Day of Deliverance Read online

  “I know!”

  He led them into the small adjoining bedroom and opened a window. The cold winter air rushed in.

  “Go out here, the college roof is just up there. You can make your way down on the other side. Don’t worry, it’s easy and it will be quiet. You have more than enough now to get you to London safely… and then to Walsingham.”

  “But what about my work?” Fanshawe said, looking at the chest of papers which still lay beside the table.

  Angus rolled his eyes and started to snatch the papers from Fanshawe’s chest. “Here – stuff them in our backpacks. We’ll take what we can… come on…”

  Jack started to help Angus while Fanshawe moaned about the pages getting torn or damaged.

  “Stop fussing, we don’t have time,” Angus hissed.

  Suddenly, there was a thunderous bang on the door and a heavily accented voice called out, “Marlowe – who is there?

  Marlowe was already bundling Fanshawe and Trinculo through the window. There was a loud bang as a firearm discharged right outside the door.

  “That was a gun – I’m not hanging around any longer.” Angus jumped up and out through the window, hot on the heels of Fanshawe and Trinculo.

  Marlowe passed back into the main room as Jack climbed up onto the windowsill, following the others. Ahead, Jack could just see Angus’s frame silhouetted against the light of the moon as he scrambled out from Marlowe’s window and onto the roof of the college. Jack glanced back over his shoulder into the main room and saw the door fly open. For the last time, Jack heard Marlowe’s nervous giggle. He turned and fled through the window and into the night, without waiting to see Marlowe’s fate.

  They raced across the roof of Corpus Christi College. A full moon washed the chimneys and crenellations in a shadowy monochrome. Jack’s eyes adjusted quickly. He could soon see well enough to be sure of his footing and follow the others ahead of him.

  “This way!”

  Angus waved them forward and Jack saw him clamber up and over a wall that abutted the far end of the college roof. A secured ladder led to another roof below and Fanshawe and Trinculo followed Angus down it obediently. Jack paused to catch his breath. Behind, he could still see the yellow glow of candlelight from Marlowe’s rooms. Suddenly, he saw an unfamiliar figure clamber out from the window and up onto the roof – just as they had all done, minutes before. He was quickly followed by a second figure – more squat, but powerfully built. They were being followed – presumably by the people who had shot through Marlowe’s door. Jack couldn’t work it out. They had not seen Jack and the others escape onto the roof, so Marlowe must have shown the intruders where they had gone. Why on earth would he do that?

  Jack crouched down low. Although the roof was long and the men were still some fifty metres away, there was little cover and the light of the moon picked out Jack’s outline against the low-rise wall that edged the roof. The first man was now straddling the apex of the roof. He stopped and appeared to reach for something strapped to his back. In the poor light, Jack could not see what it was, but the man brought the object forward and up to eye level, then pointed it directly at Jack. There was a loud thwack and almost instantaneously a small chunk of masonry dislodged from the wall behind Jack. A metal object rebounded from the brickwork and then clattered back onto the roof slates and rolled down towards the guttering. It was a crossbow bolt – Jack realised he was being used for a bit of early evening target practice.

  He immediately clambered over the wall and down the ladder to the lower roof, following the others. He could see that they had already made it down to the street and from below Angus waved him towards a heavy drainpipe. Jack scraped and slipped down the wall, using the drainpipe for support until he finally reached the street. He felt as if his head was going to burst.

  “Can’t stay here,” he panted, waving up towards the roofline. “We’ve got trouble. Those men from Marlowe’s rooms are following us. I’ve no idea what’s going on but he must have put them onto us – no idea why. They’ve got crossbows; one of them took a shot at me.”

  “Who are they… what do they want?” Fanshawe whimpered.

  “They’re trouble, Harry, just like your ‘friend’ Marlowe. He’s got us deep into something and I don’t want to stay to find out what,” Trinculo said.

  “Let’s go towards the town centre… probably safest if we can find a crowd,” Jack said.

  Just then, the air above them hissed and a second crossbow bolt embedded itself in the side of a wooden cart that was parked against the college wall.

  “Hang around and we are going to get killed.”

  Turning from the side street, they raced back past the entrance to Corpus Christi and towards the great towers of King’s College Chapel, which loomed into view on their left. There seemed to be quite a gathering of people at the college gate and they could hear the choir singing in the chapel beyond.

  Jack spotted their chance. “Mix in with these people going to the chapel… must be a service or something…”

  Joining the crowd, they slowed to a brisk walk, so as not to stand out. Soon they were through the gatehouse and walking across the quad towards the entrance of the vast, gothic chapel. Their path was illuminated by burning lanterns either side of them. Jack looked back. It was difficult to see clearly as there was a queue of people… but then, coming out of the gatehouse, about thirty paces behind them, he was sure he recognised the shapes of their two pursuers. Jack felt a burning urge to break and sprint away from the crowd, which slowed as it approached the chapel. He knew if he did, the men would be onto them immediately. The chapel was now right in front of them, soaring into the night sky like some vast container ship. There was safety in the queue of people as they inched their way forward, agonisingly slowly.

  At last, they were inside. The great chapel was only lit by the gentle flicker of candles, but even by this light Jack could see that the building was magnificent – a huge rectangular cavern with clifflike walls and windows soaring up to a spectacular fan-vaulted ceiling way, way above.

  Angus elbowed him in the ribs. “Wake up – what now?”

  People were milling about and gradually taking seats for the service. They had minutes at most before their pursuers followed them inside the chapel.

  “What about over there?” Angus whispered. He pointed to a small wooden door set into the wall in a corner of the chapel.

  “Worth a go. But don’t get noticed.”

  They moved quietly over to the door, aided by the shadows inside the chapel. While the others formed a screen, Jack tried the handle.

  “It’s open!”

  Jack eased the door ajar and, checking that no one was watching, they each slipped into what seemed to be a large, dark cupboard. Except it couldn’t be a cupboard, because grey moonlight glimmered through a narrow slit window above them.

  “What is this place?”Angus whispered.

  “It’s the bottom of one of the chapel turrets – look, there are stairs,” Fanshawe replied.

  “Do you think anyone saw us?”

  “I don’t know, it was pretty dark in there, but we don’t want to risk it. Let’s go.”

  Jack started to climb the narrow spiral staircase. After a few minutes they reached a second wooden door that opened onto the massive roof of the chapel. The turret was one of two at the west end of the chapel that looked out over the River Cam. On the opposite side of the roof soared the taller twin turrets built into each corner of the east end of the chapel. They stood in silence in the doorway at the top of the spiral staircase, straining to hear any sound from below.

  “Hear anything?”

  The choir had stopped singing and the congregation below were still, awaiting the start of the service. Suddenly, they heard a scrape of ghostly footsteps echoing up the staircase towards them.

  “They’re coming – we’ve had it,” Angus whispered, panic in his voice. “We can’t go back down there and there’s no way off this roof.”

&
nbsp; Jack smacked his forehead in a moment of inspiration. “The other turrets. They must have staircases too! We could go back down one of those.”

  Angus smiled. “Nice one.”

  The four of them dashed across the roof towards the turrets on the east side. Angus rattled the door handle of the north-east tower.

  “It’s locked!”

  “So try that one.” Jack pointed at the south-east turret and they clambered up over the crest of the roof and down towards it. It was a cold night, but Jack’s palms were sticky with sweat. He turned the handle of the door in the south-east turret.

  “Locked too. We’re stuffed.”

  “Those guys will be up on the roof in no time. We’re trapped…” Angus said between his teeth.

  “And I don’t want a crossbow bolt in my head,” Fanshawe said, trembling.

  “Unless…” Angus craned up at the massive octagonal turret that towered above them, tapering into the darkness of the night sky.

  “No way…” Jack said.

  “We don’t have a choice – I don’t want to be around when those guys get here. It looks easy enough – all those vent holes and gargoyles or whatever they are. We don’t need to go all the way up, just to that parapet thing in the shadows so they can’t see us…”

  Jack took a deep breath and turned to Trinculo and Fanshawe. “We have no choice. The crest of the roof will give us some cover for a few minutes as we climb.”

  “But…”

  Jack was frightened, but he felt himself getting angry. “Get a grip, Harry, or we’re all dead. Do exactly what Angus does… and don’t look down.”

  Angus stepped off the roof balustrade and onto a sloping slab of stone a few feet up the turret.

  “It’s not bad, the stone is easy to grip,” he whispered down.

  Fanshawe, Trinculo and then Jack started to follow Angus up the outside of the turret, placing hands, feet and even their whole bodies in exactly the positions that Angus showed them. They were pumped up with adrenaline and progress was surprisingly quick. After a few feet, Angus came to his first obstacle – a large stone overhang. By stretching his hand across the overhang he located a cloverleaf-shaped air hole, which give him just enough purchase to lever himself up and over. He rapidly ascended the next section and arrived at a further overhang at the bottom of the parapet. Repeating the manoeuvre, he suddenly found himself inside the stone parapet – a sort of decorative crown a good fifteen metres above roof level. From here, he was able to lean over and help first Fanshawe, then Trinculo and finally Jack up and into the parapet.

  They made it just in time. Looking across the roof from their position perched up in the shadows, they saw two figures emerge from the darkness.

  “Keep down!” Jack whispered.

  They crouched behind the low crenellated wall of the parapet. Fanshawe was exhausted. He plonked his bottom onto a narrow part of the parapet. Jack wished he hadn’t. There was a loud squawking as a fat pigeon made a brave bid for freedom from Fanshawe’s descending buttocks. But Fanshawe was unable to control his downward momentum and the poor bird was flattened.

  “Don’t move!” Angus hissed.

  Below, the two men cautiously approached the eastern turrets, their crossbows at the ready. They tested the locked doors on each of the two turrets in turn. Jack could hear them in furtive discussion and he strained to hear what they were saying. All he could tell was that they were not speaking English. It sounded more like Italian, or… Spanish.

  After a further search of the roof, the men crept back over to the open doorway in the north-west tower and disappeared down the staircase. Jack leaned his head on the stonework behind him and let out a long sigh of relief.

  Angus whispered, “They’ve gone. What now?”

  “We can’t stay up here – we’ll freeze to death.”

  “We should stay here for as long as we can stand it, then maybe drop back down when the service is finishing.”

  Angus peered down. “I reckon getting down’s going to be harder than coming up.” He thought for a moment. “I know… give me that.”

  He took his own backpack, and then Jack’s, and fiddled with the straps to tie them together. “Not perfect – but I can probably use this to sort of belay each of you down, across the overhang at least, so you can get a foothold.”

  As the service finished and people began leaving the chapel way below, they started their descent. Jack went first – initially dangling like a pendulum from the straps of the backpack. He hung in space for a moment and caught sight of the poorly lit street – a good sixty metres below. If Angus let go or if he slipped, he’d have about three seconds to live. At last, his foot touched the safety of a cloverleaf air hole and in a few minutes he had picked his way back down to the safety of the roof. The others followed and soon they were back at the open tower door. All was quiet. Then, as they started on their way back down the spiral staircase, Jack noticed another small wooden door – one they had not seen when they first entered.

  “Hey, what’s this?” He tried the handle. “It’s open. Come on!”

  There was no light, but they pressed on regardless, closing the door behind them. They didn’t know it, but they were now in the giant attic of King’s Chapel, between the roof and the great stone ceiling vaults. The thin layer of stone under their feet was the only thing between them and the vast emptiness of the chapel below.

  “Musty in here.”

  “But it’s indoors and safe. I vote we hunker down here till morning and then make our move.”

  Jack awoke shivering. His whole body ached. The nervous exhaustion from their efforts the night before had somehow carried them through a night of fitful sleep on the cold stone floor. There was now some light in the attic area and he reached over and gently shook the huddled shapes of the others who awoke, groaning.

  They retraced their footsteps down the spiral staircase and then crept out of the door at the bottom of the turret and into the chapel. All quiet. Soon they were across the college quad, through the gate and into the street. Jack was tired, cold and aching, but he was also exhilarated by their incredible escape. He banged Angus on the back.

  “We made it!”

  Wrong. Suddenly, he felt a cold lump of metal pressing against the back of his neck.

  A voice whispered, “Do exactly what I say.”

  They were bundled into a covered cart. One of their assailants travelled in the back with them while the other took the reins at the front. Jack had little time to study the men but he could tell immediately they were not the Spaniards who had pursued them up onto the chapel roof the night before.

  The man with the pistol was firm but surprisingly polite. “I apologise for the rough tactics, but you are in great danger. I would like each of you to lie down on the bottom of the cart until we get out of town. We will then have more time to explain.”

  “But…” Trinculo started to complain. The man, suddenly flushed with anger, thrust the pistol into his face.

  “Do what I say,” he ordered.

  They lay flat on the rough wooden surface of the cart. Although Jack was scared, he noticed that the pistols the man wielded didn’t look very sixteenth century – in fact they were bang up to date.

  Jack’s body was still aching from the night spent up on the tower and being bashed around on the bottom of the cart as they headed out of town didn’t help matters. After a while, the driver turned back towards his colleague.

  “Here – this’ll do.”

  The cart rumbled to a halt.

  “Right, gentlemen, I want you to get up, one by one, and step down from the cart. Please don’t try anything stupid.”

  They had pulled up by a small copse next to the road. The landscape was flat and boggy for miles in every direction and in the distance they could still see the spires of Cambridge. The sun had risen into a clear blue winter’s sky and Jack waited for its weak rays to warm his bones.

  “Sit down by the wall there.”

  Th
e men seemed more relaxed now that they were out of Cambridge. They both looked to be in their mid thirties, fit and clean-shaven.

  “Here we go.”

  The taller of the two men handed round a steaming thermos. Fanshawe and Trinculo looked confused.

  “What is it?”

  The man chuckled. “Not something you will have tasted. We call it tea.”

  Jack took a sip. As the hot liquid slipped down his throat he began to warm up.

  “And this might help…”

  The man handed out some dried salt beef. Again, Fanshawe and Trinculo were suspicious, but seeing Angus and Jack help themselves, they tucked in.

  “Better?” the man asked. Jack nodded. “First, an apology for the gun toting. We needed to get you out of there quickly. Now… introductions.”

  “My name is James Whitsun,” he gestured to the shorter man, “and my colleague here is Tim Gift.”

  But Jack had already worked out who they were. “You’re Revisionists.”

  Gift smiled. “And of course you are Jack Christie and Angus Jud.” He sighed. “You don’t know how much trouble you’ve caused us.”

  “So you can explain why those people were trying to kill us and what is going on?”

  Whitsun took a slug of tea and a deep breath. “Yes. Your friend Marlowe doesn’t just write plays. He has some unusual, and dangerous, friends. He also has an addiction to risk-taking… and money. He seems to have got himself into a position where he is what we would call a double agent. He works for the English state, and also for the Spanish state. Not a particularly comfortable position to be in as the two countries are virtually at war. But he thinks he’s cleverer than both.”

  “Those people who chased us last night, they were Spanish?”

  “Correct, Jack. Marlowe is involved in a Spanish plot against the English state. Those men are Spanish agents who are working with Marlowe. Marlowe has all sorts of connections among the aristocracy and the court – he is a useful asset. The Spanish are known to us and we have inveigled our way into their trust. Recently, however, Marlowe has also come to the attention of Sir Francis Walsingham – Secretary of State.”