Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel (2 page)

‘Your servant, Your Highness. Our success is already written.’

Chapter One

London. August 1720

Seven months later.

The gentleman in the black coat was Edwin Tinkerman’s third fare of the Monday morning. He had just dropped off at Morris’s causeway in Limehouse in the hope of having time for a pie, but the brown boots stomped into his wherry before he had time to decline. A shout from a neighbouring wherryman, however, halted his forming objection.

‘Ho, governor, don’t be sailing with young Edwin there! He’ll bill you sixpence befores you sits down! I’ll takes you for threepence anywheres you aim to. Step lively now, governor. Over here, now! Threepence to the city!’

Edwin motioned his passenger to sit as he yelled back. ‘George Temple, you can busy yourself. When you gets your Doggett coat you can charge sixpence. Now,
off.
’ He flicked a dismissive wave to his competition and hard eyes to the others who had begun to row towards the fare.

‘Where to, Cap’n?’ he enquired, for the man had the look of the sea about him, with his tanned skin and salt-bleached boots.

The gentleman tipped back his hat. ‘How comes you get to charge sixpence, Edwin?’ His voice sounded amused.

Edwin straightened himself proudly, still holding an oar, and ran his free hand over his fine red wool coat. ‘Ain’t you seen me red Doggett, Cap’n?’ He twisted his left arm to show his large silver badge, ‘Or me silver horse? Hanover horse, no less. I wins the Doggett last month ain’t I? Fastest wherryman on the Thames ain’t I?’ His passenger shook his head. Edwin winked. ‘Ah, you been away ain’t you, Cap’n? A man who don’t know me Doggett, don’t know London.’ Edwin set to his pushing off, nodding that he was listening as the gentlemen replied.

‘Aye, Edwin. I’ve been away ten years now,’ he pointed a lazy hand vaguely north. ‘Near the Pelican I used to be.’

‘Ah, The Devil’s Tavern, eh, Cap’n? You lived a rough one,’ he said, and gave another wink to indicate that he meant no offence. ‘I don’t do those steps after midnight lest I don’t sees me missus evermore.’ But he had heard enough of his gentleman’s past. ‘Where to then, Cap’n? Mind I don’t go near the bridge this time and tide for less than a shilling.’

They had moved off shore into the thoroughfare and the gentleman took pause as the magnitude of bodies and ships swamping the river burst onto his senses like a thunderclap.

From the streets on land one could hear the rhythm of mallets, the haul of chain and rope and the working shouts from the water: the background noise of the city. By looking up at the rooftops one could follow the meander of the Thames by the thicket of masts etching out every inch of her against the sky, but nothing had prepared him for the sight of the city’s lifeblood pulsing along the current.

Amongst the fleet of ships that lined her wharves for miles toiled nearly five thousand watermen like Edwin, who sculled and rowed their hoys and wherries between the plying stairs of Surrey and the city, like beetles scuttling over pig slurry, whilst the giant barks towered over them; only St Paul’s dwarfing them, dwarfing everything. The river seemed more wood than water and Edwin turned back to look as the thrill of it silenced his passenger – a man clearly used to wider, freer waters. ‘Where to, Cap’n?’

Edwin’s fare tore his gaze from the walls of oak now blotting out the lesser buildings, so that only the stone medieval city remained proud, hazy through a fog of coal-smoke.

‘I’m to Leicester House. I have an appointment there.’

Edwin nodded and bit his lip. He appraised his fare differently now. A sailor of sorts but one of some note if the house of the Prince of Wales was his destination. Perhaps some great deed in the war was to be rewarded – or taxed, which was more likely.

‘I’ll take you to Execution stairs, Cap’n. Safe for a gentleman to get off at Execution.’

Edwin stalled expertly as a train of five passed before his bow and doffed their caps to his red coat. ‘You can get a chair there or walk it. Only four mile from there, Cap’n.’ He resumed the pace that had won him his jacket and rowed his way effortlessly upstream.

‘It’s all coal now, Cap’n.’ Edwin nodded to the black ships lining the north shore, but still the cages of geese and other animals seemed to dominate. Or perhaps that was more from their vocalisation than their majority.

‘Coal and paper. Tons of paper. We’ve daily sheets now, Cap’n. You can even buy daily prints of the Bailey’s trials. I can find out what me father’s been up to without asking me mam,’ he winked yet again.

Silence now, just the plash of oar as rounding Rotherhithe the spectacle widened and demanded quiet respect. The whole of St Paul’s lay before them, presiding over the jumble of smoking buildings below her still gleaming dome and columns built new from The Fire. In the distance, mired in a dark auburn cloud of yet more smoke, a small village seemed to float above the Thames.

The bridge.

Piled four-stories high with shops and dwellings and the doll’s-house prettiness of Nonsuch House that stood over the Surrey entrance to the bridge, its four onion domes as tall as St Paul’s.

The bridge. For six hundred years it had been the only walkway in and out south of the city, and the thousands of men like Edwin Tinkerman had enough sway to keep it so.

A quiet twenty minutes later, his fare not much one for talking, Edwin had reached the Execution stairs with its green walls and wet stone walk; sounds of revelry came wafting down from the casement windows of the Bell inn above.

Just visible, topping the water, stood the iron stake where at low tide the corpses of those tried and condemned for their wickedness at sea would sit on the shoal and wait for the solemn waters to wash over them three times before being pitched and gibbeted to hang as a warning, at Graves Point, to all those young men who might suppose that a life of piracy had more lure than honest sweat and sinew.

Edwin’s fare alighted with easy balance, perfectly upright, well used to stepping from wood to shore, and slapped a shilling into his calloused palm in the same step.

Edwin protested honestly. ‘I can’ts change a shilling, Governor. Not this early.’

The sailor turned back with a deep sniff of the rancidness of Wapping. ‘I don’t need change Edwin, but remember my face. If I need across in a hurry look out for me and I’ll look out for your red coat. Could that be a deal?’

Edwin agreed and studied the sailor. Tall. Black hair, no wig, no bow. Thirty, maybe, but the sea had made his eyes older. Good black twill coat and hat. Those ancient brown bucket-top boots.

‘Aye, Cap’n, I’ll remember you.’ He tipped his hat. ‘Good luck to you, Cap’n.’ And he pushed off again into the rushing lanes.

Walking up the wet green steps still bubbling from the morning tide the sailor dodged past the shrunken corpse of a dead horse. Its tongue was missing, chewed out by rats, and two dogs ignored him as they growled at each other over the ownership of the animal’s pizzle. He shook his head at the surprised look of the horse in its ignominy. London had changed very little.

A narrow alleyway ran straight off the steps. Tall stone walls blocked the light and funnelled the stench of Wapping straight into his face as the passage cambered upwards to the throng of people in the bright street ahead.

To his right he eyed a figure slumped against the black wall with lowered head and hat, drunk or pretending to be so, a smouldering clay pipe hanging from his lips. Early in the morning to be the worse for it, he thought, even for London.

The sailor raised himself as the traveller went by. The six foot and more of him would not be an easy mark. On his left, a few strides further, another wretch slumbered against a barrel, with bare chest and naked feet. To this one the sailor drew aside his coat to show the hilt of his sword, even though its presence was obvious by the rise of his left coat-tail. Still, a glimpse of steel would not hurt.

It was more his custom to wear his unfashionable cross-belt over his coat: all the swifter to draw. He had deferred to custom to seem more like a gentleman for the company that would follow at the end of his journey.

Twenty feet more to the street – moments away – but his shoulders sank as he heard the call behind him. He was sorry that they had not let him walk on.

‘Ho, Governor!’ came a friendly chirrup. ‘I thinks you’ve dropped something. Wait up, Governor.’

He could carry on. Hurry to the breech of the alley with his back to them. But he knew them. Had known them all his life. They could run like rats and he would only be presenting them his kidneys. He could run though. He would make the street most definitely if he ran.

The chirrup continued, a scuffle of feet hurrying behind him. ‘Dropped your purse, Governor: I has it here for you.’

But he never ran
from
. Towards, yes. Not from. Not any more.

Both sets of feet with him now, and still the voice, from his right, the one with the pipe, rasping from wood chip in his tobacco rotting him since childhood.

‘Didn’t you hear me! You dropped your
coin
!’ The last word breathless as a knife drew back to pierce the twill coat and a hand reached for the collar.

The coat spun before the strike and the sailor’s fist exploded with pistol and partridge shot into the bare chest of the footpad’s partner. The footpad watched his mate fly back, red across his chest, and fall to the cobbles, dropping his small steel. The sound of shot still echoed around the passage as his mate choked on his lungs.

The footpad switched back to the sailor, his knife stayed by the grin that came with the sailor’s voice as he holstered his smoking giant of a pistol.

‘You dropped your friend.’ His hanger glinted free, sweeping away the last of the pistol smoke as a beckoning hand invited the footpad closer. ‘Come on. Show me my coin, then.’

The man stepped back, held his small gully blade loyally if not courageously. His wide eyes were wedded to the wave of the sword. The sailor came on slowly, grinned wider. Then the shadows of others loomed from the mouth of the alley. His shot had brought curious eyes. No matter, this was by far his right. Still, he had hoped for a more innocuous entrance.

The footpad called out, his neck straining high, his voice higher.

‘Jon! Jon! He’s killed Arthur!’

The sailor did not look behind him but moved his free hand to the back of his belt where his dagger waited. He carried on but his ears pricked at the clump of wooden soles behind him.

The footpad aimed an accusing finger, lowered his knife. ‘
Him
, Jon,’ then pointed the finger to his dying accomplice. ‘Shot up Arthur he has!’

A bulk appeared beside the sailor, a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Put up now, sir. Let’s hear the tale of it.’

The sailor looked at the hand, then the body it belonged to. As tall as him, just over six feet. A gentleman, trying to be, but a farmer’s quizzical scowl designated him a man doing better than he should by birth. He wore dirty lace and linen and a filigree sword more for ceremony than filleting. Only the heavy cudgel in his right hand signified that he worked at something – and that something distasteful.

The sailor looked at the crowd gathering and put away his sword. ‘I defended myself, constable, if constable you be?’

‘My name is Jonathan Wild, sir, if you do not know. I will be addressed by you in the next moment as Thief-Taker General, if you please. What be you called now, sir, so as I might settle this matter?’

The sailor checked once to the crowd, which seemed satisfied, and once to the footpad who had now put away his knife. It seemed that London had found some justice in his absence.

Patrick Devlin’s name however was surely yellowing on the walls of the Bailey or on a magistrate’s desk somewhere. Devlin tipped his hat to Jonathan Wild.

‘My name is Captain John Coxon and—’ His address was cut dead by the blow of the cudgel’s oak head under his chin.

He flew to the cobbles, his head cracking on the stones, his pistol jumping free from his belt.

He rolled up and whipped out his ebony hilted dagger to the wavering form before him, shaking the shock from his head. He’d been hit before and he would be back to the fight when others howled or lay down. But Wild had been there before as well. He had already brought back his staff double-handed and the full back-swing of the oak across the sailor’s temple could have taken a child’s head off. Devlin stumbled with the impact and his blood painted the wall behind him like a brush thrown against it. He went down with his hand still gripping the dagger.