by C. S. Quinn
‘You know Leely Boswell?’ he asked.
‘She’s a spy,’ said Lady Castlemaine. ‘Who recently broke into the Mint. With a man I didn’t recognise. Now I discover that man is Lynette’s old husband, well’ – she gave a little laugh – ‘I think they commit treason.’
‘What were they looking for in the Mint?’ Lorenzo’s brow furrowed.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Lady Castlemaine.
‘You treat me like leetle boy, Barbara,’ snapped Lorenzo tetchily, pulling away from her. ‘I am nothing. Mean nothing. I leave London,’ he added. ‘I owe money . . .’
He let the sentence hang.
Lady Castlemaine reached into her hanging pocket and withdrew a little bag of money.
‘My love,’ she said contritely, ‘I only wish I had more to give you.’
Lorenzo’s eyes flashed briefly as he fingered the small purse. ‘People at theatre, they laugh at me,’ he said, ‘call me fool. They talk about you. They say you bad.’
‘There’s always talk.’ She tried to keep her tone light. ‘What do they say?’
‘They say you pay men to break playhouses,’ said Lorenzo.
‘Surely you don’t believe such lies?’
He looked to his feet, hand tightening on the purse of money.
She took his shoulders. ‘I swear to you,’ she said, looking deep into his eyes and blinking with sincerity, ‘I mean no harm to the theatres. It’s you I love. Why should I care if the King dallies with actresses and whores?’
‘You don’t look for this . . . Laird and Leddy? Try kill them?’
She laughed bright, high and false. ‘Of course not.’ She smiled. ‘I have far more important people in mind.’
Chapter 66
‘A few people are hunting me for debts,’ explained Dawson, leading Charlie and Lily to the high side of Lud Gate tower. ‘So I had some theatre friends rig something up for me.’ He pointed to a strange kind of pulley system. ‘It’s the latest thing,’ he said proudly. ‘Allows an actor to fly through the air.’
Lily was staring at what seemed to be nothing more than a tangle of knots and hempen rope.
‘You’ve tried it?’ she asked.
‘We shall be the first mortal men to fly as angels.’ Dawson grinned.
‘You mean,’ said Lily, ‘it’s never been tested before.’
‘Rigorously tested,’ said Dawson proudly. ‘Three of the goats survived. It’s safe. I give you my word as a man of the King. Wait there,’ he added. Dawson raced to the edge of Lud Gate and peered over. ‘I have the criminals here,’ he bellowed to the guards below. ‘They cannot escape!’ He ran back to where Lily and Charlie stood, face flushed with excitement. ‘The enemy approach,’ he said, ‘but we will elude them.’
He pushed down his strange leather magnifying goggles and winched his narrow body into the assortment of ropes and a bagging harness. Then he tucked his feet into two stirrups and sat on the edge of the gatehouse.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he called. ‘Fix your feet and hands there.’ He threw over some lengths of rope with stirrups attached and a second harness.
They could hear shouting on the stairs now. Guards were approaching. Charlie stepped towards the rope-and-pulley system.
‘The lady will have to share the harness with me, I’m afraid,’ said Dawson cheerily. ‘I’ve not yet the facility for more. But it’s strong leather. It will hold.’ He patted his skinny thigh. ‘Come sit.’
Lily’s expression was unreadable as she seated herself on the old man’s lap and suffered him to secure her with a number of large buckles. Charlie watched them and approximated the same with the second harness.
The guard broke through the top of the stair. Charlie recognised them to be the same men who’d given chase at the Tower of London. They were staring in confusion at the assortment of ropes and winches.
‘Witchcraft,’ said one uncertainly, pointing a gun.
‘What fun.’ Dawson beamed. ‘I knew I was wasted in theatre. Ready, my dear?’
Without waiting for Lily’s reply, he pushed with his feet and launched them free of Lud Gate. They dropped over the edge and Dawson shot out a hand, pulling Charlie with them.
They all three plummeted down, Dawson whooping with delight. A counterweight of sandbags jolted their ropes, slowing the ascent.
‘It’s not slowing us enough,’ said Lily, panicking as the rope roared through the metal pulley. ‘The rope is burning.’
An ominous curl of smoke was snaking from the metal pulley. The cord holding Dawson and Lily had begun to break apart, sending them into a spin. They rotated downwards at speed, then landed in a heap. Charlie arrived with slightly more grace beside them. Goose feathers floated up.
‘Lucky I softened the landing,’ said Dawson, unbuckling the harness and smacking a hand on a sack of feathers. ‘That fall would have killed us both.’
Lily moved away from him wordlessly, eyes radiating unsaid trauma.
A shot went off. The guards were taking aim from the top of Lud Gate.
‘Flee!’ said Dawson dramatically. ‘Go find what you seek.’
‘What about you?’ asked Charlie, glancing up at Lud Gate. When he looked down again, Dawson was already running back into the ruins.
‘Don’t fear for me!’ he called. ‘The footpads know I have no money!’
‘We’ve got a head start,’ said Charlie. ‘But I think Lady Castlemaine’s guard will give chase.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ said Lily grimly. ‘Let’s go find out about Tom Black.’
Chapter 67
In the narrow blood-soaked streets of the Shambles, packs of butchers were working in teams, defending their alleys. As Charlie and Lily approached, ragged people flew past them, clutching stolen meat. Women fled, holding aprons full of steaks and chops. Two bone-thin men were staggering determinedly under the weight of a whole pig.
‘There.’ Charlie pointed at a tumbledown building, the front half-burned from the fire.
Someone had tried to rebuild with mud bricks, but had given up after a few rows.
‘The cunning woman has been in this old mansion since anyone can remember,’ said Charlie. ‘Fire won’t have pushed her out.’
‘Who pays for repairs?’ asked Lily, looking at the devastated building.
‘It’s a tenement,’ said Charlie, as the floor beneath turned to scalded Tudor-rose tiles and ash. ‘A noble house that has become unfashionable and is rented to the poor. Tenants are liable for upkeep, but in reality it just crumbles.’
They ducked beneath charred beams and reached what had once been a stable block at the back of the building.
‘What’s that? A warning?’ Lily was looking at the blackened wood of the stable doorway where a dead rabbit hung, suspended by its ears from a length of string.
‘That’s the sign of the cunning woman,’ said Charlie. ‘Any old woman who thinks herself able to cure ailments, speak with demons or worse goes by that sign.’
‘In the country we just call them witches,’ said Lily.
They moved through the doorway and were immediately greeted by the strong stench of urine. Lily recoiled, then put her hand over her nose.
The room beyond was jumbled with found objects. In the middle was an old crib made of thick dark wood. It was crammed full of grubby linen, odd little poppets and tiny old shoes.
The acrid stench of urine deepened as they drew further inside. There was a wide chimney breast and a sad little fire. Next to the smoking sticks was a wooden cup, filled with what might once have been milk. A poker lay at the side, threaded with the remains of spit-roasted rodent. It was a rat or stoat, half-eaten, tiny teeth bared.
A dark bundle of rags had been amassed in the centre of the room. The terrible sour smell poured from it in waves. Then it shifted.
Lily started back in alarm and took Charlie’s hand. He closed his fingers around hers and she yanked her hand free.
‘I was a little startled, is all
,’ she said, turning her rings to hide her embarrassment. She took a few steps forward. ‘Why did it move?’ she asked. ‘What is it?’
‘That,’ said Charlie, ‘is the cunning woman.’
Chapter 68
The huge bundle of stinking rags rose. Two skinny arms dangled from a rounded hunchback, the bare skin liver-spotted and ancient. The little head that emerged from underneath the bent spine was squat and so filthy that only the pale eyes could be easily discerned. There was the suggestion of a stubby nose and a lopsided mouth, framed by knotted tendrils of grey hair. She reminded Charlie of a snail emerging from its shell. Then the mouth opened, revealing three long bottom teeth.
‘What truth do you seek?’ Her voice rumbled with catarrh. She’d been sitting on a little stool and risen as they approached. But the height difference with her bent back was so slight it was barely noticeable.
She had something in her hand. Some filthy piece of fabric, which she stroked as she spoke. It was a child’s bonnet, Charlie realised. Old and falling to pieces.
‘Do you sell distilled foxglove?’ asked Charlie. ‘Fairycaps?’
‘My changeling potion,’ agreed the cunning woman. ‘I make it here. If a changeling won’t return by himself, you can manage him in this world. Keep his spirits low. Confused. Stop him making evil tricks.’
Charlie was absorbing this. ‘It’s deadly in large doses?’ he said. ‘This changeling brew?’
The old woman nodded. ‘If you give too much. Yellows the eyes and stops the heart. I only sell it to women with changed babes,’ said the cunning woman, ‘and fairies.’ Her eyes glinted.
Charlie put the pieces together. ‘You sold it to Bridey Black’s changeling?’ he said. ‘Tom Black?’
The old eyes settled on his face, considering. The cunning woman was likely half-blind, Charlie realised. The milky eyes were thick with cataracts.
‘Are you fairy?’ she asked after a moment.
Charlie hesitated, wondering how best to reply. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Tricky,’ she muttered. ‘He is a trickster. We must be careful.’
There was a pause. Her little fire spat a feeble ember. Then she reached out a raddled hand towards him.
It took all Charlie’s resolve not to back away as she felt across his features. The knotty fingers moving across his broad eyebrows, feeling the kink in his nose and the scarred upper lip.
‘Horse?’ she said suddenly. ‘Horse did that?’
Charlie nodded, wondering how she knew. He usually told people it was a knife fight.
‘Nasty beasts.’ She coughed, honking loudly. Charlie tried not to breath in. ‘Perhaps not fairy.’ The horse injury seemed to satisfy her.
Her old fingers dropped down suddenly to his key, feeling the shape. His hand shot up to protect it.
The old woman gave a cackling laugh. Her fingers withdrew. ‘You are an orphan-foundling perhaps?’ she suggested. ‘Your mother left you a trinket, so she might find you again?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Charlie. The key had been his only possession when he and his brother were committed to the terrible Foundling Home.
‘But she never returned,’ decided the cunning woman. ‘Foundlings always have something of the fey folk about them. You are stuck creatures, caught between this world and the next. And now the poor foundling seeks the truth.’ She cocked her head, lopsided mouth turned into what might have been a smile. ‘I will tell you,’ she said. ‘But your key is my price.’ Her fingers extended towards it greedily.
Charlie stepped back. He looked at Lily.
‘Why do you want that?’ tried Lily. ‘We can give you money . . .’
‘No, no, no,’ said the woman, shaking her head slowly. ‘I have named my price. And you, little gypsy, must give me your medallion.’
Lily bit her lip. ‘What good can my spy medallion do her?’ she muttered.
‘You come to the cunning woman, you pay what is most dear,’ said the old woman, sinking back onto her little stool.
‘Let’s go, Charlie,’ hissed Lily. ‘She’s not in her right mind. I’ll bet she doesn’t even remember who Bridey Black is, if she came to her at all.’
‘I remember Bridey well,’ said the cunning woman. ‘Her babe had been changed. The fairies took him.’
Charlie and Lily exchanged glances.
‘I can tell you everything you need to know,’ she continued tantalisingly, ‘about Tom Black. His true mother and father. The Lord and Lady. Their powers . . .’ Her eyelids fluttered closed, then opened sharply. ‘Tom Black believes they will grant him his greatest desire.’
‘What is that?’ asked Charlie.
‘The same as all fey folk. He craves mortality. Yearns for it.’ She looked at them. ‘Unless the Lord and Lady send him home, Tom means to kill the girl he has taken when the sun sets today.’
‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘We have until Good Friday to free her. It’s still Maundy Thursday.’
The cunning woman tilted her head. ‘Shambles folk follow the Puritan faith. Lent ends when the sun sets on Maundy Thursday,’ she said. ‘Good Friday starts this evening.’
Charlie felt his stomach turn. ‘That only leaves us a few hours,’ he whispered. ‘We didn’t have enough time when there was half a day.’
‘Perhaps you have even less time than you think,’ said the cunning woman. ‘The world Tom Black knows has started to unravel. The fairies in him rise. Your girl won’t last long.’
Charlie looked at Lily, one hand clutched defensively around her precious medallion.
‘How about a game?’ he suggested carefully.
‘Fairy!’ the cunning woman hissed, drawing back. ‘I dealt with your kind before. I know what it is to play your games.’ Her raddled old hands were stroking the ragged bonnet fast.
Charlie looped the key off his neck. He rested it on the broken table amongst the little jars of tinctures.
‘You’re a card sharp,’ he said, ‘after a fashion. You read people. Pick up on cues. Your skill against ours. If I read you right, you tell us what we want to know. If I’m wrong,’ he nodded to the key and the medallion around Lily’s neck, ‘you keep our most treasured possessions and we walk away with nothing.’
‘Charlie!’ hissed Lily.
A smile lit the lopsided mouth. ‘What is to know?’ she said. ‘There is nothing of me to tell. I am only an old woman.’
‘But what if I could tell you,’ said Charlie, ‘about the fairies?’
The cunning woman uttered a strange hiss. ‘Very well,’ she decided. The cunning woman was looking at Lily now.
‘Lily,’ whispered Charlie. ‘Put the medallion down.’
She hesitated, then drew it off slowly and put it on the table. Lily slipped a sideways glance to Charlie. ‘If you lose it,’ she muttered darkly, ‘I’ll never forgive you.’
‘I’ll try not to.’
He was taking in the cunning woman. Her home. Her dirty things. ‘You weren’t born here,’ he started. ‘You’re from the country. The way you tie your skirts and ribbons is country. But you’ve no country possessions.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Which makes me think you came to London because something bad happened.’ His eyes flicked to the crib. ‘Something you wanted to forget.’
The cunning woman gave the slightest of nods.
‘The fairies,’ continued Charlie, ‘came to you. Spoke to you.’
There was something in her face, then, that he couldn’t quite seize hold of.
His eyes settled on the child’s bonnet in her hand. ‘You had a baby,’ he said, ‘out of wedlock. The fairies took it.’
The cunning woman’s face twisted. ‘No,’ she said, shuffling a curled hand towards the key and the medallion. ‘You have it wrong. You are no truth-sayer.’
The twisted fingers moved to take his key.
Chapter 69
Maria was working on her manacles in the dark, rubbing furiously. The old rusted metal had taken on a patina, something approaching a shine. She thought, in
the right light, it might offer a muddy kind of reflection. Alone in the dark, Maria had realised something. Tom’s dull metal sword. His strange refusal to leave her a pail of water to wash with. The narrow scars criss-crossing his knuckles, as though he’d repeatedly driven his fists into glass.
She wasn’t certain, but she thought he might be afraid of mirrors. So she’d started work on making a reflective surface.
A mirror to frighten a fairy. It was such a strange thing to be doing she almost laughed at herself. But what could be stranger than the place she was currently in?
Maria froze suddenly. Something was moving in the dark. Her stomach lurched. Had he heard her polishing the manacles?
‘Tom?’ she ventured, trying to keep her voice normal.
There was no reply. Fear rippled through her. Then she heard laughter. Faint and mocking.
A tinderbox struck, and a candle flame floated in the dark.
‘I’ve been waiting to meet you,’ said Tom’s voice.
Maria tried to stay calm. He was only playacting. ‘You try another part?’ she asked. ‘You wish I should act with you?’
But something was wrong. And when he lifted his eyes to look at her, she shrank back at the cold cruelty there.
He lifted a bony finger to his lips. ‘Shhhhhh.’ He smiled. ‘I have got out.’
Maria hesitated, taking in the altered expression, the mad eyes. ‘You’re not Tom?’ she said.
Tom shook his head slowly. ‘No,’ he giggled. ‘Tom is behind the mirror.’ His eyes rolled around the dark room. ‘The riots,’ he added, ‘set me free, for a little while. Chaos.’ He smiled. It was Tom, but it wasn’t. Even in his acted parts, Maria felt sure she had never met this person before.
Facts were rushing together in her mind. ‘You’re the boy,’ she said, realising, ‘the changeling boy. The one who was taken, and Tom left in his place.’
The boy nodded, then tilted his head, birdlike, towards Maria. ‘He keeps me locked away behind the mirror. He talks about you. He is different when he speaks of you. It is a problem I have been thinking over.’ He leaned forward, his face taut with excitement. ‘Let me tell you a secret,’ he whispered. ‘I am growing stronger. Tom will not be able to keep me trapped much longer.’ He breathed deeply. ‘He won’t be able to defend you.’