Snap

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “More clothes?” asked Poppy hopefully. She had fallen in love with her long flowing gown, and little soft shoes, and would have liked a beautiful velvet cloak similar to Alice’s. But Alice shook her head.

  “I don’t think we need more, though John told me he wants a belt. But we needs salad greens and some root vegetables and bacon.”

  Poppy’s smile faded. “Sounds wonderful,” she said with a disappointed frown.

  “Cheese? Bread, perhaps? And I need a belt too,” suggested Nathan.

  Sam decided to stay behind with Mouse and the kittens, and everyone else hurried up the steps outside, and began to walk towards the far side of the city.

  Poppy stayed close to Alice, feeling glamorous in her new clothes, and Nathan lagged behind a little, still thinking of the dream which had troubled him so much. It seemed to have taken root in his head, like a black shape almost as big as the giant bat of his dream.

  But it was a pleasant day with patches of blue peeping through the cloud cover. Only a slight wind made them wrap their cloaks around themselves and shiver. First they walked through the city, cutting up the little alleys and lanes, avoiding the main roads where folk watched them with some suspicion, thinking their faces familiar as thieves and cut-purses from previous months.

  “But we don’t thieve no more,” grumbled Alfie, glaring at a stall holder who was shaking his fist at him, and a shop keeper who took one look, and swung the door shut in his face.

  Bright-eyed, Poppy skipped along the cobbles, smiling at absolutely everyone. Peter grabbed at her arm. “You said you didn’t like our cellar. But it looks like you’re happy now.”

  “This city is lovely,” Poppy insisted. “All those beams and thatched roofs and churches ringing their bells and pretty trees. I love it.” Down Water Lane and into Thames Street, they took the open road and wandered the principal avenue towards St. Paul’s. Many of the lanes on their left showed glimpses of the river, wharfs where unloading the boats was a heave and sweat from deck to warehouse, and platforms where wherries, the water taxis, waited for business. The river sparkled as the sun blinked out, then dulled again into grey ripples as the clouds closed. The river was crowded and noisy, but Poppy was delighted with how quiet everything seemed after the hectic bustle of the modern city. “Church bells play tunes,” she said, “listen. And people chatter. But there’s not one single engine, nor a bus nor a car. No one talking to themselves with their phones clamped to their cheeks, and no music blaring out of shops. I can even hear birds. Seagulls. Starlings. Look, there’s a flock of swifts, and a row of sparrows sitting along the edge of that roof.”

  As the great shadows from Baynard’s Castle drowned out the light, they turned right into Addle Hill and cut up towards the huge cathedral of St. Paul’s. It was not only Poppy who was impressed with the grand building, its marble pillars and magnificent spire. But Poppy said, “Are you sure this is St. Paul’s? It’s changed.”

  “It’s the old cathedral. Hush,” Nathan told her. “Everyone gets confused if we talk about what’s different.”

  Skirting around the great entrance to the cathedral, Alice once again dodged into a side street, and here, amongst a row of two storey houses squashed together, and sharing a slanted roof with many soaring chimneys, she stopped at one very small wooden door, and knocked loudly. When the door was answered, she hurried inside, asking the others to wait for a moment, but soon reappeared and invited them all in.

  The room was small with shelves of rolled parchments and books of documents, lists of trials, notes concerning new laws and the duties of judges. Most were covered in dust.

  Percival Weeks was a small man in mahogany clothes, a long crooked nose and fingers stained black with ink. His ink pot and a tumbled collection of feather quills lay on a table. Behind the table, Mister Weeks sat, smiling.

  “Delighted, delighted,” he said as everyone trooped in. “Welcome to all of you. Such friendship and loyalty is to be prized and admired. Now, I know young Alfie and Peter, but not the others. So please introduce yourselves.” But they did not stay long. The lawyer had only one thing of importance to explain. “It is very clear that due to the ink blot covering the true intended identity of Lady Alice’s proper guardian, Baron Cambridge has been able to claim a position that is not his by right. Although unable to eradicate the ink stain entirely, I’ve been able to scrape away sufficient to uncover part of the written names Mistress Margaret, the late Lord David Parry’s sister and her husband Henry Fallow, the Lady Alice’s aunt and uncle, and thus her next of kin. Naturally I have no way of proving that the concealing ink blot was made intentionally, nor by whom, but I can certainly prove that Baron Cambridge is not the proper legal guardian.” He tapped his fingers on the little table, looking very pleased with himself. “I have a judge ready to hear this case on Thursday morning, the day after tomorrow, and then he will confirm the situation. In your presence, my lady, and that of your aunt and uncle, he needs to sign and seal the result. Immediately after that, my dear Lady Alice, you may return home and arrangements will be made for the baron to leave.”

  Alfie was sniggering slightly, since he wasn’t used to Alice being constantly referred to as a lady, but he said, “And what if the baron don’t leave? What if he makes trouble?”

  “We have the law on our side, young man,” smiled the lawyer. “No one can fight the law.”

  Alfie wasn’t at all sure about that since he had himself been fighting the law for years, but since nothing else could be done until the case could be officially presented to the judge, trust and hope were the only solutions.

  One by one, the group left the tiny office, and hurried out again into the mild sunshine. Clapping her hands, her own long hair flying out from her small white linen cap, Alice was clearly delighted.

  “Shopping then,” said Nathan. “The old market, or home to the cellar first?”

  Alice took Poppy’s hand. “Let’s go to market,” she said. “Let’s spend lots of money. Buy hot pies to eat in the street, and smart belts for the boys, and something pretty for the girls. We could buy honey cakes too. Oh, I haven’t eaten a honey cake in over a year.”

  “Never eaten one in me whole life,” grinned John. “What’s they like?”

  “Delicious.” Alice was skipping. “Sultanas and raisins all mixed up in honey and rolled with flour and suet into a dumpling ball, and steamed. I used to love them.”

  “One each then.” Alfie was running ahead, calling back. “Pies and raisins and belts and new knives.”

  Which is when he hurtled straight into a fat man’s midriff, who had stepped suddenly out of the shadows. Trying to regain his breath, Alfie panted but found himself caught in a stronghold, both his arms twisted up behind him, which was extremely painful. A group of eight men surrounded them, hustling them together, big dirty hands clamped over their mouths so they could not call for help. Amongst the eight large men were the baron and his brother Edmund.

  Edmund gazed down at Alice, who now stood before him, held tight by a bully she remembered as one of the baron’s gardeners. Edmund smiled very wide, showing two blackened teeth. “Well now, what a wonderful surprise,” he said. “My future wife, looking pretty as a picture. The time has come, my dear.”

  Half choking with the gardeners hand muffling her voice, Alice tried to shout, but only managed a few short words. “Not – anymore – never – pig – not legal.”

  “Oh, it will be legal indeed,” Edmund smiled. “You’ll come back with me now, and we’ll be wed within the hour. The priest is ready, and your legal guardian will stand witness as I take your hand.”

  Alice squeaked, trying to bite the grubby fingers across her mouth. “Never,” she managed to say.

  Alfie stood next to her, and although he was bent nearly double with his arms feeling as though they were about to break, he shook off the restricting fingers across his mouth, and shouted, “You ain’t got no chance of dragging her all the way to Bishopsgate without them market people s
eeing you and stopping you.”

  “Fool,” said the baron, striding up. “She’ll be tied up under a blanket and carried off in a cart with my gardeners, and a load of old bushes on top.” He stared, frowning. “But you’re not the boy I want. I remember thrashing you already. Well, you can come along and I’ll thrash you again. But I want the dangerous urchin who attacked me on the Bridge.”

  Alice and Alfie were held tight, and it was the Steward Lacey who hauled Nathan up to the baron. “My lord, this is the vile boy, I believe.”

  Nathan was spluttering and trying to kick the steward’s shins, but could only manage a small punch, which the steward didn’t seem to notice through his thick velvet padded livery.

  But as the struggle continued, it became obvious that although Nathan, Alice and Alfie were captured with no possibility of escape, the others had gone. Poppy had dropped to the ground and crawled between the men’s legs, managing to scramble around the corner and out of sight before being noticed. Peter had followed her, doing exactly the same. And John, used to fast escapes, had run like the wind, quickly arriving in the next street with barely a sound of running feet. The three of them met, gazing silently, and nodding at each other. As quietly as any kitten, they slipped away through the deepest shadows, and waited until the grappling noises of the attack had faded into the distance.

  Chapter Eighteen

  With a clenched fist to the right side of his jaw and another shattering blow to the left side with the large wooden hilt of a knife, Nathan was knocked out and collapsed at the baron’s feet. With a spiteful grin, the baron kicked the back of Nathan’s head as he lay unconscious on the ground. At the same moment, Edmund clamped both his sweaty palms around Alice’s neck. He squeezed. Alice closed her eyes, feeling faint. Edmund kept squeezing.

  It was the baron who called over, “Don’t strangle the girl, idiot. You can’t marry a corpse.”

  “She needs to learn who is the master,” grinned Edmund, enjoying himself. He squeezed again and Alice, going weak at the knees, felt first a terrible nausea, and then lost consciousness. She collapsed into Edmund’s arms, and he chuckled. “She adores me already – look!”

  One of the men punched Alfie four times until his nose bled, his eyes fluttered and then shut, and he also tumbled onto the ground. The steward brought up the cart they had prepared, leading the horse by its bridle. Hauled by the backs of their collars, Nathan and Alfie were slung into the bottom of the cart, and with a lift and a toss, Alice was dumped in after them. Rags were tightly wound around their mouths, their arms were roped behind them, and their ankles tied together. Quickly a large blanket was spread over the three figures, and then, hurriedly arranged over the top was a thorny scrabble of old bushes, looking like a farmer’s cartload of hay and plants ready for market. One of the gardeners hopped up onto the front bench, and began to drive the cart over the bumpy ground. The horse, flicking his tail, plodded on towards Bishopsgate.

  The baron and his brother, followed closely by Lacey the steward, strolled cheerfully in the same direction, keeping an eye on the cart but pretending to have nothing to do with it. The other men dispersed quickly, making their own way back home.

  “I shall whip the two boys until near death,” decided the baron, as if discussing the pleasant weather, “and then I shall use their screams to keep young Alice in order, and frighten her to keep quiet. Then I shall finish them off and toss the bodies into the river one night.”

  “A sensible idea,” Edmund approved. “That way the girl will be too frightened to be a nuisance.”

  It was becoming a fine afternoon, and the piles of straw, hay and plants on top of the blanket, made the bodies beneath swelter in the heat. But they were still unconscious for some time, and when they finally awoke to the trundle of the cart’s wheels, and the clop and belch of the horse, they found it quite impossible to extricate themselves and could only lie in the darkness, trying to understand the nightmare that had occurred so suddenly.

  Several streets away, John, Peter and Poppy were carefully running together in the same direction towards Bishopsgate. Stopping every now and again to catch their breath, they made good progress but certainly not as fast as the horse and cart.

  Poppy whispered, “Can’t we go to the police?”

  “Who’s that?” asked Peter.

  “The Constable?”

  “’Tis a grand fellow,” John explained. “No way we’d get to see him. If we sees an assistant constable in the street, we could try, but they knows us as thieves. Telling one o’ them that some grand baron done abducted his own ward – well – wouldn’t do much good.” He shook his head, the black hair falling in his eyes. “No. We gotta do this ourselves. And if ordinary folks see us running the streets up near the big houses, and if they sees us breaking into that fancy house, then they’ll reckon tis us what needs carting off to the Constable.”

  With a small shiver, Peter said, “I can get past locked doors. But not in that big street. I’d be seen.”

  “Last time you went round the back pantry,” John remembered, “to get Alfie out.”

  “Won’t be that easy this time,” decided Peter. “The baron knows what we did. Everything will be watched – kitchen – pantry – cellars.”

  “Then,” said Poppy suddenly, “we’ll have to go over the roof.”

  They stared at her. “Down the chimney? No way. There’s fires still burning this time o’ year,” John said, frowning.

  “Attics,” said Poppy. “How about it?”

  “Brilliant,” John said with a sudden dazzling smile. “Totally brilliant. And if we gets up on them roofs pretty soon, there ain’t one soul will see us nor try ta stop us.”

  Having just realised that wearing long skirts to her ankles was not going to make climbing easy, Poppy said nothing, but pointed. “There’s a barn. Onto the window ledge, then the roof. Then next to it is a higher roof. We can do it, bit by bit. Are we near Bishopsgate yet?”

  “Very close. At the back.”

  “Perfect.”

  With a slight blush, Poppy hitched up her skirts, tucking them into the elastic at the top of her school tights, so that both the shift and the gown flapped out just a little above her knees. “No point being shocked,” she told both boys. “I wear all my clothes this short in my own time, so there’s nothing wrong with it. Besides, with a long dress I couldn’t climb at all.”

  And she began to clamber onto the low window ledge of the barn opposite. The window had no glass, and was open to the air, so the climb was easy enough, both hands to the low planked roof above, hauling themselves upwards. All three sat there a moment, catching their breath and looking further up to the next roof.

  “This’ll be harder.”

  But John stood, eyed the exact distance, and jumped. His feet wedged on the mossy wall just below the roof’s overhang, and from there he grabbed, and pulled. In moments he was there, and was able to reach down and haul both Peter and Poppy up beside him.

  The roof sloped and climbing that slope enabled them all to sit together on the very peak. The tall brick chimney puffed a few little half-hearted wisps of smelly grey smoke. “Reckon these folks ‘ave a feeble little fire going on down there,” nodded John.

  “It’s a warm day.”

  “Them chimneys furver along is nice and dirty,” John pointed. “So, who’s ready fer the next jump?” It was indeed a dirty chimney, with black smoke oozing from the bricks. “But warm,” John grinned. “Ain’t no point being clean and dead from cold.”

  “I have to take my nice shoes off,” said Poppy sadly. “I’ll slip in these. But I don’t want to lose them.”

  “Best all do the same,” said Peter, undoing his ribboned laces. “If we leave them here, perhaps we can come back for them one day.”

  Poppy giggled. “So we just say, excuse me, I’m just going to climb up on your roof to collect my shoes? I left them there last week!”

  “Once we get Alice free, she’ll be able ta buy a hundred pairs o
f shoes.”

  Three pairs of new shoes sat in a row on the rooftop and everyone climbed down the opposite slope, then jumped the short gap between houses. Arms in the air, taking a deep breath, and then the leap. Landing with a yelp, falling on both knees, panting with the effort and the sudden bang and jolt, then up again and onwards.

  Clambering amongst the smoke, up one and down another, slipping and crying out with a yelp, then catching hold of a big hot chimney, feet burned, fingers scraped, and every woollen leg torn, with holes and unravelling wool. Hop, grab, running and scrambling over broken tiles and collected puddles in old corners. The houses had no gutters, and many roofs were mossy, which made everyone slip once more. They grabbed at each other, pulling on hands and sleeves, helping as one slipped or stumbled.

  Poppy wanted to cry out, and perhaps even sing, it all seemed so strange. The sense of unreality lessened the danger, and made it all the more exciting. Running over the tops of roofs in a city that no longer existed. But her hands were bleeding, she had bashed her head, feet and elbows a dozen times, and she heaved and coughed from the smelly dark smoke.

  “Quick, this way, around this corner.”

  “Jump. I’ll catch you, promise. No way I’ll let you drop.”

  Her dress had fallen, and Poppy found her legs once again caught up in a swirl of skirts. She had to stop and tuck them up again, then laughed, wondering what any decent citizen would think if they looked up now and saw this girl showing off her legs on the top of the roof. Then she realised something else. She had indeed lost the silly hat she had been told to wear, but very much disliked. She patted the top of her hair with pleasure, took another leap, and followed the others.

  The climbing and the jumping became exhausting and every new roof had its dangers. Some sloped more steeply, others were thick with soot, their chimneys burning hot. Some tiles were so badly broken that hands were cut, as if by knives, knees ripped, and feet raw. Poppy’s tights and the boys’ hose were all in tatters. They fell many times, but everyone was determined to succeed with the rescue, and no fall was bad enough to keep them down.