I trudged along the wet road, blanket held close against the creeping nip of approaching winter. Rain fell on my face and hair. It seemed like it was always raining. It had been raining that day in the spring, when I found Raven, and it rained still. Perhaps the heavens shed tears at my hopelessness, but I doubted it.
Raven fared better than I did in wet weather. In any weather, really. She hadn’t grown much, yet, but her tiny frame had filled out. She still coughed soot, but I had long given up worrying about that.
Lowering my head for protection from the driving rain as far as I safely could in the throng of horses, carriages, and persons that choked Temple Barre, I found myself regretting—and not for the first time—the recent hungry patch that had driven me to sell Thomas’ boots. I was already missing them so much, and winter wasn’t even here yet.
Trying to forget how cold and vulnerable my bare feet felt after several long, lovely months encased in leather, I returned to consideration of my current problem. Not hunger today, for I had already eaten. I was engaged upon my weekly trek to Westminster to learn what I could from the gossips at the Courte Gate.
I frowned because I questioned my judgment in going that day. Winter was almost on me and somehow I had to find a way to buy, or failing that, acquire, another cloak or blanket. I really didn’t like stealing things, not any more. It had always made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, as it did during prayer, or in the presence of certain...things. But stealing was worse because of the feeling of disapproval that often came with it—most especially if I resorted to it too easily.
I’d never put my finger on why the feeling was sometimes so much worse than others until Father Mahoney had explained that stealing was only actually permissible in a case of truly dire need—and even that permissibility was apparently a subject of some debate among scholars.
The revelation had stunned me at the time, like a cloud had just shifted to let a ray of light illuminate my grubby, desperate existence. All the confusing feelings I’d suffered for almost two years had suddenly made perfect sense. After that, I must’ve been one of the few urchins who’d turned up for Father Mahoney’s daily catechesis sessions for something other than—or at least as well as—the slice of bread and glass of milk the holy old priest dished out to each attendee, at his own expense.
When, after only three months of this wonderful triple nourishment—food, fluid, and facts!—I’d arrived one day to find the priest’s tiny house cold and dark, and a neighbor informed me of his death, I’d been devastated for more reason than that he’d just started to talk about trying to find me a bit of scribe’s work, despite my tender years.
Scribe’s work. It would have been my route out of the gutter, no Duke of Albany needed! But without a trustworthy reference, without a respectable contact to arrange the job…
I shook the thoughts away. Father Mahoney was dead—in heaven, surely, and probably praying for me—but that tantalizing possibility had died with him. Along with all those fascinating details about God and the Saints and Heaven and Hell… I’d delighted in it…
I shook my head again, dragging my thoughts back to the grim present as I trekked along the seemingly unending Strande. It was a nice walk, for all it was tiring. When the wind came from the north—as it did now—you could actually smell the fields, the open countryside, hidden just behind the single row of good houses that lined the long road. I couldn’t help drawing in deep breaths. It was good when it came from the south, too—then you could smell the river, equally hidden behind the even finer mansions lining the river bank. The river didn’t smell quite so sweet, but was an improvement on the aroma of the teeming city to the east.
But I couldn’t eat nice smells and they wouldn’t keep me warm. Surely my time would be better-employed seeking money towards a cloak, or indeed, if I was prepared to stoop to it so soon, seeking a cloak more directly?
Yet, to abandon my search for the Duke, I could not help but feel, would be to resign myself to the short, painful life of an urchin. To live hand to mouth for however many more days, months or years I could scrape by, to die forgotten and unloved in a handy gutter. Or, sooner or later, failing to conceal my sex, I would be forced into a brothel to live an equally short but infinitely more degrading life. I dreaded that fate more than death itself.
I touched the ring at my waist. I could not give up. I would not. Whether the Duke of Albany was my father or not, my mother had said he would take care of me. So long as I had that precious ring as proof of my blood, I would keep trying.
Raven’s tiny forepaw touched my hand gently, as though in support of my decision, and I smiled slightly. I did not think my strange pet relished the thought of lifelong urchinhood any more than I did.
Anyway, I had reached the Charing Crosse, and the Courte Gate was visible ahead. I darted under the shelter of a nearby stall. The gossips I sought were closeted under there, drinking wine with the off-duty palace servants. I slipped into a seat beside a graying man who sat alone.
He peered at me short-sightedly. “Is that young Serapion? I’ll wager so. It’s been a quiet week, you know. But I do like a boy who takes interest in important matters.”
Actually, he liked anyone who would sit and listen to him, and I had often restrained myself from observing out loud that most of the things he recounted were not remotely ‘important’.
But my source was already continuing willingly, “Rumors of the Marquise de la Salde’s fat belly are continuing, more substantiated now. But that’s the Frenchy’s problem. Ah, yes, Duke Collingwood’s horse, what was its name...?”
I partially tuned out as the flow continued. Trivial, and to my mind, deadly boring, incidents slipped through my mind unimpeded. Old Roberto, or Robert, as I had no doubt he had been christened, fancied himself as something of an orator and always kept the juiciest things till last. Or perhaps he had learned it was the only way to keep his audience.
Finally, knowing he was drawing to a close, my mind drifted back to the cloak problem.
“...No, the only real event of any note this week is the return of the Duke of Albany from the continent…”
What! Did he just say…?
“…Been away for years, travelling,” Old Roberto went on, obliviously. “Not that he is the Duke of Albany, apparently, they just call him that, seeing as he’s a Duke, and his name’s Alban. Witty, like. I don’t know what he’s actually Duke of. No, but he came to court just today; it’s only politeness to greet Her Majesty when you’re a Duke and all, and gone so long. A minor to-do, though. He’s not what you’d call a prominent player at court...”
My head spun. After so long, I realized I’d actually stopped believing I would ever find the man. My weekly visit was more a refusal to succumb to my fate than a real hope. How I swallowed down my pounding heart enough to speak casually I did not know. “Is he away again already, or still at court?”
Old Roberto looked startled, unused to questions from this particular audience. “Nay, to be sure, he is still within. His coach bears his coat of arms; I have not seen it pass.”
“Oh, what is it?” I asked, all innocence. “Coats of arms are fascinating, I think. I never know how they don’t run out of designs.”
Old Roberto blinked at this interest, but I knew he loved nothing so well as to memorize coats of arms, and he was always more than willing to keep his audience a little longer. “‘Tis a black bird, wings all a’spread, an eagle, I’d say, most coats of arms carry that bird. It holds crossed sticks in its claws, and sits thus upon a background of gold.”
I wondered how one reminded one’s heart to beat. I thanked Roberto in my usual manner and left, but I did not go far. I took up a station under the eaves, in an alley off the street with a clear view of the Courte Gate, the main entrance to the Palace of Whitehall. I glanced around, and when as certain as I could be that I was unobserved, I lifted my shirt a little to peep at the ring. There it was, as clear as in my memory, that little black bird, wings outspread, and the two straight sticks in its claws, crossed.
Raven poked her head from under the shirt, tilted up her face and cried out softly. This was her true voice, I had learned. It was rich and mellow, and not at all kittenish, but somehow equally appealing. I pushed her back out of sight with a gentle hand, hiding the ring away again. My eyes went back to the gates. Within those towering walls was the man who might be my father. Never mind father, who might look after me! Sooner or later, he would come out. I wrapped the blanket more closely around myself and leant against the wall to wait.
~+~