The Changeling Murders (The Thief Taker Series Book 4)

by C. S. Quinn

  ‘What does he need defend me against?’ asked Maria, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  The boy smiled. ‘Why, me, of course. Tom restrains himself, but I have no such compunction.’ He laughed coldly. ‘Perhaps he is the Puritan and I the indulgent Royalist.’

  Maria swallowed, saying nothing.

  ‘Do you know the best of it?’ gloated the boy. ‘You’re the one who will set me free. You gave me the answer.’ He made a horrible smile. ‘My sainted mother. You made me see her differently. It’s all so clear now. When I put her behind the mirror, the glass will break.’ He leaned forward and lit a candle. ‘Tom has starved me of the things I like best,’ he told her. ‘I mean to sate myself utterly.’ The boy lifted the candle and the flame bloomed. He waved the flame as he moved in. ‘I have dreamed of it, how I will burn you, the way your face will twist and contort.’

  Maria acted on sudden impulse. She took a fast step forward, and as the candle moved towards her, she held up the polished part of her manacles.

  The boy opened his mouth to laugh at her, stepping out of her reach. And then his gaze settled on his outline in the manacles and the laugh dropped away.

  ‘No!’ he mouthed, catching sight of his blurry reflection. ‘Don’t put me back!’

  Then the boy’s crazed face receded and Tom was blinking back at her.

  ‘What did you do?’ He sounded drugged and groggy.

  ‘You were dreaming again,’ said Maria. She patted his chest comfortingly and in so doing, located the glass vial, hidden inside his coat.

  ‘You have angered him,’ said Tom. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

  Maria swallowed.

  ‘It will go worse for you, I’m afraid,’ said Tom. ‘He is furious for the trick you played on him. He means for you to suffer unspeakably.’

  Tom was watching the growing terror in Maria’s face with interest. And he didn’t notice her slip free the glass vial.

  Chapter 70

  Charlie watched as the cunning woman’s hand closed triumphantly over his key. His heart sank. He’d set the terms of the wager and now he’d lost.

  ‘You sold your baby,’ said Lily suddenly. ‘You sold your baby to the fairies. In exchange for your powers.’

  The cunning woman stopped. Her gnarled hand opened.

  ‘A girl child,’ said Lily. ‘You were on the road to London. Near King’s Cross where the gypsies camp.’

  The milky eyes filled with tears. ‘I never spoke of it,’ she whispered. ‘Not to a living soul. I tried to go back, but it was too late.’ The cunning woman’s anguish was strangely juvenile. As though this particular memory had conjured a younger self.

  Lily hesitated, glancing at Charlie. ‘Tell us what we need to know. A promise is a promise.’

  The cunning woman’s mouth tightened in annoyance. ‘How did you know about my babe?’ she demanded. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘First tell us about Bridey Black,’ said Lily sternly. ‘No tricks.’

  The old woman rocked on her stool. ‘Ah, but there were tricks,’ she said. ‘To make Bridey’s changeling return. We burned him,’ she said, ‘cut him, put him close to the fire. We left him out in the snow with no clothes on.’

  Charlie felt his stomach tighten. Facts were rushing together.

  ‘How could you?’ Lily’s voice caught in her throat.

  The old woman’s strange smile remained. ‘A mother knows,’ she said. ‘A mother knows when her babe is changed. I hurt no innocents. Only force the fairies to come and take back their own.’

  Beside him, Charlie felt Lily move. He took her hand and squeezed it. This time she didn’t pull away.

  ‘Where is Tom Black now?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘You have met Tom Black already,’ said the cunning woman. ‘His face is one you recognise. You do not know him by his true name. But the Lord and Lady can lead you to him.’

  ‘They are dead,’ said Charlie. ‘We tracked them to the King’s Company. They were executed by Praise-God Barebones.’

  To their surprise, the cunning woman laughed, a strange, loud sound. ‘The Lord and Lady have lived for five hundred years, from the time of the first king of England,’ she crowed. ‘They cannot be killed, only vanished.’

  ‘You know who they are?’ said Charlie, confused.

  ‘They are much talked about by those who know the fairy folk,’ she replied. ‘They are born of fey folk, but not of them. Half our world and half theirs. Tom Black is of their blood.’

  ‘They are related to Tom Black because he is a fairy changeling?’ said Charlie, trying to weigh the information. ‘That is their connection to him?’

  ‘All fairies are kin to the Lord and Lady,’ agreed the cunning woman.

  ‘How can you be so certain Barebones didn’t kill them?’ said Lily.

  ‘They can only be destroyed by burning,’ said the cunning woman. ‘And that in the strongest forge in the land.’ Her eyes slid to Charlie. ‘Tom and Barebones were the prison guard. Tasked with their destruction.’

  ‘They worked together!’ said Lily. ‘So Barebones might know something about Tom. He may even know where he’s keeping Maria.’

  ‘If Barebones was a prison guard,’ said Charlie slowly, ‘that explains why he wasn’t in Finsbury Gaol. It would have been too dangerous. He’d likely know the other guards, perhaps talk his way free. If I were to imprison such a man,’ continued Charlie, ‘I wouldn’t choose a prison. I’d choose an asylum. Bedlam was rebuilt after the fire and is secret and secure.’

  ‘Then how are we to get inside?’ asked Lily. ‘If they’ve locked up a criminal there will be guards. Lady Castlemaine has likely given our descriptions to every mercenary in the city. And you are known to all the city watch,’ she added.

  Charlie nodded at the truth of this. ‘We need a distraction. We’ll get in the same way Barebones has been combing the city. With the apprentices. All we need do is let it slip, where Barebones is locked up.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t work?’

  ‘It will,’ said Charlie. ‘Maria’s life depends on it.’

  Chapter 71

  Bridey was looking keenly at Tom. He stood twitching, his eyes roving around her large cell.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ she said finally. ‘What happened?’

  In answer, Tom raised his arm, letting his sleeve fall back. He frowned, looking at his burned skin, the criss-cross of knotted tissue.

  ‘Why did you continue with the changeling tricks?’ he asked quietly.

  Bridey’s face clouded. ‘You are a wicked creature,’ she said. ‘You always were.’

  Tom nodded at this, still staring at his arm. ‘And yet’ – his blue-green eyes lifted to hers – ‘and yet what if, all this time, I was not what you said?’ He began tapping his fingers on his chin distractedly.

  ‘You’ve been talking to women,’ said Bridey. ‘Whores, all of them. Didn’t I warn you Tom, they are not to be trusted?’ She backed away from him and picked up a large jar. ‘You must make a penance,’ she decided, shaking out a circle of salt from the heavy vessel. ‘My circle,’ said Bridey, moving inside it. ‘No fairy kind may cross.’

  Tom looked at his mother. ‘The boy thinks you should be put behind the mirror,’ he said calmly.

  Bridey looked up, fear flashing in her blue-green eyes. ‘You may not step within.’ She stooped and lit a cheap taper with shaking hands.

  Tom took a stride forward, then another. He stepped straight-backed across the thick line of salt.

  Bridey’s mouth dropped open in horror. ‘You cannot . . .’ she stammered. ‘It is not possible for a fairy to cross.’

  Tom looked around, taking in Bridey’s face. Then he smiled, a horrible doll-like expression.

  Bridey was backing away.

  ‘Perhaps I am your boy returned,’ said Tom, his voice clipped. ‘Perhaps I stepped through the glass.’ He held up his hands and looked at them.

  Bridey shook her head vigorously. ‘You think I would not see my own
boy?’ She crossed herself, then scrabbled back, picking up a discarded eating knife from the corner of the cell.

  Tom advanced. ‘You have no notion of how I suffered,’ he said. ‘Trapped behind the glass whilst he lived out my life. I stayed a boy whilst he grew old.’

  ‘Stay back!’ Bridey swiped at him with the blade. In an easy gesture, Tom grabbed her throat with one hand and her wrist with the other.

  Bridey made strange choking sounds as he sent the knife spinning free. Tom picked it up and examined it with interest, his other hand still holding his mother by the neck. Bridey was turning blue, gasping as he choked her. Tom frowned at the noise. He looked at her face for a while, regarding the bulging eyes. Then, slowly, he opened his fingers one by one. Bridey stepped away coughing and retching.

  ‘You are a monster,’ whispered Bridey, her lower lip wobbling. ‘It was right you suffered. You took my life from me.’

  Tom picked up one of the candles.

  ‘You never wanted me back,’ he said quietly. ‘You wanted to use the fairy powers for yourself. To make your prophecies. So all the men might look on you. You only pretended you cared for your lost son, stranded in the fairy place.’

  ‘I was a devoted wife,’ she whispered, ‘the best of mothers.’

  ‘You chose my father because he was soft-minded enough to overlook your cruelty,’ said Tom mildly. ‘You lied to all the Shambles folk so they might overlook what you did to me.’ Tom stepped closer. ‘Every hurt you have done will be revisited threefold,’ he decided.

  ‘I am your mother,’ whispered Bridey, her eyes following the candle. ‘Please, Tom.’

  ‘I am not Tom,’ he said, watching the flame. ‘You said it yourself. I am a monster.’

  Chapter 72

  Lily and Charlie were sitting on the top of the wall of New Bedlam. Charlie had procured them both blue apprentice aprons, and a rudimentary disguise for Lily.

  ‘This is never going to work,’ said Lily, regarding her threadbare breeches and ragged shirt. ‘Even if the apprentices come, people will never believe me a boy.’

  ‘You were at sea,’ said Charlie. ‘How many stories are there of girls who passed themselves off as sailors?’

  ‘Those girls didn’t look like me.’

  ‘Pull the hat down lower,’ advised Charlie. ‘It’s a riot. People won’t look too hard. Only keep your head down.’

  They heard a roar in the distance.

  ‘Apprentices,’ said Charlie. ‘I told you they’d come.’

  ‘I never knew it was so easy to lead a London mob,’ said Lily, looking with trepidation towards the direction of the sound. ‘How many people did you bribe to shout out Barebones’s location?’

  ‘Only three.’

  A few front runners had rounded the corner towards them now. They wore blue aprons and waved pikestaffs and broom handles. Charlie watched as they beckoned to an unseen mob behind, pointing to the asylum.

  Charlie eyed the approaching crowd as it began surging towards them. It was a great deal larger than he’d anticipated.

  ‘Holy hell,’ said Lily. ‘How many are there?’

  ‘Come on.’ Charlie slipped from the wall as the thronging mass neared New Bedlam.

  ‘Down with the King!’ screamed a ragged boy. ‘Free Praise-God Barebones!’

  ‘This way,’ said Charlie, pulling Lily with him.

  The surge of apprentices had taken the asylum guard completely by surprise. The few milling at the front were in no way prepared for attack. They hesitated, eyeing the multitude, and in their hesitation the boys seized their advantage.

  They pelted forward, on and on, overwhelming the guards and pouring through the large open gate. Charlie and Lily raced in behind them. Beyond Bedlam’s thick wall were several enclosed vegetable gardens, and a sturdy central building.

  There was a shout from the apprentices. ‘Barebones! Free Praise-God Barebones!’

  On the far side of the asylum, boys began smashing in doors. Doctors were running for their lives.

  Charlie took in the scene. ‘I think Barebones is over there,’ he said, pointing to a small lockup. ‘It’s where they keep inmates waiting to be assessed. Very secure,’ he added, nodding towards a thick wooden bar laid over the door, ‘and they don’t usually post a guard.’

  Lily nodded in agreement, looking at the out-of-place guard, who was now taking in the mass of apprentices in disbelief.

  People were surging in behind them, filling Bedlam’s enclosed yard.

  ‘There’s too many,’ said Charlie. ‘There’s going to be a crush.’

  He began pulling Lily to the side, but the rioters were piling in too fast. In a matter of moments, thousands of people had surged in, and more still were pushing behind them.

  Suddenly an explosion came from high behind. Then a huge chunk of stone wall fell. The largest piece smashed an apprentice to the floor, breaking his head open like an egg and splashing bloody gore in a wide arc.

  ‘Someone’s using gunpowder,’ said Charlie, as people began hemming them in on all sides.

  ‘Guards?’ asked Lily. ‘Or apprentices?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Charlie, looking for a way out as the crush intensified. ‘People are having the breath squeezed from their bodies. Now they’re panicking.’

  They heard screams and the patter of stones thudding down as more of the wall gave way. Blood was everywhere. Near the destroyed wall, an apprentice toppled, grabbing onto his fellow. The next apprentice fell and in moments there was a surge as the thick crowd lost their footing.

  ‘Move,’ said Charlie, as the surge of falling people made for them like a tidal wave.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Lily, as she was squeezed tight by the crowd.

  She slipped down out of view, and Charlie dived after her. Then boy after flailing boy fell on top of them. Under the tumult of writhing bodies, Charlie twisted to see Lily’s terrified face. He felt the great weight of people push him down, felt the terror of complete powerlessness.

  ‘I can’t breathe,’ whispered Lily.

  Charlie saw black spots. He tried reaching out with his hands, but all he could feel was clothing and limbs. Then suddenly his hands touched something hard. A metal grate, set into a wall. Charlie reached out and grasped it. He dug deep and pulled, inching himself out from the pinioning crush of the fallen boys. Above him, apprentices were dragging themselves up. He saw Lily, lying limply, and took hold of both her arms, drawing her from the crush.

  She stood shakily, her clothes ripped and bloodied, brick dust lying thick on her hair.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ asked Charlie, looking her over.

  She shook her head. ‘Someone else’s blood,’ she said.

  A gunshot sounded. From the wall, doctors had gathered arms and were raising guns to fire into the crowd.

  Charlie sought out the lockup, now unguarded. ‘This way,’ he said. ‘If Barebones is inside, we don’t have long.’

  Chapter 73

  ‘Mrs Mitchell.’ Mrs Jenks dropped an elaborate curtsey. ‘You don’t answer your door yourself?’

  ‘I learned it all from you,’ said Mother Mitchell with a laboured smile. She stood. ‘Wine?’

  Mrs Jenks gave the slightest of nods, taking in the fine room, the furnishings. Next to Mother Mitchell, Mrs Jenks seemed very small. Whilst Mother Mitchell had physically expanded into her status, Mrs Jenks retained the slighter figure of her girlhood, wearing the latest fashions tight against her bony frame.

  ‘You honour me,’ said Mrs Jenks, watching as Mother Mitchell picked up a crystal decanter of her best wine.

  Mother Mitchell nodded in reply. Then she selected a crystal goblet for herself and a plain chalice for her guest.

  ‘What do you want?’ Mother Mitchell handed Mrs Jenks the wine. ‘Come to poach more girls? Spread more lies? Brought me some black pudding, have you?’

  ‘I don’t come to fight over old affronts,’ said Mrs Jenks carefully, seating herself on a long sofa.

>   Mother Mitchell’s mouth pressed very thin. She nodded to the false blonde curls arranged around Mrs Jenks’s painted face.

  ‘I noticed you admiring my fine new clock,’ she said. ‘You have until the minute hand reaches twelve before I break this glass over your sugar-pasted head.’

  Mrs Jenks stood a little too quickly. ‘I have a proposition for you,’ she said, speaking quickly. ‘The apprentices are coming. Throw your house in with mine. Our girls can protect each other.’ She offered Mother Mitchell her best brothel-keeper’s smile.

  Mrs Jenks’s expensive lead face paint had hairline cracks running across it, Mother Mitchell noticed. Any exaggerated expression sent a new network of tiny fissures running through it, like an eggshell breaking.

  ‘You divided us, Mrs Jenks. You live with it,’ said Mother Mitchell. ‘You took Covent Garden for yourself and the leavings were for me and Damaris to fight over.’

  Mrs Jenks’s scarlet mouth tightened. ‘Do you not see? These riots. It’s an attack on all of us. On the King’s ways.’

  ‘How convenient you want us to all throw in now,’ said Mother Mitchell, ‘but not when there’s money to be shared.’

  ‘Help me,’ said Mrs Jenks. ‘They’ll come for you next.’

  ‘Then we’ll be ready for them,’ said Mother Mitchell. ‘My girls are bred on the streets, every one. They’re born survivors and there’s no apprentice alive could best ’em.’ She took a long sip from her goblet. ‘Find some other fool to help you,’ she decided.

  Mrs Jenks stood, shaking slightly. ‘Everything you are is down to me,’ she said. ‘When you arrived in London, you thought a goose feather in a straw hat was high fashion.’

  ‘From my understanding,’ said Mother Mitchell, ‘there won’t be much fashion left in Covent Garden by the time the apprentices are done with you.’