But if I chose the wrong card . . . I would lose everything.
Charles appeared at my shoulder, whispered in my ear. ‘Tom, for God’s sake, come away.’ He reached for the five pounds and began drawing it across the table. ‘You will need every last penny of this in gaol.’
I stopped his hand, slid the coins across the table. ‘One last turn. Five pounds for the queen. God bless her.’
The dealer smiled. Charles covered his face. ‘You’ll lose it all, he groaned.’
‘Or double it,’ I said. ‘Have faith, Mr Buckley.’
The other players placed their bets. The dealer touched a finger to the pile and slid two cards free. My heart hammered against my chest. My God, how I loved this – the thrilling sensation of hope and fear bound together in one single moment. Waiting for the revelation, good or ill. The dealer turned the first, losing card. The five of hearts. The gambler sitting next to me gave a low curse.
And now for the winning card. I held my breath.The dealer flipped the card over on the table.
The queen of diamonds.
I breathed out, then laughed in relief. I was saved.
Betty returned with our coffee and behind her came our good hostess Moll King herself, carrying a small bowl of punch. The sign carved above the door said this was Tom King’s coffeehouse, but it was Moll who ran the place. She supplied the girls, fenced the goods, sold the secrets and even – once in a while – poured the coffee.
She waved Betty away then settled herself close to me on the bench, kissing my cheek as her thief’s fingers slid up my thigh. Charles, sitting across the table, watched her open-mouthed. With her wide, square face, long nose and sallow complexion, Moll was not a great beauty, and at thirty her jawline had begun to soften and sag. But she had a sharp wit and clever, dark eyes that could read a man’s thoughts in a heartbeat. I loved her – when I could afford to.
‘I hear you won at cards tonight,’ she murmured. ‘Let me help you spend it . . .’
Another night I might have played along, but not tonight. I needed the money in that purse. I pulled away, with some reluctance. Moll’s hand was back above the bench in a flash. ‘And who’s this?’ she asked, tipping her chin across the table.
‘This,’ I said with a flourish, ‘is the Reverend Charles Buckley.’
‘Honoured,’ Moll said, taking in his well-tailored black coat and crisp white cravat. An empty pocket, though – I could have told her that. ‘Tom often speaks of you.’
Charles lowered his bowl of coffee in surprise. ‘Indeed?’ He smiled at me. ‘What does he say?’
Moll poured herself a glass of punch. ‘He says, “Thank God Charles isn’t here to see me doing this.”’ She raised her glass, chinking it with mine.
The coffeehouse was full tonight and boisterous with it. As it was every night. ‘Fights, fucking and fine coffee’ – that’s how Moll described it, like a proud merchant listing his wares. What happened in the darkest corners of most coffeehouses was on full display here: plots hatched, purses snatched and breeches unbuttoned. God knows what happened in the dark corners at Moll’s – what was left? In a little while the men would stagger home or head out across the piazza to a discreet bagnio if they wanted company. The girls would go back to work – in a rented room close by if they were lucky, or back to the dark, stinking passages off the Strand if they were not.
‘Tom,’ Charles said in a low voice as Moll pulled a pipe from her pocket. ‘We should leave.’
He was right. Sitting here with ten pounds in my purse was reckless. ‘We should finish the punch first.’ There was still half a bowl left and it was high time I learned not to waste my money.
Charles rose and took his hat down from its hook on the wall. ‘Well, I must go. Sir Philip locks the house at midnight.’
Moll flashed him a smile as she lit her pipe. ‘Oh, there’s men here can help you with locks, sir—’
‘Thank you, Charles,’ I interrupted hurriedly. I stood up and grasped his hand. ‘I will pay back the money I owe you. I swear it.’
He put a hand on my shoulder and looked deep into my eyes. ‘God has given you a sign, Tom. He saved you from gaol today. You have a chance to start your life afresh. Come to the house tomorrow morning. I will talk with Sir Philip, see if we can find you a position . . .’
‘Tomorrow.’
He beamed at me, then bowed to Moll and left. I watched him weave his way through the chairs and tables and had the sudden urge to leave with him as he’d asked. All my life Charles had given me good advice. For some reason I could not fathom, I never took it.
‘Tomorrow,’ Moll said.
I frowned at her absently.
‘Always tomorrow with you, Tom.’ She studied me closely, her chin propped in her hand. I was one of her favourites, I knew; I was handsome enough, I suppose, and a good customer when I had the funds. And when I didn’t, I could still pick up a wealth of information at the gaming tables, sitting between lords and thieves and politicians. Idle gossip in the main, but Moll knew how to sift it for gold. ‘I’m glad you’ve escaped gaol,’ she said. ‘The Marshalsea most of all. The warden’s a monster . . .’
There was a loud crash, then louder jeers from the next bench as a large bowl was sent flying, smashing into a hundred pieces and spilling punch across the floor in a red, sticky pool. A gang of apprentices, stockings splattered and ruined, shouted at one of the girls for knocking it over. ‘You silly slut, you’ll pay for that,’ one of them sneered, grabbing her by the hair.
‘Gentlemen.’ Moll rose from her seat. There were fights here most nights, but they never lasted long; Moll had men she could call and a vicious long blade tucked under her skirts. I’d cut my hand upon it once, reaching for something softer. The apprentices bowed their apologies and ordered another bowl.
‘You can’t work for a nob like Sir Philip,’ Moll declared, settling back down. She took a long pull on her pipe. ‘Come and see me tomorrow. I’ll find you an occupation.’
‘What did you have in mind?’
Moll had plenty of suggestions, most of which could get me transported or hanged. Still, I had to admit that I had been drifting for too long, relying on charm and luck in the main. Perhaps I should work for Moll. For all the day’s troubles, I had enjoyed having a purpose for once. Life or death, on the turn of a card; irresistible stakes for a gambling man.
‘I’ll think on it tomorrow,’ I said. ‘With the new king there will be new opportunities, new patrons . . . I thought I might try my hand at writing.’
She stared at me, alarmed. ‘There’s no need to panic, sweetheart.’
I finished my punch and rose to leave. Moll came with me, flinging her spent pipe on to the table. It bounced and clattered to the floor. ‘I need a lungful of clean air,’ she said, and we both laughed. There was nothing clean about Covent Garden, especially at this late hour.
At the door, she leaned her back against the frame and gazed out across the piazza; a queen surveying her hunting grounds. There was a kind of alchemy to Moll, I thought, watching her. Her coffeehouse was not much more than a tumbledown shack. But when you were inside, and Moll was holding court, it felt like the centre of the world.
She tilted her face up to the sky. ‘Black as the devil’s arsehole. You’ll need a link boy.’ She gave a sharp whistle and a lean, ragged creature raced from the shadows, dark locks spilling out from beneath a battered little tricorn. He skidded to a halt in front of us, holding an unlit torch in his hand.
‘All on your own, mischief?’ Moll asked. She grabbed his chin to get a better look at him. ‘I don’t know you, do I?’
Some boys would have stuttered out their life story under that formidable gaze. This one stared straight back, undaunted. ‘They’re waiting on Drury Lane. Play’s almost finished. Where to?’
‘Where to, Mistress King,’ Moll corrected him sharply, then smiled. She’d worked the streets herself as a girl. ‘Light this gentleman to Greek Street.’
She turned th
e shack. On a whim I grabbed her arm and pressed my lips to hers, tasting smoke and brandy and a trace of sweet oranges. She giggled and kissed me back as the blood thrummed hard in my veins. This I would tarry for, even with a hundred warrants for my arrest. I remembered the last time we’d kissed, the night we heard the king had died. Three months ago now. I’d thought the world would change. It didn’t, of course. Moll’s hand moved lower.
Around my purse.
I seized her wrist and pulled her hand away. She gave a lazy smile. ‘Just testing. Wouldn’t thieve from one of my own, now would I, Reverend?’ She slipped back inside before I could answer.
The link boy rubbed his mouth to cover a grin. I frowned and tossed him a penny. ‘Light your torch.’
He did as he was told, holding it to the lantern burning at the door. As the pitch caught light it illuminated his face with a soft orange glow.
‘Why’d she call you Reverend?’ he asked. He crinkled his nose. ‘You a black-coat or something?’
Or something. Reverend was a nickname Moll liked to tease me with, knowing my history. I gestured to my blue silk waistcoat, cinnamon-coloured coat and breeches. ‘Do I look like a black-coat?’
He shrugged, as if to say he would believe anything of anyone. It was a weary gesture, and sat strangely on such young shoulders. This was what happened to boys who guided rakes and whores back to their beds in the dead of night. Knocked the innocence clean out of them. Well; there were worse ways to earn a penny in this city. He turned and trotted towards Soho, holding the blazing torch high. I settled my tricorn on my head and hurried after him, a ship following the north star home.
And I wondered, fretfully. Beneath my fashionable clothes, did I still have the look of a clergyman? I turned this unhappy thought over in my mind. Ever since I was a boy – younger than this little imp running ahead of me – I had been told that I was destined to join the Church just like my father, the Reverend Dr Thomas Hawkins. (There. He had even given me his name, so I might more easily become him one day.) Things had not gone to plan. I had always known, deep within my soul, that I was not suited to the clergy. The trouble was, I had no idea what I was suited to. Have you ever seen a child refusing to be fed? It turns its face away – no, no, no. That was how I felt about joining the Church. It didn’t matter how many times my father lifted the spoon to my lips. How many times he tried to force-feed duty and honour and decency down my throat. No, no, no.
I was so caught up in my thoughts that I took little notice as we crossed Long Acre. The streets were quiet – too late an hour for some, too early for others. We turned, then I suppose we must have turned again a few times, into a dark, narrow alley. Old timber houses sagged wearily against one another, their top storeys leaning out and almost touching across the street. One had collapsed entirely. Most of the wood had been scavenged, leaving just a rotting frame like a skeleton poking up into the night sky.
A sharp breeze blew down the alley, and a butcher’s sign creaked on its hinges. I stopped, startled, then cursed softly. I didn’t recognise this street. There was a scent of turpentine in the air – the sharp tang of a nearby gin still. A burst of drunken laughter sounded in the distance. St Giles. We had reached St Giles.
I spun about wildly, panic flaring in my chest. Somehow, instead of heading west for Soho, we’d blundered into the most infamous slum in London. Only a fool walked alone here at night. I pulled my dagger from my belt; thank God I’d had the sense not to pawn it.
The link boy had run on ahead but now he stuttered to a halt, and shot me a curious look.
‘What’s your name, boy?’ I called.
He cupped his hand over the torch, shielding it from the wind. ‘Sam.’
‘You a moon-curser, Sam?’ Moll had warned me about them when I’d first arrived in town – link boys who lured their victims away from the safe streets to be set upon in the shadows.
He smiled. ‘Do I look like one?’ he mimicked.
The little bastard. I strode towards him, footsteps loud in my ears, a thousand eyes on my back.
‘We must leave here. At once.’
I was just five paces from him now. He was standing quite still and silent; a stone cherub on a tomb. And then he glanced over my shoulder – a quick, furtive look.
The light tread of footsteps close behind me. Too close – much too close. An arm around my neck. My dagger was ripped from my hand and pressed to my throat.
‘Don’t move.’
My gambler’s mind whirled and raced. Should I fight? Run?
The blade bit deeper. ‘Your purse.’
Sam held up his torch, illuminating the scene as if we were on the stage.
I should do as I was bid. Hand him the purse. My fingers slipped to the leather bag tied below my waist.
No.
Before I even knew what I was doing I reached up and shoved his arm from my throat, pushing him off balance. I spun round to face him, backing away slowly. Let him stab me if he must. But I would look him in the eye as he did it.
We circled each other warily. He wore his hat low across his face, and he’d wrapped a black cloth about his nose and mouth. Only his eyes were visible, dark and steady.
I took another step back, gaze fixed on the long, keen dagger in his right hand. My own dagger, damn it, sharpened by my own hand. One quick slash would be enough to rip me open.
‘Come, sir, don’t be a fool,’ he said, in a calm, reasonable tone. And then, under his breath, ‘I’m not alone.’
He stretched out his free hand for the purse. The blood pounded in my ears.
I ran.
The world spun as I fled past the boy who was grinning now, thrilled by the action and his part in it. The street began to narrow even further, and a high brick wall loomed up ahead. It was too dark to see if there was another way out. I would have to clamber over it. I lengthened my stride, ready to spring at it when a black figure flew out of the shadows and knocked me to the ground.
For a moment I lay dazed. He began to grope for my pockets, hunting for my purse. With a loud curse I pushed him from me, kicking and punching my way free and back on to my feet, but there were others now, scurrying down from the roofs and balconies and dropping softly to the ground, calling out to one another in low voices. I fumbled in the darkness, searching for a brick or a piece of wood to defend myself, but I knew what was coming. I had gambled, and I had lost.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and I whirled about, frantic. And then another, and another, tearing and snatching, pulling me down like devils dragging me to hell. I fought them off, terrified now, but there were too many of them. I fell heavily to the ground again.
‘Hold him there, lads!’ their chief called out.
They pulled me to my knees and pinned my arms behind my back as he strode towards us. He ruffled the link boy’s hair as he passed and somehow I realised – strange! the clarity that comes to you in such a moment – this was the boy’s father. And I thought there was more affection and pride in that gesture than my father had shown me in a lifetime.
He came closer, crouching down in front of me, dark eyes skimming my face. ‘I told you not to run,’ he said, his voice muffled by the cloth.
I glared at him.
He signalled to one of his men.
‘Wait . . .’
Too late. I felt a sharp blow on the back of my head. The world flashed white, and then it was gone.
Chapter Two
I woke. For a moment I thought I was home, in my little garret room on Greek Street. Then I tried to move. Pain shrieked through my head and I almost passed out again.
Slow, Tom. Careful.
Gently, this time, I sat up. The world pitched about me then settled, enough for me to raise a trembling hand to the back of my head. A large, tender bump. The warm, sticky feel of blood on my fingers. Memories flashed like sparks from a tinderbox: hands grabbing; laughter and shouts; the press of my own blade at my throat.
I reached for my purse, though I knew what I woul
d find. Cut. Gone.
My stomach lurched. I was lost. Ruined. I lay back and closed my eyes. Then let me rest here. What use was fighting now? Let the spirit leak from my bones into the cold street; flow away with the filth and rubbish and leave my body in peace.
. . . No, no, I would not be food for the rats of St Giles. I was lucky to be alive. Didn’t feel lucky. Didn’t feel alive, for that matter. But damn every one of those cutpurses to the deepest pits of hell – I would get to my feet.
Or to my knees, at least.
I was lying in a dank, deserted side passage that stank of piss and vomit and other fluids, as all such places do and no doubt always will to the end of time. The ground was littered with broken gin bottles, bloody rags, spent pipes. They must have dragged me here through the filth in order to rob me the better, the link boy holding his torch high and proud as they worked. My jacket was gone, my wig and tricorn dashed from my head in the struggle. My breeches were torn; my knees and fists scraped raw. They’d cut the gold buttons from my waistcoat, emptied every pocket. I pulled myself to my knees, groaning softly with the effort. I couldn’t risk being heard – couldn’t risk calling the alarm. There were gangs in St Giles that would do far worse to a gentleman than merely beat and rob him, if he were foolish enough to stumble on to their patch. I was not out of danger yet.
I crawled back towards the alley, inch by inch, feeling my way blindly in the darkness, fingers flinching as they touched broken glass or the slip and slither of foul, stinking mud. When I reached the alley I collapsed in the shadows of the nearest porch, back pressed hard against the wall, panting with exhaustion. Each breath drew a fresh throb of pain. I ran my fingers beneath my shirt, prodded each rib. Bruised but not broken.
The moon escaped from behind a cloud and the world turned a soft silver in its light. I gazed up at the maze of ramshackle galleries and balconies above my head, planks slung from roof to roof, ladders and ropes connecting one mean hovel to the next. A secret city in the rooftops, mapped out by thieves. Rooks, they called themselves, and St Giles was the greatest rookery of them all. Were they back in their nests above me, laughing to themselves as I dragged myself through the filthy streets, battered and bloody? I searched every roof, every shadow, with an anxious eye. No – long gone, surely. Busy emptying my purse in the nearest brothel.
The Devil in the Marshalsea Page 2
