The Sun Thief

Chapter One

She felt so cold. Her clothes were not thick enough for this new environment. Pulling her shawl up around her face she tried to sleep a little more. It had been a month now since she had been kidnapped from her middle class existence and transported into this place of slavery. 

In all of its exterior appearances it seemed to be an area of South London, but slavery had been completely abolished in the Empire since 1843. She was definitely a slave, she worked in the protective clothing department of the battery factory for no pay, little food and poor lodgings. 

Imagining how she came into such a situation she remembered her last day, before her capture.

She worked as a photographer and sometimes helped out at the local charity school. As a founder member of the Victorian Adventurers Society she had been part of a team that had ended countless plots and intrigues from both foreign shores and home grown ones.

As per normal she had walked to her school and set the fire for the classroom. Her pupils were taught the three R’s. That morning they had a special visitor, Lord Bruce Hutchinson. He was her friend and colleague in the Society and wanted to see how effective charity schools were so that he could report on it to the House of Lords.

As his carriage pulled up Lizzie and the children greeted him in the playground. “There was no need to keep the children in the cold,” he admonished her as he stepped down from his carriage. 

She looked a little hurt, “Say hello Lord Bruce,” she encouraged the children as she looked at them.

After their greeting the children were ordered back into the classroom and into the warm.

The Vicar, the Reverend Peter Stockwell, who helped to form the school, greeted the peer, “My dear Lord Hutchinson, what an honour it is to have you visit our humble school.”

“Was it your idea to keep the children out in the cold?” Bruce remarked with a steely gaze while holding his seamed grey gloves behind his back.

“Er,” stalled the vicar, “they were playing before you turned up, as long as they jump around they keep warm enough.”

The Lord was not convinced by the argument and let his displeasure be known by the grimace on his face.

He stayed for a full hour. Lizzie was going into town afterwards so he gave her a lift in the carriage. On the way they chatted.

“Why did you give up your photography again?” he asked her.

“I wanted to help people more than make money.”

“I haven’t seen you at the VAS for a few weeks now.” He looked out of the window at the busy streets, the pavements nearly clear of snow because of the great footfall. The roofs gleamed with their snow tipped whiteness.

“Here,” she said abruptly as she saw the street she needed to go down.

Lord Bruce banged on the roof with his cane, “Make sure you visit us Lizzie, we could do with your input at the meetings.” He opened the door for her and she stepped outside pulling her shawl up over her head.

“Thank you Bruce. Goodbye.” She got up onto the kerb and turned to wave back at him as the carriage moved off.

The school had needed some more chalk. Somebody had dropped the last box and now they were scribbling on their blackboards with pieces that were too small.

The road she should have taken was blocked at the end by roadworks so she had to take another street. As she walked past a factory and turned into an alley a rough looking man accosted her.

“Get your hands off me,” she cried indignantly.

“Got a bit of fight in yer, ‘ave yer?” he tried to grab her.

She stepped back and pushed his arms to one side then she kicked him in the shin.

He cried out in pain and crumpled slightly. Turning to make her way back out of the alley she found that two more men blocked her way, on purpose. She punched one in the face and kicked the other but to no avail. Three men against one woman was too much and they were able to subdue her. The last she remembered of the incident was being dragged through the cellar doors into the lower part of the factory.