He'd hoped the officers quartered in Wakefield would have come to investigate the explosion right next door to them in St. Thomas' Tower, but no such luck. Cowards, sluggards, simply confused, it didn't make any difference. They'd have to blow their way in.
No problem. Sherrilyn and Don had taken positions to deal with anyone who tried to come into the Water Lane or showed up somewhere on the Inner Wall where Julie couldn't spot them. But their rifles wouldn't have been much use for this, anyway. And, in the meantime, George Sutherland and Paul Maczka had showed up.
Just in time, too. What seemed like a veritable flood of women and children had come up into St. Thomas' Tower and were making their way down the ramp to the wharf below. Felix and Darryl were helping them, while Matt stayed with the barge.
"Okay, guys," he said. "It's shotgun time and you're the two designated trolls." He pointed at the heavy door across the walkway. "Don't know if it's locked or not."
"What does it matter?" grunted Sutherland. "Just let me switch to slugs."
That didn't take long. Two blasts at close range into the door latch and it didn't matter if it had been locked or not. George's great bulk slammed against the door, and that was that. Harry wondered if he'd be able to sweet-talk Sutherland and Simpson into having an arm-wrestling match, just to pass the time as they crossed the North Sea.
Probably not a good idea, though. They might capsize the ship.
"Clear!" George bellowed from inside. Paul had already passed through, continuing into the next chamber. Harry heard him fire two rounds. At whatever, probably nothing. The sound alone, inside the stone walls of Wakefield, would be enough to stun anybody for a second or two.
"Clear!" Maczka shouted.
"Okay, Rita, let's go."
Once inside Wakefield, with George and Paul blasting their way ahead-they still hadn't actually shot anybody yet, since the Tower seemed to be deserted-Harry let Rita guide him.
"Here," she said, stopping at a door. "The poor woman's probably frightened out of her wits."
"Good thing I'm such a charmer then, huh?"
He rapped on the door with the butt of his fist. Not the one holding the pistol, of course.
"Mrs. Wentworth! Lady Strafford! Whatever! We're here to take you and your husband and your kids out of the Tower."
He thought he heard a whimpering sound. A kid, maybe. Other than that, nothing.
"Okay, let's try it again! If you and the kids aren't out here in ten seconds I'm going to come in and shoot every one of you deader'n doornails!"
"Harry!"
"Look, Rita, charm works in mysterious ways."
And so it proved. Perhaps five seconds later, the door opened and a terrified-looking young woman peered out.
Rita took it from there, pushing her way in. "Pay no attention to him, Elizabeth! But you do need to come, right now. No, don't take time to gather up anything. Just get the kids. Hi, Nan, how's tricks?"
A girl, maybe six or seven years old, barreled into Rita and clutched her. "Lady Simpson, I'm frightened! What's happening?"
"Everything's fine, sweetie. Where's-oh, there she is. Now where's William?"
"Here," came a squeaky little voice. A boy's face peeked from around a corner, staring at Harry as if he were an ogre.
"Well, come out, now! We've got to go."
The boy didn't budge, his eyes still fixed on Harry.
Rita turned her head and gave Harry a smile that would have looked good on a rattlesnake, if snakes could smile. "Why don't you just get lost, Captain Lefferts? Go find an enemy somewhere you can practice your charm on. I'll handle this."
All things considered, that seemed like a good idea. Harry went to see what George and Paul were up to.
Blowing Wakefield Tower into pieces, it sounded like. They couldn't really manage that, of course, just with shotguns. The stonework looked downright ancient. Still, they were giving it their enthusiastic best.
Four soldiers appeared in the Water Lane, coming around the corner from Mint Street. Sherrilyn missed her first shot, cursed herself for buck fever, and took one of them down with her second. By then, Don Ohde was shooting too. The sole unscratched survivor vanished somewhere. The one who'd been wounded was slowly crawling his way back. From the amount of blood he was leaving behind, Sherrilyn didn't think he'd make it. But there was obviously no point in wasting a bullet on him.
Sherrilyn caught a glimpse of motion to her right. A body hurtled off the Outer Wall, just past Cradle Tower. The sharp sound of a distant rifle shot was followed by the much duller sound of the corpse landing on the stones below.
"She really is the best, isn't she?" Ohde said admiringly.
Cromwell wasted a few seconds snatching up one of the dead guard's halberds, then tossing it aside when he saw the badly chipped blade, in favor of the other. But Andrew didn't begrudge him the moment. If he'd been imprisoned under likely sentence of death for months, he'd probably have done the same. And his worst fear, that Cromwell wouldn't be able to move well after such a long confinement, proved to be unfounded. Darryl had told him that Cromwell was maintaining an exercise regimen, but Andrew had been skeptical.
"Quickly, now," he said, racing toward St. Thomas' Tower.
Tom Simpson had braced himself for the worst. Unfortunately, Windebank had left Laud under the guard of the Warders; figuring, presumably, that a short, dyspeptic and sixty-one year old archbishop posed no great threat of escaping, be the Warders still reliable or not.
Luckily, when he entered the Salt Tower and reached the chamber where Laud was held captive, he discovered that not only was there only one Warder on duty, but he knew him quite well. Michael Dunn, whose daughter Cecily had just barely managed to survive the winter, mostly due to Rita's medical care.
"Tom!" Dunn exclaimed. "What is the name of all that's holy is happening out there?"
The Warder was obviously not in the least bit suspicious, even though there was no logical reason for Tom to have entered the Salt Tower. Dunn's grip on his halberd was simply that of a man keeping a heavy weapon from toppling and hurting someone.
"Don't know, Michael. Some sort of robbery, I think."
Dunn frowned. "Robbery? But why-"
Tom's fist ended that. He sucker-punched the poor guy. Hit him pretty hard, too, although at least he'd been able to catch him while he fell and keep the halberd from gashing him.
Tom felt pretty guilty about the whole thing. But nowhere nearly as guilty as he'd have felt if he'd had to kill a Warder.
There turned out to be a positive side to the whole thing, too. When Tom entered Laud's chambers to rescue him from captivity, he was in a peevish enough mood to handle the old man properly.
Red-faced and shrill, Laud protested and denounced him and flatly refused to go. So, Tom sucker-punched him too, and took him out over his shoulder.
"You slugged the archbishop of Canterbury?" Rita's mouth stayed wide open for seconds after she posed the question.
Grimacing, Tom passed Laud's still unconscious body over to Felix and Darryl, who'd get him down the ramp and into the barge.
"Yeah, 'fraid so. But look on the bright side, hon."
Her mouth gaped wider still. "There's a bright side to punching out the primate of your own church?"
"Sure is. I figure my chances of getting ordained as a priest just went down the tubes. Forget bishop."
Rita's jaw snapped shut. "Maybe you shoulda kicked him, too. Right in the nuts."
When they reached the gate that passed by the Bloody Tower, Cromwell stopped. "One moment, gentlemen." With no further ado, he hurried through the gate.
"What is he doing?" asked Jack.
Gritting his teeth, Andrew went after Cromwell. He didn't give Hayes an answer because he had no idea himself what the madman was doing.
He caught up with Cromwell just as he was going into the Bloody Tower.