For two hours he moved between the groups. When working none of them spoke much, and a couple cast him resentful looks, this youthful outsider the Constable had put over them. He was very aware that he’d yet to prove himself. The brief scuffle the other day had been nothing, he’d barely landed a blow before it was over.
The cudgel was in his pocket, close to hand if he needed it, but so far there’d been no sign of trouble. That would arrive later, when people had drunk down the week to forget about how little they had. Saturday night was their opportunity to find oblivion on gin or ale, the chance to laugh and love, to argue and fight.
The whores worked their corners on the street, flirting with old paper fans, exchanging banter with the men as they passed. One of the girls whispered in his ear, offering herself for a penny, but he smiled with a blush and turned away. The others laughed at his embarrassment, the girl loudest of them all.
‘Never mind, love,’ she told him in a warm voice, husky from cheap drams, ‘you can come back when those two aren’t around.’
The men were friendlier after that; he’d become one of them. By eleven they were breaking up brawls as grudges that had been held for days began to boil over. Everything was dealt with quickly and efficiently, the offenders dragged off to the jail to sleep it off.
With midnight the worst of it was over. A few drunks still staggered around, some had passed out on the street, curled in nooks or around corners like babies.
‘Quiet night,’ one of the men told Rob as they walked down Briggate. ‘Often gets bad on a Saturday.’
‘When do we work until?’ he asked.
‘While four.’ The man coughed, hawked and spat on the street. ‘Often it’s Mr Sedgwick out with us, but happen he deserves a night off with that girl of his. You have a lass, do you?’
‘No.’
‘Should have gone with Essie, then,’ the man winked. ‘She’d have seen you right. Lower rates for a Constable’s man, too.’
‘I’ll remember that when I get paid,’ Rob answered with a smile. ‘She wasn’t bad looking.’
‘Clean, too. That’s the important part,’ the man advised sagely. ‘Allus remember that.’
One o’clock came, then two, rung out by the bells of the Parish Church. Everything was quiet; the people were in their beds. Once they ran after a shadow that scurried down the street, but lost him in the tangle of courts off Briggate. They’d resumed their walking when one of the men stopped.
‘Wait,’ he said, listening intently. ‘I can hear summat, sounds like it’s down by the bridge.’
Lister and the two men set off at a run. He slipped the thong of the cudgel over his wrist. As they pounded down Briggate he began to make out voices yelling, and felt the fear rise in his belly.
There were about ten of them in a melee. The night men forced their way into the throng, cudgels flying. Lister hesitated only a second before joining them, his blood rushing.
He saw Hughes, a knife in his hand, going after another man. Rob tried to fight his way through to them, pushing hard, bringing the wood heavily down on arms and heads.
A fist caught him in the face and rocked him. He shook his head to clear it, tasting blood in his mouth. Hughes was still there, his eyes wild, the blade of his knife red. Rob lowered his shoulder and charged through the crowd. There were fewer of them now; some lay on the ground, others were starting to run off.
A large older man was facing Hughes, a knife in one hand, a silver-topped stick held in the other. A cut on his arm oozed blood on to his coat and drops of sweat stood out on his face, but he still stood tall, mouth set, a burning look of hatred on his face.
‘You stay out of it, laddie,’ he warned, not even turning his head to the Constable’s man. ‘This is between me and him.’
‘No,’ Lister said. He was breathing hard and his heart punched in his chest. He was the Constable’s man here. He wanted to prove himself, to bring order. He raised his voice and shouted, ‘This stops now.’
The older man looked at Hughes then stared at Rob, shaking his head slowly.
‘I told you to stay out of it, laddie,’ he said sternly, as if he was addressing a child. ‘You’re not Richard Nottingham yet.’
Rob came to in one of the cells, his vision bleary, flames of pain in his head. He began to sit up, but a gentle hand on his shoulder kept him still.
‘You stay there,’ the Constable said. ‘Rest awhile.’
Lister tried to clear his sight, blinking until he could make out the soft, blurred outlines of Nottingham and Sedgwick standing over him.
‘What happened?’ he asked. His voice was thick, as if his tongue had grown too large for his mouth. He tried to remember, but could go no further than a brawl of some kind.
‘You were knocked out,’ the deputy told him. ‘You were trying to stop a fight.’
He tried once more to recall it, but nothing came, no details, just a deep smudge of figures and vague voices without words.
‘You got between Edward Hughes and Amos Worthy,’ Nottingham explained.
It meant nothing. Very carefully he raised his hand, gingerly running the fingertips over his head until he felt the lump above his ear, the wound crusted heavily with blood. As soon as he touched it, it began to throb and he drew in breath sharply.
‘Cudgel,’ Sedgwick said. ‘You went straight down, the night men said. They brought you back here. The apothecary says you should be glad you have a thick skull. Nothing’s broken.’ He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, it’s happened to us all. You’ll be fine in a couple of days.’
‘That was brave, though, facing down those two,’ the Constable said. ‘Try and sit up slowly now and have a drink of this.’ He steadied Rob’s arm as he sat, and handed him a mug. ‘It’ll help you sleep in a while. One of the men will see you home.’
Lister drank, the liquid foul enough to make him gag at first but then welcome in his dry throat, washing it down with some small beer. He stood, taking care to hold on to the bed for balance, and then tried to walk a short way. His skull hurt, his eyes could only make out shapes, and there were still waves of agony, but after a minute they started to gently recede.
‘You might never remember any of it,’ Nottingham told him. ‘There’s a few times I’ve lost an hour or more. Don’t worry about it. You just go and rest in your own bed. It’s Sunday, you can sleep it off.’
‘Yes, boss.’
They waited until the door of the jail had closed before they began planning.
‘You want Hughes?’ the Constable asked.
The deputy nodded, not needing to say a word.
‘Right, let’s have him in one of the cells until tomorrow. You need any help?’
‘No, I’ll do this myself.’
Nottingham sighed. ‘Maybe it’s as well someone cracked Rob like that and they all ran off. They probably thought they’d killed him. There’d have been some real blood otherwise.’
‘What are you going to do about Worthy, boss?’ the deputy wondered. It was the question the Constable had been asking himself since he’d arrived, dragged from his rest by one of the men hammering on his door.
‘I’m not sure yet,’ he answered thoughtfully. ‘Let him stew for a while. The men said he’d been cut.’
‘You’re not going to let it go?’
‘No, I’m not,’ he replied with certainty. ‘One of my men could have died because of him.’
Sedgwick said, ‘The lad had me worried for a while there. He was out for a long time.’
‘He seems fine now, that’s what matters. We’ll never find out exactly who hit him. Go and get Hughes. I need to go home and then to church.’
‘Yes, boss.’
The sun was up, the sky clear and a pale, even blue. In the grand houses servants were already working, cleaning, preparing for the day, kitchen fires burning, a haze of smoke rising above the chimney pots.
Mary greeted him with a kiss and some bread and cheese, enough to take the edge off his appetite. Emily was still upstairs, making sure she looked just right in her new outfit, calling urgently for her mother every few minutes for an opinion on this, that or the other.