by Ken Altabef
“Just a bit of redecorating,” she said.
She stomped again at the ruined painting. “But this won’t do. It’s not enough. Have you a box of tinder handy?”
Hardison reached into his vest pocket and came out with a meerschaum pipe and a small flint.
Theodora jabbed a finger at the painting. “Get to it, man.”
The oils went up in marvelous gouts of colorful flame. At last something beautiful had come of it, Theodora mused. But soon the flames were wrapped in a cloud of acrid black smoke. The smoke clung low to the ground for a moment as if it were heavier than air, and then it finally rose up in a mad swirl. It danced for a moment in the light breeze, a hanged man twisting at the end of his rope, then blew away at last.
Theodora heard a scream. The last scream of Griffin Grayson as the dogs tore him apart. The same sound that, it was said, could be heard by faery travelers on the moors late at night. But there had been no scream. It was just her memory.
Chapter 16
The boys turned and scuttled into a thin space between two shops. Before Nora could see exactly where they had gone they had completely disappeared into the shadows. A small, thin square of wood stuck out at an odd angle from the plaster wall. The panel jerked angrily and a voice called back to her. “Hurry it up, you little scag. Hurry it up!”
Nora hesitated for a moment. Even though she appeared to the boys to be one of them, she was still in reality a full-grown woman. She couldn’t be certain she wouldn’t get stuck in such a small opening. But there was nothing for it but to give it a try. Now she realized why Threadneedle had not taken this course himself. His shoulders were much too broad to fit. This particular deception required, she supposed, a woman’s touch.
By crossing her arms to round her shoulders, Nora managed to squeeze into the small space. She pushed painfully through a short passageway, which ended with a little drop onto a stone floor.
She tumbled out the other side into a coal-cellar. The place smelled of burnt animal fat from cheap candles. An interesting assortment of noises drifted down from upstairs—a loud drunken conversation, raucous singing, and the tinkle of glassware. She realized this secret hiding place lay beneath one of the taverns on the street.
Nora was careful to retain her disguise of youth but had to remind herself to add soot stains to her illusory clothing, after having traversed the grimy opening.
Aside from stockpiles of coal-nuggets, the little room contained two or three broken chairs and a lopsided table with a single guttering candle. A small lamp burned in the corner and three other boys who had been clustered around its feeble warmth now turned their attention to the new arrivals.
These children were the most pathetic souls Nora had ever encountered. They all looked hard-bitten and half-starved and bore the marks of many beatings. Their smock-frocks were little more than rags and not one of them had a complete pair of shoes on his feet. The oldest, a boy of twelve or thirteen, strode toward her as if he was in charge, with the others close behind. He was a handsome lad, tall and thin but with the stoop shoulders of someone well-accustomed to suffering. He wore an oversized coat, as black as coal. Nora couldn’t tell what color it had originally been. A much younger boy kept close on his heels. He had the same lines of face as the tall one, and Nora recognized them as a pair of brothers.
The sight of the younger boy pulled at Nora’s heartstrings. He had hardly a rag upon his back despite the chill in the cellar, and only a pair of coarse trousers of torn muslin. His frame was so frail and thin, his complexion so pale and chalky, devoid of any life whatsoever except for the rime of anxiety written across his sooty brow and the sad pout of his lips. He was so sickly, his cheeks sunken, his eyes bleary and nose running. Nora felt certain he would not live much longer.
“How old are you?” she asked with the soft edge of a woman’s voice, straying dangerously out of character.
Even in his weakened state the boy quickly rose to indignation. “Past seven a little bit, and what’s it to you?”
“Nothin’,” she replied, expunging the tone of maternal sympathy from her voice.
The boy started to answer again but was silenced by a horrible fit of coughing. The others offered no sympathy, as if well-used to his condition.
“What’s all the row?” asked the oldest boy.
“This lad’s a pickpocket,” suggested the knitted-cap boy.
“So? Take whatever he’s got.”
The oldest boy stood back, perhaps holding himself above such petty theft. The other four pressed close, their grubby hands darting forward and back like little cobras, patting her coat and dipping into its pockets. Nora struggled to swat them away. She retreated until her back pressed against the cold hard surface of the wall but still could not prevent the probing hands from swarming all over her.
Without any warning whatsoever one of the boys swung his fist and hit her flat on the nose. Nora’s head snapped back against the coal-chute wall. She shoved her attacker away, but that only brought the rest of the pack down on her with a vengeance. She faced an onslaught of jabbing elbows and knees, closed fists and clawed fingers. They were only children, but they knew how to hit hard if they wanted. Nora went down under their cruel ministrations.
They knew their business well, it seemed, for in less than a minute both her trouser pockets were torn and her coat turned inside out.
“Two-pence!” shouted one of the boys, holding up his ill-gotten gains.
“That’s all,” reported another.
One of the original boys who had rescued her from the street seemed fairly disappointed and kicked her in the stomach. Nora doubled over, dazed and confused, bile rising in her throat. She felt her glamour slipping. The children had now gone into a frenzy. Someone battered her on the head with what felt like a plank of wood. Nora had only a second to wonder what she’d gotten herself into. These feral children might very well kill her, if not do her serious harm.
She was outnumbered and alone in this warren of criminals. But scared as she was, a voice of reason broke through. They could kill her here. But they won’t. Threadneedle knows his business. He wouldn’t have sent her into such a situation. He knew exactly what they’d do, and Nora suspected that included the punch in the face. He’d neglected to mention that part. She had only to keep her head. Stick to the plan and hold the glamour.
She wondered if a cry for help would be heard by the raucous crowd in the tavern above. Probably not. In any case, such a cry was not in the plan.
She crouched on the floor, the four boys all around, punching and kicking. She struck out at the nearest soot-smudged face, hoping it would not be the littlest one. Though having the appearance of a child, she was still actually a fully grown woman. Her punch hit the boy with more force than anyone expected. It laid him out cold.
Surprised, the others stepped back.
“Two pence,” repeated the first boy sadly. The coins had already been snatched from his hand by the leader.
Nora wiped her face; her nose was bleeding.
Knitted-cap asked, “So what do we do with him, Davy? The street or the river?”
“Two pence for a bloody nose,” said Davy, addressing his remark to his sickly younger brother. “Consider that a bargain.”
The others laughed, but there was no real joy in their laughter.
Nora stood defiantly. “So it’s a’right. What do I care? Two pence. That’s nothin’.”
“You’ve got more?” asked the knitted-cap boy.
“I’ll get.”
“And how’s he think he’s going to do this?” asked Davy. It seemed he addressed all of his remarks only to his little brother. The littlest boy replied only with a wet little gurgle and another fit of pathetic coughing.
“I’ve got a patron,” said Nora, putting on a show of arrogance. “And a fine, rich man he is too.”
“And just what you do for him?” A leer crossed knitted-cap’s face and he bent over and made obscene grunting noises that sent t
he others into an uproar of malicious glee.
“Nothing like that. He’s a good man, owns half the shops up on Holborn Hill. Likes to gamble, he does. So I take his bets for him.”
“Take ‘em to who exactly?” asked knitted-cap.
Nora shrugged. “Some men I know, down the way. Rathmore and Fat Boy Gentley.”
“Rathmore?” The boys all made sour faces, and some mumbled the name ‘Fat Boy’ with particular wrath.
Nora wiped the last of the blood from her upper lip. Bruised and battered, it took quite a lot of concentration to hold the illusion of her youthful shape. She was glad for all the practice. Threadneedle was right. She had only to stick to the plan. “You know them?”
Knitted-cap spit on the ground. “You be careful with them, lad. Oftimes they don’t pay up when they lose and your gentleman’ll turn on you for a thief. We knew three boys who ran for Rathmore and got themselves hanged after he didn’t pay.”
“You should take his bets to Cavendish, that’s who. He always pays.”
Nora played disinterested. “Oh, well, I only handle the small stuff anyways.”
The eldest nudged his little brother. “I wonder, does he ever play the lottery?”
The younger glanced her way inquisitively and produced a half-cough.
Nora smiled at the little waif. “All the time.”
The little urchin’s eyes lit up with interest, but a gasp of the chill air of the cellar—damp, stagnant and tainted with soot—left him coughing spastically again.
“Like I said,” continued Nora, “he’s crazy for the lottery. Bets more on a weekend than most see in a year. But I don’t handle none ‘o that. He does that his self.”
Knitted-cap wouldn’t let it go. “You should still think of Cavendish. We work for him sometimes. Gives us a generous commission too. If we bring him a big-time gambler like that he always gives us a piece. He’d do the same for you, I bet.”
Nora dismissed the idea out of hand.
Knitted-cap exchanged a sinister glance with his leader, then said, “Hey we’ll take you to him. You should meet.”
“I don’t know…”
“You bring him a nice fat gambler and he’ll give you half a crown, and something for us, too. Come on. Be a sport.”
Knitted-cap tilted his head imploringly and employed a well-practiced pout.
Nora could hardly keep from grinning at the irony of the situation. These children had just beat her and robbed her of her only coin but now here they were, all past offences of the most recent half hour forgotten, chatting like the best of friends and begging her for favors.
The same two street-rats who had originally rescued Nora from the lamplighter led her up a half-flight of dark and broken stairs, out through the coal chute and into the street. They passed through a maze of narrow, muddy streets. Nora saw two or three of the same dimly-lit courtyards pass several times. She was dead certain these boys knew their way about town, so could only conclude they were conducting her through an intentionally circuitous route in order to confuse her memory. They needn’t have worked so hard. She’d lost her bearings in less than a minute and was soon reduced to mirroring their every move or risk being left behind in this dark, forbidding neighborhood.
They came at last to a residential street far off the beaten path. The desolation was so extreme the buildings themselves seemed half on their way to giving out from exhaustion; many tilted lazily this way or that, bolstered by wooden beams that stuck far out into the lane. Drunken men and women teetered in doorways but did not concern themselves with the passing boys. The lamp at the end of the street had already burned out, if it had ever been lighted at all, leaving the butt end of the lane in total darkness.
Of course the house for which they were bound was by far the worst of the lot. It stood three-and-a-half stories tall, a fair portion of the roof and top level having partially crumbled away. Dunes of crumbling masonry lay strewn round the place at street level like sandbags marking a war zone. As they stood on the threshold, little bits of plaster pattered down periodically with every gust of the chill wind, making little tinkling noises as they bounced off the cornices. Knitted-cap climbed the front step and disappeared into the darkness beneath the eave. He had a street-door key.
Nora took a deep breath. The sickly-smelling air in the street did little to settle her qualms. But if these children could pass here unmolested, she reasoned, so could she. Of course she had no reason to believe they had not been molested. But she couldn’t stop now. Everything was going so well.
They went in. Most of the main floor was devoted to a small brewery, judging by the sour smell of old beer and the thick, malty scent of yeast. She followed Knitted-cap up a half-rotten stairway. At the second story landing they stepped over a drunk lying in the hall. For some reason, Nora noticed, his pants were pulled down around his ankles.
Knitted-cap reassured her as they went. “Never mind the likes o’ them. Useless trash. We won’t wind up like that. Not you and I. We’re smart. We’re going places. You’ll see.”
They approached an unmarked doorway at the end of the hall. The street urchin smiled and cocked his cap backward.
The door creaked halfway open in answer to his knock.
“Is he in?”
On the other side Nora glimpsed two older boys. They wore the dark, nondescript type of dress characteristic of common thieves, and etched upon their sallow faces was a mix of cunning and ferocity that left no doubt of their low character. She had never seen a pair of less happy faces.
They stepped aside, looking at Nora very gravely, but didn’t say anything to Knitted-cap.
Nora stepped into the room, palpably frightened. She may have had a chance against the children in the coal-cellar, but not here. These were young men, fierce ruffians by the looks of them, without a shred of pity among them. She was alone in a slum-house room, with no friend in sight.
Her rising fear and panic were not good for the glamour. She had to constantly remind herself to hold the illusion of being a ten-year-old gutter rat, and it was becoming a strain. The more people in the room, the more difficult the task. She couldn’t imagine what these scoundrels might do if she transformed into a young woman right before their eyes, and that disturbing thought only made things worse. She felt her disguise slipping away. Hold it, she cautioned herself. Remember what Threadneedle taught you. Concentrate.
The room they had entered was like no other she had ever seen. Its furnishings were nothing short of exquisite. Each of the four walls had been papered but none of the patterns matched—one side had an oak-leaf pattern against a creamy white background, another a badly faded yellow, and another a series of lily pads forming a lattice of green. None of the walls were completely covered as if only throwaway scraps had been used. A clutter of framed prints crowded the walls—old sailing ships, mythological landscapes, a giant sea turtle, several species of exotic birds, a Chinese mandarin disciplining his wife or concubine, and a large sketch of the bust of some famous Greek philosopher. This anteroom had no window and the entire place stank of old tobacco-smoke.
A luxurious Turkish carpet sprawled underfoot, though old tracks worn into it ran quite at crossways from the normal path of foot traffic in the room, suggesting it had long resided someplace else before finding its way here. The den was warmed by a dull, smoky fire, and further lit by a tall oil lamp standing to the side of an ornate roll-top desk. A pair of crossed dueling sabres hung above the desk.
On the desk was an intricately detailed scale model, built in slivers of unvarnished wood that resembled a gothic cathedral. A nub of a candle burned next to it. Melted wax had overflowed the cup and crept forward in a slow-moving rivulet that ran dangerously close to one of the flying buttresses at the base of the model.
A man sat at the desk in what Nora at first took to be a posture of deep thought, his head resting at an awkward angle, balanced upon his fist. His eyes were half-closed.
Knitted-cap ran forward like a sho
t but stopped short of the desk. “Mr. Cavendish. Mr. Cavendish, sir. Good news. Good news, sir.”
The man glanced at the boy with a sleepy eye.
Several purple grapes lay on a plate at his elbow and Nora caught the scent of laudanum.
“Bugger all! Now you’ve let in a chill,” said Cavendish, in a slow drawl.
He stood up to go stoke the fire and tottered momentarily before taking a step. His clothes were as mismatched as the appointments in the room, an odd mixture of thuggish and refined. He wore a loose work-shirt straight out of the textile mills at Whitechapel topped by a fancy, ill-fitting red jacket that resembled something an old blue-blooded duke might wear. A pair of well-worn breeches, covering full-leg like those worn by brigands or seamen, in an odd shade of orange that clashed sharply with the jacket. The breeches boasted extensive but faded silk embroidery down the sides and ended in military boots polished to a bright sheen. His curly brown hair was slicked back and glossed with Macassar oil as if he’d been wearing a wig recently, or a few days ago, or a few weeks ago, given the unkempt and unwashed condition of the hair. A collection of wigs in various stages of disrepair lined the top of a chest of drawers to the right side of the desk.
In the main, none of his clothes seemed to fit quite right and Nora thought his face could be described the same way. His complexion was generally pale but strikingly flushed at the cheeks and dark beneath the eyes. He had bad teeth and rough, cracked lips half hidden by a fancy mustache. Nora wondered who he’d stolen that from.
His approach roused a dog sleeping in front of the hearth. It slinked out of his way, a misshapen thing with a humped back and one crooked leg.
Cavendish brooded upon the fire for a moment, stirring the embers with the tip of the poker until Knitted-cap could stand it no longer. He stepped forward.