The Changeling Murders (The Thief Taker Series Book 4)

by C. S. Quinn

  ‘They are long gone,’ said Damaris. ‘You will never find them. Not if you hunt your whole life.’

  ‘Repent, come question the black whore,’ commanded Barebones. ‘I think there’s more she can tell us.’

  Chapter 14

  The thin walls of the Birdcage Theatre seemed to close in around Charlie. He tore the note from Percy’s hand, the threat resounding in his mind. Bring me the Lord and Lady. Charlie’s eyes glided to the dead girl, with her yellow eyes and strange smile.

  ‘Tom Black,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve never heard that name.’

  He glanced up at Percy and Lynette. They both looked as blank as he did.

  ‘But I have heard of the Lord and Lady,’ Charlie continued slowly. ‘It’s a legend, is it not? I remember it from boyhood. A lord and lady with the power to make kings.’

  ‘We act it here, around Lent,’ agreed Lynette. ‘It’s an old story. England’s last magic. The Lord and Lady were England’s fairy king and queen.’

  ‘What happened to them?’ asked Charlie.

  Lynette waved a chubby hand. ‘They sleep for one ’undred years. They’re leading children like a pied-piper. Take your pick. It’s a folk tale.’

  Charlie turned to Percy. ‘You told me Maria was transcribing a confession,’ he said. ‘It mentioned the Lord and Lady.’

  Percy nodded. ‘It was a criminal’s last words before he was executed. The judge condemned him as a Royalist traitor against Cromwell’s Republic.’ He frowned, remembering. ‘It said something about a dress in a brothel. A dress to summon the Lord and Lady.’

  Charlie turned to Lynette. ‘You ever heard of that in your plays? A dress to summon them?’

  Lynette shook her head.

  Percy breathed out through his nose. ‘It is God’s curse on women to make them so curious,’ he opined. ‘She . . .’ Percy was clearly struggling with the admission. ‘Maria wanted to ask you about it.’

  ‘Me?’

  Percy’s mouth had set into a thin tight line. ‘She didn’t go into detail. As I told you, we quarrelled. The confession she found spoke of a very unusual dress. Green and gold, stitched with leaves. Maria was convinced that if she found the dress, it could be used to find the Lord and Lady.’

  Charlie sucked at his scarred lip.

  ‘Why would she think that?’ asked Percy, watching him carefully.

  ‘I’m a thief taker,’ said Charlie. ‘I can use property to track people.’

  ‘Maria was behaving strangely,’ said Percy slowly, ‘before she disappeared. Secretively. I asked her if she was thinking of calling the wedding off, but she denied it. So I . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I followed her one day.’

  Charlie said nothing.

  ‘We were about to be married,’ said Percy hotly, catching his expression. ‘I thought she might be . . . I thought she might be secretly meeting with you.’

  ‘Why would you think that?’

  ‘Even a country dolt hears things. I saw her go inside a bawdy house on Clarges Street.’

  ‘Mother Mitchell’s house,’ Charlie filled in. He knew the high-end brothel well. Mother Mitchell had partially raised him, and Maria was known to the elderly madam.

  Percy nodded. ‘At first, I assumed she was meeting you there,’ he said, his voice tight with confusion, ‘then I concluded she was searching for this lost dress.’

  ‘Looking for the Lord and Lady,’ said Charlie thoughtfully. He was calling to mind the Maria he knew. ‘She would never have believed in a lost fairy lord and lady.’

  ‘She’s from the country,’ Percy pointed out. ‘Many have seen fairies in those parts.’

  ‘Maria has faith only in God above and things she can see with her own eyes,’ said Charlie.

  Percy made a tight nod of agreement. ‘She was always very sensible,’ he said with pride. ‘Feet on the ground, yet . . .’ Percy coughed. ‘It seems she put herself in great danger.’ His pale eyes were on Charlie again, hoping the thief taker would correct him.

  ‘We’ll find her,’ said Charlie. He tapped his fingers together, feeling there was a connection he was missing. ‘The bawdy house riots,’ he said. ‘Maria was looking for something in a brothel. Theatre and brothels . . . those professions often overlap.’ Charlie thought for a moment. ‘Better you lie low for a while,’ he said to Lynette. ‘It might be no coincidence that someone chose your theatre.’

  Lynette laughed a loud unladylike guffaw. ‘God’s bones, Charlie! Do you think we’d shut down for this? There’s another performance tonight and the devil ’imself wouldn’t stop us.’

  Charlie had forgotten how stubborn she was. He turned to Lynette. ‘Promise me you’ll be careful,’ he said, squeezing her hand. ‘If you’re in the King’s favour, you’re a target.’

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ said Lynette, ‘you know full well I’ll do no such thing.’

  Chapter 15

  The ship was magnificent, its bow a curving tower of twinkling glass windows and carved wood. The sound of music trickled from the deck. A party was taking place aboard.

  A half-naked girl was hanging from the rigging. She was dressed as a mermaid, with seaweed plaited in her long hair and a necklace of shells wound around her bare torso. Her tail was a length of transparent silk tulle wound loosely around her legs.

  ‘Permission to board!’ called Charlie.

  ‘You can board all of us together for the right price!’ she shouted, making an impressively gymnastic manoeuvre on the rigging to give them a fuller view of her scanty costume.

  Beside him in the rowing boat, Charlie heard Percy make a strange grunt of disapproval. A ladder was thrown down the side of the ship. They began to climb up.

  Another girl appeared, giggling drunkenly. Her hair was held up by an expensively jewelled ivory comb and the rest of her perfect figure was painted in blue woad. Three more decorated mermaids joined her in quick succession, whooping and flashing an array of uncovered body parts.

  ‘Hello, Charlie!’ shouted one. ‘We’re havin’ a party. Come join us. Best wine on the seven seas.’ She burped and covered her mouth.

  ‘Who’s the cheap-wig?’ demanded a blonde girl with her mermaid tail raised carelessly. She was examining Percy’s pale demeanour, his tight-lipped absorption of the scene. ‘We only fuck titles on this boat!’ she shouted at him. ‘Go back to Temple Bar with your legal pennies!’

  ‘This is Maria’s husband-to-be,’ said Charlie, trying to dampen any high feeling.

  ‘Is that so?’ The blonde girl leaned to take a better look. ‘Are hers as good as mine?’ She staggered drunkenly, grabbing hold of the rail to steady herself with a shriek of laughter.

  Charlie jumped easily aboard, then turned to help Percy, who was holding his wig awkwardly.

  A larger figure appeared amongst the girls. Mother Mitchell.

  Charlie smiled. As a boy, growing up under the madam’s protection, she’d always reminded him of a great gaudy butterfly. Now she was more like an armada, the broad sails of her thickly embroidered dress buttressing her from male advances. Iron-grey curls were waxed like a helmet above her ageing good looks, and she was armoured in jewels; a battalion of expensive gold-mounted gems arrayed her neck, wrists and fingers.

  ‘Hello, Charlie,’ she said, moving towards him and holding his face in her hands. ‘I hear you’re light of purse,’ she added, ‘yet you’ve been working hard.’ Mother Mitchell was looking at him keenly.

  ‘Why should you be interested in such things?’ Charlie smiled at her.

  Mother Mitchell released his face from her perfumed fingers and adjusted the top of her thickly boned dress. ‘You needn’t think I check on you,’ she said, fiddling in her pocket for her silver pipe. ‘I only hear things. About where your money goes.’

  ‘Then I daresay you know the answer.’

  Mother Mitchell’s mouth drew into a line. She tamped tobacco into the ornate pipe and glanced around for a candle. ‘How can you even be sure it is your brother’s child you pay for?’ she
asked. ‘The mother is a Covent Garden strumpet.’

  Percy was looking back and forth between Mother Mitchell and Charlie, fascinated. ‘You pay for your brother’s love child?’ he deduced.

  ‘My brother is dead,’ said Charlie, shortly. ‘You really need to be on a boat?’ he added, turning to Mother Mitchell and pointedly changing the subject.

  Mother Mitchell hesitated, then decided not to pursue her line of enquiry. ‘Something dangerous in the air,’ she said. ‘I can smell it. These brothel attacks will turn nasty, you mark my words. Wanted my girls out of danger.’

  With no candle close at hand, she returned the pipe to her hanging pocket.

  ‘Can’t you band together with the other wealthy brothels?’ asked Charlie. ‘Defend yourselves?’

  ‘We don’t get along,’ said Mother Mitchell. She hitched her bosom and sniffed. ‘There was a business with a black pudding,’ she added obscurely. ‘I shall never forgive.’ She put her hands on his shoulders and drew back, assessing. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘It’s Maria,’ said Charlie.

  As he explained, Mother Mitchell looked increasingly concerned. When he’d finished, her small eyes turned to Percy. ‘So this is the husband-to-be?’ she said. ‘I’ve heard about you.’ Her tone suggested the meeting wasn’t a pleasure.

  Percy stood a little more upright. ‘My betrothed,’ he said with an air of possessiveness, ‘was known to you?’ He drew himself tall. ‘I demand to know the meaning of it.’

  ‘She used to work for me,’ said Mother Mitchell, amused. ‘Acting parts.’

  ‘Acting?’ Percy’s face was mask of horror.

  ‘She didn’t tell you?’ asked Mother Mitchell innocently. ‘She was good. So good I tried to arrange for the King to see her,’ she added. ‘Maria could have turned his interest. But you know her.’ She directed this remark solely at Charlie. ‘Always proper. After she was betrothed to be married she gave up acting.’ Mother Mitchell shook her head with a frown, unable to comprehend such idiocy. She turned pointedly back to Charlie.

  ‘Percy says she paid a visit to your house. When did you last see Maria?’ asked Charlie.

  Mother Mitchell frowned in concentration. ‘Maria did come a few days ago. She seemed uneasy. Out of sorts. I assumed about her wedding,’ she added, her eyes sliding again to Percy.

  ‘Why do you say Maria wasn’t herself?’ asked Charlie.

  Mother Mitchell’s brows drew together. ‘Everything and nothing,’ she said. ‘She wanted to try one of my dresses for her wedding. But the ones she considered’ – her brow wrinkled again – ‘they weren’t in her style,’ she concluded. ‘Old. Out of fashion.’

  ‘Did Maria ask about a dress with green-and-gold stitched leaves?’ asked Charlie.

  Mother Mitchell blinked. ‘Why, yes she did. She talked of a design that sounded ancient. The kind that fairy-tale maidens wore. It’s why I assumed she had cold feet. Maria is always so well dressed.’

  ‘Maria did not have cold feet, as you vulgarly term it—’ began Percy hotly.

  ‘What about the Lord and Lady?’ interrupted Charlie. He passed Mother Mitchell the strange poem they’d found. ‘Did she say anything of the dress leading to them?’

  Her eyes followed the writing, lips muttering words. Percy watched, quietly fuming.

  ‘The Lord and Lady?’ she said finally. ‘That old story. Why should that concern Maria?’

  ‘Maria found an old confession,’ said Charlie. ‘It suggested that a green-gold dress hidden in a brothel would lead to the Lord and Lady. We think Maria was looking for the dress.’

  ‘Unusual for Maria to be investigating some ancient mystery,’ observed Mother Mitchell, her eyes drifting again to Percy.

  ‘What do you mean?’ demanded Percy rudely.

  ‘I only know rumours, same as other old Londoners,’ shrugged Mother Mitchell. ‘It was some dreadful war crime of Cromwell’s. A lord and lady were sent to the Tower to be secretly burned alive, or that’s how it was told. There were whispers someone smuggled them out, but no one believed it. Something about a butcher’s son, I think. Or a baker’s.’

  ‘Were this lord and lady relations of the King?’ asked Charlie.

  Mother Mitchell shrugged again. ‘I always assumed so. It was best not to talk of birthright and nobility during the Republic. People disappeared, didn’t they? Whole families.’

  ‘Yet if someone important survived,’ said Charlie, ‘surely they’d reveal themselves on the King’s return?’ He considered for a moment, then turned to Mother Mitchell. ‘The dresses she was interested in; might we see them?’

  Chapter 16

  Amesbury looked up from his tankard to see the spy approach. The old general sat back on his stool and pulled another closer to him. This half-timbered little tavern was the safest place to conduct business without being overheard. Amesbury gestured towards a broad barrel as the other man sat.

  ‘I’m tired of wine,’ Amesbury said. ‘I miss the fireside with the other soldiers. Real English beer.’ He opened the tap and held a tankard underneath. It filled and frothed. He stood to fill a second for the spy then settled his great bulk back onto his stool. ‘So?’

  Amesbury was slightly drunk, the spy realised. Something was greatly troubling the old general.

  ‘Your old soldier friends are safe,’ said the spy. ‘Arrived in New England. All Republicans there. No one will sell them out.’

  Amesbury nodded.

  The spy lifted his eyes to the old general. ‘You play a dangerous game. Working for the King and yet rescuing his enemies.’

  Amesbury’s thick fists balled. ‘His Majesty promised mercy,’ he said. ‘On his glorious return. It’s the old nobles who clamour for blood.’

  ‘Even so . . .’

  ‘I fought with those men.’ Amesbury’s fist crashed on the table. ‘You think I want to watch their balls cut off? They are men of courage and conviction who bought us a fairer country and they deserve a safe old age.’

  The spy said nothing. He’d also seen the traitor executions of men promised clemency.

  Amesbury drank more beer. ‘What of the other matter?’ he said.

  ‘We found one of the suspects,’ said the spy. ‘Made him talk.’

  Amesbury’s eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘And?’

  ‘Mostly the same things. The King’s rule is nothing from God. It was the fairies who gave the first monarchs the power of their earthly magic.’

  Amesbury nodded, rolling his hand to suggest a story oft-told. ‘Then good Puritans came and we killed the King and we burned his furs and jewels and melted his crown. His fairy lord and lady were flung into an iron prison, then we burned them in the hottest forge in the land. It’s a good story.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Perhaps even one of my best stories. Better people believe the Lord and Lady fairies than guess at the truth. Anything else?’

  The spy hesitated. ‘There’s another plot,’ he said. ‘You were right. Someone is using the brothel riots for an attempt on the Crown. They’re organised.’

  Amesbury frowned. ‘What’s the idea? Rile up a load of skinny boys and march on Whitehall? Sounds like a Royalist plan,’ he added. ‘Run in wearing a colourful coat with your long hair swinging. Hope for the best.’

  ‘They were mad bastards,’ agreed the spy. ‘That’s what comes of marrying your cousin ten times over.’

  They both laughed. Then Amesbury picked up his tankard, turning it in his large hands. ‘What else then?’ he said, his smile dropping away.

  ‘There’s someone at the head of it.’ The spy swallowed. ‘We think Tom Black has returned.’

  Amesbury’s mouth set tight. ‘Cromwell’s assassin? You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure as we can be. He’s a master of disguise, he’s . . .’

  Amesbury raised a thick hand. ‘Spare me. I’m aware of his talents.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘What I don’t know,’ he added meaningfully, ‘is what he wants. Money and jewels mean nothing to Tom Black. He is incorruptible. W
hy do you think he was chosen to guard the Lord and Lady?’

  The spy swallowed. ‘One of the men from the Mint talked. The Lord and Lady weren’t burned with the others.’

  There was a long pause. Amesbury was sitting very still. ‘Who else knows?’

  ‘Only the man who carried the message. He’s one of the King’s guard.’

  ‘You’re sure? No one else?’

  The spy nodded.

  ‘Does he have history with the Republic?’

  ‘He fought for Cromwell.’

  ‘Kill him,’ said Amesbury shortly.

  ‘Sir, he has family . . .’

  ‘Pay them off,’ snapped Amesbury. ‘If the Lord and Lady return, they could depose the King,’ he said. ‘The monarchy would collapse. I receive daily intelligence that the Dutch will invade at the slightest show of weakness and we have nothing.’ He slammed his fist on the table again. ‘No army, no navy. The money has all gone on the King’s whores.’ He eyed the spy. ‘Come closer,’ he said. ‘Let me tell you a story.’ Amesbury poured him another beer. ‘Tom Black is cleverer than you could ever imagine,’ he said. ‘If he hunts the Lord and Lady he may well find them. And in the midst of these riots he could cause great mischief.’ Amesbury stared into his tankard. ‘If the King falls, it’s all of us,’ he said. ‘Your head, mine. Every man who stood for the monarchy will spill their guts on the scaffold.’ He tipped back his cup and drank deeply. ‘Drink,’ he instructed, nodding to his colleague’s beer. ‘These riots are no accident. You’ll need it when I tell you what Tom Black is capable of.’

  Chapter 17

  Mother Mitchell led Charlie and Percy across the neat boards of the deck, where thick swags of ribbon and expensive rugs had been draped.

  ‘Disgusting state these sailors sail in,’ she opined. ‘Took my girls near a week to scrub clean this deck and bail out the slop. The bilge in the bottom would turn your stomach.’

  They passed an elaborate table of cold cuts and a huge silver bowl of punch.

  ‘We’re to have a bust of Venus fitted to the prow,’ continued Mother Mitchell, ‘and all these old interiors replaced. White pine from Sweden. Chantilly lace. I’ve a liking for boats,’ she added. ‘I’m thinking to turn this unrest to my advantage. Branch out.’