Part 25 (1/2)

But when the smoke finally cleared, he saw no such thing, but rather an unbeast, a nightmare vision, like one of the horrors from Malplaquet that cluttered his brain, like so many stuffed monsters in an old hunter's attic, and came alive each night to torment him just as he was about to drop off to sleep. This unbeast moved, and slid limp from the window, landing on its head in the gra.s.s before him. It did not come to a decent position of repose. Rather the corpse was propped up on something: a half-pike or javelin that had transfixed its ribcage, like an enormous alien bone that had grafted itself onto the man's skeleton.

MacIan looked up into the vacant window but saw no one there-so it must have come in to in to the window from the window from outside outside. But he was the only man in the yard, and he had no memory of chucking any spears lately. It had to have come from above, then. He turned around to face b.l.o.o.d.y Tower and ran his gaze up forty feet of sheer stone to its parapet.

There, framed in a slot between two crenels, and silhouetted against the sky, was a very large man with a beard flowing down his front. Smaller men were active around him, hustling among the gun-carriages that were situated on the roof of this Tower, wheeling them about to aim toward the River, chocking them up with thick quoins so that they were aimed, not at the s.h.i.+pping in the Pool, but down upon the soldiers on the Wharf.

The big man with the beard was gripping in one hand another half-pike. He raised the other to make a gesture. It was not a hand but a barbed hook with a skein of moist detritus swinging from it, possibly hair or shreds of clothing. With this he pointed up, away from the river, drawing MacIan's eye away from the toils of the gunners and towards the penetralia of the Tower of London. Over the roofs of the Cold Harbour storehouses he pointed, and over the soldiers' barracks and the gate of the Inmost Ward, to the lofty prize that stood in the center of all, commanding the complex, the River, and the City from its four turrets: the White Tower. He thrust his hook at it thrice.

The Hero of the Gy needed no more urging. Dropping his empty musket, he unslung his Claymore for what he guessed would be the last time, and hurried between droning musket-b.a.l.l.s towards Cold Harbour Gate.

LIKE ANY SELF-RESPECTING CONDEMNED traitor, MacIan had spent plenty of time plotting dramatic escapes from the Tower of London. He knew where the exits were. Today, though, he must think of them as entrances. traitor, MacIan had spent plenty of time plotting dramatic escapes from the Tower of London. He knew where the exits were. Today, though, he must think of them as entrances.

There were five gates to the Inner Ward. One of them was an old sally-port in the northeast corner, near Brick Tower, leading into the Mint. It was of no concern today. The remaining four gates were s.p.a.ced unevenly along Water Lane. b.l.o.o.d.y Tower and Wakefield Tower each contained a gate. These two structures were so close together as to const.i.tute virtually a single, misshapen building. A stroller moving east on Water Lane would spy the b.l.o.o.d.y Tower gate first and then, after rounding the bastion of Wakefield, see its gate. But though close together, these two portals were as divergent as they could be. The first was a broad, ma.s.sive, handsome Gothick arch that led directly onto the Parade via the court where Rufus MacIan was now standing. Thanks to the Russian, the light s.h.i.+ning through that arch was reticulated by a ma.s.sive grid of iron bars. Beyond it MacIan could see several redcoats lying still in the middle of Water Lane. They'd marched back from the Wharf expecting to re-enter the Inner Ward through that arch, but had been stopped by the ancient portcullis. And at that moment a dozen Scots hors.e.m.e.n had charged down on them swinging sabers. When horse attacked foot the outcome was never in doubt, unless the foot had pikes, and were well drilled. The Wharf Guard of the Tower of London did not carry or use pikes.

The second gate was a little postern giving entry to the circular ground floor of Wakefield Tower. Thence one could cross into a long L-shaped gallery that ran up through Cold Harbour and broke into the open just short of the White Tower. This was not a fit way for cavalry to come in. If things were proceeding according to plan, Tom the Black-guard was ensconced beneath a window near the vertex of the L, commanding both legs of the pa.s.sage, with a large number of loaded firearms in his lap. Few if any of the Tower's would-be defenders would pa.s.s in or out through the Wakefield Tower gate. But some of its attackers should have come running in that way on the heels of the cavalry charge.

MacIan ran north along the verge of the Parade, pa.s.sing by the Cold Harbour storehouses on his right. There was still a d.a.m.nable lot of musket-fire coming from Yeomen's windows, but none of it was directed his way any longer. When he reached the corner of the last storehouse and ducked around it, he at last had a safe vantage-point from which to appreciate why. The appearance of a few gunners atop b.l.o.o.d.y Tower and the adjoining stretch of wall, aiming Her Majesty's cannons down across Water Lane toward the Wharf, had compelled the Wharf Guard to pitch their muskets into the river and stand helpless. They were no longer able to shoot at men climbing the rope ladder into the Lieutenant's Lodging. And so a continual parade of invaders was now emerging from the front door of that house and sprinting down to b.l.o.o.d.y Tower where they could take stairs up to the battlements and man yet more cannons. As they did, they drew what little fire the Yeomen could muster. But even this was being suppressed by occasional fusillades from firing-points that the invaders had set up along the southern edge of the Parade.

He heard a gate groaning behind him and so turned his back to the Parade, which had become a sort of closed chapter anyway.

He had been engaged, these last few moments, on a project of looping north round the end of Cold Harbour to get from the Inner Ward (a parade for Guards and a village green for Yeomen) into the Inmost Ward (the court of a Royal Palace). He was facing now into an interval some ten or fifteen paces wide separating the Cold Harbour buildings from the corner of the White Tower. That opening was walled off; but there was a gate in the wall, which was being very considerately opened for him by a man in a kilt.

”At last, someone I can talk to,” MacIan said. MacIan said. ”Welcome to the Tower, lad.” ”Welcome to the Tower, lad.”

”And welcome to the Inmost Ward, uncle,” returned this young man, and stepped back to let him enter. returned this young man, and stepped back to let him enter.

This was a mere bowling-green compared to the Parade. It seemed even smaller than it was because it was mashed between the immense White Tower on the north and, on the south, Wakefield Tower (a palace unto itself) and a congeries of bulky office buildings and storehouses belonging to the Ordnance. Somewhere in the midst of that would be another tiny postern-the third of Water Lane's four portals-communicating with the Constable's Lodgings, and of no interest today. Far more important was the last gate, a proper arch, large enough for Highlanders to ride through without dismounting. That gave access to a sort of barracks-street along the eastern perimeter of the Inmost Ward, and thence to another gate, a partner of the one MacIan had just walked through...where was it, though? His eye, no judge of distances, had trouble making sense of the place. But the piper had taken up a position at the head of the barracks-street to lead the cavalry onwards. The sound of the music cras.h.i.+ng from the stony environs gave MacIan the information he wanted to decypher the place. He found the gate in question. It was open. Men were beginning to ride through it. Some were slumped over in their saddles, clutching at battle-wounds earned in Water Lane, or perhaps earlier, when they had galloped out of the streets of London town to astonish the sentries posted at Lion Gate. But most were riding straight-backed and proud, and one-bless him-carrying the unfurled colors of MacIan of MacDonald.

”So that is the famous White Tower,” said the lad who had opened the gate for him, ”Feich! It's not even white!” It's not even white!”

”The Englishmen have no self-pride. If you read their history you will see that they are nothing more than a lot of doxy and mistemious bog-stalkers. Think: what would a few gallons of white paint cost the Queen of England?”

”For the love of G.o.d, I'd come down and paint it myself just so I wouldn't have to look at it. Everywhere you go in this cursed city, there it stands, a blot on the horizon.”

”I've a more expeditious solution,” MacIan answered. ”I know of one place, not far from here, where you can look in any direction you please without having to suffer the sight of this rubble-heap.”

”Where's that, uncle?”

”The inside of it!” And MacIan beckoned to the banner-carrier.

”What-how do you get in?” inquired the lad.

”Through the b.l.o.o.d.y front door. They built it high off the ground, you see, there-to make it easy to defend-but the English, lazy as they are, have built a lovely timber staircase so they need not strain themselves.”

”I cannot see it.”

”The barracks are in the way. Follow me!” MacIan entered the front door of a sort of gatehouse pent between two barracks.

”I'll go before you, uncle!” cried the lad; and behind him, like exclamations could be heard from other warriors who were hastily dismounting in the Inmost Ward and running to catch up with them, enc.u.mbered by diverse cutla.s.ses, Claymores, blunderbusses, and granadoes.

But Rufus MacIan strode out the back of the gatehouse and began climbing a rude wooden staircase towards a simple round-headed archway cut into the White Tower's south wall. ”You do not understand,” he called over his shoulder. ”You are looking forward, now, to a pitched battle for the White Tower. As if this were a picaroon-romance. But the battle is over. You have fought it and won it.”

A Yeoman Warder suddenly stood framed in the arch. He drew an old rapier from a scabbard at his hip, held it up above his head, and began to charge down the timber stairs, screaming. Rufus MacIan did not bother reaching for his Claymore. The Yeoman was butchered on the hoof by musket-b.a.l.l.s flying in from half a dozen different angles. He sprayed and faltered at each impact, disintegrating before their eyes, and then collapsed and rolled down the stairs leaving much of himself behind.

”He's been reading picaroon-romances, too,” observed Rufus MacIan. ”Watch your step, lads, it's a wee bit slippery.”

He took the last steps two at a time and strode across the threshold of the White Tower, saying, ”I claim thee for Glen Coe.”

The City of London LATE AFTERNOON.

HE WAS PRESENTABLE. He was amiable. He'd been taught to sign his name-a.s.suming Jones really He was amiable. He'd been taught to sign his name-a.s.suming Jones really was was his name-on command. Beyond that he was, and always would be, perfectly illiterate. This rendered it out of the question that Seaman Jones of the good s.h.i.+p his name-on command. Beyond that he was, and always would be, perfectly illiterate. This rendered it out of the question that Seaman Jones of the good s.h.i.+p Minerva Minerva would ever be an officer, or a man of commerce. would ever be an officer, or a man of commerce.

Jones did not chafe under his limitations-if he was even aware he had any. They had picked him up in Jamaica. His story at the time was that he was a wholesome North Devon lad who had been abducted from the sh.o.r.e round Lynmouth by a boat-load of sailors from a Bristol slave-s.h.i.+p anch.o.r.ed in the Channel-in other words, that he'd been press-ganged-and that, after a run to Guinea to pick up slaves, he had jumped s.h.i.+p in Jamaica. They had always a.s.sumed that Jones would jump s.h.i.+p again one day, and avail himself of his first chance to get back to his family farm on the edge of Exmoor. But that had been years ago. Jones had proved immune to the temptations of Exmoor on several occasions, as Minerva Minerva frequently called at Plymouth, Dartmouth, and other ports convenient to his supposed homeland. Indeed, he gave every indication of being perfectly content with his lot aboard frequently called at Plymouth, Dartmouth, and other ports convenient to his supposed homeland. Indeed, he gave every indication of being perfectly content with his lot aboard Minerva Minerva. There had been some trouble with rowdiness at first, providing a hint as to what Jones was running away from, but as years and voyages had gone by he had ripened into a steady, reliable, if somewhat limited crewman.

So on the liability side of Jones's account, to illiteracy could be added a mysterious, probably criminal past, and a want of ambition. He had, however, one a.s.set that was not possessed by the officer who was walking next to him up Lombard Street: he was a white-skinned Englishman. From time to time Jones was called upon to make the most of this a.s.set by dressing up in a pair of breeches, leather shoes, a waistcoat, a long watch coat of a somewhat nautical cut, and a very plain horsehair periwig. This was the sort of get-up that a s.h.i.+p's officer might keep stuffed in a footlocker while crossing an ocean, and pull out after dropping anchor in some harbor, so that he could go ash.o.r.e and look minimally decent in the eyes of money-scriveners, victuallers, s.h.i.+p-chandlers, and insurance underwriters.

If these two were to hail a hackney coach and travel a couple of miles west to the new streets round Piccadilly and St. James, where shopping shopping rather than rather than s.h.i.+pping s.h.i.+pping was the order of the day, their roles, in the eyes of most casual strollers, might be reversed. For people with an eye for clothes would notice that Dappa's actually fit him, that they were of recent make, well cared for, and cleverly picked out. The lace around his s.h.i.+rt-cuffs had never been dragged through beer-foam, goose-grease and damp ink; his shoes shone like wax fruit. The sophisticated toffs of the West End would then take in the fact that Dappa was older, that he was alert to everything going on around them, and that when they came to street-corners Dappa went where he would, and Jones followed. Jones looked about himself curiously, but he was not really paying attention in the way that Dappa was. A West Ender, watching this procession of two stride past, might conclude that Dappa was a Moorish diplomat from Algiers or Rabat, and Jones his local guide. was the order of the day, their roles, in the eyes of most casual strollers, might be reversed. For people with an eye for clothes would notice that Dappa's actually fit him, that they were of recent make, well cared for, and cleverly picked out. The lace around his s.h.i.+rt-cuffs had never been dragged through beer-foam, goose-grease and damp ink; his shoes shone like wax fruit. The sophisticated toffs of the West End would then take in the fact that Dappa was older, that he was alert to everything going on around them, and that when they came to street-corners Dappa went where he would, and Jones followed. Jones looked about himself curiously, but he was not really paying attention in the way that Dappa was. A West Ender, watching this procession of two stride past, might conclude that Dappa was a Moorish diplomat from Algiers or Rabat, and Jones his local guide.

But this was not the West End. This was the City of London. They were only a stone's throw from Change Alley. No one paid much heed to clothing here, unless it was as a truly vulgar and shocking exhibit of wealth. By that standard both Dappa and Jones were invisible. Dappa, darting ahead through the crowd of money-men, was a.s.sumed to be the servant-a meat souvenir picked up on a trading-voyage-beating a path through the jungle, as it were, and keeping a shrewd eye for hazards. Jones, strolling in Dappa's wake, was obviously the master, and what might in other settings have been seen as a stupid or vacuous expression could be taken, here, as the meditative phizz of a financial savant who was trying to plumb the meaning of the latest trend in Sword Blade Company share prices, and couldn't be bothered to dress himself elegantly or indeed to find his own way down the street. His absent-minded way of taking in everything around him was proof that his was a mind tuned to follow the divagating strains, and quiver in sympathy with the startling chords, of the Market.

Or so Dappa told himself, to check his own impatience, when Seaman Jones paused to chat up a pretty orange-girl on a street-corner, or reached out to accept a handbill from a dirty, bawling pamphleteer. When they came at last to the doorway of Worth's Coffee-House on Birchin Lane, just across the way from the Herac.l.i.tean riot of Change Alley, Dappa fell to the rear. Jones strode forward and entered the coffee-house first. A few moments later Dappa was pulling Jones's chair out for him as he seated himself at a vacant table, and scurrying after a maid to make Mr. Jones's desires known.

”We are early,” Dappa told Jones after he had got back to the table with the coffee, ”and Mr. Sawyer is ever late, and so make yourself comfortable, as I cannot. After this, there's no more leisure until we reach Ma.s.sachusetts.” And Dappa took up the pose of a servant, standing behind Jones, ready to dart forward and tend to emergent needs.

Everyone else in the place was either involved in a conversation or, if alone, reading something. Worth's Coffee-House was the haunt of a sub-species of petty financier who provided bridge loans, and other, less easily explained financial instruments, to the s.h.i.+pping trade. Of the singletons scattered about the place, some were salts consulting tide-tables or almanacks. Others looked like money-scriveners or money-goldsmiths. Their choices in reading material leaned towards London newspapers. Jones, here, was the odd man out in that he could not read at all. But at the corner of Gracechurch and Lombard, he had accepted a libel from a nasty tub-faced tout who looked and smelled as if he'd washed his face with rancid tallow, and who had bestowed an evil look on Dappa as he'd walked by. Jones had rolled it up and carried it here in one hand, looking for all the world like a man of affairs toting a Bill of Exchange to be redeemed. But now, in an effort to blend in with this literate crowd, Jones unrolled the handbill and smoothed it out on the table, and bent over it, aping the poses of the readers around him.

He had it upside down! Dappa bent his face toward the floor, and stepped forward so that he could discreetly knee Jones in the a.r.s.e. But Jones was quicker than Dappa gave him credit for. Though he knew nothing of letters, he had figured out on his own that the doc.u.ment needed to be spun around. For this bill was ill.u.s.trated ill.u.s.trated: at the top of the page was a fist-sized blot of ink, a butcherous woodcut of a savage black-skinned man with spraying dreadlocks. His throat was clasped in a white lace cravat, his shoulders dignified by good English tailoring. Printed beneath this portrait in crusty letters an inch high was the word DAPPA.

followed by A SLAVE, property of MR. CHARLES WHITE, ESQ., is missing and presumed stolen or astray. A REWARD in the amount of TEN GUINEAS shall be given to the first party who brings this Neeger to the dwelling of Mr. White on St. James's Square.

And then finer print, which Dappa would need gla.s.ses to read. But he could not get his gla.s.ses out of his breast pocket, because not a muscle in his body would move.

Sloop Atalanta, Atalanta, off the s.h.i.+ve off the s.h.i.+ve SUNSET.

HE WISHED H HOOKE WERE HERE. A Natural Philosopher could not but be enthralled by all that was laid out for view by such a rare low tide. The sun had sunk low in the west and, behind London's dome of smoke, shone the color of a horseshoe when the farrier beats it out on the anvil. That light was skidding across the tidal flats all round, making them seem not so flat at all. The surface of the muck was rippled, as if it were a pond that had been disturbed by a chill wind, then frozen. But more remarkable to Daniel was the shape of Foulness Sand, a few miles to the north, across the mouth of the Thames. This country of muck, larger than some German princ.i.p.alities, lay concealed beneath the water most of the time. It was devoid of any features such as rocks or vegetation. Yet when the tide drew off, the great quant.i.ty of water that had been stranded in the dells of all those frozen ripples drained away, not as a streaming sheet, and not by quiet seepage into the earth, but by finding its way to the low places. One hand-sized puddle would erupt in upon its neighbor, and those two would join forces and go looking for a nearby place that lay a hair's breadth lower, even as every other dollop of water for miles around was pursuing a like strategy. The result, integrated (to use Leibniz's terminology) over the whole of Foulness Sand, was that entire systems of rivers and tributaries sprang into being. Some of those rivers looked as old as the Thames, and big enough to build cities on; yet in a few hours they'd disappear. Existing in a state of pure alienation, unsoftened by reeds or willows, and not encrusted by the buildings of men, they were pure geometry. Albeit geometry of an irregular and organic cast, repugnant to Euclid or, Daniel suspected, to the silver-haired knight who was standing next to him. But Hooke would have seen beauty and found fascination there, and wrought pictures of it, as he had done with flies and fleas. A Natural Philosopher could not but be enthralled by all that was laid out for view by such a rare low tide. The sun had sunk low in the west and, behind London's dome of smoke, shone the color of a horseshoe when the farrier beats it out on the anvil. That light was skidding across the tidal flats all round, making them seem not so flat at all. The surface of the muck was rippled, as if it were a pond that had been disturbed by a chill wind, then frozen. But more remarkable to Daniel was the shape of Foulness Sand, a few miles to the north, across the mouth of the Thames. This country of muck, larger than some German princ.i.p.alities, lay concealed beneath the water most of the time. It was devoid of any features such as rocks or vegetation. Yet when the tide drew off, the great quant.i.ty of water that had been stranded in the dells of all those frozen ripples drained away, not as a streaming sheet, and not by quiet seepage into the earth, but by finding its way to the low places. One hand-sized puddle would erupt in upon its neighbor, and those two would join forces and go looking for a nearby place that lay a hair's breadth lower, even as every other dollop of water for miles around was pursuing a like strategy. The result, integrated (to use Leibniz's terminology) over the whole of Foulness Sand, was that entire systems of rivers and tributaries sprang into being. Some of those rivers looked as old as the Thames, and big enough to build cities on; yet in a few hours they'd disappear. Existing in a state of pure alienation, unsoftened by reeds or willows, and not encrusted by the buildings of men, they were pure geometry. Albeit geometry of an irregular and organic cast, repugnant to Euclid or, Daniel suspected, to the silver-haired knight who was standing next to him. But Hooke would have seen beauty and found fascination there, and wrought pictures of it, as he had done with flies and fleas.

”Do the same rivers always spring up? Or is it new ones, in different places, at every tide?” Daniel mused.

”One will recur, again and again, for years, perhaps undergoing slow alterations from tide to tide,” Isaac answered.

”It was a rhetorical question,” Daniel muttered.

”Then some day, perhaps after a storm or an exceptional high tide, the water draws back, and it is gone, never to be seen again. There is much in the subterranean realm that is as opaque to the mind, as it is to the eye.”

Isaac now moved across the p.o.o.p deck to view s.h.i.+ve Tor. Daniel felt compelled to stay at his elbow.

To their left, gray spread to infinity. Ahead, it extended only to the sh.o.r.e of the Isle of Grain, a couple of miles distant. Most of the isle barely rose above the horizon, but there was one hill, perhaps fifty to a hundred feet above sea level, gra.s.sy, with a few weather-shocked trees flinging their arms back aghast. Atop that stood a small, blocky, ancient stone church. It stood broadside to the sea, as if the masons had begun by erecting a wind-wall so that they would have something to stand in the lee of, then topped it with a steep roof to deflect the gales heavenwards. On its western front was a square tower with a flat roof and a crenellated top, which the Black Torrent Guard had pressed into service as a watch-tower.