“My people!” exclaimed the man mawkishly. Satisfied, he took the glass down from his eye, blinked a few times, and attended to the near-at-hand for the first time in several minutes. A huge Indian, blinded by sweat, was emerging from the stair carrying a bucket of silk thread. One of the Filipinos had scaled the stone knob at the top of the Monument, a good twenty feet above, and lashed himself to the base of the lanthorn. He caught a coil of rope underhanded to him by his partner. Tomba spliced away, wielding that fib like a scribe with a pen, and glancing up alertly from time to time. The four Jews had made a cabal in the southwest corner and were avidly speculating as to what the hell was going on. The only ones completely useless were Jimmy and Danny, still gazing, gobsmacked, down into the Tower.
“Wake up, ye bloody prats!” said the old man in the golden waistcoat. “Lest I come over and knock the dust out o’ yer skulls.” Then, before he could summon up any more such endearments, he was distracted by items of interest in the river Thames.
On the downstream side of the Bridge, a derelict-looking barge was tied up to the fourth starling from the near end. A short distance downstream, a sloop could be seen anchored in the Pool. She was in the act of weighing anchor. This was not remarkable. But she was running out her guns, which was; and to boot, some hands were busy on her aft end, preparing to hoist a blue flag covered with gold fleurs-de-lis.
But even more than these, what truly commanded his attention was a huge wagon coming across the Bridge from Southwark, drawn by a team of eight horses. It looked like the sort of wagon that might be used to convey great building-stones from rural quarries into the precincts of the city. But its burden was covered by worn-out sails, and it was preceded and followed by a swarm of jubilant Black-guards who, if they were keeping to form, were probably picking pockets, purses, and shop-windows clean as they went, like grasshoppers progressing through a field of ripe grain. As they crossed the Square—the open fire-break in mid-span—a man jumped off the wagon, darted to the downstream side, leaned over the parapet, and waved a swath of yellow cloth over his head a few times. His eyes were directed toward the fourth starling. There, a cutlass severed a painter. The barge began to drift down with the tide.
“My boys. My doves,” said the man in the golden waistcoat. “Every varlet in a mile radius is doing me a favor of some description, save you twain. Do you not wot how long it took me to hoard all of the favors I am spending in this hour? Favors are harder to get than money. Faith, what I am doing here now is like shoveling guineas into the sea. Why am I doing it? Simple, boys: ’tis all for you. All I want is to provide you lads with a proper Mum to look after you.” His voice had gone thick; his face had collapsed and now bore no trace of anger. “Starin’ at yon Tower as if you’d never seen the minars of Shahjahanabad. Remindin’ me of my own self, a wee mudlark boy, first time Bob and I sallied up the river. Fascinating it might be to you, who’ve been ’tending to other matters, and ’tending well, I might add. But I am so bloody sick of the place, e’en though I’ve ne’er set foot in it. A thorough study of the Tower of London your father has made. Where the Tower is concerned, I am, as our friend Lord Gy would say, a dungeon o’ learnin’. No small toil for one as unused to study as I. Spent many hours plying with drink your Irish outlaws who have garrisoned it, and know its odd corners and passages. Sent artists in to sketch me this or that tower. Stood up here on howling bitter days peering at it through a perspective-glass. Wooed the Tower’s maid-servants, bribed and blackmailed the Warders. To me ’tis now as familiar as a parish church to its aged vicar. I have traced through fœtid streets the invisible boundary of the Liberty of the Tower. I know which prisoners are close kept, and which have been granted that Liberty. I know the amount of the stipend that the Constable of the Tower is paid for looking after a Commoner-of-
means and a Commoner-without-means. Of the guns that look out o’er the river, I know which are in good order, and may not be fired because of dry rot in their carriages. I know the number of dogs, how many of them are pets, how many are strays, and how many of the latter are mad. I know which prisoner dwells with which Warder in which house. I know the amount of the customary tip one must give to a Warder to gain entry to the Inner Ward. When the Gentleman Porter goes into the country to take the waters, and cannot ’tend to his customary duty of locking the Tower’s gates at half-past-ten in the evening, who takes over that duty for him? I know. Did you know that the Steward of the Court of the Liberty of the Tower does double duty as its Coroner? Or that the Apothecary serves by warrant of the Constable, whereas the Barber is a wholly informal and unsworn position? I do, and indeed the Barber is one of our number. All these and numberless other things I know concerning the Tower. And at the end of my studies I have concluded that the place is naught more than just another queer English town, with a rickety wooden gaol and a parish church, and the only thing of note about it is that money is made there, and its leading citizens are all Lords committed for High Treason. I inform you of this now so you’ll not be let down anon when it’s amply shown ’tis true; and also, so that you’ll stop gawping at it, and count the redcoats in the Wharf Guard, and assemble the fucking Rocket!”
Jimmy and Danny had begun to rouse from their stupor round the point in the soliloquy when their father had brought up the subject of rabid dogs—even for those who lived a life of danger, this was a certain attention-getter. The terminal word “rocket” jolted them like the noose at a rope’s end. Jimmy shrugged off his cape and let it crumple to the stone deck. For a few moments Danny looked to be committing fratricide as he worked with a dirk under his brother’s arms, but he was only cutting away the web of ropes that bound the helmet-shaped burden to his back.
“Damn me, I should watch more and discourse less,” remarked their father, surveying the rooftops below through his glass. “They’ve strung the lines while I was prating.”
A thread of gossamer now connected the steeples of St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Dunstan-in-the-East, and thence ran almost in a straight line to the roof of Trinity House. But haply he focused on the streaming gutter of Tower Street just in time to see a crossbow-bolt flying above it. This pierced the copper roof-skin of All Hallows Church. It had only lodged there for a few moments when a dark-skinned, barefoot man scrambled to it, and commenced a curious hand-over-hand pantomime. He was pulling in yards of silken thread, too fine to be resolved by the glass. It was originating from a smooth-rubbed copper vat on the roof of Trinity House, and it got thicker as he pulled it in, so that if one had the patience to stand there and watch, it might in the end become visible.
He diverted his glass a few arc-seconds down into the adjoining churchyard, where the funeral had taken a macabre turn: the lid of the coffin had been tossed aside to reveal a helmet-shaped object with a long stick projecting from its base. Stored in the foot of the sarcophagus was another vat of coiled thread.
From there it was a flick of the glass to Tower Hill. The red lines were gone! The companies of soldiers had marched away. He scanned the Hill until he’d found them again: they had done just as he’d hoped. They had marched toward the smoke and the fire. As how could they not, for the fire had broken out in a building not far from Black Horse Stables, where these dragoons kept many of their horses. The protocol of London fires was as fixed and changeless as that of a coronation: first the fire brigades came, then the Mobb arrived, and finally soldiers marched out to drive away the Mobb. All was proceeding according to tradition.
He took the glass from his eye to make sure that his sons were doing their bit for the Plan. Indeed, they had lashed the pilgrim-staff to the rocket-head, and leaned it against the railing, aimed in the general direction of St. Mary-at-Hill. Several yards of iron chain trailed from the end of the stick and were now being spliced to a loose end of cord that trailed over the brim of the kettle that the Indian had lugged up here. So that was as it should be. He glanced straight down to verify that the large wagon was booming into position at the foot of the column. Then he
moved in the direction of the river, to check on his naval maneuvers; but as he came near the stair exit, his progress was all of a sudden blocked by a tall slender fellow in a long robe, who emerged not even breathing hard.
“Bloody Hell—our Supervisor’s here, boys.”
In response, spitting noises from Jimmy and Danny.
The robed one cast back his hood to reveal black hair with gray streaks and an unfashionable, but admittedly handsome, goatee. “Good day, Jack.”
“Say instead Bonjour, Jacques, so that our hostages shall make a note of your Frenchitude. And while you are at it, Father Ed, make the sign of the cross a few times to show off your Catholicity.”
Father Édouard de Gex switched happily to French and raised his voice. “I shall have more than one occasion to cross myself before we are finished. Mon Dieu, are these the only hostages you could arrange? They are Jews.”
“I am aware of it. They’ll make better witnesses, as being impartial to the quarrel.”
Father Édouard de Gex’s nose was a magnificent piece of bone architecture surmounting nostrils big enough to swallow wine-corks. He put them to good use now, literally sniffing at the Jews. He threw back and cast off his long robe to reveal the black cassock of a Jesuit, complete with swingeing crucifix, rosary, and other regalia. The Jews—who had supposed, until now, that the business with the pulley was part of routine Monument maintenance—now could not choose between astonishment and fear; We came up to take in the view, they seemed to say, and never expected the Spanish Inquisition.
“Where are the coins?” de Gex demanded.
“On your climb, did you nearly get tumbled off the stair by a great Indian who was on his way down?”
“Oui.”
“When next we see him, he’ll have the coins. Now, if you do not mind, I’d gladly have a look at the river.” Jack skirted de Gex and raised his glass, then faltered, as he did not really need it. The barge was drifting downriver with the tide-surge, and had covered perhaps a quarter of the distance to Tower Wharf. Men had emerged onto its deck and busied themselves with now-familiar preparations involving ropes and rockets. As for the sloop, she had now run out her French flag for everyone in the Pool to see, and seemed to be making a course for the Tower. Men were suddenly crowding her decks: men dressed all alike in powder-blue coats. If Jack had bothered with the spyglass, he could have seen ropes, grapnels, blunderbusses, and other Marine hard-ware in their hands.
The question was: was anyone in the Tower bothering to look? What if Jack threw a Boarding Party, and nobody came?
Behind him de Gex, in the universal manner of Supervisory Personages, was asking useless questions. “Jimmy, what think you?”
“I think too much pivots on outcomes within the Tower,” was Jimmy’s bleak answer.
De Gex seemed pleased to’ve been served up this opportunity to discharge the priestly office of succouring those who despaired. “Ah, I know the Tower is of an aspect very formidable. But unlettered man that you are, you want historical perspective. Do you know, Jimmy, who was the first prisoner ever held in the Tower of London?”
“No,” answered Jimmy, after deciding not to exercise his other option, viz. flinging de Gex off the Monument.
“It was his holiness Ranulf Flambard, Bishop of Durham. And do you know, Jimmy, who was the first prisoner to escape from the Tower?”
“No idea.”
“Ranulf Flambard. This was in the year of our Lord eleven hundred and one. Since then very little has changed. The Tower’s inmates refrain from escaping, not because the place is so competently looked after, but because they are mostly English gentlemen, who would look on it as bad form to leave. If the place were managed by Frenchmen our plan would be certain to fail, but as matters stand—”
“Come, they’re not so bad,” Jack put in, “see how the redcoats swarm to the Wharf. The alarm has gone up.”
“Excellent,” de Gex purred. “Then a Russian and a Scotsman may achieve what no Englishman would dream of.”
Sloop Atalanta, off the Isle of Grain
LATE AFTERNOON
WHEN NEXT THEY SAW COLONEL Barnes, they were well down the last reach of the Hope. The tide was rushing away from them so ardently that it threatened to ground Atalanta on the floor of an empty Thames. The river drew narrower every minute as its contents fled to the sea, exposing vast gray-brown slatherings to the air. Southend could be seen a few miles off the port bow, stranded in a mud desert. But what dominated the prospect was the sweep of the open ocean, which now subtended a full quarter of the horizon.
To starboard a fat sinuous river could be seen meandering out through the Kent marshes and nearly exhausting itself as it struggled across the ever-widening flat, trying to connect with the Thames.
“It is Yantlet Creek,” announced Colonel Barnes. “All that lies beyond it is not the mainland, but the Isle of Grain.”
“How can a creek form an island?” Daniel inquired.
“Questions such as that are the penalty we suffer for inviting Natural Philosophers,” Barnes sighed.
“Sir Isaac asked, too?”
“Yes, and I’ll give you the same answer.” Barnes unrolled his map, and traced the S of Yantlet Creek inland to a place where it joined up with a ganglion of other creeks, some of which flowed the other direction, into the Medway on the opposite side of the isle.
“Gravity seems to be mocking us here—who can explain the flow of these streams?” Daniel mused.
“Perhaps Leibniz can,” Barnes returned, sotto voce.
“So it is truly an island,” Daniel admitted, “which raises the question: how will your mounted companies be able to cross over to it? I assume that is what they are doing.”
Barnes used one dirty fingernail to trace the line of a road from the ferry wharf at Gravesend eastwards along the foot of the chalk hills. Where the Thames had jogged north to swing round the hammerhead, the road angled south to cut across its narrow handle, and then to follow the higher and drier ground a few miles inland of the Thames. “Here’s where they should have got ahead of us,” Barnes said. “And here is the bridge—the only bridge—over Yantlet Creek to the Isle of Grain.”
“Military man that you are, you lay great stress upon the onliness of that bridge,” Daniel remarked.
“Military man that I am, I have made it mine, for today,” Barnes stated. “My men have crossed over it, and hold the Isle end.” Then he checked his watch, to reassure himself. “Jack and his men are pent up now on that Isle, they cannot escape by land. And if they should attempt it by sea—why, we shall be waiting for them, shan’t we?”
He could learn nothing further from the map, so Daniel looked up. He could now see a rectangular keep sticking up out the top of a cairn-like foundation, perhaps a mile ahead of them.
At high tide, Shive Tor might make, if not a pretty picture, then at least a striking Gothick spectacle, jutting out of sparkling water off the shore of the Isle of Grain, brooding over the traffic of ships through England’s front gate. But at this moment it stood alone in the middle of an expanse of drained muck the size of London.
“If Jack lives up to his reputation, he’ll have a vessel at his disposal—perhaps a bigger and better one than this,” Daniel said—less to raise a serious objection than to egg Barnes on.
“But look beyond—behold what lies in the distance!” Barnes exclaimed.
Daniel now gazed past Shive Tor and perceived that there was water again, a mile or two beyond it. It required a moment or two to persuade himself that this must be the channel of the Medway. On the far bank of that lay a system of fortifications with a fishing-village cowering behind it: Sheerness.
“If Jack breaks for France, we need only signal Sheerness Fort. The Admiralty shall see to the rest,” Barnes said. He said it distractedly, as he’d telescoped a brass perspective-glass to full length and was using it to squint at Shive Tor. “Not to worry, though—as we expected, he’s high and dry. There’s a ship-channel, you see, so tha
t the Tor can be serviced by water, and Jack’s been dredging it deeper and deeper, so he can sail right up to the Tor with larger and larger vessels—but it’s no use during a spring tide. A longboat would scrape the bottom of that ditch this evening.”
Round the time Shive Tor had emerged from behind the Isle of Grain, a new wind had flooded over the starboard bow. For the last few minutes the sailors had been attending to it, trimming the canvas. Their business masked the more subtle operations of signalmen, who were at work with flags trying to communicate (or so Daniel assumed) with the dragoons who had disembarked at Gravesend. There was, in other words, a bit of a lull. Quite obviously, it would not last, and then there was no telling when Daniel would have another opportunity to speak to Barnes.
“Don’t mind Roger,” he said.
“Beg your pardon, sir?”
“The Marquis of Ravenscar. Don’t be troubled. I shall send him a note.”
“What sort of note, precisely?”
“Oh, I don’t know. ‘Dear Roger, fascinated to hear you are raising an army, oddly enough, so am I, and have already invited Colonel Barnes to be my Commander-in-Chief. Do let’s be allies. Your comrade-in-
arms, Daniel.’ ”
Barnes wanted to laugh but could not quite trust his ears, and so held it in, and went apoplectic red. “I should be indebted,” he said.
“Not at all.”
“If my men were to suffer, because of some political—”
“It is quite out of the question. Bolingbroke shall live out his declining years in France. The Hanovers shall come, and when they do, I shall extol you and your men to Princess Caroline.”
Barnes bowed to him. Then he said, “Or perhaps not, depending upon what happens in the next hour.”
The System of the World: Volume Three of the Baroque Cycle Page 34