“Very good, sir.”

As they went down the stairs, Lizzie remembered something. “Oh, I must show you this!” she said to Jay. She had picked up a handbill in the street and saved it for him. She took it from her pocket and gave it to him to read. It read:

AT THE SIGN OF THE PELICAN

NEAR SHAD-WELL

GENTLEMEN AND GAMESTERS TAKE NOTE

A GENERAL DAY OF SPORT

A MAD BULL TO BE LET LOOSE WITH FIREWORKS ALL

OVER HIM, AND DOGS AFTER HIM

A MATCH FOUGHT OUT BETWEEN TWO COCKS

OF WESTMINSTER,

AND TWO OF EAST CHEAP, FOR FIVE POUNDS

A GENERAL COMBAT WITH CUDGELS BETWEEN SEVEN

WOMEN

AND

A FIST FIGHT—FOR TWENTY POUNDS!

REES PREECE, THE WELSH MOUNTAIN

VERSUS

MACK MCASH, THE KILLER COLLIER

SATURDAY NEXT

BEGINNING AT THREE A CLOCK

“What do you think?” she said impatiently. “It must be Malachi McAsh from Heugh, mustn’t it?”

“So that’s what’s become of him,” said Jay. “He’s a prizefighter. He was better off working in my father’s coal pit.”

“I’ve never seen a prizefight,” Lizzie said wistfully.

Jay laughed. “I should think not! It’s no place for a lady.”

“Nor is a coal mine, but you took me there.”

“So I did, and you nearly got killed in an explosion.”

“I thought you’d jump at the chance of taking me on another adventure.”

Her mother overheard and said: “What’s this? What adventure?”

“I want Jay to take me to a prizefight,” Lizzie said.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said her mother.

Lizzie was disappointed. Jay’s daring seemed to have deserted him momentarily. However, she would not let that stand in her way. If he would not take her she would go alone.

Lizzie adjusted her wig and hat and looked in the mirror. A young man looked back at her. The secret lay in the light smear of chimney soot that darkened her cheeks, her throat, her chin and her upper lip, mimicking the look of a man who had shaved.

The body was easy. A heavy waistcoat flattened her bosom, the tail of her coat concealed the rounded curves of her womanly bottom, and knee boots covered her calves. The hat and wig of male pattern completed the illusion.

She opened her bedroom door. She and her mother were staying in a small house in the grounds of Sir George’s mansion in Grosvenor Square. Mother was taking an afternoon nap. Lizzie listened for footsteps, in case any of Sir George’s servants were about the house, but she heard nothing. She ran light-footed down the stairs and slipped out the door into the lane at the back of the property.

It was a cold, sunny day at the end of winter. When she reached the street she reminded herself to walk like a man, taking up a lot of space, swinging her arms and putting on a swagger, as if she owned the pavement and were ready to jostle anyone who disputed her claim.

She could not swagger all the way to Shadwell, which was across town on the east side of London. She waved down a sedan chair, remembering to hold her arm up in command instead of fluttering her hand beseechingly like a woman. As the chair men stopped and set down the conveyance she cleared her throat, spat in the gutter and said in a deep croak: “Take me to the Pelican tavern, and look sharp about it.”

They carried her farther east than she had ever been in London, through streets of ever smaller and meaner houses, to a neighborhood of damp lanes and mud beaches, unsteady wharves and ramshackle boathouses, high-fenced timber yards and rickety warehouses with chained doors. They deposited her outside a big waterfront tavern with a crude painting of a pelican daubed on its wooden sign. The courtyard was full of noisy, excited people: workingmen in boots and neckerchiefs, waistcoated gentlemen, low-class women in shawls and clogs, and a few women with painted faces and exposed breasts who, Lizzie presumed, were prostitutes. There were no women of what her mother would have called “quality.”

Lizzie paid her entrance fee and elbowed her way into the shouting, jeering crowd. There was a powerful smell of sweaty, unwashed people. She felt excited and wicked. The female gladiators were in the middle of their combat. Several women had already retired from the fray: one sitting on a bench holding her head, another trying to stanch a bleeding leg wound, a third flat on her back and unconscious despite the efforts of her friends to revive her. The remaining four milled about in a rope ring, attacking one another with roughly carved wooden clubs three feet long. They were all naked to the waist and barefoot, with ragged skirts. Their faces and bodies were bruised and scarred. The crowd of a hundred or more spectators cheered their favorites, and several men were taking bets on the outcome. The women swung the clubs with all their might, hitting one another bone-crunching blows. Every time one landed a well-aimed buffet the men roared their approval. Lizzie watched with horrid fascination. Soon another woman took a heavy blow to the head and fell unconscious. The sight of her half-naked body lying senseless on the muddy ground sickened Lizzie, and she turned away.

She went into the tavern, banged on the counter with a fist, and said to the barman: “A pint of strong ale, Jack.” It was wonderful to address the world in such arrogant tones. If she did the same in women’s clothing, every man she spoke to would feel entitled to reprove her, even tavern keepers and sedan chair men. But a pair of breeches was a license to command.

The bar smelled of tobacco ash and spilled beer. She sat in a corner and sipped her ale, wondering why she had come here. It was a place of violence and cruelty, and she was playing a dangerous game. What would these brutal people do if they realized she was an upper-class lady dressed as a man?

She was here partly because her curiosity was an irresistible passion. She had always been fascinated by whatever was forbidden, even as a child. The sentence “It’s no place for a lady” was like a red rag to a bull. She could not help opening any door marked “No entry.” Her curiosity was as urgent as her sexuality, and to repress it was as difficult as to stop kissing Jay.

But the main reason was McAsh. He had always been interesting. Even as a small boy he had been different: independent-minded, disobedient, always questioning what he was told. In adulthood he was fulfilling his promise. He had defied the Jamissons, he had succeeded in escaping from Scotland—something few miners achieved—and he had made it all the way to London. Now he was a prizefighter. What would he do next?

Sir George had been clever to let him go, she thought. As Jay said, God intended some men to be masters of others, but McAsh would never accept that, and back in the village he would have made trouble for years. There was a magnetism about McAsh that made people follow his lead: the proud way he carried his powerful body, the confident tilt of his head, the intense look in his startling green eyes. She herself felt the attraction: it had drawn her here.

One of the painted women sat beside her and smiled intimately. Despite her rouge she looked old and tired. How flattering to her disguise it would be, Lizzie thought, if a whore propositioned her. But the woman was not so easily fooled. “I know what you are,” she said.