“I’ll give you directions.”
Chapter 87
COMPARED TO THE modern behemoths that arched toward the sky, the Tower of London seemed hardly fitting of its name. More a collection of buildings, walls and ramparts than a singular tower, its tallest point stood at twenty-seven meters. By contrast, the Shard, on the opposite bank of the river, climbed to three hundred and ten. Even the neighboring apartments dwarfed the building in height, but scale was only half the story, and what the Tower lacked in vertical bombast, it more than made up for in history and sheer regal majesty. Heavy black gates sat daunting in the stone walls. Flags flew proudly above the lit-up towers and ramparts, snapping in the wind as if to attention.
Morgan stepped out of the cab—the third he had taken, anxious to avoid being followed—and took in the building that sat with gravitas alongside the Thames, the river itself spanned by the grand vision of Tower Bridge, lit-up cables hanging between its iconic twin towers. Jack Morgan had visited the place before as a tourist, and such history reminded him of how small was his own place in the world, and the events of man. The oldest parts of the building were almost a thousand years old, and within the walls, enemies of the state had awaited judgment and been delivered to death. Beneath the beauty was a nation’s past soaked in treason, blood and violence. Morgan could not help but wonder if De Villiers had asked to meet him here for just that reason.
The chance to ask him arrived as the Colonel removed himself from the shadows.
“Why here?” Morgan asked.
“It’s secure,” De Villiers replied. “Police. Soldiers. These walls? You won’t find a safer place in London. You found what you were looking for?”
Mo
rgan evaded a direct answer. “I don’t have anything on me,” he told the man, having hidden the weapons between cabs.
“Good.” De Villiers turned and led Morgan toward a door that was set in the stone beside one of the imposing gates and flanked by armed guards, who stood to attention at the approach of the Colonel, clad in civilian attire though he was.
The cold stone tunnel was ten feet deep, and as Morgan emerged at De Villiers’ back, he saw that much of the interior was cast into darkness.
But there were voices in the night.
“Stop for a moment,” said the Colonel, his voice calm.
“What is it?” Morgan asked quietly.
“Just be quiet.”
Then, clear as day, Morgan heard a young voice cry out into the night. It was a confident voice. The voice of a soldier.
“Halt!” he demanded. “Who comes there?”
A second voice answered, rich with years. Following the sound, Morgan saw the uniform of a Yeoman Warder—a Beefeater. “The keys!” he replied.
“Whose keys?” the young sentry questioned.
“Queen Elizabeth’s keys!”
“Pass then!” the soldier allowed. “All’s well!”
And Morgan watched silently as the Yeoman, under escort of bayonet-toting soldiers, their silhouettes made long by tall bearskin hats, marched by the young sentry and out of sight.
At that moment, Morgan realized he’d been holding his breath, and let it go silently. He could not explain why he had done so. Only that he knew he was watching something ancient, archaic and special. A moment that was timeless. A throwback to past days.
“What was that?” he asked De Villiers, as the tramp of the men’s boots faded into the darkness.
“The Ceremony of the Keys,” the man explained. “They’re locking up the Tower.”
“They do this every night?”
“For centuries,” De Villiers confirmed. “The only thing that changes is the monarch’s name. You’re very lucky to have seen it. Very few do.”
The majesty of the moment had not been lost on Morgan, and he nodded, but the movement was cursory. A punctuation at the end of one conversation, and the beginning of the next. He had come to the Tower for a reason that was not one of ceremony.
“Something’s been troubling me,” Morgan admitted to the Colonel. He didn’t need to say that it was something other than the death of Jane, which burned through his soul with more torturous intent than any of the contraptions that had been used to bring misery to the Tower’s former occupants, and traitors.
“What is it?” De Villiers asked.