"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded angrily.
Cromwell paused and looked down at Andrew. "I'm fairly certain Thomas Wentworth needs my assistance, right about now. Knowing the man as I do."
"And what if he does?" Andrew pointed back through the gate. "We need to get through St. Thomas' Tower and into the bloody barge!"
To his relief, he saw that Stephen Hamilton was coming through the gate.
"What the bloody hell is taking so long with Wentworth?" he half-shouted. "The soldiers'll be rallying any moment."
Cromwell nodded. "What I figured."
Hamilton glared at him. "And what are you doing here?"
"I believe I owe the man a debt, of sorts. Seeing as how I had him executed once, in another universe." And with that, Cromwell passed through the door.
Andrew stared at Hamilton. After a moment, with a rather odd look on his face, Stephen shrugged. "It makes sense, you know. If you look at it the right way."
"He just sits there. Won't move, won't say anything." William Short shook his head. "We haven't known what to do."
Cromwell moved around William and his brother, leaned the halberd against the fireplace, and came to face Wentworth. The earl of Strafford was slumped in a chair by the fireplace, looking very haggard, as if he'd barely slept that night. Which was probably the case, in fact.
"Thomas," Cromwell said gently. "Look at me."
Wentworth's eyes came up. Cromwell extended his hand.
"In how many worlds can you serve the same faithless king? Be it a hundred, Thomas-be it a thousand-he'll betray you in every one. Come, man. Let's try it a different way."
After a couple of seconds, hesitantly, Wentworth extended his own hand. Cromwell took it and drew him to his feet.
"Elizabeth," the earl of Strafford murmured. "My children."
"They're already on the barge," said Hamilton, who'd come into the chamber. "Now, let us go."
They had to pass through gunfire on the way. But it was just matchlocks, fired at too great a range-and fired too hurriedly, at that. By now, the savage marksmanship of Donald and Sherrilyn had taken its toll on the Tower's mercenaries. And they all knew that to climb onto the Outer Wall was nothing but a death sentence.
"Okay, listen up, everybody!" Harry bellowed, once the barge cast loose and had gotten well out into the Thames. He pointed over his shoulder with a thumb. "Once we get out of London, we'll be coming alongside that small boat following us that none of you should be looking at right now even though I'm pointing to it myself. Just take my word for it. We'll do the switch then. So, Gayle-you and Oliver and Darryl and Vicky and Stephen make sure you're ready to go. Four people will be switching the other way, too."
He lowered his hand and planted it on his hip. Then, made a flourishing gesture with his other hand.
"For the moment, ladies and gents and kiddies, just relax and enjoy your cruise on the lovely Thames. The show is about to begin. Maestro Gerd, take it away!"
Melissa had been staring at the ruins they'd left behind of what had once been St. Thomas' Tower. Except for possibly the Bloody Tower and the White Tower, it had been the most famous part of the world-famous Tower of London. Her face seemed gaunt. Now, hearing Harry's last words, her head came snapping around.
"What are you talk-"
"And one!" cried Gerd gleefully, triggering the detonator. Less than a mile upstream, a goodly part of London Bridge was suddenly engulfed in smoke.
Melissa half-rose from her seat. "My God! You blew up London Bridge!"
"Nah," said Harry, waving his hand dismissively. "That's just the smoke bomb-"
"Stink bomb, too!" interjected Jack Hayes eagerly.
"-that we set off first. Make sure there's nobody around."
Melissa was just gaping at the sight of the bridge. Her face, pale by nature, now looked as white as a sheet.
After ten seconds or so, her head jerked, as if something had finally registered. "What do you mean-nobody around? Nobody around for what?"
Harry frowned at her. "What do you think? For when we-"
"And two!" Gerd cried gleefully, working the detonator again. In the distance, there seemed to be a much smaller puff of smoke emerging from within the larger cloud. Perhaps a second later, London Bridge-parts of it, rather-began collapsing into the river.
"Actually blow up the bridge," Harry concluded.
Sherrilyn began rocking her head back and forth. Then, started singing, in a rather pleasant mezzo-soprano but one that was noticeably off-key.
"
London Bridge is falling down, Falling down, falling down, London Bridge is falling down, My fair Lady."
"I can't believe it, Harry!" Melissa shrieked. "You blew up London Bridge!"
"As a matter of fact, we didn't. We could've, but with all the people living in those shops on it we were afraid there'd be way too many casualties. So we just blew up some parts of it where nobody was living. Blew 'em up pretty good, too, so it'd look like we tried to drop the bridge but didn't quite manage to pull it off. Look, Ms. Mailey. I don't tell you how to do grammar, how's about you don't tell me how to do commando."
He pointed behind them. "We're on a barge that ain't exactly a speedboat, and we've got fifty miles to go, thereabouts, before we're in the clear. So, we need diversions. Keep the enemy confused. Make 'em think we're escaping a different way. First thing'll cross anybody's mind if you blow up London Bridge-or it looks like you tried to, anyway-is that you made your escape over to Southwark and you blew the bridge to stymie the pursuit. Which is the exact opposite of what we're actually doing. Especially when, just a short while later-"
He looked over to Gerd. " 'Bout time, I'm thinking, huh?"
"And three!" whooped Gerd.
There was no loud noise, this time. Just what seemed to be a faint puff of smoke a considerable distance off, on the Southwark side of the Thames but a good ways to the west of the bridge.
Melissa squinted. "I can't see… what…"
"Just give it a minute. We didn't need no fancy big explosives for this one. Just some nice incendiaries. That great big honking idiot thatch roof will burn like nobody's business."
It took perhaps five seconds for the meaning of that to register on Melissa. By then, the first flames could be seen and she no longer seemed pale. She seemed positively translucent.
"You-you-you-"
She was actually gobbling, for just a moment there. But she rallied by seizing her hair in both hands.
"You burned down the Globe theater? You barbarian!"
Harry looked aggrieved. "Jeez, Ms. Mailey, ease up some, willya? It ain't like we're talking about Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood, you know."
"That was Shakespeare's theater, you-you-you-"
She was gobbling again.
"Yeah, well, and what of it?" said Harry, unimpressed. "Julie says the place was a dump and nobody seems to be able to agree who Shakespeare was in the first place. I been to Grauman's Chinese, Ms. Mailey. Seen Marilyn Monroe's handprints in the sidewalk with my own eyes."
"You burned down the Globe theater!"
Chapter 55
Luebeck
Colonel Nils Ekstrom didn't think he'd ever seen Gustav Adolf in this good a mood, not even after the birth of his daughter Kristina. Not in terms of sheer exuberance, at any rate. The king of Sweden and emperor of the United States of Europe was practically prancing on the walls of Luebeck.
"Ha! Ha!" he shouted, making gestures toward the Danish and French forces beginning to pull out of the siege lines surrounding Luebeck. Those gestures fell short of being technically obscene, but only because the emperor was too excited to take the time to shape them into anything coherent. But the spirit that infused them, as it did the tone of voice-he wasn't shouting anything too coherent, either-was completely and thoroughly derisive toward his opponents. If the enemy forces had been close enough, Nils suspected the emperor would have unlaced his trousers and urinated on them.