Instead, he extended a hand to the Butcher and hauled the man to his feet. A nod, an acknowledgement that he had been shown mercy and then the Butcher staggered away, cradling his ruined hand in his armpit, getting filthy looks from the onlookers for his weakness and for the bets lost to it.
A whisper of boos and murmuring snaked its way through the crowd, growing in volume. They’d most of them bet against him and now they felt cheated. ‘Useless coward. No sport for us in you sparing him,’ shouted one fool. Murray looked down at his bruised knuckles, spreading and flexing his bloody fingers. Then he walked casually over to the man and lashed out with a merciless right hook, propelling him backwards with his face now gushing blood.
‘Anyone else got something to say? Come on I’m waiting.’ His voice was a roar and he glared at them with a murderous hatred. ‘Still want me to kill someone?’
‘Come away now Murray, come away before you lose your temper.’ His friend Will dragged him away from the crowd, breathing ale fumes at him. ‘Murray you’re a damn fool. He could have killed you or bitten your ears off or blinded you. Why do you take these bets? He’s been at this game a long time and done men in already or so I’ve heard. If he’d had you on your back you’d be a corpse now and for what? And why didn’t you end him?’
‘I had a choice, I made it,’ he said spitting out blood.
‘Well, you’ll get a bad reputation if you go on showing mercy.’
‘Aye I will, but no matter.’
‘Ah but you’re mad Murray. You have coin in your pocket, a comfortable place and you’ve but to wink at them and the common doxies and fancy women alike throw their legs open, which I hate you for by the way,’ he slurred. ‘Why fight for a prize you don’t need.’
‘Because I felt like it.’
‘Well all this fighting will ruin that handsome face of yours,’ said Will with a smirk, lurching slightly sideways.
Murray’s voice turned cold. ‘Are you trying to be funny? Only an idiot insults a man when his blood’s up.’
‘Forgive me…I meant no…’
Murray laughed and clapped a hand heavily on the other man’s back. ‘Hah, I had you. For a moment there your face was as grim as mine my friend.’
‘Christ you’re a mean bastard, Murray.’
‘Aye, a mean bastard who is in need of ale.’
‘I’ll fetch some though it tastes like rat’s piss and they water it down to nought.’
Will lurched off having well and truly over-indulged in rat’s piss already that night. Murray walked down to the river, splashing it on his face and spitting blood out from a cut in his cheek. He felt along his nose, relieved to find it unbroken. In spite of everything he still had some vanity left.
He watched the black water ooze past in the darkness, sliding away into nothing, like his life. A smell rose off it, the stink of thousands crammed together, cheek by jowl, in this unholy cesspit of a city. Even now, with the heat of summer long gone and winter approaching, London still reeked like an old corpse.
Why this terrible melancholy and restlessness? Why could he not shake it off? The fight had been a temporary respite but now his black mood had descended again.
Will returned sometime later with a surprisingly sober look to his face. ‘Murray there’s rumours.’
‘Of what?’
‘Cromwell has gone man. Died last night, pissing blood or so they say.’
‘Bad way to go.’
‘Aye, ‘tis.’
‘I can scarce believe it. Well, things will change now and not for the better I fear.’
‘So you think we are to war again Murray?’
‘No, not I, I’ve long had my fill of slaughter. I’m for Scotland and my home.’
‘I didn’t know you had a home?’
‘Aye, I do, but I left it like a fool a long time ago and I’ve been thinking I should put that to rights before it is too late.’
‘Why now?’