Where the fuck was Daniels? Philip Balfour swallowed thoughts of what he would do to his bitch when next he had her in his power. Suppressing a snarl of rage, he paced the carpet before the fireplace in the office so recently occupied by Noel Malcolm. Parliamentary aides came and went. He snapped orders, dispensed ridicule, and generally vented his spleen. Simultaneously, he dictated notes for the speech he was shortly to make to the House of Commons—the speech of his life.
Another aide, a young woman whose name Balfour had forgotten, entered the room. “Sir,” she said, when he glowered at her. “There’s no news from the hospital. All I can find out is that the prime minister’s condition is unchanged.”
Balfour scowled.
“And sir?”
“What?”
“Dame Imogen Worsley is asking to see you.”
Ah. He smiled. So word of his plans had got to her. Too late. There was nothing she could do. “Tell her to make an appointment.” He smirked. “I can probably see her in a week or two.” She’ll be out of a job by then. Along with her husband. The aide vanished. Balfour turned back to his dictating. “Where was I?” he asked the middle-aged woman who took down his words on a laptop computer.
“ ‘England will be truly free, as it was in the days of King Harold,’ ” she read back to him.
Balfour stopped in front of the fireplace. He glowered at his reflection in the mirror over the mantel. Bebe Daniels. He should never have taken another man’s castoff. But she’d been perfect. In every way. He could do anything he wanted….Last he’d heard Bebe had tracked Ayesha Ryder down and had her cornered at some castle in East Sussex. Bebe had found Harold’s tomb—his body was in perfect condition, although somewhat butchered. She’d found his war banners, too, an unexpected bonus; there was much he could do with them. But Ryder still had Harold’s sword. He wanted that sword. Needed it. He glanced at his watch. There was still time. A thought occurred. It was best to be prepared. One never knew what might happen. He crossed to the massive Victorian desk, on which he’d left his briefcase. When no one was looking, he opened the briefcase and withdrew a small revolver, a Taurus .327. He removed the safety, then slipped it into his inside jacket pocket.
Chapter 48
The students watching through the arrow slits in the outer wall of the Headless Drummer cheered the rout of the enemy. Niobe watched them go with mixed feelings. She wished she knew how to use a bow. Like Ayesha Ryder.
Niobe retained a vivid mental image of Ayesha as she’d dashed from the gate room. Black-haired, black-garbed—except for where one pant leg had been ripped away. Bloodied. Battered. The huge golden-hilted sword of England’s last Saxon king over one shoulder. She’s sooo hot!
The woman was an academic, for heaven’s sake! A researcher! On the surface, perhaps. There was no doubt she had stellar qualifications. Ryder was an atavistic throwback, though; to some warrior past, where she’d been a bloodthirsty tribal queen. Boudicca. That’s who Ayesha reminded Niobe of. The ancient queen of the British Iceni tribe. She’d risen against Roman oppression—slaughtering some seventy or eighty thousand of them in one of the empire’s greatest defeats.
Niobe had looked into Ryder’s eyes for a brief instant before the Palestinian had swung away. She’d seen a blazing light. For an instant, she’d dared to hope it was for her. That Ayesha was…as she herself was. But the light wasn’t for her. It was the light of battle—glorious battle.
“They’ll be back,” Ian Miller stated, jerking Niobe from her thoughts.
“What would you do? If you were them?” Joram asked Miller. Niobe guessed the librarian was worried about Ayesha, up on the battlements. It was more than worry. She’d seen the way he looked at Ryder.
“Attack from two directions at once. More if I could.”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Can you use a gun?”
“Yes.” Utter confidence expressed in one word.
Miller’s eyes narrowed. “Military?”
“Something like that.”
Niobe wondered what that meant. Joram had said he was a librarian. There was more to him than met the eye, apparently.
“Then go to the reception gate,” Miller ordered Joram. “Take charge of the defense. You’ll find Jim Tarman there. He’s a good man. He’ll have weapons.” Miller looked at the remaining students, gathered together in a tight group. He nodded to three of them. “Craig. Denny. Crystal. Go with Mr. Tate.”
Joram straightened. Then, to Niobe’s surprise, he saluted Miller in a manner that would have passed muster on any parade ground. With a nod to Niobe and the vicar, he spun on his heel and strode from the gatehouse. The named students followed in his wake.
“What about us?” Niobe asked Miller, with a sideways glance at Caroline Frost and Simon Knollys.
“It’s up to us to defend the gatehouse. Make no mistake, they’ll be back after they’ve licked their wounds.”
“But won’t the archers on the battlements hold them off?” Caroline was almost pleading with the ex-soldier to tell her that it would be all right, Niobe thought.
Miller shook his head. “Last time they were taken by surprise. They had no chance to prepare. No time to organize covering fire. They won’t be caught napping again. Besides…” He put a hand up. “You hear?”
In the sudden silence, Niobe heard the thrum of engines. “It must be their Zeppelin,” she said, remembering what Ayesha had told her about the airship that had brought the mercenaries to Herstmonceux.
“They came by Zeppelin? For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you say so?”
“What difference does it make?”
Miller sighed. “That’s how they’ll be able to come at the gatehouse again. They can lay down a suppressing fire on the battlements. The archers will have to get undercover.”
Niobe dashed toward the staircase.
Miller grabbed her arm. “No need. Miss Ryder will have seen the Zeppelin. I need you here.”
“For what?”
“Come with me.” Miller strode toward the armory.
“You’re kidding! Right?” Miller had stopped before a cannon. Niobe stared at the squat, primitive weapon of war. She’d seen hundreds more in museums and in the field during her career as an archaeologist. She’d never seen one fired for real. She wasn’t sure whether to be amazed, impressed, horrified, or all three at once.
This cannon did not look particularly impressive. It was small and pitted, but very solid looking and mounted on a heavy wooden carriage. But weapons like this had once killed and maimed people in large numbers.
“It’s an early naval gun,” Miller explained. “We let the students fire blanks now and again to get an idea of what it was like. It’s been nearly three hundred years since this one was last fired in anger.” His serious face split into a boyish grin. “I’ve always wanted to see what would happen.”
“What’s that thing?” Niobe pointed to an iron box on wheels with a large stovepipe projecting from the top. “It looks like a field kitchen.”
“Believe it or not, it’s a mobile wagon for heating shot; cannonballs. Norwegian navy came up with it. It’s the damnedest thing.” Miller chewed his lip. Then, “We’ll bring it along. Come on all of you, give me a hand.” He pointed to several boxes and implements that sat on the floor next to the cannon. “Bring those, too, would you?” he asked, although it was more of a command.
Niobe, Caroline, Knollys, and the remaining students carried the various items of gear through to the gatehouse. The last item they brought was an open chest. It contained a number of small but very heavy iron cannonballs. When they’d finished, Niobe helped Miller and one of the students move the cannon and line it up behind the great doors that opened onto the moat bridge. Then Miller sent two students to fill a large tub with water. The two remaining students he instructed to fill the fire chamber of the mobile shot-heating wagon with firewood. And to get a fire going within it. He spent precious time showing them what to do. Meanwhile, Niobe,
unable to stand still, returned to the arrow slit that overlooked the moat. For the space of two heartbeats, she stared. Then she spun on her heel. “They’re coming!”
Miller grunted, although he didn’t panic, or even hurry up his movements. He opened one of the boxes they’d brought from the armory. He lifted out a cloth-covered package and thrust it into the cannon’s breech. He followed this with what looked like a wad of old cloth. He pushed both home with a ramrod. Then he picked up one of the small but heavy cannonballs. He examined it all over. Then he thrust it, also, into the cannon’s breech. He followed this with another wad of rags, which he also tamped down with the ramrod. He next took a tube with a spiked end and thrust it down hard into the touchhole. Niobe watched every movement, fascinated.
“All right.” Miller was apparently satisfied with his efforts. “Where are they now?”
Niobe looked through the arrow slit. “Just starting across the bridge.”
“Good. Open the doors. And stand back.” As Niobe and Knollys moved to the doors, Miller spoke to Caroline: “Move well to the side, Vicar. This thing will jump when it’s fired. I don’t exactly know how far. I do know that you don’t want to be behind it!”
Knollys lifted the iron crossbar from its brackets. He slid back the big bolts that secured the doors. Then he gripped the handle of the right-hand door. Niobe took the left. At a nod from Miller, they both pulled at the same time. The doors swung inward.
Miller leaned on the right trunnion of the gun carriage. One of the students took the left. Together they heaved the cannon forward into the doorway. When Miller was satisfied with the position, he bent over the barrel and looked along its length.
Niobe, looking through the open doorway now, but careful to keep well back, counted nine camouflage-clad figures, Uzis at the ready. They covered one another in echelon formation as they advanced across the bridge, past the abandoned battering ram. There was no sign of Bebe Daniels. The mercenaries were all looking up at the battlements, obviously waiting for the archers to appear. Presumably they were also waiting for their Zeppelin, now approaching the castle, to take care of that problem. Then one of them spotted the cannon in the gatehouse doorway.
Niobe grinned at the collective dropping of jaws with which the soldiers, mercenaries, whatever they were, stared into the black maw of the ancient armament that now dared to threaten them. Amusement, she guessed, would be their predominant emotion. She looked at the cannon. She couldn’t imagine it firing. Blanks, yes, with smoke. But not for real. And how much damage could one cannonball do? A cartoonish image from her childhood popped into her head. Yosemite Sam.
The mercenaries hesitated, grouping together a little. Some gestured toward the cannon.
Miller picked up an implement. It looked like a pike or a spear, with a fork below the pointed end through which a cord had been threaded. He reached into a pocket, drew out a lighter, clicked it, and held it to the cord.
“It’s a linstock, isn’t it?” Niobe asked him. “With a slow match?”
“That it is. It was used before flintlock firing mechanisms came in. Flintlocks were a lot safer.” He shrugged. “We strive for authenticity here.” He looked back through the doorway, bent low, and sighted along the barrel of the cannon. He made a minor adjustment to the elevation. Then he stood back and well to the side. He held the match at the end of the linstock to the fuse.
Niobe held her breath during the heartbreaking pause that followed. “Is something—”
The cannon fired.
Niobe was stunned at the noise. Like a thunderclap, but directly overhead. The cannon shot backward, clear across the gatehouse and into the castle courtyard.
Smoke hid the view.
At first. Then, slowly, it cleared. Niobe stared through the arrow slit. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Miller’s ball had plowed through the middle of the group on the bridge. Two mercenaries, at least, were down. There was a spreading pool of blood on the ground and on the wall to one side of the bridge. A head lay several yards from its trunk. She turned away, sickened.
“C’mon!” Miller roared. “Again!”
Niobe pushed herself away from the wall. She joined a white-faced Knollys in helping Miller haul the cannon back into position. Miller grabbed the rammer and sponged out the barrel, using the tub of water the students had fetched. Then he reloaded.
“I’m using grapeshot this time!” he yelled. Niobe suspected it was partly emotion, and partly because, like her, he’d been nearly deafened by the first shot.
“G-grapeshot?” The vicar was whiter than Knollys, and shaking like a leaf. “W-what’s that?”
“Canister.” Niobe was appalled by what Miller intended. She was also excited. The two emotions warred with each other. Excitement won. “Small pieces of lead or metal shot crammed together. It will burst apart when it’s fired, scattering across a larger area.”
“That’s murder!”
“Sorry, Vicar.” Miller thrust a new fuse into the touchhole. “Never be nice to guys with guns pointed at you. It doesn’t pay.”
“They’re coming again!” Niobe peered across the cannon toward the moat.
A machine gun fired from somewhere overhead. Bullets bounced in the doorway and ricocheted off the stonework of the moat bridge. Fortunately no shots penetrated the gatehouse. The Zeppelin had arrived and was giving covering fire.
“Fire in the hole!” Miller bellowed. He touched the linstock to the fuse and jumped back.
The explosion was different this time. Sharper. There was less smoke. But the devastation was greater. Niobe was too stunned to be sickened. Of the seven men who had charged across the bridge after the first cannonball took down two of their comrades, only one remained standing. Miller’s grapeshot had caught them at the point where the bridge narrowed, forcing them to bunch together, maximizing the capacity for destruction. Moans and cries filled the air. The stonework was painted red. Bodies and parts of bodies were strewn across the bridge. Some were still. Others writhed and heaved. The lone survivor of the attack fled, limping badly.
“Round two to us.” Miller grinned. “You can shut the doors,” he told Niobe and Knollys. Of the students, two were vomiting helplessly. Two girls were holding each other and sobbing.
“We have to help them,” the vicar pleaded. “Those men. We can’t just leave them there—”
“We’re still under attack.” Miller gestured to the ceiling. “That Zeppelin is up there. We don’t know how many more men they’ve got.”
“Ohmigod!” The vicar’s voice broke on a sob.
Niobe tore her gaze from the carnage on the bridge. Caroline was bent over a huddled shape in front of the fireplace. Simon Knollys.
Miller squatted next to the vicar. He lifted Knollys’s wrist. Then he felt his neck, which was wet with blood.
Slowly the ex-soldier got to his feet. When he looked at Niobe his face was grim, his expression hard. “He’s dead.” He swung round at the sound of running footsteps.
Marian burst into the gate room, wild-eyed and panting for breath. “They’re dropping into the courtyard,” she gasped.
Chapter 49
A camouflage-clad mercenary rappelled swiftly down a line from the Zeppelin that hovered over the castle courtyard. Ayesha drew back on her bow until every muscle in her arms sang with the strain, tracking him, shutting all else from her mind. She and her squad of student archers had observed the effects of Ian Miller’s cannonball on the enemy. Then the bloody devastation wrought by the canister shot. The students had cheered and high-fived one another, thinking it was over. Ayesha knew better. Soldiers for hire would not be so readily defeated. Especially soldiers who had been told, as she assumed they would have been, of the vast treasure that lay beneath Herstmonceux Castle. Chivying the students back to the embrasures, she’d pushed them to ready themselves for a further attack as soon as the enemy had regrouped. The approach of the Zeppelin had forced them to retreat to the passageway on the floor below the battlements. She’d
sent Marian to warn Miller and Joram. The girl had returned, shaking, with the news of Simon Knollys’s death. Their first casualty. There had been two others since—students with flesh wounds caused by flying stone fragments. White-faced and bloodied, they were being tended by the castle nurse, who had set up a first-aid station at the end of the passageway, away from the windows.
Ayesha released her arrow. Her target dropped, a feathered arrow piercing his right shoulder. The man squirmed on the ground, plucking futilely at the shaft. He wasn’t the only downed mercenary. The remaining student archers, ranged at the windows along the passage to Ayesha’s left and right, let fly their arrows as fast as they could. The hesitation some of them had felt at firing at humans had disappeared. Even Marian, initially the most squeamish, frowned in concentration as with her bow she followed a mercenary rappelling down from the Zeppelin; she waited until he hit the ground and then let shoot her arrow. She missed, cursing fluently with a range well beyond her years. Then she drew another arrow.
Ayesha gnawed her lip. She and her band were taking a toll on the mercenaries, but more of them were landing in the courtyard unscathed. Their Uzis poured deadly fire at the upper windows, seeking out the castle defenders.
A bullet ricocheted past Ayesha’s ear. She ducked, knowing it was useless to do so. She wouldn’t hear the bullet that killed her. A fresh fusillade of shots came from the courtyard—not from automatic weapons. She risked a look. What she saw caused her to rise to her full height and draw her bow once more, a smile parting her lips.
Joram, with several allies in tow, had infiltrated the colonnaded space that bordered the opposite side of the courtyard. He and his companions were taking potshots at the mercenaries with vintage service revolvers and shotguns. What they lacked in firepower they more than made up for with the fact that they were firing from cover at an enemy with nothing to hide behind, except the castle sundial and clumps of rhododendrons.
Ryder Page 20