Chapter 21
Duncan hurried with Moira to the window overlooking the park. Through the twilit gloaming, three men approached the front door. From their bright Beefeater uniforms, they all appeared to be Yeoman Warders. The trio led a fourth man, who carried a satchel over a shoulder and kept his face lowered.
“Is that the Frenchman?” Duncan asked Moira. “Monsieur Laurent?”
“Possibly. He must have caught an early train.”
The King’s Guard crossed from his sentinel box and confronted the group, lowering his rifle threateningly.
Moira stiffened. “Why is he . . . he knows all the Warders.”
A muffled cough and the guardsman’s head jerked back, followed by his body. He struck the front door with a clatter and the others closed in on him.
Hugh screamed the obvious. “Traitors!”
Duncan rushed away from the windows. “They’re here . . .”
Moira crossed to her father. “The Brotherhood.”
The front door—left unlocked as it had been under guard—crashed open. Duncan pictured the assailants dragging the dead man inside with them. It would not take them long to search the house.
Sir Kelly must have realized the same and slipped a pistol from a hidden holster. It seemed the constable intended his role this night to be more than ceremonial. “I’ll hold the bastards off. Moira, take the others out the back.”
Duncan frowned. Out the back? Behind the row of Tudor houses was only a ten-foot-thick wall.
Moira looked similarly dismayed, but for a more personal reason. “Father—”
“This is my duty. To the Tower, to the Gardiens. Now go.”
The last words cracked with command, but grief deepened the lines on the old man’s face. He pushed Moira away, which clearly took all his strength.
Moira stumbled to obey, turning to the table. Sharyn had already grabbed the book and struggled to shove it into her crossbody bag.
“This way!” Moira called to them all, her voice tight.
They hurried toward the door. The hum of a motor trailed after them as Sir Kelly followed in his wheelchair. Out in the hall, Moira led them away from the main stairs.
Duncan paused at the threshold and turned to Sir Kelly. “I can stay. Help hold them off.”
Kelly drew his chair to a stop, half-sheltered by the stout door. He lifted his pistol toward the stairs. “Son, I have the only weapon. You’ll do more good getting everyone away.”
Duncan hesitated, hating to abandon the old man.
Boots pounded up the steps.
Kelly barked at him. “Go! Help the others!”
Duncan turned and spotted Tag hobbling to keep up, reminded that the old man was not the only one compromised. Past Tag, Moira vanished into another room off the hall, drawing the others with her.
Duncan bit down a curse and rushed after them.
He reached Tag and scooped the man under his shoulder. Together, they followed the others into the next chamber. A gunshot exploded behind them. A glance back showed a shadow ducking out of view into the stairwell.
Duncan lunged with Tag out of the hallway and into a small bedroom.
An old stone fireplace filled one wall, large enough that two chairs stood inside it.
Despite the age of the space, it had none of the formality of the rest of the King’s House.
A tangle of blankets and sheets covered a four-poster bed.
The bureau held a densely packed assembly of cosmetics and brushes of various sizes.
A wardrobe stood open, overstuffed with sweaters, blouses, and jeans.
Moira’s bedroom, Duncan realized, which only stoked his panicked confusion.
Tag voiced it aloud. “We’re trapped in here.”
A flurry of gunfire erupted out in the hall, a mix of deafening blasts and muffled pops.
“Hurry!” Moira rushed toward a closed door at the back, either a closet or private bathroom. She yanked it open and ducked through.
The others piled after her—and into the past.
Beyond the doorway, the plaster walls turned to rough stone.
They all rushed into a vaulted space, crannied with crumbling cubbies and cut through by cross-shaped window slits.
Shocked by the sudden change of venue, Duncan stumbled on the roughhewn floor.
Archie caught and steadied him, taking Tag from him.
Archie gawked around. “We’re in the Bell Tower.”
Duncan pictured the fortification that rose behind the corner of the row of Tudor homes.
He had no idea the King’s House had its own entry into this twelfth-century tower.
On the walls were hung the images of its former prisoners: Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth I, Sir Thomas More.
In more contemporary times, the Nazi Rudolf Hess had also been held here.
Somewhere off this chamber, Duncan had read a flush toilet had been installed—not for Hess, but for another Nazi whom the Brits had hoped to imprison here: Adolf Hitler.
“Keep moving,” Moira urged them.
She led them down a short tunnel, past a stairwell that led up to the belfry and down to a possible exit. Duncan glanced at the dark spiraling steps. They were clearly not leaving that way.
Moira shouldered open a door and a cold breeze buffeted into the cramped space.
They ducked against the chill and exited onto an open battlement.
Ahead, a narrow path ran behind the brick rowhouses.
Crenellated parapets lined the walkway’s other side, overlooking a long drop to a shadowy stretch of Mint Street, which separated the inner curtain wall from the Tower’s outer rampart.
Naomi kept next to Sharyn as they hurried after Moira. “This is Elizabeth’s Walk.”
Duncan finally recognized it, too. Atop this battlement, the imprisoned princess had been allowed to stretch her legs while being held captive at the Bell Tower. Ahead of them, the path led to another fortification, the Beauchamp Tower.
Archie trailed behind with Tag. “Moira’s clearly not taking any chances that the bastards might have the Bell Tower watched.”
Duncan nodded.
Smart . . .
He searched ahead. A black door beckoned at the end of the walkway. Moira’s plan must be to escape down through the Beauchamp Tower, which sat on the green about fifty yards from the King’s House.
With the cover of darkness, we might be able to—
The black door shoved open ahead of them.
A shadowy figure strode out onto the battlement, a sliver of moonlight illuminating the bright red garb and cap. Another Beefeater. But this was no Warder of the Tower.
The bastard yanked up a pistol and fired.
Moira gasped and fell back into Naomi and Sharyn.
Duncan struggled to draw them away, but the confines of the battlement confounded him. The Beefeater strode forward, centering his aim. The surprise of seeing their group rushing at him must have thrown off the bastard’s first shot. Now, he intended to correct that mistake.
Behind him, a second gunman appeared at the threshold, blocking any escape.
Moira breathed hard, clutching her side.
Duncan shoved forward, sheltering the others behind him.
It was all he could do.