because of my pleasure in her company. She knew little of London, and I must
have seemed very knowing with all my easy talk of Jonson, Marlowe, Shakespeare
and Will Kemp, much of which I had only heard that evening.
She bade me good-night, and Lila showed me to a chamber.
“I sleep lightly,” Lila suggested warningly, and I smiled at her. “Very
lightly,” she added.
“And I, also,” I said. “A trouble, is it not?”
Yet it seemed I had scarcely slept when morning was graying my window. I arose,
bathed lightly and donned by clothes. I was hesitating to decide whether I
should simply leave quietly or wait until I could pay my respects when there was
a light tap on the door.
It was, of course, Lila.
“The master is breaking his fast. He requests your presence,” she said.
Captain Brian Tempany was a stalwart, gray-haired man with a spade beard darker
than his hair. He shot me a hard, level look from cool blue eyes and gestured to
a seat.
“Ruffians, was it? Hadn’t you a sword?”
“I had … and have. But there were a number of them and I became separated from
my friends.”
He looked at me coolly and waited until I was seated. “I was at the theater,” he
said bluntly, “in the box next to the one into which you dropped.”
“I could not easily have explained all that,” I said, embarrassed, “and might
have frightened your daughter.”
“Abigail,” he said grimly, “is not easily frightened. She stood beside me off
the Malabar coast and used a pistol to repel pirates who were attempting to
board us.”
He faced me squarely. “Why were you fleeing like a rogue from Rupert Genester?”
Lying would serve no purpose, and this man was no fool. As briefly as possible,
I explained.
“Ivo’s son, eh? I know the name. He was a fighting man. And you? What of you?”
“He taught me the blade, Captain.”
“He did, did he? Well, probably it was better to avoid them. A bunch of rascals,
Genester included.” He stared at me. “You wish to return to London?”
“I have a meeting there with the man I mentioned.”
“To whom you would sell your coins? May I see them?”
From my purse, hidden inside my shirt, I took them out and placed them upon the
table.
He touched them with his finger, studying them intently. “Yes, yes … good!
Good!”
He stirred them about, studying the light as it fell upon the details of the
coins. “I will buy them.”
I was startled. “I had promised Coveney Has—”
“It will be well with him. As a matter of truth, I wish to make a gift of these
coins to the very man to whom he planned to show them.”
“You know him?”
“I do. England is a small country, after all. Men with like interests tend to
know each other. I am not a member of the Society of Antiquaries, but I know of
them. This man to whom Hasling would show the coins is a man of influence at
court, where I need a word spoken for me.”
“You say you know him?”
He smiled. “And he knows of you. This gentleman of the Antiquaries is the very
man whom your father defended so nobly on the battlefield. The story is well
known, Sackett.
“Not only was your father a very brave man and a tremendous fighter, but this
Earl is a man who always appreciates what was done for him. Too many forget too
readily, but he has made the story known everywhere. He is a man of great
influence who could advance your career.”
“I would enjoy that, but—”
“But what?”
“I understand you are sending a vessel to the New World. I would prefer to sail
with her, Captain. I have it in mind to venture a small sum in goods.”
“Venture? How much?”
“What those are worth, and a bit more. Hopefully, quite a bit more.”
He laughed. Then he got to his feet and went to the sideboard for a bottle.
“Here! Try a man’s drink!”
“No,” I said, “the ale will do.”
His smile faded. He was not a man accustomed to refusal. Then he shrugged. “Fine
… so be it.”
When our glasses were filled he sat down again. “All right, buy your goods. I
shall have a ship sailing within a fortnight, and you shall go with her.”
“And two friends?”
“Are they fighting men?”
“They are.”
“Then go they shall, Sackett. Go they shall.”
I stood up and he shook my hand. It was not until I was astride one of his
horses and on my way to London that I began to worry.
It was all working out too well, much too well. And that bothered me.
As I approached London Bridge, I loosened my sword in its scabbard.
Chapter 6
Approaching the Tabard I drew up and carefully observed for several minutes.
There seemed no one about who should not be there, so I rode into the yard.
Jublain came out from the taproom followed by Corvino. “Ah? You’ve the devil’s
own luck! You got clean away!”
“Thanks to Corvino’s tumble. Has there been anyone about?”
“Had there been we would have been awaiting you down the street, one of us each
way and ready with a warning.” Jublain glanced at the horse. “Where did you
steal it?”
“It was borrowed from a gentleman whose man will pick it up later. Not only
that,” I said as I dismounted, “but I’ve passage for us, a trading venture to
the Americas in a Tempany ship.”
“You’re a lucky one,” Jublain grumbled, “but I fear for you. It goes too well.”
That I felt the same I did not say. “Perhaps. But we will purchase our goods and
be ready for the sailing.”
Lying abed that night and before sleep claimed me, I considered my situation.
There was a book newly published by Richard Hakluyt, and in it he was said to
tell of voyages to America. I would have that book, and what charts could be
found, though realizing the charts might be of doubtful value.
I also thought upon the tile floor I had come upon not too far from London.
Several of my discoveries of such places had come while working, and few of us
paid attention to what was found underground. My own curiosity and my father’s
comments had alerted me, however, but this particular find was not on a job.
The day was late and I had walked far and was eagerly seeking shelter from the
night—some hut, perhaps an inn, even a ruin, when I heard horses coming up
behind me.
Encountering other travelers on the road late at night was not always to be
welcomed, so I stepped back into the trees and brush and made myself small
behind the thick trunk of an oak.
The two men who rode up the road were far from the sort I wished to encounter,
but they rode past. When I started to come from behind my tree, something gave
way under foot and I slid a few feet. Catching at a branch I managed to hold
myself, and then to steady my feet.
I listened, but the riders were gone. Turning, I peered into the dark, could see
nothing. Taking a stone from the ground, I prepared to toss it into the
blackness to see if there was indeed a pit or a hole there, when my fingers told
me that what I held was not the texture of a stone but more in the nature of a
piece of tile, a bit of mosaic, perhaps.
Crouching down, I felt with my hands and found the place where my feet had slid.
I tossed a bit of branch in that direction. It seemed to fall only a few feet.
Feeling around, I found an edge of tile flooring projecting from the mud at
least three feet below the surrounding level.
My decision was instant. I would go no further that night. I could barely make
out a small hollow below the projection of tile. Feeling my way into it I
gathered fuel and built a small, carefully sheltered fire. There I waited until
daybreak, making a small meal of cheese and bread.
Fitfully, I slept. When day came at last I found myself in a small hollow. The
tile flooring was above me, and the place where I had slept was open to the sky,
except for a few branches spreading above it.
Prodding around with my stick I came up with more broken tile, some odds and
ends of pottery fragments, and a piece of broken statue: the severed part of a
hand.
It was to this place I wanted to return. There was every chance that I might
find there some things of value.
The next day I went early to the common room. With ale before me, I listened to