The Tower. THE tower. Whitewashed it may have been, but a mere tower it was not. Its namesake was only the epicentre: around it lay two concentric rings of high stone wall, and a moat for all sides that weren’t the River. Its true purpose was ever-changing, chimeric: at different times it had variously served as imposing fortification, seat of power, royal residence, menagerie,217 royal mint,218 munitions store, and prison (those last four were all current).219 There were rumours of buried Cromwellian treasure somewhere within the grounds, and treasure hunts were held at weekends, attended even by one220 Samuel Pepys on occasion. The bones of two princes were also said to lie beneath a staircase somewhere, courtesy of their hunchback uncle (but there were rather less treasure hunts for those).221 Within the wards lay storehouses, chapels, smitheries, barracks, dungeons, offices, and even a pub. A city within a city. Ready for anything.
Except that which was currently approaching the Lion Tower gatehouse. The guards shuffled and readied their pikes, uncertain whether to retreat inside, stay at their posts, or simply flee. The big cats within the Tower’s menagerie coughed and paced: the very cobblestones beneath their feet were rumbling! The alarm was sounded, the ’cullis lowered and the drawbridge raised: the Tower was under siege! For so the vast black land-barque trundling towards them did suggest! The four white shire horses that pulled it foamed and rolled their eyes...222
The guards, trapped against the shore to the gate, raised their pikes and shut their eyes. They didn’t even bother to cry, “Halt!”
And then, miraculously, the rumbling stopped. The horses reared, then fell silent. A man hopped down, maskless now, all smiles!
Jerry.
“Evenin’ all!” the coffin maker opened. “Now, which of you fine gentlemen can show us the way up?”
The guards, realising they were not dead, opened one eye.223
“Collections!” prompted Jerry, arms wide. “We’re here for the deceased! ‘Bring out your dead!’ an’ all that!”
The older of the two guards straightened himself, trying to regain some dignity. “Collections? The cart’s already been round today!”
“Ah! But...” Jerry wagged a finger. “They’re just the imitators, the hoi palloi! The many! We are the genuine article, the hoi... oligoi! The few! The one! The only!”
The guard sniffed. “I don’t care how many hois you have to your poi! You’re not getting in without signed papers from the Lord Mayor! Or the King!”
“Ah!” Jerry said. “Just a moment...” He swung round, and seemed to be doing something with a quill. On the return, “There you are!” He brandished a parchment, and a grin.
The guard took it. “What’s this?”
“Signed papers from the King!”
“No, it isn’t!”
“Yes, it is!”
“You just wrote this yourself!”
“‘Ow’d y’know?”
“The ink’s still wet!”
“That’s the King’s signature, right there!”
“Crime that is! Forging the King’s signature!”
Things might have turned nasty, but it was to Jerry’s good fortune that Samuel Pepys had also been quietly making his way to the Tower from the admiralty office. Rounding the cart, his face once again drained upon seeing Jerry. He took one look—from Jerry’s grin to the guard’s shrewd scowl—and spoke. “Let them in!”
The guard gaped. “But, sir! He just gave us false papers...”
Pepys ground his teeth in an approximation of a snarl. “Let. Them. In!”
“Fine!” said the guard. To Jerry, “Come on, you! I’ll walk you in!”
“No need – I can find my own way!” said Jerry graciously.
The guard’s eyes narrowed further. “I insist.”
Jerry shrugged. To Pepys. “Ta, Sams! Say hello to the missus for me! And the mistress!”
The white sheet that was Pepys’ face nodded.
Four figures swathed in black cloaks, clearly menials of some kind, detached themselves from the cart and made to follow Jerry, a large black coffin born upon their shoulders.
“So whose funeral is it, then?” asked the guard as he led them beneath the rising portcullis.
“Don’t know his name...” said Jerry. “Just know where he is: The Salt Tower.”
“What? He’s dead? Nobody told me!”
“Shame to be out of the loop.”
“The plague, I s’pose! Mercy, really: he was due for execution on the morrow...”
“Well, lucky we got here first then!”
“The Lord Mayor will be most unhappy...”
“Well, that’s Death for you! She loves to disappoint people! The tease!”
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“She?”
“I’m gender-blind!”
“Clearly.”
“Up here, is it?” said Jerry, hooking a left. He certainly seemed to know his way around.
The stairs within the towers would be of the circular variety. Clive, keeping a low profile as one of the hooded coffin-bearers, didn’t much fancy trying to manoeuvre a coffin up those tight spirals. Fortunately, there were also linear wooden steps on the inside of the battlements leading to the Salt Tower, and that was the route Jerry now took.
The Salt Tower door lay before them. Jerry knocked politely.
The guard made a face. “What you knocking for? I’m the one with the key!”
“It’s a custom! Honouring the dead with their final knock!”
“I see. Well, stand aside then! Let’s see what we have.”
Jerry raised a warding hand. “Best lets us go first, mate: we’re professionals. If it’s the plague – well, we wouldn’t want you to catch it, would we? The key, if you please?”
The guard thought for only the briefest moment before handing it over.
Jerry clicked the lock, and carefully peeped into the room. Throwing open the door, the red puddle of the Alchemist was revealed, sprawled across the floor. He was snoring rather loudly.
“There, you see!” said Jerry triumphantly. “Dead!”
The guard was sceptical. “He’s snoring!”
“Nah... that’s just... noxious gases seeping out of the body.”
Unfortunately, the Alchemist was also dreaming, and he talked in his sleep. “Shenanigans!” he whined.
The guard looked at Jerry.
“The brain continues to fire in delirium after death... it’s very common–”
“I’ll get you Anbury! I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I snargggghrffuuu...”
The guard crossed his arms. “He’s not dead, is he?”
“He doesn’t have long...”
“He’s bloody talking in his sleep! I’ve seen enough! You’re under arrest! The Lord Mayor’s visiting shortly! You can tell it to hi–”
The short trowel caught the guard smartly behind the ear. He went down like a sack of spuds.
Clive threw back his cowl. “Are you done? We don’t have time for this!”
Jerry threw up his hands. “I had everything under control!”
“Like hell you did! Now we have two bodies to deal with! And the Mayor’s on his way!”
“Not to worry! I’ve got an idea!”
⁓ 🜔 ⁓
The Lord Mayor, crossing the inner ward toward the White Tower with his escort, was in a hurry. Not to see the prisoner, of course. That babbling fool the Alchemist had but one more chance to come up with a REAL cure, one that worked, and not some hairbrained immortal tonic, or his head would roll on the morrow in the name of public relations. No, the fate of the denizen of Nonsuch was a distant second in Sir Thomas’ thoughts tonight. The warm spiced raspberry mead he preferred for a nightcap, and the even spicier whore he preferred for his bed (certified plague-free – by himself!), held a far higher pedigree in the hierarchy of his current priorities.
And yet, for all his zest, his attention was briefly snagged by an odd procession bearing down upon them, a coffin upon black-cowled bearers, all led by a tall hatted fellow with cane and chest puffed up to the nines. Their march had an odd, and somewhat self-defeating, rhythm: step step step-back, step step-step step-step step-back. How curious.
“Another outbreak?” he quizzed the yeoman warder at his side.
“I wasn’t told, sir.”
“Well, I hope it was someone important!”
And then he glanced at the funeral-leader’s face as he passed, that jutting chin, those hooded eyes, that nose, and something clicked...
“You!” shouted the Lord Mayor. “Halt!”
Reluctantly, Jerry came to a full stop, mid-stride, leg cocked like a peacock.
Cive, cowled behind him, hissed urgently in his ear. “I trust he owes you too?”
“Nope!” Jerry whispered back out of the far side of his mouth. “He neither knows me nor owes me!”
“Then we’re in trouble!”
The Lord Mayor walked round to face Jerry full on. “Don’t I know you?”
Jerry tried not to make eye contact. “Very unlikely.”
Sir Thomas peered closer. “Yes, I do! Your face... it’s familiar...”
“Well, I have a familiar sort of face, from my mother’s side. She was a very familiar woman – with practically everyone.” He put a hand to his mouth, in the manner of an aside. “French!”
“Foreign, eh? Well, that explains the nose. It is extremely distinctive!” The Lord Mayor looked him up and down. Mostly up. “You’re very tall.” It was more accusation than fact.
“I do stretches every day. On mi rack.”
“Are you being funny with me, sir?”
“Comedy lies in the eye of the beholder, my Lord.”
The Mayor scanned that. He was fairly certain he was being mocked. “Take that tone with me again, boy, and your visit to the Tower will fast become permanent!”
The edge of Jerry’s mouth flickered in amusement. It had been a long time since anyone had called him ‘boy’... But he wisely said nothing.
The Mayor leaned even closer. Under different circumstances, Jerry might have thought he was being propositioned. “Who’s in the coffin?” He breathed.
“I’m not at liberty to say. Client privilege.”
“The client is dead!”
“Well, I would hardly be here if he wasn’t, would I?”
The Mayor ground his teeth. But not for long. “Open it!”
“Jerry!” hissed Clive.
Jerry tried to protest. “Look, the body is likely highly infectious... you don’t want to...”
“OPEN IT!” yelled the Lord Mayor. The yeoman warder shifted his stance. The pike in his hands was no longer resting on the ground.
Jerry froze. For a long moment, it seemed like he would refuse. But then, throwing up his hands, he shrugged. “S’your funeral!” He motioned to the bearers.
The coffin was lowered, and Jerry stepped towards the lid. And clicked his fingers in irritation. “I just remembered...” he mused, “...the lock’s on the inside.”
The Lord Mayor glared. “How can the lock be on the...?” he closed his eyes, calming himself. Mead. Whore. Mead. Whore. “Very well! Warder, smash the lid, please!”
The warder stepped forward, but Jerry waved placatingly. “Doesn’t mean I can’t open it, does it?”
Flicking a hidden latch, he unfastened the lid, and threw it back with heavy drama. “There you go!”
The body inside was richly clothed in a black and red tunic: a uniform. The same uniform as the warder was wearing. The face was hard to discern, for it was cruelly deformed by bulging blue buboes on cheek and forehead.
The Lord Mayor leapt back, thrusting a handkerchief to his face. “One of yours?” he asked the warder.
“Must be!” the yeoman said, peering without actually nearing. “I don’t even recognize him, his face is marred so by the pox!”
“Don’t get too close!” Jerry said, all professional concern now. “He died suddenly! The pestilence is strong within him! And look to your men...” he pointed at the yeoman, “...and to the inmates, too! He won’t be the last soul taken before the night is out!”
The Lord Mayor’s eyes bulged. Jerry slammed the lid shut again, and, in something of a reversal of earlier proceedings, took a step well within the Mayor’s personal space, producing a further recoil. “My Lord. I’ve tried to deal with this discreetly, but I can only do so much. I recommend swift action on your part. God forbid the King learns that you allowed the plague to spread throughout the garrison... Bar the gates behind us! Let none enter or leave until the pox is settled!”
The Mayor nodded, somewhat cowed, and motioned to the yeoman. “See it done!”
“And make sure everyone gets an extra ration of that excellent bef broth from your kitchen!” Jerry’s fingers kissed his lips. “Chef’s-buss!”
The Mayor raised an eyebrow.
Jerry frisked at the bearers. They took the hint and picked up the coffin again. “Well, we’d better get this to the burial pits, post-haste!”
“Please do!” Sir Thomas sighed. So much for his cosy night at home! He’d be stuck here in the Tower for a week or more now! The Alchemist and his imminent execution was quite forgot.
Jerry puffed up his chest, cocked his leg, and led the halting march towards the gate. Step step step-back, step step-step step-step step-back.