The Body at the Tower - By Y. S. Lee Page 0,46
walls are built of stone. If that continues, there’s no reason for a bricklayer to have been working up there.”
His eyes snapped open. “That continues, all the way up?”
“We’ll see. But none of the brickies works this high up.”
He nodded, animation returning. “Certainly. And the glaziers should be able to give a fair account of how they left things that night.” He looked warily at the narrow staircase curling upwards, out of sight. “Er – perhaps you ought to go up ahead of me.”
“I have a better idea: lean on me as you go up.”
He seemed nonplussed. “But – I – you – ”
She took his hand and set it on her shoulder. “Like a walking-stick; so.”
He jerked his hand away as though scalded. “I can’t!”
“Why? Because I’m female?”
“I can’t just use you as a prop…”
“Of course you can; think of me as a twelve-year-old boy named Mark.” She captured his hand and replaced it. “I’m fairly strong for my size, you know.”
He recoiled once again. “That’s hardly the point.”
“I thought the point was to get to the top of the stairs,” she said, not bothering to hide her impatience. “How else are you going to manage that?”
“I’ll just have to try harder.”
“Ooh yes – sheer stubborn stupidity should certainly carry the day.”
They glared at each other with genuine irritation. Then, after several long moments, James sighed ruefully. “Pot and kettle, hey?”
She offered him a half-smile. “I’d be the same, if our positions were reversed.”
“I know.”
There was an awkward pause and then he said, “Well. Shall we?”
He followed her up the first few stairs, his hand barely resting on her shoulder. As they ascended, Mary felt him begin to lean into her frame. It was subtle at first, mainly on the step up. With each storey gained, though, the weight of his hand became heavier, his breathing more laboured. Their pace slowed and, eventually, he began to rest every few steps.
“Don’t worry,” he rasped, when they came to one such stop. “’S not contagious.”
“I know.”
“Desperately unfit. Been on bed-rest for months.”
She nodded. He must have been gravely ill; James wasn’t the sort to tolerate bed-rest unless he was actually too weak to crawl.
“Soon be back to normal.”
Incredible – the most arrogant man alive was actually apologizing for his weakness. Not directly, of course, but the sentiment was there. She was half-afraid to think of what it might – or might not – signify.
They climbed. And climbed. And continued to climb. It was a shock, finally, to round a curve into a large room filled with dazzling light. Mary squinted and blinked, and as her eyes adjusted she realized she was looking at a wall of glass and wrought iron – a vast mosaic, with each pane of glass thick and pearly-bright, the smallest of them about the size of her head. They were beautifully ordered, pieced together in a balanced, intricate circle. As she tilted her head back to take in the full pattern, she gasped.
It was the back of one of the clock faces! From the ground they appeared flat and white, like painted surfaces. But seen from behind they were astonishingly luminous, refracting and softening the stingy yellow-grey daylight into something quite unearthly. She stared dreamily, forgetting where or who she was. When she came to with a start, she had no idea how long she’d been entranced. Half a minute? Half an hour?
And there was still so much to see. A long table at the centre of the room supported a sprawling engine, a complicated tangle of gears, cranks and shafts which drove the clock. It was surprisingly quiet; it didn’t tick, in the manner of a wrist-watch, although there was the constant whisper of well-greased metal parts turning against one another.
The final flight of steps, numbering perhaps fifty, took them up to the belfry. There, suspended from an enormous framework in the rafters, were the bells; the reason they’d climbed the tower. All of London remembered the embarrassment and disappointment the previous year when the great bell was first tolled. There had been a glorious parade in which “Big Ben” was brought to New Palace Yard, drawn by sixteen white horses. But soon afterwards it had cracked and was taken down, broken up and recast. Its replacement – still dubbed “Big Ben” – had been installed. But given the recent question of site safety, it was James’s responsibility to inspect everything once more before it could be rung.
The four quarter-bells were enormous, judged by human scale.