Sharpe said.
‘Leek and barley, sir.’
Sharpe picked up a random piece of bread. Hard as brick. Hard as ship’s biscuit.
‘Sir?’ The woman held out her hand. She was nervous. ‘The bread is counted, sir, counted.’
Sharpe tossed it down. He was tempted to some extravagant gesture, but what would it do? Upsetting the cauldron merely meant the children would go hungry, while dropping the bread into the soup would achieve nothing. Grace would have known what to do. Her voice would have cracked like a whip and the work-house servants would have been scurrying to fetch food, clothes and soap. But those things cost money and Sharpe only had a pocketful of copper.
‘And what have we here?’ a strong voice boomed from the hall door. ‘What has the east wind blown in today?’ The children whimpered and went very still while the woman dropped another curtsey. Sharpe turned. ‘And who are you?’ the man demanded. ‘Colonel of the regiment, are you?’
It was Jem Hocking. Come like the devil to the heart of hell.
He was no devil to look at. See Jem Hocking in the street and a man might take him for a prosperous farmer up from the Vale of Kent. The years had whitened his hair and stretched his chequered waistcoat taut across a bulging belly, but he was still a bull of a man with wide shoulders, stout legs and a face as flat as a shovel. Thick jowls hung beneath bushy white side whiskers, a golden watch chain held a dozen seals, his tall boots were tasselled, his dark-blue coat was edged with velvet cuffs and he carried a varnished black staff with a silver knob. He was the Master and for a moment Sharpe could not speak. He was overwhelmed by hatred, by the memories of this man’s cruelty, even by fear. Twenty years and a battlefield commission had not taken away that fear. He wanted to imitate the children; he wanted to freeze, pretend not to exist, not even breathe in case he was noticed.
‘Does I know you?’ Hocking demanded. The big man was frowning, trying to discern something familiar in Sharpe’s scarred face, but the memory would not come. He shook his head in puzzlement. ‘So who are you?’
‘My name is Dunnett,’ Sharpe said, using the name of an officer in the greenjackets who held a particular dislike of Sharpe. ‘Major Warren Dunnett,’ he said, promoting Dunnett from captain.
‘A major, eh? And what kind of uniform is that, Major? Red coats I know, and blue I’ve seen, but bless me, I ain’t seen green and black.’ He stepped towards Sharpe, pushing the children’s skinny legs out of the way with his beadle’s staff. ‘Is it a newfangled uniform, eh? Some kind of coat that gives a man the right to trespass on parish property?’
‘I was looking for the Master,’ Sharpe said. ‘I was told he was a man of business.’
‘Business.’ Hocking spat the word. ‘And what business do you have, Major, other than the killing of the King’s enemies?’
‘You want me to talk about it here?’ Sharpe asked. He took one of the pennies from his coat pocket and spun it towards the ceiling. It glittered as it flew, watched by hungry, astonished children, then fell into Sharpe’s hand and vanished.
The sight of the money, even a humble penny, was all the reassurance Hocking needed. The rest of his questions could wait. ‘I has business outside the poorhouse tonight,’ he announced, ‘it being a Friday. You’ll take an ale with me, Major?’
‘That would be a pleasure, Master,’ Sharpe lied.
Or perhaps it was not a lie, for Sharpe was angry and revenge was a pleasure. And this revenge had been simmering in his dreams for twenty years. He glanced a last time at the text on the wall and wondered if Jem Hocking had ever considered the truth of it.
Be sure your sin will find you out.
Jem Hocking should have taken note and been on his knees in prayer.
Because Richard Sharpe had come home.
CHAPTER TWO
The tavern displayed no name. There was not even a painted sign hanging outside, nothing, indeed, to distinguish it from the neighbouring houses except, perhaps, a slight air of prosperity that stood out in Vinegar Street like a duchess in a whorehouse. Some folk called it Malone’s Tavern because Beaky Malone had owned and run it, though Beaky had to be dead by now, and others called it the Vinegar Alehouse because it was in Vinegar Street, while some knew the house simply as the Master’s because Jem Hocking did so much of his business in its taproom.
‘I have interests,’ Jem Hocking said grandly, ‘beyond those of the mere parish. I am a man of parts, Major.’
Meaning, Sharpe thought, that Hocking persecuted more than the workhouse inmates. He had become rich over the years, rich enough to own scores of houses in Wapping, and Friday night was when the tenants brought him the rent. Pennies only, but pennies added up, and Hocking received them in the taproom where they vanished into a leather bag while a cowed white-haired clerk made notes in a ledger. Two young men, both tall, strongly built and armed with cudgels, were the taproom’s only other customers and they watched every transaction. ‘My mastiffs,’ Hocking had explained the two young men.
‘A man of responsibility needs protection,’ Sharpe had said, using two of his three shillings to buy a flagon of ale. The girl brought four tankards. The clerk, it seemed, was not to be treated to Major Dunnett’s largesse. Only Sharpe, Hocking and the two mastiffs were to drink.
‘It takes a man of authority to recognize responsibility,’ Hocking said, then buried his face in the tankard for a few seconds. ‘What you are seeing, Major, is private business.’ He watched a thin woman offer some coppers to the clerk. ‘But in my parish duties,’ Hocking went on, watching the clerk count the coins, ‘I have responsibility for the disbursement of public funds and for the care of immortal souls. I take neither duty lightly, Major.’ The public funds were fourpence three farthing a day for each pauper out of which Jem Hocking managed to purloin twopence, while the rest was grudgingly spent on stale bread, onions, barley and oatmeal. The care of souls yielded no profit, but did not require any outlay either.
‘You have overseers?’ Sharpe asked, pouring himself and Hocking more ale.
‘I have a Board of Visitors,’ Hocking agreed. He watched the ale being poured. ‘The law says we must. So we do.’
‘So where is the responsibility?’ Sharpe asked. ‘With you? Or the Board?’ He saw the question had offended Hocking. ‘I assume it is you, Master, but I have to be sure.’
‘With me,’ Hocking said grandly. ‘With me, Major. The Board is appointed by the parish and the parish, Major, is infested with bleeding orphans. And not just our own! Some even gets stranded here by the ships. Only last week the mudlarks found a girl child, if you can imagine such a thing.’ He shook his head and dipped his nose into the ale’s froth while Sharpe imagined the mudlarks, men and women who combed the Thames foreshore at low tide in search of scraps fallen overboard, bringing a child to Brewhouse Lane. Poor child, to end with Hocking as a guardian. ‘The Board, Major,’ Hocking went on, ‘cannot cope with so many children. They confine themselves to a quarterly examination of the accounts which, you may be sure, add up to the exact penny, and the Board votes me an annual motion of thanks at Christmas time, but otherwise the Board ignores me. I am a man of business, Major, and I spare the parish
