Lope hated every heartbeat of delay. How long before the Englishmen nerved themselves to fight in the streets, if they weren't already elsewhere in London? How long before weapons long hoarded in hope came out of hiding? Not long, he feared, and he didn't have enough men at his back.
Half a dozen Englishmen, a couple armed with swords, the rest with bludgeons, came out of St. Mary Woolnoth and formed a ragged line across Lombard Street."What do we do, senor?" the sergeant muttered.
"We fight if we have to, but let me try something first," Lope answered in a low voice. Then, in English, he shouted, "Stand aside, in the name of the Queen!"
He hissed out a great sigh of relief when they did stand aside. One of them doffed his cap and made a clumsy leg at de Vega, saying, "We cry your pardon, sir, but we took ye for a pack of stinking Spaniards."
"God bless Elizabeth!" another Englishman added.
They all nodded. So did Lope. He led the patrol past them without another word. If he spoke too much, his accent would betray him. And betrayal enough was already loose in London this day. If they dared speak imprisoned Elizabeth's name, if they believed he, leading soldiers, also spoke of Elizabeth and not Isabella. If that was so, treason ran far deeper than even de Vega had dreamt.
Behind him, one of the Englishmen said, "Come. Let's to the Tower, and help to set her free." Their departing footsteps were quick and purposeful. They thought they could do it. Whether they proved right or wrong, their confidence chilled Lope.
"Sergeant!" he said sharply.
" Si-, senor? "
"Who garrisons the Tower of London? We, or the English?"
"Why, some of each, sir. We both want to make sure Elizabeth the heretic stays there till she dies, eh?"
The sergeant hadn't understood any of what Lope or the street ruffians said in English. De Vega's dread only grew. In times like these, how far could any Spaniard trust an Englishman?
As he and the patrol turned down into St. Swithin's Lane, a sharp volley of gunfire came from the south, from the direction of the barracks. He wanted to order a charge. With the wounded soldier slowing everyone else and hampering two healthy men, he couldn't.
Englishmen swarmed up the street towards them. They were fleeing, not fighting. No cries of, "Death to the dons!" burst from their throats. They'd met death, and didn't like him. When one of them spied de Vega and his comrades, he cried, "Here's more o' the foul fiends! We are fordone!" But he and his friends pounded past before Lope and his little force could hope to halt them.
Bodies lay in the lane, some unmoving, some thrashing in pain. Spanish soldiers moved among them, methodically putting to the sword any who still lived. More Spaniards, pikemen and arquebusiers, formed a line of battle in front of the barracks. One of the soldiers with sword in hand looked up from his grim work and growled, "Who the devil are you?" as Lope led the patrol towards him.
"Senior Lieutenant de Vega," Lope answered.
The other Spaniard's face changed. "Oh! You're the fellow who knew this mess was coming. Pass on, seA±or-pass on. If we hadn't had a few minutes' warning of trouble, those damned Englishmen might've taken us unawares."
"De Vega! Is that you?" From one end of the line of battle, Captain GuzmA?n waved.
"Yes, your Excellency." Lope waved back.
"God be praised you're all right," GuzmA?n said. "When Enrique came running back here with your report, I feared we'd never see you again. I was about to go after you to the Theatre when we were attacked ourselves."
"Never mind the Theatre, or me." Even Lope, far from the least self-centered man ever born, knew some things were more important than he was. "The English are going to try to free Elizabeth from the Tower.
If they do-"
Always the courtier, GuzmA?n bowed to him. "I am the senior officer present right now. I was going to hold the barracks against whatever they threw at us. Now you've given me something more urgent to do.
Muchas gracias." He shouted orders. More Spanish soldiers came tumbling out of the building and rushed up from the south: a few hundred all told, Lope judged. Guzman said, "Form a column, boys.
We have to get to the Tower, and it's liable to be warm work. Are you up to it?"
"Yes, sir!" the soldiers roared. By the way they sounded, no Englishman could stop them or even slow them down.
Baltasar GuzmA?n bowed again. "May we have the pleasure of your company, Senior Lieutenant de Vega?"
"Of course, your Excellency. But I have a wounded man here, and-"
"Leave him." GuzmA?n's voice was hard and flat. "We can't bring him, and we can't spare men to guard him. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. Will you tell me I'm wrong?"
He waited for Lope's reply. Lope had none, and he knew it. At his nod, Jose and Manuel eased Pedro to the ground. What is he thinking? Lope wondered. He shook his head. Better not to know.
Captain Guzman raised his voice: "To the Tower, fast as we can go. For God and St. James, forward- march! "
"For God and St. James!" the soldiers shouted. Off they went, a ragged regiment against a city. To see them strut, the city was the outnumbered one.
Perhaps half a mile separated the barracks from the Tower of London. Moving as fast as they could, the soldiers might have got there in five minutes: they might have, had nobody between the one and the other had other ideas.
Guzman marched the Spaniards towards the river to Upper Thames Street, which became Lower Thames Street east of London Bridge and which led straight to the Tower. That the street close by the Thames led straight to the Tower, though, quickly proved to have been obvious to others besides him.
No sooner had his men turned into Thames Street and started east than bricks and stones flew down from rooftops and windows: not the handful of them that had greeted Lope's patrol in Lombard Street, but a regular fusillade. The missiles clattered from helmets and corselets. Men cursed or howled when stones struck home where they weren't armored. A soldier who got hit in the face crumpled without a sound. A moment later, another went down.
"What do we do, Captain?" a trooper cried.
"We go on," Guzman answered grimly. "If we stop and kill Englishmen here, we have great sport, but we don't get where we need to go on time. Forward! " Lope admired the nobleman's discipline. Had he himself commanded the Spaniards, he knew he might have yielded to the sweet seduction of revenge against the cowards and skulkers who plagued them. GuzmA?n had better sense.
Just past the church of All Hallows the Less, a barricade blocked Thames Street: planks and carts and rubbish and rocks and dirt. The Englishmen behind it brandished a motley assortment of halberds and bills and pikes and swords. Two or three arquebus muzzles poked over the top, aimed straight at the oncoming Spanish soldiers. "Death to the dons!" the Englishmen shouted.
Captain GuzmA?n's lips drew back from his teeth in a savage smile. "Now we can come to close quarters with some of these motherless dogs," he said. "Give them a volley, boys, and then show them what a proper charge means."
The front rank of arquebusiers dropped to one knee. The second rank aimed their guns over the heads of the first. On the other side of the barrier, the Englishmen fired their few guns. Flames belched from the muzzles. A bullet cracked past Lope and smacked wetly into flesh behind him. A soldier shrieked. Puffs of thick gray smoke clouded the barricade.
Then Captain Guzman yelled, "Fire!" The end of the world might have visited Upper Thames Street.