The Blackthorn Key

The problem was that in the five years since our king had returned to us, everyone had learned their lesson. No one dared walk the streets ungarnished. We’d almost got lucky earlier, when an oak apple had fallen off a gentleman’s overcoat, but by the time we got there, he’d managed to pluck it out of the mud after being introduced to four tomatoes and an onion.

By late afternoon, I was getting restless. “This is terrible,” I said. “What am I going to do with half a dozen rotten eggs?”

“Put them in one of your remedies?” Tom said.

I was just about to retort when I stopped in my tracks.

“What’s the matter?” Tom said.

Nathaniel Stubb was the matter. I saw him, on the other side of Lombard Street. He was pushing through the crowd, swiping at children who got too close with his silver cane.

My blood grew hot. Master Benedict had claimed it wasn’t Stubb who’d attacked him. I wasn’t sure I believed him, and frankly, I didn’t care. I wanted vengeance. And I’d have it, on that man over there.

That’s when I saw his collar.

I couldn’t believe my luck. Another birthday present, this one from God Himself.

I grabbed Tom’s arm. “He’s not wearing the oak,” I said.

“Yes, he is.” Tom pointed.

I deflated. He was. An absurdly small—pathetic, really—oak apple was hanging from Stubb’s coat. It had slipped down its pin and now dangled loosely from his lapel.

Loosely?

Tom knew that look. “No, no, no.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” I said.

“That’s not fair play.”

“Only God may judge,” I intoned. “Now go knock it off.”

He looked panicked. “Me? No way.”

“I can’t do it. He knows who I am.” Actually, he’d probably forgotten me again, but still.

“If he knows you,” Tom said, “he might know me. Forget it.”

“Please,” I said. “Pleeeeeease. He’s getting away.”

But Tom folded his arms and wouldn’t budge.

Then I had an idea. A great idea.

I ran ahead, Tom following reluctantly. Up on the corner, three parish boys, maybe nine or ten years old, were playing at jousting, sprinting at full speed toward each other with badly bent maple branches. A girl of about twelve sat on the stoop of a nearby fishmonger’s stall, seemingly oblivious to the smell. She watched the action, twirling a lock of her auburn hair around her finger and petting a gray alley cat that sat purring in her lap.

“Hello,” I said.

The boys stopped their game and eyed us warily; me with the eggs, and Tom just because he towered over everyone. One of the boys, thin and wiry, squared off against us with a curious combination of boldness and fear. “Wha’d’you want?”

I pointed at Stubb, on the other side of the street. “Knock his pin off, and I’ll give you each an egg to throw.”

To his credit, the boy considered it. Unfortunately, the swinging silver cane won the battle. “Nah. He’ll hit me.”

“Not if you’re fast enough,” I said. But he shook his head.

This was so frustrating. I turned to leave.

“I know you,” a high voice said.

I turned back. It was the girl on the stoop who’d spoken.

“You were at Cripplegate,” she said.

She surprised me. Few of the orphans at Cripplegate were girls, and they were housed separately. We saw them mostly at mealtimes, when older children were assigned to duties helping the masters and caring for the younger ones. I’d been placed in the kitchen, boiling broths under the supervision of the head cook, Sedley, who liked to crack his charges on the forehead with a long wooden spoon when they made a mistake. I’d taken enough spoons to the skull to eventually become pretty good at seasoning the soup.

In fact, my broths were how I became apprenticed to an apothecary in the first place. Occasionally, men of high standing would tour the school. One Sunday, when I was nine years old, Cripplegate was visited for dinner by the three members of the Apothecaries’ Guild Council. As I served the soup, one of the Council, Oswyn Colthurst, called me over.