by Jo Macauley
Beth stopped walking, her eyes widening with excitement. “No – but if we could get him out of the way, it might delay or prevent the plot!”
“How? There’s a chance he’ll recognize me—” John began.
“Then leave it to me and hide – quick!”
Fortescue was still some distance away, and it looked as though he was walking towards the guards by the fire. John veered to his left and ducked behind a large bin of food waste. Thinking quickly, Beth ran to the cellar door and used the key they’d been given to open it, then held out a corner of her dress and shut the door on it so that it was trapped. When Sir Roger Fortescue came a little closer, she called out to him in a pathetic voice.
“Sir! If you please, sir!”
The rotund commissioner turned to face her, his chubby features displaying a flash of anger at being summoned by a lowly servant. But the sight of a beautiful young girl in distress caused the dark cloud to lift immediately, and he waddled towards her.
“Perhaps I can be of some assistance, my dear?”
“My dress seems to be caught. I don’t know if it’s a nail or splinter ... and the door seems to be jammed...!”
He patted her on the cheek with a podgy hand. “Never fear, Fortescue is here!”
He turned the knob and gave the door a good push. It opened easily, and as soon as it did Beth put her boot to his enormous bottom and propelled him forcefully down the steps and into the darkness. She heard his howls of indignation as she swiftly slipped the key in the lock and turned it again.
“Beth!” John hissed, half in horror and half in admiration, emerging from his hiding place.
She simply smiled and brushed her hands together in the way she often saw Moll do. “Let’s go. Chop-chop!”.
Chapter Nineteen - An Unwelcome Return
Sir Roger Fortescue’s curses and cries for help could still be heard as Beth and John walked away from the cellar, but more and more people were arriving for the great feast now – not just staff, but guests too in all their finery were milling around. To Beth’s relief, it soon became apparent that there was so much excited talking, shouting and singing that his pleas would be drowned out. There was also a distant crackle of smaller bonfires being lit around the city. It was already late afternoon and growing dusky. The celebration at the Tower was far from the only one; all over London ordinary people were beginning to light their own fires: in gardens, on waste ground and even street corners. Soon the first fireworks were streaking into the air, and smoke from fires drifted over the Tower’s walls.
As they hurried away towards the kitchens, a shabby figure came looming out of the pall of smoke and the gathering crowd, ambling towards them.
“Ralph!” John said. “How did you find us?”
He tapped the side of his nose. “One of me many skills!”
“What news from Alan Strange?” Beth asked quickly.
Ralph’s face darkened. “He didn’t turn up.”
Beth felt a chill like an icy breeze pass right through her. “What? But even I heard the bells – the special signal?”
Ralph shook his head. “I waited, but he didn’t turn up. I looked everywhere. The place was deserted – everyone getting ready for the bonfire celebrations.”
“Something’s not right,” Beth said through
clenched teeth.
John’s eyes widened. “Surely if they’ve got to your spymaster himself, we are in great danger—”
“Why, look – it’s Beth!” a jolly voice interrupted them.
The players and behind-the-scenes folk from the King’s Theatre were coming their way, led by the manager William Huntingdon. There was quite a crowd of them, including Beth’s arch-enemy Benjamin Lovett, who was wearing his most flamboyant wig and resplendent clothes.
Beth liked Huntingdon, but he could hardly have chosen a worse time to arrive. She did her best to put on a cheerful face. “Mister Huntingdon! I’m glad you could all make it.”
“I didn’t know you were coming, Beth.”
“She’s helping our landlady with the pies!” cried a voice from among Huntingdon’s group. Beth’s heart sank even further. It was an excited Maisie. “Big Moll makes the best pies in all London!”
“Maisie!” Beth said, trying to keep the forced smile on her face as her heart sank. “I thought you were looking after the Peacock and Pie?”
“Oh, Moll’s sister came – turned out it had been arranged all along. Then I saw Mister Huntingdon passing the tavern on his way to the Tower, and he invited me to join them!”
“That’s wonderful...” Beth said, taking her friend by the arm and leading her away from the rest of the group. She couldn’t reveal just how much danger Maisie was in without making her panic and perhaps even drawing attention to what she, John and Ralph were up to. But there was no guarantee they would succeed in stopping the explosion, and she had to do something to ensure Maisie’s safety. “But I really do think you ought to be helping out at the tavern. Moll was expecting it, and we wouldn’t want to let her down. There is to be a big bonfire party at the end of Drury Lane, so you won’t miss out.”
Maisie’s crestfallen look almost broke Beth’s heart. “Oh, well, if you think I should go...”
Beth nodded, and gave her young friend a squeeze round the shoulders to reassure her. “I do, Maisie. It’s going to get much too crowded here. In fact, I wish I could get away and join you on Drury Lane too...” She noticed that Maisie was looking elsewhere and didn’t seem to be listening. Following her friend’s gaze, she saw that the colossal hog was being brought out from the kitchen – it took four men to carry it and fix it to the spit over a blazing fire a few feet away from them.
“Oh, can I at least stay for a piece of that?” Maisie asked, licking her lips. “I’ve been in such a rush I haven’t eaten all day – and that looks delicious!”
As the smells from the hog beginning to roast wafted her way, Beth’s mouth began to water too. She looked across at where the huge mound of wood for the bonfire stood. It was deserted and there were no signs that it was going to be lit for some time.
“Well, I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm just to—” She froze in mid-sentence.
“Beth?” Maisie said. “What is it?”
“It” was a cook with his back to Beth. A short and stocky cook turning the roasting spit a couple of times, then muttering something to his assistant that caused them both to leave the hog roasting on just one side while they rushed away.
The hand that had been turning the spit was missing its middle finger.
Groby!
Worse still – much worse – Beth suddenly realized their big mistake. “First slice goes to the guest of honour – King Charles himself,” Moll had said.
The gunpowder wasn’t hidden in the bonfire – it was inside the enormous hog!
Chapter Twenty - To the River
“Beth?” Maisie repeated disconcertedly.
“What? Oh, sorry, Maisie. I’m just a little distracted...”
But before she had a chance to formulate a plan, the sound of trumpets blaring and people cheering and clapping rose up all around them. She turned towards the Tower’s main entrance and saw a large and colourful assembly processing into the grounds.
“The King, the King!” cried Maisie, jumping up and down and clapping her hands. She threw her arms round Beth’s shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for letting me stay, Mistress Beth!”
The smell of the pig over the flames became intense, gradually changing from a pleasant smell of roasting meat to an acrid one of scorching. Beth’s heart began to pound. How much longer before the powder went up?
“Beth!” came John’s voice. He and Ralph had forced their way through the ever-increasing mass of excited Londoners in the Tower’s grounds to find them. “I just heard someone talking – the main bonfire isn’t to be lit ’til it gets properly dark, and that won’t be for a while yet. There’s plenty of time to think of a plan!”
&nb
sp; “No, there isn’t,” Beth replied.
“What do you mean?” Ralph queried.
“The gunpowder – it’s not in the wood pile!”
“But—” John began.
“When the code said the ‘swine shall burn’, it wasn’t referring to the King. It’s that.” She pointed towards the hog, blackening now underneath. Fat oozed and dripped from its body into the fire, making it spit and crackle fiercely.
John clapped his hands to his head. “No!”
“It’s big enough, all right,” said Ralph, frowning. “And it looks to me like it’s going to blow any second...”
The King’s party was ever getting closer, moving slowly through the crowds. Beth began to run towards the spit roast. “Grab one end of the spit!” she shouted to John. “Ralph – we need a distraction!”
“Good as done,” he replied quickly.
Beth and John raced over to the hog and grabbed the wooden handles at each end of the spit. It was so heavy they could barely keep it off the ground, but they pulled it away from the roaring fire. By now, though, the animal’s body was red-hot and the flesh was even on fire in a couple of places.
“It’ll still be cooking on the inside,” Beth said urgently to John. “Come on – we have to get it to the river!”
As they struggled with their burden, Beth saw that Ralph was writhing on the stones, clutching his throat and making the most unearthly gurgling noises. An anxious crowd had begun to gather around him, and some of the King’s guards even came over to see what was happening.
“Well done, Ralph,” Beth muttered to herself. People gave her and John odd looks as they struggled away with the roasting hog, but no one tried to stop them. Soon the river was in sight, and Beth’s hopes raised – but the beast was so heavy that their pace was slowing with every step. Beth’s shoulder muscles were aching, and at times the hog dragged along the ground and she had to adjust her grip to keep it up. The animal was still smoking hot and dripping with fat. She could feel the heat from it burning her cheeks and causing beads of sweat to break out on her brow.
“The inside must be like an oven,” John yelled breathlessly. “I-I don’t think we’re going to make it!”
“We must! Come on, John. We’ve just twenty yards to go!”
But then a cry came from one of the guards. “It’s a trick – look over there!”
Beth didn’t even need to look back to know they’d been discovered. She heard heavy footsteps thundering in their direction. Only the strongest, fittest and most able soldiers made it into the King’s personal guard, and she knew they’d be upon them in moments. She could see the Thames sparkling through Traitor’s Gate, which had been left open to allow guests arriving by river to enter – but the stampede of feet was getting louder by the second...
John almost tripped on the cobbles under the arch of Traitor’s Gate and the pig scraped along the ground, but he just managed to keep his balance. Beth could now hear an ominous fizzing sound coming from inside the hog’s body that reminded her of the fuse on the barrel of gunpowder on the Doodgaan, and smoke started to escape from the cooking beast’s mouth and nose.
“It’s too late! Let’s leave it and take cover!” John screamed.
“No! Three more steps and throw!”
“Got you, wench!” came a man’s voice close behind her, and Beth felt a heavy hand grabbing the back of her dress and she struggled to tear herself free.
“NOW!” she shouted.
With the man’s hand still gripping her dress, she heaved the hog with all her might, and John did the same. As it tumbled over the edge of the river bank, Beth and John dived to the ground, and the guard who had caught them instinctively did the same. The instant the smoking, sizzling animal hit the water there was a tremendous boom that shook the stones beneath Beth that felt like a clap of thunder inside her head. Water, stones and soil burst upwards and then rained down from the sky, splattering against her prone body. The waters of the Thames bubbled and fizzed as the debris continued to fall.
Beth raised her head and tried to focus; her vision was blurred but she felt sure that further downstream she saw Groby and his accomplice getting into a boat and rowing away. She heard voices calling, but her ears were ringing so loudly and painfully that she could make no sense of them. Then, before she could do anything else, she saw the booted feet of two guards running over to her, and she was yanked unceremoniously to her feet...
Chapter Twenty-One - Dungeon
The constant drip-drip-drip of evil-smelling green water from the mouldy ceiling above her head was the only thing that provided Beth with any distraction from a headache so excruciating that it made her feel nauseous. Even just opening her eyes was almost too painful, but the suffering was not just confined to her head. Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably, partly from the icy draughts and damp stone floor she was sitting on, and also the cold iron shackles that bit tightly into her wrists and ankles. She was one throbbing mass of aches and nagging soreness, both from the explosion and everything that had happened to her over the last twenty-four hours.
There was a clanking of chains beside her, and Beth forced her eyes open. She saw Ralph examining the metalwork that bound him to the wall of the dungeon of the Tower of London, where they had been brought after being captured by the King’s guards.
“Just the smallest of metal files and a bit of time – that’s all it would take for me to get out of here,” he said.
“Well, time’s one thing we’re going to have plenty of,” said John wryly. He was similarly chained to the wall, and Beth saw the drying blood of an ugly cut on his forehead, marring his handsome face. “Since they think we were trying to kill the King, they’ll never let us see the light of day again.”
“Yes they will,” said Ralph, sounding strangely confident. “And soon.”
Beth felt something tickling her leg, and shook it violently to rid herself of the rat that had been gnawing at the hem of her dress. It scuttled away into the darkness, but not very far. She suspected the rats in this place were quite used to sharing their space with human captives.
“What makes you so sure?” she asked Ralph, frowning.
“Don’t you know what this place is?”
“Well, we haven’t been invited into the King’s banqueting rooms,” John snapped, his sense of humour long having deserted him. “It’s a dungeon!”
“Not quite...” Ralph insisted.
“Oh, stop it,” John groaned. “I’m tired of your stupid ways—”
“It’s not just any dungeon, though! It’s the Condemned cell,” Ralph retorted ominously.
The word “condemned” struck Beth’s heart like a dagger. “But we were trying to help! We saved the King,” she said angrily. “How can they not see that?”
“Well, that’s not what it looked like to them,” Ralph said with a resigned sigh. “I heard one of the guards say a man with a missing finger reported that some Republican spies were going to kill the King, but panicked at the last moment when he caught them in the act.”
Beth scoffed incredulously. “Groby. Of course,” she growled through a clenched jaw.
“This is the place you’re put before they take you out to the guillotine, friends. We’re goners.”
“How come you know so much about this place?” John demanded.
“I ... I’ve been in here before.”
“Then how did you get out? If you got out, we can!”
Ralph shook his head. “That was different. Someone caught me picking the lock of his strongbox in the middle of the night. After turning me in, he decided he could make use of me, and that’s the only reason I got sprung out of here.”
It suddenly came to Beth. “Alan Strange?”
“Who else?”
She closed her eyes again and let her head fall back against the dank wall, trying to fight back the tears of frustration welling up inside. Alan Strange had made it very clear to her that this day might come. In the dark world he inhabited
there were only winners and losers, nothing in-between. This was the price losers often paid. Perhaps Strange himself had already paid it, since he had not turned up at the ringing of St Paul’s bells. Had someone cracked their code, and worked out what the tolling of the bells meant?
Worse yet, had Strange simply used them, then abandoned them to their fate?
In her despair, Beth’s mind drifted towards the theatre, whose boards she would never tread again. Who would take her parts? Someone would be found. They would mourn her passing for a time, but then life would go on and she would soon be forgotten. Worse still, perhaps they would think she really had been a treacherous Republican spy in their midst all along.
And then there was Maisie. How would poor, sweet Maisie manage without her? How would her young friend ever find her father without anyone to help her? Would Maisie feel compelled to see her one last time, joining the crowd that looked on as the blade came down on Beth’s neck? She felt sick at the very thought.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor outside jerked Beth back into the present, and her heart quickened. Was this it? Were they already coming to take them away? She started suddenly as the door opened, and to her surprise John reached out to squeeze her hand. She smiled at him gratefully, though she could see in his eyes that he needed the comfort as much as she did.
The dungeon was so gloomy that she couldn’t see who was striding across the dungeon towards them – but something about the tall, well-built outline looked familiar...
“You three are very lucky,” came a deep, calm voice that Beth recognized immediately.
Alan Strange.
“Oh, indeed,” said Ralph sardonically. “You’ve just interrupted our celebration party as it happens, Mister Strange.”
The spymaster laughed softly, and it occurred to Beth that it was the first time she had ever heard him do so.
“Mister Strange? Y-you must tell the King!” John pleaded desperately. “Tell him what we were really doing! Though it would be just our luck if he wouldn’t believe you either, now Edmund Groby has put about a story that—”