The Rise Of An English Lawbreaker Collection

Chapter 1-2

Smith sensed the gaze of every man in the taproom following him as he ascended the stairs. He did not care. Let them look to their heart’s content, for they will see a lot more of me in future.

Let them look to their heart’s content, for they will see a lot more of me in future.The room was small, dark, and stuffy, yet compared to the fo’c’sle of a man-of-war, it was the palace of a king. Smith dragged open the internal shutters and opened the multi-paned window to allow fresh air and light inside. From the window, Smith had a view down the main street of the village of Kingsgate to the harbour, where the masts of coasters punctured the heavy grey sky. A single cart negotiated the ancient High Street, with the driver hunched forward, allowing the horse to pick its way along a road it had probably known all its life.

The bed was hard, with a straw mattress under a threadbare grey wool blanket. Smith removed the mattress, guessing it would harbour colonies of unwelcome vermin. The planks beneath were sound, and Smith folded up his cloak as a pillow, lay still for a moment, listening to the sounds of revelry from the taproom below.

“Time to dance,” he said, lifted the naval officer’s purse and extracted two sovereigns. The purse, with its remaining contents, Smith placed under the cold ashes in the fireplace.

“Here is Mr Smith,” a gaudily dressed woman said when Smith appeared in the taproom. “What’s to do, Mr Smith?”

“You tell me,” Smith said. More people had arrived in the short time he had been upstairs. There was now a score of men present, primarily lean, weather-scoured seamen with stony eyes, plus half a dozen women. Smith marked three men as natural leaders, while the rest were followers, which was roughly the proportion he would expect.

“What ship?” One of the three, a pock-marked seaman, asked.

“No ship,” Smith said.

“You have the look of a seaman,” Pockmark observed.

“As have you.” Smith ordered a tankard of beer, tasted it, wiped the froth from his upper lip, and turned away.

The second of the three, a man with broad shoulders and a broken nose, blocked Smith’s path.

“A seaman without a ship, in an inn, and paying with gold,” Broken-nose said. “You are a man of mystery.”

“I am a man who desires to be left alone,” Smith stepped to one side, waited until Broken-nose shifted in front of him, then resumed his original path, leaving Broken-nose floundering in his wake.

The third of the three, taller, leaner and quieter, pulled his tricorne hat low over his forehead as he placed a hand on the counter in front of Smith. “That’s not very neighbourly,” he said.

“I’m not a very neighbourly person,” Smith replied.

“Mebbe somebody should teach you manners,” the lean man dropped a blackjack from his sleeve into the palm of his right hand.

Without waiting for the lean man to move, Smith punched him in the throat, sidestepped the inevitable rush from Broken-nose, and tripped him as he blundered past. Pockmark was a fraction quicker than Smith had expected, and the cudgel caught Smith on the left shoulder. He winced, rode the pain, turned, blocked the next blow with an upraised arm, and punched Pockmark with an uppercut to the groin.

As Pockmark doubled up, Smith made sure he remained down by bringing his knee up into the man’s face. By that time, Lean-man had recovered, and Broken-nose had regained his feet. Lifting the cudgel that Pockmark had dropped, Smith thrust the end into Broken-nose’s mouth, smashing two teeth.

“Enough!” the landlady screamed. She pointed the business end of a pistol at the battling men. “Fight if you must, but take it outside, and don’t destroy my inn!”

Smith rapped the cudgel on the palm of his left hand. Two of his adversaries were down, and the third looked disinclined to continue the contest.

“I do believe our dispute is over,” Smith said. “Unless this fellow,” he indicated Lean-man, “wishes to continue?”

In reply, Lean-man turned and strode out of the inn.

“That ends it, then,” Smith said. He ran his hands over the suffering Pockmark, found his purse, and emptied it on the counter. “Take what you need from that to pay for the damages,” he said, “and have a shilling to buy these unhappy fellows a drink.”

“You’re very generous with other men’s money,” the landlady said, sliding three shillings into the palm of her hand and returning the remainder to Pockmark.

“I am.” Smith threw back Pockmark’s coat, saw the butt of a pistol in his waistband and lifted it. “I’d advise you not to point your cannon at me again.”

“Why is that?” the landlady asked.

“Because if you do, I’ll kill you,” Smith said, checking the lock of his new pistol and feeling the sharpness of the flint. “Now, madam, who did these three work for?”

The landlady began to shake her head, recognised the expression in Smith’s eyes and stopped. “Who says they work for anybody?”

“They don’t have the brains to organise anything,” Smith eased the pistol into his belt. “Yet this inn is the centre for free trade in the village.”

“Is it?” the landlady asked.

Smith touched the silk scarf around the landlady’s throat, then pointed to the keg of French brandy that stood, half-hidden in a corner. “It is.”

The landlady raised her eyebrows. “They work for Richard Blackwell. Captain Richard Blackwell.”

Smith nodded. “Pray inform Captain Richard Blackwell that I wish to see him.”

“I’ll pass your message on,” the landlady promised.

In the far corner, the old man looked away. For a moment, his eyes had sparkled as though the altercation in the taproom had revived a long-dormant fire. When Smith left, the old man returned to contemplating the contents of his tankard.