Page 2 of The King's Man
‘He's gone.’ Her rescuer removed his boot from her foot and stepped back, although he maintained his hold on her arm.
Thamsine found her voice. ‘Let me go. You're hurting me.’
‘Hurting you? Is that gratitude for saving you from the gibbet?’
He released her and she straightened, rubbing at the place where his fingers had pressed. In the gloom of the alley, it was hard to make out his appearance, and he wore a wide-brimmed hat that hid his face, but she could see that he was clean-shaven, his hair, dark and rough-cut, skimming an immaculate, white collar.
‘Maybe I didn't want saving.’
He waved at the entrance to the alleyway. ‘Very well. No doubt you can catch up with the good sergeant if that's what you wish.’
To her embarrassment, she started to tremble with cold, fright, and with delayed shock, as the audacity and foolishness of what she had done began to sink in.
She had tried to kill the Lord Protector. Men had hanged for less.
In her desperate bid to escape the greater threat, she had given no thought to what penalty she may have had to pay had she been apprehended.
She looked up at her rescuer. She owed this man thanks for her deliverance, but the words stuck in her throat.
‘You do realise what you just did?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘May I ask why?’
‘Because I wanted him dead,’ she said, without much conviction in her voice. It was not the Lord Protector she had wanted dead.
‘Well, I'm sure there are plenty who would share the sentiment, but hurling brickbats at a coach is hardly the best way to accomplish that end.’
She drew herself up to her full height. ‘And what do you care?’
‘I don't,’ he answered. ‘I have enough problems of my own without rescuing dim-witted whores who choose to hurl objects at the Lord Protector.’
‘I'm not a whore.’
He touched his mouth. ‘Well, you certainly kiss like one.’
She raised her hand to give the impudent cad a good slap, but he caught her wrist. ‘Now, now, mistress. I apologise for calling you a whore. Perhaps you prefer ‘failed assassin’?’
He let her wrist go and her arm fell to her side.
‘I have nothing more to say to you, sir,’ she said, gathering what remained of her pride. ‘Thank you for saving my neck from the gibbet. I bid you good day.’
He did not attempt to stop her, standing aside to let her pass. As she did so, he bowed. ‘Good fortune to you, mistress.’
She gave him what she hoped was a withering glance and stepped back onto the street. It seemed unnatural that the crowd had resumed its normal bustle. Soldiers mingled with the passers-by, occasionally stopping a person to question them.
Thamsine, in her threadbare cloak and patched and faded dress, attracted no attention. With dragging footsteps, she traced the familiar way to the dreary, rodent-infested hovel onthe outskirts of Blackfriars where she had lodged for the last few months.
The smell of cooking coming from the shops and homes she passed made her stomach growl in protest. She had not eaten since the previous day, and even that had been no more than a morsel of stale bread and a thin broth bought with her last coin.
If she wanted to eat, if she wanted to keep a roof over her head, she had only one choice.
The man who had rescued her had called her a whore and she, with her last shred of dignity, had denied it. She could never deny it again. She had sold everything worth selling and now she had only one thing left.
A couple of streets away from her lodging, she stopped in a boarded-up doorway. She loosed her hair and shook it out. With shaking fingers she unlaced her bodice a little way, displaying a hint of her almost-flat chest. She hitched one side of her skirt to show what she hoped was a tantalising glimpse of ankle above the cracked shoes. It was not, she thought, a very alluring picture, but it would have to do.
She took a deep breath and stepped back into the street, tossing her cloak back over her shoulders and adopting the hip-swinging saunter she had observed others of her newly adopted profession use.
