London - Edward Rutherfurd [220]
And then she came. And he gasped.
Her hair was hanging loose. Her small feet were encased in sandals. She wore a nightgown of bright red silk that almost exposed her small breasts and which had a long slit up one side, through which her pale, slightly plump leg appeared. It was Isobel’s best gown. The girl was not wearing anything else. Even the brothelkeeper could not suppress a little intake of breath, and his wife gave the girl a thoughtful look. She smiled at Silversleeves, walked boldly over to him, sat calmly on his knee, looked at the food on the table, and announced: “I’m hungry.”
And now Silversleeves relaxed. The girl was his. A tasty dish indeed. He beamed at the brothelkeeper’s wife. “More food,” he cried, “and wine.”
As the evening wore on, Dionysius realized that he had never been happier in his life. This girl was the first fresh, clean woman he had ever had. She was certainly going to be his. She was sitting in his lap and her arm was round his neck. She even appeared to like him. His habitual, aggressive good humour began to give way to a kind of bonhomie, “I’m sorry to make you wait,” the girl had said, “but we have all night.” Indeed they had. He was so happy now that he was even content to wait. The room seemed bathed in a warm and pleasant glow. And when, a little later, she whispered – “If you want to know, I’m still a little nervous” – he had actually been touched, and patted her knee. “No hurry,” he said, and even sang a song.
Then they had all sung songs, and drunk some more, and her head nestled comfortably on his shoulder and even his own, hard head had been spinning a little when, some time in the night – he had not kept track of the time – he noticed a rattling of the shutters. He looked up, past the contented faces around him.
“What was that?”
“Wind,” the landlord said, then made a face. “East wind.” As though to confirm the fact the shutter rattled again.
Dionysius got up; the girl seemed half asleep. He swayed a little, but grinned. “Time to go upstairs,” he said. The girl stumbled beside him as he made for the door. For some reason, the Dogget girls were coming too.
The cold hit him like a hard blow as he stepped outside. During the hours he had been inside, a great, stark, November night had moved from the cold North Sea, across the flatlands of East Anglia and up the Thames Estuary to London. Coming from the close, smoky room by the roasting brazier, having drunk more than even he realized, it hit him so hard that he reeled. He blinked. The lantern by the entrance had gone out. His head swam. He shook it in an effort to clear his brain and felt for the wall that would lead him to the stairs.
But even then, though he could scarcely see her red nightgown, he held Joan by the wrist. “Come on, my pretty one,” he heard his own voice, strangely, cry. “This way to paradise.” He began to ascend the staircase.
Why did everything seem so crazy? Pitch darkness. The moaning wind. The staircase that creaked and swayed. The entire Dog’s Head, it seemed to Dionysius, was moving about in an unaccountable way. Perhaps the brothel, sign, staircase and all, was about to take wing and spiral over Bankside into the black sky. He fought down the swaying sensation.
And then the two women. The Dogget girls.
Two, pale, flapping shapes, like ghosts, calling to him, pulling him with their hands. One, seizing him by the arm, on the first landing, crying: “Come with me. Sleep with me, lover.” Twice, three times she had tugged at him, and he felt the coarse cloth of her pale dress pressing against him until he managed to throw her aside. Then it had been the other as soon as he had entered the passageway on the second storey, her arms suddenly found his neck, dragging him past the little stair to the attic and somehow, he scarcely knew how, managing to pull him into a room,