by Ed Greenwood
The beagle swung around and put an upright finger across his own lips, frowning severely at Sir Fulton past it.
Sir Fulton nodded to show he’d understood. Keep silent.
The beagle then pointed to one of the holes and went to the other beside it and peered through. Sir Fulton heeded that message, too.
And found himself looking out into a large square stone room that was probably the ground floor, or near it, of the White Tower.
It was a large chamber, with many doors and stairs half-visible in its gloomy far reaches. Close to the spyholes was a massive plain table that looked as if it had been used for centuries for dining, crude surgery, and armor smithing—judging by the scars and burn marks covering it. A plain wooden wheel of candles with drip shields hung over it on a chain, eight chairs were round it, and four of those chairs were occupied.
The men sitting in them were the Lord Chamberlain of the Empire, the Imperial Herald, the Constable of the Tower, and the Commissioner of the Queen’s High Constabulary.
“I don’t like it,” Sir Percy Harkness was growling, as Sir Fulton reached his spyhole.
“Nor do I,” old Throckmorton agreed.
“Well, what better place can you suggest?” Buckingham asked, a trifle wearily. “The royal apartments are the only area in this fortress suitable for the Queen. Not only is she the crowned head of the Empire, and a woman used to cleanliness and some comforts—she’s neither young nor well, and this confounded damp won’t do her any good at all!”
“That’s just it,” Harkness snapped. “She’s the head of the Empire! And the topmost floor is vulnerable to bombs dropped from airships! Move her down! Not just to here, but to the undercroft below us!”
“In with the polearms and the pickles.” The Constable sighed. “I’m sure she’ll be very pleased.”
“I shouldn’t have to remind you,” Throckmorton said sourly, “that the undercroft connects to more tunnels than I have fingers that she can be taken through, to more-secure deep chambers elsewhere in this fortress.”
“Might I remind you gentle sirs that the Queen is our sovereign and has a mind of her own? She will decide where she gets ‘taken,’ if she agrees to be taken anywhere at all.” Buckingham’s patience seemed to be at an end. “We obey her, not the other way around. We are all here because of a command she gave. I doubt she’ll want to hide from Lady Roodcannon or meet with her in a dungeon somewhere.”
“Well,” Harkness said dryly, “it will spare Roodcannon a long walk to whichever cell is going to be hers, henceforth.”
“Spoken like a true beagle who decides guilt before anyone is called to court,” Throckmorton observed. “I happen to agree with you, Percy, but, before God, you might want to think about such jests before uttering them.”
“Before you gentle sirs get to trading insults,” the Constable said quickly, “I would like to know what all of you seem acquainted with already: Why does the Queen wish to, ah, entertain—or at least meet with—the Lady Roodcannon here? And now?”
“Prudent enough, Fairweather, prudent enough,” the Lord Chancellor agreed. “Let me think on where to begin. Well … you are no doubt aware that the Lady Roodcannon is the owner of a rather large and well-appointed airship?”
“I am now,” the Constable replied dryly. “I was raised by Fairweathers who told me to ignore the doings of nobles as much as possible, because their world of feuds and fads and endless intrigues was fantasy, whereas the daily running of the Empire was decidedly real—so ignoring its details and specifics could get one killed.”
“You were raised by wise people,” the Lord Chancellor observed, with an approving smile. “Well, the Queen has come to the Tower because Lady Roodcannon recently broke the law, in that she piloted her airship so as to pass over Whitehall—”
“Which is forbidden,” Harkness supplied helpfully.
“—so she could drop a written message there, announcing her intention to present the ‘rightful heir to the throne’ to the Queen herself at the Tower ‘before the sun rises again.’”
“And the Queen rose to the bait,” said the Constable.
“She did. And has been issuing royal commands ever since. Which boil down to ordering us—everyone within reach, actually—to get her here.”
“Well, now that I know the reasons for her arrival here, I find myself in agreement with the Imperial Herald and the Commissioner. I don’t care what pretext or pretense or cozening we resort to, I want the Queen moved down to where she’s safer. It is my professional opinion that we cannot protect her while she’s up in the royal apartments; not even if we invaded them with every last Yeoman Warder and Crown lackey within the walls of the Tower. They’d simply die with her if an airship sailing overhead—as this Roodcannon woman seems to do with impunity, escaping all consequences—dropped an explosive of sufficient strength.”
Bertram Buckingham threw up his hands. “Then I bow to you three and the weight of your professional judgments, gentle sirs. We move the Queen.”
“Now,” Throckmorton added. “If there’s more to jaw about, let us do it when the Queen is safely shifted to—”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” said a new voice. A voice Sir Fulton Birtwhistle had heard before. Assistant Commissioner Alston Drake.
Sir Fulton shifted hastily to look through his spyhole in another direction—as did all the beagles at all the spyholes on either side of him.
Drake stood inside a door he’d just burst through, with a gun in his hand. He was surrounded by beagles wielding what looked like four-barreled shotguns, tipped with wicked-looking bayonets.
“Who the hell—?” Harkness barked.
“My personal constabulary,” Drake informed his superior smugly. “As in, personally loyal to me. Oh, yes, I should inform you all that I will be giving the orders here!”
“Are you mad, Drake?” the Lord Chancellor shouted. “High Commiss—”
Drake smiled and shot Buckingham through the head. The Lord Chancellor’s body was still toppling, head half gone, when he shot the Constable of the Tower down.
Fairweather’s body, struck in the act of springing up from his chair, crashed back down into it, arms and head flopping.
“Drake! Down arms and surrender!” Harkness barked. “That’s an order!”
Drake didn’t bother to reply. Instead, he snapped an order of his own to the men around him. “In the name of the Dowager Duchess,” he said grandly, “kill them all!”
Bullets flew.
Amid the deafening crashings of all the firing, Birtwhistle watched in disbelieving horror as beagles, courtiers, and agents in the room in front of him were gunned down.
Around him, beagles were cursing and snatching out their own guns and firing through the spyholes. Some were bursting through doors, firing.
“Sir,” said the beagle who’d brought Sir Fulton to the Tower, as he crashed into the magistrate’s chest and slammed him to the floor, “I must ask you to stay down and crawl in that direction. It’s all too easy to die in a wild shootout.”
“N-no doubt,” Sir Fulton replied shakily, obeying with alacrity. The beagle was right behind him, crawling back out of the gallery and down the steps chin first, as the cavernous room of the Tower behind them echoed to the cracks of pistols, the booming of larger firearms, and the whine of many bullets.
“This way, sir.” The beagle slapped at Sir Fulton’s right calf and then led the way through the gloom, the din of battle fading somewhat as they moved away from the gallery and got behind solid walls where they could stand in relative safety. Stray ricochets still spanged and rattled around them, but the firing was dying down as the combatants either died or ran out of bullets. The beagle wrenched open a plain, slightly rusty metal door and hissed, “Hurry, sir. Drake knows this route, so his men will be coming this way soon.”
The magistrate hurried after his guide, up old and worn spiral stairs ascending the inside of an ancient stone cylinder. “Where are we?”
“Cl
imbing the northwest turret stairs, sir. Getting up to the royal apartments by the back way. Drake’s foremost men will be fighting their way up the main stairs right now.”
The sounds of shooting grew steadily louder as they ascended.
“They’re inside the receiving room already,” the beagle hissed, his manner strongly suggesting that this was not good. Sir Fulton Birtwhistle sighed, then shrugged. Oh, well; he’d been raging like a proverbial lion to try to get inside the Tower earlier and had managed it, so he couldn’t really kick at any perils he found or faced here now. At least he hadn’t been hit yet, which was more than a lot of the poor beagles could say … if they were still alive to voice or hold any opinion at all.
The stairs opened onto a small landing that held only heavy metal torch sconces on the walls and two closed doors. The beagle opened the right-hand door warily, waving Sir Fulton to the wall, to be behind the door and out of the line of fire—and it was well that he did so, for two bullets promptly sped through the opening gap and cracked down the staircase behind them.
“What’s behind the other door?” he whispered to the beagle.
“The royal bedchamber, sir. Which is why we’re going through this one, to the receiving room.”
Where the fighting was obviously raging. The beagle went to his knees and then to all fours, waving at Sir Fulton to do the same, and then shoved the door wide.
The room was full of drifting smoke, steam, and plaster dust, for the shooting had been thunderously heavy—and although it had fallen to sporadic just now, the sounds of hasty reloading could be heard all over the room.
There were bodies everywhere. Hard to the left, where the front wall of the royal bedchamber turned off, a small band of people struggled furiously to get the chamber doors open; Sir Fulton caught the briefest glimpse of the Queen herself among them, but all the men with her—Commissioner Harkness and the aging Imperial Herald among them—were shielding her with their bodies, and doing a good job of it.
Across the room, beagles wrestled to reload their four-barreled guns. The weapons had to be broken open like shotguns, and the dangling barrels were clanking and clashing with those of adjacent beagles.
“Leave that for later, fools!” Drake roared, from somewhere behind them. “Lock your bayonets and charge!”
And they did. The beagle escorting Sir Fulton shot out one knee of the foremost charger, spilling him into an ungainly fall that demolished a no-doubt priceless side table and caused other charging beagles behind him to trip over him in a satisfyingly widespread crash of flailing arms and legs and flying, bouncing shotguns.
It was still going on when those of Drake’s men who’d managed to reload let fly at the Queen and Sir Fulton’s escort.
Commissioner Harkness let out a roar of pain and staggered to one side as he sagged, trying to clutch both one arm and his gut at the same time. The crawling beagle in front of Sir Fulton fell on his face, shuddered once, and lay still, blood spreading out from his face or throat in rather impatiently lengthening fingers.
Sir Fulton Birtwhistle shuddered, too. He was unhurt, thus far, but …
The bedchamber door banged open, and the knot of men protecting the Queen surged through it. More of Drake’s men fired at them or charged, but the door banged shut again.
Still on his hands and knees, Sir Fulton spun around to flee—then remembered the door. Whirling around again, he crawled faster than he’d ever crawled before, clambering over the body of the beagle who’d brought him here to catch hold of the door, low down, and drag it back shut.
He only just managed it, slamming it right in the faces of onrushing beagle traitors.
It had latch cradles and a metal bar on a swivel joint hanging down its frame beside its hinges—but, thank the steam, it was well-oiled and came up in a trice when he hauled on it.
And latched it into place, a bare breath before heavy bodies slammed into the other side of the door, then—amid much profanity—tried to haul it back open.
Knowing what would be coming next, Sir Fulton had already dashed to the other door—the rear door of the royal bedchambers—and was trying to claw it open.
He flattened himself against it when the expected volley of firing came, some of the bullets bursting through the door lock to spang and sing around the landing and down the stairs. At some point in the heart of that thunderous din, the door gave way, and he fell into the royal bedchamber, rising to look right into the dark mouths of half a dozen cocked and ready pistols.
“I’m for the Queen!” he gasped. “Loyal to the Empire! Don’t shoot!”
“Down arms,” growled Commissioner Harkness. Who then spat blood and toppled forward. Several of his men caught him and eased him to the floor, where he groaned twice or thrice as they settled him on his back between two floral-print adorned highback chairs, somewhat out of the way.
Sir Fulton looked up. Beyond the shockingly small handful of armed men stood a terrified maid, wringing her hands. Beside her was the Queen—who looked surprisingly calm, more irritated than anything else—and behind them both could be seen the legs of a second maid, who’d presumably fainted, protruding off the edge of the soaringly magnificent gilded royal four-poster. Old Throckmorton had caught up a poker from the fireplace and was hefting it with a fierce awkwardness.
“Lock that door,” he ordered.
“And we’ll then be locked in,” the Queen observed sharply. “Now would be an excellent time for someone to come up with a brilliant plan, gentlemen. Or even a workable one.”
“Bring up the blaster and blow the door in!” Drake bellowed faintly, from beyond the bedchamber main door.
“Well, there’s one traitor who has little skill at subterfuge,” Queen Victoria observed. “I seem to recall an endless succession of devices that blast; which particular one is he referring to, I wonder?”
No one answered her, so it was Sir Fulton Birtwhistle who ventured hesitantly, “A-almost certainly he’s referring to the, ah, steam-pressure apparatus used by the bea—by the Constabulary to destroy locked and barred doors. Warps frames, bursts wood, bends metal. It tends to scald everyone near the held side of a barrier.”
“Behind me, my Queen!” Throckmorton said instantly, striding to stand between Queen Victoria and the main bedchamber door.
“Throck, Throck! None of that, now, my dear,” the Queen murmured, patting his cheek. The old and gruff Imperial Herald was seen to blush like a schoolgirl, in the instant before heavy metallic clangs from outside the door announced the arrival of the steam blaster, its plates being dropped into place and dogged down in their positions. Then the hissing began.
“We’re all going to get scalded,” Throckmorton warned. “Prycewood, Birtwhistle, and all you constables—we need a barricade. Not against the door, but back from it about here. A wall of furniture solid enough to stop their first shots, mind. Use everything; if bullets reach our Queen, she won’t be needing this splendid bed, now will she?”
They all stared at him for a moment, then sprang to obey, even before the Queen ordered, “Well, come on! A barricade! Drag my wardrobes, you and you, and do the Imperial Herald’s bidding! Hurry!”
Just the other side of the door, the hissing was growing louder.
Sir Fulton found himself puffing under the weight of a well-stuffed high-backed chair that was much heavier than it looked. Wedging it thankfully atop a tangle of lesser chairs that the beagles had assembled in mere seconds, he gasped, “How much time do we have, before the, er, thing on the far side of the door—?”
His question was promptly answered for him. No more time at all, as it happened. The door exploded off its hinges, the frame shattering into fragments that flew across the room in a wild and tumbling cloud, impaling one unfortunate constable and gashing the face of another.
Right behind the shards, scalding mists billowed.
“Close your eyes!” Harkness bellowed weakly, from the floor. “Close your eyes!”
The still-awake maid sh
rieked first, but her scream was drowned out by shouts of pain from the men in the room as they got scalded.
“The Queen!” Sir Fulton cried, under the arm he’d flung up across his eyes. “Protect the Queen!”
“Done!” the Imperial Herald called back. “I’ll lay down my life for my Queen gladly! Both an honor and a duty, that IiiiiiiiiiaaaaAAARGHH!”
Abruptly, old Throckmorton fell silent, and from beneath him could be heard the Queen groaning hoarsely, “Oh, Throck, why do you always have to play the hero? You’re getting too old … God defend me, but you’re heavy! Get off me; I can scarce breathe! Get…”
Beagles dragged the lobster-red, staring old herald off Queen Victoria.
“Is he—?” she and Sir Fulton asked, in untidy unison.
When one of the constables nodded grimly, the Queen of the Empire started to sob.
“How very touching,” came the voice of the traitor Drake, from the far side of the barricade. “A replacement royal lover would seem to be required. Men, shoot dead anyone who tries to get out from behind the furniture—except the Queen. We need her alive, for now, to lure the Lord Lion. Shoot her ankles, if you must, to stop her fleeing, but otherwise leave her be. I’ll be back with some globes soon enough.”
“Globes?” Sir Fulton hissed, to the nearest beagle.
“Knockout gas,” came the answering whisper. “Throw globe, it breaks, out comes gas that puts you to sleep. We have plenty here, in two of the Tower armories.”
“I’m dying,” the Queen announced tremulously. “Get word to my son. I need him.”
“Your Majesty,” one of the beagles kneeling over her asked uncertainly, “is that wise? To bring him into the reach of these traitors?”