Down: Trilogy Box Set (19 page)

“I will remember what you have said about ore from the Norselands,” William said, rubbing at his neck then clamping a huge arm around John’s shoulder. “Come, let us begin our labor. I would dearly hate for this to be my last day with a head attached to the rest of me.”

It was after midnight. If there was a moon, John couldn’t see it because the thick shroud of clouds never seemed to shift. He suspected it was there because the night sky was only medium-gray. He was slumped outside the forge, bone-tired and hot, taking a short break. The air was fouled by smoke belching from the chimney. William had given him some bread and he sipped cool water from a skin. The work was proceeding in fits and starts. The molds for the shells had come out well and the first castings were being done. The barrel cutting was not as satisfactory. They’d already ruined two cannon and William was just about to start on a third.

The banging and clanging from inside the forge assaulted his ears but there was another sound which made him tense up, the neighing of a horse. He stood, looked around and picked up a scrap of iron lying in the grass as a weapon. A man emerged from behind the building leading a horse by the bridle. The furnace was casting orange light through the door of the forge and when the man stepped into the shaft of light John saw him put a finger to his lips. It was Guacci, the Italian ambassador.

“We must talk,” Guacci said.

“How’d you know I was here?”

“It is my job to know these things. Please, let us walk to the river. You can trust me.”

His voice was reassuring and John decided to follow his instincts. With the horse in tow, they tramped down toward the tributary until the sound of flowing water was louder than the beating of iron.

“What do you want?” John asked.

Guacci had long hair that was tied back with a ribbon. He wore a Renaissance-style robe over leggings and boots.

“I want to tell you that the lady you seek is in Francia.”

“I already know that.”

“Do you know her circumstances?”

“I was told she’s with someone named Guise.”

“That is true. Do you know where she is? Do you know how to reach her?”

“No, but I’m going to find out.”

“It will not be so easy for you.”

“Nothing about this is easy. But if I don’t succeed, I swear to you, I’ll die trying.”

“I want to help you. I have good knowledge of the Duke of Guise. With my help you have a better chance of finding her. Do you know how the duke came to have her?”

“No.”

“It is because Solomon Wisdom sold her to the duke’s spy in Brittania.”

He’d had his suspicions but with confirmation he seethed, “That son-of-a-bitch. I’ll cut him in two.”

“It should serve as a lesson that one must not easily trust others in Hell.”

“You just asked me to trust you. Why should I?”

“I will be completely honest with you, John. I believe you may be able to help us, so if I help you then perhaps you will be favorably inclined to lend your assistance.”

“Who’s us? The king of Italy, whoever that is?”

“The king of Italia is a man named Cesare Borgia. Have you heard of him?”

John laughed. “Yeah, he’s pretty well known in history as a twisted fuck.”

“I do not know this meaning. He is a terror, worse in many ways than King Henry. Both are ruthless but Borgia is cruel for the sake of cruelty. I served him in life and for all appearances I serve him now as an ambassador. But in truth, I serve another.”

“Who?”

“I will not tell you this now. My safety and his depends on this confidence.”

“How do you think I can help you?”

“I have seen you are a very skilled and intelligent man. Your work here is evidence of that.”

“You know what I’m doing?”

“The court has many mouths and the court has many ears.”

“We’ll have until tomorrow to see how skilled I am.”

“It is more than your skills that interest me. You are the first man to come to Hell who is not condemned here for eternity. You can make decisions based on more than the rank emotions of greed and fear. You can decide to act from altruism. If and when you meet my master I think you might choose to help our cause.”

“What cause is that?”

“I will say no more about this. For tonight I only wish to tell you of the plans of King Henry to kill you if your new cannon fails and to deceive you if it succeeds. Will you listen to my proposal to thwart Henry and rescue your lady from the Duke of Guise?”

John thought for a few moments listening to the river gurgling, then replied, “Yeah, I’ll listen.”

It was the brightest day since John arrived, the sky the color of an inferior pearl. A worker ran into the forge to tell William that he’d spotted the royal barge approaching downriver just as men were winching the one, successfully rifled cannon onto its carriage.

“Secure it and wheel it out,” William told his foreman.

John had a second wind and was sorting through the dozen shells they had cast, picking the ones with the smoothest lugs and filing off burrs with his own hands.

“Do you think it will fire?” William said.

“I don’t know. I hope so. We’ll find out soon enough.”

“Aye, we will. Win or lose, it was an honor to share your labor this night.”

“You’re a good man, William.”

“You mean for a Heller?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The cannon was out in the open air when Henry, Cromwell, Norfolk and their entourage arrived from the river on horse and on foot. Teddy trotted ahead and approached.

“How’d you get on, mate?” he asked John.

“We’ll see. The proof’s in the pudding, right? How’d you do last night?”

“No luck. Went to bed on my onesies.”

Henry arrived, dismounted from his horse and went straight for the weapon to inspect it.

“It appears no different from any of my fixtures,” he said angrily.

“It’s the same outside except for these reinforcement bands,” John said. “The difference is on the inside.”

He explained the La Hitte system, showed him the conical, lugged shells, and had him peer into the barrel. While Henry was doing this John noticed that Norfolk had a silver chain that disappeared into a small pocket of his uniform jacket. It looked like a watch chain and his suspicions were confirmed when Norfolk pulled out a pocket watch and opened the cover to check the time of day.

“You say it can launch one of these missiles three thousand yards?” the king said.

John was paying more attention to the watch than the question and Henry irritably repeated it.

“I hope so,” John said. “We haven’t even fired it yet and you didn’t give us much time to work out the kinks.”

The fires visible through the forge door reflected off Henry’s eyes. “If it fails to meet my expectations there will be blood spilled today.”

“Great,” John said. “That’s very motivational.”

The king looked at him querulously, as if unsure whether he’d heard a compliment. Then he pointed down the hill toward the Richmond settlement and said, “Do you see that cluster of four houses, off together? My men have paced off the distance. It is some three thousand yards from here. That is your target.”

“Are there people down there?”

“Cromwell, are there people in those dwellings?” the king asked.

“I should think so, Your Majesty.”

“Then let’s aim somewhere else,” John said.

“No,” Henry said. He called for wine, and then added, “Aim where I have told you. Proceed.”

John sauntered back toward William and whispered for him to add another pound or two of powder to the charge.

“I am already worried the cannon will split,” William whispered back.

“We’ve added good banding along the entire length of the barrel. A bit more powder probably won’t make a difference. It’s either going to blow up or it isn’t. Just make sure no one’s standing near it when it’s fired.”

A field throne was set down for Henry while William and John readied the cannon. The piece was primed with a generous bag of black powder and tamped. The best shell of the bunch was placed in the muzzle and twisted down the grooves with a rod John designed to screw it into place. When it was fully seated the shell was packed in place with wadding. The cannon was elevated to forty-five degrees with levers and chucks while William and John debated the aiming point. Workmen pulled and pushed the weapon until they were satisfied. Then William placed a charge through the touchhole and called for one of his men to bring a lit torch from the forge. He took it and asked the king if he was ready. With a royal nod, they were set.

“Light it and run,” John said.

“I will not run. Better to be blown to smithereens by my own machine than have my head severed with a blunt knife.”

It seemed to take a long time for the main charge to light, but it was really only a couple of seconds.

First there was a deafening boom, then a high-pitched whistling noise as the shell spiraled and arced through the air. John tried to track the trajectory of the projectile but he lost it in the white sky. He trained his eyes on the four houses and held his breath. Suddenly, there was a massive splash in the Thames and water spouted into the air a good hundred yards beyond the houses.

William was jumping up and down, yelping in relief, crying out, “That is more than three thousand yards. We did it! We did it!”

Henry was standing, raising his fist in triumph, and striding over to John.

“You achieved the objective, John Camp. Your aim was off but you did what you set out to do.”

“Credit goes to William, Your Majesty. I don’t know any modern smithy who could have pulled this off in a single day with the tools William had.”

“Excellent, excellent. Cromwell, see to it that William the forger has a new house and give him one of the women at my court. Not a comely wench, but not a hag either.”

Teddy saw an opportunity and went for it. “What about me, Your Majesty?” he asked. “I had a hand in it too.”

Cromwell answered for the king. “All you told us was that the proof was in the pudding. For that contribution you might get a pudding. And you might keep your head.”

William wiped the sweat from his brow with a rag and smiled at John. Just then a rider approached, coming up the hill at a full gallop. He dismounted and passed a note to the captain of the guard who ran it to Cromwell.

“It is a telegraph message,” Cromwell announced. “Please give me some moments to decipher its meaning.”

“Hurry!” Henry commanded, beginning to pace in anticipation. “You know, John, even after a century I still find this Morse code unfathomable. When I first heard of it I thought it was a Moors Code and I asked what possible use would King Selim have for such an instrument.”

Finally, Cromwell announced that he had it and read out a message that the Spanish fleet had been spotted approaching the Isle of Wight.

Henry boomed, “Then we must make ready. Our spies have told us that they plan to anchor off Southend and send their troops to London on barges. How many more cannon can you have for me tomorrow, forger William?”

William’s smile wiped clean away.

“Perhaps one more, Your Majesty.”

“At dawn tomorrow, I want three of these singing cannon on barges with plenty of shot. John, you will place two on the shore and one on my flagship and you will help me defeat the Iberians once and for all.”

“And then you’ll give me a ship?”

“Then you will have whatever you desire!”

Woodbourne had never really thought about why it took him less time to strangle a man than a woman.

It was night. Earlier he had tied the Frasers to their beds, putting Adele in the master bedroom and Des in the guest room, each with a tea towel stuffed into the mouth. He went downstairs to the lounge where he fell asleep with the TV on. When he awoke in the middle of the night he drank the last beer in the house, went to the master bedroom with two of his kitchen knives and turned on the light.

Des was awake, straining against his ropes. Woodbourne sat on the bed and watched the man, the way a twisted boy might watch a bug he had spiked with a nail. Des seemed to sense what was coming because he began bucking and trying hard to expel the gag. Woodbourne waited until he had tired himself out then slowly reached for his neck. He started gently, almost languidly, as if he wasn’t wholly committed to the enterprise and Des looked puzzled at first about his intention, but as his grip intensified and the airflow became compromised, Des’s eyes became wild and he started bucking again. Woodbourne, as if irritated by the thrashing, squeezed much harder and his hands began to shake from the exertion. Finally, Des stopped struggling and Woodbourne paused to uncramp his hands before clamping down again for another half minute for good measure. Then he slit his throat, picked up the knives and moved to the guest room.

The light from the hall showed Adele’s terrified face well enough that he left the lights off.

“It’s your turn.”

She seemed resigned to her fate and lay there quietly, only shaking. As he pressed down on her larynx ever so gently with his thumbs, it dawned on him why women lasted longer. He didn’t squeeze as hard because he savored it more. So he played with her the way a cat plays with a mouse before the final snap of its jaws, tightening and relaxing, tightening and relaxing. And when he had milked the experience for all it was worth, he let go, allowing her face to return from purple to pink, then plunged the larger knife into her heart and the paring knife into her throat.

Downstairs, he washed the blood off the knives, changed into a clean set of Des’s clothes and shoes, and checked the dark street through parted curtains. It was time to move. He didn’t know where he was going but someone would find him if he stayed in this house much longer. Outside, he climbed into Des’s car and drove off into the still night.

Quint was kept waiting in Secretary Smithwick’s ante-room at Whitehall like a naughty boy summoned to the headmaster’s office. Finally, two men, the minister of state for energy and the department’s permanent secretary, left her room and eyed Quint the way one might treat a bloated fish washed up on shore. Smithwick appeared at the door, invited him in, and dispensed with pleasantries.