Down: Pinhole (17 page)

Clovis
.

The women had no place to go. Their way through the bailey was blocked by Clovis who was now slowly advancing on short, bowed legs. A retreat back to the tower was blocked by a crush of fighting men and writhing, felled bodies.

Clovis pointed his axe at the women and shouted in a guttural tongue Emily could not understand. A cadre of tall men with dark beards appeared from behind him and slowly advanced. Clovis barked orders and all but one of the men began to circle and close like a tightening noose. One of the men seemed to hold back and then, with a rapid, agile dash he was on Marie, taking her head from her shoulders with a flash of his sword. In an instant, Emily and JoJo were bathed in her gushing blood. With one more long stride he pushed Emily aside and raised his sword hand to do the same to JoJo but Emily regained her balance and rushed forward, placing herself between the attacker and her bedmate.

Clovis barked an order causing the tall man to lower his sword. He replied to his master in a German dialect that Emily could understand, “Give me the head of the black one.”

Emily shouted in German, “You’ll have to kill me first.”

Clovis seemed to understand her German but not speak it, because he yelled back in his own language, causing the swordsman to swear and sheath his weapon. Around them, the last of the castle defenders were falling, the bailey grass tessellated with clotting blood and body parts. A ragged cheer rang out when word spread among the attackers that they had won the day.

Emily held her ground, put her arms protectively around JoJo and felt her body quivering. One of the tall men wrested JoJo from her arms and hoisted her onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Emily saw to her horror that Marie’s lips were still moving on her severed head. Marie’s attacker lowered his shoulder to lift Emily, and despite her well-placed kick to his groin, managed to pluck her off the ground and place her on a horse. The other soldier did the same with a more compliant JoJo.

“Where are you taking us?” Emily demanded in German.

Clovis let out a sputtering half-laugh and replied in his guttural tongue, “Germania. Barbarossa.”

The attackers tied the women’s wrists. They were made to loop their arms around the horsemen to secure themselves, and with sharp kicks to their flanks, the horses galloped out of the castle Guise with Clovis at the lead.

Emily looked over her shoulder and saw the round tower ablaze and over the pounding of hooves and the whistling of the wind she heard the piteous screams of all the burning women.

A servant stoked a small fire, more for entertainment than warmth, and left the three men alone. King Henry reclined on a padded divan close to the fire and Cromwell and John sat rather more stiffly in wooden chairs. The privy chamber was off Henry’s bed chamber, a good-sized paneled room with plenty of silver ornaments, a single mediocre painting of a hunting scene, and two lutes resting on a table. Henry ordered wine and the three men sipped from silver goblets.

“I must say, John,” the king said, “I have never seen fighting skills such as yours.”

“I’m out of practice. I’m going to be sore in the morning.”

“Norfolk will be twitching for revenge,” Cromwell said.

Henry nodded gravely. “Then tell him he must not act on his impulses or there will be consequences. John is our valued guest.”

“You mean I won’t have to sleep with one eye open?” John asked.

“With Lady Phoebe in your bed, I doubt you will be sleeping at all,” the king laughed.

John kept his opinion about the gift to himself and said, “You’re a very kind host, Your Majesty.”

Henry took on a reflective look. “You know, you are the first live man I have seen since the day I died. I had forgotten how they looked.”

“I think I look pretty much like everyone here, except people tell me I smell different.”

“I am not talking about your aroma. Nor am I talking about your physical habitus which is common enough. It is your countenance. You do not have the look of despair and hopelessness that denizens of our world possess. You do not look vanquished.”

“I wouldn’t say you look vanquished, sir.”

“Ah,” Henry mused. “’Tis better to be a king in Hell than a common man, I will grant you that, but what I would not give to have eternal rest. I curse an unseen, unheard God a thousand times a day for my cruel fate. The gray, dull days seem like months, the months, years, the years, centuries. One lives in perpetual fear of illness or injury which might set one on a course to an eternity of decrepitude, pain, and rot. I have been thus far fortunate. I am less infirm here as I was before my death because, you see, I am not near as fat as I was, but my old injured leg still ulcers and throbs. There is little in the way of art or music here, as few artists have done deeds to condemn themselves to Hell. I myself had to teach an ignorant carpenter how to make lutes and they do not play near as sweet as my earthly ones. We do not have the comfort of our old religion that we have largely forsaken since without hope of salvation, what is the profit in it? We do not hear the laughter of children or the cry of a baby. Without progeny, why would men toil and cooperate for a better future? Men have but the basest motives: to eat, to sleep, to fornicate and to avoid an eternity of rot and decay. They must be forced to work out of fear and greed, not for any loftier purpose such as the greater good or building some foundation for their children. On Earth, I had subjects. Here, only slaves. It is a dismal place.”

Cromwell nodded and said, “Yet, as his majesty says, it is better to be a king, or in my case a chancellor, than a lowly minion.”

But Henry was clearly wallowing in lamentation and seemed to want to press forward with his sad case.

“Even a king cannot rest easy here. There are dukes and earls who would topple me in my own realm and any number of rival kings of Europa and beyond who would have Brittania for their own, just as I would have their thrones. At this moment the Iberians are moving against us, an invasion by sea. Yesterday it was the French, tomorrow the Germans. Sometimes we defend, other times we attack. Here, there are wars without end. There are shifting alliances but no peace, not for one gentle moment.”

John leaned forward. “Can I ask how you got to power yourself? There must have been other kings before you.”

“Indeed there were. The Yorkist, Edward the Fourth, was last on the throne. When I arrived here, bewildered as I was, I had to go into hiding as a matter of urgency, since Edward knew I would be a rival and he wanted my head. Fortunately, I had an army of Tudor supporters already here, downtrodden by the crown, who rallied to my support. Edward now dwells, headless of course, in a royal rotting room near my London palace at Whitehall. Before Edward, Henry the Second ruled for some four hundred years, supported by his mother, Matilda, who has used her cunning to endear herself to whomever is in power, including me. Before old King Henry, well, there was some other ancient king. And on and on.”

“Only kings become kings?” John asked.

Henry opened his arms in a gesture suggesting that the answer was obvious. “Who knows better how to rule than someone who has been a ruler? Throughout Europa and indeed in lands to the east, most of those who sit upon thrones in Hell are those who sat upon them when they did live.”

John finished his drink and Cromwell rose to refill his goblet and the king’s. The three men sat for a few moments staring at the flames.

“May I tell you something?” Henry said, breaking the silence. “By my own hand I never once killed a man, never harmed a man except in sport or at a joust. And yet here I am alongside an endless sea of murderers and scoundrels. It is a grave injustice but there is no higher authority to hear my appeal.”

John considered what he knew of Henry’s earthly reign. He’d ordered the beheading of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, he’d had countless adversaries, Cromwell included, condemned to the Tower of London where they suffered torture and ritual disemboweling and dismemberment. In his war against the Catholic Church he had scores of priests burned at the stake and in his ruthless pursuit of law and order he’d had over a hundred thousand thieves executed. If he didn’t belong in Hell then who did?

“Someone or something makes the rules, I guess,” was all John chose to say.

“Indeed,” Cromwell said without any evidence of introspection, “I too never had blood on my hands.”

“What of you, John?” Henry asked. “You are a singular oddity. Are you condemned to remain here or do you have the means to return to your land?”

“I certainly hope to return. There are some very smart people back home I’m counting on to get me back. But I’ve got a mission to accomplish first.”

“There is a lady,” Cromwell said.

Henry said, “Ah.”

“Her name is Emily,” John said. “The same forces that sent me here sent her before me. I’m going to find her and I’m going to bring her back with me if it’s humanly possible. That’s why I want to ask you for your help. I’ve been told she’s in France or whatever you call it—Francia—and I need a way to get there. Do you have a ship to take me there?”

Cromwell’s face hardened at the request and Henry stood and began to pace, seemingly deep in thought, plucking a string of a lute as he passed it by before completing a circle and setting himself back down.

“This is no small request, John,” the king said, “though I am favorably disposed to assist you, we must seek an arrangement of mutual benefit.”

“Indeed,” Cromwell repeated, “mutual benefit.”

“I can’t imagine what I can do for you,” John said.

Henry reached over and slapped John on his knee. “You are a soldier. A right able one from what I have seen and heard, most skilled in the art of fighting and warfare. Throughout my realm I have my sweepers and flesh brokers, like Master Wisdom, on the prowl for men with the knowledge to provide me with an advantage over mine enemies. Alas, most men who come here, even those who were men of arms, lack the skills to be of any use. These are difficult times for me, John. My spies in Iberia tell me that their king, Peter of Castile, has prepared his mightiest invasion force yet. His ships outnumber mine and there is talk that he has been able to forge heavier cannon than my own. My daughter, Elizabeth, I have been told time after time,
ad nauseum
, defeated a Spanish armada and saved her realm, but I have no assurance that I will be able to prevail. So this is the question I must put to you, John. Do you possess the skills to enable me to fashion weapons more powerful than King Peter?”

John thought for a long while and Henry tolerated the silence, waiting expectantly for a response. Then John said, “I’d need to see what capabilities you have but I might, Your Majesty, I just might. And if I can help get you an edge on the battlefield you’ll put a ship at my disposal?”

“It would serve as the basis for a concord,” Cromwell said as Henry flashed a sly, thin smile and nodded emphatically, his forelocks spilling over his forehead.

John was led back to his room by yet another mute retainer. When he entered he saw flickering candles illuminating the chamber and in that small light, a woman asleep in his bed.

“Hello?” he called out.

Phoebe sat up, bare-breasted, and managed a sleepy smile.

“I am sorry. I dozed off.”

She threw back the cover exposing her full nakedness.

He was half-drunk and dog-tired. The drunken side of him said yes but the sober side said no way. He had a mission to accomplish and flings, especially with dead women, weren’t on the agenda.

“Look, Phoebe, I really appreciate the gesture but I’m going to have to decline.”

“Am I not attractive?”

“No, listen, you’re a beautiful woman and all that but I’m exhausted, I’ve got a heck of a toothache and I’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

“I can pleasure you any way you desire.”

His mind wandered but he pulled it back to Emily. “There was a time in my life I would have definitely said yes, but not tonight.”

She began to cry. “If the king finds out I did not perform my duties I will be severely punished.”

He sat on the bed and put a hand on her shoulder. He hadn’t touched a woman in Hell yet. Her skin was warm and smooth, just like a live woman’s. “Tell you what. No one has to know. You can stay here with me but we’ll just sleep. If the king asks me how you were I’ll tell him you were amazing. Okay?”

She started crying again.

“Isn’t that going to be all right?” he asked.

“Yes, it is good. It is just that no man has treated me with kindness since I came Down.”

He removed his boots and slipped into the narrow bed, spooning her.

“Consider this your night off.”

“If you change your mind, you may enter me as you please.”

“I’m good, sweetheart. The only thing I could use right now is a king-sized bed.”

The next morning food and drink were brought to his room and he left Phoebe behind, peacefully asleep. He was taken down to the river where Cromwell was waiting for him on board one of the royal barges for what proved to be a brief sail downstream to Richmond. During the journey a man he hadn’t seen before approached John with an extended hand and a friendly smile.

“Pleased to meet you,” the ginger-haired man said. “Teddy Beecham at your service.”

“John Camp.”

“Wild shit.”

“Who, me?”

“Yeah, I’d say you’re wild, mate. A live bloke in Hell and all that. Fucking marvelous.”

“What’s your story, Teddy?”

Teddy was young and fit. His clothes were a combination of a tattered modern polo shirt, the plastic buttons replaced with wooden ones, and loose-fitting leggings from a much-earlier era.

“Me? One more unhappy soul condemned to a fucking unhappy world.”

“Care to be a bit more specific?”

Teddy, John learned over the next several minutes, had been a soldier with the 3
^rd
Battalion Parachute Regiment during the Falklands War. Returning home lightly wounded and pensioned off, he’d fallen in with some gangsters, Essex boys, as he called them. One tragic fuck-up led to another and,
poof
, he’d come Down in 1989.