Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,65
turned. The ruffians were surprised enough that their grips loosened, and Ji scooted out of the way just as the hurdy-gurdy player’s cane whistled through the air.
The first blow caught Davey above the ear with an ugly crack. He let out a howl and took off running up the passage.
“Ye stupid ole woman,” snarled Big Teeth. “Ye think—”
She swung again, the cane catching him flat across the middle of his face and breaking his nose.
“That’s right, you nasty vermin,” the woman shouted as Big Teeth scrambled after his companion. “Go on, get! Get!” Then she said to Ji, “You all right there, lad?”
Ji crawled to where the dizi lay trampled in the muck of the passage.
“Lad?” said the woman again. “You all right?”
Ji swallowed hard and said in a small, shaky voice, “Yes. Thank you, ma’am. How . . . how could you know what they were planning to do? You’re blind.”
Too late, Ji recognized it as a horribly rude thing to say. But the woman just laughed. “I heard them whispering. When you’ve been blind since birth, your ears get real good. Your ears, and a few other senses people don’t seem to have a name for.”
“Thank you,” said Ji again, and started to cry.
“Aw. There, there now, tyke,” said the woman, lowering herself awkwardly beside Ji so that the two of them sat side by side with their backs to the dirty wall. “It’ll be all right.”
“No, it won’t! I hate this place! I wish Hayes had never brought me here. We should have stayed in Canton. Oh, why did he have to go and die? I wish I were dead too. I can’t live like this. I just can’t. I thought I could. I thought I could take care of myself, but I can’t!”
She reached out awkwardly to pat Ji’s knee. “How old you reckon I am, lad?”
Ji blinked at her. “I don’t know. Why?”
“I’m sixty-two. Because I was born blind, they taught me to be a musician. That’s what they do with the blind, whether they’re any good at it or not. And I’ll be the first to admit I never was very good. But I’ve been playing my hurdy-gurdy on the streets for forty-six years now.”
Ji stared at her. “How? How could you possibly survive?”
She gave a soft laugh. “I won’t try to pretend it hasn’t been hard sometimes, especially now that I’m getting older. But there’ve been some good times too. Lots of good times.”
Ji was crying unashamedly now, great, gasping sobs that felt as if they’d never end. “But they broke my flute!”
“Did they? Oh, now, that was real mean, it was. You play like an angel, you do.”
“How do you know?”
“Heard you when I first came into the square. I was planning to just rest and move on to find another pitch when you stopped and didn’t start up again. You did that for me, didn’t you?”
When Ji remained silent, the woman smiled. “You’re a good lad. I used to have a girl to guide me, but she took up with a fellow and left me a couple of days ago. I find it sorely difficult to get around without her, and I’d be right grateful if you’d agree to take her place—at least for a little while. I don’t usually earn more than ten or twelve pence a day, but if we’re real frugal, maybe we can save up enough to buy you a new flute. What do you say?”
Ji sniffed and wiped a grimy sleeve across wet eyes. “I don’t even know your name.”
“It’s Alice. Alice Jones.”
Chapter 39
T heo Brownbeck was seated at a large, cluttered desk in the library of his Bedford Square house, surrounded by untidy piles of manuscripts and books, when a footman showed Sebastian in.
“As you can see, I’m busy,” announced Brownbeck, throwing down his quill with enough force to send ink splattering across his page. “This had better be important.”
He didn’t rise or step from behind his desk. Nor did he invite Sebastian to sit. So Sebastian wandered the room, taking in the tall bookshelves overflowing with well-thumbed religious volumes, the worn leather chairs beside the empty fireplace, the portrait of a pretty young woman in powdered hair and eighteenth-century dress he took to be the wellborn but long-dead former Miss Julie Osborne. “Working on a new article, are you?”
“I am. On the shocking number of young pickpockets that infest our sadly beleaguered city.”