The Devil and His Boy (9 page)

“It’s a lot to learn.” This was Florian who, as Isabella, had one of the largest parts.

“We will work hard.” Dr Mobius set down his glass and stared hard at everyone around the table. “From today, none of us leave this ship without my permission. We will rehearse on the deck or – if the snow or the rain of this accursed country makes that impossible – down here. Florian! You will teach Tom his lines. Day and night. We must be ready for our grand opening.” He turned to Tom. “From now on, Tom, you are mine. You must remember that. Do as you are told. And take care. We would hate anything accidental to happen to you … accidentally. You understand?”

Suddenly Tom knew what he had meant to ask before. “The boy who was meant to play my part…” He looked up at Mobius. “What happened to him?”

One of the men shifted uncomfortably on his stool. Next to Tom, Florian cast his eyes down and pretended to study the script.

Dr Mobius sighed and spread his hands, his many rings sparkling in the light of the candles. “Poor Frank,” he said. “It’s exactly what I mean. Yes. Exactly. You see, he tried to leave the ship one night without asking my permission. Somehow he must have slipped … in the dark, maybe.” Dr Mobius laid a hand on Tom’s shoulder. He leant down and gazed straight at him. “He fell into the river and drowned. Make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to you!”

* * *

Rehearsals began that afternoon and for the next three days Tom found himself utterly absorbed in the business of producing a play. Fortunately it had stopped snowing and they were able to rehearse on deck. The play demanded lots of running around, sometimes with guns, sometimes with devil’s pitchforks, and Tom wondered how they would ever have managed inside.

Because he relied on Florian to read his lines, he found himself closer to the other boy than to anyone else. The rest of the company were as reserved as they had been when he first met them. They rarely spoke to him. But nor did they often speak to each other. They seemed nervous. He wondered if any of them had ever acted before.

It wasn’t easy getting Florian to talk either. As the days passed, he learned that the boy was sixteen years old and that Dr Mobius was his uncle.

“When did you start acting?” Tom asked.

“This is my first play.”

“Is it something you always wanted to do?”

“No!” Florian fell silent, his sad eyes turning away. “I just do what my uncle tells me to,” he said. “Now stop asking questions and let’s go through your lines.”

Tom was perplexed. But it was only on his second night on the boat that he saw something that actually disturbed him.

All the actors slept in one room – the same room where they had read the play. This was the only room on the ship that was remotely dry or warm enough, although Dr Mobius had a cabin to himself on the other side of the deck. Tom had a hammock next to Florian, with the actor called Ferdinand (who played the merchant) on the other side. However, on that second night, he couldn’t sleep. The weather was colder than ever, the river a solid sheet of ice now. He could feel the chill seeping through the woodwork and into his bones.

Next to him, Ferdinand groaned and turned over. The movement pulled back his shirt sleeve and with a start, Tom saw the man’s bare arm. There was an eye with a cross burned into the flesh, between the wrist and the elbow. He had seen exactly the same thing on the arm of Dr Mobius.

Tom straightened up. What did it mean? Were
all
the actors carrying the same mark and, if so, why? Why should they have consented to allow themselves to be branded like animals?

Tom lay back down in his hammock and closed his eyes. But that night he didn’t sleep a wink.

Another day came and went. Tom had learned all of Act One and Two, and most of Act Three. That only left a short scene in Act Five and he would be ready. But ready for what? Dr Mobius still hadn’t said where or when
The Devil and his Boy
was going to be performed. And Tom still hadn’t been paid. He had tried asking Florian, but of course without success, and was just summoning up the courage to tackle Dr Mobius himself when the visitor arrived.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon and already dark, a few flurries of snow gusting against the rotting ship. Tom was watching a scene from Act Four being rehearsed when the man approached the ship. The man was wearing a long brown robe that reached all the way to his feet with a hood drawn over his head. A monk or a friar. The man glanced over his shoulder, then hurried up the gangplank. At that moment, Dr Mobius saw him. “That is, I think, enough for today,” he called out, stopping the rehearsal in mid-sentence. “Please return to your cabin. Yes, I think, to the cabin. While I attend to some … business.”

The monk had stood waiting while Mobius spoke. Then Mobius bowed and gestured to his private quarters on the other side of the deck. Still keeping his face hidden underneath the hood, the monk scuttled across the deck and disappeared through the door. Dr Mobius followed him. The door slammed shut behind them.

The other actors were only too pleased to be released from their work in the cold evening air and crowded round the door in their haste to get back to the fire. Florian went with them and suddenly Tom, who had been sitting alone on the deck above, found himself momentarily forgotten.

His first instinct was to follow the others down. It was extremely cold and the last one in would always find himself furthest from the fire. But at the same time he was curious. Why should a monk have suddenly chosen to visit a company of actors and why should Dr Mobius be so eager to see him? He had to know. And suddenly he had an idea. Perhaps there was a way he could find out.

There was a rope lying on the deck. In fact there were ropes all over the ship but this was the only one that hadn’t been gnawed at, either by time or by rats. Tom snatched it up and tied it round one of the masts, tossing the other end into the river. Then, taking hold of the rope, he lifted himself over the railing that ran the full length of the deck, and began to lower himself down the side.

Dr Mobius’s cabin was directly below him and a little to one side. Hanging in space with his arms out-stretched, his feet up against the side of the ship and his head hanging back, Tom was able to manoeuvre himself until he could look in through the window, into the cabin. He was about three metres below the deck and three metres above the frozen water of the Thames. If he let go of the rope he knew that he would fall right through the ice which still wasn’t strong enough to support his weight. But it might be strong enough to trap him underneath the surface. Tom imagined himself in the chill, black water. He thought about Frank, the boy whose place he had taken. Would he have frozen before he drowned? Which would have killed him first?

Clinging on even tighter now, Tom looked into the cabin. The first thing he saw was that the monk wasn’t a monk at all. He had taken off his robe and underneath he was dressed like a gentleman with a white collar, a black velvet cape, black stockings and black boots. The man had a beard and a moustache, both turning grey. His eyes were narrow and slightly too small for his head. His nose, long and hooked, was slightly too big for it. There was a long, tapering scar on the side of his cheek, shaped like a letter “J”. From where Tom was hanging, he could also see a table, a chair, candles and a bed against the wall. But Dr Mobius himself was just out of sight.

“…The money? I haven’t come right across London to leave without it.”

It was the “monk” talking. With a thrill of excitement, Tom realized that he could hear every word the two men were saying. The cabin window might have had glass once but it had been broken or rotted away long ago. Tom eased himself closer, gently shifting his weight on his feet. He had to be careful. Move too quickly and he might find himself accidentally knocking on their wall.

“Of course I have the money,” Mobius replied. A cloth bag appeared, thrown down on the table. It landed with a heavy clink. “But what I want to know, what you must tell me is…” His hand fell on the bag before the other man could take it. “…Do you have what
I
want?”

“It’s not easy, damn you,” the man muttered. “I’m working on it. I’m sticking my neck out for you. Literally! I could lose my head for this!”

“But you’re not doing it for me,” Mobius purred. He lifted the bag again. “You’re doing it for this. You’re going to be very, very rich.”

“If anyone finds out, I’m going to be very, very dead.”

“They won’t.”

The man in black stood up and walked over to the window. Outside, Tom twisted away, afraid he was going to be discovered. For a nightmare moment he lost his footing and hung upside down, his neck twisted, and a sky of black ice filling his vision. But the man had turned round. Tom managed to loop the rope over his foot. He was still upside down. But he was safe.

“What about this new boy?” the man asked. “Who is he?”

“He’s nobody. Nothing. A creature I picked out of the gutter.” Mobius purred quietly and Tom could imagine him stroking his curling moustache.

“He doesn’t know?”

“Of course not. He’ll play his part and then we’ll be rid of him. But we were talking about you, Sir Richard. When will I have a result?”

“Tomorrow. Maybe the day after. They’re meeting soon…”

“You can take half the money now. Half later. And don’t disappoint me, Sir Richard.” There was a brief pause and Dr Mobius moved closer. Tom could just make out the side of his face and part of his body. One eye gleamed in the candlelight. “I have far-reaching friends. You may hide from me but not from them…”

Tom sensed that the interview was coming to an end and quickly pulled himself back up the side of the ship. He thought of the rope, stretching out across the deck. He couldn’t risk Dr Mobius or the man he had called Sir Richard finding it.

There was nobody in sight on the deck. Tom climbed over the railing and untied the rope. He was just straightening up when a hand fell on his shoulder. Tom froze, then turned softly.

Florian was standing over him. For a moment neither of them spoke. Tom wondered if the other boy was going to raise the alarm. He must have seen what Tom had been doing. He must know that Tom had been eavesdropping.

But then Florian began to speak, the words tumbling out as a whisper on a frosting cloud of breath. Tom couldn’t understand what he was saying. The words made no sense. At last Florian stopped, but then he grabbed hold of Tom’s sleeve.

“Tom,” he said. “I like you. But you have to go. Don’t you see? You’re in terrible danger. You must get off this ship. Leave London. Go as far away as you can…”

A door banged open. Mobius was showing the “monk” back to the shore. Florian turned and fled the other way. Tom stepped into the shadows, his mind whirling.

He had barely understood a word of what Florian had said. And it wasn’t just because Tom had been taken by surprise or because all the blood had rushed to his head when he was upside down. No. It was only now that he realized. Florian had spoken to him for a minute, maybe for longer. But whatever language he had been speaking, it certainly wasn’t English.

There
were no rehearsals on Christmas Day. Tom asked if he could leave the ship and was pleasantly surprised when Dr Mobius said yes. In fact, Mobius seemed quite keen for him to take a day’s holiday.

Tom was glad to get back on to dry land. He walked for twenty minutes – it was easy to find his way. All he had to do was follow the river back down to London Bridge. Soon he was recognizing familiar landmarks. And it was just before midday when he found himself in front of the shoe shop over which Moll Cutpurse lived.

He was about to call up to her when Moll came out. She stopped and stared at him and, although she did her best to hide it, Tom knew that she was pleased to see him.

“So you decided to come back,” she scowled.

“You did say I could look in on Christmas Day,” Tom replied.

Moll softened. “Oh yes. Happy Christmas.” She ran her eye over him. “Well, you haven’t been starving, I can see that,” she said. “So does that mean you’re an actor now?”

“Yes. I’m in a play!”

“Tried on the dress yet?” She smiled. “You’ll look nice in make-up. In fact you’ll probably make a much better girl than me.” Somewhere in the distance a church clock chimed the hour. It was eleven o’clock. “I was just on my way to a Christmas dinner,” Moll continued. “You’re not invited, but since everyone there’s going to be a crook anyway, I don’t suppose they’d mind if you joined in.”

It was one of the strangest invitations Tom had ever received, although of course it was also the only invitation he’d ever received. Christmas in Framlingham had only ever meant extra work. “Thank you,” he said.

Moll headed back through Southwark and past the great bull-baiting ring at Bankside. The other side of the river was heavily built up but on this side the buildings suddenly stopped, giving way first to gardens and then to open fields. The snow had fallen thicker here. To the south, everything was white with only a few cattle standing out against the landscape. Ahead of them, a single inn stood at the edge of a clump of trees. Moll went up to the door and knocked. The door opened a crack and a pair of dark eyes gazed suspiciously out.

“Moll!” a voice exclaimed.

The door opened fully and Moll and Tom went in.

It was a small inn but it was packed with about twenty or thirty people sitting at a long table, chattering among themselves. As soon as they saw Moll and Tom, they bustled about making a space at the table so that the two new arrivals could sit down.

“Let me introduce you,” Moll said to Tom. “That’s Black Bob.” She pointed at a man who was actually rather pale. “He’s a highwayman. And so is One-eyed Jack…” She pointed to a second man. “…Snatcher Sam and old Shagbag, there at the end of the table. Dick the Dealer there is a card sharp.” She nodded at a man with a little pointy moustache and the man waved back, a pack of cards suddenly appearing from nowhere in his empty hand. “Over there are the Bird Brothers.”

“London’s finest burglars,” the brothers – two plump men in identical green doublets – chorused in unison.