The Girl Who Wasn't Min E-Book

LG Surgeson

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Mulligan is not the best thief in Aberddu, but he is a man with a plan. After he finds Min and her friends scraping a living on the streets of the Poor Quarter, he knows he's going to be quids in.

Together, Mulligan and the girls build up a rock-solid ruse. As the Fortescues, they hold the key to the homes of the city's great, good and filthy rich. It seems like the perfect scheme - if Mulligan can avoid getting married off - but nothing this good can last forever.

The game they are playing is more complex than they first suppose, and soon enough they are plagued by enemies harder to run from than the militia. Greed, resentment and disloyalty take their toll on the gang. With Min and Mulligan enjoying the high life and Angel disappearing for hours at a time, it seems like they might spoil things for themselves before anybody else has a chance to rumble their little ploy.

As four street kids and a con-man take on Aberddu's aristocracy, who exactly is playing whom... and will anybody come up smelling of roses?

Leseprobe

The Girl Who Wasn't Min

The Black River Chronicles Book VI

LG Surgeson

Copyright (C) 2017 LG Surgeson

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2019 by Next Chapter

Published 2019 by Next Chapter

Cover art by Cover Mint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

Aberddu – pronounced 'Ab-er-thee' is Welsh for Mouth of the Black River.

To Pudding the Goblin – my multicoloured partner in crime x

Chapter 1: The Game

A tight-laced whale-bone corset meant that she had no choice but to sit bolt upright in the polished leather side-saddle of her fine bay mare. The beast was beautiful, glossy and lean - sleek, nimble and small - as a town horse ought to be. Her russet and brown riding attire was made from top-grade damask and lace; most likely authentic Alendrian lace at that. These elegant, slightly understated women were always dressed in the finest fabrics. She had a pile of thick mahogany hair swept high up on to her head and held there by three or maybe four glittering combs. Most likely paste rather than diamonds, but still worth more than a sneeze to the sifters on the Black Market.

If that was her real hair colour and her actual nose or chin, then Luce would happily have eaten her hat - if she'd had a hat to eat. They'd really done their homework on this one. She was Lady Something, Duchess of Somewhere - the names were unimportant. She was had been widowed during the Summer of Fire and rumour had it she had once been desperate for children. Perfect. Luce doubted that she would think so well of children tomorrow.

Luce had quite literally fallen into the Guild Below six or seven years earlier, through an open sewer hatch in the Trade District. No one seemed bothered by her loss, so the Guild kept her. She vaguely remembered a very large family, an empty belly and a bad-tempered mother but she didn't miss any of them at all. Lying in the shadows of the roof, she didn't think about the past, she just kept her eyes on Min.

She really had to hand it to Min, the girl was a true artist. How she got her nose to run on cue like that Luce had no idea. The grubbiness was real, as was the suggestion of a bruise of her cheek and the lice were an unavoidable occupational hazard. But whilst the whole package made Luce and the others look like something you would leave town to avoid, it made Min look beyond vulnerable in an absolutely heart-breaking way. As far as Luce knew, Min was the youngest. She had been dumped, swaddled and squalling, in a tavern in the Government District, not so much a foundling and a leftling.

The Quizzical Cat was well-known for having no connection whatsoever to the Guild Below, and the tavern keeper, a very stout, short man called Harald, was not in any way a Guild sympathiser, nor did he have a hatch in his back-room under two surprisingly light ale barrels that lead straight down into the sewers. His scrawny wife Ruby had taken one look at the child and pragmatically decided that this wasn't the miracle she had been praying for; this was someone else's disaster and the Guild could deal with it. They had paid her to care for the child until the little girl was old enough to care for herself and then Min had gone to live Below. Harald had named her Mini because she had been tiny even as a baby, and even though she was at least ten still looked only six or seven. Luce watched as Min wandered, barefoot, out of the end of alley way straight into the path of bay mare. She heard the expected whinnying and refocused herself on the job in hand.

A waxed fish-line garrotte was the most easily concealed physical weapon in the City. It was light, and small so it didn't affect the line of your clothes, plus it could be safely swallowed if you knew how to knot it. Luce's garrotte had been adapted slightly with a strip of chamois. Whatever Luce was, she wasn't a murderer. She peered over the edge of the low roof, careful not to be seen. Down on the street, she could see Angel preparing the cotton cloth with knock-out vapours.

Angel was perhaps the most tragic of the four of them. She was white blonde, milky pale and grey-eyed. She had a face like a porcelain doll - admittedly a sour-looking one that had been sitting in a gutter for a month - but still. Unlike the others, she clearly remembered her life before the Guild. She had been snatched by slavers as a small child and sold to an odious woman she only ever referred to as Mistress, although she spat the word with such venom that it made Min shudder. She had been traded to the Guild as part of a settlement on the Mistress' debts. Luce sometimes wondered if one of the reasons Angel seemed so bitter was that she'd been only part of the payment. She'd never dared ask.

Min's performance was reaching a crescendo; she was whimpering and clinging to the woman's skirt. Luce was relieved to see that the mark had dismounted from her horse - unlike the previous two who presumably didn't have enough compassion to spoil their shoes, only to not kick out at the wailing, snotty urchin hanging on to their saddle strap. This woman was actually crouching down, one hand on Min's shoulder when Luce and Angel made eye contact, counted to two and sprung.

Once the woman had been downed and dragged into the alley, Clara appeared from a puddle of darkness across the street. She was ostensibly the brains of the operation; meaning that she had most of the ideas, the biggest mouth and hated climbing up on to roofs. She had been orphaned sometime shortly before the Summer of Fire, and had been living in the Trickster Temple when it had burnt down during the invasion. She had been found by Lady Iona, Duchess of Pringle, who had forced her to wash and taken her to the Guild Below for what she styled as 'further' training. She liked to make sure people knew she'd had contact with Lady Iona, as she was convinced it helped her standing in the Guild Below. It didn't.

Clara was in charge of gathering up their harvest greedily and shoving it into four potato sacks that she had brought for this very purpose. She had a good eye for what would sell.

“I feel almost bad,” said Min tugging the combs out of the woman's mahogany locks, “She was actually lovely.”

“You're not turning soft I hope?” grunted Angel who was trying to heft the woman's skirt free without touching the body.

“I said almost,” returned Min, looking a little wounded. Angel didn't notice.

“You know what,” said Luce, cutting the lacing on the corset with a single run of her blade, “this is the best scam yet.” She watched the whale-bone and fabric relax as the tension suddenly released.

“They silk?” said Clara distractedly pointing to her stockings. Angel gingerly ran a rough finger over the sheer white fabric and nodded,

“She's even got matching garters, with pearls on.”

Angel sounded disgusted. Of all of them, she was the only one who actually despised the rich. The other three just saw themselves as wealth farmers, harvesting the ripe pickings from whichever unwitting soul came their way next.

“Right,” said Clara, “let's have 'em. She'll do in her chemise and bloomers, unless they'ze silk an' all.”

“Nope, just cotton,” snorted Min, as she took the fine gold chain from around the slender neck, " She can find out what it's like to walk in this alleyway without any shoes on." Min had been quick to shove her own feet back into the stiff boots she had proudly re-appropriated during the last plague.

“I swear,” said Luce, checking that nothing had been missed before they dragged her further down the alley, “if Min ever grows breasts we're in trouble.”

“If I ever grow breasts,” retorted Min handing three rings to Clara, who stuck them in the least wholly sack. “I'm going on the game. It can't be much different from this.”

“Luring people into alleyways, taking their clothes off and leaving them well and truly screwed?” said Angel dryly, making them all laugh as they rolled Lady Whatnot, Duchess of Thing on to her back and watched as her sagging and suddenly unrestrained bosom wobbled to a stop.

They didn't hang around contemplating the pros and cons of prostitution versus street robbery for very long as they were well aware that they needed to be swift in retreat. Leaving Lady Whosit, Duchess of Whatyacall sleeping soundly on the damp alley floor they disappeared down the sewer hatch not ten feet away. Each one dropped in to the darkness with a sack slung over one shoulder and headed off without a pause. It was straight to the Black Market with this lot. Then, when they each had their share, they could peel off and spend it how they wished.

Chapter 2: The Other Guild

Aberddu was a renegade city free-state that had ripped itself from the clutches of mother Albion only a few years previously. In such an anarchic and treacherous place, where the laws only really existed to let the ruling council prosecute the people they didn't like, it was small wonder there was a rich and thriving underworld.

In fact, underworld was an extremely accurate term for it because the Guild Below were exactly that. Beneath the city were several complex networks of caverns and tunnels, chambers and hidey-holes that had sprung up almost organically like a clutch of hollow octopuses, tentacles running into every corner of the city.

Any passer-by haplessly opening a sewer hatch would be forgiven for thinking that this world must be foetid and desperate and at a glance, they would be correct. The first layer of the tunnels were a catch-all for the rainwater, slurry, blood and other detritus that washed from the streets of the city. Here the rats grew fat on the pestilent effluent and the bloated cadavers that floated in it. The cloying sweet-sour smell of waste and decay made the air unpleasant. Strong tidal surges swelled the water, if you could really call it water, backing it up and pushing it to the surface in spewing plumes. Heavy rain filled them up so they raced and roared around blockages, carrying the worse of the city out to river Ddu and on into the unsuspecting delta.

The practical minds of the Guild Below never ever sought to change this. It was the perfect barrier between the city and their world below it. They never lingered there - unless they were desperate, or worse lost. They simply cut through it, dropping down to the layers below using cleverly placed slips and tunnels, ropes and ladders - all designed to keep the water from getting any further down.

Even though they were in a part of the sewer was firmly Guild territory, the girls didn't take their safety for granted. Guild loyalty in a Guild with only one real rule doesn't stretch very far - particularly not when that one rule is basically 'don't get caught'. (In truth it wasn't the only 'rule' but it was the only one that actually mattered). Whilst some people were protected by status, like the Guild heads or some of the more prominent assassins, no-one would question the disappearance of four sewer brats. It would probably be weeks before anyone noticed they'd gone and even longer before they could find anyone who cared.

The girls didn't splash far through the muck before they found a narrow slit in the top of the tunnel - a recent favourite of theirs. It was narrow enough that only someone the size of a child could use it and it was a safer route than their last cut through. Luce still had the grazes from the altercation that had occurred the last time they used the previous gap and after that the girls had learnt about the importance of varying their behaviour.

Deftly, Min jumped up and grabbed the brick, and hung from the gap by one hand. A moment of acrobatics and she had wedged herself securely in front of the gap. Reaching out a hand, she pulled Angel up so that she could check for any unwelcome company on the other side. After a brief glance, Angel slithered through the gap feet first. Quickly, Min posted the sacks through to her one at a time. Once all of their takings were on the other side, she helped Clara and then Luce up to the gap. They wriggled through frantically, Luce's rapidly developing frame was almost too large for it now. Carefully, each girl dropped neatly on to the pile of stolen clothes below. Min was the last through, she hit the brick floor moving and they carried on without a pause. This new tunnel wound down towards a hatch and monkey-rope that would put them well on the way to the Black Market, or it had done three days ago at least. Hopefully no-one had decided to slash the rope, that would mean a substantial detour.

Mulligan watched with a self-satisfied leer as the girls shimmied down the heftily knotted monkey-rope, dropping sacks of takings to one another, staying alert all the time. They were pros, no question. He'd heard about them but he had to admit he'd been sceptical. It hardly sounded like a slick criminal outfit; four foundling girls working a tired old angle fleecing rich women. However, as they scuttled off down the tunnel away from him, their eyes darting everywhere, he could see that this was a million miles from hanging around barefoot the rich district with your shoes hidden in an alley whining 'ere missus, spare us a florin, I aint eaten for days and my feets is cold'. They were exactly what he was looking for. And if they were the pros they appeared to be then it should be easy to sell the plan to them. It wasn't like he wasn't paying well. He treated himself to an indulgent snort and dropped noiselessly down from his perch in the tunnel roof. They were heading for the Black Market and so was he, but he had no intention of going the same way they were.

Mulligan was not quite arrogant enough to see himself as a criminal mastermind, but he did like to flatter himself that he was a cut or two above a simple petty crook. He had had, in his career, one or two ingenious plans that had made him quite a lot of money, and more importantly were still being talked about by people who couldn't put any of his names to his real face. As he trudged down the tunnel he congratulated himself that this scheme was in fact his best yet. These girls were perfect.

When he'd first hit on the idea of using a small girl as a patsy to gain access to the finer homes and gardens, he'd originally intended to pop along to the Temple District and see who he could find at the Life Temple Orphanage that looked the part. For all their caring, the overstretched Sisters could be remarkably gullible when it came to well-dressed benefactors looking to adopt. A few silvers and a kindly smile and they'd hand over a girl, no trouble at all. But he had abandoned that plan when he'd first heard about these girls, reasoning that a bath, some clothes and an elocution lesson or two were far easier to organise than a crash-course in cat-burglary. He could also pretty much guarantee that as long as their cut appeared to be generous, these girls would have no qualms about doing pretty much anything he asked of them.

The Black Market was not nearly as exciting as it sounded. Clara had never quite recovered from the disappointment of that. Held in one of a handful of locations, the market was like a giant back room of a very dodgy bar except that the beer was worse and it had significantly fewer on-duty prostitutes. People didn't come to the Black Market looking for that kind of entertainment, and the hookers that did come down here were looking to trade in entirely different commodities. In fact, Clara had been most disenchanted to discover, that people didn't come to the Black Market looking for any sort of entertainment at all. This was just as well, because there was none to be had, it was very strictly business.

She had imagined a bustling bazaar with stalls peddling all sorts of dark curios, cages of strange looking and undoubtedly poisonous creatures and exotic characters of every stripe. She had entertained dreams of jugglers and mummers and fortune-telling gypsies with talismans and curling nails, plumes of incense and flashes of magical light. Too much time listening to the bards had left her with a highly-coloured view of the underworld.

In truth it was a subdued gathering of people whispering in corners, showing each other surreptitious suitcases and exchanging cash purses on the quiet. No-one set out their wares, except the food vendors, with good reason – pretty much all the clientèle were skilled pick-pockets. It also didn't do to let people know what you had unless you knew they wanted to buy it. If you wanted to buy something, you had to know who was selling and you had to hope they were in the mood to talk to you.

Clara had been to the Black Market four times before she managed to find anything other than pastries for sale. It had been quite intimidating, even though she would never have admitted it. Several years on and the four of them knew nearly everybody and people knew them. They had a regular fence, Johnny (almost certainly not what anyone else called him) who paid fair prices for 'finely-made ladies' essentials'. None of them were completely sure what he did with them when he'd bought them and Angel didn't care. Luce had once told Clara that he sold them to the poshed-up hookers in the Government District, which Clara had found hilariously funny until Min pointed out that they had better hope that none of the girls tried to service a gent whilst wearing his wife's stolen pearls. Angel had merely grunted at this comment, which had stopped the others flat in the middle of a howl of laughter.

A good fence was two steps from point of sale making them, as his source, a fair way from being collared if one of the posh doxies was unlucky enough to get caught. Johnny whatever-his-name-was was probably not a very good fence, the girls had no real way of know, but he was happy to deal with street-robbing sewer brats and they hadn't been caught yet.

The girls let Angel do the deals with Johnny. She got the best prices, they didn't ask how. While she was negotiating the other three bought some food and found a corner to crouch in, although they did keep their eyes on Angel as she made the transactions. It wouldn't do to have her snatched - particularly before she'd handed over their share of the cash.

Mulligan was happy to wait for the opportune moment. He had thought this whole thing through carefully. The other advantage of finding the girls down here was that he didn't have to pretend to be a kindly uncle type. These girls had all been down here a couple of years or so and were as hard-nosed as any. They would be more likely to try to do him over if he came across as unctuous or in away well-meaning than if he were mean to them. He had considered that very carefully, kidnapping after all being one of his options - but that also had its drawbacks - four of them versus one of him where not odds he fancied. Better to offer them a deal, a percentage. Willing partners were more use than prisoners for a start, gold being a much more inviting master than fear or charity. And if it turned out that they were as clever as he thought they were, then he'd just have to make sure that he paid them their cut fairly. Almost.

It was the sound of Luce's voice raised louder than usual, cutting the buzz of the market, that caught Angel's attention.

“Piss off mister,” she almost shouted. “I aint going on the game,”

Angel looked over and was unsurprised to see the man who was trying to talk Luce down from her growing anger. She couldn't hear him, or even see his lips - his face was in shadow - but she knew exactly who he was. Actually, in one context that wasn't true at all. She had no idea of the man's name, or his profession or intentions but she did know that the man she was looking at, with his nondescript …everything, was the same man who'd been tailing them for three days at least.

At first, she had been scared that he was going to snatch one of them - but as the days past, fear turned to curiosity. If it had been a straight-forward abduction, then surely he'd have picked one off as they dropped down a hatch or rounded a corner. An ether rag in the mouth and ten seconds later you'd have a neat bundle over your shoulder. Who misses a street brat right? She'd stayed alert, even given him an opportunity to try it. When he didn't take it she had at first been confused, then intrigued. If he wasn't simply looking for a quick take, then he must have something else in mind.

Two days later, she'd seen him as they approached their last mark and she had been wondering all afternoon what exactly he was playing at. She doubted very much he was just a dockland pimp - they didn't spend nearly as much time observing their girls. However, she did have a gut feeling that this man had some kind of business proposition for them, which may or may not survive Luce shrieking that she 'aint no bleedin' docklands doxy,' at the top of her lungs. Angel snatched the coin purse out of Johnny's outstretched hands and, skipping their usual post-transaction badinage, jogged over to the others.

Twenty minutes later, Luce was shovelling butcher's pudding, pease pottage and gravy into her mouth so fast that you had to concentrate to see the spoon move. Apparently, she wasn't bothered if you were a pimp or not if you were paying for lunch. The others were a little more circumspect about their would-be benefactor, who had taken them up top to The Bird and Bottle for a 'spot of grub'. Judging by the way Luce was putting it away, it was going to be a very large spot. Min, who was the one of the four that could most accurately be described as shy of strangers, sat in one corner picking over a large bowl of stew that had been served with a lump of rock hard bread almost the size of her face. She wasn't going to speak to anyone in front of Mulligan, but she was listening.

Once he'd explained and they'd eaten everything in sight, including what seemed like a bath-tub of custard, Mulligan left them for an hour 'to mull things over'. It took the girls less than half that time to make a decision about his offer. There was no denying that his plan was certainly very clever and if he was telling the truth about their cut, it stood to take them into the big league. Well not the big league exactly, just a slightly bigger league with more sophisticated locks and fewer knocked-off ladies' undergarments. As Clara put it so eloquently and succinctly, if it took off the 'dockland strumpets will 'ave to steal their own bleedin' pearls'.

Chapter 3: Mulligan's Rooms

Mulligan lived in an insalubrious part of the North Wall Slums, down an alleyway behind a run-down knocking shop with the windows boarded over. This wasn't the part of the poor quarters where cheeky geezers with missing teeth looked out for tousled waifs and vast-bosomed matriarchs stood in their doorways passing moral judgement on everyone's business. This was the rat-end of the city, where the nasty people really were nasty and nobody batted an eyelid at Mulligan trailing four young girls behind him like ducklings in the middle of the day. They followed him up the street and down the alley, each with their hand on their dagger-hilt, and in through the rotting front door at the bottom of the building Mulligan called home. His rooms were five storeys up, in the attic.

It was a tight squeeze into Mulligans rooms. To be perfectly honest 'rooms' was a very pretentious, and somewhat felonious description of Mulligan's living arrangements. It was in fact just a loft space which Mulligan had sectioned off into three areas. At the end where the roof sloped, behind a makeshift wall built precariously from about forty-five impressive looking religious tomes, was a saggy palliasse with a couple of moth-eaten blankets on it. This Mulligan had laughable styled his 'bedroom'. He may as well have thrown a piece of cloth over the chamber pot and called it the 'en suite privy' for all it impressed the girls. In the living area there was a small range in the fire place, a couple of knocked-about chairs and a smart looking gate-leg table. This was cluttered with bits and pieces. There was one grimy window, that let in a lot of draught but not much light. Mulligan hadn't even bothered to curtain it, presumably because he'd used the fabric to separate the other end of the space into what he pompously declared to be his 'training area'. When he firmly instructed the girls that they weren't to enter, he should have realised how stupid this instruction was.

Once he'd finished the 'tour', which took less than a minute, he sat them all down next to the slim-line fire place and deposited a battered old trunk in front of them. Judging by the slightly crazed smile on his face he was under the impression that he had presented the girls with something akin to the treasures of the ancients. The girls were more inclined to think it was a dirty old chest with a very shoddy padlock. None of them bothered to move to look at it and it was only after Mulligan grunted “go on then,” with more than a hint of irritation that Angel crept forward and started to open it. She ran her hands over it suspiciously, checking for booby-traps and other nasty things before prizing the lid open. She found it was about half full of a seemingly random collection of items. A slightly grubby rag doll sat on top of the pile, which she started to unpack piece by piece. There were three absolutely ghastly shift dresses and a pinafore, all in different sizes and all far too big for Min. There was a pair of stiff lace-up boots stuffed with fleece to keep them in shape. Loose at the bottom were a cake of soap, a soft, slightly moth-eaten hair brush, a handful of ribbons - none of which matched any of the dresses - and a small silver bangle. Once she had laid it all out she looked back into the trunk to see if she'd missed anything. Mulligan - who had been watching her expectantly looked slightly disappointed by how underwhelmed she seemed to be.

“What's wrong?” he said and was rewarded with the first of many disparaging glares from Angel.

“Well,” she said eventually when none of the other girls spoke, “the clothes are too big, these shoes are probably too small, the ribbons are horrid, the doll smells funny, that's not enough soap and do you really think that brush is going to do anything to that?” She pointed at the festering nest of hair on Min's head. Mulligan opened his mouth to retort but Angel filled the gap before he could, “It's fine - I'll make you a list.”

About ten minutes later Mulligan found himself trudging down the stairs with a list in his hand. It included such items as a bone lice comb, a large onion, a stiff-bristled scrubbing brush, a flask of rough gin and a large bottle of Mrs Docherty's patent disinfectant and grime-remover. He was muttering under his breath about the cheek of it and wondering what would be left of his rooms when he got back. He'd taken them in off the street and this is how they acted? How very dare they.

When Mulligan returned from his errands several hours later, he had every intention of laying down the law. After all, he was a fully grown man, a master of certain arts and deserving of respect. They were four strays with a little skill and a lot of nerve. Hauling his bundle up the stairs to the attic, he was resolute but as he stood panting on the top step he could hear the sound of splashing through the door and low mumbled voices. Dropping the bundle, he snapped open the latch and pushed his way into the rooms, angry at the idea that they were in some way destroying his property. He was just about to shout at the girls when he was met with a harpy-like shriek and a flurry of flailing arms and cloth as Clara and Angel flew at him shoving him backwards out of his own door.

“Wait there,” ordered Angel and disappeared back inside. Mulligan wanted to protest at being ordered around in his own home but she had gone before he could open his mouth. He was left gaping at the sopping wet face of Clara.

“We're givin' Min a wash,” she said imperiously, as though that excused everything. Then having decided further explanation was needed added, “an' she's shy.” Mulligan just stared back incredulously, so Clara carried on talking. “S'okay,” she wittered, “we scrubbed out that old tin tub first like, and we managed to get the stove to light. Eventu'lly.” The look on Clara's impish face when she said eventually didn't fill the still-speechless Mulligan with much hope as to the present state of his rooms, “and then it took most of the rest of the aft'noon to get the wa'er up 'ere. You wants another bucket really.” It was then that Mulligan became aware of just how much water there was on the stairs. He opened his mouth to shout at her and then closed it again. He didn't really know what to say. There was an uncomfortable pause during which Clara didn't look in any way apologetic and then, far more calmly than he'd meant to, Mulligan said,

“Well, I can't stand out here all day.”

After several minutes of faffing about, bickering and talking at cross-purposes during which Luce called Mulligan a 'bleedin' perv', the girls managed to construct a temporary screen around the still bathing Min, allowing Mulligan back into his own rooms.

The moment Mulligan had gone, they had pulled back the curtain to the training area and had a poke around. It was, in truth, quite an impressive arrangement. In a space no wider than two feet and about eight feet long he had managed to fit a trap making bench, a large wall-mounted map of the sewer network, a practice lock with changeable tumblers, a series of hand holds for climbing and hanging practise and a rope gym for flexibility training. The girls had spent a good hour playing with everything before they decided they'd better actually do something useful. They had really gone to work on Min. She was sitting folded up in the battered tin tub which Mulligan probably considered the 'main bathroom'. The range was lit, and she was trying not to splash the water on to the dirty rag rug. She had been rubbed down from head to foot with the bar of soap, which had successfully removed the top layer of dirt leaving the more permanent grime behind.

Mulligan unpacked his goodies onto the hearth rug.

“Hurry up,” groaned Min from behind her modesty screen, folding herself even tighter, “this water's getting cold.”

Mulligan grunted.

“S'also turned brown,” said Luce, “and there fings floatin' in it,”

“Yeah,” whined Min, “but that don't make it warmer,”

Mulligan grimaced.

“Look,” he said as he plonked the stoneware bottle of Mrs Docherty's patent disinfectant and grime remover down on the floor, “I'll get some more water up if one of you sorts out the fire.” No sooner had he said it than Luce had dived towards the bellows.

Leaving Min wrapped in a sheet and shivering by the fire, Clara and Luce emptied the tub carefully out of the tiny window and Mulligan went downstairs with the bucket and the hanging pan from the fire place to fetch up the clean water. Under the principle of all things being relative, things were looking up. Angel snatched up the bottle of Mrs Docherty's, pulled out the stopper and sniffed. It was largely an astringent aroma but there were hints of ginger and burdock that made her warm inside. It has to be said that Mrs D's wasn't normally used as a shampoo but the sewer brats swore by it. It had the ability to loosen and dissolve most things without creating a funny smell or a burning sensation and unlike quite a few of the other similar products, it didn't have the tendency to make your hair fall out in alarming chunks.

It turned out that when Min was liberally spread with Mrs D's and thoroughly scrubbed with the stiff bristled brush, that she was both freckly and blonde. She actually looked slightly less angelic when she was clean but still sweet enough to be instantly adored. She stood next to the pile of clothing she had stripped off to get in the basin and prodded them with a toe. Whatever colour they had been when they started they were now a grubby grey colour, more darning thread than any actual fabric. It was clear that she couldn't put them back on. The dresses that Mulligan had acquired for her were a variety of different sizes, none of which were small enough for Min. As Angel said as she held up the largest one, it was better than them being too small because at least they had enough fabric to sort something out, even if it was ghastly.

Mulligan sat folded into thirds in one corner with his knees under his chin, watching the girls in action. Min had made herself a dress out of a sheet and was sitting near the fire rubbing her arms for warmth as Clara ran the lice comb through her damp hair. She'd been given a second coat of Mrs D's and the smell was permeating through the whole room. Rumour had it that it was the odour alone that stunned the lice and Mulligan could well believe it.

Mulligan was taken in by the gentleness with which Clara pushed the comb into Min's slick hair and gently guided it downwards, patiently stopping to unpick mats and knots as she met them. She didn't tug or curse and Min didn't mewl or whine. Beside them, Angel and Luce were a flurry of activity, altering the dress that was closest to Min's actual size with a tuck here and nip there. They dipped into Mulligan's extensive sewing kit with such confidence and didn't seem to falter at all. To Mulligan, who was not an inconsiderable tailor himself, it seemed almost magical as suddenly they were holding up a slender russet-coloured shift dress delicately trimmed with brocade that had been carefully unpicked from one of the other frocks.

By this time, Min's hair was drying a soft blonde colour and had settled into a gentle wave after its assault by the lice comb. As she wriggled into the dress with the help of Luce and Angel, Mulligan found himself gaping in amazement. It was total transformation the squalid little sewer brat had vanished and been replaced by something far more hygienic. The other three stood back and looked at her with the critical gaze of artists trying to decide if they've finished their masterpiece. Angel gave a little dissatisfied grunt and dived into the suitcase. After a few moments of flailing that saw most of the case contents scattered on to the floor, she emerged looking triumphant with a thin strip of dark green satin in her hand.

“Sash!” she declared by way of explanation and the other two nodded their agreement as she rapped it around Min's tiny waist and tied it off with a modest bow. When she had been finally adorned, Min turned to Mulligan to show herself off. Mulligan was just about to add his approval when the girl smiled wide displaying her teeth or lack of them. Mulligan recoiled, no matter how cute the dimples they could not detract from the ghastly decaying mess in Min's mouth.

“What about her teeth?” was all the Mulligan could manage.

“What about them?” retorted Luce with definite affront in voice.

“Well look at them,” returned Mulligan, “she can't go parading around the Merchant's District with a mouth like that.” Luce was just about to open her mouth to give Mulligan some very choice instructions when Clara cleared her throat and said,

“No problem guv,” Mulligan just looked at her, so she carried on. “Aint no problem at all, there's a chap down the market he'll do 'em for two florins, one and an 'alf if he's down on his luck and outta cider.” Mulligan didn't understand. He was too busy staring at Clara, hoping for more explanation, to see Luce giving him a filthy look. When no further information forth coming and Mulligan realised, yet again, that he was the only one who didn't understand he said,

“Do them how?” Clara looked amused as she said,

“Wiv magic, he'll make 'em look all shiny and clean. And there. He does all the hookers on the docks when them big ships come in and anyone what's got a posh con on the cards.” Mulligan nodded. Now she said it, he vaguely remembered hearing something like that but not being a front man, his work wasn't really bothered by his dental arrangements. “They aint real or nuffin' just 'llusion'ry like, but it's the look of the thing aint it? Just so long as she aint gotta eat no apples.”

That night, as he sat in the living area by the last embers in the range, Mulligan had the feeling that his plan might just work out. However, some things were going to have to change. He looked mournfully over to his bedroom where the four girls had curled up on the palliasse wrapped in the blankets. He'd tried to send them home but he had met with a barrage of objects including Clara's well-reasoned point that there was no point in washing Min so thoroughly just to send them all back to the sewers for the night. That had been the clincher. As he lay down on the rag-rug, he groaned as he found several of the remaining damp patches with his back and legs. Then closed his eyes. Hopefully, it wouldn't take him long to get to sleep.

Chapter 4: The girl who wasn't Min

Mulligan gave up trying to lay down the law with the girls after three or four days and once he'd accepted that he wasn't actually in charge of them things became much easier. The only thing he'd managed to insist on was that the other girls washed as well. Mulligan, for all that he had been born and still lived in the city slums, was not a street-rat and he prided himself that he was generally free of lice, fleas, fungi and other obnoxious free-loading parasites that dwelt in the poor district making life unpleasant-smelling and itchy. Living in such close proximity to the girls, he had found it difficult to keep his distance and when he found himself faced with a single louse looking at him from his comb he had put his foot down. There was no humility or apology in them as they insisted he fetch the water for them. They gave themselves what Mulligan had started to think of as the Mrs Docherty treatment and sat dripping in front of the fire with the well-used nit comb. Ignoring Mulligan's objections, Clara and Angel had re-appropriated the curtain that hung in front of the 'training area' to make themselves dresses and Luce had helped herself to one of his shirts and a pair of his less shabby underpants. Mulligan had tried to get them to wear the spare dresses that still languished in the trunk, but they had insisted that they did not fit - Mulligan suspected out of sheer spite for being made to wash. He'd contemplated washing their old clothes, but in the end he burnt them.

It had taken a little over a week for life in the overcrowded attic room to become normalised. Mulligan had given up trying to evict the girls from his bed and acquired himself some extra padding and blankets. He found that whilst he wasn't overtly fond of any of the girls, having them around the house did have compensations. They didn't complain about things like being cold or hungry, and all the bodies meant the rooms had never been warmer. He had briefly entertained fantasies of the girls cleaning up the place and making it homely and comfortable but these were quickly dashed. None of them were natural home-makers, which in retrospect was unsurprising as none of them had previously had a home to practise on. They willingly did jobs like fetching up water and coal and when presented with food had no troubles cooking it but that was about it.

Angel was clearly the impatient one, already frustrated by the fact that they hadn't seen any action yet and not shy about complaining. Conversely, Luce and Clara had taken to the whole thing like ducks to the village pond. They seemed to revel in the level of detail that was needed to make the con convincing. Mulligan had the basic worked out, but now he could see that his original plan was merely the bare bones and these girls were adding layer upon layer of flesh until it became almost a living breathing entity.

If Mulligan's alter-ego was going to ingratiate himself with what passed for the gentry in Aberddu, then he would need more than just a clean-ish frock coat and a cheeky grin. The bored wives of the rich merchants and the scrag-end duchesses gossiped more freely than just about anyone else in the city and news of a newcomer would spread like fire through summer grasslands. Then, if they were particularly down on entertainment, the newcomer would be a source of almost morbid curiosity. His every movement would be scrutinised and analysed over and over again. The social circle he was trying to infiltrate was used to disgraced aristos and dishonest merchants and all sorts of other people who lie about their status. They knew the signs. For the scheme to work, Mulligan and the girls couldn't afford a moment's slip up - it was almost guaranteed that someone would spot the one time he let himself in through the back of his supposed house or stepped out ungroomed. With this in mind, it was crucial that at no time was the newcomer seen sloping off in the direction of the slums sucking on the arse-end of a roll-up.

To this end, they'd set about procuring a modest but spacious residence in the quiet end of the Merchant district. Mulligan had set aside a certain amount of cash for the set-up and he watched in awe as the girls set about squeezing every last drop of life out of each florin. Upstairs curtains were only needed at the front, and then only linings. The drawing room and dining room were to be furnished, and the corridor as far as the door to the privy in the back yard. If more became necessary, Angel pointed out, then it could be added.

The beauty of shopping at the black market was that generally nobody asked what you were up to - because that was a sure-fire way to be lied to apart from anything else. They called in every favour they were owed and bargained for everything. They skilfully collected all the items together, careful not to buy locally stolen goods - in case it turned out that Mulligan befriended their rightful owner. For his part, Mulligan held the cash and watched them carefully. Every groat was accounted for. He was too impressed by them to trust them not to cream off some cash - mainly because it was what he would have done given the chance.

Min had drawn the very short straw in all of this. Since receiving the Mrs D treatment which revealed her soft blonde curls and freckles, she had become much more recognisable and it was decided by the others that it was far too much of a risk to let her out during daylight hours. After all, how many seven-year-old daughters turn up in a town a month before their poor widowed father to organise living arrangements? She had been very quietly put out at first but after a couple of days, when the others would come back looking shattered and cold she started to almost revel in her enforced confinement.

To pass the time, she threw herself into developing their cover story and practising her reading, speech and elocution using some books that Luce had filched for her. This was particularly difficult because only Angel and Mulligan could read reliably and there had been several strops, one of them from Mulligan, before much literacy had been accomplished at all.

Min came up with endless details for herself and Mulligan to memorise and once all the major arrangements had been made, the girls ganged up on Mulligan - again - and forced him to spend a good portion of each day having 'daddy' lessons.