The old nag gave heat like a coal fire. Toby Irish vowed to seek the stables the next time he was caught out in the weather, but he was too worried to sleep or stay in the warm hay.

He took a deep breath and struck through the lacey curtain of snowflakes. They were dry and burned as he waded out. Behind him the old nag snorted. She was rested and could not fight her instincts to stand. That was what a horse did; when they were frightened they ran. She needed to be free to run. She rose up, her warm breath against his nape, and followed him hoof after foot. The two stepped delicately across an uncertain land.

The boy coughed into his woollen sleeves, for the tiniest crystals drove needles down his throat and into his lungs. His eyes streamed, and that hurt too. When he freed himself, he stopped at the foot of the snow-clad haystack and wondered where to move. He was ferociously hungry. He swept up a handful of snow-wreathed seed-heads off the hay and chewed. Barley hay was a rarity to England, and lucky for him Mr. Lestrade had put them inside a mound full of grain-heads instead of the usual grass with forbs. The grains crunched sweet under the teeth on his right (he had a tooth on the left going bad).

The urchin frowned, using the awning of his brow to shield his eyes from the worst of the glare of rising sun against the snow. Sunlight in London was...fey. The city was clad in soot and cloud. Toby chewed hard and fast, thinking. His father couldn't bear a sunny day in London (not that London was ever sunny). There was that time...

Toby winced, thinking of a sour memory. His father fumbling home, dazed and blinded from a snowfall not too different from this one... If Mr. Lestrade was taking the poison, and it was affecting him like it did his father, could he see at all?

Behind him the nag moved up and he hopped forward, not wanting a heavy hoof on his foot. The nag kept moving and she didn't stop her path through the snow until Toby clutched at the harness and the old horse stopped dead.

The boy looked up at the weathered old lady. Her eyes were filmy blue with a slow-growing blindness. But she was gentle, and warm, and had kept him alive as he slept in the hay. He studied her long lashes, gilded with broken wings of snowflake. On her broad neck he could see grey-silver scars from terrible wounds.

He reached up and patted her neck. Anyone else would make a soothing sound or hum. Toby couldn't make any sound at all. So he patted her broken hide for an extra long time, hoping that would help. Her breath was cozy against his cold cheeks.

He clucked at her with his tongue, hoping she knew that sound as a "come on" and could have cried with relief when she obeyed. He was afraid to be alone. He clucked again, hands tight on the reins, and they pulled away from their shelter.

The snow had covered Mr. Lestrade's tracks, but not completely. Pale wrinkles showed the way. Toby followed the wrinkles. He thought they might be headed for the road, but he couldn't see anyone in the whiteness.

No road this close to London would be clogged with snow for long. It was just impossible.

A flock of crows screamed as they swept overhead.

Toby stumbled and lost his balance and the old horse was timid, but she was more afraid of being alone than the ground she could not see. She stayed close as cockleburrs on his side, and together they fought hard to get to the smoother plane of the snowy road. Toby was sobbing in relief when they made it without injury. The nag smelled his fear. She hovered even closer, her ears flat.

Toby made the only noise he could make, and patted her hide over and over. The poor thing was more scar than smooth. Terrible. Toby was frightened at the thought that she would leave him, for he was too small to hold her reins if she decided to bolt.

"All right." Gregson pulled a new map in for inspection. "If I wire the-" He looked up to his cartographic partner to find himself talking to thin air. George was facing the wall and not paying a bit of attention to him. The big man barely managed to clap his lips shut, trapping the obscenities that wanted to escape. "George!" He whispered.

George was staring off into space. He shook himself, catlike despite his size even though his gaze never dropped from its reverie. "Gregson," his voice dropped to a low hiss. "We'd best find your man, and quickly."

Gregson opened his mouth to ask why, but his words stuck in his throat.

George wasn't staring at the wall. He was staring at the bottom of the door. And a shadow was shifting on the other side.

Gregson's eyes narrowed. He'd never had patience for corruption in the ranks, but evesdroppers were even lower in his contempt.

For a big man, he could move without a sound.

A squawk and a flutter of fat limbs under many-patched cloths greeted his surprise exit. A tin pail clattered across the floor, spilling cleaning rags and vinegar. Gregson assessed the charwoman with the cold eye that gave no forgiveness or compassion for man or woman, elder or child. Lestrade might, but Gregson considered that a fatal weakness for the duties of the badge. In his experience everyone was guilty of something, and his Hanging-Judge countenance encouraged a quicker confession.

"Well, good-morning, madam." He said coolly. Whilst he couldn't smell gin on her person, she had dirty hair that defied grooming, so the knotted brown bun was her pitiable attempt at vanity. Her eyes were watery with pinkeye inside the bright face of a drinker. She likely saved the comforts for the night when she was home, to help her sleep. Her spine was bent with some sort of injury or birth-defect, so he was positive she needed something to get through her night peacefully.

Charwomen were not like other workers. They were paid by the hour—a ridiculous conceit to some of the authorities. They tended to spend a few hours a day amongst their clients, and if she had managed to get a post at the office, it was due to some sort of connexion...that was interesting. If anyone was in a position to be a useful, cheap spy, it would be a charwoman—assuming of course that the woman had the required level of brains for the task.

Interesting and troubling for Lestrade's chances of coming out of this case with a whole skin.

"And what, may I ask, would you be doing? The night-staff already cleaned this door, madam. I know. I was there."

They found Mr. Lestrade at the train-tracks.

He was slumped into the ditch below the rails, safely away from a crushing death but he wasn't moving and his head was down, almost completely face-first into the snow. Toby forgot to breathe as he stumbled through the drift in numb feet (and numb feet meant he couldn't feel depth).

The Inspector was breathing and his body was warm beneath his layers, but his eyes were shut and a streak of blood had dried inside a tear against his scalp. Toby shook him, and saw out of the side of his eye a red streak in the snow. He timidly put his hand through it, and felt something sharp. A chip of rock or bit of metal? The rails were full of both. Mr. Lestrade had made an unlucky step and fallen hard. On his way down he'd scraped his head open on that sharp bit but he'd knocked his senses clean out of his head. Toby was so used to injuries of this ilk he was barely worried. One either woke up or they didn't, but Mr. Lestrade's colour was fairly good. Charley Ruth had turned the grey of oysters when he'd fallen out of a second-story job. The police came and the cart took him away but he never came back to the streets because he never woke up.

And Mr. Lestrade heard him. "Who's't?" He mumbled.

Toby clicked with his tongue, T-O-B-Y in Code.1 It was surely an accident that the old nag snorted as if in greeting.

"Toby, you sshhould be in the hay where it'sth warm." Lestrade scolded tiredly. His eyes were still tightly shut and he suddenly shivered. "Do you know where we are?"

Toby wilted, and tapped N-O on Mr. Lestrade's hand.

The nag snorted, and stamped her hooves. Toby blinked up, his own eyes dazed by the burning white of the snow. The old horse was not happy that Toby had left her on the other side of the ditch. She moved her head back and forth and stamped slowly.

Mr. Lestrade lifted his head and grimaced in pain. Toby gripped his arm as he tried to lift it to his head. "What's wrong?" He muttered. "I can't see a thing."

Toby was about to communicate that he did not know, but the nag moved in her restlessness, and the boy could see her body had been blocking the view of the slope. A cluster of dirty-looking men headed their way.

He didn't know if that was good or bad.

If hysteria was a sign of profit, Gregson would have made Chief Inspector years ago.

"We'll send her on to London when the roads are clear," George rubbed his face, exhausted. The high-pitched shrieks of the woman's curses and protestations still buzzed in their sore ears. "I give her a few hours before she starts to feel the need for her pain. She'll be more likely to talk after that." Not to mention a few charges of accessory to murder...

"Paid to spy but only on the visitors? What bloody worthless assignment would that be?"

"No one notices a worker." George shrugged helplessly. "But you have to admit it's clever. We don't get visitors that much over here."

"I'm surprised. Wasn't this once a main highway for robbery, vice, theft and all sorts of things against the Ten Commandments?"

"Of course it was. It was a Roman Road." George was indignant. "But most of the crimes have nothing to do with this side of the train-lines! All the excitement's moved across the brook where the real estate's putting up three tenant buildings and one new drunkary with every year!"

"Time to think faster." Gregson spread the pertinent maps before the cool eyes of the station's only Inspector. "The kip off High Street—that is to say, the High Street on the Lambeth side-"

Mr. George nodded.

"-it goes by the name of St. John the Baptist most of the time," Gregson tapped a fat fore-finger at a tiny spot close to a dark line that meant an ancient and well-established road. "It was used in the old days as a stopover from the countryside. The thief-takers of old employed its facilities quite often, even had a few holding cells in the cellars, and old reports have it there are cloisters for people seeking sanctuary from either the law or the lawless."

"Do go on." George prompted. "This kip has a tie to the missing Holly-men?"

"This kip has been favoured by Holly-men since James the First." Gregson tapped his finger again; he wasn't afraid but he was angry. "Our predecessors took the Abbotts on their word that the cells and the cloisters were dismantled when Mayne took the policeman's throne,2 but what if they didn't? You know how those Men of God are. They think because they perform works in His name that gives them a warrant to play barrister with the meanings of words."

"Are you saying the Holly-Men would be in there?" George asked skeptically.

"No. Two holding cells wouldn't hold that many men, and the men were all seen leaving for the country-side after they ate. It was the last time they were ever seen; ergo, something happened in the countryside. Lestrade was following their trail, hoping to see a clue in what had happened. But it came to me late in the night, there were places of safety for those seeking sanctuary from the law and the lawless."

"The thief-takers." George was growing aware of where Gregson was headed. "The kip's hiding someone, you're saying?"

"When I leant on the Abbott he practically gave me a full confession—practically. He confirmed they were keeping a person in safety, and that a Holly-man was operating as that person's delivery-man for goods-but he refused to give me the name of the refugee or the Holly-man." Gregson's colour was going up again. He was angry. "He said he couldn't give me names he didn't know, and wouldn't go any further than that."

"But you left!" George protested. "As soon as you had your back turned, the Abbott will just move the refugee to a new address!"

"I sent my best Bobbies out to put a moat around the entire kip. No one's going in or out for now. A blank warrant goes wonders for one's authority—real or imagined." Gregson explained with a coollness that left George open-mouthed with admiration. "I also put word out that a strange illness is centred at the kip. Couldn't hurt."

"You," George told him, "Possess the wisdom of the serpent."

"Thank you."

"But what's all this about the roads?"

"It was the one thing the Abbott could tell me. I asked for something to go on, and he said to look to St. Bonaventure."

George blinked. "The Saint of the Roads?"

"The same. So it all ties into the roads somehow, somewhere."

George was frowning at the empty white spaces on the map—untracted countryside. "So our man is somewhere between here and Sir Roland's estate."

"Yes. He gave us permission to create Lestrade's alibi as a holly-cutter." Gregson sniffed loudly.

"Sir Roland..." George said faintly.

Gregson eyed him sharp. "He's got a clean and proper record. He's the one who reported the missing men in the first place!"

"Yes...but what about his son?"

"Sir Roland's only heirs are a daughter and a wastrel nephew. Intelligence said he had no direct male heirs."

"Oh, well...that's if you only look at papers." George said darkly. A nasty smile twisted his lip. "Before he grew up and learnt respectability, he was quite the lech. Got one of the serving-women in the family way and tossed her completely out if you believe the old women."

"We never heard a thing about that," Gregson protested, stung that his sources were scant.

"Had a boy-child, who had all of the bad of his father and none of the good—such as there is. And he in turn got another gel in the same family way. This child is a girl and rather an improved model on the family engine if you catch my meaning. I've never met her da outside derisive comments and snorts in the rougher inns, but she's an angel come to earth."

"An angel."

"Cross what's left of my blackened heart, it's true. I've met the child...well, she's full grown now, and pursuing a life in the Church. The wife and the other ladies put up their pennies to help her get into the schools when she announced she would take the veil."

"Interesting as this is..." Gregson pulled out a penny-fag and lit it carelessly by the little stove. "Your charwoman was paid to report visitors...you say that the station doesn't get visitors so much. What sorts do you get?"

George didn't mind Gregson's ignorance. Policemen learned to be savants in their field within their territories. "Routine troubles. Petty theft, damage against property, poaching, dog-thieves from London take this route a bit; once in a while we get a wire from London Proper—a local boy gets in trouble and is trying to hurry home. The trouble could be anything from a brawl to cutting a throat." George sighed. "If we can beat them to the Main Crossroads, we've as good as got them." He started to chuckle, but froze solid. His brown eyes went round with horror.

"Bloody Hell, the Main Crossroards...that's on the stream-side of Sir Roland's orchards. But that doesn't make any sense. No one in their right mind would use his lands to hide from the law. He'd drive them out personally with the back of his hunting rifle...if they were lucky!"

"And if they weren't?" Gregson wondered.

"If they weren't, he'd use the front end first. The man's a holy terror. If you're on his lands, you have permission."

"We've heard worse from better criminal minds." Gregson said darkly. "Right. Are there any establishments alongside his territory that a...relative would be able to use to his own advantage?"

George was dazed with a growing horror. "A few. They're all less than an hour's walk from any of the waterways—old fenlands, drained tight. His forefathers turned it all into arable land but the old smithys, farriers and drinking-establishments are still right where they were left. They use the roads for business and make a decent living with it."

"Perhaps not so decent." Gregson growled. "Let's get the men you trust."

The barn door flew open on its cheap hinges with a swift kick. The tall man from the kip led the way, Toby slung over his shoulder like so many potatoes in a sack, hands tied in front of his chest. Toby hated the gag and guessed they hadn't understood Mr. Gregson's comment about a 'poor dumb boy'.

Mr. Lestrade wasn't tied up, but he was senseless from Tall Man's kick to the head. The two men dragging his weight were still swearing at their leader for his thoughtlessness. Twice they'd dropped him facedown into the snow to see if he was faking it, as if the snow getting rubbed inside his clothes wouldn't be enough to wake him up...but he never moved and they had to swear and grab his arms and drag him again.

Toby thought they were horrible men, but they weren't smart. It would have been easier to drag him on his back, feet-first. Toby knew that for a fact. He'd had to help drag frozen-victims off the street last Christmas. The money had been good and he'd learned a lot about pulling dead weight.

"Down."

Tall Man tossed Toby on his back into a hay-stuffed manger; Toby's legs fell off the lower side and he drew himself up tight in fear. Mr. Lestrade hit the floor-planks with a wet sound and again, did not move. Someone tossed Mr. Lestrade's bag behind him in the corner.

"Bloody hell." Someone whined.

"Tie'm up just in case."

Shorter Man did the work with heavy cord, grumbling the whole time. Shortest Man stood with his back against the wall, playing with a cheap little pocket knife with a shiny blade. When he saw Toby was staring at him he grinned. Toby was glad he couldn't see him all that well in the darkness.

"Get off your arse and get the Boss—and get that damned glue-pot in here!"

Shortest Man smirked and left as slowly as possible.

Tall Man took a drink from a bottle and spat in the corner.

The horse came in slowly, her eyes rolling with fear. She shook like a leaf but the the men yelled and hit her with sticks until she was a trembling wreck. Toby could have cried at how she cringed away from their blows and screams. At last they stuck her in the darkest corner and there she huddled, ears flat but too afraid to move.

Toby gulped hard around the tight gag; his jaw ached and he hurt all over from their rough hands. But Mr. Lestrade was still not moving.

"Stupid beast."

"We'll just shoot her too." A new voice said. "The knackers always got room."

Two more men can in with a fat, greasy man inside a dirty apron with a water-bucket swinging from his hand. Toby recognised the drunken tavern owner of yesterday. His eyes still burned hatefully and settled on the boy with a sneer. The door slammed shut with a clap; the bar settled and they were all locked inside.

"Don't you know how to wake a man up?" He scoffed. "No different than drink. Hair of the dog." And he dumped the bucket over Mr. Lestrade's head.

Mr. Lestrade finally stirred and coughed. As soon as he twitched he was hoisted up.

"Down to business." The tavern-keeper announced. He stank of malt. With a congested cough he grabbed the policeman by the back of the head and yanked his head up. "Where's the delivery, you little thief?"

"Deliv'ry?" Mr. Lestrade strangled. "All I've got is the holly, shir."

"We checked the cart. Nuffin." Someone grumbled.

"What about the bag?"

"Just scraps."

The tavern-keeper made a growling sound in his throat. "You've got to be the one. Don't lie to me. The police were questioning you. Where's the box?"

"Box?" Lestrade stammered. "What box."

"Pikey, you lie." And the greasy fat man hit Mr. Lestrade across the face with a huge hand, once across the lip, dotting the grimy apron with blood, and once against the left eye. Toby saw his head snap back from the force. If he wasn't being held up, he would have fallen to the floor-planks.

Toby was terrified.

Lestrade held his breath as the pain stabilised. He hated black eyes almost as much as he hated broken noses—thank God they hadn't done that yet, but he didn't gull himself—they didn't have the patience to listen to their victim sniffle blood under interrogation. He pulled in his breath as the swelling moved over his eyelid.

"Oi, let the little one go. He's not worth your time."

"He's worth your time, Pikey." A filthy face was shoved far too close to his own. Lestrade's good eye had too much of a view of pimples and stubble, and the rank of rotting teeth made him almost wish for a broken nose after all. "Don't think I don't recognise you, Galvin." He grinned, showing some of those teeth, and a tongue coated in white yeast from drink.

Lestrade's heart had forgotten how to work as soon as he'd heard "Don't think I don't recognise you," but with the use of his Tinker's name it started back up again, like a clumsy engine. They thought they knew who he was...they thought he was Galvin the Tinker.

But Galvin was an alias he had for the C.I.D. Where had any of these whoresons been that they had noticed him? "Galvin" was a harmless Tinker who played carnivales and country faires. Maybe one in eight of his jobs were in London...

"I know it's you. You ain't wearin' your blue, and you sure as hell ain't jugglin' balls, but I know a man's face when I see one." The tavernkeeper bragged as the others shifted their feet about the floor. "Saw you on the Green last year, heard you work for the coppers once in a while."

"It's dirty work but their money's clean enough for me." Lestrade shot back. He bled a little of the cant into his words, hoping he could keep up the pretense.

That made them laugh.

"I touched a ruddy knacker." Shorter Man rolled his eyes and shuddered in exaggeration. "I can't believe it...I've got my standards, I do!" That was met with more laughter, and someone yanked Lestrade back up to his feet, nearly taking his arm out of the socket. He gasped as his back hit the opposing wall.

"So you're out a-hollying, are yeh?" The keeper mused. "Wonder if that's all you're doing."

"Oh, let's just kill 'em and be done with it." A fifth voice suggested. Lestrade's eye was adjusting fast to the bad light of the barn, but the gaps in the wall-planks burned like white gas. Large, heavy lumps of men were taking shape. He could make out faces and features but was sure they couldn't see themselves nearly so well.

"Not the sibleen!" Lestrade protested and got a cuff in the jaw for his troubles. "He won't talk! He can't talk, he's a mute!"

"Well now isn't that just convenient." Someone marveled.

"Positively fortuitous." A second agreed. "No reason not to believe him, is there?"

"Why, I'd believe the good honest word of a Gipsy any day. Even on a Sunday."

"Now, there's no need to be doubtin'...all we have to do is make sure he's a mute..." A blade glittered in the cold beams of light. "Give him something to talk about..."

"Right you are." A dirty blond man agreed sweetly. "Easy enough."

Lestrade gulped hard, and wished he couldn't see Toby's face so clearly. "I don't want any trouble!" He protested. No trouble at all, granlum!"

"Well that's just too awful for you, because you've got trouble up to your Gipsy eyebrows." The tavernkeeper's voice had sunk to new depths, low and grumbling. "But unless you have something to add to this conversation, your troubles are about to come to an abrupt end."

Lestrade didn't have to fake nerves with his gulp. "I don't have a box," He said unsteadily. "Yet."

That made them pause.

The one with the knife out stopped swinging it back and forth in front of Toby's face.

"I was supposed to pick up a box and take it to St. John's with a password. That's all I know."

"Password." Someone breathed pure fury. "Bloody hell, no wo-"

The Tavernkeeper lifted his hand and all sound and motion halted in the barn.

Lestrade could hear his heart in his chest and the nervousness of the old nag at his back, but everything else was stone-silent.

"A password." The Tavern-keeper repeated very, very slowly. "You don't say."

"That's what I was told."

"Very well. Maybe you'd like to tell us what the password is, Gipsy?"

Lestrade glanced at Toby. "Will you let him go?" He couldn't outright demand the boy's release.

"Let him go?" The Tavernkeeper smiled coldly, but the others laughed as though Lestrade had given them the richest joke of their lives. "Why of course. We'll let him go." The smile dropped. "You've got no grounds, Pikey. Give us the Password and we won't kill him outright."

"All right." Lestrade took a deep breath. "But I don't want to say it where he can hear it."

The gang laughed, shifting their feet from side to side in their amusement. Even the tavernkeeper cracked a thin smile.

"He's dumb, not deaf!" Lestrade protested. "I don't want him to hear it!" They laughed harder.

"All right, gentlemen..." The tavern-keeper lifted both hands this time, but the others had hard straits keeping their hilarity to themselves, and it took almost a minute for the roars to die down.

"By all means, let us move to the far side, away from such tender ears as these..."

Toby didn't move a muscle. He kept himself as small as a frozen mouse as they pulled Mr. Lestrade until his back came up against the creaking wall. The nag made a worried sound but stayed where she was.

"The first part's easy." Lestrade began. "You can say whatever you want, make it look like you're having a regular talk with the man at the door. It's the second part's the password."

"Huh. Clever." Tall Man said reluctantly. "You didn't make that up I'm sure."

"No, sir, I didn't."

"Well then, let us have the second part." The tavernkeeper was ready.

Lestrade stopped and cleared his throat. He took a deep breath, hoping his better night-vision would get him through this.

"As likely as we are to start a war with a Prussian."

Lestrade's voice cut low and dark on the last word. He spat it out in British contempt. Bound helpless, Toby Irish was the only one to see how the old nag had suddenly pricked up her faded ears.

Over his head, the men were laughing at Lestrade.

"That's it?" Short man snorted.

"That's it." Lestrade's lip had opened and blood trickled down his bottom lip, but he was puffed up like a fighting cock. "I'd as soon as fight a Prussian."

Again with the word Prussian..?

Toby was still puzzling this when the old nag shuffled her stance and put out her hindquarters. Something, a prescience in the boy's brain, caused a prickle of fright and he flinched backwards away from that sensation, his bound hands clammy with fear.

The nag kicked out. Her right hoof burst the skull of the leader like an overripe melon. The boy could see the man's own hair fly across the barn in blood-anchored lumps through the air, even as the soulless corpse collapsed knees-first upon the loose planks of the barn floor.

The left hoof struck Tall Man square in the hausen-bane. A fountain of blood leaped from his open mouth, and the man fell back as a living man could not.

If Toby hadn't been gagged, he would have screamed. Silently, yes—but long and loud and at the top of his soundless lungs.