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THREE

The Rescue of Mr Taggart Longman

by Mr Nicholas Raspero

Madeleine’s father had died when she was eleven years old, but not before installing in her a sense of self-reliance by so often being away from home. The man in her life had always been away, and now he had departed for good, and the impression this left on her went deep into her soft and malleable feelings. Where the impression of her father should have been, there was only the impression of an absence. Her mother had thereafter managed to take care of them both by sacrificing her pride to the desire evoked in men by her beauty. By the time Madeleine was fifteen she had passed through the hands of no fewer than five “stepfathers”, and the unprotected girl had passed through the hands of two of these “stepfathers” in a quite literal sense. Tragedy struck and the beautiful fifteen-year old was left an orphan when her mother died after a lingering illness.

There had been eyes watching Madeleine for quite some time already, eyes that saw her beauty as a commodity, and the mouths that had directed Madame Marlene to befriend the young girl during her mother’s last days now directed Madame Marlene to adopt the girl unofficially and take her to her own home, a home which already had a number of women in residence. There she was apprenticed to the line of work which Madame Marlene had chosen for her, given the working name Hailee, and there she was tutored by Madame Marlene in the ways of the world.

‘You must be in the world but not of it,’ Madame Marlene told the trusting Madeleine. ‘That is the only way to be sure that the world does not eat you. Never give a man your heart, or the world will eat you, bite by bite, not all at once but in the end you will be gone. Give men what they can see while never giving your heart and you will be safe.’

Whatever softness remained in Madeleine’s feelings did not remain long; like clay baked hard by the fire, the repeated reception of the hot desire of a multitude of men coupled with the clear instructions of Madame Marlene that the world was her enemy hardened the young girl’s heart until it could truthfully be said that she was in the world but not of it.

By the time she was seventeen, Madeleine had graduated from her apprenticeship and Jolly himself, the ruler of the underworld of New Landern, took a hand in her future. He installed her in a private apartment as his mistress. She had two servants, Abbey and Hugo, and a life of luxury.

Madeleine turned her attention on Jolly’s orders to learning how to behave like a lady. She was instructed by tutors in how to speak and behave with decorum, in the importance of never behaving spontaneously, on the necessity of always keeping her smile in its proper place. She was educated in the literary classics, in the visual arts, in the maxims of philosophy and in all that was necessary to cultivate the appropriate appearance of gentility. She was not expected to understand any of this; she was only expected to reproduce the experience of having encountered it. What she did understand she kept to herself.

She was taught how to polish her natural beauty like a carefully cut jewel by hair-stylists, manicurists, make-up assistants, clothes advisors and fashion designers until she had achieved such a state of calculated attractiveness as for her beauty to appear as a spontaneous flourishing of this moment alone and none other.

The personal demands which Jolly made on her as his mistress were easily met and Madeleine settled into her new life like a weary traveller sinking into a hot bath. She had not realised how accustomed she had become to her life of luxury until one day Jolly threatened to take it all away from her.

8:30 PM, Tuesday 12 July 1539 A. F.

Jolly and Madeleine were sitting in the living room of Madeleine’s luxurious apartment; Jolly drinking whiskey with his feet stretched out on a footstool.

Madeleine was looking radiant in a light blue dress which was tied around her slender neck leaving her bare shoulders gleaming; her blue eyes glittered like sapphires; her blonde hair was artfully bound by jewel-encrusted hair-pins in waves that framed her head like a helmet; her delicate lips and nose and high cheekbones had an aesthetic precision that was like mathematics turned into poetry. Her blue dress was tied snugly around her narrow waist, her long legs crossed demurely at her shapely ankles. She was like a sculptor’s ideal of beauty.

She held a fan in her hands, and sat as straight-backed as any tutor could desire, her arms and legs collected together with such decorum as to form a living picture of how a young lady should sit.

‘Show me what you can do, girl,’ Jolly ordered her.

Madeleine looked down at her fan modestly, opened it and said gently, ‘But I am at a loss to understand you, Mr Jollison. You must surely think poorly of me for such a failure on my part.’

‘Not bad,’ Jolly said approvingly. ‘Keep going.’

‘It is kind of you to show such interest in me,’ Madeleine continued. ‘I can only thank you for such kindness.’

‘What else?’

‘A lady can say no more, Mr Jollison.’ Madeleine looked up at Jolly demurely and raised her fan to cover up the lower part of her face so that only her eyes showed.

Jolly nodded and considered the picture formed by Madeleine for a while. ‘It’s time for you to go back to Madame Marlene,’ he told her. ‘I’m done with you.’

Madeleine lowered her fan and looked down at it. ‘Have I displeased you, Mr Jollison?’ she asked softly.

‘I’m bored with you, Madeleine,’ Jolly told her. ‘I’ve had you enough times; what else you got to give me?’

The thought of returning to Madame Marlene filled Madeleine with a dismay tinged with panic. She had become accustomed to both a light workload and a life of luxury. There was neither at Madame Marlene’s establishment. ‘Jolly, I’m real sorry if I —’

‘I spent all that money on teaching you to be a lady and you talk like that!’ Jolly roared in a fury.

Madeleine collected herself immediately. ‘Naturally, Mr Jollison, I am only too regretful that I have disappointed you to plead my case any further. However, I am only too willing to provide you with any further services which you might be inclined to request from me. You have only to ask, like the kind benefactor that you have always been to me, and I will immediately seek to oblige you without any hesitation on my part.’

Having thrown a scare into her, Jolly could now allow himself to be merciful. ‘Well, now, that’s more like it,’ he told her approvingly. ‘Now you mention it, there’s another service you can provide for me. You interested?’

‘Very,’ Madeleine said as composedly as she could, still in a state of shock at the thought of becoming one of Madame Marlene’s girls again.

‘I’m a man of many interests,’ Jolly told her. ‘You get me?’

‘Naturally, I —’

‘Drop the act,’ Jolly said impatiently. ‘I want you to listen to me. You’re going to carry on doing what you’ve been doing for me. Just one client at a time. Got that?’

‘Yes,’ Madeleine said cautiously, not daring to say too much unless she said the wrong thing.

‘They will be wealthy men, big-shots in society. You don’t fool around with anyone I don’t tell you to go with. You don’t get to have your own personal sweetheart. You understand?’

‘Yes, Jolly,’ Madeleine said as cautiously as before.

‘You tell me everything about these men. Who they see, what their weaknesses are, how they live, anything you can tell me about them, you tell me. You talk to them, you get to know them, you tell me all about them. You getting the picture, girl?’

‘Yes, Jolly.’

‘You get to keep this apartment, you get to keep Abbey and Hugo but remember they work for me, so do you, don’t you forget that. You step out of line and you go back to Madame Marlene’s. Got that?’

‘Yes, Jolly.’

‘Now here’s the tricky part, girl. How you gonna do this, hey? Got any ideas?’

‘No, Jolly.’

‘See, this is why I run the show,’ Jolly observed. ‘I got the brains. That’s just how it is. All right, girl, you’re going to become an actress.’

‘An actress?’

‘That’s right. It’s all sorted. Ansel Horado is taking you into his company, the Kerrick Company. You’re going to see him tomorrow. You keep him at arm’s distance, you got that? You don’t fool around with a man unless I tell you to fool around with him. You got that?’

‘Yes, Jolly.’

‘This is costing me money, girl. You’re an investment for me, and I’ll get that money back plus extra. A lot extra. Otherwise, you’ll pay off the money on your back at Madame Marlene’s. You know how much money you cost me, girl?’

‘No, Jolly.’

‘More than seventeen thousand strada, girl. You wanna pay me back that money from your clients at Madame Marlene’s, or you gonna do it right?’

‘I’ll do it right, Jolly.’

‘You know what a stage name is, girl?’

‘Yes, Jolly.’

‘You’re gonna take the stage name of “Angela Ashton”. After your mother died you were in service for two years as a lady’s companion with Mrs Erica Farrar, Mrs Erica Farrar, got that? So you saw that play you were at last week, remember that play I took you to, when I told you to wear that veil, so now you wanna be an actress. That’s how you’re gonna meet all these big-shots. But you keep a distance from them, you play the lady, got it? Any of them look like they wanna get real friendly, you tell me and I’ll let you know which one to choose. You understand everything I’m telling you?’

‘Yes, Jolly.’

‘What you’ve been don’t exist no more. I’ll take care of that. Don’t worry, anyone who thinks he remembers Hailee from Madame Marlene will learn different, trust me. Now what am I missing, girl?’

‘I don’t know, Jolly.’

Jolly threw back his head and laughed. ‘You’re only forgetting what this is all about for you, girl. How you gonna get paid? Well, what d’ya think?’

‘I’m a lady,’ Madeleine said cautiously, ‘so … so what do I do, Jolly?’

Jolly nodded approvingly to see her turning to him for guidance. ‘They give you gifts, girl. Clothes, jewellery, whatever. That’s before you give them anything of yours, get me? I’ll let you play that yourself. Then you let them have you and they keep on giving you gifts, because they like you so much, see, and you keep on letting them have you and they keep on giving you gifts, that’s how it works, girl. It’s just a different kind of money, that’s all. But those gifts are worth money. You don’t steal anything, girl, you get me? If there’s ten thousand strada in notes lying on the table, you don’t even look at it. You’re a lady. But if they give you gifts worth ten thousand strada, well, that’s yours, girl. You come to me, I’ll see you get a fair price, or you sell them yourself, it’s your choice girl, but you make your own money, get it? I don’t even take a cut, that’s how generous I’m being, I don’t even take a cut because you tell me everything you can about these men. That’s the deal, girl. You gonna take it or what?’

‘I’ll take it, Jolly,’ Madeleine had said without hesitation, and the deal was done.

11:50 AM, Thursday 5 May 1544 A.F.

Five years had passed and the twenty-two year old Angela Ashton was now on to her fourth client, and there was already a heated competition amongst some of the wealthiest and most dissolute gentlemen of society as to who would be her fifth. The workload was light, the money was good and Angela was pleased with how everything had turned out.

She was not happy. If there were times in her life when she had known happiness, she did not remember them now, but she was not unhappy. Life was easy and pleasurable and that was the main thing. She never sold a gift until she had moved on to the next client, but with Jolly’s expert help she had converted her gifts into a grand total of ninety-five thousand strada in cold hard cash, and the gifts from her current client, Lord Foxley, were piling up nicely. With further advice from Jolly, she had carefully invested the money she had made and her fortune was growing. It was even possible, Jolly had suggested, that she might end up marrying a man with a title and becoming a grand lady, but for now Angela was content with what she had.

She enjoyed being an actress. She had taken to playing roles on stage as easily as if she had always done it. Her success as an actress was the foundation of the success of her other role, the role she played off-stage, which was her real line of work. Acting on stage was fun, but acting off-stage was work.

She enjoyed the feeling of hundreds of hungry eyes feeding on her beauty wherever she went. She liked the power her beauty gave her over the men who sought her attentions. She went through the motions of giving her clients what they wanted, but they never noticed that she was acting even then. She fooled them into believing she received more than passing pleasure from them and so they believed they were worth more to her than the gifts they gave her. They were so wealthy that a necklace worth five thousand strada could be paid for from their pocket change, and Angela was always so delighted with such a girlish delight to receive gifts that they showered her with them just to make her happy and tell them how wonderful they were. She gave her clients what they were so eager to obtain with a personal indifference shrouded by her pretended passion. Their business with her was a material process and nothing more. Angela would later in life remember little of her clients, but every single one of their gifts. Their gifts were her pay and she was a girl who took her pay very seriously.

Now Jolly had brought her to a room in an inn overlooking a square, telling her little of what was going on. She stood by him, wearing a veil as he had instructed her, and having come here by the devious route he had insisted on. Hugo was waiting for her downstairs. Jolly himself had a scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face. They were looking out of the open window, not hiding the fact they were hiding their faces because that could be for any one of a number of reasons.

‘There’s more than one way to fight,’ Jolly said as if thinking aloud.

Angela knew him well enough to know he wanted to be asked to say more. ‘What’s that mean, Jolly?’ she asked.

‘There’s wandfighting,’ Jolly gestured down into the square. Tagalong was standing by a water pump, looking around as he waited. Leopold “Leggit” Gardiner and his five men were walking up and down nearby as they waited in their turn. ‘We’re gonna see that right now. Then there’s what you can do, girl, and that’s a kind of fighting that’s a lot more dangerous than wandfighting. I’m gonna see if he’s as good as they say. Then we’ll see.’

‘If who’s as good as they say, Jolly?’ Angela asked, not really that interested but knowing she was there for a reason. Her mind was more taken up with what the value of the emerald-encrusted bracelet Lord Foxley had given her the night before would turn out to be when she sold it. She could almost feel the value of jewellery in her stomach, and she knew that this bracelet was valuable — very valuable — but just how much was it worth in strada?

‘Mr Nicholas Raspero, that’s who,’ Jolly said briefly. ‘If Leggit takes him down, you stay out of the picture. If he takes Leggit down, well, we’ll come to that at the right time.’

That was when Angela first heard the name of Nicholas Raspero, the wandfighter who had arrived in New Landern three days ago. ‘Who’s Mr Nicholas Raspero, Jolly?’ she asked.

‘That’s what I want to know,’ Jolly said. He said nothing more and she knew him well enough to say nothing more herself.

A boy came running into the square waving. Tagalong and Leggit and his men sprung into action. Some of the spectators worked for Jolly, some were genuine passersby, but all were about to become an audience.

Tagalong started waving his wand and shouting at Leggit. Leggit and his men were gathered threateningly around him, wands out, shouting at Tagalong. Leggit and his men took Tagalong’s wand and forced him to his knees. People were starting to look over at them, stopping what they were doing, drawing away to form a space that was like an impromptu stage. The audience had gone quiet. It occurred to Angela then that this was very like a play, and she examined the performances of the main players with a critical eye. They weren’t doing badly for beginners, she thought.

A man walked into the square, his hand on the hilt of his wand, and stopped on seeing all the commotion.

‘That’s Raspero, boss,’ Pacey “Pay” Yorath said quietly from where he was standing before the neighbouring window.

Angela considered the new arrival. The first thing she thought was that Jolly would not choose him to be one of her clients. He obviously had no money. His robe was shabby and his boots were old and he wore no ornaments. He looked like he didn’t even have a watch in his pocket. He was not a man she would normally look at twice, but seeing that Jolly was focused on Raspero to the exclusion of all else she looked again at the newly-arrived stranger standing on the other side of the market-square.

Jolly had guessed that the stranger who had robbed his men must have arrived in New Landern only recently as a wandfighter who was that talented would have drawn attention to himself before now. He had used his contacts at the Post Office to identify every recently registered male recipient of mail in New Landern. He started with the most recent and those who lived in the general direction of where the would-be victims of robbery had been heading. He sent his five men separately to view all the gentlemen whose names had come to light. This strategy had proved immediately successful, and by the end of the first day of his search Jolly knew the name of his man: Mr Nicholas Raspero.

The day after that Ben had been given by an acquaintance at the law courts two free luncheon vouchers at the Hortense Inn for 12 PM on Thursday 5 May but being unable to use them he had given them both to Nicholas, who for his part had wandered along to the Hortense Inn at the time specified. He had arrived at the square where the Hortense Inn was located to find a gentleman being attacked by an armed gang.

‘What’s going on?’ Nicholas asked.

‘Get lost, you mongrel!’ Leggit snarled at him. ‘This ain’t none of your business!’

‘As the author of a public spectacle, you have forfeited the right to the privacy you claim,’ Nicholas told him. ‘This is as much my business as I choose it to be. So, what’s going on?’ Nicholas had an amused look on his face, as if attracting the attention of street thugs had its entertaining side.

‘Shut your face!’ Leggit snarled at him.

‘I am afraid I must persist in my enquiries despite the eloquence with which you attempt to persuade me to do quite otherwise,’ Nicholas said, looking as amused as ever. ‘So, I repeat, what’s going on?’

‘I’ve had it with you,’ Leggit shouted angrily. Jolly’s instructions had been clear: take Raspero down and bring him bound and gagged to Jolly and he got five hundred strada in cash as a bonus to his pay on the spot, his men got one hundred each. They were among the best wandfighters in Jolly’s employ. If they couldn’t take Raspero down, then Jolly wanted to know about it. If they did take him down, well, Jolly’s eyes glinted at the prospect of having a long and very private talk with the man who had robbed his men, which meant that he had robbed Jolly. No-one crossed Jolly. No-one! If Raspero had handed his men over to the constabulary, fair enough, it was done, but to rob his men was a direct affront to Jolly.

Leggit and his men let go of Tagalong, who as agreed stood up groaning and stretching so that he came between Leggit and Raspero, blocking Raspero’s line of sight; Leggit’s men attacked Raspero instantly, Leggit coming for Raspero around the side of Tagalong. Except Nicholas was no longer where he had been standing. He was rolling to his left, sweeping the furthest man to his left off his feet and sending him flying into the next man along. As Nicholas rolled to his feet he already had that man’s wand in his hand. Leggit’s wand followed soon after as Nicholas soared over him, landing and crouching and spinning on his feet in one smooth motion that sent the now wandless Leggit flying into one of his men turning towards Raspero. One after the other Nicholas took them down, taking their wands and binding and tying them with their own mobile karns. His movements seemed effortless, and blended into each other in one continuous sequence of motions that were almost like a dance. Forty seconds after the fight began, Nicholas was standing over Leggit and his men, bound on the ground, their wands in his hand.

‘He’s as good as they say,’ Pay commented, looking over at Jolly.

Jolly turned away from the window. ‘Angela, you come see me nine o’clock tomorrow morning.’

‘Yes, Jolly,’ Angela said obediently, her thoughts already turning back to the emerald bracelet. She would guess as much as seven thousand strada, but that was only a guess.