The Thief Taker
Authors: C.S. Quinn
PRAISE FOR
THE THIEF TAKER
:
‘Captivating, vivid writing. Descriptions come straight off the pages and permeate deep into your senses, and a truly electrifying pace. Quinn is a brilliant new talent!’
— Peter James, international bestselling author
‘A fast and dangerous ride through Restoration London where plague stalks every street and death is hidden behind the iron-beaked mask of a plague doctor. Sharp, atmospheric and sumptuous.’
— Simon Toyne, author of
Sanctus
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 C.S. Quinn
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477824931
ISBN-10: 1477824936
Cover design by bürosüd
o
München,
www.buerosued.de
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014936220
To
Professor Vivien Jones and Dr Robert Jones. Thanks for all the history.
London, 1665
In the year of the Black Death London is a city of half-timbered houses and dark towers. In the narrow backstreets, astrologists predict the future, and alchemists conjure wonders. Traitors’ heads line London Bridge, where witches sell potions, and gamesters turn cards. The river flowing beneath lands a daily cargo of smuggler gangs and pirates.
England has a new King, a monarch of the blood. But since his arrival, plague sweeps into the city like a deadly judgement. And already, there is talk amongst Londoners that blood has become dangerous currency.
Prologue
No one said it out loud. But there had been signs. Tokens. On
her bo
dy.
At one time the family had considered themselves
fortunate
.
Their half-timbered house set them proudly apart from the
tenement
-dwellers who were crammed three generations to a single room. Now they sat blank and scared in the dwindling twilight.
A fire had been lit to clean the air, making the summer heat stifling. Cleansing spices wound a sickly smoke into the shadowy room. The cauldron holding yesterday’s pottage sat desolate on the dirt floor.
Anna-Maria, the second-eldest daughter, sat on a three-legged stool with her sisters arranged at her feet. She was sewing, but the needle kept slipping from her sweat-slicked fingers.
There was a heavy knock at the door. Anna-Maria laid down her work on the worn wooden table and made to rise. But her younger sister was already on her feet, gait little more assured than a toddle. The tiny hand lifted the latch and with difficulty drew back the heavy door. Her mouth dropped open in terror.
The monster was shrouded from head to toe in heavy oilcloth. An iron mask covered his features, jutting forward into a foot-long beak. Two eye-holes had been reduced to blank black spaces by a pair of thick crystal goggles – a grotesque bird peering curiously into the house.
She took a step back and collided with the reassuring warmth of her father.
‘It is only the plague doctor,’ he said, as a thin wail of horror began to emit from the child. ‘Come,’ he beckoned the guest, looking uneasily at the unseeing figure which appeared to have cocked its head to one side so as to better hear the girl’s wail.
‘I am sorry for the warmth of the house,’ he added.
‘The girl is of twenty-two years?’ A guttural voice came from somewhere within the dark shape. Now that the doctor had been ushered by the hearthside his eye coverings glinted in the firelight.
‘She . . . she is twenty-two,’ agreed the father.
‘And strong?’
‘She is . . . was a healthy girl,’ said the father, his face tightening at the thought of his daughter helpless with the sickness.
The doctor opened the dark oilcloth and drew out a large pouch. Then he unrolled a length of leather. Strapped pitilessly inside, its eyes bulging in pain, was a live toad. Anna-Maria’s face twisted in sympathy, but her father took her hand. ‘It is a necessary remedy,’ he said. ‘The creature will not suffer.’
The doctor’s black cloth gloves grasped the toad firmly, causing it to writhe and croak in his grip. The tapered fingers of the gloves looked like talons, thought Anna-Maria. Not like a human person at all. She had a sudden image of a deformed fiend hunched inside the dark canvas coat.
‘Keep it alive,’ explained the doctor, handing the toad to the father. ‘It will purify the air and save the young ones from harm.’
The man gulped, nodded and handed the toad to Anna-Maria who recoiled from the slimy skin. She moved to the collection of clay crockery and wooden utensils arranged around the wooden fireplace and dropped the wriggling animal into a long jug.
‘The daughter is upstairs?’ The doctor was pointing to the
ladder
.
‘I will take you to her.’
The doctor put up a warning hand.
‘If the tokens are already upon her then breathing her air is deadly. I shall treat the girl alone.’
The father looked to his other children and nodded. ‘Do
whatever you can to save her,’ he said. ‘No matter the price I will find it.’
The mask waved slowly in agreement. And then the heavy
figure
began a lumbering ascent to the second floor.
It was over an hour later that he moved heavily back down the ladder, the oversized beak swaying with his step.
‘I have done what I can and she is resting now.’
‘She is . . . will she be well?’
The gloved hands folded themselves in a steeple gesture. ‘If she lasts this night then all may be well. But none must disturb her.’
He moved towards the low wooden door, his oilcloth shroud sweeping behind him. There was a line of blood on the hem,
Anna-Maria
noticed. He must have bled Eva to bring down her fever. She shuddered at the thought of the medical knives beneath the cloak. Her father closed the door gently behind the doctor.
The littlest girl took up a piece of cloth, her childish fingers fumbling with the simple needlework.
As the fire settled to a red smoulder, the atmosphere thickened with the smoke. On the mantle, the toad scrabbled pitifully in its warm confines. The heavy walls seemed to be closing in.
Several hours rolled away, and the small girl held up the finished fabric for inspection. Her father gave it a distracted half glance.
‘It is a fine stuff and will fetch a pretty penny,’ he said. But as he looked the white cloth took on a sudden red stain, which bloomed like a poppy amongst the other stitched flowers. Then another blossomed, and another. Something red was dripping from the ceiling. From the room in which Eva lay.
Anna-Maria looked up in alarm. But before she could find her voice her father had run past her and scaled the ladder. From the ground floor they heard his cries.
Anna-Maria was the first to reach him. Her father tried to push her away, but she had already seen it.
She gasped out a sob. The blood-soaked room blurred.
Through her tears the terrible remains began to shift and distort. There was a shape on the red-raised skin of the corpse. It was a crown. Above a loop of three knots. And two words.
‘He Returns.’