Antonia Hodgson - The Devil in the Marshalsea

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 the 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.