Читать книгу The Executioner's Daughter - Jane Hardstaff - Страница 11

CHAPTER FIVE

River Thief

The roof of the passage was low. Several times she banged her head. Mud and water sloshed round her boots. The light was distant and grey, but it was enough to follow. Moss ran her fingers over the walls. They were earth and rock. She hardly noticed the flints in the mud as they nicked her thin-soled boots. The noise was louder now and there was a rhythm to it. Like breathing. It mixed with the short gasps that stuck in her throat. Excitement. Fear. She didn’t know what. All she could think about was getting to the end of the passage. The further she went, the brighter the specks of light became.

Moss stopped, feeling rock ahead of her. She looked up. There was a shaft of brightness coming from above. She scrambled up towards it and gripped the rough walls, pulling herself on to a ledge a few feet above the base of the tunnel. In front of her was a hole blocked with large stones, grey light filtering through.

Carefully, Moss dislodged the stones. She stuck her head out of the hole and almost tumbled backwards. Above her were the creaking planks of a wharf. And through the murky half-light was a band of shimmering silver, spreading as far as she could see.

It was the river. She could hardly believe it. She was outside the Tower. She was . . . free.

Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might burst from her chest. The passage was a tunnel ? A tunnel from the garderobe drop all the way under the moat to the riverbank.

Moss was shaking now, her ears pounding with blood and crazy, mixed-up thoughts. For years she’d listened to Nell’s tales. Of ghosts and witches and old passageways and siege tunnels dug by fearful kings. And she’d never known whether to believe the tales or not. Of course, Pa had scorned them. They were just stories dribbled from an old lady’s lips. But this tunnel was real. As real as the mud beneath her feet.

She was free.

On her lips, the tang of salt and riverweed. The sweetest thing she’d ever tasted.

Moss looked around. She could wade out from under the wharf and, if the water wasn’t too deep, make it along the wharf ’s edge to the bank. She could see that the tunnel would probably be flooded at high tide, which would account for all the water and mud. She reckoned she had an hour, maybe two, before it flooded again. Her head was bursting and all the while she felt a tug-tug, deep inside, drawing her to the river. She had never been this close to it. Before she was even aware of what she was doing, Moss had hitched up her dress, crawled through the hole and dropped into the water.

It wasn’t very deep at all. She waded swiftly, enjoying the tingle of icy water as it rinsed round her boots. With a few strides she was out from under the wharf. The water was deeper here, up to her thighs. Beyond the wharf, she could see waves lashing the shingle bank, peeling back in a snarl of froth. The wind was picking up and she felt the pull of the current now, tearing at her legs. Her boots were slipping on the shingle bed. She stumbled and steadied herself. The current was strong.

She carried on wading, the murky water driving against her body. She staggered as her foot struck something large. And at that same moment, her legs were whipped from under her and she stumbled sideways, flailing into the deeper water of the river.

Instantly a fist of current snatched her under.

She felt her body barrel under the waves, over and over, cracking her head on something hard. She tried to open her eyes, but all she could see was a wall of dark. Panicking for breath, she gulped and felt saltwater fill her lungs, while useless legs thrashed against the flow that towed her as easily as a piece of rope. Her head was numb in the freezing river. She was seeing things now. Dizzy, flickering pictures, of Pa raising his axe, Two-Bellies leering at her, the swirling crowd on the hill. Then the images sank away, deep down into the silt, and Moss was bursting, her chest a choked balloon of salty water. Which way was up? Which was down? Both were gone, dissolved in the hideous pull that sucked her into darkness. That was when she saw the face.

A woman. Her hair wispy and coiling, like smoke. A pale, frozen face, lit by strange eyes, with no expression, no smile or frown. Around her, seaweed fanned out. Her bare arms reached up towards Moss. A poor drowned soul, lost to the river. And Moss knew, sure as rotten teeth on a rich man, that she would soon be joining her. The suck of the current stopped. She felt her dress billow as her feet tipped upwards.

Without warning, there was a sudden jerking at her legs. She felt the dead weight of her body being dragged from above. Beneath her, the woman shrank backwards into the black river.

Feet first, Moss felt herself hauled through the waves until her head broke the surface in a splutter of foam. Arms were pulling her now, dragging her body until it cracked on the side of something solid. More heaving and she flopped on to her back against wooden planks, her lips spitting frothy vomit. Then the grey sky went white.

‘Sweet Harry’s scabs! That’s a wind cold enough to freeze off yer goosters.’

Words were buffeting Moss’s ears. Fuzzy at first. Then gradually more distinct as she came to her senses.

‘Take a punt up to Old Swan . . . no time for anything else now.’

From under the wisps of her lashes, Moss peeked out. A blurry shape was moving around her.

‘Ain’t nothin here worth havin.’

She felt hands patting her dress.

‘Stupid pisspot of a shore girl.’

She kept her eyes closed, peeping through her lashes until the blurry shape grew a face. Brown-eyed and smudged with dirt. Hands, going through her pockets. Scrawny arms and shoulders, clothed in a threadbare tunic. Hair dark and matted, as though a cat had chewed it up and spat it out.

It was a boy. And judging by the way he was cussing, he seemed very cross.

‘Should have known yer’d be good fer nothin but a boatful of sick.’

Slowly, Moss opened her eyes. The boy did not notice at first, but carried on sifting through her pockets. She blinked, then heaved herself up on one elbow and felt the ground wobble.

‘Stay on yer back, yer nubbin loach!’ He shot her a furious glance.

Still groggy, Moss looked around and saw she was sitting in a small flat boat, bobbing near the shore. A boat! On the river! How had she . . . how did she . . .?

‘Sweet Harry’s gammy leg! I said stay still !’ The boy gave her a push.

‘Ow!’

‘Idiot shore girl! You’ll have me boat over!’

He glared at her. She glared back.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll keep still.’ She looked about. The boat was a good way from the shore. ‘Could you tell me . . . what happened?’

‘You fell in the river, I pulled you out, you puked in me boat.’

‘Oh.’

The boy said nothing. He had his back to her now and was checking a net trailing in the water behind him.

‘Is this your own boat?’

The boy ignored her, still sifting through his net.

‘It must be nice to have a boat.’

Silence.

‘I mean, nice to be able to come out here. On the river.’ She was running out of things to say.

‘What are you talkin about, nice ? I rows to make me livin. Ain’t nothin nice about rowin the river.’

‘I just meant, you know, in your boat you can go wherever you like, see all the other boats, the sails, everything –’

‘What? Are you mad as a rabbit? It ain’t no pageant out here. Them big boats would squash you soon as look at you. Saw a waterman go down only last week. His boat was a four-seater. Crushed between a galley an’ a barge like a fly between yer thumbs.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know.’

‘Well, you do now.’

The boy took up his oars and began to row towards the bank. Moss watched, surprised his scrawny arms could pull such deft, clean strokes. His clothes were little more than rags, and she saw that his tunic had been patched many times and that the patches were sackcloth. He really was filthy. She wondered at how a boy who worked on the river could be so dirty. Every bit of skin was grimed, as though he hadn’t been within two miles of a pail of water his whole life.

‘So . . . what’s your name?’ said Moss.

‘What you want that for?’

‘Well, to thank you, I suppose. You just saved my life?’

‘Fat lot of good that’s done me.’

‘Well, I didn’t ask you to save me. Look, I’m sorry I was sick in your boat . . . My name’s Moss.’

‘Sounds about right. Useless green stuff, soaks up water.’

A gust of wind rocked the little boat, biting into Moss’s body. Her woollen dress was sodden and grey water was pooling where she sat. Her teeth were rattling and before long, her legs and arms were shaking too.

‘Do you . . . do you . . . have . . . a blanket?’

‘You what? A blanket ? Who do you think I am? Some lordy merchant sailin a ship piled high with furs an’ silky pillows?’

‘It’s c-cold.’

‘So? Shouldn’t have gone swimmin then, should yer?’

‘I didn’t go swimming. I was walking. I fell –’ She gripped her feet with her frozen fingers. They were bare. ‘Where are my boots?’

‘What?’

‘My boots. I was wearing boots when I fell in.’

‘Don’t ask me. Probably at the bottom of the river stinkin out the fish, in’t they?’

The boy was on his feet now, punting the boat towards the bank with one oar. On the shore was a jumble of flimsy huts. Shacks made of driftwood and crates, propping each other up in the mud. They seemed so close to the water, thought Moss. Surely one rogue tide and they’d all be swept away?

‘Is this where you live?’ she said.

‘Who wants to know? Whoever it is, I ain’t tellin.’ The boy scowled. ‘Well, don’t just sit there like a nun givin thanks for her own farts. Hop off now, shore girl.’ He held the boat fast with the oar and Moss wobbled to the front.

‘Won’t you tell me your name?’

‘Out! Count yerself lucky I didn’t tip you back in!’

Moss jumped on to the shingle and the boy pushed off without a backwards glance.

As the little boat nudged into deeper water, he reached over the side and fished out something from the trailing net. Moss squinted at his catch. It didn’t look much like fish.

Then she gasped. Her boots! The little thief had stolen her boots!

‘Those are mine! Give them back!’ she yelled.

But the boy just grinned and carried on rowing up the river.