Author’s note: As in all the Harry and Ellis stories, readers are advised to proceed at their own discretion, in this case for slurs, violence, and mature content. These stories take place in the early 18th century, and it would be a bit ahistorical to totally avoid all unpleasantness, though of course, this is all fiction, but if any of those categories of things are likely to displease you, you should probably skip these stories. Also, there’s a fair amount of incomprehensible speech written in dialect, so if that’s not something you can stand, these are also probably not the stories for you you. I’ve gone into the reasons for choosing to write it that way elsewhere in this tag.
Also, yeah it would be pretty rare for someone in Britain to have tattoos in this period but I liked the idea *shrug* deal with it I guess
-end-
Harry leaned upon the vintner's barrel, elbow on it's sturdy top, taking shelter from a light drizzle under the overhang of the new sign on the importer's shop. Shuffling further in the oversized linen shirt he used as something like a coat, he gnawed slowly on a piece of bread more alum and air than actual bread, and looked inconvenienced and small.
Eyes slid on and off of him the way the fat drops ran from the fancy glass windows,and that was fine. Just a small boy of the street - granted of the sort the passers-by usually wouldn't see at all, caught out by the rain like a hedgehog stuck passing over a bit of road made too close to its den. Perhaps a servant's son, waiting for a mother to finish the master's business. Or maybe a ragged apprentice, waiting for his ragged master to finish his dealings and come out.
Sure, thought Harry, waiting for something to come out...
First a block of tea came out.
Next a lacquered snuff box came out.
Then a bundle of gold thread, glinting as it sailed out of the doorway and into Harry's deft hand, disappearing into his shirt as if it had never existed, much less flown.
Harry chewed on his bread and looked waifish.
He nearly fumbled an elaborate dagger that next flew out of the doorway, and saw someone stop to stare. He bent and spit a hunk of bread onto the ground as if it had wounded him, pulling some remaining bits out of his mouth, and thus explained away the oddity of his motions. Everyone knew English bread, especially poor bread, had bones and rocks in it. The witness moved on.
Harry caught a balled silk scarf.
A set of stockings.
Some kind of silver case that rattled.
A fancy compass.
A pair of ridiculous looking silk shoes came out next and Harry cursed, but caught them all the same, one after another.
Another set of silk-somethings flew ribbon-like through the door and Harry made them disappear. There was a pause.
His ears pricked to the sound of something rattling against the doorway. He shifted his feet, leaning less, listening more.
A gold pocket watch.
A lady's hand-mirror.
A shout.
Ellis.
Ellis came out as if thrown himself. He vaulted the barrel, throwing Harry down, and hit the sidewalk with a loud whoop of laughter. The shopkeeper set up hue and cry after him, but the streets were too lonesome to get a good mob up, thanks to the rain. Standing in his fancy, knee-length coat, mud from the gutters splashed all up his nice white stockings, the importer could do nothing but curse the whole of blighted England and it Irish cousins.
By the time anyone thought to look down to where Harry lay, he had evaporated in the dark of the alley between shops.
Harry trotted uneasily through the warren of back-passages and alleyways, counting the signs of the route as they went by. Though ostensibly 'known', he still didn't like to wander through the thieves' warrens, especially not laden with take. The idea was that the fact it was the Family's take protected it, and by extension, him, but Harry could show with two fingers how far he trusted that.
They were a ruddy bunch of thieves, and they lived amongst a ruddy bunch of thieves – by definition they couldn't be trusted, not a one of them – and if it hadn't been for certain coincidental events, he would be off somewhere else already.
Certain coincidental events and the unexpected kindliness of the one called Ellis. Though, Harry figured, it wasn't actually kindliness... more a keenness that was sort of kind, if you thought maybe you could trust a fellow like that, which you probably, in the end, couldn't. Not probably, he hastily reminded himself – nobody was ever kind without reason – or keen, rather – and especially not gypsy thieves and canters, and probably especially not Irish gypsy thieves and canters.
Ellis probably just wanted to sell him to the child-snatchers in Barbary. Like the giving him coats and clothes and food and the way he talked slower when he canted so Harry could keep up and the way he was keeping the others from gaming on him too much was just protecting an investment.
Right. That was exactly it. So it wasn't kindness at all.
He sniffed and shuffled through the alley, head unconsciously dipped between hunched shoulders.
Harry didn't like this sticking around one place, nor one people, not at all. It was safer to move quickly and regularly, and not meet anybody if he could help it. However, he was making more than he had made before (which was almost nothing), sleeping better (which was to say, at all), warmer (again, warm at all), better clothed (arguably), and he wasn't tired.
It was the tiredness that got him. Sometimes a body just got sick of taking care of himself, he thought.
He slowed his trot, hearing the very voices before him: Ellis, loud with laughter, letting the praise of the others shake off his skin like water from a dog. It was a rum lay, of course, and if Harry couldn't understand the words, he could understand the tone.
He stopped to brace himself. Took a few deep breaths and reminded himself who, exactly he was dealing with, and what his part was. If they bullied him, he bullied back. If they praised him, he wouldn't get comfortable with it. He still hadn't given in to the urge to settle in, and he wasn't going to. Just maybe until the winter let up- and then he would be off again.
Peeking around the corner of the alley, he could see them, Ellis and Ter and another three of the youngest Family men, arrayed around the crate where they would settle on how to toss the goods, so each man could calculate his cut.
Ellis was something of a novelty, even to the others in the gang, and especially to the younger men. He was true gypsy, or at least half, and had come over from the pavees in Ireland, with twice the guts and twenty times the stories the others had. He could not only use the London cant, but gammon, had run every kind of cloy and file while never getting nabbed, and could whip men three times his size in a brawl. A real rogue, Ellis was, through and through, and so given to wandering that he never did stay within a given gang for more than a few months at a time.
Technically, it had been all Ellis' game; he had done the risking, it was his plan, his ken to mill... and, Harry supposed, as he had been catching everything, his game, too.
Only because Ellis had picked him. He had told Harry the plan first. Said he was the only man small and deft and square-looking enough for the job.
He liked to use Harry for his plans.
The others had played their part. Ellis wasn't the sort that shopkeepers let into their fine importing stores. They had scrubbed him up with rainwater, lent him a hand to try to shave close the dark hair on his chin (it hadn't worked so well, but they didn't want to spare for a barber's visit for such a short game).
They had watched at an alley's mouth, until someone about Ellis' size for fit walked by.
Harry had watched them pull him in and beat him. Seen them curse at each other for incaution in striking until blood ran down the man's face, for it might ruin the clothes. Despite their cursing, they had kept going until there was blood out of his mouth, until he did not move to groan or plead. Then as neat as surgeons, they had stripped him to the skin of his fine clothes, saving Ellis' aside to decide which to pawn after the game was done. They had left their mark naked in the alley, still as a stone in the drizzling rain.
Harry had watched from a dark spot, having been put aside for that part.
That fine blue coat set on Ellis' shoulders flared when he turned to tell a joke. They had all admired the trimness of the fit.
Harry had only watched them leave the lump of body to bleed out in the rain.
Harry strolled into the alley, keeping his footsteps soft, his face set into a fussy little frown.
“Like ta have knocked me wits out, Ellis – be a li'l ware, eh?”
Ellis didn't jump at Harry's sudden proclamation, merely quirked a brow and glanced over his shoulder, like he had heard Harry coming a mile away.
“Dear Joy, boyo, 's but a tappin' stoter, an' ye righted – righ'ed an' got yer groats, I'll pos' th' poney an' croak uncross'd if it en't true.”
Harry hadn't the first clue what he had said, so he wagered on frowning a little deeper and pulling the goods from his shirt. The low chuckles of the other, and the way Ellis rather beamed at him as he set the goods on a crate, made him think he got away with it.
“Jesus, Ellis, don't you want to lay it on any thicker? I don't think I'm jammed up with your coddling the boy yet,” said Ter.
“Well,” Ellis replied, leaning over to look at some of the finer things they'd pinched, “is he good is he not? Look – I just threw those Chinese shoes to see if he would catch 'em. And we didn't get caught until I missed the doorway with that damn locket – fine locket it was too, a pretty price on that. Look,” he held up the block of tea, a look of pride on his face.
The others just rolled their eyes. John-hob in thick Shropshire put Ellis' fire out.
“You want him in the family, lad – we get it.”
“Oh, sure we do,” said Ter, playing at looking down at the goods, when in fact his eyes strayed knowingly up to Ellis. “An' it's because he's so good at thieving.”
A lumbering growl issued from Ellis' throat, a dangerous glint in his eyes. His fists closed and he stepped towards Ter, who threw his hands up, palms out, in self-defense.
“Shut your trap, Ter – you've got your proofs he should be made good, or haven't I settled you, yet?”
“Jesus, Ellis,” Ter said, backing up. “Calm down. I didn't say we shouldn't stall him in, did I?”
“Seemed to me you shaded it in,” Ellis growled. “You’’re always picking on him like it.”
“Maybe I'm the only one not afraid of you beating me for it – and maybe you ought to take notice, mother bear.”
Ter put a smile on his face, as if it didn't mean anything, and nodded towards Harry.
“Maybe you ought to ask him if he wants in sometime.”
Ellis turned, to see that Harry, once the goods were out, backed against the wall at the corner of the alley, wide watchful eyes fixed on him and his raised fists like a snake to a mongoose, ready any second to bolt into the shadows and disappear.
Dropping his fists, Ellis tried to right himself, planting the sort of false smile Ter had on his face.
“Arrah,” he began to reach out, but saw the boy flinch, and turned it into reaching up to scratch his forehead. “Bene gamin', ye did, Harry. 'S a rich take, eh?”
Harry didn't say anything. He made some effort to peel himself off the wall, eyes fixed like glowing lanterns on Ellis. He was not afraid – even the others could see that. He just had a healthy respect for his size versus theirs, should a fight break out.
“Er...” Ellis really did need to scratch his chin this time, trying to come up with the way to say it. “Ye did well, boyo.”
Thanks to the looseness of his shirt, they couldn't see the deepness of the breath he took. Harry put all the annoyance he had in his voice.
“No thanks to you, missing a target as big as a doorway. We could've had better.”
Ellis' face split into a grin, and he looked at the others. They chuckled, and John-hob nodded slowly.
“Oh, he's got ye pegged, don' he, Ellis? He's sharp.”
“Tol' ye,” Ellis replied. He turned to Harry, “'Ave it easy, my nippikin judge – jes' got ta warm up, a li'l, eh?”
“Warm up your eyes, next time, too” Harry said, poking at the take. “What the hell are we going to do with shoes, you idjit? Like ta get me nabbed for the sake bloody shoes.”
“He's jes' lookin' out fer ye. T'ink o' how good dey'll look on yer bitty trotters, dough, Harry,” jeered Ter, making the shoes tap out a little dance on the crate.
Harry snatched one from his hand, giving him a sour look. After a moment's pause he slipped it on his hand and mimed it giving Ellis a kick.
“Show you me bloody bitty trotters.”
Cheers broke out for Harry, cat-calls of encouragement. Ellis just kept grinning.
“Right,” Ter shrugged. “Fence the take, then off ta swill taplash 'til we go' ta play ag'in.”
Met with a general cheer, he added, sparing a look to Harry, “Toast all ta the name o' th' Family.”
Harry had sat quietly in the pub, while the others caroused, letting his second rabbit of gin stay steady on his knee. They had already bought him a congratulatory glass, which he'd downed because he had to, and was well intending to let the second linger while the others talked amongst themselves. He never usually drank when was by himself, disliking the unsteadiness it put into him, but now, by all the chatter, he certainly couldn't be called 'by himself'. Granted, he mostly couldn't keep up with the talk; he just kept his ears open for things that sounded like they were about him, or words he had come to recognize:
The game, lay, pike it, dose and dub, kimbaw and bully, going a-prigging or on the play, beef and balsom, make and mill, riff-raff and redshank. The list was quite out of his reach. He would get headaches, sitting and trying to follow the crew when they got off to canting at high-speed.
He did like to watch, though, and the liquor kept him warm and contented. Even just the little cup was enough to swim his head a little, and at the moment he liked that, too. He could sit tucked in his corner, and watch the others tell stories and listen to their half-understood words, feeling warm down to his toes, sheltered as he had ever been. Like watching the other boys gambol and tumble back in the parish, at Twelfth Night when they would get a little duff and thimble of warm rum to keep them through the night while the fathers all went off to wassail. They would end the fuddling night huddled by the hearth, and, he supposed out respect for the charity of the season, the fathers would let them sleep in, a small pile of boys that, for a night, had been free.
Now he was free. Now he was free all the time. He could leave right now, if he wanted.
Now the thought didn't sit on his shoulders like it normally did. The others had congratulated him; he had done a good job, and that was all that mattered. He found he liked it more when he chose not to leave.
Getting heavy-eyed, he sank farther into his seat, watching the great commotion of thieves retelling their stories like a shadow-play put up just for him. Though he wasn't certain, he might have even dozed (the very thought of having let his guard down so much even a fortnight ago would've sent chills down his spine).
At any rate, the next thing he felt was a hand on his upper arm. He flinched away from the grip, but the shaking didn't relent and he heard a familiar gentle chuckling.
“C'mon, boyo, open dem dimber glimms. Whatchu wan' ta doze t'rough yer own stallin'?”
Harry started up, which only made Ellis laugh more. Someone – he supposed Ellis – had taken his rabbit and set it on the bench beside him. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes with a stubborn frown he did his best to pretend he hadn't been asleep at all.
“What're ye hassling me for? Get yer fams off.”
“Well, bless dem hearin'-cheats righ' off me knob, listen ta ye cantin' now, boyo.” Ellis pulled Harry to his feet. “Maybe 't was wrong o' me to put yer stallin' off fer anot'er night?”
Harry scowled at him, but all he had gotten from Ellis' words was a sense of being teased.
“Oh, we'll do th' stallin' tomorrow fer yer wee nug. Get th' kiddie off ta bed, now, Ellis, an' mind ye tuck 'im in tight,” called Ter.
Ellis shot him a look advising he watch his mouth, and by reply got Ter's wink.
Shaking off Ellis' grip, Harry tried to turn his scowl to Ter, but Ellis stepped in front of him, ushering him out.
“Come on, now, ye kin bounce at 'im later, ginger. He's jes' havin' a try at ye, 's all in fun.”
“Well, what gives him the idea I'll let him?” Harry growled, still trying to sneak around Ellis, and finding himself stopped at every turn. He couldn't let himself be made fun of with impunity, or he would be bullied forever.
Ellis laughed. “Maybe fallin' asleep before th' second round, me boy. C'mon, le's get ta th' flash-ken.”
Now that he was one his feet, the world had taken on an unkind wobbliness, and Harry simply nodded, trying to keep his scowl from sliding away. Ellis' firm if unwanted grip on his arm helped him out the door.
By the time they got outside the cozy warmth of the pub there was no chance Harry was going to throw off a helpful grasp. The unpleasant drizzle of the afternoon had give way to a blustery, windy sleet, and it was only by leaning on each other they made it back to the safe house even half-dry.
Ellis shoved the door in with his shoulder and made for the spot of ground they had cleared as a make-shift hearth. The old house was a grand structure, one of the few that survived the Great Fire, but had been sectioned off so many times that a fireplace wasn't for two families over. Right now, of course, the place was mostly thieves and travelers like Ellis' gang, with the occasional dell setting up her trade in the space she could scrounge. A branch of the family moving into the empty rooms hadn't encouraged what company was left to linger; the building creaked in a way it only would when the nearest rooms by were empty.
By the time Ellis had gotten some of the tinder to light, he and Harry were well into shivering. Harry, for his part, had already gone blue at the ends, not so much for how cold he was, but on account of his paleness (he liked to think). Still, Ellis looked terribly concerned; after he got the fire to start he walked over to where Harry stood abandoned and pulled him towards the growing warmth. After a moment's silence in which there was nothing to do but pray for the fire to take, Ellis gathered a few more chunks of wood from the less integral walls and more dilapidated furniture and made a pile next to Harry. The scraping of him pulling over the bundled nests of their makeshift beds followed, and then it was just his steps echoing around the room, while Harry sat staring into the fire and shivered himself to warmth.
Ellis sat back down next to him, bottle hanging between his knees. He proffered some to Harry, who took the stuff with as much aplomb as he could. He didn't really want any, but liquor warmed the blood, and Harry wasn't sure he would make it without more warmth. Ellis nodded approvingly as Harry handed it back, taking another swig for himself.
The fire crackled, finally turning into something like a real blaze, and Ellis reached across Harry to throw a chair leg on. Pausing in his lean, he tipped his chin to Harry's shirt.
“'S wet rig en't gonna do ye no good.”
Harry shrugged. “Haven't got another.”
“Got one ye kin borrow,” Ellis replied, peeling off his nice blue jacket, now soaked. He looked at his clothes with a wry grin. “Look a prat, I do.”
He didn't wait for any more substantive reply from Harry, but crossed to his corner of the house, pulling out a few pieces of clothing and hauling them to the fireside. Across the other side of the blaze, he started peeling off his wet clothes and flinging them aside.
Harry's brain was still back at what Ellis had said, though he kept a firm grip on his tongue. All Harry would've done was protest. The blue jacket looked good on Ellis; it was a good fit. He looked fine in fine clothes.
Retrospectively, he thought maybe it was good he stayed silent.
Harry was still staring into the fire when his dizzy little world started to catch up with him. The run through the sleet had turned his blood to ice, even with Ellis blocking some of the wet. For a long time, it felt like he could do nothing but hold his knees and shiver in supplication to the yellow firelight to do its duty. Not to mention the gin sitting in stomach wasn't helping him come awake as much he would like, but was rather turning everything slightly funny... or, funnier, rather.
So the spectacle before his eyes didn't quite make it to his brain until his sluggish blood sped up, and by then, of course, his blood had gotten used to acting quite on its own and reacted with unhelpfully heart-racing speeds. Across the fire, Ellis was naked, kicking off the borrowed stockings, the wet making them stick to his leg so they had to be rolled and coaxed away from the skin.
Harry's breath caught audibly in his throat, and he started. Ellis, facing the other way, flung the last stocking into the wall as if it had insulted him. He glanced over one pale brown shoulder at Harry, eyebrow cocked.
“Ye feelin' better yet?”
Ellis had designs on his back, Harry noted. They moved with his skin when he had turned to speak.
Harry's eyes darted up to him, then quickly away. Belatedly, he tried to nod, and it came off shivery as the warmth in his belly sprinted up his spine. He could hear Ellis cluck disapprovingly, and then his footsteps rounding the fire towards where Harry sat.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Harry went though his litanies, the patterns he had devised as an apprentice to control himself when he and the other boys had bathed in the river, or when in the unforgiving winters of his apprenticeship, he and Jon had huddled together for warmth. A mixture of prayers he had been forced to memorize, and unpleasant memories he called upon, the litanies rarely failed to calm his blood, if he could keep them in mind.
He could hear the shuffling of Ellis kneeling by his side. He opened his eyes and caught Ellis looking at him, brow lightly furrowed with half-hidden concern. Reaching over, Ellis pushed him out of his crouch, helping him begin to strip off the wet layers of clothes.
Harry really was too shaky to do much of the work well himself, so it wasn't bad to have Ellis' help, but there was a part of him that knew, even if he hadn't needed the help, he wasn't going to refuse.
Glances kept the corners of eyes, he noticed between moments of beige-cloth blindness that Ellis wasn't brown all over. Where his clothes interfered his skin faded to a creamy tan, bits of it looking freckled rather than dark. He also saw a wealth of scars of all types: gunpowder burns that rose across his skin in fields of blackened pits that then spread into tiny spots like star maps, stretched pink stars where swaths of skin had gone entirely, and more than a few pieces that looked like brands and burns, overlapping and negating each other. He had bits on his chest, and sides, and what looked like a stab wound on his stomach, just to the left of where the line of dark hair started down...
Harry felt his cheeks getting red, and threw off Ellis' help to vigorously try to pull himself out of his undershirt. Even that had gotten wet, and clung to him as desperately as he tried to get it off. To rid the persistent image of Ellis' fire-lit skin from his brain, he reminded himself of the time his former master had held him a corner and whipped him with the strop until he fell silent, until he had given up on pleading for him to stop. The feeling of the memory rising did its job.
The chill of the air on his skin was another feeling entirely. It was much simpler to get him undressed than it had been for Ellis, done up in his costume, but Harry still felt the need to rest a bit. Moving (and thinking) so vigorously had left him unusually short of breath. Staring down into his own lap, he let the corner of his eye tell him that he couldn't see anyway – not the way Ellis was sitting. His leg was in Harry's way.
Ellis cleared his throat, and Harry looked up to find him staring down at Harry's breeches. He moved his glance across the fire towards the pile of dry clothes.
“Ah, ye kin handle that, eh?”
He stood and walked away as Harry silently went about disrobing completely, taking the bottle with him across the fire.
Harry threw his breeches aside with adept mimicry of Ellis' apathy, but he pulled his nesting of blankets close around him when he was done. The heat of the fire had dried the water from his skin in moments, but had also showed him himself in flickering orange-yellow light.
Pale and scrawny and freckled, his body had none of the muscle and wear of Ellis', or lacking even the ruddy color, white to the point of looking fragile where his clothes customarily blocked the sun. It was so pathetic he couldn't even be properly embarrassed, instead feeling a resigned and expected inadequacy at the meager little trail of copper hairs that graced his own lower belly. Examination of himself, unlike the mere glimpses of Ellis, raised nothing in him.
He could deal with that. His desires could be greatly simplified and easily controlled by the mere fact that nobody would desire him back. His unnaturalness was, for now, his alone.
He nestled into his blankets, hunching his knees up again to resume staring into the fire. Ellis seemed to have dallied over choosing a shirt, still standing on the other side – Harry wondered how many choices he could have – but after another long swing of the bottle, he set it down to pull his choice of shirt over his head (Harry turned away, feeling warmth in his cheeks again).
Ellis returned to his side, handing down another bundled shirt. As Ellis sat, Harry wiggled into the oversized thing; ruefully he reflect that everything was oversized for him. He brought the sleeve up against his cheek, nodding approbation of the fabric to Ellis, but not daring to open his mouth.
Ellis registered but didn't quite respond. He hesitated a moment, then offered Harry the bottle again. Harry took a longer pull than he really should have, and ended up coughing. Ellis grinned at him, that same lop-sided grin as always, before he drank himself.
Wiping a hand over his lips, Ellis grunted at the booze.
“Wager we should turn in, eh? Pretty tired, I bet.”
Harry shrugged. He wasn't really that tired, but he could hardly say so, what with what had 'woken him up'. Anyway, once his blood died down, and he had a moment to think, he would be tired enough. It always made him tired, to be lonely.
“Well... er...” Ellis hastily shrugged, glancing over at Harry. “Sure yer goin' ta be warm enough?”
Harry nodded, hoping Ellis wasn't going to turn into a hen just because of one stupid run through the sleet.
Ellis nodded brusquely, reaching over to prod the fire to assure its heat would last through the night. Lying down created a new and interesting sensation for Harry – namely that he felt like his bowls had turned the wrong way for his body, but once he was down and huddled into the sheets, he wondered how he had stayed upright in the first place. He felt weighted towards the ground. Drinking as much gin as he had had certainly been an adventure.
His blankets were coarse, and normally little comfort, being the spares and cast-offs from the rest of the gang's hard-earned thievings, but the niceness of the shirt Ellis had lent him created a comfortable barrier with which he could shield nearly his whole body. Making a pillow of his arm, he let his eyes fall closed, trying to keep his heavy thoughts from straying to the sound of Ellis curling into his blankets next to him.
Harry fell into a half-sleep, unwanted thoughts still busily churning through his brain while the rest of him went to well-deserved rest.
The fire crackled down, and the night grew darker, the howling of the wind intermingled with the stone silence of sleep. He rustled in his blankets to feel the fineness of his own bed, nuzzled into his arm, finding the borrowed shirt surprisingly live with the scent of another person. Though he had no way of being absolutely certain, he could easily imagine whose scent it was, musky and warm, the smell of roads and sweat and dust, and spiced by its own foreignness...