quickly. The net they’d thrown around the judge was good, but sooner or later a clever man would find his way through it. They had to stop Wyatt before that happened.
How could they manage it? They needed luck, the kind of luck that had deserted Leeds this whole winter.
Once they had Wyatt, he could concentrate on what to do about the Hendersons. There would be something: accidents that couldn’t be blamed on anyone. No one was going to treat his men like this.
The deputy was sitting with Josh, watching over him. The boy would survive, the apothecary had promised that. Nottingham just hoped the boy would want to continue in the job. He was good, a natural at this work, with a kind of imagination that was rare.
But he’d need his confidence. He had to believe in himself and come back from these injuries and the setbacks with his faith still strong. Josh was a boy, he’d just lost his girl, he was too young to understand and accept it all. His world had opened up around his feet.
Was there a return from all that? All he could do was wait. Josh had been a find, a gamble, the thief who’d successfully become a Constable’s man. Finding another like him would be hard. Losing someone he liked, who felt like family, that would be harder still.
Two hours later he was still sitting, trying to think of ways to find Wyatt. Every path came to a dead end. Sedgwick had left, and Josh was still sleeping, giving soft little cries as he moved while he rested.
John Sedgwick drifted up Briggate, long legs moving slowly, eyes assessing everything. He checked on the men around the judge. Two of them were by the Moot Hall where Dobbs was presiding over the daily petty sessions. Another pair waited by the man’s house up at Town End.
Thoughts clicked through his brain as he walked. He’d been terrified when he’d seen Josh looking more dead than alive. There had been blood all over his face and hair, his clothes soaked through. Sedgwick wanted revenge for that just as much as the Constable did, but it had to be smoothly done. For himself, he’d as soon kill the Henderson brothers as look at them and remove the problem forever.
He’d never been a violent man, but sometimes it was necessary. Anyone who killed had to die himself. That much he believed from the Bible: an eye for an eye. If someone hit him, he hit back.
Wyatt was one who certainly had to die. Someone like that was filled with the devil; he didn’t deserve to live. And he understood that it needed to be done quietly. Wyatt’s woman, too. She was part of it. Once the pair of them had gone and the books destroyed there could be no danger of word ever leaking out.
He’d never imagined words could be dangerous. But Wyatt and his books had made him think. He’d read them, working his patient way through both volumes when he was alone at the jail. He understood their power and their horror. As he learned to read and write he’d developed a respect for words. Now he wasn’t so certain. He needed the skill if he was ever to advance to Constable, but it was one to exercise carefully, he decided.
He moved down the Head Row and along Vicar Lane, where old houses stood cheek by jowl with new buildings. The street was busy with folk, carts filling the road, smoke from the chimneys hanging low over the city. Already people were forgetting the winter, consigning it to bitter memory before it had even left.
The deputy was too wary to be sanguine. The weather could still have a sting in its tale. He’d heard some of the weavers talking over their breakfasts before the cloth market. Up in the hills all the snow was melting into the streams and rivers. There was too much water. Any rain and there’d be flooding.
He’d seen it before, the Aire spilling up from its banks. The Calls had been knee deep, the bottom of Briggate impassable to man and beast. Not that, he hoped, not after this winter. .
The season brought his mind back to Josh. The boy would need plenty of care for the next few weeks. He’d be better with the Constable and his family. Recovery was hard enough, he knew that. He’d been beaten himself once, not long after he became a Constable’s man. Within a month his body had been fine, but it had taken a full year for his nerve to recover.
Sedgwick stayed at the jail that night. Josh had woken a few times during the day, a little better but not well enough to be moved. He checked on the boy and dozed in the chair, a full pie and a jug of Michael’s best ale from the White Swan by him on the desk. He was warm and fed but ready for his own bed when the Constable arrived with first light.
Once Sedgwick had left, Nottingham settled. There were reports to write but first he spent a little time with Josh, feeding him a bowl of broth he’d brought from home.
The boy still found it difficult to speak, his mouth swollen. But he seemed more alert; that was good news, and the bandages had come off his eyes.
Mary had been reluctant to take Josh in, and he knew her objections made sense. They had no room for him, no truckle bed to pull out. And they were still grieving themselves, missing Rose. But compassion had finally won out over reason and she’d agreed. She’d set up a pallet in the living room. Later today he’d have Josh carried to the house on Marsh Lane.
The lad had fallen back into his rest when Nottingham checked again. Now there was time to write, and come up with some plan to find Wyatt.
He’d been working for an hour when the door opened and three men walked in, glancing around uneasily. One was large, the others much smaller, but their faces showed they were brothers, the same shape to their mouths and noses. They had skin a few shades deeper than his own, much the same colour as the woman Charlotte in his memory. He stood up, cautiously assessing them. Their clothes were old and patched but still serviceable, and they wore good, heavy boots.
The Gypsies. With everything else this winter he’d forgotten they were in Leeds. They’d been coming so long, since well before his time, that they were part of the seasonal landscape. They kept themselves to themselves and they rarely caused trouble. Nottingham thought that the face of the biggest man looked faintly familiar, but he didn’t believe they’d ever spoken before.
The large man pulled off his hat, showing thick white hair.
‘We look for Josh,’ he said hesitantly.
Thirty-One
‘I’m Richard Nottingham. I’m the Constable of Leeds.’
The big man smiled widely under his heavy moustache. The other two stood emotionless behind him.
‘Josh, he tell me about you.’
‘You know him?’ Nottingham’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. He wondered how the lad could have met these men.
The man nodded merrily. ‘Yes, yes, of course we know him. We are friends.’ He spoke with a strong accent the Constable couldn’t place, all his words slow and considered. English wasn’t his native tongue, that was obvious, but there was a deep, pleasant music running under it all, nonetheless. ‘He come to see us since he was little. We know him well for long time.’ The man held his hand at waist height. ‘Now he work for you. He help us, we help him.’
‘And who are you?’
‘David Petulengro,’ the man replied, pointing at himself. ‘These are brothers, Thomas and Mark.’ Mark had serious, deep eyes and skin heavily scarred by the pox, while Thomas was much younger, wirier, with a shadowed face, his features sharp and dour. Petulengro frowned. ‘We hear what happen to Frances.’
‘You knew her as well?’ the Constable asked.
‘Yes, yes,’ the man answered in surprise. ‘Josh bring her to see us many times.’ He held up his hands for emphasis. ‘We liked her.’ His brothers nodded in agreement. ‘We want to tell him our sorrow for her.’
The Constable nodded.
‘When you bury her?’ Petulengro asked.
‘Yesterday.’ He looked apologetic. ‘Josh never mentioned you. .’
Petulengro shrugged. ‘A man hurts, he don’t think. We want to tell him how we are. . sorry. To ask what we can do,’ the Gypsy repeated. ‘You know where we find him?’
‘Josh. .’ the Constable began. Should he tell them? For a moment he was doubtful, but their concern seemed genuine. ‘Josh was badly hurt. He was beaten two nights ago.’
