Part Thirteen: A Chilling Portrait Of Evil!

LEINIGEN & THE LAMBETH TREASURE

A Twitter adventure told in portions of 140 characters or less.

Part Thirteen: A Chilling Portrait of Evil!

The Homicidal Portrait of Cardinal Wolsey and I circled each other. I had, I reflected, no time to ponder the unusualness of the situation.

Wolsey, meatily three-dimensional despite his canvas origin, glared at me through eyes pursed in jowelly flesh, stevedores’ fists flexing.

Was it to be mano-a-mano? I had wrestled many creatures. Bears. Mexicans. Once, an irate Mother Superior. But a sixteenth-century portrait?

At least there would be no need for preparatory oiling. I chuckled to myself, only to be rudely interrupted by a swinging right. I ducked.

Fists? I thought back to that bare-knuckled night on a quay at Manaus, when Gentlemen Jim Splinty gave me six of the best. I gave him seven.

Wolsey threw again, a haymaker of agricultural origin. I swayed away, easily, then stepped sharply up to jab a cut at his bristly chin.

I gave thanks to my gym master, Knuckles Stibson, and the endless mills that had left me ring-sore but, an unusual tick apart, ring-savvy.

My punch connected, and for all the world the substance that gave, cut and hosed beneath my hand felt not like canvas or board, but flesh.

Cardinal Wolsey grunted and staggered, but came on. He threw another roundhouse heave, which I dodged, but he followed with a crafty jab.

 

The Cardinal’s fist, an array of ecclesiastic ruby rings making a splendid impromptu knuckleduster, connected with the point of my top rib.

I gasped in pain. Wolsey’s eye flashed with unseemly bloodlust and he came on, muttering oaths under his breath. I strained to hear. Latin!

In my bewilderment, The Homicidal Portrait of Cardinal Wolsey fetched me a sharp blow below the belt! I reeled and rocked. He came again!

The Tudor statesman showed remarkable agility as he attacked, a whir of scarlet sleeves and billowing robes. Terribly, he roared his intent! 

I swayed, delivered a sharp blow to his temple with my right and slammed my left into his crumpling gut. My hands sang with the force of it.

Wolsey seemed to hang still, rather, as if the air in the Palace Hall held him up. He appeared confused. I imagine Henry VIII knew the look.

And then, with an agonised bellow, Cardinal Wolsey crashed to the parquet floor. I stepped forward, and fetched him a kick in the head.

Not seemly, I know, but it pays to ensure a quarry’s incapacity. You learn that with any beast of the plains, from jerboa to grizzly bear.

Wolsey was out for a very long count, so I took the chance to get my breath back. Flexing my tingling gauntlets, I turned to look behind me.

The Clockwork Archbishop of Canterbury – I’d forgotten about him – sat motionless, slumped in his chair. Needed winding up, I supposed.

I wondered if his vicars and beadles would twig. Probably not. It would be safe to leave him. And the real Bish (and Vespa) needed saving.

Which would mean – as I remembered the Reverend Francis Gibbous Moon’s parting words, as he ran for his flatback truck – a trip to Scotland.

Edinburgh. I hadn’t been to Auld Reekie in an age, not since an unreported affair involving the heir to the throne and high-stakes canasta.

I didn’t fancy a return leg, but there it was and there was where the dastard Moon had dragged Vespa, the Bish and the Taxus Brevifola.

I turned to go, my mind racing to perils ahead. Fortunately, though, I am getting old. A laggardly bit of said mind loitered in the Hall.

I saw, therefore, The Homicidal Portrait of Cardinal Wolsey stir afresh from his apparent comatose stupour. I saw him rise to his knees.

And, from the corner of my eye, I saw him reach into his robes. Remembering Moon’s Mauser pistol, my brain chilled. The Cardinal’s Beretta! 

I threw myself to the floor as the Cardinal fired, the bullet giving my moustache a trim and smithereening a priceless vase behind me!

The next shot caromed off the Clockwork Archbishop’s throne as I skittered for safety behind it. Giggling insanely, Cardinal Wolsey came on!

That was his undoing. As Wolsey rushed on, his Beretta before him, I heaved with all my might and shoved throne, Bishop and all at his feet.

Wolsey went down, as they say in the fistic trade, like a holdall of ordure. His gun spiralled towards me. I dived, grasped it and fired!

Wolsey roared no more. I watched, horrified. As a noise akin to a thousand radios tuned to static filled the air, the Cardinal… disappeared.

And so did the gun. I stared, agog. But I pepped up. Leinigen, in the Hall, with the imaginary disappearing pistol. It would never stick.

And, what was more, nor would I. Mindful of the imminence of Lambeth Palace staff, I ran. I ran north, to adventure. I ran to King’s Cross!