‘Oo are ye and what d’yer wish in Sty Lane?’
Hal struggled with the thick accent, knowing it was English but unable to make it out without squinting. Kirkpatrick, seemingly easy, offered a smile and a spread of empty hands.
‘Looking fer Mabs,’ he declared. ‘Heard there was work for lads as was not afraid o’ blood.’
Which could mean much or little to slaughtermen, Hal thought, half crouched and silent in his role in the mummery. The rat-furred hat swivelled to take them both in, while the others circled in a ring; used to herding pigs, Hal thought wildly, his mouth dry, his heart thundering in his throat.
‘Sojers,’ Rat-Fur declared and then spat sideways. Kirkpatrick shrugged.
‘Have been, will be again if the shine is right. We knows the way of it, certes.’
Warned, Rat-Fur held his distance while the rain plinked and splashed. Then he nodded at Hal.
‘Tongueless, is he?’
‘From the Italies,’ Kirkpatrick countered smoothly. ‘Knows little of a decent way of speaking.’
Which hid Hal’s Scots accent.
‘Where did you hear about Mabs?’
The question came sudden as a hip-throw, but Kirkpatrick was balanced for it.
‘Old friend,’ he replied and winked. ‘Lamprecht. Ugly bastard of a pardoner. Said there was work in Sty Lane, with Mabs. Izzat yourself?’
Rat-Fur chuckled, glanced swiftly to his left. Oho, Hal thought, there is someone unseen jerking this one’s strings.
‘Not me,’ Rat-Fur said, while the others laughed, though there was little mirth in it. ‘Come and meet the bold Mabs, then.’
Cautious, sweating, Hal followed Kirkpatrick, who followed Rat-Fur, with the others closing in so that the flesh from the nape of Hal’s neck to his heels crawled with the unseen presence of them at his back. They went sideways, into a place of unbelievable stink and squeals from pigs jostling each other, as if they sensed that these men were slaughterers. That or the smell of old porker blood from them, Hal thought …
They halted. Rat-Fur leaned on the enclosure fence, where slurry slopped under a fury of trotters, then turned and grinned his last few ambered teeth at Kirkpatrick.
‘Mabs,’ he said. For a moment Kirkpatrick was confused – then a huge hump of the stinking slurry moved and the biggest sow he had ever seen lumbered forward, making him recoil; the slaughtermen laughed.
‘Mabs,’ said a new voice, ‘smells new blood and wonders if it is tasty.’
Hal and Kirkpatrick whirled and saw a lump of a woman with the biggest set of paps either of them had seen – bigger even, Hal thought, than Alehouse Maggie’s. She had a face like unbaked bread, grey and doughy and shapeless, though the cheeks were red with windchafe and drink. Her eyes were buried raisins.
‘Mabs,’ she repeated, looking fondly at the huge sow, which had now rolled over and was luxuriating in slurry, her line of fat, dangling teats dripping.
‘Queen of the Faerie,’ the woman went on wistfully. ‘Her name and mine.’
‘Ah,’ said Kirkpatrick, struggling. ‘Indeed.’
‘Mistress Maeve,’ Hal interrupted smoothly, giving the woman her full queen’s name and forgetting himself entirely. ‘We come seeking one Lamprecht, whom you ken. D’ye have word for us on his whereaboots?’
Kirkpatrick closed his eyes with the horror of it. The woman’s currants turned from the pig to Hal.
‘Now that is the strangest Italies I have heard spoke,’ she declared. ‘Much similar to Scotch, if me ears are working.’
Her men growled and seemed to loom closer. Kirkpatrick put a hand on the hilt of his dagger.
‘Stand back,’ he warned. ‘My friend has the right of it – we seek only Lamprecht, nothing more.’
‘And the Rood,’ Hal added, so that Kirkpatrick cursed him to silence.
‘Wood?’ queried Mabs.
‘Rood,’ repeated Hal before Kirkpatrick could stop him. ‘That what was in the reliquary ye split between Jop and Lamprecht.’
Christ’s Bones, Kirkpatrick thought, feeling his palm slick on the knife, he has doomed us all.
‘Lamb Prick,’ Mabs said slowly, rolling the name like a gob of greasy spit round her mouth, ‘is not welcome here. Nor that big whoreson dolt Jop, Gog’s malison on him – though I am told he is dead.’
She spat and looked slyly at the pair of them.
‘King’s men took him, or so I was told. Put him to the rack and the iron, or me name is not Queen Maeve. An’’ere yer are,’ she added, gentle as a poisoned kiss, ‘come lookin’ fer me.’
She thinks Jop spilled his all and that we are King’s men, Hal realized and started to deny it. Kirkpatrick, seeing his mouth open and fearing the worst, leaped into the breach of it.
‘Well,’ he managed through clenched teeth. ‘An error. No harm done …’
‘No?’