‘Dawn can’t be far off now,’ Woodchurch said. ‘I’m for the Tower. If the king is gone as they say, at least I can leave London a rich man. Are you game, Jack?’
Cade smiled, looking up at the passage of the moon overhead.
‘I sent Paddy there in the first rush. He’s either dead or in by now. I’ll walk with you, Tom Woodchurch, if you’ll walk with me.’
They laughed like boys then, while Ecclestone looked on sourly at this display of camaraderie. A moment later, Jack began ordering his men back to the streets. His voice was a bass roar that echoed back from the houses of aldermen all around.
Derry was exhausted. He knew he was a dozen years younger than Lord Scales and could only wonder at the source of the man’s manic energy as they reached yet another alleyway and trotted down it in pitch darkness. At least the rain had eased off. They had four men out before and behind, calling warnings or opportunities as they found them. They’d been fighting in the streets for hours and Derry had lost count of the men he’d killed in the black night, small moments of horror and fear while he cut strangers or felt the pain as their knives and clubs got through to him in turn.
He’d bound his leg where some nameless Kentish ploughboy had stuck a spear into it. A spear! Derry could still hardly believe he’d been wounded by something that had decorative ribbons on the shaft. He carried the first few feet of it in his left hand by then, having ripped the last owner from life. A heavy seax was stuck through his belt and Derry wasn’t alone in having picked up weapons from the dead. After so long struggling with strangers in the wind and dark, he was just desperate to see the sun again.
Scales’s men were down to just three dozen from the original eighty. They’d lost only a few at a time before running straight into a couple of hundred looters. Those men had been stinking drunk, which was a blessing as it had slowed them down. Yet that little stand had left almost half Scales’s men dying on their backs in filth and their own blood.
It was all falling apart, Derry could feel it. Cade’s men had reached the heart of the city and whatever rage had brought them in had exploded into a desire to loot, rape and murder while they could. It was something Derry knew well, from battles he’d seen, something about killing and surviving that put a shine in the blood and made a man wild. They might have been an army of Kentish Freemen coming in, but they’d become a savage and terrifying mob. Londoners crouched behind their own doors across the city, whispering prayers that no one would try to get in.
‘East again,’ Scales ordered from up ahead. ‘My scouts say there are fifty or so ahead, by the Cockspur Inn. We can hit them while they’re still bringing out the barrels.’
Derry shook his head to clear it, wishing he had a drink himself. London had more than three hundred taverns and alehouses. He’d already passed a dozen he knew from his youth, buildings shuttered and dark with the owners barricaded inside. Licking dry lips, Derry would have given a gold coin for a pint at that point, especially as he’d thrown away his water flask after seeing it pierced. The thing had probably saved his life, but its loss left him dry as a panting dog.
‘East again,’ he agreed.
Cade seemed to be heading back across the city and, in the condition they were in, all Scales and Derry could do was shadow him from a distance and pick off some of the smaller groups milling around in his wake — preferably the drunken ones, if they had a choice. Derry raised his head. He knew this part of the city. He took his bearings, rubbing his face with both hands to sharpen himself up. They were on Three Needle Street, a haunt from before he’d begun shaving. The livery hall of the Merchant Taylors was close by.
‘Hold there a moment, Lord Scales, if you would be so good,’ Derry called. ‘Let me see if there’s anyone waiting for me.’
Scales gestured irritably and Derry jogged off down the road, his feet squelching to the ankles. He’d been lost without his informants, but with the city heaving with knots of fighting, he’d been unable to find them. He reached the livery house and saw nothing. With a soft curse, he was turning to go back to the group when someone stepped out from a shadowed doorway. Derry jerked his spearhead up in shock at the sound, convinced he was about to be attacked.
‘Master Brewer? Sorry, sir. I wasn’t sure it was you.’
Derry gathered himself, clearing his throat to cover his embarrassment.
‘Who’s that?’ he said, his free hand resting on the hilt of the seax in his belt, just in case. Loyalty was in short supply that night.
‘John Burroughs, sir,’ the shadow replied. Under the eaves of the houses above, there was almost no light.
‘Well? You’ve found me, then,’ Derry snapped. ‘If you ask me for the password, I may just hand you your own entrails. Just tell me what you know.’
‘Right, sir, sorry. I came from the Tower, sir. When I left, they’d broken through the outer gatehouse.’
Derry’s eyes widened unseen in the darkness.
‘Anything else? Have you heard from Jim or the Kellys?’
‘Not since Cade’s lot came in, sir, sorry.’
‘Run back, then. Tell them I’m coming with a thousand men.’
Derry sensed his informant looking sceptically up the street to the ragged group with Lord Scales.
‘I’ll have more by then, don’t doubt it. The queen is in the Tower, Burroughs. Bring anyone else you can find.’
He watched as the man ran off at the best speed he could make through the reeking slop of the street.
‘Christ, Cade, you cunning old sod,’ Derry breathed aloud. He began to run in the opposite direction, to where Lord Scales waited impatiently for news.
‘They’re attacking the Tower, my lord. My man said they were already inside the outer walls.’
Scales looked up at the night sky. The first light of dawn was showing at last. His spirits lifted now that he could finally begin to see the streets around him.
‘Dawn is almost here, thank the Lord. Thank you too, Master Brewer. We’ll leave that group at the Cockspur for someone else. Can you plot a course to the Tower from here?’
‘Easy as winking, my lord. I know these streets.’
‘Then lead us in, Brewer. Stop for nothing. The queen’s safety comes first.’
Paddy looked up at the White Tower, oddly tempted to raise his hand in salute to those within, not that they would have been able to see it. His men had fought the king’s soldiers to a bloody last stand, loping along the tops of the outer walls and taking them one by one or in small groups, offering no quarter. For all their fine swords and mail, he’d had the best part of two thousand charging around inside the fortress, breaking down doors and removing everything worth taking. He knew the best pieces would surely be within the massive walls of the White Tower, but there was just no way to reach them.
It stood unmarked, painted pale and gleaming in the moonlight. The only entrance was on the first floor, with the stairs reduced to kindling by the time he’d broken through the portcullis. It was such a simple thing to baulk his assault. Given a day, Paddy thought he could have put something together, but the soldiers waiting inside the small entrance door could defend it easily and there wasn’t enough time.
He looked around, chewing on his lip. He could see across the inner yard to the massive walls. Dawn was coming and he had a strong sense that he should not be trapped within the complex of towers and walls when it came. As he stood and waited for the sun to rise, he saw two of his men staggering with the weight of an iron-bound chest.
‘What do you have there, lads?’ he called.
‘Coins!’ one of them shouted back. ‘More silver and gold than you would believe!’
Paddy shook his head.