William Monk 14 - The Shifting Tide

it, but he was holding his arm, and the blood was oozing stickily through his fingers. He must find a doctor.
    He turned and walked back to the nearest shop and went in. It was stacked with ironmongery of every sort: pots, pans, kitchen machines, gardening tools, but mostly ships’ chandlery. The air was thick with the smell of hemp rope, tallow, dust, and canvas.
    A little man with spectacles on his nose looked up from behind a pile of lanterns. “Oh, dear now, wot’s ’appened ter you, then?” he asked, looking at Monk’s arm.
    “Thief,” Monk replied. “I shouldn’t have struggled with him. He had a knife.”
    The man straightened up.
    “Oh, dear. Did ’e get your money?”
    “No. I can pay a doctor, if I can find one.”
    “ ’ere, sit down afore yer fall. Look a bit queasy, you do.” He came out from behind the lanterns and led Monk to a small hard-backed chair. “Mouthful o’ rum wouldn’t do yer no ’arm neither.” He turned around to face the door at the back of the shop. “Madge! Go an’ fetch the crow! Quick on your way. I in’t got no time ter mess abaht!”
    There was a call of agreement from somewhere out of sight, and then the patter of feet and a door slamming.
    Monk was glad to sit down, although he did not feel as bad as the proprietor seemed to think.
    “You jus’ stay there,” the man told him with concern, then bustled away to sell a coil of rope and two boxes of nails to a thin man in a pea jacket, then a packet of needles for stitching sails, a couple of wooden cleats, and a coal scuttle to a sailor with a blond beard.
    Monk sat thinking about the response the man on the dockside had made to the mention of Louvain’s name. He had been angry, but more than that he had been genuinely afraid. Why? Why would a scuffle-hunter be afraid of a man of power? Louvain’s influence could help or hurt many he would barely even know. Monk had seen that kind of fear when he had been in the police, in small men without defense who had hated and feared him because he could injure them and he let them know it. He had thought it was the only way to do the job, but the price was high. Was that true of Louvain also, a shadow of the same knowledge and responsibility, and use of power? Louvain’s stature? How would their paths even have crossed?
    “ ’ere ’e is,” said a small, high-pitched voice that jerked him out of his thoughts.
    He looked up to see a child about eight or nine years old, her hair tied up in a piece of string, her face grubby, her skirts down to the tops of her boots. But the fact that she had boots was unusual here. She must be Madge.
    Behind her was a man of about thirty with sleek black hair almost to his shoulders, and a wide smile. He looked relentlessly cheerful.
    “I’m the crow,” he announced, using the cant word for a doctor—or a thieves’ lookout. “Bin in a fight, ’ave yer? Let’s see it then. Can’t do nothin’ useful through all that cloth.” He regarded Monk’s jacket. “Pity, not a bad bit o’ stuff. Still, let’s ’ave it orff you.” He reached out to help Monk divest himself of it, taking it from him as Monk winced at moving his injured arm.
    Madge turned and ran off, coming back seconds later with a bottle of brandy. She held on to it, cradling it in her arms like a doll until it should be needed.
    The crow worked with some skill, pulling the cloth of the shirt away from the wound and screwing up his face as he peered at it.
    Monk tried not to think about what training the man had, if any, or even what his charges might be. Perhaps he would have been wiser to have taken a hansom to Portpool Lane after all, whatever the time or the money concerned. In the end it would have been safer, and maybe cost no more. But it was too late now. The man was already reaching for the brandy and a cloth to clean away the blood.
    The raw spirit stung so violently that Monk had to bite his lip to stop himself from crying out.
    “Sorry,” the doctor muttered with a wide smile, as if that would be reassuring. “Coulda bin worse.” He peered closely at the wound, which was still bleeding fairly freely. “Wot’ve yer got worth puttin’ up that kind o’ fight fer, eh?” He was making conversation to keep Monk’s mind off the pain, and possibly the blood as well.
    Monk thought of Callandra’s watch, and was glad that he had put it away in the top drawer of the tallboy in the bedroom. He smiled back at the doctor, though it was rather more a