Tyballis stopped at once. She felt a peculiar black stone form in her stomach. ‘Not the river,’ she whispered. ‘Please. Can we not travel by boat?’
He looked at her for a moment, eyebrows raised. He began to speak, then paused. Finally he asked no questions and made no complaint, but clasped her hand tightly to the inside of his elbow. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘It is a long way. But we shall walk.’
They walked through the cheaps, heading west. It was mid-November, the third official day of winter, but the breeze was mild and the sky clear. The crowds squeezed through the narrow streets, pushing and gossiping, and the market stalls were busy with arguments over quality and price. Some of the younger women, seeing how Tyballis and Andrew Cobham were dressed, curtsied before hurrying on. Tyballis smiled for the first time that morning.
Tucked close to the tall pillars of St Paul’s and within a few steps of the Ludgate, Warwyke Lane basked in wintry sunshine. Halfway along was a tall house, four proud storeys high. The dark beams and white plaster were newly painted, the gutter outside was clean and the street was affluent. Andrew Cobham paused before the shining windows and once again patted his small companion’s hand. ‘Not too tired?’
Tyballis shook her head. ‘I enjoyed it. The weather is lovely, and I feel so well dressed. A merchant I’ve never met in my life swept off his hat and bowed. It’s been quite an experience.’
Andrew chuckled. ‘Then presumably you are prepared for what we need to do?’
Tyballis hesitated. ‘We’re going to the front entrance?’
‘Did you think such an important couple should creep in through the stables?’ Tyballis believed him, for not only were his clothes impressive, but Andrew Cobham’s normal expression could appear positively fearsome. He kept her close as he knocked, and she thought him imperious; standing straight and tall as the echoes resounded within. The door opened. Tyballis tried to hold her head up, though she wore her hood pulled low and shrank a little into its shadows. Andrew Cobham stared down at the steward and said, ‘You will immediately inform Mister Perryvall that I have come as expected.’
The steward bowed at once, and as Andrew and Tyballis followed him into the dark interior, he said, ‘I will inform Mister Perryvall of your arrival, sir. May I bring your lady some refreshment? A little light beer, or some hippocras?’
‘No,’ said Mister Cobham. ‘I have no intention of wasting time. You will tell Mister Perryvall that I am waiting.’
Chapter Ten
On the way home he bought her a hot pie. It had all started with a pie. This was pigeon thick with buttered gravy from the cookshop, but he did not let her eat it in the street. ‘You are not wearing the clothes of a beggar or a stewe-keeper’s brat. You will behave as you are dressed. And I will not permit food spilled on that cloak.’
She looked up at him. ‘It’s a very nice cloak. And a very nice pie. It smells delicious. But it’ll be cold by the time we get home.’
‘No doubt,’ he said absently. ‘But since you have less appetite for river travel than for your dinner, you will have to accept the wait.’
Tyballis tucked her parcel – two warm pies neatly wrapped in linen – within the furred swathes of her cloak. ‘Is this cloak yours?’ she ventured. ‘And is this ermine?’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ said Mister Cobham, not pausing in his stride. ‘I do not wear women’s clothing, and we are not kings. The fur is miniver. But you may keep it.’ He smiled suddenly, looking down at her. ‘It seems I make a habit of presenting you with capes of various designs, however inappropriate.’
‘I can keep it?’ disbelieved Tyballis.
‘No doubt a little more attractive than the first,’ he nodded. ‘But equally unsuitable. No matter. Use it as a bedcover. But don’t eat in it.’
‘But if it doesn’t belong to you,’ Tyballis suggested, ‘should you not give it back?’
Andrew once again appeared to be laughing. ‘Quite impractical under the circumstances, my dear. You may now count it your own, and, within certain limitations, do with it what you will. But as you may need it again one day, I advise against gravy.’
It was late in the afternoon when they eventually arrived back at the house. Tyballis scurried up the stairs, quickly changed out of her grand new clothes and packed them with care into her empty coffer. She then flopped onto her bed, which creaked and swung a little, and ate her pie in a great hurry, not caring that it was cold. She licked her fingers and stared up at the beamed ceiling, reliving the excitement. But her thoughts were interrupted. Someone banged on her door and Davey Lyttle’s voice reverberated. Tyballis let him in.
‘I smell pies. My darling girl, you have raided Paradise, yet not invited me.’ He was wearing a doublet embroidered in white roses on tawny duffel, loosely belted and so short it presented his legs in full graceful evidence; fashion’s vanity. His hose were striped, his shirt was good bleached linen, and his hat was in his hand. ‘I believe I’ve barely eaten since the great feast of eels five days back,’ he said. ‘Now, Mistress Tyballis, you cannot deny you have pies in your possession.’
She grinned. ‘I don’t. Not anymore.’
Davey shook his head sadly. ‘I had hoped – but you have been out all day with our inestimable Mister Cobham, and come home many hours later with the aroma of food so strong, it tempts us from our doleful chambers. Only to find you have eaten every crumb?’
‘One pie only.’ She had not yet lit the fire, and the room was chilly. She crossed over to the hearth and bent, collecting a handful of twigs. ‘Besides,’ she said, looking back up at him, ‘I thought you a gentleman of resource and ambition, Mister Lyttle. How is it you never seem to have a farthing to feed yourself?’
Davey came across to her and went down on one knee, pulling out his tinderbox and taking over the laying of the fire. ‘A man’s job, my dear girl, leave it to me,’ he said. ‘And as for ambition, I consider it a sad reflection on the human race and London’s population in particular, that they are learning to lock their doors, keep their purses well tied and in their hands, and have even begun to hold their fellow man in suspicion. How am I meant to earn my fortune when the city’s respectable multitude has developed sufficient intelligence to avoid me?’
Tyballis allowed him to build and light her fire, and stood back watching and warming her hands. ‘You don’t include me amongst the respectable multitudes, I assume?’
‘My dear girl, you are above us all.’ He bowed, smiling. ‘Even our delightfully unrespectable Mister Cobham has taken you to his bosom.’ As the flames gained strength, the gloom unravelled. ‘And what, though perhaps I should not ask,’ Davey said, coming to sit on the little window seat, ‘have you been up to all day, Mistress Blessop? Don’t tell me you and our admirable landlord have simply been taking the air together?’
‘I shan’t tell you anything of the sort, Mister Lyttle,’ Tyballis told him. ‘But nor shall I tell you anything else. My business is my own, and Mister Cobham’s is his.’
Andrew Cobham had already discussed the possibility of her confiding in her new friends. ‘I would greatly prefer,’ he had said as they crossed through his gardens and approached the house, ‘that you do not entertain my other tenants with the story of how we have spent this day. I must admit to being a man of secrets. And I am, let us say, jealous of my secrets. There are dangers involved, and I consider it wise to mitigate those dangers.’
She had shaken her head vehemently. ‘I wouldn’t say a word. All the people here are thoroughly dishonest. I don’t trust any of them. They don’t even trust each other.’