Blood Diamond: A Pirate Devlin Novel Read Online Free PDF

Walter favoured house-robbing over the work that Devlin and the father shared at an anchorsmith’s. The house had not been peaceful. Devlin returned one night to find the old man laid on the table with a dirk standing in his chest. He had only a few seconds to run with what he could gather. Just as bad to report a death as be caught with the knife in your hand. All that a world away now.
    He lay in the Lodge, the area on the south side where prisoners were divided into debtors or felons and within those two groups again divided into who could pay for their stay and ‘garnish’ and who could not.
    There were 150 prisons within the city, some of which could hold no more than a couple of prisoners at a time, and this number did not include the many sponging-houses where a gentleman debtor might lay his head for a time in more comfortable surroundings, usually the bailiff’s own home. Sponging-houses – so named because the Turks or Jews that lowered themselves to become bailiffs would sponge the debtor dry of everything but his name – at least kept his body out of the gaol.
    One hundred and fifty prisons, just over 350 crimes settled by hempen rope, and still every gaol full; for the promise of death had never been a deterrent for the criminal as long as the noose awaited even for the burglary of a couple of silver spoons. Best to take the householder’s life as well, then, to deprive the law of a witness.
    Devlin patted himself down. Everything about him, everything that was him, had been taken save his clothes, and even of them he was short his hat and coat, and those small things mattered. Without them he was less. He was poor again, to the outsider’s eye at least. Until he got his hands on pistol and sword. They would be welcome to judge him then.
    He found he could stand and his manacles afforded him a wide circle of movement. He gingerly felt the tender swelling of his head. Thankfully the blow had been expertly administered and he was grateful to Jonathan Wild for that much. Just a little dried blood remained where the silver cap of the bludgeon had cracked into him.
    He looked up to the only hole of light in the room. Night was settling. August night. The trundle of carriages and the cries of street hawkers still carried on, giving hope that life was not too far away. But he had missed his appointment with the prince, and perhaps that would be his ticket out.
    Just to let someone know and hope that Dandon was not too drunk to not be missing him also. He thought of Dandon, who would be back to the Shadow and Peter Sam, and he thought of the ship whispering up the Thames, black flag fluttering and her guns ready to prey on the city like Drake at Panama whilst someone tried to remember how to load the Tower’s minions against a pirate.
    Aye, there was confidence at the thought of his hundred men or so at Deptford and its assurance made him stride to the door and bang loudly to announce just who he was.
    He hammered three times, shouting for some soul to come to the trap in the door. He waited, he listened, his anger growing. He could hear the sounds of a tavern nearby and guessed he was immured near the taproom where prisoners could purchase brandy, wine and tobacco with not too great a profit to the institution, as one might expect given the circumstances of the clientèle. Small beer also available courtesy of Mr Willcox, whose store was set up at the Newgate Street traders’ entrance where prisoners could likewise purchase their chandler’s wares, or ‘garnish’.
    Newgate may have been a gaol but like all gaols it was a private concern and even those with death at their shoulders held that an Englishman had the right to drink to his king if he so wished; and London still turned on the pull of a horse, a knife and a cork. The whole business dependent on the prisoner.
    A dog barked at Devlin’s hammering and was ‘whist’d’ with a kick. Prisoners had long been permitted to bring in their dogs, pigs,