believe I have any connection of the sort you require. You seem to forget the troubles I earned for myself in the late election. I made no shortage of political enemies.”
“We have but two political parties in our land, so any man who makes enemies must, in the same stroke, make friends. I would present that to you as a law of nature, or something very like.”
I cannot say how our conversation would have resolved had it not been interrupted by a sharp explosion of noises—a burst of angry voices, the overturning of chairs, the hollow
Though large and ungainly, Devout Hale was upon his feet and lumbering toward them as best as his frail and ungainly body would allow. “Hold there, what is this?” he demanded. “What’s the ill, Feathers?”
Feathers, the shorter man, addressed Hale without once taking his eye off his adversary. “Why, this rascal has insulted those of us whose parents come over from France,” he said. “Said we’re naught but Papists.”
“I never said anything of the sort,” the taller man said. “I believe this fellow is drunk.”
“I’m sure it ain’t but a misunderstanding,” Devout Hale said. “And we can’t have any unpleasantness here, so what say I buy you both a drink and we make ourselves friends?”
The one Hale called Feathers sucked in a breath, as though steeling himself for peace. He would have been wiser to steel himself for something else, however, for his adversary most unexpectedly threw a punch directly into Feathers’s mouth. There was a spray of blood before the man sank, and I thought for certain the author of this violence should find himself destroyed by the injured man’s companions, but all at once there was the sound of a constable’s whistle, and we turned to find two men, dressed in the livery of their office, standing alongside the mayhem. I scarcely had time to wonder how they could have arrived so quickly before they began to collect the fallen Feathers.
“This one was looking for trouble,” one of the constables observed.
“No doubt, no doubt,” the other agreed.
“Hold on, there!” Hale cried. “What of the other?”
The other was not in sight.
IT WAS ONLY WITH GREAT EFFORT that Mr. Hale was able to convince his brother silk weavers to stay in the tavern while he accompanied the victim of injustice to the magistrate’s office. His proposal produced much discussion, and I was led to understand that my friend was not upon good terms with the unfortunate Mr. Feathers, but he nevertheless convinced the others that he should make the best possible representative for their injured brother, and that arriving in the chamber in great numbers might only give the magistrate cause to claim intimidation. He asked, however, that I accompany him on his mission, as I knew something, as he put it, of the workings of the law.
I did know a thing or two about the law, and I knew I did not like what I had seen of the business thus far. Those constables had been too quick to appear, the assailant too quick to disappear. There was some mischief afoot.
The office of Richard Umbread, magistrate in Spitalfields, was spare and quiet at night, with only a few constables and a clerk milling about in the poorly lighted space. A fire burned in the fireplace, but it was small, and there were far too few candles lit, giving the room the air of a dungeon. Mr. Feathers, who dabbed at his bleeding nose with an already crimson-soaked handkerchief, looked up in a daze.
“Now then,” the judge said to Feathers. “My constables tell me you instigated a drunken attack upon your fellow. Is this true?”
“No, sir, it ain’t. He insulted my parents, sir, and when I objected, he hit me without cause.”
“Hmm. But as he is not here and you are, it is a rather easy thing to set all the blame upon him.”
“There are witnesses to that effect, sir,” Devout Hale called out, but the judge offered him no mind.
“And I am made to understand,” the judge continued, “that you have no gainful employment, is that correct?”
“That ain’t right either,” Feathers corrected. “I am a silk weaver, sir, and I work along with a company of silk weavers hard by Spinner’s Yard. That man standing over there, Mr. Devout Hale, works alongside me, sir. He knew me as an apprentice, though I was not ’prenticed to him.”
“It is a very easy thing,” said the judge, “for a man to get his companions to say this or that on his behalf, but it does not alter the fact that you are a man without employment and so inclined to violence.”
“That’s not the case at all,” Feathers shot back. His eyes were now wide with disbelief.
“You can offer me no evidence to the contrary.”
“Excuse me, your honor,” I ventured, “but I believe he has offered you ample evidence to the contrary. Mr. Hale and I witnessed the conflict, and we will swear that Mr. Feathers was the victim rather than the cause. As to his employment, Mr. Hale will swear to it, and I’m sure it would be no hardship to find a dozen or so men who will swear similarly.”
“Swearing don’t signify when it is all falsehood,” the judge said. “I have not sat these many years on the bench without learning to see what stands before me. Mr. Giles Feathers, it is my experience that men of violence and no account want a useful skill to teach them to better their ways. I therefore sentence you to the workhouse at Chriswell Street, where you may learn the trade of silk weaving over the three months of your detainment. It is my hope that such a skill will help you to find employment upon your release, and so I will not need to see you here again on similar charges.”
“Learn the skill of weaving?” Feathers cried. “But I
“Get him out of here,” the judge told his constables, “and clear the room of these loiterers.”
Had Mr. Hale been a stronger man, I would have expected him to show his outrage in ways that would have landed him in prison as well, but he could not resist the pull of the constable, and it was not my battle to fight, so I followed him out.
“I’d heard of these tricks,” Hale breathed, “but I never thought to see it practiced against my own men.”
I nodded, for I now understood all too well. “A kind of silk-weaving impressment.”
“Aye. Chriswell Street workhouse is a privately run affair, and the men what owns it pays the judge, who pays the constables, who get men with skills arrested on no account of their own. Then they’re sent to the workhouse to
“There’s nothing to do?” I asked.
“No, there’s what to do. I must go now, Weaver. There’s legal men to be hired and testimony to be sworn. They’re depending on us being foolish and ignorant of our rights, and in most cases the men they snatch will be. But we’ll sting ’em, don’t you doubt it. They’ll think twice before they go after one of my fellows again.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Now, I hate, when you have such other concerns, to raise the issue once more—”
“Your riot, is it? Well, you need not fear about that. I’ve got the anger in me now, and a good riot shall make me feel right and proper. You just get me the king, sir. Swear you’ll do all in your power. That will have to be enough.”
CHAPTER SIX
DID SWEAR. TO MY MIND, THIS WAS LIKE PROMISING A MAN HIS lottery ticket would answer with a fortune. Worse than that, for a lottery, as a game of chance, can be manipulated—as I knew well—but there could be no counterfeiting a meeting with the king. Still, the promise did the business, and two nights later, I found myself in the green market to the west of the East India complex, where I contrived to busy myself in the examination of discounted cabbages—for these were the goods that had not sold that day, and the clever and unhygienic consumer could find a bargain if he didn’t mind a bit of maggot with his leaves. The air had grown quite cold over the course of the afternoon, and I ran my gloved hands over a variety of vegetables and
