The Hangman's Revolution (W.A.R.P. 2)

Farley blinked. This was indeed true. The cannon had been fired three times since Christmas. The last ball went through the roof and killed a horse clear across the river.

Figary was forgotten now.

Forgotten.

He could have stripped down to his long johns and danced a jig and no one would have bothered him with their attention. What was he compared to a little minx and a cannon?

“I fink Bessie might be loaded,” said a Ram with the pelt of a fox tied around his waist.

“Nah,” said another. “Bessie ain’t been loaded for weeks. And anyway, the powder would be soppier than a Valentine’s verse.”

“I applaud your metaphor, Mr. Oxendale,” said Fox Pelt.

“And I applaud your knowledge of literary devices,” said Oxendale, bowing.

Farley lost his cool. He had been holding his temper for years, but now that it was out of the bag, he had trouble stuffing it back in.

“Shut your mouths, fools! I am dealing with a situation here.”

“Put down the gun, Major,” said the girl. “I have plenty of matchsticks.” And to prove her point, she lit a second from the first.

Farley raised his gun, and the girl quickly ducked behind the cannon’s broad barrel.

“Step away from the cannon,” he ordered.

“And then what?” said the girl mockingly. “You won’t shoot me?”

When the girl ducked under the cannon, her hair shifted slightly as it knocked the barrel.

A wig! thought Farley. Of course.

“Savano,” he said. “I know you.”

In response, Chevron Savano lit a third match, holding it dangerously close to the touch hole.

“Kill her!” shouted Farley. “One hundred sovereigns for the man who brings me her head.”

The Rams considered this. The Battering Ram oath did preclude certain female-related activities, specifically the insulting of a member’s mother and the murdering, without severe provocation, of a female, but gold was gold and this dancing girl was fiddling around with a cannon, which could certainly be considered provocation.

There was a ragged roar as several Rams decided to hell with the oath and rushed the cannon, leaving Chevie no choice but to light the cannon’s fuse. Those who were rushing reared back, and those who had not rushed hunkered down; and it was just as well, for, without so much as a heartbeat’s delay, the cannon proved itself to be indeed loaded by firing its fifty-pound missile at a steep angle into the Hidey-Hole’s ceiling, which decided that this was the final straw of abuse and collapsed concentrically, from the breach outward.

The noise sequence, though expected, was still astounding. It began with a metallic vuuuumppp as the ball traveled the length of the barrel. That was followed by a concussive roar, like the crash of a thousand waves on a shoreline of tin and glass, as the cannon hawked its ball into the air. Much of the ceiling was turned to dust by the impact on the way up, and the last remaining wooden beam was blown to splinters as the ball, having completed its arc, whistled to earth once more, bringing a rain of slate, timber, steel, and stone in its wake.

For those inside the Hidey-Hole, the experience was akin to being in an erupting volcano. Devastation rained down from above as they stumbled in circles, clutching their bleeding ears.

Chevie thought, I never really respected cannonballs till now.

And:

I really hope Farley is dead, so he will never hang a single soul.

And:

I think this wig looked pretty good until it got blown off.

She had no such luck re her second thought of Farley being dead. She picked through the wreckage and found him merely unconscious with a gash on the forehead from some shrapnel or other and thought, Well, at least he is having a bad day.

It did occur to Chevie that were she to finish Farley off now, then she could possibly avert all the public hangings he would get up to; but she was herself, after all, and no cold-blooded murderer, so she contented herself with stealing his weapons bag and radio.

“You are losing a lot of gear today, Major,” she said, patting his cheek. “If you keep going like this, you’ll end up fighting your great revolution with stern words and tattoo needles.”

Though the jeers flowed easily from her mouth, a part of Chevie was appalled that she could speak in this fashion to Major Anton Farley, the Blessed Hangman.

Don’t think that way, she told herself. The queen will not hang, my dad will not be executed, and neither will DeeDee.

After all, there were four of them now, and they had two satchels of weapons.

What could go wrong?

On the other side of the room, Figary had sunk to his hunkers and was thinking,

Forgive me, Mammy. But you can’t leave toffee apples in a jug and expect a child not to eat them.

Which was something that had been weighing on his mind since childhood.

Someone grabbed his lapels and yanked him to his feet. He looked, and it was Miss Savano.

“Otto sent me as backup, in case you needed it.”

Figary’s heart swelled with sudden affection for his employer, quite forgetting that it was Malarkey who had sent him on this insane errand in the first instance.

“The commodore. He is a saint, so he is.”

Chevie noticed several black-clad men entering quietly through the front doors.

Special forces, she thought. Missus Figary’s son is not the only one with backup, so he isn’t.

“I think we should leave,” she said.

Figary nodded. “Agreed. I could do with a drink, so I could.”

Chevie handed the stolen bag to Figary. “Hold this. I need both hands free in case someone gets in our way.”

Figary hung the bag on his shoulder. “I will guard it, if not with my life, then at least until someone threatens my life.”

Luckily, as the section of wall beside them had disappeared, there was nothing to impede their hurried exit. They climbed through the rubble and found plenty to impede them on the other side of the wall.

Inspecting the hole were two soldiers dressed in black capes that covered all but the stubby barre

ls of their automatic weapons.

“Hands up,” said the first soldier, and Chevie got the impression that the man was hoping they would not comply.

“You need to make it back to Grosvenor Square,” she whispered to Figary from the side of her mouth. “Otto needs to know the plan.”

Figary understood that Miss Chevie was about to have a go at these big burly soldiers, and he whispered to her that this was a very bad idea and they should bide their time, but he was whispering to the air, as Chevie had already made her move.

The soldiers had been caught by surprise, with their weapons still hidden beneath their short capes. There was an actual drill that Colonel Box had devised whereby soldiers could practice getting the flaps of their capes out of the way with maximum efficiency. It was a simple duo of movements. First both hands were thrust down and out, shooting the cuffs, as it was known; then the elbows were lifted sharply, as if to break the noses of tall attackers, thus flipping back the cape’s wings and leaving the hands perfectly positioned to grasp the heretofore concealed weapon. This maneuver took one-point-five seconds, but Chevie covered the ground between her and the soldiers in one-point-three seconds—and she would have done it faster had her voluminous skirt not caused a bit of drag.

“Run!” she shouted at Figary, who stood frozen in surprise. “Go.”

“How dare you?” shouted Figary, breaking his freeze. “Missus Figary did not raise her boy to leave girleens in danger.”

Then two more soldiers came through the hole and joined the scuffle and Chevie disappeared under the pile of men so quickly that her wig stayed in the air for a moment after her. At this point Figary remembered a Shakespeare quote his mother had often trotted out: Discretion is the better part of valor.

And what is a good quality for a butler, Michael Figary, he asked himself, if not discretion?

And he clutched Farley’s bag tight to his chest and vamoosed down the avenue toward a line of cabs on the Haymarket.