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That was what worried him.

London had grown from a population of seventy-five thousand when the queen first came to the throne to two hundred thousand presently, and this was one of the areas where the newcomers had gone. Recently arrived immigrants seeking their fortunes rubbed shoulders with one-time slaves captured off of Spanish ships, out of work artisans, discharged servants, widows with no family to support them, laborers with too many children to feed, and a flood of refugees from the countryside, where the practice of throwing farmers off their lands in favor of more profitable flocks of sheep had left many homeless. All those people had to go somewhere, but the reality was that there weren’t enough homes for everyone; there weren’t enough jobs.

And that was before the harvests failed.

Last years’ crop yield had been disastrous, and this one’s wasn’t looking any better. A succession of harsh winters and rainy, sunless summers had left grain and produce rotting in the fields or failing to come up at all, destroying England’s ability to feed itself. There had been riots all summer over the cost of food, led by the city’s apprentices, who were poorly paid and worked like dogs, and who had been joined by those who were increasingly finding it hard to make ends meet.

The riots had been put down and the leaders executed, but the streets were tense.

Not surprisingly, crime had shot through the roof, as the poor had little alternative as even begging had been made illegal without a license, which was typically only awarded to the old, the infirm or children. Unlicensed beggars could be whipped out of the city, their backs hanging in ribbons of flesh, or hanged for repeat offenses. Yet desperate people ignored the law, begging or thieving in an attempt to survive.

The latter had become so widespread that the theft of anything worth more than five pence had been declared a hanging offense, and more than three hundred such executions took place each year. That had included a lad of fifteen hanged for stealing a bag of currents, as well as an eleven-year-old girl. But perhaps hanging didn’t seem so bad when far more gruesome fates were meted out to offenders.

Rows of traitors’ heads, parboiled and coated in pitch to preserve them, studded the top of the Great Stone Gate at the Southwark end of London Bridge. Often there were as many as thirty up there at a time, their blackened eye sockets staring as if into one’s very soul. And they remained in place for years, as the keeper of the heads was loath to let go of his favorites.

Likewise, gibbets lined the road outside the gate, ugly iron cages suspended from L-shaped wooden gallows, and made in the form of a man. Inside, murderers and highwaymen were left to starve and their remains displayed as a deterrent to those who might follow them in crime. Kit had passed them many times, some staring out of the bars in utter despair and others already deceased, with the birds picking their flesh until the locals complained about the stench enough to get them removed.

London was a bustling, vibrant city, with people from all over the world contributing to a new age in poetry, music, and theater, as well as the growing power of its trade. But its underbelly was often ugly, and women were not spared. And that was doubly true of witches.

It was almost universally agreed that certain people could harness magic and use it, either for good or for ill. The good, or “white” magic was everywhere, from the charms people bought from wise women to help in childbirth and illness, to the astrologers and “wizards” who infected the court. Like that bastard Dee, who had done the queen’s horoscope for years, even to the point of choosing the date for her coronation.

But as people put their hopes in white magic, they also feared its counterpart. And when plague broke out repeatedly, when the specter of famine stalked the land, and when war or the threat of it was constantly in people’s minds, they cast about for someone to blame. And, increasingly, that someone was witches.

Elizabeth had passed laws against the malevolent use of witchcraft, resulting in more than five hundred trials and the execution of around one-fifth of the accused. They were not burned at the stake as on the continent, as everyone remembered the backlash from the burnings of Protestants under the queen’s sister, Mary. But those who ended up swinging from the gallows at Tyburn probably did not see much difference.

Real witches rarely died in such ways, of course, but the Circle lost no opportunity to accuse them of all manner of atrocities, seeking permission to remove their remaining rivals. It was something that had largely worked until Gillian started fighting back, winning Her Majesty’s trust and stopping the slaughter. But being the lone voice for her people made her a target; Kit just wished he could get her to see that.

He also wished that he’d brought her bodyguards.

The Circle wasn’t likely to attack her at court, where a mistake might bring their own sufferance into question, and possibly not even in her home, where there could be no doubt as to the intended victim. But in these streets? They could relieve themselves of a rival and also have perfect deniability at the same time.

Damn, but he was a fool to have come alone!

“Get behind me,” he told Gillian abruptly.

“What? Why?”

“We’re being watched.”

“Well, of course we—”

Rapidly approaching footsteps suddenly echoed down the road—a number of them. And Kit changed his mind. He shoved violently her away. “Go!”

“Pray pardon?” she looked at him as if he were mad.

“Go! Run! I’ll hold them off as long as I can!”

“What are you—”

“Mind your purses!” echoed off the bricks, along with a spate of laughter that came from seemingly all sides.

It was the age-old cant of the thief, called out when they saw a likely mark, to discover where he kept his coins. If it caused him to clutch his purse wherever it was hidden on his person, a short time later a pickpocket would ensure that he lost it. But here, especially laced with laughter, it had a much more sinister feel.

“Did you not hear me?” he snarled at Gillian, who continued to just stand there.

And then it was too late, as the two of them were swamped by the most villainous looking crowd Kit had seen in a while.

The nearest man, a tall lanky redhead with a patchy beard, had a large hole burned through one ear, the punishment for vagrancy. But he was better off than one of his companions, a short, pockmarked fellow, who had lost his ear completely. The appendage had likely been left on a pillory, where an offender to be whipped often had his ear nailed to the boards, part of which would be left behind when they jerked him free.