Ed took no pleasure in this – he wished he was back home, mucking around the forge or playing football with the boys. Adam loved scoring goals, the little gloater! It felt like ages since he’d seen them all. Marion would be cross.
Abel was enjoying the Chief Justice’s squirming and crying and wriggling around like a hooked eel. He steeled himself for the blow, hoisting the axe high. It would be easy as chopping the head off a fish. He aimed, swung and lop, off it popped, rolling down the steps like a hideous football, eyes wide and watery!
XIII
The Savoy Palace was set to explode. ‘Let vengeance be done on the enemies of London.’ Alderman Horn pressed the torch down onto the powder. Sparks spurted, smoke seared up along the fuse line and off it went a searing corpse-lantern, ignuus fatus, careering towards the palace.
‘Fall back! Fall back!’ commanded Thomas Farringdon. He had told those drunken butchers in the cellar to get out, but they had replied with a song about his mother’s funny cunny so he left them to their fate – to be buried alive, the cellar their crypt. Amen. So be it.
‘Back, you fools.’ Alderman Horn’s men-at-arms herded ignorant country bumpkins back with their arms, away from the building, out of the gardens.
Nick and Sophia retreated away from these dogs of war, along with everyone else, towards the gates. They were desperately searching for Harry among the crowds, Nick’s hope of finding him trailing away like the sparks shooting across the lawn.
‘Further back,’ ordered Alderman Horn. Three barrels of gunpowder! This would be a big bang, but given that he’d never handled the stuff before he didn’t know quite how big. He walked backwards on his toes, watching the fuse-fire enter the palace through the front door … a short delay … a deafening boom … the entire frontage of the palace exploded out, blown to bits, the walls gone to leaping flames and smoke, the lead-lined, red-tiled roof collapsed in a shock-wave of dust rolling out on tailing echoes of a huge thunderclap.
‘Oh my God,’ cried Sophia, clutching her ears.
Nick barely heard her; he was deaf, her voice distorted as if he was under water. He coughed, choked as the hot dust engulfed them, whitening him, turning him and Sophia and the other onlookers into phantoms. The reek of brimstone, sudden and fierce. Dust attacked his eyes, gritty, burning, blinking into tears that his hands could not soothe or wipe away.
Alderman Horn was temporarily unable to hear, or see, but was as thrilled with his handiwork as to dance like a boy for joy. He had fulfilled the second part of his four-fold mission for the Mayor. The next task was to rid London, especially the Victualler Guild, of its debt. The Lombard and the Fleming moneylenders had got altogether too big for their banker’s boots. Mayor Walworth was desirous that malign foreign influences were purged for the greater good of the citizenry, the stimulation of freer trade, and the progress of the war in France. Like the Jews and the Templars before them they would be put to the sword. Debt cancelled. Nothing personal. Trade was a form of war. This was how Londoners conducted business.
‘Nick, let’s go down to the river,’ Sophia suggested, in tears. ‘I need to wash this out of my eyes.’
Nick’s eyes recovered first. He led her forwards, down the slope of the gardens, in the direction of the Thames. They said in the Kingdom of the Blind the one-eyed man is king: he could not see the river; the air was seething, a fog of destruction, rough to breathe; he could barely see thirty feet in front of him, but he managed to guide her.
It was down the lawn, beneath an oak tree, that he came across the body of a man lying, hands bound behind his back, a rope still tied around his neck. There was nothing in that hideously purple swollen face that was recognisable as his father. This poor soul had bitten off most of his distended tongue. His bloodied eyes had nearly popped from their sockets. But this was Harry. His only father on earth. Hanged to death.
Nick sank down to his knees. The pain howled out of him. And Sophia could not soothe him, did not know how.
XIV
None: it was the ninth hour, halfway through the afternoon, according to the church bells. Sophia was nowhere to be seen, but she was with Harry and Nick, and Wat did not have the time to worry about that. He had ridden directly from the Fleet to occupy Tower Hill, the True Commons filling the killing field of the fortress to brimming. His army of Kentish archers was in full threatening array, surrounding the scaffold at the centre: flying the banners of St George, the Three Lions and the royal colours. He stood with Jack under the gibbet, punching the air, his gesture of defiance copied by one and all.
‘Where is the King?’ Wat cried.
‘We want the King!’ the True Commons chanted in reply.
Wat could see the White Tower of William the Conqueror standing tall and pale behind the huge walls of this seemingly impregnable fortress. He had been inside over a decade ago, escorting the Earl of Buckingham, and knew that each gate within had a portcullis behind it, and they would never penetrate the three rings of defence if the defenders wished to resist. Last-ditch defence: the White Tower had a wooden staircase up to the door which could be smashed to kindling, denying entry to all but spiders.
At a push – without much resistance – they might force the Lion Gate, rush over the moat, storm the Lion Tower controlling access to the outer ring, but past those obstacles stood higher, deadly inner walls. They would never make it to the white-walled keep itself without siege engines. A skeleton garrison of two hundred men could hold them at bay for months if not years. So, it was all down to a campaign of intimidation. They had to put the fear of God into the nobles. They had to use fear the way the nobles used fear of force, fear of death, to rule them. Naked fear was the key to forcing open the locks.
‘Where is the King?’ Wat led.
‘We want the King!’
Down in the shadows under the Wakefield Tower, behind the Water Gate, Sir Robert could hear the chants. Let the scum shout. Let them rail! We’ll show them. We’ll soon silence them. To that end, he boarded the royal barge in the colours of Sir Simon de Burley with a retinue of fifty men under arms; the Poor Knights, and his pick of the hard-bitten veterans in the Tower. In Sir Simon’s colours, or in the robes of Dominicans, his heralds would act as runners to summon all armed and loyal forces to the Convent of the Black Friars, and two other secret muster points.
‘Ready to cast off, Sir!’ the barge captain said.
Sir Robert smiled. ‘Wait for the trumpets. Then we go.’
The trumpeters sounding a fanfare would signal it was time for Sir Simon’s feint, for the decoy to be launched. The plan was simple, as the best plans are. A page would this moment be running run from the Water Gate down to the Lion Gate; there, trumpeters would sound fanfares; then a herald would appear on the battlements; repeated fanfares would silence the mob; a royal proclamation would be made; and the barge would slip out onto the river, unnoticed.
‘Where is the King?’
‘We want the King!’
The trumpets sounded.
Wat was first to spot the herald on the Lion Gate tower. ‘Let’s have some peace, people!’
Repeated fanfares sounded. The herald stood under the royal colours and held up a scroll.
Hush spread in waves away down Tower hill. Everybody strained their ears to hear what the herald would announce.
The herald broke the seal on the scroll with a flourish, and began to read the King’s words in Common English, in his biggest voice: “Richard, by the grace of God King of England and France and lord of Ireland, commands that the criers of the great city of London announce this message on every street corner.
‘King Richard gives great thanks to his good and True Commons, for they have so great a desire to see their rightful king; and he grants them pardon for all manner of trespasses and misprisons and felonies done up to this hour.
‘King Richard wills and commands that everyone should uphold the peace.
‘King Richard wills and commands that everyone should put his grievanc
es in writing and have them brought to Mile End tomorrow at eleven of the bells, where the King will provide, with the aid of his loyal lords and good council, such remedy as shall be profitable both to him and them, and to the Kingdom.
‘Go home in peace, my people, your grievances will be heard. Signed and sealed by the King, at the Tower, thirteenth June, in the fourth year of his reign.’
Wat had listened intently to every stupid, patronising word. ‘What do we make of that, Jack?’
‘Progress,’ Jack said. ‘Is it nearly ale time yet?’
‘It is. Let’s have a sup over there, at Bastard Knolles’ Inn,’ Wat laughed and punched the air. ‘Where is the King?’
The chant resumed, stronger, angrier voices: ‘We want the King!’
XV
Gules on a chevron argent, three roses gules. John cast a fleeting glance up at the shield bearing the coat of arms of Sir Robert Knolles set over the arched gate of the inn that bore his traitor’s name. Then he walked through the wide-open gateway accompanied by Abel and Ed, who after the killings at the Temple, were both drunk on mead, the sickly sweet stench of it on their breath.
John walked through the little rose garden and picked a red dog-rose for his nose before entering the tavern proper. Inns were foul-smelling places. He took a deep breath of the heavy sweetness of the flower and went in.
Passing from daylight into the deep darkness within, he had to squint to see. But for a rush-light by the door he would have tripped over two bodies sprawled there, bloodied, stone-cold unconscious, tied loosely together. He took care to step over the casualties – faces gone to bloody pulp – and, to avoid slipping on the scattering of three bloody teeth on the flags.
‘Jesus,’ Abel said. ‘Some fight.’
Ed avoided the teeth. ‘Like a casting of runes.’
The inn was packed to the rafters with the True Commons, but there, standing at the hearth by the fire, John spotted Wat and Jack. ‘Captain Tyler!’ he called over.
‘Why if it isn’t Archbishop Ball!’ said Jack. ‘Come share an ale.’
Wat shook hands with John. ‘We did it, John!’
‘I told you it would be like the Fall of Jericho. The horns brought the walls crashing down and we walked on in.’
‘You did, that!’
‘One Horn made it happen,’ Jack said. ‘Alderman Horn.’
John shot Jack a dark look.
‘Credit where credit is due. Who brought Aldermen Horn into the picture? Moi!’ Jack smiled, and set about drawing five cups of the Kentish ale from the cask, one for Wat, one for himself, one for John, Abel and Ed. ‘Cheers lads. Here’s to giving Bastard Knolles the chop.’
‘Cheers to us taking London,’ Wat said, and clacked coconut cups, polished wood on burnished silver, with the others in a toast.
‘Death to the traitors,’ John said.
Jack drained the cup in one, and burped. ‘I’ve tasted stronger piss, but as the Grey Friars say, “Ale merry, Gother of Mod”.’
Ed laughed. ‘How many have you had Jack?’
‘Not enough!’
‘We’ve been on the mead,’ Abel winked. ‘Drink of the old gods.’
‘Never touch that stuff! Fight in a cup.’
Wat tutted. ‘You knocked the stuffing and teeth out of those two over there on the smell of ale.’
‘They called us rebels.’
Ed raised his eyebrows. With his sheer size and bulk very few men would trouble him in a fist fight, but he would never make the mistake of riling Jack. Some men are tempered like a fine sword and can cut through flesh, bone, punch holes in walls, you name it. Jack was one of them live blades all right.
John supped at his ale, wiped his whiskers dry, then spoke. ‘We must talk about Mile End, Wat.’
Wat smiled. ‘We demanded to see the King, and we’re going to now. I’ll give them that.’
‘It is what we demand of the King tomorrow that is most important.’ The ale went straight to John’s head, reddening his cheeks. ‘Our terms—’
Wat smiled. ‘I’m sure you will handle the negotiations well John.’
‘Mile End – why do they want to meet out there?’ asked Jack.
‘It is outside the city walls?’ Wat shrugged. ‘Space for assembly…?’
‘Nobles are slippery as toads,’ Jack said. ‘Always scheming for best advantage. You cannot take what they say at face value.’
‘They want us away from the Tower.’ Wat nodded. ‘Keep a close watch on the Tower.’
‘Don’t mind if I do!’ Jack said, and refilled his cup.
XVI
Gules on a chevron argent, three roses gules: a small boy tramped on Bastard Knolles’ fallen shield, leaping up, crushing down, cheered by Wat, Jack, John and a throng of onlookers.
With enough kicking the shield would come apart like the rest of the building had. Behind the people, in the darkening night, the Sir Robert Knolles’ Inn had been reduced to a heap of rubble, “a Knolles’ mitre” as such ruins were called in France such was his reputation for wanton destruction.
Sophia led a numbed Nick and her pony up the winding streets to the inn. It had taken what seemed like hours to get to Tower Hill through the crowds, with Harry’s body slung over the saddle. They had come upon Abel’s brother and his band of men from Hadlow. Roaring drunk. The men were laughing. These men. When Harry was dead. When Nick was distraught. When she was trying to find her father! But then, they never knew Harry, or Nick, or her. They didn’t care. They were strangers in a city full of strangers and dangers. They told her where Captain Tyler had set up his headquarters: the Sir Robert Knolles’ Inn! The name. The second she heard it she imagined her father in the body of Sir Robert Knolles, cutting him open from inside out. It was another horrid image in a day of horror, and she recoiled from it.
When Wat saw Sophia, he pushed his way through folks to get to her and hugged her. ‘Sophia. Thank God, you’re all right! I was worried about you.’
Jack saw Harry slung over the horse’s back, and laughed. ‘Had a skin-full, has he old lazybones?’
Nick glowered at him, and could not help but sob.
Sophia said: ‘No, Jack. He’s not drunk.’
‘What’s wrong with him then?’ Jack asked.
Wat walked round the pony. He lifted Harry’s head by the hair and stared into his swollen, blackened, dead face. ‘Oh, Jesus, no!’
‘They hanged him,’ Nick said.
Jack staggered back. ‘Me and my big mouth. Me and my big foot. Me sticking my big foot in my big mouth!’
‘Who hanged him?’ said Wat, patting Harry’s head.
‘Alderman Horn’s men,’ Sophia answered. ‘They told us he was a looter.’
‘I’m going to kill him!’ Nick swore.
Jack went over and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘If it was really Horn I’ll kill the bastard for you. I brought him into this business.’
‘I can fight my own battles, Jack,’ Nick said.
‘Well spoken, lad!’ Jack said, and pulled him into a bear-hug. ‘I have fought the battles of other people all my life. Killed hundreds in the name of the King. But this war is my war. Our war. If you need my help to end Horn, it’s yours. That’s all I’m saying.’
XVII
A half-melted candle flickered in the darkness; burning at the head of Harry’s body, wrapped in grave swaddling, lying on a long table.
Wat kept vigil over Harry as Nick was asleep, exhausted, slumped in a chair. It was a hard duty for he felt he was standing safeguard over two people: Harry; and the ghost of his wife. The plague had robbed him of safeguarding Magdalena’s passing over. Her body had to be burned after her death, right away, and the ashes scattered. That theft had always cut like a knife: there was no time to say a proper goodbye.
Jack had passed out when they’d got into Ruth’s tenement on Lombard Street. He did manage to slur ‘Thank you for your hospitality’ before he collapsed. They’d managed to drag the considerable length of him in
to a corner so no one would trip over him.
Sophia was upstairs, sleeping with Ruth in her bed, after they’d washed and wrapped the body.
So, it was just Wat and Harry, and the sickening guilt over what had happened, iron roiling in his guts. He’d keep watch. He couldn’t defend Harry’s body in life; he had failed to protect the old man, but he could defend his soul and see that no harm came to him this dark night.
A loud rap on the door made Wat start. Stripped to the skin of his torso – he had removed plate and padding to wash and let his skin breathe – he drew his sword from its scabbard. ‘Who’s there?’ It was past midnight? The majority of True Commons should be in their billets, lodged cosily with cooperative Londoners. The watch, his Kentishmen, not the men of the wards, should be patrolling the streets, enforcing the nightly curfew. Truth was, Kent needed little marshalling – it was a war machine. Many men had been to war and they drilled the others to fight the Frenchies if they raided or the coast or, God forbid, invaded, so everybody knew the score. ‘Who’s there, I say?’
‘John Ball.’ John opened the door, saw the swaddled body on the table and crossed himself. ‘In the name of the Father, son and Holy Ghost. Amen.’
‘Amen,’ Wat said, and laid his sword down.
‘I have brought Thomas Baker, Captain of the Essexmen to talk with you,’ John said.
‘Well met, Captain Tyler.’ Thomas went over to shake Wat’s hand, couldn’t help but notice all the terrible wheals on the man’s body, and the loaded money belt slung round his waist. ‘Sorry for your loss.’
‘Thanks,’ Wat said.
‘Where is that dead-eye archer, Jack Straw?’ Thomas asked.
‘Asleep. Shall I wake him?’
‘No. Leave the good fellow to his rest,’ Thomas said. ‘I came to meet with you to talk about our demands at Mile End.’
‘What is this poor sinner’s name?’ John asked, laying a hand on the head of the corpse.
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