Staked

by Kevin Hearne

  “He is as harmless as he appears to be, I assure you,” repeated the man.

  She took off her glasses and folded them in one hand. Her eyes were grey-green and cold as a midwinter wave. Her words, when they came, were no warmer.

  “I am Sara Falk. I am the Jew.”

  As Ketch tried to realign the realities of his world, she put a hand on the man’s shoulder and pointed him at the long bundle on the floor.

  “Now, Mr Sharp, there is a young woman in that sack. If you would be so kind.”

  The man flickered to the bundle on the floor, again seeming to move between time instead of through it. The blade reappeared in his hand, flashed up and down the sacking, and then he was helping the girl to her feet and simultaneously sniffing at her head.

  “Mr Sharp?” said Sara Falk.

  “As I said, I smelled something out there,” he said. “I thought it was him. It isn’t, nor is it her.”

  “Well, good,” she said, the twitch of a smile ghosting round the corner of her mouth. “Maybe it was your imagination.”

  “It pleases you to make sport of me, my dear Miss Falk, but I venture to point out that since we are charged with anticipating the inconceivable, my ‘imagination’ is just as effective a defensive tool as your double-checking,” he replied, looking at the girl closely. “And since our numbers are so perilously dwindled these days, you will excuse me if I do duty as both belt and braces in these matters.”

  The young woman was slender and trembling, in a grubby pinafore dress with no shoes and long reddish hair that hung down wavy and unwashed, obscuring a clear look at her face. At first glance, however, it was clear she was not a child, and he judged her age between sixteen and twenty years old. She flinched when he reached to push the hair back to get a better look at her and make a more accurate assessment, and he stopped and spoke quietly.

  “No, no, my dear, just look at me. Look at me and you’ll see you have nothing to fear.”

  After a moment her head came up and eyes big as saucers peered a question into his. As soon as they did the trembling calmed and she allowed him to push the hair back and reveal what had been done to her mouth to stop the screaming.

  He exhaled through his teeth in an angry hiss and then gently turned her towards Sara Falk. She stared at the rectangle of black hessian that was pasted across the girl’s face from below her nose down to her chin.

  “What is this?” said Mr Sharp, voice tight, still keeping the girl steady with his eyes.

  “It’s just a pitch-plaster, some sacking and tar and pitch, like a sticky poultice, such as they use up the Bedlam Hospital to quiet the lunatics…” explained Ketch, his voice quavering lest Mr Sharp’s gaze when it turned to add him up again was full of something other than the golden warmth he was already missing. “Why, the girlie don’t mind a—”

  “Look at her hands,” said Sara Falk.

  The girl’s hands were tightly wrapped in strips of grubby material, like small cloth-bound boxing gloves.

  “Nah, that she does herself, she done that and not me,” said Ketch hurriedly. “I takes ’em off cos she’s no bloody use with hands wrapped into stumps like that, but she wraps whatever she can find round ’em the moment you turn your back. Why even if there’s nothing in the rooms she’ll rip up her own clothes to do it. It’s all she does: touches things and then screams at what ain’t there and tangles rags round her hands like a winding cloth so she doesn’t have to touch anything at all…”

  Sara Falk exchanged a look with Mr Sharp.

  “Touches things? Then screams?” he said. “Old stones, walls … those kind of things?”

  Ketch nodded enthusiastically. “Walls and houses and things in the street. Sets ’er off something ’orrible it does—”

  “Enough,” said Mr Sharp, his eyes on Sara Falk, who was stroking the scared girl’s hair. Their eyes met once more.

  “So she’s a Glint then,” he said quietly.

  She nodded, for a moment unable to speak.

  “She’s not right in the head is what she is,” said Ketch. “And—”

  “Is she your daughter?” said Sara Falk, clearing something from her throat.

  “No. Not blood kin. She’s … my ward, as it were. But I can’t afford to feed her no more, so it’s you or the poorhouse, and the poorhouse don’t pay, see…?”

  The spark of commerce had reignited in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry about that blessed plaster, lady. Why, a hot flannel held on for a couple of minutes loosens it off, and you can peel it away without too much palaver.”

  The man and the woman stared at him.

  “The redness fades after a couple of days,” he insisted. “We tried a gag, see, but she loosens them or gnaws through. She’s spirited—”

  “What is her name?” said Sara Falk.

  “Lucy. Lucy Harker. She’s just—”

  “Mr Sharp,” she said, cutting him off by turning away to kneel by the girl.

  “What do you want to do with him?” said the man in midnight.

  “What I want to do to a man who’d sell a young woman without a care as to what the buyer might want to do with or to her is undoubtedly illegal,” said Sara Falk almost under her breath.

  “It would be justice though,” he replied equally softly.

  “Yes,” she said. “But we, as I have said many times, are an office of the Law and the Lore, not of Justice, Mr Sharp. And Law and Lore say to make the punishment fit the crime. Do what must be done.”

  Lucy Harker looked at her, still mute behind the gag.

  Mr Sharp left them and turned his smile on Ketch, who relaxed and grinned expectantly back at him.

  “Well,” said Mr Sharp. “It seems we must pay you, Mr Ketch.”

  The thought of money coming was enticing and jangly enough to drown out the question that had been trying to get Ketch’s attention for some time now, namely how this good-looking young man knew his name. He watched greedily as he reached into his coat and pulled out a small leather bag.

  “Now,” said Mr Sharp. “Gold, I think. Hold out your hands.”

  Ketch did so as if sleepwalking, and though at first his eyes tricked him into the thought that Mr Sharp was counting tarnished copper pennies into his hand, after a moment he realised they were indeed the shiniest gold pieces he had ever seen, and he relaxed enough to stop looking at them and instead to study more of Mr Sharp. His dark hair was cropped short on the back and sides, but was long on top, curling into a cowlick that tumbled over his forehead in an agreeably untidy way. A single deep blue stone dangled from one ear in a gold setting, winking in the lamplight as he finished his tally.

  “…twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. That’s enough, I think, and if not it is at least … traditional.”

  And with that the purse disappeared and the friendly arm went round Ketch’s shoulder, and before he could quite catch up with himself the two of them were out in the fog, walking out of Wellclose Square into the tangle of dark streets beyond.

  Ketch’s heart was soaring and he felt happier than he had ever been in his life, though whether it was because of the unexpectedly large number of gold – gold! – coins in his pockets, or because of his newfound friend, he could not tell.

  CHAPTER 3

  A CHARITABLE DEED

  If the fog had eyes (which in this part of London it often did) it would not only have noticed Mr Sharp leading Bill Ketch away into the narrow streets at the lower end of the square, it would have remarked that the knot of men who had been unloading boxes of candles into the Danish Church had finished their work, and that the carrier’s cart had taken them off into the night, leaving only the burly red-bearded man with the pipe and a wiry underfed-looking young fellow in a tight fustian coat.

  The bearded man locked the heavy doors and then followed the other across the street, heading for the dark carriage still standing outside the sugar refinery. If the fog’s eyes had also been keen, they would have noticed that the red beard overhung a
white banded collar with two tell-tale tabs that marked him out as the pastor of the church whose barn-like doors he had just secured. There was a crunch underfoot as they reached the carriage and he looked down at the scattering of oyster shells with surprise. The wiry youth, unsurprised, reached up and rapped his bony knuckles on the polished black of the carriage door.

  “Father,” he said. “’Tis the Reverend Christensen. ’E wishes to thank you in person.”

  There was a pause as if the carriage itself was alive and considering what had been said to it. Then it seemed to shrug as something large moved within, the weight shifting it on its springs, and then the door cracked open.

  The reverend’s beard parted to reveal an open smile as the pastor leant into the carriage apologetically.

  “So sorry to discommode you, Mr Templebane, but I could not let the opportunity of thanking you in person pass me by.”

  “No matter, no matter at all,” said a deep voice from inside. “Think no more of it, my dear reverend sir. My pleasure indeed. Only sorry we had to deliver at so unholy an hour.”

  “All hours are holy, Mr Templebane,” smiled the pastor, his English scarcely accented at all. “And any hour that contains such a welcome donation is all the more blessed.”

  “Please!” said the voice, whose owner remained hidden except for the appearance in the carriage window of a fleshy hand carefully holding an open oyster with the smallest finger extended politely away from all the others. The shell was full of plump grey oyster meat that bobbled and spilled a little of the shellfish’s liquor as the hand airily waved the thanks away.

  “You will embarrass me, sir, so you will. To be honest, the bit of business that resulted in me taking over the unwanted deadstock from the unfortunate, not to say imprudent, candle-maker left me with enough dips to gift all the churches in the parish.”

  The fleshy hand retreated into the shadows and a distinct slurping noise was heard.

  “But a lesser spirit might still have sold them,” said the pastor, working hard to make his thanks stick to their rightful target.

  The fleshy hand reappeared as the carriage’s occupant leant further forward to drop the now-empty oyster shell daintily on to the pavement, revealing for just an instant the face of Issachar Templebane.

  It was a paradox of a face, a face both gaunt and yet pillowy, the skin hanging slack over the bones of the skull with the unhealthy toad’s-belly pallor of a fat man who has lost weight too late in life for his skin to have retained the elasticity to shrink to fit the new, smaller version of himself.

  He wiped a trickle of oyster juice from the edge of his mouth with the back of his thumb before reaching forward to grip the pastor’s hand in a brisk, hearty farewell.

  “I could, I could, but my brother and I are lawyers not tradesmen, and I assure you our fees in the matter were more than adequate. Besides, money isn’t everything. Now, goodnight to you, sir, and safe home. Come, Coram, we must be going.”

  And with that he released the hand and retreated back into the carriage as the wiry young man sprang up to the driver’s seat, gathered the reins and snapped the horses into motion with a farewell nod to the pastor, who was left standing among the debris of Templebane’s oyster supper feeling strangely dismissed, rather than actually wished well.

  As the carriage turned the corner a panel slid back in the front of the vehicle, next to Coram, and Templebane’s face appeared.

  “Did you draw the reverend gentleman’s attention to the man Ketch and his suspicious bundle?” he asked, all the cheeriness in his voice now replaced by a business-like flatness.

  “Yes, Father. I done it just as ’ow you said, casual-like.”

  If the fog had ears as well as eyes, it might by this time have noted a further paradox regarding Issachar Templebane, which was that the boy who called him Father did not have anything like the same deep, fluid – and above all cultured – voice as he. Coram’s voice had been shaped by the rough dockside alleys of the East End: it dropped “h’s” and played fast and loose with what had, with Victoria’s recent accession to the throne, only just become the Queen’s English. Issachar spoke with the smooth polished edges of the courtroom; Coram’s voice was sharp as a docker’s hook. If there seemed to be no familiar resemblance between them, this was because although Issachar Templebane had many children, he had no blood kin beyond his twin brother Zebulon, who was the other half of the house of Templebane & Templebane.

  Issachar and Zebulon were prodigious adopters of unclaimed boys, all of whom grew up to work for them in the chambers and counting room that adjoined their house on Bishopsgate. It was their habit to name the boys for the London parishes from whose workhouses (or in Coram’s case, the foundling hospital) they had been procured. This led to unwieldy but undoubtedly unusual names: there was an Undershaft, a Vintry, a Sherehog, a Bassetshaw and a Garlickhythe Templebane. The only exception was the youngest, who had been taken from the parish of St Katherine Cree, and he, it being too outlandish to call the boy Katherine, was called Amos, a name chosen at random by letting the Bible fall open and choosing the title of the book it opened at. If Amos had anything to say about the matter he might well have remarked that he had as well been called Job since, as the youngest member of the artificially assembled family, with brothers who shared no love between them, he got more than his share of grief and toil. He didn’t remark on this because he spoke not at all, his particular affliction being that he was mute. Coram, by contrast, was garrulous and questioning, a characteristic that his adopted fathers encouraged and punished in equal measure depending on their whim and humour.

  Coram cleared his throat by spitting onto the crupper of the horse in front of him and went on.

  “And ’e remarked, the pastor did, that the ’ouse Ketch gone in was the Jew’s ’ouse, and that she was a good woman, though not of his faith.”

  Templebane nodded approvingly, his hands busy with a short-bladed shucking knife as he opened another oyster.

  “Quite, quite. He has no malice in him, none at all. As solid and upright and clean as a new mast of Baltic pine is the Danish reverend. Which will make his testimony all the more credible, should we require it.”

  Here he paused and slurped another oyster, tossing the shell out into the road. He chewed the unlucky bivalve once, to burst it, then swallowed with a shiver of satisfaction.

  “Mark it, Coram: there is no better instrument of destruction than an honest man who has no axe to grind.”

  And with that the panel slapped shut and Coram Templebane was alone with the horses and the fog that thinned as he drove up towards the higher ground of Goodman’s Fields.

  CHAPTER 4

  HAND IN GLOVE

  Sara Falk crouched in front of the trembling young woman and smiled encouragingly at her.

  “Lucy,” she said.

  Lucy Harker just stared at the door through which Mr Sharp had led Ketch, as if expecting them to walk back in at any moment.

  “Lucy. May I?”

  She reached for Lucy’s neck, pushed away the hair, and then lifted the collar of the pinafore as if looking for something like a necklace. Finding nothing she sucked her teeth with a snap of disappointment and shook her head.

  The eyes stayed locked on the outer door. Sara Falk moved into her field of vision.

  “Lucy. You must believe the next three things I tell you with all your heart, for they are the truest things in the world: firstly, that man will never walk back through that door unbidden and he shall never, ever hurt you or anyone ever again. Mr Sharp is making sure of that right now.”

  Lucy’s eyes flickered and she looked at the slender woman, her eyes making a question that her mouth could not, her body still tense and quivering like a wild deer on the point of flight.

  “Secondly, I know you have visions,” continued Sara Falk, reaching out to touch the pitch-plaster gently, as if stroking a hurt away. “It’s the visions that make you scream. Visions you have when you touch things. Visions
that make you wonder if you are perhaps mad?”

  The eyes stared at her. Sara smiled and raised her own hands, showing the gloves and the two rings that she wore on top of them, one an odd-shaped piece of sea-glass rimmed with a band of gold, the other set with a bloodstone into which a crest of some sort had been carved.

  “You are not mad, and you are not alone. As you see, others have reason to cover their hands too. And if you come with me into my house, where there is a warm fire and pie and hot milk with honey, we shall sit with my glove box and find an old pair of mine and see if they fit you.”

  She removed the rings, reached for the buttons at the wrist of one glove, quickly opened them and peeled the thin black leather off, revealing the bare hand beneath. She freed the other hand even faster, and then reached gently for Lucy’s bound hands.

  “May I?”

  Lucy’s eyes stayed locked on hers as she gently began to unwrap one of the hands.

  “I have something that will calm you, Lucy, a simple piece of sea-glass for you to touch, and I promise it will not harm you but give you a strength until we can find you one of your own—”

  Lucy pulled her hand sharply away but Sara held on to it firmly and smiled as she held out the sea-glass ring: the glass, worn smooth by constant tumbling back and forth on a beach, matched Sara Falk’s eyes perfectly.

  “You need to touch this—”

  Lucy goggled at it, then ripped her hand out of Sara Falk’s, shaking her head with sudden agitation, emphatically miming “No!”

  “Lucy—” began Sara, and then stopped.

  Lucy was tearing at her own bandages, moaning excitedly from behind the tar and hessian gag. It was Sara’s turn to watch with eyes that widened in surprise as the rags wound off and revealed their secret.

  Lucy freed one hand and held out a fist, palm up, jabbing it insistently at the older woman.

  Then she opened it.

  Clenched in her hand was another piece of sea-glass, its light hazel colour like that of Lucy’s own eyes.