My Lord and Spymaster

Twenty-two

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO GET TO LAZARUS. Sebastian didn’t have time to waste, so he tracked down his shipping manager on the deck of the Scarlet Dancer and dragged him off to the tavern where Kennett Shipping paid its pence. The introduction was made. Sebastian held a brief colloquy with the lean, avaricious youth who sat in the back receiving payment and marking it off in a book. He described, exactly and pungently, what he intended to do to the boy’s anatomy if he wasn’t taken to Lazarus immediately.

He felt no surprise when a thin blade came from behind to rest against his throat. The avaricious youth had a friend. It was the etiquette of these encounters. He repeated his request, and the threat, this time tossing a roll of banknotes on the dirty table. A half-grown girl, filthy and cunning as a rat, was his guide through the maze of streets. Had Jess ever been as miserable and dirty as this child?

He followed her toward what was either the current lairing place of Lazarus, or else a convenient spot to kill someone and dispose of the body. Choose one.

That was how he came to Lazarus.

BEING scared turned her muscles to water, but she was kneeling, so her legs didn’t give out. She wasn’t going to think about men and women she’d seen, kneeling like this, petitioning Lazarus. She wasn’t going to think what had happened to some of them. They’d been scared, too.

Lazarus finished talking to one bloke and sent him off. He motioned another over, ignoring her. That was fine. Likely he was deciding what the hell to do with her, now he’d got her. She didn’t want to hurry him while he was thinking that over.

Time passed. Word had gone out. Men trickled in, in twos and threes, and sat on the benches or stood along the wall. She knew most of them from when she was a kid. Friends, she would have called them.

These were Lazarus’s thieves. Some of them were clever with their fingers or specialists in cracking houses. Some were evil brutes who beat men senseless in alleys. They wore rags, or cheap flashy jackets, or dressed respectable as Quakers. One or two wore the fine clothes of gentlemen and brocade waistcoats.

They were clearing the room for what was coming. They kicked the whores awake and hustled them out. The rabble of little kids and pickpockets and sneak thieves got cuffed out the door, too. It was quiet, except for a low, gritty whisper that rose and fell in the room, like dirty waves breaking on pebbles. It was men left now, men and a few hard-eyed women. This was the Brotherhood. They’d come to see what Lazarus would do to her.

Lazarus finished conducting business and exchanged a word with Black John. He motioned, and the pregnant girl brought him a string bag of walnuts and scuttled back to the sofa.

It looked like Lazarus had finished mulling things over. The whispers died away. The room filled up with expectant silence. She knelt where she was and waited. For a while, Lazarus cracked walnuts, one against the other in his hand, and picked out the meat, and dropped the shells on the floor.

He said softly, “Do you happen to remember the penalty for deserting the Brotherhood, Jess?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“What is it?”

“Death.”

Mutters ran through the men watching. Lazarus cracked another nut. He had very strong hands.

She knew Lazarus as well as anyone. Once, she’d obeyed his orders, the way all these men did. She would have died for him, if he’d asked it. Ten years ago Papa came back from France and took her away. She hadn’t seen Lazarus since.

“Did you get tired of breathing?”

“No, Sir.” Life seemed very sweet, just at this moment, on any terms whatsoever. She’d seen a man executed for deserting. The Brotherhood had done it with knives and it had taken all night.

“Then explain why you’re here.”

Once, she’d sat behind him, where that boy was, and watched Lazarus amuse himself like this, tormenting people, a good few of whom ended up dead. “You know why, Sir. If anybody in this town knows what happened to Papa, you do.”

“You think I give a rat’s fart what happens to Josiah Whitby?”

“No, Sir,” she said quickly.

Lazarus got up and walked toward her. She heard his boots, going past, circling her. She’d forgotten what it was like, being afraid of Lazarus. Been years since she was scared of him.

“You turned out pretty.” He was standing behind her, talking quiet. “I wouldn’t have expected it. You were ugly as a monkey last time I saw you.”

Nothing to say to that. She swallowed and didn’t move.

“It took you a long time to find your way back. I guess you were busy making money in all those foreign places.”

She felt his hand on the bare skin of her neck, and she froze. Ice speared inside her, everywhere. He killed men this way, with his bare hands, with a sharp twist to the neck. She’d seen him do it a few times when he was making an example of men who peached to the law or fools who tried to cheat him. She’d watched them dragged in, pleading and explaining.

He played with them before he killed them. He let them beg. For her, he’d do it quick. No warning. With her he’d be merciful. It was faster than hanging, he told her once.

“You’ve been back in London a time or two, haven’t you?” His fingers touched the side of her jaw. She flinched. Terror squirmed in her belly like long, cold snakes.

“I been ’ere from time to time,” she said. “Everybody knows that.”

He was just stroking back some hair that had fallen loose, tucking it behind her ear. His hand dropped away. “You’ve gone soft, Jess. Soft skin. Soft clothes. Soft inside, too, I think. I hate to see that happen to you. You weren’t soft ten years ago.”

“I’m here. That’s not soft.” She concentrated on breathing. If she didn’t keep her mind on it, she’d probably stop.

“No, Jess. That’s stupid. You weren’t stupid ten years ago, either.” He stood, looking down at her. “You’re a rich woman, I hear.”

That was bad. Lazarus loathed the gentry. The blonde girl against the wall there, the pregnant one, was one of his toys. He kidnapped girls from rich homes, kept them a few months, and sold them back to their families. Evening the scales, he called it. Generally they went home pregnant.

“Bloody rich,” she said. “Scares me sometimes.”

He walked around her and finished up in front. “I never had one of my own people turn on me. Not one of my special ones. Only you.”

“Yes.” Nothing she could say.

“You were one of my favorites. The best I ever had in some ways.”

No excuses to give. Nothing.

“Now you’ve come waltzing back. You always did take chances with yourself. Never could break you of it. You’ll get yerself killed that way, sooner or later.”

She risked glancing up. He used to smile when he said that to her. “I been lucky. So far.” She got it out past the pain in her throat. It was the old answer, from when she was the only one who dared to joke with him.

Something glinted behind the opaque eyes. “One way you haven’t changed. You still have more backbone than brains.” He nudged her knee with the toe of his boot. “Oh, for God’s sake, Jess, get up off the floor. If I wanted to break your neck, I’d have done it years ago.”

He turned his back on her and stomped over to his chair and sat down heavy. He sounded bloody exasperated, just like the old days, back when she was Hand. The tight coil in her stomach loosened a notch, hearing him sound so familiar. When she struggled to her feet she was clumsy with it, her muscles cramped up like she’d been sitting there a week.

“Tell me what’s happened to Josiah. Report to me,” he snapped.

Lazarus used to send her out to follow men he pointed to and listen to everything they said. Used to send her into shops and houses he was planning to rob, telling her to list up what was in them worth stealing. She’d reported back a thousand times, standing in front of him, setting words out neat and organized the way he taught her. Felt strange, doing it again.

She stepped up close and spilled it out, talking low so no one heard but Black John and the Hand. She told him about Meeks Street. Cinq. The British Service. Reports from her agents. What she’d figured out so far. She knew what Lazarus would be interested in. She gave him facts. Speculation. Everything.

He always liked knowing more than anyone else. He collected secrets the way the other men collected silver and gold.

She talked till her voice hurt. Around her and behind her, the Brotherhood shuffled and spat and coughed. There was a clicking sound that might have been coins. The door opened and closed. A dozen gruff conversations filled the background. Nothing was going to happen till Lazarus finished talking to her.

Eventually he ran out of things to ask her and she ran out of things to say. She waited to see what he’d do to her. She kept her hands behind her back, grabbed into each other. Lazarus picked up a pair of walnuts in one hand and rolled them back and forth between his fingers, changing one over the other. “Why have you come to Lazarus, Jessamyn Whitby?”

That was the formal question. He asked it a dozen times a day. She could have been any petitioner. It was like she’d never been Hand. Like she’d never been anything at all. She’d counted too much on an old fondness. Looked like it’d been too many years since Lazarus had been fond of her.

So be it. She’d be a petitioner. She’d do whatever she had to. “I come ’ere . . .” Her voice shook.

“Yes?” Damn him for lazing back like none of this mattered.

“I come to buy a service, Lazarus. I need your records from the docks.” Lazarus collected his pence from the captains of every ship that put down anchor in the Pool of London. From every sailor who stepped ashore. And it was all writ down. “I brought payment.”

She dipped in her pocket and pulled out the bauble and tossed it to the Hand, sitting on the ground beside Lazarus. It was an unexpected throw, but the boy snagged it, sudden and swift. He was as good as she’d been, when she’d held that place. Soundless, he opened the pouch, checked what was inside, and passed it over to Lazarus.

Lazarus poured the necklace across his palm, a web of quivering, blood red drops. Even in the dimness, the Medici Necklace showed its quality. It looked like queens had worn it.

“The Medis is beautiful.” He turned it over reverently. “Completely, exquisitely beautiful.” Fire sparked and danced in his hand. “A rare payment for your father’s life. You brought it with your own hands. You understand the art of these things.”

“Artist. That’s me.” Her mouth was dry as hardtack.

“I accept the contract.”

Her eyes squeezed closed all by themselves. She had it. Whatever the cost, she had what she’d come for. A list of every ship—scows and coal barges, Baltic schooners, every East Indiaman and American sloop, all the coastal vessels. Ships that didn’t even have a nodding acquaintance with the Customs House. The lot.

Lazarus said, “Tell me where and when, Jess. I’ll send them.” In the same quiet, contemplative voice, he said, “We’re not finished. Face the Brothers, Jess Whitby. You’re on trial. It’s time we got on with it.”

She was so shocked she went dizzy. The strength that had brought her this far just drained away, like it was her blood running out. Right till this minute, she’d been expecting him to claim her and keep her safe. Lazarus was right. She’d got soft. She’d been telling herself stories. Believing them.

He stood. Gentle, he put his hand on her shoulder and turned her around. He pushed her forward, away from him, so she stood alone. That was all. Not a word to defend her.

She wasn’t the only one surprised. A murmur of speculation rumbled out of the men along the wall, growing louder, till it sounded like a dog growling, low in the throat. Some of them were arguing. Nobody was sure what to do next.

“Kill ’er,” a coarse voice said, loud and clear, from the back.

“KILL ’er.”

Sebastian heard that. He pushed his scrawny guide out of his path and walked through the open door.

He was in time. She was still alive. Jess stood alone in a cleared space at the center of the room. Unhurt. Her face glowed like a pale beacon in the smoky dimness. A pace behind her, a dark pillar of threat, Lazarus stood. Dozens of men crowded the walls, pressed elbow to elbow, buzzing like a hive of hornets. This was the inner circle of Lazarus’s vast gang, the deadly aristocracy of the underworld. Thieves, pimps, and murderers, men of unparalleled brutality. They’d kill her—and him—in the blink of an eye.

The Brotherhood was holding trial. Generally somebody wound up dead when they did that. He pushed his way through.

A squat, dark thug had separated from the pack. “She broke the oath. That’s death.”

“Shut yer gob, Badger.”

“Bloody loudmouth.”

Another man called out, “Let ’im say ’is piece.”

“I ain’t ’ere ter listen to the Badger yap.”

“Say what you have to say, Badger.” Lazarus hooked his thumbs in his waistband.

“She’s a traitor.” Badger had the slanted forehead and sloping, heavy arms of his namesake. He sneered once at Jess, rounded, and faced the men. “She come prancing in wif ’er flash clothes and ’er fancy talk, thinkin’ she’s better ’n us. She come ’ere with no respect. No proper deference. Tryin’ to buy ’er way in.”

Somebody growled, “Jess ain’t no traitor.”

“She were Hand, fer Gawd’s sake.”

“She ain’t Hand now,” Badger shouted. “She ain’t shite to us.”

“Sod you, Badger.” A gangling, redheaded boy, widestanced, fists ready, was hauled back by his friends.

“She turned her back on us.” The sly whisper came from a bent, frail man in shabby black. “It’s our law. Nobody’s above the law.”

“And I says we leave ’er be.”

Sebastian looked the mob over, taking in the brutally intelligent faces. Two or three echoed Badger’s resentment. One man had mad eyes, avid for pain and death. Anyone’s death. But Jess had a dozen supporters. The older men, the canny ones, watched Lazarus.

“We cut traitors.” Badger drew a blade and held it up, flat side out, to the men. “That’s the law.”

Jess dropped back a step. Not toward Lazarus. She must know she wasn’t going to get any help there.

“She said, ‘If I break this oath, ye may carve it out o’ my belly.’ ” Badger gloated. “That’s what she said. That’s what we all say.”

How the hell was he going to stop this? Jess could be dead in two minutes.

He didn’t pull his knife and hack a path to Jess, leaving bodies writhing on the floor. He didn’t howl and break necks. He stiff-armed one man, shoved another aside, and shouldered to the front, past men intent only on the drama playing out in the center.

Lazarus had spotted him. Eyes, brown as agate, cold as marbles, sardonically amused, met his. They’d dealt before, haggling over women Aunt Eunice wanted rescued. A hard and devious man at the bargaining table, the Dead Man.

Lazarus raised an eyebrow and glanced at Jess and waited. Oh yes. Lazarus knew what he’d come for.

He nodded back. Acknowledging. Yes. Jess.

Badger postured for the mob. “And I’m the man te gut the bitch.” He swung suddenly, backhanded, with his empty fist.

And stumbled stupidly into the empty space where she’d been. She glided past him, smooth as a fish. “Missed,” she said.

“Yer gonna die, rat.”

Her voice rang clear. “You speak for the Brothers, do you? That’ll come as a surprise to some of ’em.”

There was a rumble of laughter.

“Gonna cut you, bitch. Gonna carve you like a pie.”

“Never used to be a killing offense, working for the smugglers. ” Jess flitted just out of reach. “That’s a new rule you made, right? Speak up, Badger. Cat got yer tongue?”

There was a joke in that, one everyone knew. Laughter scattered the tension. Badger glared around, the back of his neck turning red. “I got me rights, I do. I got things ter say.”

“Spit it out, then. I ain’t here to dance wif yer.”

Catcalls and whistles broke out from every side. She was turning the crowd in her favor. It might be enough to save her life. If Badger didn’t cut her. If Lazarus didn’t want her dead. There were a hundred possibilities, most of them bad.

He stood at the front of the crowd, one leap from Jess. Picking his time.

She was all Cockney now—a tough, vulgar, vibrant street urchin. Back in the offices of Whitby Trading, they wouldn’t have recognized her. She skipped over the welter of scattered rugs. “Nice knife, Badger. Use that for picking yer nose wif, do yer?” This was the fierce little animal she’d been as a child in the rookery. “Or maybe yer scratch yer arse.”

On every side, cutthroats grinned appreciatively.

“Never could catch me, could yer, Bugger?” She dodged again, lightning and laughter. “Oh, sorry. That’s Badger, ain’t it?”

Rough jeers rang out. Rattled, Badger swung in a furious half circle. “We make an example of ’er. She dies.”

Argument bubbled up everywhere.

“She loped orf. We all know the law.”

“She didn’t pike it ’erself. Went wif ’er da.”

“She owes us.” That was a dangerous judgment, more so because it came from a sober, middle-aged villain. “Jobs went sour because Jess weren’t here, planning ’em. She were ours, and we needed her.”

A woman spoke up from the back. “Oh, hold yer bluidy tongue, Jack. She were a kid. Take it out o’ Whitby’s hide.”

“If yer dare . . .” Furtive laughter.

“You tell ’em, Cat.”

The red-haired boy said, “She didn’t peach. She never peached on us.”

“Worked for Whitby, didn’t she? It ain’t like she went honest.”

“I say, she dies.”

The most degenerate killers in London squabbled over what Jess was guilty of. She waited, sweating, wary eyes on Badger’s knife. And Lazarus watched without taking sides. He looked calm, almost bored, his eyes half-closed. Whatever game he played with Jess, it was unrolling to his satisfaction. Lazarus wouldn’t interfere.

If she’d cringed . . . if she’d whined . . . they’d have been on her like a pack of dogs. That hard, bright grin, the spectacle of her sheer, raw courage, held them off. But she was dancing on a knife edge. As long as Lazarus stayed quiet, the mood wavered and shifted. Sebastian had to stop this before they killed her just for the sport.

It was time. He stepped deliberately into the clear center of the room, where Jess faced Badger. Voices quieted. For the first time, Jess looked up and saw him. She whitened. The fool girl should have known he’d come for her.

He used the voice he’d learned on the quarterdeck. “I say, she lives.”

Ripples of murmur and silence spread around the room. He took another step and he was where he belonged, between Jess and that damned knife Badger was waving around.

“What’s he doing ’ere?” Badger glared suspiciously from face to face. “Who’s ’e?”

There were men who did know him. In undertones, his name was handed back and forth around the room. Even here, his reputation meant something.

Jess whispered, “Gonna get yerself sodding killed.” But she moved into his shadow, shielding behind him.

Lazarus said, “Gentlemen, this is Captain Sebastian Kennett, come to visit.”

“The sea captain?” Badger bared his teeth and tossed the knife from one hand to the other, spinning it, showing off. “Kennett ships. We don’t like rich coves what stick their noses in where they ain’t—” Badger feinted suddenly, slashing toward him, “wanted.”

He ignored the blade like it didn’t exist. It cut the air two inches from his cheek. He’d read bluff in Badger’s eyes before the blade twitched. Bluff . . . and he’d called it.

They understood nuances, this council of cutthroats. He had half of them on his side, that instant. An appreciative murmur rose, and a laugh.

Badger yelled, “You got no rights ’ere. Yer can’t walk in orf the street and—”

“Jess is mine.” He made sure everyone heard that. “You have my woman. That’s my right here.”

Badger’s low forehead creased. Events were getting away from him.

“I’m not—” Jess began.

He snapped, “You are,” and she swallowed whatever was hovering on her tongue. Something better unsaid, certainly.

There wasn’t a man here who wasn’t watching Lazarus, waiting to see what he’d do with that claim. Nothing, it seemed. Thirty men saw Lazarus being impassive.

He surveyed the pack, meeting eyes, looking into faces. “Jess is my woman. I say she didn’t run. Is there any man—besides Bugger here—” there was a stir of appreciative humor, “who says she did?”

“She been gone a while,” one plump rogue pointed out amiably. “Ten years. Ain’t like she stepped out for a spot o’ tea.”

Chuckles.

“Oh, I dunnoh, Blinks. I smuggled me a fair old spot o’ tea, when all’s said and—” She’d turned toward the voice, taking her eye off Badger. She didn’t see the raised fist coming at her.

Badger’s mistake. This was the opening he needed.

He blocked the punch. Cracked forearm to forearm. Badger spat a stream of filthy words and dropped into a killer’s crouch and brought his knife up.

This fight had been inevitable when he walked through the door. The huge black, the bodyguard, earned his gratitude by snagging Jess and yanking her, protesting, to the sidelines.

Badger didn’t mind attacking an unarmed man. He charged, thinking his knife was important, counting on the reach of those long, freakish arms. That left him wide open for a fast punch just below the heart. Speed beat reach, any day. When Badger hunched over to gag his belly out, Sebastian booted him in the groin.

There wasn’t a man there who didn’t wince. In the absolute silence, Badger swayed in place, gave a womanish whimper, and collapsed in on himself like a rotten melon. The knife clattered to the floor.

Because he knew his audience, because he was making a point, he kicked that vicious animal one more time as he crumbled. It felt just as good the second time. This garbage dared to raise a hand against Jess.

It stayed quiet. He didn’t have to raise his voice. “You were rude to my lady, Badger.”

No answer from the carcass on the floor.

He picked up Badger’s knife, flipped it, and leaned down to press the point to the man’s throat. He did it hard enough to send a trickle of blood running down to the rug. “I don’t like it when men are rude to my lady.”

Badger didn’t wash his neck. It was a throat that would be improved by slitting. No loss to anyone in the room, if he read the crowd right. But he’d made his point. He held the pose one second longer, then straightened up and tossed the knife away. That was the kind of gesture Englishmen loved. Besides, holding it was just going to get him in trouble.

This was what he’d needed. Not just a fight. A display of skill they’d talk about for weeks. He’d given the Brotherhood something to think about besides butchering Jess on these carpets.

“I don’t like brawls in here.” Lazarus’s voice slid like a snake between rocks. “This is not Donnybrook Fair.”

Jittering currents of expectation swept the room.

“Not much of a brawl.” Coolly, he prodded Badger with his boot. “Unless you want this killed.”

“A handsome offer. Not today, I think.”

He stared into the seamed cruelty of Lazarus’s face. “Then it’s time we talk.” He added, low enough that no one else heard him, “You’ve played with her long enough. End this.”

Lazarus nodded. He looked around the room, collecting every eye, taking control of his gang. “Is there anyone here,” he said calmly, “who doubts that Jess belongs to me?”

Dead silence.

“I tell Jess when to come and go. I tell her when to breathe. I decide when she stops.” He waited another minute while the silence stretched out. “Nobody else touches her.”

Lazarus hitched his jacket closed and walked past what was left of Badger. The talking started behind his back. Speculation, approval, and relief. Jess had her life back. For the moment.

“Step into my office, Captain Kennett,” Lazarus said.