Chapter Fifteen

VINCE FOLLOWED LAMBSHEAD upstairs to a dank living room with torn wallpaper and a fusty odour. A group of residents sat around a small table, muttering amongst themselves. They stopped when they saw him.

“Mrs Damerell, isn’t it?” Vince asked. “Speaking for the Reach?”

“As much as anyone can.” A young woman of slight build and little presence made up for by a formidable determination in her brown eyes. She wore a simple grey gown and tiny, plain earrings. She bade him to sit.

Lambshead took a chair opposite him.

“Gunbrides didn’t take the Reach by force, did they?” Vince asked.

“They didn’t have to,” Mrs Damerell said. “Look at you. Walking in here, bold as brass. You’ve some bleddy cheek.”

“Doesn’t have to be any trouble here.”

“There isn’t going to be,” Mrs Damerell said. “Now that the people who were made homeless by the hurricane have been rehoused, the council has gone back to ignoring the Reach.”

“Could have taken one of the new houses over in Ironworks,” Vince said.

“I didn’t want one,” Mrs Damerell said. “The people of the Reach were good to me and my family when we lost our home in that storm. They took us in, helped us as best they could, fed us when they could barely feed themselves, when the rest of the town wanted nothing to do with us.

“For years, the Reach has been left to fend for ourselves while criminals run rampant through our streets, our arcades. Then we hear Vince Knight himself has been given the full backing of the council! The man who terrorised us for years, the man who sent his gangs in to recruit our children—”

“Wasn’t—”

“Our children to fight in his little army of miscreants, and thieves, and cutthroats. You didn’t do much recruiting from Barley Hill, did you, Vince? You weren’t combing the houses of the wealthy and influential looking for pickpockets to train. No, it was here, it was to the Reach you came prowling. You swept in and took anyone you wanted.”

Vince thumped his fist on his knee, over and over.

“You got your claws into my husband too,” she said. “Do you even remember him? My Arthur? He took up arms for you and Councillor Mudge last Midwinter, swallowed what you were selling him hook, line, and sinker.” She bared her teeth when she spoke, her eyes wide and burning with hatred for him. “Arthur left the Reach when he saw what we were planning. The Gunbrides came to us with a proposition. Let them in without a fuss, and they’d protect us from the greencoats. And from you.”

“Didn’t need to do that. Not out to hurt anyone. Not anymore.”

“And what possible reason would we have to believe you?”

“Have my word. What makes it worth less than his?” Vince pointed to Lambshead. “Think he won’t turn on you? People I helped recruit ended up with him and those like him. Pistol thrust in their hand and pushed out into the world.”

“On whose orders?”

“Baxbary Mudge’s.” Vince all but spat the name out. “Worked with Mudge. Carried out Mudge’s vision. Followed Mudge’s plans.”

“And you were just a wide-eyed innocent caught up in his machinations?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not remotely,” Mrs Damerell said. “You used your knowledge of the Reach to further his cause. But more, you gave him ideas, didn’t you? You helped him, Vince. He couldn’t have done any of it without you. You. Helped. Him.”

Vince hung his head and rubbed his nose. “Won’t lie to you. Done horrible things. Unforgivable things. Trying to be better now. Watch is…is my way of making it up to the town. To the people.”

Mrs Damerell bit her lip. “It’s not enough, Vince. It won’t ever be enough. How could it be? Should you live to be a hundred years old, you couldn’t possibly make up for all the damage you’ve done, all the lives you’ve ruined. My sister worked the Tangles for one of your pickpockets. She was caught once by a group of sailors and beaten to within an inch of her life. She lost the hearing in one ear because of it.”

She pointed to a man across the table. “Fred’s father owed you money and couldn’t pay. You had his legs broken. He never worked again. Claire’s mother worked in a bank for a while. One of your people coerced her into giving them a key, said they’d kill her elderly parents if she refused. Her employer found out and let her go, put the word around about what she’d done. She couldn’t find decent work again. And that’s just the start of it. We all have stories about you, Vince. About the people who worked for you. There’s not a life in Gull’s Reach that hasn’t been tainted by your fetid touch.”

The blood pumped in Vince’s ears. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. The chair creaked beneath him. “Tell me what you want.”

“Leave us in peace,” she said. “Let the Gunbrides worry about the Reach. Your duty ends at the bridge. And you can tell the greencoats the same.”

“Can’t do it. Greencoats won’t allow it. Council neither.”

“The council only cares about us when we kick up a fuss. When we’re an embarrassment. Just this morning, a squad of greencoats barged in and took Troth Bisbrow away. They held his mother up against the wall by her throat. They hit his father with the butt of a rifle. That’s what life in Gull’s Reach is now. We’re not even worth talking to. Just come in and drag us off to the magistrates without a word of explanation.”

“Greencoats shouldn’t have done that, but you’re not thinking clearly,” Vince said, shaking his head. “Let a gang like the Gunbrides in, you’ll never be rid of them.”

Mrs Damerell leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “From where I’m sitting, the only difference between Mr Lambshead’s gang and yours is that his is trying to help us.”

“Watch isn’t a gang. It’s…”

“It’s what?”

“Official. Sanctioned.”

“Not by us. Not by the Reach. Not any longer. Any Watch member or greencoat who tries to cross Bezzle Bridge will be shot on sight.”

Vince shook his head again. “Madness. Never going to work.”

“Then make it work,” Lambshead said. “You can speak to Rabbit any time you want. To the council. Go and talk to them. Make them understand.”

Vince jerked to his feet, knocking his chair away, and clenched his fists. Lambshead flinched and aimed his pepper-box musket. What they wanted was completely unworkable, but arguing would get someone killed. Vince nodded his acceptance. It took every ounce of self-control for him not to punch Lambshead’s face until it turned to a sticky jelly there and then. Instead, he balled his fists and stormed out.

On the stairs, he passed more Gunbrides. Younger than Lambshead and the other members he knew. He stopped a redheaded girl with freckled cheeks in her tracks and pointed to her weapon. “Don’t all get pepper-boxes?”

The girl stared up at him, a lump in her throat. She put on a brave face when she spoke. “We have to earn our spouses.”

“Not been with the Gunbrides long, then?”

She shook her head. “They recruited me a month ago. I couldn’t believe my…luck.” She stood with her common flintlock held away from her body.

“Not used to it yet,” Vince said. “Afraid of it.”

“No!” the girl said. “No, not afraid. Never fear the kiss of a musket. It’s an honour for a bride to be kissed by her spouse on the day of her handfasting. I have my pepper-box picked out already. His name is Pickstich. He can lift a button from a shirt at thirty paces. On our wedding day, he’ll be fired at me, and I’ll know what it is to be kissed by my true love.”

She ran up the stairs leaving Vince alone. He knew of gang initiations though he’d never approved of them. A person should prove their worth through their actions, not through some nonsensical ritual. That girl could not have been more than fifteen years old, and Lambshead had convinced her that being shot was a good thing.

He crossed Bezzle Bridge to find the assembled crowd silent. They stood back to let him through.

Sorcha and Exeter greeted him. Sorcha breathed out, her shoulders slumped. She even smiled at him. “Thought sure you were coming out of there in a box.”

A woman in a wheeled chair pushed through the crowd. “Good meeting with the Gunbrides, Mr Knight? Are you working to stop them or to aid them, I wonder?”

Vince glared over his shoulder at her and carried on back to the Watch House.