When Gods Die

Chapter 41

Tom didn’t like Smithfield. It wasn’t just the inescapable smell of spilled blood and raw meat and hides that got to him. It was as if an invisible but oppressive pall of death had sucked away the very air here, stealing his breath and pressing heavy on his chest.

He’d spent a frustrating day not really knowing what he was looking for and not finding anything. It was with relief that he watched the shadows lengthen with the coming of evening, and turned toward home.

He was passing the narrow alley that curved around to the back of the Norfolk Arms when he glanced sideways and saw a cart drawn up at the slanted double doors of the inn’s cellars. Three men worked in silence, unloading the cart. There was none of the bantering one might have expected, the man on the cart simply handing small kegs one at a time to those laboring up and down the cellar steps. Another man, of slim build in a gentleman’s greatcoat, stood nearby, his back to the mouth of the alley.

Ducking behind a nearby pile of crates, Tom watched them for a moment. At first he thought it was just a delivery of French wine smuggled in from somewhere over on the coast. Except that these barrels didn’t look like wine kegs. They looked more like powder kegs.

They were a common enough sight in London these days. After some twenty years of nearly continuous warfare, there was hardly a child in England who hadn’t grown up with the sight of soldiers marching in the roads, of wagon after wagon piled high with kegs of powder and boxes of muskets heading for the wharves where they’d be loaded onto ships bound for the Peninsula and the West Indies, India, and the South Seas.

Only, this powder wasn’t heading toward the coast. It was disappearing into the cellar of the inn Lady Anglessey was thought to have visited the very day she died. And that was something Tom—after several moments of quiet argument with himself—decided he couldn’t ignore.

He didn’t need the echoing memory of Lord Devlin’s warnings to tell him these men were dangerous. Tom had spent enough time on the streets—at first with Huey, then alone—to know danger when he saw it. Sometimes he imagined Huey was still with him, a kind of guardian angel watching out for him, warning him of danger. He thought he could feel Huey at his shoulder, now, telling him not to go into that alley.

“I gotta do it, Huey,” Tom whispered. “You know I gotta.”

He crept closer, his back pressed against the rough brick of the wall beside him, the dank, stale air of the alley thick in his nostrils. Another man had come out of the inn, a big, bald-headed man with African features whom Tom recognized as the innkeeper himself, Caleb Carter.

Carter and the man in the greatcoat were talking. Lowering his body until he was bent almost double, his footfalls soft in the damp earth of the alleyway, Tom ventured even closer.

“There was supposed to be two wagons,” said the innkeeper, his bald head shining in the light thrown by the lamp behind him. “What happened?”

Not even daring to breathe, Tom crouched behind a pile of warped old boards and broken window frames.

“This is it. They say it’ll be enough.”

The innkeeper turned his head sideways and spat. “If there’s resistance—”

“There won’t be,” said the man in the greatcoat, stepping into the rectangular shaft of light thrown by the inn’s open doorway.

Tom could see him now. He was a small man, slightly built, with longish, pale yellow hair and a thin face. His clothes were definitely those of a gentleman, and Tom wondered what he was doing, supervising the unloading of a cart like some common workman.

“This is just a precaution,” said the blond man. “It’ll be 1688 all over again.”

Carter grunted. “From what I hear, they mighta called that the Bloodless Revolution, but you know it really wasn’t. Not by a long shot.”

From someplace out in the street came a sudden popping explosion followed by children’s laughter, as if someone had set off a firecracker. It was so unexpected, and Tom’s nerves so raw, that he startled, his foot involuntarily shifting sideways to crunch on a piece of broken glass.

The blond gentleman swung around, one hand flying to his greatcoat pocket. “What was that?”

The innkeeper took a step forward. Tom imagined he could hear Huey screaming, Run, Tom! But Tom didn’t need to be told. Pushing off from the wall, he ran.

He took off for the eddy of noise and movement that was Giltspur Street, his feet slipping and sliding in the slimy mud of the alleyway. Bursting out the mouth of the passage, he nearly collided with a dogcart. He heard the blond man’s voice behind him, raised in anger. “Stop him! Stop, thief!”

Oh, Jesus, thought Tom, his heart beating so hard in his chest it hurt. Oh, Jesus, no. He darted down a narrow street, heard a whistle blowing shrill and insistent behind him. His breath soughing in his throat, Tom leapt over the smoldering barrow in his path and kept running.

It was nearly dark now. He could see the looming, shadowy stalls of the marketplace up ahead. If he could make it to the open ground, lose himself amongst the deserted stalls, maybe hide beneath one…

The whistle blew again. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder and ran straight into the outstretched arms of a market beadle who stepped from behind the nearest stall.

The beadle’s big, strong hands closed over Tom’s shoulders, holding him fast. “Gotcha, lad.”

Tom reared back, his blood pounding in his ears, his breath coming hard and fast. The beadle’s face was broad and fleshy, his nose bulbous. In the last light of the dying day, the brass buttons on his coat gleamed like gold.

“Whadjah do then, lad? Hmmm?”

“Nothing,” said Tom with a gasp. “I didn’t do nothing.”

The blond man crossed the open ground, his greatcoat flaring with each step. “The little bugger stole my friend’s watch.”

Tom squirmed in the beadle’s grasp. “I didn’t!” He was so scared, his legs were trembling. It was only by concentrating very, very hard that he kept from wetting himself.

“No?” said the blond man, reaching out. “Then what’s this?”

It was an old trick. Tom saw the gold watch hidden in the man’s palm and tried to flinch away, but the market beadle held him firm. Held him there, while the gentleman slipped his hand into Tom’s pocket and seemingly drew the watch out by its chain.

“See. Here it is.”

Tom lunged against the beadle’s hard grip. “He palmed it. You saw it, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“There, there, lad,” said the beadle. “You’ve been caught red-handed. Best you can do now is take the consequences like a true Englishman.”

“I tell you, I didn’t steal anybody’s bloody watch. I’m Viscount Devlin’s tiger and these men—”

The beadle roared with laughter. “Ho. Of course you are. And I’m Henry the Eighth.” He looked over at the blond man. “You’ll be laying charges?”

The blond man had a queer look on his face, sort of thoughtful and calculating. Tom suddenly regretted having mentioned Lord Devlin’s name in his presence.

“My friend will,” said the blond man, giving Tom a cold, hard smile. “We aim to see the little bugger hanged.”