Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
OF DUBIOUS INTENT
A Dark Artifice Novel
by J.A. Sutherland
Copyright 2017, Sutherland. All rights reserved.
Created with Vellum
Do you think when a man’s name reaches my ear, that he doesn’t deserve what I bring him?
Cat has grown up as a cutpurse on London’s streets — pretending to be a boy to stay clear of the procurers, but that ruse is getting harder to maintain and she needs a new plan. One that will let her keep the gang’s next big score for herself, get her free of the streets, and give her the hope of a new life. Then she finds her plan was someone else’s all along — and that man’s intentions are not at all what they seem.
Ar Hyd y Nos
Holl amrantau'r sêr ddywedant
Ar hyd y nos
"Dyma'r ffordd i fro gogoniant,"
Ar hyd y nos.
Golau arall yw tywyllwch
I arddangos gwir brydferthwch
Teulu'r nefoedd mewn tawelwch
Ar hyd y nos.
O mor siriol, gwena seren
Ar hyd y nos
I oleuo'i chwaer ddaearen
Ar hyd y nos.
Nos yw henaint pan ddaw cystudd
Ond i harddu dyn a'i hwyrddydd
Rhown ein golau gwan i'n gilydd
Ar hyd y nos.
All the stars' twinkles say
All through the night
"This is the way to the realm of glory,"
All through the night.
Other light is darkness
To show true beauty
The Heavenly family in peace
All through the night.
O, how cheerful smiles the star,
All through the night
To light its earthly sister
All through the night.
Old age is night when affliction comes
But to beautify man in his late days
We'll put our weak light together
All through the night.
Chapter 1
A sudden cramp made Cat’s belly clench, but she ground her teeth together and kept walking. The market square was alive with sound and movement, every vendor calling out loudly to the passersby. The smells from a sausage cart made her mouth fill and stomach clench again, but for a different reason. Neither she nor any of the boys in the gang had eaten that morning. Their leader, Brandt, wanted them out in the market and making this score first.
Her prey paused to look at a table of brass lamps and Cat slowed her pace, not wanting to get too close too soon. She’d watched this man before in the market, many times, and he had his habits — one of which would make him the poorer today. And Cat richer, if all went well and as she planned.
Richer and free, she thought.
Another cramp, this one more severe than the last, almost made her double over and she had to stop, breathing deeply until her muscles unclenched.
A hand clasped her upper arm and she turned to find Brandt beside her. The older, larger boy dragged her to the side and leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“What are you about, Runt?” His grip on her arm was painful, but she lowered her eyes and bowed her head. Brandt liked his crew cowed and afraid of him, and didn’t hesitate to beat them if they didn’t show what he felt was proper deference. “You been following him for ten minutes now!”
“I’m simply waiting for the right time,” Cat whispered back.
Brandt cuffed her across the back of the head. “Don’t you uppity-talk me!”
Cat grimaced, but kept her eyes down and nodded. She often wondered why Mother Agnes had taught her to speak properly, when all it did was get her into trouble with the likes of Brandt. She kept at it, though, even if it was mostly kept in her head and the words she actually voiced were nothing but the street-cant of the others in the gang. There was more than a bit of Mother Agnes’ advice that she didn’t understand the reasons for, but the old woman had been proven right often enough to make Cat follow it all regardless.
Another cramp ran through her and she grunted.
Brandt narrowed his eyes. “What’s yer gripe? You sick?”
Cat ran a hand over her belly, massaging — that helped a bit.
“Hungry,” she said.
That was a plausible enough explanation, for Brandt had dragged them out to the market with no breakfast, but it wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that her monthly courses had arrived and were worse than usual, but she couldn’t tell Brandt that. Doing so would let out the secret she’d been hiding for all the years she’d been running with Brandt’s crew; the secret Mother Agnes had started when Cat was just four years-old and sat with her at the begging bowl each day. No, it wouldn’t do at all for Brandt to learn that Cat was a girl and not the scrawny boy he thought she was.
“We’re all hungry,” Brandt whispered. “And we’ll be hungrier if we don’t bring in some coin soon, so cut that fop’s purse and let’s move on!”
Cat nodded. “I will,” she said. “I just want the right time.” And place, she thought.
Brandt cuffed her again. “It’s here and now, you scrawny ginger, so move!”
He shoved her away, letting go of her arm. “We’re a full two crowns short of what Marven expects this week and but three days to get them. Hurry up.”
Cat nodded again, keeping her eyes downcast. Her reddish hair, even shorn short as she kept it, always did seem to irritate Brandt.
“Yes, sir,” she said. Brandt liked to be called “sir,” she knew. His shoulders went back and his chest swelled as he nodded back to her, apparently satisfied that she’d do as ordered. He slid off into the crowd to take his place and Cat looked ahead to spot her target again.
Oh, damn! The man was almost to the baker’s stall, the one he stopped at every time in the market, and where Cat’s plan needed to start. She hurried through the crowd, cursing Brandt under her breath for stopping her.
She’d marked this man as a target weeks ago, long before she’d told the others in the gang, and watched him every time she saw him in the market. He had one habit that was perfectly suited to her plan and now Brandt’s petty interruption was about to make her miss it.
Cat’s stomach clenched again, this time from anxiety, as she made her way through the crowd. If she missed her chance at the baker’s stall, her plan could still work, but it was far more likely to succeed if she could take him there.
She slid her hand into her pocket to ready her purse-knife, the razor-sh
arp blade mounted to a leather half-glove. Her thumb and first two fingers slid into the glove, leaving her pinkie and ring finger free.
The man was at the stall and Cat walked steadily toward him. Not hurrying, not drawing attention to herself, but closing the distance rapidly.
He started his banter with the baker’s wife while he eyed the wares. Always the same, Cat had listened to him many times. How he couldn’t decide what he wished today, then a sudden choice and a request to have one of the pastries packaged for him to take with him and one that he’d eat that very moment, for he simply couldn’t resist.
The baker’s wife simpered and blushed, handing him his selection. Cat reached his side, staying a bit behind him. She cut her eyes to the side, seeing Dome, a boy little bigger than Cat herself, at the next stall, ready to create a distraction if one was needed — then a quick glance behind her. Osraed, nearly as large as Brandt, but not so bright, was about twenty yards away, idling by another shopkeeper’s stall, with Brandt behind him — both ready to run interference if her escape was threatened.
She took a deep breath and took her hand from her pocket. The man was busy stuffing his pastry into his mouth, chewing and swallowing noisily. He was making great sounds of appreciation, as he always did, and had the full attention of the baker’s wife.
Cat reached forward and slipped her hand inside the slit in his jacket that hid his purse. Her fingers closed around the leather cords that bound it to his belt and she slid the razor over them firmly. The leather parted easily and she pulled the purse up and then to her with a smooth, practiced motion.
In an instant, she turned and was sliding away through the crowd, the man’s purse already tucked into the waistband of her trousers and her hand in her pocket to hide the purse-knife. She didn’t look back.
Never look back.
Instead she watched Osraed. He kept his eyes on the man at the baker’s stall and would signal if there was trouble.
Cat’s heart fluttered in her chest. Had it been her imagination or had the purse been heavier than any she’d lifted before? It was certainly larger — bigger than her clenched fist. She’d known the man carried a lot of coin — she’d watched the heft of his purse for weeks and that was part of why she’d decided it was time to run.
That and the fact she couldn’t hide that she was a girl any longer. For the months since her courses had first come, she’d lived in fear that she’d be discovered. Blood on her clothes or bedding, or even the physical changes she knew were coming. Her chest was still mostly flat, but it ached sometimes. Mother Agnes had told her what to expect and that she couldn’t hope to hide forever. If Brandt, or any of the other boys, ever found out, they’d drag her to one of the buttock-brokers and pocket the coin.
Cat stepped to one side to go around a fat merchant and put him between her and the baker’s stall, but her step faltered as she saw the look on Osraed’s face change. His face grew puzzled, then his eyes widened and he half raised his hand in the signal that she’d been spotted, but then he paused, as though unsure.
Never look back.
Cat looked back. Her steps faltered again and she paused, standing still. The man had turned from the baker’s stall and crossed his arms over his chest. He stared across the market directly at Cat and, as her eyes met his, he smiled.
Then he took a deep breath, pointed at her, and bellowed, “Thief! Stop her!”
Cat ran.
Their gang had a plan for this. As soon as the man yelled, Dome stumbled into the display of wares next to the baker’s stall, sending a clatter of pots to the ground and distracting at least some of those nearby. Cat ran toward Osraed, bumping into him and seeming to knock him to the ground, then dashing off. Osraed himself leapt to his feet and started running in the opposite direction — the hope was that anyone watching would think Cat had passed the man’s purse to Osraed and some would chase him, leaving Cat free to pass the purse to Brandt as she ran past.
Halfway between Osraed and Brandt, though, Cat dodged to her left and leapt over a table of leather goods. The gang might have a plan, but she’d had her own all along and she saw no reason to alter it now. She needed this purse. Even if it were only filled with copper pennies, it would still be more wealth than she’d ever before held at one time. She needed it to get out of the city, away from Brandt, to escape the fate Mother Agnes had shown her.
The leather merchant grabbed her arm as she ran through his workspace, but Cat pulled her hand with the purse-knife from her pocket and ran the blade over his forearm. The man shrieked in pain, blood flowing freely from the shallow cut, and Cat was free again. Normally none of the gang would assault the merchants, but Cat intended to be gone and never return.
She slipped between the fabric hangings that backed his stall and into a narrow alleyway barely wide enough for her to pass, feet splashing through the puddles of water, offal, and worse, that lined it. Her shoulders grazed the rough stone of the buildings to either side, but she didn’t slow her pace. Any adults chasing her would be hard pressed to make their way through the narrow space, but if Brandt suspected her plan he’d have the gang after her in a shot.
She grunted as her shoulder struck a stone protruding from one wall, but kept on. Ahead of her the alley opened into an inner courtyard filled with refuse from the surrounding buildings. Cat slid the purse-knife off her hand and into her pocket. She’d scouted this route and kept it to herself for months, ever since her courses had started and she’d realized that her time was up and she’d have to run.
She heard a grunt behind her and ran faster, not looking back. It wouldn’t help to know who was chasing her.
She ran into the courtyard and cut hard to the right, aiming for a particular drainpipe. She leapt, planting her feet against the building’s wall and grasping the pipe, then began climbing rapidly, hand over hand. There was another grunt and a rattle from below her as she climbed and the pipe shook out of time with her own movements.
It had to be Brandt or Osraed chasing her, an adult would never try this climb — probably Brandt, for Osraed wouldn’t have made the decision to on his own. He was more trusting than Brandt and he’d see her varying from their plan and think she’d simply meet up with them later. Brandt would see it for the betrayal it was.
She was faster than either of them, though, especially at climbing — they were both bigger and couldn’t pull themselves up as fast as she.
And I only need a little more, she thought. Just a bit higher …
She passed the point she’d marked in her earlier scouting and kicked hard at one of the brackets holding the pipe to the wall. Once, twice, and then the third time she felt the bracket give way, pulling out of the old brick of the wall and falling with a clatter. She wrapped her arms and legs around the pipe, her breath coming in panting gasps. She could take her time with the rest of the climb — make it slow and safe to the rooftops and be gone. She looked down.
Brandt, for it was him chasing her, had stopped climbing as well. He was ten or so feet below her — twenty from the hard cobbles and refuse of the courtyard. The pipe, from just below her feet where she’d kicked the bracket free, was swaying side to side, and Brandt clutched it tightly.
He glanced down, then up at her, his eyes wide and his jaw set in anger.
“I’ll kill you fer this, Runt,” he said.
Cat stretched out her leg, caught the top of the pipe with her toe, and shoved it hard away from the wall.
Chapter 2
Cat settled her back against the bricks of the chimney, the slate tiles of the rooftop sun-warmed under her. She thought she was a mile or more from where she’d left Brandt cursing her from the cobbles of the courtyard. There was nothing else he could use to climb to the rooftops, she’d made sure of that long ago, and the only way out was back through the alleyway to the market square — or through one of the buildings if he could find an unlocked door. She felt safe and well-away from him.
Safe for a time, at least, but with nowhere t
o go.
Her eyes filled and she pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself. Bad as it was, Brandt’s gang — Osraed, Dome, and the rest — were the only family and only home she’d known since Mother Agnes died and left her alone. She’d found a home with the boys, even if it was built on a lie, and now she was alone.
Cat scrubbed at her eyes angrily with the heel of one hand.
They’d have sold you to a buttock-broker in a heartbeat if they’d suspected, she told herself.
Mother Agnes had shown her what was in store if anyone ever found out she was a girl. The choices on the streets were few for the boys, but fewer for the girls. One look at the women turned out of the houses to make their way on the streets, plying their trade in the alleyways for a few copper pennies, had settled for Cat that she’d never want to be one of them. Even as young as she’d been when Mother Agnes showed that life to her, she’d been able to decide that.
Then Mother Agnes had died, but the lie was already well established. Mother Agnes had a boy begging with her, not a girl — and so Cat had been accepted by the other boys on the street. Odd, perhaps, certainly shy, and small — but they were all smaller than they should be, with so little food to share between them. Only the older boys like Brandt had the strength to command a larger share.
That had been home for … Three years, she thought. Mother Agnes said I was four when I came to her. Six years begging with her and three winters with Brandt.
And now she was starting over again, with nothing. What few possessions she’d accumulated were left behind in the abandoned building the gang slept in. There was no retrieving them now. She had nothing.
Not even a proper name.
Cat, though it was how she thought of herself, wasn’t a real name at all. It was just the last, and only, memory she had of her real mother. Leaving her with Mother Agnes, Cat not understanding that she was leaving forever, and bending to kiss her forehead, whispering, “I love you, catling, never forget.”
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