Page 18 of The Return of the Rake

“How poetic,” King replied with a snort. “A smuggler, then.”

Bill shook his head. “The smuggler. Round these parts, only the New Romney Gang can rival ’im. But folks fear the New Romney Gang, an’ everyone loves Boreas. Pretty, ain’t he? Speaks pretty, too, but he’ll still slit your throat quick as a wink if you cross him.”

“Sounds an interesting fellow,” King replied. “What happened to Perry?”

Bill mimed a rope about his neck being pulled tight, tilting his head to one side like it had been broken.

“Poor devil,” King said with feeling. Perry had been a good man. He had offered him a place in the days just before King had been hounded out of the town. King had been going to take it too, anything other than keep working for his father. He’d dreamed of making his fortune, of breaking free, and he’d not much cared how. The law was not for men like him to abide by, not when living seemed to be done by tooth and claw.

Once upon a time he’d have sought a proper introduction, for trading with such a fellow could be worth both their whiles. He’d plenty of friends and contacts with the smugglers in these parts as a young man, an understanding of the trade which had served him well when he began making his fortune in town. But he’d reconsidered his way of life some years ago, having decided he’d rather live it than find himself swinging from a rope.

Too many of his friends had had their lives shortened and their necks stretched, and King didn’t fancy his odds. This fact was impossible to ignore and coming hard upon the discovery of a little child shivering on his own doorstep because the babe’s father had lost everything—well, something had to be done. King might not have forced the fellow to gamble his life away, but he’d made it damned easy to do.

King of the Rookery was a position impossible to own for long. Power and might and a willingness to do violence was required to keep a tight grip on that tarnished crown, and King’s taste for such a life had long since waned. As it was, there was someone ready and willing to take his place, should he allow it, or allow his attention to wander. Even leaving the place for such a time was a risk he would never have taken before, yet this time it was a calculated one.

King settled back in his seat and sipped his brandy, which was unsurprisingly of excellent quality, considering who drank here. Not that Bill seemed to notice, swigging the stuff back like it was water.

“How’d he die, then?” he asked. He didn’t really care, but curiosity prodded at him.

Bill favoured him with a bleary expression. “Who?”

“My father.”

“Took the boat out when he was half seas over ‘imself,” Bill said, favouring King with another unpleasant grin. “Not such a bad way to go.”

So, drink and the sea both had finished the old devil. Hardly a surprise. The life of a fisherman was fraught with danger, and it was a common enough fate among their kind.

“He washed up past Fairlight way after a storm. Bloated like some fat old whale. No one would have guessed who it was if not for his tattoos.”

“Can’t blame the sea for throwing him back,” King replied calmly, though inside his stomach pitched. Not out of squeamishness, for he’d lost that years since, nor for his father, a man who deserved his fate as richly as the one beside him if King was any judge, but that it might have been him too if he’d not been so determined to do something different, something better.

If fate had not intervened, he too might be here, drunk and belligerent and fat and bloated, before the sea had even had the chance to do its work. But that would have come soon enough. It was inevitable to King’s mind, so certain it might have been carved on a stone tablet and handed down from heaven.

“To old Joe King,” Bill said, raising his tankard, his eyes becoming glassy and his hand swaying, tipping the drink precariously as he lifted it in the air. “God rest him.”

King shook his head. “To my father, may he rot in hell for all eternity.”

Bill laughed, shaking his head. “Joe weren’t so bad. He were good to me after you hopped it.”

King snorted. “He always preferred you to me. I looked too much like my mother for his comfort. Lord, but he hated that woman with a vengeance,” he said, shaking his head.

“’Cause she hopped it too, like you did. Can’t blame him for that,” Bill said with a shrug. “Jus’ like his ma, the bitch, that’s what he’d say,” he added, smirking.

King did not doubt it.

“You got a fancy house then, to go with them fancy clothes? Got a fancy woman to warm the bed, have ye? Lucky bastard,” Bill said, and then belched loudly. He wiped his mouth, a speculative look in his eyes. “You always was a lucky bastard.”

King laughed, shaking his head. There really was no point in replying.

“Lucky bastard,” Bill repeated, but with a belligerent look in his eyes now, one which King recognised all too well.

King downed his drink and pushed to his feet.

“What? Going so soon? We’re jus’ getting started, me old pal,” Bill said, reaching out as if he would grab hold of King and pull him down, but he was too sotted and slow and King evaded his touch with ease. “You seen that boy of yours yet?” he added with a malicious sneer.

“I’m no pal of yours, Bill, and that boy’s got nothing to do with me,” King said, though a shock lanced through him all the same as he realised the lad might not know it.

He let none of his thoughts show on his face though, staring down at the man, who’d once been a friend of sorts, with undisguised revulsion before reaching into his pocket. The chink of coins caught Bill’s attention. King put a stack of coins down on the filthy tabletop and Bill scrambled for them, gathering them up and regarding the small fortune before him with wide eyes.