He glanced at me. “That might be it … but why? That is what I must know … why? And I must know, too, who comes here. And also how it is that you yourself are here.
“And you could tell me if you wished,” he said, irritably. “How does it happen that you who are just come should be allowed here, and I who am known to all London am not?”
His doubts aroused my own. Why was I here? Who was Jacob Binns?
19
Alone in my room I took myself to my desk and began to think on what I might write to earn a penny. Sure, and it was no writer I was nor intended to be, yet many of those about me were no better, and I at least had command of language and some memory for tales heard.
In my grandfather’s time there had lived an Irish thief and vagabond of whom many stories were told, yet I dare not raise questions by making him Irish. Nor was England in any mood for an Irish story when all was going badly for them there. So I made the man a gypsy and, using a little information learned from Kory and my own roadside experience, I put together a tale. And as the street name for a rascal was a damber, I called my story The Merry Damber.
It was written hastily but from stories long known, strung together by means of the road itself, and of that I knew a good bit. I wrote the night through and by the first light of dawn I had completed my story.
With a faint light already at the window, I lay upon the bed and slept, content that I was done, yet not knowing whether what I had written was good or ill.
There was unease in my mind that went beyond the writing, and when scarcely an hour had passed in sleep, I was awake, brushing my hair and considering where I might deliver my story in hope of payment. The unease lay not in the story or the writing, but in the secret of this inn, and of the man Jacob Binns.
Where was he now? Was he sleeping? Or was he at large upon the town on some secret business, for he seemed to have no other.
Descending the stair to the common room, I found Tosti Padget there. He noticed at once the roll of manuscript.
“Ah? You have been at it.” He looked at the roll again. “It is a lot.”
“I worked all the night. Do you wish to read it?”
“No,” he replied frankly, “and mind you show it to no one but he who might buy. The others do not matter. Most people are not fit to judge a thing until it is in print, and only a few of them then. If they want more, it is good, and if they talk about it among themselves, it is better. I had rather have one story talked about in an inn or over a campfire than a dozen on the dusty shelves of the academies.
“You may well ask, if I know so much, why I am not writing successfully … well, I know what should be done, and I can talk well of it. But,” and his tone was suddenly bitter, “I have not the will to persist. I tell myself I shall change, but I do not. I try to hold myself to a schedule, but I am diverted by the flights of fancy in my own mind. I dream of it, want it, talk of it, think of it, but I do not do it. Writing is a lonely business and must be forever so, and I am a social being. I want and need others about me and the loneliness of my room is a hateful thing.”
“One can be alone anywhere,” I suggested. “The quality of solitude is in the mind. If you wish people about you then write here, or in some other tavern, or in many of them, but sit among people only isolated by your mind.”
“I have tried that,” said Tosti Padget. “But my friends gather about me, they wish me to join them at games or walking after the girls, or they wish me to come along to another tavern where they gather with their friends.” He paused, then shrugged. “They scoff. They say I should come along and write another time.”
“They drink in taverns,” I said, “and twenty years hence they will still be drinking in taverns, no longer so bright and cheerful, no longer so friendly, only grown morose and sour with years and disappointments. As for their scoffing, the Arabs have a saying: ‘The dogs bark, but the caravan passes on.’ ”
Tosti stared gloomily into his glass, perhaps because it was empty. I ordered another round and wondered how long I should be able to do so. Yet I liked him. To me he was a window upon a world of which I knew too little.
We talked then of people about London, of those who came and went, of possible sponsors to whom a writer might dedicate a book with some hope of pension or remuneration.
“To whom,” he asked me suddenly, “will you dedicate this? And what will you write next?”
Who, indeed? I knew nothing of those in London, and it went against the grain to curry the favor of some great man, yet all did it, and it seemed the only way to modest success. Nonetheless, my nature rebelled against it. At the same time an answer came to the second question.
Rafe Leckenbie!
To gather what was known about him and his activities would be simple enough, and then to expose him for what he was. He had come into London and like a great leech had fastened himself upon it and now was sucking it dry. True, he was as yet only one of many others, but superior in intelligence and with connections in high places, he was rapidly advancing to a position of control.
But first I must sell what I had already written.
With morning I donned my best and went forth, to seek out Richard Field or some other printer, carrying with me the roll of foolscap on which I had written The Merry Damber.
Field was young. He had but lately married the widow of the man to whom he had been apprenticed and was ambitious as well as shrewd. If I failed with him, there were others. All belonged, as indeed they must, to the Stationers’ Company, incorporated in 1557, and none was allowed to practice the art of printing unless he was of that organization. Each publication must be licensed by the government, and strict control was maintained over what was published.
Field’s shop was in Blackfriar’s and I made the best of my way there. He was opening the door when I arrived. Young though I knew he was, I was startled by the fact that he was scarce older than I. He looked quickly at me and then glanced at the roll of manuscript under my arm. “You are early about,” he said, not unpleasantly.
“Some call upon heaven when they arise,” I replied cheerfully, “I call upon Field.”
“What is it then?”
“An account of cozenage and chicanery along the highroads,” I said.
He opened the door and waved me inside. “And have you knowledge of such things? You look the gentleman.”
“I have some experience of swords,” I said, “and one teacher was a gypsy. He told many a tale. Others come from people along the way.”
“Sit you.” He glanced at me. “Will you have a glass?” Then shrewdly he said, “You are Irish?”
“I am lately from the Hebrides,” I said. “I am sometimes taken for Welsh.”
“No matter,” he said pleasantly. He picked up my manuscript and glanced at it. “Well, you waste no time. Into the story at once.”
He read on, and I offered no comment, and did not interrupt. “Perhaps,” he said, after a bit, “perhaps.” He looked up at me, suddenly, sharply. “Who directed you to me?”
“I believe it was Robin Greene … or perhaps Tosti Padget.”
“Ah, Tosti,” he shook his head, “much talent but no perseverance, and that is the truth of it. He writes well but finishes very little. He chops and changes.” He looked up at me. “My old master, George Bishop, used to say that writing was not only talent, but it was character, the character of the writer. Many are called, he would say, but few are chosen, and it is character that chooses them. In the last analysis it is persistence that matters.”
He put down the manuscript. “There is something here we can use. It is light, gay, witty, and it smacks of the road.” He looked at me sharply. “You say you know the road?”