Poor Enys had obviously walked straight into an ambush as he left to find his brother. He was being held with his arms twisted behind him by two men who looked pleased with themselves. Enys looked as if he might be sick and was still struggling.
“Och,” said Dodd, cursing himself for a fool. He looked at Sir Horatio who was still frowning at the letters.
“Get him out o’ here, Mr. Pickering,” he said to the King of London who seemed too shocked to react. “Have ye no’ a bolthole?”
Pickering blinked, shook himself and moved. “’Course I do. Come along, Sir Horatio.”
He went to the corner of the small room and rolled back one of the mats. Dodd lifted the trapdoor, revealing stairs leading down. To his surprise, Pickering did not go down the steps but motioned to Sir Horatio.
“At the bottom is a door into a basement, it’s a bit wet but don’t worry. Open the door and go along the passage and you’ll be in the warehouse over by the third crane, see?”
Palavicino looked out the window and nodded. “Now Sir Horatio,” gravelled Pickering, making the two words sound like “sratio”, “’ere’s the key to the door of the warehouse. The seals is fake and you can put them back. Bring me the key when you can.”
Palavicino nodded, took a candle from the mantlepiece, shook hands with Pickering, and then went down the stairs, moving remarkably quietly for so large a man.
There was more thundering and a banging downstairs and Heneage ordering the door to be opened in the name of the Queen. Pickering, short sturdy and bullet headed, looked at the door, pursed his lips, sucked his teeth, and squared his shoulders. From a mere wealthy merchant he had become something much more dangerous.
“I’m going to welcome in our visitors. I think you should slip away as well as I’m quite sure ‘e’s got a warrant for you.”
Dodd quietly loosened his sword despite what Pickering had said, then followed the man through the gambling room where the players and the half-clad women were staring through the windows. “Mary,” said Pickering to one of them, “put ‘em away, luv,” and the women started pulling their shifts up and relacing their stays so as to look a little bit more respectable. “Start moving out, girls,” he added as he went past, quite quietly. The girls started ushering all the wealthy players to the back room where the trapdoor and secret tunnel were.
Dodd went down the polished stairs. Briscoe and the other henchman were standing on the inside of the barred and locked door as it shuddered to the blows of a battering room.
“Yerss,” said Pickering, “plenty of time, gentlemen, these doors was put in by the Tunnage and Poundage. The girls are still busy upstairs. Meantime…What would you do if some jumped up court clerk did this to you in your own country, Sergeant Dodd?”
Dodd was amazed Pickering needed to ask. “If it were the Queen herself as did it, then I’d do nowt,” he said, heavily, “but if it were aye one o’ her men, then I’d have the Border alight in two hours, Mr. Pickering, the bells would a’ be ringin’ and the men would a’ be riding. But Ah’m nobbut the Land-Sergeant of Gilsland and Ah could ainly call on the Dodds and the Armstrongs there and mebbe the Bells and the Storeys, four hundred men at best. If it were Richie Graham of Brackenhill that had his tower burned, by God, Mr. Pickering, there’d be fifteen hundred men i’the saddle by daybreak and Carlisle in flames the day after.”
The King of London smiled briefly. “Hm,” he said, “it ain’t quite like that here in London, mind, but I agree wiv you, I will not be treated like this and I won’t ‘ave my men treated like this either. So, Sergeant, wot do you reckon?”
“Me? There’s a man I’d like to talk to first and then…I wantae talk to the owner o’ the Judith of Penryn and find this man Vent. And then, Mr. Pickering, Ah’m at yer disposal.”
Pickering looked consideringly at his men. “ Mr. Briscoe,” he said quietly as the battering ram hammered home again, “would you do me the kindness to come and speak with me…”
To Dodd’s surprise the man called Briscoe suddenly looked hunted and made for the stairs. His mate caught hold of him firmly by the neck and held him there.
Pickering went up to him. “Easy way or hard way?” he said softly through his teeth.
Briscoe licked his lips and started to cry. “Only, ‘e took my Ellie, my missus, what’s gonna have a baby, he took ‘er down to his house and he said to me, ‘e’d have ‘er belly cut open to get the baby out and then ‘e’d make me watch while ‘e…”
“Heneage?”
Briscoe shook his head “Topcliffe.”
“And?”
“And so I told ‘im where the game would be and that we was waiting for Sir Robert to come back and…I told ‘im.”
“Topcliffe still got yer mort?”
Briscoe nodded, then hid his face in his hands. “I signalled when I saw the Sergeant,” he whispered, his voice muffled.
Pickering shook his head. “Tim,” he said in a low voice, “Why didn’t yer come and tell me?”
“’e said ‘e’d know if I did and ‘e’d kill ‘er right away.”
Bang went the battering ram again. You had to admire the way the doors were standing up to it, thought Dodd. Surely Heneage would try gunpowder next?
Pickering nodded once. “I’m ‘urt Tim,” he said thoughtfully, “I’m ‘urt you didn’t find a way to tell me what was going on,”
“I know, Mr. Pickering, I’m ever so sorry, I couldn’t fink ‘ow to do it.”
“Well, the damage is done now. What do you fink I should do about you?”
Briscoe studied the ground, and sniffled. He muttered something Dodd couldn’t make out.
Pickering smiled. “’Course I’m going to kill you, Tim, but what should happen first?” He put his hand up on Briscoe’s burly shoulder. “’Ave a fink about it, tell me later. Meanwhile, see Sergeant Dodd here?” Briscoe nodded. “’e needs a man at ‘is back if ‘e’s to get away and do somfink about yer mort and yer kinchin. Will yer do that? Wivvout tipping ‘im no lays?”
Briscoe nodded convulsively and looked up at Dodd who was now halfway up the stairs.
“Come on,” Dodd grunted, and Briscoe followed him up to the room where the girls were just staggering down the steps carrying large bags of money, but still leaving some scattered about the tables. Dodd approved of that-the money would slow the searchers down considerably. The girl called Mary stood waiting by the trapdoor and a couple of the younger ones were bunched around her, looking angry and frightened.
“You’re slow,” she snapped. “I’ve got to lock it. Hurry up, we ain’t got all night.”
She looked somehow familiar but Dodd couldn’t think where he might have seen her before. He went down the steps, followed by Briscoe, a long way down, to a passage that was dripping and evil-smelling but quite wide and well-flagged. It looked to have been built a long time ago. The trapdoor shut and locked behind them and there was a scraping sound of furniture going over it.
“Wait,” said Briscoe, and paused by a grating. Dodd stood next to him and peered through the bars.
They were at foot-level. Like giants the men with the battering ram ran past them, hit the door…And went straight through, landing with shouts and crashing on the other side of it. Stepping over their legs, delicately, came Laurence Pickering, the King of London.
“Good evening, your honour,” he said to the Vice Chamberlain of the Queen’s Court with a perky bow. “How may I serve Her Majesty?”
Heneage brandished a paper at Pickering. “I have here a warrant to search for ill-doers and malefactors engaged in unGodly gambling and whoring within the bounds of the City of London and I have here one warrant for the arrest of one James Enys for assisting in the escape of a prisoner of Her Majesty and a further warrant for the arrest of Henry Dodd for high treason.”
The pursuivants were already in the building, thundering and crashing around, Palavicino and the girls carrying the coin were somewhere ahead of them but Dodd couldn’t tear himself away. From the odd angle, he could just make out Enys who was now standing very still between the two bullyboys who had hold of him, his face as white as his falling band. From the way he was part-hunched over, Dodd assumed somebody had kneed him or punched him in the gut.