A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss

put food in your children’s mouths.”
    “I’ll put bum fodder in your mouth if you don’t shut it,” someone shouted at Yate.
    “Your words smell prettier than a fen’s cunny,” another voice barked. “I’d reckon the pope himself sent you to tell us these lies.”
    And then someone threw a pint of gin at him. Yate stepped gracefully to one side, and the glass struck Greenbill in the chest.
    Oh, the outrage! How dare he avoid a missile and allow it to muddy their beloved leader? There was an instant of silence, of stillness. And then someone grabbed Yate and pulled him off the table and he disappeared beneath a heaving sea of punches. I heard, over the shouting, the dull thud of fist on flesh. Some gathered around and kicked at their brethren who were closer to the victim. Some merely punched at the air in a troubling pantomime of the hidden violence. But these pleasures were limited, and while a few porters stayed to try to take their shot at Yate, others seemed to forget in an instant there was any cause to rally around but mayhem itself. These fanned out through the tavern, looking for aught to break or steal, or they dashed for the door that they might pursue a wider field of destruction.
    And then I felt a hard pull on my arm. It was Littleton. “Time to go,” he said. “Find your own way as best you can,” he proposed, as he disappeared into the crowd.
    I should well have taken his advice, but in the chaos of the moment my mind thought not so clearly. The tavern had mostly emptied out, but there were still a number of men who tore at the furnishings, the walls, the barrels of ale, and buckets of gin. The room was full of thuds and grunts and the clatter of pewter on stone. Broken oil lamps lay shattered on the floor where watered-down drink had mercifully doused their flames.
    And then there was poor Walter Yate, sprawled upon the floor, propped on his back like an overturned turtle. One man held down his arms, while another lifted a chair over his head and prepared to lower it and crush the poor victim’s skull. Three more stood by cheering, dividing their time between punching at the air in support for their brothers and glancing to the door in anticipation of the even greater acts of destruction that surely now took place outside.
    It was true that these matters of what porter received which job were nothing to me, and it was even more true that a part of myself believed Yate deserved to have his head pushed in for speaking so favorably of Griffin Melbury, but I could nevertheless not stand by to murder. I ran forward and knocked aside the man who held Yate down and pulled the quarry out of the way in time so that the chair hit the floor, where it burst into pieces.
    Seeing me come to their victim’s aid, the porters scattered. I quickly pulled Yate to his feet. Though dazed and a bit scratched, he appeared to have escaped serious harm. “Thank you,” he said, as he ushered me toward the door. “I thought to find no such friends here among Greenbill’s boys.”
    “I’m not one of Greenbill’s boys. And though I did not think to find you here, I would speak with you regardless. You’re of little use to me with your head crushed.” I pushed over a table near the door to provide us with some small shelter from the half dozen or so men who remained inside. Other than the two who had attempted to murder Yate, the remainder were exploring the wonders of a tavern without a tavernkeeper. That is to say, they were taking their fill of the bucket of gin and shoving their pockets full of knives and small dishes. In the next few minutes, they would be either asleep or more belligerent than ever.
    The other two men eyed us as we crouched behind the overturned table. They eyed the men with the gin. They attempted to make up their minds.
    “My name is Weaver,” I said hastily to Yate. “I am in the employ of a priest called Ufford, who has hired me to find out the author of some threatening notes. He