The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck: a romance

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

"Before our limbs get numbed with this biting breeze, we must use them to our own benefit. Your highness can swim?"

"So say the streams of the Vega," replied Richard: "but the very remembrance of those sweet brooks makes me shudder at the chilly bath this ice-nourished river affords. I will reconnoitre the land before I attempt the freezing wave." With lithe, sinuous limbs he coiled about the pile, and continued to raise himself to where a beam rested on the upright post, and again was fixed in the turret, which spans and guards the entrance to the Tower by water. He had hardly gained this place, and he felt little cold as with nervous fingers he kept fast in the position he had attained, when a ray of light fell upon the water, streaming from out a window of the turret. It was but for a moment, and it disappeared; but Richard's eyes had glanced keenly on the illuminated spot. The transverse beam he had attained was but little below the window; it had been grated, but two of the stancheons were broken. This, to our adventurer, suspended between the unattainable sky and the icy wave, seemed a place of refuge. Carefully and slowly, he with clinging knees and hands contrived to get along the beam, to raise himself on his feet on it, and then to clutch the broken iron bar, and hoist himself into a chamber of the Tower of London.

The immediate physical dangers that beset our adventurers were so great (the least horrific of which was spending the night exposed to freezing blasts, which Barry already felt chilling his very heart's blood), that they both forgot the dangerous nature of the asylum they were seeking. The Irish noble had, as well as darkness permitted, followed the movements of his young companion; the same ray which guided Richard to temporary safety, had showed to Barry the mode of following him. He made the attempt; but, though stronger, he was not so agile as his friend; besides, the minutes which had elapsed during Richard's exertions, had enfeebled by numbing the other's powers; he got nearly to the top of the pile—he felt his fingers slip, and that he could hold on no longer. One desperate struggle he made to cling closer; his grasp seemed rather to relax, than tighten, in the attempt; and Richard, after a second, heard with horror his heavy fall into the water. But Barry was more at his ease in the yielding wave; and the very intensity of the cold, burning his skin, set his blood in motion; the tide also had arrived at its height during this interval, and had turned: without great difficulty the noble cleared, after a few strokes, the abrupt banks that fence the Tower, and landed on a quay below.

Richard heard the waters splash from under his strokes. The silence was so entire, that he thought he could distinguish the change of sound when the swimmer emerged, and plainly heard Lord Barry's shout, in his own native Irish, of thanksgiving and good cheer. For a moment, like lightning, it flashed into his mind, the thought of the ominous refuge he had found; and he was tempted to leap into the water, and to rejoin his friend. But by this time the alarm of some one having plunged into the river had been spread by the sentinels. The court became thronged; some hastened to the wall, others loosened the boats tethered beneath the gate, and issued in them from under the dark arch, over which Duke Richard had found refuge. By the glare of many torches, they discovered the wherry wedged in, as has been described. The splash attested that some one had fallen into the water: that some one should escape from the fortress, was more readily present to their imaginations than that any should enter. They called to each other, communicating their surmises and intentions: then one boat remained in guard close at the gate, while the other rowed down the stream. Their exertions must end in nothing, for Lord Barry had had full time to insure his escape.

Richard attended to all their motions: several of the men in pursuit had issued from the lower chambers of the turret in which he was: it was not thus cooped up that he chose to be found; all seemed still; the only sounds came from the men in the boat; he descended the stairs; he came out upon the court of the Tower; the dark fortress frowned above, casting, in spite of the dull moon, a shadow dark enough to hide him. Steps were heard approaching; he turned under a dim archway; he ascended a narrow, steep staircase; the steps still followed; hurriedly he opened a door, and entered a chamber; the men, whoever they might be, were unaware of his presence; they passed the door, turned down another gallery; the very echo of their steps died away.

Did he recognize the spot where he then stood? Well!—far too well!—with a sickening feeling, an irresistible impulse to penetrate into the very heart of the horror that made his pulses faint, he gazed on the walls around. Was he then alone changed? Had he sprung up into manhood, thought, experienced, suffered; and had the material universe stood still the while? He saw before him a small chamber, enlightened by one deep-set window, half blocked up by projecting buttresses outside: there was the pallet-bed, the prie-Dieu, the little crucifix; his infant limbs had reposed there; on that couch his brother had died.

This was the Tower! Ten years before he had escaped from its gloomy walls; and had he done this only to return again, when maturer years gave him a bitterer feeling of the ills he must endure? He had visited England, guided by the traitor-spirit of Clifford, it seemed; for he had returned but to render himself a prisoner; yet at first these thoughts were hardly so painful as the memory of his childhood. The superstitious fears of the Tower, which haunted poor Edward, had made it an abode of terror for both: how often had they lain in that bed, curdling each other's young blood with frightful tales! His brother had pined, and died. Now, true to the pious usages of the times, he knelt to say a paternoster for his soul; he said another for his own perilous state; and then, having, with entire faith committed himself to the protection of his Father in Heaven, he rose with a cheered heart and sustained courage.

What was he to do? He was in the Tower; a fortress so well guarded, that of the unhappy beings confined there for life, none had ever made their escape; high walls, numerous courts, and grated windows, opposed his egress. The clock chimed one. It were as well to remain where he was, as to go on. But it were better still to turn back; quiet would soon be restored; he might attain the same room, the same window, and leap thence into the waters below. He remembered wherefore he had come; the hazardous enterprise of Monina, and the imprisonment of Stanley. Now that he had attained this chamber, the whole Tower presented itself, as in a map, to his memory: he knew where the rooms allotted to state prisoners were situated: confident in his knowledge, his feelings underwent an entire change; instead of considering himself a prisoner in the Tower, he felt lord of its labyrinths. Darkness was his wand of office; the ignorance of all that he was there, was his guard; and his knowledge of the place, better than the jailor's key, might aid him to liberate the victims of his enemy.

In this temper of mind he rejoiced that he had been unable to follow his first impulse in leaping from the window; and he resolved on making his way immediately to the part of the fortress inhabited by the state prisoners. Blindfold, setting out from the point where he was, he could have found his way; yet several images of barred and locked doors presented themselves to his recollection, as intervening between the spot where he then was, and that which he desired to visit. He descended again into the court—he skirted the edifice, keeping close to the shadowy wall—he saw the door but a few paces distant, which led to the prison-chambers. At dead of night it must be locked and barred, guarded by a sentinel, quite inaccessible to him. He paused—he saw no soldier near—he walked on a few steps quickly; the door was wide open—this looked like success—he sprang up the steps; a man below cried, "Who goes there?" adding, "Is it you, sir? My light is puffed out; I will bring one anon." Above he heard another voice—there was no retreat—he went on, relying on some chance that might afford him a refuge under cover of murky night from the twofold danger that beset him. A man stood at the doorway of the nearest chamber: it was not possible to pass him—as he hesitated he heard the words, "Good rest visit your lordship—I grieve to have disturbed you." Richard retired a few steps—the man closed, locked the door—"A light, ho!" he exclaimed, and the prince feared to see the servitor ascend the stairs. The moon, just beginning to show its clouded rays, threw a brief ray upon the landing where Richard stood, and he moved out of the partial radiance; the slight movement he made attracted notice, which was announced by a challenge of "Who goes there? is it you, Fitzwilliam? How is this? the word, sir!"

The duke knew that, among the numerous and various inhabitants of the Tower, many were personally unknown to each other; and that any stranger visitor was not intrusted with the word—so he replied immediately, as his best safeguard: "I was roused by the calling of the guard. I knew not that such, reveilles were usual; good night, sir."