The Devil’s Company: A Novel

by David Liss

  Hale’s smile began to fade and he shook his head slightly. “At least, we have been inclined to riot in the past, but we’ve got no cause now. Parliament’s thrown us some scraps, and we’re content for the time being. The Company ain’t given us a reason to knock ’pon their gates. And as we’ve won the last battle of our little war, it would be unseemly for us to launch a new campaign.”

  “I believe I mentioned an incentive to wink at the unseemliness,” I said. “Five pounds. And, I hardly need mention, a cancellation of your debt to me.”

  “Oh, you might mention it. It’s worth mentioning, all right. Make no mistake. But I don’t know that’s the offer I’ll take.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “Do you know where I was tonight, with my companions there, who have been so kind to me? I went to the Drury Lane Theater, where I learned from some contacts I’ve made over the years—I shan’t tell you who—that the king himself was to make a surprise attendance. And do you know why I should wish to be in the path of his Germanic majesty?”

  I thought at first that there must be some political reason, but I quickly dismissed the idea. The answer was all too obvious. The lesions on Devout Hale’s skin and the swelling about his neck arose from scrofula, which poor men called the king’s evil. He must give credit to the stories told, that only a touch from the king could cure his affliction.

  “Surely,” I said, “you don’t believe such nonsense.”

  “Indeed I do. It has been known for many centuries that the king’s touch cures the king’s evil. I know many people who say their kinsmen know those who have been cured by the king’s touch. I mean to put myself in his way, that I might be cured.”

  “Really, Devout, I am surprised to hear you say this. You have never been a superstitious man.”

  “It’s not superstition but fact.”

  “But come, only think of it. Before Queen Anne died, our King George was merely George, Elector of Hanover. Could he cure scrofula then?”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “And what of the Pretender. Can he cure scrofula?”

  “Don’t stand to reason. He wants to be king, but he ain’t.”

  “But the Parliament could make him king. If it did, could he cure you then?”

  “If he were king, he could cure me.”

  “Then why not petition the Parliament to cure you?”

  “I’ve no mind to play at sophistry with you, Weaver. You can believe what you like, and my believing what I like don’t give you no hurt, so there’s no need to be unkind. You do not suffer from this disease. I do. And I tell you a man with the king’s evil will do anything—anything, I say—to be rid of it.”

  I bowed my head. “You are quite right,” I said, feeling foolish for having tried to dash an afflicted man’s hopes.

  “The king’s touch can cure me, that’s the long and short of it. A man’s got to put himself in the king’s way to get his touch, and that ain’t always as easy as one would like, now, is it? Tis said,” he announced, in a tone that suggested a shift in conversation, “that when you was a fighting man, amassing your victories in the ring, the king himself was something of an admirer.”

  “I’ve heard that bit of flattery myself but never seen any evidence to prove it.”

  “Have you sought evidence?”

  “I can’t say I have.”

  “I suggest you do.”

  “Why should I care one way or the other?” I asked.

  “Because of the king’s touch, Weaver. That’s my price. If you want my men to riot at Craven House, you must swear to do all in your power to get me the king’s touch.” He took another deep drink of his ale. “That and the five pounds four shillings you mentioned.”

  IN THIS CONVERSATION, we circled each other many times. “You are sadly mistaken,” I explained, “if you believe I have any connection of the sort you require. You seem to forget the troubles I earned for myself in the late election. I made no shortage of political enemies.”

  “We have but two political parties in our land, so any man who makes enemies must, in the same stroke, make friends. I would present that to you as a law of nature, or something very like.”

  I cannot say how our conversation would have resolved had it not been interrupted by a sharp explosion of noises—a burst of angry voices, the overturning of chairs, the hollow clang of pewter knocking pewter. Hale and I both turned and saw two fellows standing in close proximity, faces red with anger. I recognized one of them, a short stocky man with comically bushy eyebrows, as a member of Devout’s company of silk weavers. The other fellow, taller and equally well built, was a stranger to me. It took but one glance at Devout to see he was a stranger to him as well.

  Though large and ungainly, Devout Hale was upon his feet and lumbering toward them as best as his frail and ungainly body would allow. “Hold there, what is this?” he demanded. “What’s the ill, Feathers?”

  Feathers, the shorter man, addressed Hale without once taking his eye off his adversary. “Why, this rascal has insulted those of us whose parents come over from France,” he said. “Said we’re naught but Papists.”

  “I never said anything of the sort,” the taller man said. “I believe this fellow is drunk.”

  “I’m sure it ain’t but a misunderstanding,” Devout Hale said. “And we can’t have any unpleasantness here, so what say I buy you both a drink and we make ourselves friends?”

  The one Hale called Feathers sucked in a breath, as though steeling himself for peace. He would have been wiser to steel himself for something else, however, for his adversary most unexpectedly threw a punch directly into Feathers’s mouth. There was a spray of blood before the man sank, and I thought for certain the author of this violence should find himself destroyed by the injured man’s companions, but all at once there was the sound of a constable’s whistle, and we turned to find two men, dressed in the livery of their office, standing alongside the mayhem. I scarcely had time to wonder how they could have arrived so quickly before they began to collect the fallen Feathers.

  “This one was looking for trouble,” one of the constables observed.

  “No doubt, no doubt,” the other agreed.

  “Hold on, there!” Hale cried. “What of the other?”

  The other was not in sight.

  IT WAS ONLY WITH GREAT EFFORT that Mr. Hale was able to convince his brother silk weavers to stay in the tavern while he accompanied the victim of injustice to the magistrate’s office. His proposal produced much discussion, and I was led to understand that my friend was not upon good terms with the unfortunate Mr. Feathers, but he nevertheless convinced the others that he should make the best possible representative for their injured brother, and that arriving in the chamber in great numbers might only give the magistrate cause to claim intimidation. He asked, however, that I accompany him on his mission, as I knew something, as he put it, of the workings of the law.

  I did know a thing or two about the law, and I knew I did not like what I had seen of the business thus far. Those constables had been too quick to appear, the assailant too quick to disappear. There was some mischief afoot.

  The office of Richard Umbread, magistrate in Spitalfields, was spare and quiet at night, with only a few constables and a clerk milling about in the poorly lighted space. A fire burned in the fireplace, but it was small, and there were far too few candles lit, giving the room the air of a dungeon. Mr. Feathers, who dabbed at his bleeding nose with an already crimson-soaked handkerchief, looked up in a daze.

  “Now then,” the judge said to Feathers. “My constables tell me you instigated a drunken attack upon your fellow. Is this true?”

  “No, sir, it ain’t. He insulted my parents, sir, and when I objected, he hit me without cause.”

  “Hmm. But as he is not here and you are, it is a rather easy thing to set all the blame upon him.”

  “There are witnesses to that effect, sir,” Devout Hale called out, but the judge offered him no mind.


  “And I am made to understand,” the judge continued, “that you have no gainful employment, is that correct?”

  “That ain’t right either,” Feathers corrected. “I am a silk weaver, sir, and I work along with a company of silk weavers hard by Spinner’s Yard. That man standing over there, Mr. Devout Hale, works alongside me, sir. He knew me as an apprentice, though I was not ’prenticed to him.”

  “It is a very easy thing,” said the judge, “for a man to get his companions to say this or that on his behalf, but it does not alter the fact that you are a man without employment and so inclined to violence.”

  “That’s not the case at all,” Feathers shot back. His eyes were now wide with disbelief.

  “You can offer me no evidence to the contrary.”

  “Excuse me, your honor,” I ventured, “but I believe he has offered you ample evidence to the contrary. Mr. Hale and I witnessed the conflict, and we will swear that Mr. Feathers was the victim rather than the cause. As to his employment, Mr. Hale will swear to it, and I’m sure it would be no hardship to find a dozen or so men who will swear similarly.”

  “Swearing don’t signify when it is all falsehood,” the judge said. “I have not sat these many years on the bench without learning to see what stands before me. Mr. Giles Feathers, it is my experience that men of violence and no account want a useful skill to teach them to better their ways. I therefore sentence you to the workhouse at Chriswell Street, where you may learn the trade of silk weaving over the three months of your detainment. It is my hope that such a skill will help you to find employment upon your release, and so I will not need to see you here again on similar charges.”

  “Learn the skill of weaving?” Feathers cried. “But I know the skill of weaving and am a journeyman in that trade. It’s how I earn my bread.”

  “Get him out of here,” the judge told his constables, “and clear the room of these loiterers.”

  Had Mr. Hale been a stronger man, I would have expected him to show his outrage in ways that would have landed him in prison as well, but he could not resist the pull of the constable, and it was not my battle to fight, so I followed him out.

  “I’d heard of these tricks,” Hale breathed, “but I never thought to see it practiced against my own men.”

  I nodded, for I now understood all too well. “A kind of silk-weaving impressment.”

  “Aye. Chriswell Street workhouse is a privately run affair, and the men what owns it pays the judge, who pays the constables, who get men with skills arrested on no account of their own. Then they’re sent to the workhouse to learn a trade—the very irony of it. It ain’t nothing but slavery. They get three months’ worth of unpaid labor out of Feathers, and if he makes a fuss, they’ll jut punish him with more time.”

  “There’s nothing to do?” I asked.

  “No, there’s what to do. I must go now, Weaver. There’s legal men to be hired and testimony to be sworn. They’re depending on us being foolish and ignorant of our rights, and in most cases the men they snatch will be. But we’ll sting ’em, don’t you doubt it. They’ll think twice before they go after one of my fellows again.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Now, I hate, when you have such other concerns, to raise the issue once more—”

  “Your riot, is it? Well, you need not fear about that. I’ve got the anger in me now, and a good riot shall make me feel right and proper. You just get me the king, sir. Swear you’ll do all in your power. That will have to be enough.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  DID SWEAR. TO MY MIND, THIS WAS LIKE PROMISING A MAN HIS lottery ticket would answer with a fortune. Worse than that, for a lottery, as a game of chance, can be manipulated—as I knew well—but there could be no counterfeiting a meeting with the king. Still, the promise did the business, and two nights later, I found myself in the green market to the west of the East India complex, where I contrived to busy myself in the examination of discounted cabbages—for these were the goods that had not sold that day, and the clever and unhygienic consumer could find a bargain if he didn’t mind a bit of maggot with his leaves. The air had grown quite cold over the course of the afternoon, and I ran my gloved hands over a variety of vegetables and squinted in a show of disappointment. My coat was of a better quality than any of the scavengers, and I attracted more notice than I should have liked, so I was most relieved when the operation commenced.

  At only a few minutes before the striking of the eight o’clock hour, I heard a woman cry out in fear, and I knew Mr. Hale and his men had upheld their part of the bargain. Along with the other late patrons-many of whom used the distraction as an excuse to depart the premises without paying for their moldy greens—I ran out to Leadenhall Street and observed a group of some thirty or forty silk weavers standing by the premises, braving the cold in their inadequate coats. A half dozen or so held torches. Another half dozen tossed chunks of old brick or rotten apples or dead rats at the walls surrounding the structure. They shouted a wide array of criticism at this barrier, claiming the Company practiced unfairly against common laborers, contrived to lower their wages, diffused their markets, and corrupted the common taste with Eastern luxuries. There were some epithets against France thrown in as well, because the Englishman has not been born who knows how to riot without mentioning that nation.

  Though many have had cause to complain about the sluggish motion of British justice and the enforcement of laws, here was a case in which a certain slowness served me in good stead. In order to make the silk weavers disperse, a constable would have to rouse a justice of the peace brave enough to stand before them and read aloud the substance of the Riot Act. At such a point, the mutineers had one hour in which to disperse before the army might be deployed to end the violence—ironically, through the use of violence. Here was an old system, but one borne out by time, and many experiments had proved that the firing of muskets into one or two of the troublemakers would send the remaining rebels a-scatter.

  Devout Hale had assured me that he and his men would prosecute my cause for as long as possible before the risk of harm overtook them. They would not, in short, endure musket fire on my behalf, but they would continue to fling dead rodents for as long as they might do so in safety.

  Such was the most I could request of them. If I were to attempt to be truly safe, I would need to enter the premises, get what Cobb desired, and exit before the soldiers scared away the mischief makers. I therefore made my way past the riot, feeling the heat of the burning torches and smelling the rank perspiration of the laborers, and hurried around the corner to Lyme Street. Darkness was now fully upon me, and as any perambulators would have been drawn to the spectacle of riot, and the guards within the complex would be preparing for a siege of silk workers, I felt I might scale the wall with some reasonable hope of success. Should I be discovered, I decided, I would merely explain that I was being chased by a crazed rioter who believed me affiliated with the Company, and as that organization was the source of my woes, I hoped they would be willing to be the source of my succor as well.

  Because I needed to explain myself if apprehended, I could not bring with me grappling equipment, for it is the rare innocent spectator indeed who inexplicably has such engines about him. Instead, I climbed the wall in the more primitive method practiced by boys and housebreakers without expensive tools and found the climb rather easy—more particularly so as the street was deserted, any perambulators having gone to observe the mayhem on Leadenhall. During a daylight surveying of the area, I had observed numerous cracks and crevices, and these proved more than equal to the task of providing footing up the ten feet to the top. The greatest difficulty lay in climbing while holding on to the rather heavy sack I carried, containing as it did its measure of living creatures, who writhed unhappily within.

  Nevertheless, I managed, occasionally shifting the weight of the sack from my hand to my teeth, and in that manner I scaled the outer wall. I then lay prone for a moment to survey the grounds. The bulk of the watchmen, as I had
anticipated, had abandoned their stations and now engaged themselves in the manly art of hurling insults at the rioters while the rioters hurled carrion at them. In addition to shouting, I heard incessant metal clanging and knew the rioters had improvised drums of some sort. These were good fellows, for they knew the more distraction and irritation they could devise, the greater the chance that I might enter and exit with impunity.

  Getting down the wall would prove more complicated that getting up, but some twenty feet to the south, closer to the warehouses, a hillock rose by the wall, and there the drop would be no more than half my body length, so, snakelike I slithered to that spot and prepared to enter the grounds.

  At that moment the dogs observed me; some five dragon-headed mastiffs sprang forward, thunderous barks booming from their terrible jaws. As they approached, I reached for my cumbersome sack and took out the first of the rabbits I had purchased at market that afternoon. I dropped it to the ground, where, after an instant of regaining its bearings, it saw the dogs descending upon it and sped away. The advantage went to the rabbit, for the sack had kept it warm, and the dogs were visibly chilled by the coldness of the night. Three of the dogs ran off in frigid pursuit, so I dropped the second of my rabbits, and this one carried the other two beasts off with it. I retained the third, having, I suspected, further use for the creature when I made my exit.

  Next, I slipped onto the soft ground, landing in a practiced crouch. I continued to move in such a fashion until I slipped between the warehouses and Craven House itself. My task would prove far more complicated now, for the grounds were lit, and though I was dressed in a sufficiently gentlemanly fashion that my appearance would not send anyone fleeing for help, I presumed that the clerks and workers inside the house would notice an unfamiliar face. I could only hope that most of these men had already left for the day—though I was made to believe that many men worked long hours for the Company—and those who remained would be watching the riot with equal quantities of amusement and concern.