They assembled in the yard, as Gresham had instructed. Two riders in front, two riders each side and two at the rear, and a man with a charged pistol sitting beside Nicholas. The great gates were opened, and the whole magnificent entourage swept out into The Strand. The two lead horsemen, knowing they were heading to Whitehall, turned their mounts to the left.
With a cry, Nicholas cracked his whip and turned the lumbering coach right. Pedestrians turned in horror to see the huge vehicle with its fine horses bearing down upon them, gathering speed with every minute, and leaped to safety.
Jane felt a massive lurch and knew instinctively that they had turned the wrong way. Oh God! she thought. Nicholas has seen an enemy and driven the coach away from him.
The two lead horsemen failed to realise that the coach had not followed them. By the time they reined in, it had vanished from sight. Looking hopelessly at each other, and cursing themselves for their certainty that things would go as they had planned and expected, they yanked on the reins and reversed their path. Mannion's advice was ringing in their ears. Always expect the unexpected! They had been strutting ahead of the coach, clearing the way, full of their glory at serving the First Baron Granville. They knew the depth of their mistake, and in their stomachs hung the awful fear that tomorrow they would be dismissed in ignominy with no reference. Their panic lost them even more of their judgement. They drove their horses not back down The Strand but to the gates of The House.
'There! There!' shouted Nicholas meanwhile to the armed man by his side on the careering coach, his arm outstretched. The man gaped at him, looked in the direction indicated. The next thing he knew a tremendous kick landed in his side, and he was flung from the vehicle. He fell directly under the hooves of one of the escorting horsemen on the left-hand side. Reducing him to a bloody lump, the horse stumbled and fell, one leg at least broken, its rider hurled from his mount into a crunching, bloody collision with the earth. The horse lay there, twitching. Its rider lay still.
The five remaining escorts were confused beyond belief. Had a devil taken hold of Nicholas? Had the horses bolted on him? Had he seen an enemy they had missed?
Their confusion was not to last much longer. Heading into the
City and its warren of streets, Nicholas hauled the coach by sheer brute force to the right, down a noisome alley leading to the river. He knew the odds, had known them all along. He could commit the horses, now in panic and frothing, to the hole that formed the alley. After that, it was their instinct for survival that decided life or death. The horses chose life. They drove themselves neatly between the poor houses on either side, as neatly as a cork in a bottle.
The escorting horsemen were caught unawares by the coach's sharp turn to the right. The two on the inside reined back savagely as the coach threatened to squash them between its great bulk and the wall. Their horses stumbled, catching the sense of panic. The one remaining escort on the outside overshot completely. The two behind had time to rein in. Their mounts ground to a halt and reared in panic, but the riders controlled them and dug their spurs hard into their sides, driving them after the form of the coach. It was then that the men hidden in the alley dragged up the two ropes they had firmly stationed on either side. One at the height of a horse's head. The other at the height of its rider's head. Both horses caught sight of the first rope, instinctively dropped their heads and, at their speed, stumbled on their forelegs into a tumbling fall. Their riders were flung forward, still holding the reins. One caught the second rope full in his rib cage, the other on his Adam's apple.
Instantly the two men had fallen, a farm cart trundled across the alleyway. Its driver cut the traces, the horse bolting away. From nowhere four men appeared, cudgels in their hands.
The three remaining horsemen of the escort regrouped. None lacked courage. All felt a bitter sense of recrimination. They had failed their master and his mistress, delivered her and her children up to God knew what evil. Without a word being exchanged, they drew back on the reins and flung their horses forward at the barrier, trying to leap it in one bound and follow their mistress. The sickening thud of the crossbow bolts hit man and horse alike, the screams of the dying horses easily drowning the rattle and gurgle of the dead men.
One horse tumbled so hard that it careered into the farm cart, breaking a wheel and skewing it aside. The gap through to the alley had been opened at last. Yet there were none of Gresham's men to take advantage of it.
Except one.
Young Tom had delivered his message, then taken time to regain his breath. He was used to the comments of the maids and other girls, but he knew what he would get if he appeared among them breathless and sweating. He had caused a stir, right enough, by his message. He could see the coach being made ready. He considered going to the kitchen to claim his bread and cheese for lunch. He'd done his bit, hadn't he? And then a thought struck him, fiercer even than the pangs of his hunger. What about the horses? The man who had come from his master had said he would find a boy to look after the horses. But he'd been a rough sort of fellow, and what if he'd simply not bothered to find someone? Those horses had been his charge.
Tom ran out then, thoughts of bread and cheese banished, to see if he could beg his mistress to let him ride on top of the grand coach, so as to get back to the horses. But it was too late, the great coach was rolling out of the yard as he got there. What was there to do?
Be damned to bread and cheese! he thought. What matters is those horses. He ran after the coach. It was going the wrong way! Heart pumping, sweat pouring again, he chased after it.
He saw Nicholas, one of his heroes, point wildly with his arm, saw him kick his armed escort off the coach. He saw the carnage wreaked by the fallen body among the escort. From even further away, his limbs at full stretch, his breath threatening to tear his lungs apart, he saw the sharp, manic turn of the coach into the alleyway. And then, his ribs rising and falling as if there was no oxygen left in the world, he saw and heard the sickening noise of the crossbow bolts thudding into flesh. Saw and heard the death of men who had chafed him, helped him, guided him, men he had looked up to as the bastion of all knowledge in this world.
There was a gap. Between the farm cart and the entry to the alley. A gap rammed home by a horse still in spasms and a rider who lay totally still. Had the men with crossbows melted away like the men with cudgels? Or were they still there?
Well, the still very young but soon to be much older Young Tom thought — if thought is what happens in a man's brain at these moments — good men have died today. I will be in fine company if I join them. He ran for the gap.
No sudden blow in his side. No yells and cries. He was through.
He ran on, the narrow houses blotting out the sun. Despair. No sign of his mistress. How long could this winding alley run? Hope. The coach. Halted.
They were edging on the river. There were four, five men dragging his mistress from the coach. She fell out, drew herself up, seemed to be speaking. Seemed to be reaching to raise her skirt. One of the men flung out at her, knocked her back to the ground. She lay there, in the dust, motionless. The little girl was screaming. The boy just stood there, looking at the man who had struck his mother. There was a hurried conversation between the men, orders issued. Two of them picked up the body of his mistress, the others threatening the children to move in the same direction.
There was a boat by the rough jetty that abutted the alley. A longshoreman's boat, a cumbersome, single-masted thing designed to carry small cargo but needing four men to row it. The meat and drink of London's river traffic. They bundled the captives on board. The boat was unnamed, or, if it ever had been named, its emblem had fallen off through neglect. The men hauled oars out, prepared to row, the fitful wind giving them no help. As they did so, a figure flitted out from one of the poor lodgings that fronted the river. He was a small, dwarfed man with a strange, prancing high-step and a ludicrous wig. He stopped for a moment to give instructions to one of the men. That same man nodded, touched his forelock and hurried off back up the alley. Young Tom shrank into the wall as he passed by. He need not have bothered. The man had more important things on his mind than a young serving-man.