A Nest of Vipers Read online

  ‘Captain Walker was a nasty piece. I could tell this by the way he checked my teeth as if I was a horse, prodding around inside my mouth so hard I could not help but flinch. I was much minded to bite off his fingers, but Mother Hopkins fixed me with her evil eye. He paid five guineas for me, then he took me straightway by boat to Greenwich, and Addeline was right: the house was one of those big show-off white-icing affairs.

  ‘It is strange that people who wouldn’t dream of walking through the streets with their money hanging out of their pockets are more than happy to advertise their wealth through clothes or carriages or houses. Don’t you agree, sir? The house gleamed like a beacon to the cracksmen of London, and I thought they would have fine pickings here.

  ‘I tell you, my jaw fairly dropped when I got inside. Paintings – ships and portraits mostly (I would ignore the portraits; they never sold) and one of horses in the modern style that Mother Hopkins would be most pleased with. I reminded myself to keep my hands hard in my pockets, though, for our spoils were to be human rather than material.

  ‘Then Mrs Walker comes down the stairs clapping her hands and saying, “Oh! Oh! He is a darling, and he is mute, John? Such a fetching affectation!” Then the captain says to her, “He’ll do. At least he’ll be quiet. How is Elizabeth? Did she like the Stapleton lad? His father is a marquess: we could not do better.”

  ‘So the missus says, “Oh yes, John, she’s quite taken with the diamond necklace he bought her. And all that dreadful business can be forgotten. They’re coming round for tea this afternoon and now little Sam here can do the honours in his fine suit.” She claps her hands together again. “What a pet!” she coos, chucking me under the chin, and says to me very slowly, as if she reckons I can’t understand the Queen’s English: “You’ll be our Sam now – the name’s on the collar and we’re not about to change it. We’ve always had a Sam here and we always will.” She leans down to me and her eyes are pale and watery and she says, “You’ll find Greenwich a deal of difference to the jungle, little Sam.” I have to bite my tongue hard to stop myself laughing out loud. And she leads me away to put on the threads I am to spend my working week in.

  ‘The suit is brocade, navy blue and also heavy as lead and the turban too big. Mendes, the cove that Mother Hopkins sells old threads to, would give a pretty penny for the lot but they don’t half itch. And the collar! Wouldn’t you know it is the same one Sam had been wearing the week before, so it is far too big and digs into my shoulders a good deal.

  ‘At least I am right good at pouring chocolate from a silver pot. Mother Hopkins has taught me well. And I see the daughter, Miss Elizabeth – well, I see her sparklers, which are as beautiful as she is, only more honest looking, and I’m so busy thinking about how Mother Hopkins would die of delight if she could see that necklace that I forget to serve the visitors – Lady Stapleton and her lumpy son.

  ‘“Sam!” Mistress Walker chucks me under the chin. I do nothing for a long minute on account of having forgotten I’m now Sam and not Cato. “Sam, our guests!” Then she says to Lady Stapleton, “He is newly come from Africa, directly from the jungle . . . He doesn’t speak a word . . .” She looks at me with mock pity. “Captain Walker says he is the son of a prince and was brought up by leopards!”

  ‘I stood up straight, and I would have laughed if Miss Elizabeth hadn’t been pinching me hard – to see if I’d squeal, I reckoned. I had to feel pity for the girl – there she was being lined up for the Stapleton boy, just like me at the auction. I looked hard at him. It would not be a barrel of laughs being married to him. But at least her collar was made of diamonds, and she did not seem to mind. I think she was set on his fortune, not on his looks or manners, and in view of her pinching, her manners were of the same rank as his.’

  I paused, trying to make myself more comfortable, although that was impossible. My final hours were no luxury.

  ‘Sam had been put to work in the garden and bade not to leave the house or grounds. I could see him through the window, turning over the cold earth. He ate with us in the kitchen but as I was supposed to be mute, nothing was ever said. He was nervous though, I could tell.

  ‘At night I slept down in the kitchen and talked to Sam then. I sprang the lock on my collar – they insisted I sleep in it – and resolved to take Sam’s letter. I tiptoed back up the stairs to the study. The lock was feeble and the door opened easily, as did Captain Walker’s bureau. Inside, however, there were so many letters I lost all faith that I would find it . . . Letters from moneylenders and ships’ companies, sums of money flying back and forth across various oceans and through various banks. But eventually I came across the very same. It was written on behalf of a Mistress Juno Walker of Spanish Town, Jamaica, by the Reverend Butler. Juno, I thought to myself – Sam’s mother. I knew the fashion for giving us darker-skinned people such fanciful names as have come out of legends or history. For example, Cato is not – as Addeline would tease me – the king of Cats – but the finest Roman that ever lived. Although as you see, sir, I am not myself a Roman, and neither, I expect, was this Juno, who probably had a priest write for her and, by her words, beg that her son should be treated better than she was. And Walker? Well, don’t most slaves wear their masters’ names, whether or not they wish to?

  ‘Back to the letter . . . The writing was faded and old. I held it up to the window where the moonlight streamed in over Greenwich Park and thanked Mother Hopkins for teaching me the reading as I reckons that sometimes it is more valuable and just as useful as the best set of lock picks money can buy.

  ‘The next few days dragged as slow as the Cheapside night watchman, and he has such a limp that he can hardly make it down St Paul’s Churchyard. The household was busy enough: Captain Walker with his shareholdings, Mistress and Miss Walker with the wedding that had been brokered with the Stapleton family. I stood in the corner of the drawing room with my silver tray, saying nothing. They treated me much as they would a lap dog: from the mistress it was soft words, from Miss Elizabeth pinches, and from the captain slaps and kicks. I felt sorry for Sam having such a father and was glad I had none. I was looking forward to the day I could walk out of their house and take off the torturous silver collar for good. I was only sorry I wouldn’t see the look on the captain’s face when he realized what was happening.

  ‘I busied myself with secreting little things they wouldn’t miss: a hatpin with a pearl, a couple of silver spoons, and the captain’s seal, which he used for business correspondence. I tossed them all over the wall when I knew Addy was waiting by the park, as a little taster. I threw the letter over too, knowing Mother Hopkins would make the best use of it and that Sam would like to see his mother’s letter when this was all over.

  ‘The captain noticed his seal gone that evening. He was like an ox that’s been driven wild at Smithfield by the ’prentices, and made the same amount of noise and mess, throwing his papers about and bellowing. The mistress was obviously well used to this behaviour. She told him it had probably been just misplaced or, worst of all, fallen down between the boards, and not to go so red in the face. His anxiety would be the death of him, she said, and made Miss Elizabeth sing to soothe him, which I think only made him worse.

  ‘That night Sam came to me where I slept in the kitchen. He was almost mad with worry and fear. “They are coming for me in the morning, Cato! And I have seen no progress! I can wait no longer – I will run tonight. You can open the front door for me and I can take a place on a boat.”

  ‘I begged him not to go. Captain Walker would know all the boats this side of the river and probably half the ones on the north side. So I pleaded with him: “Sam, please! You must trust Mother Hopkins. Captain Walker will put a price on your head if you run, and any boat man will turn you over soon as look at you!”

  ‘“You are but a baby who knows nothing!” he said, and I made to speak again but Mrs Leppings the cook came to see what the noise was. I stayed up all night in case I heard him try to leave. I was so vexed I bit my fi
ngernails to the quick imagining Sam chained to the mast of a boat in the Thames and – in my worst nightmares – me alongside him, sailing for the plantations.’

  The Ordinary stopped writing to rest his hand. He stared at me through the bleak light, no doubt guessing I would rather be heading for the plantations than heading for the noose. Both options were hell, but one was a living one. I shifted uncomfortably and he picked up his quill once more.

  ‘So,’ I continued, sighing, ‘in the morning the doorbell sounded at eight thirty, and Sam was shaking. But it was a messenger from the bank, a boy dressed in the livery of the Commonwealth and Indies Trading Bank. A slight and slender boy, but the captain let him in and the boy winked at me. I had to keep my face straight because Addeline made such a very convincing boy.

  ‘She asked for the captain’s signature and waited while he signed and sealed (with his second-best seal) various letters. Then the messenger boy was gone. So when (I imagine) the Mistress Walker called for her little Sam to pour chocolate that morning at eleven, she called for ever, louder and louder and longer and longer until she must have been quite red in the face. Sam and I had slipped out of the back door into the street, where Mother Hopkins and Bella waited with a change of clothes for me, and Sam Caesar’s certificate of freedom signed and sealed that morning by the captain himself. By eleven o’clock me and Sam were sat snug in the upstairs room at the Nest of Vipers, Mother Hopkins counting the cash she’d made from selling my collar and clothes, Addy still dressed as a boy, her eyes saucer-wide as I told her about the house and the diamonds.

  ‘I read Sam the letter from his mother, her tender words hoping her son would find his freedom in England, but Sam snatched it away, pretending the tears I could see so plain were provoked by nothing but a bit of dust. Oh, I should mention, Sam can read himself now. Bella taught him, and Mother Hopkins bought the fine sedan chair he runs with Jack Godwin – you must have seen them, all in their wigs and livery. You won’t find sharper pair of young men! I had hoped, one day’ – I sighed and shifted on the hard stone floor – ‘that I would be like Sam.’

  I tried to stretch – my wrists were raw and oozing under the shackles – and yawned, making the Ordinary yawn too. He was still scratching away with his quill. Then, when I spoke no more, he looked up from his scribbling and said, ‘Was that the end of it? Didn’t the captain come after you? What about the sparklers – the diamonds? I thought you were going to pocket them? And how does this relate to the Favourite, boy? Was that not tied into the Walkers? Wasn’t that the captain in court done up in naval rig?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘And we had his seal, remember, and a lot more besides. And the sparklers . . . Well, that’ll be another story.’

  I could tell from the tone of his voice that the Ordinary fair drooled to hear more. Outside the watchman called the hour for five o’clock. I had so little time . . .

  We’d be leaving at ten for the drive to Tyburn along the Oxford Road and then the hanging, my hanging, at noon.

  I closed my eyes and let out a deep breath. Only seven more hours . . .

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Fleet Wedding, Winter 1711

  THE PARSON REEKED of spirits. Cato had heard Mother Hopkins promise him as much of the best Geneva as he could neck if the ceremony was over before ten. Cato thought this a good plan on account that they would all freeze if the ceremony took any longer. It was cold as ice, even with the tiny fire sputtering yellow flames in the grate.

  Cato thought that the debtors who were forced by law to live within the Liberty of the Fleet could probably only afford very small fires, another reason for offering cut-price, ask-no-questions marriage ceremonies. And ‘Liberty’ was, in truth, the worst word to give to what was essentially a wall-free prison – a prison of streets and houses and inns and shops. It was to be marvelled at that the prisoners could find the cash for even a few coals. Mother Hopkins said the Liberty of the Fleet had come about because the local prison had no more room, and debtors, being punished for their lack of money rather than their use of violence, were told to live as close as possible to the prison, if not actually inside it.

  The parson swayed slightly as he pronounced the couple man and wife. The groom, Lord Peters’s first and only son, Edgar, shone with bliss, and Bella, bride for a third time in six months, tried her best to look at least pleased, if not authentically smitten with love’s arrow. Her blonde curls were pinned in the latest style and she was quite the picture dressed in Spitalfields silk and garlands of ivy.

  Mother Hopkins cried real tears of joy, but Cato imagined she was not thinking of the couple’s future life of matrimonial happiness but the guineas she would squeeze from Lord Peters to engineer a way out of the union for his son. Her own hair had been that shade of yellow once, she’d said. But now it was salt-and-pepper grey and hidden under a widow’s veil.

  Cato picked up the fiddle as the bride and groom signed the register. His fingers were so cold he wondered if the tune would come out straight at all.

  Mother Hopkins waited until the ink was set and blotted, and then nodded at Cato, who struck up ‘No Truer Love’ with all the energy he could muster. Addeline, listening downstairs, would hear her cue and come dashing up the wooden stairs, red in the face as if she’d run all the way from Piccadilly to warn our groom to return home at once in case the wedding was discovered. The groom would usually hesitate – after all, the adjoining bedroom had already been booked for the evening – but Mother Hopkins could usually get him downstairs and into a chair for home in five minutes.

  Sure enough, Addeline came heavy booted up the stairs, wearing her boy’s jacket and squashed and dusty old tricorn hat. Cato could swear there was more than one footfall but he was concentrating on a difficult place in the tune, and then suddenly Addy was there, red faced, agitated, wringing her hat in her hands for an instant before she was pushed aside by a man as big as the door frame.

  The pistol shot made the parson faint. He dissolved into a pool of black fustian cloth. Cato dropped his fiddle and felt Addy grab his hand and throw him to the floor.

  ‘Get down!’ she hissed.

  Two men had followed her up. From the buckles on their shoes – silver; Cato reckoned Mendes would give them plenty for either set – they were wealthy. He heard Mother Hopkins coughing, and when he looked, one had a sword at Bella’s throat. It was right up against the skin and Cato could see her veins pulsing and her chest heaving and he wanted to stand up and push the man aside, because even though it was Bella, who would sometimes tease him or ignore him, she did not deserve that. One move and the blade was through her skin!

  But Addy, seeing the look in his eye, held him down and whispered, ‘Cato! No! It is Lord Peters and his man!’

  ‘Father! Please!’ Edgar tried to stand between the swordsman and Bella.

  ‘Father?’ Lord Peters spat out the word as if it tasted rotten. ‘You still have the nerve to call me that!’ He turned to Mother Hopkins, who in the absence of the parson – still out stone cold on the floor – was the most senior person in the room.

  ‘You! Crone! Is this your doing? I cannot believe he’ – he pointed at his son, now shaking and pale as Bella’s silks – ‘could be part of such devilry without some assistance!’

  Mother Hopkins glared at Lord Peters so hard, Cato thought she would spit fire, but when she spoke, it was softly, gently.

  ‘Sirs, please. Put down your arms. We are but women and children here.’

  Cato flinched. He and Addy were no children. He was thirteen at the last count and Addy roundabouts twelve, both most definitely old enough to look after themselves.

  Lord Peters nodded at the swordsman, who then lowered his blade. Bella swooned slightly. Her new husband gallantly held her up.

  ‘Step away from the trollop!’ Lord Peters thundered.

  ‘She is not a trollop!’ In comparison with his father’s, Edgar Peters’s voice was thin and reedy, and Cato saw that he was only a year or two older than him
self. Next to him Bella looked every inch a grown woman. Edgar Peters was most definitely a boy. Cato felt sorry for the lad, and there was another feeling, a tingling that he knew was not just the cold. Shame, perhaps.

  ‘She is my wife! We are in love!’ Edgar Peters stamped his foot.

  ‘Stupid boy! In love? You are sixteen! Sixteen! And besides, what has marriage to do with love?’ Lord Peters turned back to Mother Hopkins. ‘Well? How much did you want? How was it to be, the price to escape this tawdry union? A guinea a month in perpetuity or a lump sum when we arrange his real wedding – although what woman would want this excuse for a son I cannot say. Well, crone, speak!’

  ‘I am not a crone,’ Mother Hopkins said with dignity. ‘And my daughter Arabella is as fine a girl—’

  ‘Cut to the chase, woman! This is the Liberty of the Fleet, the biggest open prison and open sewer in all London. This is not St Paul’s! A marriage here is a marriage far from prying eyes or society. It’s hardly a marriage at all! Don’t tell me this was any more than a sham, a beau trap!’

  Mother Hopkins gasped theatrically. Cato, watching, thought she would have made an excellent actress. Lying seemed to come so easily to her.

  Lord Peters sighed. ‘For pity’s sake, woman. I am not a fresh-faced country bumpkin with no knowledge of the city or people like you. Now, business. I will give you five guineas to burn the register.’

  ‘Father, no! I love her! You shall not part us!’ Edgar pleaded.

  Mother Hopkins said nothing. Bella moved away from her husband and nearer to the fire.

  ‘Bella!’ Edgar Peters looked longingly at his wife and Cato felt even sorrier for him.

  ‘Five guineas, and if you keep me waiting any longer, I will burn the damn register myself and my man here will let his sword do the work on you and your daughter.’

  Mother Hopkins took a deep breath. ‘Then I will see your money first, sir!’

  ‘Madam, no!’ Edgar looked at Bella. ‘My love! They can’t do this. Our union has been blessed!’