Chapter 8: Pies on the Quay

The foreman coughed.

"Double, sir? He'll be sick as a dog."

"He's been sick for a year," Father said. "Nobody's asked a question yet."

"The young prince has. Carrying cups about."

"The young prince is a boy playing at apothecaries. The Duke has him in hand."

Against my cheek, Alistair's heart gave one hard thump.

"And my younger girl," Father said. "If she ever turns up down here, you lock the door and send for me."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't speak to her. She talks everyone round."

The boots went back across the floor.

The door banged.

Then the foreman's cough moved off to the far end, toward the vats, and the scrape of a brush began.

Alistair leaned close against my shoulder.

"Hatch," he mouthed.

He went out first this time, dropped to the barge deck and held his arms up.

I let him catch me.

A bargeman came up out of the hold with a coil of rope and stared at us.

"Oi!"

"Sorry," Alistair said. "Wrong barge."

We ran.

We crossed four barges moored side by side, jumping the gaps between them.

On the last one I landed in a pile of turnips, and Alistair hauled me out by both hands, laughing.

Then we were up the river stairs and on the quay, and nobody looked at us twice.

"He said boy," Alistair said. "He called me a boy."

"He called the King a sick old man who'd never ask questions."

"That too." His voice went hard. "Mostly that."

He bought two mutton pies from a stall on the quay.

We sat on the edge of the quay with our boots hanging over the water.

The pie was too hot and too greasy, and it was the best thing I'd ever tasted.

"My mother used to bring me down to the still room when I was small," Alistair said.

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