Chapter Two
Blakey hauled Nereia through the door to the office and slung her in the direction of a chair. She collapsed into it rather than sat, and dully rubbed her wrists where Blakey had gripped them.
“So, you want to know what your role is to be?” Copeland’s tone was almost caressing. “Then I’ll tell you. You will regain your rank. You will relearn decent manners, and how to be acceptable amongst people of breeding and then you will re-enter society. You will make acquaintance with persons of high station, and using whatever means necessary - and I should point out that this includes your own person - you will find a man to entrap into marriage.”
He coughed.
“Up until this point you will be an investment, of course; such things do not come easily. However, once married, you make a point of getting to know as many people as come into your orbit. You invite them to visit you, and they reciprocate. Then your course is simple. You use your visit to map out the lie of the land, and the whereabouts of any objects of value which you communicate to us. At some point thereafter when you are far enough away to be unsuspected, we clear the house of anything of value.”
Nereia laughed mirthlessly. “So that’s it, is it? I’m not to be just a whore but a high-class whore and thief at the same time, am I? Perhaps I should have joined your damned brothel years ago. At least your whores only sell their bodies. From me you want body, honour and soul!”
“Don’t get dramatic!” Copeland snapped. “Most women would jump through hoops for a chance such as this!”
“Then let them have it, for I don’t want it!” Nereia snarled. “But they won’t do, will they? Oh no, not they! Because to deceive them you need an honest person, and anyone who lives in this town had the soul beaten out of them long ago. To infiltrate the circles of high society you need a person of good family, and what family would be foolish enough to let their children get into your grasp but my own dear father? And where are you going to find another such fool?”
“I don’t need to find another,” purred Copeland. “I have my own thieving high-class whore, and she’s going to do what I ask because I have her sister as surety. Mickel here is going to help us turn you into the most aristocratic little whore this town has ever seen and then, my dear, you’re going to start earning your keep.”
And it had all been decided just like that, Mickel reflected as he limped along the weary streets some hours later. Nereia was to present herself at Mickel’s warehouse every morning, where the best of Copeland’s expensive wares were to be used to re-teach her all the social niceties eleven years’ hand-to-mouth existence had sloughed from her memory, and update her with the latest fashionable habits. Copeland would engage a governess to finish what education Nereia had received and to counsel her in the fashions and vagaries of polite society. Copeland had given her three months’ learning time, after which she would move to the city and enter polite society as a recently-bereaved widow - with the proviso that she take care to provide herself with a husband to defray her costs.
As Copeland explained, he had originally considered sending someone to be a domestic, but servants were always the first to be blamed if a house was broken into whereas the higher classes were automatically excluded from guilt. He realised that only in this way could that person remain safe from suspicion despite repeating their part in the undertaking time and again. However (and much to his chagrin, Mickel suspected) Copeland also realised that for this profitable enterprise to work, there was only one person amongst all his employees who could reasonably hope to pass as a member of that class; Nereia. Having been brought up in that atmosphere for the first fifteen years of her life, her instincts were tuned correctly where those of even the most winsome of his whores were not.
And so Copeland had waited until the opportunity presented itself, and then ruthlessly attacked the only weak spot in her armour; Mary. It was despicable, Mickel thought, but there wasn’t much he could do. He climbed wearily up the steps to his own door, let himself in and fumbled in the dark for his candle. His leg ached and his mind was awhirl with the day’s events. It would be long before he got to sleep tonight.
Blakey leant against the wall, as he had for what felt like nearly half the night now. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, thinking longingly of the tap-room of the Three-Legged Dog. He took out the little silver snuffbox and flipped it open, cursing as some of the pearlescent flakes inside were whisked out by a stray gust of wind. Plenty in there, and his shoulder was aching. He tried not to indulge too often but tonight he would, maybe soon. Copeland hadn’t actually told him to stay there all night; only to make sure the thief didn’t try to stir up any trouble.
Autumn was drawing in and the night was nippy. There was no movement or sound from behind the shuttered windows and he was damned if he was going to let that little weasel who employed him condemn him to a night of watching a sleeping house. He yawned widely. It was late and there was no point in stopping here for much longer. It wasn’t as if she had an army of brawny brothers to cause trouble, and what else was she going to do, leave town? He chortled to himself at the thought. No-one ever tried to run.
Long after Mary had fallen asleep, Nereia lay in the darkness desperately trying to gather her thoughts. Exhausted as she was, she could barely think. She knew she should wake Mary now that it was fully dark, but when she rose silently and slipped over to look through the crack of the shutter, Blakey was still standing in the shadows by the courtyard wall. Surely he wouldn’t stop there all night, she thought, lying down again, and in the meantime she would get some rest, at least. She willed herself to relax but her every muscle was taut with fear, and in the end she stopped even trying and simply lay there with one terrifying thought cycling round and round her brain.
She had spent eleven years working like a slave for Copeland because she’d had to. She’d had to support the two of them as well as handing over a ruinous percentage to him, but she’d always thought of it as paying for her physical freedom and her sister’s, and had never questioned the necessity of it at all. Knowing what he was capable of, she’d tried to keep Mary out of his way, but as her sister had grown it had become clear that a day would come when he would notice the child; and so now Nereia lay in the dark, trembling. She’d planned the exact means of their escape long since, but the prospect of actually putting the plans into practice was petrifying. No-one left Copeland, no-one ever ran because everyone knew that any fool who tried would get seriously hurt. But now Copeland had rediscovered Mary, Nereia was left with no choice. It was time to put her plan into action, and she didn’t know if she had the courage to do it - but how could she not?
She had picked pockets for Copeland, picked locks for Copeland, helped steal and sell on virtually anything which could be stolen and fenced for Copeland - but she hated him. She hated him heart and soul. She hated the very sight of him and she knew that neither she nor, more importantly, the delicate beauty of her little sister would ever be safe from him. She drew a long, shuddering breath. Perhaps the sheer unthinkability of the undertaking would work in their favour. It had to. Copeland had already taken eleven years of her life, and there was no getting that back; but Nereia was damned if she’d let him have her sister.
“Blakey? Damn it, man, where are you when I want you? Blakey!”
Benjamin Blakey groaned. It seemed that he had only just laid down. He heaved himself upright, catching himself as his dodgy shoulder flared with pain. The mob had made sure his days as a professional boxer were over, but he had never thought he’d sink this low. Still fully clothed from the previous night’s drinking, he picked up the pitcher of water from the chest of drawers beside the bed and up-ended the contents over his head.
“Blakey!” The shout made his head ring, and he cursed under his breath.
“I’m coming,” he grumbled, and wiping the water fr
om his eyes, he stumbled down the steep stairs from the garret.
“Ah, Blakey; been visiting The Three-Legged Dog again, I see.” Copeland’s tone was acidic. “I trust you’re keen to start work this morning?”
“As keen as ever.”
It was not a lie; each morning’s waking fell like a weight on his chest. The work he did for this vicious little stoat was better not remembered, which was why he drank to blur what he saw and, often enough, caused. He’d been something of a known name in his time and, cracked shoulder or no, he’d take his chances with the best of them; but women and children... Sometimes it was better not to remember it, that was all, and so his visits to the inn were becoming more and more frequent.
“Then let’s go! We have a good dozen calls to make. It is hard to believe the remarkable inability of the common man to pay his debts, Blakey. One would think that, knowing the consequences, they would be more careful with their money.” Copeland shook his head.
Perhaps so, thought Blakey, if they actually had any money in the first place. Faced with hunger and cold, he suspected that the common man would rather survive for the short-term and risk having to pay three times the amount or being beaten to a pulp at some future time, than sit back and watch his children die. After all, it was upon this premise that Copeland and others like him made their living.
Following his employer out into the chill before dawn, Blakey felt a sudden urge to simply plant a knife in him and leave, to be anywhere else but here; but he turned his head and hawked into the dirt beside him. He was only a simple man doing his job, Blakey cautioned himself, and he must not forget that or all his efforts would come to nothing. He spat again, noting his employer’s disgusted look with inner satisfaction. One day, he promised himself, one day. Loosening his knife in its sheath, he stumbled after Copeland, sick to his stomach as much by the situation as by the after-effects of the alcohol.
At the first lessening of the dark, Nereia got up again, and went to the window. It was some time before she could bring herself to accept what her eyes were telling her. Blakey was gone. She took a deep breath, then turned to kneel at the side of the pallet she shared with her sister.
“Mary.”
“Leave me alone, Reia, it’s not time yet,” her sister complained, pulling the blanket more closely about her.
“Mary, you have to get up now. Come on, there’s no time to waste!”
Sleepy as the girl was, the urgency in Nereia’s tone got through to her, and she groaned and sat up. “What is it? It’s not even daylight.”
“We’re leaving.”
“But where are we going? I don’t understand.”
“We’re leaving. We’re going away. I don’t know exactly where to, but we’re leaving and we aren’t coming back.” Nereia gathered up the worn blanket, adding it to the pile of clothes and belongings to be tied into a bundle for the journey. “We can’t carry very much, so we need to eat as much as we can before we leave. Is there anything you want to take?”
“Reia, what’s going on?”
“I’ll explain once we’re gone. There’s no time now. All you need to know is that we’re leaving and we’re never coming back, and anything we can’t carry is staying here, so please, Mary, be a good girl and help me to pack what we can.”
By the light of the flickering candle, Mary saw the look on Nereia’s face; not a time to dig in her heels. She ran to the small chest in the corner which contained her few belongings. Five minutes sufficed to make a small bundle for herself, though she and Nereia had a brief whispered argument over a shawl which had belonged to their mother, which Mary refused to part with. Then in the wavering candlelight they silently shared out what food they had. A loaf and a stone bottle of water went into Nereia’s pack, and Mary had the remains of a heel of cheese and three wizened apples in hers.
Nereia cast a hasty glance round their lodging, still and grey in the night hush. The least tumble-down part of what had been the stables, now it was a stone shell scattered with their few much-mended belongings. At least it was shielded from prying eyes by a wall on one side and a thick hawthorn hedge on the other. In a strange way, she was sad to leave it. She had made such an effort over the past ten years to make it habitable that, primitive as it was, it had become home to them. She shook her head. It was insanity! Until now, she had felt as safe here as an animal in its den. This had been the only safe place they had, and now they were leaving it for - what? An uncertain future at best, and if Copeland caught them... She couldn’t think about it. If she did she’d freeze, and every moment was precious. “Got everything?”
“Can we take the kettle?”
“No!”
“Well then, I’ve got enough.”
Nereia ruffled her sister’s hair affectionately. “Good girl! Let’s go. Not a sound, remember, and do exactly as I tell you. We mustn’t get caught. If it looks like trouble, run. Don’t wait for me; run. If we’re separated, make your way to the harbour, the darkest, most hidden part of the pier you can find. The tides will be quite low today so you can hide in the rafters underneath the pier floor. Wait till dark, and if I haven’t come by then…”
“Well?” Mary demanded.
“If I haven’t come by then I won’t be coming and you must leave while it’s dark. The vintner’s wagons leave from the warehouse at the end of the pier. They go to the river. Hide away on one of his barges. The barges sail to towns far inland where Copeland has never even been heard of. You must promise me that if anything goes wrong you’ll run far away, and if you ever see Copeland or anyone that works for him again, hide and don’t let them see you.”
Mary looked up into her sister’s face, which was deadly serious. “Reia, I’m scared.”
“I know.” Nereia caught her sister to her suddenly. “So am I. But you must promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Thank you, love.” She took a deep breath and, with a final squeeze, released her sister. “Right. We have to go. Come on - and remember, secret as mice when the cat’s around.” Casting a final look around the poor stone room, she blew out the candle.
She opened the door just a crack; leant forward to first listen and then cautiously peer out into the darkness. All was quiet. It was dark enough to be safe, for now, but the sky was beginning to fade from black to grey. They didn’t have much time. “Ready?”
“Reia, is Copeland the cat?” asked Mary, so softly that she could barely hear her voice.
“He is.”
“And we are the mice.”
“Not for much longer, Mary, if luck runs with us,” Nereia whispered. “Come on; it’s time.”
And taking a firm hold of her courage, she stepped out of the door.
“At my time of life, Blakey, a man’s looking to settle down,” Copeland proclaimed. “Oh, it’s all very well living adventurously when you’re young. I had my fair share of adventures, and there’s no denying that at that age it seemed that that was what life was about. And then I got a job working as a notary in a lawyer’s firm in the city. I spent hours slaving over old tomes of figures, and writing out wills and codicils and all things legal and necessary. But it all starts to pall quite quickly. Why, one wonders, should I go to the trouble and effort to spend my entire day working like a dog for somebody else’s profit? Why should I promise myself to some shrew in marriage when for not that much more money I could hire a woman to keep house for me, and get rid of her if she doesn’t do it to my liking? Why stick to one woman when I can have the pick of whole brothels full of whores?”
He raised his voice to be heard over the fading curses and sobs from the little house they had just left.
“Why, in short, should I follow the same road that every other fool in the country is following, when with a little thought and care - and a certain amount of firmness - I can have the best that life has to offer with the minimum of work? I left the notary business, I left the city and I looked for a town small
enough that the King’s Sheriffs wouldn’t interfere, but busy enough to offer opportunities to a man with an eye for such things.”
He made a little bow as if indicating to a genteel audience that this man was himself; a new variant on this much-repeated tale, Blakey thought, not bothering to listen.
“I started small, in charge of just four or five young lads picking pockets on the wharves, but in a year I had enough to set up a brothel. The takings from that were enough that by the next year I had a finger in every pie in the town, from the brewery at the one end to the inn at the other, and that was when I was barely thirty. I’ve been the master of this town for nigh on twenty years now, and there isn’t a sailor on shore leave who catches the pox that I don’t know about, or a ship or a business or a family within twenty miles that I don’t own, if only I care to call in the debts on it. Ah, it’s on mornings like this that I feel that it’s good to be alive, Blakey!”
Blakey followed on grimly. He noticed a drying bloodstain on the back of his hand and wiped it on his trousers.
“I tell you, My Lord the Earl may think he owns all this stretch of the coast but there’s a bite out of it that stretches ten miles either side of this town where people pay more attention to a whisper from me than they would if the Earl walked up the street with a town-crier’s bell!” Copeland cast an eye at the rapidly lightening sky. “And it looks as if we’re going to have a bit of sunshine for once. My word, altogether a fine day and the sun hasn’t even come up yet!”
He strutted along the lane. “Now, who’s next? We’ve been to see Jack Carter, we’ve had words with the Russell brothers and the miller’s boy and - ha!ha! - we’ve showed that fool Merryweather what unfortunate accidents can happen to the families of those who default on their payments.”
Copeland frowned in thought, then clapped his hands together. “Ah yes! I have it! We have yet to check on the health of the good Widow Birchbeck in that delightfully picturesque ruin of an inn. How could we have been so remiss as to forget her?” He waited for the other man to catch up with him and smiled happily. “Come, Blakey! We have our morning calls to pay.” He paused to think about this. “And talking of paying, the Widow Birchbeck is due to do just that! Ha!ha!”
Blakey did not stop to look at Copeland. He simply trudged past, wishing he could take a knife to the smaller man’s throat and slice it open to find out if it was really made like other men’s; and if so, what made his ha!ha! come out so abruptly, mirthless and merciless as a knife.
“Shhh!” Nereia hissed. They froze for a moment, while she listened. They had made their way stealthily along the long, winding lane which ran down the hill but were now reaching the main part of the town, where they ran more danger of being seen. For the moment, she thought they were not too much at risk; though the sky was becoming a lighter grey every minute and they could see a little way now, it was still too early for most of the inhabitants of the town to be up and about. They had perhaps another half-hour of obscurity, no more.
She glanced about them, but whatever sound she had heard did not repeat itself and no movement caught her eye. “Come on!”
The two sisters darted across the street and halted by a large stack of barrels outside the tavern.
“We have to hurry. It’ll be light soon, and then we’re lost!” she told Mary in a low voice. “We’ll have to risk cutting across the marketplace. It’ll take too long to go round. We haven’t time to go the long way and the only other route goes right by the brothel.”
“They must sleep at some time!”
Nereia hesitated. The thought of the brothel seemed preferable to that of the marketplace, which would be very large and silent and open. “Most of the ladies may be asleep, yes, but Copeland could be there, and I can’t risk that. It’ll have to be the marketplace.”
They moved round the tavern cautiously, and slipped up the empty street. Nereia led the way, and at the top of the street she took her sister’s hand, ready to make a run for it. Her heart was beating so fast that she felt sure it must explode. The town was not large, but when every sound terrified her and every new street had to be approached with caution, the journey to the docks seemed to be taking forever.
Mary dropped her bundle by the water-trough and wiped her palms on the fabric of her skirt as Nereia took a long, searching glance round the marketplace. The square was empty of stalls and people. There were only the old stocks and the water pump in the middle, but while crossing, they would be visible from all the five roads and alleys that lead into the square, and the unblinking windows which overlooked it from the buildings on all sides.
And then, just as they were about to emerge into the wide open square, that vague sound Nereia had thought she heard was repeated much more loudly and clearly.
“For goodness’ sake, Blakey, at least try to keep up!”
Copeland, his mood having quickly deteriorated, had given up on his conversational efforts with the surly bodyguard as he strode along. At the top of the street he made some witticism to his captive audience and was very much irritated to find that audience some way behind. Blakey was feeling the effects of his drinking in no uncertain terms and saw no reason to suppose that returning to the site of it would do anything to make him feel better. Copeland stood, hands on hips, glaring back at Blakey as he ambled along the street making little attempt to catch up.
Nereia’s face went as white as bleached linen. They did not need to be able to see him to know whose voice that was, and he sounded to be in the next street - or in the marketplace. For one horrified moment they froze; then Mary tugged at Nereia’s arm. Nereia suddenly came to life and, clutching her sister’s hand so tightly it hurt, fled silently back along the street to the barrels lying opened and empty, roped together.
“Get in!” Nereia pushed the smaller girl into the farthest one away. “Stay there!”
“Where are you going?” Mary was close to panic.
“I can’t fit in. I’ll be close. Stay quiet, they’ll just go past. Remember - the piers, if we have to!” and Nereia darted into the mouth of a nearby alleyway. Lying mostly hidden, Mary could see Nereia, but probably no-one walking by would - except why was she leaning forward? What was she looking at?
Mary followed her sister’s gaze to a dark object on the side of the water-trough by the entrance to the market-place. For a moment she did not realise what it was. Then, with a sudden jolt, she recognised it as her own bundle.
“Blakey, I’ve told you about this before! If your drinking gets in the way of your work, you’re out of a job.” Blakey gritted his teeth but did not answer, and this infuriated the moneylender even more. “You think you’re good with your fists, do you? Perhaps I should hire another bodyguard and see how long it would take him to smash you utterly? It wouldn’t take long to beat a drunken fool like you! It’s easy enough to beat up women and children, and men who dare not fight back, but put you up against a real fighter and you’d be dog’s-meat!”
Blakey’s temper rose like bile in his throat. In three strides he was out of the street and into the marketplace, very close to the smaller man, towering over him.
“I’ve worked for you for years now.” His voice was the more terrible for its quietness. “In that time I’ve done what I’ve done on your behalf. I’ve beaten up your whores when you decided they needed a lesson, and the families of your clients when you decided they’d defaulted on a loan. I’ve done all the things that you could not be seen to do but must be known to be responsible for, and in all that time I’ve never said a word. In this town, drunk or sober, there isn’t a man who could stand up to me in a fair fight, nor a man who could swallow half of the things you’ve had me do in cold blood. Whether I stay or go is entirely up to you but if I go, you’d best be looking for a replacement, because there isn’t a family here who doesn’t owe you a grudge big enough to kill for and enough money to make it worthwhile.”
r /> The silence stretched almost to snapping point; then his employer looked away.
“Ha! You almost make me remember why I hired you in the first place, Blakey; there’s hope for you yet.” Copeland skittered away backwards and laughed shrilly. “It’s just my little joke, you know; just my little joke. Well, we must not be late. Duty calls.”
Blakey watched him edge away towards the far side of the marketplace. He let Copeland get to the mouth of the street where The Three-Legged Dog stood. Then, as the moneylender hesitated, he moved in that direction himself.
Nereia heard the voices in the marketplace. Only Copeland would make that much noise in the middle of town when most people would be in bed and asleep - though not for much longer. It would be dawn soon. She shook her head, desperate. Even if he simply walked past they would lose valuable time with this delay.
She recognised that tone. He’d lost his temper. If his companion had been anyone but Blakey, she would have quaked for them. More importantly, he stopped to argue out of the line of sight of the water-trough where Mary’s bundle was. Nereia made a quick decision and edged forward.
If the bundle had been wrapped in any other rag they had possessed she would have left it there for him to find or ignore, but Mary had tied together her belongings in the remnants of the pretty shawl that had belonged to their mother. Over the years Mary had decorated it lovingly, as a precious memento of someone she could not remember. Whenever she could get hold of the materials she had embroidered it, first with clumsy flowers then, as she became more skilled with her needle, with birds and winding patterns. Finally, only a month or so past, she had sewn both of their names into the pattern in the brightest colours she could acquire, and right in the very middle of the cloth. Any other piece of material would have been completely anonymous but, in the semi-darkness as they packed, Mary had wrapped her bundle in the one cloth that would tell Copeland exactly who it belonged to; and small as the bundle was, it was clear that there was only one reason for them to pack together all their belongings at once. Nereia had to get the bundle back, and she had scant seconds in which to do so.
Mary, huddled in her barrel and watching nervously for Copeland to come into the street, was horrified to see her sister step boldly out of the shadows of the little alleyway and walk straight back up the road. Mary could see a little way into the marketplace, and as her sister reached the water-trough where the bundle lay, Mary saw movement in the greying space of the square. It was Copeland. He was dawdling, hanging back. Nereia couldn’t see Copeland and he hadn’t caught sight of her yet but it was only a matter of seconds before they would come face to face. Helpless under promise to stay safely silent even in such a situation as this, Mary screwed her eyes shut. She couldn’t bear to watch it happen.
Copeland hesitated near the entrance to the street. He was thoroughly off-balance, and furious that this great lump of a man had dared to intimidate him. What he saw was the look in Blakey’s eyes, a look of contempt, of derision. No, that was not strong enough; it was a look of pure hatred. This was familiar enough to him for despite how vital his services were to his clients, they were not of a sort to make him popular. The thing that had caught his attention was the intelligence behind the look. This was not the dull, hopeless hatred of a client who was powerless in his grasp, but cold, purposeful enmity.
Copeland leant against the wall, one hand playing with the material which met his fingers there. He turned to look more closely at whatever was propped up against the water-trough, feigning interest. Evidently there was more to Blakey than met the eye, and if that was true it could only be a threat. Blakey walked deliberately across the marketplace, in no hurry.
“The Widow Birchbeck next, then?” he asked as he drew near to his employer.
Copeland straightened sharply, hearing the command in his tone. “That’s what I said.”
He stalked along the road past the tavern and off up the long hill that led to the derelict inn where the Widow lived. Blakey followed at his own pace, but decided it was probably best to keep his boss in sight. He’d hate anything to happen to Copeland. After all, if anyone was going to kill him, Blakey had reserved that pleasure for himself.