Gregory House - The Fetter Lane Fleece

His gasped breath plumed white clouds into the chill night as Ned staggered into Fleete Street. By Christ and all his saints he’d made it out of Fetter Lane alive! It was a miracle-Lady Fortuna must be guiding his steps. His finely tuned ears told him that by yell and scream there must be over a dozen or even a hundred after him, all keen for Bedwell blood and to claim Flaunty Phil’s bounty. As for his feet he couldn’t feel them. His daemon did suggest that at this particular moment that was for the best, though it did commend him on his turn of speed not to mention ignoring all those bruising frozen ruts and broken cobbles on the road. In the normal course of life they’d be damned painful if you kicked them with even a shoe clad foot. If Ned had time for reflection he’d have reminded himself that one foot did have a shoe and ask why was it as numb as the other?

He didn’t’ though, still focused on the three or so paces to his front as he wove from one dim spill of pallid illumination to another. Curse the former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for a stuck up measle! First Ned experienced the sloppy work on the Fleete Bridge and now he found that More didn’t even bother to enforce the lantern regulations and so close to the Inns of Court as well. What, sneered his daemon. Didn’t the famous heretic hunter want the good citizens to notice his rag tag of slinking pursuivants slouching on the corners a spying on good citizens-for shame, what an excuse for a Christian man.

Out of the deep gloom of a winter’s night came a small wavy glow heading towards him and then suddenly a pair of iron shod staves pointing ominously at his exposed mid-section “Alt. I says, ‘alt!” sounded a gruff voice from Ned’s front.

Precipitously he thudded both feet down into the skidding snow and the twin blunt ends thumped painfully into his wadded padding, setting him back a few paces and threatening to tumble him into a very chilly looking mound of snow.

“Ere. Wot y’ doin wit ut y’ clothes on? Dun cha know it’s not May Day?” growled the voice that had commanded him to stop.

A lantern waved towards Ned’s face and he blinked at the apparitions before him. Taking a completely wild guess from the lantern, staves and stupid questions it had to be the infamous Common Watch of the Liberties Ward of Farrington Without. As fine a body of stout yeoman as you could find shovelling turds from a jakes, so long as there was someone not too dim to show them how to use a shovel, particularly which end to hold.

“I’m…I’m being pursued by roisters and thieves from Fetter Lane!” Ned managed to gasp out in between shivers and gulps of air.

“Oh yeah, so y’ say?” drawled the larger and more suspicious watchman. He had a long scraggly beard and his single eye glowed yellow like a cats in the lantern light.

“Ow d’we know’s yea ain’t hooked ‘em. Yea could be a cursed curber?”

The smaller of the two poked Ned’s clutched bundle suspiciously, as the second larger watchman rubbed a rough bristled chin peering closer with his one eye. “Looks suspicious t’ me Rolf. He could ‘ave nicked them from a stew.”

“Oh yeah, Bottoph. It could be. There’s been a lot a thievery o’ late. They’s even stole ol’ Jim’s cod stuffing when the manky old beggar was a humping that mistress o’ the game by Fend alley yester eve.”

Rolf, the larger watchman, gave a braying laugh. “By St James’s bones ye ‘ave to ‘ave no nose ta get that close to ol’ Jimmy. He stinks worsen than the Fleete.”

His companion nodded eagerly still trying to get a look at Ned’s tight clutched clothes then spat a brownish gob into the darkness and scratched his bristly chin in contemplation.

“Y’knows Bottoph, I reckons they’s could have been lifted. I reckons we take ‘im ta Justice Smyth’s fo’ a check o’ the bills an warrants.”

Ned stepped back a pace and clutched his bundle tighter. “No, no. These are my clothes I tell you. If they’re taken what will I wear?”

The smaller one, Bottoph by name, seemed unperturbed by Ned’s exclamation and waved a lantern closer in front of Ned’s face. “Rolf ain’t this the ruffian we’s were supposed ta look out fo’?”

“Aye. He has the look o’ a rogue fo’ all his blue colour an’ he’s runnin around with’ut his clothes. Must be some heathen musslemen or wild Irish. I hear’s they do ‘ave strange habits.”

Ned for all his shivering was getting distinctly nervous about this pair of watchman. “I am a clerk at Gray’s Inn, you measle brained tosspots. As I said I’m escaping from a pack of rogues and roisters in Fetter Lane. They tried to rob me!”

Ned kept it simple and left out the seduction by Delphina and the cozenage by Flaunty Phil. These were watchmen after all and not overly burdened with the blessing of learning or other cognitive talents. Though now he’d stopped for moment his head cleared enough for just a few coherent thoughts to trickle through the fog of panicked flight and the first item on the list was a question. If he was frantically running down Fleete Street bereft of clothes with a pack howling after him, where the damned hell was Rob Black? Or his backup rescuing Revellers?

“Oh so yea says, but ‘ow do we know?” The iron shod stave once more poked him in the padding.

Ned’s more lawyerly instincts finally made their presence known and he gave what he hoped as an innocent smile. “Look, ah Master Bottoph and Master Rolf, I see we’ve got off to a poor start. Why don’t I pay you to escort me to Newgate?”

The two watchmen stopped for a moment and the situation relaxed a trifle. “Ho Master Bare Buttock is that so? `ow much?”

Ned straightened up and tried to appear generous of purse, though only moderately prosperous and not quite as desperate as he appeared. His daemon thought this a forlorn hope considering the evilly speculative grins on the faces of his two potential saviours. “Well good fellows I’d say an easy…”

“CHRIST’S BLOOD, WHERE IS HE? TWO ANGELS, TWO ANGELS I’LL PAY FOR THAT BARE ARSED BASTARD!” The loud scream of frustrated rage punctured the night followed by what seemed like a hundred baying voices all eager for a bare buttocked Bedwell.

Abruptly negotiations shuddered to a halt as the pair of watchmen swivelled their beetled eyed stare towards the source of the sound. “Ere, where did y’ say y’ came from?” the one called Bottoph asked cautiously.

“I said Flaunty Phil and his pack of roisters at the Wools Fleece are after me!”

The two watchmen gave each other a significant look and edged back half a pace and the taller of the pair, Rolf, coughed almost apologetically and spewed out another slimy gob. “Harrumph. Facing Flaunty ain’t even worth a dozen angels! Anyways that’s Harris an’ Semple’s patch. Nowt ta do wit’ us. We’ve an affray to deal wit’ down at the Swan’s Nick ‘aven’t we Bottoph?”

“Oh, err…yeah.”

Without even a farewell or a wish of ‘better you than me mate’, the lantern, staves and watchmen rapidly vanished into the shroud of the night as if they’d never been there.

Ned gave a bemused shake of his head and swivelling around tried to figure out where the Wool’s Fleece pack was. The untimely obstruction by the Common Watch had left him a little disorientated. To make it even more confusing it had also started snowing again. The flakes burned ice cold on his shoulders. Ned spun slowly around looking for a familiar landmark or shop sign. The swirls of snow closed in his view enshrouding him and dimming the few pallid lanterns. This wasn’t the way he’d thought this day would end. May the vengeful Lord God visit the pizzle rot on that damned measle-brained, codpiece fondler Richard Reedman!