The rake who had drawn his sword now made several passes through the air, as if disappointed that the man had not given him cause to quarrel further. Then he turned, sheathed his weapon, and stumbled after his fellows.
What a curious country, I thought, watching the man climb back into the sedan under the impassive gaze of his servants. It was as if no one knew their own position - or perhaps, in the aftermath of a civil war, they knew it all too keenly. As an outsider, I would clearly have to be careful. i
I entered the shop and pulled the door to behind me. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’ the apothecary said, looking up from the scales on which he was weighing a piece of ambergris.
‘I wish to purchase some saltpetre. About two pounds by weight.’
The man blinked. ‘It’s not something we keep in such quantities. I could enquire from the armoury at Woolwich if you wished. But it will be expensive.’
‘I understand. But I have to have it. I’ll be a,t the Red Lion; send word there.’ I went back to the door. The young bucks seemed to have gone, so I stepped outside. At the far end of the
* •S'*
street was a market. I had nothing else to do, so I thought I might as well go and see what fruits, if any, were in season here.
It was more than an hour before I returned to the inn. The market, in fact, had been a pleasant surprise. Despite the lateness of the month, there was an abundance of small sweet apricots, and almonds and pistachios from Turkey, as well as some big, fat nuts I had not seen before which the stallholders called cobs or filberts. Of cheeses there was a good variety, and so many spices and herbs that even I was not familiar with them all. The English, it appeared, made up for in trading prowess what they lacked in natural resources.
It seemed to me that there were a surprising number of people about as I entered the inn, a basket of plums under my arm. Some of them were staring at me in that frank way the English had, but there was something else now too, a kind of shiftiness in their eyes. Eeeling somewhat uncomfortable, I headed for the stairs.
‘That’s him!’
Suddenly a group of men rushed me from above, weapons drawn. Sword tips and musket barrels were jabbing at my face. I started, dropping my plums and almost toppling backwards in my alarm: as I did so I realised that there were more armed men below me, so that it was only by an effort I avoided falling onto their blades. Beyond them I saw the anxious face of the apothecary.
‘Saltpetre,’ he was crying to those who had come to see what the commotion was. ‘Enough to blow up a house, he wanted. And a foreigner. Dressed like Guido Fawkes.’
‘You did well, Isaiah Wentworth,’ another man said. ‘You have prevented a papist plot, for sure.’
‘He has chests in his room,’ the inn’s landlord added. ‘Chests of weapons. I heard them rattling as they were carried up.’
I was so startled I hardly knew how to respond, and fear was robbing me of my English. ‘No weapons,’ I said, raising my hands to show I was unarmed. ‘No plot.’
The man who had congratulated the apothecary stepped forward. ‘We should search his room.’
I was pushed upstairs and made to unlock my chests. As I opened each one, a dozen heads craned forward to examine the contents. My co.urt clothes were pulled out and strewn across the floor - I saw my fine French handkerchiefs vanish intb one man’s pocket when no one else was looking. At the sight of my moulds there was a moment’s puzzled silence before someone suggested that they must be for making explosives.
‘And here’s another,’ a voice cried, discovering the last chest under its heap of bedclothes. ‘Hidden. This will be the papist’s powder.’
‘Have a care, Obadiah. It may be dangerous.’
As the man called Obadiah put his hands to the lid he suddenly pulled back. ‘Od’s nails, it’s cold,’ he exclaimed.
‘Cold.>’
‘As ice.’
Gingerly, he eased up the lid. Some stepped back; others pushed forward to look.
Nesded in the chest, within a stout cedar lining, were six silvery blocks, each the size of a bible. At one, end there was a further compartment fiUed with thick-skinned lemons; at the other, a similar amount of blackcurrants, their dark skins frosted with rime. One of the men dug his hand in, then pulled it out as if he had been stung.
‘What is it?’ the landlord asked, puzzled. ‘Treasure? Sorcery?’
A voice came from the door. ‘Both, of a sort. It is ice.’
They all turned, myself included. In the doorway, perfecdy calm, stood the man I had met on the boat.
He advanced into the room. ‘This is no Guido Fawkes. He has not come to blow you up; he has come to make a pudding for the king. What is more, he is here on the personal authority of Lord Arlington. Unless any of you wish to incur my master’s displeasure, I suggest you close that chest before it melts.’ He nodded to me.
‘I don’t believe we have been formally introduced. Captain Robert Cassell, sir, pleased to make your acquaintance. I will post a guard here, so that your effects are not disturbed again, and then my master would like a word.’
A little later Cassell escorted me into a timber-framed building on the edge of the fire-scarred plain. It was a dispatch office of some sort: men came and went hurriedly, carrying letters and bags of documents. We were shown into a small room where a man dressed in black sat at a desk. To one side sat a second man - a courtier, to judge from the length of his wig. Across the bridge of his nose, somewhat incongruously, was a leather patch, such as soldiers wore to cover wounds that would not heal.
‘Signor Demirco, welcome. My name is Sir Joseph Walsingham, and this is my Lord Arlington,’ the man in black said courteously. My incomprehension must have been obvious, because he raised his eyebrows. ‘I see our names are not famihar to you. Evidently you are even less prepared than we imagined. You make, if I may say so, a somewhat sorry spy.’
‘I am no spy,’ I said fearfully.
‘Of course you are, and a good thing too,’ he said easily. ‘Where would we spymasters be, were it not for our spies? I must confess, though; I am curious as to why Lionne chose you for this particular task. These iced confections of yours must be remarkable indeed.’
‘My services are simply a token of the great esteem—’
‘Yes, yes. We can forget all that: I have to be in Whitehall in forty minutes.’ It was Arlington who had spoken. His voice was high and fluting, and he enunciated each word with elaborate clarity. ‘Understand, Demirco: in the matter of the Breton girl, our interests and the interests of France coincide. Those of us who fought in the last civil war have no wish to see that particular darkness envelop us again.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What do a lady-in-waiting and a confectioner have to do with civil wars?’
The two Englishmen exchanged glances. ‘The Breton girl is no lady-in-waiting,’ Arlington said blundy. 'She is, God willing, the king’s next mistress, and the future chancellor of his bedchamber. It is through her that we will govern a weak-willed monarch, and through him, an even weaker nation.’
My surprise must have shown on my face, because I saw that they were looking at me curiously. ‘I think you are mistaken,’ I heard myself say. ‘I know this girl. She is famous for her virtue. Her family are expecting her to make a good marriage, to a noble family—’
Arlington waved the objection aside. ‘She will do her duty. They all do, in the end. Now, sir: what do you need to make an iced dessert?’
Louise
A
‘The Duke of Buckingham has taken with him Mile, de Keroualle, who was attached to her late Highness; she is a beautiful girl, and it is thought that the plan is to make her mistress to the King of Great Britain; for it is said the ladies have great influence over the mind of the King of England . .