What Angels Fear

Chapter 9

The sounds of pursuit had long since faded into the distance.

Sebastian slowed the gray to a walk. Darkness was falling fast, the rain easing to a fine mist as the wind rose. Turning up the collar of his greatcoat against the cold and the wet, Sebastian had time to regret the loss of his hat and to consider his future course of action.

Even here, away from the more fashionable neighborhoods of Mayfair, heads swiveled to follow his passing, and fingers pointed. Sebastian was acutely aware of his missing neckcloth, his mud-splattered boots, the bloodstains on his greatcoat and gloves. His immediate need, he decided, was to remove himself to an area in which his disheveled appearance would occasion less remark. In the back alleys and byways of someplace like Covent Garden or St. Giles, no one would look twice at a hatless man with a torn greatcoat and blood on his gloves.

Beneath the folds of his greatcoat Sebastian felt the weight of his pocketbook and knew a moment of thankfulness for the forethought that had led him to slip the purse into his pocket before leaving the house. He would find an inn, he decided; someplace humble, but warm and dry. And then he would set about contacting those who could—

Sebastian’s head came up, his attention caught by a faint sound, barely discernable above the racket of wooden wheels rattling over ruts and the interminable patter of the rain.

He was in a poorer quarter now, a neighborhood of narrow streets with aging houses and small shops, their dirty windows protected by iron grates. There were no fine carriages here, only heavy lumbering wagons and dogcarts winding their way through a growing throng of sturdy working folk, coopers and ferriers, laundresses and piemen, their voices raised in a singsong chorus of Pies. Rare hot pies. But he could hear it now, quite plainly: the steady thunder of hooves coming up fast and a boy’s voice, shouting, “If’n yer lookin’ for that rum cove on a gray, he went that way!”

“Bloody hell,” whispered Sebastian, and urged his purloined mount forward into the night.

He abandoned the gray in a warm stall on the edges of St. Giles. It was a notorious district, St. Giles, into which pursuing constables had been known simply to disappear forever. London’s authorities avoided it.

The Black Hart Inn lay at the end of a mean little lane known as Pudding Row, in an area of crooked streets and rickety old medieval buildings that seemed to lean against one another for support, their upper floors jutting out over unpaved passages running foul with open gutters. A low, half-timbered relic, the inn had leaded front windows through which only a faint glow of light spilled out into the night. Sebastian paused in the shadow of the doorway, his head turning as he listened.

The rain had stopped, but with the coming of darkness the temperature had plummeted, sending most of London’s residents scurrying indoors. He could hear the distant screech of iron-rimmed wheels and the dull monotony of a church bell sounding someone’s death knell, and nothing more. Pushing open the door, he went inside.

A heavy medley of smells washed over him, of ale and tobacco, of bitter coal smoke and hot grease and rank, stale sweat. The common room was dark, the guttering dips casting only a dim light that flickered over walls and low beamed ceilings blackened with age. Men in fustian and corduroy stood with elbows propped on the counter or lounged about scarred tables and benches. They looked up as Sebastian entered, the roar of their talk and laughter ebbing, their sunken eyes suspicious, watchful. He was a stranger here, and strangers in such places were never welcome.

Pushing his way to the counter, he bought a tankard of ale and ordered dinner. The bread would be adulterated with chalk and alum, the beef rancid and gristly, but he would find little better in this district and he’d eaten nothing since the breakfast he’d shared that morning with Christopher at a public house not far from the Heath.

There was a fire at one end of the room. Sebastian made his way toward it, his tankard in hand. The general swirl of noise had resumed, although he was aware of resentful eyes following him, of an air of tense wariness. Furtive shadows moved across the walls as two or three men sidled quietly from the room.

Sebastian was halfway across the sawdust-covered floor, winding his way between packed, unwashed bodies, when a boy of perhaps eight or ten brushed against him.

“A natty lad,” said Sebastian, his voice dangerously cheerful as he deftly retrieved his purse from the boy’s fist. The unexpected loss of his prize caused the young thief to hesitate so that, dropping the purse into an inner pocket, Sebastian managed to collar the lad and haul him back around, all without setting down the tankard or spilling a drop of ale. “But not a particularly skilled one, I’m afraid.”

Every eye in the room was trained upon them and Sebastian knew it. Yet the atmosphere was more one of watchful expectation than of hostility. A market beadle from Covent Garden, a big, ponderous man with a stained waistcoat and three chins, stood up from a nearby table to wipe the back of one meaty hand across his wet lips. “Aye, he’s an anabaptist, that one.” A low ripple of laughter traveled around the room, for it was a name given to young pickpockets who’d been caught in the act and subjected to the rough-and-ready punishment of being dumped in the nearest pond. “Want we should rechristen him?”

The lad kept his chin firm and his gaze steady, but Sebastian felt a shudder travel up the boy’s thin frame. For a homeless child, a dunking in a freezing pond on a night like this could mean death.

“I’ve no doubt he could use the ablution,” said Sebastian, his words greeted by more laughter. “But the boy’s done no real harm.” Opening his fist, Sebastian let the thin, ragged cloth of the urchin’s shirt slide through his fingers. “Go on,” he added, jerking his head toward the door when the boy hesitated. “Get out of here.”

Instead of running, the boy stood his ground, his dark, unexpectedly bright eyes traveling over Sebastian in open, thoughtful assessment. “On the lam, are you?”

Sebastian paused with his tankard halfway to his mouth. “I beg your pardon?”

The boy was older than Sebastian had first taken him to be—probably more like ten or twelve—and obviously observant enough to notice that beneath the mud and blood, Sebastian’s greatcoat was exquisitely tailored, and of a fine cloth that had been new just hours ago. “What’d you do? Lose all your blunt and bolt afore they could shut you up in the Never-Wag? Or did you kill a man in a duel?” One small, bony hand reached out to finger the dark, telltale stain on Sebastian’s chest. “Me, I think you killed somebody.”

Sebastian took a long, deep swallow of his ale. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Ho. And why else would such a swell cove be stopping at a dive like the Black ’Art? You answer me that.”

A prepubescent young girl with thin shoulders and a shank of straight, colorless hair appeared from the back rooms to dump the contents of her tray on the table in front of Sebastian. He stared at the small loaf of suspiciously white bread, the plate of unidentifiable meat awash in ladlefuls of congealing fat, and felt his appetite ebb.

“You should tuck that purse of yers somewhere out o’ sight and out o’ reach,” said the urchin as Sebastian seated himself at the table. “You know that, don’t you? It’s like an open invitation, bulgin’ out yer coat all obvious-like. In fact, it’s criminal, I’d say, to be temptin’ honest lads into mischief like that.”

Sebastian glanced up, his fork halted halfway to his mouth. “And when were you ever an honest lad?”

The boy laughed out loud. “I like you,” he said, his gaze drifting to the plate of food before Sebastian. A quiver passed over his features, a spasm of desperate want quickly hidden. “I tell you what: got a proposition for you, I do. If’n you’re agreeable, I could ’ire meself out to you for, say, ten pence a day? Show you the ropes o’ this part of town, I could. Be your general factotum. A fine gentleman like yerself shouldn’t be without a servant.”

“True.” Sebastian chewed a mouthful, swallowed. “But I’m the strangest creature. I have a decided aversion to being fleeced by those in my employ.”

The boy sniffed. “Well, if’n yer dead set on holdin’ that against me,” he said, his voice dripping reproach, his feet dragging as he turned away.

“Wait a minute.”

The boy swung back around.

“Here.” Picking up the hunk of bread, Sebastian tossed it to the boy, who caught the small loaf deftly with one hand. Sebastian grunted. “You’re a better catch than a foist. Now get going.”