“A brisk morning, so it is.”
“It is wot?”
This from malevolent bludger two, who still had both eyes given to him by God and his parents, but was marked as a thug by the scarlet vest that he wore sans chemise, despite the much-mentioned briskness of the morning and the mores of common decency. On a more genteel street, a bare-backed man would find himself in prison quick smart.
Figary changed tack.
“It is a good day to make money…”
“So it is,” said Purple Skull, who was possibly displaying a sense of humor.
“It is always a good day for chink,” added Scarlet Vest.
Figary slipped them both a sovereign, which was an extortionate entry fee for any gambling den, but it did ensure that he had made two new friends, if not for life, then at least for the length of his visit to the Hidey-Hole—unless their shift finished, or they got drunk, or they got a better offer.
I should have at the very least one half of an hour before they turn on me, thought Figary. It pained the butler to part with a deuce of sovereigns now that his situation was honest and he knew exactly how many hours of toil were required to earn such an amount, and so he lifted a small whiskey flask from Scarlet Vest’s sash to compensate himself somewhat and skipped through the doorway into the belly of the beast.
That beast being, of course, a Ram.
The interior of the Hidey-Hole was an extraordinary feat of architecture. Extraordinary in that it did not collapse in on itself despite the fact that most of the building’s supports, struts, chimneys, and internal walls had been pulverized to make way for gaming tables, animal pens, food stalls, a hog spit-roast over a sunken brick fire, an entire pub that could have been transported from the Strand, two boxing rings, and a full-sized cannon, which according to Ram legend had been stolen from the militia on a drunken lark and was now marooned with a busted axle on an island of weight-warped planking and scattered cannonball.
“Charming,” muttered Figary to himself, his eyes instantly springing leaks from the combination of smoke and alcohol fumes.
It was heading toward midday, and the brethren were emerging from their sleeping spots. There was much passing of wind—the louder the ceremony, the better—to the delight of small groups of dancing girls and serving ladies who drifted from table to table. Rams made their way down to the ground floor by way of rickety stairs, makeshift rope ladders, or even toeholds kicked into the walls. Even Figary, who was not the prude he had pretended to be for his employer, could not help but be a little shocked.
I have never witnessed this concentration of depravity, he thought, and from a man who’d worked the Monto, this was quite the jolting realization.
To the pig, then! became his immediate plan. Because nothing calms the soul of an anxious Celt like his mother’s voice, and failing that, a plate of bacon.
Figary walked with feigned swagger to the pig boy and circled the roasting pig, checking the meat from every angle.
“Nice-looking pig, so it is,” he said to the young chef who was ladling grease over the carcass.
“I ain’t allowed to discuss the pig,” said the youth through lips that sheltered but a single pair of widely spaced teeth, which stood forlornly on his bottom gum like the pillars of some long-collapsed bridge.
“No pig talk, it is,” said Michael Figary. “Slice me off a plate, and don’t spare the crackling.”
“Crackling be extra,” said the sulky boy.
Figary guessed that the boy had good reasons to sulk, with his dental shortcomings and employment tending pig for the criminal class. He knocked a knuckle against a wooden price list on a pole stuck directly into the floor. “I can read, my boy, so I can. Meat, if you please.”
The pig boy commenced butchering with an army knife, and skillful he was too, dropping thin slices directly onto a tin platter.
“You want grease?”
“Grease be extra?” asked Figary innocently.
The boy sucked his teeth and gave Figary a suspicious glare. “Right you be, little man. Grease do be extra.”
“Let’s have some, then,” said Figary, dropping some pennies into the money jar. His daily fare was generally more refined now that he bunked in Grosvenor Square, but every now and then nothing hit the spot like a feed of pork and grease. “Tell me, bucko. Why is pig talk forbidden?”
The young butcher did not answer until Figary added two more pennies to the pot.
“On some occasions the pig do not be pig exactly,” he confided.
Figary sniffed the animal’s haunch. “But not today?”
“No,” said the boy, handing across a heaped plate. “Today be kosher pig. Stole it meself special for the meeting.”
Figary’s ears pricked up. “What meeting? I didn’t hear about any meeting.”
The boy shrugged. “’Course not. You ain’t no Ram.”
Figary sampled a sliver of pork, and it was wonderfully juicy and tender. If he closed his eyes for a moment, he could be in Lord Brass’s Monto tavern.
“No, I ain’t no Ram. What I am is a guest from the Monto.”
The boy’s sigh whistled through his teeth. “I has me money. You has yer pig. I ain’t allowed to talk about a ’strordinary meeting viz meeting the new king.”
“I quite understand, so I do,” said Figary, and he sidled away, holding the plate at chest level for everyone to see. For he had found it to be a universal truth in any company that a man who has succeeded in obtaining food is presumed trustworthy and never questioned, except for general rhetoricals about the quality of his meal.
An extraordinary meeting about a new king, eh?
This was momentous news indeed. The appointment of a new Ram king had far-reaching consequences that would affect everyone dwelling in the city, from rookery to Parliament, via docks and train station.
“Nice pile o’ pig here, ain’t it?” quoth one Ram to Figary. It was plain that this cove was indeed a Ram, for he had gone beyond the call of duty and had the Ram symbol tattooed on his bare chest.
“It is, so it is,” replied Figary, stuffing his mouth with pork to prove the point.
The room was filling up now, and Figary felt it would be prudent to find a shadowy spot and observe. He sidled off toward a church pew that was by the wall and piled high with an army’s worth of cutlasses and bayonets, and he wiggled himself in at the end. He was far from invisible behind the carelessly stacked pile of glittering blades, but he did not stand out like a cat at a dogfight either. The second advantage of this positioning was the window at his shoulder, which could be hopped through should the need arise.
Now, Michael Figary, hold your whisht and see what you may see, he told himself, wiping his greasy fingers on the sailcloth nailed as a makeshift curtain across the window.
Unlike most spy jobs, where forbearance was the chief virtue required since events tend to roll out slowly even in the greatest adventure, Figary found that his patience was not tested even for a moment. For no sooner had he picked the last of the crackling from between his teeth—with a wooden pick that he carried in his wallet for such occasions—than a focused hubbub heated up by the doorway and spread like a wind across a field of Irish barley.
What ho, something is up, Figary thought. Make yourself small, Michael.
Figary hunched down behind the tower of swords, finding himself a triangle of crisscrossed blades to peep through.
The room that had been sluggishly shaking itself awake for the day’s entertainment seemed suddenly to accelerate the procedure, with Rams lining up for access to the ropes, ladders, and rickety stairs that led from the upper levels. A tight bunch of Rams moved with purpose toward the center of the room where, upon a raised dais, sat a large gilded chair. Upon the chair’s high backrest hung a ram’s fleece, with long curling horns. The Ram king crown. Otto Malarkey’s crown.
Figary felt the tension rise with the temperature. Voices were raised and punches were thrown. Around the room swells and silks were taken by the elbow and escorted from the premises, for this was to be a members only sort of gathering.
Figary felt that perhaps this would be a good time to leave, but the moment quickly passed, and the butler realized that he was now committed to the mission, whether his mother would have approved of it or not.
Make yourself smaller, Figary told himself. You are a dormouse, so you are.
Farley was at the head of the incoming bunch. He separated himself from the crush of Rams pressing him for information and mounted the dais in one bound. This act in itself was mutinous, as the king’s square was for him alone and those he invited. The tattooist was taking liberties. But while many men would have been spiked or bludgeoned before they could open their mouths, the Rams had a special affection for Farley, as he had pricked the skin of many of them. A good tattooist was vital for any gang if they preferred to not lose an arm to infection or gangrene, and the amount of arms Farley had lost to a dirty needle could be measured on one hand. So the general muttered consensus was to let the old duffer have his speak; after all, he had been by Malarkey’s side when whatever occurred had occurred.