“Thank you, Griffin,” Lord Carridon said, loosening the buttons around the neck of his shirt as he made the unmistakable clunk of a wine glass being set down on a wooden table. “I won’t need you any more tonight.”

Griffin turned to go for the door, and tried his best to act as though he was surprised when the Lord called him back.

“But Lord Sheffley will. Make yourself available to him, as you do for me, and give him your best effort,” he added, watching him in the mirror that was set in front of him with another of his wolfish smiles.

Griffin nodded, silently, and made a short bow before heading out of the bedroom, deliberately clenching his fists so that Carridon would think that every bone in his body was trying to resist the order. Better that he did not act as though he was too comfortable with things, or Carridon would suspect that something was afoot – and though he might not be able to guess what, it was not good to invoke the attention of his Master, no matter what the reason.

It was only a short distance from the master bedroom in which Carridon slept, at one side of the stretch of corridor that faced the entrance of the house, to the guest room which had been prepared for Sheffley, at the opposite end of the wing to the servants’ quarters. Griffin walked it as slowly as he could, trying to make out as though he was a man limping towards his doom reluctantly rather than someone who was deliberately wasting time for a certain purpose. He reached the door without seeing Jackdaw appear behind him, and cursed the other servant in his mind before hesitantly reaching out and knocking.

It took a few moments before Lord Sheffley appeared at the door, something that Griffin was somewhat thankful for. He stood shorter than Griffin when both were straightened to their full heights, and he had evidently begun to relax for the night, having discarded his dinner jacket and waistcoat, with his cuffs undone so that his sleeves hung loose around his wrists. He did not appear surprised to see Griffin standing waiting for him, and he wondered if it was a tradition of his visits that Lord Carridon would send a boy along to him on the second night of his being there.

“Yes, boy, what is it?” he asked, feigning an innocence that his eyes exposed as a lie.

“Lord Carridon sent me, my Lord,” Griffin, making up his mind to go for the option of being shy rather than to have to make up a speech on the spot. “To see if you might... need anything.”

“To see if I might need anything, eh?” Sheffley replied, looking him up and down appraisingly. “There might be something that you can help me with, in fact.”

“My Lord, if I may,” came a voice from out of the shadows at Griffin’s elbow, and though he almost jumped out of his skin at the sound he was immediately relieved to see Jackdaw move forward to stand next to him. “I may be better furnished to provide the help that you require.”

“Is that so?” Sheffley replied, looking between the two of them with something approaching amusement.

“Yes, sir,” Jackdaw answered, slinking forwards a pace to be closer to the Lord. “I know my Master asked Griffin here to come to you, but I was so terribly disappointed. I so hoped it would be me, sir, that could come to you tonight.”

Griffin kept quiet, trusting that Jackdaw knew what he was doing enough to not need his assistance – and he certainly did not want to say the wrong thing and make a mess of it all. He was amazed to see an almost complete transformation come over Jackdaw. Even he was beginning to believe that the servant was desperate for Lord Sheffley, with his manner and expression perfectly poised to suggest that this was the case.

“Is that so?” Sheffley asked again, though this time his tone was pitched lower and his body language seemed to change, turning more towards Jackdaw now than Griffin.

“Yes sir,” Jackdaw said, moving a little closer again. “Griffin’s just a boy really, he doesn’t know what he’s doing yet. Allow me to take care of your needs, sir, please do.”

Sheffley looked between the two of them for a moment, with a smug smile underneath his moustache and narrowed eyes. “Come in then, Jackdaw, and close the door behind you,” he said at last, dismissing Griffin with a wave of his hand.

Griffin heaved a sigh of relief as Jackdaw closed the door behind him with a small victory smile, and headed off back down the corridor towards his own room. He made sure to step lightly as he passed by Lord Carridon’s door, just in case he might emerge and ask for something and then realise that he was not where he was supposed to be, but he made it back to his room without incident and closed himself inside to wait for the morning. He did not sleep well, waking often as soon as he had dozed off, thinking that he had heard something in the corridor; finally, just before dawn, he gave up and dressed himself before creeping down to Jackdaw’s room again.

He knocked lightly on the door, but it opened almost immediately, Jackdaw seizing him by the collar to drag him in and close it again as quickly as possible. There was a bright and somewhat manic look on his face, a look of success but also of strain.

“It worked,” he said, gleefully. “I knew it would. We’re in business, Griff, mark my words we are.”

“So, he’s on our side?” Griffin asked, keeping as hushed as possible, even though no one else was supposed to be awake yet.

“He’s on his own side, don’t forget that, but for the moment our goals seem to be set in the same direction,” Jackdaw replied, his eyes sparkling in the gloom. One candle flickered on the table near his window, down almost to the last stump. Griffin wondered how long he had been awake for, or if he had slept at all.

“So, what now?” Griffin asked, trying to catch hold of Jackdaw’s arm as he began to walk around the room in an agitated state of excitement.

“Now, we wait,” Jackdaw replied. “I’m sure we’ll know the moment when it comes. Sheffley visits regularly, so I just have to make sure that I visit him in return and before long it will be time to move.”

“But what move, Jack?” Griffin asked, half groaning in frustration at his reticence.

“That’s for me to know,” Jackdaw grinned. “For now, at least.”

“One day you’ll have to tell me,” Griffin said, but Jackdaw just chuckled at him in response.

That afternoon, Lord Sheffley and his retinue packed themselves back into their carriage and departed, with much ceremony and pomp, and with strict orders for Lord Carridon that all of them overheard as Lord Sheffley shouted in the morning room. Though it was strange to think of Carridon being ordered around, there was a hierarchy here, and that much had been made abundantly clear during his visit. One thing that was certain, however, was that Carridon was not about to allow his own servants to forget their place in it, and the fact that he was very much in charge of their destinies.

He stormed around the house in a rage for hours, never settling in one room for long, going between his study and his bedroom and the evening room where he demanded that someone serve him drinks as soon as possible, and scolding them both for every single move that they made. Finally, the evening drew later, and he called both Jackdaw and Griffin to him in the evening room, having apparently decided what it was that he needed in order to make the day’s experience more palatable.

“Go out into town,” he ordered them brusquely. “Go to Madame Lacey’s and get me two boys for the night. Jackdaw, you know my type; Griffin, you will go with him and learn.”

With that, he drained the last of a glass of fine liquor and stormed out of the room, his footsteps echoing in the entrance hall as he made his way upstairs, each footfall heavier than it needed to be. Griffin turned to look at Jackdaw then, almost unable to believe what he had just heard.

“I’m going outside?” he said, the disbelief in his voice marking a need for Jackdaw to confirm it before he could really understand it.

“You’re going outside,” Jackdaw replied, grinning and clapping him on the shoulder in congratulations. “Let’s go get ready. We’ll need heavy winter coats in this weather, and we’ll get a carriage so that we can bring them back with us.”

He led Griffin into a room in the servants quarters that served as storage, and took two dark and heavy overcoats down from a peg there. They each shrugged one onto their shoulders, feeling the weight and warmth of the garment, and then headed out to the main courtyard and stable block where the groomsmen stayed. They sat at ease in an office that was appropriated for their use when they were not needed, part of the stable block itself, but as soon as Jackdaw and Griffin entered the room they shot to their feet, ready to serve.

“We’ll have the servants’ carriage,” Jackdaw told them in an authoritative tone, a manner which Griffin had come to recognise as his own way of showing that he was not at the bottom of the pyramid. “We are to leave as soon as possible, so do hurry.”

The grooms began to rush around at once, picking up bridles and other pieces of tack from the room around them and going out through another door at the opposite end to begin their preparations. Jackdaw looked at Griffin and grinned again, as if to say that he was still surprised by the fact that they actually did as they were told, and sat down in one of the chairs that they had just vacated.

“Now, before we set off, I ought to warn you of a few things,” he said, pointing to another chair so that Griffin would take it. “First of all, Madame Lacey is not the kind of Madame that you might be thinking of. She is a he, and if you act as though that is surprising, you might find yourself getting off on the wrong foot with him. Certainly, we should not act as if it is off-putting, though I assure you that he is a disgusting creature of the most vile variety. Secondly, when Lord Carridon said that he would throw you to one of these places and you would not be looked after, he was not joking. But it is not our place to save these boys, and no one will thank us for it, including them. No matter what you feel or want to do while we are there and while we bring them back, remember that you have your own preservation to think about. Thirdly, keep your eyes and ears open. What happens at Lacey’s does not always stay at Lacey’s, if I have anything to do with it. If you see someone, mark it in your mind, as everyone is someone’s servant or someone’s master. Knowing that someone has tastes that we can use against them is very important if we are going to succeed in pulling off this plan and getting out.”

Griffin nodded grimly, his mouth a straight line of determination. “I understand,” he said, internally bracing himself to face what was doubtless about to be an unpleasant experience.

“Just think yourself lucky that I managed to convince you to put up with the way things are,” said Jackdaw, with only the barest hint of smugness in his voice. “Just think of that while we are at Lacey’s.”

At that point, the two grooms rushed back into the room, executing short bows and announcing that the carriage was ready. Jackdaw got up with a flourish, leading Griffin out of the room as if the groomsmen were so much dirt on the bottom of his shoe, brushing past them without a thank you. He mounted up on the front of the carriage, instructing Griffin to do the same on the other side, so that they could sit next to one another in control of the reins. This carriage was smaller and less ornate than the one that Lord Carridon rode in, with only a pair of horses to pull it rather than four, and it showed some signs of wear and tear that had not yet been patched up. Still, it was the first and only carriage that Griffin had ever ridden on, and he gazed about him from his new perch with something approaching wonder.

Over at the gates, the sole guard who was posted there at this time of day stood to attention, pulling open first one of the painted iron gates open and then the second so that they could pass through into the street beyond. The lanterns were already lit to stave off the darkness, though there were still throngs of people passing by on the street and on the road itself, as well as carriages that would rattle by every few minutes or so. The city was still alive, and Jackdaw looked over at him for a moment before he geed the horses onwards, poised with the reins in both his hands ready to spur them.

“Ready?” he asked, looking almost as excited as Griffin was to be out in the outside world.

“Ready,” Griffin replied, and they moved off with a rattle of their own, leaving through the gates with a surge of movement and joining the traffic of the road beyond.