The exodus to Richmond and the Shene had brought London's beggars with it in droves. They shuffled through the crowd, rattling their clack-dishes hopefully. None of them tried to approach the big autochthon.
Drew and Agnew elbowed past a mule that was dragging what appeared to be an entire family on a low travois.
"But I've got an invitation!" complained the scruffy wretch leading the mule. The guards asked to see it. "It was lost in the post," the man began, hopefully.
Drew approached the guard captain, a pear-shaped man, who stared out of the grille of his ill-fitting zischagge like a cornered weasel.
"What's your story?" he asked, his hand on his sword hilt. The huge huscarl at his elbow looked more than capable of managing the two-hundred-pound pull necessary to fire his longbow. The longbow was even taller than Agnew.
"No story. Just let us in. It's more important than you can know."
"Heard it before." said the huscarl. "Be off."
"Really," said Drew, "I can't impress upon you enough-"
"You can't impress upon me at all," said the guard captain. "Ronard?"
The bowman nocked an arrow as long as a good-sized sword.
"I want to speak to Cardinal Woolly," said Drew, "by order of the Secret Service." He showed his ring to the man.
"Got that out of a cracker, did you?" asked the guard captain, laughing. The bow string next to him tightened.
Drew turned back to Uptil and Agnew. "I'm sorry," he said, "I just don't carry the clout I used to. The time it'll take to persuade this oaf, we'll still be here in the morning."
"So what now?" asked Agnew.
"We could rush them," Uptil suggested.
They dragged him off around the corner of the Palace wall.
"It was only an idea," put in Uptil disconsolately, in the shadow of the stone buttress.
"This way," Drew said. "When all else fails, there's always another else."
There were many times more blisters than feet inside Giuseppe Giuseppo's shoes. He sat down on a milestone that read "LONDON ~ 14 M" and rubbed at his calloused heels. A pastel night with pretty stars blessed the Downs. It was getting cold, and the clarity of the night air was ruined by each foggy breath he exhaled.
It was about then that the boy came up the trackway, leading his mare. The boy was no more than nine years old, a sallow, wet-nosed child tugging at the reins of a horse so massive that it had bearded hooves.
"Child," said Giuseppe warmly, rising to his aching feet. He was very aware of how bedraggled he looked.
"Hunff!" sucked the boy in alarm. His horse, knowing better, idled forward, sniffing affectionately at the Italian's limp ruff.
"How much for your horse?" Giuseppe asked.
"T'ain't for sale," said the boy.
"Where are you taking him?" asked Giuseppe.
"Back from mark- oh damn!" the boy answered.
Giuseppe smiled.
"So she is for sale?" asked Giuseppe, sliding a ring off his finger. It was his wedding ring, pure gold. He sighed thoughtfully, remembering his dear Eloise, dead these three years.
"For your horse?" he asked, holding out the ring.
The boy took the ring, bit it, rubbed it, sniffed it and licked it.
"T'ain't real gold," he said.
"Why, it is! I transmuted it myself!" Giuseppe snapped. "Now, your horse?"
The boy slowly held out the reins. The horse seemed tremendously pleased, as if she realised how important she was about to be.
Giuseppe took the reins, and gently slid up onto the horse's back.
"My mother warned me about you," said the boy.
"Indeed?"
"You're Old Nick," said the boy, "out on the road after dark, ready to bargain us mortals away for the price of a soul."
Giuseppe shook his head, laughing.
"But I paid you," he said. "And no souls were involved. A ring for a horse. You and your mother can sleep well tonight."
"Mmmmm" said the boy.
"Thank you," said Giuseppe, pulling around on the reins.
"You're not Old Nick, then?" asked the boy.
"I'm Old Giuseppe," said the Italian, riding off into the dark.
The boy tossed the ring over in the air, smiled, and began to scamper home.
Once he was out of sight, Giuseppe reined up, and took out the Most Important Book In The World.
"I must be in London faster than even you can carry me," he told his new purchase, turning the pages.
Then he began the incantation.
The Militia guards posted at the Woolwich Crossing barely had time to grasp their pikes as the demon stormed through, fire licking at its heels.
"Like a great horse," said one.
"Like Old Nick hisself," said another.
"It's good, isn't it?" smiled your most humble servant, Wllm Beaver, who is also me, as the tumblers tumbled in the firelight.
"Oh, wonderful," answered Sire Clarence, popping a sweet into his mouth. "I do hope that bore Woolly has arranged something a little better than this for tonight's show, or old Three Ex will have his head as a novelty doorstop come tomorrow." The boiled sweet clacked against his teeth like a stone.
"She wouldn't really execute a cardinal, would she?" I asked breathlessly, opening a paper packet of roasted and sugared macadamia nuts I had bought from a passing vendor.
Clarence cast me an arch look.
"Listen, stud," he said. "You claim to be a journalist. Don't you know anything about the current state of Court politics?"
In point of fact, I, Wllm Beaver, did. I knew a tremendous amount, and I'd learned it all by acting excessively dumb in the presence of supercilious Court officials. Therefore, I chomped down on a macadamia nut-cluster, widened my eyes to agog-ness and said, "No?"
Clarence leaned close to me, a sly grin on his face, his cheeks sucking at the sweet as if he was an asthmatic bullfrog.
"All this business," he hissed, glancing around and waving cheerily to the Countess of Hardwick's party in case they had thought about eavesdropping, "this dreadful week of murder and satanic who-knows-what. It's just the tip of the of the What are those cold things called that float around the oceans with only their heads poking above the flood?"
"Dead sailors?"
"Icebergs. It's just the tip of one of those. It's been going on for months a year, maybe, ever since that rogue Triumff got back from his adventuring."
I fought to keep a telltale knowing look from my face.
"Triumff's up to his chin in this, you mark my words," said Clarence, "and he's in it with Woolly. The knives are out for both of them." Then his voice dropped even lower. I, Wllm Beaver, struggled to make sense of the nobleman's lip movements.
"They say the Church is a spent force," Clarence whispered. "They say the cardinals have formed a treasonous pact behind Woolly to regain their power foothold before the Queen abolishes the Church entirely and hands over the running to the Lay Guild. They say that Triumff is the key."
"How so?" I asked, picking macadamia shards from between my teeth.
"He's brought back Magick, hasn't he? Magick from his New World. The Magick invented by those delicious ebony fellows like the one he brought back with him. That's what they need new Magick."
"Surely the Church has got oodles of Magick?" I asked.
Clarence rocked the sweet back and forth on his tongue, saying, "It's all but spent. What's the greatest scandal at Court just now?"
"Lord Fotheringay and the dachshunds?" I suggested.
"Apart from Lord Fotheringay and the dachshunds. Wiltshire! Wiltshire!"
"Oh," said I, trying to play down my excitement. I knew I was on to a huge scoop.
"That ridiculous arrangement of stones up on the land owned by that fat pervert, John Hockrake, the Duke of Salisbury," said Clarence. "Druid Magick. Old Arte. The pagan stuff you need a strong stomach and a forty-generation yokel lineage to use. Hockrake tried to get it working again, as a new source of Magick power. The whole thing was
a mess. There was some kind of accident A lot of uncontained Magick got spilled. Disastrous. They say the Cantriptic slick washed as far as Bristol."
"I'd heard talk, but it was denied. The cardinal even denied it in my hearing," I said.
"Well, he would, wouldn't he? That kind of failure is embarrassing for a man in his position," Clarence said, rolling the sweet along the roof of his mouth thoughtfully. "The Church needs a new source, you see? And Triumff is it. Why else would Triumff have waited so long to deliver his Letters of Passage to the Queen? Woolly's told him to hold off until they can rattle the City so hard with Arteful mischief that the population begs the Church to act. They appear to save the day with all their lovely new Arte, and no one is any the wiser that it was them doing it in the first place."
"A fascinating theory," mused I, Wllm Beaver.
"Fact," said Clarence. "The Queen knows, you see? Old Three Ex is on to it. She's wise to Woolly's game, and she's waiting for him to play out enough rope to hang himself with."
I nodded, sitting back. I didn't want to disabuse the nobleman of his theory, but I did wonder if it would still be intact by the time the night was done.
I was about to ask another question when some new tumblers scampered onto the lawn. One of them was a very muscular fellow, who had apparently forgotten to put on anything except a codpiece and the contents of a bottle of oil. I had to slap Clarence hard on the back to dislodge the hastily swallowed sweet.
Over the lawns, the musicians' tent was striking up the Royal Salute, and the atmosphere in the crowd became electric.
There was a disconcerting background odour, behind the cooking, and the perfume and the sweat, an odour that made me feel uneasy, although I didn't know why.
It was the smell of molasses.
THE TWENTY-FIRST SPLENDID CHAPTER.
Just before the Curtain rises.
The upper corridors of the Palace were dark and chilly. De Quincey lit an oil lamp and carried it before them. The noise outside, below, was rising in intensity. De Quincey froze as Mother Grundy caught at his sleeve.
"There's something just ahead," she whispered.
A faint light filtered back down towards them along the corridor, followed by a cool breeze.
De Quincey handed the lamp to Mother Grundy, and took out his poniard. He wished he had been wearing his sword. His fingers trembled around the hilt of the dagger.
"Stay here," de Quincey began.
"Don't be brave," she warned him.
"That's not going to be an issue," de Quincey muttered as he crept forward.
The large windows at the end of the corridor were wide open, overlooking the vast spectacle beneath. A shadow lurked in the window space. There was a scratching noise.
De Quincey leapt forward.
He was about to shout, "The game's up", but, the words drained away down his throat.
Somewhat surprised by a man with a knife coming purposefully out of the dark at him, the artist had fallen off his canvas stool and collapsed in a heap with his easel and pots on top of him. He held up his hands, his teeth clenched around a long brush.
"And you are?" asked de Quincey, trying to make it look deliberate.
"Golgein!" said the man through the brush. He spat out the instrument and reached into his doublet front.
"Steady!" de Quincey warned him.
"I'm Holbein! Hans Holbein! Just an artist! I'm authorised Look!" He showed de Quincey his official medal.
"Oh," said de Quincey, examining it by the light of the lamp Mother Grundy helpfully raised aloft.
"It all seems to be in order," nodded de Quincey, wincing at Mother Grundy.
"I was just doing a general view of the scene from up here before going down into the crowd for a few portraits. That's all right, isn't it?"
"Yes, yes," said de Quincey.
"What do you think, then?" asked Holbein, getting to his feet and holding up his canvas. "I was busy scumbling it when you surprised me."
"Were you? Very nice," said de Quincey.
"Indeed it is," added Mother Grundy. "Very nice."
"Have you, erm, seen anything this evening?" de Quincey asked, helping the artist to re-erect his easel.
"Like what?" smiled Holbein. He gestured out of the window at the firelit scene below. "Anything in particular?"
"Have you seen the Divine Jaspers of the Church Guild?" asked Mother Grundy.
Holbein frowned.
"I've seen just about everyone who is anyone here tonight," Holbein answered, puckering his forehead in thought. "Jaspers Jaspers Youthful bloke, fleshy lips?"
"That's the one," said Mother Grundy.
Holbein reached down into his knapsack and took out a thick sketch book.
"Let's see, then," he said, flipping the pages. "Lord Gorse there not bad that, if I say so myself. Richard of Brookshottes. I really got the nose, don't you think?"
De Quincey nodded impatiently as the pages of pencil roughs flicked over.
"Lady Mary Lusterman. Quite a bosom, eh?" said Holbein.
"Very nice," said de Quincey, wishing the artist would get a move on.
"What I wouldn't give to paint her nude," snickered Holbein.
"Wouldn't you get cold?" asked Mother Grundy. De Quincey nudged her.
"Here we go. Jaspers. That's him, isn't it?"
"Yes!" said de Quincey, taking the sketchbook.
"I caught him earlier, just before I came up here. He was chatting to these folks here. I got them all rather well, didn't I?"
De Quincey held the book closer to the light. "Lord Slee Regent de la Vega Lord Salisbury."
"Quite some company this vile divine keeps, Mister de Quincey."
De Quincey nodded and breathed out hard.
"They were chatting together out of sight behind the kitchen tent," Holbein explained. "I saw them, and thought I'd do a quick sketch. You see, a true artist captures the offguard moments, the intimate things. Anyone can do rousing posed shots of the Court watching the fireworks. I think a true record of an event like this is in the informal moments."
Hasty though Hans Holbein's sketch must have been, there was no denying the subtlety of the rendering. The four illmatched men were huddled in the folds of the tent, masked by the shadows. Slee was talking and the others were listening. De Quincey felt his stomach turn uneasily.
"Their apparent nervousness Their guarded manner That's not artistic interpretation, is it?" he asked.
Holbein looked wounded.