Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero (12 page)

    Then the talk
really
got serious.

    Circling flocks of gulls, driven up the estuary by coastal storms in the night, mobbed and shrieked around the dome of St Paul’s and all the roofs and spires eastwards as far as Ian Paisley Park. The scribes and paternosters in Creed Street hurried to work through an unseasonably heavy and viscous campaign of saturation defecating.

    Climbing out of his modest private carriage by the steps of the Cathedral, Cardinal Woolly found himself face to face with beady-eyed, inquisitive herring gulls and terns instead of the usual petitioning knot of crippled pigeons. He shooed them aside as he thumped up the steps, and they broke around him in a deafening chorus of seafaring oaths, and shat on his coach.

    The Cathedral had been closed for the day, and two young divines stood guard at the west door to let the cardinal through. He nodded to them distractedly.

    Once inside the vast darkness of St Paul’s, Woolly allowed himself a moment’s pause and reflection, letting the soft calm of the place filter through him and slow down his agitation. The Cathedral’s shadows were soft and velvet, the light stained into muted colours by the arched windows. Far off, the choir breathed out a liturgical moan that seemed to have been planed smooth by the action of the heavy air. In mothsoft voices, they were intoning the chant “Pax Vobiscum to the Left Hand Side”.

    A distinguished group of elders awaited him in the sacristy. Cardinal Gaddi stood in quiet conference with two representatives from the Curial Office, toying nervously with the tassels on his biretta. There were a number of diocesan commissioners, significant deacons and divines, the priests of nineteen parishes and two senior intendents from the Church-Guild School at Westminster, including Praetor Enoch.

    A catechism of greeting nods and responses ruffled through the group at the cardinal’s entry.

    “Thank you all for attending,” began the cardinal. “As you know, this past night has seen most unwelcome events spoil the spiritual calm of our city.”

    “And further afield,” put in a voice from the crowd.

    Woolly looked up and recognised the Bishop of Reading.

    “Indeed, my friend. We must, this morning, begin work to execute a policy that will at once smoke out this heresy, quash it, and maintain the security of the Church and State the while.”

    “No kidding,” said the Bishop of Reading.

    “I propose the initial work to be divided thus. Praetor Enoch - turn all the efforts of the Guild to ascertaining the precise nature of the Arte abused so last night, and attempt to trace from whence it could have come.”

    The praetor nodded.

    “I ask the curial officers and the commissioners to liaise with all aspects of the Church to keep us all informed of developments. It is more than likely that clues and evidence of this conspiracy may lie in some of the more remote parishes, where such things might be plotted away from the busy eye of the City.”

    Woolly noted the assent of the blue-robed officers.

    “For the rest of us,” he continued, “I urge you all to return to your dioceses and prepare for wonderment. Calm your congregations, soothe away their fears. Announce the special celebration of any minor saints to take their minds off it Praetor?”

    The praetor shrugged, and said, “St Oscar and St Raquel are coming up. Traditionally we don’t do much for either. Nothing big until Occimanificaniment, which is the second Sunday coming, and then St Rufus, really, but”

    “Give it a go. Oscar and Raquel. Observational knees-up, Bring and Buy, feasting and altar wine. Each of you, make your flock too preoccupied with putting up bunting and having a good time to think about what’s been going on.”

    There was some nodding and a few exchanges of ideas. Then, Cardinal Gaddi’s voice rose over the murmuring.

    “It seems, brother cardinal, that the source of this problem lies within our brotherhood,” he said.

    Silence fell upon the group.

    “Only one of the Church could have the ability to perpetrate such a crime. I am sorry to seem so bleak, but there is no other explanation.”

    Woolly nodded.

    “I’m afraid I concur with you, brother,” he said. “This has come from within. None of us are above suspicion. We must all be especially vigilant.”

    Gaddi smoothed his collar distractedly.

    “What I mean to say is, how are we going to combat a cancer within the Church?” he asked.

    “We could try a guided missal,” suggested the Bishop of Reading.

    “We combat it with the very body created for such a purpose,” replied Woolly. He turned to the young man standing to Praetor Enoch’s left, who had been silent since the meeting had begun. “Brother Divine?”

    “Infernal Affairs has already begun its investigation,” replied Jaspers with a smile that made Woolly think of predatory fish, and sympathise with convicted heretics. “We will be merciless.”

    The curial meeting broke up shortly afterwards. Everybody seemed anxious to be off. As it clattered down Hercules Street on its way back to Richmond, Cardinal Woolly’s carriage passed Neville de Quincey, who was trudging home after a long night-shift at the Yard. The cardinal, struggling to compose an encyclical bull on the nature of the emergency, which was turning out to have very little that was encyclic about it, and a great deal that was bull, didn’t notice the drab, weary, pipe-puffing man as he went past.

    De Quincey was tired and irritable. The bad night had got worse and worse, and he’d been forced, eventually, to turn one of the Yard’s cellars into a makeshift morgue to cope with the overspill of bodies the Militia had brought in.

    Most if it had been quite literally an overspill, too: six knifings, two batterings to death, one garrotting, one throwing bodily from the upstairs window of a high-class stew called the Ruff House, one shooting by a wide-bore pepperbox in a spontaneous duel, and one pinning to an oak door with a crossbow bolt through the bread basket, not to mention the awful victims of the incident at the Powerdrome.

    The mood of the City had been ugly the previous night, cranky and spoiling for a brawl, and the dead represented only those outbursts that had ended in actual killings. The Yard’s cells were packed to overflowing with offenders, and the magistrates were going to have a busy morning. And it would only get worse. Masque Saturday was coming up.

    Most of the boys at the Yard had put it down to the blackout and the whiplash of reactionary lawbreaking that it had caused, but de Quincey knew there was more. There had been the look on Gull’s face for a start. And Masque Saturday

    The City seemed to shiver in the stinking cold, and de Quincey shivered with it, aching for his bed.

    Triumff, heading home for Amen Street just after eight, bought two apple fritters and a paper cone of custard from a street vendor, and gingerly began to consume the piping-hot wares as he crossed Irongate Wharf and headed down the Embankment. It was a very roundabout route back to the lanes of Soho, but Triumff liked to be close to the river, which in turn was close to the sea, whenever his mind needed clearing. It was like being connected to the source. This was the case most mornings, particularly after a heavy night. It was even more the case this morning. He was as sober as a judge, bright-eyed and wide awake, but he was suffering with an idea-hangover from the night before. The things he had thought and conjectured about during the blackout hadn’t agreed with him. He’d certainly had one too many unpleasantly strong ideas. That was always his trouble. Once he started on the strong thinks, he didn’t know when to stop.

    A dull coal of possibility throbbed in his brow, aching likelihoods pincered behind his ears and the base of his skull, and a tense nervous conclusion lacerated his temples.

    He stopped by the railing over the Petty Watergate, and looked out across the grey flood. It was choppy and frothy, and thick with leaves and branches downed upstream by the night’s storm. Seagulls turned and banked around the river piles and bridge supports. A Thames barge, its one-hundredand-twenty-ton cargo sliding effortlessly down-river under the vast tanned canvas expanses of the spritsail, strolled past on the ebb, foam scrolling around its chined bilges. Triumff watched its graceful passage, and longed to be aboard, heading for the open sea. Even a shallow-draught would suit him now: a sturdy boat and a sheet of canvas to catch the winds and carry him away from this pestilent rat-hole of intrigue.

    He ate another fritter.

    A high-sided covered wagon clattered to a halt some yards down the waterfront. Triumff shot it a cursory glance and then gave it a second, slower appraisal. It was dirty grey and spattered with mud as if it had just come up from the Wharfhead, but the twin team were big, restless thoroughbreds, and there was a sparkle to the brasses that no amount of boot polish could disguise. The carter sat rigid on the buckboard as his companion slowly dismounted, and began to cover the distance between the wagon and Triumff with measured, purposeful strides. He was a big man, dressed in give-nothing-away dark hose and tunic with a short, black cape.

    Plain-clothes, assessed Triumff. He swallowed the last chunk of fritter and began to stroll deliberately in the opposite direction.

    The footsteps behind him went up a gear. Triumff accelerated a tad, and began to whistle the song about the Guinea Coast to off-set his increase in speed. The footsteps behind stopped walking and began to trot. Triumff broke into a loose jog, and risked a look back. The man was right behind him, beginning to run.

    “Rupert Bartholomew Seymour Triumff?” he began.

    The cone of warm custard smacked him in the face and put him off running altogether. Triumff exploded into a gallop.

    “Oi!” bellowed the be-custarded man, and the cry was followed by a sharp blast on a silver whistle.

    Triumff vaulted the gate at the end of Petty Walk, and sprinted away from the river, the fritters lumping up and down uncomfortably in his stomach. Passers-by on the street looked at him curiously as he thundered past. As he turned off onto Rake Lane, he glanced back again and saw the sides of the wagon drop down, the canvas awning skirt back and a lance of six armed men disgorge from its interior. Each was the twin of the man he had engulfed in custard: tall, broad, professional and dressed in simple black clothes. They hurtled up the lane after him, each one pulling a concealed short sword and buckler from the shoulder-scabbards under their tunic coats. Triumff caught a glimpse of breast-plates and other Secret Service-style body armour under their doublets. He swore, and began to run for real.

    Streets and startled faces flashed by. Triumff doubled back into Cod Street, and almost went down under the wheels of a thundering wool-cart. He pulled back at the last minute, and dashed through a cobbler’s shop, knocking a rack of clogs flying. The cobbler spat out a mouthful of nails, and rose from his bench, hefting his mallet, and wiping his hand on his apron front.

    “What’s your game, guv?” he enquired in less than friendly tones. Triumff flew past him into the back of the shop, dodging around a startled woman at the stove, and leaping over a toddler playing with old heels on the scullery floor. He slewed to a halt. In front of him was a solid wall with two small window lights at the top that you couldn’t have squeezed a rabbit through, even if they hadn’t been grilled up.

    He turned back, desperate, to the anxious woman, who had collected up her child in smothering arms.

“You won’t scream, will you?” he implored.

    She shook her head, screaming. The cobbler was right beside her.

    “What’s your game?” he repeated, raising the mallet.

    “A back way! There must be a back way!” yelled Triumff. Outside, boots banged across the pavement.

    “In the pantry,” began the cobbler, pointing, “but-“

    Triumff didn’t wait for the rest. He bolted left into the cluttered pantry and threw himself at the wooden door in the rear wall.

    It thumped open, and out he went.

    Into nothing. A sixth sense, one that had kept him shy of musket balls, grapeshot and wooden splinters off Finisterre, made him duck when the beakers flew in tavern brawls, and took him home safe down streets adjacent to footpad prowls, made him hang onto the door handle. His feet pedalled in empty air, and he felt himself go. The door swung back and he regained his footing on the pantry sill.

    The back of the shop, and all the shops in the row, dropped down six yards into a garbage-choked watercourse of mossy brick, where stagnant water gurgled down towards the Thames. The gully was four yards across. On the far side, at the level of the pantry, a broken iron railing led into a dingy alley that ran down the back of the next street along the waterlane. Triumff turned back, his heart thumping.