“Forbidden by whom?” inquired Cosimo. “Who’s to say the reality in which we find ourselves is the best one possible?”
“Yes, but-” Kit objected.
“See here, if a simple act of kindness or generosity, such as buying a loaf of bread for some poor working women, can mean that wholesale death and destruction will be avoided-why, a man would be a monster who had it in his power to alleviate all that suffering yet stood by and did nothing.”
The thought of messing about with history occupied Kit until the coach rolled up outside a large torch-lit house with a painted sign hanging above the door. The sign read THE POPE’S NOSE, and had a picture of-it was difficult to tell in the flickering light of the torches-what appeared to be the plucked rear end of a somewhat startled goose.
“Ah, here we are, gentlemen!” cried Sir Henry, snatching up his walking stick and leaping to his feet the moment the coach creaked to a stop. “This is my preferred chophouse. The food is uncommonly good, but the place is ferociously noisy, I fear, and likely to be crowded. I do hope you will not mind.”
“Not in the least,” replied Cosimo. “As usual, Sir Henry, you have anticipated my desires precisely. Lead on!”
They stepped from the landau and marched up to the public eating house arm in arm, with Kit bringing up the rear. As they approached the entrance, Kit caught Cosimo’s elbow and pulled him back for a word. “Look, I’m hungry as anything-but what’s going on here? Aren’t we worried about Wilhelmina? I thought it was important to find her.”
“Rest assured, dear boy, it is my main concern and the focus of all our efforts. Trust me. We are definitely working on it. But it will do no one any good if we starve ourselves into a state of mental and physical exhaustion. We’ve got to keep up our strength and acuity, do we not?”
“I suppose so,” Kit allowed dubiously.
“And does not Sir Henry strike you as exactly the sort of ally who might aid our search?”
“I guess so.”
“Well then!” Cosimo waved him through the wide-open door.
The ground floor of the house was given to two large public rooms with smaller, more private chambers upstairs. They were met inside the door by a red-faced man in a shabby leather jerkin with a greasy white apron around his more-than-ample middle and a sweat-stained blue scarf knotted around his neck. A limp cap of folded linen, balanced atop his round head, was listing to the side and causing him to hold his head at an angle. “Welcome, gentlemen! Come in! Come in! I am honoured, good sirs. Honoured, I declare.” He clapped his hands, and a boy came running and offered to take charge of any hats, cloaks, swords, or pistols they might wish to shed for the evening.
They handed over their hats, and the landlord gave a flick of his hand and sent the boy away. “I have prepared your customary room, Sir Henry. The fire is made up and fresh cloth is laid.”
“Thank you, William, but we will begin down here,” declared Sir Henry, indicating the large open room before them. “I feel like eating in company tonight. If you please, we will make our way upstairs in due course.”
“Certainly, sir,” replied the landlord. “Whatever your pleasure. Right this way.” He led them into the room, as into a den noisy with feasting lions. They passed among three long tables crowded with other diners, of which there were perhaps twenty or so, all munching and chomping with true abandon. Lord Castlemain appeared to know many of these, and he paused often to exchange a greeting or a word, shaking hands and bowing, before moving on.
The landlord conducted them to a small table near the hearth where a coal fire burned brightly in the grate. They settled into large, heavy carvers, and Kit surveyed the table, which was spread with a spotted and stained blue tablecloth and white napkins folded into vaguely boatlike shapes. There were no utensils, so he reached for the napkin closest to him, took it, and shook it out just as a gangly young adolescent wearing a faded, much-stained yellow turban approached the table and plunked down three wide-bottomed crockery jars overflowing with frothy ale. Sir Henry raised the jar before him and cried, “To friends old and new! May they always remain true!”
“Was hael! ” answered Cosimo, and drank.
The ale, though flat, was sweet and nutty with a warming flavour of cloves. Very nice, Kit decided, sipping liberally from the jar. Meanwhile, the turbaned lad had begun laying wooden bowls of soup before them. Sir Henry lowered his face to the bowl and sniffed. “Ah! Periwinkle! My favourite.” Taking a large silver spoon from an inner pocket of his coat, he began to ladle soup into his mouth.
As no other spoons-or anything else-seemed to be forthcoming, Kit simply gazed at his watery reflection in the clear, tawny liquid.
“Not to your liking, my friends?”
“Far from it!” remarked Cosimo. “I’m terribly sorry, Sir Henry, but in our haste to meet you we seem to have come away from the house without our spoons.”
“Quite,” agreed Kit.
“We shall soon put that to rights,” said Sir Henry. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers. “Two of your best spoons for my friends here, William, if you please.”
“Right away, Sir Henry!” cried William, shouting to make himself heard above the general din. He returned on the trot bearing two large and well-wrought silver spoons. “Peter, or Paul?” asked the landlord, wiping the spoons on his soiled apron.
“Pardon?” replied Kit.
“Which saint, sir? Peter?” He held up a spoon. “Or, would you prefer Saint Paul?”
“Ah, um, yes,” said Kit, glancing at his great-grandfather for advice and receiving only an expectant nod. “Paul, I suppose. No! Make it Peter-definitely. It’s Peter for me all the way.”
“A very wise choice, sir,” replied the landlord, handing him one of the deep-bowled spoons that, on closer inspection, turned out to have a handle fashioned in the bearded likeness of said saint.
Kit dipped his utensil into the steaming broth and brought it to his tongue. To Kit’s untutored palate, the soup had the musky savour of seashells stewed with old socks. Unable to match Sir Henry for the gusto with which the nobleman attacked this delicacy, he sampled a few spoonfuls politely. While his companions slurped down the soup, he looked around the room at his fellow diners: all men, and all wearing the same dark wool clothing with minor variations. All sported elaborate lace neckwear and a marvellous profusion of beards. This, Kit decided, was really where they splashed out. Indeed, the general population seemed to be in some sort of tonsorial competition to see who could achieve the most outlandish whiskers. Judging from the results on display, the contest was at a highly advanced stage.
There were men with sideburns so thick it looked as if they were peeping out from behind a scrubby bush; others with moustaches that had long since covered their mouths and threatened to engulf their chins; there were pointed beards, pencil-thin beards, ornately sculpted beards, goatees, and full-blown Father Time beards. Several had immaculately pin-curled their facial hair, and one especially hirsute fellow had grown his neck hair long and brushed it upward to meet his face, rather than vice versa. Kit ran his fingers over his own scruffy growth and knew himself to be something of a pitiful specimen to the others.
The soup bowls were removed and exchanged for a platter heaped with steaming, half-open shells of mussels and clams; on the rim of the platter were shucked oysters interspersed with little round dollops of pale, squidgy meat Kit could not readily identify. Sir Henry and Cosimo fell to with a vengeance, and soon discarded shells were clicking like castanets.
Kit, whose notion of acceptable shellfish extended only to prawn vindaloo, stared at the small mountain of glistening, gaping mollusks before him and felt his throat seize up. He picked at one and another of the critters closest to hand and tried to make it look as if he was enjoying himself. When that failed, he turned his attention to the rounded dollops decorating the perimeter of the platter. They looked harmless enough, so he tried one and decided it was not only edible, but positively delicious.