The Crimson Shard

by Teresa Flavin

  Sunni had stopped listening after the word killed. “Will’s dead?”

  “We has already explained it to the boy Blaise.”

  “Throgmorton’s banned us from speaking to each other.” Sunni felt tears brimming. Now she knew what “trouble” Toby was talking about. “We’re here because he kidnapped us to get information. He’s threatened to get rid of me, too, because he only needs one of us to tell what we know.”

  Fleet sucked in his breath. “Thereby obliging Blaise to give up information and save your skin.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “What information?” asked Sleek.

  “It doesn’t matter! Don’t you want to know what’s going to happen to you?” Sunni swallowed back her tears.

  “Aye,” said Fleet. “May as well hear it.”

  “Throgmorton’s going to name two ‘nightsneaks’ who steal art. This Mr. Justice is going to arrest you. You’re nightsneaks, aren’t you? I heard you call yourselves that when you were talking to Mistress Biggins.”

  “Sharp ear holes,” said Sleek.

  “Quite. What does you think, Sleekie? Is Sunniver telling the truth? We knows already that he and Blaise is desperate for our help, being here against their will as they claim.”

  “Details,” Sleek repeated knowingly.

  “All right,” said Sunni. “His name is Mr. Justice Wright, and he’s fat, with a huge wig. He limps and stinks of drink. He said Throgmorton should find him at the Saracen coffeehouse in Leadpurse Lane. How’s that for details?”

  “Majestic.” Fleet let out a frustrated groan. “Throggie has squeaked to the Law, such as it is. In our case, that is gout-ridden Wright.”

  “Will you help us escape?”

  The nightsneaks hesitated.

  “Are you going to help us or not?” she asked again. “I’ve told you the truth.”

  “I believe you. Throggie has sold us out, all right,” said Fleet through gritted teeth. “After all we done for him.”

  “Dog!” said Sleek.

  “Something is up, Sleekie. Throggie suddenly wants rid of us. Cleaning his nest of rotten eggs, no doubt, in case a bad smell sticks to him. We must go to ground for a while.”

  “But you could take him down with what you know,” said Sunni.

  “Who will the Law believe?” Fleet asked ruefully. “A gentleman like Throggie, with money to buy witnesses, or a pair of rogues such as us?”

  He dragged Sleek into a huddle in a corner. After a brief discussion, Fleet said, “We is in your debt for warning us of this treachery, and agree to spring you from the house, Sunniver. We shall see you off in the right direction, but you is on your own after that.”

  Sunni smiled and caught the glint of their teeth smiling back. “Good.”

  “Very well, Sunniver. You two has one chance to bolt and it is tonight. Throggie and his daughter are out but shall probably not be for much longer. Sleek and I daren’t return here after today. Wright’s men will be waiting if they ain’t already.” He turned to Sleek. “I have half a mind to take the musketeer picture with us, Sleekie, as payment for our troubles.”

  “Pah!” his companion said.

  Fleet burst into laughter. “Aye, better to leave it here. Perhaps Wright shall see it and land Throggie himself in the broth!”

  “More likely Jeremiah Starling will be caught with it,” said Sunni.

  Fleet grew solemn. “Sadly, you is right, Sunniver. Throggie has set it up so that others take the blame. Pray that Starling hides the blasted painting well.” Then he slapped Sunni on the shoulder. “What sharp ears you has, Sunniver! Though you bring bad news, you is a lad of hidden talents. Talents that will be useful, no doubt.”

  Just before first bedtime, Sunni screwed a scrap of paper into the tightest bullet she could, tidied her table, and took some rubbish to a sack by the workshop door. When she got close enough to Blaise, she launched the tiny note toward him.

  She nearly croaked when it bounced off his neck and fell to the floor. But luckily, Blaise had felt it and scooped it up in one unnoticed move of his hand. Years of note-passing at school had made him good at sneaky reading under desks. Within a few moments, he gave Sunni a nod and tore the paper scrap into tiny bits.

  She trudged downstairs. All she could do now was pray that Blaise could get himself to the ground floor without alerting anyone. The boys and Jeremiah would be nodding off soon, with any luck. Sunni knew Mary would already be sound asleep, since she didn’t have to wait on the Throgmortons that evening, and Mistress Biggins would have left for home.

  When Sunni had told the nightsneaks that she hoped they could get into the house, they had just laughed.

  “We come and go as we please,” said Fleet. “To Miss Livia’s annoyance.”

  When she reached the ground floor, Sunni crept into the front parlor. She pulled back one of the shutters and peeped outside. The lamp over the front door flickered, revealing the dark, empty square. Lamps glowed over the other houses’ entrances and in their windows, but few people were about. There was no sign of Throgmorton or his daughter. Sunni had hardly seen more than a glimpse of the outside world till now — and in a short time, she would be in it, for better or worse.

  She descended into the subterranean corridor leading to her bedchamber. When she pushed open the door, she was dismayed to see Mary waiting up for her. The maid rolled out of bed and hastily locked the door from the inside, holding the key tight in her fist.

  “Mr. Throgmorton’s orders,” she said. “So you cannot wander about in the early hours.”

  “It’s the mice under the bed,” Sunni said. “I can’t sleep when they’re scratching.”

  “Hit ’em with your shoe.” Mary pulled the chamber pot from under her bed, revealing a dead creature already there.

  Sunni recoiled in disgust. “Aren’t you going to get rid of that?”

  “In the morning.”

  “But what if you need to go in the night?”

  “The creature won’t mind. It’s dead,” mumbled Mary with a shrug, hunkering down under her bedding. “Blow the candle out when you is ready to sleep.”

  Sunni found her bag and made sure all her belongings were stuffed inside. She wedged it beside her pillow and blew out the candle.

  She took a deep breath and asked, “You know the workshop, Mary?”

  “I am ordered to stay away from it,” came Mary’s muffled voice. “Mr. Starling says I would knock something over or trample on a drawing.”

  “What about Mistress Biggins? Does she ever go up there?”

  “Nay, never. She rules the kitchen. Mr. Starling rules the workshop.”

  Sunni sighed. So much for the servants knowing anything about the painted door.

  “Good night, Mary,” she said, but the maid answered with a snuffling snore.

  Sunni lay in the dark, her fingers closed over her bag’s strap, and waited for the nightsneaks. Each second seemed like an hour, and as they ticked past, her stomach fluttered. What if they aren’t coming? What if leaving this house is a big mistake?

  Eventually, clicking and rustling came from the keyhole, and after a few agonizing seconds, someone pushed the door open an inch. A single flame crackled into life and illuminated Sleek’s face. He nodded once and extinguished the light.

  Sunni eased herself out of bed and tiptoed across the room. She followed Sleek upstairs to the back door and into the pitch-black courtyard, where he bundled her into the far corner, away from Throgmorton’s study window. The late-August air was mild, with undertones of autumn, but Sunni shook with nerves.

  “Where are Blaise and Mr. Fleet?” she whispered, craning her neck toward the back door.

  Sleek held his gloved forefinger to his lips and shook his head.

  With a thump and a low curse, Blaise finally tripped out of the back door, and Fleet pushed him unceremoniously toward Sunni and Sleek.

  “Go!” he commanded huskily.

  Sleek guided the pair through a door set into th
e high courtyard walls. With several long-legged strides, Fleet followed and locked the outer door behind them.

  Sunni glanced up at the top floor of the house to see if anyone was at the boys’ window, before Fleet yanked her away. Sleek led them all down a narrow alley that snaked along the back of the fine houses. There was little light, and the path was littered with rubble, decaying food, and something underfoot that squelched like mud but smelled much worse. Sleek moved as if he could see everything before him, dodging small carcasses and broken crockery with ease. Fleet stayed at their heels, ensuring that no one followed them.

  Sunni slipped once, and immediately Blaise’s warm hand took hers. He said nothing, and neither did she, but she hoped he could feel how happy this made her.

  When they were a good distance from Jeremiah’s house, Fleet broke his silence.

  “That is that, Sleekie. Our business with Throgmorton may be finished, but he will not be finished with us when he learns we has stolen his two golden eggs. By eggs I mean you, Blaise and Sunniver. He will come after you, swift and terrible, as soon as he finds you has left the nest.”

  Blaise decided that the thing he would remember most about this London was the sour stink of it. The overripe foulness of the streets made him gag, and when a woman emptied a chamber pot from a top window, nearly catching him in its spray, he bent over and retched, much to the nightsneaks’ amusement.

  Sleek guided them through interwoven back streets without the use of a lantern. He felt his surroundings as he went, touching corners of buildings and counting doorsteps to himself under his breath. When they passed other pedestrians carrying lights, he and Fleet both shied away, lowering the brims of their hats and veering into the shadows till they had passed. Once or twice they had to navigate around people huddled in doorways or the stiff bodies of dead cats.

  They moved away from avenues of grand stone houses into a neighborhood of crooked wooden ones, whose upper floors overhung the street, making the uneven paving stones even darker and more treacherous.

  At the end of a narrow lane, warm light blazed a welcome. As they neared the glow, Blaise could see Sleek grinning back at Fleet.

  “Safe now,” he announced.

  A tattered wooden sign painted with a green dragon hung outside the house. The windowpanes were opaque with grime, and the door groaned as Sleek opened it.

  A haze of tobacco smoke hung under the tavern’s low ceiling beams, swirling in accompaniment to a mournful fiddle’s drone and many raucous voices. Just visible in the choking mist, heads swung around to take note of who had entered. When these heads recognized Fleet and Sleek, they winked or nodded and went back to their mugs and pipes.

  Fleet steered Sunni and Blaise toward a table at the back, half hidden by its tall wooden benches. Before Sleek even sat down, he had his pipe jammed between his teeth and was lighting it with a candle from the table.

  “Grub,” he said, smiling, when Fleet returned with bowls of pea soup and hunks of rough bread. “Eat.”

  The landlady brought joints of stringy beef and two tankards of ale for the nightsneaks. They set upon their food like pariah dogs, gnawing and slurping and smoking in between. Neither spoke until they had sat back against the benches, grinning and wiping their mouths on their sleeves.

  “This is the Green Dragon,” said Fleet. “The safest house in Saint Giles for nightsneaks, lowlifes, and desperadoes like yourselves. No questions asked, no answers offered. You is allowed in under our wings, but any stranger seeking us shall be sniffed out at the threshold and barred from entry. Throggie shall not show his face here.”

  “Nor Livia,” said Sleek.

  “By jingo,” Fleet exploded. “We is well shot of her.”

  “Not half,” muttered Sunni.

  Blaise looked at his empty dishes. “I can’t think straight when I’m still hungry.”

  “You has them long hollow legs, like me. We had better keep you fed then. Jenny!” Fleet waved at the landlady for more food. “Nightsneak work has need of fast feet and clever brains.”

  “Thanks for helping us,” said Blaise. “But why did you change your minds? You told me you couldn’t.”

  “Sunniver learned Throgmorton was about to betray us to the Law,” Fleet answered. “We came to an arrangement. One good turn deserves another.”

  Blaise turned to Sunni. “When did you find that out? While you were down smoking the paper on the fire?”

  “Yeah. I’ll explain later,” she said, eyeing Fleet. “Right now I want to sort out what we do next. You said you’d see us off in the right direction.”

  Fleet scratched dried food off his chin. “So we shall. But you is weaker than newborn kittens at this moment, with nothing in your purses and a price on your heads, no doubt. These streets shall feed on you and drag you under unless you is taught skills forthwith.”

  “What skills?” Sunni mopped up soup with a crust of bread.

  “Lifting, nimming, snatching.”

  “Forking, angling,” added Sleek.

  “Aye, all of that. Robbing, to put it simple,” said Fleet, drawing his hand up from under the table. Sunni’s sunglasses were dangling in his fingers. He looked at them curiously and perched them on his nose, looking like an eccentric rock musician in vintage clothes.

  “How did you get those?” Sunni snatched them off his face and looked around to find her bag open on the bench next to him.

  “Skills,” said Sleek as he handed her bag back.

  “There’s other interesting, inexplicable things in your satchel,” observed Fleet, a look of wonder on his long face.

  “My bag’s private,” said Sunni, incensed. “Leave it alone.”

  “Secrets is safe with nightsneaks.” Fleet put both hands up. “You has very odd things in there, made of odd materials. You comes from somewhere else, do you not? Somewhere strange.”

  Blaise swore inwardly. Thieves were the last people he wanted to share their secret with, no matter how trustworthy Fleet claimed they were. But what choice did they have now?

  “We’re not from this time,” he said.

  “The odd things ain’t old, so you ain’t come from the past. Is you by any chance from a future time?”

  “Yes,” Sunni said grudgingly.

  Fleet’s eyes practically popped out of his head. “Travelers in time, eh? No wonder Throggie wants to keep hold of you for information. Boys who can tell the future? You could bring down kings and start wars!”

  “Aye!” said Sleek, the pipe nearly falling from between his clenched teeth.

  “I’d make a terrible fortune-teller,” Blaise said. “We didn’t learn much about English kings at school. I can’t tell one from another, except for King Arthur.”

  “How did you come here?” Fleet’s body was tensed against the table, and Sleek puffed on his pipe, his hands trembling with excitement.

  Before Blaise could answer, Sunni said, “Throgmorton lured us through the painted door in the workshop.”

  For once, Fleet was speechless.

  “And we have to go back the same way, but we don’t know how.”

  “Starling?” Sleek asked.

  “If he knows anything, he won’t admit it. Throgmorton controls him. None of the boys know either.” Sunni hung her head. “Maybe Will wouldn’t be . . . gone, if I hadn’t asked questions.”

  “You didn’t know that would happen,” said Blaise.

  Fleet finally stopped gaping. “Aye, Blaise is right. Other Academy boys has gone before Will did. And perhaps it was his time anyway, with or without you here.”

  “Is that supposed to make us feel better,” Blaise asked, “knowing that Throgmorton sold Will off to be dissected in a science experiment?”

  As soon as he saw Sunni’s stricken face, he realized she didn’t know where Will had gone. He grasped her shoulder and murmured, “Oh, man, I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head and said to the nightsneaks, “Where’s that food?”

  An uncomfortable silence fell over
the table. When the second helpings arrived, the nightsneaks solemnly gave Sunni and Blaise the lion’s share. Blaise sensed they wanted to ask more questions, but they held back.

  Fleet cleared his throat and said, “What will you do?”

  “Try to find someone who can help us open the painted door and get past Throgmorton.”

  “No easy thing,” said Fleet. “Throggie is crafty, as Sleekie and I know only too well.”

  “We have no choice,” said Sunni.

  “You has other things to learn, too, or you shall not last long here.”

  “Stealing,” said Blaise, licking his soup bowl clean with his tongue, as the nightsneaks had done with theirs.

  “How else shall you survive? Everyone needs ready money,” said Fleet, “to climb to the top of the dung heap.”

  “I’m not stealing,” said Sunni. “We’ll find another way.”

  “When you’ve found it, enlighten us. Unless you intends to dig ditches or haul muck for a pittance, in which case Sleek and I ain’t interested.”

  Blaise nudged Sunni with one elbow. “Maybe he’s right.”

  “Him up there in heaven will forgive you,” said Fleet. “You is only doing it to preserve yourselves — and return where you belongs.”

  “All right, all right,” Sunni said quietly. “Whatever it takes to get home.”

  “We starts in the depth of night.” Fleet threw a few coins on the table and rose. “Jenny will give you a place to lock up your belongings, and then later we goes nightsneaking.”

  “What is this nightsneaking, anyway?” asked Blaise.

  “Hunting,” said Sleek, as suave as a tomcat.

  “Nightsneaks prowl in the dark, seeking what there is to have and who to have it from. We never takes from those that have little. Sometimes we stays in lanes where only fools dare go. Other times we finds ways into houses, for there is always a way, when backs is turned. A false delivery, a humble inquiry of the servant — then, squeak, in through the door. We knows the good places inside to wait undisturbed. When the house is silent and full of sleepers, we strike. Then it’s out quick with the night-soil men hauling the household’s dung, or with the laundress come at dawn to take the filthy clothes away.”