London - Edward Rutherfurd [327]
None cried more heartily – “Bravely fought! Noble hound!” – than the handsome, auburn-haired young man in the gallery, surrounded by a group of friends who hung upon his words. He was obviously one of the young gallants of the town. His doublet was richly embroidered, dagged and – this was the fashion – formed into a stiffened curve over his midriff. Though some young men still favoured the medieval hose, which certainly showed off a fine leg and, indeed, the buttocks too, he had gone over to the newest style: a pair of woollen stockings and above these, made of the same material as the doublet, the billowing breeches known as galligaskins, secured at the knee with ribbons. On his feet were embroidered shoes, tucked into outer slippers lest the mud should soil them. Around his neck, a starched ruff, white as snow. Over his shoulders, also matching his tunic, a short cape. It was a fashion, echoing the shape of Spanish armour, that made him look both elegant and manly.
From his waist hung a rapier, its pommel embossed with gold, and at the back, a matching dagger. He wore gloves of soft and scented leather and in his right ear a golden ring. Upon his head was a high brimmed hat from which there sprouted, like fountains, three gorgeous plumes which added a foot to his height. This was the dress with which, in Elizabeth’s last years, a man decked himself out for immortality upon the stage of life. But there was one more prop to make the costume complete. With studied nonchalance, Edmund Meredith held it in his right hand. It was long, curved and made of clay.
It was a pipe. Some years before the queen’s favourite, Walter Raleigh, had learned the use of the tobacco plant from the American Indians and brought it back to England. Soon the expensive Virginian weed was all the rage amongst the fashionable. Edmund Meredith, as it happened, did not much like the taste of the pipe, but he always had one with him in a public place, to take away from his nostrils the smells, real or assumed, of the common people: “the garlic-breaths and onion-breaths,” as he liked to call them.
And it was during the lull before a pair of fighting cocks was brought into the pit, Edmund Meredith smiled at his friends.
“Shakespeare’s giving up. I’m going to take his place,” and made his remarkable boast.
Young Rose and Sterne, gallants like himself, applauded. William Bull wondered if he would get his money back. Cuthbert Carpenter trembled, because he was going to hell. Jane Fleming wondered if Edmund would marry her. And John Dogget grinned, because he had no worries anyway.
Nobody took any notice of the dark-skinned man behind them.
Edmund Meredith wanted to cut a figure in the world. He had no other motive, and there was nothing else that he wanted to achieve. But in pursuing his ambition he was single-minded. If the world was a stage, he meant to play a handsome part. He had always known that quiet old Rochester would never do for him, but fortunately his father had left him a modest income on which he could live as a single gentleman. And so he had come to London.
But what to do? How did a young man cut a figure in the world? There was the royal court of course, the great high road to rank and fortune. But the chances of failure and humiliation were high, as his father and grandfather had discovered. The law then. There were more lawsuits in busy London nowadays than ever before, and the best lawyers were making huge fortunes. He had attended the Inns