Down: Trilogy Box Set (75 page)

“If he had, this would not have been my undertaking,” the king said.

“Perhaps not, but it would have happened,” John insisted.

“Yet once you reached Francia, you made allegiances with the French and the Italians to do war against King Henry,” Cromwell said. “You cannot deny this. You were seen on the battlefield opposing us at Argenteuil. As a result, Brittania has been weakened and our enemies grow stronger. We have heard that the Great Bear of Russia, Czar Joseph, senses our weakness in defeat and is making plans to sail for our shores with his armies. You have wounded Brittania as if you had, by your very own hand, pierced the thigh of King Henry. How will you explain your treachery?”

The analogy was ironic but it wouldn’t have helped matters to smile at it. “Like I said,” John protested, “I had to learn how to survive here. I needed help to rescue Emily. The Italians and their new king provided that help.”

“This new monarch,” Henry growled, “this man called Garibaldi. He is not of noble birth. He is a commoner and yet he would be a king. You betrayed me to a common criminal and now you must pay. I have a certain fondness for you, John Camp, but I cannot let that interfere with what I must do and the example I must send to all who are answerable to the crown. I was fond of Thomas More. I was fond of Anne Boleyn. I was even fond of our good friend, Cromwell, but I did to them what I must do to you.”

Emily looked panicky and was about to say something but John raised a hand to quiet her. He wasn’t altogether surprised at the failure of his first two arrows. He confidently reached for the third.

“All right. I understand you’re angry at what I did and I appreciate that you’ve got to keep up appearances. You don’t stay king for five hundred years by being a soft touch.”

“What does this mean: soft touch?”

“Forgiving. Nice. Easy. Weak. All those things. But here’s something else I know about you, Your Majesty. You’re also very intelligent, very shrewd. You know a good bargain when you see it and I’d like to offer you a very good bargain.”

Henry handed his wine to a servant then propped himself higher on his pillows and demanded that the cushion under his wounded thigh be repositioned.

“What bargain do you propose?”

“I want you to give us the children and the woman your queen purchased from Solomon Wisdom. I want free and safe passage back to Dartford for them, myself, Emily, and the five other living persons who are now guests in your palace. And in exchange, I will give you something that no other ruler in Hell has, something that will give you unimaginable power and superiority.”

Henry betrayed himself with a fleeting, greedy smile. “And what, pray tell, is this, Mr. Camp?”

“I will give you books. I will give you some very important books.”

John and Emily sailed the great river alone. Henry had given his assurances that they would not be followed and they felt certain no one was as they navigated the swift downstream currents to the spot, about four miles away, where they had hidden the books.

The landmark John had chosen to mark the spot was a rotting pier with just enough substance to tie up their barge and support their weight. The crumbling foundation of a stone house, a few yards from the riverbank, was the spot they’d chosen as they made their way from Greenwich. John had transferred all the books to Emily’s pack after ripping out the first few pages from one set. At the king’s bedside, John had produced the pages as proof of the goods and an astonished Henry had read them, passing page by page to Cromwell to inspect, and had declared that a deal would be done.

“Bring me these books,” he had said, “and I will have the queen relinquish these children, if indeed she has them, and I will give you all free and unfettered passage and my guarantee of safety until such time as you may be able to return to your own realm.”

“We’ll need to see the children first,” John had said.

Henry had laughed. “I am well versed in the art of the trade,” he had said. “You will receive what you require and I will receive what I desire. You have the word of this king and that is a sure currency even in Hell.”

The books, wrapped in cloth, were concealed in a shallow hole he had dug, covered by rubble. John unwrapped the cloth revealing two copies of six books, a total of twelve. He removed the five he’d ripped pages from.

“I’m glad you decided against giving him a copy of the sixth,” Emily said. “As it is, it bothers me that three of the five can be used for cruelty.”

“Technology’s always been a double-edged sword,” he said, hiding the books again. “Even with supercolliders.”

He wished he hadn’t made the remark but she let him off the hook by saying, “At least we can be certain that only good can come from the other two.”

A whippy westerly wind picked up in intensity and it began to rain. A flock of jays following the river eastward seemed to be almost stationary against the dull sky. A large sailing barge came into view from the west, sped by three masts of full black sails and a contingent of men putting their backs into twenty pairs of oars.

“They’re really hauling ass,” John said, as the barge disappeared around a river bend. “Too bad we’re going the opposite direction.”

The strong, unfavorable wind and the heavy current conspired to make their return journey to Hampton Court arduous. John shouted into the wind more than once that it would have been faster to walk, and after several painful hours they arrived back at the palace soaked to the skin.

Cromwell met them in the great hall and asked if they had been successful.

“We’re wet but the books are dry,” John said.

“May I lay my eyes upon them?” the chancellor asked anxiously.

“Let’s not waste time,” John said. “Let’s see the king and let’s see the children.”

“Have you seen them?” Emily asked.

“I have not but the queen has received a message from the king and I am assured they are well,” Cromwell said, turning his back to them and taking off through the hall. “Follow me. The king is most impatient.”

Henry was eating again. He raised a greasy hand and used the joint of meat to beckon them into his bedchamber. “You have taken an intolerably long while to return. Do you have them?” he called out as they approached.

Emily answered. “We do. May we please see the children now?”

Henry shouted to the column of retainers lined up against the wall. “You heard the woman. Fetch the queen and the children.” He called for a cloth to wipe his hands and said, “They will arrive forthwith. Now the books, if you please.”

John and Emily were still dripping wet but Henry took no notice of their plight.

“What order would you like to see them?” John asked.

Henry had the look of a young lad about to receive presents. “Surprise me,” he said. “Delight me.”

John looked into his pack, pulled out the first volume, and held it up to Henry’s eyes.

“Excellent!” the king exclaimed. “I was just reading its frontispiece again.” He fished through his bedclothes for the torn sheets and read out loud, “The blast furnace is the key which unlocks Nature’s stores of iron for our use. It is unique in having been unchanged in principle for several centuries, and in having no substitute. If the blast furnace were taken from us civilization would be halted.’ Did you hear that, Cromwell? Civilization would be halted. Well, methinks that our civilization has indeed been halted. We must have improved furnaces. Now show me this book.”

The book John handed him was
Blast Furnace Construction in America
by Joseph Esrey Johnson, written in 1917. Henry avidly thumbed through it murmuring and cooing like a happy songbird.

“Look at these behemoths! These furnaces dwarf my largest forges. This tome is filled with fine illustrations and construction plans. Cromwell, summon my master forger, William, and have him come to the palace this very day. I wish him to study this text and study it well. I would have him build me my own behemoth. Think of the cannon we can forge with iron from the Norselands and behemoth furnaces!”

“It’s not only cannon you can build,” Emily said. “You can make rails for railway tracks and locomotive engines to ride on them. You can make bridges and stronger buildings. You can make a better life for your people.”

“My subjects will have worse lives if they are conquered by Russians, that I can tell you. We need finer weapons first and foremost. If the ranks of those who are condemned to Hell weren’t swollen with imbeciles and ruffians then we would have learned how to make these furnaces already. The only thing a murderer or a rapist is good for is murdering and raping. Give me the next book.”

John reached into the bag and produced,
Steam Boilers, Engines and Turbines
, a 1908 book by Sydney Walker.

“Blast furnaces are one leg of the stool,” John said, holding it up. “The second is being able to make the large steam engines and turbines to power them and make them hot enough. Water wheels can only go so far. We saw small steam engines in Europa used to power automobiles but larger ones don’t exist here as far as we know. This book teaches how to build them.”

Henry leafed through the book and marveled at the illustrations. Then he said, “Show me the third leg of the stool.”

That was
Bessemer Steel, Ores and Methods
, a book published in 1882 by Thomas Fitch. John explained, “You want to be able to produce more than just large amounts of steel. You want to produce high quality steel that’s consistently strong and won’t rupture. Remember the singing cannon that exploded the day the Iberians attacked?”

“I do indeed. You led us to believe that this defect could be assuaged by utilizing the iron from the Norse mines.”

“Yes, that iron has the lowest phosphorous content and phosphorous is the enemy of good steel. In the nineteenth century an Englishman named Bessemer invented a process for turning any iron ore into the highest quality steel and he made iron very inexpensive to produce. This book teaches how to make Bessemer steel. It’s the third leg of your stool.”

Like a greedy boy, Henry wanted more.

John asked Emily to present the fourth book.

“This book was written by another Englishman,” she said. “It does not teach how to make weapons or engines or indeed anything you can hold in your hand. It teaches you how to hold things in your heart. It is meant to inspire, to make you laugh, to make you cry. It is food for the human spirit, something you need dearly here, in my humble opinion. I give you the
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
, the greatest poet in the history of mankind.”

Henry received the heavy book with two hands and opened it to one page then another before his eye was caught by a familiar name. “Behold! He writes of my ancestor, King Henry the Fifth!” He paused to read a passage to himself then said, “Listen all to these fine words, as fine as I have ever seen: ‘And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me, Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed, Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks, That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.’”

A tear ran down his cheek.

“And now for the last book,” John said.

“I am glad you saved it for the last,” Henry said, reaching for the torn pages he’d received. “For it is the greatest of them all. Though I have forsaken God, as there is no salvation to be had any longer, I have often tried to remember the sweet passages I learned in my youth. But memories fade, though flesh fadeth not.”

The fifth book was the Bible, and not just any edition but the English bible, prepared by Myles Coverdale, under commission by King Henry, to be used throughout his realm by his new Church of England.

Henry said, holding out his hands, “It is the Great Bible, my bible.” The cover page had an illustration of Henry, seated on his throne, watched over by God, disseminating copies of his new Bible to his Protestant clergy. “It looks like my very copy. See this Cromwell? Do you see this?”

“I do, Your Majesty. I remember the Great Bible well. It was I who devised the edict that every church in your land possess one copy.”

“This is the book which I will presently read and study to the exclusion of the others,” Henry declared. “I will refresh my memory of the word of God and see what use there is of His divine words in such a place as …”

A retainer rushed into the bedchamber in a dead run and slid to a halt on the stone floor.

“What is the reason for your haste?” the king said with obvious irritation at the interruption.

“It is the queen,” the man almost shouted. “She is gone!”

John and Emily looked at each other in alarm.

“Gone?” Henry asked. “What mean you, gone?”

“She and her retinue have departed the palace.”

“When was this and why was I not told?” the king shouted. “Cromwell, did you know of this?”

“I knew not, Your Majesty.”

“They left some four hours past,” the servant said. “They sailed off on the queen’s barge.”

“The children!” Emily cried out. “Did she take the children?”

“None are left behind in her royal apartment,” the retainer said. “All are gone.”

“Does her barge have black sails?” John asked.

“It does,” Cromwell said. “How did you know this?”

“We passed it on the river. With the wind and the current they’ve got a huge head start. The deal was, the books for the children. You’ve got the books, we don’t have the children.”

“It is not the fault of his majesty,” Cromwell countered. “The queen has undertaken this action of her own accord.”

“Did she know she had to hand over the children?” Emily said.

“She was so advised,” Cromwell said.

“Where did she take them?” Emily asked, choking back tears.

“Perhaps to London,” Henry said. “My palace in Whitehall pleases her.”

“I beg of you, sire,” the servant said. “I had occasion to question a palace guard stationed in the corridor outside the queen’s chambers. He heard one of the queen’s ladies complaining of having to go to Francia.”