Ratcatcher

1

It had quickly become clear to the crowd gathered in the stable yard behind the Blind Fiddler tavern that the Cornishman, Reuben Benbow, the younger of the two fighters, was far more accomplished than his opponent. The local man, Jack Figg, was heavier built and by that reckoning, a good deal stronger, but there was little doubt among those watching that Figg did not have anything to match his opponent’s agility.

The Cornishman was tall, six feet of honed muscle, with features still relatively unscathed. Having served his apprenticeship in fairground booths the length and breadth of his home county, he had been taken under the protective wing of Jethro Ward, the West Country’s finest pugilist. Under Ward’s diligent tutelage, Benbow was fast gaining a reputation as a doughty, if not ruthless, fighter.

Jack Figg, on the other hand, was square built with a face that betrayed the legacy of half a lifetime in the bare-knuckle game. A stockman by trade, it was said that in his youth Figg could stun a bullock senseless with one blow of his mighty fist, and that he had once sparred with the great Tom Cribb. But now Figg was past his prime. His body bore the scars of more than seventy bouts.

The opening seconds of the new round were an indication that Figg was continuing with the close-quarter approach; a technique to be expected. Only too aware that he was slower and less nimble than his opponent, he was attempting to exploit his size and strength by grappling his man into submission. The rules of the fight game were simple and few: no hitting an adversary below the waist. Any other tactics that might be employed were considered perfectly acceptable, even if it meant breaking your opponent’s back across your knee.

Benbow, however, had been well coached and was wise to the older man’s game. He knew if he could keep out of Figg’s reach he would eventually tire out his opponent. There was no knowing how long a fight could last—forty, fifty, perhaps as many as sixty rounds—which meant the fitter man would inevitably prevail. The majority of bouts were decided not by knockout but by the loser’s exhaustion. Besides, full blows often led to shattered knuckles and dislocated forearms and as the hands became swollen so they began to lose their cutting power. Much better to wear away your opponent’s defences with short jabs. In any case, a quick finish would certainly displease the crowd.

The afternoon bout had attracted several hundred spectators. Workers from the timber yards rubbed shoulders with Smithfield porters, while Shoe Lane apprentices jostled for space with ostlers from the nearby public houses. The latter formed the rowdiest contingent, heckling the Cornishman mercilessly, protesting vigorously whenever Figg received what was perceived to be a foul blow, and cheering wildly on the occasions their hero managed to retaliate.

There were other, more respectably dressed onlookers: square-riggers, toffs and dandies who’d forsaken their own haunts among the fashionable clubs of Pall Mall and St James in order to savour the delights offered by the less salubrious parts of the capital. Enticed by the flash houses with their cheap whores who were only too eager to accept a coin in exchange for a quick fumble in a dark alleyway or in some rat-infested lodging house, a prizefight and the lure of a wager were added attractions. Dotted around were several men in uniform, a smattering of army officers and a raucous group of blue-jackets on shore leave from the Pool.

Hawkers and pedlars moved among the crowd, while at the edge of the throng, beneath the cloisters, mothers suckled infants, and snot-nosed children crawled on hands and knees between the legs of the adults, oblivious to the filth that coated the cobblestones. A tribe of limbless beggars masquerading as wounded veterans appealed for alms, while beside them drunks sprawled comatose in the gutter. In one corner of the yard a mullet-faced individual with the staring gaze of the fanatic teetered on a wooden box and railed vexedly against the sins of the flesh and the evils of gambling.

Prizefighting was unlawful. So around the perimeter of the yard lookouts patrolled the entrances and alleyways, ready to warn the fighters and spectators of the arrival of the constables. Were a warning to be given, the ring would be dismantled within minutes, leaving the fighters and their promoters to melt into the crowd.

There were other parties in attendance, too, interested in neither prizefight nor preacher. These were creatures of a different kind, opportunists drawn by the whiff of rich pickings, thieves of the street.

The pickpocket was nine years old. Stick thin, small for his age, known to his associates as Tooler on account of his skill at winkling his way into a crowd to relieve a mark of wallet and watch in less time than it took to draw breath. A graduate of the Refuge and Bridewell, and a thief since the age of four, by now he was an old hand at the game.

Tooler had had his eye on the mark for a while. The crowd was dense and there were plenty of distractions on hand to mask the approach and snatch. Tooler scanned the boundary of the mob, checking his escape route. Jem Whistler, Tooler’s stickman and his senior by a year and two months, wiped a crumb of stolen mutton pie from his lips and nodded slyly. The two barefooted urchins threaded their way towards their intended victim.

To the crowd’s delight Figg had begun to stage a comeback. A number of his blows were landing, admittedly more by luck than judgement, but the Cornishman’s upper body was at last beginning to show signs of wear and tear.

Spurred on by his supporters, Figg aimed a roundhouse blow at his opponent and the crowd roared. If the punch had connected, the fight would have been over there and then, but Benbow parried the uppercut with his shoulder and scythed a counterstrike towards Figg’s heart. Figg, wrongfooted with fatigue, shuddered under the impact. Pain lanced across his bruised and battered face. Blood dribbled from his nostrils. His shaven scalp was streaked with sweat.

Tooler’s mark was a red-haired, florid-faced individual dressed in the scarlet jacket and white breeches of an army major. He was standing with his companion, also in uniform, beneath one of the stable arches. Head down, with Jem dogging his heels, Tooler made his approach from the major’s right side.

In the ring, Figg launched a massive blow to the Cornishman’s ribcage and the crowd sucked in its collective breath as Benbow took the punch over his kidneys. The mob clamoured for more.

Amid the excitement, Tooler seized his opportunity. His light fingers brushed the major’s sash, unhooking the watch chain in one swift movement. In the blink of an eye, the watch was passed underarm to Jem Whistler’s outstretched hand. Turning immediately, Tooler and his stickman separated and within seconds the two boys had dissolved into the crowd, with neither the major nor his companion aware that the theft had taken place.

Behind them, Benbow was responding hard. Figg wilted under the Cornishman’s two-fisted attack. Blood and mucus flowed from his split nose as the mob shouted itself hoarse. There was no finesse in the way the two fighters traded blows. The bout had degenerated into a ferocious brawl. So fierce was the battle that the spectators closest to the ringside were splattered with gore.

Ignoring the growing excitement, the two pickpockets weaved their way through the mass of bodies. At the rear of the yard lay the entrance to a narrow alley. The boys ducked into it, unheeded by the lookouts, who were more interested in the outcome of the fight and scanning the area for uniformed law officers than the passing of two grubby children. In no time Tooler and his stickman had left the babble of the stable yard and entered the maze of lanes that lay behind the inn.

As they picked their way through dark, damp passages lined by walls the colour of peat, the boys paid little attention to their surroundings. They were on familiar ground in this netherworld of densely packed tenements and grim lodging houses; buildings so old and decrepit it hardly seemed possible they were still standing. An open cess trench ran down the middle of each alley. Rats skittered in the shadows. The waterlogged carcass of what could have been either animal or human floated in the effluent. Vague, sinister shapes haunted dark doorways or hovered in silhouette behind candlelit windows. Only the occasional voice raised in anger indicated that the slum was inhabited by humankind. With the late afternoon sun sinking slowly below the cluttered rooftops, the boys hurried deeper into the warren.

Mother Gant’s lodging house was nestled into the side of a small courtyard at the end of a hip-wide passage. With its overhanging eaves, narrow doorway and dirt-encrusted windows, it was typical of the many doss houses that infested the area. A tumbledown sty occupied one corner of the yard. Two raw-boned pigs rooted greedily in an empty trough. They looked up, snouts thrusting, grunting with curiosity as the boys ran past.

The hovel was low roofed, dim lit and smoky. The sootblackened walls were of bare brick, the floor unboarded. A hearth ran along one wall. An oaken table took up the middle of the room. Seated around it were a dozen children of both sexes. Pale, unwashed, dressed in threadbare clothing, they ranged in age from six to sixteen. An old woman, garbed in black with a tattered shawl around her shoulders, stood at the hearth, ladling the contents of a large cooking pot. She looked up as the boys entered. In the flickering glow from the coals, her rheumy eyes glittered.

No one knew Mother Gant’s age, only that she had run the lodging house for as long as anyone in the neighbourhood could remember. It was well known that she had outlived three husbands; two had succumbed to disease, the third had disappeared one dark night never to be seen again. Rumour had it that the latter had been dropped into the river, his throat slit from ear to ear, after a tavern brawl. A drunkard and a wastrel, he had not been missed, certainly not by the Widow Gant.

The children seated around the table were not Mother Gant’s blood kin. The old lady had been named not for the size of her own brood but due to her habit of taking in waifs and strays. This display of generosity was not born of a sense of charity. It was greed that made Mother Gant open her doors to the orphans of the borough. She expected her young tenants to pay for the roof over their heads and the food in their bellies. And the rent she exacted was not coin of the realm—though that would not have been refused—it was contraband.

Mother Gant was a receiver of stolen property. She took in her orphans, she fed them and she housed them. Then she trained them and sent them out into the streets to steal for their supper. And woe betide anyone who returned empty-handed.

Fortunately for Tooler and Jem, their afternoon’s activity had yielded a good haul: three watches, two breast pins, a silver snuffbox, and no less than four pocketbooks. As the proceeds were deposited on the table, Mother Gant left the cooking pot and cooed softly to herself as she sifted through the valuables.

“You’ve done well, boys,” she simpered. “Mother’s very pleased.”

The old woman picked up the silver snuffbox and turned it over in her hands. Lifting the lid, she placed a pinch of snuff delicately on to the back of her hand, lowered her head and snorted the powder up each nostril in turn. Snapping shut the lid, she wiped her nose on her sleeve, grinned ferally, and slipped the box into her pocket.

“Extra helpings tonight, my lovelies,” she whispered, hobbling back towards the hearth. “Them as works the ’ardest deserves their reward. Ain’t that right?”

At which point a long shadow fell across the open doorway.

“Hello, Mother—got room for one more?”

Mother Gant’s eyes blazed with alarm as the visitor stepped into the room.

The man was tall and dressed in a midnight-blue, calflength riding coat, unbuttoned to reveal a sharp-cut black waistcoat, grey breeches and black knee-length boots. He was bareheaded. The face was saturnine, the hair black, streaked with grey above the temple. What was unusual, given the fashion of the time, was his hair, which was worn long and tied at the nape of the neck with a length of black ribbon. Below the man’s left eye, a small ragged scar was visible along the upper curve of his cheekbone.

If Matthew Hawkwood had expected an extreme reaction to his entrance, he was not disappointed. Even as his gaze fell upon the pile of stolen artefacts, the room erupted.

Stools and benches were overturned as the children scattered like rabbits before a stoat. In a move that was remarkably sprightly, the old woman twisted and hurled the soup ladle towards the new arrival, at the same time letting loose a high-pitched screech. Whereupon the massive figure seated in the corner of the room who had, up until that moment, remained still and silent, rose to its feet.

All told, Mother Gant had given birth to three sons and one daughter. Her first-born son had been smitten by the pox, the manner by which her first and second husbands had met their demise. Her second son had also been taken from her, but not by illness. Press-ganged at the age of sixteen, consigned to a watery grave at the age of eighteen, his innards turned to gruel by a ball fired from a French frigate during an engagement off the coast of Morocco. As for the daughter, no one knew her exact whereabouts. Last heard of, she was earning a precarious living as a whore, working the streets and arcades of Covent Garden and the Haymarket. Which left Mother Gant’s youngest son, Eli, as the only child not to have flown the coop. Though, if the truth were told, it was doubtful if the youth could have survived the separation.

At the age of twenty, Eli had the neck and shoulders of a wrestler, forearms the size of oak saplings, and the hands of a blacksmith. But though he possessed the body of a man, he had the brain of an infant. Unable to fend for himself or perform anything beyond the most menial tasks, he had become little more than a chattel to his widowed mother, who used him as she might have done a dray horse: as a beast of burden. On the occasions that she conducted the more nefarious of her enterprises, however, she used his size and strength for intimidation and protection. Eli’s sole purpose in life was to serve his mother, a duty he carried out unconditionally.

As Tooler and Jem and the other children ran for the door, the lumbering, moon-faced figure of Eli Gant emerged from the gloom. Hearing Mother’s cry, Eli was reacting solely on instinct. The shrill note in the old woman’s voice told him that there was trouble and that she needed his help. That was all he needed to know. When he rose to his feet, the cudgel that had been propped against the arm of the chair was in his hand.

Hawkwood avoided the thrown soup ladle with ease. As the utensil clattered against the wall a flicker of amusement passed over his face. Then he caught sight of the apparition looming towards him and his expression changed. He turned to confront the new threat.

“Stop him, Eli! He’s here to hurt Mother!” The old woman’s voice pierced the room.

The attack, when it came, was sudden. For a man of his huge bulk, Eli Gant moved with surprising speed.

But Hawkwood was quicker. Even as the cudgel was raised, he swung his foot and kicked Gant hard between the legs. Eli’s jaw went slack. Dropping the club, he doubled over. A baton appeared in Hawkwood’s hand. Without losing momentum, he sidestepped and drove the short club viciously against the side of Gant’s head. The ground shook as Gant’s body hit the earthen floor. Staring down at the wheezing, prostrate form, Hawkwood shook his head wearily. He’d seen it all before.

When he looked up, Mother Gant had disappeared.

Hawkwood cursed and turned. “Rafferty!”

A bulky figure materialized behind him. Red-faced and coarse-featured, wearing the uniform of a conductor of the watch: black felt hat, double-breasted blue jacket and matching waistcoat. His eyebrows rose as he took in the man on the ground.

His eyes widened further as Hawkwood leapt over the stricken Gant, crossed the room and ripped away the ragged curtain that hung on a rail on the opposite wall. Concealed behind the curtain was an open doorway. Pausing on the threshold, Hawkwood peered into the darkness that lay beyond. A cold draught caressed his face and a vague shuffling noise sounded from somewhere ahead, then his eyes caught the feeble glow of a lantern and a hunched, dark-clothed figure scurrying away. Mother Gant, having abandoned her idiot son to guard her back, was on the run.

Hawkwood knew he had to act quickly. There was no telling how far the tunnel stretched or where it emerged. Given the nature of the area, it was likely the shaft led into a honeycomb of passages, trap doors, hidden stairwells and twisting alleyways running above and below ground level. And the old woman, of course, would know the place like the back of her crabby hand.

There was no time to find a lantern of his own. He’d have to rely on the faint light ahead of him as a guide. He turned and nodded past the constable’s legs to where the hapless Eli Gant was still curled foetally on the floor. “Watch him.” Clasping the baton firmly, he plunged into the hole.

The smell was dreadful. It was the stench of damp and decay, pungent enough to clog the nostrils and make the eyes water. The floor of the tunnel was firm underfoot, but here and there the ground squelched alarmingly, sucking at his heels. More than once, his ears picked up the faint squeak of rodents and he felt the soft touch of their tiny paws as they ran across the toe of his boot.

It was hard to tell what the walls were made of. Sometimes his fingers brushed brick, sometimes wood, often so rotten it flaked off in his hand. Similarly, it was impossible to determine if it was sky over his head or stone. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, he began to make out openings in the tunnel walls: junctions leading to even more escape routes. Occasionally, through a chink in a wall, he caught a glimmer of light, the flicker of a candle flame, a sign that somewhere within this strange subterranean world there existed vermin of a higher intellect than rats and mice. And always the fluttering lantern carried by the Widow Gant drew him further into the maze.

Abruptly, the glow ahead of him died. He paused, listening. He moved forward cautiously, senses alert for the slightest movement. He wondered how far he had come. It seemed like a mile, but in the darkness, distance was deceptive. It was probably no more than a hundred paces, if that.

He could just make out a pale crescent of light ahead. It appeared to be low down, perhaps an indication that there was a dip in the tunnel or a stairway. And then he saw there was a bend in the passage. He continued slowly, the baton held tightly in his fist.

He turned the corner and saw that the lantern had been placed on the ground next to what looked to be the old woman’s shawl. He bent to examine it.

It was then that the wizened, bat-like creature detached itself from the wall to his right, accompanied by a scream of such intensity it was almost impossible to imagine the source could be human.

Even as he turned, dropping the shawl, the glow from the lantern caught the glint of the knife blade as it curved towards his throat. Hawkwood hurled his body aside. The sliver of steel whipped past his face and he heard the grunt as the old woman realized she had missed her target. Christ, but she was fast! Faster than he would have thought possible, and hate had given her added impetus. Already she was turning again, driving the weapon towards his heart.

He felt the cloth tear on his upper arm as the razor-sharp blade sliced through his coat sleeve, the material parting like grape skin. Transferring the baton to his left palm, he struck upwards to turn the strike away, at the same time reaching for her wrist with his other hand. Her arm was no thicker than a child’s, but the power in the reed-thin body was astonishing. His fingers encircled her wrist, deflecting the blade’s cutting edge. At the same time, he struck down with the baton and heard the brittle snap of breaking bone. The knife dropped to the floor and her squeal of pain reverberated off the walls.

But, incredibly, she wasn’t finished. In the next second, her left hand was reaching towards his face as she launched herself at him, spitting and swearing as if possessed by devils, clawing for his eyes with nails as sharp as talons. So ferocious was the force of her attack, he was slammed against the wall of the tunnel. Air exploded from his lungs.

One-handed she clung to him, kicking and gouging. Flecks of spittle landed on his face. He felt, too, her hot breath on his cheek, as rancid as a midden, and knew that somehow he had to finish it. He hooked the end of the baton into her stomach, felt the grip on his collar loosen, used his full body weight to drive his fist under her ribcage and punch her away.

There was a flat thud as the back of her head hit the wall, the screech dying on her lips as her frail body slid to the ground. She landed awkwardly, winded, legs akimbo, dress around her knees, thin breasts rising and falling as she gasped for air.

Hawkwood straightened and wiped the smear of phlegm from his jaw.

“Bitch.”

The crumpled figure at his feet let out a low moan.

Slipping the ebony baton inside his coat, he bent to retrieve the discarded shawl. He used the shawl to bind her wrists, making no allowances for the broken arm. In the vapid glow from the lantern, he could see that her eyes were glazed with pain. Her resistance was clearly spent.

When he had finished trussing her arms, he picked up the lantern. Holding it aloft, he lifted the old woman by the collar of her dress and began to retrace his steps down the tunnel, dragging her limp, unprotesting body behind him.