The City of Fear

by Andrew Beasley

  Carnehan snatched the letter away from the stove and shoved it into his pocket almost angrily. He needed to smoke his pipe and think.

  It was going to be a long night.

  The Watchers were gathered beneath a canvas tent on the roof of St Bride’s church. The rain was pelting down, finding every hole in the old fabric and falling on them in fat, cold drops. And there the Watchers slept fitfully, taking what rest they could. They would need everything within them if they were to rescue Ghost and Moon and then see Revolution Day through to the end.

  When Ben woke his right hand was throbbing faintly. He sensed that it had something to do with the never-ending storm. If only he knew what.

  Since Mr. Sweet had taken control, Ben had decided that it was vital for the Watchers of London to know where they could go if they were lost or alone and needed to regroup. Monday, the British Museum; Tuesday, the Temple; Wednesday, Westminster Abbey; Thursday, Tallow Chandlers’ Hall; Friday, Fenchurch Street Station; Saturday, St Bride’s; Sunday, Christ Church Spitalfields. Ben had made every Watcher learn the list by heart. It had served them well, so far.

  Carter was there, with Nathaniel and Lucy, and maybe fifty or so other Watchers from across the city. But they could also see that their numbers were dwindling day by day. That was yet another reason why it was so vitally important to rescue Moon and Ghost. They would need everyone they could get for tomorrow, Revolution Day.

  The canvas lifted and their eyes lit up to see Valentine.

  “You got out,” said Nathaniel. “Well done, mate.”

  “What about the escapees?” asked Ben, clasping his hand.

  “Never let it be said that I let a chap down in their hour of need,” said Valentine. “Managed to get them all into the hands of some thoroughly decent Watchers running a safe house on Pye Corner. Close run thing though, don’t you know.”

  Ben clapped Valentine on the shoulder.

  “Must say,” Valentine continued, “emotions were running pretty high. Heard some things about what Sweet’s been doing that would make your hair curl. Seems he’s even been executing every red-headed boy that he comes across just in case the blighter is you, Benjamin.”

  Ben shuddered.

  Valentine went on. “You can be sure that every man jack of our escapees will be fighting alongside us when the uprising kicks off.”

  “They won’t be the only ones.” A deep voice reached them from outside the tent. Ben’s heart missed a beat.

  It can’t be…? “Pa!” shouted Ben, slipping out from under the canvas and running to him.

  “It’s Saturday,” said Jonas. “So, St Bride’s.”

  Nathaniel joined them too and both boys spoke over each other, not giving Jonas time to reply or even draw breath between their questions.

  “We saw your flare.”

  “How’s Molly?”

  “What happened to the Liberator?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’ve missed you.”

  “We need you.”

  Jonas enjoyed their embraces and attention. “I’m as right as rain,” he said, running his hand through his sopping hair. “But I’ll catch my death if we stand out in this – can’t we at least get under cover?”

  The Kingdom boys happily yielded and brought their father back under the shelter of their makeshift tent.

  “Right,” said Jonas. “First things first, Molly’s fine.”

  Lucy smiled.

  “She’s being looked after by the troops – they’ve sort of adopted her as a mascot – and there’s this brigadier, Carnehan his name is, commanding office of the regiment of Coldstream Guards. Really decent sort. He’s taken Molly under his wing.”

  “And the Liberator? We saw the explosion.”

  “She won’t fly again,” said Jonas sadly. “Hardly a matchstick remains, but she did the job. As far as I know, we didn’t lose anyone on her last flight, everyone got off in time. A little crisp around the edges maybe, but alive.”

  “What of London beyond the Wall?” asked Carter.

  Jonas breathed heavily through his nose. “People are in shock. The army is waiting to attack, but with the Queen still captive Sweet has got their hands tied. That’s the official story anyway. However…” Here Jonas grinned and Ben recognized his own expression in his father’s lopsided smile. “I’ve got some good news. Carnehan has brought in the sappers.”

  Ben had heard of them; they were military engineers and explosives experts.

  “Right now,” said Jonas, “the sappers are under the death zone preparing to blow open the tunnels again. The army can’t advance across the Dead Man’s Land without being seen, but when the revolution starts they are going to open up a dozen points of entry—”

  “And sneak in under the Legion’s noses!” Ben finished the sentence.

  “We still can’t win unless Ben destroys the Crown of Corruption,” Carter reminded them.

  “That’s why we have to rescue Ghost and Moon,” said Ben. “The rebels are going to need Watchers to guide them or the revolution will be a shambles.” He clenched his teeth. “We’ve got to get them out of Sweet’s circus.”

  “I can help with that too,” said Jonas, pulling out the poster that Munro had given them. “Ben, you once told me about a hunchbacked boy you met in the Under—”

  “Munro.”

  “That’s the lad,” said Jonas. “He’s left the Legion and he’s safe with Molly and Carnehan. He’s been able to give us lots of information about what’s happening inside Sweet’s headquarters at the Tower of London – numbers of guards, shift patterns, those sorts of useful details. He also brought us this.” Jonas spread the poster wide.

  “One o’clock today,” said Valentine, reading down.

  “At the Lyceum,” said Nathaniel.

  “Right,” said Ben. “Then let’s get moving.”

  Hans Schulman, the Watcher spy, was tied to a chair in Sweet’s private chamber. Mr. Sweet examined him with the cold precision of a surgeon. Hans could not bear to meet the fierce gaze which bore into him through the silver sockets of Sweet’s mask.

  “Do you think you are cleverer then me, boy?” asked Sweet.

  Hans said nothing.

  “Did you honestly believe that I wouldn’t be able to sniff out a traitor in my own ranks? You Watchers are so arrogant! You probably thought that you were a brilliant spy when you overheard me talking about the crossbones key. It never occurred to you that I meant you to hear me. You fell straight into my trap.” Sweet laughed. “And now you are going to betray Ben Kingdom.”

  “Never,” said Hans. “I’ll die first.”

  “You don’t have any choice in the matter, boy,” said Sweet. “I wear the Crown of Corruption. I can make you do anything.”

  Before Hans could react, Sweet grabbed the boy’s face in both hands. Sweet brought his own face in close, the beak of his mask scratching Hans’s skin, his eyes piercing into the German lad’s mind, stripping away all mental defences.

  “I. Am. Your. Master,” hissed Sweet.

  Hans tried to screw his eyes shut to avoid Sweet’s hypnotic stare, but as the words bored into his skull he found that he was unable to resist.

  “I. AM. YOUR. MASTER.”

  The words exploded inside Hans’s head, pushing every other thought aside, until only Sweet’s voice remained.

  Hans spasmed, like a medium at the seance table overwhelmed by a spirit that is not their own.

  “You are my master,” he repeated.

  “You will obey me.”

  “I will obey you.”

  “Take this to Ben Kingdom,” said Sweet, placing an iron key in the boy’s hand. “Give him this message and then return…”

  Hans had no choice but to listen. Mr. Sweet’s lie ingrained itself in the wet clay of his mind so that he would be able to repeat it word-perfectly when the time was right.

  “Now go!” Sweet ordered.

  “Yes, master.”

  The Watcher’s own spy
was now working against them. Hans Schulman was Sweet’s puppet and he jerked away on his errand like a good wooden boy. Sweet licked his cracked lips in delicious anticipation.

  The voices inside Sweet’s head kept telling him that Ben Kingdom would defeat him, but with the German boy under his control, Sweet had sealed Kingdom’s fate once and for all.

  It was almost too simple. Propelled by his schoolboy sense of patriotism, Ben Kingdom would never allow Queen Victoria to rot in a cell if he had been handed the key. So it was a given that Kingdom would come running, place the key in the lock, turn it and…

  Sweet slammed his hands together gleefully.

  The Watchers, in their earnest naivety, always failed to see the depth of cunning that resided in the souls of the Legion. The Under had many secrets, most of which could inflict pain.

  The dungeon doors had two keys. One which opened the lock. And another which released a vicelike trap – steel spikes which would spring out from their hiding place in the wall and put an end to any rescue attempt. For ever.

  Guess which key he had sent to Ben Kingdom?

  “It’s too much of a risk,” said Carter. “You should stay behind, Ben.”

  “It’s almost Revolution Day,” Ben protested. “Even with the promise of help from Brigadier Carnehan, Ghost and Mr. Moon are crucial to the plan.”

  “Not as crucial as the Hand of Heaven,” said Carter. “We lose you, we lose this war.”

  “The professor has got a point,” said Lucy. “Now that we know Sweet is executing red-headed boys at random…”

  “I know the risks,” Ben snapped. “But I’m not going to allow Ghost and Mr. Moon to be thrown to the lions!”

  His eyes rested on Lucy’s backpack and without asking for her permission Ben began to rummage inside. He withdrew a tin of boot polish, popped the lid, dug his fingers into the waxy contents and then began to smear it through his hair until his usually shaggy ginger locks were plastered to his head. Then he plonked his billycock hat down on top and stood there defiantly.

  “Satisfied?” said Ben.

  “Not really,” said Carter.

  “I’m coming anyway.”

  They headed for the Lyceum and the circus in silence, avoiding other people as much as possible, and sticking to the side streets where they could. The rain acted as an ally, forcing heads down and keeping collars turned up. Carter, who was every bit as distinctive as Ben, walked with his hands firmly in his pockets, hiding his giveaway claw. So far, they hadn’t attracted so much as a sideways glance.

  Ben let their party string out so it didn’t look as though they were a group. Lucy and Ben were at the front – they would head for the cheap seats, where they could get an overview of the whole theatre. Carter had also suggested that might keep Ben out of the thick of it. Valentine followed twenty paces behind, then Nathaniel. If they could, they were to get backstage and see if Ghost and Moon could be found earlier. Jonas and Carter brought up the rear. They would take position as near to the stage as possible. If it came to a full-frontal assault, then it was down to them.

  Jeers and shouts made Ben glance over his shoulder and he saw a huge crowd following them down Gray’s Inn Road. They seemed to be full to the brim with anger and ale, and Ben’s party wasted no time in cutting a swift right onto High Holborn and out of their path.

  Unfortunately there was a similar rabble gathered at the other end of the street. There’d be no escape that way either.

  “What now?” said Lucy, obviously doubting that Ben’s disguise could hold out under the scrutiny of so many hostile eyes.

  Within moments they found themselves surrounded by a crowd heading in the same direction, and they had no choice other than to allow themselves to be driven along by the mob. They clasped hands as they were swept down the road on a tide of hatred.

  “Death to the Watchers!” shouted a man with a boxer’s broken nose and a spider’s web tattooed inexpertly across his face.

  Ben and Lucy exchanged glances. What can we do?

  “Death to the Watchers!” Ben added his own voice to the throng.

  The crowd carried them all the way to the Lyceum Theatre. A huge Legion banner hung down between the Roman columns: the black gauntleted fist on a field of white, the symbol of Sweet’s oppression. The theatre had always seemed so glamorous to Ben in the past, but today it filled him with disgust.

  Many was the time Ben had sneaked in to watch Dan Leno, “the funniest man on earth” as the billboards proclaimed or Paul Cinquevalli, “the king of the jugglers”, who would catch a cannonball on the back of his neck. But under Sweet’s rule, the theatres had changed their bills to suit the new mood of their audience. Where you might once have listened to Marie Lloyd chirping out “The Boy I Love Is Up In The Gallery”, you would now be treated to a freak show, where the deformed and unfortunate were paraded for cruel titillation. There were no more plays by Oscar Wilde or comic operas by Gilbert and Sullivan. Instead, actors performed stories of murder and revenge, filling the auditoriums with screaming and always climaxing with the spilling of stage-blood and the hacking of fake limbs.

  Ben dreaded what they were about to find inside the Lyceum.

  Although there were commissionaires in attendance, in their smart red uniforms and white gloves, the crowd paid no attention to their requests to “Walk this way, please, sir”. It was every man for himself as the mob pushed and barged each other to get the best seats in the house. Ben gestured to Lucy with a nod of his head, and the pair made their way to the stairs which would take them to “the gods”, as his pa always called them – the highest circle of seats that would give them the best view of proceedings. They had their crossbow pistols, they had rope, and height always gave Watchers the upper hand. Ben imagined himself swinging in to rescue Ghost and Moon and snatching them from the stage. Well, that was the plan anyway.

  Ben and Lucy were able to get themselves seats in the front row on the left-hand side of the theatre. From their vantage point they could see everything. There was an orchestra in the pit, and a conductor with a prominent Legion armband waiting with his baton. It was a full house, with every seat occupied and angry-looking men, boys and women standing in the aisles. The only empty seats were in the royal box on the other side of the auditorium.

  Ben searched for Carter and his pa and found them right at the back of the stalls, too far from the stage. Both men were trying to work their way through the crowd but they weren’t having much success. One scuffle had already broken out, men and women exchanging blows as they fought over the last remaining seat.

  Ben had been in some rough music halls but he had never sat in an audience like this. These people hadn’t come just to be entertained; they weren’t after a laugh and a sing-song and a break from it all. These people wanted blood.

  Just then the conductor tapped on his music stand and an expectant hush fell upon the audience. Pausing for effect, the man flicked his baton with a flourish, leading the orchestra into a rousing march.

  With a squeak of pulleys, the red velvet curtains were slowly drawn aside as the house lights went down. The bloodthirsty crowd roared its appreciation as the stage was revealed. Ben felt sick to his stomach.

  A huge cage had been erected on the stage against a painted backdrop of a Roman arena. The cage was ten feet tall and thirty feet wide. In each corner there was another smaller cage holding one of the savage beasts that the crowd had been promised. That left a large cross of empty space in the middle – presumably where the fighting would take place.

  In one corner was a lion, pacing back and forth and roaring hungrily at the crowd. In another was a huge black bear, standing erect on its hind legs. In the third was a gorilla, a massive ape with a white stripe down its back, huge fists pawing the floor. Where Sweet had found the creatures, Ben could only guess. London Zoo seemed likely. In the fourth and final cage was a Feathered Man, crouched on its haunches, its long limbs ready to slash and claw.

  Each of the animals was wear
ing a stout collar attached to a length of chain. These chains fed out through the bars to where gangs of four strongmen in leotards, their muscles glistening with oil, held them in their iron grips. These men were also responsible for controlling an array of levers and pulleys, which Ben assumed must control the gate of each animal pen. With this set-up, each team of men could control their own beast and either allow them access to the centre of the stage, or haul them back into their corner.

  In his mind’s eye, Ben could see how this wicked sport would play out. The victims would be placed in the middle of the open area of the cage. Then one of the animals would be released. If the victims survived that, then another pen would be opened, and so on…

  Ben knew that there were men of all classes in London who loved to see animals fight, and win or lose money on the outcome. Bear-baiting had been outlawed for years, but there were still places you could go if you knew who to ask. Men would watch cocks tearing each other to pieces or dogs fighting tooth and nail – even rats. It was grisly. It was cruel. And Ben hated it.

  Movement in the royal box caught Ben’s eye and he nudged Lucy. It was Mr. Sweet, flanked by burly Legionnaires.

  Damn, Ben cursed inwardly. That changes everything.

  Now what should he do? Try to rescue his friends or maybe go straight for Sweet and try to end this war here and now?

  “He’s certainly dressed for the occasion,” whispered Lucy, her breath soft in Ben’s ear.

  She was right. Sweet was wearing a flowing cape with a scarlet silk lining, its collar elegantly trimmed with fur. His face was concealed by an ivory mask in the shape of a bird’s skull, wreathed with raven feathers. And on top of that, gleaming and malevolent, sat the Crown of Corruption.

  Ben knew what he must do.

  Sweet lifted his hand in a regal wave, a gold signet ring flashing on his finger. The crowd cheered lustily, and satisfied with this show of adoration, Sweet signalled his permission for the applause to cease.

  His voice rolled out over the auditorium like black tar. “Let the circus begin!”