He scooped handfuls of water from the pail and let it rain on Bridget. She didn’t even have enough energy to shake her head at the drops. I held her, bloody water running down my wrists, until most of it was gone. Then I cut the cord and turned her over, looking desperately for the wound in her little body.
Where is it? Where is it?
Master Benedict came then. Calm, child. Think. Think of the blood.
Think of the blood? Why would he say that? Didn’t he know I couldn’t think of anything else? There was so much of it, it was all over the place—
I stopped.
The blood. So much.
Too much. There had to be a pint of it, splashed all over my floorboards, staining my clothes. It couldn’t have come from a pigeon.
Freed from her bonds, Bridget flopped about in my hands, righting herself. She shook her feathers out as Tom continued raining water over her, washing the rest of the red away. She spread her wings, flapped them weakly, once, twice. Then she walked up my arm until she was nestled in the crook of my elbow.
She was all right. She was going to be all right. Tears came hot to my eyes, and I blinked them away.
“Christopher.”
Tom lifted the broken box from the floor. Inside the lid, a pair of brass clamps held a letter. It was spotted with blood, crimson drips where the liquid had splashed when I’d dropped it.
There was another spot of red on it, too. A simple circle of wax, sealing it shut.
Cradling Bridget in my arms, I plucked the letter out and cracked the seal. The message inside was written in the same hand as all the letters I’d received, the letters I’d foolishly thought had come from the Templars. But this message offered no riddles, and no puzzle.
My dear Christopher,
Look what I found in the street. You should be more careful with your things. You wouldn’t want to lose them.
With anticipation,
The Raven
A FEW MATTERS OF HISTORICAL NOTE
A friend of Charles II once wrote a poem about him. As the story goes, the poem was pinned to the door of the king’s bedroom, for all to read:
Here lies our sovereign lord and king,
Whose word no man relies on;
He never says a foolish thing,
Nor ever does a wise one.
As usual, Charles responded with good humor, saying, “This is very true, for my words are my own, but my actions are my ministers’.” And this more or less sums up his reputation: good-natured, intelligent, and funny—and also lazy, slippery, and ineffective.
There is some truth to these charges. Charles, the Merry Monarch, was one of the most popular kings of England, beloved by just about everyone—with some notable exceptions, as we have seen. Yet unlike more famous rulers such as Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, Charles was something of an underachiever.
His character was shaped by incredible events. By all accounts, he was a happy, sweet-natured, affectionate young boy. Then his life was overturned by rebellion. He saw his first battle at the age of twelve, eventually going on to fight in them himself until the Royalist armies were defeated and he was forced to flee England. (An extraordinary adventure during which he hid from enemy troops in an oak tree, stained his skin with walnut juice as a disguise, and pretended to be a servant—and an incompetent one, at that. It was a story Charles never tired of telling.)
When his father was executed, Charles was heartbroken. He spent the next eight years moving from country to country in exile. After he was finally restored to his throne, he was determined never to lose it again. Every decision was made according to whether it would strengthen or weaken his position. So, as noted, he was not above breaking oaths when necessary.
He did also give an impression of laziness, though this wasn’t entirely true. Certainly, he enjoyed his leisure time to the point of self-indulgence, and he despised endless business meetings (though who can fault him for that? I can’t stand them, either). But he worked harder than he let on. Many times he rose early, reading the day’s missives in private, where no one could see him. So he was much more informed than his detractors gave him credit for.
Whatever his failings, in the end, his people loved him. While not the most accomplished king, he was a kind one, generous and forgiving, never cruel. He supported education and discovery, giving his patronage to found the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences. He was brave in battle, a skilled swordsman and horseman, and, unlike many rulers, he cared genuinely for his countrymen.
During the Great Fire that devastated London in September 1666, Charles rode among his people, coordinating their efforts and organizing supplies to help them, rewarding the most heroic of firefighters by handing them gold guineas. And in the aftermath, he rebuilt London quickly, hiring genius architect Christopher Wren to return the city to glory. All in all, not a bad legacy, I think.
Speaking of fire, sadly, it would end up destroying much of London’s heritage over the years. Unlike Christopher, Tom, and Sally’s adventure in Paris, almost none of the locations they visit this time are still standing. Old St. Paul’s Cathedral was lost to the Great Fire; the church that stands there now was rebuilt in its entirety (designed by the aforementioned Christopher Wren).
The Palace of Whitehall also burned down, in 1698, when a servant accidentally hung wet linen around a charcoal brazier to dry. Flames spread quickly through the complex, destroying almost everything except a few buildings, the Holbein Gate, and the Banqueting House—which was saved, once again, by Christopher Wren, then the King’s Surveyor of Works, who bricked up the
