VIII. In the Tower
They left him in a room within the White Tower—a wood plank floor, two padded stools, one of which might have been there for him to kneel and pray upon, and a small table. Otherwise the room was bare. There was a single mullioned window, the lancet panels far too small for him to fit through, but they were also barred as if he might try. If he’d any remaining doubts about the nature of his detention, the bolt-studded door with a single small observing screen conformed to the idea of a cell, not an apartment.
He’d tried to explain the situation as they sailed him across the river and through the so-called Traitor’s Gate and onto the moat, but the guard who’d struck him the first time turned as if about to hit him again, so Thomas fell silent and let them take him wherever they intended. That turned out to be a landing on the west side of the keep. He stepped out, needing no prodding by anybody’s halberd. They had his bow and his arrows. He hoped someone had retrieved the dropped caliver and investigated the creek. All he knew for certain was that the ensorcelled young man and his three companions had similarly been carried off in a different boat, a miniature version of the Queen’s barge rowed by four oarsmen, and been taken out on the Tower Wharf. He could remember when it was called the King’s Quay, but mentioning that seemed likely to get his jaw broken.
He speculated on what would come next. If they interviewed the ensorcelled young man, who knew what story he would tell? It wouldn’t include Thomas, but he couldn’t say if that was going to improve his chances with the Queen’s soldiers or not. He could see from their perspective where the simplest solution here would be to execute everybody, especially given that nobody’s story was going to make much sense. Dead enemies eliminated all need for clarity.
When at last a key jangled and turned in the lock, Thomas had dozed off seated on one of the stools, with his back against the wall. He got to his feet as the door opened. Two guards with pole arms entered and took their places, one on each side of the door. Then a tall, lean man ducked through the opening.
The man wore a long black robe. He had ruffs at his wrists as well as his throat. His face was thin, his short beard neatly trimmed, the ends of his mustache turned up, which might have suggested a smile except there was no hint of one on his dark-complected face. His brown eyes were doleful, the eyes of someone who had handed down many difficult and harsh sentences and acknowledged the weight of each. He wore a black skullcap that left a trim widow’s peak showing on his forehead. He might easily have been the devil, here to claim a few souls.
His pitiless eyes studied Thomas thoughtfully.
“You dress like a gentleman. May I take it that you are?” Thomas wasn’t sure what to say to that. The man continued, “You were not quaffing warm ale with Thomas Applegate and his louche companions, else you vanished your cup.”
“Is that the young man’s name?”
“It is. He and they claim not even to have beheld you. Nor—and upon this they swear—did they fire upon Her Majesty’s barge.” The robed man watched him intently.
Thomas replied, “Yes, I believe that’s true. His weapon discharged over the river but he was not the one who fired upon the Queen. Is Her Majesty—that is, no harm befell her, did it?”
“The shot, for there was but one needs accounting for, broke a glass pane of the barge. It passed through the forearms of the Queen’s helmsman. Quite terrible wounds that our physician anticipates will heal. The helmsman will of course have to retire from his position but he will never want for anything hereafter—this by her decree, although he was simply standing near her. He did not intercept the musket ball on her behalf.” The dark eyes fixed upon him again. “Did you fire it?”
Thomas shook his head.
His inquisitor nodded. “No, you arrived with bow and arrows, although there was nowhere a target set up in Deptford today for the practice of archery. That would be in Finnes Burie or Moor Field. How do you account for being on the wrong side of the river? Are you a foreign traveler, do you not know your way about London?”
“I know London exceeding well.”
“And what do you know of Salisbury Court, monsieur?”
The question startled him. He had to think about it for a moment. “The French Embassy—you think me a French agent provocateur? That I urged—what was his name, Applegate?—to fire upon the Queen?”
“Stranger things have been known.”
Thomas silently agreed with him on that point.
Despite his odd interrogation the man relaxed then. “I myself know of something more than passing strange. Would you care to see it?”
“Assuredly.”
“Accompany me, then.” He turned and ducked back through the doorway. One of the guards followed. The other waited for Thomas to exit.
The robed man awaited him in a stone corridor, then fell in just ahead of him to lead the way. The guards brought up the rear. “Know you to whom you are speaking?” asked the man.
“I am not certain of your identity, sir, suspicious only.”
“Let us cure you of suspicions. I am Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s Secretary of State. Now, to whom have I delivered this information?”
“Thomas Gerard,” said Thomas, “of London Bridge.”
“Ah. You are a merchant?”
“A plague doctor. I work out of a Lazar-house in Southwark.”
“And you choose to practice archery midday on Fridays, hmm?” Walsingham glanced back with a slight smile before entering a spiral stairwell and descending. His voice floated up as Thomas followed. “You gave no lies in your interview—your eyes looked nowhere but at me. There was no reaching for an explanation, a dodge, a prepared answer. I would have noticed. And so, despite the peculiarities, what prevails is a drunken Applegate who discharged a musket harmlessly without being conscious of the act, while hardly being drunk enough to be so fuddled, his beer so warm in fact, it would seem to have sat heating in the sunlight long enough to sour, and all members of whose party never saw you as you fired two arrows into a second musketeer whom they also deny seeing, although they do share a vague recollection of someone leading them up the hill from the tavern.”
“Three arrows. The first only knocked him off balance. But you found him, then, in the creek.”
“Lucky for Applegate and you that we did. A cloak caught on a fallen branch kept him from being washed into the Thames. Otherwise, the gun lying in the mud would accuse you, and the two calivers taken together, well, they would seem to cement your relationship to Thomas Applegate, and you would all very likely be headed for nooses at Tyburn come Tuesday.” Walsingham exited the stairwell. His footsteps echoed around him. The space smelled fishy and vaguely putrid. They had emerged onto a stone platform supporting two massive columns, and beyond them a solid wall that must have been part of the foundation of the white tower. A stripe of murky water off to the side that splashed and sloshed, lit yellow by two wall torches, would be a part of the Tower Moat.
Walsingham signaled for the guards to remain in the spiral stairwell; then he walked around the columns. On the far side of them lay a corpse. It was the man he’d shot: two arrows still protruded from the body, one from the shoulder, the other from the spine . . . except that, as he neared, Thomas could see it wasn’t a man at all, but an Yvag dressed in water-logged fashionable style, with a full-circle cloak over his upper body, its tasseled cords looped around the elf’s throat as though the cloak had strangled him; the patterned leggings were twisted, one shoe gone missing. The silvery hair halfway covered the scabrous face. Of course the glamoured assassin was Yvag. What was amazing was that he had carried out all of this alone.
“Might you be able to explain to me how it is you killed a demon with your unique arrows? They are specific, are they not?”
He hadn’t lied so far and he was sure Walsingham would know it if he were to start now.
“The tips are of iron and also dipped in an extract lethal to them. It keeps them from . . . reanimating.”
Walsingham’s eyebrows raised, but otherwise he betrayed no surprise. “They are capable of such a thing?”
“They are. In this instance, it’s a happy coincidence that I used those arrows, for I didn’t know with certainty that the marksman was Yvag, only that they were behind it.”
“Yvag?”
“Of an elven race,” Thomas explained.
Walsingham gave Thomas a skeptical glance and stroked his goatee. “Were I not looking at the proof of what you say, I should have you dragged off this minute to Bedlam. It’s not far from here. Perhaps I should do so in spite of what my eyes behold.”
“I am acquainted with the hospital, Sir Francis, although not yet as a patient. Methinks you would have to share my cell there now in any case.”
Walsingham tilted his head back as if he might laugh, but did not. “I should summon Dr. Dee to behold this corpse and give his opinion. He claims all manner of association with the unnatural, yet I believe this will set him on his heels. The conjuring of demons through sigils and goetic seals falls shy of the notion of demons that exist when and where they see fit, necessitating no human agency to bring them forth. Without doubt, he’ll be inclined to bring in a witchfinder.”
He tapped the tips of his index fingers together while he thought.
“I would hear everything you have to say on the subject of these . . . Yvag, beginning with how you learned of this attempt on the life of the Queen.”
Walsingham indicated the way back to the spiral stairs and up. The waiting guards once again followed.
“Do not worry,” he said. “I am keeping the body on hand for now. There are secrets yet to be learned from it. You and I shall exit by the West Gate and walk to Seething Lane, Mr. Gerard, where you will give up all of those secrets you have, providing me everything there is to know about these creatures that would kill Her Majesty.”
He extended a hand, indicating the way Thomas should go.
“Please,” he invited.