idle parents, or to take themselves to oblivion, made me feel sick. The idea of providing a service for money was sneered at, when the lazy brats could win a rich man’s coins, but I did not begrudge them that, although I did dislike their habit of picking on a fellow like me. These dregs of society were all too keen on deriding a fellow’s dress or sneering at him when he gave them nothing. Still, the wenches selling their pies and apples had busy lives of grim effort, just as I did. They toiled hard, as hard as any scavenger cleaning the streets of refuse. And they were just as necessary, but also dangerous, to a man like me, if they took it into their heads to denounce a fellow trying to nip a bung.
The point was, many new people came every day, expecting to find streets paved with slabs of gold. They arrived from towns and villages all over the kingdom, walking with the drovers bringing their animals to Smithfield, riding on mules, or joining one of the teams of packhorses that made their way from as far away as Exeter or even Durham, attracted by the frenetic lure of sex and money, just like ravens to a corpse.
Inevitably, the newcomers would end up here, in St Paul’s on Ludgate Hill. And this is where I’d meet them.
It’s where I met him. I really wish I hadn’t.
TWO
I was a professional already, and I could spot them a mile off.
Wide-eyed, confused, they’d wander the streets staring upwards with their daft mouths agape at the magnificent tall buildings, rich stonework and expensive carvings. Most of them had never seen a house with more decoration than an annual covering of limewash; here in the city, often a man set store more by how ostentatious the outside of his house was, rather than have any comfort inside, and these places showed it.
Never pick the older ones. That was my first, my hard and fast rule. Older folks would have more experience, and may be on the lookout for a cutpurse. No, I’d always head towards the youngsters, the lads too overwhelmed and befuddled to chew the straw in their mouths. You could promise them much and make a small fortune from their foolishness before they’d realized they’d been gulled.
But there was a problem with this rule: if you always went for the youngsters, you invariably ended up with purses that were almost weightless. They had so little left after a journey here. All their money was spent on the roads heading to London, and robbing them was as pointless as stealing the flame from a candle. It would not benefit me. And I was hungry.
So today I was waiting to find a new target, one who could help me to find a good meat pie and a quart of beer. I had already failed to steal one purse, taken another that contained only a few bone counters that would be suited to a game of merrills or backgammon, and one clipped coin. Not enough for more than a cup of beer.
‘You standing there hoping to play?’
This from the bearded man. He glared at me like a miller seeing a rat in his sack.
‘Nay, I am waiting for a friend.’
‘You keep looking at us as though you’re watching our play.’
‘I will turn my back.’
‘You’ll feel my boot in your arse if you don’t piss off!’
The fair man was already laughing uproariously, while the man with the hat remained at the table, but any relief I felt at their lack of attention was quickly dispelled as the big man climbed to his feet, fists ready clenched. I strolled away, but as I heard him approach, I hurried.
I swear I could feel his boot at my buttocks as I hurtled through the door and almost into the fellow who was soon to become the fellow I most feared in the whole world.
I’d seen him walking about the street that morning while I was watching for a target. He was loitering like a man of leisure.
Broad-shouldered, he had a thin beard and sallow complexion. His eyes were a little yellowish, like a man who’d spent too many hours out of the sun, and at first glance I would have marked him as a man who had the pox or malaria. It was a false first impression, though. On a second look, he didn’t seem unwell. A good thing, too, for else the dainty wench at his side would have dropped him in an instant. She was dressed in sober but fashionable style, with a most lecherous twinkle in her eye when she looked at her man, but when she glanced in my direction, that twinkle died like a snuffed candle.
He was clearly wealthy. There was no chance that this woman would have been with him for long if his purse was empty, for I knew her. She was Ann Derby, one of the brightest, sweetest, shrewdest little tarts who ever lifted skirts for a coin.
I fixed my best and brightest apologetic smile to my face and bowed and apologized most prettily, if I say so myself, and eventually the fellow grunted that he was unharmed, and took his hand from his sword’s hilt. However, he was no easy hob ready for a fleecing. I could see that from the way that he set a hand on his purse as soon as look at me. This was not a newly arrived innocent ready to be saved from excessive spending by my swift fingers, and Ann took his arm to walk between him and me, too obviously keen on the idea of liberating his purse herself. She didn’t want to share it with me. I was left muttering a curse under my breath.
Turning and looking about me, I saw another face I recognized. On a low staircase that gave up to a shop front, I saw my comrade Bill. It was rare to see him out like this. The fencing cove was happier to keep to his bench where others would bring their winnings to him, but there he was. Good old Bill. If it weren’t for him, I would have nowhere to trade my prizes, nowhere to rest my head. He was peering in my direction, but I don’t think he saw me. He was searching for someone else. Fleetingly, I wondered who.
However, I had no time to ponder about him overlong. As Ann and her man passed on, I saw another fellow who was clearly perfect, only a short distance away.
He was a younger man with much more money than sense, and the gaudy, fashionable clothes to prove it. Slashed sleeves and more buttons than could easily be fitted to their holes in an entire morning, he was rolling in a manner guaranteed to attract the attention of any number of fly nips or foists. More, those clothes were worn and stained. He was a recent visitor, or I was a Fleming. With his clothing and his general air of dissolute living, I felt sure I had a target worthy of at least one or two meals. His purse looked overfull, which is always a good sign in my eyes.
I carefully took the battered coin from my purse and allowed it to fall, stepping on it in an instant. A man cannot leave a penny lying in the street for two breaths without some thieving urchin snatching it up. As the gull stumbled past, I raised it with a frown. ‘Master? I believe you dropped this,’ I said. ‘Does your purse have a hole?’
The poor, befuddled fellow turned his blank gaze to me, and I held it aloft. Well, who would deny ownership? His stare moved from me to the coin, to the purse at his belt, and he rattled the purse. It chinked delightfully, indicating to anyone who could be interested that here was a most friendly purse, feeling a little overfull and eager to share a pleasant evening in the company of a fellow with a liking for a life of comfort. I knew that purse and I would get along well.
But before I could open my mouth, a flaxen-haired harpy, with the sharp, furious face of an alewife who finds her customer has been drinking all night and now cannot pay the reckoning, stopped before us and screeched at him.
‘So there you are! Two weeks, almost, and you’ve deigned to return?’
‘Mistress, you must not …’
‘Must not, mustn’t I? What mustn’t I, eh? When my husband goes dipping his wick in another woman’s …’
‘Agnes, in the name of God, go home! You are making an unnecessary scene. Trust me!’
‘What? Trust you?’ she spat. ‘Do you think me a fool? Do you think I’m blind?’
‘Don’t make a scene!’ he pleaded, his eyes darting hither and thither as though expecting a captain and his soldiers to appear at any moment.
‘I hate you!’
With