The Whipping Boy (7 page)

"Best I could afford. Catch me some castle rats and I'll make a special feature. The king's own rats!"

"Not my line o' work in the castle, Smudge."

"It's not true you're whipping boy, is it?"

Jemmy felt a flush of embarrassment and dodged the question. "I've learned to read and write."

"Naw!"

"The bottom truth. I've read many a book from beginning to end."

"What's in 'em?"

"All nature o' things. I can do sums, too."

Smudge was impressed. "Ain't that a wonder! I never heard of a rat-catcher could read and write and do sums. It don't fit. Don't forget your old friends when you grow up to be duke or something."

"I aim to go back to the sewers," replied Jemmy stiffly. "I'll catch you some rats first chance."

But even as he said it, Jemmy felt a bleak discomfort. He would miss the shelves of books he'd left behind in the castle. In the sewers, he hadn't been aware of his own ignorance. He saw no choice now but to return. But he realized that he'd lost his taste for ignorance.

Smudge was saying, "Who's the cove?"

"What?"

"Your pal."

"This is—" Jemmy caught himself. He began to stammer. "I mean, this is—"

The prince answered for him. "Friend-O'- Jemmy's the name."

"Then Friend-O'-Jemmy'11 do." Smudge put out his hand to shake.

Jemmy caught Prince Brat's momentary confusion. "He never shakes hands."

"Of course I do," said the prince with a quick grin. He took Smudge's hand. "Glad to shake your hand, Smudge."

"Likewise."

And Jemmy dragged the prince away. Smudge had committed a terrible offense: no one was allowed to shake hands with a prince. "Why did you do that?"

"Because I've never shaken hands before."

"He could be hung for less!"

The prince was staring at his hand. "It felt friendly ... trusting. I may introduce the practice at court when I become king."

Jemmy's ears pricked up. King, is it? he thought. So it was just bluster that you might never go back to the castle. Gaw, I hope you don't want to learn to catch rats first.

Moments later they came to a stout old woman with hands as gnarled as tree roots. Beside her, munching grass, stood a cow with a brass ring in its nose.

"New milk!" the cow lady called out. "New milk, fresh from the cow! Best in the land! New milk!"

Jemmy handed over the coin. The milk lady fished two mugs out of a tub of water, sat on a stool, and began to milk the cow directly into the mugs. Her aim was as skilled as an archer's.

"Have you heard the earful?" she asked. "Our prince has been abducticated. Imagine!"

"Imagine," the prince replied coolly. She was looking directly at him.

"Our darlin' poor king!" she went on. "Weepin' his royal eyes out, no doubt. Though why he'd spring a tear for the little toad, I don't know. A mighty terror, they say, is Prince Brat. Pity us the day
he
becomes king, eh?"

She handed over the pair of mugs. Jemmy drank the warm milk down in unbroken gulps. But then he noticed the prince standing motionless, a vague, unseeing look in his eyes. For certain he knew everyone called him Prince Brat behind his back, didn't he?

"Drink up, lad," said the cow lady. "My stars, I've never seen such rags on a boy. They look like castoffs from the old-clothes man." She gave out a joking laugh. "Drink up before you scare off business."

The prince drained the mug and shuffled away.

As they filled the potato kettle at the pump, he looked at Jemmy. "Treasonous old woman. I could have her tongue ripped off for lying."

But there was no steam in his voice. Taking a whipping was bad enough, but to learn that his subjects dreaded the day he'd grow up and become king had deeply shaken him.

"She meant no harm," Jemmy murmured, keeping his eyes alert for soldiers.

"Is that what they call me—Prince Brat?"

Jemmy nodded.

"Does everyone hate me?"

"More'n likely."

"What about you?"

Jemmy hesitated for a moment. "I did. But maybe I don't." Jemmy couldn't sort out his feelings. "The pot's full. Let's go."

It took the two of them to carry the iron kettle, now full of water. They passed a magician with a bald head, a street fiddler, and an umbrella seller, his wares opened around his feet like black silken mushrooms. Suddenly there loomed up a soldier on horseback, his eyes on the search.

There was nothing to do but brazen it out. Jemmy took a tighter grip on the handle, but was ready to fly if he had to. The soldier passed by with only the merest glance.

What was he looking for, a prince in fine velvets and a crown cocked on his head? Was it clothes that made a prince, Jemmy wondered, just as rags made a street boy? He had a notion that the prince felt secretly disappointed not to be recognized by any of his subjects. Wasn't he getting his head stuffed with surprises!

Before long, potatoes were boiling in the pot. Not far off, Betsy had drawn a crowd with Petunia, now balancing a gentleman's hat on his nose. And then the bear began passing the hat for tips.

Jemmy no longer felt the slightest concern about the soldiers. He had no doubt that Hold-Your-Nose Billy would trace him and the prince to the fair. Hadn't they fallen into the company of a girl with a trained bear? Where else would she be going?

Finally, Captain Nips began spearing boiled potatoes, and Betsy returned with Petunia.

"We could eat a bushel!" she exclaimed, jingling a handful of coins.

"Courtesy to fellow artistes," said Captain Nips, refusing the money. He split open a pair of plump potatoes. "Salt and pepper?"

"Pepper for me, salt for Petunia."

Captain Nips reached into one coat pocket for a pinch of salt, and into the other for pepper.

"Salt for me," said Jemmy.

"And you?" Captain Nips asked the prince.

The heir to the throne balked for a moment, and Jemmy knew why. He'd certainly never eaten a

potato before. In the castle, roots were regarded as peasant food. "I—I don't know," the prince stammered.

"When in doubt, salt," chuckled Captain Nips. And then he began calling out to the passing crowd: "Hot-hot-hot potatoes! Captain Nips' hot-hot potatoes!"

Jemmy gorged himself, anxious to be off and not certain when he would eat again. The prince nibbled at first, with his fingers, and then threw his royal pride to the winds. He bit off whole mouthfuls.

A ballad seller was working his way through the crowd, crying out his wares. He waved a bamboo pole with long paper streamers fluttering from the tip.

"Three yards of songs, a copper! Old songs, new songs! Sing 'em yourself! Ten verses of 'Poor Pitiful Polly'—will make you weep! Sixteen verses of that notable highwayman Hold-Your-Nose Billy!"

Jemmy's ears pricked up as the ballad seller began singing a sample of his merchandise.

"
Hold-Your-Nose Billy, a wild man is he,
Hang him from a gallows tree.
Here he comes, there he goes:
Don't forget to hold your nose.
"

The street song had once amused Jemmy. But now he only sharpened his eyes.

He wiped his hands on his sleeves and turned to Captain Nips. "Thanks for the grub, sir."

"Where are you off to?" asked Betsy. "Here's the place to put a jingle in your pockets. Can't you turn cartwheels or something?"

"I catch rats," Jemmy said simply.

"Rats?" Betsy made a face. "What on earth for?"

"There's good money in sewer rats. The meaner, the better."

"My eyes!" exclaimed Betsy. "Don't you get bit?"

"Many a time," said Jemmy.

Captain Nips cocked an ear. "What's that running patterer yelling about?"

A crowlike voice pierced the air. And then the news seller appeared, his tongue wagging like a bell clapper, a bundle of broadsides under his arm.

"
PRINCE SOLD TO GYPSIES! THE TRUE AND
GENUINE FACTS! INK STILL WET! WHIPPING
BOY CHARGED WITH DASTARDLY SCHEME!
KING OFFERS REWARD FOR THE UNSPEAKABLE
RASCAL! DEAD OR ALIVE! FULL DESCRIPTION!
GET YOUR COPY! KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED
AND CATCH THE REWARD!
"

The running patterer was selling his broadsides almost as fast as he could yell.

The facts were cockeyed, but Jemmy grabbed his birdcage, backed off—and was gone.

Jemmy headed for the only safe place he knew—the sewers. He scrambled along the docks.

And the prince dogged him every step of the way.

Jemmy turned on him like a cornered rat. "Ain't you done enough? You've got a price put on my head! Go home, and go to blazes!"

"But you're my friend," the prince stated, as if he were issuing a royal decree.

"Don't count on it!" replied Jemmy.

He started down stone steps to the river, but the prince stopped him with a sudden, urgent yelp. "Look!"

Looming up on the cobbled wayside came the hulk of Hold-Your-Nose Billy, with Cutwater following as close as a cow's tail.

Jemmy didn't wait to be spotted. But it was too late. The big outlaw, his hair and beard looking bonfire red under the bright sun, gave a distant yell and altered course.

Jemmy and the prince took the stairs in leaps. The tide was coming in and the mud flat had shrunk to the width of a path.

Jemmy led the way through a tarred forest of wharf pilings and over a derelict river barge. He leaped off into shallow water. He could already see the great brick mouth of a main sewer.

"Don't leave footprints in the mud!" he warned.

They splashed along the water's edge—and were there.

The arched sewer stood tall enough for a horse and rider. Jemmy leaped the mud and was in.

But the prince balked. "It's black as night in there!"

"Jump! Quick!"

The prince steeled himself and made the leap. Jemmy advanced into the tunnel, but the prince held back.

"Follow me! We'll be lucky if they didn't catch sight of us!"

The prince stood terrified of the darkness ahead. He had turned dead white.

Jemmy made a grab and yanked the prince after him. "You'll get me caught!"

"I'm—I'm scared, Jemmy!"

"Don't fret about the dark! There are rats in here. Even grown men are scared of 'em! Hang on to me."

Deeper and deeper, darker and darker, they sloshed through the cavernous sewer. The gutters of the city overhead had dried, but old rain seeped and dripped from the glazed brick walls.

Soon the mouth had receded to little more than a pinhole of light, and Jemmy stopped to catch his breath. "Blacker'n a stack of black cats in here, ain't it? We should come to another passage before long. They'll never find us. Ease off my arm! You'll break it."

"Jemmy." Hardly above a breath, the prince's voice was stiff with fear.

Jemmy? Not Jemmy-From-The-Streets? Not boy? The wonder of it. Jemmy thought. Like we was old knockabout friends of the streets.

"I wish I were like you," muttered the prince.

Jemmy was amazed. "Like me!"

"You're not afraid of anything."

'"Course I am. I'm afraid your pa'll hang me!"

"Not likely."

Jemmy gave a small snort. "Not likely, unless you give away my hiding place down here."

"Do you think I'd do that, Jemmy?"

"I don't know. Let's keep moving."

As they edged along the wet walls, Jemmy gave his reply a second thought. He'd wronged the prince. This wasn't the same Prince Brat who'd run away the night before, bored with his own meanness and haughtiness and cruelty. "Reckon I do trust you," said Jemmy.

And the prince replied, "I won't go back to the castle unless you go with me."

"Gaw!"

The main sewer branched off, and Jemmy had to stop to get his bearings. Careful, he thought. That passage to the left leads to the brewery. You could get eaten alive! Keep to the right branch.

In the hollowness of the sewer there came a soft scurring of feet, and then a distinct squeaking sound. The prince's fingers locked on Jemmy's arm like a manacle.