However, the interlude was now long enough for even a busy Queen to start noticing it, and that, as the Privy Council soon found out, was the one thing they hadn't thought of. The simple way to get around the legal thicket protecting Triumff was to erase the laws, and the one person who could do that was the Queen.
The only thing that ever weighed heavily on Her Majesty was about half-a-ton of lace, silk, gauze, kapok, sequins and pearls. Nothing else troubled her or slowed her down much, particularly not minor foibles like statutes or civil laws. It was the matter of a moment, and the work of a scratching quill, to ascribe new Letters of Passage to another explorer and expunge the life, property, rights and memory of Rupert Triumff from the land.
Triumff might have been the only person who had actually been expecting as much for a while. He knew it was just a matter of time. He'd stalled for as long as he could, hoping the Court would swallow his ploy, but now he needed something else, some more active course to follow. He needed a new ploy.
That was exactly what he'd been afraid of, because, unfortunately, if there was one thing he really didn't shine at, it was ploys.
Considerations of the possible size, shape, colour and cost of a potential new ploy, as well as how he might recognise it, filled Triumff's mind as he paid a shilling to the doorman and entered the warm, damp embrace of the Dolphin Bath House at twenty past four. There was the best part of another hour before they shut for the night, and late-afternoon bathers, seeking a restorative for agued limbs made rheumy by a week of heavy rain, jostled about the place. Their pallid, portly shapes could be glimpsed in the steamy atmosphere, lurking under the green-shadowed colonnades, slapping across the tiled walks, or sliding walrus-like into the pools.
The warm, wet air smelled of soaked stonework, body odour, antiseptic and wrinkled skin.
A meaty attendant with arms like hams and a tight blue bathing cap came over and handed Triumff a clean towel.
"Changing over there," he said, pointing to the doorways in the shadows of the western colonnade, marked variously Miladies and Migents, as well as three marked Sauna, Jacuzzi& Cold Plunge and Wassail. The attendant turned his moonface back to Triumff. "No carousing, no splashing, no bombing and no pissing in ye pool. We close at six."
"Thank you so much, I know the rules," Triumff said, glaring. The attendant shook his rubber-capped head at Triumff and wandered away. The cap was so tight, he looked like a bald man with a frost-bitten scalp.
The Migents changing area was vacant, except for hooks full of unlaced doublets, capes, canions and wrinkled hose. Triumff stripped off swiftly, and then, with his towel knotted around his waist, crossed to the frosted window in the west wall. It was high up. He had to climb up on a bench to reach it, and in doing so knocked somebody's slashed appliqué Pansid Slops and heavily bombasted codpiece into the puddles on the floor.
Steam had swelled the window's frame into wedged plumpness, but three smart blows with the ball of his hand finally knocked it out. Cold, evening air rushed in and stung his flushed face.
"Uptil!" he hissed into the dark of the alley beyond. "Uptil!"
"Give us a hand up, mate," muttered Uptil from outside. Triumff obliged by heaving the large man up and in through the window. It wasn't easy, and it took a good few moments. Triumff prickled with agitation as he strained to counterbalance Uptil's weight, expecting an interruption at any second.
Finally, he was in. Uptil was shrouded in a hooded serge cloak. He produced Triumff's scabbarded rapier from beneath its folds, asking, "Want this?"
"Right, where am I going to conceal that?"
Uptil winked, and said, "Exactly. That's why I fished this out of the garbage."
He held out the Couteau Suisse.
"Okay, that's actually quite a good idea," Triumff admitted. "Now, stay out of sight, keep your eyes peeled, and if you hear me whistle, move like the clappers."
Uptil nodded.
"And," he added, "if anyone does see you, remember the Ploy."
Uptil nodded again.
"The Ploy. Right," he said, making his "lamps on, nobody home" face.
Triumff wandered out into the Bath Hall. No one seemed to spare him a second glance. Already, many of the bathers, sensing the approaching end of the day, were climbing from the pools and heading for the shower stalls. Triumff dropped his towel, wrapped the Couteau Suisse in it, and left it on the edge of the pool. Then he waded down the steps into the warm waters of the main bath. There was a stone seat against the side, beneath the water level, which one could sit on to bask in the relaxing heat. Triumff sat, wiped his face with a palm-scoop of water, and leant back, surveying the place with apparent disinterest.
Minutes passed. Triumff's hawkish vigil relaxed somewhat as the gently lapping, tepid environment lulled and soothed away his aches and cares. He breathed deeply and shook his head, fighting away the drowsy weight that seemed to have suffused his brain.
When he next opened his eyes, he was alone.
Triumff stiffened with a start. The steady drip of water resounded from somewhere, but nothing else: no voices, no sign of life. He wondered how long he had been asleep. Surely the attendants would have woken him if it had passed closing time? That implied that it was still before six o'clock. Yet where were the attendants?
Triumff tried to whistle, but his lips refused. He was up to his chest in many thousands of gallons of water, and his mouth was dry.
Then he saw the line of bubbles. They were crossing the centre of the pool and heading his way. He caught his breath.
Plip plip plip plip plip, they went.
They were ten yards away, coming straight for him. The steps out of the pool were ten yards to his right. He fancied the idea of clambering out of the pool where he was, using the seat as a leg up, but his limbs felt dull and heavy, and didn't seem strong enough to support him.
Plip plip plip plip plip, came the line of bubbles.
He became aware of how fast he was breathing.
"This is silly," he whispered out loud. "I can't just sit here, waiting to be harried by a line of bubbles."
Five yards away from him, with a last, ominous plip, the bubbles vanished.
Triumff opened his mouth and then closed it again. He considered submerging to take a look-see. By the time he had decided not to, it was academic anyway.
The swordsman exploded out of the water in front of him like a breaching whale. He was heavily muscled, and dressed in a greased breastplate and leather shorts. His face was hidden by a fierce, full-visored helmet that had been reworked to incorporate a trombone-pipe snorkel and leaded glass eyeholes. A rapier glinted in his hand, and the space between Triumff's naked body and the razor edge of the sword was diminishing alarmingly.
"Gniumpff!" raspberried the assassin tinnily through his snorkel, "Gie! Gie, goo girty gastard!"
Triumff threw his body to the left, thrashing against the slowness of the water. The stinging blade described a glittering arc, and rebounded loudly off the lip of the pool, against which Triumff had just been leaning.
"Gile get goo!" gurgled the assassin, turning after Triumff.
"Pardon?" yelped Triumff, heading out into mid-pool in a mix of headlong flight and doggy paddle.
"Gile get goo, goo girty gastard! Gore gonna gie gorrigly!"
The assassin's snorkel tube sucked and farted out the words. Water jetted out of the top of the air-pipe.
"What?" asked Triumff desperately.
The assassin ground to a halt some yards from the fleeing Triumff and waved his arms in frustration.
"Gook! Gook!" he snorted. "Gie" he tapped himself on the breastplate.
Triumff looked uncertain. "You?"
The assassin nodded eagerly. "Gess! Gie gam gonna gurder" he pointed to his rapier and then to Triumff "goo."
"M-me?"
"Gess!" bubbled the assassin, clapping his hands. "Gorrigly," he added.
3 And stayed there too, which is why Madagascar didn't appear on charts until 2046. But tha
t really is another story.
4 No one still believed that the Earth was flat, but there were still many adherents to the notion that it might be unfinished in remoter areas (presumably areas where the hills and valleys still had some scaffolding up, the rivers had yet to be plumbed-in, and cherubic workmen lounged about smoking rollies out of sight of the Foreman). There were also quite a few reluctant ex-flatEarthers around, who couldn't quite go the whole hog and conceive of an Earth that was spherical, and therefore favoured the recherché "conical" theory.
5 Lord Marmaduke Latimer, Privy Seal to Elizabeth XVIII, was famous for drawing up his "Compendium Of The Relative Dangerf Of Sum Profeffionef". "Nautical Exploration" came third, between "Being An Heretic" and "Being Out Of Favoure", and "Generale Seafaring" came seventh over all, behind "Fightinge In An Foreigne War On The Lofing Side" and "Contractinge Ye Buboef". Top of the list, of course, was "Being An Potentate Of The Southern Americaf".
A FOURTH CHAPTER.
"Oh bollocks," said Triumff, and resumed his thrashing attempt at escape. Water churned from his milling limbs. The swordsman ploughed after him.
Almost at once, Triumff realised things weren't getting any better. A second line of bubbles was arcing around in front to cut off his flight. A moment later, another submarine assassin rose from the depths.
"Give gim gis gay! Gile gop gis gloogy ged goff!" the second attacker instructed his partner.
"Garden?" asked the first.
Triumff stopped and looked back.
"He said" he began, but then he paused. "Why the bastard am I bothering to explain it to you?"
He set off again, breasting the flood, churning up sheets of spray, breaking off perpendicular to the pincer manoeuvre of the snorkel-blowing killers.
Five yards from the pool-side, he pursed his lips and whistled the first two bars of the song about the Guinea Coast.
Something flat, hard and fundamentally aerodynamic choppered out of the colonnade shadows like a startled grouse. It struck the second assassin square in the visor with a painful, metallic clang. The assassin crashed backwards into the water as if he'd ridden a steeplechaser full-pelt into an overhanging branch.
The flat, hard, aerodynamic thing whirled around, back the way it had come, still making the sound of someone thrumming their lips with their finger whilst they exhaled hard. It landed neatly in Uptil's outstretched hand. It was Uptil's "come-back", a traditional hunting weapon of the Beach folk. It was essentially a flat stick with an elbow, but in the hands of a trained caster it could not only do serious hurt, but also reload itself into its owner's hand for another go.
Triumff reached the edge of the pool, grabbed his towel and shook the Couteau Suisse out of its folds. He pressed the trigger and got to the rapier by way of only a pencil sharpener and an egg spoon. He flourished the long blade twice to enjoy the bee-buzz it made as it cut the air, and then raised the hilt to eye-level in a salute.
"Vivat Regina," he hissed, and threw himself at the remaining assassin.
The assassin had never, in all his long days as a paid cutthroat and hit-man, been attacked by a naked man with a rapier before. Come to that, he had never been asked to take on a contract wearing swimming trunks and part of a brass band on his head. The hooded man who'd hired him and his mate in a Cheapside tavern had paid well, in advance, and so he hadn't really questioned the details at the time.
Now his mate was floating face-down in the municipal baths with blood clouding the water around his crumpled visor-work after a collision with what appeared to be a flying shelf bracket, and he had his hands full with what was known in the trade as a "contrary client".
There was only one thing he could do, and thankfully (for his sake) it was something he was very, very good at.
He would have to fight him and kill him.
The rapiers flashed against each other in a series of blinding strokes, the cutlery percussion of the blows ringing around the gloomy hall. Almost from the first riposte, Triumff knew he was up against a professional swordsman. He just hoped that the odd venue (four feet of warm water) would be on his side.
It was an ungainly fight. Their upper bodies flew and twisted above the waterline, their hips and legs paddled like spoons in syrup to keep up. It was remarkably easy to outrun your lower body, and therefore fall over, and therefore die. Triumff did his very best not to do any of those three things.
It might be noted at this point that when either sober or desperate, Sir Rupert Triumff was a considerable swordsman in his own right. Currently, he was both. It was even money, whichever way you looked at it.
Uptil looked on, aghast, from the vantage of the bath-side. He yelled encouragement, advice, and a few of the ruder words in his considerable vocabulary, unable to do anything else of use, since the fighters were too close for him to risk another cast of his come-back.
Something caught Uptil's eye. Something was moving in the shadows further down the colonnade. Fearing a third assassin, he tore himself away from the blistering duel and moved in to investigate. He raised his come-back, catching a glimpse of a robed figure scurrying away towards the bathhouse exit, too far away to get a clean cast. Uptil ran after it.
Uptil didn't like leaving Rupert at such a crucial juncture, but something forced him to give chase, something like a lingering impression that the robed figure had possessed the head of a cat.
Uptil didn't know much about cats, since they didn't have them in Beach. He was pretty sure, though, that cats weren't generally six feet high, and wearing a silk doublet and a cape.
There was no sign of a robed figure in the entrance hall, feline or otherwise. The front doors were bolted shut, and the three bath attendants were bound, gagged and unconscious on the floor of the ticket office. Uptil checked along both sides of the hall, his come-back poised for launch. There was no sign of an intruder.
Someone started hammering at the bolted doors. Uptil walked forward, and drew back the bolts. As the doors swung open, he nearly exclaimed loudly. At the last moment he remembered the Ploy, and settled for a hasty yelp of inarticulate fear.
In the pool, Triumff parried low against the assassin's backhand, and then struck in, slicing the end off his assailant's snorkel. The man made a noise like an un-bled radiator, and rained several more blows at Triumff, who backed and parried again deftly.
"You in the water! Stop fighting! At once!"
The words rang out in booming echoes across the bathhouse. Out of the corner of his otherwise intently occupied eye, Triumff saw Lord Gull, standing at the head of a detachment of the City Militia at the pool edge. The soldiers were all big, armoured dreadnoughts from a SHAT unit (Special Halberds and Tactics), one of the Militia's Anti-Affray Departments. Gull looked more furious than usual. If they wanted the fight stopped, Triumff knew that they would be able to do it with just two or three strokes of a skilled pike-arm.
"You want me to stop the fight?" bellowed Triumff, sideslicing with his darting sword, "You want me to stop it? No sooner said"
He punched up, driving his basket-guard into the assassin's visored face, and then raked downwards, the length of the man's torso, with a slick blow that was almost surgical. The assassin collapsed messily into the water, which changed colour rapidly.
"than done," Triumff finished, slooshing away from his dead foe, waist-deep in the water. "That'll teach him to call me a gastard. Afternoon, Callum. How's the ear?"
A long row of pike-heads pointed down off the pool-side at him, each one ready to thrust. Gull stepped forward between the hafts, and glanced disdainfully down at the carnage in the water. Triumff, smiling up at his captors, could see Uptil, crouching nervously at the back of the colonnade under the watchful eye of a SHAT team member.