“A beggar,” said Drool. “He were trying to protect the old man.”
“This is not the sword of a beggar. Neither is this purse.” Edmund picked up Oswald’s purse. “These belong to Goneril’s man, Oswald.”
“Aye, milord,” said Drool.
“Well, where is he?”
“On the beach.”
“On the beach? He climbed down and left his purse and sword here?”
“He was a tosser,” said Drool. “So I tossed him over. He kilt your old da.”
“Oh, quite right. Well done, then.” Edmund threw the purse to Drool. “Use it to bribe your jailer for a bread crust. Take them.” The bastard motioned for his men to seize Drool and Lear. When the old man had trouble standing, Drool lifted him to his feet and steadied him.
“What about the bodies?” asked Edmund’s captain.
“Let the French bury them. Quickly, to the White Tower. I’ve seen enough.”
Lear coughed then, a dry, feeble cough like the creaking of Death’s door hinges, until I thought he might collapse into a pile of blue. One of Edmund’s men gave the old man a sip of water, which seemed to quell the coughing, but he couldn’t stand or support his weight. Drool hoisted him up on one shoulder and carried him up the hill—the old man’s bony bottom bouncing on the great git’s shoulder as if it was the cushion of a sedan chair.
When they were gone I scrambled out of my hiding place and over to Edgar’s prostrate body. The wound on his scalp wasn’t deep, but it had bled copiously, as scalp wounds are wont to do. The resulting puddle of gore had probably saved Edgar’s life. I got him propped against the boulder and brought him around with some gentle smacking and a stout splashing from his water skin.
“What?” Edgar looked around, and shook his head to clear his vision, a motion he clearly regretted immediately. Then he spotted his father’s corpse and wailed.
“I’m sorry, Edgar,” said I. “’Twas Goneril’s steward, Oswald, knocked you out and killed him. Drool strangled the scurvy dog and tossed him over the cliff.”
“Where is Drool? And the king?”
“Taken, by your bastard brother’s men. Listen, Edgar, I need to follow them. You go to the French camp. Take them a message.”
Edgar’s eyes rolled and I thought he might pass out again, so I threw some more water in his face. “Look at me. Edgar, you must go to the French camp. Tell Cordelia that she should attack the White Tower directly. Tell her to send ships up the Thames and bring a force through London over land as well. Kent will know the plan. Have her sound the trumpet three times before they attack the keep. Do you understand?”
“Three times, the White Tower?”
I tore the back off of the dead earl’s shirt, wadded it up, and gave it to Edgar. “Here, hold this on your noggin to staunch the blood.”
“And tell Cordelia not to hold for fear for her father’s life. I’ll see to it that it’s not an issue.”
“Aye,” said Edgar. “She’ll not save the king by holding the attack.”
TWENTY-TWO
AT THE WHITE TOWER
“Tosser!” cried the raven.
No help was he in my stealthy entry to the White Tower. I’d packed my bells with clay, and darkened my face with the same, but no amount of camouflage would help if the raven raised an alarm. I should have had a guard bring him down with a crossbow bolt long before I left the Tower.
I lay in a shallow, flat-bottomed skiff I’d borrowed from a ferryman, covered with rags and branches so I might appear just another mass of jetsam floating in the Thames. I paddled with my right hand, and the cold water felt like needles until my arm went numb. Sheets of ice drifted in the water around me. Another good cold night and I might have walked into the Traitor’s Gate, rather than paddled. The river fed the moat, and the moat led under a low arch and through the gate where English nobility had been bringing their family members for hundreds of years on the way to the chopping block.
Two iron-clad gates fit together at the center of the arch, chained in the middle below the waterline, and they moved ever-so-slightly in the current. There was a gap there, at the top, where the gates met. Not so wide that a soldier with weapons could fit through, but a cat, a rat, or a spry and nimble fool on the slim side might easily pass over. And so I did.
There were no guards at the stone steps inside, but twelve feet of water separated me from them, and my skiff would not fit through the gap at the top of the gate where I was perched. A fool was getting wet, there was no way around it. But it seemed to me that the water was shallow, only a foot or two deep. Perhaps I could keep my shoes dry. I took them off and tucked them into my jerkin, then slid down the gate into the cold water.