The Thief Taker (21 page)

Chapter Forty-Four

Thomas sat patiently outside the booth. He could hear every word of his wife’s earnest confession.

‘We have sinned in our marriage,’ Teresa was saying, as Thomas strained his ears to hear better.

‘How have you sinned?’ asked the priest.

‘We do not have relations such as a husband and wife should.’ Teresa’s voice was barely more than a whisper. ‘I have not given my husband children.’

The priest paused for a moment.

‘It is your wifely duty,’ he said.

Teresa was silent in reply.

Outside the booth Thomas felt the familiar guilt. Teresa had been married to him so her dowry might help the war effort. But it had all been spent, and the cause lost. After his release from prison Thomas would not defile his lovely wife with his dark appetites. That he reserved for Protestant girls.

His encounters had started as a release. A revenge of sorts on the fathers and brothers of Cromwell’s England. In the beginning it gave him great pleasure to defile the heretic women. But soon it wasn’t enough to demean and degrade. Thomas’s liaisons sunk to ever greater depths of depravity. Until one day he discovered that bloodshed brought a new dimension.

Thomas shook himself out of his personal hell of self-disgust and shame. The priest was still taking Teresa’s confession.

‘Does the devil speak to you often?’ the priest was asking.

‘He told me to take my own life,’ admitted Teresa, ‘after the soldiers came.’

‘But you did not succumb to temptation?’

‘Never. Though I was tempted many times. I was sent to
Holland
, so the soldiers might not get to me again,’ she added. ‘But still I feared they would come.’

There was a pause. ‘Keep to your prayers Teresa. I will speak with your husband and offer advice to protect your soul.’

After a moment Teresa emerged from the little confessional booth. Thomas pointed she should climb back into the wagon and stood to address the priest.

Instinctively the holy man took a little step back as he approached.

‘She is frightened to be outside,’ explained Thomas, ignoring the reaction. ‘Since the war she is afraid of men she doesn’t know. It is only because you are a holy man that she can bear to have you talk to her,’ he added.

Thomas eyed the priest. Like most Catholic holy men he had seen an unnatural share of violence. Several bad breaks had spread his nose at an angle. And he was missing half the fingers on his
left hand
.

The priest was looking to where Teresa was angling her slim waist to clamber back into to wagon. His face fought a peculiar battle, fear eventually outmanoeuvring hatred, as he turned back to Thomas.

‘You treat her well? You are not violent to her?’ his voice was thick with suspicion.

‘No.’

There was a pause. Thomas could feel the priest’s distaste coming in thick waves. On his last journey Thomas had not been able to resist indulging himself with a local girl. The holy man had heard the confession and many worse before it.

‘Perhaps the hot summer has made her worse,’ said the priest eventually. ‘Have you anywhere suitable for her when you reach your destination?’

Thomas nodded. ‘I know Wapping well. During the war I helped build the prison there. There are old cells that are never used, and she might stay very well in one of those.’

The priest blanched.

‘Teresa would be most afraid in a hostelry or tavern, where any strange man might come in and out,’ explained Thomas. ‘You and I might think a cell is a sad place to stay, but she is much comforted by the security of such a place.’

‘Surely you do not mean to lead your wife past the guards and rough convicts?’ protested the priest. ‘For that must fright her greatly.’

‘There is a secret way in,’ said Thomas, ‘only I know of it. She will not be faced with any scenes from the prison at all.’

But as Thomas said the words an uneasy feeling flitted in his stomach. A memory of Civil War ghosts and ghouls.

Thomas’s wagon pulled away, and the priest waited on the dirt road, staring after it. As the vehicle rumbled off he relaxed his clenched fist. The slow opening of his fingers revealed a paper, folded tightly in his palm. It was damp with the sweat of clutching it. But the moisture had not affected what was written there.

There was some kind of map – London – the priest assumed, with a scatter of crosses dotted across it. And a roll of paper which he recognised as a carrier pigeon message.

They had slipped from Thomas’s clothing, as he took off his heavy cloak to enter the confessional booth. But as the wagon turned a corner and rolled on out of sight, the priest made no move to return the papers.

Chapter Forty-Five

Charlie and Maria reached the justices in Stratford only to find that Malvern had outrun them.

They had entered the little village of brick and half-timbered houses easily enough. Plague had now broken out in Stratford and its few remaining inhabitants no longer cared who came and went.

And they had been fortunate that the constable had not yet fled. But after that their luck had run out. A man wearing a plague costume had driven his wagon through the village hours ago.

‘I do not know how he could have outpaced us,’ repeated Maria, her eyes imploring the village constable for a different answer. ‘His wagon was only a little ahead of us this morning. We should be hours ahead of him by now.’

‘I know not how he travels so fast by wagon,’ said the constable. ‘But we hear reports that this monster and his wagon disappears and reappears from the roads. We like it not.’

Charlie was shaking his head furiously.

‘He is clever,’ he said to Maria. ‘Malvern has found out some faster way. A path where he cannot be followed so easily.’

Charlie’s mind was tracing out the map in his head. There was something other than roads, he remembered. Lilly’s map showed the marching route of the Royalist army where it had been marked in red.

‘What about the old military marching routes?’ he asked the constable. ‘Could a wagon take those instead of roads?’

‘The old ghost routes?’ replied the constable. ‘He would be a fearsome sort of man who would go those ways. For they are haunted by the dead soldiers of the Civil War.’

‘But a wagon could easily travel on a wide marching route,’ said Charlie, thinking out loud.

He turned to Maria.

‘That is what he does. I am sure of it. He takes the old army routes. And that tells us something else about him Maria.’

‘What?’

‘Firstly, he is clever. Very clever. And he guards against being followed. Second, that he fought in the Civil War and had a high position in the guard. For a foot soldier would have no reason to memorise a marching route. That would be for generals and
commanders
.’

‘Sure you do not mean to head to Wapping?’ the constable’s face was a mask of horror. ‘Have you not heard? It is a ghetto of disease.’

Charlie nodded. ‘We have heard. But our business means we must risk it.’

The constable was shaking his head. ‘It where the first plaguey Londoners fled,’ he said. ‘The whole town is riddled and it is
dangerous
even to walk the streets.’

Maria looked at Charlie uneasily. ‘Surely if plague is so bad then the people keep to their beds?’ she ventured.

But the constable crossed himself and looked to the floor.

Charlie called the map to mind again.

‘We still have a chance,’ he said. ‘We too have a map of the army route.’

‘But we only have one horse between us,’ said Maria.

‘If we ride hard and our horse holds out under such treatment we may yet gain on Malvern before Wapping.’

Maria was looking at their beleaguered horse.

‘Then we must make haste,’ she said. ‘And pray the horse understands our purpose. If she does not collapse beneath us, then maybe we will have some luck. We are faster yet than a wagon.’

On the horizon the sun was setting.

‘We may be in Wapping by morning,’ she said.

Chapter Forty-Six

Charlie regarded Maria carefully from the corner of his eye. Her long limbs had lost their poise and were waving about the sides of the horse. Her breathing was laboured, and she leant low towards the neck of her animal.

As they rode deep into the night the horse was panting with exhaustion, and Charlie walked alongside to lighten its load. But as the stars twinkled above, both the animal and Maria were teetering on the brink of collapse.

So far they had avoided the ominous groups of torches which
swept the night landscape. But with the horse so exhausted
Charlie
knew they would have little chance of escape if they were cornered.

‘We will rest for an hour or so,’ he decided. ‘It is dangerous to go on with the horse so tired.’

Maria did not object, sliding silently from the horse with her eyes drooping.

‘Here,’ said Charlie. ‘Sleep for an hour and I will keep watch.’ He looked around him. ‘It is high enough ground,’ he decided. ‘We should be able to see anyone approach long before they see us.’

Though they had Maria’s tinderbox he didn’t dare light a fire.

But he prepared what little food they had left, and then taking out his knife he cut down a few leafy tree branches and laid t
hem out
.

‘You can rest on these,’ he said, cutting away the thicker braches so the leaves fanned out in a makeshift bed.

Maria smiled. ‘You should teach the man I am to marry,’ she said. ‘He can hardly use a knife to spread butter.’ Then she looked down in embarrassment, as though she had admitted too much.

They made a little picnic with the remains of the food and Charlie brought out a flask of ginever.

Maria took a heavy draught before passing it back.

‘Tomorrow we will finally arrest this Malvern,’ she said sleepily, ‘and see what kind of a man he is.’

They sat in silence, passing the flask back and forth between them. Charlie let the warmth of the gin seep into him. In the moonlight Maria’s handsome features looked gentler and more girlish. She was beautiful, he thought, as the drink flushed through him.

Maria also seemed softened by the gin. She smiled at him in a fuzzy sort of way.

‘When I first met you I thought you a low sort of man,’ she said. ‘But I see different now. You are not so bad Charlie Thief-Taker.’

Charlie allowed himself a half smile, realising Maria had probably not drunk spirits before.

‘You were clever,’ she continued, ‘memorising the map from Lilly. And you saved my life. Were it not for you I would have died on the road for certain.’

‘You are not so bad either,’ he said, ‘for I thought you right high-handed and proud when we first met.’

They looked at each other, smiling, and then the silent moment turned suddenly awkward.

‘The constellations are brighter in the country,’ said Charlie, turning his attention up to the star-filled sky.

‘Know you anything of astrology?’

He nodded. ‘I taught myself all the constellations as a boy.’

‘I did not think you the kind of man who would be interested in the makings of the universe.’

Charlie smiled. ‘They all have stories. See there, where the bright star meets four faint ones? That is Perseus. That collection there is Andromeda, his mother. In the legend Perseus rescues her from a rich evil King. It was my favourite story as a boy.’

Maria studied his face. ‘The son rescues the mother?’

Charlie looked away.

‘Tell me about your wife,’ she said, leaning closer, ‘the actress.’

She was close enough now that Charlie was breathing in the perfume of her skin. It was a disconcertingly sensual smell, and he had to force his attention back to the conversation.

‘Lynette was one of Mother Mitchell’s girls,’ he said, suddenly finding thoughts of his estranged wife were the last thing on his mind. ‘We fell in love. Then the King returned and the stages reopened and women performed for the first time. Lynette would come away from the theatre with gloves stuffed full of money from noblemen hoping to be her patron.’

‘And you were jealous?’

‘I fought many men for the things they spoke of her,’ said
Charlie
.

‘So you drove her away?’

Charlie’s mouth twisted, trying to think of the best way to describe Lynette.

‘She is a woman of changing feelings,’ he settled on eventually. ‘And she does not always behave honourably. But it is impossible not to forgive her.’

Maria let out a surprisingly unladylike snort.

‘It sounds as though your wife is a selfish woman, with a beautiful face,’ she said.

Charlie was silent for a moment, struck by how very close Maria was to the truth.

‘We often argued. Over money especially. And we agreed to say our marriage never was,’ he replied.

‘So how does the story end Charlie Thief-Taker?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Do you get rich and have your wife return to you? Is that t
he plan?
’

‘Maybe a little in part,’ he admitted.

He paused for a moment, deliberating. Then he reached into his naval coat and extracted a dog-eared folded up paper. Charlie smoothed it out.

Maria’s eyes settled on the sketch of a building and then looked up at him questioningly.

‘I mean to build a gaming house,’ he said shyly. ‘South of t
he rive
r.’

‘It is grand,’ she said, sounding surprised.

‘Land is cheap, south of the river,’ said Charlie. ‘People think it a flood plain. But this year they build a waterwheel. The river is being diverted.’

‘So your plan is to buy land there?’

Charlie nodded. ‘I will build cheaply. And when it’s fin
ished, I can employ my brother and keep him from his dangerous practices.’

‘It is a good plan,’ she said after a moment. ‘If your ambition is to make money.’

She paused. ‘Is that your reason for seeking out Malvern?’ she added. ‘You think your mother has left you a fortune?’

Charlie thought about this.

‘No. But I want to know what became of my mother,’ he replied. ‘Rowan thinks there is nothing to tell. But I cannot shake the
feeling
. . . .’ He struggled for a moment, looking for a less childish reason. ‘I would take my revenge if some man or woman forced her to give us up,’ he concluded.

‘Then it is a poor ambition you have set yourself,’ she said. ‘For you might forget your revenge and simply be happy.’

Charlie shook his head. ‘I could never forgive if I discovered my mother was made to abandon us.’

‘My mother left us,’ said Maria.

Charlie sat up a little in the dark.

‘She took all our money and fled,’ continued Maria. ‘And after that the boy I was betrothed to would not have me. For his father advised him not to take a girl without a dowry. And he was a
coward
, as it turned out.’

‘What of your betrothed now?’ asked Charlie. ‘The one who you do not live safe with in plague time?’

Maria shrugged. ‘I have tried love matches and they will not do. So I have finally learned to decide with my head. My betrothed will care for me and keep me.’

He noticed that her hands were shaking. She saw him looking and folded them quickly into her lap.

‘But you do not love him?’ Charlie surmised.

‘No. But love can grow. That is what they tell me. I respect him, that is enough. And when the children come that will be something as well.’

In the half-light Charlie felt her shoulder settle against his.

‘It is a nice that we are now almost friends,’ she said sleepily. ‘I am sure your wife misses her husband.’

Charlie put his arm around her and when she didn’t resist he rested his mouth in her hair.

‘The world is harder than you think for women,’ she murmured. He felt her sag against him. Then her hand moved to hold his.

‘Charlie?’ She turned, so that their faces were almost touching. There was something in her eyes he’d never seen before. ‘I feel safe with you,’ she said.

Charlie moved his hand to cup her jaw, and she didn’t resist, closing her eyes, leaning onto it.

He could feel the warm current of her breath on his face.

She opened her eyes again, and slowly Charlie moved forward to kiss her.

Their lips met, and suddenly Charlie was lost in the smell and the taste of her. His arms were at her waist, pulling her close.

Maria pressed against him, as he wound his fingers deep into her hair, moving his mouth and body tight to hers. Then his hand came up against the barrier of her thick bodice. And suddenly she was rigid in his arms, pulling back.

Charlie stared back at her, confused. Her sudden passion
had taken him by surprise. How could it have evaporated so
quickly?

‘It is not that I do not like you as a man,’ she said. ‘But I could never . . . Not with a man who couldn’t . . . You are married,’ she finished, finally.

‘I am separated,’ said Charlie. ‘There is nothing to stop me being with someone else.’ His arms were still around Maria’s waist, and her pounding heat was palpable.

He leaned in to kiss her again, but she twisted away, and his lips grazed her cheek.

‘I am betrothed,’ she said, wriggling out of his embrace. ‘And my future husband is a good person. I could not betray him with a man like you.’

Her face had now hardened back to the serious expression he was more familiar with.

‘A man like me?’ Charlie’s voice came out choked.

‘I did not mean it quite like that,’ said Maria, ‘But I have been bred to marry sensibly.’

‘So you have,’ said Charlie, not bothering to keep the contempt from his tone. ‘And I wish you well of it. For I know of many happy girls who seek a man for his money and position.’ He stopped short of saying there was a name for that kind of woman.

‘I have my family to think of,’ said Maria, ‘I do not mean to offend you. But you must see we could hardly make a match.’

Charlie didn’t answer her. Instead he shuffled a few feet away, and pulling his coat over himself lay down to sleep.

More than anything he was offended by her self-deception. Only moments ago the desire had come off her in waves. Now she was trying to pretend her chaste persona had never been breached.

‘There is no reason to behave foolishly,’ said Maria. Charlie ignored her, and getting no response she lay down on the damp grass.

He could tell by her ragged breathing that she was not even close to falling asleep. Laying his coat across her he stared back up at the stars, trying to ignore the sudden wakefulness the situation had created.

In the night sky a cloud had moved over Perseus. So he let his eyes drift around the stars that formed Virgo. The good wife.

Charlie’s annoyance with Maria rose again.

He closed his eyes and tried to let the darkness envelop him. Tomorrow would bring the morning and with it Malvern and his thief taker fee.

As his mind dropped into sleep his thoughts were still on Maria.

There was no reason why he should care that she thought
herself
above him.

I do not even like her,
he muttered to himself,
she is proud and rude and asks too many questions besides.

But it hurt all the same.

As sleep washed over him, Charlie drifted into a flashing circuit of jarringly familiar images. Maria’s sister, covered in bloodied ribbons. And then another set of ribbons, from long ago, tied around a book. Herbs thrown, candles lit.

A voice he thought was his mother’s, telling him she would keep him safe.

And then he was in a low, dark room, with a shuffling, animal shape in the corner. The lady-in-the-hidden room. Beautiful. Her blonde hair a waving curtain.

She smiled and beckoned him.

Come Charlie. I will tell you all the secrets.

Her voice was wrong. Croaking and hard. Then snakes came from her eyes, and her white face dissolved into bloodied thorns and feather.