Free The Emerald Swan by Jane Feather

very tiny and hidden by your hair most of the time.” He took his hand away and she raised her head, her hair swinging back over her neck. “Come, let’s be on our way.”
    But he paused in the yard as she went ahead of him back to the inn. It was extraordinary. He knew now with absolute certainty that the itinerant acrobat was very much more than Maude’s look-alike.

Chapter Five
    D OVER ’ S TOWN GAOL was a gloomy place even on a bright August morning. Only a thin shaft of daylight penetrated the dark cell from a barred slit high up on the wall. Mama Gertrude eased her substantial frame away from the slimy damp stone wall at her back as the first spike of light told her that the long cold night was finally over. She shivered, drawing her shawl closer around her shoulders, silently counting the huddled bodies on the filthy straw covering the mud floor. The checking comforted her, although she knew perfectly well that none of her companions would have melted through the thick stone walls overnight.
    A stinking open drain ran down the middle of the cell, a wooden pail in the corner served as commode. There were no other amenities, not a stick of furniture.
    They were all there, except for Miranda. It wasn’t the first time the troupe had spent a night in gaol, picked up for vagrancy, or on suspicion of thieving. But on this occasion, it was Miranda’s fault. Miranda and her monkey. As far as Gertrude could gather, the missing pair had caused a hue and cry in the town but had managed somehow to evade the pursuit. As a result, their confederates had been rounded up just as they were to take ship back to Calais and shoved into this reeking hole as consolation prize for the irate citizens of Dover.
    Bert coughed, hawked into the open drain, and sat up. “God’s death, how did we get into this?”
    “We’ll be out soon enough,” Gertrude said. “They can’t ’old us without charges, and there’s no charges they can lay agin any of us. Whatever Miranda was up to, we weren’t there.”
    “She wouldn’t ’ave been thieving,” Bert declared, struggling to his feet, his whole body protesting after its hours on the hard damp floor.
    “ ’Course not, but that’s not goin’ to stop ’em charging ’er.” This was from Raoul, the strongman, who flexed his mighty biceps and stood up, towering over the small group. “They’ll charge ’er an’ find ’er guilty without the girl ever openin’ her mouth. In cahoots wi’ the monkey is what they’ll say.”
    Robbie whimpered. “Will they hang M’randa?”
    “They’d ’ave to catch ’er first, laddie,” Raoul said.
    “And Miranda’s quicker than an eel,” Luke put in with a touch of vicarious pride. He drew himself upright, his long skinny body straightening like a piece of string. “If they haven’t caught her by now, they won’t. And if they had, we’d know about it.”
    “Aye,” Raoul agreed, relieving himself at the bucket. “But we’re still in a pretty pickle. They want to bring us afore the magistrate wi’ a charge of vagrancy, an’ we’ll all be whipped through the town square, an’ count ourselves lucky to escape slit noses.”
    Robbie snuffled and massaged his foot, which was aching unbearably.
    “It’s the bleedin’ monkey I blame,” a voice muttered from a far corner. “Should ’ave wrung its neck when the girl first picked it up.”
    Gertrude laughed, a massive booming sound in the small space, and her huge flopping bosom quiveredlike an unset jelly. “I’d like to ’ave seen you take it away from Miranda, Jebediah! You didn’t see what she did to the organ grinder what was mistreatin’ it. Railed at him like a regular fishwife, she did, then tipped up his barrel organ and threw a bucket of slops all over ’im when he come after ’er.”
    “Oh, aye, quite a sight that was,” Bert reminisced. “You don’t want to get on the wrong side of our Miranda when ’er pity’s raised.”
    “Well, I’ll be glad to see the