15

THE COMPTER

‘Captain,’ she said, and reached for his hand.

‘William,’ he reminded, giving it.

Of course. She had called him by his old rank when first they knew each other. It had been a way of keeping him at a distance. But there was no need for that now. Now that they were married.

‘Here,’ she said and placed his hand on her belly.

His grey eyes went wide. His rare smile came. ‘The baby,’ he said. ‘It lives.’

‘He lives,’ she assured him.

Eyes narrowed. Delight fled them. ‘Do anything,’ he said, ‘to survive.’

‘Never doubt it.’ She squeezed his hand hard. ‘And you do the same. Come back to us.’

He faded then, the grip of his hand, the look in his eyes. He was gone, but as Sarah woke she knew three things.

That William Coke still lived.

That she would obey him, as she had vowed at their wedding.

That today was the day she turned whore.

It was the first of August, the date she’d marked weeks ago, thinking it so far off, believing that something must happen before it arrived, praying that it would. But no saviour had come. He had not come, except in dreams. He was so welcome there; for she knew when she saw him, knew beyond any doubt, that he was innocent of the foul accusations made against him. It had been the one light in the darkness of her prison, that certainty. That, and the babe even now kicking within his own cell of flesh.

Though dawn’s light now poured through the high, barred window, it was still quiet on the women’s side of the Poultry Compter, a rare thing. Early enough so that no babe cried, no child moaned his hunger, no inmate silenced them with a hiss or a blow. Beyond the bars, she could hear the first signs of a city stirring, the first citizens going about their business. Iron-rimmed wheels ground over the cobbles of the alley beside the prison as deliverymen went about their work. This one was carrying bread, fresh from the baker’s three doors down. The savour flooded her mouth with saliva. She swallowed it back; but the sharp hunger it provoked only made her more certain. This day I will have fresh bread. This day I will survive.

Her bed companion giggled. Sarah raised herself onto an elbow and peered over the bare shoulder next to her. Jenny Johnson still slept, caught in some happy dream. Pulled tight to her, her three-year-old daughter Mary stirred but did not open her eyes.

The bed was narrow. Sarah’s arm had been pressed to the top of Jenny’s back, skin to skin above their shifts. It came away with a wet sucking. August followed on from July in heat. No breeze relieved them from the high, narrow window. No rain for three months.

She inhaled again. But the cart had moved off and only the ward’s and her own rankness filled her nostrils now. She would have to wash. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it well. Years as an actress had taught her: gentlemen pay more for a better performance. Though many of her colleagues in the playhouse had happily straddled the border between player and prostitute, she never had. But she had observed who earned better and how. Who fucked the dukes rather than the draymen. Over on the men’s side, the Knight’s as it was called, there were several gentlemen. There was even a baronet. All debtors too, but still able to afford the extra shillings for a room, for better food. If either was lying around she would take it, silver or bread or both. Thievery and whoredom went hand in glove.

Another shifting came, this time within her. She laid a hand on her belly, felt the welcome kick, kick, kick. ‘You are why I do this,’ she crooned softly. ‘You and William Coke.’

‘ ’Allo, luv,’ Jenny said, smiling up at Sarah. ‘Been awake long?’

‘A while. Thinking.’

‘Dangerous.’

‘Maybe.’ Sarah took a deep breath. ‘Today’s the day.’

‘Yes? Well, ’bout time.’ Jenny slid up the bed now, to rest her back against the stone wall, Mary rising with her. She was fastened as ever to Jenny’s breast, even though there was no milk. ‘I’ve told ya. There’s nothin’ to it.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Well –’ Jenny shrugged. ‘Not much. They’re all so drunk over there it’s over in moments and you walk away with a shilling. Or more.’ She smiled again. ‘And look what sometimes ’appens. You get a lovely little thing like my Mary ’ere. Who would wish that away?’

She bent down to kiss the top of her daughter’s head, hair as red as the mother’s. Sarah shook her head. ‘That’s not my plan.’

‘Nah, you’ll have to clear your oven before you stick in another load of buns.’ Jenny cackled loud. Immediately a voice came from a nearby bed. ‘Will you two poxed whores cease your blabbing? Some of us are trying to sleep.’

‘Pot calling the kettle black, Jane Warren!’ Jenny retorted. She lowered her voice, not much. ‘Sixpence she charges. Lowers the price for all of us, the cheap trull. Lucky everyone knows she’s got the Covent Garden gout, so not even the turnkeys’ll touch ’er.’

‘Oi!’ Jane screamed, and that woke the whole cell. There was an immediate Babel of competing voices – yelling mothers, crying children, single women complaining.

‘Come on,’ said Jenny, popping Mary off her breast and pulling up her shift. ‘Let’s see if we can get to the pump before the rush. I stinks even to meself.’

Their door had been unlocked at first light. It gave directly onto the yard, as did the others on either side. Some of these were already open, some women and children about, some ahead at the pump. Sarah looked to the main gate which opened onto the narrow lane that led down to Poultry and the city beyond, watching the first few debtors slip out, some to work, some to beg, some to whore. Every man and woman was allowed to leave to earn money by whatever means to repay their debt – though few earned more than the wherewithal to survive. The ‘garnish’, as it was called, charged by the gaolers – for a roof and a bunk, by the bailiffs for clothes and sundries, by the attorney-at-law who would offer hope of freedom with legal quibbles that went nowhere – sucked away everything.

‘We’re on,’ Jenny said, jolting Sarah from her stare. Jenny stepped up and pumped the water. It took a while, for the pressure was low for the lack of rain. She filled and tipped a bucket over herself, a second over Sarah and then, to her squeals, a third over Mary. ‘I’ve this,’ she said, producing a nub of soap which she began to wash her daughter and herself before passing the little that remained across. Sarah scrubbed all over under her shift until the block dissolved. As she passed across her distended belly she felt a hardness pressing out. Elbow or heel she wondered, rubbing at it. One pail between them sluiced them down.

There was a rectangle of sunlight at the western end of the yard. They went and sat in it, enjoying the warmth on their cooled skin, knowing they would be sweating again all too soon. ‘You sure about this?’ asked Jenny, pulling Mary tight to her.

Sarah sighed. ‘Were you sure the first time?’

‘What, back in the reign of Good Queen Bess?’ She laughed. ‘First time? Well, my ma was in the trade so –’ She squinted. ‘Nah, didn’t like it. I remember that. But you get used to what you must, eh? And that was “first time” first time. Won’t be yours,’ she gestured down, ‘unless that’s the result of you coupling with the ’oly spirit.’ She cackled again, crossing herself at the same time. Jenny was a Catholic and on her knees each night before she climbed into their cot.

‘Nay, indeed.’ A brief vision of William came, as he’d been in the dream. Survive, he’d said. Survive, she would.

Jenny reached out and touched her arm. More gently now she said, ‘I was born to it, but you was not. Is there no other way? Your cousins in St Giles?’

‘They spared me all they could, which was not much, for they are near as hungry in those tenements as we are here.’

‘Try the playhouse one more time.’

Sarah shook her head. They would not let her act any more. Indeed, Betterton disliked her so, for always refusing his advances, that he would not even let her sew the dresses. Others had helped, sparing what they could from the little an actor earned. But, like the pump soon would in the Compter’s yard, that course had run dry.

‘No one else?’

There’d been one other source that had sustained her until now. Bettina Pitman had been a weekly visitor, always bringing something – from her table, or her stove, for she was a marvellous creator of cordials and elixirs. But at the last visit a week before, she’d wept at the little she could offer. ‘Since the pestilence departed, few buy my plague water,’ she’d said. ‘And Pitman’s pittance of a constable’s salary is putting little food on our platters.’ She’d dabbed her eyes, tried a smile. ‘But his leg’s set, and he’s up on two feet again, though moving slowly, the great cabbage. Perhaps he’ll be agile enough to take us a thief ere long and all our problems will be solved.’

Sarah looked back at Jenny. ‘I can rely on no one else.’

Her friend took her hand. ‘You can rely on me, love. I’ll see you through it.’ Without letting go, she rose. ‘Come, let’s beautify.’

They borrowed a brush, pulled it through each other’s hair, shaking off lice at every pass. Sarah’s had lost all the blonde dye she’d used as an actress; it was auburn again now, though she knew well enough that silver wound through it too. They mixed charcoal from the long-dead fires with spit, making a paste that would substitute for kohl and highlighted their eyes and eyebrows. They even giggled as they did each other’s, though Sarah fell silent when she remembered that these preparations were not leading to the stage. She stayed silent as she pulled on first her other, better shift, then her second dress, the one she had worn only when calling on friends to beg for money. She’d had to let it out, of course, and had done that enough so that her pregnancy was not immediately obvious. There was no mirror to look at herself in, for which she was grateful. She felt like a foaling mare.

Jenny seemed more pleased with herself, in her Sunday best. She twirled and said, ‘Shall we go pay a call?’

‘At this hour?’ Sarah raised a hand to the sound of the bell in St Olave Old Jewry only just then sounding nine.

‘The best time to catch them. The sots will have drunk the night through and those who are still awake will be lusty – lusty and largely incapable.’ Jenny giggled. ‘Doesn’t matter, s’long as they pay us ahead.’ She moved to the door. ‘We’ll go see the baronet. He’s got a lovely room.’

They crossed the narrow yard to the Knight’s side. On the ground level, either side of an archway, one on each side, were cramped cells just like the women’s; from which, if possible, an even greater stench emerged. Men crowded the windows, leaning there with mouths wide to catch some fresher air. One called out, ‘Avast! A fine pair of frigates hoving to!’ and a few others then thrust their faces to the bars, whistling and blowing kisses. Just inside the main doorway, a gaoler had a key in the lock, about to turn it. Sarah knew that the men were only locked in to prevent them wandering at night, causing a disturbance in the streets and getting up to various villainies. By day, like the women, they could leave in search of the means to pay back their debts. Like the women, they all returned at night. For if they absconded, and were likely caught again, they would be Newgate-bound, that prison an even lower level of hell.

‘Now there’s a pair of fishmonger’s daughters if ever I saw ’em,’ said the gaoler, straightening up. ‘Who’re you off to jilt?’

‘We’re jilting no one but playing upon the square. The baronet sent for us.’

‘Did he? Wonder how he managed that since he was snoring not five minutes past. I look after his door so –’ He scratched at his unshaven chin. ‘Wha’s in it for me to let you up?’

Jenny glided close to him, grabbing him through his breeches. ‘Somethin’ on account, Mr Jenkins?’ she purred.

‘Leave that,’ he growled, slapping her hand away. ‘I’m a God-fearing and a married man.’ He shoved her back. ‘But I’ll take me cut.’

Jenny sucked at her teeth. ‘I’ve already got a mackerel,’ she said. ‘Bully Davis, in charge at the ’ospital. Shall I tell ’im you was trying to squeeze us?’

The man whitened. ‘On your way,’ he muttered, and turned back to the men’s door.

Jenny led the way up the stair. ‘Mackerel?’ asked Sarah, as they rounded the corner.

‘Pander,’ Jenny replied. ‘I ain’t got one in ’ere, but Bully Davis is mad so ’e believes ’e is mine if I give ’im the odd free fondle. Kill a man if I asked.’ She paused before a door. ‘So ’ere we are. You sure you’re ready for this?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Because you’ve got a face like a smacked arse. Can you fake it?’

Sarah smiled. ‘My dear countess, it’s what I’ve been doing all my life,’ she said.

‘Good girl. Tits up. Tally ho.’

She pushed the door. The first thing Sarah thought was, lovely room? With mould blooming on bare plaster between strips of torn wallpaper; the floorboards that were splintered and cracked; the single, sagging bed; and the same overflowing slop bucket that reeked in the corner of the women’s ward. But then she remembered: one man has all this space to himself. He had a table, two chairs. There was a moth-chewed rug on the floor, but a rug nonetheless. Above all there was the open window. Higher up, a breeze reached through it, slightly tempering the heat of the morning.

There were three men in the room. One upon the bed with his forearm across his eyes; two at the table, face down. There were bottles upon that, dice – and some silver coins. Sarah indicated them with her chin. Jenny mouthed a ‘no’ and crossed to the bed. ‘Sir Knight,’ she said softly, running her hand down his chest. ‘Coo-ee there, Dickie bird.’

She rested her hand on the man’s crotch. He jerked awake. ‘What?’ he screeched. ‘Egad, what means this, ha? Who the devil –’

Jenny had leaned out of range of the flailing. Now she caught the knight’s hand. ‘ ’Tis I, Dickie. Your sweet Jenny.’ She kissed his finger, lingeringly. ‘You sent for me.’

‘Did I?’ He swung his feet onto the floor, sat up, clutching his head with a yelp of pain. Sarah could see that he was a man of middling years, his face florid with drink, his nose a small purple cauliflower. Hair ringed his bald head like a grey coronet.

‘ ’Ere, sweetheart,’ Jenny said, rising and fetching a mug from the table, ‘ ’ere’s fur of the same wolf what bit ya.’

As the baronet gulped greedily, Sarah looked at the two men at the table, both of whom had sat up. The younger one was already appraising her from under a thatch of black hair. The elder had an eye-patch, in which the missing eye was marked out in tiny glittering gems. Sarah had a vague recall, of someone William had talked of, a dice sharper whom he disliked. Then she shook herself. Do not think of Captain Coke, she thought. Do not.

‘Are these the buttocks we were promised, Father?’ said the youth.

‘I do not know, my boy,’ Eye-Patch replied. ‘Are they, de Lacey?’

The baronet squinted. ‘Don’t know that one. Who’s she, Jenny?’

‘A friend. You said you’d like somethin’ new.’

‘Something new, indeed.’ A gleam had displaced the torpor in his eyes. He stood, wobbled, then steadied. Took a step forward.

‘Oh, but Dickie!’ Jenny cried. ‘Aren’t you going to offer the ladies a drink? A bite? You are always so gentlemanly.’

‘Gentlemanly,’ drawled the younger man, rising, ‘to a pair of painted punks? There’s only one part of this gentleman they’ll get.’

‘No!’ the baronet roared. ‘You do not live here, sir, and I do. We’ll have our fun, never you fear. But we’ll do it in proper style.’ He bowed. ‘Ladies, help yourself to whatever’s here, while I relieve my beastly bladder.’

He staggered to the corner, turned his back and fiddled with his breeches. After a while a trickle came, the sound enough to provoke the others. They lined up behind the knight, turning their back on the two women.

Sarah looked at the table. The remains of several partridges were upon it, not completely picked clean. She tore into them, glancing about, and saw, upon the sill, a basket of fruit. Still chewing, she moved over and recognised greengages. Throwing the partridge bones through the open window, she lifted one and bit into it. It was young, a little sour. She didn’t think she’d tasted anything so delicious in her life. The only fruit they got inside the Compter was the kind that pigs rejected outside it.

She ate three standing there, pausing only to throw a greengage to Jenny who caught it in one hand, while she swigged from a bottle in the other.

‘And now, my dear.’

His voice made her turn back. The baronet crossed to her. ‘My, but you’re a plump one, girl,’ he said, running his hand over her breasts. He mistook her pained groan. ‘Like that, d’ya? Hmm!’ He squeezed harder and then his hand journeyed down. ‘See if you like…Egad!’ He jumped back as if he’d placed his hand on a hot hob. ‘By Christ! By Jesus! You are with child.’

Sarah remembered what Jenny had said. What she had decided herself. She was there to – act. Which she could do. ‘Never mind that, sir,’ she said, letting her voice go deep as she stepped forward, reaching towards him. ‘There’s plenty of things –’

‘No! God, no!’ He stepped away. ‘Can’t stand the stench of a woman with a babe in the breech. Reminds me of her Ladyship.’ He shuddered and turned. ‘Jenny, do ye seek to gull us here?’

‘Nay, indeed, sir –’

‘It does not matter to me.’ Eye-Patch’s voice was as smooth as the baronet’s had been agitated. ‘I doubt it will to my son.’ He smiled. ‘Do you take your old moll, de Lacey. Let us handle the brood mare.’

Jenny turned to the men. ‘Do you suggest one after the other or both at once? That’ll cost ya more –’

‘Quiet, whore,’ Eye-Patch snapped. Then his voice returned to silk. ‘She will be well rewarded, I assure you. For I stint nothing in my boy’s education. Why, has he not just come down from Oxford?’ He reached into his doublet, pulling out a leather purse and placing it on the window sill. ‘What’s within will also pay for whatever de Lacey wishes.’ He chuckled. ‘Even deeper in my debt, old friend, what?’ He turned to his son. ‘And I think, both at once, don’t you?’

‘Really, Father?’ The youth laughed. ‘You are better than any tutor at Oxford.’

Sarah swallowed. She wanted to run – from the coolness in the single eye of the older man and the heat in the eyes of the younger. But the purse? There might be a month of food within it. For her, yes. But more importantly for her baby.

Act, she told herself again and put a smile on her face. ‘Whatever you desire, gentlemen.’

Eye-Patch picked up the wooden platters on the table and tipped the scraps out of the window. ‘What I desire is that you remove that hideous dress and lay yourself on the table.’

With a last nod at her, Jenny led de Lacey to the bed. With some difficulty, Sarah pulled her gown over her head. Then, clad only in her shift, she hoisted herself onto the table. Survive, she heard her William say.

‘Knees up,’ Eye-Patch said, reaching for the buttons of his breeches.

—

As the bell sounded the quarter in the tower of St Olave’s, Pitman limped into the yard of the Poultry Compter. He leaned there on his great staff and looked about.

There but for the grace of God go I, he thought, eyeing the wretches around him. He wondered if the proverb was biblical, and decided not. It was true nonetheless. How far had he and his been from such degradation? Not very far, was the answer. But that was all changed now.

He did not find whom he sought. But there was a turnkey on the Knight’s side whom he’d dealt with before approaching the gateway now. ‘Jenkins,’ he said.

The man jumped. ‘Jesu mercy, but you frightened me, Mr Pitman. Why are you lurking there?’

‘That’s Pitman to you. Pitman to all, king or commoner. And I lurk, as you put it, because I need to see a debtor.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Hers. Sarah…Coke.’

‘Sarah –?’ The man rubbed his chin. ‘Old? White hair? Missing an ear?’

‘Nay. Young enough. The actress.’

‘Oh, the whore.’

Pitman stepped closer to grab him by the collar. ‘They are not always the same, Jenkins. And you would be advised to speak most carefully of a friend –’

‘No, no, no! I assure you.’ The man wriggled, unable to break the grip. ‘The actress. She is ab-ab-about the other business now.’

Pitman frowned, loosening his hold slightly. ‘What mean you?’

‘Up-up there!’ He pointed to the men’s side. ‘She and the other moll, Jenny Johnson, they went up to visit the baronet not five minutes since.’

‘Which window? Which?’ Pitman shook the man hard.

‘Th-there!’ the man whimpered. ‘Above the centre stair.’

Pitman released him and moved faster than he had until now, feeling the strain in his newly knitted bone, pivoting off his great stick to relieve it. As he came under the window, something struck his shoulder and stuck there. Looking down, he saw that it was the gnawed leg of some bird and a fruit stone. He flicked them off and charged in.

The stair was harder, though he managed it, and in just moments he stood between three doors. Then, from behind one of them, he heard a laugh. There was something nasty in it, so he pivoted on his staff and used his good leg to kick in the door.

For a moment there was no movement in the room but the door flying in to crash against the wall – no sound but its smash. The five people just stared at him, united in shock. There was a flame-haired woman kneeling at a bed, a man seated before her. The woman was not Sarah. Another woman was lying on her side on a small table at either end of which stood a man – one older with an eye-patch, the other younger. Both had their fingers on the buttons of their breeches, and one apiece undone.

It took Pitman a longer moment to recognise Sarah, for he had not seen her in a while, laid up as he’d been; and Bettina had not told him of her changes. But he doubted that even his wife would have recognised her instantly, what with her eyes so painted, her hair falling so about her.

She gave a cry, rolled off the table and stepped into a corner, her back to the room. The older man cried too, differently. ‘Who the devil? Dog, how dare you? Burst in upon gentlemen, will ye?’

The younger man, closer to Pitman and nearer his size, did not yell. He growled, a beast interrupted; he stooped, slipped a hand into his boot cuff and pulled out a knife.

A blade always focused Pitman’s attention – especially thrust at him. Placing both hands on his stick, he slammed it sideways into the man’s wrist then smacked the top of the stout ash pole between the younger man’s eyes.

He screeched, dropped the knife and fell to the floor. His father shouted, ‘Do you know who it is you cross here, wretch? By God, I’ll have you flogged –’

Pitman brought the stick over in a great arc and slammed it on the table. ‘You are the ones who will be flogged,’ he roared. ‘For I am constable of this parish and I have caught you in the act of fornication!’

It wasn’t his parish, and the rules against fornication were rarely enforced when the king was the acknowledged master fornicator of the realm. But Pitman’s size, his fury and the loud moaning of the younger man, together with the blood oozing between his clutched hands, cowed Eye-Patch’s fury. White of face, he went and helped his son rise, and then, pausing only to snatch up his purse, he hurried him from the room.

‘Wha-what do you mean by this, sir?’ The man on the bed’s anger was countered by his quavering voice. ‘These were my friends.’

‘Are you their mack? Their pander? Will you join them in the stocks?’ Pitman found that his fury had no bottom. Not while he could see Sarah turned away still in the corner, her shoulders shaking. He took several deep breaths and steadied himself. When he was sure his voice was calm, he took a step towards her and said, ‘Mrs Chalker?’ She didn’t move. ‘Will you come with me?’

She turned suddenly. Snatching up her fallen dress, she passed him without looking up and exited the room.

He followed her down the stairs and outside. ‘Mrs Coke,’ he called, cursing himself for always forgetting her change of names. Still she did not turn back, did not stop until she’d reached the corner of the small yard from whence there was nowhere else to go. There she froze, lifted the dress she carried and thrust her face into it.

He reached out, but stopped his hand its own breadth from her back. ‘Mrs Chalk— Coke…Sarah. I –’

He paused, uncertain what to say.

Her voice came low. ‘So, Pitman, you arrived in the nick. Like something in a play. You have preserved my honour.’ She gave a humourless laugh. ‘And you may have doomed me – us.’ She broke off, pushing her face back into the dress.

‘It was the first time you –’

He stopped. He so wished Bettina had been there. In situations like these, words were not his strength.

It took a moment for her to speak again. ‘The first time, aye. But it will not be the last.’

He looked up, searching for the right words. He saw faces there in the cloudless blue sky, as he sometimes did. ‘Necessity is a hard master, Sarah. It forces us to do things we know to be sins against God. Against man. In the late wars it forced me to kill. To steal. To –’

He paused, and she spoke. ‘How do you live with that?’

He sighed. ‘I had to make my peace with what was necessary.’

She turned to him a little. ‘And did you succeed? Do you forget?’

He looked down, away from the faces of dead men in the heavens. ‘Not always. Nor do I want to, entirely. For then, what will goad me to make myself better? I try to forgive my enemies.’

‘Forgive?’ She half-turned to him then. ‘Can you forgive me for what you saw up there?’

‘Did Jesus not say: “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged; condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned; forgive, and you shall be forgiven.” ’ He nodded. ‘And remember I arrived, as you say, in the nick. You committed no sin.’

She turned fully to him now. ‘This day. But I would have. I will. You have but delayed me. Cost me, sir! For necessity drives me still. This drives me.’ She laid her hand on her belly. ‘I would do anything so that my child survives. All that you did in war, and more besides.’

He could not help his smile. It was partly for the return of the old Sarah he knew, not the one turned away, ashamed. The one facing him, determined and fierce; the one who, a year before, had loaded a gun with double ball and blown her husband’s murderer to hell. But his smile was also for what he could tell her now. ‘I cannot speak to all the future. We are each of us in God’s care. But for now I can remove “necessity” at least.’ He glanced at people coming close to listen. ‘Is there anywhere in this palace where we can converse in private? I have food here, which I fear these loiterers would snatch at,’ he tapped the satchel at his side, ‘and news also. I would give you both alone.’

Her eyes brightened. ‘News of William Coke?’

‘Concerning him, aye.’

She pointed behind her. ‘There’s a storeroom here. They call it “the hole”. If it is not occupied by a debtor under torment for some crime, the turnkeys will use it for,’ she flushed, ‘various things. But it is locked.’

Pitman turned, saw it and called out, ‘Jenkins?’

The gaoler approached, taking care to keep beyond Pitman’s long reach. ‘You found your, er, friend, then?’

‘I did. And I would like a private word with her.’ He pointed at the lock. ‘You have this key?’

The meaning of the man’s smirk was obvious. ‘Oh, I have.’ He took out a bunch, selected one and inserted it. He pushed the door, beckoned to them to enter, then closed it behind them.

The room was dim, its only light filtering in from a small window high up. A sunbeam came through it, amply lighting piles of boxes, clothes spilling out of them, bottles in others, firewood in stacks and falling directly onto other things.

‘You know what they are,’ she said, following his gaze.

‘I’ve seen ’em before,’ he replied, going to them, lifting the thumbscrews, the head vice, irons for ankles and neck, putting them out of sight behind the boxes.

‘You can hear the cries some nights. A debtor who’s offended a gaoler, or is hiding money.’

‘This is a terrible place indeed.’ Pitman reached into his satchel and withdrew things to place on the cleared box-top: a loaf of manchet, a block of ewe’s cheese, some nuts and oranges. Sarah began to eat. ‘And we must find ways of easing your time in it.’

‘But not getting me out?’ she said, through her crammed mouth.

‘Alas, the bounty that pays for this food does not run to forty guineas apiece for the builder and the Jew. But I had luck, and took a twenty-guinea thief on my first day afoot. With husbandry, Bettina reckons we can feed you at least, and perhaps get you better quarters for a rest.’ He produced a small purse. ‘This may pay for a room for a week or two and I will endeavour to get more now I am about.’

‘A room, even for a few days, would be luxury. But I will share it with Jenny and her daughter. She has saved me in here.’ She hesitated, then reached for an orange and began to peel it. ‘You said you had news of my husband?’

‘Not news exactly. But I have unravelled part of the mystery around his disappearance.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Captain Coke is innocent.’

She paused in her eating and looked at him. ‘I know.’

‘You do? How –’

‘Because I have seen him.’ She tapped her head. ‘In here. In my dreams. I doubted for a while because I felt I did not know him well enough. But I do.’

‘It is good you have faith, Sarah. Because –’

‘Tell me.’

‘He is the victim of a plot. The same terrible plot that sees you in this place.’

‘Go on.’

‘You remember the girl he was, uh, caught with?’

‘It is unlikely I will ever forget her.’

‘Yes. Ahem. I believe I am a good judge of character, and this never did fit with Coke. Something always stank about it. But the girl vanished, as completely as the captain did. Her father was cut for the stone and was so ill for a time he looked like he would die. I could not question him.’

Sarah finished the orange, reached for a second, then drew her hand back. ‘This must all be saved for little Mary,’ she murmured, then looked up. ‘Isaac lives?’

‘On the mend, I hear. And only yesterday his daughter returned in secret to see him.’

‘In secret?’

‘Aye. I do not think she intended to stay long, and she had relatives with her. I believe they plan to take her out of the country. But I’d set Josiah to watch and he brought me the word –’ He broke off. ‘To make swift report, I went and examined her. The relatives, her father, were reluctant to let me. But I can be,’ a little smile came, ‘forceful, or so my dearest chuck tells me.’ A frown returned. ‘The story is unpleasant, and reveals a damned conspiracy. Against the captain. Against you. And against the Jew too. It would have taken me in too, no doubt, if the conspirators had not thought me already dealt with by Captain Blood’s sword.’

‘Conspirators?’

‘Our old foes – the Fifth Monarchy men.’ Over her gasp, he continued, ‘This Blood is one and I have discovered that Tremlett, who you owe the debt to, is another. He denies any plot and I cannot touch him – yet. This flute-playing youth is also one of the damned crew, by the texts the girl said he quoted. He vanished, of course, to her great distress. She is young, and was much in love, I fear. I cannot find the seducer, but I will. But behind them all, there’s someone else, some…damned puppeteer who jerks all the strings. He is the orchestrator of this vengeance. I haven’t been able to pin him yet, but by God I will. I promise you that.’

‘And I promise you – these so-called Saints are not the only ones who know about vengeance. As they have already discovered.’ She reached for the satchel and started putting items back into it. ‘May I keep this?’

‘Indeed. There’s a fresh bottle of Bettina’s elixir in there too, for your strength – and for the babe’s.’

She paused as she handled the bag of hazelnuts. ‘Dickon. No word of him either?’

‘Nay. Though I think we can guess that wherever the captain is, there he’ll be too. He’s a spaniel, truly. I never saw anyone so loyal.’

‘Except perhaps yourself?’ Sarah finished stuffing the bag. ‘But where might they be now? I know he was pressed.’

Pitman exhaled loud. ‘A big battle was fought against the Dutch over four days in June. It was claimed as a great victory, though time proved that as false as dicers’ oaths. Many men were taken prisoner –’

‘Many killed?’

‘Aye. But I do not believe it of the captain. That man has survived worse, in war and in peace. Why, did he and I not rise from the plague pits of Moorfields, like lazars from the dead?’

‘I agree.’ She shook her head. ‘Alas, I inherited a poor fraction of the gifts my mother had as a seer. I cannot call a number on a dice table nor the winner in a cockfight. But I’ve always known when someone is dead. My William is not.’

‘So he’s either still at sea with the fleet, or in some Hogen prison on land.’ He grinned. ‘Trust me. He will return, Mrs Chalker.’

‘I do trust you, Pitman. Ever,’ she said, wiping her eyes and shouldering the satchel. ‘And that’s Coke to you – to all. Mrs Coke. I will be a wife again before I am a widow.’ She smiled. ‘For if you recall, the captain owes me a wedding night.’