He paused. “Out there when I was near to dying I almost forgot the value of living, for I have not left anything of myself in the world; I have only learned. Each of us must leave a little behind to make easier the path of those who follow.
“Someday you will know, but there are in far corners of the world vast repositories of knowledge, places where books are stored and dreams are held waiting. Some have been destroyed … the libraries of Alexandria and Cordoba, the temples of Samothrace … these are gone. Others remain. Somewhere there is a niche for what I have learned.”
“Come with me then,” I said. “I go to London, then to France and Italy.”
“What is it you want?”
“Knowledge … skill with a sword … and wealth enough to return and rebuild the home I lost. It was my father’s wish. And it is mine, also.”
He was quiet for a time, as if thinking. “Well, I will come with you to London. Perhaps we each can show the other a way to go.”
A door had opened … a door that would never again be closed…
17
By what means I should make a fortune I knew not, yet it was in my mind to do so. What I had told before was true, that I wished to buy again the land my father had owned and to rebuild his house, burned by our enemies.
To accomplish this would be no easy thing, for above all they must not guess I was my father’s son, and one of that family they hated. But that was the least of my problems. The first was to obtain the wherewithal to even live, to exist.
Although I was but a lad, my travels had changed me more than a little. I had grown taller, stronger, and more agile. Also, I had grown wiser. I determined to pass myself off as older than I was, for in this way I might obtain preferment, or at least respectable attention.
Yet what was I to do? I had no trade, no skills but that of swordsman, and no means by which to earn my way. I was not minded to become a thief or a rogue, but to remain a gentleman, in action as well as in origin.
The small sack Fergus MacAskill had thrust upon me contained gold, sufficient to last me until I obtained some sort of employment, and longer. I had a few coins of my own, left from my trading days, and so I had no immediate fear of starvation.
Thinking upon it, I discovered yet some hope from my experience, for had I not followed the byways and lanes as a trader? Traveling with the old man, I had learned much, and now I might, discreetly, put the knowledge into practice. I suspected there was a deal of money to be made by buying and selling in a modest way. First, I must find a haven, a small harbor of security where I could take the time to look about, to avoid the press gangs which haunted the streets searching for men to man the Queen’s navy. I must see into what niche I might fit myself.
This old man seemed to know the London streets. He led the way to a small tavern in a cul-de-sac off Chancery Lane, not far from Fleet Street. “It is a place little known,” he explained, “and does not wish to be known. There are a few of us who frequent the place, and the custom we provide is sufficient.”
“It is an odd keeper of an inn,” I commented, “who does not wish to better himself.”
“This man is well off, and those who provide his custom do not wish attention, but rather to remain unnoticed. In such a city there are men who come and go upon errands of their own.”
There was a common room with a great fireplace and several tables and benches for those who came to drink and dine. There was a door that led to a hall where there were rooms, and a winding stair, very narrow, that led to rooms above.
The host was in the common room when we entered, otherwise the room was empty of people. He looked around but seemed in no wise surprised. I was sure he knew my companion but he made nothing of it.
“This one,” my friend gestured to me, “is a friend. Make him welcome, whenever.”
He sat upon a bench near the fire and I did likewise, glad of the warmth for it was cold without. “I and Jacob Binns,” he said, the first time I’d heard a name put to him that I could recall, “and this be Tatton Chantry, a young gentleman.”
“They be calling me Tom,” the host said, bowing slightly. “There be a room o’erlooking the street; would it please you?”
“It would, indeed, and now we’ll have some’at to eat and drink.”
Now I looked about me. Although small, the place had an air of comfort and well-being. Occasionally I noticed through the window that someone would go by outside, but it was not a busy place, hidden as it was by the taller buildings behind and around it.
“Long ago,” Jacob Binns said, “this was a monastery. This floor and a part of the walls were of it, but additions were made and some of the old places walled up.” He spoke softly that none might hear. “There are ways in and ways out, and much is hidden beneath the street.”
“You are a puzzle,” I said. “I believed you an honest fisherman.”
“Honest, at any rate, and a fisherman when it suits me, but a pilgrim always.”
“I do not wish to become involved,” I said, “in any plots against the Queen. We in Ireland have been ill used, yet I wish for nothing so much as to be back, safe upon my native soil.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I am engaged in no plot. If what I do seems sometimes strange it is because what I am is beyond the ken. I travel much, but the shrines to which I make my pilgrimages are not those of God, nor of the devil. Someday, and in another time, you will know more of this, but for the now it is enough.
“You must waste no time, but choose a way for yourself, and it may be that I can help.”
For three days then I roamed the city, learning a little of the streets and lanes, the taverns and the river front. Meanwhile I thought much upon what I might do. Surely there had never existed a more exciting town than London. Queen Bess, hard though she might be on my own people, was a good queen for her own and it was difficult not to be caught up in the contagion. The British had that spirit that comes to new nations or to those born anew, and all seemed possible, no dream seemed beyond realization.
Her ships were upon every sea, a challenge to the power of Spain. In all the streets and byways a new energy seemed alive in the people. But as always in such times, there was much crime. No man or woman was safe upon the streets, and all went armed and prepared. First, I had to know my way about, and to capture the language. Oh, yes! I spoke English and well, had spoken it all my lie long, but I soon discovered there was a language of the streets that held words and expressions of which I had never heard. I went often to places where bards and actors went, to listen to their talk, and loitered along the lanes to pick up what I might. I haunted the bookstalls wherever they might be. Most of them were in Saint Paul’s or close about it.
For all in London seemed to be learning, captured with a tremendous zest for knowledge that comes to growing, expanding countries. For a month I did little but wander the streets and read: cheap novels, plays, broadsides, and poetry.
I saw little of Jacob Binns, nor had I any idea what it was in London that engaged his time. He had recovered slowly from the exhaustion that attended our near-drowning and its aftermath, and then had begun disappearing for hours at a time. Nor did I concern myself with it. His business was his own, and if he wished he would tell me.
There came a day when I was seated in a tavern and a young man came over to my table. “Sit you alone from choice? If not, I’ll join you.”
“Do.”
“You are a foreigner, and so am I. Although there’s a-plenty of them about, the Londoners are not happy with foreigners these days.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “I am Tosti Padget, and I am of Yorkshire although I am told that my mother was Frisian.”