Читать книгу The Beauty of the Wolf - Wray Delaney - Страница 23

XV

There are two men in the house, heavy of build but nimble of foot, the stench of the river and the tavern on them, mercenaries in search of any paid work. Kidnapping, assault, murder, all arts they are well-versed in as long as they are paid and can own their own boots. Each step they take in hope of waylaying their prey.

Thomas’s apprentice, John Butter, does not wake at the sound of the intruders. He is asleep in the kitchen. He, unlike his master, sleeps the deep sleep of youth. Walls may crash, trees may fall and still he would dream on.

Thomas wakes with a start. He tries to gather his dreaming wits and fails.

‘Bess?’ he calls into the darkness. ‘In the name of God, show yourself.’

Swift are the two men. He has no chance to scream before he is muffled in a cloak, wrapped and strapped.

His two assailants are big-built, battle-dented men. Thomas is an easy customer. The knife held to his side tells him they mean business.

‘Keep quiet and no harm will come to you. Make a sound and the knife will find its home in your heart.’

He is bundled from the chamber. The vixen slips out unseen before them.

The garden gate creaks back and forth in the wind. Thomas struggles to free his face from the cloak, shaking his head vigorously. From the low window of his cellar comes the high-pitched yowl and the vixen sees there again the feathered creature who stares out through the bars, eyes glinting; a halo of light outlines its shape, talons scrape at the glass. The image is disjointed by the round panes so there appears more than one and behind all a shadow of wings looms great. The sight seems to torture Thomas.

Under his breath he whispers, ‘In the name of God be secret and in all your doings be still.’

Momentarily, the sound stops his assailants.

‘What’s that?’ says one, lifting his lantern.

He points at the cellar window. The sound sends a shiver down their hardened spines. Not even in war, when the battle was over and men lay wounded and dying, had these two heard such a cry.

‘Let us be gone from this cursed place,’ says the other and pulls Thomas into the alleyway. And in that moment, not fully able to see his enemies, he tries to make a fight of it. His reward for his effort is a sharp blow to the head. He stumbles and loses consciousness.

The mercenaries take hold of an arm each and carry Thomas with all haste towards the river. If anyone had the gall to stop them they would say they were helping an old drunk home. But no one is about to see them and only their footsteps tell which way they are bound. By the water steps, not far from the Unicorn alehouse, they drag Thomas to where a barge is waiting. On board is a gentleman, dressed in black, his jerkin slashed through with red taffeta, a fur-lined cloak speaks of a wealthy master.

‘What is this?’ he says, seeing Thomas unconscious. ‘Is he alive? I am not taking a dead man to the House of the Three Turrets.’

‘He is not dead. He will recover soon enough. Now, where is the money?’

The knife glitters in the darkness. Neither party wants an argument. A purse of coins is handed over and Thomas is dragged into a curtained cabin.

The oarsmen push off and out into the slushy water towards the middle of the river where a ribbon of mercury is all that is left of the fast-flowing tide, for the Thames has by degrees begun to turn white. Behind the barge London Bridge looms monstrous high, and an army of buildings, a fortress to remind England’s enemies that this country is ruled by a queen with a lion’s heart.

When the river freezes it speaks; fragments of ice crackling with confessions of the murdered and the lost. On the ill-lit bridge the sorceress alone sees the frosted ghost of a young woman, a group of drunken men laughing, jostling her. She loses her footing and slips, tumbles unnoticed into the icy, churning waters. The voices of the dead bring an eerie sense of solitude to this usually frantic thoroughfare. Among them Thomas hears his Bess.

‘Not long, my love, ’til we embrace again. Not long, my love.’

The river is near deserted. The oarsmen battle on, sweating even in the cold of this grievous night. Slowly the city disappears, past Westminster and out into the pitchy black darkness of the countryside.