Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [75]
I halted in my tracks; certainly I had no desire to meet the queen of this distasteful band. "Perhaps… I should just… go back to the village, and look around a bit. Attend to business, as it were – now that I've got a better idea of how to go about it."
"Naaw – there'll be no more ugly girls sent on their way to London this hour of the night." A slab-like hand was clapped on my shoulder, propelling me forward. "'S time for a piss-up – Mollie would be right offended if you got all this way to the fire and didn't have a drop with her."
The circle of ruffians brayed at our approach, slapping each other and holding their bottles aloft in invitation. the large woman wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked up at us.
"Here you go, Mollie." The leader of my rescuers gave me a push between my shoulder blades, nearly throwing me off balance. I stumbled directly in front of the woman. "Your lad here's a bit on the raw side – maybe you should've seasoned him up a bit before you sent him out here." The two others choked around the bottles from which they were already swigging, and sputteringly began to explain this witticism to the rest of the party.
"Who's this, then?" The woman blinked at me, focussing through the haze of her own inebriation. "I don't bloody remember any–" She fell into amazed silence, her jaw dropping open as she recognised me.
I was equally stunned. The bullies lapsed into quiet, as they regarded the two of us staring at each other. Though I had seen this woman only once before, the occasion had been seared into my memory.
"You!" cried Mollie Maud. The bottled dropped from her hand, and shattered upon the rock she sat upon.
"Good Lord," I muttered. I felt quite dizzy; beneath the florid rouge of the brothel-mistress I could clearly see the stern, commanding features of Mrs Trabble, the leader of the Ladies Union for the Suppression of Carnal Vice.
Perhaps the strains of my recent existence had at last overpowered my reason; perhaps, in place of mere confusion and bewilderment, my mind had begun to produce its own visions and phantasms. My skull filled with this airy notion; I seemed to drift skyward as I mused, leaving the fire and yapping crowd below. The thought of the arch-respectable Mrs Trabble, the doyenne of all London's moral crusaders, rounding up women for the servicing of some unspeakable vice, struck me as most amusing.
"Get him!" A screeching cry plummeted me to earth. I blinked, and found myself looking into the rage-contorted face of Mollie Maud – or Mrs Trabble; one and the same as she pointed a trembling finger at me.
The bullies, befuddled with drink, gaped stupidly at me. Before the nearest could lumber his great bulk up from where he sat, I plunged through a gap in the circle. A hand nipped at my leg, too late to catch me, but sending me tumbling down the slope and splashing into the marshy darkness below.
"What's the matter?" I heard one of the bullies say, his sodden puzzlement complete. "Who is he, then?"
The woman's howl pierced the night. "Dolts! Just get him! He knows who I am!"
Crouching in the muddy stream, I parted a screen of reeds and spied her frenziedly belabouring the backs of her henchmen with her meaty fists. A few of them fumbled out their pistols from their waistbands and began clumsily working their way down the slope towards my hiding spot.
My masquerade with these ruffians was effectively at an end; there was nothing for it now but simple flight. The surrounding countryside was too boggy to make any progress through; panicky wallowing in and out of the maze of streams and fens would bring the brothel bullies on top of me. If I could make it to one of the roads crossing the landscape, I would have at least a small chance of putting some distance between myself and my pursuers. As quietly as possible, with the oozy muck up to my chest, I waded towards a dark ridge blotting the bottom of the night sky. Behind me, I could hear the splashing and angry shouts of the bullies as they blundered into one another in