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of useful remedies to spice up the condition of a wan beast. However, as handy as these may be if he was reduced to the level of a dung sweeper, his real gift had been Canting’s visit, as he relayed his instructions to the dog handlers. The bear was to survive four sets in good condition, but the fifth was to do him in. These fellows first had grovelled compliance, until Canting slipped off on other business. Then while sheltering from a sudden rain burst under the thatch further around the corner of the building, Ned overheard them chortling over some trick they planned with a whistle. One of their mates was fixed up to lay a wager of twenty angels at odds of 3 to 1, and by the end of the match they’d be both rich and gone. They must have been fresh in from the counties. Whether they’d survive such a trick was doubtful, but they meant to try.
    That had set Ned to thinking. Since the art of cony–catching was to be practiced, he may as well join in and catch out the catchers. What he needed was an accomplice, someone unknown to Canting, but also trustworthy. In a city like London such a person was rarer than a unicorn or the virgin who went with it.
    For days the problem plagued him and he was fast running out of time and silver with still no way to solve the conundrum of where to find such a paragon. That was until he was walking along Breadle Street one morning earlier this week and became caught up in a wagon jam. There at the front of the yelling, cursing carters and the amused crowd was a miracle. Some aged goodwife had lost a wheel off her small dray and the London swaggerers were using the misfortune as good entertainment, teasing the poor, distraught woman by offering to help, then spinning the wheel across to their jeering mates. Not that he wasn’t amused, but he reckoned the joke was well past its welcome and the fools had more than their share of fun—now was time to make good. Then before he could speak up, a veritable giant of a man had pushed through the crowd. He casually seized the wheel and, almost with one hand, lifted up the dray and put it back on. Feats of strength were to be applauded but then the young Hercules went a step further. He quietly chastised the swaggerers for their unchristian acts and helped the old goodwife pick up her load of spilt sea–coal. It was then that Ned saw his future. His shoulder daemon whispered possibilities. The blessed saints were with him and instinctively he stepped forward to help his new found partner!

Chapter Two–The Clink Southwark

    The dampness seeped in from the clouded darkness beyond the bars, and slowly condensed on the green moss that clung tenaciously to the rough face of the wall. Every minute or so a large drop would detach and plummet past the worn grooves and mortar, speeding its way to the spreading puddle in the muck below. Eventually it found its way past the stones and mud, till once more it joined the waters of the great river beyond.
    This time it was different. The stately cycle was halted as it dropped into a dark yawning cavern and its journey took another path. A slumped figure came to, coughing and spluttering, spat a noisome gob at the opposite wall, then collapsed once more, thudding his head against the wall and moaned loudly. Ned Bedwell tried to rub his face with open hands, and cried in pain as the iron shackles battered his already bruised features.
    “Sweet mother…never again!”
    Despite the heavy tendrils of musty darkness in his brain, a flash of the earlier rush lit evening came back to him. It was at the Paris Gardens baiting pits– they must have started there, they always did, then onto the stews of Southwark. Of course he crossed the river, but damn him if he could remember. Then one fragment of bright memory shot through the cloying morass of pain, a heavy bag of eighty five clinking, golden coins, each with the reassuring embossed figure of an angel landing in his hand. Instinct, hope and reflex made him reach