‘A fine stone. Of its kind, very fine. Shall we say sixty crowns?’
I held his gaze. ‘I had thought eighty.’
‘Had you?’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Then we had better say seventy. Done?’
‘Done.’
‘See that you go on as you have begun, young Richard. Do not disappoint me.’
I took the payment there and then, in gold. My profit was ten crowns, but it felt to me like a thousand. I ran whooping back home down Labour-in-Vain Hill and round the corner of the churchyard, the bag of gold clinking in my hand. Then I pulled myself in. It would not do to give away my secret too soon. There was a long road ahead of me first.
On our next voyage William and I went further, southward and round into the Mediterranean. In Barcelona I acquired the small steel casket with its cunning lock and slender chain, which I used, from then on, for my purchases. In Toulon I bought a sardonyx, in Genoa a lesser opal. The time after that we coasted down Italy, to Ostia and then Naples, and I added some jacinths and a small, pale amethyst. Nothing I bought was of the rarest or most prized. But I used my eyes, and always when I carried my purchases back to Goldsmiths’ Row I made a profit.
Two years passed. My mother’s grip on the business grew. She hired more agents, and sent out fresh ventures. On every ship that left London, it seemed, she had paid for a corner in the hold and was sending out wool or hemp, with instructions to fetch back some carefully chosen commodity in return. An air of excitement hung about Broken Wharf. Our men moved with quickened steps, as if aware they were part of an enterprise that was pulsing with new life. I often thought how my father would have liked to see the firm of Dansey in its new condition, and to set in train that last great venture of which he had dreamt.
On my return home, the first thing I did was to go to the schoolroom to wait for Thomas. He had opted to remain with the master there, reading deeper and deeper into works of theology and canon law. My mother spoke of him with pride. He had distinguished himself in the annual disputations held in the churchyard of the priory at Smithfield, where all the schools of London competed. Many great men had risen from those contests, Sir Thomas More among them. All that was needed was for Thomas to catch the eye of some man of rank, for nothing was possible without a patron. As we walked together along the familiar route down Old Fish Street past the market, where the gutters were clogged with fish guts and blood, Thomas told me about the plans our mother had formed for him.
‘Uncle Bennet, she says, is the best hope. You know that the Cardinal is at work founding a college?’
Our mother’s brother, Bennet Waterman, a city lawyer with a beaming face and bald head, and a devilish air of guile, had recently joined the employ of the great Cardinal Wolsey, proudest and most powerful man in the land after the King. Wolsey had need of Bennet’s services. He was proposing to liquidate a number of lesser monasteries to fund the largest foundation Oxford had ever seen, to be known as Cardinal College.
‘And you are to be one of its first scholars?’ I asked. ‘That should be pleasing to you.’
Thomas did not answer. That was the first hint, I think, that my brother smarted just as much under our mother’s domination as I did. But we were not yet ready to work as allies. That is the worst of tyranny: it divides its subjects. Instead of taking the quick way home, Thomas led me down Labour-in-Vain Hill. Just on the corner, a figure came out from the shadows. It was John. I ran to embrace him; but his air was subdued, just like Thomas’s. Soon after my first voyage to Lisbon he had embarked on his family’s great ship, Lazarus, for Germany and the Baltic, trading in the commodities that had made his father wealthy: tar and pitch, clapboard, iron and salt. Since then I had seen him only a few times.
I said, ‘So the band is all together again.’
Thomas gave a wry laugh. ‘Is it?’
He was right. Though we were all three present, we were not the same band who had joined hands and sworn our oath in the meeting of the ways two years before. But this was hardly my fault. I sensed there was a kind of shared and obstinate secrecy between my old friend and my brother. I did not know how to break it, and I began to grow annoyed. At the foot of the hill where the lane met Thames Street, Thomas and John turned right instead of bearing left for our two houses. I let them lead the way. In a few paces we found ourselves below the window where we had called and sung to the bewitching Hannah Cage. We stopped. The window was dark, and tight shut. Thomas and John both gazed up at it for a few moments. Then John said, ‘She isn’t there.’
‘You are not still haunting that girl?’ I asked with a laugh. I had not been down that way in a long time. Not that I had forgotten Hannah: I still stung from her mocking laughter. I meant to set myself up in the world before approaching that kind of girl again. Still, I resented the way Thomas and John had been looking for her without me. ‘You surprise me,’ I teased. ‘What mysterious men you are growing into.’ But neither of them smiled. The friendship that had come to us so easily seemed far out of reach. I was certain John could not be happy, plying the family trade he had always despised. Thomas’s malaise I understood less. He had always been private, content with himself and his books, bursting out only in his disputations with wild and quick displays of wit and learning. We walked back along Thames Street as a cold wind blew up from the river. Dusk was not far off. I said, ‘Come with me. To the warehouse: for the sake of old times.’
They followed me on to Broken Wharf. At the door to the warehouse we passed Martin Deller, sitting on a barrel with his wooden cudgel across his knee, keeping watch on the comings and goings of the wharf. He watched us through half-lidded eyes, and nodded. We stepped inside the old, familiar dimness, heavy with mingled scents, cinnamon, cloves, pepper. Thomas said, ‘And what of you and your trade?’
I still had not dared reveal my new trade to my mother; and that meant it was not safe to tell Thomas or John either. Instead I spoke to them of the alleys and courts of Lisbon, the wonderful bargains we struck, Mr William’s skill in trade, my own attentiveness and submission. I knew what I was telling them must sound vague and only half-truthful. It was the story of Mr William, not of myself. Thomas knew well enough that I dreamt of dealing in gems, though I had rarely spoken of it. I tapped the cases in irritation. I ached to tell them everything: the stash of gemstones that even now rested in the little casket, locked in the chest in my chamber, the bag of gold and silver that nestled by its side. Thomas and John were walking on together down one of the dim corridors between stacks of barrels. The sense of isolation was dreadful. I called out to them.
‘Wait! I have something to show you.’ I ran back out, round the corner into the house and up to my chamber overlooking Bosse Lane and the cracked stone court of Terra Incognita. Breathless, back with them, I opened my casket and set out on a barrel head the small hoard of stones I had brought back with me from my latest voyage. William and I had ranged as far as Naples, where I had acquired a batch of large citrines, showy things that the goldsmiths loved to carve; then there were a couple of Arabian rock crystals, six-pointed, and four or five brilliant red cornelians. John whistled. Thomas reached out a hand to cover the stones, and peered over his shoulder.
‘Our mother will kill you if she finds out.’
‘But you are not really making money?’ John pressed me. His face wore the old, challenging smile, that had a good tinge in it of envy. In reply I set before them my purse, heavy with coins that had all grown out of that first sixty crowns.
‘We shall never tell,’ Thomas said. ‘Now, put them away.’
I tossed a cornelian up in the air. ‘Why should I? What makes you so afraid?’
Thomas looked at me. ‘You have spent too long off with the seagulls, dear brother. You forget how things are, back here on dry land.’
‘Well, and how are they?’ I was beginning to be angry.
Thomas stood up. ‘Come with me, and you will see.’ I gathered the stones reluctantly back into the casket and followed him, down to the darkes
t end of the warehouse. We passed the various goods Mr William had bought on our last venture, the Lisbon spices, the French woad that was a cheap equivalent to indigo, the Turkish rugs. At the far end Thomas stopped at a case I did not recognise, marked in a curling hand, ‘Damascus silk’. I had heard of no such thing coming in. Nothing of the kind would be carried by our other agents, who worked the shorter routes to Flanders, and I was certain it had not been in the holds of the Rose. I kicked the case: it was heavy. I turned to the others.
‘So it is the old game. Is Thomas daring us to have a look? Shall we?’
I drew out my knife, and John, with a sombre smile, did the same. We worked away at the lid, casting glances back towards the door, where Martin still sat. At last it sprang clear. Inside were a few folds of crimson fabric, but underneath lay something hard. John pulled back the silks to reveal stacks and stacks of books, bound in pale new leather. I stared at them in surprise. The firm of Dansey had never dealt in such things. Books ranked among the goods my mother regarded as poor investments, like gems. And what book could be worth the trouble of bringing from overseas? John picked one up and opened it. The titlepage was covered in strange swirls of foliage. At its foot was a crucifix: but in place of Christ, there was a serpent twining up the cross, and on its head sat the Pope’s triple crown. Thomas said, ‘Well? Have you forgotten your Latin so soon? Or is it too dark for you? Darkness is best for such things, I promise you. This is On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church. And the author is Martin Luther.’ John dropped it as if he had been stung.
To be caught merely opening such a book meant arrest, imprisonment in the Lollards’ Tower by Saint Paul’s where the heretics go, interrogation by the Cardinal; excommunication and death at the stake. Rumours ran round of the fearsome contents of these books, of the fiery rhetoric that smashed down all you thought was sure. They said that if you once read a book of Luther you would never be the same again. We stood for some moments, staring down at them. Then I reached out my hand, touched the leather of the fallen book and picked it up. The others watched me intently. I flicked beyond the serpent on the cross, and read as quickly as my Latin allowed, jumping from page to page. The Pope was portrayed as a ruthless huntsman, demon of tyranny and avarice, the greedy shopkeeper who released souls from Purgatory for gold. I saw the powers of the priests one by one refuted. There was no such thing as the Last Rites. The priests had invented it for profit, twisting the meaning of an apocryphal verse. Priestcraft has no power to conjure the blood and body of Christ into the sacrament; the Communion is an act of Faith, and no mere Work of man. Confession too had to be Faith, not Work; the task the priests set us, contrition for all our sins, is impossible; our sins are so great, so far beyond the reach of our memories and minds. Even the best works of our lives, of which we are proudest, will turn out on examination to be terrible sins. None of the tyrannical ceremonies of a rotten Church can save us; only Faith, Faith, Faith. I read on, amazed, until Thomas struck the book from my hands.
‘That is enough. Now do you see?’
I was beginning to. My mother had no love of Luther, I was sure. But there were many in London who would pay handsomely for those books, and few who dared bring them into the country from Germany where they were printed. The profit for her in that deadly case of books was large and certain: always provided she did not get caught. It was a sign of just how confident she was in her own power, and how far she was prepared to take her policy of ruthless and finely judged risk.
Thomas put the lid in place and began forcing the nails back in with the haft of his little knife.
‘You think you can simply strike off on some trade of your own?’ he hissed. ‘She is the one who decides what is bought and sold. She chooses the risks, and takes them. What will you do if she cuts you off? I promise you, she’ll do it.’
‘What makes you so sure of that?’
Thomas looked down. ‘Because she has threatened me with it. And I am the one she calls her favourite.’
That sobered me. I could not imagine what peaceable Thomas might have done to stir that degree of anger in the Widow of Thames Street. Thomas and John met one another’s eyes. That veil of secrecy was back. I was as far apart from them as ever. When the last nail was in the lid we turned swiftly away and made for the door. Martin watched us leave with a stony expression.
‘I don’t envy you,’ said John. ‘Not with your family. I had rather take the clapboards, stockfish and pig iron, even though they do bore me to death and beyond.’
He turned away across the stones towards Timber Hythe. It was beginning to rain. Thomas made for the door of our house. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Soon.’ I was thinking hard. Thomas was right. But yet, in our mother’s recklessness, I saw my moment of opportunity. I walked quickly back inside the warehouse, crossed to the stairs at the far end, and climbed to the counting house.
Miriam Dansey looked up at me in surprise. She had a sea chart of the western Mediterranean spread out before her, the jagged coasts thick with place names, the open seas scored by myriad compass lines. Without any ceremony I set my casket down on the table, turned the key and opened it up. In the light of her two candles, the cornelians and the citrines gleamed like burning coals. My mother stood up slowly, her eyes fixed on the stones. Then she reached out a long forefinger, poked at them and drew it back as if they were scorpions. At last she looked at me, her face white, the skin around her mouth twitching.
‘Christ and all his angels!’ She flicked the casket shut. ‘I should have forbidden you to travel. I should never have trusted you off and alone. You are just a baby. No: worse, and I know where you had this mischief from. Dead? No, he is not dead. I am looking at him.’ She shouted beyond me, down the stairs to the warehouse. ‘William! William! Where is he? What was the fool thinking? I told him to watch you and keep you out of folly!’
‘What about you?’ I answered. ‘Do you not think those books in the warehouse just a little bit reckless?’
She sat down again and glared at me with her steely eyes.
‘I see Martin has been somewhat lax in his guard duties,’ she said quietly. She rapped the table with her hand. ‘Those are entirely different. Everyone knows what they are worth. We buy in Antwerp for a crown, and sell here for three. Cash trebled in less than two weeks. Pure profit, if no one talks. And they won’t,’ she added, with a fierce narrowing of her eyes. ‘But these!’ She lifted the lid again and took out one of the stones, a pale, gleaming citrine the size of a walnut. ‘This might be anything. Yellow glass.’
In reply, I took out my purse, loosened the strings and poured a cascade of silver and gold over her map. The effect was pleasingly dramatic. Covering the coastlines of France, Spain and the Barbary Coast were a dozen or so angel nobles, discs of gold an inch broad worth six shillings and eightpence each. There were nine of the larger royals or rose nobles, at ten shillings, and mixed among them some thirty gold crowns, at four shillings and twopence each, as well as gold half crowns and a good number of silver shillings and groats. My mother’s eyes opened in surprise. She leaned forward, and stirred the coins with her finger. Then she looked up.
‘You made this? Out of gems?’
‘Nothing but.’
‘Hm!’ She drew back. She tried not to show it, but I knew she was impressed. Money spoke to her, whatever its source. ‘Well, you may risk your coins if you choose. But Mr William’s is the real trade, and you will learn it. Come back in a year, and show me what you have then. If you have anything left at all.’
5
For the moment, I was content to obey my mother. I was growing, I thought to myself, maturing just like a gemstone deep in the bowels of the earth, that advances slowly to its perfection. I was acquiring a good grasp of Italian, and fair Portuguese and Spanish: accomplishments of value, since few enough men abroad would trouble to learn a lesser tongue like English. My eye for stones was getting sharper with every trip, and my reserves of coin were growing too. Soon I wou
ld be able to buy one or two of the dearer stones. It was time I began to look ahead to the next stage in my ambitions. I had set myself to become a merchant in jewels: not a mere retailer who brought in stones to Breakespere and Wolf and Heyes, but a man of standing who dealt directly with the Court. That meant somehow getting close to that wondrous, gilt and tinselled world. Just as for Thomas, I thought, my best hope lay with our uncle.
Bennet Waterman thought very highly of himself these days. He was one of Cardinal Wolsey’s audiencers: a legal clerk who prepared chancery bills, and generally took on any business that the Cardinal’s labyrinthine affairs required. It brought Uncle Bennet within a breath of the Court. He wore a velvet gown with silk lining, and a silver brooch with a small garnet in his hat. When Cardinal Wolsey was in residence at York Place, his vast house in Westminster, Uncle Bennet often took a boat down the river and paid us a visit on Thames Street. In the winter draughts of our candlelit parlour, while my mother and Mr William discussed the latest tariffs on pepper, Uncle Bennet took Thomas and me aside, his portly belly creaking after one of our generous but plain dinners. He enjoyed playing the courtier before his sister; and even though she might scoff at his posturing and airs, he was a connection she could not afford to despise, at least for the sake of Thomas.
‘Ah, King Henry. He is the flower of chivalry, my boy. Have I told you how he came to marry Queen Katherine? He was only eleven when he became betrothed. She was seventeen, the widow of his poor brother, Prince Arthur. For six years after that their engagement lasted, while the late King fussed and grubbed and tried to prise her dowry out of Spain. He would never let his son go, you know. They say he envied him terribly, for his looks and his strength. He kept him locked up, like some poor virgin in a tale. But when King Henry the Seventh died, what did our young King do? Married her at once. Dowry or no dowry. No knight out of an old romance could have done fairer.’
The King's Diamond Page 6