The Gilded Lily (54 page)

‘Miss Johnson and another girl. The nightwatch saw them go. Be more than an hour ago now.’

‘Two girls you say?’

‘Yes. That yellow-haired Miss Johnson and another dark girl.’

‘Did you see her face?’

‘No. I didn’t see her at all, ’twas only the nightwatchman saw, ’twas he who told me. Said they were hanging onto each other like they were drunk.’

It could be Sadie. Dennis felt an unfamiliar sensation in his chest.

‘Trinity Lane, was it?’

Tindall nodded.

‘Sorry, Nat, I’ve got to go.’

‘But—’

It was not a thought that made him run, more like an instinct, something his heart knew although his legs did not.

Sadie held tight to Ella’s hand as they were pushed into Allsop’s small drawing room. She stayed quiet now, as Ella had asked, with her head bowed, her hair
covering her face. Ella had stilled her face too into a neutral mask, but Sadie could feel her tremble.

At first she did not see the other man, for he was sitting in the chair with his back to them. He was not wearing a wig and his bald head was stubbled and wrinkled at the nape with rolls of
flesh. When he heard them come in, he stood up and turned, his eyes bleary in their pouchy sockets. Ella gripped Sadie’s hand more tightly and, keeping hold, moved in front of Sadie to put
herself in between them.

‘What’s all this?’

‘Said you wanted the Savage Sisters, did you not?’ Wolfenden smiled and winked at Jay. ‘Spared no expense, as it’s your birthday.’ The other men laughed at his
discomposure.

He stood up. ‘You bloody coxcomb. You never did.’ He looked genuinely taken aback. ‘No, these are not they. You can’t fool me – where did you get them?’

‘’Tis true,’ Whitgift said.

‘I wasn’t serious! Bloody fool, Wolfenden. What the hell am I supposed to do with them?’

‘Oh come on now, Allsop. Never known you short of starch when it comes to a skirt. The fellows have a few ideas even if your ale-addled brain has not.’

Sedley grabbed Wycliffe by the arm and mimed pumping his fist up and down.

‘I thought one of them was supposed to have the Devil’s patch on her face?’ Allsop said.

‘Take a look then,’ Jay said. He drew his rapier and with the tip of it nudged Sadie forward into the empty space between Allsop and Ella. Sadie stepped forward, head held high, and
as Ella had told her, she said nothing.

‘Show me her face.’

Wycliffe took hold of her hair as if he did not want to touch it and pulled it back so that her head was forced backwards. She stiffened but remained silent.

Allsop walked towards her and leaned over her. He threw the liquid from his glass into her face. She gasped but stifled it. Allsop handed his kerchief to Wycliffe, who rubbed at her face at
arm’s length. Sadie winced as the liquid stung her eyes.

‘Well, I never,’ Sedley said. ‘Take a look at that. It
is
the bloody Savage Sisters.’ He laughed uproariously.

Jay looked towards the door where Foxy and Lutch were leaning either side, watching impassively. ‘You two can wait outside now,’ Jay said. ‘Remember your orders.’

Foxy and Lutch nodded and went out, banging the door behind them.

‘So this is the famous patch-faced girl,’ Allsop said. ‘Well, she’s a curiosity, all right. Ugly, isn’t she? She doesn’t look much of a fighter. Wolfenden can
take her. I’ll take the other.’ He walked to Ella, who flinched as he placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘She can watch while Wolfenden has her sister. Maybe that will make her
wild.’

‘No. Please no. I’ll do anything.’ Sadie saw Ella sink to her knees before him. ‘Please – I’ll do anything you please, but let my sister go free.’

‘Get up.’ Allsop kicked Ella with the tip of his buckled shoe.

She stumbled to her feet. ‘I beg you—’

Allsop punched her hard in the side of the face and she staggered and fell, clutching her cheek.

‘I’ll take the young one first.’ Wolfenden pulled Sadie’s arms behind her and pulled her towards the ground.

‘No, please,’ Ella wept.

Sadie wanted to scream and shout, to struggle. But Ella had told her not to fight back, hadn’t she, and so she was silent.

She closed her eyes as she felt Wolfenden’s weight come down on her. Allsop’s voice: ‘Come on, fellows, want to see some sport?’

‘Leave her alone, you bastard.’ It was Ella. Sadie heard sounds of a scuffle and tried to turn to see what was happening, but Wolfenden had her in a tight grip, one hand on her chest
thrusting her back to the floor, the other pudgy hand fastening around her throat. She closed her eyes as if asleep. Wolfenden kept a hand at her throat whilst he lifted her skirt. She felt him
fumble at his breeches. She turned and fixed her eyes on Ella. Ella’s eyes sought hers and in that moment Sadie felt Ella’s love blaze like anger.

A staccato knocking made Wolfenden start, and slam Sadie’s head hard against the floor. Her eyes opened wide and she cried out. The pounding of the iron knocker at the door was insistent.
Wolfenden rolled off, fastening the flap of his breeches.

Allsop paused, his hand wrapped over Ella’s mouth. He listened as they heard the manservant open up. ‘You can’t come in,’ she heard him say, ‘his lordship is
indisposed.’

‘Help us!’ Ella had managed to free herself from Allsop’s grip. There were more men’s voices, and a commotion in the hall.

‘Hold her,’ Allsop yelled at Sedley, but he was already opening the window.

Wolfenden and Sedley made a dive for the opening and scrambled out. Jay Whitgift made to follow them, but Wycliffe took hold of his sleeve.

‘Hey, fellows, don’t go without me,’ he said.

Jay was still trying to shake him off when the door burst open.

‘Stay where you are.’ A roughneck constable levelled a pistol at Allsop’s chest.

He flung his hands up. ‘What’s going on? What are you doing in my house?’

‘Which is Josiah Whitgift?’

‘I am,’ said Jay, his rapier already drawn. ‘What of it?’

‘Into the hall. Now. You too.’ He waved his pistol at Sadie and Ella.

‘Do as they ask,’ Sadie shouted, dragging Ella away, and they stumbled through the door. There were two armed men in the hall and Foxy and Lutch were face to the wall with pistols
pressed to their necks.

Sadie turned to see Jay Whitgift, with a face like thunder, followed by Allsop who was looking from side to side in a panic.

‘What’s this about?’ blustered Allsop. ‘You will hear from my lawyers.’

‘Much good it will do you,’ the constable said. ‘You are all under seizure. We are investigating the murders of several young women –’

Allsop threw Jay a desperate look, before making a clumsy run for the front door. He shoved the terrified manservant to the side and put his hand on the handle. A king’s guard drew his
sword but Allsop ducked out if its way and punched him in the jaw. The sound of it was like the crunch of broken glass and the guard toppled. The constable spun on his heel and fired. Sadie heard
Ella scream as the noise of the shot reverberated in the room, before the blast turned her momentarily deaf. Allsop slumped to the ground – a red hole like a flower split open in the back of
his coat. The noise seemed to galvanize everybody into action.

The guard who was still holding Foxy and Lutch ran over to Allsop, his pistol ready, and rolled him over. Allsop’s eyes stared up in an expression of disbelief. A wet patch of red crept
out from under him.

‘Dead,’ the guard pronounced.

Wycliffe crouched on the ground, his hands over his ears and head.

Foxy and Lutch exchanged a brief glance before they made a sudden lurch down the corridor.

‘Quick! The back stairs!’

The guard who had been punched staggered to his feet and the rest plummeted after them, leaving the constable alone in the room.

Sadie was still staring at Allsop’s body when Ella shouted her name. But the warning came too late. An arm snaked around her throat and pulled her backwards. She recognized the dark velvet
of Jay Whitgift’s coat. He had hold of her from behind, the crook of his elbow was like a vice on her neck as she staggered, half falling, towards the door. The constable’s gun pointed
directly at her chest. Jay was using her as a shield. She kicked out now and struggled, but he held her firm. The constable began to reload his gun with powder and cocked it back.

‘No!’ Ella shouted and grabbed him by the arm. The shot went off but hit the plaster in the ceiling, so that a shower of white powder added to the smoke. Ella coughed and staggered
before running after them into the hallway.

The door was suddenly open and Sadie was stumbling backwards, being dragged down the stone steps. She choked, Jay’s arm was cutting off her breath. From the side of her eyes she saw the
black boxwagon draw up at the side of the house.

‘Get in!’ yelled the red-haired man from the front seat.

The constable had reloaded his gun and fired a third time, but Jay kept Sadie in front of him as he threw himself backwards into the wagon and the shot went clean through the wagon door.

She heard the whip crack and a voice shout ‘Gerrup!’ The horses sprang into action, the back doors of the wagon flapped, clanging against the sides, and she was jolted into motion,
Jay’s arms still around her throat. Over the noise of the wheels she only heard one sound:

‘Sadie!’ screamed Ella.

The two guards rounded the corner and pelted down the road, firing after the departing carriage. Ella leapt down onto the pavement, ran alongside as fast as she could run,
shouting after the wagon, but she turned to look behind and her voice petered away. Two guards had their weapons levelled at her. She slumped to her knees in the wet. They had taken Sadie. She beat
at the ground with her fists. It was only then that she saw the man in the long cape standing staring as the boxwagon turned the corner out of sight.

He had found her then. She would recognize him anywhere.

Ibbetson raised a pistol and pointed it at her chest. Behind him more of the king’s guard waited, swords drawn.

Ella slowly put up her hands.

Sadie hunched as far from Jay Whitgift as she could. She rubbed her elbow, which had cracked on the wooden bench-seat as she landed. The wagon was jarring and jerking, listing
as it turned the corners, the back doors flapping as it went.

She watched Jay warily. He clung to the railings at the window to the driver’s seat and shouted from the back telling them to turn left down a small alley. When the wagon keeled to the
side he threw a glance out of the back to see if they were being followed. The doors crashed against the body of the cart as they went. After a short distance Jay yelled, ‘Pull up.’ The
wagon slowed a little.

‘We’ve lost them. There’s nobody following us,’ he yelled. ‘The river. We need to get rid of the girl.’

Lutch replied, because she saw his profile turn, but she could not hear what he said. Jay’s voice went on. ‘Safer to make sure. The usual place. Then we can make a clean break.
We’ll head for Oxford, Wycliffe has a country house there.’

The hairs on the back of Sadie’s neck stood on end. They’re going to kill me, she thought. There is nobody who can help me now. Ella had surely been taken by the constable and there
would be no one coming to rescue her like in Dennis’s chapbooks. Dennis. She wondered if she’d imagined he liked her. It wouldn’t matter now, anyway.

The horses trotted on down the side street. Through the square aperture of the back doors Sadie saw the houses replaced by the walls of a tannery. The smell of rotting fish, bonemeal and the
damp fog blew in. The road was darker and wetter from many wagon wheels coming and going. The packed snow was gone, the road looked like a black sea unrolling behind them. Sadie prayed with all her
might. She hung on to Ella’s words – that if she should find a chance, to run like the wind – and she was ready.

The wagon skewed abruptly to a halt. Sadie made a desperate dive for the doors, but Jay was too quick. He grabbed her arm in his wiry grip and there was a brief scuffle before the wagon lurched
to a standstill and he pinioned her to the floor, his hand clamped on her mouth.

‘Why have you stopped? What do you think you’re playing at? Help me, you bloody imbeciles,’ he yelled.

‘Here. We’ll have to do it here. The river’s frozen,’ said Foxy, his thin freckled face looming over her as he hauled on her arms to drag her out of the wagon. She kicked
out at them as hard as she could, but they half lifted her so she was forced to totter between them as they dragged her a few more feet into the dark shadow of a dripping tannery. Next to it was a
raised wooden pit full of the nameless stinking parts of dead cattle and sheep. Two dogs growled at them as they tussled over a piece of gristle. She looked desperately about her for someone who
could help, who she could call to, but there was not a soul abroad. Oh God, she was really going to die. She heard Lutch’s heavy tread behind her. She glanced behind. Lutch flexed a long cane
between his palms.

‘Just get on with it,’ said Jay. ‘With any luck we’ll be long gone afore anyone sees her. I’ll wait at the wagon.’