1634: The Baltic War: Chapter Twenty Six

    “She says she wants us to lock everything down, for the moment, until she can find out what’s happening with Wentworth. Do nothing until she gives us the word.” The expression on Paul Maczka’s face was just as dubious as the tone of his voice. In some indefinable manner, so was the way he tossed the radio note onto the kitchen table.

    “What the hell for?” demand Donald Ohde, sitting at the far end. “Who cares which minister they throw in the Tower this week? Give it a few days, and you’ll see Wentworth out and Cork inside, staring at the walls.” Irritably, he slapped the table. “You ask me, I think the woman’s just losing her nerve.”

    Harry Lefferts wagged his fingers in a gesture of restraint. “Easy, Don, easy. I know Melissa Mailey, you don’t. High school kids don’t call her the Devil’s Bitch for nothing. She is one tough old broad.” A little reminiscent smile came to his face. “I always liked her myself, even if none of the other guys did. Even after she made me write I will not be a smartass in front of a way smarter teacher two hundred times on the blackboard. What the hell, I had been a smartass—and, more to the point here, she is smarter than me.”

    Ohde made a face. “Fine. I still say, so what? She can be the devil’s counselor as well as his bitch, what difference does it make? We’re commandos, for Christ’s sake, not monks in a cell. We don’t meditate patiently, we break things.”

    Like all of Harry’s unit, whatever seventeenth-century inhibitions against blasphemy Ohde had ever possessed, he’d long since cast aside.

    Harry repeated the finger-wagging gesture. “I think she’s got something in mind. And if I’m right…”

    Slowly, a huge grin spread across his face. Amazingly huge, given that there was really not a trace of humor in the expression at all. “Great Escape, indeed. Stalag 17,000. Von Ryan’s great big long freight train. Piss on ‘Express.’”

    Ohde stared at him. So did everyone else gathered around the table. Maczka looked around for a vacant chair; finding none, he leaned back against a wall.

    “Holy shit,” he said. “Are you serious?”

    “I told you. She is one tough broad—and don’t ever let that prim and proper manner of hers fool you any. Underneath it all, she’s got a temper like you wouldn’t believe, even if she’s the only person I ever knew who could chew you up one side and down the other in grammatically correct sentences and never use a single cuss word.”

    He glanced around the table. “Guys, we’re talking about a sixty-year-old woman who’s spent her whole life giving the finger to the establishment. And now that same establishment”—this time, he waved his whole hand, not just the fingers—“close enough, anyway, the Devil’s Bitch never saw much distinction between one establishment and another—just went and locked her up for over half a year.”

    The grin came back, though not as large and with some actual humor in it. “I don’t remember it myself, ‘cause I was just a little kid then. But she got herself tossed in jail during the big ‘78-79 coal miners strike for heckling the cops too much. Soon as they let her out she went home just long enough to make up a picket sign and then—I mean, she didn’t stop for a hamburger, nothing—she made a beeline right to the big police station in Fairmont and started up a one-woman picket line of her own. Sign read: You’re STILL assholes.”

    Everybody laughed. “I thought you said she never used cuss words,” said Felix.

    “Well… she never did, dealing with kids. Not even a ‘damn.’ But I guess she figured it was okay if she was picking on somebody bigger’n her.”

    “Did they arrest her again?”

    “Naw. Truth is, the Fairmont cops weren’t really bad guys. I think most of them thought it was pretty funny themselves. And what would be the point, anyway? They’d have to let her out sooner or later, and—given Melissa—who knows what she’d have come up with next?”

    Smiling now, Ohde shook his head. “All right, I get the point. But do you really think she’s seriously considering springing anybody but them?”

    “Yup. I think she’s mad enough she wants to get even as well as get out.”

    “Why not?” said George Sutherland heavily. “We were already planning to get Cromwell out. What’s one more man?”

    “Be more than that,” his wife mused. “Wentworth’s wife and kids are in the Tower, too. I can’t imagine he’d leave without them.”

    Harry scratched his chin. “Good point.” He stood up and waved at Paul, summoning him to follow. “Let’s back up there and find out exactly how many people she’s got in mind. I only figured on two boats. We might need another one.”

    The answer came back immediately. Paul didn’t bother writing it down, with Harry at the receiver. He’d only written down the first one out of habit, anyway. At this close range, they were in direct verbal communication, not using Morse code.

    “Don’t know yet, Harry. From what we can tell, everything’s up in the air. But we haven’t been able to find out much, beyond the obvious fact that a coup d’etat is in progress. The Warders aren’t talking to us, but Darryl says Vicky’s whole family is edgy. ‘Tenser’n cats at a dog convention,’ is the way he put it.”

    Harry frowned. “Who’s Vicky—and why’s her family figure into this?”

    “Oh. Forget to tell yet. Darryl got engaged. Vicky’s his fiancée. Most of her family—men, that is—are members of the Yeoman Warders.”

    “You’re shitting me!”

    “Still cussing, huh? If there’s a blackboard over there, write on it fifty times ‘I will not use bad language in front of my ex-schoolteacher.’ No, I’m not shitting you. Why is that a surprise, anyway? A lot of the men in the Tower are Warders.”

    “Not that! Darryl got engaged?”

    “Sure did. Hey, we’re in the seventeenth century, Harry. Age of miracles. If Darryl were a statue, he’d probably be leaking tears of blood.”

    Blankly, Harry stared out the window. The Tower was quite visible in the bright winter sunlight. The weather had finally cleared up.

    “We’re talking about Darryl McCarthy, right? I mean, you didn’t get something criss-crossed and wind up with a different Darryl?”

    “Don’t be silly. How many other Darryls did I ever have write on a blackboard three hundred times ‘My name is Darryl McCarthy, not Redd Foxx’?” And then made him correct his spelling because he kept dropping the extra d’s and x’s.”

    Harry chuckled. “All right, good point. He was pissed as hell about it. Didn’t stop crabbing for two weeks afterward. Still. I had him figured for a lifelong righteous bachelor.”

    “Like you, I take it?”

    Even though she couldn’t see him, Harry twisted his face into something that was halfway between a grimace and a questioning expression.

    “Not actually sure any more, Ms. Mailey. The seventeenth century makes a man think about things a lot more carefully. God, I love this time and place.” A bit hurriedly, he added: “Not that I’m in any hurry to get married, y’all understand.”

    “You would love this time and place, you young rascal.”

    “Damn right I do. Back home I would’ve just been calculating how long I could stay in the mines before I started getting black lung and had to quit and go flip hamburgers for minimum wage. Get to look forward to retirement, sitting on a rocking chair on a beat-up old porch wheezing to my buddies about the good old days. Hell with that. This here’s like being in Las Vegas—the old, real one I’m talking about—except the bouncers’ve got swords and guns and the cops use red hot tongs instead of handcuffs. Just makes the odds more of a thrill.”

    “God help us.”

    “He might have to—if we’re supposed to spring Darryl’s whole pack of new in-laws too. I mean, jeez, Ms. Mailey, I was figuring on a couple of little riverboats, not a cruise ship.”

    “I don’t think it would be all of them. They’re Yeoman Warders, don’t forget. Just Vicky. In fact, I’m not even sure—hold on a minute, Harry. From the sounds outside, I think something’s happening.”

    Paul had drifted to the window, as he listened to the conversation—Melissa’s end of which he could hear clearly from the microphone.

    “Something sure is happening,” he said sharply. “Better come here and look at this, Harry.”

    Harry came over to the window. Unlike late twentieth century cities, which didn’t use wood for heating, London in the seventeenth century had very few trees. So he had an unimpeded view of the Tower across the Thames—and he’d picked this house to rent partly because it had a good view of the fortress’ main entrance on its western side.

    He pursed his lips, and then blew air through them slowly. “Oooookay. Paul, I gotta bad feeling all our plans just flew south for the winter.”

    An army was marching up to the Tower. The lead elements were already beginning to pass through the Middle Tower and nearing Byward Tower. A small army, true enough. But Harry was pretty sure the guard force at the Tower had just gotten massive reinforcements. It certainly wasn’t an attacking force—the gates of Byward Tower were swinging wide open to let them in.

    These were professional soldiers, too, it was obvious even at the distance. Probably several of the mercenary companies the English crown had hired on when Charles threw in with the League of Ostend. As an actual guard force, Harry doubted if they were as good as the Yeoman Warders. But so what? A jailbreak had just turned into the prospect of a siege—with a handful of besiegers.

    “Well, shit,” he said.

    “No, not in there,” said Sir Francis Windebank. “I don’t want Laud in communication with Wentworth. Even on separate floors, I don’t want both of them in the Bloody Tower.”

    Stephen Hamilton, one of the captains of the Yeoman Guards, considered the problem, letting no sign of his fury show on his face. “Well, Sir Francis, that’s a bit difficult—seeing as how you’ll be needing the Lieutenant’s Lodging and Beauchamp Tower for your officers, and you’re wanting Wakefield Tower for yourself and your staff.”

    “And the White Tower for my men, yes, I know. How long will it take to clear that out, by the way?”

    “Can I draw on the soldiers themselves for labor?” asked Hamilton, eyeing the huge central keep of the fortress. “It’s mostly been used for storage for some thirty years, now. The inside’s a jumble.”

    “I can’t see why not,” said Windebank impatiently. “Yes, yes, the soldiers will complain, but that’s a problem for their captains. They either clear it out or they can sleep in the open.”

    They’ll be shitting in the open, either way, thought Hamilton. The White Tower was ancient, dating back to the time of William the Conqueror. Its sanitary facilities were scanty and primitive. Not the least of the reasons Stephen was so angry was that he knew the careful sanitary arrangements that the American nurse Rita Simpson had spent months overseeing were being shat upon along with the Warders. Give it a few weeks, with hundreds of new soldiers crammed into the Tower, and the diseases which had been mercifully almost absent the past months would come back with a vengeance.

    But there was nothing he could do about it. Cork had replaced Strafford, and the earl from Ireland was determined to prove to anyone that his fist was even harder than that of his overthrown predecessor—and he’d not be bothering with gloves, thank you. Not dealing with such as the Yeoman Warders, at any rate, however gracious he might to English noblemen and wealthy merchants.

    “It’ll have to be the Salt Tower, then,” said Hamilton. “It’s not really fit for the Archbishop, what with all the priests that were held there a time back—that many, they left it a mess and we’ve never had the funds to repair the damage—but it’s the only space that remains.” He set his jaw. “Unless you’re prepared to place William Laud in one of the dungeons.”

    Sir Francis winced. For just an instant, the man’s arrogant surface vanished and Hamilton got a glimpse of the fear and uncertainty that lurked beneath. He and Cork and their new ruling party were taking a fearsome gamble, here. That much was obvious to any simpleton urchin in London, much less a captain of the Yeoman Warders. Their authority was even less broadly based than Wentworth’s had been. In the end, it rested on nothing more substantial than the support of King Charles I, who was by all accounts now a cripple, half-out of his mind with grief over the death of his wife—and a monarch who was notorious in any event for being fickle and undependable.

    The only reason their sudden coup had succeeded at all—this much was also evident to a Warder captain, if not to street urchins—was that Wentworth had amassed such a great pile of resentment against him on the part of England’s upper classes. The Earl of Strafford was without doubt a very capable man, but he tended to be oblivious to the personal reactions of people around him. He could and did give offense without even realizing it; often enough, without even meaning to. He was like a good blacksmith who understood every aspect of his trade—except the fact that he was trying to mold people instead of metal. Iron does not resent the strike of a hammer or the rough grip of tongs. People do, deeply.

    “No, no, that’s absurd,” Windebank said hastily. “The Archbishop of Canterbury, in a dungeon? Grotesque.”

    He didn’t add “and most unwise as well,” but that was clearly uppermost in his thinking. As well it should be. Let the king’s favor turn, and Sir Francis Windebank might easily find himself in the Tower—and given the same accommodations his enemies had been given. A prisoner could survive decent lodgings in the Tower for a very long time. Kings had lived here, in times past. Sir Walter Raleigh had lasted in the Bloody Tower for thirteen years—and then had died, not from ill health, but the ax-blade of the headsman. Surviving one of the dungeons was a much different proposition, especially for a sixty-year-old man like Archbishop Laud. Or a man in his early fifties, like Windebank, for that matter.

    “Very well, Sir Francis, I’ll see to the Archbishop’s new quarters.”

    He turned to leave, but Windebank held him back with a hand on the arm. “One last thing, Captain Hamilton. In case I haven’t made it clear enough. Both Wentworth and Laud are to be well kept, and in good comfort. But they’re not to speak to anyone, beyond the guards themselves. Is that understood? No visitors of any kind, nor are they to be allowed onto the grounds.”

    Hamilton nodded. Again, he had to fight down an expression. Not a scowl of anger, this time, but a sneer of contempt. Windebank’s fear of allowing either of the two new prisoners to have any outside contact was itself a sign of the new regime’s fragility. Beyond that, it was a sign of the man’s stupidity.

    No, not outright stupidity, he thought, as he walked away. Just that imitation of it that so many men fell into, when they let their pre-occupation with immediate tasks blind them to the world beyond.

    Hamilton passed through the gate next to the Bloody Tower that connected the Inner and Outer Wards. Then, headed west down the Water Lane toward the group of men alongside Bell Tower, who were guarding the Archbishop. Along the way, he passed by St. Thomas’ Tower, and gave it a glance.

    Sheer stupidity it was, though, whatever it’s provenance. Sir Francis had given orders that no one was to be allowed contact with Wentworth and Laud—but had given no such orders regarding the people held prisoner in St. Thomas’ Tower. Stephen Hamilton smiled, thinly. That was like a man ordering mastiffs muzzled as well as collared—while leaving bare the teeth of wolves.

    And wolves they were, too, no matter how much the Warders might have come to like the beasts. Stephen Hamilton liked the Americans himself, for that matter, insofar as his cold soul had it in him to like anyone who was not of his own family. But he’d never once lost sight of the fact that he had wolves under guard.

    He hadn’t brought the matter to Windebank’s attention, however. And now that he had a bit of time to think, Hamilton had to ask himself why he hadn’t.

    The answer didn’t take long in coming. Nor did it surprise him. He’d given the matter some thought already, from time to time. He’d had no difficulty understanding the nature of those prisoners in St. Thomas’ Tower, for the good and simple reason that he was at least half-wolf himself. Not even that, really, since his wife died. He was simply a wolf who’d chosen to wear a watchdog’s uniform, for the well-being of his family.

    Treat me like a cur, would they?

    After he finished seeing to the Archbishop being placed in the Salt Tower, Hamilton returned to his own quarters. He shared rooms in the Lieutenant’s Lodging with the rest of his family. Quarters which had been quite spacious, until today.

    The first persons he encountered when he entered were Patricia Hayes and Victoria Short. As was true of all the members of Stephen’s family, they were in-laws, not blood relations. The Warder captain had no surviving kin of his own, only those whom his wife Jane had given him before she died in childbirth. The infant had died with her, leaving Hamilton bereft of children as well as spouse.

    Patricia was his wife’s sister. She was a widow, now, her husband having been killed in a horsefall a few years since. Victoria and her older brother Andrew were the children of his wife's long-deceased half brother.

    Both women were carrying bundles of bedding. “They’re driving us out!” Patricia said angrily. “We’re losing two of our rooms!”

    “Better than most, at that,” Stephen said. “Some of the Warders with no officers in the family are being forced out of the Lodging altogether. They’ll have to find a shack out on the grounds against the wall. Or make one, more likely.”

    “What’s happening?” asked Victoria, plaintively.

    Hamilton now had his anger completely under control. Iced down, it would be better to say. “The Earl of Cork feels that leaving his new prisoners in the care of Yeoman Warders might be risky. It seems—this will come as a surprise to everyone, of course, including ghosts—that there might be some questions concerning our loyalties. So he’s brought in three companies of mercenaries to see to the Tower’s security.”

    “That’s idiotic!” snapped Patricia.

    So it was. The Yeoman Warders of the Tower answered to the King of England, whoever he might be and whatever they thought of him. No business of theirs, which ministers came and went at the King’s favor. Lock one up; let another go; theirs was simply to see to it that the locks were sound.

    “As it may be,” was all he said, however. “Victoria, I need to speak to you. In the kitchen, as soon as you’ve put away that bedding.”

    She looked at him, blankly. “Just me?”

    He considered the matter for a moment. “Is Andrew about?”

    “He’s next door, helping the Hardwicks,” said Patricia. “Poor people. They’re being forced into a single room—even losing their kitchen.”

    “Get him too, then.” Hamilton headed for the kitchen, not waiting to see if the women would obey. He had no doubt they would. Although he was no blood relation to anyone in his family, over the years he’d come to be what amounted to their patriarch. Partly because he was the oldest, being now into his forties. Partly because…

    He was who he was. He never bit. He never snarled.

    He never needed to.

    Victoria came into the kitchen, her brother Andrew just behind her.

    “Sit, girl.” Hamilton pointed to the chair across from his at the small work table in a corner. “I’ve a question.”

    “What is it?” she asked, uncertainly, pulling out the chair. There being no other in the room, her brother just stood to one side, his arms crossed over his chest.

    “Your swain, the McCarthy lad. He hasn’t come through the window, has he?”

    She was startled. Then, flushing, started to glance nervously over her shoulder, toward her brother.

    “Well…”

    “I want the truth, Victoria. Whatever it is. I won’t care—and neither will Andrew. You’re betrothed, now, so what does it matter?”

    After a moment, she swallowed. “No. He hasn’t.”

    “It’s upset you.”

    Her nervousness at being asked such questions in the presence of her brother suddenly vanished, replaced by simple hurt. Her green eyes seemed a bit watery. “Yes. It makes me wonder…”

    Hamilton chuckled. He glanced at Andrew and saw that the girl’s brother was trying to suppress a smile.

    “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that, Victoria,” Hamilton said. “Whatever Darryl’s reasons, lack of ardency is hardly the answer.”

    The look she gave him belonged more on the face of an eight year old girl, than one who’d just passed her twentieth birthday. “You’re certain, Uncle?”

    He had to suppress a smile himself, now. Victoria’s brother wasn’t bothering to do so, any longer, since he’d sidled over a bit and was now standing behind his sister where she couldn’t see him. Hamilton and Andrew had made jokes to each other, often enough, about the way Darryl McCarthy looked at Victoria when he thought no one was observing. Jokes about tongues hanging down to belt buckles and enough drool to drown an ox.

    “Oh, yes, I’m quite certain.”

    “Then, why—”

    Suddenly, she gave Hamilton a hard look. Almost an angry one.

    “It’s because he’s afraid of you,” she pronounced. “It’s your fault. Uncle, you shouldn’t scare people that much.”

    Hamilton knew that wasn’t the reason either. Darryl McCarthy was wary of him, true enough. All men were, once they got to know Stephen Hamilton—if they had the sort of background that enabled them to gauge him in the first place.

    That same background, however, was the key. Hamilton had always understood Darryl McCarthy, from the first day the young man had spent some hours in their quarters. Not too different from Hamilton himself, really—or from Andrew, rather. A tough young man from a tough background, who wasn’t a fool but wasn’t afraid of men, either.

    Hamilton had understood McCarthy, yes—but he’d still underestimated him, and badly. So much was now clear.

    “No, I don’t think that’s it,” he said calmly. “I think the reason he hasn’t come through the window is simply because he’s afraid of getting you pregnant.”

    She almost crossed her eyes. “But—but—”

    Her confusion was understandable. Once a couple was betrothed, the girl’s family relaxed. By law and custom both, a betrothal was as good as wedding vows. Young couples often had to postpone the marriage, sometimes for years, until they could put together what they needed to set up their own household. It would be stupid, not to mention cruel, to force them into unnatural abstinence in the meantime. If the girl got pregnant, so be it. She’d hardly be the first one to waddle up to the altar. Likely enough, her mother and half her sisters and aunts had done the same.

    But it was time to end this, before the girl’s suspicions became aroused. Hamilton shook his head. “No, it’s simply that I think the Americans have different customs.”

    He gave Andrew a quick, meaningful glance.

    “I’m sure that’s the reason, too,” her brother said reassuringly. “I inquired with Lady Mailey, you know. They were a wealthy enough people that they got married quite young. Not like us. So they’d wait—were supposed to, at least, and Darryl’s a good lad—until they were actually married.”

    That was twaddle, of course. Not the generalities—Hamilton had inquired himself, not from Lady Mailey but Captain Simpson—but its application to Darryl. Simpson hadn’t come right out and labeled McCarthy a tomcat, but he’d said enough in the way of warning that Hamilton had made sure the girl was watched carefully until McCarthy finally betrothed her. Ironically, his only concern thereafter had been that the American might view his betrothal casually. Hamilton knew their customs were different there, also.

    Ironic, indeed, in light of what he now understood.

    “You really think that’s all it is?” Victoria asked. She seemed aggrieved and mollified at the same time.

    “Oh, yes. But now I need to talk privately with Andrew, Victoria.”

    She rose from the table and left immediately. More slowly, Andrew came over and took the chair she’d vacated.

    He started to say something. But then, seeing the distant expression on the Warder captain’s face, fell silent.

    Stephen Hamilton was distant, indeed, for a time. Not dwelling on his past—it was not one he liked to think about, except for those few years after he met Jane—but simply letting its essence saturate him. He’d passed through a hell that had left nothing much of the tough young man from a tough background who’d begun the journey. Just a cold, hard predator who’d luckily managed to find a pack of his own. That was his only lifeline to humanity, any longer.

    And even that was conditional. Stephen Hamilton would accept duty, well enough. Not because he cared about leashes but simply because he found a certain personal comfort in restraints. That comfort removed, his view of the world was very stark and very simple.

    There were two sorts of people. Two, and only two.

    His, and everyone else.

    “Good God!” Andrew suddenly exclaimed, pulling Hamilton back into the kitchen. From the look on the Warder’s face, he’d finally worked his way through the puzzle.

    “He’s planning an escape, Stephen. That’s why he’s afraid to get Victoria pregnant.”

    Hamilton shook his head. “Not exactly. Yes to the second, no to the first. Yes, that why he’s restrained himself. But, no, he’s not planning an escape. He’s expecting one.”

    Andrew’s head turned, in the direction of St. Thomas’ Tower. Hamilton had no difficulty following his thoughts. Who knew what devices the Americans had with them? Wentworth had never ordered a search of their quarters. Who knew if they’d been able to stay in touch with their people back on the continent? And if they had, who knew what might be coming to the Tower? Hamilton and Andrew had not only heard the accounts, they’d spoken to veterans returned from the continent. Yes, it was true that Wallenstein had been struck down from a range that was not known for certain—but it was certainly longer than the Thames was wide.

    “What do you want to want to do?” asked Andrew. He gave his older kin a look that was quite hard itself.

    “Can’t see where it’s any of our business, any longer,” said Hamilton. “Seeing as how our superiors have not seen fit to trust us.”

    Andrew nodded. “The way I see it too.” His gaze went back to the wall of the kitchen that faced St. Thomas’ Tower. And, after a moment, softened a great deal.

    “This speaks well of my future brother-in-law, I’m thinking.”

    Hamilton could feel the latch closing, and knew that he’d come to his decision. Somewhere in that bleak and savage wasteland within the Warder captain that other men would call a soul, a young American had just completed a journey. He’d passed over from one of them to one of mine.

    “Oh, yes,” said Hamilton softly. “It speaks very well of him indeed.”