Jim Morgan and the King of Thieves (10 page)

“Well, fellows.” James felt it wise to turn to his vast knowledge of their “street talk” than to tell them what he really thought. “I think there’s hardly call for a tussle over a bit of a bump, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, I wouldn’t…fellow.” Big Red’s lips curled his sneer one more tick in the direction of wicked, as though he smelled a hint of fear just over the nearly overwhelming scent of cabbage lingering all over James.

“No, we don’t know, do we?”

“Do we fellow? Do we? Fell-o-o-w?

“Fellow, fellow, fell-OW”

Red snapped his fingers again and again his boys stopped yakking, mustering the biggest, dumbest grins they could. But to James, and to all other young boys who have been a bit on the smallish side, such big dumb smiles looked nothing but. Rather they appeared to James
as cruel and bloodthirsty. Red, on the other hand, wasn’t smiling. He was staring - staring hard at the box in James’s hands. The look crossing his face was one that James should have recognized: the face of a little boy who suddenly wanted something that wasn’t his.

“So, fell-ow.” Red walked in a close circle around James, puffing out his chest, his voice dripping with disrespect. “I’m thinkin’ you’re right about not needin’ any sort of tussle or nothin’ for such a lil’ bump.”

“You are?” James wasn’t so sure about that. “That’s quite civil of you, thank you.”

“Oh, you’ll find I’m all about civilness, my good fell-ow.” Red’s gang giggled.

“Ah, of course,” James said. “That would be ‘civil-ity,’ but I appreciate it nonetheless.”

Red’s friend’s giggled even harder now.

“I think we can get over all of this with a simple tradin’ of goods.” Red stopped circling, coming face to face with James, crossing his arms over his chest. “You gimme that box, and I’ll let you off the old hook and call us square.”

James may have been selfish and naïve, but stupid he was not. He saw what was coming and his grip tightened on his precious box. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t lose it – he couldn’t lose it. The box held all that was left of who James was, and it was his only way of getting everything he lost back again. James once more regretted tossing down the swords of his fencing lessons and shrugging at the old master’s attempts to teach him a few tricks of wrestling. Those lapses in attention, it seemed, were about to prove costly.

“It’s mine,” James said as hotly as he could. Sweat slicked his palms and flickering fear twinged in his stomach.

“A tussle it is then!” Red smiled with glee and snapped his fingers. The gang of yes men seized James by his arms while Red grabbed the box.

James did his best. He could not be faulted for lack of effort. He kicked and squirmed, twisted and thrashed in the bigger boys’ grip, he may have even bitten an arm or hand or two and certainly exercised his
knowledge of foul words, but it was no use in the end, for something happened that all the old servants predicted would happen to James for a long, long time.

Big Red hauled back and planted his fist right into James’s face.

James fell back through the gang of boys and landed flat on his seat with a thud. His face lit up with pain like a candle and his eyes flew wide as tea saucers. He gingerly raised his hand to his lip. The flesh was already tender and swollen, and when James pulled his hand away red blood ran down his fingertips. “You, you s-s-truck me,” James said, eyes watering and chin quivering.

“I…I…s-s-ure…did,” Red mocked, his band of lunks joining in.

“How…how…did it f-f-feel?”

“Is b-b-aby gonna c-c-ry?”

“Can’t even fend for himself…he’s a dandy all right, an absolute dandy!”

James sat there, throat tightening and face flashing with heat. No one came to pick him up. No one stood up for him or stepped forward to mete out justice. No one reminded the boys that he was a lord and they were commoners, and no one came to admonish them that stealing was wrong. Instead, the thieves heaped derision on poor James - and he just sat there and took it because he had no idea what else to do.

“Thanks for the trade, my good fell-ow!” Red said. He snapped his fingers again and he and his little band strutted off down the street.

James sat there silently for a moment, and then he did the last thing that any self-respecting boy would do in the middle of the street: he balled his eyes out. It was hard to blame him really, after all he’d been through, but the crying wasn’t solving any of his growing list of problems.

“Tears won’ get your treasure back, m’boy,” a beggar who had sat by and watched the entire awful incident advised. “I know, I’ve cried a river full meself and still my tin cup stays as empty as me belly.”

James stared incredulously at the beggar, wanting to ask why he bloody well hadn’t spoke up before now. But the man was right after all. So James jumped up and chased after the hoodlum gang.

Fortunately, Big Red was just that: big and sporting hair bright as a firework, so finding him was hardly the issue, what to do after the fact was a bit more prickly. James had nothing even resembling a plan, but he was so desperate to retrieve his box that he pursued the boys down the crowded streets of London, through alleys and over bridges, until the streets grew unrecognizable, and the light in the air approached true night.

James finally caught up with them and, lacking any better ideas, closed his eyes, lowered his shoulder, and ploughed headlong into Red’s back. He had hoped to knock the big lug over, but having never rammed anyone before, James lacked the momentum to weight ratio and suddenly found himself in the exact same situation as only a few minutes before.

“Oy!” Red whirled about. “Watch where you’re — you?” This was certainly a surprise to Red, and his band echoed his sentiment.

“You?”

“You?”

“Cabbage — it’s him all right.”

“I need that box back,” James said, this time without the snide tone or dismissive gaze. All he had were tears and bloody lips. But Red wasn’t a forgiving sort of boy (he’d also had a rough childhood, you see, with a missing father and poor mother and all the rest), so once more he snapped his fingers, and again the gang seized James in their arms. Red pulled back for another doozy of a haymaker.

James shut his eyes tight, anticipating the blow. But just before it came he blurted out his desperate reason for his desperate need: “I have to have it back! I have to take it to the king!”

James waited for the punch, hoping it wouldn’t land on his nose (that would hurt a lot, he imagined), so he angled his forehead toward Red’s fist, thinking it might be the least painful spot on his face to take a beating. And so James waited, looking completely ridiculous, with his scrunched-up face and forehead poked forward like a charging rhinoceros…but the beating never came.

James peeked one eye open. Red’s fist hung suspended in midair, his mouth gaping on his stupefied, lunkish face. James opened the other eye and found the same stunned looks on the faces of Red’s acquiescing compatriots.

“Did you just say you…you were taking this to the king?” Red asked, holding the box up with his other, un-fisted hand.

“The king?”

“The king?”

“Shouldn’t see the king smellin’ like cabbage —”

“Shut up!” Red shouted instead of the usual finger snap. This was apparently serious. “So?” he asked James again, raising his fist back to remind James how grave the situation was.

“Yes,” James said with a nod, still trying to angle his forehead toward the potential blow. He was completely confused, but supposed the truth couldn’t hurt now.

“What’s in it?” Red demanded.

“Nothing really, a letter on a bit of parchment and a necklace,” James managed.

“A necklace?” Red arched one curious eyebrow, slowly lowering his fist, and standing to his full height. “Let’s ’ave a look-see, shall we?” he said and tugged once on the lid. Then he tugged again. Then he bent over the box and pulled so hard that his face turned as red as his hair and his freckles nearly disappeared. He growled in anger and yanked James toward him by the front of his shirt.

“How d’ya got it locked up so tight?”

“I…I…” James tried to think of a clever lie, but the bizarre truth tumbled out instead. “I didn’t lock it. A gypsy, a gypsy witch did it with magic!” He spewed, half expecting the boys to beat him senseless on the spot for even suggesting something that ridiculous. But the gang just stood there, mouths open, staring back and forth at one another, dumbstruck.

Red looked as if he wasn’t sure what to do. After a moment, Red’s friends, who looked just like Red now, sporting the same clueless faces
they’d worn since James first saw them, collectively had an idea. They looked at one another, then at Red, then one of them spoke up.

“Well, if that lil’ box is for the king, hadn’t we be’er be takin’ him to see the king?”

James would have thought they were mocking him again if it weren’t for their solemn expressions. And he didn’t want to tell them that the box wasn’t actually
for
the king, as that seemed to be the only reason they weren’t beating him like a rug that very moment.

“You know the king?” James asked skeptically.

“Know him?” Red said with a growl. “WE — my good fell-ow —happen to be in the king’s employ, if you know what I mean. And if you can keep your dandy mouth shut for a minute, WE might find the civilness to take you to see him.”

“You will?” James nearly collapsed in disbelief. The thieves who had just robbed him seemed not only entirely certain that they worked for the king, but that they should take James to see him. Any relief that James felt, however, slipped away as Red leaned in close, looking him eye to eye, his lips curled into that horrible sneer.

“But if the king says he don’t know you, and I find you made all this hog slop up …” Red clucked his tongue, his eyes smiling in cruel delight. “Me and my chums here are gonna redecorate your pre’ty visage, go’ it?”

“Got it …” James said, nodding vigorously. And without further ado the quartet of ruffians turned and bustled quickly down the street, with James, having anything but another option, hurrying after them.

ELEVEN

he final, curved edge of the sun disappeared beneath the horizon as James followed the four boys who, just a few minutes ago, had been ready to pound him into little boy pulp. But the farther they went, the more James wanted to turn and run back, box or no box. James had never walked these streets, nor even ridden down them in a carriage. This was the dark side of the city - dark as though a permanent cloud stretched over top of it just to keep out the light.

The buildings here stood shabby and gray, rundown windows and faded doors looking like sad little faces, all in a row, with eyes turned down toward the ground. Every once in a while James glimpsed a candle-lit figure in a window or doorway. But the moment their eyes met, doors slammed, drapes snapped shut, or quick breaths snuffed
out the light. The people on the streets looked no happier than the houses around them, filthy from head to toe, soot imbedded in the creases of the frowns lining their greasy faces. They scurried down the streets with their heads down or huddled in twos and threes on the street corners, whispering amongst themselves.

“Is it much farther?” James asked, shivering as the cool night swept away the last warm traces of the day.

“Not far,” the closest lug said over his shoulder. “Good thing, too. We don’t wanna to be late for court!”

James had no doubt that this gang of thugs were liars as well as thieves, but the sure tone in their voices and the swift pace of their gait had James just hoping against hope that they were telling the truth. Those things and the fact that they could have easily pummeled James into the cracks of the cobblestones had they desired, but they had not. Such was their respect for the king.

Finally, after walking for miles along streets as bleak and cheerless as James had ever seen, the four boys led James down an alleyway that seemed to drop straight into the earth itself. They tread slowly down the steep hill where, at the bottom, they came to an ancient church, abandoned, though still guarded by hideous gargoyles and wedged between an empty warehouse and a crumbling stack of mortar and stones overtop a city sewer. The boys fell to their knees and without hesitation crawled through a broken drain.