They passed in with a yeoman to conduct them under the low heavy vaulting and through to the open way beyond. On their right was the wall between them and the river, and on their left the enormous towers and battlements of the inner court.
Chris walked with Morris behind, remembering the last time he was here with the Prior all those years before. They had walked silently then, too, but for another reason.
They passed the low Traitor’s Gate on their right; Chris glanced at the green lapping water beneath it as he went—Ralph had landed there—and turned up the steep slope to the left under the gateway of the inner court; and in a minute or two more were at the door of the Lieutenant’s lodgings.
There seemed a strange suggestiveness in the silence and order of the wide ward that lay before them. The great White Tower dominated the whole place on the further side, huge and menacing, pierced by its narrow windows set at wide intervals; on the left, the row of towers used as prisons diminished in perspective down to where the wall turned at right angles and ran in behind the keep; and the great space enclosed by the whole was almost empty. There were soldiers on guard here and there at the doorways; a servant hurried across the wide sunlit ground, and once, as they waited, a doctor in his short gown came out of one door and disappeared into another.
And here they waited for an answer to their summons, silent and happy in their knowledge. The place held no terrors for them.
The soldier knocked again impatiently, and again stood aside.
Chris saw Nicholas sidle up to the man with something of the same awe on his face that had been there an hour ago.
“My Lord—Master Cromwell?” he heard him whisper, correcting himself.
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
“There,” he said.