The last place Clive wanted to be heading now (at some speed, I might add) was back down the Bridge the way he had come. Pepys and his confusingly worded threat were either still embedded within the Bridge boards or were by now headed his way. But the naked rapiers of the two gallants at his heels were more concrete and convincing pricks (in every sense) to Clive’s current impetus.

Clive looked ahead. Whether or not Pepys was still Bridge-locked, the traffic jam had not yet cleared. Clive was in serious danger of being trapped against a pile-up of his own creation. But he had little choice but to keep going: he wove and pushed between the impatient throng leading up to the blocked tunnel ahead, hoping against hope that he would find a way through. The density of the crowd was increasing – it was getting harder and harder to move! He glanced back...

Fortunately, the gallants’ ridiculously wide breeches and heavily accessorised jackets were dragging on them, slowing their passage to a crawl, despite the warding effect of their blades. Peacocks turned birds of prey.

Further back, Clive could just see Jerry, now chatting amiably with Mistress Nell. He wasn’t even watching. Nor was she.

Putting his hands together as if praying, Clive tried to prise a path between a pair of shuffling workmen. They weren’t having none of it. “Wait your turn, boy! We’re all waitin’ the same!”

Clive felt himself being pushed from behind. He was now entirely boxed in, with crowd to the fore and aft, the rail to his right and a hackney carriage to his left. He turned about: the gallants were closing in! Tapping those in the way on the shoulder with a drawn blade was proving a far more successful strategy than prayer hands. They were hardly more than 5 heads away now...

Clive had nowhere to go! Presuming they meant to arrest him and not merely murder, he would be caught and dragged before the guard and then the magistrate! He’d end up languishing in a cell in the Tower, his only cellmates over-political puritans and murderous Dutch spies! He, poor Clive of Devon, victim of circumstance, betrayed by an orange seller whose true profession Clive envied above all else, and an odd fellow with a silly hat who had a thing for decapitated heads... Clive, who would never tread the boards, never do the Bard justice, never take his bows and receive a rose from the King. Clive, who–

Unless...

The gallants almost had him! They stank of bean juice and perfume...

Yet, inspiration is just desperation’s bastard love-child twice removed: Clive opened the door of the hackney carriage next to him, and hopped inside!

The curtains on the carriage had been drawn so Clive hadn’t spied the occupants’ faces until he was actually in them. A fine gentleman, and an even finer lady, looked at him wide-eyed. They had obviously just been engaged in conversation. A very intimate conversation judging by their relative positions.

“Don’t mind me!” Clive wafted breezily, “just passing through...”

There was just space for Clive to squeeze past. The couple were frozen, red-faced, seemingly unable to speak. Clive reached the opposite door and turned the handle.

“Sorry about this! Do carry on without me, won’t you?”

He closed the door behind him. Fortunately the driver’s back was turned. The crowd here was just as dense, but at least Clive had some height from where he was on the step of the carriage.

But his respite was brief. One of the gallants suddenly appeared round the back of the carriage. “Out of my way!” he barked at the back nearest him.

Only one. Clive had a feeling the other was still on the other side, gambling on him doubling-back. He considered darting back inside the carriage, but a threesome was no place to hide, even if it was a crowd. Once again, he was trapped! Unable to go forward or back, left or right!

Clive. Poor, over-ambitious Clive, who had left behind a comfortable home with a sister who despised him, a life of not milking cows or fixing roofs, dreaming every day of being something more than he was, muttering Hamlet behind a shed. Clive, who–

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Unless...

Clive went up. It was the only direction left to him! Using the carriage’s windowsill as a foothold, he clambered on top of the carriage roof even as the gallant swiped at his trailing leg. A snarl of fury rose from below.

Now the driver had noticed, turning in his seat. “S’wounds! Get down from there! Are you trying to hurt yourself, man?”

But Clive had no intention of getting down.

Just ahead of the carriage was the opening to the tunnel, and just above the tunnel was the first/second floor of the Haberdashers that had mended Clive’s trousers earlier. Unsurprisingly, given the weather, several of the windows were open.

Clive pointed urgently ahead.

“Look!”

The driver looked.

“Haberdashery!”

“What?”

But the distraction had been enough. Even as the two gallants rose up above the roof of the carriage, pincering either side, rapiers piratically clamped between their teeth, Clive took a running leap past the driver and into space...

–and didn’t make the distance.

Not even close.

Instead, his brow cracked painfully on the beam of the tunnel, and he dropped like a sack of lead upon the neck of the lead horse, to which he instinctively clamped himself. The alarmed stallion screamed and reared violently, propelling Clive upwards and shaking free his grip! Clive suddenly found himself conveniently back at eye level with the windowsill of the Haberdashery, and a great deal nearer this time. As the parabola of his rise slowed to its zenith, Clive reached out and took a hold...

The horse fell away, leaving Clive hanging.

He hoisted himself up to stand on the beam beneath the window, and glanced back at the gallants, now on the roof of the carriage. Both they, and the driver, were looking at him askance!

Feeling exhilarated, and not a little proud of his miraculous escape, Clive straightened, grinned, and tendered the most obscene sequence of gestures he could think of, the ferocity of which sadly overbalanced him, sending him falling backwards through the window...

–to land, fortunately, on a bed in a small room piled high with folded clothes. It was rather less fortunate that the bed belonged to the Haberdasher’s daughter, Emily, she who had earlier sewn her autograph and amorous intentions into Clive’s briefs, and that Emily was currently also upon it.

“You came!” she squeaked, throwing down an item of clothing mid-fold and throwing her arms around Clive’s neck.

Muttering rapidly, alternating between apology and polite repudiation, Clive scrabbled for the door.

He threw it open only to find himself face to face with the Haberdasher, Emily’s father, with Emily still wrapped around him from behind!

“You!” bellowed the Haberdasher, “I knew something was carrying on! Every night for a week! ‘Bedboards!’ said I! ‘Rats in the walls!’ said she! Why, I’ll–”

Clive shook his head vigorously—all denial!—but the Haberdasher had already grabbed for the nearest weapon to hand, a gnarly-looking pair of old tailoring shears.

And then a pair of heavy thumps behind Clive signalled the arrival of the gallants. The jostling twosome had tumbled through the window together, and rolled off the bed onto the floor. They stood up, and took a moment to straighten their hats and wigs (one even produced a pocket-mirror) before taking in the situation before them. Even armed as they were, with the quarry right in front of them, there was no denying the fact that they had just invaded a maid’s bedroom in full view of her angry father. And his shears. Even for men such as these – seasoned philanderers to be sure – this gave them pause. Something ancient and deep – and quintessentially male – had them rooted to the spot. Hands that should have reached for scabbards, twitched protectively towards groins.

The Haberdasher gaped openly. “Three?” he asked his daughter incredulously. “At the SAME?”

Clive moved first – tearing himself free of Emily’s pinions and vaulting above the old man’s wild gelding snap, racing for the staircase! He half leapt, half tumbled down the near vertical steps, and cartwheeled out into the tunnelled street below!

To his relief, Clive realised the traffic was moving again! Before the gallants too could fight their way past Emily’s father, Clive made like flotsam, and joined the flow moving across London Bridge towards Southwark.

It took a few moments for Clive’s addled brain to realise the full implications of the traffic being once again free to move...

The cane came out of nowhere, clotheslining him with such force that he fancied he spun in mid-air!

Clive landed heavily, all the breath knocked out of him, on his back on the Bridge-boards. The offending orange, Clive’s oranginal sin, rolled from his breech leg out across the way, only to be pulped by a passing wheel that narrowly missed Clive’s head. He found himself being bodily dragged out of the way of the traffic and over to the side, scattering the ongoing train of vermin.

Three faces appeared above him. Apparently, Pepys had gained himself a pair of minions.

“I told you I’d find you!” Pepys breathed with relish. “Keep him down, men, while I go and fetch the Watch! I want to make sure they handle this properly!”