London - Edward Rutherfurd [329]
He smiled down at the red-haired girl at his side. “Almost.”
The play, though he said it himself, was a masterpiece: none of your crude humour for the crowd, but brilliant wit to delight the court and the discerning. It was about a young man like himself. Every Man Hath His Wit, it was called. She had already followed each step of its progress over the last few months and now he told her the latest developments of its plot.
There were several things Edmund Meredith liked about Jane Fleming. She was fifteen – young enough to look up to and be moulded by a man like himself. She was pretty, but not such a beauty that she attracted a host of rival suitors. Her family were involved with the playhouse: she shared his love for the theatre. And though her family was modest, she was to receive a small legacy from an uncle. “Enough,” he had confided to the Bulls, “to keep a family.”
“I’m surprised,” said one of those cousins, knowing his ambition, “that you don’t look for a real heiress, or a rich widow.” Some of the greatest men at court had done that. But Edmund knew his limits. “I’d always be looked down upon. A mere kept man,” he reasoned. He was not strong enough to strut through that.
In time, perhaps, he would marry young Jane Fleming.
And then the dark-skinned man behind them spoke.
“I think, young master, I’ll come to see your play.” They turned, and found themselves looking at the strangest fellow they had ever seen in their lives.
It was hard to describe him. Though his features were negroid, you could only say that his skin was a rich brown. His hair was long and black and hung in heavy ringlets and he was wearing a long, sleeveless leather jerkin that reached down to his knees, with leather boots, red breeches and a white linen shirt. On his wrists were golden bangles. He carried no sword but a long, curved dagger. He was perhaps thirty-five, but his teeth were all there, as sparkling white as his shirt, and it was obvious from the almost indolent way he carried himself, that under the shirt there was a splendid athlete’s body. A dark-skinned man was rare in London. His eyes were a perfect blue. His name was Orlando Barnikel.
One of the Barnikels of Billingsgate, a seafarer, had brought him to London as a cabin boy after a voyage to the south, and cheerfully announced to his astonished family: “He’s mine.” He never offered any further explanation, but the boy’s blue eyes seemed to confirm the statement, and when, ten years and several profitable voyages later the seafarer died, he left Orlando quite a tidy little fortune: enough for him to acquire a part-share in a ship which he captained himself. With a crew drawn from every port in Europe, a dead-eye with a pistol, a body as strong and supple as a serpent and a hand fast as a panther, he roamed the seven seas.
He was, of course, a pirate. In another age, he might have been hanged; but then so, very likely, would Sir Francis Drake, and a good many other English heroes. But now the island kingdom had other things to worry about. There was the Spanish enemy to plunder, and since men like Drake offered the hard-pressed queen a share of their profits, if a French or other prize were found on the distant, broad high seas, only a fool would ask too many questions. Anyway, as Elizabeth knew: “You cannot control these salty sea-dogs: they go with the wind.” It was Orlando, and many like him, who harried the great Armada to destruction.
Although his colour was dark, he had the spirit of the Viking. His appearances in London were irregular, but whenever he came to the port, he would stride down Billingsgate market to the huge stall where the Barnikels carried on their fishmongering business, and where his cousins, rather proud that this exotic adventurer belonged to them, always gave him a welcome. The Moor, some of the Billingsgate folk called him, by which they meant only that his skin was dark. But those who sailed with him, and the men all over Europe who feared him referred to him as Black Barnikel.
Edmund Meredith knew nothing of this. He stared