Authors: Anne Blankman
ROBERT LED ME ACROSS THE TOWER COURTYARD,
holding me lightly by the wrist. All around us rose the prison’s massive outer walls, blocking out the sounds of the city. Night had swathed the network of buildings so they resembled hulking shadows. Somewhere, lions roared, their throaty rumbles cutting through the quiet.
The sound of lapping water twined with the lions’ cries. Robert yanked on my wrist, forcing me to halt. At our feet gleamed the murky water of the moat, lines of moonlight rippling across the surface. A boat bobbed below us, its side bumping against the landing with a wooden
thunk
. Sitting within it, watching us, were four men: indistinct outlines of long, curling hair and broad-brimmed hats. All but one wore a sword at his waist. Was the unarmed man Father?
Please let it be him!
I squinted, but the night was too dark; I could make out the dejected slump of the
man’s shoulders and the plume on his hat, nothing more.
Robert elbowed me. “Get in.”
Hands reached up, grasping my arms and pulling me into the boat. I sank onto a seat and twisted around to look at the weaponless man sitting behind me. As he lifted his head, the boat was pushed away from the landing. Two of the men dipped oars into the water, propelling us forward. The unarmed man’s eyes met mine.
All the air vanished from my chest. This wasn’t Father—Father’s eyes never would have been able to find another’s. This man was sighted, and his eyes were wide and frightened. Had Robert lied to me? Had he lured me out of my cell with an elaborate ruse?
I spun on my seat, seeking Robert. He sat in the stern, expressionless, as the boat glided across the water. Ahead of us loomed the portcullis gate, its interlocking black bars dividing the night beyond it into small pieces, like panes of glass. It groaned as it was pulled up. When we passed beneath it, water dripped off its spikes, hitting my face and shoulders.
“You said you were taking me to my father!” I shouted at Robert.
He shrugged. “If you made an illogical leap in your thinking, I’m hardly to be blamed for it.”
What did he mean? Who was this man?
Behind us, the portcullis gate rattled as it was lowered. Fog crawled across the water’s surface, obscuring the Tower complex until it had vanished behind a curtain of mist. The men stopped rowing. We drifted across the water, like a rudderless ship at sea. My hands curled into fists in my lap. What was Robert planning now?
“We’re ready,” said one of the rowers. I recognized his voice; he was one of Robert’s friends from the ball at Buckingham’s mansion.
A scuffle broke out behind me. As I turned around, I saw that one of the men had wrapped his arm around the unarmed man’s neck. The second man so confined gasped for breath, his hands scrabbling in vain at the other’s arm.
“Mr. Pepys,” Robert said, “you’ll answer my questions or my friend will squeeze the life out of you.”
Pepys! The funny little gentleman from the Royal Society meeting—I remembered him bowing to Robert, burbling about his service in the Royal Navy. What the devil was he doing here?
“Please,” Mr. Pepys wheezed, “I know nothing!”
“Why must everyone lie to me?” Robert snapped. “Only a man immovably loyal to my father would have remained in London during the plague outbreak, and only a man who suspected there was something suspicious about Sir Vaughan and his assistants’ absence from the Royal Society meeting would have jumped and nearly fallen over a chair when their names were mentioned. Yes, I saw your reaction when I brought them up,” he said when Mr. Pepys winced. “Clearly my father has taken you into his confidence. Did you run to him after the Royal Society meeting and tattle on me, I wonder?”
“I told him you had attended the meeting, that’s all,” Mr. Pepys whispered. “We knew there could be a reasonable explanation for your actions. Maybe you had become interested in natural philosophy—”
“Stop your rambling,” Robert interrupted. “Now tell me where my father has hidden Mr. Milton or die.”
“No! Don’t tell him anything!” I shouted.
Something poked me in my side. I looked down and saw it was the tip of a dagger, its point disappearing into the heavy folds of my scarlet gown. The man holding it gave me a thin smile. My mouth went dry.
No one said a word; the only sounds were Mr. Pepys rasping for air and water slapping the sides of the boat. My eyes roved across the men’s faces, searching for an instant of inattention in which I could seize one of their weapons. But Robert and Sir Gauden sat with their hands resting on their weapons. The two rowers rested their paddles on the gunwales, leaving one hand free to clasp their swords at their waists. What could I possibly do?
Mr. Pepys’s eyes bulged, his head jerking like that of a puppet on a string. Robert snapped his fingers and the man released Mr. Pepys, who sagged forward, coughing hard.
“Mr. Thomas Farriner’s bakeshop,” Mr. Pepys gasped. “It was my idea to keep him there. The king wanted him housed at the Duke of Buckingham’s home, but I thought it was too obvious a choice. I know Mr. Farriner well—he supplies the Royal Navy with biscuits.” He raised streaming eyes to Robert. “The king loves you! I beg Your Grace, don’t go through with whatever it is you’re planning and break his heart!”
Robert looked away, the muscles in his neck working as he swallowed. “He has already broken mine by refusing to recognize me as his heir. I’m only taking what rightfully belongs to me,” he answered. “Row!” he snapped at the men. At once they dipped their oars into the water.
So Father was definitely still alive. My heart swelled, pressing against the cage of my ribs.
I waited for Robert to ask Mr. Pepys where Thomas Farriner’s
bakeshop was located—heaven knew there must be dozens of bakeshops in London. But Robert said nothing more. Perhaps the name Farriner was known to him.
My hands fisted in my skirts. Even if I managed to get away from these men, I couldn’t find Mr. Farriner’s bakeshop and my father before they did.
I would have to stay with them.
Through the thinning mist, the shore came into focus: a shallow, muddy ditch and, beyond that, a road and the humped shapes of hovels. We must have rowed to the street lining the western side of the moat, known as Tower Ditch. The area was the sort of maze inhabited by the wretchedly poor: crooked lanes, twisting alleys, and passageways that seemed to double back on themselves.
“Return Mr. Pepys to his house.” Robert pointed past the rowers. “He lives in Seething Lane, in the grouping of buildings reserved for Royal Navy officials.”
Our boat felt as though it were being pulled across the water by invisible hands, so steady and smooth was our progress. I watched the lip of the ditch rear up in the darkness until our boat bumped into it. Sir Gauden leaped onto the shore, then leaned down, extending his hand for me to take.
“Come, Miss Milton,” he said. “Aren’t you eager to see your father again?”
Glaring at him, I took his hand and jumped to the shore. The marshy land sucked at my shoes when I landed. From far away, footsteps rang out on cobblestones.
“Hurry, we have a carriage waiting.” Sir Gauden tugged my arm.
I looked over my shoulder. The rest of the men had clambered ashore. The two rowers were walking away, gripping Mr. Pepys between them by the arms. That left only me, Gauden, and Robert. Two against one wasn’t insurmountable—provided I could lay my hands on a weapon.
My legs felt like blocks of wood as I pushed them forward. One step. Another. The soggy ground hardened into oyster shells and rocks embedded in mud, a poor man’s road. A black carriage waited a few yards away; I recognized it as Robert’s from its coat of arms.
Inside the carriage everything was made of shadows: Sir Gauden lounging on the padded seat; the leather curtains covering the windows, leaving only a sliver of moonlight showing around the edges. As I sat down, Robert jumped in after me. He settled next to me so closely that every breath I took tasted of his rosewater cologne. My stomach heaved.
The carriage rolled forward. Robert stretched out a ringed hand to raise the curtain. Outside, no lanterns had been lit; the street was left black. The tumbledown houses passed in a blur. Somewhere church bells rang the hour, a solemn single note reverberating in the warm air. It was the first hour of the Lord’s morning. Farther off I could hear the roar of the river’s receding tide, then the groan of the massive waterwheels beneath London Bridge. All else was quiet: the tippling houses and gaming rooms had already been closed.
The carriage lurched to a stop. Before it had even finished rocking, Robert and Sir Gauden had pulled the door open and leaped to the street. I jumped down after them.
I found myself standing in the middle of a narrow lane lined
with wooden houses. Most of them were only a room or two wide but towered five or six stories high in a series of additions, the jetties projecting out so far they nearly touched those of the houses opposite. They blacked out the stars, leaving the lane in complete darkness save for a couple of candles sputtering in windows.
That illumination was all the light I needed as I scanned the buildings, seeking a sign with a painted loaf of bread that would tell me we had found Mr. Farriner’s bakeshop. I saw a cradle for a basket maker, a unicorn’s horn for an apothecary, and a coffin for a carpenter. No bread, but I did recognize my surroundings, for I had walked this neighborhood with my father many times: we stood in Pudding Lane.
Somewhere in the distance sounded the rattle of carriage wheels on paving stones. I ignored the noise, continuing to peer at the houses. Across the lane a weathered sign hanging from the first story of a ramshackle wooden structure creaked in the breeze. A loaf of bread was painted across its surface.
This must be it.
I dashed across the lane. I pulled at the heavy wooden door, but it didn’t budge. It was locked. Even as I yanked again on the handle, Sir Gauden pushed me aside.
“Get away!” I cried, but he ignored me.
He hacked at the lock with his knife. Robert was watching him closely. His trembling hand gripped my shoulder. “I visited this place once,” he said without looking at me. “Mr. Farriner hadn’t been paid in a timely manner, and my uncle thought if my brother and I called upon him, the gesture might engender his goodwill—and keep our ships supplied with Mr. Farriner’s biscuits.” His laugh sounded bitter. “I daresay my uncle forgot
the errand or he would have convinced my father to have yours kept elsewhere. But James and I aren’t important enough for our deeds to be repeated to our father. For once, it seems to have worked in my favor.”
The scream of wood and iron giving way tore through the air. The bakehouse’s door hung drunkenly in its frame, the wood surrounding the lock gouged and splintered. With a bow, Sir Gauden stepped back.
“Good work.” Robert’s face had tightened into a grim mask. He strode through the doorway with me dogging his heels. Whatever I did, I couldn’t let him get to my father first.
Inside, the darkness was as impenetrable as stone. I had to move slowly, bracing a hand on the wall for guidance. We had to be in a hall, for I sensed no furniture. My fingers drifted across a series of pegs, accidentally knocking a cap to the floor.
I had to slip away from Robert and Sir Gauden. The bakeshop itself should be in a separate structure from the home, likely in a backyard. If I had understood Mr. Pepys correctly, then that must be where my father was being held.
We shuffled across the room, keeping to the walls. The room remained black, and no creaks sounded from the staircase. No one was coming, then. So much the better. I could find a way to fight Robert and Gauden without the fear of anyone interrupting us.
My hip brushed something hard—a table, I guessed, for it continued for a few feet as I squeezed my body past it. Ahead of me, Robert fumbled with something. Metal rattled. He opened a door and disappeared beyond it.
I darted after him and found myself outside. Here the
starlight tumbled down unobstructed, showing me a small yard lined with stacks of brushwood. A few paces away stood what must be the bakehouse—a little wooden building, its windows black with night.
I broke into a run. Robert raced alongside me. We reached the door at the same instant and I flung my arm out, catching him square in the chest. He fell back a step, gasping in surprise. I threw the door open and dashed inside, shouting, “Father! It’s me!”
In the bakehouse something gray coated everything in sight: the floor, the tables, the frame of the single window. Squinting in the sudden wash of darkness, I peered around the place, seeking the shadow that might be my father.
Someone grabbed me from behind. I fought him, kicking and hitting, my heel connecting with his shin. He staggered, then fell hard, taking me down with him. We collapsed in a tangle of limbs.
It was Sir Gauden; I recognized the scent of his cologne. His elbow jabbed my eye. For an instant, all I could see were starbursts of color, forming and reforming in front of me. Half-blinded, I scrambled onto my hands and knees. Gauden kicked me in the ribs. Pain exploded in my side. I grabbed his ankle, jerking as hard as I could. He stumbled a little, then slithered from my grasp. Gritting my teeth, I clutched at the nearest table, using it to pull myself up. Dimly I sensed him rushing past me, deeper into the interior of the bakehouse.
A scraping sound reached my ears. I spun around. Robert had followed me inside, too, and was thrusting something into an oven. It was a large brick opening set directly into the wall. Its
bottom was littered with twigs and ashes. Among them a single spark glowed orange-red.
Robert pulled out the item he had pushed into the oven, and I saw what it was: a paper twist, its edges flickering yellow with flame. He must have grabbed it from the basket of kindling and twists on the ground by the door. Quickly, he used the paper to light a candle sitting on a table. Its illumination threw lines of gold onto his face. In the moment since I had last seen him in the yard, he must have lost his wig. Without his familiar tumble of brown curls he looked like a new person: older, thinner, his shorn head shining white. His expression was impassive as he placed the candle inside a lantern, then closed the glass door and set the lantern on a table.