by C. S. Quinn
‘If we set off now and travel by horseback we should be there within two days at the very most,’ said Maria, ignoring his attempt to show local knowledge. ‘More likely one and a half. His wagon would take three days if he makes right good time.’
‘Then that is what we must do,’ said Charlie, his stomach tightening at the thought of leaving London for the first time in his life. ‘We will journey ahead of this Malvern and lay an ambush.’
Her eyes were shining with the prospect. ‘Then,’ she continued, ‘he shall answer for what was done to my poor sister.’
As they left the Exchange Charlie noticed a monkey was snaking around the market stalls. That was very strange indeed. Such an animal was valuable. What was it doing in Cheapside?
Chapter Thirty-Three
The girl smiled, swinging her cup so the wine inside sloshed back and forth.
‘I have seen you in a different club before,’ she slurred.
‘I have taken up gambling as a recent hobby,’ said Thomas drawing out the heavy keys to the church.
The girl followed him in, leaning on his arm.
‘What is your name?’ he asked, as he unlocked the heavy doors to the chapel.
‘Jenny.’ She was staring through the drunken corridor of her vision into the church.
‘How is it you have keys to the church?’ she asked.
‘I have a little influence in the city.’
She giggled, hiccupping slightly.
‘Of course you do. Is Malvern an old family?’
He tensed. It was a gesture Jenny would normally have picked up on. But the wine had dulled her senses.
‘How did you know my name?’ he asked.
Jenny tried to shrug. But the restraints of her dress made it difficult. She settled for a lopsided sway of her arm.
‘I have a little reading. More than most girls. I saw you sign your name in the gambling book.’
Jenny was hoping her ability to read might appeal to him. Though now she thought about it, perhaps he wanted to be anonymous. A far-off part of her brain nagged she might have said the wrong thing. But she couldn’t make it mesh with the wheeling drink-soaked part.
Thomas was silent, fiddling with the lock on the door.
She leaned in close. ‘I am pleased you have such influence in the city,’ she said, opting for the flattery which she assumed would work on a powerful man.
Jenny had been working at Smith and Widdle’s Club for two months now and was growing tired of it. She was a seasonal worker, making embroidery and shoes when there was a market for it and doing maid’s work, laundry or prostitution when the economy was down.
She was nearly eighteen and had decided it was time for a steady job. She was angling for a man to buy her out of the club and into keeping. Thomas would do for her first protector, after which she would seek out a duke or an earl.
The door of the church fell open, and the first thing that hit Jenny was the smell.
She coughed and gagged.
Thomas looked around at her in surprise.
Jenny coughed again, her eyes watering. He hadn’t noticed the smell, she realised.
Perhaps it was best not to mention it.
‘I am not used to churches,’ she told him, to distract from her reaction. ‘For they chase away girls such as I. You must think me a great sinner, for I cannot even name the London churches.’
She had meant the remark to lighten the mood. But the confession drew a glower of disgust from Thomas.
Clearly he was a deeply religious man, thought Jenny, swallowing.
Thomas lit a candle, and they walked further into the depths of the church. Beneath the drunken fug an instinct sparked at Jenny that the door was now uncomfortably far away.
Thomas stopped. The candle rested on a small back portion of the church swelled into yellow light, casting the rest in dancing shadows.
‘You store food here?’ asked Jenny after a long moment, forcing her stomach to calmness. She was staring at the inside of the church.
Food was stacked neatly all around. Enough to feed an army. It covered almost every wall and was arranged on the floor and the tombstones.
‘I was held under siege in the war,’ explained Thomas. ‘I like to be sure there is plenty stored should times of need arise. This plague might see London cut off from food supplied from the country,’ he added.
Jenny nodded, trying not to retch.
The food was all spoiled. Putrefying sausages, mouldering bread, stale casks of ale and joints of meat rotting to a dripping liquid on the bone. The source of the terrible smell had become clear.
She suddenly felt very sober.
Thomas picked up a bag from the floor.
‘What is that?’ Jenny rearranged her features into a smile, hoping he would not notice the dead horror in her eyes.
‘Something that we might entertain ourselves better,’ he answered.
A sudden fluttering sounded loudly around the church.
Jenny started.
‘There are not bats in here?’ she asked. ‘I am all a fear of bats.’
She was hoping the lie might form a reason for her to leave. Following Thomas to this deserted church now seemed a very bad idea.
Thomas shook his head in annoyance. ‘It is a message,’ he said. ‘A carrier pigeon. Wait here,’ he added, ‘I will only be a moment.’
He vanished into the shadows, leaving Jenny standing alone in the small circumference of candlelight.
Her gaze cast about for some excuse to leave. It settled on his bag.
Some little part of drunk curiosity remained, and she stooped down to open it. If it was full of jewellery or some other gift, she might consider staying.
The catch was rusty, and her cold fingers struggled with it.
At the back of the church she heard more feathers flapping and the urgent coos of pigeons.
With a click the bag fell open. Jenny’s hands flew to her mouth.
She stepped up, staggering backwards under the weight of her skirts, and fell.
The bloody torture tools winked out at her.
Scrabbling backwards she heaved herself up on the nearest pew and bent double for a moment, heaving.
Then her eyes darted desperately for some escape.
The door was too far. And outside the church were two deserted alleyways. In her heavy skirts she wouldn’t stand a chance of outrunning him.
Her eyes fell again to the torture tools. An evil-looking curved knife glinted back.
Moments later Jenny eased herself into the hiding place, just as Thomas returned.
He stood for a long moment, staring at where she had been.
From her tiny peephole Jenny watched, willing the shuddering gasps of her breath to come silently.
He picked up a sword.
‘I know you are still here,’ he called. ‘If you reveal yourself now it will be easier for you. I will only toy with you a little.’
Jenny bit her lip, feeling the blood well into her mouth.
Thomas stalked slowly around the room. His gaze settled on a hanging tapestry bulging obviously from the wall. A blue skirt was peeking from the bottom.
Smiling he walked towards it.
‘Since you did not reveal yourself your punishment will be very great,’ he said. ‘I have kept people alive for weeks. Perhaps you will become my longest living experiment.’
Jenny screwed her eyes tight shut and prayed. Silent tears of pure terror ran down her face.
Thomas drew nearer.
She held her breath.
Then he strode past her hiding place, using his sword to lift the tapestry hanging a few feet from where she stood.
Under the tapestry lay the ragged remains of her dress. Thomas regarded it for a long moment. She’d somehow managed to cut it away from her body and stuff it here to mislead him. His eyes settled on his box of torture tools. A knife was missing.
Hidden a few feet away Jenny let out her breath in a slow measured stream. The curv
ed blade was gripped reassuringly in her palm.
She knew enough about the Civil War to remember all churches had spaces for the priests to hide and had sought it out just in time. Jenny’s fingers reaffirmed their grip on the knife. She was fast enough to stab his eye, she thought. And that might be enough to escape.
Girls raised in St Giles knew how to handle knives, and for the first time in her life, Jenny was grateful for her gutter upbringing.
There would be repercussions. He was rich, she had seen from his gambling, and could pay men to come for her. But one problem at a time. First, she meant to escape with her life.
She steeled herself, waiting for the little door of her hiding place to fly open.
The moment of attack never came. Thomas turned and stared towards the door of the church. She realised with fast-flowering relief that he assumed she had already left the building.
Thomas stalked out of the church, leaving Jenny alone with the piles of rotting food.
It was hours later that she risked scaling the bell-tower and climbing down the roof. Then she ran sobbing back to safe squalor of St Giles, in the tattered remains of her fine dress.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Charlie tried unsuccessfully once more to loop his foot into the stirrup and tumbled headlong into the mud.
Clicking her tongue Maria steered her horse expertly around and assessed his failure.
‘He knows you are afraid,’ she said, sliding from her horse. ‘He will not hurt you. But you make him fearful when he thinks you know not what you do.’
‘I do not know what I do!’ protested Charlie. ‘I think this a bad plan Maria, to take horses when I cannot ride.’
The horses were rented until the next roadside stables, at which point they would be swapped for fresh mounts. And having never done anything as expensive as hiring a horse, Charlie was terrified he would inflict some costly damage on the animal.
Maria blinked in calm assessment of the situation. ‘Here, I will hold him,’ she said finally, reaching for the reins.
She was, it transpired, highly skilled with horses. So much so, in fact, as to have no understanding that it might be difficult for someone else. She’d roundly dismissed his protestations that he’d never ridden a horse, waving her hand and declaring it easy. ‘You will learn it quickly,’ she said. ‘There is nothing to know – mount up and sit still whilst it moves. Is that how you marked your nose and lip? From a horse?’ she asked, peering up at him in sudden realisation.
‘Yes.’ Charlie scowled to deter further questioning. He liked to let people assume he had gained the kink to his rounded nose and sliver of scar on his lip in a knife fight.
‘It hasn’t marked you too badly,’ she said, peering at his face. ‘You are still a handsome man.’
She stopped, suddenly, embarrassed by the remark.
‘Enough practise,’ she announced. ‘Time to find us some good horses for the road.’ And waved her hand for the ostler to approach.
Charlie watched as Maria busied herself with buying the horses, rejecting two with broken knees.
‘They could have thrown their riders and he has not ridden before,’ Maria said, pointing at Charlie and raising her voice accusingly on the ostler.
‘You know as well as I that the roads are thick with vigilantes, and the wrong horses could have us both killed.’
The ostler raised his hands in defeat, but Maria kept talking.
‘Our lives are worth the same in the eyes of God no matter what the clothes on our backs,’ she said, ‘just because we do not dress so fine as some we are still entitled to the respect you would show a richer sort.’
She walked past the two horses which had been led out and tucked her hand under the chin of another animal reined further from the path.
‘That is a mare,’ said the ostler uncertainly. Maria turned to include Charlie in the choice of what was evidently to be his horse. He looked at the animal uncertainly. There seemed to be something haughty in its expression.
‘What about that one?’ asked Charlie, pointing to a horse with a kinder face.
‘Mares can be temperamental, but they are faster,’ said Maria, ignoring him and trotting out the animal of her choosing. As if in answer the animal reared up to its hind legs, towering above them. Maria laughed and pulled it back down by its reins, patting the flank approvingly.
Charlie’s mouth dropped open in sheer unadulterated terror.
‘If she rears up you must lean back and grip with your knees,’ explained Maria conversationally. ‘Else you will be thrown.’
As a lowly city dweller Charlie’s sum knowledge of horses was to get out of their way fast. The prospect of getting astride left him in a cold sweat. But he accepted his fate dumbly. Trepidation had rendered him silent.
‘You will do better with fast animals,’ conceded the ostler. ‘This is the only road out of London where you have a chance of getting through alive. But vigilantes have sprung up here too. A traveller and his wife were beaten to death last night.’
The ostler went to bring them saddles and to Charlie’s great surprise came back holding a tankard of plague water.
‘It is made local,’ he said.
Maria hesitated at the strong sulphur stench which wove up from the cup and then evidently deciding it would be bad manners to refuse, took a deep swig. She passed it to Charlie and he did the same, wondering where on earth the water had been found to make such a foul-tasting drink.
Maria swilled and spat.
‘There is something sharp in the water,’ she complained, rubbing at her teeth with a finger.
‘They use iron filings in plague water,’ explained Charlie. ‘You should try and swallow them down. They are good for you.’
He sucked back the liquid, feeling the ground iron catch at his throat.
Maria and the ostler disappeared to settle the payment, and she returned minutes later, shocked to find Charlie not in his saddle.
‘I did not wish to risk hurting the horse,’ he lied.
‘You have seen such a thing a thousand times over in the city,’ she said. ‘Hook your leg and mount up. It is simple enough.’
And so began the process of his mounting the horse, which ended in success only after three humiliating tumbles.
‘I asked the ostler as to the route, and he told me there is only one road large enough for a wagon,’ said Maria. ‘Yet many smaller roads can take those on horseback. We must ask people on the route for the fastest path.’
Charlie tapped his head. ‘I have Lilly’s campaign map memorised from when we visited his room.’
‘In your head?’ she regarded him suspiciously.
‘Yes,’ Charlie found it hard to explain how his mind could grab pictures and hold on to them. That was just how he had been made. ‘I do not read and write so well as some. But I have a good memory for pictures,’ he explained.
Maria seemed to accept this.
‘That will certainly make it easier for us to outrun him,’ she said.
Charlie nodded. ‘The safe way to Wapping is long. The route we must take is thirty miles.’
‘Then we should easily be there by tomorrow evening,’ said Maria. ‘That should give us a whole day to convince the justices in Wapping to detain and question Malvern.
Without waiting for his agreement she reached out a leg towards Charlie and spurred his horse with an expertly judged kick before taking off at speed ahead of him. Charlie, who had only just adjusted to the new mode of transport, found himself tossed about at every angle as his horse charged forward.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Charlie and Maria’s spurt of speed was short-lived. As soon as they met the open road they hit the throngs of frightened refugees fleeing London.
The way was thick with riders, walkers and carts weighed down with possessions. Some carried enormous packs containing all their worldly belongings, whilst others had little hand-carts and still more rode horses.
The crowd were skittish and
their eyes roamed the fields for attackers.
In the far dusk-distance torches were being lit. Charlie peered for a moment, wondering if it was some archaic country tradition.
‘Why do they light torches?’ he asked Maria, presuming she would know about country traditions.
‘I do not know.’ She was frowning at the horizon.
Then Charlie realised.
Across the countryside vigilantes were setting out from their villages.
A chill of fear shot through him.
Maria, sharp as ever, had also made the connection.
‘They are at least ten miles away,’ she said. There was a little shudder of terror in her voice.
‘Best we try and get on as far as we can then,’ said Charlie. ‘And hope they head in some other direction.’
Some others in the crowd had noticed the torches too, and a swell of unease rippled through the travellers.
They were all trapped, they knew. This road was the safest track. But being part of the multitude made them a target.
Charlie stared at the unfamiliar landscape. Leaving the path meant they could easily be picked off.
To the side of the highway stood the occasional ramshackle hut with a few chickens pecking in the yard outside. The rickety dwellings had weeds growing through the rush roofs and the occasional goat grazing atop. Each had a neat beehive of hay stacked outside the front. Some had dug makeshift toilets for passing travellers to deposit their sewage as fertiliser.
For the most part the householders couldn’t be seen, but occasionally some woman sat outside spinning, glaring at the passing crowds.
He didn’t imagine any shelter would be forthcoming from the locals.
Charlie snuck a glance at Maria. She had a faraway expression, her broad mouth set level and blue eyes making starker relief of the strong nose. Her long body bobbed effortlessly along to the rhythm of the horse. It reminded him of a taut-strung longbow. Charlie saw her suddenly as a warrior queen, riding into battle.