Chapter 30
"By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall."
―John Dickinson, The Liberty Song
Fitzroy caught up with Thorne just as the distraught Hall Keeper stuck his jangling keys in the lock.
“When did you enter this room last?” Thorne asked him.
“Yestermorn,” the man murmured. “It is only the crypts down here. Nothing of vital importance.”
“Did anyone ask to enter the crypts after that?” Fitzroy barked, making the man’s hands jerk. The keyring fell to the ground with a clatter.
“N-no, my lord. But there were plenty of Russian men here yesterday, inspecting preparations and ensuring that everything was in good order for His Imperial Highness’s well-being.”
Thorne picked up the keyring, examining the end of the heavy key that opened the crypts. “Easy enough to pick a lock like this.” And then he shoved the key home, turning it in the lock before thrusting the ring back at the Keeper.
With no further consideration for Fitzroy or the stammering servant Thorne took the lantern hanging on the inside wall and descended the stair. Fitzroy followed quickly, crowding up behind him to see the way in the dim light.
Finally, they reached the dusty floor of the crypt, and Thorne inhaled deeply, the first true stirrings of fear weakening his knees.
Behind him, Fitzroy also took a breath through his nose, picking up the reek of black powder. A lot of it. “Hell and damnation,” Perry muttered, his voice failing him.
Thorne moved forward, feeling queer, lifting the lantern high to see. And see, he did. At the far end of the crypts, approximately below where the dais would be, was a small mountain of barrels. More than a dozen, stacked around the pillar reaching towards the ceiling.
“It’s the bloody Gunpowder Plot, all over again. I—” Thorne started, and stopped, a hopeless terror crawling through his innards. “You shouldn’t be here, Fitzroy. I’ll look for whatever fuse or mechanism she intended to use to detonate it. Get the sovereigns out.”
“Don’t be a lunatic,” he muttered. “I’d rather face this and stop it here than explain to Castlereagh why we need to evacuate the Guildhall. Can you imagine me trying to get them off the dais without causing a riot? Tell me what we are looking for.”
Swallowing, Thorne cast his eyes over the pile of barrels. “I see no fuse. Or a long-burning candle. Those would be the easiest…”
“Let us assume my mother would never give us the benefit of doing things the easy way.”
Thorne barked a short laugh. “Then we’re looking for a clockwork timer. Somewhere. Possibly inside a barrel.”
“A… what? I know nothing of clocks,” Fitzroy admitted, gritting his teeth.
“A spring-loaded mechanism set to strike flint to steel. Affixed to a timing wheel, gears, and a mainspring.” Thorne set the lantern down carefully, tugged off his gloves and wiped his sweating palms. Then he pulled his belt knife out of his pocket.
“I’ve never seen one, but I know the theory of such a thing.
If that is what I’m looking for, we are literally in a race against time. ”
Fitzroy cursed long and loud. “A damned clockwork. McGrath must be laughing at me from his grave.”
Thorne didn’t have time to argue with a lord who knew far too much about poisons and nothing at all about machinery or explosives. He set his knife blade into the rim of the first barrel, carefully prying the lid up to peer inside without jostling it, but there was nothing except for powder.
“Most of these can’t be opened easily,” Perry said, pointing to one with a screw, before he moved toward another. Thorne reached over and grabbed his hand before he could rock the barrel.
“Don’t shake those,” Thorne snarled at him.
“The device won’t be small enough to stick through a screw hole.
If you’re going to be foolish enough to make your wife a widow only a day after you saved her from the grave, then I’ll thank you kindly not to ensure I’m blown to Kingdom Come along with you and the sovereigns! ”
“That delicate, is it?” Fitzroy’s voice was dry, but he didn’t argue with Thorne further. He simply took his hand away gently and used more care when he took out his knife and prodded the lid of another barrel.
“So I’ve heard. It wasn’t practical for use in the war. Too easy to set off by accident. But here… where the powder’s just sitting—”
“Understood.”
There was nothing but the harsh rasp of their breath as they slowly opened one after another.
Sweat dripped down Thorne’s face as he thought about the dense, earthy smell of powder in his lungs and the flickering flame of the lamp.
Could gunpowder be heavy enough in the air to ignite?
Thorne didn’t know, but he hoped he wasn’t about to discover the answer.
“Thorne.” Lord Fitzroy uttered his name like a plea. He held the lid of his barrel aloft, staring down like a man looking into his own grave.
Abandoning his search, Thorne looked over, seeing a coiled spring and moving gears. It was truly terrifying to behold. “Well,” he said, words failing him.
“People ask a man at the gallows if he has any last words, Galahad,” Fitzroy rasped. “That means you need at least one more.”
Thorne didn’t lift his eyes from the device. “I’ve got not one but two more for you, then. Get. Out.”
“You can’t be serious—”
“You should leave, Fitzroy!” Thorne roared at him, putting ten years of the military behind the command. “You cannot help me do this, and if I’m about to blow myself to hell, I’d prefer not to take a friend with me. Go. And do not approach the head table, whatever you do.”
Realising what Thorne implied with those words, Fitzroy swallowed hard and tried one last time. “Sir Nathaniel—”
“Give my regards to Lady Normanby. And for God’s sake, make sure your mother doesn’t weasel out of this.”
“Tell Selina your bloody self,” Fitzroy retorted, turning to leave. “Be warned, Sir Nathaniel—if you don’t survive this I’ll make sure to put ‘Well’ on your headstone.”
But at least he didn’t argue any longer.
Leaving Thorne the lantern, Fitzroy sprinted for the stairs.
Now alone, Thorne rested his hands lightly on the lip of the barrel as he looked down into it.
The timing wheel was rotating slowly, but the stop pin—the one that would trigger the release of the hammer that would strike the flint—was about to slide into the notch on the next gear.
A minute? Perhaps two. There was no time to think too hard about how to go about this, and no chance Peregrine would be able to do much more than get upstairs to safety.
Thorne positioned his hands over the device, and he uttered the shortest prayer he hoped might reach the Almighty’s ears.
“Let this work,” he prayed, moving as swiftly as he dared.
The minutes ticked by. First five. Then ten. She had seen no sign of Perry or Thorne since his signal to her. Charity was fighting off an attack of nerves. Was something dangerous in the building? Should they not warn everyone to leave? Had Charity misunderstood what Perry was trying to tell her?
Her position on the temporary wooden balcony felt all too precarious. The only thing that kept her in place was seeing Marian still there across the way. Surely nothing concerning would happen yet, if Perry’s mother still sat waiting.
Down below, the footmen stepped forward to clear the latest course.
Charity almost looked away, but something made her eyes train on Lord Ravenscroft.
The dandy was watching someone with avid attention, but he raised his fist to his mouth as if he were coughing.
It was such a peculiar action that she glanced down to see where he was looking.
There at the table below the head, one of the lower-ranked men was in motion. Beyond his purposeful direction towards the head table, it looked like nothing out of the ordinary, except—
Charity shifted her gaze in time to see Marian rise from her seat. She murmured something, sliding along the narrow row until she reached the aisleway. At the top, she turned in the direction of the far staircase.
She is leaving, her own thoughts insisted. You cannot let her get away.
But neither could she shout, causing panic. Marian’s path along the crowded balcony was slow. As if she were attempting to avoid arousing suspicion. Charity risked movement, rising on her toes to see over the heads of the others.
Below, Lord Ravenscroft was gone—as was the man who had been walking towards the table. And Perry was still nowhere in sight.
Charity had to alert the guards of Marian’s intentions. She prayed she got to them in time to prevent Marian from finding her way out of the building.
In retrospect, Ravenscroft thought, they should have told the footmen to limit the wine.
The aristocrats were sliding deeper into their cups and abandoning their decorum along the way.
Waiting for something to happen was pulling him as taut as catgut.
Gentz too, if the man’s shoulders were any indication.
Amid such revelry, a man sitting a short distance from the head table, his courses going untouched, finally caught Ravenscroft’s eye.
It took him a moment to recall the diplomat’s name. Malenkov. One of the younger members of the delegation, if Ravenscroft was not mistaken. The only reason the magpie recalled his name at all was because the man had been at Carlton House on the day that Perry was attacked behind the stable.
Now, Malenkov was stone-faced, his attention fixed on the Tsar. Twice in the span of five minutes, he pulled a watch from his pocket and checked the time. The second time… he raised his hand high enough for Ravenscroft to note the ring on his right hand.
Ravenscroft then knew without a doubt. Especially when he folded his napkin and set it beside his full plate. This was Alexander’s traitor. Ravenscroft coughed into a fist, once, twice, until von Gentz glanced his way. The Propagandist caught on quickly, his eyes scanning the room.