The Thief Taker

by C. S. Quinn

  Blackstone rested his nib for a moment, realising the pen in his hand was shaking. He scratched out only a few more lines.

  I hear it that the rich still make merry enough in the west. But day by day as this fearful infection grows, parts of London become cut away entire from the rest of the country.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Wapping town gate stood open, like a great black mouth yawning out to the town beyond.

  Charlie and Maria drew closer, but there was no sign of a gatekeeper.

  ‘Shall we go through?’ asked Maria uncertainly.

  Up ahead was a cobbled main road through which grass and cow parsley had begun to sprout. It looked deserted. Eerie. Like a ghost town.

  ‘There are some fresh wagon ruts leading through the gate,’ Charlie pointed out. ‘These are from a large and heavy vehicle. And they have not yet dried.’

  ‘You think Malvern drove his wagon in here, even though the town is deserted?’ asked Maria.

  ‘I think someone drove a wagon in here recently,’ said Charlie. ‘We can only be sure it was Malvern if we go in and ask.’

  They drew closer to the dark stone gateway. The wooden door hung half open.

  ‘Any guard?’ shouted Charlie. But he was greeted by silence.

  They passed through the door and surveyed the main road beyond.

  Beneath their feet the cobbles were loose and broken, where weeds had begun to grow up beneath them.

  Charlie remembered Wapping when the docks had been clustered with ships loading in lumber and steel from Sweden to the harbour warehouses.

  Now there was nothing, and nobody.

  ‘Any guard?’ Charlie shouted aloud down the street. Nothing but echoes answered him.

  There was a sudden sound. A scratching and scrabbling from one of the alleys to the side of the road. Into the empty opening crept the shadow of a man.

  ‘Who is there?’ Charlie’s voice tightened uncertainly. Beside him he heard Maria hold her breath.

  A voice sounded out in reply. But it was unintelligible and he strained to hear.

  The lurching shape became a staggering man.

  ‘It is a drunk,’ said Maria with relief.

  But Charlie’s hand was reaching for his knife.

  The man began winding his way towards them.

  ‘Back away,’ said Charlie, keeping Maria behind him, ‘he isn’t right at all.’

  The man began a mixture of mumbling shouts, and for a moment Charlie thought that he was a drunk after all.

  Then the words began to make sense.

  Please. Help. Me.

  The apparition made a sudden spurt of speed towards them.

  Charlie turned to run, grabbing at Maria’s dress to pull her with him.

  But she was rooted to the spot with fear. Charlie turned to drag her more bodily after him and caught a glimpse of the blistered neck, the blackened finger tips and the gaping pain-stiffened mouth.

  ‘Maria we must get away!’

  The words broke the spell of her terror and she twisted to run away, but she managed only a few blind steps before she tripped on the broken cobbles and tumbled down.

  Charlie stooped to pull her back to her feet.

  The man was clawing at himself, and his shirt hung in shreds. He was closing on them now, dragging the shattered pulp of a leg behind him.

  His hand stretched out towards Maria who was scrabbling backwards over the cobbles. He held a palm of grubby coins.

  ‘Please,’ he gasped, ‘A pistol . . . .’

  Suddenly from behind a heavy length of wood connected with the head of the plague sufferer. The man went crashing to the ground.

  Behind him, without his trademark wooden teeth, was Bitey.

  He was wielding a two-foot lump of timber and had stopped for a minute to replace his dentures with his free hand. Dark oak grinned out.

  Charlie blinked up at him in astonishment. He had never seen Bitey outside the dark confines of the Bucket of Blood. The old man’s weather-beaten clothing, Cavalier hat and fierce smudge of beard took on an almost heroic quality. Particularly since he was now openly armed with a knife attached to either hip.

  ‘Why are you out roaming the streets?’ he admonished. ‘Have you no sense at all?’

  Charlie gaped up at him, and recognition set in.

  ‘Charlie!’ Bitey held out a hand and pulled him upright. ‘I thought you were long dead!’

  And who is this? The ancient face made a pantomime expression, and Bitey bowed to doff his dilapidated hat.

  ‘A new wife, Charlie?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie, ‘this is Maria.’

  Bitey’s eyes roamed both faces and seemed to find some answer there.

  ‘Very well,’ he said.

  Maria staggered to her feet and stared down at the felled body.

  ‘I think you might have killed him,’ she said.

  Bitey shrugged. ‘He was dead in any case,’ he said. ‘Walking dead. Twas a kindness.’

  ‘What happened here?’ asked Maria, ‘what happened to the town?’

  ‘Many poorer folk thought Wapping would be a safe place to hole up and wait out the plague,’ said Bitey. ‘I had the same notion myself,’ he added. ‘For I have no plague certificate which will get me into the west. But where you have many people in one place the plague will sure follow. One infected is all you need.’

  Bitey hesitated for a moment. ‘You are quite in health are you not?’

  ‘So far as I know,’ said Charlie. Maria gave a short little nod.

  ‘Then all is well,’ announced Bitey. ‘Come then we shall get you inside and safe.’ He put a paternal hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

  ‘Best you both stick with me for a bit eh? I have a safe place where I might find a stronger weapon than these knives. You cannot wander the streets alone during these dread times. Not with these walking men abroad.’

  ‘Walking men?’

  ‘’S what I call them plaguey that roam the streets,’ he said. ‘Most of those with the infection take to their beds, stay there. Some die within an hour. For others it takes longer. Three days, four days. A week. But there is another kind, Charlie, as I like to see it. Walking men. They do not hole up and die but take to the streets and roam about in their agony. They are sent mad by it, the suffering. The illness drives them out to look for a holy man or some way to end their pain. They know not what they do, poor souls. For they will clutch at anyone and you cannot risk that they will not come at you and spread their foul air upon you.’ He looked at his club appraisingly. ‘Better you carry a weapon for that purpose,’ he concluded.

  ‘Come,’ he said suddenly. ‘We shall get off the streets and arm ourselves proper.’ A sudden shriek rent the air. ‘We should go,’ he repeated. ‘Best we be gone in case there are more of these roaming sorts.’

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  ‘The sounds you hear is the groans and sobs of those dying or mourning,’ said Bitey, as he led Charlie and Maria through the Wapping backstreets. ‘You get used to it. It is not dangerous. Only sad for the soul.’

  ‘We need your help Bitey,’ said Charlie. ‘We’re here in search of a man. Someone named Thomas Malvern. We think he means to start an uprising. He makes some business at the docks.’

  ‘He could not do that from here Charlie,’ said Bitey, as they broke out of the narrow streets and rounded on a part of the waterfront. ‘The docks have been closed this month past. Because of the plague you see.’

  Bitey gestured at the empty harbour front.

  ‘Then what business could he have here?’ Maria asked Charlie in confusion.

  Charlie was silent, looking at the waterfront. No ships were docked. But the priest had told him Malvern had some business with a ship. It didn’t make sense.

  ‘Best come off the streets with me whilst you think it through,’ said Bitey, pointing them to a courtyard reserved for the Royal troops.

  Charlie nodded.

  Bitey headed for a deserted stables b
lock at the back, beckoning they should follow.

  ‘Surely we break the law coming in here,’ whispered Maria, looking at the grand buildings surrounding the dockside stables.

  ‘The King is not in London to enforce his law,’ said Bitey. ‘Nor his troops neither. Along to the lofts and we are in a safe place.’

  Charlie and Maria followed him across the empty courtyard. Grass had struck up amongst the cobbles here too.

  ‘Here we are,’ said Bitey, gesturing up. ‘Through this gate and up that ladder and we are safe enough.’

  ‘You are housed in the Palace stables?’ asked Maria.

  ‘It is a clever thought is it not?’ Bitey tapped his nose. ‘You have to keep your wits about you if you want to stay alive,’ he said. ‘Pick a place to sleep which is hidden from thieves and the plaguey alike.’

  ‘Thieves?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Robber, burglars,’ confirmed Bitey, dragging himself with grunting effort through the bars of the stable gate.

  They walked across the deserted yard and Bitey began climbing a ladder into the nearest hayloft. ‘They are starved and desperate, and loot what they can to eat.’

  ‘How do you find food?’ asked Maria, gazing up the ladder after him.

  ‘I creep into homes and take what I can,’ said Bitey, apparently unaware of the contradiction. ‘I have still half a large barrel of ale. For food I take what I can from the ground,’ he added. ‘Those who have fled leave little gardens in which grow a few vegetables.’

  He heaved himself up with a grunt. Charlie slipped his slimmer frame behind and then turned to help Maria and her bulky skirts through.

  ‘Those who stay to pillage are deadly,’ said Bitey. ‘They break into houses and will kill you fast and savage for the shirt on your back. For there are no laws any longer to govern what men do to other men. Not here in any case.’

  Bitey was in the top of the hayloft now and Charlie let Maria go up first after him. Inside was a vast and empty loft, with no evidence of a bed.

  ‘There are no rushes or straw or anything of that nature,’ Bitey was saying. ‘For straw attracts rats and rats bring cats, and they draw dogs. And all of those will carry the foul air with them.’

  In the corner was an open weave basket under which clucked a single chicken.

  Bitey reached a mottled hand under the basket to stroke the soft feathers. ‘I found her wandering about,’ he added. ‘I get a few eggs from her, and I drink them off raw.’

  ‘Why do you not light a fire?’ asked Maria, who was struggling up off the top of the ladder with Charlie’s assistance from lower down, and seeing the loft for the first time.

  ‘Two rules in plague time,’ said Bitey, counting out a single finger as Maria manhandled the last of her skirts through the opening. ‘No candles, no tapers, no lights. Folk will see them and come to rob you in your bed or breathe plague upon you.’

  ‘Would those with plague come to seek you out?’ asked Charlie.

  Bitey nodded, he was rooting around in a far corner of the hayloft. ‘It is a fearsome agony they are in. They roam around in hope of finding a pistol, or a merciful soul who will stove their heads in. A young woman yonder risked lighting a fire a few days back. Her cottage was crawling with plaguey dead within the hour. And now she has plague herself. She will die today if she is lucky, for her screams are awful to hear.’

  Bitey had unearthed a small barrel and rolled it over the floor to his guests.

  ‘Made a trade for this earlier in the week,’ he said. ‘It is rum. And good for putting a fire in your heart.’

  He held the barrel up for Maria to drink from, and Charlie realised she had likely never drunk straight from a tap before.

  ‘Open your mouth under the tap,’ he explained, ‘Bitey will open it enough for a mouthful of rum to spill out.’

  He thought she might refuse, but instead Maria opened her mouth wide and let Bitey unleash a generous flow of spirits past her lips.

  She swallowed, gritted her teeth and shuddered bodily, shaking her head.

  ‘That is good,’ she said.

  Bitey held out the barrel for Charlie, and then Charlie shouldered it so Bitey could take a drink.

  ‘What is the second rule?’ asked Maria, the flush of rum seeping into her face. ‘You said there were two,’ she added, turning to Charlie for confirmation.

  ‘Stay away from Wapping prison. It is thick with plague. And the guards mean to imprison any who wander the streets. They call it a public service. To prevent the spread of the infection. It is over west,’ he added pointing, ‘away from the waterfront.’

  ‘Can you think of any person who might keep track of who comes in and out of the town?’ asked Charlie, whose thoughts had never left the possible movements of Thomas Malvern. ‘This man we seek is a murderer and we mean to bring him to justice.’

  Bitey threw his head back and laughed.

  ‘You’ll not find any justice here,’ he said. ‘If a murderer flees to these parts he is safe enough from the law.’

  Maria’s jaw had tightened. ‘We will bring this man to justice,’ she said. ‘There must be a way,’ she added, looking helplessly at Charlie.

  ‘We can find out his identity,’ said Charlie, looking at Bitey. ‘He travels under a false name. But we think him to be an important man in the City.’

  ‘If he is an important man then there is even less chance of justice for you,’ said Bitey.

  ‘Even so,’ said Charlie, ‘that is what we mean to do.’ His hand was clutching his key tightly. Bitey’s eyes logged the gesture, and he reached up to stroke his chaotic beard.

  ‘How do you know he is not dead already of plague, this man you seek?’ he said after a moment.

  ‘From what we know he arrived only a few hours ago,’ said Charlie.

  ‘And he is important, you say.’ Bitey thought for a moment. ‘There are places in town which are better guarded,’ he conceded, ‘where perhaps a rich man might stay and be safer than most. But if you want information of new arrivals you must go to the Coach and Horses.’

  ‘There is an open tavern?’ asked Charlie.

  Bitey shook his head. ‘The landlord and his wife barricaded themselves inside a few weeks back, with their ale and food. They have weapons too, muskets, and will shoot any suspicious person who comes near. That whole quarter is thick with plague people who have been attracted by the sound of gunshot,’ he added.

  ‘Then how are we to get to them?’ asked Maria, in dismay.

  Bitey sat back on his haunches. ‘I am known to the landlord,’ he said. ‘I have traded him food for his drink. He trusts that I am wise enough to stay well clear of those with plague. Perhaps that will be enough to get you inside.’

  He surveyed the bare boards and then eased up one to reveal a little clutch of rusting swords underneath.

  ‘I have a little stock of weapons,’ he said to Charlie, ‘perhaps enough that you and I might protect the lady. You are familiar with a sword?’ he asked, hefting up a dusty scabbard and throwing it towards Charlie.

  ‘I am used to a knife,’ said Charlie. ‘I think that will be good enough.’

  Bitey nodded. ‘All men of my age can wield a sword same as their own arm,’ he said, with a touch of sadness in his voice. ‘Civil War, you see. It made monsters of all of us.’

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Bitey inched carefully along the Wapping streets with Charlie and Maria following behind.

  On leaving the hayloft Bitey had insisted they take several more drafts of rum for courage. Charlie suspected Maria was drunk. He kept a close eye on her as she drifted behind, a faint smile on her face.

  Bitey froze suddenly and Charlie saw his attention had been drawn to a door on one of the smart homes. It was opening slowly.

  ‘We must be still,’ Bitey pushed them both back against a wall and raised his cudgel.

  Out of the doorway came a small boy. He was inching out slowly with his back to the street, and Charlie strained to see w
hat made him move by slow degrees. As his arms came into view they saw him to be dragging something. A female corpse, finely dressed and grotesquely disfigured by disease.

  ‘It is his mother,’ said Charlie. ‘The poor fellow removes his dead mother from the house.’ He could see plague spots were already bulging behind the boy’s ears.

  Charlie felt a deep wave of sadness. Every instinct was shouting to help the boy bury his mother and give him some shelter and comfort. But they would be condemning themselves to almost certain plague death. And the child was good as dead already.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Maria, the rum working to pitch her voice loudly down the street.

  ‘Sssh!’ hissed Charlie.

  But his warning came too late. The child turned to see them and dropping the arms of the corpse took a wailing step towards them, then broke into a trot.

  ‘Stay back,’ shouted Bitey, unhooking his sword and pointing it forward. The little boy stopped, and his face crumpled. He began to howl, his eyes and nose overflowing.

  ‘I mean it lad,’ said Bitey. ‘I am sorry for you indeed. But there is no help for you here. You must go on back that way,’ he gestured in the opposite direction. The little boy began a slow walk away.

  Maria had now worked out what was happening and made to follow the boy.

  ‘He needs our help!’ she announced, outraged that neither man was offering aid.

  Charlie grabbed her arm, pulling her back. ‘Hold,’ he whispered. ‘I know you would give him comfort. But already the plague tokens are on him.’

  ‘We have to help him!’ Maria was suddenly furious.

  ‘He is not long for this world,’ said Bitey, his expression sympathetic. ‘You must learn to do without that soft heart if you are to survive in these times.’

  ‘Come,’ he added, with a wave of his hands. ‘The tavern is just up ahead.’

  The Coach and Horses tavern was a half-timbered tavern made of three stories. What had once been leaded windows was now boarded up on all sides by thick planks. Huge ships nails had been hammered through into the walls and across the door.