Johnny O'Brien - Day of Deliverance

Whitsun and Gift were distracted, and Gift surreptitiously reholstered his weapon.

“What now?” he muttered impatiently.

The figure walked slowly towards them, the hood of his cloak covering his head. He did not reveal his face.

“What do you want old man?” Gift said.

“Alms for the poor.”

“We have nothing, go away,” Whitsun replied in frustration. “We’re busy.”

“In that case, peace be with you.”

Without raising his head, the friar made a sign of the cross in the air. Then, as Whitsun and Gift started to turn away disinterestedly, he placed his hand inside his cloak and withdrew a heavy wooden club. The first blow caught Gift square on the head and he crumpled to the ground. Whitsun reached for his weapon, but he was not quick enough. With his second blow, the friar buried the club into Whitsun’s face. He fell to his knees clutching his nose. The friar landed a second blow to Whitsun’s head and he too fell unconscious to the ground.

“As I said — peace be with you — brothers.”

The friar threw back his hood and his face was revealed.

“Monk!” Fanshawe cried. Immediately Fanshawe and Trinculo embraced their old friend.

“Steady, steady.”

“But how…?”

“You didn’t think I would let the great Fanshawe Players leave town without me, did you?”

“You followed us?”

“We were thrown out of the buttery late last night. I checked Marlowe’s rooms — but he had gone… and so had you. I searched college, but found not a trace. I had to sleep in one of the staircases. This morning, I went out into the street. I saw you come out of King’s College and I was about to shout, and then I saw those two men take you. I decided to follow…”

They laughed. “Thank you for that Monk. I didn’t know you cared.”

Monk shrugged, sheepishly. “You’re the only family I have.”

Jack knelt down to inspect Whitsun and Gift.

“Are they dead?” Angus asked.

Jack felt for their pulses. “No, but they’re out for the count.”

“What do we do?”

Jack thought to himself. “They can take us to Pendelshape, but on the other hand, they are completely ruthless. Look what they just tried to do.”

Monk wielded his club. “I say we finish them off right now.”

Jack put up his hand. “No. You don’t want blood on your hands. We’ll tie them up nice and tight — that’ll give us time to get away. Angus, you help me search them for anything useful.”

A moment later, Jack and Angus were rummaging through the clothes and belongings of the two men while Fanshawe, Trinculo and Monk prepared to leave.

Angus removed the two pistols. “We’ll take those for a start.”

“And I think we’ll have Marlowe’s letter back,” Jack said.

Jack felt a smooth object in one of the inside pockets. He looked round to be sure that the others were busy. “Hey, Angus,” he whispered. “How much do you think VIGIL would like to get hold of a Revisionist time phone?”

Angus smiled, slyly, revealing the object he had just recovered from Whitsun.

“Or even two Revisionist time phones.”

Jack smelled it first: the stench of two hundred thousand people bundled together into a few hundred acres of narrow, fetid streets, slippery with the slime of rubbish. As they walked on, timber and plaster houses rose above them — their upper floors built out over the lower floors so that they almost met at the top. Periodically, refuse was thrown from the windows straight into the gloomy, sunless streets below. You had to take care to avoid a direct hit. Some parts of the streets were little better than open sewers. Despite the overcrowding, there was still room for over a hundred and twenty churches as well as an entire cathedral. Fanshawe mentioned that God had little pity on the residents who were targeted by swindlers, pickpockets, cutpurses, cozeners and countless other forms of low-life. If the undesirables didn’t get you, disease probably would. The place was racked with it — bubonic plague, tuberculosis, measles, rickets, scurvy, smallpox and dysentery. Yet despite all this, there wasn’t a city to match it in England or even Europe. This was a city destined to become the centre of the largest empire the world had ever seen. A city that was vibrant, bustling and dangerous: London.

For Jack and Angus, it was the smell they found hardest to get used to. Then there was the lack of drinking water. Water was dangerous as it might carry disease. Ale was the next best thing. It was mostly weak but there were stronger brews. That morning at breakfast, Fanshawe had thought nothing of downing two pints of a cloudy liquid with no froth, called ‘Mad Dog’. If you didn’t like Mad Dog you could try Huffcap, Merry-go-down or Dragon’s Milk. Or if you were feeling brave you might prefer Go-by-the-wall or Stride Wide. Not wanting to die of thirst, Jack and Angus had little choice but to try some. Mad Dog was certainly an acquired taste and it was all Jack could do not to retch as the liquid hit the back of his throat. Angus, with his larger frame, coped well with the effects, but after half a pint, Jack’s head was spinning.

With the money Marlowe had given him for safe passage of the secret letter, Fanshawe rented a room at the Cross Keys Inn, in Grace Church Street between Bishopsgate and London Bridge. The inn was built around a cobbled courtyard, accessed through an archway from the street. Above the courtyard, open balconies ran round the perimeter of each floor and from here guests could watch plays put on from time to time by itinerant acting troupes. It did seem possible, therefore, that this was a good place to find Marlowe’s contact, Wilbur Shake-Shaft, but so far he had proved elusive. Fanshawe’s desperation to find a buyer for his plays had caused him to delay the delivery of the precious secret letter from Marlowe to Walsingham. Although he was torn, Fanshawe decided to wait and give a potential rendezvous with Shake-Shaft one more day.

Fanshawe, Trinculo and Monk approached the bar to order lunch, leaving Jack and Angus at one of the wooden tables in a corner of the Cross Keys. Nearby, a log fire was spluttering to life, adding smoke but so far little warmth to the dank air. With the table to themselves Jack and Angus took the chance to review their position.

“Well?” Jack nodded at Angus’s doublet under which he hid his time phone.

“Dead as a dodo,” Angus replied.

The time phones remained lifeless. There was still no communication from VIGIL or, for that matter, from Tony and Gordon, for whom they were beginning to fear the worst.

“What about the Revisionist time phones?”

“They’ve got the same problem as VIGIL — intermittent time signals. We have no choice but to wait. We’ve no other information to go on… we have to wait for a time signal so we can contact VIGIL.”

Angus groaned. “Frustrating… we can’t communicate with VIGIL, no sign of Tony and Gordon, but if we could get these Revisionist time phones to VIGIL — they would be able to infiltrate the Revisionists and blow their whole operation apart.”

“And in the meantime, we’re none the wiser about what the Revisionists are really up to. All we know is that it must have something to do with this Spanish plot and that letter to Walsingham.”

“Shall we open it?”

“Yeah — I’m thinking it’s about time we did. But bear in mind that if we do that, you know, break the seal, then the contents become invalidated. Walsingham might just dismiss it — that’s what Fanshawe says.”

“Well, at least we’ve bought some time — you know, with Whitsun and Gift out of the picture.” Angus stared down at the table. “Do you think we should have…?”