The Whipping Boy (8 page)

"Nothing but a rat," Jemmy said. "Two of 'em. But nothing to worry about yet. Dark ain't so bad if you know what's in it. Like off to the left. So hang on to me."

The prince's voice was almost inaudible. "What's to the left?"

"A brewery overhead. They empty their used-up grain down the sewer, and the rats feed and breed by the hundreds. Grow big as street cats. And short-tempered! They'll swarm all over you and hang on by their teeth."

Still clinging to the birdcage, Jemmy continued feeling his way along. He wondered how he'd ever felt at home in these dank, smelly sewers. Then a sudden flicker of light from a side passage stopped him. He peered down the tunnel and saw a figure with a candle fixed to the stiff bill of his cap. A rat-catcher! He could see a cage full of squealing rats.

He entered the passage, and the man looked up.

"Who goes there?"

"Didn't mean to give you a scare," Jemmy whispered.

"This is no place for boys!"

The man's full voice boomed and echoed through the sewers, and Jemmy took a quick look behind.

"Hold it down, sir!" he said softly. And then he thought he recognized the rat-catcher. "Ain't you Ol' Johnny Tosher?"

With the candle glowing from his hat bill, the man bent forward.

"I declare! Is that you, Jemmy?"

"It is."

"Ain't you grown since you left the sewers!"

"I'd be obliged if you'd snuff out your candle, sir. There's bloodthirsty ruffians after us."

"Speak up," said the old man, cupping a hand to his ear. "Is it true you've got taken up by the king himself? That's the gossip. What are you doin' back in the sewers?"

"Running for our lives!"

"Eh?"

"Your candle'll give us away."

"What's that?"

"You'd do us a kindness to pinch it out."

"Speak up, lad. Now you're a king's little gentleman, they learn you to talk in whispers? Come back for a visit, have you! Oh, your pa'd be proud." He gave the top of Jemmy's head a pat. "They say you're Prince Brat's own whipping boy." Suddenly the rat-catcher straightened. "Who's there?"

Looming up in the yellow glow stood an immense hairy figure and a rattleboned man.

Jemmy's heart stopped cold.

"What the blazes!" roared Hold-Your-Nose Billy. "They flummoxed us, Cutwater! That one ain't the prince! It's the other!"

"I heard!" Cutwater cried out. "We whipped the prince himself! Worse'n common murder, you said!"

"Aye, the king'll skin us alive by inches!"

"Mercy on us!"

"But not if he don't find out!"

Both lurched forward to grab the boys. Jemmy swung the birdcage, knocking the candle flying. The flame sputtered out in the murky water, and the sewer was thrown into sudden darkness.

"Run for it!" Jemmy yelled out.

"I got one!" cackled Cutwater.

"That's me you got!" bellowed the rat-catcher. "Scurvy riffraff! Who are you?"

Jemmy flattened himself against the wall, and found the prince already there. He heard a splash and a curse as Hold-Your-Nose Billy must have tumbled over Cutwater and the rat-catcher.

In an urgent whisper, the prince asked, "Which way?"

Jemmy made an instant decision. The villains might be able to run them down in this smaller side channel. Back to the main sewer!

He gave the prince's sleeve a quick tug, and the prince reached out for Jemmy's hand.

Off they went, linked together, while the outlaws untangled themselves.

"Which way did they go?" cried out Cutwater.

"Listen for 'em!"

Jemmy froze. He didn't breathe. He waited. And he became suddenly aware of the prince's hand clasped in his own. His first impulse was to withdraw his fingers, but the prince was hanging on for dear life. It was the same as a handshake, and he remembered the prince's own words. It felt friendly and trusting. But, gaw! The wonder of it. Shaking hands with Prince Brat.

"Stop where you stand!" warned Hold-Your-Nose Billy.

"Wherever you are, we'll catch you!" added Cutwater. "You'll never make it out!"

"Which way is out?" snapped the big outlaw.

"The same way you came in," answered the rat-catcher. "Put your back to the breeze from the main sewer."

That was wrong! Good OP Tosher, Jemmy thought. He meant to send them off in the opposite direction.

Jemmy tugged on the prince's hand, and they scuttled along the wall toward freedom. A moment later, Jemmy could feel a stronger breeze, and he knew that they were in the main sewer again.

Noses to the breeze, they could make a run for the river. But in his sudden elation, Jemmy banged into the wall with the birdcage.

His hair rose. The clatter was loud enough to wake the dead. Or bring the villains running.

Jemmy made an abrupt turn, pulling the prince deeper into the main sewer. And he whispered, "They'll see us against daylight before we can get out. More holes than wormwood down here. We'll duck into another side tunnel. But if we break loose, don't lose your bearings. The brewery's dead ahead."

The sound of feet sloshing through the water silenced them. Jemmy felt desperately for the mouth of a side tunnel. But Hold-Your-Nose Billy and Cutwater had already rushed out into the main sewer.

"Which way, Billy?" muttered Cutwater.

Jemmy flattened himself against the grave-cold wall, but the prince seemed suddenly to rebel at being chased down like a sewer rat. He yanked the birdcage out of Jemmy's hand and flung it with all his might.

It banged and clattered off the bricks.

In the direction of the brewery.

"What's that?" cried out Cutwater.

"Them is what! Put your back to the breeze. Straight on!"

They barged ahead. Only moments later Ol' Tosher appeared across the great sewer, a fresh candle lit on the bill of his cap.

And then Hold-Your-Nose Billy and Cutwater came flying back.

"I'm bit! I'm bit!"

"Help!"

Grain-fed rats were swarming over the two of them, nipping and biting and clinging like leeches. In the light of the candle, Cutwater waved his arms wildly. He screeched and the hairy outlaw bellowed.

"I declare," said the prince. "They look like they're wearing fur coats."

Standing in the clear sunshine, the prince breathed in the sweet, fresh air. Then he looked Jemmy squarely in the eyes. "We're going back to the castle."

"Not me! Your pa's put a price on this head o' mine. No, thank you, Prince! I don't fancy doing a jig from the end of a rope."

"Where will you hide for the rest of your life? In the sewers? I'd have them searched, end to end."

Gaw, what a fool he'd been to let the prince in on his best hiding place! Jemmy was on the verge of running—but where to? How far would he get?

"You said you trusted me," declared the prince. "But I can see you didn't mean it."

"I meant it—up to a point."

"Then follow me." It was a command.

Jemmy swallowed hard, and followed. They weren't at the castle gates yet. He'd think of something!

The prince led him back onto the fairgrounds and searched out Betsy and the hot-potato man.

"You've served your prince nobly," he announced.

"What are you talking about, lad?" replied Captain Nips. "Hot-hot-hot potatoes!"

"The king has offered a reward for the whipping boy. Here he stands. Turn him in."

And Jemmy stood dumfounded. He felt betrayed. "Gaw!"

Betsy flashed her eyes. "Turn Jemmy in? I'll do no such thing."

"I command it!"

"Who are you to command anything!"

"I'm—I'm Prince Brat."

"Ha!"

Run for it, Jemmy thought.

Deeply wounded, he gave the prince a last, blazing look. The prince returned a quick, playful wink. It befuddled Jemmy for an instant. And then, in a flash, Jemmy saw that for the first time the prince was up to a kindly piece of mischief.

"Head to toe, he's Prince Brat," said Jemmy. "Better do what he says or he'll have you boiled in oil."

Jemmy had to wait with Betsy, Petunia, and Captain Nips while the prince was alone with the king.

Finally, a pair of golden doors were opened and the group was ushered into the throne room.

The king sat with his legs crossed and the merest flicker of a smile on his lips.

Betsy bowed low, and Captain Nips did the best he could.

"The reward is yours," the king announced, and then he turned to the prince. "What about the bear? Came to your rescue, did he?"

"Couldn't we give him the title of Official Dancing Bear to Your Royal Majesty, Papa? He'd draw crowds wherever he went."

"Done."

Betsy and Captain Nips were dismissed.

Jemmy now stood alone—it seemed hours—while the king gazed at him. He began to feel a noose tightening around his neck.

"You ought to be whipped."

"Yes, My Lord."

"Prince Horace has caused enough mischief to wear out the hides of a dozen whipping boys. He tells me it's thanks to you that he's back, sound and safe. The king thanks you."

Jemmy took a small breath.

"You are placed under the prince's protection under one condition. He has sworn to do his lessons, blow out his night candle, and otherwise behave himself."

Jemmy's eyes flicked to the prince. Gaw! he thought. You must want me for a friend awful bad to promise all that. So help me, if it's a friend you ran off looking for, it's a friend you found!

"Dismissed, both of you," said the king. "But do change out of those smelly clothes."

Retreating toward the golden doors, the prince beside him, Jemmy felt a sparkle rise into his eyes. "You got me off without so much as a single whack," he whispered.

"I couldn't bear all the yowling and bellowing."

"I wouldn't yowl and bellow."

"But
I
would, Jemmy!" And Jemmy caught the twinkle in his eyes.

Almost at the doors, they were stopped by the king's voice. "One more thing!" The king broke into a smile you could warm your hands over. "If you boys decide to run away again, take me with you."

In the days that followed, ballad sellers began to cry out new and final verses to the notorious life of Hold-Your-Nose Billy and his partner, Cutwater.

An old rat-catcher had seen them flee from the sewer. And he'd seen them stow away aboard a ship raising its sails for a long voyage. It was a convict ship bound for a speck of an island in distant waters. A convict island.

Readers often write to ask if a story is true. This tale is a work of the imagination, but the most surprising part of it is true.

Some royal households of past centuries
did
keep whipping boys to suffer the punishments due a misbehaving prince. History is alive with lunacies and injustices.

As Jemmy would say, "Gaw!
"