London - Edward Rutherfurd [356]
So ended Meredith’s play.
Black Barnikel did not flinch: not a muscle of his face moved, nor did his eyes blink as the missiles flew towards him. He had never flinched, even when lead and cannonballs flew, on the high seas. He despised the nuts, fruit and cheese rinds as much as he despised the throwers. He felt, deep in his stomach, a profound contempt for these people, pit and gallery alike.
Yet Meredith had done his work well. He had come to see a play about himself and been shown this travesty. All London now thought of him not as a rich and daring sea captain, as he wished, but as a villain; and worse even yet, a figure of contempt. Men who would have trembled at his name on the seas were throwing food in his face and laughing at him.
Worst of all was the feeling of desolation – the desolation of a man who, though he has accomplished all that is possible, discovers that he will still, always be scorned; and that, as his Billingsgate cousins had gently hinted to him in their conversation two days before, even in what he thought of as his home, he must always be an outcast. His, was the fate of the mariner for whom there could never be any home-coming.
So what remained? The only thing he had ever truly possessed: his honour. Meredith had dared to insult him. He had killed men for far less. While the clown was still playing, Black Barnikel silently slipped out.
Jane walked with Edmund all the way home to the Staple Inn. She could not leave him alone at a time like this. She linked her arm in his and gave him what warmth she could.
“Was it all bad?” He had not spoken until they reached the bridge.
“Some of it was very good.”
He did not speak again until they came out of Newgate. “It was laughed off.”
“No. It was the blackamoor in the Lords’ Room. That’s what set them off. Not your play.”
“Perhaps.” He grunted. “Where did he go?”
“Who knows?”
When they got to the Staple Inn, she hugged him and gave him a long kiss. Afterwards, she would be glad that she did it. Then she went slowly back home.
Black Barnikel watched her, as he had since she and Meredith left the Globe. Then he gazed thoughtfully at the high, timbered façade of the Staple Inn.
Dusk had just fallen the following night when the dark figure and his two seamen struck. They did so with great efficiency. They had been lying in wait for some time.
They rolled the body into a small sail and carried it swiftly away. A short time later, they were rowing a boat downstream towards Black Barnikel’s vessel, which sailed before dawn on the ebb tide.
The group which gathered a day later at the Fleming house was glum. The business was inexplicable. There had been no message. No one had seen anything. There was no sign of a body. The aldermen who had been informed had already instigated a search. Alderman Ducket, though he did not like any of them, had behaved with courtesy and even kindness, riding over himself a few minutes before to tell them that, as yet, the city sergeants had found nothing. Neither Dogget, nor Carpenter, nor the Burbage brothers could suggest any solution either.
The breeze was coming from the south-west, so they had made good progress down the estuary. By mid-morning they had come to the last great bend in the widening river; by early afternoon they were passing the broad opening of the River Medway on their right while to the left the more distant East Anglian coast had already begun its huge curve and, by later afternoon, was sinking over the horizon.
Jane stood on deck and breathed in the sharp, salt air.
It was kidnap, of course. But as she saw it, Black Barnikel ran