London - Edward Rutherfurd [216]
As she faced the florid-faced merchant in her little attic room, the idea came to her. First, if she told him everything, would he take pity on her instead of forcing himself upon her? And secondly, ingeniously, would he let the brothel-keeper and if necessary the authorities believe that she really had played the part?
For William Bull, gazing at this strange, solemn little person, the affair had been astonishing. That she would even dare to do such a thing! “My God,” he said, after agreeing to help, “your young man’s a lucky fellow. Mind you,” he added, thinking with sudden embarrassment of his wife, “if it ever came to the question, I’d prefer to tell the justices in private that I’d had you. But I dare say that could be arranged. If the brothelkeeper thinks I did, that should be enough.”
“But there’s one other thing,” she said. “After they’ve released Martin, you must tell him what really happened. I wouldn’t want him to wonder . . .”
Bull grinned. “Of course,” he said. But even he had not dreamed of the wonderful coincidence when, at last, he and the girl had come down. There was that cursed fishmonger Barnikel, puce with rage at finding that Bull had been there before him.
So extraordinary was the whole business, so sweet the revenge on Barnikel, that Bull found as he returned across the bridge that he felt quite as contented as if he had had a dozen virgins.
I might even go to bed with my wife, he thought, so happy was his mood.
Joan, meanwhile, equally contented, had been in no hurry to go back. First she had walked a little further along the river; then wandered about by the market; she had gone for a while into the church of St Mary Overy, and said a little prayer for Martin Fleming, before a statue of the Virgin. Then, taking her time, she had returned towards the Dog’s Head.
No one, she felt sure, would bully her any more that day. Besides, the Dogget girls were there to protect her now. An early November dusk was falling as she approached the brothel door.
Dionysius Silversleeves stared at the lion and snarled. The lion shook its shaggy mane and snarled back. Silversleeves went a little closer and snarled again. Then, taking a deep breath and drawing back his thin head like a snake about to strike, he darted his long-nosed face forward, yellow teeth bared, and let out a sound which was somewhere between a roar and a screech.
The lion became furious. He batted the bars of his cage with his forepaws, gave another, huge snarl of rage and finally, in vexation, emitted a roar that echoed all around the precincts of the Tower.
Silversleeves squealed with delight. “You’re not playing, are you?” he said. “You’d really like to eat me, wouldn’t you?” It was a ritual he went through every evening when he had finished work; and few things in life gave him greater pleasure.
Dionysius Silversleeves was twenty-nine. His hair was dark, his nose long, his body thin; his cheek was red, his eyes were oddly bright, and he had acne.
The fiery pimples were everywhere: on his neck, on his forehead, on his shoulders, around his chin, and all over his long nose which, after he had been drinking, glistened with them. When he was young, his parents had told him that these would pass; but now not even the passing of the centuries could calm these eruptions. “It’s the humours in my body,” he would cheerfully grin. “Hot and dry. Like fire.” Perhaps, who knew, it was this same unbalanced combination of the elements that compelled him, every evening, to tease the lions.
The first London zoo was situated at the outer gateway, just above the river on the western side of the huge complex of the Tower. Begun in the last