The Bloodless Boy (37 page)

Harry stood with his improvised knife, took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to Heaven. He exhaled, and took off his spectacles. He stretched out his arms to shake out his anguish, which had tied knots into all the fibres of his body. Still looking upwards, he replaced his spectacles, and the ceiling, with its patches of damp, came into focus. At one corner its rough plaster was running with moisture.

He crossed back to the window, and the Mock Pope was going away, off towards the Aldgate Pump. Harry ran back to the table, and lifted one end of it, straining under its weight, and walked it to the wet corner. He climbed onto it, and took his knife to the ceiling’s plaster, hacking at it. It fell away in wet clumps, revealing wood that was long rotted. He dug the knife into it, and it went deep into the planking. He twisted it, drilling into it, to make a hole he could just push his hand into. Through the crumbling wood he could feel smooth, wet metal. He pushed it, and it buckled to his touch, and one edge lifted. Water fell through the gap he had made between two metal sheets, streaming onto his face. Soft lead, badly joined; and over the years the water had seeped deep into the wood. He dug with his metal strip away from the hole he had made, sawing at it, enlarging it. The wood in the corner was so soft that he was able to pull it away as he cut, and when he had made a hole large enough he was able to snap longer sections of the old planks off, by gripping the ends and pulling his knees up, his weight bringing the wood down, breaking across a joist.

The building shook, and the remaining glass in the windows rattled, as an explosion went off outside. Coloured fire streaked the sky, fireworks lit to celebrate the refusal of right-thinkers to cower before Catholic insurgency, so bravely exemplified by their King. Below Harry, a great fan of people teeming along Aldgate High Street, Poor Jewry Lane, and Shoemaker Row, and even those still unable to get through the Gate because of the crush, chanted their desire for the good health of the King, and their deep hatred of the Catholics.

Harry pushed back the lead sheet, rolled and folded it away from the hole he had gouged through the planking. He took a great breath of the cold air coming in, fresh and without the taint of urine, and gripped the sides of the hole. He pulled himself up, and his head went through, emerging out onto the roof of the Aldgate arch.

*

More fireworks detonated, further noises of bangs and whistles, the sky a spectrum of colours. Harry scrambled out, and pulled his legs out of the hole.

He peered over the side of Aldgate, between the crenelations around the roof, trying to map a way down; although there were holds, and the alcoves for its statues, he thought it too difficult. He was sure he would slip, and fall, and then there would be no one to warn of the King’s assassination. The roof had an entrance, for the Gate to be defended from up there, but it was a strong iron-faced door, firmly locked and stoutly hinged, with no signs of the rotting of the planks he had cut through.

The Procession had moved a distance away, the drumming was quieter, and the Pope was now fifty yards or so from him. People moved in behind it as it went, following it, joining the flow in spiralling motions, a slowed study in turbulence.

Harry would never be able to get through all of them, to get to the King to alert him, or to confront the Jesuit. The only way off the Aldgate arch was to jump onto the next building, an old inn with a steeply pitched roof. He calculated a way down which involved running to the roof, crawling to a chimney, and then sliding to a dormer, seeing a lip across it that he could grip onto.

Fearing that he was about to take off into oblivion, but sure that this was the only chance he had of reaching the street, he jumped from the roof of the Gate.

He landed astride the apex of the inn’s roof, looking down one side to the street far below and to the other onto the galleries surrounding the courtyard of the inn. He straddled his way along, dislodging a tile, which slid from its place with a crunch. It fell into the courtyard, taking an alarming while to land. He arrived at the chimney, directly above the almost-horizontal of the dormer’s roof. He rehearsed in his mind the drop he had to make, seeing the timber across the dormer’s edge, projecting from the little roof.

If he missed it, he would be hurled into space, to land on the crowd below.

He breathed in deeply, and let go of the chimney. He tried to control the speed of his slide, but the tiles were rough and slippery, and he bounced across them much faster than he imagined. He managed to twist onto his belly, and as he descended to the edge of the roof his toes caught the lip. Although it gave an alarming crack, the timber held, and he was able to swing down to the dormer window, and kick his way through.

He brushed broken glass off himself. He stood in a bleak bedroom, presumably servant’s quarters, without comforts or decoration. He hurried to the door. Swinging it open he was confronted by a woman in her nightclothes, grey-skinned, too ill to watch the Pope; she swiped at him angrily with her chamber-pot. He had to dodge her to get to the stairway. She shouted behind him, but no one came to answer her cries of ‘Assassin! Assassin!’

At the bottom of the stairs he ran along a passage, pushed open a door, and was enveloped in the smell and the warmth of a Turkish coffee-house. There were rich colours on the walls, and serving men in silks and turbans. It was busy, but all the people in the room pressed up against the window, watching the pageant, some standing on chairs and tables. None noticed him, and he ran the length of the room behind them, to the door to the street. As he left, he heard the woman shouting to those in the shop: ‘Assassin!’

Coming out onto the street, fireworks still cracking the sky, he could see the Pope’s chair, and the top of his crown, swaying impatiently as he had met another obstruction. The moon shone down from behind him, giving him a satirical halo.

Going through the coffee-house had saved Harry a fight through the crowd in front of the archway, but he was still a distance from the Procession. Behind him he heard the door of the coffee-house open, and a couple of Turks came out, followed by the sound of the woman shouting, ‘Brown coat!’

Harry was pressed by the people; when he tried to push against them to get through, he found that there was resolute resistance, as they merely pushed back. He could see those guarding the Procession, Shaftesbury’s men wearing green ribbons as armbands, and he tried to use the movement of the crowd to take him closer to its heart, as near to the Pope as he could. Harry squeezed his way next to one of these men, who carried a flambeau, and he carefully untied the ribbon from his arm, reckoning that with all the pushing the man would not notice some extra tugs on his arm. Using his teeth, Harry tied it around his own.

He pushed his way through the men with green ribbons, nodding at them, pointing at his ribbon, and they let him squeeze through. He got behind the Pope, moved aside the curtain, and ducked under the platform, which had legs like a table’s, being conveyed by men who were now exhausted from the weight, and they had rested him down. He ran in a crouch through to the other side of the platform, to see if the man dressed as a Jesuit still lurked at its corner, but there was no sign of him.

He reappeared from under the Pope, gave a salute to one of the green ribboners, and climbed up onto the platform.

He ran along its length, his action met by a huge cheer from the crowd. From the height of the platform, he could see what it was they all waited for: Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey, who had fallen from his horse, levitated horizontally over them all, bobbing like a stick in a stream, in a game of passing him from person to person.

Shaftesbury’s men were slow to react to the insurgent on the Pope’s platform, as Harry was getting such loud encouragement. The crowd, apart from a few Turks, all saw him only as taken up by an excess of Protestant fervour. With the wait for the return of Sir Edmund, it was more entertainment. He could certainly be no danger to the King, for he was small, and wore spectacles.

Harry jumped down from the platform, crashing into a Priest wearing a surplice, who turned angrily and swiped at him with his golden cross. The Pope’s physician saw him, and went for the interloper, but Harry was too quick. Pushing aside a Bishop, avoiding a burly Cardinal, Harry carved through the pageant, shouting ‘Your Majesty! Your Majesty!’

He looked about him, trying to see the Jesuit, to warn the King that his life was in danger.

‘Your Majesty! Your Majesty!’ the crowd before him cried, joining him.

From behind Harry, though, more cries could be heard, as the woman’s identification of Harry as an assassin was picked up, and it rippled forwards, proliferated, was echoed and multiplied. ‘Assassin! Assassin!’ became a constant roar, and everybody looked for one, and saw Harry running towards the King, through the line of the Procession.

The King, reacting to the chanting of the crowd, everyone among them shouting either “Your Majesty!’ or ‘Assassin!’, spun his horse, and his bodyguards all turned to face the threat from behind them. Harry pushed aside the Grey Friars, but the Carmelites, their tonsures shining from all the flames and fireworks, were ready for him, and they grabbed at him, pulling him to a stop. Their brown tunics encircled him, and they shouted to some of Shaftesbury’s men to take him.

Harry kicked out at them, shouting, ‘I must warn His Majesty!’

He was bundled to the ground, and had his face cruelly pressed into the surface of the road, its stones jagging his forehead. His spectacles had fallen out of reach, trodden on, and broken. He jerked his head, to get his mouth free of the hand that covered it, threatening to smother him.

He looked up, seeing only darkness, blackness, as his eyes travelled over the robes of a Jesuit.

The face of Enoch Wolfe’s killer looked down on him. The eyes stared into his, and did not blink.

*

Lefèvre pulled Harry up from the ground, easily, pressing a hard fist into the small of his back, holding him around his neck with his arm so tightly that Harry could scarcely breathe. The Carmelites moved back, realising that this Jesuit had complete control of the intruder, and they began to reform into their line. Harry tried to twist, to get away, to kick free of the killer, but Lefèvre stood, unmoving and unmoveable, his grip completely secure. It was like being held by a statue. Shaftesbury’s men, having come forward to take Harry, stayed away, disconcerted by the man’s stillness and by the absolute calm on his face.

The King rode towards them, carefully steering his horse through the quietening crowd, to see what the commotion had been. His militia came with him, a hedgehog of muskets, pikes, and swords.

Lefèvre placed his hand across Harry’s mouth, and Harry could feel against his face a metal object under the killer’s sleeve, with painfully protruding bolts and sharp edges. As the King approached, Harry could only produce muffled cries and sobs.

The Justice’s horse was brought forward by two of Shaftesbury’s guards. The earlier Jesuit who had ridden with Sir Edmund was nowhere to be seen, and they passed the reins to his substitute, not looking more closely than the black robes to decide his identity. They expected the man to swap the horse for his hostage, but he did not let go of Harry. Even being held one-handed, Harry could not release his grip.

The King came close, seeing a man dressed as a Jesuit holding his apparent assassin, as well as the horse. There was something familiar about the assassin’s brown coat, which looked to be leather.

The King leaned towards them. ‘Harry?’ he said, doubtingly.

Harry tried to signal with his eyes, Lefèvre’s hand still across his mouth, widening them, rolling them towards Wolfe’s murderer, to make the King realise that he was in danger.

‘Unhand him, I wish to speak with him,’ the King commanded.

Lefèvre did not. The King looked at him, mystified. ‘Remove your hand!’ he said more sharply. ‘Let him go. He is not my killer.’

Lefèvre stood quite still. Harry squirmed, but the man’s grip was firm. The King turned to a musketeer with him, who levelled his weapon at Harry.

‘God’s Blood, no, at the Jesuit!’ the King cried.

The man’s aim changed, pointing it directly between Lefèvre’s wide-set eyes.

With no change to his expression, Lefèvre took his hand from Harry’s mouth, but still held him securely. ‘He meant to kill you,’ he said. ‘I helped to stop him.’ His voice was strong, and steady, but the accent was not that of a Londoner, nor of an Englishman. More muskets rose to him, and the crowd began to murmur, as they wondered who this foreigner was.

‘Your Majesty, he has a weapon!’ Harry shouted. ‘Under his sleeve!’

The King took his horse back, and all his men went forward, some kneeling, some standing, all well-drilled, pointing their weapons to meet this threat.

A hole in the crowd appeared, as the onlookers shrank away, making a perfect circle to leave exposed Harry, Lefèvre, and the white horse that had carried the effigy of Sir Edmund.

Lefèvre let go of Harry, and took a pace away, his arms outstretched to either side of him, like Christ on the Cross. He stared at the King, whose horse was snorting, and scraping its shoes nervously, trying to back off.

‘Arrest the Jesuit,’ the King commanded, struggling with his mount.

Two of his men lowered their weapons, and went to Lefèvre, who did not change his position, until they had produced straps to tie him. Then, he put his wrists together, as if ready to be taken.

As the first man grasped his outstretched wrists, Lefèvre twisted downwards in a sudden corkscrew motion, as if trying to bore into the ground. He ended in a squat, having taken one of the soldiers down with him. The soldier landed face first with a crunch of teeth. Lefèvre leapt up, knocking back the second soldier, and squeezed a lever with a quick motion of his fist, firing a blade from the weapon on his forearm into the man’s chest. The soldier’s eyes immediately dulled, his heart skewered through.

The crowd, seeing two of the King’s guards go down, began to scream, and turn, trying to run through the wall of people behind. In the panic Lefèvre ran behind Sir Edmund’s horse, putting it between him and the guards. He grabbed the reins and pulled both his feet into the one stirrup, bringing up his legs behind the animal, so nothing could be seen to be shot at, and he spurred the horse on, turning it in a tight spiral towards the King.