Farley raised his arms for silence. “Rams. Brethren. Your attention, if you please.”
On most days some jokester would fire comments into the spaces between sentences, but when Farley asked for silence, that is what he got, and without the usual gradual sputter out. The room fell instantly quiet, except for the insistent crowing of one cockerel, who was given half minute to shut his beak before one of the Rams clocked him with the butt of his knife. At another time the cockerel’s surprised final squawk would have raised cheers, but not on this day.
“I know you have all heard the rumors regarding Otto,” said Farley. “And I am here to tell you that the good ones are false and the bad ones are true.”
This brought on a hubbub of mumbling and many shouted versions of the same question.
“Is King Otto murdered, then?”
“He is,” replied Farley, reckoning this could already be true and if it wasn’t, then it soon would be.
“You seen him go down, Farley, with yer own peepers?” This from Scarlet Vest, who had obviously abandoned his post at the door.
Farley nodded. “I seen…I saw Otto killed. And Inhumane. Noble and Jeeves, too.”
If the silence before had been one of anticipation, this new one had a sense of disbelief about it.
Otto, Barnabus. Jeeves and Noble. All dead. It was akin to losing the entire royal family in one fell swoop.
“The war council gone. The top table killed. How, in the name of Dastardly Dick Turpin, did this happen, Farley? It would take an army.” This from a Ram who for some reason known only to himself wore a paper crown with the word BAH scrawled on it in charcoal.
Farley swallowed. This was the crucial moment: wooing the Rams. Buying their loyalties.
“Before I answer your questions, let me show you something.” Farley reached into the pocket of his shabby overcoat and drew forth a heavy pouch, and from this pouch he selected one gold sovereign, which he flicked into the air. The coin tumbled and flashed lustrous beams into the eyes of the transfixed Rams. With each spin, it reeled in the Rams more than a thousand entreaties ever could. So by the time the sov fell into greedy fingers, the crowd was halfway converted to Farley’s cause, though they did not know what that cause might be.
“All I ask is that you listen to my pitch, and for that alone I will pay ten gold sovereigns to every man jack here from this bag and a dozen like it. Once I have said my piece, you can either sign up and take a slice of the Empire itself, or you can decide to have a go at the new top man. It is purely up to you.”
He stood silent then, so that the assembled might chew on his offer. The sovereign was passed around, bitten, spat on, and finally handed to an old Welsh man known as Duds, who was acknowledged as the greatest faker of currency who had ever stamped a lead shilling.
Duds ran a series of tests, which included pinging the coin with a tuning fork, setting it spinning on a table, and giving it a good licking.
“It’s a good ’un,” he said at last. “Sure as my name is Admiral Nelson.”
This drew a fond little chuckle from the Rams, as no one had the faintest idea what Duds’s real name was. Each moniker he used was as fake as the monies he passed.
The Rams turned back to Farley with a synchronized swivel of heads worthy of hungry seagulls following the meaty slide of fish guts down a slab.
Tell us, said their ravenous gaze. Tell us how we may earn the gold.
Farley saw they were satisfied to let him continue, so he rolled on with the script prepared for him.
“You asked me if Malarkey is dead, and I tell you he is. And how do I come by this information? How am I so certain? I am certain because it was I who pulled the trigger.”
“That must have been one hell of a trigger, old man,” said Scarlet Vest, who seemed to have appointed himself spokesman.
“It was, and more besides, for it went on to do for the rest of the war council. All with one weapon. And one load.”
This was an incredible admission. Here was one of their own stumping up to the murder of the century.
“Whoa, Jameson,” said Scarlet Vest, referring to Dr. Jameson’s plucky invasion of the Transvaal. “Wot you are telling the brethren is that little old you did the big job on our entire war council, all by your lonesome, with a single barker?”
Farley met Scarlet’s eyes and held them until the man dropped his gaze. “That’s what I am telling you.”
The Rams could keep silent no more. Why, if this were true, then it was the one of the bloodiest coups in the history of the brotherhood. Not since Franz Flowers, also known as the Golem of Warsaw, treated Ram king Albert Spade and his top three bludgers to a Viking funeral by setting Spade’s riverboat alight, had such a brazen power grab occurred.
And this had been accomplished by the tattooist? It beggared belief.
Scarlet Vest spoke for the house. “I would like to take me a look-see at this barker, Farley; that’s what I would like for a first. And for a second, I would like to pay my respects to King Otto, face-to-face. Because I ain’t believing that you put down not one but two Malarkeys.”
Farley was unruffled. He had been expecting some back and forth from the Rams. They would learn discipline soon enough, when the colonel held sway.
“Very well, boys. You would like to see my weapon, is that it?”
“For a start,” said Scarlet Vest, all puffy with his new spokesman responsibilities.
Farley reached again into his bag. “Well, by all means, let’s make a start.” He drew out his machine pistol, flicked on the laser sights, and shot Scarlet Vest and one man on either side of him directly. Three dead in half a second, and not a Ram reacted until the deed was done. Farley continued to make his point by transcribing a semicircle of bullet holes in the floor before him.
“I take orders from one man,” said Farley, then he pointed his smoking barrel at the fallen Scarlet Vest. “And that ain’t him.”
The Rams were a little anxious, but not overly upset, as Scarlet and his mates were well-known muck-snipes who would rob a fishwife of her fish and a fish of its wife.
Farley allowed the gun to dangle at his side, but it was clear that it could be easily raised. “Now, hear this, Rams. There is a new army in London: the army of Colonel Box, and we have big plans for this town. If you are with us, then together we will wreak vengeance on all who have wronged us over the years: the police, the army, the jailers, the bailiffs, the politicians, the crown itself. My master, the colonel, will put these magical weapons in your hands and make you invincible. You will reap the spoils of war and be lords in the new country. Those who say no will never leave this buildi
ng alive. We will set upon them and close their mouths forever. So, the choice is yours: you can be rich as kings, or dead as martyrs. Which is it to be?”
Farley’s speech was followed by a ragged cheer, which gathered impetus and spiraled about the room, joined and strengthened by stamping and clapping and even pistol shots. There were no words in the cheer, just a halloo of support for the idea of finally going to war for pure profit. No more queen and country, no more blessed book and holy land. Just honest fighting for honest cash.
Farley caught the mood of the cheer, and he smiled even as the sight of these men turned his stomach.
Once the city is ours, we will recruit from the army and toss every one of these criminals in a deep dark hole.
But he was relieved that his gamble had paid off. The colonel had advised him to take a squad with him into the Hidey-Hole, but he had respectfully disagreed.
I know these men, Colonel. They are donkeys. All I need is a shiny carrot to lure them into our den, and then they will be ours. The squad stays outside.
The colonel had agreed but made one suggestion.
May I suggest a few cracks of the whip also, just to let them see for themselves what we are capable of.
Farley looked down at the three corpses laid out before him like sacrificial offerings at an altar.
The whip has been cracked, Colonel, he thought. You have your army. The Ram is dead.
But Malarkey yet lives, said the voice of doom in his head. And you killed his brother.
The Pig Boy was tired of being the pig boy. He had fought his way into the Battering Rams with dreams of strutting down the Haymarket with the other swell bludgers. A fine powder-blue bowler he would purchase, to set off the navy vest and sapphire rings that would be lifted from a toff’s gaff in Mayfair or the like. On the night of his acceptance into the brethren, Pig Boy had borne the sting of Farley’s needles and watched the blood seep from the Battering Rams tattoo on his shoulder and said to himself: Now. Now at last things will be different.
And he had been proven right. Things were different. They were blooming worse. Before taking the ink, he could at least tuck away in his own poke whatever he stole. Now a good slice of it had to be forked over to the Rams’ treasurer, who was a stickler for every ha’penny.