The Lost Boys of London

by Mary Lawrence

  “Tsk, his name ye do not know?” McDonogh could scarce believe it. “Sirrah, he is held in great esteem by every Scot in the land. There is scant a fellow north of the Tweed who doesn’t tell his story.”

  “I am scarcely a Scot. Why should I know of him?”

  “Because knowing who our enemy reveres is useful in defeating him.”

  John broke apart another bulrush head, and the seeds like dandelion poured out and made an ample pile. He grabbed a handful and pushed it down his shoe.

  “Robert the Bruce was king of Scotland some two hundred years ago. He murdered his rival for the throne and was banished from the church because of it. He fought you, the English, over and over, and never defeated them. He became a fugitive. Then, while hiding from the enemy, he watched a spider try to anchor her thread. She tried six times to hitch a strand to a beam. On the seventh try, she succeeded. He took it as a sign. He rallied his men and defeated the king’s army and won Scotland’s freedom.”

  “Which king was this?”

  McDonogh shrugged. “Methinks Edward the second.”

  John tried on his shoe and stomped his foot on the ground. “I like it not,” he said.

  “Wot, it is a great story!” cried McDonogh.

  “I speak of my shoe.” John removed it and stuck his hand down to the toe to manipulate the makeshift padding. “So, he learned from a spider and all of Scotland thinks him a hero.”

  “There is wisdom in it.”

  “Staring at a bug? You could stare at cow shit to greater effect--and learn a greater lesson.”

  McDonogh held his hands towards the fire to warm them. His gloves were worn through at the tips and his thick fingers were grubby, and red from the cold. He was the only foreigner sitting with English billmen, but they didn’t mind. The Irishman had a quirky way about him and loved a good story. His English was better than most because he liked to talk. He especially liked to talk with John. For his part, John welcomed McDonogh’s good cheer and wry commentary.

  “I hope the Scots hid well this Robert’s heart,” said John quietly enough so the others would not hear. “I should not like to see a people’s sacred relic abominated.”

  “In truth we do not know what he would do with it. But disturbing its rest is a cruel act.” McDonogh scratched his arse. “Then, too, it might hasten this war to an end that much sooner.”

  “I should think it would rouse every Scot from every kirkton and brae to avenge their hero—if this fellow, this Robert the Bruce is of the mettle you say.”

  “The future comes a little at a time,” said the Irishman. “We shall soon know.”

  “I should think you would want this war to go on,” said John. “The inconvenience of it lines your pocket. You are paid and you are fed.”

  “I have no wife to return to, but even I wish for an end to this. I should like to go home. I’ve killed enough Scots.”

  The two watched a fellow pikeman feed the fire. The sun was pitching towards the west and it would soon be nightfall. They would wait until the village of Melrose was asleep in their beds. They would wait for cover of darkness to do their worst.

  ***

  There wasn’t much money in what he did. Hauling batts of wool around London and dropping them off with spinners, then delivering the skeins back to the clothier, earned him enough for one meal a day and his portion of rent for a shared room. But tromping around London did give him time to think. Geve Trinion trudged up the lane to his last stop of the morning.

  He thought about Fisk. He couldn’t understand why the boy’s mother opposed his offer. It seemed a good solution to both their problems. With such a brood, one less mouth to feed would have been helpful, he thought. And, the offer to send home the boy’s wages would have been better than the child stealing on the streets of London. He took offense that she did not trust him. But then, when he really thought about it, why should she?

  As it was, this was an opportunity to make twice the money on Fisk. His scheme might work out quite handily.

  To his advantage, Meg appeared genuinely distressed. The lines of worry dug deep into the skin around her eyes; she had lost that saucy glint that had once so beguiled him. But, he was too clever to let her fool him again. It was his turn to deceive.

  He knew she was capable of more than she let on. She squawked over the ransom money, but Geve knew that she would find a way to get it. He didn’t care how, but she was a master of double-handed deals and if she really wanted Fisk returned, she could do it. He just needed to be a little more patient. And if she came up with the money, he would disappear from her life forever, without another word.

  Trinion dreamed of getting rid of the pack basket that he lugged all over London. When he first took the job, he had looked forward to meeting women. He imagined he would go from one to the other, engage them in some witty repartee, then if one of them were amenable… maybe a little rumpy pumpy. But the spinners he dealt with were too old to care about anything other than their next meal, or they were harried mothers with children hanging on their hems. No opportunities presented themselves and, after two years, he had grown weary of it all.

  He approached Jane Clewe’s tenement and saw her peeping at him from behind the shutter. Didn’t she have enough spinning to keep her busy? Maybe he should leave her more batts. She was a new spinner and he had been to her rent only twice before. She’d hardly said a word to him when he first met her. He’d confirmed who she was and told her when he’d return to collect the skeins. She just snatched the batts out of his hands and closed the door in his face.

  Such a fearful lady with her dim hazel eyes appraising him, and that jutting chin turned up like a crescent moon nearly touching the tip of her nose. Did she think he did not see her watching him? He doffed his cap and she ducked out of view. He believed her quite mad.

  Trinion went around the corner of the building and met Jane already standing on the stoop waiting. She ran her twitchy gaze over his person.

  “G’day, Goodwife Jane,” he said, ignoring any implied animosity from her thorough examination.

  “It is if you like dreary, gray ones.” She offered him the door to come inside, but even on a day such as this, he preferred the cool unforgiving climate to the one inside her rent. He compromised by straddling the threshold, one foot in and the other outside on the stoop.

  Jane hurried off to get her skeins, and he thought she must be feeling spry this day. She usually had a pronounced hitch to her walk. Usually it pained him to watch her cross the room to fetch her finished work, but today she didn’t seem troubled by her handicap. “Ye must be feeling nimble of joint today,” he said.

  She greeted his observation with a cold stare. “Today be no different than any other,” she replied.

  If she wished to say so, he could not be troubled to argue.

  Jane gathered an armful of yarn to her chest. She had made it halfway back when the sound of something scratching stopped her. She listened, as did he. Their eyes dropped to an area of the floor.

  “That one sounds sizeable,” he said. “I know a good rat catcher.” Manners aside, he saw no harm in broaching the subject when it came to getting rid of vermin. They were a nuisance to both rich and poor. “I can send him by.”

  Jane stomped the floor and the scratching ceased.

  “’Tisn’t necessary.” She dumped the spun wool into his arms. “There are seven.”

  His mouth must have gaped for she pointed to the yarn. “Skeins. There are seven skeins.”

  “Oh. Aye.” Geve Trinion looked over the quality of her spinning and found it quite good. He stuffed the skeins into his pack basket and removed the last of the batts along with her earnings. Despite his counting it out for her, she snatched it away and began recounting it.

  “I shall put these by your stool,” he said while she mouthed the count. She could have managed the batts herself but he felt generous. He crossed the room and deposited the pile of carded wool on a
stool near her hearth. Running his eyes around the interior of her rent, Jane Clewes didn’t seem to have but the bare essentials to make herself comfortable. She had a wobbly table and a bench, a small cupboard, and a few pots for cooking. No fire burned in the hearth; she probably saved her fuel to cook her meals and hoped that would generate enough heat to take the chill out of the air. He wondered where she kept her savings.

  He was walking to the door when the strange sound began again. It sounded as if it was coming from directly beneath him.

  “Ye must have holes in the foundation,” he said, stopping to listen. “They don’t need much. I’ve seen them squeeze through a hole the size of an angel.”

  Jane Clewe’s eyes darted to the floor and back again. The scraping clearly unnerved her.

  “I’ve a knife. I could pry up a board and see what be under there.” Maybe she kept her money down there.

  “You will do no such thing!” she said. Her sharp rebuke made him jump. “Leave it be!”

  “I do not mind, goodwife,” he assured. “I hate rats. Ye should know how many ye got. Then I can send a fellow round to take care of your problem.” He knew who to ask. And he would be there pretending to help while scanning her rent for a hidden stash of coin. “Ye wouldn’t want them getting loose in here.”

  “There is no danger of that, sirrah. This floor is as solid as the ground out my window.” She then escorted him to the door and practically shoved him out it.

  If that were not peculiar enough, a thickset young man stood on the stoop staring at them with his mouth slightly open and his crooked teeth pointing north, and south, and in between like a compass rose. The lad showed no signs of moving aside to let him pass.

  “Huet. Come inside,” admonished Jane.

  The lad closed his mouth, releasing Geve from its spell, and squeezed through the door, his large size filling its frame.

  Jane Clewes ignored common civility and did not introduce him to the new arrival. Nor did she offer a hint of explanation as to who this was. The two exchanged awkward glances until Geve could bear it no more.

  “And who might this be?” he asked, since she was disinclined to introduce them.

  “Huet,” answered Jane.

  “Huet…” he prompted her, fishing for a last name.

  “Huet,” she said.

  “Huet Huet?”

  “Huet.”

  “Huet Clewes?” He didn’t want to insult her, but her ambiguity thoroughly rankled.

  “Huet.”

  He stared at her.

  Jane Clewes stared back.

  “Very well,” he said, closing his satchel and securing it. “I will return for your work at the end of the week.” He was cutting her allotted time in half. He didn’t give her an option. Churlish women don’t deserve one.

  Chapter 16

  Bianca walked down the narrow alley off Old Change, grateful there was still enough light left in the day that she didn’t fear what could be lurking in the shadows. She happened to notice that Naylor’s print shop was just around the corner. She supposed he probably had a good view of anyone running past his window.

  Her keen sense of smell was useful not only in her work creating medicinals, but in identifying any unique odors that could lead her to a desired place or outcome. In this case, the lingering smell of urine on rotting hides (used to remove hair), led her to a location where she suspected there had once been a tannery. Some smells just never go away.

  No loitering boys populated the narrow alley. Several rats fed on a pile of refuse, untroubled by her approach. She stopped in front of a building whose frontispiece next to the door had a carving of a man holding up a fox hide.

  For as dilapidated as the building appeared at first glance, the wood of the main door was of new ash, barely weathered. Perhaps it had been recently built to replace an old punky one, but it gave the impression of being impregnable.

  Bianca knocked and waited. When no answer came, she tried the latch and, to her surprise, the door yielded with her slight push. She checked over her shoulder, then peered inside. Mindful she was trespassing, she took a cautious step over the threshold.

  A small entryway opened into a sizeable space, its length greater than its width. The suffusive damp accentuated the lingering smells from the tannery. At the far end a brazier glowed. Its burning coals washed the area in a pleasant orange color and almost masked the holes in the crumbling wall. A warming fire went a long way making a place feel welcoming.

  “Who goes there?” asked a baleful voice from the other side of the glowing coals. The words bounced off the bare walls.

  Bianca squinted to see beyond the fire. A figure sat directly behind the brazier, the iron stand and bowl blocking her full view.

  “My name is Bianca Goddard.” She took a few more steps, watching the dark corners for signs of movement. A few long benches and a table were pushed to one side.

  “Have we met before?”

  “I think not.” Bianca stopped.

  “Come closer, I cannot see you.”

  As Bianca neared, she saw an older man sitting before the brazier, the firelight exaggerating the puffiness under his eyes. His cheeks were scarred from a bout with smallpox.

  “What brings a maid knocking on my door? Could she be lost? Perhaps she is new to the city and has nowhere to go.”

  “Nay. I am not lost and I am not new to the city. I am looking for the Deft Drigger.”

  “Deft Drigger?” said the man, baffled. “Meaning a fellow versed in the finer art of thieving?”

  “Aye. A fellow who could be instructing a group of boys to steal for him.”

  The man chuckled. “People’s baseless conclusions always astonish me. Is this what you heard on the street?”

  “There is talk that his boys are more skilled than others. People say they have been organized to help one another steal. They have not gone unnoticed by vendors and shoppers.”

  The man returned his gaze to the glowing coals. Bianca noted his cowled rough woven tunic that stopped at his thighs. A leather belt cinched his waist. His dark hosen ended in scuffed, worn shoes and he wore a rustic woolen cap—the style favored by shepherds.

  “There is no one here by that name. You have wasted your time.”

  Bianca hesitated. The printer had directed her here. There could be no denying that this building had once housed a tannery business.

  “Someone has seen several rowdy boys run this direction. Boys who have stolen at Westcheap market and Paul’s Walk.”

  “Boys run. It is their nature. But if those lads are stealing, it is not me who has put them up to it.”

  “Might you be unaware? We know that boys beget mischief. They don’t always admit their misdeeds.”

  “I do shelter boys when they need it. But they are not thieves.” He pushed a coal scuttle with his foot and it scraped along the floor. “No boy under my tutelage breaks God’s commandments.”

  “Your tutelage? What instruction do you give?”

  “I teach them that the kingdom of heaven is earned through sacrifice.” A mouse scurried across a beam, showering them in dust, and the fire snapped in protest. He waved at the smoke and particles falling in front of his face and continued, “We can no longer rely on the church to undertake the care of its young flock. Where can a child--one who is abandoned or orphaned--learn about the glory of God?” He looked at her as if she might know. “Who educates these children in justice?”

  “They are left to learn it on their own,” said Bianca. “I suppose they learn on the streets or from their parents by example.”

  “Aye!” The man agreed, meeting her gaze. “Too many children have no home and no guidance. So, I do what I can. I see that they eat and that they have shelter if they require it. I provide what the parish can no longer give.”

  “Your mission is commendable, sir.” She ran her eyes over the cracked walls, and single brazier heating a large space. “But your propert
y is in poor repair. How can you afford to help?”

  “Charity. There are those who give of their food and money.”

  “And by what name are you known?”

  “Brother Sedar.”

  “You are a monk?” Bianca’s eyes dropped to his tunic, realizing it could have once been a robe.

  “I was a monk. I use my pension to support this endeavor. A monk is accustomed to having little. I have no possessions and I know how to live on nearly nothing.”

  “Are there others like you, similarly inclined to guide wayward boys?” Perhaps there was a community of dispossessed monks and she had only found one of several.

  “It is possible. But I do not concern myself with other pensioners.”

  “Have you met Brother Ewan?”

  Sedar frowned and shook his head. “I do not recognize the name.”

  “Perchance might you know a boy named Fisk? Might you have taken him in?” Bianca described her friend, but Brother Sedar claimed ignorance.

  For a shelter for boys, Bianca wondered over the strange lack of them. “Sir, where are the boys now? I’ve not seen any come or go.”

  “They are completing their given tasks. At the end of the day, they will return for camaraderie, a lesson, and a meal.”

  It seemed the boys had a choice and were not being held against their will. Perhaps the real Deft Drigger was not so lenient. Bianca loosened her scarf. The brazier warmed her side as she studied him. “How long have you been in London?”

  “About three years. I came from Faversham.”

  Bianca wondered if there were any records that could corroborate his story, but those records were probably lost during the dissolution and the confiscations. Besides, she didn’t expect that the chief minister or any other official from the Court of Augmentations would give audience to a woman of her station. She doubted that Patch would have fared much better.

  Brother Sedar took a rod and poked at the coals in the fire. His answers were clipped and vague, but at least he was talking.

  “Brother Sedar,” she said. “Three days ago, a boy was found hanging from a dripstone at St. Mary Magdalen’s.”