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.
"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!"