s get those gates open,’ Wat said.
Jack dragged the Warden over to the gates. ‘Time to release your prisoners. They’ve paid their debt to society.’
Warden Launde opened the door within the gate.
Jack shoved him inside. ‘Time for you to pay what’s owed them.’
A hundred Kentishmen followed Wat, Jack and the Warden into the notorious Fleet, through the courtyard where they tied their horses, creeping warily along dark corridors lit by the odd sputtering rush-light, down spiralled stairs and into the cavernous dungeons. Hunting gaolers to free from this mortal coil …
There were none, all had cleared off. But there were prisoners aplenty, with faces like gargoyles, in long prison beards! Clamouring at the bars, climbing up them, were hundreds of filthy, rag-tag men and women. The din they made was deafening: ‘Let us out!’
Jack made Warden Launde open every barred cell door. Unless he wanted to be eaten alive by Nobody, the Warden was to bow his head to every prisoner and say: ‘You are free. Forgive me.’
The fourth prisoner out, a woman, when told she was free, kneed the Warden right in the balls. ‘You rapine bastard,’ she shrieked.
Wat recognised her voice, tried to get a better look at her face, under all that hair gone wild.
Jack forced the crumpled Warden to stand up straight. ‘Want another shot at him?’ he asked the woman.
The woman lined up to deliver a straight punch to the Warden’s face. ‘I’ll kill you Launde.’
Wat seized a hold of her fist, stopped the punch, stood in between her and the Warden. Fury was twisting her face, adding lines, and she looked a good deal older than the pretty girl he knew in Normandy, in the baggage train, but this was Ruth. ‘Ruth?’
‘Serjeant Wat Tyler!’ Ruth said. ‘It is.’ And hugged him.
Jack twigged on. ‘Ruth Wright. Well, blow me down with a feather. What are you doing in here?’
‘Long story.’
‘Spit it,’ said Jack.
‘Bastard Knolles brought me back as his mistress after France, then the fox locked into a younger vixen …’
As the filthy cunt recounted her sad little life story, Warden Launde backed away, could not believe his luck at this distraction, backing away, running backwards almost, and leaving his foes behind saying their hellos. Even the infernal hell-hound did not notice his disappearance. It was like he had become somehow invisible, as if he was wearing the Helmet of Hades.
‘… then I met a Flemish merchant who made me his mistress and gave me a house on Lombard Street. He was a gambler and had me thrown in gaol to pay his debts to Warden Launde.’
‘The Warden has no skin on his face,’ said Wat.
Ruth replied. ‘What are you two doing here?’
Jack laughed. ‘Our Wat here is on a crusade to change the world. I was bored so I joined him.’
‘If there’s a lull in crusading, come round to mine later,’ Ruth said. ‘Last but one on the left of Lombard Street. We’ll have a drink.’
‘Ale fellow, well met,’ Jack said. ‘We’ll be there.’
‘I’ll be waiting,’ Ruth nodded. ‘I’ll look more like myself then. A long stew is needed after two months in this shithole.’
The “invisible” Warden Launde nearly escaped his own prison, but the Helmet of Hades must have slipped off and other freed prisoners caught him trying to slide and slither his way along the dark corridors in shadows unseen, unheard, out into light and freedom. In keeping with the tenets of his hellish regime, and using his own tools, they started on his fingers, hammering them to bloody mush one by one, and then his toes. The ankle and wrist joints were next. It was some consolatory hours before a perjurer – smiling, despite having had his lips cut off for his contempt of court – released Warden Launde from this mortal coil with the guttural curse: ‘Time to meet the Devil to begin your everlasting torment.’
IX
This was Hell. Hell on Earth. Stood atop the battlements of the White Tower, Sir Robert could scarce believe his own eyes. The commons were running riot in every street and lane. Terrible cries scaled the whitewashed walls to assault his ears. He cast a look over his shoulder at brave young King Richard, round his rabble of regents, his old comrade Sir Simon de Burley, all seemingly turned to stone statues from antiquity as they watched the capital slide into anarchy, calling to mind the Fall of Rome.
‘To the North!’ Chancellor Sudbury pointed. ‘A new fire.’
Sir Robert peered into the distance. ‘That looks like Clerkenwell to me?’
Mayor Walworth knew the geography of his city only too well. He was pleased that, as Alderman Horn had agreed with the rebels, there were no fires started within the city walls. ‘It is the Priory of St John.’
‘This is Armageddon!’ Treasurer Hales dropped his nosegay, keening like a paid mourner. ‘They have burnt my manor at Highbury, and now the priory.’
‘The Devil’s work. Apage Satanas!’ Chancellor Sudbury placed a hand on the shoulder of his old friend the prior.
King Richard watched Simon-Says’ attempt at cold comfort, and wished he could accept the resignation of the to-be-the-former Chancellor. Here. Now. Banish him to France for five years at least. Hang him. Draw him. Quarter him. Feed him to Dilan if needs be … Be rid of his platitudes, once and for all. But, Sir Simon counselled caution with one’s adversaries: appearances must be deceptive.
Mayor Walworth sighed. ‘The Devil take these vandals from Essex!’
‘These vandals from London, you mean,’ Sir Robert countered.
‘London is still loyal to the King.’ Mayor Walworth looked as affronted as he could.
‘The loyalty of London is most appreciated by us.’ King Richard smiled at the Mayor. If Sir Simon presented him with the slightest evidence that Alderman Sybyle who opened the gates acted at mayoral behest, he would have Walworth boiled alive, flensed of all his skin from the face down, a hideous punishment normally reserved for Jews and Saracens.
‘London is fiercely loyal to the King!’ Sir Simon repeated. ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense.’
Sir Robert laughed bitterly at this cutting remark about the city. His nefarious friend had a razor-sharp wit, with a double-edge. “Shamed be he who thinks ill of it” was the motto of the Order of the Garter, a warning not to challenge King Edward’s tenuous claim to the Frenchie throne. ‘We should all be mightily ashamed this day.’
Chancellor Sudbury crossed himself. ‘This is a judgement from God, Majesty. We must
go into His house and pray for His forgiveness, plead for His deliverance from this evil before all that is good and right is lost forever.’
‘Go then. Say your confounded prayers, man! ’ King Richard said with a dismissive flap of the hand. ‘All of you, leave me, and pray for His forgiveness. Save for Sir Simon and Sir Robert.’
Sir Simon waited as first the mayor and the regents reluctantly left the King’s presence with a bow. When all the condemned – and he sensed they were doomed even if they did not know it – were gone, he asked Sir Robert: ‘Ready for action?’
‘I much prefer to prey than pray.’
King Richard looked Sir Robert right in the eye. ‘Simon-Says would have this be a war of words, but my father told me while he lived that where words fail you, swords must not.’
Sir Robert laid his hand on his heart. ‘I will never fail you, Majesty.’
‘There can be no failure.’ Sir Simon nodded gravely. ‘You are to ride out of the Tower and gather a force in strictest secrecy at the Convent of the Black Friars.’
‘Consider it done! I will await my orders.’
‘When you leave the Tower, I would substitute my colours for yours,’ Sir Simon advised. ‘They will guarantee you safe passage in the city. Yours will see you shorter by a head.’
X
Harry nipped into an alleyway between two houses to take a leak. The flow came, and went, in fits and starts: his bladder old and weak.
When he finished, and put his useless old tadger back in his britches, he looked up and discovered he had lost the others in the crowd. No one could stop. All was movement. Moving forwards. Progress. He stood by the wayside, searching for the colours … looking for a hundred passing faces to find Nick, Sophia, Wat, but he could not spot them. ‘Wat!’ he cried. ‘Nick!’
There was no reply. He was surrounded by more folk than he’d ever seen in his life and yet he’d never felt so alone! He moved out into the heaving throng and was carried along by the crowd of strangers, by Providence, he convinced himself, because he could not turn back, winding down narrow streets, through a square … on, on, until he was tramping along the riverbank. All the while, looking for the familiar in a strange world of high walls, and beyond, rich mansions.
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