Philip Kerr - Dark Matter

“What’s this girl to you, then?” asked a man behind me, whose voice persuaded me that he also must be Dutch.

“Nothing,” I replied. “I care not for Galloping nuns, Quests, or Beguines, but she is human and, being so young, seems hardly to deserve such abuse.”

“Abuse you call it,” laughed the man. “Why, we ain’t hardly started yet.”

At this point the Major ran quickly out of that terrible room and up the stairs. Meanwhile the naked girl on the floor looked up at me with a most peculiar indifference, as if she cared very little for my intervention, so that I wondered if she did not mind her pain, or even enjoyed her flogging, like the Major.

“Surely she doesn’t deserve such cruelty?”

“Doesn’t deserve it?” said the voice. “What has that got to do with anything?” The voice behind me was silent for a moment. “What are you doing here?” it said at last.

I pointed upstairs. “I came with him. Major Mornay. He brought me. Only I came with little understanding of what I was to see, for he did not warn me of anything.”

“It’s true,” said the Dutch woman who had admitted me. “He did arrive not long after the Major.”

The man holding the pistol stepped in front of me so that I could see him. A most ignoble ruffian he was, with a forehead villainous low, and boils like barnacles; his red eyes were fierce, and yet his hand trembled upon the pistol which now he waved up the stairs.

“Your friend has left,” he said quietly. “Perhaps you had better leave as well.”

I moved toward the stair, glancing back all the time at the girl on the floor, whose back and bottom were already striped like a maypole.

“She cares not what happens to her,” laughed the man. “It’s the price she pays to satisfy her cravings. I wouldn’t worry about her if I were you.”

And still the girl said nothing; and endured her whipping, which commenced as soon as I had mounted the stairs, without so much as a murmur.

I hardly knew whether to believe him or not, but leave I did, although I was part minded to mount the stairs and return with my pistol in my hand to see that nothing more happened to the girl. I might have shot the one with the boils, but the other men were armed as well, and I do not doubt that they would have killed me. And for a while I was haunted by the possibility that the girl was a real fille dévote monstrously abused and perhaps even killed for their delectation, since the men all had murder in their faces, and most obviously regarded Roman Catholics with such malice that they would hardly have shirked the commission of such a wicked crime.

Much relieved to be out of that evil house, and somewhat light-headed, too, for the cloying smoke had been as thick as the river fog, I took a deep breath of cold air, and thinking Major Mornay to be long gone, I started back the way I had come, toward the wall and the river. I had not gone ten paces when he stepped out from the door of a vile-looking tavern and, trembling with anger, confronted me.

“Why are you following me, Mister Ellis?” he asked and, drawing his sword, advanced upon me with such obvious intent that no other course lay before me but to draw myself and prepare to answer his attack. True, I had promised Newton not to fight, but I could hardly see how I was now to avoid it. I snatched off my hat for ease of movement and vision, although I would have parried his first thrust easily enough had I been wearing St. Edward’s Crown, for it was plain to see that Major Mornay was indeed drunk. Which at least explained why he had taken so long a time recognising me.

“Put up your sword,” I told him. “Or I shall be obliged to wound you, sir.”

With some ferocity he redoubled his attack, so that I was obliged to fence with him in earnest. And still not troubled by any of these attacks, I allowed him to meet me, hilt upon hilt, where, so close to me that I could smell the smoke that still lay upon his breath, he asked his question a second time.

“Why are you following me, Mister Ellis?”

Thus I did almost not notice how he had armed his free hand with a dagger, and I barely had time enough to step back before he lunged at me with his second blade, only to be caught in the flesh of his left upper arm with the tip of my rapier. The dagger clattered to the ground and Mornay dropped his guard so that, bating my own sobriety, I might easily have run him through. Indeed I almost wanted to kill him, for I dislike a man who brings a knife to a sword fight. Instead I retreated several paces, which allowed Mornay to turn and flee into the darkness of Lambeth Marshes.

After a moment or two I collected his dagger off the ground, glanced at its curious shape, and then slid the blade into the neck of my boot. I hardly knew if I should feel pleased with myself. I had not killed him, he had not killed me, and there was surely some cause for rejoicing. But would Newton find much to learn from the way the Major had been “refracted,” if that was how his vile and intemperate behaviour might be described? It seemed more likely that Mornay would inform Lord Lucas, who would use the news and bruit of our quarrel to make another complaint to the Lords Justices about the conduct of the Mint. This hardly grieved my heart, for I was suddenly very tired, and thought myself very fortunate not to have been murdered. In view of my own licentious behaviour that might have been just, for I had clearly dealt sacrilegiously with Miss Barton in my heart, and I resolved never to do the like again.

The next morning Newton examined Mornay’s dagger with interest, polishing it up like some back-street bravo, while I related a purgated version of my evening’s adventures in pursuit of the Major. I left out the fact that we had fought with swords; while my explanation of how I had struggled with my own lust drew the following advisement from Newton’s ascetic lips, for I doubt he ever kissed anything other than Miss Barton’s forehead, or a book he had particularly enjoyed.

“By being forcibly restrained lust is always inflamed,” he observed gravely. “The best way to be chaste is not to struggle with unchaste thoughts, but to decline them, and to keep the mind employed about other things. That has always been my own experience. He that’s always thinking of chastity will nearly always be thinking of women, and every contest waged with unclean thoughts will leave impressions on the mind as shall make those thoughts apt to return more frequently. But pray continue with your story. I am all fascination.”

“It is finished, more or less,” I replied. “Outside the house in Lambeth Marshes he ran away and dropped that dagger behind him.”

“But you have left out the story of your sword fight,” protested Newton. “I am keen to hear that most of all. Tell me, is the Major badly wounded?”

“He drew on me,” I stammered. “And I was obliged to defend myself. I only pricked him in the arm and I daresay he’ll recover soon enough. But how did you know, master? Did he inform Lord Lucas? Is it bruited about the Tower? Has His Lordship already complained?”

“I am quite certain that Major Mornay will not inform Lord Lucas,” said Newton. “What? A Major in the Ordnance bested by a mere clerk of the Mint? His reputation could not bear the ignominy.”

“Then,” I said with no small exasperation, “how did you know that we fought?”

“Simple. You have cleaned your sword. The cup upon its hilt now gleams like a communion chalice when yesterday it was as dull as pewter. I recollect that the last time you cleaned that rapier was when you drew it in Mrs. Berningham’s defence. I daresay that when you had bettered the Major with your sword, he drew this dagger and attempted to prick your ribs with it.”