Sean E. Britten

I’ve always been inspired by music (I know, super original!) and music has always been a part of my writing. Way back in the days of burnt CDs, my mates and I used to put together CD mixtapes and I came up with the idea of a series of short stories based around pieces of music. Mixtape is all short stories sharing their titles with different songs and inspired, to various degrees, by their lyrics, artists, and vibe.

Currently Playing: Chris De Burgh – Don’t Pay The Ferryman

Desperate to secure his family’s fortunes, Lord William Mayhew hurries to make an appointment with a new benefactor after the disappearance of his previous partner. But first he must make his way across the Thames, a river of unexpected dangers.

======

In spite of the lateness of the hour, Lord William Mayhew’s bootheels rang off the cobblestones at a dead sprint. Gaslamps flickered and hissed, throwing meagre pools of yellow light. From the direction of the House of Lords, William made his way toward the riverbank.

When William’s father died, as the eldest son he’d inherited his estate and holdings, his seat in Parliament, and his massive debts. Tirelessly, he’d worked to put together a trade expedition that, if all went well, would resolve at least some of his family’s misfortunes. But his sponsor, Lord Cameron, had suddenly and mysteriously gone missing at a pivotal moment in the process and left him adrift. He desperately needed a new benefactor. Stuffed in his fist was a letter from another parliamentarian, Lord Arthur Bennington. He offered a meeting to at least discuss the possibility of funding the expedition but the meeting had to be tonight. William had received the message almost too late and now hoped to make the meeting without having to force Bennington out of bed.

A dog howled in the distance. William thought himself all alone on the winding streets but suddenly a figure emerged from a nearby alley. A short cry strangled his throat and he stumbled backward. For a moment, he saw hands curled into claws and moving toward his throat. It was only a common dollymop, however, combing her dark hair away from her face. She showed no reaction to the young lord’s surprise, fixing William with a lascivious stare.

“Looking for company, m’lord?”

William recovered his wits and fixed the whore with a stern expression. A lordly expression, he hoped, although he was still finding his ground on just how a lord should look and act.

“Out of my way, harlot! I’ve important business to attend,” William snarled, looping around the woman without waiting for a response.

The air cooled as William neared the river. Thick banks of fog rolled off the water. He turned a corner and found the Thames moving sluggishly at his feet. For a moment, he lost his bearings. The night was dark and the river empty. A lantern dangled from a pole near the dock where ferrymen pulled up on their rafts though. Half-illuminated by the lantern, webbed in shadow, a lone ferryman stood with legs braced and a barge pole fed through his fists.

“Working late, m’lord?” the ferryman said by way of a greeting.

“I need to get to Campbell Street, as quickly as you can make it!” William hurried to board.

The young lord tossed a coin in the ferryman’s direction. In spite of the low light, the ferryman snatched the coin out of the air easily before it flew by him and into the river. His hand was gnarled and hoary from working a barge pole all day. The coin disappeared into his cloak as he made room for William.

Feeling the raft rocking beneath him, William settled onto the sole bench. Water rose alarmingly close to the gunwales of the rickety vessel, edges eaten away by rot. He glanced back at the ferryman behind him. A voluminous hood hid his features. Almost nothing could be seen of the man except his gnarled hands and a sliver of his chin, the rest of his face in shadow.

As the ferryman poled them out onto the Thames, William fidgeted in his seat. Currents picked up the raft and carried them like a piece of litter. The ferryman steered into them rather than trying to fight them. Fog closed around the pair on all sides until William could no longer see the riverbank.

William stowed the letter from Lord Bennington inside his coat. His hand lingered against his chest. Even through layers of clothing, he could feel his heart fluttering. Mostly it was because he’d had to run all the way from Parliament but the harlot had given him more of a fright than he’d be willing to admit.

“Foolish damn trollop back there, practically leapt at me from the shadows,” William complained. “It’s not so long ago that her type were all quaking in their bodices over the thought that the Ripper might be stalking them from the shadows. Say what you will, he at least made the streets a little bit quieter.”

“Right you are, m’lord,” the ferryman said.

Vertical islands rose out of the fog. Ships berthed along the riverbanks. Chains thick with mossy growths trailed into the turgid water.

“If anything, we could use a few more of his kind.” William gained confidence, practicing his lordly tone. “Far too many people of low breeding are infesting this city. Small minds, chaff waiting for a reaper.”

The ferryman made a noise low in his throat that William couldn’t recognise. It could have been a cough, or laughter. The young lord truly didn’t care.

“I couldn’t agree more, m’lord,” the ferryman said.

“Is that so?”

“Oh, yes, there are certain specimens I think could be expunged without upsetting the balance to tell true. Parasites, feeding off the blood of this city. Sucking it dry.”

“I know exactly the type.”

“I’m sure you do, m’lord. Pray tell, what brings you out tonight?”

“I’ve got business dealings to attend to, important business.”

“Of course, m’lord.”

Sounds were muted in the fog. Ships moved in and out of the cottony mass like ghosts. The ferryman poled them along on the current, steering them swiftly around any contrasting eddies and obstacles.

“You wonder just how safe the streets are, truly,” William said. “It’s not just pickpockets and harlots. The man I was dealing with previously, Lord Cameron, he simply disappeared one evening. His footman was engaged in taking Cameron’s lady wife to some event or society dinner, and Cameron said he would make his own way home. The man simply vanished. Walked off into the fog and disappeared. And he’s not the only one, there have been other men, important men, men of influence, who of late have vanished without a trace. It makes you wonder what’s going on in this city. By God, we’ve built an empire on which the sun will never set but we can’t keep the rot from taking hold at home.”

“I see exactly what you speak of, m’lord.”

“I’m sure you do,” William sneered.

“Oh, a man in my position might as well be invisible, m’lord. I see all sorts of goings on, high and low.”

William peered into the fog, hunting for the Campbell Street Wharf. “Yes, I’m sure. The tales you could tell, no doubt.”

“Now, the Ripper you say. I believe he had some fine ideas but the wrong kind of victim.”

“Women, you mean? How chivalrous.”

“Every day I see these parasites, m’lord. Strutting and preening like pigeons, as they suckle this city dry.”

“Pray tell,” William said, bored of the conversation.

“Yes, the moneylenders.”

“Ah, jews.”

“Not quite what was foremost in my mind, m’lord. Moneylenders, landlords-,”

“Well now, I know some perfectly fine gentlemen-,”

“Little lordlings, puffed up on their own importance and their important business dealings.”

“Now, wait just a moment!” William started to turn but something in the ferryman’s sinister appearance, his hooded cloak and gnarled hands like some popular depiction of the Grim Reaper, stopped him. “Uh, just-, just, how far are we from Campbell Street?”

“I believe we’re as close as you’re going to get, m’lord.”

The ferryman tossed his pole down the side of the raft. In the same moment, he reached inside his cloak and produced a lengthy dagger. Its blade gleamed in the foggy moonlight. With no further ceremony, he fell on top of William.

“Good Lord!” William shouted.

William managed to twist just in time to catch the ferryman by the wrists. His weight alone drove William off the bench and the two of them landed in the bottom of the boat. The raft crashed and swung, water splashing over the sides. The ferryman plunged his knife toward William’s throat and the young lord just barely held him back.

“You! You killed Cameron!” William said.

“The river keeps its secrets.”

Up close, the ferryman’s breath smelled like rotting meat. He was strong, terribly strong. Muscles stood out like cords of wood in his forearms. William was quite sure the ferryman could have overpowered him much more quickly but he was content to draw it out and act with a slow sureness. William kicked and thrashed. The man’s knees drove themselves into his thighs and pried them apart, pinning him. Folds of his cloak fell around both of them. Through it, William could feel the man’s sinewy frame.

With his hands occupied holding the ferryman’s wrists at bay, William did the only thing he could think of and thrust forward with the hard curve of his forehead. His hat had come off in the scuffle. Inside the hood, he couldn’t see the ferryman’s face but he felt the crunch of the man’s teeth against his skull. The ferryman reeled for a moment and William tried to writhe free from under him. The raft swung wildly, carried by the whims of the Thames.

“Help, help!” William found his voice and cried out.

“No one to help you out here, m’lord. The river listens to me, she doesn’t listen to you!”

Bloody strings of drool dripped out of the ferryman’s hood and down the front of William’s coat. He tried again to wriggle free. The two of them wrestled in the grimy bottom of the boat, splashed by river water, and the ferryman wrenched his knife hand free. He plunged it toward William’s face. Twisting, William moved his head aside at the last second. The tip of the dagger sliced his cheek and notched the top of his left ear. He cried out in pain and surprise at the touch of the blade. The ferryman pushed too hard, however, and buried the knife in the bottom of the boat.

“Let me be!” William yelled.

The ferryman was distracted for a moment trying to free his knife. William threw himself sideways and tore free from under the other man. The raft rocked so violently it nearly capsized. The raft pole rattled across the boards. Warm blood trickled down William’s cheek.

The ferryman wrenched his knife free and turned it on William. There wasn’t a lot of room on the raft. Water loomed to either side. William couldn’t swim. If he dived overboard, he would die just as surely as he would on the end of the ferryman’s knife. William grabbed for the pole and heaved it around. It was too long and unwieldy to make a good weapon at such close quarters but he managed to hit the ferryman where his neck met his shoulder. The blow knocked him sideways and pinioned him against the side of the raft.

“You’ll regret that, my little lordling,” the ferryman said.

With terrible strength, the ferryman pushed himself upright and shoved back on the pole. William wedged it between them and they fought over its ownership. The boat pitched as it drifted in slow circles. The pole hit the side of the raft where it braced and then snapped in two right between William’s hands.

“I’ll kill you for that too,” the ferryman said.

Shoving William’s hands aside, the ferryman drove the knife inward. It pierced William’s side, slicing through layers of clothing and dragging scraps into the wound. At first, the young lord couldn’t feel any pain but he could feel the invasion. He could feel cold running past his ribs, wriggling deep in the meat, kind of like a stitch from running too fast but higher and more foreign. Gasping, he tried to shove the ferryman backward. His heart thundered, painfully hard. His lungs felt like they might pop.

“Parasite,” the ferryman said, and stabbed him again. “Never worked a real job in your life. Sitting there in judgement. Sucking up all the coin, the blood, the life of this city. One day a reckoning will come for you all. Today, your reckoning is here.”

With a howl of effort, William hauled around with one half of the broken barge pole, ending in a jagged spike. Much like the ferryman’s dagger, it punched through clothing and flesh and tunneled toward the man’s heart. The ferryman fell sideways, losing his grip on the knife. The blade was left embedded in William’s side. The broken pole waggled almost obscenely from the ferryman’s chest.

“Ah, ah,” William moaned.

Without thinking, William grabbed the hilt of the ferryman’s knife and pulled it free. Pain flooded his chest, sending him rigid. Blood covered his side. He struggled to hold onto the knife and sit up. The boat wallowed from side to side, taking on water from the Thames.

The ferryman also tried to right himself, grasping the broken pole stuck in his side. Channeling his pain and fear into rage, William fell on top of him. Now it was his turn to hammer the dagger into the other man’s chest. The ferryman spasmed and tried to shove him away but the young lord slipped free and kept stabbing. The raft spun in a ship docked against one of the wharves with a crash, bouncing off it and being carried in among some of the other ships.

The ferryman’s hood fell away. In the low light refracted by the fog, William got his first real look at the man’s face. In his dazed state, he was struck by the very ordinariness of it. Blood stained the man’s teeth amidst a scruff of stubble. His features coarse, low class, sun beaten, but utterly unremarkable. William might have passed the same face a dozen times in a day on a labourer, a sailor, a ferryman, without ever taking notice.

“I’m not alone,” the ferryman said. “A reckoning is on its way for all you and yours.”

With his ebbing strength, the ferryman seized the sides of the wallowing raft. Under William, he threw his weight suddenly sideways. The raft tipped. William let out a strangled cry, falling into the overwhelmed side of the raft. The Thames poured into the tiny craft. The ferryman let out a bark of laughter before the river covered his face. With a hunger that belied its slow and sleepy appearance, the Thames swallowed both men and their raft.

Darkness, silence. William found himself drifting in a lightless black. He felt like he’d been struck blind. Water filled his eyes and ears. He tumbled free of the craft. Lashing out, he could no longer feel the ferryman although he kept a hold of the man’s knife. He couldn’t swim. As best he could, he kicked and thrashed in the direction he imagined the surface could be found. Soaked through, his clothes felt like iron. There was nothing he could do to free himself of their weight. Pain crippled his side. His left arm was worthless.

William struggled, and could take it no longer, and inhaled. The Thames filled his mouth. Cold water burned his throat. It stuffed his lungs, swelling them to what felt like bursting point. With limbs spasming, he drifted toward the riverbed.

William saw a light. Strong hands seized him by the shoulders and then the armpits, and hauled him toward the source of it. His head broke the surface. With lungs full of the Thames, vision grey, he was only dimly aware of being picked up and thrown to the deck of one of the ships that the ferryman’s raft had been drifting between before he deliberately capsized it. The lights were lanterns strung to the mast above him.

Before William could completely pass out, a brawny fist punched him in the chest. They hit him again, pain exploding from the stab wounds in his side. His lungs spasmed and rejected the water he’d inhaled. It spouted up his throat and splattered on his face.

“Easy now, guv’nor.”

Three men, sailors by the look of them, gathered around and turned William on his side. Dark and filthy water vomited out of his mouth and pooled across the deck. One of them thumped him between the shoulder blades to encourage the process.

“There we go.”

“Oi, careful now, he’s got a knife! Why’s he got a knife?”

“Looked like him and the other fella were fighting, didn’t it?”

William gasped and struggled to sit up. His lungs burned. Watery blood stained his side. Without thinking, he swung the knife around and put it between himself and his saviors. They backed away, raising their hands.

“What’s the meaning of this now, guv’nor?” one of the men asked.

William’s vision struggled to return. Looking around at the faces of the men, he saw the same features as the ferryman in triplicate. The man’s final words, that he was not alone, that there were others, rang in his ears.

“Get away! Get away from me, all of you!”

William staggered to his feet and thrust the knife at the three men. In his dazed, half-drowned state, all he could see were threats. Bleary eyes searched the deck for an escape. Before he could find one, something cracked him on the back of the head. A fourth sailor he hadn’t seen, this one wielding an oar which he brought down a second time on the young lord’s skull.

Still holding the knife, William reeled across the deck. He hit the gunwale and toppled over, legs flung into the air. Entering the water with a splash, he disappeared from sight. This time, none of the men went after him.

“What was that then?” the fourth sailor said, stunned.

“By my reckoning, another Ripper me’thinks,” one of the other sailors said. “We’re lucky to be in one piece!”

Wideyed, the men stared at the patch where William had gone back into the water. Air bubbled to the surface, bubbled, and then stopped. The man didn’t come back up. The river kept its secrets.

======

Sean: In case you might be wondering, the first draft of this story was written before certain current events (#FreeLuigi) that feel like they could have inspired it. Actually, yeah, I checked, it was written in September when I first started putting stuff together for Mixtape. But definitely a reflection of the same kind of sentiments that we’ve seen explode since then.

Debating whether to unload some stories more frequently than once a fortnight! I’m getting ahead of myself, this is only the second story for Mixtape. Two weeks just feels like a long time between drinks. We’ll see, I’ll get to a point where I have at least enough first drafts to fill the year and go from there. I’m working on a couple of novel ideas as well and there’s so much I could be editing and doing something with. Short stories are just so much fun!

Next Track: Patty Griffin – Cold As It Gets