‘Stay down!’ said Blackdown.
‘Bast…tard!’ Callisto gasped, hardly able to draw breath.
Eventually, Callisto was counted out – the longest ten seconds Blackdown had ever known – and Blackdown’s hand was held up as the winner. Reluctantly the ringmaster handed over the purse containing the eight guineas, but Blackdown refused the money, much to the amazement of the crowd.
‘I have my prize already,’ he said, bending down to Callisto’s ear. ‘An audience with Callisto. Now you’ll talk to me,’ he said quietly.
12
Birds of a Feather
Callisto was given a cloth bathed in vinegar to staunch the flow of blood from his nose and mouth. He was sitting on his stool again, but he looked in a sorry state, hurt and dejected.
‘You’re useless!’ cried the ringmaster. ‘You let that man win!’
‘I did no such thing!’ he fired. ‘He beat me fair and square!’
‘Then you grow too old for this, Callisto. You ought to be put out to pasture. Pettigrew will hear about this, you useless lump of rancid beef!’
Meekly, Callisto dabbed the cloth to his nose and winced.
‘We need to talk,’ said a voice from the tent’s entrance. It was Thomas Blackdown.
‘Get out of here!’ said the ringmaster. ‘I don’t know what trickery you used but you’re not welcome here!’
‘Leave him be,’ grumbled Callisto. ‘Allow him in.’
‘That’s not allowed,’ snarled the ringmaster. ‘And who are you to give me orders?’
‘He won fair and square,’ said Callisto. ‘Allow him entry to speak to me or pay him his prize money instead.’
The man thought about it for a moment. ‘As you wish,’ he said reluctantly. ‘You’ve got five minutes, no more,’ he said to Blackdown as he pushed by him and left the tent.
Blackdown waited till he’d gone before stepping over to Callisto.
‘He’ll tell Pettigrew, and Pettigrew will send someone to eject you,’ said Callisto without looking up. A mixture of vinegar and blood dripped to the grass at his bare feet.
‘Why did you let me win?’ said Blackdown.
The boxer smiled thinly and grimaced as his cut lip leaked fresh blood. ‘What makes you think I let you win?’
‘I know it. You went down too easily.’
‘And you fought too well.’ He coughed and rubbed his aching side. ‘Far too well. I am growing too old for this game. I cannot take it like I used to. It is time I finished with it.’ He looked up at Blackdown. ‘What’s so important that you risk breaking bones for the likes of Sarah Jones?’
‘I have my reasons. She spoke of the time she approached you with questions about a number of men going missing. Moreover there seems to be an inordinate number of soldiers amongst them. You told her to stop asking, or her life could be in danger because of it.’
‘Men run away from this game all the time,’ he said. ‘And soldiers are the worst of them. They’re not used to being settled. And there are so many ex-soldiers seeking employment, so our ranks are bound to have its fair share of them.’
‘Why would Sarah’s life be in danger?’
‘She should keep quiet if she wants to maintain her place here. Pettigrew offers food and shelter and a little money. What would the likes of her get elsewhere?’
‘So what’s keeping you here?’ Blackdown asked. ‘Looking at you it’s clear you were past your prime some time ago, and yet you stay. What hold has Pettigrew got over you?’
Callisto looked past Blackdown to the tent flap. ‘I do not wish to end up like Harvey Grey.’
‘What was his role here?’ Blackdown asked. ‘It appears he was more than simply a bad Prince Regent.’
Callisto nodded. ‘True. He was Pettigrew’s dog-man.’
‘Dog-man?’
‘Breeding and training dogs to fight in the pit. He was the best I ever saw. No man could go near the beasts but Harvey Grey. He had a way with them. With him they were as gentle as puppies, but with other men – and especially with other dogs – they were savage beasts likely to rip you to shreds at the first opportunity. Which is what is needed for the pit. I know Harvey came to see you, Blackdown. He told me he wanted to get away from Pettigrew’s, wanted me to go with him, but I wasn’t having any of it. Look what happened to him for opening his big mouth to you. He couldn’t escape this. Nobody can.’ Callisto bent his head and spat out a glob of pink spit at his feet.
Blackdown came closer to Callisto’s side. Already there were massive bruises beginning to bloom on his body. ‘What is it you need to escape?’
Surprisingly, Callisto smiled. It revealed a mouth with precious few teeth remaining in it. ‘The Beast of Blackdown,’ he said, giving a low chuckle.
‘That’s rot,’ he returned.
‘Is it? I have seen it with my own eyes, Blackdown. I have smelled its stink.’ He put his head back to help stem the blood from his nose, holding the soaked cloth to it tightly. ‘Damn you, Blackdown, this poor nose of mine! It will one day look like the pig-lady’s!’
‘The Beast of Blackdown is a myth, Callisto. Myth and superstition used for an altogether darker purpose, and I mean to find out what that is.’
‘They’ve got their eyes on you, Blackdown,’ he said hollowly. ‘I heard them talking about you. You’re causing trouble just by being here, digging up dirt that they thought long-buried. You stay here and you’re going to die.’ He bent forward again, taking away the cloth from his face. ‘It was the same with your brother.’
‘Jonathan?’
‘He dug too deep, too. So leave it alone, Blackdown or trust me, you’ll end up diced into little pieces with bits of you missing, like he did.’
‘So who has their eyes on me, Callisto?’
The boxer stared hard at Blackdown. ‘If you don’t get out of here then you will have to face the beast.’
‘I’ll take my chances with such a fantasy,’ he said.
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself, Blackdown. I wouldn’t risk my life over a fish-scaled woman.’
‘Do you seek escape from here? From this kind of life?’
Callisto glanced at his bruised knuckles. ‘True enough, I do.’
‘I’ll pay you good money for you to tell me what you know. Enough to set you up in relative comfort far away from here.’
The man sniffed and grimaced. ‘That was Harvey Grey’s dream, too. But that is all it is, a dream. A puff of smoke in the air.’ His hand wafted in front of his face. ‘If I blabbed and went into hiding, there is nowhere I can go without me being hunted down, found and killed. Look at me – do I not stand out in a crowd? And you deal with people and forces far more powerful that you think. Nowhere is safe for me. Nowhere except here, keeping quiet, doing what I do.’
Blackdown shook his head. ‘Till you are too old to continue and are knocked down dead?’
‘Till I am knocked down dead,’ he echoed.
‘Tell me of these powerful people and forces,’ Blackdown insisted.
He leant closer to Blackdown, his voice low. ‘I will tell you three things and three things only. I’ll tell you no more and you shall not come to see me ever again.’
Blackdown nodded. ‘Three things and I will not call on you again.’
‘The Lupercal Club…’
‘What club is this?’
‘That’s all I will say on the first thing. As for the second – look to Devilbowl Wood. That is all I shall say on the second thing. As for the third thing, look to the merchant ship Parthenope.’
‘A merchant ship? What has that to do with anything?’
Callisto held up a knobbly hand. ‘That is all I will say on the three things. I have said more than enough to warrant my throat being slit.’
There was the sound of boots tramping the earth outside the tent and the flap whipped open. Three men stood there in the bright gash of light, two of them with cudgels at the ready. ‘Who is this man?’ one of them asked Callisto.
‘He comes to gloat over me,’ Callisto replied. ‘Take him away! I don’t care to look on the man who knocked me to the ground for the first time in twenty years.’
‘Out!’ said the man at the flap. Blackdown nodded almost imperceptibly at Callisto and pushed by the small group.
‘Don’t come back,’ Blackdown was told brusquely with a prod in the back with a cudgel.
‘Have a care,’ shouted Callisto. ‘He felled me.’ The man blinked uncertainly, backed off and let Blackdown saunter away.
Blackdown was met outside the tent by three dirty-faced and ragged-headed boys who cheered and clapped him, hovering around him like a cloud of flies. They begged him to show him his many bruises and cuts. Blackdown looked up to see the occupant of the second carriage getting out, a fat man who had difficulty stepping down with anything like grace. At the same time the officer of the Blackdown Horse Patrol saw Blackdown’s emergence from Callisto’s tent. He peeled away from Lansdowne’s carriage, striding with purpose over to him.
Blackdown bent to one of the boys. ‘See that large man just stepping out of the carriage over there?’ The boy nodded. ‘Here,’ he said, handing him a shilling, ‘follow him and come back and tell me where he goes. Make sure he doesn’t see you following him.’
The boy’s eyes widened at the sight of the silver coin. He stood tall and saluted. ‘I will do that, Captain Blackdown!’ he said shrilly.
‘You know my name?’
The boy laughed. ‘We all know you now!’
The two boys sped away, lost to the crowd in a second. Blackdown faced the Horse Patrol officer.
‘Sir Peter Lansdowne would like to speak with you,’ the man said abruptly.
Thomas Blackdown looked across to Lansdowne’s carriage. ‘Why?’ he said.
‘That’s not for me to know,’ he returned.
‘I’m no servant to be ordered around,’ Blackdown said, eyeing the blue-coated man. He saw Lansdowne’s face appear at the carriage window, and his hand beckoning Blackdown come over. With a sigh, Blackdown went across to the carriage. The door opened as he approached and the carriage rocked as he stepped up into it. Lansdowne closed the door after him and Blackdown took a seat opposite the man.
‘You have just cost me three hundred pounds, Mr Blackdown,’ said Lansdowne. ‘Unfortunately I put a wager on the wrong man to win the fight.’
‘That is an unfortunate mistake,’ said Blackdown.
‘It is a mistake I don’t ordinarily make. I am usually a keen observer of the odds, and the odds were stacked against you when taking on the Mighty Callisto. But it seems I was wrong to underestimate you, Mr Blackdown.’
‘It seems you were. Who was your fat companion in the other carriage?’
‘A friend. We have long been engaged in friendly competition. He is happy today because he fleeced me of two hundred pounds, but I shall come off better the next time we meet. My losing streaks are short-lived.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ said Blackdown. ‘You brought me here to tell me how lucky you are?’
‘We make our own luck, Mr Blackdown. If played right there is no such thing as gambling, chance or luck.’ He tapped his temple. ‘The power is up here to make such things unnecessary. I have grown rich on the back of other people’s reliance on luck.’
‘But you lost your bet today.’
The man grinned, his brow rising. ‘But that is because you are an unknown, Mr Blackdown. A blank piece of paper.’
‘I’m happy to hear it,’ said Blackdown. ‘Long may it stay like that.’
‘Yet I will learn about you soon enough. I do so hate not knowing. I have learnt a lot today.’ He smoothed his coat sleeve down. Dust motes circled in the air. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here amongst the low orders, Mr Blackdown. Do you frequent such places regularly?’
‘As and when I please,’ he said. ‘Do you?’
The grin widened. ‘I’m here as an observer, no more. But you, you wade deep into their company. Something you would not have found your brother or father doing.’
Blackdown shrugged. ‘Your point being?’
‘Don’t get me wrong, I admire an independent mind. But a Blackdown involved in a carnival fight?’
‘I needed the money,’ he said shortly.
‘Yes, I hear it is in short supply. And is that all you needed?’
Blackdown remained tight-lipped for a moment. ‘I am driven by many needs, Sir Peter.’
‘Ah, as indeed are we all! Forgive me, all I wanted to say was congratulations on bringing down the Mighty Callisto, and to invite you to dinner one night at my house.’
‘Why?’ he said curtly.
‘Why? But to be civil, Mr Blackdown. Shall we say tomorrow night at eight?’
He thought about it. ‘I’m not good company, Sir Peter, so I will decline.’
‘It will do you no harm, a Blackdown circulating in good company once again.’
‘I smell a whiff of charity, Sir Peter. I don’t need charity, or good company.’
‘A man is not a gentleman without it, Mr Blackdown. I have friends who would be delighted to meet the man who brought the Mighty Callisto to ground.’
‘So I’m to be a trophy?’ His face steeled. ‘A prize dog to show off? I have no need of such good company.’ He rose from his seat and opened the carriage door.
‘I am trying to be friendly, Mr Blackdown,’ he said. ‘Do you shun all attempts at friendship?’
Blackdown tried to figure out what was behind the man’s emotionless mask. As before, there was nothing to see. ‘I make it a rule never to have friends,’ he said evenly.
‘Surely there is someone, Blackdown, someone who will miss you when you are dead. You can tell a man’s worth by the number of mourners at his funeral. Do you intend to die alone, like a mere pauper?’
‘I’m not planning on dying just yet, Sir Peter,’ he said.
‘One cannot plan such things,’ he observed, raising a finger. ‘Only God has such power.’
Blackdown bade goodbye and left the carriage. Lansdowne rapped the roof with his cane and the driver whipped the horses into motion. Blackdown watched the carriage trundle away over the uneven surface of the field.
The boy to whom he gave the shilling came dashing breathlessly up to him.
‘Where is the fat man?’ Blackdown asked.
He pointed. ‘He has not gone far. He is at the cockfight. My friend watches him.’
Blackdown followed the boy to a tent on the edge of the field, from within which, as if to greet him, came a veritable a thunderstorm of bellicose jeering and cheering. He thanked the boy, sent him on his way and paid the man at the tent’s entrance. He stepped into the confined space that stank of sweat and spilled beer and cider.
He’d seen many cockfights in his time, and there was nothing much different about this particular cockpit. A little smaller, if anything, but well attended to say the least. The whole was circular, at its centre a circular wall of canvas sheeting had been erected, about six feet in diameter and rising to a height of about two feet; gathered around this a squirming press of bodies, mainly men but not solely, kneeling or sitting on the ground; immediately behind them stood a circle of wooden benches, filled almost to capacity, and behind these another tier, similarly filled. There was an atmosphere of mounting excitement as two men stood facing each other, each of them holding a powerful looking gamecock to their chests. Both birds had had their combs and wattles cut off, their eyes fierce, legs already kicking at the sight of their feathered rival. The men were careful not to get caught by the sharp spurs attached to the birds’ agitated feet.
Cries resounded around the cockpit as bets were made. In the midst of the tumult, the waving, windswept forest of raised fists and canes, Blackdown made out the form of the fat man standing among the crowd on the top tier. Blackdown threaded his way towards him, watching the man’s bulging eyes as the two birds were placed into the cockpit. The loud cheer as the gamecocks launched themselves at each other was treme
ndous, and Blackdown had to be careful he wasn’t hit by an exuberantly swung cane. He eased himself next to the fat man, who at this point was sweating and swiping a handkerchief across his damp forehead. The man shouted at the birds with the best of them, his hands grasping the crude wooden handrail till his pink hands glowed white with effort and excitement.
Blackdown peered down into the cockpit. The birds were engaged in a frenzied mêlée of flying feathers and lashing claws. Already blood began to splash onto the ground as the spurs on the birds’ legs made savage gashes. But however hurt, the gamecocks would not give up their intense battle, the hatred in their eyes, if such creatures can possess the emotion, thought Blackdown, burned with an intensity that blinded them to everything else. He’d seen similar in men, he thought. In the midst of battle. Men deranged with the bloodletting, a manic glaze in their eyes as they drove their bayonets and swords into the yielding flesh of their fellow man. And he’d done the same. Countless times. But never with relish. Always to survive. Always because it was his duty.
At least that’s what he told himself. He felt a curious energy well up within him at the sight of the fighting gamecocks and he hated himself for it. An ancient, primitive emotion that had no place in the mind of a civilised man, rising like thick oil in water to sit and stain his feelings. Something he could never quite wash away.
Then one of the birds had its throat pierced and blood spouted out in a tiny, scarlet fountain. It ran about still, its eyes fast becoming sightless, its head lolling, and the other bird continued to launch itself at the stricken animal till its owner clawed it away from the bloody scene, its legs still paddling frenetically, its head stretched out trying to reach its mortally wounded opponent. The man held up the victorious gamecock as the other bird finally collapsed into a bloodied, feathered heap. A loud cheer rose up, none more loudly than from the fat man by Blackdown’s side.
‘You bet on the winning cock, I take it,’ said Blackdown close to his ear. ‘Well done, sir!’
The man, his lips spread in a grin so broad it threatened to divide his face in two, turned to Blackdown and nodded, waving a slip of paper. ‘Damn it, sir, if ever a man had luck on his side today then that man is me!’ He faced the cockpit again. ‘Well done! Well done!’ he screamed above the din. Then his face dropped serious and he faced Blackdown again. ‘I know you from somewhere.’
BLACKDOWN (a thriller and murder mystery) Page 12
