.’ He pressed his arm harder against the turnkey’s throat, making him choke. ‘Is that clear?’
Cross nodded, veins bulging as he tried to breathe. Jakes let go and he slid to the floor, panting hard.
Jakes bent down to whisper in my ear. ‘If there’s trouble ask the Ranger to send a message. I’ll come if I can.’ He patted my shoulder then stomped back down the corridor, slamming the Lodge gate closed behind him.
Cross pulled himself back on his feet. We glared at each other for a moment, a pair of tom cats fighting over… what, exactly? Then Cross sighed, deflated, as if he’d had the same thought.
‘Oh, bugger off,’ he said, and limped away back to his room.
I pressed my hand to my chest, gave a deep bow, and did as I was told.
I needed money.
Hardly a startling revelation in a debtors’ prison, but it was true and it was urgent, nonetheless. I had seen enough of the Common Side – even that brief glimpse from the Tap Room balcony – to know I could not survive it. The certainty of it was like a blade at my throat.
I sat down on Fleet’s bench beneath the Lodge and stared hard across the cobbled yard, weighing my choices. No, not the yard, I corrected myself – the Park. This was the same as school, or college; the sooner I learned the language of the Marshalsea the better. I could see now why Fleet favoured this bench. From here I could watch the whole of the Master’s Side go about its business, like old King Henry watching a tournament. It was the perfect place to gather information, and information was valuable currency in a prison.
Thinking of Fleet made me wonder if I’d been too hasty in rejecting his company. Even here on the Master’s Side I would need a friend to watch my back, and he’d frightened the wits out of a man without lifting a finger. For some reason he had taken an interest in me. An unsettling interest – but perhaps one I could turn to my advantage.
In the middle of the Park, beneath the lamppost, a debtor in a threadbare coat was deep in conversation with an older man of near sixty; a porter, I supposed, or perhaps another turnkey, given the set of keys at his belt. His clothes were mud-brown from his wig down to his stockings, save for a bright red neckerchief at his throat, which gave him the appearance of a giant robin. His brows, and the stubble on his cheek, were a mix of soft ash and honey, as if he were fighting his age bristle by bristle. He slipped a letter to the prisoner then waited, hands clasped behind his back, gnarled fingers twitching in anticipation.
