by Paddy Hirsch
“My company?” The uninjured half of Swift’s mouth lifted into a smile. “You’ve got a sharp one here, Jake. He knows his uniforms.”
“Marshal Flanagan has a military background,” Hays said.
“Irregular,” Justy said.
The blue eyes appraised him. “Yes. You do have the look about you. But you didn’t serve in our little tilt with the redcoats. You’re too young for that. And you weren’t a whiskey smuggler.”
Justy smiled and shook his head.
“No. You don’t seem the type, Irish or not.” The Major leaned forward slightly. “Of course, that’s it. Ireland. You got your scars back in the old country, didn’t you? In that nasty little set-to with the English in ninety-eight.”
“My scars?”
“On your soul, young fellow. Those of us that have them can see them, plain as day.”
Justy felt hot. “You are correct, Major. Ireland it was.”
“Well, I’m glad you made it out.”
Justy nodded. He wondered where Swift had received such brutal scars himself.
“Fort Clinton,” the Major said, reading his mind. “Made the mistake of standing with the guns, which attract rather a lot of attention, as you know, and these were surrounded by rather a lot of powder. I was an infantry officer, not an artilleryman, or I might have noticed. When the Hessian grenadiers came at us, the whole lot went up. It got rather hot, as you can see.”
“And now you command a company of dragoons.”
“I’m better on a horse these days.” Swift gave him a lopsided smile and turned to Hays. “Well then, Jacob, what about it? We still have some business to discuss, do we not?”
Hays was about to reply when he was stopped by the sound of a bell tolling. It was far away, but ringing fast and urgent, and quite clear in the lobby of the Tontine. Not the Trinity bell, whose deep tones had struck five more than a half hour ago, but something smaller and lighter. Sounding the alarm.
Hays and Justy were already running for the door. There was no need for either of them to say the word.
Fire!
* * *
Hardluck had heard the bells and was already pulling up beside the steps of the Tontine.
“Well, God bless your card-sharping skills,” Hays said, settling himself on the soft leather of the cab. He fingered one of the velvet curtains and hummed. “Damned fine carriage, Justice. Damned sharp driver, too. Well done.”
“He’s a slave, Jake.”
“Yes, yes. Unacceptable, of course.” Hays yelped as they sped around a turn. He grinned. “Still, damned well played.”
They made the turn onto the Broad Way, and Hardluck pushed the horses to a canter. It was early evening, and the working day was over for most, but traffic was mercifully light, and the carriage sped up the hill, passing crowds of onlookers who were pushing up the street to see why the alarm was sounding. They passed the first bell, on the watch post at Maiden Lane, and the next at Vesey Street. With the cab window down, Justy could hear the big bell tolling from the tower of the New Gaol. And then he saw it.
Not a fire. A riot. A crowd of men, crammed into the top of Laycock Lane, loud and incoherent with rage and bravado and drink. It looked like Owens’ crew against the Bull’s; black against white. Justy counted twenty or more farmers’ caps, but he could not see his uncle.
“How many?” Hays’ face was as red as his coat, and his eyes were wide with excitement.
“Sixty?”
“Stop the cab!” Hays hammered on the roof of the carriage.
Justy put a hand on Hay’s chest. “Steady, Jake. Wait for the lads to come.”
Hays grinned. “They’re already here.”
He pushed Justy aside and jumped out of the cab. Behind them, a city carriage had drawn up, and watchmen, in their long coats and leather hats, were jumping off and climbing out of its cab. Gorton and Playfair were there, ordering the men into two ranks. When Playfair saw Hays, a wide grin split his face.
“Look now, lads! Topper’s here, so you’d best show your best side.”
The men roared their approval, and one of them tossed a billy to Hays. He plucked it out of the air, and swung it. “Right, boys! Time to go a-hunting! Follow the red coat!”
The watchmen cheered and several made trumpeting sounds as Hays made for the crowd. Playfair ordered them into a rough arrowhead behind their High Constable. “Shoulder to shoulder, lads! Room enough to swing, but not enough to let a man through. If he tries, lay him low, and we’ll pick him up later!”
They let out a roar as Hays lifted his club and broke into a charge. Several of the rioters turned at the sound, and tried to fight, but Hays’ club swept them aside. The phalanx of watchmen followed his lead, laying out left and right with short swings to shoulders and the sides of heads, accompanied by hard jabs to kidneys and the smalls of backs. The idea was not to bring a man down, but to break the crowd up; to shock the rioters, to stun them, and force them to move away. Once out of the melee, the theory went, the pull of the crowd waned, and most rioters give up the fight. Not all: a handful tried to push back into the fray and were hammered for it. And those who tried to attack the watchmen were put down hard.
Gorton and Playfair made a good team. Gorton took up the rear, walking backwards, using short swings and jabs of his club to keep anyone from attacking their flanks. Playfair moved in the center of the phalanx, directing his men and calling out targets. If a gap in the ranks appeared, he moved to fill it, hammering his club into the space. He was nimble and brutal, stepping right to drive his elbow into a man’s sternum, then skipping left to rake his club down the side of another’s head, almost tearing his ear off. The rioters peeled away, one by one, clutching bellies, noses, ears, and arms, as Hays led his men into the heart of the melee.
Justy watched for fire. The last time a gang of hackums had spoiled for a fight here, they had brought torches, and Justy knew that fire must have been part of the plan. But he could see no flames in the crowd now. It was all hand-to-hand fighting, which the Bull’s men, younger, harder, and better armed, were certain to win.
And then he understood.
“Hardluck! With me!”
He jumped down from the cab and sprinted away from the melee, along the Row. Several lanes led south, parallel with George Street, but Justy ignored them, knowing they led only to the backs of the grand houses that faced the Park. The next street was Frankfort Street, and Justy made the turn and hurled himself down the hill. Behind him, the thin soles of Hardluck’s fancy shoes skittered on the graveled surface of the sidewalk, but Justy didn’t look back. He passed one alley, then another, and when he reckoned he was level with the back of the Buttered Bun, he stopped.
“It’s a diversion,” he said, as Hardluck skidded to a halt beside him. “They mean to set fire to the Lane.”
“Yes. But not this end.”
“Of course!” Justy set off again, cursing himself, and blessing Hardluck at the same time. Together, they hurtled down the shallow hill. People jumped off the sidewalk to get out of the way, and Justy had to leap into the air to avoid tripping on the arms of a cart that someone had left half in and half out of a doorway. They plunged across William Street and ran to Rose Street. A man stood at the corner, selling fruit from a tiny stall. Justy stopped in front of him, breathing hard. “Have you seen any gatherings of people?”
The man blinked. “Gatherings, sir?”
“Groups of men. More than two or three.”
“There was a work gang came by a few moments ago. Looked like slaves. A bloody shame, that. I—”
“Which way did they go?”
The man jerked his head in the direction of George Street. Justy slapped him on the shoulder and ran on. Rose Street was little more than a narrow lane, flanked by old, steep-roofed Dutch houses that had somehow survived the Great Fire. They seemed to lean over the passageway, blocking the light, and as Justy passed one of the alleyways that led down the backs of the houses, he smelled the distincti
ve, oily smell of a whale torch.
“Fire!” he yelled. “Fire!”
The alley was a crooked passage that jinked left around the back of one house, then right around another, and then left again into a wide, sloping lane. It doubled as an open sewer for the businesses along Laycock Lane on one side, and the Frankfort Street houses on the other. Justy knew this because he had grown up with the Bull, and had visited the area many times. But the men he was chasing did not know.
There were six of them. The passageway’s twists and turns had disoriented them, and they were unsure of exactly where they were. The alley looked like any other, and there were no signs to tell them what was a house and what was a tavern or a brothel or an oyster cellar. One of the gang, a tall, bearded man, had been carrying a sack loaded with torches, and he had put his burden down and begun to distribute the brands. But only two were lit, and as Justy charged towards them, the men froze.
Justy was screaming. Not words, for there were no words in his head. It was a wild, keening cry, the same that had come out of him what seemed like a hundred years ago, charging with two hundred others across a rutted field in County Kildare, straight at an unwavering line of silver and red. Scarlet coats and steel bayonets, glittering in a pale light. An Irish morning, damp and heavy with the smell of wet grass and cannon smoke from the last barrage. His breath like a ragged knife in his throat, his heart like a greyhound, alive inside him.
He had not thought of death or injury then, and he did not now, even though two of the men, big, muscled, dark-skinned lads, had blades in their hands. The bearded man with the torches was shouting, handing the burning brands to two of his men, and a part of Justy’s brain told him he had seen the man before, but no sooner had the thought flashed through his mind than he was on them.
The first of the two knifemen grinned. He saw a tall, well-dressed white man sprinting at him, screaming like a moon-touched fool. Easy meat for his blade. It was a bone-handled carving knife, stolen from a magistrate’s house in Albany a few weeks before. The man had sharpened it until it was like a razor, and he held it casually by his side in his left hand, ready to pull it across Justy’s face and open his cheek to the bone.
He did not see Justy’s own knife. It was a special blade, a rejected prototype of a folding bayonet made for the King’s Army that Justy had found in a cutler’s shop in the English town of Sheffield, more than five years before. It was special, not because of the carved walnut shaft, or the six-inch blade, but because of the spring in the mechanism, and the catch in the handle.
Justy had no memory of taking his knife out of his boot. Perhaps it was when he smelled the smoke, or perhaps when he first saw the men in the alley, but it was there in his fist, the wooden haft warm and familiar in the palm of his hand, the metal catch a cool nub under his thumb. He squeezed, and the vicious sliver of steel appeared like magic, and the knifeman took a sharp step back, his eyes wide, his own blade slicing upwards for the parry.
Too late. Justy flicked his blade downwards, and the knifeman yelped, dropping his weapon as Justy’s edge cut deep into his wrist. Without breaking stride, Justy barged on, throwing an elbow up into the man’s face, barely registering the soft crunch of his nose breaking like an eggshell under the blow. He glimpsed Hardluck on his right, taking on the bearded ringleader and the second knifeman, but he kept moving. Hardluck would have to handle them as best he could. It was the lit torches that Justy wanted.
He screamed again, and one of the torchmen dropped his brand and ran. The bearded man was walking backwards, his eyes on Justy’s blade, and when Justy lunged at him, the man threw the flaming torch up into the air and took off after his fellow.
Justy let him go. He stopped, and watched the torch curve upward in a wide, high arc, turning over and over, sparks flying, towards the building on Justy’s left. For a moment it seemed the momentum of the throw had put out the flames. And then the stave landed on the roof.
The house had been built more than a hundred years ago, in the early English style. Its walls were thick slabs of straw and plaster, sandwiched between heavy wooden beams. Its roof was made of thatched, dried reeds. Justy watched the point where he thought the torch had landed. He held his breath. For a moment there was nothing but the blue sky above the pale thatch. And then, the faintest wisp of smoke.
“Fire!” He ran for the back door of the building, dipping his shoulder, ready to batter his way through. But instead of wood, his shoulder hit stone, and it was a split second before he realized that someone had tripped him. He rolled hard to his right, knowing that the next blow would be aimed at his head, and he felt a searing pain in his ear as a stave hammered into the muddy ground where his face had been. He glimpsed the bearded man above him, his eyes wild and bloodshot, his mouth like a red hole in his beard, and then he rolled over again, fast, into the gutter that ran down the center of the alley, and he scrambled to his feet.
There was mud in his mouth and his eyes. The left side of his body was soaked. He spat and wiped the filth off his face. The bearded man was growling like a wolf, winding up for another swing, his eyes on the knife in Justy’s right hand. He did not see or hear Hardluck, who walked up quickly behind him and hammered his fist into the nape of the man’s neck.
The man’s eyes rolled. He dropped into the gutter like a felled steer. Hardluck flexed his fingers and grinned. Behind him, the two knifemen lay propped against the wall. The one Justy had hit had a bloody mask for a face. He had tried to stop the bleeding in his wrist with a strip of his shirt, but had lost consciousness. The other simply looked as though he had fallen asleep.
Justy nodded. His heart was pounding, and he felt a throbbing in the side of his head. He reached up gingerly, and felt skin where there should not have been any, and then the feeling of someone driving a nail into his ear.
Someone above them screamed, and without a word, Hardluck threw himself at the back door of the house. He crashed through the flimsy wood, and disappeared. Justy ran after him, folding his blade and shoving it into the top of his boot.
He found himself in a windowless hallway that was already thick with smoke. Hardluck was gone, and Justy dropped to his knees, grubbing along the packed earth floor until he came to a stairwell. He crept upwards, listening for shouts, but he heard nothing, and before he had reached the landing, he was turned back by the smoke.
Someone ran past him, down the stairs, and he turned back, his eyes streaming and his throat burning. He choked, then vomited, and let himself go, rolling down the stairs until he was sprawling on the floor of the hallway again. His head reeled. He had no idea which way he had come. The smoke was like a filthy blanket, warping itself around him, scorching its way down his throat. He fumbled in his sleeve for a handkerchief and stuffed it into his mouth. His eyes were streaming. He crawled along the floor, feeling his way. He saw a dim light ahead, and forced his way onwards, the wadded handkerchief in his mouth like a gag, his arms and legs like lead.
And then the light went out.
TWENTY-THREE
Someone had torn his chest open and thrown a shovelful of hot coals into the cavity. It was the only explanation. His throat was on fire. His mouth was full of ash. His tongue was a useless chunk of charred meat. He could not stop coughing, and every spasm felt as though it tore another strip of flesh out of his gullet, and made the coals in his chest burn brighter.
Justy tried to open his eyes, but they were stitched closed by a thousand burning needles. Something slapped him in the face, and he felt cold water soaking his hair and his clothes, and pouring down his cheeks. Like a blessing.
He swallowed his cough, tilted his head back, and let the water soak into his eye sockets. He rubbed them gently, and blinked his eyes open. Two faces looked down at him. One square and hard, the other round and soft. It was a moment before he recognized them. Ignatius Flanagan, the Bull. Jacob Hays, the High Constable.
“Justice prevails,” Hays said. A faint smile twisted his lips. A bucket dangled from
his hand.
“Hardluck?” Justy choked. It was like dragging a tangle of fishhooks out of his gullet.
The Bull jerked his head. “He dragged you out by the scruff. Lucky you were wearing that topcoat or you’d be bacon by now.”
Justy propped himself up on his elbows. The jarvie was crouched on the pavement on the other side of the street. His tie was gone, and his suit was scorched and torn, turned mostly black with soot and smoke.
The Bull smirked. “I reckon you owe him a bonus, Nephew. And a new suit of clothes.”
There was a tremendous crash as the front of a building collapsed into the street in a shower of sparks and smoke. And then a wild hissing as a line of men and women doused the debris, sending up clouds of dirty steam. They hurried back to the hand pump on the street corner to refill their buckets, and several of Hays’ watchmen stepped quickly across to what was left of the house. They used long, hooked poles to hack and pull at the smoldering timbers and thatch. In the darkness, lit by torches and the light from the other taverns and oyster houses, the hole in the row of buildings looked like a missing tooth in a beggar’s grin.
“If there’s anyone owing, Mister Flanagan, I’d say it was you,” Hays said. “Imagine if that place had gone up, as they planned it to. The whole street would be ablaze. Your street.”
“My street, Marshal. But your city.”
Hays acknowledged the point with a stiff nod. “I am already in your nephew’s debt.”
He held the bucket out to Justy. “Drink. But small sips only. You know the drill.”
Justy sat up and scooped out the water with his hand. It was an effort not to gulp. A small crowd had gathered around them, to see how much damage had been done, but now that the fire was out, they began to drift away. A handful of the Bull’s men stood in a loose clutch behind their leader, some with bloodied faces, all carrying staves, their eyes watching out for trouble.
