London, 1848
Edward hung onto the rooftop by the tips of his fingers. His heart thundered in his chest as he mentally cursed Thomas. The peelers weren’t meant to be on patrol here at this time, according to him, but there they were. Two of them, chatting up a pair of working girls they’d accosted under the streetlamp.
The women had been looking for johns and likely were as surprised as Ed at the patrol, but had quickly started flirting with the patrolmen, who welcomed the attention. Unfortunately, the longer this went on, the more precarious Ed’s situation became. He didn’t have the leverage to pull himself up, and the balcony he wanted to drop onto was clearly visible from the street. The sound of him hitting the wooden platform would alert everyone underneath him, but if Thomas’ intel had been accurate, that wouldn’t have been a problem. Most everyone out at this time of night was breaking the law somehow, and lawbreakers had an informal understanding.
“Psst! Ed!”
Looking up, he saw a gap-toothed smile beaming down at him from the roof.
Ah shite.
“Hey, Hannah. Why are you here?”
“Because ye needed me, obviously. I’ll deal with the peelers.”
“Wait, Hann- “
And she’s gone. I bet Tom thinks this is just hilarious.
Hannah had always been fascinated by Ed’s light brown, tea-coloured skin even as a babe, and as she entered the first stages of womanhood, that fascination had developed into a huge crush. However, she was only eleven while Ed was a man grown at seventeen. Still, it was nice. Most just shook their head in pity when they realised what his darker skin meant.
Hearing her shimmy down the side of the house, Ed readied himself. Despite her… enthusiasm at working with him, she was good at what she did.
“Oi, bobbies! Ye shouldn’t be wasting those ladies time, cockless bastards that ye are!”
That is, annoying people to the point of violence. The two policemen immediately brandished their truncheons and ran after the child, who’d taken off with a peal of laughter. Now was his chance.
Dropping down to the balcony with a thud, Ed checked the street once more. The caked-up molls looked up at him, then pointedly looked away. With a nod of appreciation, Ed got to work.
All the windows of the building were locked, but a lock had never stopped a determined burglar. Rather than just breaking it, Ed pulled on a length of ribbon hanging out like a tongue from between the window and its frame. The ribbon was tied to the inside latch and a short tug would unlock the whole thing, allowing Edward entry.
Easing his way through the large window, he silently dropped to the wooden floor inside. There was no light but the stray beams that shined up from the street, but Ed had always had great night vision. It was why he was always the burglar.
Padding his way to the heavy oaken desk, Ed withdrew his lockpicking tools from the pouch at his waist. Hannah had identified the drawer with the key to the strongbox earlier in the day, Ed’s job was to break in and copy it. Taking out a bar of soap, he placed it atop the desk and sat down to engage with the lock. It was built into a desk so it wasn’t too complicated, Ed was in within moments.
Triumphantly pulling the key out, the boy pressed it into the soft bar of soap, imprinting the key’s configuration so Thomas could get a fake made. Task completed, he replaced the key, locking the drawer and making his careful way back out the window. The street was now empty, the working girls likely having moved on, and Ed leapt off the balcony into a pile of sawdust sacks left innocuously against the wall.
Another flawless job.
“Ed’s back!”
A small cheer erupted from the gathered children as they all turned to the door and ran to meet up with him. For his part, Ed could only laugh as the kids all tried to dogpile him.
“Relax dammit, calm yourselves! I need to talk to Tom then I’ll tell you all about it, even though you should all be asleep right now.”
The group groaned in dismay as he slipped away, nimble as a cat. Looking around the loft, Ed searched for Thomas.
They had all been residents at St Agnes’ Home for Dispossessed Youths, an orphanage in south London, just a year ago, when a vicious cholera outbreak killed all but one of the staff. The lone man remaining had emptied the safe and fled to America, leaving the children to fend for themselves. Ed and a few others had been on the verge of aging out of the Home and likely ending up in a workhouse when the tragedy had struck, forcing them to stay and take care of the smaller kids.
They’d continued living in the building, getting by through selling flowers and matches for a while. But those businesses were monopolised by street gangs that didn’t let kids sell on their territory without paying a “tax” so high they made no money. Then an unscrupulous industrialist noticed that there were no adults living on the property, and bribed an official to forge documents indicating it had been sold to him. The peelers kicked them out the very next day.
Without a home or the means to get one, Ed finally took the hint. He and the St Agnes kids turned to crime.
“Oi, Tom! Success, as usual. We can hit the delivery tomorrow no problem.”
Thomas, a stocky blond boy with the barest hint of a moustache, grinned up at him from his seat at the corner desk.
“Fucking right! You always come through, you fucking beauty!”
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Thomas, Ed’s closest friend, had always been a bit more of a street urchin than the rest of them. His wide frame and large hands had always given him a “brutish air”, as one working girl had put it. He had friends in low places and knew how to “get rid” of stolen items without drawing the wrong kind of attention, whereas Ed, more of a loner, a gangly, slender figure, had spent his days vaulting between roofs and climbing walls. The perfect skillsets for their new occupation.
“No thanks to you, you knob. The peelers nearly caught me red-handed!”
Tom sheepishly scratched his head.
“Yeah sorry, mate, that’s my bad. I only ‘eard about the new patrol routes after you’d already left, so I sent Hannah after you. The Chartists ‘ave the toffs spooked, so they’re stepping up patrols all across the board.”
The Chartists were some radical political group; Ed had never paid much attention to politics so he didn’t know much about them, but he’d seen their flyers posted on walls and doors around the city.
“Shite. Will we still be able to do the job?”
“We ‘ave to, mate. Living ‘ere ain’t free.”
Ed looked back at the children, laughing and horsing around the loft. They lived on the top floor of a textile mill, overlooking the machinery, where they were unofficially under the care of one Mr Croydon, the owner.
Another unscrupulous industrialist (were there any other kind?), he’d given them the opportunity to stay in the empty loft after catching Tom and another St Agnes boy, James, tampering with his equipment. They’d been paid by one of Croydon’s rivals to disrupt his business, but the man recognised their potential, telling Tom he could either use his skills for the man’s benefit, or be marched straight to the police. Tom took the deal, and the whole gang moved into Croydon Textiles’ London mill.
Now, they did jobs on Croydon’s many competitors. Not just sabotaging their machines, but general harassment like stealing jewellery and dresses bound for a rival’s mistress or burning important documents sometimes even unrelated to the textile industry. Croydon attacked on all fronts.
Of course, the man made sure they knew that if they ever stopped doing his dirty work, he’d turn all the children out onto the street.
Going over some final details with Tom, Ed kept one eye on the door until, half an hour later, Hannah dragged herself through. The kids crowded around her as well before Ed and Tom eventually came over and shooed them all to their beds, a row of cots lined up against one of the walls. Bastard he may be, but Croydon understood the value of keeping your talent happy. He provided beds, blankets (not that they needed many in the hot mill), basic food and water, while also granting them a small stipend for clothes and other miscellaneous things, which they supplemented with the money from selling the items they were directed to steal.
Since they only stole from other rich bastards, it was about as close to an honest day’s work as a bunch of orphans could get on the streets of London.
Plans laid and roles set, Ed went to bed that night dreaming of their score the next day. It was going to be a big one, hopefully they’ll finally earn enough to start sending the children off for lessons with a tutor. Only Ed and Tom knew their letters to any great degree, and God knew that the only thing worse than being a homeless orphan was being an illiterate homeless orphan.
With this next job, maybe their lives could finally start to change.
Waking up to the grinding and squealing of the spinning mules on the factory floor, Ed rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. As usual, he was the last to wake, but that didn’t mean much considering no one could stay asleep for long in the cacophony of a textile mill.
Sweeping his eyes across the room, he saw Tom had already left, likely to get the key cut. Hannah was passing out bowls of steaming porridge, the first of their two guaranteed meals a day. She saw him sitting up in his bed and signed a greeting, which he returned.
There was no point trying to get your voice heard in a mill, so the textile workers had developed a sort of sign language, to communicate effectively next to the deafening sounds of industry. A few of the children had co-opted it and taught the rest of them so that, while it was a bit quieter up here in the loft, the constant noise hardly disrupted their communication.
He stretched, arching like a cat in his bed, then leapt out with vigour. He’d always believed there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Taking a swig of water from the jug by his bedside, he prepared for the day. He did his daily exercises, recited his multiplications and checked on all the kids. He didn’t much need to, as they’d largely delegated the task of raising them to Hannah and Mary, the two eldest St Agnes girls who did a more than adequate job, but it helped motivate him to do what he did. He knew the risks of a life of crime but knowing why he was taking them bolstered his confidence immensely.
Practically inhaling his own bowl of porridge, Ed left the building in a hurry, rushing to get to his assigned place. The job they were doing today was an interception, they needed to steal an item from a strongbox that was being transported out of the city at dusk, preferably without the courier noticing. Tom had also gotten word that a few other crews might try hit the carriage, so they were angling to get the item first.
As for what the mysterious item actually was, Croydon had simply said they’d know it when they saw it. Doubtless, he didn’t trust us to keep our mouths shut. No matter. They knew where the strongbox was right now, locked away in a vault. They had a key. All they had to do now was take whatever they found inside.
Ed took a meandering path through south London, making absolutely sure he wasn’t being followed. In the bustle of the early morning rush, he slipped into an alleyway and rapidly climbed atop a stack of crates, leapt onto a windowsill, grabbed for the drainpipe lining the roof of the building, and with a creak of metal, pulled himself onto the roof.
Seeing London from above street level was a surreal experience. The sky was overcast as usual, but there were holes in the cloud cover which let a few brilliant beams of sunlight shine through. The smog was slightly thinner up here, which gave the cobbled streets below a grey pallor, as if there were a miasma pooling in the cesspit of industrial excess. And while the smog was only marginally better up here, the pungent stench of the Thames clung to the grey streets below, leaving the air up here clearer and fresher.
Ed took a deep breath. Still shite, but a lot less shite than what those poor folk walking the streets got.
He took off running.
Tom had once joked that Ed knew his way around the roofs of London better than he did the streets. Ed hadn’t responded but it was actually true. It was much easier to orient yourself when every landmark was constantly in sight.
Traversing his way up and down the gabled rooftops, vaulting across alleyways and leaping across cramped streets, Ed was in his element.
This is why I do this.
These few moments away from the stress and horseshit of the streets below. Where he wasn’t anything to anyone, no expectations, frustrations or prejudices. Up here, he was free.
The grab was happening in the East End, at the same building Ed had broken into last night. The package would arrive by carriage, the strongbox would be inspected inside, then it would go on its way out of the city. Ed’s role was simply to be in place at the right time, while James would charm his way in and steal it after it had gotten inspected, pass it off to Tom who’d be waiting outside, who’d then get it to Ed, at which point he’d take off across the skyline. Ideally, no one would be the wiser until the other crews tried to rob the empty strongbox.
The reason for the seeming complexity was the increased police presence. They’d known that whatever this was, it was a big enough deal that the carriage would have a full police escort as long as it was within city limits. That was before the Chartists had started getting riled up. Now, who knew how much more security had been requested? This had to be as clean as possible. As far as Tom knew, they were the only group bold enough to try the snatch in the city, the rest were lying in wait along the road just outside London.
Reaching the right street, Ed peeked out over a roof and inhaled sharply. Not only were there peelers all over the place, blocking both ends of the road, Ed saw the distinctive cassock only Adepts wore. The Inquisition was here.