The Mer- Lion (38 page)

"Where?"

"Over there, in the larches."

Craning his head and peering intently, the captain said, "A deer? A big one?"

Why not? de Wynter thought, lying cheerfully. "An enormous one. Never saw one bigger in my life."

To de Wynter's surprise, the captain jumped to his feet, wildly but silently signaling the sweep to steer the barge in closer to shore.

Here was his chance, de Wynter exulted, watching the prow slowly, ponderously put about, like a sow wallowing in mud, obediently crossing against the current and moving southward. When the barge got within two body-lengths of the bank, he'd be over the side, through the water, and onto dry ground before anyone could stop him. Then, he dared any of these men to catch him.

Closer, closer the barge moved, de Wynter silently willing it even farther. Four body lengths, three
...
only one to go. As the boat inched forward, de Wynter slowly drew his feet back under him for that sudden surge up and over the side. Slowly as he moved, it was too much. The captain had not only the manners of a boor, but the instincts of a boar. De Wynter's barely perceptible movement triggered his alarm. He reacted instantly. "Poles in!" With whap and grunt, ten poles drove deep into the mud-bottom of the Thames, violently checking the movement of the barge. So fast and precise was the crew that de Wynter, as a soldier, although frustrated as a prisoner, admired their training. He also had to revise his chances of escape.

"Reverse course," the captain shouted to the sweep, then took his seat next to de Wynter.

The captain may have been animal-wary, but de Wynter had the canny sangfroid of a Scottish courtier fashioned in France. Reading and rightly interpreting men's faces was essential to survival in that den of deviousness; and what he saw in the captain's face boded no good for any future escape plans. So even as the captain was trying to trap the Scot—"Damme, missed 'im again! Sixteen points, you say, to 'is rack?"—de Wynter was ready with a counter gambit.

Smiling ingenuously, he made his confession, "Nay, not I. My eyes are a touch too nearsighted for that. But that young man over mere, the corporal, he saw the stag. Let's ask him? Ho, corporal. A johnny on his toes like you must have seen the stag, he didn't have sixteen points, did he?"

The young man—an ambitious young sort quite taken by his own importance—wet his lips nervously as honesty and pride warred within him. "Why
...
ah, no. He didn't."

"Yes, that's what I thought, too." He'd gambled and won. Like most young men the corporal couldn't confess a failing. Now having no fear of contradiction, de Wynter knew he must win over the captain. "So it wasn't
the
stag? Tell me, what's so important about him?"

Almost persuaded that de Wynter had really seen something, the captain allowed himself to be drawn out, especially since he saw a way to repay his prisoner in kind. "Why, the old stag 'as such winning ways, he 'as the king's pardon and right to roam. No arrow
for 'im if he tries to flee like there'd be for you. Of course, if we should shoot you dead, you could go join your King James—the fourth, wasn't he?—he who was killed at Flodden. He's over there in the Convent of Sheen. Then you'd see 'ow our good King Hal treats treacherous Scots. He wraps them up solid in a blanket of lead and keeps them in a lumber-room out back. You might just chew on mat while I sees to me duties. I'll put yon Johnny on 'is toes to watch over you while I'm gone. It'll be worth 'is life if anything happens to you," he added in a voice that carried plain to the corporal's ears, motioning the younger man to take his place. With the captain gone, the corporal, uncomfortable about his lying, refused to let himself be drawn into conversation. The two men were left to their thoughts in a silence broken only by the splash of poles digging deep into the water and the drip of their release from the muddy grip of the Thames; the warmth of the English sun might have made the Scot drowsy, but not today. Today, he must escape and warn the companions. But the barge stubbornly stayed in the midst of the stream, and after a long while, de Wynter noticed that the banks they passed were more built up, less placid as genuine whitecaps broke the surface of the Thames here and there. The Thames was asserting her muscle, and with a string of commands the barge responded, poles stowed away and long oars taking their place. Escape under the circumstances was impossible.

With the patience of a man who has learned to change what he can, and endure what he can't, de Wynter allowed himself to doze lightiy as if standing watch, knowing he would awaken at anything untoward.

The captain's appearance long after the sun had passed its zenith brought the Scot, catlike, to the alert, but only the slightest opening of his eyelids showed it. Actually, he would have gone easily back to sleep, but the sight of the slab of bread and flagon of ale carried by the captain kept him awake.

"Thought you might like to break your fast."

"My nimbler here seconds the thought." Hand on stomach, he stretched languorously and favored the captain with that rare smile that erased years from his face. Looking down on that boyish countenance beneath prematurely grayed hair, the captain realized for the first time how young was this man who journeyed to the  Tower, and he hated the king's whore even more. "Your lordship best cross yourself, just across the Thames there is Lambeth," he cautioned. "You will recall I told you of Lambeth. That's where astrologers and almanack-makers and mosUy poisoners live. The whore hails from there. And anytime she goes home to visit 'er kin, you can bet the good Queen Catherine loses another of 'er poison-testing pets."

De Wynter had his mouth full of bread and could not protest, but the captain understood well the skeptical shake of his head. Coming closer, he took a seat and set out to convince the young man of the persecution of Catherine. "Who better than you should know how the whore works 'er wiles? If it's the poisoning you take exception to, you can believe it. All 'ere on the barge can vouch that Lambeth's the 'aunt of poisoners."

De Wynter was listening intenUy; more than that, he was looking over the captain's shoulder. Miracle of miracles, the barge was moving closer and closer to the shore opposite Lambeth. Let the captain rant and rave, de Wynter did not care, not if it meant a second chance at freedom.

"Look what happened not two years ago to the Bishop of Rochester, that holy man in 'is palace at Lambeth. He sent word down that 'is bread was stale, not tasty as it should be. The baker, he fixed that. Poison went into the next batch along with the leavening. The bishop escaped, 'aving been invited to dine with Cromwell, but the others in the household puked up their guts afore they died. You had to trail the spew to find the bodies. Seventeen was found that night, one a week later by the stench. And that doesn't count the poor people fed the trencher-meats at the gate. Well, you can bet they gave that cook what for over at Smithfield."

De Wynter's jaws worked mechanically; he could no more taste the bread than stop the captain's story. All the time, the barge crept closer to shore.

"The justices at Smithfield, they passed a special law just for that baker. Sat 'im down in his own caldron and boiled 'im up like a haunch of mutton. He was a fat man and 'is grease bubbled up and popped the skin and the smell was rancid. Those dogs that licked up the spills where the pot boiled over, they went mad. And when the stew bones, flesh and all, was thrown into the Thames, fish surfaced
bellyside-up for a mile downstream. Such a user of poison was he, that Lambethman, that 'is flesh was steeped with it."

Without thinking, he made the devil's horns with one hand to ward off the evil eye, then catching himself, crossed himself reverently. De Wynter started to put the rest of the loaf down next to the flagon, but the captain pressed him to continue. "Eat. It may be a long time afore your next meal in the Tower. I 'as me a brother there and he says them who don't pay, don't eat. Unless your baggage catches up with you soon, your stomach'll soon be pressing against your spine. And if you wonder why we hug the Middlesex shore so close, it's not to fret you. I 'as no choice. My men know they keep the 'eretics in a cell atop the tower of Lambeth Palace. And if one goes too close, they can cast their spells on you from all that distance away. So, just you relax your vigilance and finish your meal. My lying corporal there has regretted 'is say on the stag and is ready to prove 'is devotion to king and me by shooting you dead if you move a step toward the wrong side."

De Wynter didn't need to look around to prove the captain's veracity. His few short weeks on English soil had shown him these were temptable people burdened with a conscience. Easily might they sin and just as quickly regret it and attempt to make restitution. The corporal, he had no doubt, would be quick to pilch his hide. De Wynter decided to take the captain's advice. This time he savored all the flavor of the dark brown bread.

"Whilst you chew, you might give a gander at Westminster Abbey over there, what parts you can see. Too bad the palace blocks most of the view. I just hopes you don't get a closer look at it later. You know there's where they bury them they beheads at the Tower. No, I'm not funning you. 'Under the sword at the Tower, under the sward at the Abbey.' Them's the rules. Of course, you being Scots shouldn't mind that. That way you'd be united with your Scots Stone of Scone. Ah, I 'as your interest now. For truth, that's where we keep it, in the Abbey under the Coronation Chair. Of course, between you and me, I think all those Scots who've tried to steal it back were mad. Why bother with a stone, even if it was Jacob's pillow. Nah, me, I'd find me a lock pick and go for the pyx. You 'as heard tell of that, ain't you? That's the box wherein they keep the king's standards of gold and silver. I 'as ne'er seen it meself, but I
hear 'tis kept in a special chamber carved out of stone, with a door made of stone and lined with the hides of men. Seven locks has that door and each a different key and seven different men keep one key each.

"Why do you wrinkle your nose like—ah, you smell the stink already. We're near the Tower. Just be glad the wind's behind us. No, don't look like that. That's not rotting men you smell, it's rotting fish from Billingsgate. Gads, earlier this summer the smell 'twas so bad, it wouldn't wash off. Had to wear off, it did. Only thing more foul is the tongue of a Billingsgate fish-hag. She'll scorch the stench off your back. So rank are some they could make a stone statue blush. The time to really see the fish market at Billingsgate is first thing in the morn. If you're lucky, you'll be housed in a cell overlooking the market. Wake you up early when the river teems with wooden fish bearing the catch up from the mouth of the river. On the banks, fish flop and people too. Slipping and sliding on the offal thrown on the ground. Enjoy it if you see it Might be the only laugh- you'll have before your own head goes flopping about on the Tower green."

De Wynter had finished eating, not a bit perturbed by the macabre talk of his warden, and now calmly wiped the crumbs from his lips on the sleeve of his shirt. The captain watched him admiringly. His tale flowed freely, for it was well rehearsed, having been delivered to all those he'd escorted to the Tower. Many it had sickened, and rare was the man who didn't turn white between the assault on his sensitivities and the offense to his senses. De Wynter was that rarity. Of course, the captain had no way of knowing that he addressed a survivor of the siege of Naples, a hell which made Dante's pale by comparison. The Scot's equanimity impressed the captain. Was the man really amused as he looked? Gad, that was gutty. He decided to ' confide in him, "There, see those wood things over there? Starlings they
'
re
called. They's be supposed to break the rush of water on London bridge but, God's truth, many's the careless boatmen broke on those piers. So I leave not the shooting of the bridge to just anybody. Meself takes the sweep to steer it through. As for you, you'll arrive at the Tower nice and dry. On the word of Thomas Notte, Captain of King Henry's Yeoman Guard. I suggests if you don't look down the shoot of the bridge, look you to either side but
don't look up. There on the middle of London Bridge, that's where they hang traitors' heads to cure in the sun. Someday, I vow, the head of the Boleyn, she'll hang there. But I hope next time I pass, yours I'll not see. Fare you well, Scot, and if you should see at the Tower a Yeoman Warder, a Beefeater they's called, looks like me, that be me brother John. Usually I commend prisoners to him, but you're not like them, Scot, so don't you be taken in; me brother's not to be trusted. 'Course, none of the others is either. Well, good luck, your lordship. I wish you well." With a grin and a wave of his hand, Notte was gone, back aft to steer his barge safe just as he'd tried to do with his prisoner.

De Wynter, looking after him, feared anew for the safety of his Anne. If men like Thomas Notte were against her, she must tread the straight line. De Wynter's thoughts were stilled by the sudden sinking of the boat underneath him as the prow leaped into space and fell down the cascades between the piers of the bridge. For a long moment he exalted: the tower would not claim him. Then his hopes were dashed. The boat righted itself. He was not about to die. He would live to see the feared interior- of those forbidding walls that had for four centuries dominated London.

CHAPTER
17

After successfully shooting the bridge's narrows, the barge plunged, yellow spray flying, into the Pool of the Thames, where the waves surged and heaved like the river it was. De Wynter did not see Nottle again, at least not to talk to. The barge instead quickly threaded its way between wherries and other craft—hundreds of them, including one that could have been a king's flagship. Their destination dominated all, the sombre walls and the quadragon on the White Tower with its four dark cupolas, looking forbidding and impervious to escape.