The Devil's Company

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

OLBORN IS FULL OF COUNTLESS LITTLE STREETS AND DARK ALLEYS, so it might, at first glance, seem the ideal place to make one’s escape, but many of these alleys are dead ends, and even a tough like Aadil, I reasoned, would not want to face two pursuers and manage a prisoner while pinned in a corner. I was therefore not very surprised when I saw that he ran down Cow Lane and toward the sheep pens. Perhaps he meant to lose us among the animals.

Elias and I both stripped our masks from our faces and dashed after Teaser and his abductor. Rain had begun to fall—not hard, but enough to turn the snow to slush and make the encrusted ice dangerously slick. We barreled forward as best we could upon so dangerous a surface, but it soon became apparent that we no longer had Aadil and Teaser in our sights. Elias began to slow down in defeat, but I would not have it. “To the docks,” I said. “He’ll try and take his prisoner across the water.”

Elias nodded, no doubt disappointed that our running was not yet at an end. But, tired though he may have been, he followed me as we wound our way through the dark streets only to emerge under the open sky of night near the docks. I heard now the chorus of human life: the oyster girls and meat-pie men calling their wares, the cackling of whores, the laughing of drunkards, and, of course, the endless cries of the watermen. “Scholars, will you have whores?” they called, an ancient pun on scullers and oars. The quip was as old as the city itself, perhaps, but never lost its spice for this easily entertained lot.

We stopped now on the docks, thick with rich and poor alike, all making their way off or onto boats. Then we heard the shouts upon the water. In accordance with another hoary custom, no respect for rank and class was afforded to those who dared to step foot in a boat, and so low men might call what lascivious words they had to high-born ladies or wealthy gentlemen. The king himself, if he deigned to cross the river by boat, would be afforded no deference, though I doubted he knew enough English to understand what insults might be lobbed at him.

Elias was breathing heavily, looking with unfocused eyes at the countless bodies that surrounded us. I gazed out upon the river, illuminated by a hundred lanterns of a hundred boatmen, a mirror of the starry dome of sky above us. There, not fifteen feet from shore, sat an enormous man, his back to us, and Teaser, facing forward. Between them the boatman rowed. Teaser could not have made his escape, for it would be certain death to plunge into those cold waters, even if he could swim. He was held now on a floating prison.

I grabbed Elias by the arm, dragged him down the dock stairs, and pushed him onto the first empty boat we found. I climbed in after him.

“Ho-ho,” the boatman said. He was a young fellow, his shoulders thick with muscles. “A couple of young sparks out for a quiet ride, is it?”

“Shut up,” I snapped, and jutted out a finger toward Aadil. “See you that boat? There’s extra coin in it if you can overtake them.”

He gave me a sideways glance but hopped in all the same and shoved off. He might have been a saucy fellow, but for all that, he knew how to put some grit into his labors, and we were soon pushing through the waves. The water here smelled half of the sea, half of sewage, and it lapped furiously against the sides of the boat.

“What is it now?” the boatman asked. “That spark made off with your catamite?”

“Do shut your mouth, fellow,” Elias snapped.

“Fellow, is it? I shall fellow you with this here oar, and say it was the first time a whore ever touched your fundament.”

“Saying it shan’t make it so,” Elias groused.

“Don’t bother,” I told him. “These boatmen will tell you up is down, only to see if doing so will agitate you.”

“Up is down, my spark,” the rower said. “All but fools know that, for it is only the great who tell us which is which, and if we care to look for ourselves we shall find out different.”

We were making some significant progress, I must say, and we closed the gap between ourselves and Aadil’s boat. At least I thought it was Aadil, for in the dark of the water, with only our lanterns to light our way, it was not always easy to tell which boat was which. Nevertheless, I felt reasonably certain. When I saw a figure in the boat we pursued turn around, and then urge his boatman to row faster, I knew we still hunted our true quarry.

“They’ve seen us,” I told the boatman. “Faster.”

“It don’t get any faster than this,” he answered, no longer having the wind for banter.

In the boat, the silhouette of Aadil turned again, snapped something at the boatman, and when he didn’t get what he wished, I observed him shoving the boatman aside. He began to row himself.

Somehow my own boatman caught sight of this, and once more found the strength within to run his mouth. “What’s this?” he shouted over to the other boatman. “You let that spark steal your whore?”

“I’ll get it back,” he called over, “and you’ll find it soon enough lodged in your sweet-smelling shitter.”

“No doubt,” our boatman called, “for it is but a shitten stick you wield, and it seeks the fundament the way a baby or a whoremonger seeks your mother’s bubbies.”

“Your mother has no bubbies,” the other called back, “for she was naught but a hairy he-bear who conceived you after being swived in the arse by a libertine hunter who knew neither arse from cunny—such a man being your father, or perhaps an ape of Africk; who can tell the one from the other?”

“And your father,” our boatman returned, “was the whoreson bum-firking daughter—”

“Quiet!” I cried, loud enough to be heard not just by our boatman but by the other as well.

In that instant, I heard the other’s oars quiet and when I looked over, even in the dark I could see them lifting out of the water. From the boat I heard a strange and yet familiar voice shout, “Weaver, is that you?” The voice contained hope and humor—and nothing at all unpleasant.

“Who is that?” I answered back.

“’Tis Aadil,” he said. And then he let out an enormous laugh. “Here I have been exhausting myself, fleeing as though there were someone dangerous after us, and all along it was only you?”

I could not but note his speech. Every time I had heard him open his mouth, he had grunted his words like a beastly savage. Now, though he spoke in the same musical accent he had always used, his speech was refined, grammatically proper, and on an equal footing to anyone born here.

I hardly knew what to say. “What is this?” was the best I could manage.

He let out another rich laugh. “I think,” he called over to us, “it is time we talked to each other in somewhat more frank terms. Let’s meet at the docks, and we’ll find someplace to tell each other our stories.”

MERCIFULLY, OUR BOATMEN seemed to understand that something most unexpected had passed between us, and they remained quiet for the remainder of our journey. Elias gave me searching looks, but I hardly knew how to answer his unspoken questions. I merely pulled my coat around me, for it suddenly seemed to grow much colder as the light, steady rain fell upon us.

Their boat landed first, and I did not entirely believe that Aadil’s offer to treat with us was not a clever trick—not until he stepped out and waited patiently as we docked and climbed out as well. This side of the river was as crowded and noisy and lively as the other, and it was a very strange place for us to talk, but Aadil merely smiled at us and then offered us a deep bow.

“I have not been entirely honest with you about myself. Of course, you have not been entirely honest with me either, or anyone else at Craven House, but that is no matter. I’ve since concluded you mean me no harm and, indeed, your presence has been a most interesting catalyst.” He looked at the sky. “Sir, this rain continues apace, and if I have learned anything of your English weather, it shall get more unpleasant before it clears. Shall we find some warm and dry shelter?”

I ignored the pleasantries, though I too was anxious to get out of the rain. “Who the devil are you?”

He let out another of his thick laughs. It sounded as though it echoed about his chest before being set free. “My name is, indeed, Aadil. I am Aadil Wajid Ali Baghat, and, though unworthy, I must endure the unbearable honor of being a contemptible servant of his most glorious majesty, the Emperor Muhammad Shah Nasir ad Dîn, shah an shah, king of kings, Mogul of India.”

“Rabbit it!” Elias whispered. “The filthy bugger’s an India spy.”

“Hardly filthy, but a spy all the same. Yes, I am an agent of the Mogul. I have been sent here to deal a blow that will, I hope, curb the power of the East India Company. Would you like to hear more?”

Elias appeared as dumbstruck as I felt, yet I managed a few words. “I am not certain I wish to deal any blows against the Company. I have no love of the men of Craven House, I promise you, but I’m not sure its destruction is my affair.”

“Perhaps,” Aadil said, “you hardly know your affair, or the faces of your enemies, or the nature of their malice.”

“No,” I agreed. “I don’t.”

“Then come with me to a nearby tavern if you wish to find out. I shall increase the offer of warmth and dryness with food and drink.”

“Now that,” Elias said, “is the offer you should have made in the first place.”

AS A JEW AMONG ENGLISHMEN, I have ever felt out of place in my own native city, but I soon learned that to be a Jew is a very easy thing compared to being an East Indian. We could hardly walk three feet without someone calling to Aadil or stopping him. Children called him blackbird with the meanest contempt or else ran up to him to rub his dark skin and see if it would come off. Men moved out of his way, holding their noses, though he smelled far cleaner, and indeed more floral, than any of their lot could hope. Whores called out to him, telling him they gave special prices to Africans or else that they had never a black privy member and wished to gaze upon one.

I believed I should go mad with rage or simply distracted with chatter were I asked to live his life, but it was clear that Aadil had long since grown familiar to such usage, and he took no note. Nevertheless, I soon discovered that there was one way in which Jew and East Indian were very much alike: the merchant, no matter what prejudices he might hold in his heart, regards the silver of all nations equally. We found our way to a crowded tavern, and though the publican gave Aadil an unwelcoming look, he changed his mind soon enough when the East Indian offered an unwarranted measure of silver for a private room, food, and drink.

Aadil must have known his taverns well, for it was a comfortably appointed room, with two unboarded windows, ample sconces for light, and a handsomely laid table. The food was set before us, though Aadil would have none of it. The meats, he said, were not prepared in accordance with his religion. The same faith, he explained, forbade the consumption of spirituous liquors.

“No liquors, quotha!” Elias cried out. “By the devil, Weaver, I’ve finally discovered a more unappealing religion than yours.” He would not allow our host’s abstinence to slow his progress, however, and quickly poured himself a glass of wine and began to inflict serious harm on a plate of cold chicken.

Through all of this, our friend Mr. Teaser sat quietly, hands in his lap. He shook his head when offered food and drink. I thought it not entirely surprising. After all, he had heard terrible news and witnessed some remarkable events that day. Nevertheless, I could not understand his passivity in the hands of this black-skinned giant. There was naught to conclude but that Teaser had enjoyed dealings with Aadil Wajid Ali Baghat before and had been given cause to trust the Indian spy.

This supposition was borne out in the sequel, for though Mr. Teaser sat in utter dejected silence, Aadil nevertheless poured a healthy portion of wine into a pewter cup and handed it over to the unfortunate. “Drink it, sir. I know you English find it restoring.”

Teaser took the cup in his hands, but he made no motion to drink. “I can’t believe she’s dead,” Teaser intoned. “And poor Mother Clap and my friends—what will become of them? We must go back to help them.”

I own I had not expected such brave sentiments from a man who would marry another man, but the night was already full-freighted with surprises and would, I was now certain, yet contain many more.

“We cannot go back, and there’s nothing to be done for them,” I said. “I am sorry to put it to you so, but it is the truth. With the constables and Reformation men there, it is out of our hands, and from their behavior I gathered they were in the service of some other power, one with money to make certain the business was done. We can only hope that when their dark purpose is fulfilled, they will lose interest in the prosecution of your friends.”

“And who do you believe to be that hidden power?” Aadil asked.

I could tell from his tone of voice that he knew himself and only wanted to hear me say it. I could think of no reason to refuse. “Unless I am very much mistaken, the East India Company. I suppose I should say, a faction within the Company, but if it is Ellershaw’s or Forester’s or some other hand that moves these pieces, I cannot say.”

Aadil nodded slowly. “I think you may be right, but I have perhaps a better sense of which faction is behind this. I shall tell you what I know and why I am here. I understand some little bit of your predicament, Mr. Weaver, and I know you are not acting of your own free will. It is my greatest hope that once you hear what I have to say, you will understand that mine is the cause of justice, and you will be willing to aid me in the completion of my tasks.”

“The cause of justice,” I spat. “Was it in the cause of justice that you murdered Carmichael in the service of Forester?”

He shook his head. “You mustn’t think it, for I was fond of Carmichael and his good humor, and I would not harm him. I own I al-lowed you to believe otherwise, for it helped me to flush you out, which was my greatest concern at the time. I was working in the service of Forester that night—or leading him to believe I worked in his service, I ought to say—and I can inform you that neither he nor I had anything to do with that crime.”

“It is convenient for you to say so. And what exactly have you been doing for Mr. Forester all this time?”

Aadil grinned. “As for that, I care not to provide too much detail at the moment. Suffice to say that, like so many men of the East India Company, he has been in search of the mysterious textile engine, and he has used me as his servant in that regard. I, however, have not been entirely the servant of the Company that he believes me to be.”

“So you admit your deception.”

“No one here,” he told me, “is guiltless when it comes to the crime of deceiving the East India Company. But think not that I would harm an innocent like Mr. Carmichael. Not for any cause.”

“It does make sense,” Elias offered. “Just as Mr. Baghat pretended to be ignorant and hostile, he pretended to have killed Carmichael. That he possesses a generous spirit, and is no true enemy of yours, has been demonstrated tonight.”

“What has also been demonstrated tonight is that Mr. Baghat is a skilled dissembler, and we believe him at our own hazard.” The words came out hard and fast, and as I spoke them I wondered if I remained truly suspicious or if I resented having been so soundly fooled. Or, it occurred to me, that I find it difficult to change my opinion of a man in the blink of an eye. Recognizing that I could not entirely trust my feelings in this, I softened my stance and rose briefly to bow in Aadil’s direction. “Nevertheless, it would be the wisest course to hear all you have to say and give credit to your words where I can.”

Aadil returned the bow, showing he had learned British customs as well as speech. “I appreciate your generosity.”

“It may be as much curiosity as generosity,” I said, without harshness. “Perhaps you can begin by informing me of your connection with Mr. Teaser here, and how it is that you came to his rescue so fortuitously.”

Teaser nodded gravely, as though to indicate that I had indeed chosen the right point to enter into these matters.

“It is for this gentleman here and Absalom Pepper that I came to your island in the first place. You must forgive me, sir,” Aadil said, turning to Teaser, “for I know you are kindly disposed to Mr. Pepper, and for me to say what I know I must speak ill of him.”

Teaser looked down. “It has become all too apparent to me that Owl was not the person I believed. Say what you must. I shall be no less stung for your keeping quiet.”

Aadil nodded. “Not two years ago, a low-level clerk working for his most imperial majesty, the Emperor Muhammad Shah Nasir ad Dîn, may he and his sons reign forever, received a very intriguing letter from Mr. Pepper, a letter he thought worthy of showing to his superiors, and they to theirs, and so it went until it reached the eyes of the Mogul’s top advisers. In this letter, Mr. Pepper announced that he had invented a remarkable engine, one that would enable ordinary Europeans to produce Indian-like calicoes from cottons farmed in the Americas. He had, in short, invented an engine that could damage one of my nation’s principal industries by providing it with a genuine rival.”

“So Forester was not wrong,” Elias said.

“He was not wrong to believe it could be done, though he was wrong about much else. Needless to say, the Mogul took a great interest in this project, but he believed it would be wiser to observe these matters from afar. As you know, the East India Company may well be a private trading concern, but it is so close to the British government as nearly to be a very part of it. To involve ourselves too directly might bring us dangerously close to war, and with an important trading partner too. So, instead, the Mogul dispatched agents, and to Mr. Pepper we delivered only silence.”

Elias was nodding. “So, having heard nothing from the Mogul, Pepper began to pursue matters on his own.”

“That is precisely what happened, sir. When he contacted us, he had only the plans for his engine. He had hoped we would pay handsomely to suppress this invention, but when we did not comply he began to pursue the manufacturing of a working model.”

“And to that end, Pepper needed capital,” I said. “And so he began to ply his charms and pursue a series of marriages, each with a dowry he might apply toward building his engine.”

“That was part of how he did it, yes,” Aadil agreed. “Pepper might have been a clever man, but he was not a schooled one. He had always made his way in the world by using his charm and becoming appearance, and old habits are not so easily banished, so it occurred to him to seek out such financial men as he could win over with his familiar tricks, which is to say, men who have a passion for other men.”

“And so it is he discovered me,” Teaser said, breaking his silence. “I have long worked upon Exchange Alley, brokering investments and investing for myself. Owl, whom you call Pepper, made me believe he felt a tenderness for me, and I could refuse him nothing. I gave him more than three hundred pounds.”

“And did he create his engine?” Elias asked.

“Perhaps he might have if he had gone to our friend here first,” Aadil said, “but, as with many foul schemes, Pepper’s began to take a great deal of effort to maintain. He had eleven households for which to provide, and he dared not abandon his wives, lest they come in search of him, discover his trickery, and see him hanged for his crimes. So it was that in his last days all the money he could raise went toward the maintenance of lies already told. For all that, he was too clever and too ambitious to content himself with this financial purgatory. In the end, he discovered, through his dealings with one broker, that there may be better ways to gain wealth than through marriage or amorous attachments. So Pepper began to seek out other investors. And it was in this way he met someone with whom I believe you have an acquaintance.”

“Cobb,” I said, feeling that all had begun to turn clear. Sadly for me, I could not have been more mistaken. I still understood nothing.

Aadil shook his head. “Not Mr. Cobb, though we shall come to him and his role soon enough. No, the man you know who helped to fund his scheme was a merchant of your own nation, a Mr. Moses Franco.”

A LONG SILENCE descended upon the room. Perhaps it was not so long. It may have been only a matter of a few seconds, but to my mind it stretched on unendingly. Teaser showed the puzzled expression of a man out of the know, and Aadil appeared to await my response, but Elias studied the rough wooden floor. He knew what I knew—that something was terribly wrong within my own camp, and a man I had believed to be an unwavering ally might be something entirely different.

But was he? A hundred thoughts raced through my mind. I had never spoken to Mr. Franco about Pepper, never mentioned his name. And he, for his part, had never concealed that he’d had dealings that involved the East India Company. Indeed, he’d told me that his dealings had been unfriendly, and that the Company had always viewed his interventions with a hostile eye. And why should they not, I wondered, if he had been endeavoring to support an invention that would shut down the better part of their trade? It troubled me that Franco had never mentioned this project to me, but then he might not have thought it relevant to my inquiry. Or, and perhaps more likely, he wished to protect his secret, at least for as long as he might do so without bringing harm to himself or me.

It was from these thoughts that I was suddenly jarred by the crash of glass and an explosion of light and heat. No, not heat, but hotness. Flame.

What had happened? I felt myself reacting before I even knew, for the room was ablaze. I was up and pulling Elias away from the heart of the flame while some distant corner of my consciousness told me what I had seen. A barrel, alight and clearly laden with lamp oil or some other flammable liquid, had come crashing in through the window. Elias was now moving toward the open window to escape, but I pulled him back.

“No,” I shouted. “Whoever wished to burn us is surely still out there, hoping to flush us out. We must flee with the rest of the patrons and lose ourselves in the crowd.”

“Agreed,” Aadil said, pulling Teaser by the arm.

I opened the door to our chamber, began to flee, but checked my pace. It became clear at once that ours was not the only room to have been so assaulted. For an instant I harbored the obscenely flattering idea that the attack had not been set upon us but that we had been hapless victims of circumstance, unfortunate bystanders to an unrelated conflict, but I knew this was a foolish hope. There were great powers at work against us, and there could be no denying that we were meant to burn to death.

Elias, who never claimed bravery—indeed, who nursed his cowardice the way other men nursed virtue—was out the door before me, and the instant I stepped through, another barrel came surging into our room, crashing against the wall in the only portion of the closet not yet ablaze. The flames spread in an instant, cutting off my view and access to Teaser and Aadil.

I paused, torn between safety and duty. Elias suffered no such conflict, and was already gone, mixed with the crowd, heading toward the nearest exit.

“Mr. Baghat!” I cried. “Are you unharmed?”

“Thus far,” he called back. “If you’ve a clear path, take it. I cannot make it out that way. My companion and I must take our chances with the window.”

“Use caution,” I began.

“Tend to yourself,” he shouted. “Go now, and we shall talk later.”

There was no arguing with such sound advice. I pushed my way into the mass of bodies now struggling to escape the tavern. There were shouts and cries and the sounds of cracking wood and breaking pottery. Thick smoke now filled the rooms, obscuring my view so that I could not see my best course. I had to trust that the people in front of me had some animal sense of safety that would lead us through the inferno. It was a terrible thing to have to trust strangers, but I did not see that I had much choice, so I moved forward, keeping my head down against the smoke, my shoulders hunched against the tongues of flame.

At last we poured out of doors. Already the constables were on hand, as well as neighbors come to fight the fire, passing bucket after bucket of water in order to splash them upon the building. I observed, even in my fear and relief, that they managed the situation as well as they could. There was no hope of saving the tavern—it was already as good as burned to ash—but the surrounding structures could be saved. We were fortunate in the weather, for the rain had picked up since we’d entered, and all around us, over the shouts of terror and the crackle of wood, came the sizzle of water against the advance of flame.

I wondered briefly if whoever had attempted to kill us would have tried a different method had it not been raining. Even a man who might murder without regret may find it harder to burn down half the city with as free a mind. There was no ease about this, however. I could see already that at least half a dozen people had been burned badly. They lay upon the dirt, screaming for aid.

Thus it was that I found Elias. He may have been no lionheart, but now that the danger had passed, he did not hesitate to lend his skills to the needy. He was kneeling over a young man, hardly more than a boy, really, whose arms had been badly scorched.

“Gather some of that snow,” he shouted to a woman standing nearby, one of the barmaids, I thought. “Press it upon his arm and don’t let him take it off for a full quarter hour.”

As he disengaged himself from this patient to see who was next most in need of his services—limited though they were, he would be the first to admit, for burns were terrible injuries—he suddenly went slack and pointed toward the building.

I saw at once what he had seen, though I might have wished I hadn’t. Stumbling from the flames like a man emerging from his own grave came Aadil. His clothes and skin had been scorched, and most of his stockings had been quite burned off. Horrible red burns covered his legs, and his face was a mass of soot darker even than his skin. But what troubled me most was the blood. It was on his face, his arms, his legs, but mostly his chest, and it was bubbling forth.

Elias and I both ran forward and caught him as he toppled over. It took nearly all our combined strength to keep him from falling to the ground. Once we set him down, Elias tore open his shirt. “He’s been shot,” he said. “At very close range, from the look of the powder burns on his clothes.”

“What can you do?”

He said nothing and looked away. I understood there was nothing to say.

“Teaser is dead,” Aadil gasped.

“Save your strength,” Elias told him.

He managed the briefest of laughs. “For what? I go to Paradise, and I have no fear of death, so you need not trouble yourself to comfort me.” He paused here so he could cough out mucousy blood.

“You did what you could,” I said. “Who shot you, Mr. Baghat? Did you see?”

“I tried to save him, but I could not get to him in time.”

“Who shot you, Mr. Baghat?” I said again. “Who did this to you so we might avenge you?”

He looked away and his eyes closed. I thought he was already dead, but it happened that he had one more utterance in him. He said: “Get help. Celia Glade.”

Having uttered these words, he breathed his last.