Blood Lines

when it came to moving through the darkness.
    From not very far away came the sound of traffic, of a radio, of a baby crying; people who paid no attention to the knowledge that other people were locked in cages only a short distance from where they lived their lives. Or perhaps they've forgotten they know . Henry reached out and lightly touched the outer wall, sensitive eyes turned away from the harsh glare of the floodlights.
    Dungeons, prisons, detention centers-there was little to choose between them. He could feel the misery, the defiance, the anger, the despair; the bricks were soaked in it. Every life that had been held here had left a dark impression.
    Henry had never understood the theory that torture by confinement was preferable to death.
    ' They're given a chance to change ," Vicki'd protested when a news article on capital punishment had started the argument.
    "You've been inside your country's prisons, "he'd pointed out. "What chance for change do they offer? I have never lived in a time that so enjoyed lying to itself."
    "Maybe you'd rather we followed good King Hal's example and chained prisoners to a watt until it was time to cut off their heads?"
    "I never said the old ways were better, Vicki, but at least my father never insulted those he arrested by insisting he did it for their own good."
    " He did it for his own good ," she'd snorted and had refused to discuss the matter further.
    Having found the place he'd go over the wall, Henry moved on until he crossed the line between the floodlights and the night, then he turned and waited. He had faith in Celluci's ability to cut the power, more faith he suspected than Celluci had in his ability to go into the detention center and bring Vicki out-but then, he'd had a lot more time to learn to see around the blinkers jealousy insisted be worn.
    They were very much alike, Michael Celluci and Vicki Nelson, both wrapped up in their ideas of The Law. There was one major difference Henry had noticed between them; Vicki broke The Law for ideals, Celluci broke it for her. She , not justice, had kept him silent last August in London. It was her personally, not injustice, that drove him tonight-however little he liked what they were about to do.
    It probably wouldn't have helped, Henry reflected, if he'd told Celluci that he had attempted this sort of thing before…
    Henry had not been in England when Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, had been arrested, and between the time it took for news to reach him and the complications laid on travel by his nature, he didn't arrive in London until January eighth; two days before the execution. He spent that first night frantically gathering information. An hour after sunset on the ninth, having quickly fed down by the docks, he stood and stared up at the black stone walls of the Tower.
    Originally, Surrey had been given a suite overlooking the river, but an attempt to escape by climbing down the privy at low tide had ensured his removal to less congenial, interior accommodations. From where he stood, Henry could just barely see the flicker of light in Surrey's window.
    'No," he murmured to the night, "I don't imagine you can sleep, you arrogant, bloody fool, not with the block awaiting you in the morning."
    All things considered, he decided there was no real need to go over the wall-although he rather regretted the loss of the flamboyant gesture-and moved, a shadow within the shadows, past the guards and into the halls of the Tower. At Surrey's door, he raised the heavy iron bar and slipped silently inside, pulling the door closed behind him. Unless things had changed a great deal since his days at court, the guards would not bother them before dawn and by dawn they would be far away.

    He stood for a moment drinking in the sight and scent of the dearest friend he had had in life, realizing how much he had missed him. The slight figure, dressed all in black, sat at a crude table by the narrow window, a tallow candle his only light, a heavy iron shackle locked around one slim ankle and chained in turn to a bolt in floor. He had been writing-Henry could smell the fresh ink-but he sat now with his dark head pillowed on his arm and despair written across the line of his shoulders. Henry felt a fist close around his heart and he had to stop himself from rushing forward and catching the other man up in a near hysterical embrace.
    Instead, he took a single step away from the door and softly called, "Surrey."
    The dark head jerked