Chapter Nine

VINCE LICKED HIS square thumb and ran it across a scuff on his boot. Before he could clean it off entirely, a young boy, around ten or eleven years old, ran into the Watch House. He turned this way and that before spotting Vince and slapping a piece of paper on his desk.

Vince nodded at the lad and flicked a farthing to him which he snatched out of the air and slipped into his pocket before running back outside again.

Mr Norton pointed his quill at the door. “And just who was that boy?”

“Brendan,” Vince said. “Knew him when he was living on the rooftops of Gull’s Reach last year. Good lad. Poor family. Thought I could help him earn some honest coin.”

“Another impressionable mind corrupted.” Mr Norton returned to his note-making. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

Vince ignored him and traced his finger down the page until he stopped and jabbed. “There’s one. Everyone, grab your gear.”

“Where are we going now?” Ruth asked.

“Home, I should think,” Clive said.

Ruth yawned and stretched her arms. “Been up all bleddy night.”

Vince pushed them out of the door. “Sleep later. Walk now.”

The sun had risen and stirred a mist from the sea. Clouds gathered overhead. He hurried them down towards the docks.

“I hope this heat breaks soon,” Ruth said. “You could have drowned a puppy in my pits yesterday.”

“Why would anyone want to?” Clive asked.

“I’m not saying they would. But they could. If they had to.”

Vince shushed them and braced himself against a wall to get a good view of the ships. He leaned out and squinted. A tap on his shoulder. Sorcha, Exeter, and Frank had arrived. Sorcha produced a small spyglass from her pocket and held it out to him. He grunted and took it, holding it to his good eye.

“We saw you all running out of the Watch House,” she said in a whisper. “What are you looking for?”

“There. Dancer of Belgrade.” He pointed to an unassuming clipper docked nearby. Its crew was unloading cargo. A cart approached and two men started lifting some of the crates. “Come on.”

He ran across the harbour with the Watch in tow. With a tremendous yell, he grabbed one of the men and shoved him to the ground. The other, startled, dropped the crate he was carrying. Some of the clipper’s crew rushed to the man’s aid, shouting all the while.

“Back away!” Vince bellowed at the top of his voice. “Port Knot Watch.”

“I don’t care who you are,” said one of the crew. “Put him down.”

“What are you doing?” Sorcha asked.

“Check the crate,” Vince said, still holding the man by his lapels.

The crate had cracked open where the other man had dropped it. Sorcha pulled at the broken wood. “Pistols.”

“Mr Peter Finch. Purveyor of stolen goods. Need something without a lot of questions asked, Peter can get it for you. Part of the Pennymen now, yes? Going to sell these on to the one of the gangs? Gunbrides, perhaps?”

“It’s true, then,” Peter said. “You have turned.”

Vince let go of Peter’s lapels and gave him a light slap on the cheek. “Bad news for you.” He turned to the crew of the Dancer of Belgrade. “Back to work, you lot. Watch will pretend you didn’t know you were smuggling weapons.”

The crew shuffled off while Sorcha took Vince aside. “Shouldn’t we do something about the crew?”

“Not enough of us to… Wait.” He straightened up when he spotted a group of eight or nine people coming towards them. In a flash, the group had pulled clubs and sticks from their clothing. They darted towards the Watch. Vince pummelled one, two, three of them, but more were approaching from the dockside.

Frank and Clive were putting up little resistance, but Ruth clobbered one of the gang over the head with her mace and kicked the ankle of another. Two of the gang were trying to scoop up the crates of weapons but the horse, panicked by the scuffle, reared up and threw off the cart.

Vince took a punch to the face. He swiftly recovered, grabbed his assailant by the throat, and punched him square in the mouth—twice. The man’s lip exploded and he fell to the ground. Two women grabbed Vince’s arm, two men took his other, and someone else started smacking his stomach with a club. He growled and shouted.

Frank lay on the ground, not moving. Sorcha fought with her staff, fending off two men with knives. Exeter and Clive were surrounded. In a moment of clarity, Vince saw how it would all end. He cursed his stupidity, rushing in without a thought. He’d been too used to getting his own way, too used to people cowering when he barked at them. Those days were gone, and now the Watch would pay the price for his arrogance.

A musket shot cracked the air and heralded the arrival of a troop of C.T.C. officers, and in a flash, the dockside was filled with emerald green uniforms. With bayonets levelled, they rushed into the gang and pulled them away from the Watch, beating and punching as they went. They herded most of the gang into a corner while others scarpered back towards the town.

Vince leaned against the cart to catch his breath. Sorcha tended to Frank, who had come round. Ruth checked her own nose wasn’t broken.

“Nasty business, all this,” said a smiling James Godgrave. “Got me out of bed. You’re lucky we heard the commotion.”

“Had it in hand.”

James’s laugh was too warm to be a sneer. “It didn’t look that way to me.” He leaned on the cart, right beside Vince. Unnecessarily close. Their arms touched. “How did you know about the weapons? Ah. Wait. You knew the ship from your time as chief criminal, didn’t you? Not so very long ago, you’d have been the one taking delivery. What did they call you, back then? Commander in Crime? The King of Thieves? The Blight of Blackrabbit?”

James must have read the story about him in the Blackrabbit Courant. “Was either going to be muskets or opium.”

“The Watch isn’t equipped to deal with something on this scale.”

Vince tapped the crate with his boot. “Better equipped now.”

“Oh, no, you’re not keeping those,” James said. “No, they belong to the C.T.C. now. As do these fine folks.” He swept his hand towards the gang members being held at bayonet point. “A quick jaunt to the magistrates and then—”

“No.” Vince stood in front of James and tried to stare him down. Tall though he was, James still had to look up to a fully extended Vince.

James’s smile grew a touch wider. “No?”

“Coming with me.” Rabbit would be furious when she found out the greencoats had come to the rescue of the Watch. Vince couldn’t do anything about it now, but he could stop them from interfering any further. “Don’t expect you to understand. New here. Don’t know how things work.”

“You are quite correct,” James said. “Well, would you at least allow my people to escort them to the Watch House? Your Watch is still, I believe, outnumbered.”

Vince did a quick headcount and paused before reluctantly nodding his approval. He instructed Exeter and Clive to collect the crates of pistols and ammunition. They calmed the horse, loaded the cart, and followed the procession of prisoners all the way into town. Townsfolk lined the roads to jeer at the captives.

“This is going to make you a lot of friends,” James said.

“Few more enemies too.”

JAMES WRINKLED HIS nose at the onslaught of odours as he passed along a slender road that meandered and undulated like a stony stream. He walked under the malodorous arch of a bridge, shaped to resemble the open mouth of a bearded man, and found the Watch House on the other side. He and his troops took the gang members inside while Watchmen Exeter and Clive took the horse and cart to the back.

As grimy inside as out, the walls were a displeasing mustard colour, the air hung thick with dust and old tobacco, and the furniture was riddled with woodworm. “And where shall we be putting them?”

Across the untidy room, Vince flung open some cell doors. The gang members were marched inside and the doors locked behind them.

Someone already locked up—a young hairless chap with a band of daisies tattooed round his head—gripped the bars and called out to the new inmates. “Welcome, everyone. Make yourselves at home. Walter’s been here for a while, he can show you the ropes. Like how snitching gets you special privileges.”

“I didn’t tell them about you lot!” Walter said. “How could I?”

With the new prisoners safely ensconced, James ordered Perty to take his troops back to the Lancelot Striking. Vince had the pistol crates brought in and locked away in a cell on their own.

James grabbed the cell door and rattled it. “This seems sturdy enough.”

“Should be,” Vince said. “Built it myself.” He took his tricorne off and hung it on a hook. He ran a meaty hand across his snowy hair, fixing it into place. James wanted to run his own hand through it, to once again feel its silken strands between his fingers as he kissed Vince’s thick neck.

As the Watch tended to their various injuries, James sat on the edge of Vince’s desk. He ran a finger along it and left behind a channel in the dust. “Charming little place you’ve got here.”

Vince paused in the lighting of his pipe and frowned. “Glad you approve.”

James tried not to laugh. How easy it was to get under this big man’s skin. He wondered if anyone could do it or if he, because of their connection, found himself specially placed. He almost considered it a unique position to be in, but then there had been nothing unusual about his trip to the cherry house. Nor Vince’s, he suspected. Certainly, neither had been out of place or uncomfortable there. Though he found it hard to imagine how Vince felt comfortable anywhere. The story in the Blackrabbit Courant failed to convey Vince’s presence. A massive man, in breadth and height, who ducked through every doorway and dominated every space, making other men seem as boys in his wake. A frigate in a world of sloops. “What do you plan to do now?”

“Haven’t made up my mind.”

Apparently, Vince didn’t trust him yet. Shrewd. James had given him no reason to. “Do you anticipate trouble from the rest of their gang? Will they come to free their compatriots?”

Vince puffed on his pipe and blew a cloud of smoke into the air. “Maybe. Regret it if they do. Cells don’t mean I have to take prisoners.”

“You’re a man after my own heart,” James said, grinning. “I believe the best way to deal with crime is to crush it beneath our heel.”

Vince snorted and grumbled under his breath, “Quickest way, at least.”

“I must admit I don’t quite understand how it all works. This lot, what do you call them?”

“Pennymen,” Vince said. “Not the brains though. Recognise most of them. Brawlers. Boxers. Fighters.”

“The foot soldiers, then?” James asked.

“Sorcha’s hovering,” Vince said. “Thinks I don’t notice. Easier if she explains.”

“You don’t like to say much, do you?”

“Not like you.”

James laughed. “That’s fine, the world needs listeners. Otherwise, who would we talkers talk to?”

Sorcha, with her hands behind her back, sidled up. A pretty young girl, not at all the sort of person James expected to find serving with the Watch. She dressed the part, though, in her striped shirt and trousers.

“I wasn’t exactly hovering; it’s more like I was keeping myself available should you or…” She rotated her hand.

James chuckled and bowed his head slightly. “Captain Godgrave.”

“Should you or Captain Godgrave here need anything,” she said.

“Tell me about this lot, then.”

“If the gangs—or anyone else, really—steal anything not immediately useful to them, they sell it to the Pennymen,” she said. “Fences, smugglers, and counterfeiters. They’re the ones who move stolen goods around. If you need anything, they can find it for you. If you need to get rid of anything, they can help you there too.

“Most of this lot are low in the pecking order. They work in shops and stalls and serve as foot soldiers, I suppose, like you said. Though they’re not all men, obviously. When the gangs reorganised, all the criminals with actual skills and brains got snapped up. The ones that were left became the infantry of the Pennymen. Mostly because Fortitude Littletar can afford to pay for them.”

“You already had some prisoners. Who are they?” James asked.

“They are part of the Clockbreakers,” Sorcha said. “Robbers, housebreakers, pickpockets, and shoplifters. Not often violent, though mistakes have been made during muggings.”

“And this is all the gangs are? Some burglars and a handful of shopkeepers?”

“Oh, no, no, there’s more than just them,” Sorcha said. “After Vince’s…change of heart and Councillor Mudge’s incarceration last Midwinter, the gangs who had been under their control started fighting for dominance. The more ambitious among them did away with their competitors fairly quickly and brutally. That was a horrible time, let me tell you. We were stumbling across brawls every other night, finding bodies left, right, and centre. When the dust settled, four gangs remained—the Clockbreakers, the Pennymen, the Gunbrides, and the Cream.

“The Gunbrides are where robbers go for more excitement. They hide in the countryside and ambush travellers at musket point, and frequently with fatal results. They’ve been growing bolder lately, moving closer to town. We don’t know who’s in charge of them yet.”

“One of my favourites, most likely,” Vince said.

James’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course. These are all your recruits. All making their way in the world you left for them.”

Vince sank farther into his chair and puffed on his pipe a little harder.

“The fourth gang are the ones the others are all afraid of,” Sorcha said. “Referred to as the Cream, because they rose to the top. It’s rumoured they take a percentage of all the other gang’s takings, as well as protection money from every business in the rougher side of town. We don’t know who’s running them yet. No one will tell us anything. I’m right, aren’t I, Walter? Going to tell us about them now, are ye?”

Walter looked sheepishly at his cellmates and shook his head.

“So this fourth gang, they’re the new Vince?” James asked.

“You might say as much,” Sorcha said.

Vince puffed on his pipe. “Rather you didn’t.”

“You should be flattered,” James said. “It took a whole gang of people to replace you. I suppose these Pennymen have the most to lose if you’re successful. The Clockbreakers and Gunbrides can both carry on robbing people but the Pennymen depend on the other gangs for business.”

“Exactly,” Sorcha said. “Which is why they have the most enforcers. The most foot soldiers.”

“Tell me this, young lady—if these gangs have their territory all worked out, why all the hubbub?”

“Not everyone who breaks the law is in a gang,” Sorcha said. “Some people are just opportunists, or they’ve fallen on hard times and are trying to feed themselves or their family. And skirmishes between the gangs are common. Big egos and short fuses are a volatile mix. All too often, it’s the ordinary people of the town who are caught in the middle.”

James stood and fixed his cap into place. “I see. Well, should you require any more reinforcements, you know where to find me. My door is always open for you.” He winked at Vince, causing him to snort on his pipe. It might have been a laugh. It might have been a choke. Whatever the case, James took it as a victory.