A battle was never a stationary affair, with both sides locked hand to hand and foot to foot as the poets would have us believe. It was fluid, swaying to and fro, as men shifted and sparred to gain position or recover defence. Ned chose an opening that had briefly appeared and dove through it. He felt his shoulders brush past the sharp edges of blades, and heard the harsh grunts of men trying to kill or be killed. He ignored all that, his eyes fixed on the target. One snarling figure tried to block his way and unconsciously he dropped his body. The blow swung over his head and Ned, still in motion, slashed the blade in his left hand across the back of his opponent’s thigh. His enemy dropped to the ground, cursing with hands wrapped around the bleeding leg. Two paces to go and the dagger was knocked from his hand. Rather than recover it, Ned threw his body forward, tucking his head in and landing under the snarling mouth of the Gonne in a roll.
It hurt. It hurt a lot, especially when his shoulder hit the iron shod wheel. Pushing past that, Ned clambered up using the spokes as a ladder and beheld the most terrifying sight. Johnnie Edwards was blowing the match into a furnace bright glow, and as Ned emerged on the other side of the Gonne, he was in the act of applying it to the Gonne’s powder train. Ned didn’t flinch. He lunged across the barrel of the Gonne, left hand outstretched, and scattered the pile of black powder. The fiery end of the match seared into the back of his hand and Ned cursed at the pain.
“Damn y’ Bedwell. I’ll teach y’ to meddle!” Edwards dropped the linstock and drew his dagger. It was one of those northern style blades, long and tapering. The edge glittered wickedly in the lantern light. It was the sort of weapon used to eviscerate a bear in one blow. Edwards looked like he knew how to use it and gave an experimental slash that ripped a piece off Ned’s outstretched sleeve.
The powder sorter gave an evil grin and snorted with anticipation. Ned, however, was getting angry. This red handed bastard had created all this mess, the murders, the Gonne powder, the ambush and a disappearance. Originally Ned had planned to capture the treacherous powder sorter and put him to the question. That consideration evaporated before his wrath. As Edwards lunged over the Gonne, Ned pushed himself backwards, swung up his right hand and pulled the trigger. The wheellock spun. The jaw dropped the firestone onto the wheel sparking across to the open flash pan, and the advancing face of Edwards disappeared in a cloud of fire, smoke and brimstone.
Ned hit the opposite wall as the smoke cleared. Rob had been right. They were a very good set of pistols, and at less than five feet, deadly accurate. The powder sorter’s body was sprawled over the carriage of the Gonne, slumped face downwards. The back of Edwards head was missing. The ball had removed it and the contents leaked over the dark timber, dripping onto the floor. Ned cautiously swallowed. He did not want to see anymore.
Despite his heroic effort the battle on the dock was still raging, and Ned was in a quandary as to how to stop the mayhem. He couldn’t use Edward’s plan. That was just the wholesale removal of everyone, though without the reminder of the threat of the Gonne, more would fall. He pulled out a kerchief and used it to wrap his burnt hand, and as he cursed the now dead powder sorter, he had an idea. Could it work?
Ned grabbed the powder horn and poured a heavy trail along the barrel of the Gonne, especially in any crests or the snarling figures of beasts. He made sure it stopped a good foot or so from the touch hole, then standing well back, he touched it off with the tip of the slow match. The mouth of the Great Gonne flashed in a spout of flame and sulphurous smoke, and the combatants recoiled in shock.
Ned stepped through the cloud beside the fitfully sparkling maw a pistol in each hand. “Yield! Yield I say or I’ll have your souls!”
He must’ve looked like a demon from hell, for several hardened retainers flinched and cried out that Satan was here. He tried a bit of extra stage setting by having sections of burning slow match sticking out of his doublet and looped around his neck. Belsom must have been particularly affected or had a stricken conscience, for he screamed, dropped his sword and fled down the dock. They say that fear lends wings. In this case he needed a bit more, for as he ran his sword hanger straps became entangled with the polyen wing on his gilded thigh armour. He staggered on for a pace until it twitched his stiffened leather scabbard between his ankles. The pursuivant’s clumsiness may have been recoverable, except that Ned chose that moment to level his second pistol and fired. Whether it was from the impact of the ball or not didn’t matter. More’s retainer flinched at its near passage, and as a result, Sir Roderick Belsom, fully rigged in his gilded half armour and helm weighing at least forty pounds in all, and with a despairing wail and terminal splash, tumbled off the side of the wharf into the dark waters of the Thames.
At the disappearance of their lord, the last of his men dropped their weapons and called for quarter. Ned pushed through the crowd and unbarred the prison door, releasing an eager flood, before sagging with relief against the wall.
“Ned! Ned!”
A chorus of shouts pulled him out of his exhausted daze. He turned to see the broad shouldered figure of Rob Black pushing through the cheering crowd of Gryne’s men. Reaching Ned’s side, Rob grabbed him around the waist, lifting him high. “Ned, I saw what you did. It was amazing!”
Ned pummelled Rob on the shoulder all the while trying to breathe.
“Rob, Rob y’ pillock! Let poor Ned down. ‘e’s a tryin’ fo’ a breath!”
It was a sweetly familiar voice and Rob responded to it instantly, apologising for his eagerness. Ned staggered for moment and sketched a brief bow to one of Rob’s pair of Amazon Gonners
“My thanks Lizzie, but how did you get here?”
“Why thank y’s Ned. We wuz in the same wherry as dear Rob ‘ere.”
Ned took another deep breath of clean, free air and looked at the cluster around Rob again. A lot of his crew had skirts-in fact all of them did. The riverside punks from yesterday had returned.
“What are you doing here?” Ned tried very hard to keep the incredulity out of his voice. The extra Gryne’s men he expected, but not half of Petty Wales!
Rob, at least, had the grace to look embarrassed before he stammered out a reply. “Ahh well… That is, ahh… I thought…”
The painful effort was interrupted by Mary who pushed in front of Rob and stood with hands on hips, looking defiantly up at Ned. “Y’r friend ‘ere told us of what wuz going t’ ‘appen.We arn’t high and mighty like them that trots around wit the Lord Mayor, but tis our ‘ome too!”
That got a very loud cheer from the assembly. Ned was impressed, and not a little humbled. None of the guilds had come out to help, but a rag tag of street girls had.