The Tiger’s Prey

The men brought him to a great door on the top floor, with a brass handle shaped like a snarling lion. The porter knocked respectfully. Even he seemed to hesitate before opening the door, as if approaching the lair of a fearsome beast.

It was dark inside, the air hot and damp like a greenhouse. A small fire burned in the grate, and a candle burned on the vast desk by the back wall, but they cast little light on the curtained room. The walls seemed to lean in, huge paintings of ships and battles hanging floor-to-ceiling in ornate gilt frames. The air smelled rotten, as if a slab of meat had been left too long and forgotten. Francis searched the gloom but didn’t see anyone: only a large mound behind the desk, like a heap of discarded laundry.

His captors let him go and doffed their caps. Caught off balance, Francis stumbled forward and almost fell. He rubbed his throat.

A wet, rasping cough sounded behind the desk. The heap began to move. It was a man, Francis realized, as his eyes adapted to the gloom. It was an enormous, great-bellied man with a blanket over his knees and a silk dressing gown wrapped around his shoulders. His neck had disappeared beneath a cascade of wobbling chins. His head was shaved, but badly, so that white hairs sprouted out like the spikes on a thistle. Broken veins mottled his sagging cheeks. Only his eyes, sunk deep in folds of flesh, remained bright and alive.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded. He did not rise. In fact, Francis thought, he was probably not able to do so. Later he learned that the iron rings hanging from the arms of his chair, were there to enable him to be carried on the rare occasions when he left this office. They said that when he was at stool, it took three men to lift him onto the privy, and wipe his backside when he was finished.

One of the guards stepped up and slammed his fist into Francis’ stomach. ‘Answer when Sir Nicholas speaks to you,’ he barked.

Francis tried to speak, but the blow had winded him badly and no words would come.

‘Who sent you? Was it Norris and his Dowgate men?’

‘Who?’ Francis gasped. ‘I know nobody with that name.’

‘Do not play the fool with me, boy.’ Sir Nicholas twitched his head and another blow struck Francis hard in the guts, doubling him over. ‘You have been watching this house all day. Who were you spying on?’

‘I’m not—’

‘Was it those damned interlopers? They know the consequences if they attempt to steal my trade. I will burn their ships and see them rot in an Indian prison if I catch them.’

‘Please,’ said Francis, as another blow jabbed into his kidneys. ‘I am Francis Courtney. My mother sent me.’

Sir Nicholas’ face was crimson with rage. ‘What impudence is this? Sir Francis Courtney died near fifty years ago.’

‘My great-grandfather.’ Francis fumbled for the velvet bag inside his shirt. The guard saw him and though he was reaching for a weapon. He kicked Francis’ legs from under him, dropping him to the floor, and aimed a kick at his ribs.

Francis pulled out the bag. The guard snatched it from him. He jerked the drawstring stretched open, and the golden medal of the lion holding the globe in its paws fell out onto the floor.

The guard had raised his fist again.

‘Stop,’ called Sir Nicholas. ‘Give me that.’

Two of the men held Francis, while the porter retrieved the golden lion and laid it on the desk. Sir Nicholas held it up, letting the candlelight sparkle on the inset rubies and diamonds.

‘Where did you get this?’ he demanded of Francis

‘It belongs to my family. My father left it to me.’

Sir Nicholas turned the emblem in his fingers. He waved his men to let Francis go.

‘Who are you?’ Sir Nicholas said again, but more thoughtfully this time.

Francis drew himself up, determined to ignore the pain that shot through his body when he moved. He’d rehearsed the words all day, though he’d never imagined delivering them in such circumstances.

‘I am Francis Courtney, son of William Courtney and grandson of Hal Courtney, Baron Dartmouth and Nautonnier Knight of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail. Twenty years ago, my grandfather gave his life defending your company’s shipping from pirates. Now, all I ask is some preferment, an opportunity to join the Company’s service and prove my worth.’

Childs stared at him as if he were a ghost.

‘Leave us,’ he ordered his men.

They withdrew. Childs studied the boy. For decades, now, he had governed the East India Company as his personal domain, stretching out his tentacles from this office in Leadenhall Street to the furthest corners of the globe. Kings and Parliaments had come and gone, some of them claiming the Company was too powerful, that its monopoly should be withdrawn. He had seen them off, broken his competitors and outlived them all.

Courtneys, too, had come and gone. For a time, they had been useful servants and helped him build up the Company fortune. When that ceased to be the case, he had dispatched them as easily as he had done his enemies, with never a prick of conscience. From his home at Bombay House, he had sent Tom Courtney to be murdered by his brother William. To his surprise, Tom had sprung the trap and turned the tables on William, but that had not troubled Childs. Tom had fled, a wanted murderer, and William’s seven per cent holding in the East India Company had passed to his infant son. Childs had had little difficulty persuading the widow to sell it to him on the most advantageous terms, cementing his control still further. He had all but forgotten young Francis Courtney.

Now the boy stood before him, grown almost to manhood. A livid welt coloured his neck where the men had choked him; his face was pale, but firm with the unyielding pride Childs had seen twenty years ago in his grandfather Hal. He thought that this was a lad who could be useful, or dangerous.

‘My boy,’ he adopted a more kindly and avuncular tone, ‘come closer where I can see you better.’

It was an act: his body might be failing, but his blue eyes remained as clear and sharp as his mind.

Francis took a few hesitant steps forward.

‘I am sorry you were so roughly handled,’ Childs said. ‘My enemies have many spies, and will stop at nothing to thwart me and this noble company. I trust you were not seriously hurt?’

Francis rubbed his side. He could already feel the skin tightening as the bruises formed.

‘I am a little hungry, your lordship.’

‘Of course, of course.’ Childs rang a hand bell that stood on the corner of his desk, and bellowed for the servant to bring food. ‘Now, my boy, take a chair and tell me everything. How do you come to be here? If you had written, I could have given you a kinder reception.’

Francis lowered himself painfully into the chair. ‘My stepfather died last week. He left me nothing but the golden lion.’

Childs mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘I am sorry to hear it. Your mother probably never told you, but I always took a keen interest in your upbringing. The way your father died – I am afraid I feel some guilt for it. You see, I was the last man to see your uncle Tom before he committed the murderous deed. I have always asked myself, was there something I could have said or done to change his course? Could I have discerned what he intended, and taken steps to prevent it?’

He broke off in a fit of coughing, dabbing his mouth with the handkerchief. It came away dabbled with specks of fresh blood.

‘I’m sure you are beyond reproach, sir,’ Francis protested.

A troubling thought nagged him as he remembered those last frantic moments with his mother.

‘May I confide in you, sir?’

‘Of course, my boy. As your own father.’

‘Before I left home my mother made a most outlandish suggestion. She said – she believed – that my uncle Tom may be innocent of the crime. She said he only killed William in self-defence.’

Childs shook his head so hard, all his chins wobbled. ‘She is mistaken. Grief has addled her wits, poor woman. I saw William Courtney in the House of Lords the day he died. The concern he expressed for his brother, the love and affection he bore him – no man could doubt it. That very day, he told me, he intended to advance Tom ten thousand pounds to fit out an expedition to rescue their brother Dorian, who had been seized by pirates – though it later transpired that the boy was dead. But that was not enough for Tom Courtney. He ambushed William on the Thames path late at night, demanding a greater share of their father’s inheritance, and when William refused Tom cut him down without mercy.’

Francis shuddered as he imagined the scene. ‘You are sure of it?’

‘I had a full report from a boatman who witnessed the entire tragedy. Even after so many years, I remember every detail.’

A servant knocked and entered with a silver tray. He set out the dishes on Childs’ desk, mounded platters of roast meats, and poured two glasses of claret from a crystal decanter. It was all Francis could do to wait until the servant retired before he fell upon the food.

Childs ate almost as ravenously as Francis did. Gravy dribbled down his chins and dripped onto his shirtfront.