Wasp (4 page)

Two hours to midnight according to the clock nailed to the wall, and the Fixer knew it’d be no sleep for him that night. The cabin groaned like an old maid under the wind’s hard hand. He sat at the table, the stove behind him spitting smoke. Medical papers lay scattered underneath the dripping candle. He’d tried to concentrate but the constant battering ragged his nerves. To distract himself he tried the columns of the society papers, looking for the familiar names.

A sound. Another. That wasn’t the weather. Someone was on the stairs outside. The potboy had gone into town with a shilling tip from the Mangoes and the Sabbath breakers were all in the gin house.

The Fixer dropped the papers and stuck his head out the door. The lantern had blown out. Figures on the steps. Three, maybe four. He heard cursing as boots scrabbled on the wet boards.

‘Who are you?’ the Fixer called down, voice strong even in this wind. ‘What do you want?’

‘We have a woman. She needs help.’

The Fixer met them halfway. A cloaked figure supported by two rain-lashed men, a third behind. ‘Very well, bring her inside. Easy now. These stairs could break your neck.’

Inside the cabin, the Fixer drew back the woman’s hood. Her eyes were glassy, the pupils wide. Slivers of blue circled the corneas. Her breathing whooped as tremors rippled through her body. He looked at her belly then back at her face. Barely more than a girl and possessed of a beauty even her condition couldn’t blunt.

‘Who are you men?’

‘We are her brothers. She has taken ill.’

‘Ill? She’s in labour. Couldn’t you have found a surgeon sooner?’

‘We don’t have time to go hunting round this pig’s pit of a town. Are you not the harbour quack?’

The Fixer stared at them. A doctor, yes. She should have been confined hours ago.’

‘The roads are mired. We brought her downriver by rowboat.’

The Fixer took in their clothes. All were of a fine cut that not even the rain had managed to disguise, yet they seemed ill suited. One of the men’s hands were bleeding. ‘You rowed her here yourself? Where are your servants? And what about the baby’s father?’

‘Unless you want to feel my sword tip you’ll mind your questions.’

The Fixer regarded him for a moment then removed the girl’s cloak and settled her on his bed. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead. Strands of hair clung to his skin. He lifted her eyelids, one at a time, nudging the candle closer to the cot with his free hand.

‘What have you done?’ he said, turning to the men.

‘Done?’

‘She is near insensible.’

‘A pinch of laudanum for the pain.’

‘No. Something else.’

Glances were exchanged. ‘Laudanum, as I said. How long until the birth?’

The Fixer ran careful hands over the girl’s midriff. ‘Any moment now. You cut it fine. Her waters have already broken.’

‘We shall go and secure the boat then find lodgings.’

‘Won’t one of you stay with her?’

‘What do we know of childbirth? You’re the doctor. You fix her.’

He sucked in his teeth as the men left.
Fixer by name, fixer by trade
, he thought. He checked the girl again. No odd smells on her breath. Skin was clammy. Lungs continued to whoop down air with each contraction. Little apparent pain.

‘What have you been taking?’ he asked. ‘More than laudanum, yes?’

She smiled. On that face it should have been lovely. It wasn’t. ‘The dream makers.’

‘What are they?’

She sighed but didn’t answer. He realised how he must sound to her. A voice once polished, now neglected and losing its shine. Cracks spread through his sentences, throwing up ugly words like rough stone through plaster. But the next few minutes were critical. ‘You have to help me. Listen
 . . .
’

He squeezed one hand and told her what to do, unsure if she understood half of what he said. Instinct seemed to drive her body. Her youth was in her favour, and a strength that might partly come from whatever other than blood ran in her veins.

I could use a little gypcraft right now,
he thought, but skill took over, both hands moving deftly as he whispered encouragement into her ear. The baby slid into the world without complications. He slapped its arse. Lusty cries. He cut the cord and wrapped the newborn in linen. No time for delicacy — the afterbirth would go to the gulls. Not much blood loss. Good. A clean birth. He’d seen some horrors, oh yes.

‘Listen. Can you hear me? You have a daughter.’

For the first time her eyes focused. ‘They want my baby dead.’

‘What?’

She whispered something else. ‘They know who you are.’

The Fixer wondered if she was delirious. Her face was intent, the words quiet but carefully pronounced.

‘Bringing you down the river in this condition might have killed you even if the night wasn’t blowing a storm,’ he said. ‘Those men should’ve known better.’

‘They don’t care either way. ’

‘They are your brothers.’

The mouth twitched. ‘Brothers?’

‘Why here? Why me?’

She turned a slack face to him. ‘Because of what you did before.’

The Fixer recoiled. He pressed fingers to his temples, tried to quieten his blood which seemed to sizzle inside his head. He glanced at the clock then at the baby. Small, peaceful. Her mother was gazing at the ceiling, making odd noises at the back of her throat.

‘What will happen to you?’ he heard himself say.

‘I shall be taken back. Forced to be a good daughter. A pretty prisoner. The child will disappear. You will be blamed. A baby killer twice over, that’s what they’ll say. It’s the gibbet for you.’

The Fixer scooped up the newborn and was out the door. Rain slapped his face. He clung to the railing and took the steps as fast as he dared. Splinters spiked his palm. The harbour yard was a swirling demon of wind and wet. He pressed the baby to his bare chest, leather jerkin slapping against his skin. He could hardly see. It seemed the gale had picked up every bit of shit from the quay and was throwing it in his face.

He opened the warehouse side entrance. A squall almost blew it from its hinges. The warehouse itself was a cantankerous, timber-creaking hole of a place. He dodged coils of rope, rusty clanks of old chains, broken crates. At the back was the slave pen. The Fixer laid the baby on top of a crate and grabbed a jemmy. Rust browned the cage, though the padlock was beefy enough. The Fixer worked the jemmy behind the hasp and tore out the screws. The big darkie squatted in a corner as far from the others as the cramped space allowed. The chains binding their wrists and ankles were gone — stowed back on the
Bo’sun’s Lass
for the next cargo. When the Fixer swung open the iron door, they shrank back, winding arms and legs together. The big fellow didn’t budge, didn’t even look up. Leaning into the cage, the Fixer remembered that he’d left the Judicator in the cabin. If the darkie decided to turn on him he’d have to use the jemmy.

‘I know you understand me,’ he said. ‘I saw it on your face by the quayside. I need your help.’

The head turned, eyes fixed. Four limbs stirred. The Fixer backed out of the cage door. Even if he could swing it closed in time there was nothing to lock it with. The darkie was moving towards him, impossibly silent.

I’m a dead man.

Outside the cage, the darkie unfolded and stretched, like a big old tree creaking in the wind. Tar patches stood out as blacker spots against his skin. ‘How do you know I’ll not snap your neck, white man?’

Good English.

‘Because I trust what my instincts are telling me. If you run, there is nowhere you can go. With me, with a
white man
, there are many places we can both go. That’s the way of this country.’

‘Perhaps I do not want to run. Perhaps I do not deserve freedom.’

‘There is a woman and newborn child. We have to leave, now.’

‘Something has gone bad for you?’

‘Very bad. I need your help. They need your help. This is the bargain I offer. We are in fear of our lives. If I read your face right beside the dock today then such a thing means something to you. I don’t know why. I don’t care.’

He nodded back towards the cage. ‘What of their lives?’

‘They can’t come with us. Otherwise they may stay or flee as they wish. What do you say?’

‘I abandoned them long before reaching these shores. I shall go with you.’

‘An old barouche — a cart — is stored back of the warehouse with a nag to pull it. Take the child and fetch them. I shall collect the girl.’

The Fixer ran back across the yard and scrambled up the cabin steps.
I’ll get her down if I have to put her across my shoulders,
he thought. When he entered the cabin the three brothers were waiting for him. Two had drawn swords. The third was seated on an upturned box beside the newborn’s empty swaddling.

The Fixer caught the first one square on the face. Bone crunched under his knuckles. An elbow to the midriff took care of the second before a blade sliced across the Fixer’s temple, knocking him to his knees. He covered his face with both forearms and rolled across the floor. A boot cracked into his ribs. Hot pain across his chest as another blade cut into his skin. He saw the first brother, nose gouting blood, raise his sword. The Fixer slithered out of the way. The blade missed his throat and sliced a thick splinter out of the floor. Another sword caught him across the forearm, then another across his belly. He was done for, and he knew it.

The door crashed open.

A figure demoned out of the night. A sweeping hand caught one brother and hurled him through the closed shutters. Wood cracked. A breathless thud of a body hitting the warehouse roof. His sibling tried to bring his sword around but the angle was too tight. The darkie grabbed the hand holding the pommel and crushed it in a savage grip. His victim dropped the sword and stared at his broken palm. The darkie kicked him on the kneecaps and he went down like a sack of turnips. The third brother leapt up, fell over the Fixer’s legs and clanged his head on the end of the bed where the girl still lay, wide eyes drinking in the mayhem. The darkie grabbed him by his shirt and hauled him to his feet.

‘You cause any more trouble and I shall eat you whole.’

The man had wits enough left to nod before the darkie packed him out of the door. For good measure he picked the other one up and sent him sprawling down the steps after the first. Quiet settled on the cabin. The Fixer climbed to his feet and checked his wounds. Clean, but they would need stitching before the night was out.

‘They will come back?’ the darkie asked.

‘Yes.’ Blood trickled from one of the Fixer’s nostrils. ‘They will come back. We have to go.’

In the Mirror

Again the tread of those large feet. A click. A gentle draught on her skin. She looks up and he is gone. No door. Only those reflections.

She pads over to the nearest mirror. A scarecrow girl stares back. She tugs at the frame. It won’t budge. She debates whether to try the others. One must hide the way out, but which? And even if she finds it, what can she do? It is likely locked. He would not have left her if he thought she could escape. Perhaps she can smash one of the mirrors and use a glass shard as a weapon. He’s big, but he won’t expect her to attack him. She can catch him the moment he steps back through the door. He’s much stronger than she is but a quick stab in the neck might do it. Her skinny limbs are no use for anything else. She doubts she could break an eggshell.

Look at you, standing here plotting murder. Not so long ago you were reading Greek and Latin, or listening to pretty melodies played on Lord Russell’s harpsichord. The only weapon you ever held was a knife for cutting cake or spreading butter over the baker’s scones.

Bethany returns to the middle of the room, sits beneath an unlit dome lantern and draws her legs up under her. After a few minutes a mirror swings open. The dark man steps back into the room, followed by a swarthy, white-skinned fellow. Cloth breeches hug the newcomer’s legs. Apart from a sleeveless leather jerkin his upper body is bare. Not a single lick of hair. Pale, puckered streaks furrow his skin. He closes the door and approaches the girl. Square feet are crammed into a pair of thonged sandals, the toes as thick as carrot stubs.

‘My saints, what a pretty piece of pastry we’ve bagged,’ he says. ‘Can’t be more than eighteen. Maybe less.’

‘A children’s tutor,’ the dark man says behind him. ‘Locked up in a private madhouse.’

‘Not so vicious a find, Kingfisher, compared to some of her soon-to-be-Sisters.’

‘She would be dead enough if she remained there.’

‘True.’ He nods at the girl. ‘What’s your name?’

A pause while she hooks it from her memory. ‘Bethany Harris.’

‘You can read and write?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What else can you do?’

‘I can count. Do needlework.’

‘How about singing or dancing? I don’t mean these cloddish country reels, but a proper gavotte, say. Have you ever been to the theatre or the opera?’

‘I watched the mummers at Moorcott fair. A travelling company also put on Shakespeare.’

The bald man grimaced. ‘What about languages? Have you any musical ability? Can you play cards?’

‘I know a little Greek and Latin, and I play the harpsichord passably well. My employer taught me the rules of piquet.’

‘Thank the gracious God for His mercy. Walk over to the door and back again. Go on.’

He watches as Beth gets up and shuffles across the polished boards. ‘She must have put a right bee in someone’s bonnet. Look at her.’

‘She made an accusation against the local squire’s son. Nearly caused a scandal the breadth of the county. When will she be ready to meet the Abbess?’

‘At least a day. I wonder if her belly will hold a bite of decent food.’

The girl turns and peers at them through limp strands of hair. ‘Am I in a nunnery then?’

Both men burst out laughing. ‘In a manner of speaking,’ the bald man says. ‘Now open your mouth.’

She hesitates, then obeys. Baldy walks over, grasps her chin and checks her teeth. ‘Much work to do. Good food and careful cleaning should take care of it.’