The Lost Boys of London

by Mary Lawrence

  The buzz of conversation continued in spite of the ruckus. Words rose to the buttresses overhead and bounced off the limestone arches, then fell to the floor below, replaced by new. The commotion made by two wild children was of no more consequence than the strange myriad of other disruptions upsetting the peace in this house of God.

  Alas, so it is on earth as it is in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  No amount of hollering by the cord vendor made any difference in the loud confusion. People stepped aside and watched the boy and girl avoid collision while their red-faced nemesis charged after them.

  At the main entrance, Fisk and Anna pounded down the front steps, free of the church, and cut between two buildings nearby to Carter’s Lane. Once there, Anna veered toward Knightrider. Fisk kept on running then turned down Do Little Lane. When he emerged on Knightrider he expected to see Anna ahead of him. If the vendor was following, he hoped the man was chasing him and not his sister. But there was no sign of her. He checked behind him in case he’d gone too far. He did not see her. But neither did he see the vendor. Puzzled, he stood a second to rethink. He cut over to Sermon Lane. Carts and pedestrians moved along the narrow street, but no Anna.

  Fisk turned around and looked up and down Knightrider. Could she have reached the road before he did? Had she waited, then decided to run home? Again, he felt the demon of panic slithering down his spine.

  “Anna!” He spun about, frantic, but there was no answer.

  Despite a sense of impending danger, he started down Sermon Lane to search for her.

  He slowed at every alcove and stooped to peer under every shop stand. She had disappeared, gone. Mystified, he returned to Knightrider and stood in the middle of the lane, making himself obvious. If his pursuer was still after him, it wouldn’t take him long to find him.

  Fisk had effectively baited the vendor to come after him, but as he stood there, vulnerable and confused, the thought that kept working its way into his conscious loomed suddenly large. What if the vendor had caught his little sister?

  He could think of nothing else but return to the cathedral. He raced up the steps and turned around for one last look at the busy lane in front of the cathedral. There was no sign of Anna, so he went back inside.

  The nave was just as noisy and congested as before. Fisk wended his way to the opposite end and stood, all the while keeping an eye out for Anna. Finally, he went back outside. The wind spat at his face, its cold breath mocking him. He took shelter beneath an arch and watched the street for his little sister. Perhaps she had just gone home. But how could she have gotten away from him so quick?

  The slab of bacon under his jacket was a sorry reminder of his misadventure, but not knowing what else to do, he began walking home. Perhaps Anna had had the good sense to get away from the area and not try to find him. But nearing Old Change Road, he felt the need to retrace his steps one last time.

  He was beyond St. Mary Magdalen when he heard quickening steps from behind. He spun about and to his astonishment, the cord vendor was back in pursuit and bearing down on him. The fellow was determined, if not a bit witless, decided Fisk. But he took off running again, running as fast as his legs could carry him.

  At Friday Street he rounded the corner, colliding with a young maid and spilling her basket of walnuts in the muddy road. He had now entered an unfamiliar area. Some of the residences bordered on plots of garden and as there was not much distance between him and the vendor, a web of intersecting thoroughfares and footpaths offered the only means of escape.

  He chose a curving path that divided into three offshoots. Without a thought, he took the one on the right, which soon divided, offering another two possibilities. Both were dark and winding, but he took the one more poorly lit. Halfway down the narrow space he flattened himself against a wall.

  His lungs heaved and his legs shook. He concentrated on softening the sound of his heavy breathing. All of this for a silly flitch of bacon! If the cord vendor found him now, he would just hand it over. He wanted to go home. He was tired and scared and the thought of his mother’s thin gruel seemed not so terrible now.

  One thing was for cert, Anna must have gotten away. Otherwise, why would the man still be chasing him? Unless, of course, the vendor had caught Anna and was holding her captive.

  Fisk imagined his little sister in a gibbet suspended over a boiling kettle of water. Mayhap the ogre wanted to throw the bacon in the pot along with Anna and eat her for dinner. He thought of his poor sister and worried how he’d tell his mother, when he heard the slapping sound of steps in mud.

  The vendor ran past, completely unaware of him plastered against the building. Fisk waited for the man’s steps to fade then blew out his breath. He had escaped for now, but it wouldn’t be long before the vendor doubled back.

  Fisk pushed himself off the wall and retraced his route, then turned down a different fork. Surely it would eventually lead him to a road he recognized. He had turned himself around so much that he didn’t know which direction he was headed. Where was St. Paul’s? He couldn’t smell the river and he couldn’t see above the leaning upper stories of the buildings.

  The sooner he got free of this warren, the better. It was all he could do to keep from crying out in frustration.

  Soon he was running full out, turning corners and slipping in putrid, untraveled spaces. His ears filled with the sound of his pounding heart beating like a funeral drum leading him to his grave. The tangle of lanes branched, taking him nowhere, tricking and confusing him. He wondered if he would ever get out.

  Surely this labyrinth of lanes would eventually intersect with something he knew. He focused on this thin crumb of common sense, believing and praying that this was not some sinister maze leading him to hell, when he turned onto a path that looked as if it opened onto a brighter lane. Ahead he saw the comforting sight of people walking by. Fisk almost laughed out loud as he stopped running, relieved that his ordeal was over. Wherever he was he’d be able to find his way home now.

  Regrettably though, his respite was short-lived. As he started for the busy street, a shadow fell across his path and a man blocked his way.

  “Hello, boy,” said an unwelcome voice.

  Chapter 4

  Restored to his placid ward north of the river, Constable Patch had grown bored these past several months answering occasional domestic disputes and petty thievery complaints he could do nothing about. This ward of chandlers and broderers were a peaceful bunch, content to sell candles and embellish silk and linen for nobility and wealthy merchants. At first the constable had enjoyed the position, but one could only indulge in so many naps before needing some sort of stimulation--at least every once in a while.

  Today it came in the form of a murder.

  While keeping an eye out for suspicious activity (as was his nature), and going for his daily bread, Patch took Do Little Lane, a different route than usual. He was puzzling over why any street would be given such a demoralizing name, a name christening a neighborhood to modest expectation and low achievement, when he was met by a group of citizens next to St. Mary Magdalen’s Church.

  All chins were tipped upward, their necks craning for a better look. At first, he did not see what they were gaping at. He thought if nothing else, he would break up the gathering, for they clogged the narrow lane and would soon be a nuisance to those wishing passage into and out of his ward. But as he neared the broad side of the building with words of reproach perched on his tongue, he soon spied the object of their fixation.

  Halfway up the exterior, a body swung from the grotesque decorating the dripstone over a window. A strong gust blew through the narrow lane, and from his spot on the street below Constable Patch could see the limp feet bump the glass.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  No one could offer a suggestion. No one could see the victim well enough to say much about it except that it was probably a male and not very well-dressed. One shoe was missing and the bare foot, even
in this poor light, looked blue.

  Though Castle Baynard ward was not his jurisdiction, Patch felt it his duty to take matters in his own hand until the ward constable arrived and could take over.

  “Who found the body?” he asked. “Is he here?”

  “I saw it when I left me rent,” said an older woman, stepping forward. Her raspy voice made it difficult for Patch to understand her. “At first, I thought it strange. I couldn’t tell what it was so I stopped to take a look. My eyes, I have never seen such a sight.” She shook her head. “There be no saying how long he could have been hanging there before anyone thought to look up. The birds could have picked ‘im clean before anyone noticed.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Only just now,” she said. “When I realized it be a body--I screamed.” She crossed herself quickly. “People came running to see what was wrong.”

  Patch looked round at the onlookers and realized that news of the spectacle would soon blaze through the parish. All of Knightrider and its side streets would soon be congested with bug-eyed dawdlers milling about, scratching their heads, offering dubious explanations, getting underfoot.

  “Cut him down,” Patch ordered, as if this plebeian group of gawkers would do his bidding.

  No one volunteered.

  Patch pointed to the woman. “At the very least, we needs the sexton. Go tell ‘im he’s got a yank-neck he needs to remove.”

  The woman protested. “Why do I have to do it?”

  “Because it is yer civic duty!” said Patch, pointing her in the right direction. “And gets the priest and constable!” he called after.

  As Patch had predicted, the lane began filling with curious pedestrians and residents. Patrons from the Boar’s Head Tavern left their morning porridge to file into the lane, their napkins still draped over their shoulders. Speculation ran the gamut from name-guessing that it was a fellow caught foining Maggie Wait--that slatternly widow bent on trying every pizzle on Milk Street--to someone suggesting it might be a street urchin who’d gotten his what for after stealing one too many times.

  Patch listened to every suggestion; the more preposterous ones he stashed in his pea brain to be trotted out later because that was just how he was. In due time, the woman returned with the sexton who bore a mistrustful scowl. The fellow stood back and peered up at the eaves searching for the body. His grimace turned to disbelief spotting it.

  “God’s nails, how does a man hang ‘imself from such a height?” He looked round at Patch and the others. “One can get the same result from a roof rafter.” Then, realizing he would be entrusted with getting the body down, his astonishment turned to stubborn refusal. “I’ll not take on the likes of that,” he said. “I don’t like ladders.”

  “How do ye manage yer duties if ye don’t like ladders?” asked Patch, thoroughly annoyed. “They be a necessity to yer office.”

  “I am not the only one who maintains the building. I’ll find Phinn. He is nimble of joint and he likes the view from the bell tower.”

  “Then get him!” said Patch. “We are wasting the day.”

  “Sirrah, if I may,” said the sexton, scrutinizing Patch, and recognizing that he was not the constable of Castle Baynard. “Should we not summon this ward’s constable?”

  Patch’s upper lip twitched. “He has been summoned. An’ until he arrives, I am in charge. My ward borders this one and if a street gets blocked here, it will clog the road in mine.” He resented being questioned and committed the sexton to his list of disliked humans.

  With a snide smile on his face, the sexton went off to find Phinn, his surefooted cohort.

  Patch surveyed the crowd, then returned his gaze to the unfortunate victim. He wondered if this might be self-murder as the sexton suggested. He agreed that hanging oneself from a dragon grotesque seemed a bit drastic when there were plenty of other venues easier to scale. Self-murder or not, the height alone was an unnecessary undertaking.

  “Are you the constable?”

  Patch turned to answer a man dressed in a cassock with a fur-lined gown over it. “Are you the priest?” he responded.

  “I am,” said the man. “Though I am not the priest of St. Mary Magdelen’s, if that is what you mean. I am Father Foxcroft of St. Andrew’s.”

  Patch looked the man up and down. “St. Andrew’s is a few blocks away near the Wardrobe. Word travels fast in Castle Baynard ward.”

  “I came as soon as I heard.”

  To Patch’s mind, not that much time had passed. “And how dids ye hear?”

  “Well,” said the priest, taken aback. “A parishioner told me a crowd was gathering at St. Mary Magdalen’s.” A hesitant smile quivered at the corners of his mouth. “Priests take care of one another. I’ve come to offer my support to Father Rhys.”

  “He isn’t here,” said Patch.

  Foxcroft looked at the body overhead and crossed himself as silence stretched between them. Patch kept searching the crowd for the sexton’s return and Foxcroft stood next to him, shifting his weight between his feet and praying his paternoster.

  “Such an unfortunate incident,” said the priest, attempting to make conversation.

  “Aye,” said Patch.

  As they waited, Constable Patch’s thoughts turned to Bianca Goddard across the river in Southwark. He wondered if the constable of Baynard Castle had anyone as knowledgeable as she to advise him? Patch would never admit that he had come to depend on her skills of observation and reasoning to solve questionable deaths such as this one. He preferred to bask in the assumed glory that he, alone, had brought several murderers to justice. His success had landed him this current plum of a position. His irascible wife appreciated his advancement, and his needy ego readily allowed his taking credit. Patch could never go so far as to show appreciation to the dubious daughter of that wily alchemist, Albern Goddard. A man who, Patch was certain, was up to no good; the rumors swirling about him were grounds enough for an investigation, should he ever get the chance to do so. But alas, Albern Goddard did not reside in his ward.

  Patch supposed that everyone had questionable associations of one sort or another. Some were familial, some were actively cultivated. And, he had to admit, they often served a purpose.

  Patch blew in his hands to warm them and watched with agitation as the crowd of spectators grew. The sexton was taking interminably long to find this Phinn fellow. He would like to leave to send for Bianca but didn’t dare miss the chance that the body would be cut down and removed before he could find her. It came as a welcome surprise when one of his minions happened onto the scene.

  “Cyndric,” he said, hailing his slouch-shouldered associate.

  At the sound of his name, Cyndric hunched even more in an attempt to shrink into the crowd. Patch worked his way over and clapped his hand on the man’s protruding clavicle.

  “What handsome luck. I needs ye to fetch Bianca Goddards in Gull Hole. Bring her straight away. If she isn’t in her room of Medicinals and Psychics then seek her at the Dim Dragon Inn.”

  “What’s happened, sir?” asked Cyndric, finally looking up.

  “A dangler. Now get on!”

  ***

  With Cammy returned to work, Bianca gazed out the tavern window and saw that the sun still had not broken through the gray mantle that had settled over London for nearly two straight weeks. She began to wonder if the jolly orb had gone elsewhere, preferring, instead, to shine on the blue waves of ocean, or perhaps the fields in France. This sullen gloom had seeped into her marrow, and she found it increasingly difficult with every passing day to pry herself away from the friendships she’d cultivated at the Dim Dragon Inn and attend to her work in the cold, dreary interior of her room of Medicinals and Physickes in Gull Hole.

  Only the gentle burps of a simmering concoction kept her company these days--the sounds of her industry creating medicines from plants. Sometimes she heard the neighbor’s chickens clucking, or a horse clop by, and cert
ainly Hob’s vocalizations provided some discourse with another living being--but he was a cat, she reminded herself. And while she cherished the peace of creating her balms and salves in her inconspicuous little hovel, she did miss her married life with John.

  They had married two years ago in the spring of 1543, when the fields beyond Paris Garden Manor were vivid green and white with clover and the sun had chased every cloud from the sky. John had found a biscuit-colored doublet from a fripperer and his tail of wheaten-colored hair shone beneath a scarlet flatcap he’d borrowed from his master, the French silversmith Boisvert. John struck a handsome figure, standing taller and more svelte than most. She smiled, remembering the subtle curves of his muscles, the beguiling arms that had held her close.

  Meddybemps had performed their handfast, and the streetseller was of good cheer that day--but then, she thought wistfully, he was of sunny disposition most days. His silly dance and nonsensical patters had kept them laughing despite the sanctity of their marriage rite. She still had the embroidered apron he’d given her, and on occasion she would take it out of her chest and lightly run her finger over the colorful flowers, appreciating its simple beauty and being glad for their friendship. The truth was that she relied on him not only for his unwavering loyalty, but because he helped her survive by selling her tinctures at market.

  However, their friendship had been tested of late as his duplicity had come to light over a matter involving her mother as well as her father’s discovery of a dangerous element some ten months before. But with time she had learned to accept that often the right choice of action was not always a moral one. Be that as it may, she considered Meddybemps her family, more so than even her own parents. Bianca took another sip of ale, its taste bitter on her tongue, and returned her thoughts to a love more true.

  She’d known John since they were children running about the streets. For a girl with no siblings, he seemed at the time to fill a missing familial bond. John and his older brother had been abandoned by their mother and had learned to survive on the streets with only their wits to keep them alive. Bianca and John had in common, the bold cunning that came with self-reliance--and never having enough to eat. Their friendship began when John saved her from an angry butcher and constable whose intent was to make Bianca an example of what could happen if one were caught stealing. Something had passed between the two rascals, perhaps an understanding born from similar circumstance. Bianca had trusted him implicitly, and when John had suddenly kicked the constable in the shin, they had started running and she reached for his hand. She had never let go of it.