The Sweet Far Thing

Page 143

“What, pray, is a tosher?”
“Much like a mud lark, but they scour the sewers for their finds.”
“What a wretched existence.”
Kartik takes on a hard tone. “It is a means to live. Life isn’t always fair.”
The comment is meant to sting and it does. We fall into quiet.
“You’re the one always speaking of fate and destiny. How do you explain their lot, then? Is it their fate to suffer so?”
Kartik shoves his hands into his pockets. “Suffering isn’t destiny. Nor is ignorance.”
A woman’s voice cuts through the fog. “Wot’s the rivah give you tonigh’?”
“Luv, I go’ apples ’n’ stuffin’!” another shouts back.
They fall into loud gales of laughter.
“They’ve found apples and stuffing here?” I ask.
Kartik grins. “It’s Cockney rhyme. The last word is a rhyme for the word they mean. ‘I’ve got apples ’n’stuffing’ really means ‘I got nothing,’ or, as she’d say, ‘I got nuffin’.’”
“Oi! Kartik!” One of the urchins stumbles up from the filth and muck of the river. “Been waitin’ on you, mate.”
“We were delayed, Toby.” He apologizes to the mud-coated boy with a bow.
Toby nears, and so does his smell. It is a horrible mixture of stagnant river water, rubbish, and worse. I dare not think about what lives in his ragged clothes. My stomach lurches and I find I have to breathe through my mouth so as not to swoon.
“How is the treasure hunting?” Kartik asks. He thinks he’s clever but he’s got his hand at his chin. His fingers cover his nose.
“No’ grand, but no’ bad, neither.” Toby holds out his palm. In it is an odd collection—a small lump of coal, two hairpins, a tooth, a shilling. Every bit of it is coated in filth. He smiles widely, revealing a lack of teeth. “That will buy a pint of ale.” Toby views me suspiciously. “’At a lady in gent’s trousers?” I’m certain the horror shows on my face.
Kartik raises an eyebrow. “Can’t fool everyone.”
Toby jingles the loot in his hand. “She’s no beauty, mate, but she looks clean. ’Ow much?”
I do not understand straightaway, but when I do, a fierce rage overtakes me.
“Why, I—”
Kartik wraps his hand over my fist and stays it. “Sorry, mate. She’s with me,” he says.
Toby shrugs and adjusts his grimy cap. “Meant no ’arm.”
Big Ben announces the hour. The great chime cuts through the fog and I feel it in my belly.
“Let’s take a walk, eh?” Toby says.
“The cheek of it,” I grumble.
She’s no beauty, mate. He thought me no better than a prostitute, and yet, why is it that this statement is the one that pierces me through?
A young boy steps from the shadows. He has sores on his lips and great hollows under his eyes. His voice hasn’t yet changed—he can’t be more than ten—but there’s an empty sound to it already, as if no one is left inside him. “Lookin’ for comp’ny, guv? Tuppence.”
Kartik shakes his head, and the boy fades back, waiting anxiously for the next passerby.
“There are others here who will take what he offers,” Kartik tells me.
Toby leads us to a wharf stacked with empty crates, and the greasy light of only one lamp. “This is a good spot,” he says.
Kartik looks about. “No escape route. You could be cornered easily here.”
“By wot?” Toby asks. “Ships ever’ where.”
“And the men on them are drunk or sleeping. Or the very sort we need to watch out for,” Kartik warns.
“You fink I’m daft?” Toby says, challenging him.
“Kartik,” I warn.
“Fine.” Kartik relents. “Gemma, the money.”
I give him the small purse with five pounds inside. It’s all the money I’ve got, and I’m loath to part with it. He hands it to Toby, who opens it, counts the coins, and packs it into his pocket.
“Now,” Kartik says, “what did you discover about Mr. Doyle?”
I look from Kartik to Toby and back again. “He’s the one we’ve come to meet?”
“Toby makes himself useful as an errand boy sometimes. He knows how to barter knowledge for money.”
Toby smiles as big as life. “I can find out anyfin’. On my life.”
“But this meeting was to be with the Rakshana,” I protest. I want my money back.