“It’s … Master Ping,” Christopher said softly, staring into the pitiful flames. There wasn’t as much wood this time. It would barely last the week, and easement day only came once a month.
“Oh yes,” she said brightly, covering a sniff. “I knew that, of course.” With her worn piece of shale, she made the mark that ended another month within Newgate Prison. Her movements were stiff, almost pained. The mark she made on the wall with an oddly unsteady hand was deeper than the others, and wider. “Did you—” She cleared her throat. “Did you enjoy your time with Master Ping?”
“I did,” he answered after a careful pause. “Mum. Look at me.”
Her hand dropped to her side, palming the shale, but she made no move to turn around, pulling her threadbare gray shawl tighter across her shoulders. “Forty-eight more months, Pigeon, can you believe that?” The false bravado in her normally soft-spoken voice alarmed him. “Four more years and you and I will be free. Free to do whatever we like. I’ll get a job as a seamstress, and I’ll make beautiful lace for fine ladies. I used to be famous for the quality of my lace, you know.”
“I know, Mum,” Christopher whispered, very worried now. He’d heard these words before, but they meant little to him, as he’d never seen a piece of lace in his life and her descriptions of them made no sense. “Let me see your face.”
“And you can apprentice with a tradesman. Maybe Mr. Dockery still works at the shipyards. We’ll have rooms of our own with a woodstove and a fireplace with a stone hearth. We’ll never be cold.”
Gaining his feet, Christopher left the heat of the fire and padded over to his mother. He wanted to fling his arms around her long waist, but didn’t because he was still rain-soaked and it would chill her. Instead, he slid in between her and the wall, lifting his hand to brush the hair back from her face.
It wasn’t as bad as he’d expected. Her lower lip was split, but wasn’t bleeding.
Christopher squeezed his eyes shut for a second. He was eleven now, old enough to know that it was the wounds he couldn’t see that caused her pain. It was what the guards did to her whilst he wasn’t there. What she let them do. All so he could be afforded whatever scraps they were willing to throw him.
She was pale, and her eyes were red from crying, but she was still his mother. His tall, beautiful, sturdy mother. The woman who gave him everything, from strong bones, good teeth, and hair the color of rust on the ancient iron hinges, to the last morsel of her meal and a smile that was the only beautiful thing in their gray world.
A familiar hatred surged within him and he bared his teeth. “You shouldn’t let them in here anymore, Mum,” he growled. “I don’t need a fire.”
Watery eyes, the same light blue as his own, blinked rapidly as she slicked his sopping hair away from his eyes. “Of course you do, Pigeon,” she crooned. “Just look at you. As wet as a drowned Irish rat.” Her strong, capable hands seized him and began to peel the dripping shirt from his chest. “Come over here and warm up before you catch your death. I’ll go after our tins of supper.”
She limped a little, he noticed, and his teeth banged together from sheer helpless frustration. But she was a stubborn woman, and there was no talking to her when she was like this.
They ate their meat in silence, both of them staring into the flames. Christine a little dazed and distracted, Christopher seething and fuming.
Wu Ping didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t understand. How was one supposed to quiet his love for someone like this? How did he not hate the men who used his mother? Or fear what they might do next?
It was impossible to calm emotion.
He would tell the old fool that next time he saw him.
“Christopher,” his mother whispered, pulling his gaze from the glowing coal bed. She rarely called him anything but “Pigeon,” her pet name for him. “Christopher, I want you to know that I’m all right. And that everything I do, I do because I deserve it, and because you deserve better.”
“That’s bloody bollocks, Mum, you don’t deserve to be … they shouldn’t … not for me.” He couldn’t say the words, but his cheeks burned with shame.
“You watch your tongue,” she said firmly, but then immediately softened. “My son, you don’t know what the world is like out there beyond those walls. How strange and wonderful. Beautiful and terrible. You don’t know what a real life is like. You’ve never seen a true sunset, or had a fresh meal.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “That’s all because of me. Because I’m a criminal.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he argued, but she cut him off.
“You’ll see someday, Pigeon. You’ll see what you’ve been denied, and maybe you’ll hate me for it.”
“I could never hate you,” he vowed, scooting over to settle into her side as she wrapped her shawl around his bare shoulders.
“I hope for that, son.” She perched her cheek on top of his head. “But you never know what you’re capable of until…”
“Until what?”
Letting out a beleaguered breath, she stood and tested his shirt hanging from a rusty nail. It was impossible to dry anything in this dank place, even with the heat of their meager fire. But it was good enough for her to hand to him, though the cold almost burned his skin as he slipped the shirt on.