Rebellion's Message

by Michael Jecks

  ‘Jack, I did try to warn you,’ Mark said.

  ‘What have you done?’ I demanded. ‘You’ve betrayed the message and betrayed me!’

  ‘Now, now, Jack, don’t you worry about that. The fact is, the message you found should not have been so easily discovered.’

  ‘Why?’

  Mark and Blount exchanged a look.

  I saw at a glance what was happening. ‘Mark, I can see that you have been cruelly treated by this felon,’ I said. ‘He has bullied you, but there is no need to fear him. You must do your duty as you see it,’ I said, and winked, hoping he would realize that there was no need to divulge the import of the message.

  ‘Mark, in God’s name, give this fool the truth,’ Blount said.

  ‘Whose truth would that be? I saw you at the tavern. You ran along the alleyway and came upon me in the tavern’s yard, didn’t you? And you knew Gil had the purse so you killed him, too!’

  ‘Who?’ Blount asked, staring.

  ‘He led you to me, down at Trig Lane, and you tried to catch me, but then you tortured him and left him there, bound to a post near the water. Why leave him there? Did you want to leave a message for me?’

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about. There was a man who took us back to your house, but he was well when we left him. And we left him shortly after you ran away, paying him for any more news he could bring of you.’

  That gave me reason to think again. All at once I had a new perspective. It was like the cogs of a great clock slipping round a fresh turn, the teeth meshing in a new pattern. Rather than this man Blount, perhaps Roscard had murdered Gil? But who had murdered Raleigh? Was that Blount, as I had thought, or was that Roscard too?

  Mark interrupted my train of thought. ‘Jack, Master Blount here is in the service of important people. The message you intercepted should not have been sent. It was a great error. And Master Blount here has been trying to rectify that error for some days now, in order to protect his, um, lord. The message has become discovered, however. That makes matters … problematic.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ Blount said, ‘the message is no longer secret. Since you started blundering about, you have brought it to the attention of others.’

  ‘I have been diligent in keeping it secret,’ I protested.

  ‘That is how the bishop came to hear of it? And the agent of the Spanish, Henry Roscard? And that turncoat rebel, Atwood?’

  ‘Roscard is an agent of Spain? I thought he was in the pay of the Earl of Devon?’ Suddenly, his words struck home and I felt it like a sickening blow to the stomach. When I spoke, it was in a squeak. ‘Atwood? A rebel?’

  ‘It was astonishing that he managed to suddenly appear in the alleyway, wasn’t it? We were trying to help you see what was happening, but he appeared with three bullies and forced us to leave. Poor Will here has a sore head because of Atwood’s men.’

  ‘They’ll regret it when I meet them again,’ the Bear said, sourly rubbing his skull.

  ‘He’s no turncoat,’ I said. ‘Why, he came here to protect me on the way back. He wanted to guard me.’

  Mark sighed and rested his brow on a palm, shaking his head. He looked up at last. ‘Jack, do you not understand anything? Atwood hopes to see the message delivered to Wyatt because it will support the rebels and give them the succour they need. But Atwood cannot afford to fail, because no matter what, if he does so, he will be dangling from a rope and then split four ways, while his head sits on a spike. He is a rebel, man! If this message fails and the rebels fail, his life will not be worth a feather!’

  ‘He’s expecting me to bring out the message when I leave here,’ I said, and shivered. Not entirely from the cold.

  ‘Then you shall do so,’ Mark said. ‘And then you will leave him urgently and look to your own safety. Do not stay with him; that way lies death for you.’

  ‘But then the message will get out anyway,’ I said.

  ‘But you will be alive,’ Blount reminded me.

  It was good to know that someone seemed to value my life as much as me. ‘I don’t know. I’ll still likely die tonight. I have nowhere to go and sleep.’

  ‘Then, perhaps, if you give him the message and ask him to protect it as your commander,’ Mark said thoughtfully, casting a sharp look at Blount, ‘that would serve, would it not?’

  ‘It would serve well. It should protect Jack here and give Atwood the opportunity he needs. All he must do is cross the river and deliver his note. Then events may take their course.’

  I was floundering. ‘I don’t understand! What, then, of the message?’

  ‘Nothing, man. You will be safe. If Atwood has it, he will be content and in far too much of a hurry to worry himself about you. He will take it and flee.’

  ‘And my problems will at last be over?’

  ‘Yes,’ Blount said, and once more I saw a quick glance from him towards Mark.

  Why didn’t that register with me as suspicious?

  ‘Well?’

  Atwood was waiting exactly where he had promised he would. It was dark now, and I had to screw up my eyes to see him, standing all but hidden in the shadows.

  ‘It wasn’t easy to persuade Thomasson,’ I said. ‘He wanted to keep it, but in the end he agreed to let me have it.’

  I passed the little scrap to Atwood, feeling doubt rise in my breast. It was hard to believe that this man would have slain me had I not given it to him, but the others swore that he was so determined that my life was meaningless to him.

  ‘That is good!’ Atwood said, lifting the scrap and staring at the symbols. ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘How should I know? Mark in there was going to try to decipher it, but he hasn’t got round to it yet. I’m not surprised, either. Look at it! It makes no sense at all. Perhaps it was written by a fool without thinking.’

  ‘So you have no knowledge of what it means?’ Atwood said.

  You know, he was smiling, but he just reminded me of a reptile. A lizard would do that, smiling with its mouth but with no humour ever touching its eyes. He was just putting on a show. I’m sure of it.

  He wasn’t the only one could do that. I smiled my widest and held my hands out. ‘How could I? I’m a street-worker, not some college-trained expert in ciphers. If I knew what it said, would I have bothered to bring it here to be deciphered?’

  ‘What will you do now?’ he asked, his eyes straying to Mark’s door.

  ‘Me? Take it to the bishop, of course. If I could, I’d just burn it. It’s brought me nothing but bad luck. I want nothing to do with it. If only I could get rid of it for ever and pretend I’d never seen it.’

  ‘Let me take it, then. I will see it’s delivered to the bishop. That way, you’ll have nothing more to do with it, the bishop will be pleased, and he may even reward me a little.’

  ‘You would do that? But what will he do to me?’

  ‘I’ll promise him that you’ll never mention this to another man for the rest of your life,’ Atwood said.

  I had a sudden vision of my body lying here on the cobbles. A dead man tends to be very silent.

  ‘Tell him that I don’t know what it says and I’ll soon move back to Whitstable – as soon as I can escape the city,’ I said. ‘I want nothing more to do with the damn thing.’

  ‘I will tell him,’ Atwood said. He stepped nearer to me, his eyes flicking left and right, and again I was reminded of a reptile. His hand was close to his dagger’s hilt, I noticed.

  And then there came a sudden shout. The sound of running boots, a clattering of old and rusty armour, and a force of city irregular volunteers came running down the road. Four carried torches; one had his lighted. One of the soldiers saw me and pointed. Atwood had already faded away, stepping back into the shadows once more. I was beginning to think they suited him.

  ‘Hey, you!’

  With relief, I recognized the voice of Sergeant Dearing. ‘Sir!’

  ‘Who was that with you?’

&nbs
p; I was about to declare Atwood’s presence, but then thought better of it. ‘No one.’

  ‘What are you doing out here in the middle of curfew?’ he demanded, but then shrugged. ‘Ballocks! Who cares? Come with us, Jack. We’re being called to the bridge. Those bastard rebels are trying to force the gates. We have to get to it and stop them.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Sunday 4th February

  When we approached the gate, we could hear it. An attack was in full swing, and I felt my ballocks shrinking at the sounds.

  Dearing shouted at me and motioned me forward. Well, that was fine, except I didn’t want to go. He saw my reluctance and shoved a helmet on to my head, thrust a halberd into my hands and pushed me on.

  It was an excursion into hell.

  You haven’t been in a battle? All I can say is, you don’t want to. You have no idea what it’s like until you are there. Imagine: standing behind barricades which should protect you from danger, and seeing the timbers less than a foot away suddenly turn to smoke, and all that is left behind is a pattern of holes where small shot has ripped through; seeing the man next to you torn apart, one arm taken off at the elbow and whirling away to strike another fellow across the face; another fellow patting with his hands, trying to cover five or six two-inch gashes in his torso; the sight of blood spraying from a hole in a man’s thigh, pumping with every heartbeat; a man lying with his throat open, the cartilage of his windpipe showing bright and yellow in the mess of blood and muscle. Imagine: cracks and booms as cannons fire from our side, the smoke blowing into your face hot and foul as an exhalation from hell; fierce scorching in your throat as you inhale the disgusting brimstone reek; screams and screeches assailing your ears.

  Imagine all that and you are partway there. Because there is also the disgusting mess that you must step in at every pace. Blood, shit and piss, all adding to the hellish nature of the scene. There is nothing proud or glorious about being on the front line of a battle, believe me. It was my first experience, and I fervently hoped it would be my last as well.

  The men at the other side of the bridge were concealed in the buildings and behind low walls. Of course, the cannon were easy to see, because they flamed and gushed smoke as soon as they roared and hurled their stones at us. To know where they lay was one thing; to hit them with our own shot was another. I saw balls strike the roadway and bounce, skipping over the wall; others flew too high and struck buildings behind. Once, a ball whirled madly through a small company of men marching forward, flinging bodies and limbs in wild confusion, and the men on my side cheered and huzzahed, but only for a moment, because then three shots came in speedy retaliation and wreaked a dreadful carnage on us.

  I said this was hell. It wasn’t: it was worse than hell, because this was devastation wrought by men against men. And I wanted no part of it.

  Atwood was nowhere to be seen, which was some relief. I saw a couple of his men about my company, but we were all too busy hiding beneath the cannonade to worry about our friends. The rebels had taken advantage of the darkness to fling great timbers across the gap in the bridge where the span had been removed, and now they were trying to dash over their makeshift causeway to attack us. That was when I felt most terrified, when I saw their white, screaming faces running at me. Men with fear but determination in every line of their features, pelting across a dangerous set of wooden planks just to reach me, to hack at me and kill me if they could.

  That’s what it felt like. All those shrieking lunatics were running straight at me, and me alone. I noticed that the man who had wielded the club against the Bear in the alley the day before was nearer me, and that was a relief. Another of Atwood’s men was with him, and I felt the gratitude that all soldiers must feel to see friends from their company nearby. Shared terror is almost terror reduced. Actually, it was more the fear of injury that was shared in my case, as though the fact that there were others there meant that injuries would be shared by us all. If I were alone, I would take all the wounds, whereas with Atwood’s men there, too, I would be taking only a part of the cuts and bruises.

  A loud roar, a thunderous detonation, and I found I was flying through the air with the grace of a sparrow. It was a curious sensation, and it seemed to go on for a very long time, so that I could gaze about me with interest. I saw Atwood’s men at the centre of an expanding rose, all pink and red, and very beautiful, until I realized it was their blood. And then I struck something, and I know that I smiled as I seemed to fall into a wide blanket of black fur, all warm, cosy and comfortable, and then someone closed the blanket over my head, and that was it for me.

  There was a roaring in my ears. I must be beside the sea again. I could hear the metallic crunch of waves breaking on the shingle, and the steady hiss and suck of the water withdrawing from the stones. There was a howling gale, too, from the sound of it. I could hear it distinctly over the water exploding and crashing, the noise of the gulls in the air, screeching …

  I opened my eyes and the peaceful scene by the sea at Whitstable was eradicated like a fog whipped away by a gale. I was on my back in a tangle of ropes and beams. None, by a miracle, had landed on me, so at least I was undamaged, but all around me it sounded as if that was the least of my concerns. I clambered to my feet and spent some time staring at the halberd. Where the metal reinforcings ran down the shaft, now there was a tangle of strips of steel and shattered splinters of wood. I also noticed that there was a pain in my flank, although I wasn’t going to investigate that. I might discover something I didn’t want to see. My arm was still attached, and my hand worked, and that was all I cared about at that moment.

  ‘Jack? Get up, you lazy git!’ Dearing shouted, and I found my hearing had returned, although there was a lot of hissing and popping going on.

  The rebels had reached the barricades, and the fighting was ferocious there, but I could do little about it with my halberd. It was no more than a stick with a dangling head. I took an experimental swing with it, and the head flew off, narrowly missing one of our Whitecoats and making him turn and glare at me. Giving an apologetic smile and shrug, I glanced at Dearing, who gave me a sour stare and pushed me towards a small pile of weapons on the ground. I took one up and nearly dropped it. They were all covered in a mess of once-human bodies, and the feel of the blood and little gritty bits of shattered bone and stuff was revolting. Still, I didn’t get the feeling that my natural repulsion would win me any sympathy. I took it up gingerly and was shoved towards the barricades just as a fresh assault was forming. The cannons cracked and roared, and bloody slabs of meat were left lying where men had been standing only moments before, and then they were running at us. One gun fired, but the rest were silent, and I watched with the others as the men stormed towards us. I glanced over my neighbour and saw that the men at the gun were working furiously, ramming home the powder, shoving in a canvas sack of small shot, ramming that down as well, and finally standing well back as the gunner held out his linstock with the glowing match and shoved it into the touch hole. There was a sharp fizzing, a neat inverted cone of smoke, and then the gun bucked and a vast gout of flame spurted towards the rebels.

  It was hideous. I happened to see them before the smoke mercifully obliterated the sight. In front, two men bore the brunt of the grapeshot, and it tore them to shreds at that range. Bits and pieces of them were flung back at the men behind, but they were struck by the shot in their turn, and another few men behind them, too. They couldn’t hope to take our barricades under that storm. Those who could do so turned to flee back to their own lines. Two more shots were sent after them, but it was a pointless act. Most of the men were already injured, and much of the shot went into the men already lying at the bridge’s roadway. Many of the injured stopped worrying about the pain after that.

  That was their last attempt that day. I was tottering already, and when the last horn blast came to give us the stand-down, I sank back on the barricade with a grunt of relief. The thing I had most feared had not come to pass, thankfully
. I had not been forced to exchange blows with a hairy-arsed peasant from the wilds of Kent. They were a fearsome lot, them. As bad, in their own way, as the madmen from over the Scottish Marches. I would never go up that way, and I didn’t see why these fellows were so determined to come here to London. Not when I was in their way.

  Atwood’s men were all in a mess. One, the fellow who had clubbed the Bear, was still alive – just. His eyelids fluttered and he beckoned me – because there was no priest about, I thought. I went to his side and took his hand, and began to mutter the pater noster to calm him, because from the look and smell of the wound in his guts, he wasn’t going to be around for long.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. There was a lot of rattling going on in his throat, but that was easy enough to understand.

  I carried on reciting.

  ‘He told us to. Wanted you dead.’

  I found myself stumbling over the words at that point. ‘What?’

  ‘Atwood. Told us to kill you when the fight started. Said you were a traitor and a danger.’

  ‘Why would he think that? He’s been my friend,’ I said, although suddenly I remembered that curious little glance that had been exchanged between Blount and Mark Thomasson. The bastards! They’d known Atwood would do something like this! I could have gone after him right then and beaten his face to a pulp, if I’d known where he was, or had any idea how to fight like him. Sadly, the fact was, I’d have been the injured one again.

  ‘He’s a good man. Good man. Just sometimes doesn’t think,’ the fellow said, trying to excuse his master for trying to kill me. It didn’t work, as far as I was concerned. I’d get that bastard. Perhaps, though, I’d get someone else to do the deed.

  This man was no more risk to me, though. As I was thinking how good it would be to see Atwood’s face beaten by, say, the Bear, I realized the fellow was not breathing any more. I let go of his hand with a feeling of disgust and rose slowly to my feet.

  So, Atwood was gone, I was thrown from my own home with Bill and the others, and now I was in this rag-tag army defending London, much against my will. It was not the sort of position I had expected when I walked into the tavern that day with my gull. David of Exeter, someone had said. What a name.