He felt under his cloak for the cudgel and the hooked latch lift he kept tucked into his waistband and peered cautiously into the street. Gentle snoring sounds came from the watchman, and Blood quickly crossed over to the house opposite in the middle of the lane. It was an old house, one wall leaning against the neighboring house, and the door was made of heavy oak, although the portal was split and spongy from rot. Built in the time of the Great Queen, the house walls, half-timbered with wattle and daub, were dark and spotted from a hundred years of fire, rebellion, and neglect. The great fire of 1666 had begun on Pudding Lane, but somehow this row of houses had escaped the worst of the flames. Pulling the hooked lift from his waistband, he passed the thin piece of metal through the gap between the crumbling wall and the door and deftly raised the latch.
Blood passed into the house at the moment he heard another cart rumbling down the lane, but it didn’t concern him; he was inside and the watchman had seen nothing. He paused for a moment, listening for any sounds coming from the common room.
From his stance at the threshold, he imagined the stairs roughly ten or twelve paces from the door. He walked carefully forward until he felt with the toe of his shoe the first riser to the stairs. Placing his feet as close to the wall as he could to prevent the boards from creaking, he lifted his weight from stair to stair. He took his time, allowing his eyes to better focus in the dark, and when his head passed above the second-floor landing, he saw a faint glimmer of candlelight leaking through the gap beneath the large, iron-banded door of the bedchamber. A segment of the lime-washed wall under his fingers crumbled and showered the steps in a brittle cascade. He froze and listened for steps approaching from the other side of the door, but there were no footfalls, and he climbed the last few stairs to the landing.
He reached for his cudgel and pulled it from his waistband and, with a few gliding steps, positioned himself in front of the chamber door. He lowered his head, placing his ear next to the splits in the wood. He heard nothing; no movement, yet no sounds of deep sleep either. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought the room completely empty.
Raising his cudgel, he pulled down on the rope latch and threw his weight against the door, which swung freely open on its hinges. Blood counted on the sudden violence of his forced entry to surprise the man he knew to be in the room, and it was the total astonishment on his target’s face that gave him the greatest satisfaction.
The man, of course, had no pistol; he never carried a pistol, relying rather on the weapons of those who guarded him. He had been reading by candlelight, and he dropped his book to the floor as he clutched the arms of the chair, awkwardly rising to his feet, his mouth open in alarm. The small sea-coal fire had burned down close to ashes, too weak to illuminate the intruder’s face.
Blood could have laughed out loud with delight, but instead he said to the man, “I’m here for my ruffian’s pay.”
A spark of recognition passed over the man’s face, and he fell back into the chair, his terror quickly replaced with anger; and just as rapidly, in a series of winking spasms and tics, a forced calm settled over his face as he bent to pick up his book and place it carefully on the table next to the chair. He said tightly, “These games of yours, Blood, are most tiring.”
Blood dropped his upraised arm still holding the cudgel, curling his lips unpleasantly. “Did I scare you, Sir Joseph? My apologies. It’s only to drive home the point that I can breach any hindrance you put in my way, find any place you care to hide, should I be played falsely or go unpaid. But more than this, Sir Joseph, I do it for my own amusement.”
Sir Joseph grunted impatiently. “You realize, of course, that if you’ve murdered the guard, it will come out of your wages.”
Dragging a small wooden stool closer to the coals, Blood said coarsely, mimicking the lilting accent of London streets, “Sir Joseph, ya know I’d never hurt yer man. I left him sleepin’ th’ sleep of the innocent.” He straddled the stool and, placing the cudgel in his lap, rubbed his hands with exaggerated briskness over the small hearth. It gave him no small pleasure to give Sir Joseph Williamson his backside, and though he could feel the other man’s eyes on his neck, he took his time before speaking again.
“Your letter intrigued me,” Blood said, finally breaking the silence, all traces of street cant gone. “You intimated you had an offer for me, an offer that would pay quite well. And that it was a venture—how’d you put it?—that would bring to bear all of my multitudinous talents.” He smiled broadly at the older man and then shifted his attention back to the hearth.
“No,” Sir Joseph said, “I wrote you that it would bring to bear the talents of those you have in your employ. I’m not paying you to do the work. I’m paying you to find the men to do the work. And just so we’re very much of like mind, I’m
Blood stood and stretched and then dragged the stool closer to Sir Joseph’s chair. He placed the cudgel on the table, setting it carefully over the book, and leaned in close, as though preparing to relate a confidence.
“I
With his eyes on the cudgel, Sir Joseph distractedly brushed one hand up the length of his yellow silk vest as though searching for something. His fingers found a pocket and he extracted a small scrap of paper and handed it to Blood to read. He watched carefully as Blood first squinted against the darkness to decipher the amount of money written on the paper and then whistled softly. Sir Joseph took back the paper and folded it once more into his vest. “This, as you must have guessed by now from the size of the bounty, comes directly from our Catholic friend the Earl of Arlington.”
“Ah, yes,” said Blood, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, “our friend with the sinister yet obvious reminder of his service to the Crown. I’ve heard that black plaster bandage hides nothing but warts. It is a goodly amount. But considering the scope and size of the venture, Sir Joseph,… I’m afraid it won’t be enough.”
The startled look from the older man gave Blood another surge of satisfaction. “How could you possibly know what it is that you are to do?” Sir Joseph asked, a small bubble of spit forming at the corner of his mouth. He quickly wiped it away with the back of his hand, but Blood had seen him do it, and a look of distaste crossed the Irishman’s face.
Smiling thinly, Blood said, “I know everything, Sir Joseph. It’s what you pay me for. I can tell you how much and from whom you’ve bought this safe house, as well as the name of your tailor. I can even tell you”—and here he paused, resting one hand on the cudgel, fingering the long handle—“how many spies you have on your payroll. I can tell you the names of all of your enemies in the ministry and the names of all of your friends, among whom I’d like to count myself. But, as you well know, you’re not the only one with a pair of ears… and a purse.”
Even through the dim light, Blood could see the renewed flush of anger on Sir Joseph’s face, and the tic which began fluttering beneath one eye. “You may be a Protestant dog,” Sir Joseph said, spittle forming again on his lips, “but you’re an Irish dog as well, and had I less need for the fleas off your back, I’d have you drowned in the Thames, if only for the pleasure of seeing you float downstream, all the way back to the Irish Sea, where you came from.”
Blood’s fingers closed tightly around the grip of the cudgel and he brought it quickly up over his head and then down again, crushing the remaining chestnuts and precariously rocking the lone candle on the table. The swift action caused Sir Joseph to flinch, but before he could move to stand, Blood’s hand rested firmly over his arm, pinning him to the chair.
“Aye, Sir Joseph. I am a dog, but a dog must eat. A dog must have a place to sleep. And a clever dog never puts his muzzle into a fight unless he can feel the breeze of the open back alley at his arse. I know what you want me to do and I know you’ve already failed twice at it. I need the funds to hire the men to do it, as well as the funds to pay for passages, bribes, and, for myself, a retirement from having to pursue the vagaries of a restless marketplace. I know your little schemes. You take more bribes in one year running parcels and packets through your royal postal offices than most lords do off their lands. I’ll find your man. But for that you have to pay.” He pulled out of the same pocket from which he had extracted the chestnuts a piece of parchment and showed it briefly to Sir Joseph, until he was sure the old man understood what Blood expected in payment for his services.
Blood then stood up and, throwing his scrap of paper into the darkening coals, walked from the room, leaving the cudgel and the withering shells of the chestnuts behind him.
