C hurch Lane, London
The moment between sleeping and waking, that flash of a breath when Fam's body floated in a place of neither pain, nor cold, nor hunger begged the same question every morning.
Had he died? Had the taut flesh that still clung to his bones finally decided to cry craven and set him free?
He blinked a few times and jerked himself upright. Bloody hell. Not today.
The scrap of black fur responsible for the only warm spot on Fam's body mewed indignantly and slid from the crook of his neck into his lap.
"Sorry, mate." He stroked the kitten's head absently as he waited for his deadened senses to put in an appearance.
His body and mind raced in a contest in which he'd unwillingly been entered, how long ago had it been?
Three weeks? Nearly four? The slithering ache of the chill and damp vied with the virulent assault to his nose, his eyes, and even his mouth of the must of mold, the sharp sting of piss, and the cloying stench of shite from every corner of his underground prison.
What had once been a coal cellar now reeked only faintly of coal.
Though the walls were still washed so black he barely noticed the difference between night and day save for the light under the door,
Of course, he'd created the privy-worthy perfume himself.
The stomach-turning aroma that filled his cell to the point the air fairly hung in disgusting sheets all about him came from his brilliant idea to use a different corner every day to relieve himself.
When one had only four corners from which to choose, using a different one every day didn't make a fucking bit of difference.
He'd created his own sewer and unlike those in the rest of Seven Dials and the other rookeries, this one did not have the advantage of London's abundant rain to wash away at least some of the stench.
He was only nine years old, but that was no excuse.
He should have thought his idea through, though that kind of planning was his brother, Con's, sort of thing.
Con was twelve. He knew things, lots of things.
Con was the reason Fam was still alive in spite of Ma Dyer's efforts to starve him into submission.
He picked up the kitten and moved to the wall at the foot of the pallet of rancid, ratty blankets on which he slept.
With deft fingers he traced the lines of mortar until he found the one loose brick Con and their brothers had taken nearly the entirety of Fam's first week in the cellar to loosen so that they could remove it and drop scraps of food down to him two days a week without Ma being any the wiser.
"No food today, Smudge," he murmured to his feline companion.
"Tomorrow. That will be Wednesday." He rubbed his eyebrow with his free hand.
"I think." His brothers could only slip food into the hole behind the loose brick on Sundays and Wednesdays.
Those were the days Mister Kamish, the rag man, stopped his cart in just the right spot at the back of Ma Dyer's house for either Con or Ban or War to slip between the cart and the wall without Ma or one of her mad dog sons seeing them.
Mister Kamish would knock on the back door to collect the rags and clothes Ma sold to him.
He'd stand on the steps, his hat in his hand, and pretend to inspect every piece before he named a price so low, Ma was sure to argue.
The longer the two of them haggled, the longer Fam's brothers had to deliver the pieces of potato, bread, and sometimes meat they'd saved over the last three days.
Once they'd managed to steal several pieces of chicken from Ma's kitchen.
He and Smudge had feasted like kings that week, but that was two weeks or more past.
A weak growl meandered through his belly, as if a memory of that chicken had suddenly misted through like a ghost. Hunger lived in the coal cellar with Fam, a companion every bit as alive and desperate as he and Smudge, and most days far louder and more insistent.
A jingle of keys warned him the bitch responsible for his imprisonment stood at the only door to the cellar.
She'd descended the rickety stairs from the kitchen too damned quiet for a woman her size.
Fam dropped the kitten onto the pallet and stepped away into the middle of his cramped cell to meet her.
He'd be twice fucked if he'd hide in a corner from the mistress of Ma Dyer's baby farm, the only home he'd ever known.
She lived and breathed on the fear of the few children who had survived past infancy in her supposed care .
Fam would sooner offer a chicken to a starving fox than an ounce of fear to Ma Dyer. With the fox he might only lose a hand.
The door swung open with a deliberate creak, the hinges left unoiled to ensure Ma knew should anyone be so foolish as to interfere with one of her many twisted forms of discipline .
Fam fisted his hands at his sides to keep from raising his arm to shield his eyes against the invasion of light from the windows across the far side of the empty still room off which the coal cellar stood.
No fear. No flinch. No sign of weakness.
All were mother's milk to the tall, solidly built woman in the deceptively prim blue dress trimmed with white lace at the collar and cuffs.
"Still alive, I see." Ma Dyer took a step into the cellar, but came no closer.
She drew a silk handkerchief from her sleeve and held the flimsy piece to her nose.
Fam made her no reply. "Have you decided to do as you're told?
" She pinned him with her fish-eyed stare, the one designed to make children and some grown men squirm.
He refused to answer her. Not a chance in hell he would ever again do the thing she wanted him to do, the only use she had for him.
Never again would he use his fists to beat another child senseless whilst crowds of drunken men and women wagered on who would survive.
Even now he withdrew into the din of voices, the scent of blood and sweat and sawdust thrown down on the floor of a tavern's back room, and the sudden shroud of silence when his last opponent fell and failed to rise.
Over the last year he'd made a right handsome sum of money for the old harridan who'd rented him out to the men who ran the human cockfights that pitted children against each other and called the bouts entertainment.
He'd long grown numb with indifference to the fate and feelings of other children.
Death came to those in Ma Dyer's care nearly every week.
He didn't allow himself to grieve for any of them.
Con, Ban, and War, and their sister Nell--he only had room in him for them.
Until the night a month ago when Fam had unleashed a flurry of fists upon the rail thin chimney sweep boy who had collapsed onto the blood-soaked sawdust to gasp once and breathe no more.
He clenched and unclenched his fists to ward off the image of that moment. More weakness he didn't need.
Ma took two steps closer, raised her meaty hand, and slapped him.
He stumbled back but did not fall. The light from the still room behind Ma curled in at the edges.
A cold shudder raced through him. He swayed slightly as a deep, endless pang nearly bent him double.
Fuck that. He straightened and glared at her as the heat of useless rage warmed a small spot at the center of his body.
His belly twisted and growled. Ma opened her narrow lips into a merciless smile.
"Hungry?" She poked her forefinger into one of the many holes in his threadbare, filthy shirt. He flinched as she traced each rib, scraping her nail deep enough to draw blood. "How are you still breathing, lad?"
"Spite," Fam hissed at her.
She slapped him again, and this time he fell back into the wall, which was the only thing that kept him upright.
Smudge scampered over to settle at Fam's feet, his back arched and his teeth bared.
Ma swooped down to catch the kitten around the neck.
Fam pressed his palms into the dank, icy wall to keep from snatching his friend out of her cruel grip.
He clamped his mouth shut so tightly his teeth hurt.
That alone stayed the scream lodged in the back of his throat.
"Stupid boy," Ma said in a deceptively sweet voice.
"Why do you think I threw this scrap of vermin in with you?
" She tightened her fingers around Smudge's neck.
Fam swallowed hard against the rise of his gorge.
"You'd rather starve than make use of my generosity?
" Smudge opened and closed his mouth, but the hisses he aimed at Ma made no sound.
"He's scrawny, but there's enough meat on him for a meal or two.
" She flung the kitten at Fam's chest then punched him in the face as quick and sharp as any back tavern brawler.
Fam clutched Smudge close and didn't bother to swipe at the blood coursing from his nose onto the dirt floor of the cellar.
Ma shuffled near enough to pin him to the wall with the weight and girth of her body.
She smelled of stale perfume and onions.
He could hardly breathe under the crushing weight.
Suddenly, she held a shining dagger in her corpulent fist.
She was going to kill him? Relief eased the pressure in his lungs. Good. If she killed him slowly like the madwoman she was, he'd have time to toss Smudge out the doorway into the still room. The little cat would at least have a chance at escape.
"By noon tomorrow that four-legged weasel's shite better be dead, and in your belly, or I'll hand it over to my boys and let you watch while they skin him alive.
Slowly." She dropped the dagger to the floor and backed up two steps before she turned and walked to the door.
"And the next day you'll return to the ring and fight.
" She glowered at him then, her expression finally free of artifice to reveal the true demon he knew her to be.
"Because if you don't, I'll send that boy Ban, the little one you and those other rotten guttersnipes protect so well in your place. "
Once the door slammed shut behind her, Fam staggered to his pallet and collapsed onto his side.
He held Smudge tight against his heart. His friend seemed to understand as he neither struggled nor moved, merely settled as close to Fam as possible and purred softly.
They lay together like that long after the blood from Fam's nose ceased to flow and dried in an itchy crust down his chin, into the creases of his neck, and even on Smudge's black fur.
The golden light from the still room retreated from beneath the door to be replaced by a thin sliver of a silvery glow from the moon.
He sat up and placed the kitten on the pallet.
Once he'd crossed the cell and used his feet to find the dagger, he returned to the pallet, sat down, and stared at the wall, not that he could see the bricks very well in the dark.
Ban, the youngest of his brothers, would not survive even a single night in the ring. He was only five years old.
Con was the thinker. Con would know what to do.
Fam rolled Ma's words over and over in his mind.
Why hadn't she killed him? Because death was freedom, and she enjoyed torturing him too much to ever set him free.
Setting a prisoner free was an act of love, something Ma knew nothing about, probably never had.
The kitten climbed all over Fam, oblivious to the danger he faced from the person he trusted the most. Fam brushed at the tears that burned soundlessly down his face.
Setting a creature free, even in death, was an act of love. Wasn't it?
The light under the door was sunlight once more, morning sunlight.
He wiped the blood and fur from the dagger blade onto his shirt as he stood and went to the mound of dirt and bones in the middle of the cellar.
The dagger clutched in his fist he drove the blade into that mound until the hilt was all that was visible.
He stood there with his hands tightly closed until the key rattled in the lock and Ma Dyer's macabre form filled the doorway.
She looked around the cell, stared at the stains on Fam's shirt, and spotted the dagger in the earth at his feet, all in quick succession.
Then she began to laugh. Her laughter filled the cellar like the morning noise of a rooster destined for the cook pot in a day or two.
Fam turned at the sound of Mister Kamish's rag and bone cart pulling away from the house.
No need for the old man or Fam's brothers to risk dropping food behind the loose brick anymore.
After today there would be no need. He stared at the mound of earth with the dagger thrust deep.
No need at all, for his next fight, one way or another, would be his last.