The Changeling Murders (The Thief Taker Series Book 4)

by C. S. Quinn

  Her gaze settled on another route through. Stones flew down.

  Charlie flung off his leather coat and threw it over both their heads. Stones ricocheted off the leather and struck their feet and legs.

  ‘The stones are mainly coming from that way,’ said Lily, looking towards a narrow pathway through the rubble. ‘That’s the way they don’t want us to go. Come on.’

  She grabbed him, and they ran towards the main onslaught. Charlie saw a rock coming straight for his face and swerved. Lily gasped in pain as she was pelted.

  ‘They’re going to kill us,’ said Charlie. ‘We need to turn back.’

  ‘Just a little further.’ Lily had a tight grip on his hand. A sharp rock smashed painfully into Charlie’s shoulder, sending him reeling sideways. Then, suddenly, the spray of missiles eased and stopped.

  They’d emerged in a wider, less densely packed area of devastation.

  ‘The footpads will keep to the walls and the hidey-holes,’ she said. ‘It’s too open here, too risky.’ She eyed where the charred timbers closed in again. ‘Maybe they’ll come from that way,’ she decided.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Charlie was looking up ahead, trying to understand how Lily was predicting the route of attack from nothing more than a pile of rubble.

  ‘It’s what I’d do,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Do you know where we are now?’ she added.

  Charlie was trying to take in the shape of the old prison. The site had been a large rectangle with a yard inside, the Fleet River to the south. He tracked round the edge, then north to a broad-shouldered hump on the horizon.

  It was unrecognisable from its former self. An uneven clump of fortress, with black-eyed holes for windows. The proud English flag had long burned away, the sentinel gatemen fled. Only the charred skeleton of a parapet and a familiar portcullis convinced Charlie he’d found what he was looking for.

  ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing. ‘Lud Gate.’

  ‘Then let’s go,’ said Lily, as a shout sounded close by. ‘Those footpads will be regrouping as we speak.’

  Chapter 59

  Barebones was sitting wide awake in the locked cell. Since he had prior connections with the prison service, the arresting guards had thought it more sensible to hold him in New Bedlam. The asylum had been hastily flung up after the war and boasted a small lockup into which Barebones had been temporarily confined.

  Three other inmates were asleep in the room, but a man with a tick who remembered Barebones from the Battle of Naseby was listening to Barebones’s rant.

  ‘The Lord and Lady give the King fairy powers from the underworld,’ he insisted. ‘See how royals wear fine clothes and dance and drink sweet wine? Fairy ways. They held this country in their magical sway for five hundred years. We were asleep. Then we woke. Now we must fight them again.’

  ‘Fairy lords and ladies?’ his comrade said, his facial tick jerking. ‘In London? Come on, Barebones. You know the fey folk don’t like cities. They’ve not been here for one hundred years or more.’

  ‘They’re the power behind the throne,’ said Barebones. ‘Kill the Lord and Lady and all the evil goes out of England. The light is bright and the way is hard, but by God’s grace we will endure.’

  ‘How’s your son?’ asked his fellow soldier, tiring of the sermon.

  Barebones shook his head. ‘Brought him up best I could without his mother. Apprenticed him as a brickmaker; I couldn’t find the fees for a grocer or a goldsmith. I fear he’s of an evil disposition.’

  ‘Sons,’ said his old comrade sympathetically. ‘You pray for ’em. Then they bring all manner of shit down on your head.’

  The door opened and a battered face peered in. ‘Praise-God Barebones?’ the guard called.

  Barebones stood.

  ‘The Lady wants to see you,’ said the guard.

  ‘Who?’ Barebones’s face clouded in confusion.

  ‘You’ll see,’ said the man, beckoning to indicate that he should follow. ‘Says she knows you.’ He was looking Barebones up and down. ‘You should count yourself blessed,’ he added. ‘She’s been here these five years last and you’re the first prisoner I’ve ever taken to her.’

  Barebones said nothing, following the guard through the maze of corridors. They reached the large cell reserved for aristocrats. The guard opened the door.

  Barebones’s eyes grew wide. ‘You,’ he managed. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  Bridey Black had the same unusual blue-green eyes as her son. Barebones had a memory of her in the Shambles, Tom Black trudging dour-faced at her heel. She smiled seductively and gestured that the guard should leave them.

  ‘Praise-God Barebones.’ Bridey stood as the door shut and sashayed towards him. She was acting as though Barebones had arranged some emotional reunion. ‘After all these years.’

  ‘You asked to see me,’ he said, trying to dispel her dramatics. ‘You knew I was coming.’

  Her face was still attractive. He remembered it as being hypnotically beautiful.

  ‘I am a prophetess now,’ she said. ‘I have powers.’

  ‘Oh, aye? The power to drag a man from his prison cell? I’ve heard of the London Prophetess,’ he added contemptuously. ‘You spin a great many predictions for our new king. Anyone would think you were courting a visit from His Majesty. Hoping your faded beauty might lure him still?’ There was a pause. ‘Your boy came to me,’ said Barebones.

  Bridey looked frightened.

  ‘He said something had been found,’ continued Barebones. ‘A confession buried all these years. Something that could uncover the Lord and Lady. Tom wanted me to use my influence. Guide the apprentices to particular brothels. Find a particular dress. I thought you dead. Now I discover you are alive, I think it was you who sent Tom to find them.’

  ‘Do you?’ She leant her chin on her hand coquettishly. It was a strange gesture to see in an older woman.

  ‘I know what you want, Bridey. You want every man to fall at your feet. And now you are old and your beauty holds less sway, what now? You think the Lord and Lady will give you back what you’ve lost?’

  Bridey moved closer. ‘Do you remember all those years ago,’ she whispered, ‘that you had me in that back room? I whispered to you of the fey folk and how they danced.’

  ‘I was a young boy, sowing wild oats,’ said Barebones, embarrassed. He’d thought her young and peculiar and it had been an effort to finish, with her babbling her fairy nonsense. She made him play a lord and declare their union sacred. He couldn’t call the memory to mind without blushing.

  ‘I saw how you looked at me on my wedding day.’ Bridey put a hand on his chest. ‘I think,’ she whispered, ‘there is something between us.’ She tilted her head and looked up at him, her strange round eyes wide.

  ‘You were nothing to me but a fresh-faced girl on Honey Lane,’ said Barebones. ‘I have no feeling of that kind for you. I have a wife . . .’

  ‘Your wife is long dead,’ said Bridey. ‘I know you would not sully yourself with whores. Fine, upstanding Praise-God.’ She was staring into his eyes with uncomfortable intensity.

  Barebones didn’t answer.

  Bridey let her robe fall to her hips. Barebones’s eyes instinctively dropped to her naked chest. She was older and thinner than he remembered, but not unattractive.

  ‘Men have needs,’ she said. ‘You must burn with them. So long with no woman to comfort you.’

  Barebones felt himself casting a glance over his shoulder, just as he’d done all those years ago. An old, forgotten lust thickened. ‘Come on then,’ he said gruffly, moving towards her.

  Bridey began to get down on the floor. She’d done that the first time, arranging her naked limbs in a star shape.

  Barebones took hold of her. ‘Not this time,’ he said. ‘I’m not a young boy. I will have you as I want.’ He pinned her upright to the wall of her cell, hiking her robe over her hips. He’d never had his wife like this. Only in a proper married way. The thought brought a surge
of desire.

  Bridey kept moving as he was doing it, writhing around in some acted pleasure that didn’t seem real. When she began whispering of lakes of blue fire and fairy dancing, he put a hand over her mouth. He turned her head away, so she couldn’t look into his eyes. When he’d finished, he took his hand away and began buttoning his clothing.

  Her eyes watched him with admiration.

  ‘I will not come again if you summon me,’ said Barebones shortly. ‘Tell your boy I mean to kill the Lord and Lady. I will set him free.’ He touched his hip, where his iron sword had once hung.

  ‘You don’t know,’ Bridey realised. She shook her head. ‘They cannot be killed the way you think. Not by cold-forged iron.’

  He said nothing, rearranging his clothes.

  ‘You’ll come back,’ she taunted. ‘You always do. You are weak, Praise-God Barebones. Why do you think your son is how he is? It is your bad seed. Your wife had no love for you. It was the talk of the Shambles.’

  He struck her across the face. Bridey fell, hitting her head on the hard wall. She lay still.

  Barebones moved nearer, holding his breath.

  Bridey sat up, smiling at him and pulling her robe into place. ‘You can’t resist me,’ she said.

  Barebones looked at her and was filled with sudden revulsion. The spell was broken. He saw nothing now but an ageing woman, twisted with bitter regrets. ‘You always were too young for the Shambles,’ he said. ‘Our girls grow up fast and fierce.’ He was remembering his wife, Sarah: strong, dependable, quick with a joke. He missed her with a pain almost physical.

  ‘You pretend you’re godly,’ spat Bridey angrily. ‘You’re the worst sinner of them all.’

  ‘I feel sorry for your husband,’ said Barebones, banging on the door to summon the guard. ‘He loved you and never deserved what you dealt him.’

  Chapter 60

  Charlie could still make out the squat shape of Lud Gate with its portcullis. But nothing more of the old fortification was recognisable. The brickwork was thickly coated in deep-black soot, making it appear as a devilish castle in a land laid to waste. On the broken crenellations at the top waved a single plucky flag bearing the King’s coat of arms.

  ‘Dawson is up there,’ said Charlie, pointing. ‘It’s good for painting. All the light.’

  It was soon to be midday, Charlie realised, taking in the sun over the gatehouse. Less than half a day left. But if Dawson could direct them to the Lord and Lady, they’d still have time to find wherever Maria was being held. The possibility of coming to her rescue seemed tantalisingly close.

  There was an ear-splitting grinding noise, and the blackened portcullis shuddered, then rose a few feet upwards, above the scorched earth.

  A small boy in a scuffed page’s outfit ducked beneath it. ‘You come for the Master?’ he asked, eyeballing them.

  ‘I’m Charlie Tuesday,’ said Charlie. ‘He knows me.’

  This seemed enough for the child, who ducked back beneath the portcullis, gesturing that they should follow. Charlie and Lily crawled under it, old ash drifting up. They followed the boy up a stone spiral staircase, with crumbling fire-torched plaster and newly painted royal crests on the wall.

  ‘Dawson believes the King should rule without Parliament,’ explained Charlie as they passed. ‘He’s styled his home on an old Royalist stronghold.’

  ‘Tell me again how you know this man?’

  ‘He owes me money.’

  ‘I thought remembering pauper debts wasn’t one of your strengths,’ observed Lily as they climbed. She was looking at his face with a new keenness.

  ‘I’ve . . . some new obligations,’ admitted Charlie. ‘In Covent Garden.’

  ‘You’ve a mistress?’ The disbelief in her voice was tinged with something deeper.

  ‘Not exactly.’ His mouth twisted. ‘There’s a child. Rowan’s.’

  ‘You send money for your dead brother’s child?’ Lily’s face softened. She opened her mouth to say more, but then she saw Dawson’s strange living quarters.

  In the black ashy devastation, Dawson’s penthouse, high atop the old Lud Gate, was a world of colour. Each surface was layered with a speckled mix of old paints. Thousands of dried flecks and splatters formed a rough circle around where the painter stood, giving him a backdrop explosion of colour.

  As Lily and Charlie approached, Dawson was sitting with his back to them, an elaborate leather strap covering the back of his head. The midday light was casting a warm glow on several huge canvas scenes arranged along the top of the gatehouse. With every degree the sun crossed the sky, Charlie thought, Maria’s life ebbed with it. He balled his fists, willing Dawson to give them the answers they needed.

  Dawson turned as they entered and his brown eyes were hugely magnified behind a pair of glass goggles. In his hand was a paintbrush, which he held up quizzically as they moved towards him.

  ‘Why does he dress like a ghost?’ whispered Lily, taking in the frilled white ruff and forked beard. Atop his long grey hair, Dawson wore a black chimney-hat with two white goose feathers pointing straight up.

  ‘He’s a painter,’ said Charlie. ‘They like to be different.’

  ‘Charlie Tuesday,’ said Dawson, standing with an apologetic smile. ‘I haven’t any money for you yet, I’m afraid.’ Dawson nodded to the small boy in the page’s outfit, who was hovering uncertainly. The boy scampered away.

  ‘I’m willing to give you as much time as you need,’ said Charlie, ‘in return for a little help.’

  Dawson slid off his stool with impressive agility for a man of his advancing years. His eyes had settled on Lily. ‘You’ve brought me a muse,’ said Dawson admiringly. ‘We’re always looking for exotic stock in the theatre.’ He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Would you consider sitting for me, my dear? You could be a background Italian.’ He had a clutch of missing teeth on one side, from an old jaw injury, which gave him a slight lisp.

  ‘How much money do you owe Charlie?’ asked Lily.

  His charming expression faltered. ‘A few shillings,’ he said vaguely. ‘But as soon as these sell, I’ll easily pay all my debts.’ He gestured to the canvases. ‘Now my paints have been returned, I can make three of these a week. They sell to the best theatres for ten shillings a piece. Standard scenes,’ he added, ‘temples, tombs, city gates and chambers. I sent out a palace last week.’

  Lily’s eyes lifted to the current canvas. It was a large image of poplar trees. ‘Italy?’ she asked, nodding to it.

  ‘It could serve as any rural scene,’ said Dawson proudly. ‘That’s the skill of the scenery painter. I’ll turn my hand to anything. Except prisons,’ he added, his face falling darkly.

  ‘What’s this one?’ asked Lily, looking at a fantastical scene of castle turrets and green rolling hills. A few mythical-looking people were dotted in the far distance. Maidens, knights and a frightening old crone.

  ‘Ah,’ said Dawson proudly, moving to her side. ‘What a good eye you have. This is one of my best pieces. It’s Avalon. The place where King Arthur went to die.’ He eyed it proudly. ‘I have hopes of selling it to the palace.’ He cupped his hand over his mouth in a conspiratorial gesture. ‘All kings are desperate to claim some ancient lineage running back to Arthur and swords in stones,’ he divulged. ‘Henry had his face painted on a round table.’ Dawson took a last admiring look at his own work, then turned back to Charlie. ‘You talked of extending my debt,’ he added hopefully. ‘What would you want in return?’

  ‘Information,’ said Charlie. ‘About a lost lord and lady who we think might have been kept hidden in London since the war.’

  Dawson blinked for a moment. ‘You don’t mean . . . You cannot mean the Lord and Lady?’

  ‘We thought they might have been sheltered by the King’s Company during the war.’

  ‘Well, yes they were,’ agreed Dawson, nodding slowly. ‘Certainly I was told so. They took part in every performance.’

  Chapter 61

  Up in Dawson
’s strange paint-splattered tower, time seemed to have slowed.

  ‘The Lord and Lady performed with our theatre group after they were smuggled free from the Tower,’ explained Dawson. ‘That’s what I was told.’

  ‘The Lord and Lady performed with the King’s Company?’ confirmed Charlie.

  Dawson nodded patiently. ‘One of the leading actors let it slip to me after too much wine. Cromwell knew it too,’ he added philosophically. ‘His men came searching.’

  ‘Were you told anything else about what happened to them?’ asked Charlie, his heart pounding.

  ‘Cromwell searched all the theatres. He was desperate,’ said Dawson. ‘I understood the Lord and Lady to be most important people.’

  ‘Heirs to the throne?’ suggested Lily.

  ‘No.’ Dawson shook his head. ‘More important than that. They are gods. The last of the old gods. From when we had many. King Arthur was a Christian who ruled by forging an alliance with the old ones. The Green Man and his lady.’

  ‘But our kings are Christian,’ said Charlie. ‘They don’t worship old gods and fairies.’

  ‘They did,’ said Dawson. ‘But no more. Cromwell and his men were known as the Ironsides, were they not? They went to war against the fairies, and the old gods. The Puritans in their iron armour weakened the Old Ones so they were barely more than mortals.’ Dawson shook his head sadly. ‘As I say, Cromwell’s man came, years ago. Praise-God Barebones. He came first to my workshop, smashed up many of my paintings. Then he went to the theatre. I couldn’t warn the players in time.’ He paused. ‘The players put up a good fight. Barebones took the whole company to the justices.’

  ‘So they were whipped?’ asked Charlie. ‘Imprisoned?’

  ‘I was whipped and put in the stocks,’ said Dawson, gesturing to his broken jaw. ‘I was fortunate. But as for the actors, feelings at the time ran high.’ Dawson’s eyes met Charlie’s. ‘Praise-God Barebones had them all executed,’ he said. ‘I always assumed the Lord and Lady died with them.’