Sovay

by Celia Rees

  The street she took away from the square was deserted: shops boarded, windows shuttered, doors locked and bolted against the recent disturbances. The evening sun slanting through the crooked roof tops cast long shadows and threw an odd amber glow over everything. Suspended motes of dust floated in the fingers of light and seemed to be the very embodiment of the heavy hanging silence. It was as if the sudden outburst of violence had exhausted the air, allowing no movement there.

  Digby Clayton allowed his subject a bit of a head start before setting off in pursuit. He had taken up a position on the margins, so he could keep an eye on the crowd and pick out chosen targets. He had assigned different men with a nod of the head to Stanhope and the American. This one was his, and his alone. After so many years, he rarely felt even a hint of excitement, but this one was different. His interest had been pricked right from the first sighting on the steps of the house in Soho.

  It took Sovay some time to realise that she was being followed, but she had good hearing and picked up the faint sound of footsteps behind her as she walked down the deserted streets. When she looked round, she saw no one, but as soon as she started off again, the footsteps fell in with her. At first, she thought that her mind had become overwrought by the scenes that she had just witnessed and that the footsteps were a figment of her imagination but no, when she increased her pace, the footsteps followed, when she slowed, so did they. The life in the streets increased as she moved away from Fender’s Field, but still she sensed the presence of someone behind her. She was used to being in field and wood, picking up and interpreting every small noise when out hunting with Gabriel or Hugh. The sounds here were different: a voice raised in anger, the crying of a baby, the wailing of a child, the crack of a whip, the whinny of a horse, the creak of a passing cart, but the situation was not so very dissimilar. The difference lay in the fact that she was not stalking deer, or hare, or pheasant. This time she was the quarry.

  Digby Clayton paused, looking up and down the street. Target had given him the slip. Must have dodged up an alley just at a bend in the street. Digby was not far behind, but the narrow entrance was out of his line of vision. By the time he’d got there, the subject had disappeared. He cursed himself for not seeing it coming, not anticipating. He looked about him. This was not the best of neighbourhoods. The alley fed into a warren of dingy passageways and stinking courts. A remnant of the old city. A tongue of poverty that extended between the neat squares, wide streets and shops and houses for the wealthy. Clayton peered down the noisome alley piled with unnamed filth and rubbish. He pushed himself off the wall. Better get after the party, and quick, before all the light was gone. It would be dark as a cave soon in between those rookeries and a young ‘gent’ was a prime cull to be knocked over and end up in the gutter with a slit throat.

  Sovay realised her mistake almost immediately, but could not retrace her footsteps for fear of encountering her pursuer. She was forced to go on, picking her way through the piles of ordure. The decaying tenements were close together and little of the already fading light penetrated here. The buildings were in poor repair, the brickwork crumbled in bright red gashes against a dark patina of soot. Some were patched with planks nailed over jagged cracks and props set at angles to stave off imminent collapse. The wooden panels of the doors had rotted into jagged holes and the windows were empty of glass, covered in tar paper or open to the elements. From darkened doorways, huddled children watched her passing. Barefoot and ragged, they stared, huge eyes in filthy faces. Some held shapeless bundles that might have been babies. Some held the infant out to her, but most were too listless even to beg.

  Sovay turned a corner and a young woman approached and asked through a gust of gin fumes if the young gentleman would like company. It was the coquetry of desperation. She seemed little older than the children in the doorways, her dress a ragged cobweb with hardly enough substance to hide her nakedness.

  Sovay dug in her waistcoat for a coin and hurried on, hoping to escape, but others were appearing like phantoms, all with the same desperate pleading behind the casual question, all with the same grey, pinched faces, like aged fairies. Sovay felt tears springing to see that some had added the odd, brave, wisp of colour, a red scarf, a yellow ribbon, to the uniform drabness of the rags that they wore. She remembered the milkmaid she’d encountered on her way to London and wondered how many of these had come fresh-faced from the country, looking to make their way. How many had arrived ruined already? Forced to make a living in the only way left to them, seduced and deserted by someone like James Gilmore.

  She took a turn to the left, hoping to avoid further advances, to find streets that she knew, or gain some sort of safety in wider, more populated thoroughfares. She had dressed as plainly as her brother’s wardrobe allowed, but she was as conspicuous on these streets as if she were wearing court dress and decked out in silk and velvet. The little light that remained was fast disappearing and predatory eyes seemed to be watching from every doorway, every corner. She had no weapons about her and knew that she was unlikely to fare well in any attack upon her person.

  They caught her just as Sovay thought she was safe. Down a side street, she glimpsed a wide thoroughfare, where well-dressed people walked and there was the noise of traffic and carriages. With a sigh of relief, Sovay turned and hurried towards what she though was sanctuary. Alerted by some deep warning instinct, she was just quick enough to dodge the blow that would certainly have crushed her skull. The cudgel struck her just behind her right ear, sheering through the scalp and glancing off the bone.

  She fell, insensible. The robber caught her, dragged her into the alley where he had been lurking and began searching through her clothing with quick, expert fingers.

  ‘Well, I’ll be,’ a grin spread across his broad coarse features and he passed his hands over her body a second time, just to make sure.

  ‘What you found?’ His mate who was acting as lookout twisted round to stare at the sprawled body. ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘You might say so, Coddy, my lad. You might say so.’

  ‘Valuable, like.’

  ‘Could be. To the right person.’ Her attacker hauled Sovay up by her arms as though she had no more weight than a child and threw her over his brawny shoulder, balancing there like a bundle of kindling. ‘Could well be.’

  Digby Clayton watched them disappear down the alley, all the while making notes in his head for the report he would write for Dysart as soon as he returned to his lodgings in Whitefriars. It wasn’t his place to interfere. His job was to observe and report, nothing more. The fate of the party did not concern him. Maybe the two were resurrection men. In that case the unfortunate young ‘gentleman’ was destined for nearby St Bart’s, where the doctors would appreciate a fresh, warm corpse, no questions asked. He turned and walked away, shoulders hunched, hands buried in his pockets, already thinking of the pie he would purchase for his supper, along with the pint of porter that was waiting for him at the Black Lion.

  CHAPTER 16

  Sovay was not destined for the anatomist’s table. She was delivered, still insensible, to Mother Pierce’s establishment in Chandois Street, Covent Garden.

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Slevin.’ Mother Pierce scratched under her violent red wig and crushed whatever she found there under her fingernail. ‘Ain’t exactly in my line of business, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘Must be worth summat, Mrs P!’ Slevin’s broad bulldog brow furrowed further. ‘She’s uncommon good-looking.’ He moved her head to show the less bloody side of her face. ‘Look at that. Skin like a peach. And most likely a virgin. You can charge top bit for that.’

  Mrs Pierce sighed. ‘In the ordinary way of things, that would be true, Mr Slevin, but my clients are gentlemen of a certain bent, or ain’t you noticed?’

  ‘Mollies, I know that, but this one ain’t yer regular Judy. Don’t you ever get no women? I know there are such . . .’

  ‘I don’t like that term being used about my clientele, Mr
Slevin.’ Mother Pierce pursed her withered lips. ‘And no. No women. Leastways, I ain’t seen ’em. This ’ere is an exclusively male establishment.’

  ‘Whichever road,’ Slevin conceded. ‘There’s got to be push in it somewhere, like I said.’

  Mother Pierce held Sovay’s face by the chin. ‘A looker, that I’ll grant you, once we clean off the blood and such. Tell you what I’ll do, Mr Slevin. On account of me being a fair woman. I’ll get in touch with my sister establishment, Mother Marples’ in Maiden Lane. She’s in a more regular way of business and, as you say, may well pay top coin for one such as this ’ere.’ Mother Pierce considered. The girl might, indeed, be worth a pretty penny. Her looks and breeding could be enough to make her the toast of the sporting young gents. At the very least, Mother Marples would be able to sell her over and over again, as a fresh young thing, until, of course, her freshness was spoilt. ‘If Ma Marples agrees, I’ll split with you.’

  ‘Half?’

  Mother Pierce shook her head. ‘A third and that’s my last offer. Look at the trouble I’ll be taking, got to get her cleaned up and dressed right. You could take her yerself,’ she added, ‘but with her in this state, I doubt you’d get the price.’

  Slevin considered. ‘You’re a hard woman, Mrs P.’

  Mother Pierce laughed, releasing a gust of foul breath and showing her uneven stubs of teeth. ‘Known for it. Proud of it. How else can a lady like myself make her way in this wicked world?’

  Slevin shook her hand and left, still grumbling, although he knew he’d made a good bargain. If anyone could get top tin, it would be Mrs P.

  ‘Now, now,’ Mother Pierce clapped her hands at the boys who had gathered around, ‘show’s over. Back to your places.’

  The boys drifted off. It was still early, before the theatres emptied; business was slack, but it did not do to cross old Ma Pierce.

  One of them remained behind.

  ‘You still ’ere?’ Mother Pierce scowled at him. ‘Out of my sight or I’ll get a switch to you.’

  ‘I know her, Ma,’ he said. ‘The Captain brung her in, t’other day, don’t you remember? We give her some clothes.’

  ‘I do recall . . .’ Mrs Pierce rubbed her chin and gave the matter some thought. Gin had a habit of making things a bit hazy, and she’d had a good drop lately, but now it was coming back. ‘And here she is again, similarly attired. Well, well. Never thought to see her again, never mind hauled in by Mr Slevin like a sack of coal. There’s a queerness, here, no doubt. And I’m still owed for them clothes.’

  ‘She’s a friend of the Captain’s,’ Toby went on, hoping to save Sovay from whatever fate Ma Pierce had lined up for her. ‘He wouldn’t like it if anything were to happen to her.’

  ‘What’s that to me?’ Mother Pierce eyed him suspiciously.

  ‘I mean, maybe you hadn’t ought to sell her on, like.’

  Her scowl did not bode well. ‘I’ll thank you not to listen in on private conversations. And what I do, or don’t do by way of business ain’t got nothing to do with him, or you, Master Toby White.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Toby thought fast. Time to try a different line of attack. ‘But the Captain brings in topnotch swag. If he finds out, he might go elsewhere with the make.’

  Mother Pierce was a fence as well as a brothel keeper. She considered this for a moment, before rejecting it for the money the girl would bring.

  ‘He’s welcome to try it. I’m the best and he knows it.’

  ‘She’s from a good family!’ Toby was getting desperate. ‘Likely, she’ll be missed.’

  ‘So what? Got knocked over and disappeared. Won’t be the first, will she? Won’t be the last. Didn’t want it to happen, she should’ve stayed at home respectable, not gone wandering the streets dressed as a toff! And who’s going to miss her? Sneaked out for a bit of adventure, that’s my thinking. I’ll wager her family don’t even know she’s gone. No, Toby, my lad, plead all you like, I’ve made my decision. She’s destined for Rosie Marples’. If you’re so interested,’ she clipped him across the ear, ‘you get her cleaned up.’

  She waddled off to the little room she called her boudoir for much needed refreshment. She pulled the stopper out of the gin bottle and closed the door.

  Toby looked around for help.

  ‘Give us a hand, Georgie,’ he called to a boy who had just come in still dressed in his street clothes.

  They took her between them, supporting her up the stairs.

  ‘Do us a favour,’ he whispered as they helped her into a room and dropped her onto a bed. ‘Find the Captain. He’ll likely be at the Cross, opposite St Martin’s. There’s coin in it if you find him.’

  ‘What about Ma?’

  ‘She’s in her room with Mother Gin for company.’ Toby winced in sympathy as he turned Sovay’s head gently to look at the wound behind her ear. ‘Ask Jack to come here while you’re at it. Tell him to bring a needle and thread.’

  When Georgie had gone, Toby fetched a clean towel, poured water from the pitcher and began to wash away the sticky streaks of black blood that had dried onto her face. He then turned her head, parted her hair gently and began to bathe the wound. He worked slowly and carefully, not wanting her to wake up just yet. There was a nasty gash, long and jagged and still seeping blood. It would need stitching. Jack had been ’prenticed to a surgeon apothecary before he came here. He was a far better doctor than the ancient brandy-soaked quack Ma Pierce employed to check over her charges. Toby had never seen that one sober and his hand shook so hard he couldn’t even thread a needle. Jack would know what to do.

  Sovay woke thinking that she was still dreaming. Specifically, the nightmare that she’d experienced a few nights ago. The surroundings were the same, as were the faces looking down at her, but when she turned her head, surely the pain was sharp enough to wake her? The realisation came more slowly than physical sensation. She was not dreaming. Somehow, she was back in this place again. Alarmed, Sovay tried to sit up but immediately felt weak, sick and lightheaded. She fell back onto the rough linen towel that covered the pillow. Her stomach heaved and her head ached abominably. She tentatively put a hand up to her ear. Her hair was wet, the skin behind her ear felt strangely rucked and pleated. When she took her fingers away they bore faint traces of blood.

  One of the faces she recognised as Toby, the other was a stranger. A dark boy with flawless skin, his face freckled as a speckled hen’s egg, his high cheek bones accentuated by sweeping lines of rouge; long thick lashes fringing undeniably beautiful violet-blue eyes outlined with kohl. They both wore female attire of flimsy, shiny material, low cut and deeply cinched at the waist.

  ‘Steady,’ the dark boy laughed down at her. His accent sounded Irish. ‘You’ve had a bit of a clout. Likely, you’ll be feeling a bit muddle-headed. Nasty gash there, but I sewed it up, clean as a whistle. It’ll scar, no doubt, but ye’ve got enough hair t’cover it. Ye’ll have a bump the size of a duck’s egg, but that’ll soon go down.’

  Sovay tried to rise again, but the boy pushed her gently back onto the bed.

  ‘Rest now,’ he said. ‘Recover your strength.’

  ‘I’ll square it with Ma Pierce,’ Toby leaned over her, his face full of concern. ‘I’ve sent for the Captain at his usual place, the Golden Cross. He should be here soon. It’s only a step away at Charing Cross. He’ll help get you out of here.’

  ‘Greenwood? No!’ The stitches tugged as she shook her head. ‘I don’t trust him. He has betrayed me already. To . . . to an enemy.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Toby was shocked that she would think such a thing. ‘He wouldn’t do that. Not the Captain. He wouldn’t peach on anyone. He’s a gentleman. I mean a real one. He was a captain in the army. Cashiered, he was, for something he didn’t do.’

  ‘That’s what he told you.’

  ‘And I believe him. I met a few liars in my time, Miss Sovay, more than a few, and he ain’t one of them.’ There were voices, noise from downstairs. ‘It’s getting busier. I
better go, or Ma Pierce’ll be livid. You stay here and rest a while. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you and I’ll look in when I can.’

  When Sovay woke the second time, it was dark in the room. For a second or two, she didn’t know where she was. The door was open a crack, letting in enough light for her to see the gaudy drapes, the peeling mirrors, the screen in the corner hiding the washstand and chamber pot. She turned her eyes away from the indecent images on the wall and tried to block her nostrils to the pervading reek of male sweat and cheap perfume. She had to get out of here. She sat up slowly, feeling a little less faint this time. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, and waited a few more moments before attempting to stand. Using the bedpost as a prop, she hauled herself upright and took a few steps before her knees buckled under her.

  She was caught by strong arms and a voice she knew said, ‘Steady now!’

  She held onto him for a moment longer and Captain Greenwood smiled as he helped her back to the bed.

  ‘I have to get out of here!’

  ‘All in good time. How do you come to be here, I’m intrigued to know.’

  ‘I – I can’t quite remember. I was at a meeting that broke up in fighting. I became separated from my friends. I must have been trying to get home when I was set upon.’

  ‘You were at Fender’s Field? I heard there had been trouble.’

  ‘Yes, and I must get home.’

  ‘You would do well to wait until you are recovered a little.’

  ‘I cannot stay a moment longer in this dreadful place!’

  ‘In time, as I say!’ He sat down and grinned at her. ‘You should be grateful. If it wasn’t for Mother Pierce, you would be locked up in some trull’s parlour, waiting for the highest bidder. And it’s cost me a pretty penny, I can tell you.’