Page 38 of Heart of Iron
“It’s the Trojan cavalry!”someone yelled.
Frightened cries tore through the crowd and they erupted into a panicked mob, streaming for the safety of the square ahead.Lena was swept up in the edges of it, her wrist torn from the man’s grasp.
Someone grabbed her around the waist, lifting her off her feet.“Beg pardon, miss,” Henry, the footman, said.A strapping lad of nearly six feet, even he had to fight to keep his feet against the horde as he pushed through to the side of the crowd.
Mrs.Wade leaned in a doorway, fanning herself with her hand.“Oh, Lena!Oh, thank goodness!”She dragged her into the safety of the alcove and Henry used his body to shield them from the crowd.
“What’s happening?”Lena peered under his outstretched arm.
“The Echelon must have released the cavalry, ma’am,” Henry replied, his face pale.“Please don’t move.They’ll cut down anything in their wake.”
“But not everybody is causing trouble,” she protested.
“It doesn’t matter.”
A beat began to ring on the cobbles.Like the sound of a hundred horses marching in perfect unison.A chill ran down her spine.The Trojan cavalry were used to clear most mobs and riots—since the firebombing Spitfires could cause too much damage.There was little that could stand up against the heavily armored metal horses, and she’d heard rumors that they simply rode a man down.Nothing was destroyed that way.Only the man.
Lena looked toward the far end of the street.“What are we going to do?”
“Stay here,” Henry said grimly.
The narrow doorway was barely wide enough to fit the three of them.Most of Henry was sticking out into the street.Even now the terrified crowd bumped and knocked him as they streamed past.
“We can’t stay here.It’s too dangerous.”Mr.Mandeville’s wasn’t far away.They could make it if they hurried.And she knew these streets like the back of her hand.
Mrs.Wade coughed, her face as white as a sheet.Lena’s heart sank.Her elderly companion would never make it so far in such a hurry.From the sound of her gasps, she was verging on a hysterical fit.
Unless…
Ducking under Henry’s arm, Lena looked up at the gutter overhang.“Henry, when they send the cavalry out, do they send any of the Spitfires or metaljackets?”
“No need for it.There isn’t much left once the cavalry rides through.”
Most of the crowd had vanished.At the end of the street, sunlight reflected off the burnished armor of a row of metal horses.
“Come, Mrs.Wade,” she said gently, taking her companion by the arm.“We have to hurry.”
Mrs.Wade shook her head.“No, no, I can’t!They’ll ride us down.”
“Henry, do you think it at all possible to lift her?”
He gave the question some thought, a dubious expression on his face.“I can’t say as how far I could carry her.”
“Not far at all.”She looked up.“We’re going across the rooftops.”
“Of course!Why didn’t I think of that?”
Because he’d never lived in the rookery, where Blade and Will—and most of his men—used the rooftops as their own highway.
Coaxing Mrs.Wade out, she helped Henry lift her.“You’re going to have to grab for the gutter!”
“I c-can’t!”
“You can and you will,” Lena snapped.“I’ve had enough of these hysterics.If you don’t hurry up, then Henry and I shan’t have time to follow and thenyouwill have to explain to my guardian how you managed to get me trampled!”
That caused a great scurry of activity.Mrs.Wade kicked and puffed, scrabbling for the roof.Henry struggled to lift her above his shoulders, his eyes squeezed tight whilst the voluminous folds of Mrs.Wade’s skirts revealed a great deal of her unmentionables to the world.
Steel shod hooves echoed off the cobbles.Lena glanced nervously up the street.
