The city lay below, roofs and smoking chimneys of varied heights creating a sea of angles. I could see down into the narrow pathways strewn with lodgers’ laundry. The sunset glinted off the water-filled footsteps imprinted upon the mud.
From up here, I was king of London.
I finally knew where I was. To my right, the River Thames separated me from north London, flowing like a grey slug that had fed on human waste for the past century. Fog flirted with the water’s surface, sending tendrils of mist into the streets and over the last few boaters coming in to dock.
Ship masts swayed back and forth and lined the opposite shore, their flags drooping like disheartened soldiers. Pointed steeples interrupted the sunset, declaring their majesty. And I saw London laid out like the map in Norwood’s apothecary—perfectly to scale. St. Helen, St. Andrew, St. Dunston . . . I was in the tower of St. Olaf church.
And I needed to cross the Thames.
Straight ahead, London Bridge rested on stone arches spaced across the river, with three-man wherry boats rowing upstream through them. Atop the bridge rose apartments with rounded corners and pointed roofs. Billowing chimney smoke and warm candlelight. An exotic place to live, despite the view of severed heads on spikes rising every which way from the top of the Bridge Gate. Convicts, criminals . . . Keepers.
I once heard Emma Areben whispering about how William Shakespeare crossed London Bridge every day. Perhaps I’d run into the famous playwright.
For now, though, I pocketed my awe. I must find Father.
I descended the tower and reentered the now-darkened streets. No lights lit my way, the alleys blocking any moonlight. The blackness so deep and thick I felt as though I walked through a tunnel. Groans, evil laughs, and sinister whispers floated on the current of darkness. No man was safe on these streets once night fell.
I made my way to the end of Tooley Street and ended up in an open square facing the Bridge Gate. The displayed heads of convicts stared down at me from the gate like menacing demons, their broken masks covered in bird excrement.
I hurried through the entrance, passing homes, shops, and openings to view the Thames in darkness.
Once on the opposite side, I turned left on Thames Street. A few of society’s neglected lay tucked in shadowed corners, snoring or nibbling bits of old bread. I might join them after a few hours of the bell, but not yet. My mission fueled me.
I made my way to Fleet Street and quickened my steps under a clothesline that displayed dripping breeches and peasant shirts. Were they hung a little lower, a thief could snatch himself a new outfit.
Did I want to be a thief tonight?
My honor slipped a notch at the thought. I passed the butcher’s, where whole pigs hung gutted, their legs stretched on wood ribbing. They stank and flies buzzed where their innards should have been. My empty stomach turned over.
Fleet Street bridged the river and wound through a giant gate with towers on each side and an arch in the middle for passing. The air cleared a bit. With the recent spring storms, the Thames had likely flooded and washed away some of the street filth. I observed the barred windows from afar. Unlike the Keeper prisoner in Newark, no one begged for alms from these windows.
I glanced around. The bridge and streets were empty. I approached the windows. “Keeper,” I hissed. “Is there a Keeper in here?” I wasn’t exactly subtle.
“What’s it to ye?” someone grumbled.
“I need to speak to him.” I pressed my face against the bars. The interior was too murky for me to see anything. Then a pale ghost of a face—deprived of a lifetime of sunlight—loomed from the darkness and stopped inches from my own.
I reeled backward.
“You’re plagued.” The man hissed through broken and blackened teeth.
I stood agape. “Y-Yes.”
The Keeper leaned closer until the tip of his nose squeezed between the bars—an inch of freedom. “Listen close. Stay faithful to the Keeper way. Never speak to the White Light, and never turn your ear from a Keeper’s request.” At this, he slid a trembling hand through the bars, palm up.
“I haven’t any coin.”
“Let the boy alone,” someone grouched from deeper inside, with a tired edge to his voice.
“Why do Igniters hate us? Why does King James exile and execute you?” I asked.
“King James is jealous. Afraid. Everyone else wants White for themselves. Igniters think they are strong enough to speak to it.”
“What is White?” I didn’t dare tell him it spoke to me. That it had freed me. “Why is it so powerful?”
The Keeper shook his head. “It is not for the common man to explore. It is too powerful for us and it breeds greed.”
But White spoke to me.
And I spoke back.
I had betrayed the Keeper way without knowing.
“He’s lyin’, boy.” If that shadowed prisoner called me boy one more time . . .
I shifted my weight and lowered my voice. “Do you know Fawkes? Guy Fawkes?”
The Keeper leaned back. I couldn’t see his expression, but the whitening of his knuckles on the window bars told me enough. “The great soldier?”
I swooped closer. “I need to find him.”
“Who are you?”
“A tavern would be the most likely place to find any soldier,” hollered the annoyed voice.
“Please, tell me how I can find him,” I whispered to the Keeper.
“I can’t.”
“Please.” I reached toward him.
A long pause. “An acquaintance of his resides at the Duck—”
“Hey!” A shout from behind sent me careening away from Fleet Prison. I caught movement in the shadows. On instinct, I sprinted away. Had the person seen my face? Was it a guard from the prison cart? Did they hear the name Fawkes?
I ran until I hit a street called the Strand, where I took refuge behind some ale casks by a tavern. I breathed in the oak, aching to wet my throat. I didn’t dare drink Thames water. I’d heard the stories. I pressed my forehead against the rough wood.
That imprisoned Keeper knew Father. I was sure of it.
I raised my head above the edge of the barrel. A doorway lantern illuminated the tavern’s sign: The Duck and Drake. Four men exited, bringing the wafting aroma of bread and fire behind them.
My thoughts slipped to dishonorable considerations . . . like the coin purse swinging from the belt of one of the four men exiting the inn. I frowned.
The men spoke in low tones on the doorstep. The nearest man tucked the coin purse in his belt but didn’t tie it. Ah, the blessing of oversight brought on by ale.
The men headed away from the Duck and Drake, and I made my decision. A homeless plagued man could retain only so much honor. I had to let go of some.
I followed at a distance, keeping my eye on the purse. One man walked faster than the others, as though trying to distance himself from his companions. At the next alley, he turned right while the other three continued straight. Soon a second man left the pack.
We entered a long alley and I took a chance, dipping out of sight and running ahead of them, praying they kept a straight path. I reentered the main alley just off the deserted market square and sank myself down into a shadow, slouching like a sleeping street man. I made sure to keep them on my good side.
I squinted my eye. They continued down the alley toward me—their gait unchanged. My heart galloped. I shouldn’t steal. But what was more shameful, stealing or begging? I couldn’t bring myself to beg. These men had swords. If I could acquire one of those, the streets of London would be mine.
Closer they came, not speaking. It was too quiet. They would know.
I’d have to be fast. Like when I jabbed my rapier. I willed up the reflexes. Just as they passed, I darted out my hand and gripped the money pouch. It slid from his belt like melting butter. I didn’t move my fingers for fear of clinking the coins together. Slower than a prowling street cat, I brought my hand back down to my side and waited u
ntil they entered the empty market.
Then I slunk away, keeping an eye on them. Going . . .
Going . . .
Gon—
“Wait.” The one in the lead—the one whose purse I’d snatched—held up a hand. He wore a Black mask, so dark the shadows seemed washed out against it. I’d never seen a Black before.
They doubled back.
I ducked behind an empty market cart. Black continued my way, though nothing in his stance said he’d noticed me. Instead, he seemed to be . . . searching. Glancing this way and that, stepping carefully. As though trying to sense me.
He drew his sword and scanned the area. I crouched deeper into the mud, but the cart had a wood frame. If he came much closer . . .
His companion pointed my direction. How could he possibly see me? Their footsteps squelched my way. Deliberate. Confident. Fast.
“Here.” The Black’s voice sounded far more menacing—and far less intoxicated—than when he’d been on the steps of the Duck and Drake.
I shut my eye. Blast it all. I should have begged.
A hand came over the stall counter and grasped the back of my jerkin. It hauled me onto the street and threw me in the mud. Two sword points pressed against my chest. I tried not to breathe and instead blinked the mud out of my good eye so I could see my assailants.
The companion was short, wearing a Brown mask. “Who are you?” Black asked.
I shook my head, trying to untie my tongue. Speak, foul muscle! “N-No one!” It came out like the response of a frightened boy.
“He lies.” This from a third voice in the blind spot to my left. “Questioned the Keeper at Fleet Prison, he did. Asking for Guy Fawkes.” The speaker came into view, wearing a Red mask, and placed a third sword point against my chest. This one pricked through the fabric and into my skin.
“N-No . . .” I let the coin pouch drop into the mud. They could have their blasted money.
Red pressed the sword point harder. “And his lies continue.”
“I-I mean yes, I was looking for Guy Fawkes.”
“Wintour, we need to get out of the street.” Black snatched up his coin purse and looked around.
Red jabbed me with the saber and I yelped. “You’ll have to kill this one. He’s small. You can dump him in the Thames.”
Wintour—the Brown—released a sigh. “We know nothing about the boy.”
“Deal with it.” Red sheathed his saber and then trotted off, not even sparing a backward glance for the sake of my life.
“Please.” I focused on my two assailants. “I am a friend of Guy Fawkes.” If I could get one of their swords in hand . . .
Black laughed and his sword slid away from my chest. “Your lies are more putrid than the waste in which you lay. I am sorry your life must end, but it has come to this from your own slinking.”
There was nothing else I could say. My life would end without food in my belly or a mask on my face. “Am I destined to die honorless?” I muttered, more to myself than as an actual question.
“Honor comes from the interior of a man, not from his situation. A lesson you would have been wise to learn before this moment.”
I liked this man less and less, not that my opinion mattered. “Why won’t you believe me?”
The man’s grip tightened around the hilt. “Because I am Guy Fawkes. And I’ve never seen your foul face.”
He plunged his sword.
Five
“I’m your son!”
The sword tip twitched and crashed against my stone eye. I jolted from the impact and the weapon deflected into the dirt, nicking my cheek. I tensed for the second blow.
“That . . . is not possible.” Black—the man who claimed to be my sire—sounded stunned. “My son is in Yorkshire.”
My fear evaporated and I lunged to my feet. “You speak as though you would know!”
Wintour’s sword tip held me at bay, but my words surged forward as my weapon. “You abandoned me. I was to have my mask a week ago for my Color Test. You vowed you would come. And instead I find you reveling with fellows at a tavern. I may be plagued and maskless, but you, sir, discarded your honor when your absence caused me to be thrown from St. Peter’s mere hours before my Color Test.”
His sword arm drooped and his comrade, Wintour, stood as though carved of the Stone Plague. My chest heaved. Blood slid down my cheek from the sword nick.
As we stood there, I finally took in the man who sired me. I couldn’t stop the sneer as I surveyed him. He was everything the rumors said he was. Tall and valiant, with the bearing of a great soldier.
A great soldier who had speared a lost street boy on a whim.
His mask was Black with painted eyebrows, a mustache, and a goatee. Blacks were so rare that the sphere wasn’t even included in Color Testing. Blacks were strongest at night, when shadows darkened the colors. Some called them Judases.
An apt name for my father.
“We’d best get below.” Wintour returned his rapier to its scabbard. “Bring the boy if you must.”
My father did not touch me. He headed toward a set of stairs that led to what seemed to be a cellar. I didn’t wait for an invitation. I followed and caught the muddy squelch of Wintour’s footsteps after me. Only then did I realize my every limb trembled and I could barely keep my feet.
Once inside, Wintour lit a candle. The cellar wasn’t much—a dark room filled with some old crates. It smelled like earth and mold and too much passed time. Wintour stepped into the center of the room and spread his hands. He stood for several minutes. I remained silent, prickling from Father’s unbroken stare.
I didn’t want to join these men, but I wanted a mask. That was enough reason to keep Father in my sight. All he’d need to do was give me my mask and then let me go on my way.
The earth beneath Wintour’s feet rumbled. I stepped back when the dirt began to churn as though being stirred, then spin, then twist like a whirlpool until a hole appeared in the floor. I tried not to gape, but the man’s Brown powers were worthy of a slack jaw.
“Into the hole.” Father’s first words since learning I was his son were spoken as though commanding a disobedient color.
I peered into the cyclone. Was he trying to kill me again? “Why—”
“I’m right behind you.”
Those words brought me an unwelcome comfort. I didn’t want his assurance. I didn’t need his assurance, but I silently hoped that—despite his attempt to stab me—he might feel some amount of remorse.
I stepped to the edge of the hole. The skin around my stone eye throbbed.
“There’s a ladder. Go!”
I lowered my limbs in, closing my eye against the floating dust. My feet found rungs; my hands located wood. Down I went, hand over hand, blindly trusting the man who hadn’t even recognized me as his son.
The ladder went deep into the black earth. I smelled water and my shoes squished on soggy ground as I stepped away from the ladder. The shadowed walls pressed against me. My lungs grew tight.
Father descended next and then Wintour with the candle. At his command, the dirt settled into an obedient mass over the opening. It felt like he’d sealed a tomb.
Wintour lit a lantern that illuminated a long tunnel with a river in the center of it. The water carried lumps and blobs of stench. Thames water. Little better than poison.
Father nudged me. “Follow him.”
We traveled along the underground river, through several stone arches and past stained walls holding unlit torches in brackets. The smell grew stronger until we turned down a separate tunnel.
We wound our way through several more, and I committed them to memory as best I could should I need to escape.
Eventually we made it to a wood door. After all the skulking, I expected a secret password or a knock pattern. Instead, Wintour lifted the latch and waltzed through. I followed and he lit three torches along a room of curved walls. A cobblestone floor supported a rough wooden table in the center, covered with papers and hal
f-melted candles. A door on the opposite side was open and a breeze blew in while our door was open. Once closed, the breeze ceased.
Wintour plopped on a bench and scraped mud from the sole of his boot. “What now? We’ve a boy to deal with.”
“Thomas . . . how did you come to London?” Father asked.
I told him how I left St. Peter’s after being denied my Color Test. I told him about prison and about my escape—saying a prisoner used color speech and controlled the lock. Not a lie. Not the truth.
“I arrived only today and now I’ve found you.” I did not include that it was accidental that I happened to pickpocket my own father in the largest city of England. What chance brought me to him?
“So the boy has a story. What are we going to do? Catesby will arrive any minute and he’ll want to know why a plagued boy is here.”
Father surveyed me. “He could be of use.”
“All I want is my mask.” I straightened my shoulders. “You owe me that much.”
“We have need of a maskless to gather information on the streets for us.” Father rested his elbows on his knees. “Wait a few months. Then I will have a mask for you.”
A small part of me latched onto the invitation, pushing aside the fact that he wanted me only to be his errand boy. “What sort of information? What exactly are you doing hiding in tunnels and stabbing people who follow you?”
Wintour stood by the opposite door. He glanced our way. “Catesby’s coming.”
“Good. He’ll decide.”
Decide what? Whether I lived or died? “Would you really let him kill me, Father?” I used the title as a jab—as a challenge for Father to be a man and, in the process, teach me how to be one too.
Wintour looked between the two of us, shifting his feet. Father hovered like a balanced statue. Light flickered in the tunnel beyond Wintour. Likely a lantern held by the man called Catesby.
I looked hard into Father’s mask.
Fawkes Page 4