Read Online The Parliament of Blood by Justin Richards - Free Book Online Page A

minor betrayal. Especially on a Saturday. She should have been out looking for the carriage like the rest of them, not weaving wicker baskets with the older girls and the women. Although actually they were meeting as before, not searching. Except Eve.
    And Charlie, who hadn’t turned up. Knowing Charlie, he might be out with the mudlarks – the kids down on the muddy banks of the Thames looking for anything that might have washed up. Anything they could sell or pawn or use.
    â€˜He said he’d be here,’ Jack pointed out. ‘He don’t let you down, Charlie. If he says something he means it. Unless Pearce has got him cleaning out the kitchens or something. Pearce was waiting for him when he got in last night,’ Jack went on. ‘He hardly had time to say anything to us before Pearce came and yanked him out the dormitory. But he said he’d be here. Seemed excited.’
    â€˜What about?’ Eddie asked. He felt a twinge of excitement himself – had Charlie found something?
    â€˜Dunno,’ Jack confessed. ‘He was talking to Mikey, wasn’t he, Mikey?’ He raised his voice and nodded vehemently to make Mikey understand. But the other boy stared back at him blankly.
    â€˜We need to know if he found anything, and where he’s been looking,’ Eddie decided.
    â€˜He might be in the kitchens,’ Jack said. ‘Want me to go and look, Eddie?’ he didn’t sound enthusiastic.
    Eddie could imagine what would happen to him if he got caught bunking off school. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But just a quick look. Any chance you might get seen, come straight back. Don’t want you feeling the rough side of Pearce’s belt like Charlie. If that’s what’s happened to him.’
    Eddie watched Jack hurry off, round the side of the forbidding building.
    â€˜Eddie.’
    The voice was hesitant and nervous. Eddie spun round. But there was no one there. No one but himself and Mikey – and Mikey never said anything.
    â€˜Eddie.’ Firmer and more confident this time. Eddie’s mouth dropped open.
    â€˜You can talk,’ he said to Mikey.
    The other boy shuffled his feet and looked away. ‘Don’t tell,’ he said. ‘Charlie knows. He’s the only one. But if I can’t hear or speak, well – they leave me alone.’
    â€˜Who do?’ Eddie was outraged. Who frightened a kid so much he pretended to be deaf and dumb?
    â€˜Me dad. Years ago, before I came here. If you can’t talk you can’t answer back. I used to answer back. But then …’He shrugged. ‘I stopped. Don’t get hit so much then. Don’t answer back, he said. So I didn’t. Not ever.’ He looked up at Eddie, eyes wide and scared. ‘Don’t tell,’ he said again.
    â€˜Course not,’ Eddie promised. ‘But, why talk now? Why to me?’
    â€˜Cos of Charlie,’ Mikey said. ‘I don’t think he’s in the kitchens. I don’t think he got extra chores or nothing. I think they sent him away.’
    â€˜Why?’
    Mikey looked round, as if afraid that he might be overheard. Eddie felt unnerved by the boy’s fear, and he looked round too. But they were completely alone. A sudden shaft of sunlight cut through the misty morning air and cast their shadows against the dark wall of the workhouse.
    â€˜Why d’you think they sent Charlie away?’ Eddie asked again. ‘What did he tell you, last night before Pearce came for him?’
    Mikey took a deep breath, and his answer came out in an unpunctuated rush: ‘He said he found the carriage up west somewhere. A lamplighter’s boy he knows told him where to look and there it was.’
    Eddie put his hand on Mikey’s shoulder. He could feel the boy trembling beneath his threadbare jacket. ‘Where? Did he say where the carriage was?’
    â€˜In a side street. Back of some buildings. Posh clubs and