In the tiny rear living quarters, a woman sat on a neatly made bed, nursing a baby. I had a second to register the aromas of fried garlic and onions before racing after Rachel toward the open door of a rear entrance.
I misjudged the door frame’s height. My forehead slammed into the low, wooden beam. Green and white sparks bloomed through my sight. The blade dropped from my suddenly nerveless hand. Two beats later, the blinding pain hit and I nearly went to my knees.
Rachel panted. “We cannot tarry. You know not what Eustace Clarkson is capable of. We must away.”
I couldn’t leave my dagger behind. Collum had given it to me. Had trusted me with it. I bent and groped for it through a nimbus of agony. I nicked my thumb but managed to snatch it up before Rachel dragged me out the door.
A crash, angry yells, and a cry of alarm sounded from inside the shop. Rachel slammed the door shut and wedged a stone in the jamb to slow them. With a firm grip under my elbow, she hauled me with her. At the entrance to the street, I heard the door crash open behind us.
Close. Too close.
Rachel gasped when a cloaked, hooded figure darted toward us from the mouth of the shadowed, narrow alley. I skidded into her back, almost knocking her over. I knew what she was thinking. Trapped. We’re trapped. But when the person quickly shoved past us, Rachel wasted no time. She grabbed my arm, wrenching me out onto the main street. The ring of swords colliding sounded behind us, and I could barely keep up as Rachel hustled us away. Through a haze of red pain, something about the way the stranger had moved—agile, fluid—niggled at me.
My vision tripled and blurred as Rachel led me down one winding street after another.
When I faltered for the third time, she paused, her face going ashen as she panted. “Oh, I am sorry, mistress. You are bleeding. I—I didn’t realize. May I take your blade from you? I’d hate for you to faint and fall upon it.”
When I swiped at my eyes to clear them, my fingers came away slick with blood.
“No,” I said, “I’ve got it.” Blinking, I blindly fumbled the blade back into its sheath.
Rachel scraped back strands of her chestnut hair before scanning my face. “We should get you home at once, mistress. Where do you live?”
Through pulsing throbs, I told her of Mabray House, and where I thought it was located.
“I know it well.” Rachel nodded. “But we must stop that bleeding first.”
She guided me to a stack of crates draped with fishing net. Layers of silvery scales littered the muddy ground, reflecting the wintry sky in a dull rainbow. The pain and pervasive stench of rotten fish made my gut roll and heave.
Kneeling before me, the girl’s golden-brown eyes examined an area high on the left side of my forehead. “Forgive me, mistress, but you look quite the horror.”
Murmuring to herself, she reached into one of several leather bags hanging from the belt circling her narrow waist. Tipping a corked bottle onto soft cloth, she deftly cleaned away the blood and wound a long strip around my head. A fresh green smell of herbs and cut grass soothed the nausea but did little to ease the agony firing through my skull.
“Oh, but you must be in pain, mistress. Back at my grandfather’s shop, I have the black poppy. It would help, though it be a far walk.”
Black poppy? That was opium. Pure and undistilled. Like taking a shot of heroin. Tempting, but I wasn’t quite to that point yet.
“N-no thank you,” I managed. “Just give me a minute, please.”
It was more than a minute. But eventually my pulse slowed. The pounding receded enough so that I could at least see again. I exhaled long and slow, then turned to Rachel. “Thank you.”
“You look better,” she said, her anxious expression clearing. “Mistress ah . . .”
“Hope,” I told her. “Hope Walton.”
“Well, Mistress Walton, I am Rachel bat Judah. And I thank you for saving me.” She offered me a hand up. “I think you are new to Londontown, yes?”
I smiled. Oh, you have no idea.
I noticed she’d replaced the yellow silk veil. Her gown was lovely, made of fine, moss-colored wool, with amber sleeves that draped elegantly over her slim white hands. As she leaned down to pick up a dropped cloth, a chain of interlocking gold links popped out from inside her bodice. At the end swung a circular pendant set with an opal. A big one.
“It’s good to meet you, too, Mistress Rachel.” I tore my gaze from the pendant. “And I thank you, too.”
We started down the street. Though wobbly at first, I soon got my feet back under me as we strolled across an open, cobbled area. There I got my first real look at the mighty Thames, and the famous London Bridge. The traffic increased as we neared the river. People lined up to cross the rickety wooden passage, while wagons and horses boarded flat-bottomed ferries that crossed dozens of times a day.
“Mistress Rachel!” A rangy soldier in his early twenties thundered up on a sorrel gelding. He dismounted in a leap and flew toward us. I lurched back, ready to run. Then I saw Rachel’s expression.