Printer's Devil (9780316167826) Page 4

  What Bob had said about Maharajas had made me more sure than ever of the connection between the agitated fellow with the crow’s beak nose, and the Sun of Calcutta. A stranger in London, I told myself, a foreigner lost in the maze of streets the same night as the Sun of Calcutta arrived, must surely have come ashore from that very ship. But the more people I saw as I wandered between the hot, dirty brick buildings, the less convinced I became. How many ships might there be in London just now? And how many countries might they all come from? I realized too that I was venturing into what many people said was the thickest nest of thieves in the world. Most people said so quite importantly, as though it were a matter of national pride that London’s docks should be so notorious. Nevertheless, my curiosity had been aroused, and my progress eastward never halted.

  My feet were beginning to ache, though; and I persuaded a passing drayman to let us sit up on his cart next to a few beer barrels. I climbed up first, using the hub of the wheel as a step; Lash bounded up after me in a single leap, with a little yelp of excitement, and sat there with his tongue lolling out, surveying the passing crowds with a superior air from his new vantage point. After a while the drayman pulled up his horse and gestured with a wordless nod of his head down a dark narrow alley leading to the river. We’d arrived. We jumped down and I fished in my pocket for a penny to give him.

  The masts of ships jostled for position in the foul-smelling dock, stretching as far as the eye could see. Time and again people shouted at me to get out of the way as they pushed and pulled great cartloads of goods over the cobbles. Dockers and sailors milled in the narrow yards, stripped to the waist, with skins like alligators as a result of years of exposure to salt and rain and scorching foreign sun. We passed huddled little inns: the Galleon, the Sun, the Ship’s Cat, the Crow’s Nest, all playing host to hordes of seagoing men who’d come ashore eager for drink and food and female company. As we got nearer the water, the smell rose and the masts grew higher and higher; loose ropes flapped in the spring breeze, timbers were ranged along the bank for miles, making a noise like the groaning of a thousand wild animals as they bobbed on the water and scraped against one another’s flanks.

  Far below, in the dock, I saw a man helping people down into a little wooden boat. Every now and again he shouted up to the crowd on the dockside, “See London by water! Ride on the great Thames! See the City! Room for two more!” The boat was rocking as though it could have done with two fewer, rather than two more, to carry; but the faces grinning up from the cramped little vessel seemed happy enough at the prospect of their trip. The angular man in charge, with a sharp little face like a water rat, looked so untrustworthy I was quite sure the grinning foreigners would soon find themselves robbed once they got out of sight.

  I pushed onward, every now and again yanking at Lash’s lead to stop him going after seagulls or some other fascinating distraction. Someone had just pointed out the Sun of Calcutta when I spotted a pair of strange-looking men standing by themselves, eyeing the crowd and whispering to each other. Something about them made me stop and watch. One was tall and very untidy, sturdily built, with a raggy shirt open to reveal a hairy chest and stomach. He had a bandage around his head as though he’d recently been in a fight or an accident. His companion was shorter and skinny; older, it seemed, with a slight stoop. His eyes were grey and lifeless, and his face seemed fixed in an expression of utter weariness, his mouth hanging slightly open, his skin drooping as though it was all being pulled by gravity towards the ground.

  I was convinced they were up to no good, from the nervous way they kept looking around. They were making their way towards the mooring where I’d been told the Sun of Calcutta stood; and, keeping my distance, I followed them.

  But I didn’t get very far. I found my way blocked by a broad-chested man in a dark coat. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked. Lash growled, sensing sudden hostility — something he didn’t do very often — and I felt for his collar, both to reassure him and hold him back. I wondered if I should point out the two suspicious types, and turned to look for them — but they’d gone. In that single second I’d let them get out of sight.

  “Erm — I’m looking for the Sun of Calcutta,” I said, rather awkwardly.

  “Oh yes? And what would you be wanting with her?”

  “I’ve, er — come to collect something,” I mumbled, and then wished I hadn’t, because he immediately asked me what. I looked up at him. I couldn’t possibly slip past him, and the determined look on his face didn’t give me much cause for hope that he would let me through. I thought quickly. What on earth might a kid like me want with a ship like that?

  “Ink,” I said suddenly. “Indian ink. I’m Mog Winter and I work for Cramplock the printer at Clerkenwell. I was asked to collect Indian ink off the East Indiaman.”

  The man bent down and hissed his reply into my face.

  “Ink, eh?” he said. “Mog Winter, eh? Winter the Printer.” He showed his teeth.

  “Yes,” I said as brightly as I could. “Where can I pick it up?”

  “Nowhere,” he hissed. “You show me proof you’s who you says you is. There’s a thousand horrible kids might pretend to work for a printer just so’s they can get on board a ship and snoop around and thieve and do.”

  I didn’t have any proof, and I had to tell him so. Lash was still growling softly, and I could feel him tensing beneath my grip. The customs man eyed me suspiciously.

  “How much ink?” he wanted to know.

  “Twenty-four bottles,” I said confidently. “Big bottles,” I added.

  “How you going to carry ’em to Clerkenwell then?”

  “Er—” Again I had to think quickly. “I’ve left my cart back there,” I said, gesturing vaguely behind me.

  “Really? Then chances are it’ll be gorn when you gets back to it!” The man was rapidly making me feel like a fool. “And I might tell you, for your hinformation, that you can only get your ink on presentation of the necessary monies at the Customs Warehouse, in the City,” he added, stabbing his finger shortly in the direction from which I’d come. “But if you was to let me have something for my trouble, I might just see that nobody else makes off with your master’s ink.”

  “Have you seen a man in a bandage?” I asked him, “because there was one over there, and his thin friend, and they looked like they were up to no good.”

  It didn’t work. “Could be,” he said, “my brother has a bandage, and a thin friend. Could be a full three-quarters of sailors have a bandage, and a thin friend. And if you don’t want a bandage, to cover up the kick I’m going to give you,” he said in a low voice, “you’d better hook it, Mog Winter.”

  This was persuasive enough, and I turned back reluctantly, pulling Lash after me and casting an occasional glance over my shoulder to see if the mysterious pair had resurfaced in the crowd. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that they were mixed up in the affair Flethick and his sinister friends had been talking about last night. Why else would they be snooping around the Sun of Calcutta, looking so shifty?

  Suddenly, there they were again. I edged behind a nearby pile of empty barrels so I could hide and watch them. They were carrying a large decorative chest between them, and were still looking around as if checking to see who was watching them. Then I noticed the Customs man — the same man who’d just turned me away — striding purposefully over to them. The game was up! I was far too far away to hear what was being said — but I was sure they would be in trouble now.

  Yet, as the customs man began to talk to them, he didn’t seem at all angry. I could see his face quite clearly, and it was a picture of calm and good humor. He even began to laugh. He was sharing a joke with them! They were making off with a precious chest full of all kinds of exotic treasure, and he was laughing as if it was all a huge joke! But I suddenly understood why when I saw the bandaged one take some large banknotes out of his pocket and pass them quickly to the official. They’d hoped no one had seen the
transaction, but they hadn’t reckoned on me watching from behind these smelly, leaky tar barrels.

  Only then did I look down at myself, and realize that my hands and clothes were black and sticky from being pressed up against the barrels. Lash, sniffing round them, had acquired jet-black tips to his grey whiskers, and was leaving rings of dark shiny paw-prints as he scampered around me, impatient to be off.

  I didn’t have time to worry about my ruined clothes. Right now the most important thing was to follow the two suspicious-looking men. I caught up with them again by the corner of a warehouse, where I saw them talking to a man with a horse and cart. Was he an accomplice, or just a carter they were hiring to carry the load? Dismayed, I watched them all sweating as they lifted the heavy chest up onto the cart. It was going to be much harder to keep up with them now.

  I wondered if I should tell someone else. But who could I trust? The customs man, who was meant to prevent this kind of thing, was obviously up to his neck in it. I had a feeling that shouting “Stop, thief!” in a place like this would only make all the thieves laugh.

  So, dodging between the people and hiding behind them as I went, I tried to keep up with the ugly pair and their carter companion as they trundled away from the dockside and up the road towards the Galleon Inn, one of the most packed and notorious of the local taverns. Every now and again, I could see them moving ahead of me as the crowd parted. I noticed that the chest had been covered up with a big dark canvas sheet. It could have been anything under there: a chest of drawers, or a couple of ordinary wooden boxes. Nobody even noticed them as they jolted on up the hill.

  As the cart reached the Galleon I lost sight of them again. I was running, trying to catch up, when someone pulled my arm.

  “Nick!” said a gruff voice, and I turned to see a stocky sailor with a filthy flat cap on his head, his neck blue with tattoos.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I’m in a hurry, could you —“

  “Not so fast,” he growled, grasping my arm more tightly. “Your Pa’s after your hide. Watcha done?”

  I didn’t know what to say. The sailor obviously thought I was someone else. His breath smelled strongly of drink and he was speaking so fast it was all but impossible to understand what he was saying. “I — I think you’ve —“ I began; but he wasn’t listening.

  “Your Pa’s up to his neck. He’s three sheets gone and he’s roaring,” he was saying. “Picture of palsy, the man is. Your hide’ll not be worth tanning when he’s roped you in. What’s his rag for, eh?”

  “Let me go,” I said, “you’ve got the wrong person.”

  “Hang fire then,” he said, grasping me even tighter. “You tell old Samson what your Pa’s rag’s about, and mebbe I let you go. Or mebbe I beef on you, lad. Seems he’s missing summink, and missing it sore.”

  “Look, I’ve got to go,” I said, twisting and wriggling in a vain attempt to slip out of his grip.

  The man pulled me close to him, violently now, and I caught a powerful hot scent of rum full in the face. Lash barked, but the sailor showed the dog his teeth in a sudden grimace and Lash fell silent, astonished.

  “Now you listen,” he said to me, gruffly and quietly. “Your Pa’s in a fine chafe over you, young snaffer, and if I wasn’t so soft I’d run you into that tailshop and let him hang you by your kegs for all to glory over. Now you be warned, chimp, and get yourself out while your molly’s still in one piece, and don’t say I letcha. Hook it!”

  I stumbled away, with Lash at my heels, tripping on the cobbles, not daring to look back at the tattooed sailor. What on earth had he been talking about? Furious, I looked up and down the street, but of course the pair of thieves were now nowhere to be seen. Maybe the sailor had stopped me on purpose, to slow me down and let the villains escape?

  My eyes stung with sudden tears. Thrusting my hands deep into my pockets, letting Lash follow at his own pace now, I trudged in the direction of home, getting more and more furious about the thieves and the chest I’d watched them taking. As I walked along I realized how strongly I smelt of tar — but when I tried to rub the sticky stuff from my clothes it just made a worse mess than before. I’d have to change when I got back to Clerkenwell.

  Suddenly, as I walked past the low doorway of a courtyard, I caught a glimpse of something which made me stop in my tracks. Was it …? I took a step backward and looked through the passageway again; and sure enough, standing against a wall, apparently abandoned, was the cart with the chest on it. I could hardly believe my eyes. They’d just left it here! I whistled for Lash and bent to take hold of his lead again. Keeping him close, I tiptoed up the passageway towards the cart. The nearer I got, the more certain I was it was the same one: I recognized the dark tarpaulin and the shape of the chest beneath it. But surely the villains couldn’t be far away! I had no time to lose. I rushed up to the cart and looked around quickly to make sure no one was watching — then took hold of the cover, and lifted it.

  The disappointment was like a hammer blow. An old sideboard! A rotting old piece of useless furniture, with grimy green paint flaking off all over it. This was the villains’ cart all right — but wherever they’d gone, they’d taken the chest with them, and had probably left this here deliberately to throw people off their scent.

  It was only then that I noticed a group of children, a bit younger than I was, watching me from a corner of the yard. They had a battered-looking dog with them, which started to yelp when it saw us, and Lash snarled back. The dog looked ill, with milky eyes and a mouth that hung open as though its jaw didn’t work properly. I didn’t want Lash to go near it.

  “Did you see the three men who brought this cart?” I asked the children.

  None of them said anything. They all just watched me.

  “I need to know where they’ve gone,” I said, “the men who brought this. Did you see them? One of them had a bandage on.”

  Still they stood, looking dumbstruck. Why weren’t they talking to me? One of them whispered something into the ear of another; and I suddenly realized they weren’t really looking at me, but at something above my head.

  I turned too late. Above me there was a scraping sound and, as I looked up, I saw another boy poised on the top of the wall in a crouching position. Just as I noticed the brick he was holding in his hands, he sent it tumbling down towards my upturned face; I remember hearing Lash barking; and the boy’s wild, satisfied little smile was the last thing I saw before the sky seemed to fill with brick, then blood, then darkness.

  3

  THE SWORD

  I woke up to find a pair of eyes about an inch from mine, and the stench of warm breath in my nostrils.

  I came to with a jolt, and realized it was the skinny half of the villainous pair, peering down his snout-like nose at me.

  “Ere, Coben,” he said suddenly, “ere, ’e’s comin’ to.”

  “Who are you?” I asked indistinctly. As I moved, a sudden smarting in my forehead reminded me in a flash of the child on the wall, and the brick which must have hit me.

  I groaned, and let my head fall back onto the pile of old rags on which I was lying. I was in a very dim corner of some damp little room, lit only by a candle flickering on a table nearby. Both of the villains I’d followed were here: the bandage-headed one appeared now, beside the other, and they both looked down at me as I lay there.

  “Andsome creeter,” murmured one, ironically.

  “Soft-lookin’,” said the other, with a note of scorn. “Pelt like a wench.”

  I tensed. Since I’d lived in the orphanage, several years ago now, I’d never forgotten one of the older children once saying that when I was asleep, I looked like a girl. It didn’t matter much, because nobody usually saw me while I was asleep; but these two hideous characters had caught me at my most vulnerable, and their sneering tone was making my skin crawl. I heaved myself up onto my elbows to put myself at greater advantage.

  “Lash,” I said suddenly, looking around me. There was no sign of him. “My dog — wher
e’s my dog?”

  “No ’arm will come to your dog,” said the bandaged one, “long as you do as you’re told.”

  “Where is he?” I insisted, beginning to panic.

  “That’s for us to know,” he said sharply. “What was you doin’ stalkin’ us?”

  “I don’t understand,” I lied, wincing from the pain in my forehead.

  “You followed us with a dog,” the other, skinny one piped up. “What was you followin’ us for?”

  “I wasn’t,” I lied again.

  The man with the bandage pushed his way forward, bent over me, and took me just a little too firmly by the shoulders. “Now then,” he said, squeezing with his huge grimy hands, “we knows your Pa put you up to this, but he’ll regret it, we’ll make sure o’ that. You tell us what the bosun’s done with that camel.”

  I stared at them blankly. They thought they knew my father too, just as the sailor outside the Galleon had! What on earth was going on? I was too astonished to say a word.

  “Come on, Master bosun’s lad,” said the skinny one, “stow makin’ it rough.”

  “You’ll only mak’ it painful for yerself,” growled the bandaged man. “See if we can’t make you squeal. What’s the bosun about, and where’s the camel?”

  The pain in my forehead was making my head buzz and I couldn’t be sure I was hearing properly. For a while I thought these two must have the same strange condition, whatever it was, that had made some of Flethick’s friends talk gibberish last night. But it was starting to be obvious that people were mistaking me for someone else entirely. “Ask the bosun nicely,” a voice intoned somewhere inside my head, “and he’ll cut your gizzard.” A churning feeling in my stomach told me I was in deep trouble. If only Lash was here.