Past horseshoes and the blacksmith hammering hot and smelling of damp horse and smoke from the forge, Isabel disappeared into the narrow alleys where the market led from the open street and back into the regular shops within the walled city. She had a fat purse to hide and needed to keep away from anyone who might remember she was close by when the corpulent country esquire lost his money. A disadvantage of being pretty, men remembered your face. Isabel slipped away and Richard and I, understanding the traditions, skipped in the opposite direction.
There were sacks of flour for sale and ready made bread too, small dark loaves hot from the oven. Tilda was hungry and I said on her behalf, “Wait for me by the corner. I’m going to steal a loaf.”
Richard looked at me in some surprise. “But not from him. You know better than that. Ned the Miller puts more grit than barley in his flour.”
Tilda knew though I hadn’t, one should only steal the best.
But Isabel had already taken a purse and now I wanted to prove my skills. I was small and dexterous and could gaze earnestly with innocent eyes. I had the little knife up my sleeve ready to cut leather straps. A pen-knife, named for its bright blade designed to sharpen quills for pens, it had a thin bone handle and fitted neatly inside the cuff of my cotte. With just a twist of the thumb and wrist, it slipped into my palm. I could cut a man’s purse from his belt in seconds, and hide it in the folds of my skirts. I preferred to steal from men. Women were quicker and more suspicious. Three times I had very nearly been caught when stealing from women but I was quick too, and if a hue and cry was sounded, I could outrun the mob. Usually I just disappeared into the alleys before anyone knew they’d been robbed.
Isabel had been gone an hour by now and she wouldn’t know until I got home that I’d taken anything more valuable than she had, but it wasn’t her I wanted to impress.
I saw a young man lounging against the side of a stall. He was watching two women arguing the price for a pair of quails. He was well dressed and wore a full purse. I thought he looked bored and restless, perhaps a brother or son sent to market as chaperone to watch over them, but impatient to be off hunting, hawking or tilting with friends. He was too young to be easy prey but his lack of concentration was a temptation in my favour. I moved to the side of the stall and into his long shadow. I was behind him, my knife already in my hand, when I felt someone’s fingers grip my wrist.
“I don’t think so.” An elderly voice and sour breath against my cheek.
The younger man swung around, glaring at me. “What’s going on?”
“Fool. You were about to lose your purse. Must I always protect you like a child?” The older man still had my wrist, and now my shoulder too. He was far, far stronger than he looked and his hold on me hurt like hell. I stood still and waited, trying to pivot on the balls of my feet, ready to run like mad as soon as I could twist away. The younger man looked down his nose at me. “A slum brat. Call the Watch.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I said quickly, which was true. “And I wasn’t going to do anything,” which was a lie.
The older man squeezed down against my knuckles, forcing my fingers open. The little blade had already cut into my palm, which was bleeding. I dropped the knife. The two women had bought their brace of quail and came bustling over, a flurry of brown feathers. A crowd of people had now encircled us, eager for any drama which might add interest to a morning’s shopping. I could see Richard’s little red head and worried face peeping between someone’s legs. There were shouts of take her to the sheriff, get the bailiff, or call the constable. But the older woman stood between me and the mob. She was elegant and pleasant faced. “Who was the child stealing from?” I liked her pale blue eyes and the dimple at her mouth.
“Me,” said the youth, sullen. “And I’ve seen this slut before.”
The younger woman was little more than my own age, pretty with long fair plaits coiled tight to her face. “Poor foolish Malcolm. Then run and get the guard.” I blushed. She was the sort of person I would have liked for a friend. They weren’t married, for her hair was uncovered, so I wondered if the sullen young man was her brother even though they looked nothing alike. This Malcolm was dark and thick browed. She was dainty and blonde. I was absurdly ashamed and sorry that I was who I was and had done what was, in fact, something I did almost every day, and had never been ashamed of before.
“No, don’t,” said the older woman at once. “We really don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves. After all, the child didn’t get away with anything. Let her go.”
“It’s too late. The crowd will lynch her,” said the girl.
“They won’t.” I was red faced and squirming by now. “Just set me free and I’ll run.”
The older man did not loosen his grasp. “Where do you come from? Where do you live? Do you have a father?” His voice was intrusive and sharp. I hated his face so close to my own and I hated his breath. He held me in one clamped claw as the fingers of his other hand began to crawl around me, first along my jaw, rubbing against my cheek as if testing a plum to see if it is ripe, and then down my neck towards my breasts. I cringed and shuddered.
“My father’s dead. I don’t live anywhere.” I hung my head, looking contrite and avoiding the man’s eyes. “I have to steal to eat. But I won’t do it again. I promise to be good. Just let me go.”
He smiled but his lips disappeared into his tight black beard and it looked more like a snarl. “A waif with no family. This one could be useful to us.”
The older woman grabbed my other shoulder, pulling me away from him. Her fingers dug into my collar bone. “No. Don’t. Too many people have seen us with her. Do what I told you and set the little trollop free.”
He released me so suddenly that I stumbled and nearly fell. Then I reeled into balance and ran like fury without looking back. Some of the crowd began to follow but they’d lost heart. Without the victim’s compliance, there was little adventure to be had. Lifting my skirts, I ran until my ribs hurt and my stockings rolled down to my ankles. I was half blinded with my hair in my eyes, but I could smell the river, rancid with sewerage where it was trapped under London’s wide stone bridge. Filth caught in the eddies between the pillars and their wide bases. Then I heard the great balloon of noise from the nearby tavern and knew a cock fight would give good cover. I could disappear entirely amongst the crowd. So I slipped around the back and edged into the squash. Respectable women would never be seen at a cock fight, but no one would ever have accused Tilda of respectability.
The betting was furious. The cockers held their birds to the ground in the centre of the arena, two lithe fowl vivid in crimson, bronze and golden feathers, pimply necks part plucked and straining, eyes wickedly bright. At a call, the men released their birds and the cockerels sprang, flying at each other’s heads. I looked away, pushing to the back, my small body lost in the shoving excitement. The darker cockerel was the larger, beating his huge wing spread. It sprang and slashed. Its spurs caught the other’s breast but fell in a pointless fluff of loose black quills. Both strutted, darting and gnawing, beaks like polished metal, crests catching the low sunlight in gorgeous iridescence. Soon the blood was seeping into the beaten earth beneath their claws, each lunge a wound. I had my head turned away when the larger, fat thighs trembling, was impaled by the smaller’s talons and fell squirming in pools of pumping scarlet. The crowd was hooting, the victor’s owner beaming as he lifted his proud, quivering bird, chest to loving chest, while the dying fowl was carried off by its feet, ready for the boiling pot. Tilda care nothing for the birds, but I felt sick and turned away.
Though cautious, she was looking around for another purse to steal when she saw again the sour man with the tight black beard who had caught me in the market. He was collecting his dues, having bet on the winner. The thin sagging lines between nose and jaw wrinkled up into a sallow smile and black uneven teeth, an old man aroused by blood and pain and the death he had witnessed and profited by. He was alone, no wife or fri
end to hold him back. He had not expected to see me anymore than I to see him, but when he noticed me his glee was pronounced. He strode forward and grabbed my wrist. His breath was on me again, black breath that made me sick, hot and dark and full of a strange harsh power. I felt a panic I had not experienced since a child. Then the man was called to take the purse he’d won, and had to let me go. I pushed between the throng and ran.
I sat on the river bank, catching my breath and feeling the sun soothe the back of my neck. I rubbed at my wrist. The marks of the man’s fingers still imprinted my skin like thin red tattoos. I felt nauseas. It wasn’t fear or all the running or even anger. It was as if I had swallowed the man’s exhalation as he had bent down over me, peering into my eyes. There had been something wrong with his breath. I spat, as if I could spit out smoke. I was still bleeding a little from where my own knife had cut my hand as he’d grabbed me in the market. I wiped it on the stubby grass. Then I noticed that where I spat, tiny green globules glistened. I got up and walked the way the river ran, towards the bridge’s shade where it would be cool and dark.
It was upriver from the busiest wharves. Here the buildings stood back a little from the sloping banks, for in winter flooding was common. I kept walking. It was the way home.
I walked slowly because I was still out of breath and because I still tasted bile and disgust. Then I realised that there was a bundled black shadow at the point where the bridge’s first arch met the waters. I went down a little towards it. Often dogs were tied in sacks and thrown to drown. Sometimes babies. A child born without arms or wits would be quickly hidden and killed. Someone said a two headed baby had been found floating in the river just a month back. I didn’t want to find something like that but I was prepared to save any creature left to die if I could. Once I had felt abandoned myself. I had slept under this bridge for many chilly nights before Vespasian found me.
I would have liked Vespasian to find me now but Vespasian wasn’t at home. We didn’t know when he’d be back. He had gone away again, this time to one of the northern castles where the king was staying, and who had summoned him to a hunting party. No one disobeyed the king.
The fish were jumping and the Thames ran blue. London’s sewerage had not entirely slimed its muddy currents, and though it stank, it was a great place for fish, fresh water crabs, eels and wading birds. Tilda didn’t mind the smell. She had sometimes washed herself upstream in the river, though the city’s bath houses were not too far away, and if it was cold she didn’t wash at all.
As I approached the bundle under the bridge, the sky suddenly darkened. A black cloud rolled up from the west and the sun went out. A wind blew down my back and I shivered. Then the sun eased back, pushing out from the cloud cover, and all the world seemed sweet again. I went under the bridge.
It was a body, stretched out in the mud. Her hand reached into the water, limp fingers dappling in the eddies. She lay on her stomach and I couldn’t see her face, but it was a woman all wet and weighed down by the weight of sodden skirts and a mud soaked pelisse. I was fairly sure she wasn’t breathing. I bent down beside her, wondering what to do, tempted to run. I was choking on my own breath. Then I realised that the little stained pelisse was familiar, its soft blue edges trimmed with rabbit fur, still visible beyond the ragtaggle clots of sludge and black water stains. My hand was shaking as I touched the body and tried to turn the face. She was stuck, too heavy to lift. I tried again, calling softly that I would help her, even though truly I knew she was dead. Squatting, my precious shoes oozing mud, I grabbed the body around the waist. My fingers seemed to become lost in her flesh, as if some part of her was missing. I shrank back, wondering if the fishes had eaten her stomach away. But the rest of her was too fresh, her little hand was smooth and I was sure she had only just recently drowned.
Then I managed to turn her. She rolled over in the mud as I tugged, and her poor face spun around to stare at me, open eye sockets empty. It proved what I had already begun to suspect, for this was Isabel.
But this was not the Isabel I knew. All her beauty had been ravaged. Before or after death I had no idea, but they had put out her eyes and they had cut off her nose. They had ripped open her throat and they had slit her sternum. Most horrible of all to me, crunched over there in the dirt beside the body, I saw that one hand and one foot had been flayed. All the skin and flesh had been rolled back like fleece from a lamb, and the tiny blood flecked bones revealed up to the wrist and the ankle.
I rocked backwards and forwards, trying to distance myself from this horror, gagging and panting. I was barely hanging onto consciousness. Then I knew I was fainting. I couldn’t stay. A huge dizziness and a black force swamped me like iced rain and I tipped forwards.
I saw lights and a whirling fire. I was lifted. For a moment I thought I flew. Weightless, I was cradled.
Someone had taken me from the tumbled mud and the sad side of my friend’s small mutilated corpse, and was nursing my head against his shoulder. I felt the soft black wool of his cotte and the long row of tight wooden hooks against my cheek. He smelled of muscle and sweat and male protection. His hands were long and hard and held me very tight. On one finger he wore a heavy gold ring, carved with a six pointed star and studded with a large ruby. It was a ring I recognised. Even in our greatest poverty and close to starvation, he had never sold his ring so I knew he must have considered it important.
My weight seemed insignificant to him and he held me easily. With a sigh of complete relief muffled by confusion, I curled in towards his chest and raised my face to his. I gazed up at him, and at last, he looked down on me. He was very dark and his eyes were quite black. “Hush, my quicksilver child,” he murmured. “This is a place you must not be.” He was Vespasian.
Chapter Eight
When I awoke I was still crying but I was Molly again and in my sprung bed with the quilt around my chin and all the tears gathering in the damp tangles of my hair.
I heard Tilda’s voice gasping at me from somewhere far, far away. “It can’t be Isabel. It can’t be her.” But I was back with the pink flowered wallpaper and the crushing disgust and the nightmare that was now only in my head.
Bertie’s worried frown focused over me. He shouldn’t have been in my bedroom but he told me I’d been yelling. Bertie was furrows and loose skin. Since Wattle had died, he’d gone grey and gravity bound. “What the hell is going on?”
I sat up, clogged by surreality. “Bertie, I’m going mad.”
“We both are.” He only muttered these days, as if he didn’t have the heart to talk out loud.
“I’m living in two worlds,” I raved at him. “My dreams take me back in time. I’m someone else. I’m Matilda and I live in London and my friend has been murdered. I’m truly, honestly going mad.” He patted my hand and tried to smile a sort of half hearted reassurance. To him, poor dear, bad dreams must have seemed a logical consequence of what we were going through. His own dreams must have been frightful.
“I’ll make tea,” he said. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”
I grabbed his arm. “Bertie, there’s more than that. There’s things I never told you about when we were married.”
“That doesn’t matter now, dear. Don’t worry about the past.”
“You don’t understand.” I insisted. “I’ve had strange daydreams since I was a kid. Sort of visions, really. I used to float off to another place every time I was frightened, or life got too upsetting or even just plain dull.”
“Children do that.” Bertie sighed and his eyes clouded over. “Wattle said she had a dream place to escape into. Do you mind me talking about her? It was a magic waterfall. It always calmed her down. She said it was healing too.”
“Wattle was lovely, Bertie, I know that. But, like you told me once, I’m not such a nice person as she was. My magic place wasn’t all peaceful and beautiful. Mine was dark and damp and it came and took me in whether I wanted it or not. I mean, it wasn’t some place I imagined for peaceful dreams. It wa
s rat infested, for heaven’s sake, and smelly. I went there for years and years, often when I least expected it.”
“Lots of children have night terrors. You had a bloody hard childhood. I’ve often wondered what it must have been like for you. Awful, with a mother like yours. Poor kid, I expect you always had nightmares.”
I nearly gave up. Whether Bertie understood me or not really didn’t change anything. It was me just trying to offload more problems on a man who already had his back broken. But I continued a little longer. I hoped that talking aloud might help me make more sense of it myself. “Not always at night and not always when I was asleep. In fact, usually I was awake. But I just sort of accepted all that as part of my life when I was little and so I grew up with it. It seemed normal. But now, Bertie, it worries the fucking hell out of me, because I’ve started really going there. Now it’s alive and I’m alive in it. I go between that life and this one.”
“I think,” said Bertie reluctantly, “you just need to calm down a bit, Mol dear. Perhaps you need counselling.”
“You mean a psychiatrist.”
“Maybe. I mean, couldn’t this be a case of split consciousness? What do they call it? Multiple personalities? Sorry to say it Mol, but you fit the criteria. Abused childhood, deprived of love, all that stuff. Now it would be aggravated, wouldn’t it, with what’s happened?”
I actually suddenly believed him. In that moment, it made sense. I gasped and leaned back against the propped pillows and a black wave washed me with such disgust that I thought I would be sick again. “My God. That’s true. I could really be mentally deranged, couldn’t I?” But what I didn’t say aloud, because I couldn’t possibly say it, and what was making me stutter and lurch, was that Wattle’s murder had been committed by a mad person, and if that was what I was, then I could have done it myself.
“Mol, slow down,” groaned Bertie. “I’m not qualified to give any diagnosis, you know that. It’s just an idea. I’m an insurance broker, not a psychologist. I don’t think I can cope with this now.”
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