‘Thank you,’ J answered politely. ‘But I will need to wait for my luggage.’ We were on dry land now, my legs a little unsteady after the crossing - not that it was very dry, this land: the clinging, shitcoloured clay mingled with the rain to make a greasy mess underfoot.
‘No matter. I’ll wait with you. The rain may ease.’
It was a good twenty minutes before my chests were brought up from the hold. As the last one was heaved onto the quayside the man touched my arm.
‘You’ll want to make them pay for that. Those fools have soaked your baggage.’
‘It isn’t important,’ I said quickly.
‘Not important! Look at it!’ It was true; water was dripping from one corner of the chest. ‘You should check the contents,’ the man insisted. He called to a porter. ‘You, there: open that chest.’
‘Really, it does not matter. Besides, it’s locked.’
‘Why? What’s in it, that must be kept locked but cannot be damaged by water?’ he demanded. His directness was unnerving, almost offensive. But that, I was quickly learning, wias another of their characteristics. ,
I hesitated. ‘It contains my tools. But they are mosdy pewter, so a little water is not worth worrying about.’ I paid the sailors a penny to carry the chests up to the street. ‘Now I must find a cart.’ Again, I saw the man - the soldier, as I was by now quite certain he was - looking at me curiously. Perhaps he was wondering how a foreigner knew that a cart would be faster than a boat. But my orders were to stay at the bridge as short a time as possible.
We loaded the chests onto a cart and set off. Where the fire had not taken hold the streets were narrow, with barely enough room
for the cart to pass between the buildings. Each storey was larger than the one beneath, so that what small measure of space existed at ground level had disappeared by the second or third floor, making the streets almost like tunnels. I was grateful for the rain now; at least it kept the muck, both horse and human, moving along the gutter that ran down the middle of each street - where it was not blocked, that is. Taking a handkerchief from my sleeve, I dabbed a few drops of rosewater on it and held it to my nose. I saw my companion smile, but he said nothing.
As we made our way slowly through the streets we passed several groups of men dressed in dark clothes, who, as they greeted one another, took each other’s hands and held them briefly between their own. It was hke the exchange of some secret sign; yet this was done openly, in public.
‘It’s called shaking hands,’ my companion said, seeing me turn my head to watch. ‘It’s the custom among the hotter sort of dissenter when they meet. They refuse to bow to any man, since they say all are created equal.’
‘In France that would be considered seditionary talk.’
‘It’s different here. The Commonwealth shook everything up. Things will return to the way they were, but it will take time.’ The man suddenly looked amused. ‘There was one dissenter who refused to take off his hat when he met the king. Know what happened?’ I shook my head, and he continued, ‘His Majesty took off his own hat instead.’
‘Why did he do that?’
‘As he said to the dissenter, it was the custom that one of them should be bareheaded, so now custom was satisfied. Good old Rowley.’
‘“Rowley?”’
‘Oh - the king’s stallion, but it’s what people call the king as well.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s affectionate. You know, a nickname.’ He chuckled. ‘I
suppose it’s because he’s like his horse, you see, at least in certain respects.’ «
I was baffled. So men who had died in their beds were dug up and beheaded, but crude and treasonable remarks about the king were a source of amusement. And the king himself, it seemed, was forced to shrug off an impertinence which in France or Italy would cause a man to be sent to the gallows.
A barbaric and backward country, Lionne’s intelligencer had concluded with a shudder. Quite literally: they cannot even keep the same calendar as the rest of Christendom. And althou^fh in their calendar, as you will discover, they are only ten days behind us, in every other respect you will find it more like decades.
I Anally shook my companion off at the inn where I was staying. The Englishman’s eyes followed the final chest as it was heaved indoors, still dripping, but he said nothing except a curt, ‘Farewell, then,’ before nodding and turning back to the street. I had been composing an insincere but elaborate speech of thanks for his help, as courtesy demanded; once again I was uncertain whether this brusqueness was intended as an insult or was simply another strange custom.
My rooms were adequate, however, the walls lined with wooden panels that did not seem to conceal any spyholes. Reassured, I turned my attention to the chests. The one that had been dripping felt cold to the touch - a bad sign. Pulling the Coverings from the bed, I wrapped it up as best I could. I did not dare open it: the room was warm and I would simply make the problem worse. I turned to the next one and opened it, then rocked back on my heels, dismayed.
When I had sealed it, the contents had been in the form of yellowish crystals. Now there was just a powdery, congealed lump. I touched my finger to it. Damp. The other chest, the leaking one, must have been stored above it in the ship’s hold. I had no idea whether saltpetre could be dried and the crystals re-extracted: I suspected not.
Well, it should not be an insurmountable problem. Presumably in London, as in Paris and Florence, they must have piss-pot men who collected the contents of people’s chamberpots every morning in order to extract the precious saltpetre. I had seen an apothecary’s "Shop a little further down the street: they should know where I could get hold of some. I washed with hot water brought up by the servant, then went downstairs and told the landlady I was going out.
As I walked towards the shop my attention was caught by a group of young men. They were swaggering down the road four abreast, a formation which, together with the fact that they were swaying widely from side to side, meant that they took up most of the available room. In contrast to the others I had seen on the streets, these were dressed in a manner which would have seemed ostentatious even in France, with petticoat breeches trimmed with yards of lace that hung low on their hips, muffs hanging from their swordbelts, linen shirts that billowed from under fancy doublets, more linen peeping from undone flies, and waistcoats edged in gold and silver thread. They were clearly drunk: one put his arm around his neighbour’s shoulders, but the action unbalanced both of them, sending them staggering into the wall.
At the same time, a sedan-chair appeared behind them, evidently a person of quality being carried through the muck by two servants. Whoever he was, he was in a hurry, and the chair quickly overtook the group of young swells, the servants simply passing through a gap in the line without a glance to left or right. Then there was a roar from one of the young men - it sounded like ‘Hippopotamus!’ - and an answering shout from his companions. As one they charged at the sedan, upending it, so that the person inside fell sprawling into the road. He was, as I had surmised, a gentleman, of middling years, quite rotund, and his shriek of outrage as he rolled into the muck and filth would, I am sure, have been considerably louder had he not been winded by his fall; while
for their part the bucks were laughing so uproariously they could barely keep their balance.
‘Oafs,’ the man spluttered, still sprawling on his back; instantly one of the young men had drawn his sword and was standing over him threateningly.
‘Yes?’ he sneered. ‘Is that insolence I hear?’
I was surprised at this, both because it was clearly the young men who were at fault here, and because they made no attempt to address the older man, who as I have said was a respectable personage, with the politeness due to someone of his standing. And I was even more surprised by the older man’s reaction. Picking his wig out of the filth where it had fallen, he said meekly, ‘I am sorry. Your Graces. I spoke in the heat of the moment.’