London - Edward Rutherfurd [132]
From now on, he would be able to get into the Tower cellar from the river, through the damp and narrow tunnel.
“Ralph won’t think of that,” he had pointed out to his friends. “After all, who wants to get into the Tower cellars except me and the rats?”
Three days later they stored the arms in the Tower. Everything went smoothly as, under close armed guard, three carts went from each of the several armouries to the Tower.
When they came to Alfred, however, he was not ready, and with some irritation they went away, to return later. In fact, it was not until the very end of the day that Alfred was ready to load all the arms, carefully wrapped in oiled cloths, on to the carts.
Noticing that there was an even larger quantity than they had been told to expect, the guards, accompanied by Alfred himself, went as quickly as possible to the great keep.
A number of men were needed to carry the heavy loads up into the Tower and down the spiral staircase into the cellar, where they were stacked against the walls. When Alfred peremptorily called to Osric, who was standing nearby, to help, nobody took any notice. Even Ralph, as he watched the arms go into the great fortress, was not suspicious. After all why should he be, when the weapons were going into the Tower?
Nor, at the end of the day, when they locked the two doors to the cellar and set the guard on the main floor, did anyone notice that Osric had vanished.
All night he laboured. It had to be done carefully. As quietly as he could, using the tools Alfred had smuggled in for him, he worked the stones loose to gain entry to the secret chamber. Then he began to move the arms.
Alfred had arranged everything cleverly. Each rolled cloth contained a second in which an illicit weapon was wrapped. Even after all the illegal weapons had been removed, therefore, there appeared to be just as many arms as before. One by one, Osric extracted the swords, spearheads and other arms and took them round to the hiding place. Two hours before dawn, he had stacked everything in there. Then he put the stones back in the wall and, as before, fixed them with a little mortar.
After this, the plan was simple. All he had to do was unlock the grille over the drain and clamber in. Putting his hand up through the bars, it would be easy enough to lock it after him and make his way out to the riverbank, opening the grille there and then fixing it behind him.
He tarried, though. First he threw dust at the freshly rebuilt wall to conceal the wet mortar. Then, lamp in hand, he checked round again and again to make sure that there was no other sign of his having been there. Dawn was approaching when at last he satisfied himself he could go. He was just halfway down the great western cellar when, suddenly, he heard the heavy oak door at the bottom of the stairs creak open behind him.
Ralph had been unable to sleep. He was too excited. The king himself had already expressed his pleasure about the arms operation and now, in the early dawn, Ralph had decided to survey his work.
Holding a torch high over his head, he walked down the huge western cellar where the arms had been stacked. With a smile he looked at them. A fine collection, all secure.
Then he saw Osric. The little fellow was asleep, sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. What the devil was he doing there? Ralph lowered the flaming torch near Osric’s face until his eyes blinked open. And then Osric smiled.
“Thank God you’ve come, sir,” he said.
He had been left down there, it seemed, the evening before. “I hammered on the door and shouted,” he explained. “But nobody came. I’ve been here all night.”
Suspiciously Ralph looked around,