Reluctant as he was to admit it, it was a question that gave Raven pause too. He had worked hard to win the professor’s approval, but there had been several equally diligent and committed candidates for the apprenticeship. He had no solid notion of why he had been given the nod ahead of the rest, and did not like to dwell upon the precariousness of such caprice.
‘The professor hails from humble stock,’ was as much as he could offer, an answer unlikely to satisfy Henry any more than it satisfied Raven. ‘Perhaps he believes that such opportunities should not be the sole preserve of the high-born.’
‘Or perhaps he lost a wager, and you are the forfeit.’
The drink flowed, and with it old tales. It helped. The image of Evie flickered in and out of his vision like the guttering candles in her room. But listening to Henry, Raven was reminded of the world Evie did not get to see, reminded of the opportunity waiting for him across the North Bridge. A little of his love for this place and for the Old Town in general had died tonight. It was time to leave it all behind, and if anyone was a believer in new beginnings, it was Will Raven. He had reinvented himself once before and was about to do so again.
Several tankards later they stood outside Aitken’s watching their breath turn to steam in the chill of the night air.
‘It’s been good to see you,’ Henry said. ‘But I’d best be getting my head down. Syme’s operating tomorrow, and he’s all the pricklier when he can smell last night’s tobacco and beer on his assistants.’
‘Aye, “prickly” is the word for Syme,’ Raven replied. ‘With emphasis on the first part. Meanwhile I’m back to Mrs Cherry’s for one last night.’
‘Bet you’ll miss her and her lumpy porridge,’ Henry called out as he turned onto South Bridge in the direction of the Infirmary. ‘Not to mention her effervescent personality.’
‘For sure, she and Syme would make a fine match,’ Raven called back, crossing the road and heading east in the direction of his lodgings.
Raven knew there were elements of his time here that he might one day regard with nostalgic fondness or regret, but his accommodations were not among them. Ma Cherry was a cantankerous old crone who resembled her name only in that she was round and reddened, for there was certainly nothing sweet about her. She was as sour as earwax and as desiccated as a corpse in the desert, but she kept a lodging house that was among the cheapest in the town; just above the workhouse in terms of comfort and cleanliness.
A smir of cold rain blew about him as he headed down the High Street towards Netherbow. Clouds had gathered and the moonlight disappeared since he made his way to Aitken’s. He noticed that some of the street lights remained unlit, making it almost impossible to avoid the piles of muck on the pavement. He inwardly cursed the lamplighter who had failed to do what Raven considered to be a straightforward job. If he himself was as incompetent, lives would be lost.
Lighting fell within the responsibility of the police office, as did keeping the gutters clear. Their main priority, however, was the investigation and recovery of stolen property. If they observed that as well as their other duties, Raven thought, then every thief in the Lothians could sleep easy.
As he approached Bakehouse Close he stepped on something soft and his left shoe began to fill with water; at least he hoped it was water. He hopped for a couple of yards, trying to shake off whatever was clinging to his sole. Then he became aware that a figure had emerged from a doorway and was loitering in front of him. He wondered what the fellow was waiting for, and why he would be lingering with the rain becoming heavier. Then Raven drew close enough to see his face, which in the gathering darkness was also close enough to smell the rancid decay from his carious teeth.
Raven did not know his name, but he had seen him before: one of Flint’s men. Raven had christened him the Weasel, after his furtive manner and rodent-like features. The Weasel did not strike him as the type to chance confronting Raven alone, which meant he was bound to have an accomplice nearby. Probably that slow-witted fellow he was with the last time: Peg, Raven had named him, for the sole tooth standing amid his ruin of a mouth. Raven had probably passed him without realising a few moments ago. He would be hiding in another doorway ready to cut him off if he ran.
This encounter was not mere happenstance, he realised. He remembered the man who had been staring at him and then departed so purposefully from the tavern.
‘Mr Raven, you’re not trying to avoid me, are you?’
‘As I can think of nothing that would commend your company, then my general intention would be to avoid you, but I was not aware I was being sought.’
‘Anyone who owes Mr Flint will always be sought. But you can guarantee my absence just as soon as you make good on your debt.’
‘Make good on it? I have barely owed it a fortnight. So how about you sub me an advance on that absence and get out of my way.’
Raven brushed past him and resumed walking. The Weasel did not seek to apprehend him, and nor did he immediately follow. He would be waiting for his accomplice to catch up. He and Peg were used to breaking the bones of already broken men, and some craven instinct perhaps detected that Raven had a greater stomach for the fight. The ale might have doused what burned in him before, but the sight of this sphincter-blossom was reigniting it.
Raven walked slowly, aware of the footsteps behind him. He was searching in the gloom for a weapon. Anything could be turned to such a purpose: you simply needed to know how best to use it. His foot happened upon something wooden and he bent to lift it. It was a splintered length, but solid enough.
Raven turned around and rose in one movement, the stick drawn back in his right hand, then something exploded inside his head. There was light everywhere and a whiplash movement, as though his inert body was being hauled like a dead weight by the momentum of his head. He hit the wet cobbles with a rattle of bones, too fast to make any attempt to cushion his fall.
He opened his dazed eyes and looked up. The blow had rendered him insensible, he reasoned, for he was having visions. There was a monster above him. A giant.
Raven was dragged from the street into the dark of an alley by a creature that had to be seven feet tall. His head alone was twice the size of any man’s, his forehead impossibly overgrown like an outcrop of rocks at a cliff-edge. Raven was paralysed by pain and shock, unable to react as he saw this Gargantua rear up before him and bring down a heel. The sound of his own cry echoed off the walls as pain erupted inside him. He flailed in response, curling his limbs tight about him, then felt another post-holer of a blow drive down through the huge trunk of his assailant’s leg.
Gargantua crouched to sit astride him, pinning his arms to the floor with the sheer weight of his thighs. Everything about this brute seemed stretched and disproportionate, as though certain parts of him had just kept growing and left the rest behind. When he opened his mouth, there were even gaps between his teeth indicating that his gums had kept spreading out around them.
The pain was indescribable, worsened by the knowledge that Gargantua’s fists were free to rain down more damage. No amount of alcohol would have been sufficient to dull his senses through this, else the operating theatres would be going through more whisky than Aitken’s.
His mind was a storm, coherent thought nigh impossible amidst such agony and confusion, but one thing seemed clear: there was no prospect of putting up any kind of fight. If this monster wished to kill him, then he was going to die here in this alley.
Gargantua’s face was a compellingly grotesque vision, more fierce and distorted than any gargoyle clinging to the walls of a church, but it was his thick, sausage-like fingers that drew Raven’s gaze in the gloom. With his own hands helplessly restrained, he was entirely at the mercy of whatever these outsize pommels might wreak.
Raven felt relief when they were directed to rifling through his pockets, but this was short-lived as he remembered that there was little to be found there.