“Done it wrong?”
“Yes, me lord. If you do it right, it doesn’t take but one good blow. The pig doesn’t know what hit ’im, and there’s no noise to speak of. You get a man what doesn’t know what he’s doing, or isn’t strong enough—” Byrd made a face at the thought of such incompetence. “Racket like to wake the dead. There’s a butcher’s across the street from me dad’s shop,” he offered in explanation. “I’ve seen pigs killed often.”
“A very good point, Tom,” Grey said slowly. If either robbery or simple murder was the intent, it could have been accomplished with much less fuss. Ergo, whatever had befallen Tim O’Connell had likely been an accident, in a brawl or street riot, or . . . and yet the body had been moved, sometime after death. Why?
His cogitations were interrupted by the sound of an agitated altercation in the alleyway that led to the back of the gaol.
“What’re you doing here, you Irish whore?”
“I’ve a right to be here—unlike you, ye draggletail thief!”
“Cunt!”
“Bitch!”
Following the sound of strife into the alley, Grey found Timothy O’Connell’s sealed coffin lying in the roadway, surrounded by people. In the center of the mob was the pregnant figure of Mrs. O’Connell, swathed in a black shawl and squared off against another woman, similarly attired.
The ladies were not alone, he saw; Scanlon the apothecary was vainly trying to persuade Mrs. O’Connell away from her opponent, with the aid of a tall, rawboned Irishman. The second lady had also brought reinforcement, in the person of a small, fat clergyman, dressed in dog collar and rusty coat, who appeared more entertained than distressed by the exchange of cordialities. A number of other people crowded the alley behind both women—mourners, presumably, come to assist in the burial of Sergeant O’Connell.
“Take your wicked friends and be off with ye! He was my husband, not yours!”
“Oh, and a fine wife youwere, I’m sure! Didn’t care enough to come and wash the mud from his face when they dragged him out of the ditch! It was me laid him out proper, and me that’ll bury him, thank you very much! Wife! Ha!”
Tom Byrd stood open-mouthed under the eaves of the shed, watching. He glanced up wide-eyed at Grey.
“And it’s me paid for his coffin—think I’ll let you take it? Likely you’ll give the body to a knacker’s shop and sell the box, greedy-guts! Take a man from his wife so you can suck the marrow from his bones—”
“Shut your trap!”
“Shut yours!” bellowed the widow O’Connell, and she took a wild swing at the other woman, who dodged adroitly. Seeing a sudden surge among the mourners on both sides, Grey pushed his way between the women.
“Madam,” he began, grasping Mrs. O’Connell’s arm with determination. “You must—” His admonition was interrupted by a swift elbow in the pit of the stomach, which took him quite by surprise. He staggered back a pace, and stamped inadvertently on the toe of the tall Irishman, who hopped to and fro on one foot, uttering brief blasphemies in what Grey assumed to be the Irish tongue, as it was no form of French.
These were rapidly subsumed by the blasphemies being flung by the two ladies—if that was the word, Grey thought grimly—in an incoherent barrage of insults.
The pistol-shot sound of a slapped cheek rang out, and then the alley erupted in high-pitched shrieks as the women closed with each other, fingers clawed and feet kicking. Grey grabbed for the other woman’s sleeve, but it was torn from his grip and he was knocked heavily into a wall. Someone tripped him, and he went down, rolling and rebounding from the wall of the shed before he could get his feet under him.
Regaining his balance, Grey staggered, then landed on the balls of his feet, and snatched out his sword in a slashing arc that made the metal sing. The thin chime of it cut through the racket in the alleyway like a knife through butter, separating the combatants and sending the women stumbling back from each other. In the moment’s silence that resulted, Grey stepped firmly between the two women and glared back and forth between them.
Assured that he had put at least a momentary stop to the battle, he turned to the unknown woman. A solid person with curly black hair, she wore a wide-brimmed hat that obscured her face, but not her attitude, which was belligerent in the extreme.
“May I inquire your name, madam? And your purpose here?”
“She’s a class of a slut, what else?” Mrs. O’Connell’s voice came from behind him, cracked with contempt, but controlled. Silencing the other woman’s heated response to this with a peremptory movement of his sword, he cast an irritated glance over his shoulder.
“I asked the lady herself—if you please, Mrs. O’Connell.”
“That would be Mrs. Scanlon—if youplease, my lord.” The apothecary’s voice was more than polite, but held a note almost of smugness.
“I beg your pardon?” Taken by surprise, he turned completely round to face Scanlon and the widow. Evidently, the other woman was equally shocked, for beyond a loud “ What?” behind him, she said nothing.
Scanlon was holding Francine O’Connell by the arm; he tightened his grasp a little and bowed to Grey.
“I have the honor to introduce you to my wife, sir,” he said gravely. “Wed yestereen we were, by special license, with Father Doyle himself doing of the honors.” He nodded at the tall Irishman, who nodded in turn, though keeping a wary eye on the tip of Grey’s rapier.
“What, couldn’t wait ’til poor old Tim was cold, could you? And who’s the slut here, I’d like to know, you with your belly swole up like a farkin’ toad!”
“I’m a married woman— twicemarried! And you with no name and no shame—”
“Ah, now, Francie, Francie . . .” Scanlon put his arms around his incensed wife, lugging her back by main force. “Let it be, sweetheart, let it be. Ye don’t want to be doing the babe an injury now, do ye?”
At this reminder of her delicate condition, Francine desisted, though she went on huffing beneath her hat brim, much in the manner of a bull who has chased intruders out of a field and means to see that they stay chased.
Grey turned back to the other woman, just as she opened her mouth again. He put the tip of his rapier firmly against the middle of her chest, cutting her expostulations short and eliciting a brief and startled “Eek!”
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, patience exhausted.
“Iphigenia Stokes,” she replied indignantly. “How dare you be takin’ liberties with me person, you?” She backed up a step, swatting at his sword with a hand whose essential broadness and redness was not disguised by the black shammy mitt covering it.
“And who are you?” Grey swung toward the small clergyman, who had been tranquilly enjoying the show from a place of security behind a barrel.
“Me?” The clerical gentleman looked surprised, but bowed obligingly. “The Reverend Mr. Cobb, sir, curate of St. Giles. I was asked to come and deliver the obsequies for the late Mr. O’Connell, on behalf of Miss Stokes, whom I understand to have had a personal friendship with the deceased.”
“You what? A frigging Protestant?” Francine O’Connell Scanlon stood straight upright, trembling with renewed outrage. Mr. Cobb eyed her warily, but seemed to feel himself safe enough in his retreat, for he bowed politely to her.
“Interment is to be in the churchyard at St. Giles, ma’am—if you and your husband would care to attend?”
At this, the entire Irish contingent pressed forward, obviously intending to seize the casket and carry it off by main force. Nothing daunted, Miss Stokes’s escort likewise pushed eagerly to the fore, several of the gentlemen uprooting boards from a sagging fence to serve as makeshift clubs.