Nimble laughed at the thought as well. Not only were both men silver-haired ancients, but Foster had famously served as an upright captain in the Inquisition. His support of Prodigal equality obviously sprang from devout humanitarianism.
“All right, it’s not always literally whoring, but you know what I mean. If a Proddie’s right to come or go depends on keeping some toff placated, then that ain’t freedom.” Nimble scowled. “You always gotta watch where you step, mind what you say, and never forget your place.”
He was correct. Archie had seen as much, living in the city. He’d experienced it as a serving boy and a soldier.
“I’m sorry,” Archie said. The words felt worthless.
“Not your doing, is it?” Nimble replied.
Archie sighed and wished he hadn’t asked. It hadn’t been his intention to irritate Nimble, much less remind him of the injustices he knew too well. He’d just wondered if Nimble possessed answers he didn’t. Archie had no idea what he would do if ever his life were truly his own. What would there be left of him after he’d destroyed Silas and avenged Archibald? Stripped of his anger and obligation, who would he even be?
Who was he now, other than the man who impersonated Archibald?
The night seemed to close around them. The bedside lamp flickered low.
Nimble squeezed his hand and shifted very slowly so that his head rested against Archie’s. He smelled of blood, smoke, and flowers.
It had been a damnably long day. Who knew what tomorrow would bring. Archie closed his eyes. For a few moments, he thought of nothing as he drifted toward sleep.
“That account you put in my name,” Nimble murmured. “There’s too much money in there. No one would believe I came by it honestly.”
“And yet, there it is, legal as the Queen’s wedding.” Archie had made very certain of that, because that account was only one of many that would assure that no matter what happened to Archie, Silas would not see a penny of profit. “If you ever need anything, I want it to be there for you, old boot.”
Nimble drew a breath as if preparing to offer up an argument, but then he simply sighed and relaxed. Again a long quiet stretched between them. Nimble’s breathing turned slow and deep. Then he said, “Maybe I’ll pick up a new blue tailcoat.”
“Two if you wish.” Archie nodded.
“Or I’ll buy us a gold dust ship, and we can sail to the wild, red-wind islands like in those adventure novels.” Nimble’s voice was soft.
“You want to sail the ocean?” Archie couldn’t help his incredulity. Nimble wouldn’t last more than a minute in the water. Not even salt water would be dense enough to keep his heavy bones afloat. For just an instant, Archie remembered struggling against the intense weight as he’d dragged Nimble’s bleeding body from ice-cold waters.
“Sure. So long as you’re there to pull me up from the waves.” Nimble laughed softly. “We could set up shop as pearl divers. Me, sinking to the bottom—you, hauling me out with a winch.”
Nimble sounded delirious now, and Archie suspected he’d be asleep in a few minutes. He snuffed the lamp flame. Then he waited as Nimble’s breathing deepened into the rhythm of slumber. At last, in the dark, Archie pressed a kiss to Nimble’s cheek. He started to rise slowly, so as not to jostle Nimble. Hot fingers clenched around his hand.
“Don’t leave me, Archie.” Nimble sounded so strained that Archie knew at once he was running a fever.
“I’m still here, old boot.” Archie leaned back over him and pressed his free hand against Nimble’s brow. He felt warm but not dangerously hot.
“It’s not that I don’t…. I do care, my bantling. I do… but I just can’t go on like this.”
“I know.” Archie was glad for the dark then. He wouldn’t have wanted Nimble to see the hope or hurt in his face.
“If we’re ever going to make something real, something true between us, then it’s got to be on an even standing. It’s got to be as equals….”
It half broke Archie’s heart hearing those words, but not because he didn’t believe Nimble. Love—even one as hopeless and unrequited as Archie’s—required more than lust and shared secrets. It demanded respect and equality, otherwise it was nothing more than usury dressed up with pet names and bound by the dependency of one upon the power of another.
But Archie had always imagined himself and Nimble as equals, regardless of their races or ranks. If that wasn’t how Nimble pictured them, then what could Archie do? The enormity of the social divide between them spread like a chasm of inequity splitting through law and culture at every level. Archie could fight it in the Lords’ court, he could resist it in his own life, but he couldn’t drive injustice from the world. More than that, he couldn’t make Nimble feel something that he didn’t feel—that was beyond his power and outside his rights.
“I know,” Archie repeated quietly. He felt certain that Nimble had fallen asleep again.
He remained at Nimble’s side for another half hour. When Nimble’s fever didn’t relent, Archie changed into his tramping clothes, hired a handsome cab, and raced to Hells Bellow. There he hunted down one of the few physicians who specialized in treating Prodigals and convinced the old fellow to accompany him back to Nimble through the assiduous application of gold coins.
Archie remained at Nimble’s side while the spindly physician stitched Nimble’s wound and lectured him on the subject of veterans practicing battlefield medicine when they were living in a peaceable city. Then the old doctor instructed Archie in mixing the proper dosage of fever powder, changing bandages, and getting some sleep himself. As dawn light crept through the window shutters, the physician took his leave, his mood much lightened after receiving another generous payment and thanks for his discretion and his discourse.
Nimble slept and his fever receded. Twice he woke, drank his medicine, and chatted whimsically with Archie about the ventures they would undertake after they’d bought their ship and sailed to foreign lands. But within minutes of each conversation, he drifted back to sleep again. Archie stretched out in a chair at the bedside and practiced drawing and dealing cards.
In the early afternoon, just after Archie had sent for a change of clothes, Nimble bolted upright in the bed. His yellow eyes were wide, and his curly hair stood up around his face as if startled.
“A boat, of course!” Nimble cried out. “Satan’s fat ass, why didn’t I think of it sooner!”
Archie fully expected another flight of fancy wherein he played handsome card sharp to Nimble’s riverboat captain, but this time Nimble’s expression was intent and focused. Excitement showed in his face, not languid fever.
“Nine months, I’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. Trying to work out who wants them gone. Who benefits from their deaths? I should have realized that they wanted themselves gone. That’s the heart of it.” Nimble met Archie’s curious gaze and went on. “Why would the missing Prodigals pack up everything they owned if they didn’t believe they were going somewhere? Escaping their lives, yeah? And what would appeal more than being smuggled out of the city—maybe out of the country altogether?”
Archie absorbed the idea, matching it to the history of the building that housed the Dee Club. Direct access to the river and all those ships moored nearby. It wasn’t hard to picture a little rowboat quietly making the journey between the dock beneath the club out to some ship under the cover of night. It did make sense.
“But are they actually being transported to other lands or….” Archie didn’t have to go on. Nimble’s expression assured him that he understood. It would be much easier to accept payments from desperate Prodigals and then disappear them into the river’s depths than it would be to actually organize and secure their passages to new homes.
“The whole venture is set up around the fights, I reckon.” Nimble sounded like he was thinking aloud now. “That’s the one activity that doesn’t fit in at all with the rest of the club. And scheduling them for Sunday nights would be smart.”
“Bec
ause very few souls work the docks or in the warehouses on Sundays. Particularly not in the evening,” Archie reasoned, and Nimble offered him an approving nod.
“The fights are also the only time when no one at the club would want to know why a Prodigal hasn’t come around again. They’d think they knew. They aren’t going to question one other, and if an Inquisitor shows up, he’s up against a wall of gentlemen who are all invested in protecting their reputations and standings. Not a damned one of them will admit to ever having seen the missing Prodigal. Certainly not a one of them will turn to the Inquisition.”
“They’d have to confess to their own involvement to do so.” Archie remembered his own feeling of guilt for simply having witnessed the fights. “There are parts of those fights that aren’t just sickening, they’re definitely illegal.”
“Exactly. You want to ensure someone’s silence? Make them think they’re implicated in something illegal, shameful, and gruesome,” Nimble said.
“Like setting rabid dogs on hapless, half-dressed women?” Then Archie realized the full extent of the deception. “Only they’re not rabid dogs…. They’re Mr. Pugg’s trained hounds, I’d guess.”
“Righto, my bantling! Stage blood, screams.”
“And an audience that’s roaring drunk. Maybe drugged as well.” Archie recalled that strange drink he’d been presented, compliments of the club. He wondered suddenly how much of the violence and horror of what he’d witnessed had been genuine and how much had been conjured from his own nightmares. “They start with genuine prizefighters and then slip in a piece of theater….”
“Exactly. Just like a magic trick. You fire the real gun to demonstrate the danger and then switch it out for the fake. It’s illusion. And our lad Pugg isn’t just an animal trainer,” Nimble went on, looking like he was sighting an enemy down the barrel of his rifle. “He’s apprenticed to the finest stage magician in this damn country. He’s definitely in on it.”
“Nurse Fuggas must be as well, since she has to pretend to treat the injuries,” Archie commented, and again Nimble gave him that look of pleased approval. “Charles doesn’t stay on Sundays, but Agatha does….”
“At least one of them is overseeing the entire show,” Nimble agreed.
“And then there’s my uncle.” Archie scowled just thinking of Silas. It wasn’t as if his uncle would be above such an enterprise. Although it seemed like a more complex endeavor than he would normally bother to undertake. Archie supposed he couldn’t know the actual extent of his uncle’s various criminal inclinations. Perhaps exploiting the most desperate of Prodigals served as a kind of amusement for him.
“Silas is a tough one to pin down in all of this.” Nimble stretched and winced as he lifted his left arm. He glanced at the stitches sewn across his shoulder and down his chest as if he’d somehow forgotten that he’d been shot. Mottled bruises discolored Nimble’s skin. More would show as the days passed. Anxiety fluttered through Archie; this matter needed to end before any further harm befell Nimble.
“I’ll go to the Inquisition and report the whole thing,” Archie offered.
“And get your girl, Agatha, locked up?” Nimble’s tone was teasing, but then his expression turned serious. He shook his head, and a single pink cherry blossom petal drifted from his black hair. “First we have to know who’s truly running the enterprise and whether they’re actually ferrying Proddies to better lives.”
“Chances aren’t good,” Archie reminded him.
“No,” Nimble admitted. “But I have to be certain. I won’t shut down something that could be the only means of escape for someone like Nancy Beelze. I’ve got to be sure.”
Archie knew where that line of reasoning led, and he scowled. The only way to know was to become more involved.
“You were shot the first time you went to the club. You can’t mean to return—”
“Technically I was shot leaving the club.” Nimble smiled, but his gaze remained hard. “And for all we know, that was a stray shot intended for you, not me. I recall that was your thinking last night.”
“And I recall that you presented a rather compelling refutation of my assumption.”
“Well, I am a persuasive cove, if I do say so myself.” Nimble grinned as he tossed back his blankets. He made it look very natural while still favoring his injured left side. “Just now I’m convinced that I need to go back to that club and get a closer look at the Sunday fights. It’s too soon for anyone to chance having another shot, so I can probably risk—”
“No! Absolutely not.” Archie jumped to his feet. His heart hammered in his chest, but his blood seemed to run cold. Alarm infused his words with a strident, commanding tone. “You can’t—”
“I’m not yours to order around, Archie!” Nimble snapped, and all pretense of amusement drained from his expression.
“This isn’t about orders. It’s common sense and you….” He took in Nimble’s hard, angry countenance. Nimble already resented their unequal social standing; issuing decrees would only put his back up and send him charging off on his own. Archie forced himself to step back and sit again. “Please. Don’t do this alone.”
For a moment Nimble said nothing. He simply stared back at Archie. Then his expression softened, and he pulled one of his sly smiles. “You fret too much, my bantling.” Nimble stood and went to the dresser. He opened it with his right hand while placing his left on his hip, imitating a casual pose almost believably as he studied the shirts hanging before him. “I’ve got friends and minions in more corners of this city than you would ever guess,” Nimble said. “It’s not me who’s most in danger in that club.”
“I can handle myself,” Archie assured him.
Nimble looked like he might argue, but then said, “It’s the Prodigal who’s been selected for the next secret boat ride who I’m most worried about. Sunday’s only three days away, and we have no way of knowing if it will be some desperate soul’s last day on this earth, do we?”
“No, we don’t,” Archie admitted. Some anonymous person couldn’t matter to Archie more than Nimble did, but as much as he wanted to keep Nimble out of the Dee Club, he recognized that it wasn’t his choice. This was literally Nimble’s business. The only option left to Archie was whether to join him or not. “So, what is it you’re planning, and what will you need from me?”
Chapter Seven: Deep Water
ARCHIE SPENT the next three days at the Dee Club, attempting to appear invested in poetry recitals and the most recent collection of lunar observations penned by Prodigal astronomers. He sauntered from room to room, exchanging pleasantries and measuring out the hidden doors and corridors that riddled the building. Now and then he played a few hands of cards. During the long hours between those activities, he searched the library and found a number of volumes on the subjects of Prodigal sorcery and conjuring. He took notes and later dispatched a footman from his townhouse to purchase the required supplies.
“Studying up on love potions,” he informed Neet when the young man came looking for him for advice on matching a rather bold waistcoat to a pair of loud gold trousers.
“It’s not so desperate as all that, is it?” Neet asked. He appeared genuinely distressed for Archie.
“I’m afraid that it might be hopeless,” Archie replied, and he offered the youth a rueful smile. “Particularly where these dodgy spells are concerned. I mean, if I was already in so intimate a position as to readily collect a cup of the lady’s sweat, I dare say I wouldn’t require the love spell that calls for it.”
Neet laughed and cheered up, which did Archie some good. Brooding over Nimble’s safety made for rather dour days, and separating from him each evening made for lonely, frustrated nights.
Later Lupton visited him and went out of his way to point out all the girls in the city who were far more pretty and friendly than Agatha Wedmoor. Archie didn’t laugh, but he had to hang his head to hide his brief smile.
Charles avoided him and the club in general, which Archie didn’t min
d one bit.
He saw almost nothing of Nimble outside the short periods when they entered the club together and again when they decamped well after midnight. He knew Nimble spent his time with the members of the Prodigal theater troupe and had won Burns’s interest and some degree of the older man’s trust. Pugg was another matter.
“He’s suspicious of everyone,” Nimble had confided one late night as they bumped along in Archie’s carriage. “Don’t think he even trusts his own dogs.”
By Sunday Nimble won himself a position watching over the props that enlivened several of the Sunday night fights. While he observed the goings on backstage, Archie moved through the rowdy crowd of onlookers to slip out the back and watch boats come and go across the dark waters. None moored beneath the Dee Club that week.
Or the following Sunday.
Then Archie noticed Phebe’s absence from the club. Someone mentioned that the girl had fallen ill with a fever.
That Saturday Agatha Wedmoor accepted Silas’s marriage proposal in the club library, while her hollow-eyed brother looked on like he might vomit at any moment. Archie didn’t suppose he appeared any happier than Charles.
Neet and Lupton both offered to take Archie out for a few drinks afterward, and Archie thanked them but insisted that his pride demanded he put on a brave face and wish Agatha the very best, instead of slinking away with his tail between his legs. In truth, the agitation that they likely read in his expression and demeanor stemmed from both Phebe’s prolonged absence and Nimble’s announcement that he’d at last been invited to act as a fighter this Sunday.
“They could mean to do you real harm, old boot.” Archie hoped the tremor of emotion in his voice sounded like a result of the carriage bouncing over rough cobbles.
“And waste all the time we’ve put into choreographing the spectacle? Nah. I’ve seen enough of Pugg and Nurse Fuggas now to take the measure of them. They aren’t the sorts to resort to murder if they can help it.”
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