Inferno

Chapter 82

They tapped and explored every stone slab and recess with no result. The barred window was no exit: it was four storeys up and the door was massive and impregnable. There were no implements: their soup and porridge were eaten with wooden dippers, and even Dillon’s penknife had been taken.

Kydd looked through the peephole carefully. A single guard directly outside, standing. No other in sight … but on the extreme right he saw something that gave him a stab of hope.

‘They’ve put us as high up as they can. Even if we got out there’s not a prayer we can get past the sentries on every floor. But …’ He paused. ‘The spiral staircase we came up. It goes on a bit further and stops at a small door. It’s my guess that it opens out on the roof. Once we’re up there …’

There was the tiniest chance they could turn it into an escape. But then to scale down the walls and …

It was an agonising wait for the midday meal but when it came they were ready.

The guard opened the door and a grinning kitchen hand entered with a soup kettle and half a loaf. Kydd leaped at the man, knocking him unconscious, and Halgren wrenched the guard inside, chopping down on his neck to let him drop soundlessly.

‘Go!’

They hurtled up – the iron door was not locked – and out. A blast of cold, damp air gloriously embraced them, the meagre brightness of the daylight intoxicating. Squeezing through they saw an anonymous humping of lead-covered roof stretching away. It glistened and danced with water for it was raining in solid sheets but Kydd didn’t care. They were free!

Halgren yanked the door closed behind them and Kydd lunged forward but slid to an immediate stop. They were on a projecting battlement with a splendid view of the city but separating them from the main expanse of roof was a yawning chasm five feet wide, a vertiginous sheer drop to the ground.

As a young topman, Kydd had thought nothing of leaping out into space to snatch a backstay for a quick descent to the deck. He steadied himself and launched – a brief flash of distant ground and he was across.

It was Dillon next. ‘I – I can’t!’ he gasped, freezing.

‘Try!’ Kydd urged.

Halgren moved swiftly. He stood behind Dillon, grasped him by his collar and trousers, then hurled him mightily across. With a strangled cry, Dillon fell on top of Kydd in a tangle of bodies. They quickly moved back so Halgren could join them.

The trio slithered across the grey wetness. Kydd saw through the driving rain that battlements like theirs were at every corner: almost certainly prisoners were kept on the outer, which meant that the centre would be administration, and hopefully a route for them to escape.

They dodged through the humps and slopes to the middle, and a flat, sheltered area with a large skylight. It had a small, raised windowed door, very like a ship’s companionway.

Plunging towards it, Kydd grabbed at the brass handle and swung it open but he stopped in his tracks. A French officer was slowly mounting the steps with a party of guards.

He swung around but soldiers were spilling out on to the roof from several other points.

Kydd looked back – and the officer beckoned him with a cruel smile.