A Beggar's Kingdom Page 21

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Julian says.

  “Julian, you been good to me,” says Agatha. “You healed my legs. Even our pastor can’t believe it. So I tell you this. Them boys over there, they love Fulko, their brother, their friend, but Miri is their mother. They’ll get by without Fulko. But they can’t live without Miri.”

  “Join the club,” Julian mutters.

  “Stay away from her,” Agatha says. “It’ll come to no good.”

  Is there anything Julian wants to hear less? Why does the mother keep telling him to stay away from her daughter? “But how does Miri feel about marrying Fulko?”

  “It’s marriage,” says Agatha. “He’s a man. How can one feel about such a thing? Soul-wrenching resignation, of course, is what she feels.”

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” Julian says, struggling with his words. “I mean…does she love him?”

  Agatha doesn’t reply. When Julian glances at her, there is sharp pity on her face. “Oh, Julian,” she says. “You poor soul.”

  They sit side by side, an infirm woman and an able-bodied man, watching four cripples in slings shuffle by, blood-soaked rags on their feet.

  “In your daughter is the answer to my sorrow and the burden I carry,” Julian finally says to Agatha. “The burden I’m enslaved by.”

  “That is terrible and most peculiar,” Agatha says, pale of face. “I don’t think she knows this.”

  “Oh,” Julian says, “she knows. She doesn’t care. But she knows.”

  ∞

  Later that afternoon, Julian finally catches up with Miri on Queen Street, where she is walking without companions and they can speak semi-privately on a public street. The conversation with the mother, instead of dissuading Julian, has given him new purpose. He is fed up with waiting, with following, with silence, with unwanted protection, with improving nothing. Of course Miri does not yet know of his intentions and as usual hurries when she hears him calling her name from behind. Most women would stop. She speeds up. Julian has to run around and stand in her way to keep her from walking. He hasn’t had many women frown at him with such suspicion. Natch, any women.

  “Can you move out of my way,” she says. “What do you want?”

  Isn’t that the question for the ages.

  “I want you to stop robbing men, Miri, for one.”

  “That and two pennies will get you a tuppence. What the devil do you care what I do?”

  “You’ll get caught. You’ll get hurt. The court may show you mercy. But a drunk robbed man won’t. Do you remember what happened the other day?”

  “Look at you, Mr. Deliverance.” Miri tries to get around him. “Yes, I remember what happened. You think I couldn’t have got him off me myself?”

  “No, I don’t think you could’ve.”

  “So what? Even if I couldn’t, what do you care? And who even says I wanted him off me? Did you ever think of that? Maybe I wanted to foin with him right there on the pavement. Maybe that’s exactly what I wanted.” Defiantly she snubs her nose at him.

  Don’t you remember Lord Fabian? Don’t you remember the Great Fire? “Why do you keep putting yourself in harm’s way?”

  “Frankly, the only thing I see in my way is you.” Miri steps, Julian steps, she goes one way, he goes one way, too. “For your information,” she says, “I been making my own way since I was eleven, living by my wits, doing just fine. Twelve years I somehow managed without you, and now suddenly some fast-talking cadger is going to come between me and my mark?”

  “What’s going to happen to your mother if you get hurt or arrested?” says Julian. “She can’t live on threepence a day.”

  “What do you care? Who do you think’s been taking care of her all these years before you crawled out of hell?”

  “If something happens to you, she’ll be on her own. Fine, don’t stay safe for yourself. But do it for your mother.”

  “And how do you think I’m going to make money?” Miri says. “You saw what the newspapers pay. Pennies. Monk told you what pure finding pays. Pennies.”

  “I told you, I’ll give you money,” Julian says. “Like that purse I gave you, the one you told no one about, I gave you that, didn’t I? I’ll give you more. It’ll be our little secret. I will hire you.”

  “I knew it!” she exclaims. “Pray tell, hire me to do what?”

  “Hire you not to rob people who can assault you, or have you arrested and hanged.”

  “And?”

  “That’s it.”

  Miri shoves him. “I don’t want a farthing of your fugging money. Let me pass.”

  “It’s not my money,” Julian says. “It’s your money.”

  She reels in confusion.

  “You already died for it once,” he says. “You paid for that blood money with your life. Please, Miri. Don’t die again, because you won’t take it from me. Let me help you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, panting. “You’re a madman. Let me through.”

  “You may not have much time,” says Julian, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

  “Much time for what?”

  “Let me take you to the theatre. You like the theatre, don’t you?”

  Miri is baffled and anxious, yet the word theatre makes her blink, stammer, waver. “How did you—how do you—”

  “Troilus and Cressida is playing. We’ll get the best seats, we’ll take a carriage…”

  “Why would we take a carriage, the theatre is five steps away.” Miri takes a breath, composes herself. “If it’s my money, like you say, just give it to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “I bet you bloody can’t!”

  “You know better than I do that my blood and yours will run into the sewer drains for that money,” says Julian. “I beg you to believe me, Miri. You’re in terrible danger.”

  “Look at you,” she says, her low voice scathing. “Come to steer me in the right direction, have you? Come to save me by leading me into your own hovel of bawd, into your own stew of debauchery?”

  “Why do you keep saying that? I told you it’s not what I want.”

  “Really? Your interest in me is all pure, is it, all innocent?”

  “It’s not all pure,” Julian admits. “But it is holy.”

  “Oh!” she exclaims. “Of course! Everyone else’s lust is swineherd lust, but yours is holy!”

  “Stop being deliberately blind to me,” he says, raising his voice, “intentionally deaf to the things I’m telling you. Decide if you want to submit or triumph, Miri. Decide for yourself.”

  “Submit to you?” Fed up with him physically stopping her from walking away, Miri goes to strike him. He jerks his chin out of the way.

  “Submit to your fate or triumph over it,” says Julian.

  “Oh, dear Lord! What do you want?”

  “Nothing but you.”

  She slaps him across the face. He doesn’t move away from her hand that time. Maybe he doesn’t want to.

  “I go with no man,” Miri says. “Especially a dodger I don’t know.”

  “By no man, do you mean you go with every man?” Julian says. “What about the drunks you lure to the cellars? Don’t you understand—one of them could be the death of you.”

  “Yes, you.” She goes to strike him again, but he blocks her, grabbing and lowering her arm. He doesn’t let go. “Listen to Paul Revere, Miri! Take up arms and save your life.”

  “I don’t know Paul fugging Revere,” Miri says through her teeth, “and I don’t know you.”

  “You know me,” Julian says. He circles his arms around her for a moment, pressing her tiny frame to his chest. He is desperate; he knows how he must seem to her.

  Breathless, she struggles away, punching him with her little fists. She is so small, so tough, so fragile.

  “There’s nothing you can do to me, Miri, that will make me leave your side,” Julian says. “Accept it. Nothing. You can’t even die to esca
pe me.”

  “What are you talking about?” She shoves him in the chest. The more he stands and takes it, the more feral she gets. “I’m marrying Fulko, or did you forget?”

  “No, you’re not. The gallows are waiting for him.”

  “We’ll tie that noose when we get to it,” she says, heaving. “But I’m not walking out on him because you make eyes at me from across the street. You’ve put Monk and Jasper under your spell, you’ve put Flora under your spell, you’ve put me mum under your spell, half of Seven Dials under your spell! You’re not putting me under your spell.”

  “No?” Julian says. Again he draws her to him.

  She wrenches away.

  But not right away.

  “What’s wrong with you?” she cries.

  He lets her go, watching her disappear down the street, his heart aching with an unending ache. On the outside she is brittle, hiding in a turtle shell because on the inside she’s like blown-out glass. One tap and she will shatter. Her vulnerability batters his senses. He is doing all the wrong things because he can’t think straight. He is going to ruin everything.

  Or is it already ruined?

  Dot 18.

  Dot 19.

  Julian hates her gang for needing her, hates her mother for not saving her, hates Fulko, whom he’s never met, for failing to protect her, hates Flora the fortune-teller for being a phony and not telling her to run like the wind. But most of all, with a steadfast hate, Julian hates the quill—as if it’s the pen’s fault that directed by a human hand, it can make a mark in the arm of a man to remind him how much time has passed.

  Or how much time is left.

  Dot 20.

  Julian desperately searches for another way to lift her soul to him. He needs to do something instead of waltzing alone, dancing his solitary tango before the looming drowning, do something other than throw himself into a canal in Kensington, all grime and misery and bereft of imagination.

  19

  Bucket of Blood

  THERE IS A MOMENT IN THE MORNINGS—WHEN JULIAN IS still in his warm bed, in his light room, as the days stretch out long and hard in front of him and long and hard behind him, when senseless acts of depravity abound and a purple haze of gin rises from all human endeavor—when he struggles to get up and out. He has lost the will to get out of bed. He could sleep in instead. Have breakfast. Go for a walk. Read in the library, the fire lit, a tumbler of whisky in his hand. Mark the day, don’t mark the day. It doesn’t matter. Like petals of a daisy, the days will fall, and her life will fade. This is not like Julian, to feel so despondent. He’s been such a go-getter lately. This is how he felt in L.A. after she died. The sickness in his soul rose up and crushed against his skin. Like a flood tide in a sluice, the grief filled up all the available space inside him.

  That’s what it feels like now.

  Julian forces himself out of bed, into a bath, into clothes, downstairs, out. He reminds himself—dully—that as long as there’s life, there’s hope. He forces himself forward, toward an impossible future in which she still walks, possible and alive, yet so far away from him.

  ∞

  God works in mysterious ways. Because just as Julian turns the corner on Monmouth Street heading into the rookery, he gets jumped from behind by a gang of hoodlums. Someone hits him across the back with a metal object. Two guys grab his arms, and a hand slithers into his coat pocket.

  Julian is not in the mood to be mugged. Roughly he yanks out his arms, elbowing someone’s nose, someone’s jaw, and spins around to face his attackers. There are four of them. They are scrawny, they stink, and they look like Monk. Only one of them looks meaty enough to give Julian any trouble, and he’s the one wielding the pipe. One whimpering fool holds his bloody nose, but another continues to tug at Julian’s pockets. Julian slaps him on the head to check his distance and when that doesn’t do it, he jabs him in the face. The wailing boy retreats.

  From behind, Julian again feels a hand in his coat. He shoves the thug away without even turning around to face him. “What do you want, money? Here.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out some change and pitches it onto the cobblestones. Three of the four boys instantly forget Julian as they drop to their knees—bloody nose, sore jaw forgotten—squealing and cursing and beating on each other to get to the pennies. Only the bloke with the raised pipe remains standing, though he takes a cautious step back.

  Julian nods. “You should step back. You should run. That would be the smart thing to do. Let’s see if you’re smart.”

  The guy charges. Julian doesn’t step out of his way. He lunges forward instead. Turning his left shoulder, he slams into the guy, catching the pipe with his right and yanking it out of the guy’s hands. The tramp staggers back and dumbly stares into his empty hand and then with panic at Julian, as if the latter removed the pipe from him not by force but by black magic.

  “You learned a valuable lesson today, mate,” Julian says. “You’re not very smart. You’re also a crap fighter. What are you doing robbing people?”

  “Don’t hurt me, Monk made me do it!” the guy squeals. He whistles to his partners, who scramble to their feet, and all four of them hightail it down the street, leaving Julian alone and puzzled.

  Monk made him do it?

  But Monk likes him. Monk is his friend. Why would Monk make him do it?

  ∞

  “Miri made me do it!” Monk cries when Julian confronts him in Seven Dials. Miri is not there to defend herself. But Jasper and Mortimer nod vigorously. “She did, she did,” Jasper slurs. “She made him do it.” Jasper is plucky but drunk.

  “Why would Miri tell you to send your goons to rob me and beat me?” Julian says incredulously. “Does she want you to hang? Do you know what you get for highway robbery? Death. Corporal fear and threat of one’s life, and all that.”

  “She said you got money, lots of it! She said you were an easy mark!”

  “She said I was an easy mark?”

  “I didn’t want to do it, Jack! She told me to.”

  “You always do what the girl tells you?”

  “You wasn’t harmed,” Mortimer says, “so what are you on about?”

  “I wasn’t harmed because I fought back,” Julian says. “But what if I couldn’t?” Did Miri really tell Monk he was an easy mark?

  “I’m not mad, Jack,” Monk says, adjusting the missing buttons on his oversized waistcoat.

  “You’re not mad?”

  “That’s correct, I bear you no ill-will,” Monk says, circling Julian. “Just the opposite.” There’s a fire in Monk’s gaze. “I watched you in that skirmish,” he says, eyes darting with excitement. “You know how to fight!”

  “So?” Julian is wary.

  “What do you think, Mortimer?” Monk says. “Should we try to make some money off his fists?”

  Julian frowns.

  “Ever hear of the Bucket of Blood, Jack?”

  Julian’s heard some of the patrons at the Lamb and Flag refer to their pub as a bucket of blood because of the fights that take place there. Is that what Monk means?

  “He’s ideal, Mort! He looks so clean and pasty.” Monk skips around Julian. “What do you say, Jack, will you help us with a little hustle to buy freedom for me brother?”

  “You want me to fight for money?”

  “We want you to pretend you can’t, and then fight for money.”

  At first Julian refuses.

  “Fine, Jack,” Monk says, “have it your way, but you know, Miri looks at you like yer dirt. She told me to fleece you. She thinks yer a weasel. You sure you don’t want to prove her wrong?”

  “Flora don’t think yer a weasel, she likes you. She’ll come and watch,” Jasper pipes in, slurring his words. “Me girl loves a good fight.”

  “Everybody loves a good fight,” Monk says. “Even Miri.”

  Mortimer suddenly changes his mind about Julian fighting. “The man wants to be on his way, Monk, let him be on his way! Why make him fight if he don’t want to?�
��

  “I’ll do it,” says Julian.

  Monk hoots. While Mortimer stands ill-disposed and Jasper rolls in the dirt, Monk goes to work on Julian, shining his shoes, dusting him off, straightening his collar.

  Agatha sides with cranky Mortimer. “Don’t do it, Julian,” she says. “Yer going to get knocked on yer noggin’ and who’s gonna bring me breakfast then?” She reaches for him. “It’s rough over there at the Lamb and Flag. You can get hurt good and proper.”

  Julian knows. He’s been diverting himself in the late afternoons watching their bloody brawls. But it’s rough in here, too. It’s fucking rough everywhere.

  “Miri, Miri!” Monk yells, waving like the possessed across Seven Dials at Miri walking toward them from Earl Street with Flora by her side. Julian stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks away. He’s got some words for her he needs to keep inside.

  “Miryam, help!” Agatha cries. “Crazy Monk is getting our poor Julian ready for the slaughter at the Lamb and Flag!”

  Miri gives Julian a once-over. If he was unsure about fighting before, he’s one hundred percent sure about it now. The expression in her eyes would make Monk fight Ali. Julian has never seen a girl more incredulous—and more skeptical. Ancient damnation, as Monk would say.

  “No, Monk,” Miri says. “It’s worse than him going down into the sewers with Cleon.”

  “But he wants to do it!”

  “He’s feeble-minded and got no sense,” says Miri. “I don’t give a toss about him, but you’ll be sprung for his murder. I won’t have you on the chats for him, Monk. He’s not worth it. It’s illegal, every which way to Tyburn, to conspire to kill a weakling and to bet on his death in the process. So no, Monk.”

  Julian interrupts. The little boys Miri runs around with might need a mother, but Julian does not. He already has one. “It’s touching you being all concerned for my welfare,” he says to Miri, “but where was that noble worry when you ordered Monk to hire thugs to rob me?”

  “Monk! You told him?”

  “They told him!” Monk cries. “And he came for me. What was I meant to do?”

  “I don’t know, Monk—lie!” says an exasperated Miri.