The ringleader held court with the two smaller boys. They laughed, but there was an edge to their mirth that bordered on mean-spirit. Their conversation became a huddle. They were plotting something.
All around them, people went about their business, heedless of the conspiracy brewing. Kit rubbed a gloved hand over the silver pommel of his sword stick.
Pickpockets?
He might have been prepared to walk on and trust the milling crowd had enough mind for their own care, except he saw briefly the unmistakable flash of a small blade. Cutpurses? Or something more?
The blade disappeared into the pocket of the taller boy who then turned and walked off. His compatriots fell in behind the predatory Pied Piper. Kit left his place by the fire to follow also. The markets were not so bustling as to prevent him straggling a few yards behind yet still keep them in sight.
The lads appeared to be in no hurry, and they did nothing to draw attention to themselves. That, in and of itself, was alarming. There was no banter, no loud profanities that youths of that age were wont to use.
They reached an intersection. The eldest boy glanced back at his companions and offered a tight nod before ducking right and setting off into a run toward an alley.
Where the hell were they going?
Kit caught a glimpse of the edge of a cloak disappearing down the alley. He picked up the pace despite his damaged leg. The laneway was wide enough for a dog cart and no more. He listened. The carnival sounds of the market couldn’t quite mask the sounds of a scuffle deep into the blackness.
A cry of alarm.
Kit ran directly toward it.
The knife plunged down toward its victim.
Kit yelled, drawing attention to himself. Four startled faces looked at him. The victim was a young man about the same age as his three assailants. The ringleader was the first to recover and returned a level stare.
“He’s alone! Get him.”
The trio arrayed themselves across the alley six feet in front of him. Kit set a savage snarl on his face and withdrew his sword stick’s blade. Alarm flickered in the eyes of one of the smaller boys.
Kit held the weapon at the ready in his right hand. The ebony sheath felt good in his left. He brandished it as a club, ready to use it so if needed. Little did these diminutive demons know that Captain Kit Hardacre had faced down full-grown pirates and slavers in greater numbers than this.
His attention remained on the oldest youth, the one who was the greatest threat. Despite his baby-faced features, he was hard, inured to violence.
The small knife he brandished was directed at his stomach, but Kit’s own blade was leveled at the boy’s throat.
“Leave now, old man, and we won’t cut ye.”
“Less of the old, pup.”
“There’s three of us.”
“And only one of me…” Kit’s voice dropped an octave. “… yet the odds are still in my favor.”
A lunge toward the closest boy had the desired effect. His unexpected aggression caused the youth to run without looking back. Kit let him pass, but was not so distracted to miss a movement to this left. He swung the ebony sheath down, striking the younger brigand hard over the knuckles. The youth cried out in pain and decided against putting up a fight. He followed his friend back down the alley.
Kit instructed the victim with barely a glance his way. “You. Get up. Get out of here.” The young buck scrambled to his feet and ran back down the alley with a muttered word of thanks as he passed.
The oldest boy – Trouble – did not move. He remained where he was, knife still gripped in his hand.
“Now isn’t it time you joined your friends and stayed out of mischief?”
“You should really mind your own business, old man,” the boy snarled. But despite his game words, his resolve wavered. Kit remained on alert. A cowed dog still had teeth.
“I’ve never followed that advice before, and I don’t expect to start now. Drop the knife before you hurt yourself with it.”
Kit counted silently to ten before Trouble finally did as he was bid. The blade clattered onto the cobbles. Kit glanced at it before kicking it into the shadows. He had no doubt that Trouble would be back looking for it, and he had no intention of making it easy for him.
He stepped to one side and indicated with the point of his sword that the youth should precede him. As soon as they reached the edge of the lane, the boy took off at a run into the fog.
Kit sheathed his sword, and it was a walking stick once more.
Strange how a little excitement could ease his aches and pains.
He dipped into the pocket of his coat once more to reach a couple of still-warm chestnuts to chew on. Sadly, the excitement was short-lived, and the familiar twinge in his right leg returned as soon as he put his weight on it to walk.
He thought of himself at that age. He might easily have run with the gangs had he not been pressed into signing on as a cabin boy. What was not so easy to imagine was seeing himself raised in a home with a loving family.
The closest thing to family he had experienced before he met Sophia were his friends and crewmates of the Calliope – Elias the Preacher, and Jonathan, explorer son of an Ethiopian duke. He had adopted an unusual family, to be sure.
As he walked back to the market, Kit had to own to a little envy of his friends before he left Sicily. They now had children of their own, and were completely enamored by the life they helped create. He and Sophia had not yet been blessed, but he could readily see himself as a doting father.
He knew without a doubt that he would love any child Sophia gave him. What man wouldn’t love a child conceived in love?
His own father, apparently.
Something cold cut through him which had nothing to do with the evening chill. It was a perverse nostalgia, a homesickness for what he never had. If Kit was honest with himself – and with the ones he was closest to – he would admit he desperately wanted to know about his parents. For good or for ill, at least he would know why they had abandoned him.
And, if one day he and Sophia were to have children of their own, he could remember his own parents and have a name for them.
Chapter Three
Kit’s aimless wandering had taken him into the center of the markets where some of the shops remained open to capture the passing trade.
Huddled around a brazier were men with brass musical instruments, their noise supplanting that of the hurdy-gurdy. Kit recognized the tune and, unbidden, the lyrics came to him.
God rest you merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay.
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas-day
To save poor souls from Satan’s power,
Which long time had gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy!
He paused to watch as, all around, families and couples laughed and bickered, blind to his inner musings. None of them had seen what he had seen in his lifetime. His world was alien to them. He was alien to their world.
Kit remained lost in in own thoughts until he was jostled by a passing couple. The man aided his wife past before glancing back at him with a faint look of disgust.
He moved away, right leg stiffened in the cold, his limp now pronounced. Kit was back to where he was before.
Aimless, restless, frustrated.
The fog thickened, changing the sound about him, muting the music. It also altered the quality of the light. It was softer; other worldly. Ethereal laughter drew him forward, answering something deep within him – an expression of innocence and joy of childhood that he longed for, but which fate had been so cruel as to deny him.
He headed toward a light and its sound. As he got closer, the children’s voices became more distinct. A touch of Heaven brought to Earth?
He saw a beckoning hand of a child. No. Smaller than that. A Putti? Like the divine cherubs he saw in architecture and frescos all over Sicily? He took a few steps closer and the figure resolved itself. It was an
automaton in a novelty shop window.
Before him, two little girls, dressed exactly alike in blue velvet dresses and matching ribbons clapped in wonder of another animated doll. This one was an elegantly dressed lady, sitting at a writing desk, her head rocking from side to side in time to music he could not hear. Delicate lace at her sleeve fluttered as the pen in her porcelain hand moved across the paper with clockwork precision.
Perhaps he had come to the gates of Heaven, at least it would seem so to a child. Indeed, a large number of children pressed close to the window, staring covetously at the bounty within until they were pulled away one-by-one by parents or older siblings.
In the large window space, there was a dappled gray rocking horse with scarlet bridle and reins. In the center of the display was a large doll’s house, three stories tall, its façade removed to show the grandeur within. Lining up in front of that was a regiment of toy soldiers ready for their orders.
Sitting high up on a shelf at the back of the shop was the most exquisite replica of a sailing ship. Kit knew it instantly as a model of the HMS Victory.
The little boy inside him desired the finely made piece. As a successful trader, he could afford to indulge the whim. In fact, he could have anything money could buy.
And that was the problem.
What he truly desired couldn’t be bought – not with all the coin in the realm.
Kit started out of his musing at the sound of someone calling his name.
At least that’s what it sounded like. He listened. It was not his name being called after all.
“Pip! Pip! Where are you?”
The call became louder, and Kit finally spotted its owner, a girl about twelve years of age. In the lantern light, he could see she was dressed warmly, but plainly in a russet woolen dress that seemed a size too large for her. The girl wrapped a black knitted shawl tightly about her shoulders.
This Pip she called for did not answer after repeated calls. The distress in her voice was plain. No one else came to her aid, so he left his place at the window and went to her.
“Have you lost someone?”
The girl looked at him warily, but dropped a polite curtsy nonetheless.
“My youngest brother, sir. He came out with my other brother and me. Now, I can’t find him.”
Evening had set in, along with the cold. The fog rolled in ever thicker. The streets of London were dangerous at the best of times, but at night and a young child…
“I’ll help you look for him.”
The girl took a step back, brows furrowed.
“Oh, no, sir.”
The rejection wounded him more than it ought.
She continued, “I couldn’t ask an important man like you.”
Kit’s ego was immediately salved. He smiled.
“What if I told you I had nothing more important to do than to find your brother and see you all safely home?”
A boy jogged up to them. The girl’s other brother, Kit deduced – the resemblance between the two was unmistakable; perhaps they were twins. They looked about the same age. The boy wore a flat cap and carried a rucksack on his back.
“Susan! Have you found him?”
The girl named Susan shook her head. Only then did the boy pay him any heed. The pair looked genuinely worried, and their concern fueled his own. He’d been a lost boy once.
“How long has your young brother been missing?” Kit asked briskly. He was a captain used to asking questions, giving orders and having men obey them. But he’d never before commanded a couple of children.
“Not more than a quarter of an hour,” said Susan. “We were on our way home, and we stopped to look in the toy shop window. We didn’t know he wasn’t with us—”
“—we didn’t think he could go far, not with him being a cripple,” said the boy.
Unease grew. Bad enough without the disadvantage of being lame. The markets and the crowds of people gave the illusion of safety, but danger lay in the shadows. Kit hadn’t forgotten the gang of youths and that one in particular, Trouble. There was something malevolent about that young man…
“We have time to make quick introductions. I am Captain Kit Hardacre,” He pulled out a calling card from his coat pocket, along with a pencil stub to write his address. He handed that to the girl.
Her brother piped up. “I’m Peter Sim, and this is my sister Susan.”
“Tell me about Pip, so I know to recognize him.”
“Pip is eight years old, but he looks so much smaller than his age on account of his health,” Peter answered. “He uses a crutch to walk and his hair is light, like the color of yours.”
“He’s a good boy, an inquisitive boy,” Susan added. “He’s not naughty. In fact, he’s ever so good which is why we’re worried. He wouldn’t run away, and he wouldn’t play a trick by not answering when he’s called.”
Kit asked for a description of his attire. Peter rattled it off – gray trousers, gray shirt, green pullover, gray coat. And Peter assured Kit he knew this for certain because the clothes used to be his before he outgrew them. Oh, and a hand-fashioned crutch he held on his left side.
“God bless you, sir,” Susan said. “Thank you for helping us find him. Mother and Father worry so. We all do.”
Kit fished out a florin from his waistcoat pocket and put it in the boy’s hand. “We’ll meet here when the clock strikes eight o’clock. If you find Pip first, don’t wait for me to return. Make your way home directly, by hackney if you wish, then send me a note to that address in the morning to let me know you’re all home safe.”
“Right you are! Thank you, sir!” Peter looked ready to skip off. Kit gave him a level look which pinned the lad to the spot.
“Peter. Take care of your sister. Stay together and stay where there are people. Don’t go searching down the alleyways. I’ll do that. If you find the parish constable, give him Pip’s description.”
Kit watched the children leave and make their way down toward the high street shops, calling Pip’s name. He pulled out his pocket watch. It was just before half-past seven.
A good boy, an inquisitive boy…
Where might he find one of those, if he wasn’t at the toy store?
He listened for the sound of the hurdy-gurdy, making his way toward it. This time, he didn’t mind the measured pace and reliance on a cane. It made him slow down and examine the individuals in the crowd as they emerged from the fog.
The sound of a lively and jolly tune would be a likely attraction for a young boy, especially if the organ grinder had a little monkey as his companion.
Sure enough, a group of children gathered, but none of them carried a crutch.
Pip must have gone further than his brother and sister thought. A few yards beyond, Kit heard an odd conversation, indistinct and high-pitched. He frowned. That did not sound like the voice of a child.
A moment later came a burst of laughter. Another performer, one he had missed.
He was a couple of yards away when he spotted the bright red puppet theatre decorated with scrolls and other ornamentation picked out in gilt. The moving silhouettes resolved themselves into a marionette show. Kit instantly knew the character as Pulcinella from performances in the markets around Palermo.
Children had gathered toward the front. Their parents milled at the back. Some fathers had younger children perched on their shoulders. The squeaky voice of the protagonist made the children giggle. The puppet’s double entendres made the adults laugh.
About ten feet away, sitting on the plinth on a statue, was a little boy. By his side was a black crutch. Kit might have overlooked the child completely if he’d kept his eyes on the entertainment.
He shifted his weight on his cane and made his way toward the lad who seemed fascinated by the performance. He was dressed as Peter described. If he needed any more confirmation, the boy shared the same angular features as Susan and Peter Sim.
Stopping three feet away – far enough away to put the boy at ease – Kit spoke.<
br />
“Excuse me, young man,” he said with exaggerated regard. “Would you happen to be Master Pip Sim?”
He’d thought to make the boy laugh to disarm him. Instead, the lad regarded him gravely.
“I am. I’ve been expecting you.”
Chapter Four
Kit was surprised by the self-assured response and fought an unexpected shiver down his spine.
“You did?”
“I saw your cane and thought to myself, ‘that man limps, he must have an interesting story to tell’. And now that I see you up close, I know I’m right. You have an earring. Not everyone has an earring, not men at any rate. I’ve read about pirates with earrings. Are you a pirate? Do you have a peg-leg?”
Very few things could reduce Kit Hardacre to utter silence, but this boy had. He lowered himself onto the stone beside the lad and let his question beg.
“Do you know your brother and sister are looking for you?” Kit allowed annoyance to color his voice.
Pip acknowledged the censure with a slump of his shoulders. “They worry about me.”
Kit’s heart went out to him. This was a strong, intelligent, and brave young boy who was being let down by the frailties of his body.
“It’s good to have someone worry about you, but it’s not good to give them cause to worry.”
Silence fell between them. Pip stared straight ahead at the marionette show. The squawk of the two puppets arguing had the audience roaring with such raucous laughter that Kit almost missed the question.
“Where are Peter and Susan?”
“They’re searching for you in the High Street. We’ve agreed to meet outside the toy shop when the clock chimes eight.”
“It’s not yet eight o’clock. We don’t have to go straight away, do we?”
O Night Divine: A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales Page 51
