No Cage for a Crow

Two

WITHIN the space of a few steps, the house behind me had vanished into the sheeting rain. A sly wind crept up behind me, only to reverse itself suddenly and come clawing at the hem of my overcoat. I was forced to raise my arm to shield my eyes from the stinging drops, or else be blinded.

The house stood at the end of what was, in ordinary weather, a pleasant boulevard, divided up by tidy privet hedges and iron fences, awash with hydrangea and climbing rose. The other houses were quite as nice as the one I had left, their inhabitants altogether much too respectable to let even a smudge of light reach the street at that hour. And not a smudge did. Not a flicker or a gleam or a glimmer. The rain fell thick and grey, faintly luminescent itself, and all the world turned blank and white with each flash of lightning.

Regrets surged in my throat—not that I was leaving, but that I had not thought to bring a hat, or to seek out more waterproof clothing. I should have waited. A day of preparation would not have gone amiss. I should have taken the time to pack adequately. I should have known where I was going before I set out.

Well, I reasoned, rather than dwell on my blunders, perhaps I should leap at the chance to test my resourcefulness. Anything, you see, rather than admit that my best course of action would have been hasty retreat. I had some vague idea that I could make my way to my aunt and uncle in Bordeaux, who, though by no means conventional themselves, had never gotten on especially well with my flagrantly unconventional parents. They might send me back, but they might not, which was more than could be said for any of my English relations. Reaching France would pose a problem for one attired as I was, but I did have five pounds in notes stuffed into my pockets, and another four in coin, the sum of which represented most of my life’s savings. How much it would actually purchase, I had no idea, but it would carry me a lot further than would nothing. Some tidily mended cast-offs, perhaps, and as much street food as I could stuff into my pockets, transportation, and a cheap room to keep the rain off me until I could pull my situation together enough to travel.

There, so it was not as though I had no plan at all. I had, also, some foggy and half-formed idea, no doubt drawn from the works of Mr Dickens, that life on London’s streets, for a capable young person of strong constitution, at least in the short term, would be more adventure than misery. In my agonising ignorance, I thought that sleeping in doorways could do me no harm, at least until I could find passage to France.

Already, the weather was doing its utmost to disabuse me of the childish fantasy. My shivers intensified into quakes as I trudged on down the street. And with every step forward, I repeated my ill-begotten plan to myself until I had nearly convinced myself of its wisdom. Each footfall fuelled the next, driving me further and further into the wilderness. My surroundings were invisible; all I could do was push a foot ahead, gingerly, lest I fall and utterly ruin my throbbing ankle, and then follow it with the other. Though I knew I would have to find shelter before I caught my death, I could not stop in any place where I might be found and recognised and dragged back.

Slowly, I lost all track of time or distance. Minutes blurred together in the absolute darkness, so that I could not be sure whether I had walked a quarter of an hour, or a half, or even if dawn might be breaking somewhere beyond the storm-clouds. I had no idea, either, whether I had walked far enough. Unable to see even to the kerbs, I could not know whether I had left my neighbourhood behind, yet.

And suddenly, a hideous doubt stabbed me with the certainty that I had not even left my own street. I tried counting my steps, but I had scarcely reached fifty when it occurred to me that my hobbling gait could hardly be compared to my usual stride. Ordinarily, I could measure out yards quite as well as any surveyor, but my blasted ankle and the blasted darkness conspired to limit me to mere inches.

Time and distance bled together into a shapeless dream. I pushed one foot ahead, and then the other, listening to the pounding of the rain meld with the chattering of my teeth. The most reliable measure I could think of was my own stamina. I would walk for as far as I was able, and that would have to be far enough. It either would be, or it would not, and if it was not, well, there was nothing more I could do.

I walked.

I had lost sensation in my fingers almost before I was out of the bedroom window, and now the numbness crept up my arms and my legs, followed by the dull ache and then the sharp sting of intense cold – one of the first tastes of my profound error. I had endured greater cold than this, but never with such grossly inadequate insulation. A seed of horror took root in the heart of the fantasy as some part of me began to understand how winter could kill.

My legs cramped, and my shoulders and back. My skull felt squeezed with the cold.

I counted my breaths instead of my steps and tried to follow the fatigue in my limbs.

After some time—who knows how long—my brain became numb, as well. The number of breaths melted into the number of raindrops biting into my skin and the number of lightning flashes stabbing my eyes and the unsteady tattoo of my chattering teeth.

At last, I misstepped. My brain continued to lag behind, and my first indication was the moment my knee struck the pavement.

The limits of my energy closed in around me suddenly, vise-like, and it was all I could do to pull myself upright and shuffle sideways until my outstretched fingertips brushed against rough brick. I followed it until it dropped away, and I slipped into the space I had found. It was not a recessed doorway, as I had thought at first, but a narrow alley about three feet wide, and the overhang of the roofs above left only a few inches between them. It was not a dry space, or a warm one, but the close walls blocked out the tearing wind and the stinging rain, and I collapsed to the alley’s filthy floor in mute gratitude.

I was well-versed in the dangers of falling asleep in the cold, but to stay awake proved impossible. My numb limbs and numb brain refused to respond to my half-hearted protests, and I curled up on my side in the soot and the refuse, and I sank into oblivion.

I may never have woken at all, were it not for the foot against my shoulder, rolling me onto my back. I opened my eyes to a grey but daylit sky and the grinning faces of four dirty boys about my own age.

‘I likes them boots,’ said one, showing black teeth.

‘Rather fancy the coat, meself,’ said another.

A third, the one with his foot on my shoulder, tipped his head thoughtfully to the side. ‘The bird’s a tad skinny for my taste,’ he said. ‘Anybody else want a go afore I cuts ‘er a smile?’

The other three chuckled, but not, I thought, because it was a joke.

My brain turned the problem over sluggishly even as the ringleader drew a long, slender filleting knife from his belt. The gleam of the blade and the immediate danger it represented spurred me into coherence.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll give you what you want. I won’t fight.’ My voice was hoarse and cracked.

The four exchanged a look of surprise.

‘Awful dirty for a proper lady, ain’t ye?’ asked the leader, but the question was directed more toward his compatriots than toward me. They took a moment to understand his meaning, and I was able to watch comprehension dawn on the other three faces almost simultaneously.

The foot lifted from my shoulder, and rude, rough hands reached down and pulled me to my feet. I swayed where I stood, supported only by my captors.

‘I don’t suppose,’ said the leader slowly, in a mocking imitation of my own speech, ‘that there’s anybody what would be generously pleased to ‘ave ye back in one piece?’

Held for ransom was not an ideal solution, but it sounded far and away better than violated, naked, and dead. I nodded vigorously.

A dark smile oozed across the villain’s face, and he nodded. ‘That’s a bloody good thing for ye,’ he said.

I could not help but agree.

The others were not as sure.

‘’Ow do we do a ransom?’ asked the one who wanted my coat. ‘Ain’t never done a ransom before.’

‘An’ what if she gets away an’ squeals?’ asked the one who wanted my boots.

‘Aye,’ agreed the last of them, who had not spoken before. ‘Dead don’t squeal.’

To my intense dismay, the leader seemed to be giving their words real consideration. I had to cut in.

‘I write a letter,’ I said hurriedly. ‘You tell me what to put in it. How much you want and where to leave it and by what time. You post it. You make sure I never hear your names and never see where you stay, so I couldn’t tell anybody where to look for you, even if I wanted to. My parents will leave the money. I know they will. And when you’ve got it, we go our separate ways.’

As hard as I tried to sound calm and sensible, my voice rose shrilly until the leader’s hand tightened painfully on my arm, and he leaned in close to my ear to hiss. His foetid breath clogged my nose. ‘Shut yer gob!’

I shut my gob. But I also realised that he was afraid of being overheard. The street beyond the mouth of the alley was quiet, but the hour must not have been so early that there was no chance of discovery.

He eyed me with suspicion. ‘What’s yer game, layin’ out the whole plan for us?’

‘I want you to keep me alive,’ I told him candidly. That really was all there was to it. If my brain had been working better, I might have been clever and cooked up a plot that seemed solid on the surface but was secretly riddled with holes to trap my captors. This plan I expected to work much as I had laid it out, barring the obvious facts that the police would be summoned and that whichever of the ruffians went to collect their prize would be arrested instantly. At which point, those remaining would likely kill me. It was an issue I would have to address, once I was thinking more clearly.

‘I want to live,’ I repeated firmly. ‘And I’m prepared to help with anything that will keep you from killing me.’

He stared me down silently until I was certain me meant just to ‘cut me a smile’ and save himself all the trouble, but he only shrugged his shoulders and began to move down the alley, dragging me with him.

But suddenly, one of the devils behind us gave a warning cry, and I and the tough restraining me turned as one in time to see one of the others drop to his knees. Something small and bright streaked through the air, striking my captor in the throat, and he uttered a hoarse exclamation and fell, also. I scrambled away from him, striking the wall hard, and tried to become one with the brickwork.

Three dark figures appeared silently in the mouth of the alley, and two more hemmed us in from the other side, emerging from the shadows like ghosts.

Friend or foe seemed to be the salient question. I squinted at the newcomers but could make out nothing much beyond the mufflers that covered their faces from collar to eyes, cloth caps drawn down low over their brows, and the shine of steel in their hands. Four of them carried a hodgepodge assortment of blades, and the fifth held a contraption of wood and leather. A sling, I suspected, remembering the projectile which had felled my captor—only by narrowly missing me.

‘Hellhounds!’ cried a voice, filled with mockery. It echoed strangely in the small space, so that I could not venture a guess as to which of them had spoken. ‘I said we’d thrash you if we found you on our turf again. Well, whose turf do you call this?’

The two downed Hellhounds were rising unsteadily, rubbing at their individual injuries and glaring back and forth between the pair of human barricades blocking their way.

‘Wrong Boys,’ one of them growled.

And suddenly, four met five in a tempest of whoops and blades and fists and flying ball-bearings. The Hellhounds moved automatically into a tight square, back-to-back against the onslaught. Two Wrong Boys advanced on them from either end of the alley, while the fifth, the one with the sling, mounted a pile of rubbish and sent a barrage of little metal missiles into the midst of the Hellhounds’ formation, raising bruises and curses and fouling their aim as they slashed wildly at the Wrong Boys.

The tips of the flashing knives passed alarmingly close to me, and I sank down against the wall with my arms curled instinctively around my head, unable to run in either direction for the blockade of Wrong Boys.

The muffler-wrapped figure closest to me staggered suddenly, propelled by a fist to where I supposed its jaw must be. It collided with me, and I shoved it back toward the fray, but not before an angry Hellhound scented his foe’s momentary disadvantage and followed, swinging punches wildly.

I had no particular reason to be favourably disposed toward the Wrong Boys, not knowing whether they meant to rescue me or leave me be or pick up where the Hellhounds had left off, but I did have ample reason to despise their rivals.

As the boy surged toward me, I made sure my legs tangled with his. He stumbled into the side of me, kicking fiercely to free himself. My ankle exploded with pain. The Wrong Boy kicked the Hellhound’s knees out from under him, and I shifted before the two could fall on me. The Hellhound grabbed at the Wrong Boy’s coat, and the two hit the ground together in a flurry of churning limbs.

Then there was a quiet noise, something between a gasp and a cough, and everything stopped. The two brawling gangs froze and turned to stare. The Wrong Boy beside me regained his feet. The Hellhound did not. He lay on his side with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms curled around his belly. The Wrong Boy’s short, curved knife dripped red.

‘Had enough?’ asked one of the muffled figures.

None of the Hellhounds moved or uttered a sound, save the one who lay and groaned.

‘Fine, then,’ said the Wrong Boy. ‘Get you all out of here. And you’ll all have much worse, next time.’

Slowly, their eyes blazing with malice, the three standing Hellhounds dragged their comrade to his feet and carried him to the mouth of the alley and out into the street. The Wrong Boys stood aside to let them pass.

All was momentarily still as the Wrong Boys and I watched the retreat.

Then one of them turned toward me, eyes glittering between scarf and cap, knife gleaming in his hand. He watched me closely, and I watched him.

‘Hold up!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘That ain’t no Hellhound.’

‘I should say not!’ I agreed heartily.

The eyes above the masks widened.

‘Coo!’ exclaimed the smallest one. ‘It’s a wee toff!’

The one I thought must be their leader sheathed his knife and approached, offering me a huge, gloved hand. I pulled myself up, using the wall for support, and he hastily grabbed my arm when he saw I could hardly stand.

‘Lost?’ he asked with a sharp glance at the hem of my nightgown peeking from beneath my coat. I knew I must have looked a sight, by then, drenched and shivering, evenly coated with the alley’s muck, every hair that had blown free of my plait now plastered to my face and neck. But for the quality of my clothes, I could not have looked very much different from any other girl huddled in a London alley.

‘Anywhere we can take you, Miss?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Thank you. I’ll be quite all right on my own.’

They exchanged a look, as though not sure whether I intended that as a joke. I stared them down.

‘Haven’t you a home to go to?’

An instant of clarity broke upon me as I realised how dearly any of these boys would have loved a room with a fire and enough to eat. They would have thought me an i***t if they knew what I had had and had left behind. But it was not really so clear as that, no. It had not really been a choice. I had destroyed what I had hours before I decided to climb out that window.

‘I had,’ I admitted. ‘I haven’t, any more.’

They all exchanged another look and seemed to come to some sudden, silent agreement. The chances were good that each of them had uttered something similar, once. Each of them must have had a first night on the street.

The one supporting me cleared his throat. ‘You’ll be all right on your own,’ he allowed, with the obvious tenor of an obliging lie, ‘but maybe a bit more all right if you’re dry and can walk.’

‘You make a fair point, sir.’

His eyes crinkled in a smile.