The Thief Taker (19 page)

Chapter Forty

Dawn was breaking as the wagon jogged uncomfortably over the rough track. Under his plague hood Thomas was already sweating in the heat of the day.

He smiled to himself. As plague savaged the east, the west of the city still traded. Soon his infection would explode across the city, spreading it widely and quickly throughout England.

His final plans were almost in place.

A turnpike loomed ahead on the road and he readied himself.

He turned his head to check on his wife. Teresa was sat at the back of the wagon, her arms wrapped around her knees, her blonde hair falling like a curtain over her shoulders.

He knew she must be anxious to be outside.

Pulling at the reins Thomas brought all six horses to a standstill with difficulty. He reached into his canvas cloak and drew out two Health Certificates, holding them aloft.

His status in the city had ensured him the highest possible authority to travel. And the royal crest sped him through country outposts where others would be stopped.

The turnpike man was keeping a long distance and had swaddled most of his head with his own shirt.

‘You may not pass.’

Thomas peered closer in disbelief. The turnpike man was holding a pitchfork in an unconvincing attitude of confrontation.

‘Move aside,’ called Thomas from the driver’s seat.

‘You may not pass.’ The man gave a little frightened dance, clearly concerned to come nearer. He caught sight of Thomas’s wife sitting in the wagon and he stood staring for a moment.

‘My wife does not like the dust of the road,’ explained Thomas.

The turnpike continued to gaze at Teresa, clearly wondering how such an attractive woman had ended up travelling with this monster.

Teresa pushed her head deeper into the cradle of her arms, so only her eyes could be seen.

‘Move aside,’ repeated Thomas evenly.

The turnpike’s voice swelled, finding courage in the announcement. ‘We know what you are about in these parts and we’ll no more of it. Travelling when the moon is full. Bringing back dead bodies in that wagon,’ he pointed the pitchfork. ‘No more will a devil’s consort travel near our village,’ he concluded, puffing his chest out. ‘The men have settled upon it and will drive you out by force if needs be.’

‘And yet you have not men with you now.’ It was a statement rather than a question, and Thomas made it with his head cocked to one side in amusement. He knew his passage to Wapping had begun to draw attention from the locals, but since this would be his last trip it was of little concern.

‘They are not yet out ’o their beds,’ admitted the turnpike, with an anxious glance over his shoulder. ‘But soon they will be.’

Thomas made a deliberate show of tilting his beaked mask to look into the empty fields beyond the turnpike. He lowered
his voice.

‘I will give you two choices.’

The turnpike took a stronger hold on his pitchfork.

‘You may live,’ continued Thomas, ‘and let me pass. Or you may die, and let me pass. It matters not either way to me.’ He unsheathed his sword and regarded the blade lazily.

The turnpike had begun to tremble, but he held firm. It was only when Thomas made to descend from the wagon that he backed away towards his gate.

‘You must sign your name in the book,’ he said, keeping his eyes on Thomas. ‘All that pass must sign their names. King’s orders.’

Thomas slid from his horse, approaching the turnpike and
taking a cautious look at the wagon. Teresa had ducked out
of sight.

‘For your trouble,’ said Thomas, tossing a coin towards the turnpike.

The man caught it in an easy movement and examined it, looking up in surprised gratitude.

As Thomas predicted, the cash calmed the man. He stopped inching away and waited as Thomas approached to sign the book.

The turnpike never saw the sword flash out.

It sliced open his belly before he had chance to scream.

He gaped down at the mortal wound, his face taut in silent amazement.

Thomas allowed his sword to fall with a thud on the grassy ground. Flexing his gloved fingers he stepped towards the turnpike’s open wound.

In a practised movement Thomas’s hand plunged in and up through the intestines and into the ribcage.

The turnpike tottered, suspended on Thomas’s bloody hand. His mouth opened in a choking sound.

‘Do you feel that?’ asked Thomas. ‘That is your heart I squeeze at.’

A curtain of blood was pouring from the turnpike’s severed stomach.

‘This was how they killed my father,’ continued Thomas. ‘After they burned his hands to black stumps.’

Thomas squeezed his fist.

‘You are all of you traitors,’ he said. ‘And I will see your King die a traitor as he deserves.’

The turnpike continued to choke and gasp.

In his gloved hand Thomas felt the final little shudder, the last effort of the heart to live.

Then the turnpike’s head dropped, and Thomas knelt, laying the body on the ground.

He wrenched his bloodied forearm from inside the man’s remains. The heart in his hand was a dishevelled lump of tissue. They didn’t always come out whole.

Thomas looked at it for a long moment.

This would be the last visit to Wapping and the last load.
Infection
would soon be impossible to halt.

They’d told him at the port that he would never find men to load his dreadful cargo. Not at any price. But they were wrong. Men could be got for a price. It was simply a case of knowing where
to loo
k.

Thomas picked up the quill by the turnpike’s book. He wetted the nib in the bloody heart. And smiling under his mask he wrote his alias.

In these parts fear was useful currency. The locals should know who they should be afraid of.

Chapter Forty-One

The land around London was a wild sort of place. But despite the unruly fields the air was fresh. Golden-green crops grew either side of the hard sun-beaten track. But the road was almost deserted.

Charlie and Maria passed a huge stage-coach inn with a
bread-baking oven, brewing barn and smokehouse, but it was all b
oarded up
.

Maria wheezed and wavered atop her horse, but refused to stop. ‘It is only the dust,’ she said, in a tired voice. ‘I am quite well.’

Charlie was building a grudging admiration for her. He knew she must be feeling weak and ill. She was certainly tougher than he had originally supposed.

‘Not that way,’ Maria was shaking her head as he attempted to steer his horse onto a smaller lane.

‘That way goes through Hackney marshes,’ she explained. ‘It is dangerous for the horses.’

Charlie consulted his mental map. Avoiding the marshland meant they were a day’s ride from Stratford. Besides that they needed to get as far ahead of Malvern as possible, they only had a little parcel of food from the wise woman.

He caught sight of a snatch of grey in a roadside gully. It was a
canvas tent. Someone had made a little camp, but it was now deserted.

‘Wait here,’ he said, sliding down the side of his horse. ‘Maybe there is a little food which has been left.’

‘Wait!’ said Maria. ‘It could be dangerous.’

‘If there is something in there which can help us then we should use it,’ said Charlie. ‘This looks to be a fortunate find.’

He scrambled down into the gully and approached the tent. It had been hastily constructed from canvas and trees branches in a circular wigwam shape. Taking up a stick from the ground, Charlie lifted the flap at the entrance.

Sunlight shone into the tent, lighting the faces inside.

Lying in the tent were the bloody remains of a husband a
nd wife.

He fell back, covering his mouth. The canvas dropped down and Charlie leant heavily on the verge for a moment. Then he scrambled back up the gully as quickly as his legs would take him.

‘What was it?’ asked Maria, seeing he had turned pale despite the heat of the day.

‘Bodies,’ he mumbled, scrabbling to get back on his horse. ‘It looks as though the vigilantes have been here recently.’

Maria was pointing uncertainly towards the fields.

In the middle distance were three nut-brown farmers. They hefted farm tools in the unmistakable stance of men bent on
violence
.

Charlie grabbed hold of Maria.

‘This way,’ he said fiercely, pulling her and the horses towards the waving grassland of the marsh.

‘But that is swamp,’ protested Maria.

‘Those are likely the same men that killed the people in that tent,’ hissed Charlie. ‘They have come back to hide the bodies so they cannot be hanged for their crime.’

He tugged her off the road and onto the marshland.

Hackney marshes stretched before them. Islands of tall reed and grass grew in a patchwork of waterlogged soil. It was impossible to tell how deep and boggy it ran.

But the marsh grass grew waist height and was relatively soft and green.

‘They will see our movement from the grass,’ said Maria uncertainly. But she took the reins from Charlie and led the horses gently into the swampy soil, making reassuring clicking sounds to guide them forwards.

The horses stood a foot taller than the waving grass.

‘We need to get over there,’ Charlie pointed to a denser higher
patch in the marsh, ‘where the shrub can hide us and the animals both.’

He took a few steps towards it and his leg sank knee deep into the swampy land.

The men were near enough to hear their voices now.

‘Hurry!’ urged Charlie, wrenching his foot free from the mud. ‘They will see the horses.’

But Maria had stopped to listen. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘They said something about a wagon, I am sure of it.’

‘Perhaps wagons pass through here Maria. It hardly matters if they kill us.’

The two horses were standing prominently above the marsh grasses, and the screen of scrubland looked far away.

Then Maria, displaying a talent for horsemanship which bordered on the supernatural, coaxed both animals to kneel and then lie on the marsh floor.

Realising it was too late to run, Charlie knelt beside them, praying the animals didn’t give them away.

‘You are sure it was him,’ sounded a voice, ‘you are sure it was the plague doctor?’

Charlie froze. His eyes flicked to Maria, who was straining to hear every word.

‘Aye,’ came another voice. ‘The last name signed in the tollbook was Thomas Malvern.’

There was a hawking sound as the speaker paused to spit.

‘Malvern’s last mockery of us, I reckon. Letting us know it were him that killed that poor turnpike.’

‘We should have been braver on the last full moon,’ voiced the third man. ‘We should have put a stop to it then. Him coming through with his dread load of dead bodies.’

‘Aye,’ agreed the second man. ‘For whenever the corpse collector comes then young girls die.’

‘You are sure he killed the turnpike?’

‘There was blood everywhere. And no turnpike. What else do you think happened?’

‘We should be glad of one thing,’ said the second man. ‘If he did for the turnpike then he must mean to make this his last journey through these parts.’

Maria caught Charlie’s eye and frowned meaningfully.

‘What do you think he did with the body?’ asked the first man.

There was a long pause. One of the men spat again.

‘God save us we never find out,’ said the third man. ‘Come now,’ he added. ‘Let us deal with these battered bodies. We can sink them in the marsh and they will never be found.’

One of the horses shook its head and let out a loud
harrumph
of air.

‘What was that?’ asked one of the men.

‘What?’

‘That sound! Be quiet. Listen!’

There was a long agonising silence. Charlie held his breath, looking to Maria and willing the horses to stay still.

‘Maybe more city folk hide in the edge of the marshlands. We had best sweep the edges.’

Charlie picked out a stone from the grass and, gauging his shot, skimmed it across the marsh. Moments later an outraged bird flapped out squawking from the grass.

‘It is only a marsh bird you fool,’ said the first man. ‘Now let us get these bodies hidden before we are all hanged for it.’

It was almost an hour until the men departed, heaving away the evidence of their crime to another part of the marsh.

‘Did you hear that?’ asked Maria. ‘Thomas Malvern. He travels with corpses by the full moon.’

Charlie nodded, more concerned with their immediate escape.

‘And he was there only this morning,’ continued Maria. ‘We may outpace him still.’

Her eyes were shining as she thought through the options.

‘Stratford is close, and he must pass through it. With luck we might be able to get to some justice there before him and have them make his arrest.’

Charlie began heaving himself upright in the mud, thinking they would need a lot more luck than she realised to convince the Stratford guards to let them in.

And at the moment they had a far more pressing problem.

‘We cannot risk going back onto the main road,’ he said. ‘Those men are policing it and there could be others. If we are to go on, Maria, it must be through the marsh.’