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White-faced, he shook his head and backed off, but from the corner of my eye I saw one of his companions reach for his sword. I judged the weapon to be about an arm's length, but my pike was longer, about two arms' length.

There is no defence against a pike thrust upwards from knee level towards the stomach. I dropped my dagger, snatched up my pike and put my weight behind it, since I perceived myself to be in mortal danger and was in any case by now very angry. The metal tip of the pike sank into the man's belly to about a finger's depth. He collapsed like a dead weight and rolled on the ground, screaming in pain and holding himself, while blood spurted between his hands. His companions ran off shouting - brave fellows they! — leaving him howling on the ground. I noticed that the woman who had smiled at me a moment earlier had disappeared. I picked up my dagger and went on my way, hardening my heart against the man's cries of pain.

No more than a hundred paces had passed when I was stopped yet again, this time by someone of my age, dressed in little more than rags. 'I saw that,' he said in an accent which I could scarce understand. The word 'saw' came out as 'zorr'.

He added, 'You are a stranger in these parts?'

'I am, and what of it?' My voice came out harsh and trembling with the excitement of the last moments.

'This is Southwark, a dangerous place to be after dark. There are many thieves and cutpurses here.'

'Aye, and you are perhaps one of them.' My ballockknife was inside my sleeve again but could be at his throat in a flash.

He laughed. 'My name is Michael,' he said. 'As you are a stranger in these parts, I swear to God you are at risk.'

'You have just seen me dealing with Master Risk.'

'Have I not!' Behind me, the man was still threshing around and howling. Others were stepping around him, paying him little attention. I believe there was admiration in Michael's voice, though why I do not know. 'Where are you staying?' he asked.

I hesitated before confiding in this complete stranger, but judged that he presented little immediate danger. 'I have no place to stay, and in case you think to lighten me of my purse through some trick, save your effort. I have no money.'

'And what about food?'

'I ate yesterday.'

'Come with me.'

I decided that the risk of being on my own in this hostile area was greater than that of following this boy of my own age. With every sense alert, I followed him along the streets. There was a whiff of human excrement in the air, mixed with wonderful smells of food coming from taverns which we passed. Presently he turned into a noisy, well-lit tavern. Over the entrance was a sign on which was painted a galleon like those I had seen in the Dominie's books. Inside, the noise was greater than any I had ever heard, even in the hostelries where I had stayed on the way down. It was hot, from the crush of bodies and a roaring fire near the entrance.

'Find a space,' he said, and disappeared towards a far corner of the room. As it happened, three men, all drunk, were standing up and about to leave a table. I pushed my way through the crowd, attracting no small attention, I suppose because of my pike - although I had wiped the blood from its tip - and sat down. My companion soon appeared with two large jugs of beer. 'Put that down you,' he said. 'Food will be along shortly.'

'Why are you doing this?' I asked. 'I am a stranger to you. And I judge that charity is not in your heart.'

My companion grinned, raised his jug. 'I have my reasons,' he said.

'To do with those roughs?'

'To do with the way you dealt with them.'

I sipped at the beer. It was strong. It was clear that if I finished the jug I would be as drunk as many of those in the tavern. I decided that out of courtesy I would sip at it but take no more than a mouthful in total.

'A Scotchman, then?'

'Aye.'

'Come to look for employment in the big city.'

'That is true.'

'With no money and no place to sleep?'

'You have me in summary. But not all of me. I am also alert, angry and armed.'

The boy smiled again. 'And rightly so in these parts. But you need have no fear of me.'

'I have none, I assure you.' A woman about the age of my mother, with the upper part of her chest shamelessly exposed, approached with two plates of stew, bread and cutlery. I hardly knew where to look for embarrassment. She looked at my pike with some alarm but said nothing. I began to eat hungrily. I noticed that my companion, while eating, glanced at me surreptitiously from time to time. The leather holster of the dagger was comforting against my forearm.

'Armed, you say.' He nodded at my boarding pike. 'That is of little use at very close quarters.'

I wondered if he had seen my work with the dagger in the near-dark. 'For close quarters I have other devices.'

He grinned again; a happy one this, I thought. 'I do not doubt it. Are all Scotch such warriors?'

My companion waved and shouted to a man in the far corner of the room. The man was completely bald and had dark skin, the likes of which I had only seen in Dominie Dinwoodie's illustrations of the travels of Sir John Mandeville. He was wearing a green blouse, of a sort which I had only ever seen on women at the markets in Lanark and Biggar. His arms were muscular and painted. His face was dominated by a large nose and he had a row of decaying yellow teeth. He sat down at our table, putting his jug of beer on the table.

'This is the Turk.'

I returned the man's nod warily.

Michael leaned forward, although his voice would scarcely carry above the din. 'This is a Scotchman. He killed a man not ten minutes ago. I saw it with my own eyes.'

The Turk's eyes widened.

'He may not be dead. And I was defending myself.'

The Turk looked at my pike. 'What fool thinks he can walk into a crowded tavern with that and attract no notice? Why are you not fleeing? Do the Scots kill with such impudence? And do you not see curious eyes on you from every corner?'

'In truth, sir, I have seen so much that is strange in this town that I am paying them little heed.'

'Did others see this killing?' The Turk was still wide-eyed.

'The man had three companions, who fled for their lives.'

'I am not surprised.' The Turk drank from his jug. 'Describe them.'

'They wore fine tunics with white frills around their necks, flat feathered caps, they carried swords and were little older than me.'

'Not cutpurses,' the Turk said. 'The sons of gentlemen.' He made a hissing noise through a gap between his teeth and then shook his head. 'You have put your head in a noose, my little Scotch. Even now you are surely being hunted. And before the night is out, perhaps even within the hour, you will be found and imprisoned in Newgate. And then, unless you are rich...' He made a throat-cutting gesture and grinned.

'But I did nothing wrong,' I said in dismay. My thoughts went to the heads I had seen aloft on poles.

The Turk continued to grin. 'You understand nothing. They may have wealthy fathers. The magistrate will know where his duty lies, and if not, a pouch of gold will remind him.'

Fear and despair began to seep into my bones. I pushed my bowl away. 'Then I must get away from here,' I said, glancing fearfully at the door which, as it happened, opened that second. I snatched at my pike in fright, but only two women of middle age came in, their faces thick with powder and paint, and their dresses gaudy and stained, the hems lined with the filth of the street.

'Aye,' said the Turk, imitating my accent crudely, 'but where to?'

'Back to Scotland. From what I have seen of this dunghill, I wish I had never left.'

'But can you outrun horsemen? You are, forgive me, what is the word? Visible. Yes, visible.' The man looked up and down at my clothes and grinned unpleasantly.

'I have a better idea,' said Michael.

I sensed a trap, but did not know what to do.

'The Scotch man here is looking for a place to stay, and for employment.'

'Employment?' The Turk's voice was strong, even harsh, but there was something else in it. Already alert, I was on the verge of leaving their company on the instant. 'I can offer him that.'

'What is the nature of this employment?' I asked.

The Turk was still grinning. 'It is of a nature which will let you escape the hangman. That should be enough.'

A girl approached. She bore some resemblance to Fiona, but she was a little older, or at least seemed so. Again there was the strange white powder on her face, which I began to think was some London fashion, and her lips were painted bright red. Like the tavern servant, much of her upper chest was exposed. She affected a smile. 'Business, gentlemen?'

My companion dismissed her with a wave, as if he was getting rid of a fly. To me his attitude was insulting but the woman seemed to take no offence and walked over to the next table.

'What business?' I asked.

The men looked at me with astonishment, then at each other, and then burst out laughing. The Turk said, 'You mean you do not know?'

Michael leaned forward. 'The women here sell their bodies in exchange for money. Many gentlemen cross the bridge in the evening for amusement. There are several such even here.'

It took me some seconds to understand, and when I did, I could not believe such depravity was possible. I thought of Fiona, of similar age and appearance, but shy and kind and cheerful, and could not understand how women could be so different. 'Has she no concern for her soul?' I asked, shocked and intrigued all at once.

The Turk laughed as if I had made some jest of great wit. 'In this place, Scotch, our souls are damned.' At that moment I wondered if I should have stayed in the valley, or if I should even now take my chance with the constables and walk the fifty leagues back home. But the Turk interrupted my thoughts.

'We stay in the basement of a house not far from here. The rent is cheap but you can be our guest for tonight. Tomorrow we will talk of the work.' He slapped a flea on his muscular arm.

'I had thought to work in a shop, or perhaps use my ability to write.' I asked again, 'What is the nature of this work?'

The Turk gave me a sly grin and tapped the side of his big nose. This annoyed me and I said, 'Tell me now or I will thank you for the meal and be on my way.'

'You barely have time to finish your beer,' Michael said. 'Your gentlemen will have crossed the bridge and may at this moment be recrossing it with friends in tow. Make your decision, Scotch. The Turk or the hangman? Which is it to be?'

CHAPTER 7

I did not trust my new companions and was determined not to sleep. I lay on damp straw with my satchel under me and my arm wrapped around my pike. It was not long before my whole body seemed to be crawling with fleas. In the dark I listened to the sounds of snoring from a dozen or more bodies in the cramped room, and a mysterious rustling in a corner. There was a smell of sweat and damp and bad wine, and presently urine. It was disgusting in my nostrils.

I must have fallen asleep nevertheless. For when next I opened my eyes a bleak grey light was shining through a small window high in one of the walls.

I sat up. My limbs were itching and covered with little red bite marks. I looked around and longed for the warm companionship of my brother rather than the vile strangers sprawled around me.

Michael was asleep in a corner, mouth agape, in his ragged clothes, but the Turk was gone. With satchel and pike I stepped over sleeping, wretched bodies. Then, in a narrow passageway outside, I gulped in what passed for fresh air. There were privies round the back, shared, it seemed, by hundreds of tenants to judge by the windows which overlooked me on every side. A dog was urinating at a single water pump.

I stepped back to the passageway, my mind made up to find my way out of this wretched city, but the Turk was already standing in the street. He gave me a wide, yellow-stained grin. 'Scotch! We must get you away from here as quickly as possible.'

Michael appeared, rubbing his eyes.

'Get rid o' that,' said the Turk, nodding at my pike.

'Never. It saved my life last night.'

'And it will hang you this morning.'

I shook my head.

'Stubborn fool,' said the Turk. He turned and led the way smartly north, towards the bridge I had crossed the previous night. We passed a dark stain, larger than a man, where I had split my attacker's stomach. I wondered if he had survived the night, whether he might now be dying in agony somewhere. Michael muttered something to the Turk, pointing at it.

The Turk said, 'Scotch, if the constables approach, or a gang of young gentlemen, cut and run. You will have to save yourself if you can.'

In the dawn light, without the noise, bustle and drunkenness, this was a dreary place indeed. Filth and stench were everywhere. Here and there a woman staggered along, or sat slouched in an alleyway.

Once over the bridge we turned right. Here there was activity, even at this early hour of the morning. Several gentlemen approached on horseback. The Turk's eyes widened with fear. 'Your pike, you Scotch fool!' he hissed. 'Get rid of it!'

I shook my head, although my legs were trembling. The gentlemen passed.

Further along the embankment we began to encounter merchants pulling carts loaded with bottles and sacks. The Turk was walking ahead eagerly, almost running, as if approaching sanctuary. His anxiety was infectious and I too began to walk quickly, although I feared the attention our haste might draw. My companions did not choose to reveal the nature of the employment they were leading me to, and I saw no purpose in asking.

I had seen a picture of one in one of the Dominie's books, but the reality made me open my mouth. The Turk saw my amazement and, in spite of his evident tension, laughed.

The ship had three tall masts, sails furled. Joining mast and deck was a mass of rigging which reminded me of a spider's web. There were square holes along its sides. Men were toiling up and down a gangplank with barrels, sacks and chests. A group of men, dressed in satin finery of muted greens, yellows and reds, and wearing swords, were talking together on the dock.