“Of everybody in the world, Josh, you’re the only person I know who could persuade a dog to do that.”
They drove through crawling traffic along the Embankment until they reached Charing Cross. The rain was even heavier now, and as they turned up Villiers Street the sidewalks were crowded with bobbing black umbrellas. Villiers Street was a steep gradient, and the Austin whinnied up it like a protesting old horse. On the corner of the Strand, a drummer was silhouetted, his triangular black hat dripping with rainwater.
“Keep your heads down,” Simon advised them. “He’s a Watcher. He probably won’t recognize you, but you never know your bloody rotten luck.”
It took them nearly twenty minutes to drive from Santa Cruz Square to the Aldwych. The road was clogged with buses and horse-drawn wagons, and two enormous horse-drawn drays were drawn up outside a half-timbered pub called The Battle of Winceby. The rain trickled down the Austin’s windows and Simon kept tapping the thermometer gauge because the engine was overheating.
At last they turned into Chancery Lane, and then left into Carey Street. The torrential rain had forced a pieman to cover up his “Eric the Pie” stall with wet tarpaulins and wheel it away, and Simon was able to park in the space that he had just vacated. There was still a smell of hot coke and beef pies in the rain as Josh and Nancy and Simon climbed out of the Austin. They made their way up Star Yard, their collars pulled up, their heads ducked down.
They reached the niche, which was still clogged up with wet rubbish. Simon took the brown-paper package of candles out of his pocket, and set three of them down on the ground. He produced a cigarette lighter and flicked it, and managed to light two of the candles, but every time he tried to light the third it was instantly extinguished by the rain.
“Come on, you bastard,” he snarled at it, and tried to light it again. It managed to flicker for a moment, but then the rain put it out again, and then another candle went out.
“Here,” said Josh, and leaned over him, holding his coat out like an umbrella. Simon managed to light all three candles for a few triumphant seconds, but as soon as Josh stepped away, two of them went out again.
“How about finding someplace to wait this rain out?” Josh suggested. “A pub, maybe. I don’t know about you, but I could sure use a serious drink.”
Simon flicked his cigarette lighter yet again. “No good hanging around, guvnor. The forecast is, bucketing down till next Wednesday fortnight. Hold your coat up again.”
Josh leaned over the niche once more, and Simon managed to light all three candles. This time, Josh stayed where he was, to give the wicks time to burn more strongly. But as he waited, he thought he heard a faint sound like a train approaching, over a jointed track.
He shook his wet hair. It was difficult to distinguish anything over the clatter of the rain and the roaring of buses and the sizzle of tires on the tarmac-covered cobbles. “Do you hear that?” he asked Nancy. “Kind of like a train.”
Nancy lifted her head. Her forehead was decorated with beads of rain, and her eyelashes sparkled. She listened for a moment, and then she nodded. “Drums” she said.
Simon stood up, too. “They’re coming nearer. They’re definitely coming nearer.”
“They don’t know that we’re here, do they? How do they know that we’re here?”
“Perhaps that Watcher spotted us. Don’t ask me, I’m not a per-sychic.”
“Maybe they’re not coming this way,” said Nancy. But the trat-a-trat-trat was growing louder and louder; and it wasn’t long before they could hear it quite distinctly over the grinding of the traffic.
“We’re going to have to go,” said Josh. “Simon … you’d better get the hell out of here. Tell me where to find you when I come back.”
“Josh …” said Nancy. She wasn’t only warning him to hurry, she was telling him that she didn’t want him to come back, ever.
“Go to the British Museum. John Farbelow will know where to find me.”
“OK,” said Josh, and grasped his hand. “And, look, if I don’t make it back …”
The drums were battering off the sides of the nearby buildings, and people were hurrying past them as fast as they could. Even if you hadn’t lied or stolen or committed a blasphemy, even if you didn’t have a Book of Common Prayer secreted under your mattress, it was better to keep well out of the way of the drums and the dogs and the Hooded Men.
“Nancy, you first,” said Josh. Nancy took three steps back and said, “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.”
As she ran forward, however, a rain-filled gust swept across the sidewalk, and all of the candles blew out. She struck the brick wall with her shoulder and almost fell over.
“There’s no time to do this now,” said Josh. “Let’s get out of here and try it again later, when we can rig up something to keep the candles alight.”
At that moment, however, dog-handlers came round the corner of Star Yard and Carey Street, and drummers appeared behind them, from the direction of Chancery Lane. The drumming was totally deafening now. It seemed to make the rain rattle and the paving slabs shake. And behind the drummers, Josh could see the silhouettes of Puritan hats and buckles, and heads that were covered in hessian hoods, and the shine of long sharp swords.
Simon was down on his knees, frantically trying to relight the candles. He lit one, then another, and then another. Josh put his arm around Nancy and held her tight, and she covered her ears to blot out the drumming. The first candle blew out, but Simon persisted and lit it again, just as the first of the dogs came barking and slathering up to him.
“Jump!” Josh shouted at Nancy. He seized hold of her fringed buckskin sleeves and almost threw her over the candles, toward the solid brick wall. She landed on the other side of the candles, and turned.
“Josh, you too!” she cried out, in a distorted, watery voice.
Josh took a step back, ready to jump, but as he did so one of the dogs seized the cuff of his pants. He swung his leg, trying to shake it loose. Simon, right next to him, gave it a kick in the ribs. But Josh knew that you could set one of these dogs on fire before they would open their jaws.
“Josh!” screamed Nancy. “You have to jump!”
Josh swung his leg again, hitting the dog against the sidewalk with a crunch that must have broken one of its legs, but it still clung on. Simon reached down to seize its collar, but as he did so Josh caught the shine of steel out of the corner of his eye. At the instant that Simon’s fingers closed around the studded leather choker, a straight-bladed sword came down with a chappp! sound and cut right through his wrist. Simon didn’t scream. He didn’t utter a sound. But he fell backward on to the candles with blood jetting out of his severed wrist like water out of a garden hose.
Josh felt a powerful hand seize his hair and wrench his head back. He felt hessian scratch against the side of his head. A sword was held across his throat, and a harsh voice said, “You won’t move a single muscle, sir, or else I’ll have your head off.”
In the niche, Nancy stared back at him in desperation. He wanted to yell, “Go!” but the sword was just touching his Adam’s apple and he was afraid that his captor would cut his throat if he tried to shout out. All he could do was stare at her and will her to carry on.
One of the dog-handlers came forward and snapped, “Spit it out, Rancour,” and the dog that had been gripping Josh’s pants released its grip. It trotted back to stand by its master with Simon’s hand still clutching its collar and Simon’s blood still matting the fur on its back.