Antonia Hodgson - The Devil in the Marshalsea

Fleet raised his glass. ‘Well. To your good health, sir. While it lasts.’

I frowned. ‘What the devil do you mean?’

‘You’ve just promised to dance with Mary Acton. The governor’s wife.’

I excused myself with a short, irritable bow. Fleet seemed unsurprised by my sudden departure, drawing the punch closer to him with the tenderness of a mother drawing her baby to her breast. I left him scribbling something in his journal with a short pencil, pipe clenched between his teeth. People shook their heads at me as I passed. I could hardly blame them.

When I reached the yard, I was relieved to find Jakes waiting for me. It was only two hours since he’d left me and yet it seemed as if a lifetime had passed. We headed back into the Lodge where he handed over the receipt for my mother’s cross and a small pile of silver and copper coins. They hardly covered my palm.

Jakes did his best to look encouraging. ‘There’s more than two guineas there. Enough to live on for a good while.’

‘Not on the Master’s Side it’s not,’ Cross said, emerging from his room by the gate. He must have heard the chink of the coins. His lip was swollen from where I’d hit him with the manacles. I couldn’t say I felt too bad about it.

‘What’s your cheapest room?’

He shrugged. ‘That’s down to the governor. He’ll take a week’s rent in advance from an honest debtor.’ He grinned, his eyes glittering with malice. ‘He’ll want more from you , I’d say.’

Jakes stepped closer, towering over him. ‘How much , Joseph?’ His tone was measured, but there was a hint of steel beneath.

Cross folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. ‘Two shillings and six a week. That’s if you share a bed, of course. With two or more chums.’

Two and six a week? I could get the best room in a good tavern for less. Or a brothel, come to think of it. I glanced anxiously at Jakes. ‘I have enough for that, at least.’

‘Then there’s food,’ Cross added, counting it off on his fat red fingers. ‘Bedding. Tobacco. Coffee. Coal for the grate. You’ll want someone to wash your linens. And that’s before you start on court fees. Fourpence here, threepence there; you know how lawyers are. And clerks. Then your chums will demand you pay garnish, of course. That’s another six shillings. Oh dear.’ He held up his hands. ‘I seem to have run out of fingers.’

Jakes prodded him hard in the chest. ‘It’s not Christianlike to revel in a man’s misfortune, Joseph.’

Cross snorted. ‘It’s not Christianlike to punch a man in the face, is it now, Mr Hawkins?’

I ignored him. ‘What’s this about a garnish?’

‘You have to stand your new ward mates a drink the first night,’ Jakes explained. ‘It goes to the Tap Room.’

And straight into the warden’s pocket. No wonder Mary Acton was happy to play mistress of the bar. I clinked my small handful of coins together and felt the floor shift beneath my feet. How long could I survive on so little? How long before I was thrown over the wall on to the Common Side to rot? I thought of the corpses lying out in the yard. I must stay on this side of the wall , I thought, desperately. Whatever the cost .

Jakes settled his hat back on his head. ‘Best of luck, Mr Hawkins,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘I’ll pray for you.’

Cross sniggered. In a flash, Jakes spun round and slammed him against the nearest wall, fixing an arm across his throat hard and heavy as an iron collar. ‘I lost a good friend in here,’ he snarled, blue-green eyes blazing with a furious intensity. ‘I will not let this damned place destroy another man the way it destroyed John Roberts. Never again .’ He pressed his arm harder against the turnkey’s throat, making him choke. ‘Is that clear?’

Cross nodded, veins bulging as he tried to breathe. Jakes let go and he slid to the floor, panting hard.

Jakes bent down to whisper in my ear. ‘If there’s trouble ask the Ranger to send a message. I’ll come if I can.’ He patted my shoulder then stomped back down the corridor, slamming the Lodge gate closed behind him.

Cross pulled himself back on his feet. We glared at each other for a moment, a pair of tom cats fighting over… what, exactly? Then Cross sighed, deflated, as if he’d had the same thought.

‘Oh, bugger off,’ he said, and limped away back to his room.

I pressed my hand to my chest, gave a deep bow, and did as I was told.

I needed money.

Hardly a startling revelation in a debtors’ prison, but it was true and it was urgent, nonetheless. I had seen enough of the Common Side – even that brief glimpse from the Tap Room balcony – to know I could not survive it. The certainty of it was like a blade at my throat.

I sat down on Fleet’s bench beneath the Lodge and stared hard across the cobbled yard, weighing my choices. No, not the yard, I corrected myself – the Park . This was the same as school, or college; the sooner I learned the language of the Marshalsea the better. I could see now why Fleet favoured this bench. From here I could watch the whole of the Master’s Side go about its business, like old King Henry watching a tournament. It was the perfect place to gather information, and information was valuable currency in a prison.

Thinking of Fleet made me wonder if I’d been too hasty in rejecting his company. Even here on the Master’s Side I would need a friend to watch my back, and he’d frightened the wits out of a man without lifting a finger. For some reason he had taken an interest in me. An unsettling interest – but perhaps one I could turn to my advantage.

In the middle of the Park, beneath the lamppost, a debtor in a threadbare coat was deep in conversation with an older man of near sixty; a porter, I supposed, or perhaps another turnkey, given the set of keys at his belt. His clothes were mud-brown from his wig down to his stockings, save for a bright red neckerchief at his throat, which gave him the appearance of a giant robin. His brows, and the stubble on his cheek, were a mix of soft ash and honey, as if he were fighting his age bristle by bristle. He slipped a letter to the prisoner then waited, hands clasped behind his back, gnarled fingers twitching in anticipation.

There was money being made here; I could smell it. I left the bench and approached softly.

The prisoner tore open the letter with trembling fingers and read swiftly, his expression collapsing from hope to despair within a few lines. He groaned and crumpled the letter in his fist.

The robin cleared his throat in a theatrical manner. ‘Bad news, sir? Very sorry to hear it. These are hard times, sir. Hard, cruel times…’ He cleared his throat again.

‘Indeed.’ His customer sighed, and pulled a ha’penny from his purse. ‘Well, Mr Hand. I suppose you must be paid the same, whether the news is good or ill.’

Mr Hand inclined his head. ‘Regrettably, sir. Regrettably.’ His eyes, the colour of old pennies, opened wide in sympathy. ‘Hard times… We’re all suffering together, sir.’

The man gave Hand a sour look as he handed over the coin and trudged away, head bowed, still clutching the crumpled letter in his fist. As soon as he had limped from sight, Hand flicked the coin jauntily in the air, caught it, and slipped it into some deep crevasse of his jacket.

‘Business goes well, sir?’

He gave a start, then smiled broadly, presenting a small collection of ruined teeth. I introduced myself and he gave a bow so low it bordered on the sarcastic. ‘Gilbert Hand, sir. Ranger of the Park.’ He told me what I had already guessed, that he ran errands for the other prisoners. ‘Among other things,’ he added. There was a glint in his eyes that told me exactly what – or who – those things were. Mr Hand was a pedlar of gossip and sex. No wonder he seemed so cheerful; he’d made such a good profit he’d decided to stay even now his creditors were paid off. ‘I’ve a dozen boys working for me,’ he said, pitching his chin towards the Common Side wall. ‘Helps keep their families from starving.’