by John M. Ford
"All right, Bennett?" Dimi asked. The young man was leaning back, one boot planted against the wall, hands crossed on his raised thigh. His fingers drummed on his armored thigh, inches from his saber hilt.
"Sure, Captain." Bennett stopped tapping. "Do you know what this is, sir?"
"No. And if I did, I probably couldn't tell you."
Bennett managed a smile.
They could hear chairs being shifted in the chamber behind the door, and voices being raised; Dimi thought he heard Lord Hastings, but could not make out anything being said.
Then he heard a word he was certain was "Treason!" Bennett was already drawing his sword; Dimi motioned for him to be patient just one second longer, and then the door swung open with Richard pushing it. "I say it is the basest sort of treason!"
Dimi signaled, and the force moved into the chamber at quick march.
Hastings was there, and Lord Stanley, and the wizard Morton, with perhaps a dozen others. Buckingham stood near the windows, holding some large sheets of paper.
Hastings said "Richard, if you do not consider this—"
Buckingham stabbed a finger at Hastings. "We have considered you very long, sir, and it is that consideration that has allowed you to carry out your considerable crimes." He swung his finger on Dimi and the troopers. "Take this traitor out and consider him properly!"
Dimitrios looked at Richard. Gloucester had both fists clenched, seemed taut enough to snap and fly apart.
Bennett was the only one moving then. He laid both hands on Hastings's blue velvet sleeve, pulled him off balance, and shoved him toward two of the Tower troops. In another moment they were out of the chamber and down the hall.
Dimi was struggling to think. Something seemed to be preventing him, like a hand closed on his mind. He wanted to draw his sword, use it. Surely there must be another traitor here. "Richard," he said, and it did not seem to be his own voice.
Lord Stanley was moving toward the windows. When he reached them, he was holding his left arm, and blood ran between his fingers. Dimi looked down, saw that his saber was out, and its blade was stained.
"Hell take them, they're doing it," Stanley said, "on the raw lumber—" The sound of steel into wood cut him off. He turned his head; it wobbled like a doll's.
"Morton," Richard said. "You're doing this."
"I? Good my lord, I prune my gardens with different tools than this."
"We should take your eyes arid your tongue," Richard said, "but you'd smell your way to favor again." He turned to Buckingham. "Harry, once you said Wales was a good hiding place. Take this... thing to Brecknock, and hide it away."
Lord Stanley sat down hard on the floor. He was not bleeding badly, but was pale. Dimi said "Tend the man, Robert," and his other serjeant went to Stanley's side. Then Dimi went to Richard.
"I'm all right, brother," Gloucester said quietly, brokenly. "Hastings and Morton..." He stared out the window. "Hastings and Morton killed Edward. I just learned it last night."
"The King is—"
"My brother Edward," Richard said. "No, no, the young King's safe—though Harry says someone tried to kill Doctor Argentine last night."
Richard took a step to the window, looked down. "Hastings was the last man I should have supposed it of... which I suppose he knew, didn't he?" He turned away from the scene outside. "I was thinking of titles and properties. I thought it was over bloody Calais. And it was just my brother's merry harlot. Well, we'll bring her in as well, and if she's a witch we'll have it out of her."
Morton said calmly, "Mistress Shore isn't a witch, you know. Questioning her would be most unnecessary... unless it is necessary for my lord's faith that he injure a woman?"
"If you speak one more word, wizard," Richard said, boiling over, "my men will cut off your left hand and give your magic something to occupy itself doing." He pointed at Dimi's bloody sword.
"Don't be troubled," Morton said. "There is always something that needs doing." He stepped toward Dimitrios, reaching toward the drawn saber. No one moved to stop him.
Morton swept his hand along the sword. There was a sparkling light as it passed, and then the blade was clean. Morton knelt, rubbed the same hand down Stanley's wounded arm. Then there was no blood there either, nor tear in the fabric of Stanley's sleeve.
"Take them out. Take them all away," Richard said tiredly. Dimitrios waved to his serjeant, who was staring, bewildered, at Lord Stanley's arm. The man nodded finally and snapped orders to the troops, who responded as men being awakened from sleep. Buckingham called after, "Keep a tight rein on the wizard, damn it!"
Richard said "Stay here, Dimitrios."
When the room was empty but for Gloucester, Buckingham, and Dimi, Richard said "There's news of Peredur, and the Doctor."
"What news? Are they alive?" If they were not, he knew the favor he would be asking next.
"We've read Mancini's letters," Buckingham said. "They've unmasked this whole conspiracy: Hastings, Morton, their supporters... even the Queen is involved." He fanned the papers he was holding.
"But Cynthia? And Hywel?"
Buckingham said "Your Professor has not deciphered the entire message yet. But they are definitely mentioned, in connection with Wales."
Dimi said "My lord Richard—"
"If you hadn't volunteered I'd have ordered you. Come back quickly, brother, and well accompanied." Richard turned to Buckingham. "And by the time you reach Brecon, you'll be confirmed as Justiciar of Wales. And I mean you will be confirmed."
"And the rest of Rivers's offices?" Buckingham said, bluff as always.
"Rivers won't be needing them," Richard said. "There'll be a rider to Tyrell this afternoon."
Buckingham nodded, with a broad flat smile that had no humor in it. "Then, Captain Ducas, shall we be gone?"
"Gladly, Your Grace."
As Dimi and Buckingham reached the door, leaving Richard alone in the Council chamber, Dimitrios paused and said to Gloucester, "I hope you will send my thanks to your mother, for the quiet of her house?"
Richard nodded absently, then looked up, with a puzzled expression; he shook his head dismissively and waved farewell, then went again to the window. There was much shouting from Tower Hill.
Dimitrios followed Buckingham around the Tower courtyard, to a small side door in the White Tower.
Dimi said "Mancini was reporting to the Eastern Empire, wasn't he?"
Buckingham nearly dropped the ring of keys in his hand. "How did you know that?"
"I should have known it sooner, much sooner." And maybe I did, he thought, but I didn't want to be a spy. "We knew they were planning against the English crown, as far back as... Morton."
"What's that, then?" Buckingham opened a door, motioned for Dimitrios to enter. A few of the Duke's men were inside, in attitudes of boredom.
"Morton was at court when the French woman was Queen, wasn't he? He knew her?"
"Very well."
"Then he must have been the one she thought she saw, when..." He was trying to remember what Hywel had said. And Gregory had been there too. "You said Doctor Argentine was not one of them," he said, feeling suddenly very cold, "but I'm certain he must be. Some remaining part of Mancini's letter must mention him—"
"One should be careful, reading other people's mail," the Duke said, and raised a finger.
Instantly four guardsmen were on Dimitrios. He pivoted, gave one his elbow and another his knee, swung a gloved fist and felt bone crunch. Another pair of men came in. Dimi threw off a groaning man and turned.
Buckingham had a double-barreled gun aimed at his head from barely two yards away. Dimi was about to jump for him anyway, but then he recognized the weapon, knew he could not hope its firelocks would fail. He let his arms be held back.
"Yesterday," Buckingham said pleasantly, "I saw what a close miss from this arm—I see you know it—could do to a man, one who heals very quickly, fortunately for him. This isn't at all knightly, I know, but then I've always been a boor, li
ke Sir Cei, who ran Arthur's house while Arthur was busy being knightly. And remem' ber, Captain—I saw you tackle the best knight in the realm."
The Duke nodded slightly, and a white-hot flash consumed Dimi's world.
Dimitrios was not certain if he was awake, or even alive. His vision was entirely black, and he could not move. Then his head began hurting, and he supposed he must not be dead; there was too much pain for a limbo and not enough for a hell.
He might be blinded and crippled. That didn't bear thinking on. Then he felt something cold against his throat: a human hand, quite cold. They had put him into a grave, then, alive, and not alone. He opened his mouth to breathe, knew that if he tasted earth he would have to scream.
The corpse hand moved to touch his forehead. "Dimitrios." Gregory's voice. Not a grave, then; no one would expect it to hold a vampire. But still there was the darkness. So perhaps a tomb. And he still could not move. "Gregory? Can you see? Where are we?"
"In a cell, somewhere in the London Tower. The one they call Bloody, I believe. I cannot see: there is no light at all, no window."
They had put Clarence in the Bloody Tower. And then bricked it up. "How big... is the cell?"
"Precisely nine feet six inches by nine feet two inches, English measure."
Dimi laughed. It helped his spirit, if not his headache. "All right, how do you know?"
"The last joint of my little finger is exactly one inch long. And there has been little else to do."
"You must be free to move, then. I don't seem to be."
"Your wrists are chained to the wall, above your head. Can you feel the wall behind you?"
"Now I can."
"Can you feel this?"
"What?" Something stuck his left hand. "Yes. Ouch." A weight bore down on his foot. "That too."
"Good."
Dimitrios said "How did they come to take you?"
Gregory explained his encounter with Doctor Argentine. "Do you know if he was badly hurt, by my shot fragments?"
"I don't think so."
"Schade. I was hoping for more even spread Dimitrios, you had seen the doctor, had you not? Did you not notice he was one of my kind?"
"Yes. But I... I suppose I knew you too well, and I thought..."
"I see." Gregory said something in German. After a moment, he said "And your story?"
Dimi told him.
"Hastings did not kill anyone," Gregory said, "nor the Shore woman. Hastings was treating secretly with the Queen Elizabeth, not trusting Mancini entirely. Mancini was outliving his usefulness, I think; that is why he wrote such a long and detailed letter."
"Which Buckingham is using only selected parts of."
"I helped in that," Gregory said, and there was a silence; then he said "I organized my deciphered text in a manner that would have made such use easy. German scholar at work."
"Then Hywel and Cynthia—"
"There was no mention of them. If they did happen across the plans in Wales... and recall, Hywel was looking for such things... then I cannot hope they are alive."
"I can hope."
"I did not deny that," Gregory said, from some distance away in the darkness.
"At least, if they are alive, Buckingham doesn't know where to find them.... Wait a moment. You said you walked into Buckingham's men just as I did. But you'd read the letter." Please, he thought, if any of them is to be a traitor, let it be the vampire.
"His name did not appear in Mancini's letter."
"What? What does that mean?"
"Perhaps that there was only no news. But Mancini was writing to the Byzantine spymaster in Genova—his name is Angelo Cato, if we are ever able to make use of that—about master plans. Suppose that Buckingham is not part of that plan."
"But we know he's allied with them." "Perhaps they have not told him he is not a part." Gregory's voice was close again. Dimi felt the cold fingers on his hands, on the metal around his wrists. Gregory said T dacht', i' hart die Schltis- sel."
"What?"
"These shackles are locked, not riveted. Excuse me now, but give me some quiet, and I will try to pick the locks."
"How do you expect to do that?"
"I have some pins. Up my sleeve, like a conjuror. Now quiet, please; very soon the cramp will enter your limbs."
"Gregory..."
Von Bayern's voice was very close in Dimi's ear. "Ach, Mensch, why do you think you are bound and I am free? When they brought you in, they poured a cup from one of Morton's jars down my throat, and what it has done to my hunger I cannot describe to you.
"Now let me open these bands, so that they may keep me from you...."
Chapter Twelve
TRANSFORMATIONS
IF a holiday in London was like a disorganized melee, then a Coronation was a full-scale war. The aldermen were drumming up spirit and decoration, trying to outshow the rival precinct next door; the bailiffs were closing down the petty gamblers and unlicensed whores who were no longer worth the penny bribes they paid; city engineers marshaled carpenters and stonemasons for the big tasks of repair and debtor gangs for the little offal-carting ones, consulting their maps like grand strategists and occasionally dismantling part of a building that had grown to intrude on the legal street clearances. Ordinary citizens who would not know a glaive from a falchion were wearing swords in the streets, and addressing one another as "Noble Citizen!" whether either word applied; a few ran themselves or one another through, but that was expected. You could even call it prophesied, if you were licensed by the appropriate guild.
For two months there had been no crowned King of England; there was a Queen, but until a week ago she had been missing somewhere, and anyway dowager queens were stale fish on the market. The Return of the King was imminent, and in the dazzling light of that promise the memory that swords were first worn in the streets after Lord Hastings's sudden death bleached away.
Certainly the boys who threw stones at the old witch on the street were not thinking of politics, and their chant of Cundrie, Cundrie, pass me by! Loathly Damsel, prophesy! referred to nothing found on the Parliament Rolls.
A stone hit the limping witch, and she turned her beaked and warty face toward them, and wrote a sign in the air. The urchins ran, whispering charms of protection; baiting the bear was no fun if the bear could bite.
The old woman resumed her foot-dragging walk. It was awkward, but not too slow, and her determination seemed to have no limits. She wore a brown wool cloak over layers of linen skirts, and round- toed leather shoes; stringy gray hair stuck out of her hood all around her ugly coarse-fleshed face.
She walked straight up to the great house on the river, hardly looking left or right, and pounded at the door.
The porter appeared, in cylindrical cap and cloak with rose embroidery, key around his neck. His surprise was hidden in an instant. "Madam?"
"Is Duchess Cecily of York in the house?" said the hag, in a voice that was tired but not at all old.
"I am afraid—"
"Oh... what is your name? Hugh." She put a hand to her face, dug the nails deep into the flesh; Hugh Wetherby paled.
And then the warts and wrinkles came away in a handful of charcoal and lard. "Tell the Duchess... I'm afraid I've lost her loan to me, and more besides. May I please come in?"
Wetherby took her by the arm and led her in, seeing the tears come to her eyes, wondering whatever could have happened that Madam Cynthia should return in such a state, and without Master Hywel.
Cynthia stepped from the coach into the Tower courtyard just as clouds were gathering; the sudden shadows did not dim her. The Duchess had given her a gown of pale green satin brocaded with white roses, threaded pearl-seeded ribbons in her hair, scented her with Cathay oil. Cecily brought out a walking stick of white ash with a green jade handle, "a gift against my old age I'm far too vain to use. Now, don't argue. Do you think I'd have sent my youngest girl to her tournaments without armor? Well, then."
And indeed she was admitted past the Lion Tow
er, and then the Bell, without incident. At the Bloody Tower, the door was opened by a doddering man in a pop-seamed, thread-picked surcoat, carrying a partizan that seemed an impossible load, let alone a useful weapon. He listened patiently to her; listened twice. Then he wandered away, closing the door on her.
It was opened again by a somewhat more coherent young man, who was not much more help.
"I fear the Protector is occupied just now. You're a relative... ?"
"No." She wasn't in the spirit to construct worthwhile lies. "There are two men in his service, Captain Dimitrios Ducas and Professor Gregory von Bayern. If I might see one of them?"
The guardsman thought a moment. "Why, yes, I know of them. But they aren't here. They've gone to Wales."
"Wales... ?" she said, wondering if they could have passed one another, on the road, in the night.
"With the Duke of Buckingham's company. The Duke is to follow—"
The faint did not begin as a fake. Her legs had really gone strength- less, and she decided it might as well be played for useful effect.
"Madam?" The porter was terrified. She wondered why syncope did that to everyone but the victim. Fear of sudden death, perhaps, and fear of suddenly having a body at your feet with everyone staring and no simple explanation.
"Come in, madam. Here—come in here."
Good thing it wasn't a real faint, she thought, as the porter half- led, half-dragged her to a little anteroom, got her to sit, and then lie, on a trestle table. "I'll fetch a doctor, I won't be a moment; you just lie there—" and he was gone.
Well, now she was through the gates.
She was tireder than she had thought (though of course she could never have slept at Baynard's Castle, with Dimitrios and Gregory a mile away unmet) and even the wooden table was luring her to sleep. She shifted slightly to one side, and pain lanced up her leg: so much for sleep, she thought, but in a moment she was drifting again.
You can't sleep now. One wink now and you never will wake. She went on hands and knees along the ditch, wet soil sucking at her, slipping now and then into the cold, muddy water; but the road was infinitely more dangerous.