Now it would have to tread more carefully. But now it could also afford to tread more heavily.
He drove on steadily, stopping first to purchase a bottle of beer and a pie, and then to turn two pound notes into small change.
The Jerseys had relaxed the last of his Atlantic tensions, the Jerseys and the quiet of the countryside, the green and yellow countryside of the last days of harvest time.
There hadn't been so much stubble-burning this year, he noted approvingly. But what was saddening was the epidemic spread of Dutch elm disease which was browning the leaves everywhere with a false autumn. It looked as though the day of the elm was over in southern England, his own elms among them.
He realised he was seeing all around him what he wanted to see, not what should be uppermost in his mind. The countryman was seeing the fields and the trees, just as the property developer would see choice building land, and the psephologist would pass from one parliamentary division to dummy5
the next, remembering each one's electoral swing.
What he should be seeing now was not the peaceful countryside of the 1970s, but the war-torn land of the 1640s, the divided England of the last great English Civil War.
Except that was easier said than done, because for all his degree in history there wasn't a great deal he could recall about the seventeenth century—
King versus Parliament.
Cavaliers versus Roundheads.
Dashing Prince Rupert versus dour Oliver Cromwell.
Cavaliers—wrong, but romantic.
Roundheads—right, but repulsive.
And, of course, the Roundheads had won, and dear old Sir Jacob Astley, surrendering the last Royalist army, had summed up this and all other wars—You have now done your work and may go play; unless you fall out amongst yourselves. . . .
Which the victorious Roundheads had promptly done.
Because now, in place of the King and his cavaliers, they had Cromwell and the terrible New Model Army which had won the war—the unbeatable Ironsides who knew what they were fighting for (more or less), and loved what they knew.
It was coming back, thought Audley. Some of it, anyway.
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And then Cromwell had ruled England with his New Model sword, and a great many people had felt the edge of it—the Scots and the Irish and the new young King Charles II ... and the Dutch and the Spaniards, and even the Algerine pirates, by God!
And the English themselves most of all, and they hadn't liked that very much—
In the name of Lucifer, Amen; Noll Cromwell, Lord Chief Governor of Ireland, Grand Plotter and Contriver of all Mischiefs in England, Lord of Misrule, Knight of the Order of Regicides, Thieftenant-General of the Rebels, Duke of Devilishness, Ensign of Evil, being most wickedly disposed of mind— they hadn't liked it at all, having a man who made the trains run on time, and solved the parking problem, and evened the balance of payments by throwing a sword on to the scales.
Yes, it was coming back, but he needed much more precise information than this before he could decide what to do.
He assembled his small change in neat piles and dialled the London number of the ancient banking house of Fattorini.
"David Audley for Matthew Fattorini, please."
"Will you hold the line please, Mr. Audley." Polite voice, polite pause for checking Matthew's personal list. "I'm putting you through now, Dr Audley."
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A shorter pause—"Hello, David! I thought you were in Washington."
"You know too much, Matthew. I was, but now I'm not . . .
And I need to pick your brains."
"Pick away, dear man—brains, pockets, it's all the same—
empty."
Since Matthew Fattorini was certainly one of the shrewdest men in London, and would be one of the richest there before he retired, that was a mild departure from the truth, thought Audley.
"Gold, Matthew."
"Uh-huh. Buying or selling?"
"Neither."
"Pity. Lovely stuff, gold. Price is just about to go down, too."
"I want information, Matthew."
"Don't we all, dear man! But if you want to know whether the Portuguese are going to sell some more of their reserves —
and they've got at least 800 tons still— or how much the Russians are going to sell for that US grain, you've come to the wrong man—sorry."
"Not that sort of information. Historical information."
Silence. Audley fed the coin box again.
"What sort of history, David?"
"Sixteenth, seventeenth century."
Another moment of silence. "Wouldn't be Cromwell's gold by dummy5
any chance, would it, David?"
Audley grinned into the mouthpiece. "I told you, you know too much, Matthew."
"Read the papers, that's all. Lots of interesting things in the papers—you should know, you spend most of your time keeping the best stories out of 'em. But still lots of interesting things. Some of 'em very nearly true, too."
"Like a ton of gold? Can that be on the level, Matthew?"
"Why not, David? Ton of gold weighs the same as a ton of wheat. It's just worth more—and easier to move, that's all."
"Did they ship that sort of cargo from America?"
"In the seventeenth century? Dear man, that was the main cargo from the Spanish American colonies for years—gold and silver, plus gems and spices. I know for a fact that California was producing up to eighty tons a year in the 1850s, and Australia even more. If you think of all the gold-producing areas in the Americas— well, Francis Drake picked up tons of the stuff, gold and silver, in that one raid of his in the 1570s. And that must have been all from the current year's ore, they wouldn't have left the previous year's production just lying around, would they now?"
"But in one shipment, Matthew?"
"You mean all their eggs in one basket? Yes, I see. ..."
"And with pirates and bad weather—"
"Ah—now you're being deceived by your own historical propaganda. The English—and the French and the Dutch too dummy5
—always dreamed of Spanish treasure ships, but they very rarely captured one. They travelled in convoy, for a start. And there were very few men of Drake's calibre . . . which was of course why the Spaniards made such a fuss about him.
Besides, this shipment of yours was much later—in the 1620s or 30s, if I remember right, wasn't it? That is the one we're talking about, I presume?"
The mixture of disinterested interest and casual helpfulness was almost perfectly compounded, thought Audley.
"You wouldn't have a personal interest in Charlie Ratcliffe's credit, would you, Matthew?"
"Hah! Now who knows too much for his own good, eh?"
Matthew chuckled briefly. "But as it happens—no. I'm not a crude money-lender. And if I was . . . there are some people I wouldn't lend money to."
"But there are people who might?"
"If they thought the profit and the risk matched up—I know of one such." There was an edge to Matthew's tone. "Though now you're showing such a laudable interest in Spanish-American economic history, am I entitled to hope that he's going to be in trouble?"
"You're not entitled to hope for anything, Matthew."
"Pity. But what you really need is an expert historian, my friend."
"I know. I suppose you don't happen to have one in your counting-house, do you?"
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"Not bloody likely. But I can give you a name." Matthew chuckled again. "You won't like it though, I tell you."
"Why not?"
"Why not? Hah—well you remember that long streak of wind-and-piss on our staircase at Cambridge—the one who got a First despite everything his tutor could do? The one who read The Times aloud at breakfast?"
"Nayler?"
"Professor Stephen Nayler to you, you hireling. He's transmogrified himself into a Fellow of St. Martin's, and he's also by way of being a television pundit on matters historical for the BBC. But I expect you've seen him on the box, haven't you? Or do you just watch the rugger and Tom and Jerry?"