Ratcatcher. James McGee

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СКАЧАТЬ and pitted as if it had been scourged with a branding fork.

      Hawkwood, trying hard not to avert his eyes, had steeled himself and listened to the major’s description of events.

      It had been luck rather than judgement that had found the horse patrol on the heath at the same time that the robbery was taking place. If the mail coach hadn’t been delayed by the storm, Lomax and his riders might have missed the incident altogether. Lomax explained how he had directed two men to remain with the coach while he and the rest of his patrol had given chase. They had managed to track the robbers for a mile or so before conceding defeat. They hadn’t been able to compete with the driving rain, which had, to all intents and purposes, rendered the fleeing highwaymen completely invisible.

      About the only information Lomax had been able to reveal was that their quarry was last seen in the Bermondsey area, heading north towards the city. Which meant they could have taken any one of a dozen routes. Suppressing his disappointment, Hawkwood had thanked Lomax for his time. In truth it was as much as he had expected.

      It had been at the moment of parting that Lomax had said, hesitantly, “There’s something I’d like you to know. I was at Talavera with the 23rd, under Anson. I … that is … we …” Lomax took a deep breath. “What I mean is … the Delancey boy was a poor officer, not much liked by all accounts, and it was a damned fool thing he did; a waste of too many brave men. You said what had to be said and you did what had to be done. There were those of us who thought you deserved better.” The words had come out in a rush. Lomax had shrugged awkwardly. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know.”

      At which point the ex-dragoon had fallen silent, his good eye cast down at the ground, as if embarrassed by his own frankness.

      So, that was how he had come by the dreadful disfigurement, Hawkwood realized, remembering the terrible aftermath of the battle.

      Many soldiers had died at Talavera, on both sides, not all of them by feat of arms. Another enemy had been present that day, an enemy common to both sides, a pitiless enemy that had attacked without mercy, laying waste all that stood before it.

      Fire.

      Perhaps it had been a stray spark from a musket or the heat from a cannonball that had ignited the tinder-dry grass, no man knew for certain. Whatever the cause, the result had been terrible to behold. The flames, fanned by the midsummer breeze, had spread with extraordinary speed and fury, consuming all in their path. Men had been engulfed where they lay, the wounded as well as the dead. The screams of the burning men had been clearly heard over the crackle of the flames. The sights and sounds and the smell of roasting flesh had lived with Hawkwood for months afterwards.

      Lomax must have been one of those trapped on the field. By some miracle he had survived, but at an appalling cost.

      “I was wounded and trapped under my horse,” Lomax said, as if reading Hawkwood’s thoughts. “Couldn’t move, y’see.” The major’s good eye glistened as he remembered. “Damnedest thing, but it was a Frog officer who pulled me free. Heard me yelling. My horse was charcoal by the time he dragged me out. Which is what I would have been if he hadn’t got to me in time.” Lomax shook his head at the memory. “A bloody Frenchie! Who’d have thought it?”

      As the major recounted the story, Hawkwood looked down and saw for the first time the full extent of Lomax’s injuries. He tried to imagine the man’s pain, what he must have gone through.

      “Couldn’t carry on, of course,” Lomax said. “Could still ride a horse, but a cavalryman ain’t much use if he can’t swing a weapon at the same time.” He held up his right hand, which didn’t resemble a hand so much as a blackened claw. “Can just about pick my bloody nose, if I put my mind to it.” Lomax’s ruined mouth split into a travesty of a smile.

      It must have taken a great deal of effort, Hawkwood knew, for the man to say what he had. Even before the fire, the 23rd Light Dragoons had faced their own demons during the battle. Through mistake and misfortune, less than half the regiment had returned from the fight.

      But for all Lomax’s well-intentioned words, the past could not be rewritten. Hawkwood had left that life behind. Now he marched to a different drum. On this occasion, it was leading him along a path he did not relish taking. A pilgrimage to a place whose very name was a mockery. A crawling cesspit known as the Holy Land.

      The St Giles Rookery was a world within a world. Bounded by Great Russell Street to the north, Oxford Street in the west and Broad Street to the south, and occupying nearly ten acres, it was a festering sore deep in the heart of the city.

      Built on a foundation of poverty and vice, its impregnability lay in the sheer congestion of its dilapidated buildings, narrow alleyways, yards and sewers. The wretched tenements with their soot-blackened tiles made the Widow Gant’s miserable lodging house appear a palace in comparison. Between them ran dark passages, some so low and narrow it was impossible for two people to walk abreast. Entry into this rat-run could be gained from a hundred directions by way of the dives and alleys around Leicester Square and the Haymarket and from the dank tunnels leading off Regent Street. To the east lay a timber yard, beneath which, it was rumoured, there existed a passage that ran all the way to High Holborn.

      It had been christened the Holy Land by its inhabitants: Irish Catholic immigrants for the most part, though over the years outcasts of a different kind had found sanctuary within its stinking slums. Murderers, deserters, beggars and whores, along with the poor and the hungry, had all sought to establish some kind of haven for themselves away from the prying eyes and unwelcome attention of the Parish Officers and the police. Free from the constraints of conventional society, the inhabitants of the Holy Land had set up their own kingdom, their own laws, their own courts, their own form of justice and punishment. Any representatives of officialdom who chose to venture into the St Giles Rookery did so at their peril.

      The girl’s name was Jenny. She had no mother or father, at least not that she could remember. She was just one of the thousands of children who lived on the streets and who scratched a living by their wits or, as in Jenny’s case, by selling their bodies.

      Hawkwood could feel the eyes on him as he and the girl picked their way along the overflowing gutter that was the entry point into the rookery. The watchers hovered in worme-eaten doorways and hid behind windows draped with rags, their lifeless faces as grey as brick dust, eyes dark with distrust. Everywhere there were signs of deprivation; mounds of rotting waste, human and animal; dampness and decay.

      Somewhere, a woman screamed, the sound rising in a wavering note of terror from a bleak alley, before ending abruptly. Another voice, male, bawled an obscenity. There followed a crash and a squeal. The girl clutched Hawkwood’s sleeve. As the scream was cut off, Hawkwood felt the girl’s grip tighten. For all her brashness, she was still a child, susceptible to fear and dread.

      A figure slouched in an open doorway, eyeing their approach. It was only as they drew closer that Hawkwood saw the apparition was female. As they passed, the woman pulled aside her shawl and lifted her tattered skirt to reveal her nakedness. Her breasts and legs were the colour of fish scales and covered in welts. She threw back her head and laughed loudly. “Come on, darlin’! Let the nipper go an’ Molly’ll show yer what a real woman can do!”

      As they walked on, the girl pressed against Hawkwood’s side, the whore’s raucous laughter following them up the alley.

      By now, they were deep inside the rookery and Hawkwood was well and truly lost. The girl had made certain of that by leading him in all directions, sometimes recrossing their path or by doubling back the way they had come. Hawkwood was beginning to doubt he’d ever find his way back to civilization, or at least what passed СКАЧАТЬ