Coromandel! (10 page)

The pillars of stone filled the Plain about him, the nearest not twenty feet away, and he heard their old voices and saw them sway and move, and felt the earth groaning under the weight of them. Alone--they for endless thousands of years, he now for the first time; and now the dawn was coming in green wedges of light under the altars.

He jumped up and ran back across the Plain. He heard himself shouting, but no one answered and the great stones did not move. Oh, God, let them catch me and lock me up and hang me, but never leave me.

He stopped running.

But this that he had run away from was Coromandel. This was the substance of his dreams--to travel with men he did not know and share their wonders and their awes. If he could walk by Stonehenge in the hour before dawn and feel nothing but the presence of wet grass and sleeping curlews, what would await him in Coromandel? Nothing.

He turned and walked slowly eastward into the spreading light, until once more he stood in the centre of the Henge. In a minute he was afraid again, but this time with a fear that he had searched for in the past and found. He saw ten thousand men around him, and priests under the stones, and smelled blood and burning wood and felt the ecstasy and terror of the multitude, of whom he was one.

There was something else here for him too, some message that seemed to give him a vague comfort and warmth; but he could not properly catch it to understand it. For the moment it was enough that he had been afraid. Fear faded, the people were swallowed up, he opened his eyes and began to stride east across Knighton Down.

He’d seen Stonehenge. Now for Coromandel. And after that, Meru. He would get there somehow. He didn’t have any money, and he wasn’t a sailor, but he’d get there.

The man in front of him on the horse pointed down the muddy lane that led off to the left and said ‘There’s my road to Islington. Are you sure you have somewhere to go to in the city? It is a wicked place for young men from the country.’

Jason slid over the horse’s fat rump into a puddle and said, ‘Thank you, sir, I am going to a friend’s.’

The man, who had been a stranger this morning, waved his hand and turned his horse’s head into the gathering darkness of the December afternoon. Jason swung up his bundle, hitched his sack on to his shoulder, and began to trudge eastward.

He had somewhere to go. The letter was folded away in the bottom of his sack, and he would have liked to tell the man about it because it was exciting--but the people who had given him the letter had been insistent that he mustn’t even talk about it, let alone show it to anybody.

Christmas Eve. He’d never thought, when he set out from Stonehenge, that it would take this long to reach London. Well, if he’d hurried he’d never have worked for the carters in Reading, and if he’d never worked for them he’d never have gone to the Caversham Tavern, never have had enough money to drink a lot of sack one night, and, after drinking, dance, and...

Birr! The sleet blew into his face. Through half-closed eyes, he could see the lights of a village glowing dimly ahead. Strong on the wind he heard bells, near bells and distant bells, tenor bells and alto bells--Christmas Eve, and his knuckles blue with cold. His two books weighed heavily in the sack. Twenty times he had thought of throwing them away, but he had never been able to bring himself to do it.

He blew on his nails and walked faster. The letter was addressed to Master Dick Lanthard, but the hosts of the Caversham Tavern always called him Dick o’ the Ruff. Dick o’ the Ruff knew everybody in the whole of London, and in the whole of London everybody knew Dick o’ the Ruff. Dick o’ the Ruff was gay and generous, wise and clever and strong and brave. Dick o’ the Ruff knew sailors and merchants and ship-masters. Jason would be on a ship to Coromandel before he could say Dick Whittington, and all because he could dance the Old Wife’s Pride.

But God’s blood, there’d been some strange women at that Caversham Tavern o’ nights! And the drinking and the gambling and the fights!

He was in a village; a river ran to his right, and the road was a deep trench of mud and sleet along the edge of the water. A man came hurrying towards him, the wind at his back billowing out his cloak. Jason stopped, lowered his hood, and said, ‘By your grace, sir--‘ The man glanced up, hurried past.

At the third attempt he was answered. An old, bent woman gathering sticks in the river mud said, ‘London? This is Chelsea. Keep straight on. You can’t miss it. Mind your footing. A man lost his cart in the road last week. Five miles.’ She shook her head mournfully and returned to her search.

Jason turned again to face the sleet. Five miles; then he’d meet Dick o’ the Ruff, and there’d be a warm fire and mulled ale and smiling, welcoming faces. The village sank into the river of night behind him, and fields and lone trees edged up close to the road. Cold water sloshed about in his shoes, and thin ice tinkled at every step, and for a mile he struggled up to his knees in half-frozen mud. After a long time he saw clustering lights ahead, but they never seemed to come any closer. He waded a stream and stumbled on, his teeth chattering, his eyes all but shut. The sleet froze slowly on his clothes so that they became stiff and crackly as he moved.

Suddenly the houses opened out, closed in, and folded him in smells and light and warmth. People in wet clothes loomed, talking in the street, so that he had to crowd narrowly between them and the walls, muttering apologies; but he might have been a mouse creeping frozen past them, for the notice they took.

I’m here, I’m here, he thought; all the way from Stonehenge to London. London! . . . The windows were steaming yellow squares, he saw rooms inside, a woman with a skillet, two men with long clay pipes, long black hair on their silk shoulders, silver and blue brocade, scabbards and sawdust, he walked on, beggars’ eyes beside him at the windows, a troop of soldiers clattering on the cobbles, and he pressed back into a doorway, the sleet turned to rain here and poured down from the leaded gutters, in the flaring lights he saw designs and crests on the square drainheads, the roofs pitched steeply up into the dark, a girl in a white collar looking down from the shelter of her casement, a great palace of a house down a street, women crying in a sing-song chant that he could not translate, wide baskets sheltered in their cloaks, and then a wife came out of a house, and they lifted the cloaks to show her what they had, it was fish and meat, live chickens, trussed, wet sparkling heads, one orange eye imprisoned, fiercely glaring, bigger circles of orange fire round the light on the corner, the feet of the people tramping, coming together, parting under the houses, the walls leaned in over him, they were timbered and old, the city smelled of ordure, of the baking fish and the burning pine, of men’s sweat and women’s lavender pressed last summer, closet lavender in their wet clothes, and the clean silver fish glittering in the orange tunnels of the city at night.

He saw a man peering in at a window and said, ‘Sir, can you tell me--?’

The man moved on.

‘Mistress, do you--?’

The woman glanced warily at him and crossed the street.

‘Maiden, will you--?’

The girl laughed and did not stop her hurrying. He caught her arm and shouted, ‘God’s blood, where is Chain Street?’

She said, ‘Well! Here’s a brave little country cockerel! Let go, or I’ll call my friend, do you hear?’ She lifted her other arm and smacked Jason across the cheek.

He muttered, ‘I’m sorry, but please tell me where Chain Street is.’

She looked at him curiously and said, ‘Up there, pretty boy. A furlong and a half. Whose house in Chain Street?’

Jason hesitated. But he had to ask the way some time. He said, ‘I seek Master Dick Lanthard.’

She said, ‘I’ve never heard of him.’

Jason said, ‘I think he’s called Dick o’ the Ruff.’

The girl started. ‘Dick o’ the Ruff! Master Lanthard--is that his name? Well, who’d have thought?’

Jason said, ‘Please, mistress--I’m cold. Can you tell me how to recognize the house?’

She said, ‘Yes. It has a blue door and leans out more over the street than the others near it. It’s on the left. But what--?’

‘Th-th-ank you, thank you,’ Jason stammered, his teeth rattling, and ran down the street.

Soon he came to the house with the blue door. He hammered on the knocker and stood waiting. The sleet blew straight into the doorway, and for a long time no one came. He knocked again.

The door opened sharply. An old woman with a billowing skirt, a clean white collar, and a sharp blue eye said, ‘What do you want, you?’

Jason said, ‘Master Lanthard--Dick o’ the Ruff, mistress--does he live here?’

‘You want to see him?’

‘Yes, please, please.’

‘He’s not in.’ She slammed the door. Jason beat on it and shouted, ‘But, mistress, I have a letter--from Master Fowler, host of the Caversham Tavern, near Reading.’

The door opened again, and the woman popped out. She said, ‘Come in. Here.’ She led up two narrow flights of stairs, knocked on a door, and called, ‘Emily, there’s a man here who says he has a letter for Dick. You talk to him. I’ve got other things to do.’ She stumped off down the stairs.

From inside the room a woman’s voice called, ‘Come in.’--Jason opened the door and stopped dead, the water from his clothes dripping off him in a steady small tattoo. A girl with a mass of brilliantly golden hair falling down her back was sitting at a table near the curtained window, wearing only a silk shift. Her pink skin glowed through the material and her strongly muscled legs stuck out boldly underneath; her feet were stuffed into bright satin shoes.

The girl turned to examine him. She had round, dark-blue eyes and a broad forehead and painted cheeks. She said, ‘Well, you look like a drowned rat, you do.’

Jason frowned in his effort to understand her. This London accent came very strange to his ear. She said, ‘What’s the matter? Sit down. No, don’t! You’re soaked. ‘ ‘Steeth, shut the door, that draught’s as cold as charity. What’s this about a letter?’ Jason said, ‘It’s addressed to Master Lan--Dick o’ the Ruff.’ He began to shiver uncontrollably, and his hand shook so violently that he could hardly get the letter out of his sack to show it to her. He felt that her eyes were on him, and when he looked up, the letter at last in his hand, she was staring at him with open curiosity. She took the letter and held it in her hand but did not open it. She said, ‘What’s your line, my bully?’ Jason stuttered, ‘I d-don’t unders-stand. I c-c-come f-from W-w-wiltshire.’

The girl sprang up. ‘ ‘Steeth, I can’t abide this--and Christmas too! You’re giving me the cold just to listen to you. Here, get those clothes off. Put this on.’ She rummaged in a closet and threw him a red-lined woman’s cloak. ‘Take the blankets off the bed, wrap up, sit down. Go on! Don’t tell me you’ve never undressed in front of a woman before, even if you do come from Wiltshire. But no tricks, mind!’ Her voice hardened and grew shrill. ‘You try any tricks, and I’ll give you more than you bargained for.’

Jason turned his back and began to undress. This woman Emily was a funny one. In fact, nothing here was quite as he had expected. He wished Dick o’ the Ruff would come soon.

The girl stepped negligently past him, got out a bottle of sack, and poured a big glass for him and another for herself. When he was sitting, warmly wrapped, on her bed she said, ‘What are you doing here? How did you meet the Fowlers? Why did they-give you a letter?’

Jason gulped down the sack, but it might have been water for all its effect on him. He said, ‘I am going to Coromandel, mistress.’

The fair-haired girl faced him fully, her mouth pulled down in astonishment. She said, ‘Where in damnation is that? Here, I’d better read this letter.’

Jason thought enviously: So she can read. Perhaps that’s because she’s a Londoner. The room smelled of burned hair, and there was a small pair of tongs heating in a little charcoal fire beside her. Her black velvet stomacher lay on the bed beside him, its red lacing unloosed. There were all kinds of pots on her table, and a beautiful red skirt, with white patterns of lilies on it, hanging from a nail on the wall. He put out his hand to touch it, it was so beautiful, and, without looking, she reached out and rapped his knuckles with the hot tongs. ‘Keep your hands to yourself!’

She looked up suddenly. ‘I’m sorry, Jason. That’s your name? You didn’t mean any harm, did you?’ She finished reading the letter and put it down on the table.

She said, ‘Fowler doesn’t say anything here about that place--Coromandel.’

Jason sat up angrily. He said, ‘He must. That’s a letter asking Dick o’ the Ruff to help me get ship to Coromandel.’ Perhaps the woman couldn’t read after all, and was only trying to show off.

She looked at him and said, ‘Can you really dance? This letter says--‘

The door opened, and a man came in with a curt ‘Hurry up, Emily! The lordlings don’t like being kept waiting. By God, who’s this toad in the hole?’

Jason got up with difficulty. He said, ‘I am Jason Savage, sir.’ He ought to have resented being called a toad, but he didn’t want to quarrel with anyone while he was wearing a woman’s cloak and nothing else. The man was about his own age and height, beardless, with a long pointed jaw and a long thin nose coming down to meet the jaw, thin cheeks, black eyebrows arching over brown eyes, and a clear, dead skin. He was foppishly dressed, with laces and ribbons hanging from his doublet and the sides of his breeches, but the most noticeable article of his clothing was his ruff. It was enormous, twice the depth of any that Jason had seen before, and three inches wider, and meticulously starched and ironed. It stood out like a crinkled white millstone round his neck. Above it his white face and ringed eyes looked like a corpse’s head on a plate. Jason thought: He’s vain, he’s like a rat in a ruff; he’s sharp and cruel, and I wish he’d go away.

Emily said, ‘This is Dick o’ the Ruff, Jason.’

Dick examined his fingernails with a show of carelessness and said, ‘Yes. Perhaps you have heard of me?’

Jason said slowly, ‘You? You’re Dick o’ the Ruff?’ Of course he must be, with that name and that ruff. But--Jason’s heart sank--he didn’t like Dick. He watched unhappily while Dick read the letter.