‘My mother was French,’ Eloise informed him coldly. ‘I speak the language perfectly.’
The spy swept her a deep bow. ‘My apologies, mistress.’
Unsure as to whether he was mocking her or not, Eloise maintained a dignified silence, but her general demeanour was hostile. I hoped to God that they weren’t going to rub each other up the wrong way for the rest of the time we had to spend together. More than ever I cursed that long-gone day when I had rescued Timothy from the importunate pieman and first become entangled in the Duke of Gloucester’s affairs.
Seven
I slept badly that night. My dreams were muddled, stupid. People came and went in them without rhyme or reason. At one point, Philip Lamprey distinctly told me that Jeanne was not dead, nor the baby, but that they were living in some other part of London because they were afraid of being killed like Reynold Makepeace. At another, Eloise and our new acquaintance Master Bradshaw were having an almighty quarrel about who could speak French better. (Although their threatened animosity had in reality come to nothing, and, in spite of my apprehension, they had parted the best of friends; for which happy state of affairs we had to thank Timothy, who had united the couple in good-natured derision of me and my total inability to grasp even the rudiments of any language other than my own.) On yet another occasion, I was in the kitchen at home, attempting to explain to Adela why I was unable to remain with her and the children as I was on my way to Gloucester to seek out Juliette Gerrish, who was about to give birth to my child.
This was when I awoke, drenched in sweat, my heart pounding as though I had just run up a long flight of steps.
‘Dear God, dear God, let it not be true!’
I found I was praying aloud, my lips were dry, and my throat was parched. I got out of bed, my legs trembling beneath me, and poured some small beer from the flagon on my all-night tray into the beaker and then tore a crust from the accompanying loaf. While I chewed on this, and to clear my head of the miasma of unwelcome dreams, I strolled over to the narrow window and opened the shutter. The bright, frosty sky, peppered with stars, told me that it was getting colder even before the chill night air stroked my bare skin. I shivered and leaned out to close the shutter again. It was then that I realized my chamber — if one could dignify it with such a name — must be somewhere directly above the room where my meetings with Timothy were taking place. For there, below me, were the water-stairs and beyond them the river, faintly silvered under a waxing moon.
Someone was walking up the steps, as a boat, with muffled oars, pulled silently out towards midstream. I had no idea what the time was, but there was a sense of the city sleeping, and the cries of the night watchmen, although faint and far off, came to my ears with a clarity born of silence. It was the dead hours of night, I felt sure of that. So who was entering Baynard’s Castle in such secrecy? And why?
I tried to make out the contours of the shadowy figure, but dared not risk drawing attention to myself by leaning out of the window too far. And whoever it was moved swiftly, seeking the shelter of the castle walls as quickly as possible, shifting with an agility that suggested someone small and light on his — or her — feet. Man or woman? I found I couldn’t say. Often I got a feeling about the sex of someone seen from a distance — the outline, the way a person moved would provide a clear hint — but not tonight. The glimpse had been too brief, too nebulous. It had also, for some reason I was unable to fathom, disturbed me. Foolish, of course! How was I to know the comings and goings of a place as big and as complex as Baynard’s Castle? Servants rose early, long before dawn, to make sure that all was in readiness for their masters and mistresses when the sun eventually rose above the horizon. Maybe the early morning visitor was a scullion or a serving maid sent out on some urgent errand, or even a lackey who lived at home in the city arriving for the start of yet another working day.
Somehow or another these explanations failed to satisfy me, even though I knew I was being foolish. As compensation, I watched the boat until it was little more than a speck on the opposite shore, coming to rest on the mudflats, where its owner left it, disembarking, climbing the steps and disappearing, a tiny figure, into the Southwark stews.
I became aware that I was still trembling, no longer from the effect of uneasy dreams, however, but because I was frozen to the very marrow. Hastily, I closed the shutter and crawled back into my, by now, stone-cold bed, where I resigned myself to lying awake, shivering, for the rest of the night.
The next thing I knew, of course, it was day, a morning of heavy frost and needle-sharp sunlight, the houses on the distant Southwark shore nothing more than a grey shadow lost behind a shimmering veil of amber-coloured mist. Everywhere was brilliance and sparkle, from the glittering rooftops to the sun-spangled water-stairs. I had opened the shutter before pulling on my clothes in an effort to free my dream-clogged mind from the clinging rags of sleep. The cold air was better than a draught of wine.
I made my way downstairs to the common hall for breakfast. Dried oatmeal and salted herring, washed down by more small beer, made me thankful that my stay in Baynard’s Castle was limited, and I could only pray that, in my disguise of a moneyed gentleman, food and lodgings provided on the forthcoming journey would prove to be of the best (although I had little doubt that Timothy would be exhorting us all to economy before we left).
The morning was young, and it was some hours yet to my next meeting with the tailor in order to try on my new clothes. I recalled guiltily that the duke had ordered me to stay within the precincts of the castle until my departure, but I was restless and not in the mood for doing as I was told. The underlying resentment at my enforced absence from home was still there, gnawing away at my vitals and making me scornful of compliance towards those whom I considered responsible for my present situation. Disobedience and rebellion were in the air.
As soon as I had finished eating therefore, and happily not having seen any sign of Eloise Gray, I made my way outside to the water-stairs and hailed the first passing boat. It happened to be one of the covered twopenny ones, but I didn’t want to wait longer than I had to.
‘Southwark,’ I said briefly, stepping in.
I disembarked at roughly the same spot where I had seen the mysterious boatman land some hours previously. I climbed what I was certain were the same steps from the foreshore and looked about me.
I was no stranger to Southwark, that sprawling borough which was a part of London and yet outside the city’s jurisdiction. It was, on the one hand, a criminal’s paradise, a maze of waterfront streets, teeming with vice of every sort, the home of more brothels, both female and male, than a man could dream of. There were bear-baiting pits, cock-fighting rings and the stews, all paying rent to the Bishop of Winchester, which was why the whores were known as ‘Winchester geese’. The bawdiest of entertainments took place at the outdoor theatres, and many buildings had never been repaired since Jack Cade’s rebellion thirty-two years before. But on the other hand, Southwark was not all drunkenness and lechery and rowdy pleasure. Some of the taverns, like the Walnut Tree and the Tabard Inn (made famous by Master Chaucer in his tales) were highly respectable, while many of the clergy, including a couple of bishops and several abbots, had large houses in the vicinity of St Thomas’s Hospital and the Church of St Mary Overy.
My previous business on this side of the river had, I regret to say, all been among the seamier denizens of Southwark. Today, however, I was looking for a more respectable sort of man. I collared the first boatman I saw just as he was about to descend the steps to the strand.
‘Do any of you fellows work at night?’ I asked. ‘Through the night, that is, not just after dark.’