Erszebet grabbed my arm and tugged it to get my attention. I forced my eyes away from the artifacts of Tristan to look at her.
She reached gently for my face and with her thumb and finger caressed the very pursed space between my brows. I hadn’t realized I’d been frowning. “If he doesn’t make it back, you will easily find a better lover,” she said consolingly.
I blushed so intensely it almost made my eyes water. “He’s not my lover,” I said irritably.
Erszebet gave me a knowing grin. “He’s not your lover yet,” she said.
LETTER FROM
GRÁINNE to GRACE O’MALLEY
A Monday of Mid-Harvest, 1601
Auspiciousness and prosperity to you, milady!
Gráinne it is who’s writing this, and ’tis the most astounding news I have to share with Your Grace. I’m after meeting a gentleman by the name of Tristan Lyons. You’ll want to add him to your stable of faithful vassals, and I think he can find his way there with the proper inducements. I’ll be working on him to that end, anyhow.
I was putting in my time at the bawdy-house beside the brewery. I know Your Grace would rather I not, but truly it’s the best way to hide in plain sight, and sometimes it’s great crack. I was servicing—or, to put it another way, being serviced by—a gentleman of Bess’s court, a lumbering heap of a knight and not the brightest candle in the chandelier. He thinks he’s never revealing any secrets, but sure it’s as easy to read him as it is to read the signs on the High Street, so it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Himself it was who let slip the rumour about the Earl of Essex some months back. As you might recall this allowed Your Grace’s agent to adopt some of His Lordship’s silver that was left tragically unattended during His Lordship’s arrest.
So there we were getting along with business, and I look over his shoulder and what I see there in the corner is a bit of glamour. So I know there’s some magic afoot but it’s not me performing it, and there’s nobody else in the room. And just as it’s occurring to me that another witch must be Sending me something, what is there in the corner suddenly but a large handsome man, buck naked, looking dazed as a newborn, and doesn’t he fall right to his knees and clutch at his head in utter confusion. And then he moans a bit, louder than my dim fella, and my dim fella hears him, stops abruptly in his exertions, and looks over his shoulder.
You don’t want to have to go explaining to a man in the heat of passion why there’s suddenly another naked man in the room. Especially one who’s a better specimen. This new naked fella, he was tall and broad and the healthiest looking lad I’ve seen in ages, even finer than the lads back home. I guessed right off he was probably from the Continent or maybe the Golden Age, you know how them idiot pagans like to mess around—not from around here, anyway, which means he would be needing clothing and some dosh, like they do.
So I thought fast and said to your man who was on top of me, “Hey now, look I’ve got you the voyeur you were importuning me for last week, but it’s going to cost you extra for the privilege, so let’s finish up here and give me the silver for it.” He was too astonished to speak and that gave me a moment to consider the situation.
I had to reckon what the new fellow would be doing here, given he clearly was not Irish. He looked more Saxon, but what did that mean now the Vikings are no more? Was he an enemy or a friend? Did he come here deliberately to me, or maybe a blunder it was? He looked familiar, yet I knew of a certainty I’d never clapped eyes on him before—and as I needn’t belabor to you of all people, milady, this told me that what was occurring here and now was sure to be repeating itself on other Strands. Something was afoot. Some shite-for-brains was actually trying to accomplish something by sending this poor young buck to other times and places. He was still looking bolloxed so I couldn’t ask him yet.
Meanwhile my dim fella had collected his meagre wits enough to protest that he’d never wanted a voyeur. I said, “Oh, come now, I know you too well for you to hide anything from me, you’re falling all over yourself for the opportunity. Finish off and be giving me the money, so.”
He’s out of the humour now, which I don’t mind. Very grudgingly, in a foul mood, he reaches for his belt on the floor and yanks out some extra coin and tosses them to me in a huff. The fellow on the floor has pulled himself together a bit, looks around the wee room and his eyes widen.
“It’s all right, lad,” says I to him. “You’ve played your part well so far.”
“You’d be Gráinne?” he asks, pronouncing it almost right, like he’s been practicing. Which was awkward since I’m never going by that name at the Tearsheet.
“No,” says I, giving him a wink to put him at his ease, and making a glance at the other fella.
Which is where it all went sideways. This new fella is one of those literal-minded sorts so tediously common in this nation, who actually believes what he hears. He’s not looking at me, supposing it were indelicate to gaze upon a naked lady, so he doesn’t collect the wink. “I beg your pardon,” he says, ever so polite, and clambers to his feet, moving well, with an eye on the door.
Increasingly displeased, is my dim fella about this turn of events, the more he thinks about it. He has no scruples about looking at a naked lady he’s bought and paid for, so he takes in the wink and the glance, and even more displeased they make him. He pushes off of me and turns around just in time to see the new fella thoughtlessly getting between him and his baldric, which he’s slung over the peg beside the doorway. Suspended in that, of course, are the scabbards containing his rapier and his dagger. The new fella’s still looking about himself in that way people do after they’ve been Sent somewhere for the first time, it’s all new to him, he doesn’t appreciate that it’s bad practice to come between a knight and his arms—doubly so when the knight’s buck naked and just had a perfectly good fuck interrupted by a nasty surprise. My customer moves, fast, dropping one shoulder and barreling into the new man from behind, catching him in the ribs and giving him a good bash. It wouldn’t have been an equal contest had the new lad been looking him in the face, and on his toes, but as it was the blow staggered him out of the way. While he was pivoting about and getting his balance, my customer made straight for the door and pulled his dagger out of its sheath—the chamber being far too small, you’ll understand, for the rapier to be of any use.
Well, to that point in the proceedings, the new arrival might’ve been in a bit of a daze, but the sight of bare steel in another fella’s hand snapped him out of it in a trice, and suddenly wasn’t he moving with marvelous speed and sureness, as if he engaged in naked dagger fighting several times a day. Rather than stepping back, as an ordinary person might’ve, he moved toward the knight and got in close, stifling his movement even as he was drawing back to stab. Then something happened too quickly for me to follow it, and next thing I know the dagger’s clattering on the floorboards and the Saxon has the knight’s arm all twisted about in some manner of wrestling hold, I reckon. The knight tries to squirm out but the visitor pushes a bit harder, and I can hear something threatening to give way in the shoulder joint. “I yield,” says he who’s clearly got the worst of it. The new lad lets him go, but not before kicking the dagger across the floor, out of reach. I snatched it up so there’d be no more such foolishness, and clasped it to my breast. Rarely have I enjoyed such spectation at the Tearsheet. The new lad was so fine to look at and the other fella was so dull, and I haven’t got out to a bear-baiting or even a play in the longest time. To watch naked men have a go at each other with weapons is better than either. Makes me homesick, so it does.
“I humbly apologize for this misunderstanding,” says the Saxon. I couldn’t recognize the accent. His teeth were gorgeous. “And for my unmannerly arrival.” He said unmannerly as if it weren’t a word used to coming out of his mouth. So I figured he were from a place where manners aren’t important but he’s trying to respect the occasion, and I liked that well enough. Enough to want to keep seeing him naked, anyhow.
&nb
sp; So I take the dim fella’s purse, help myself to my newly augmented fee, toss him his clothes, and give him a wink. “Be changing outside now,” I say, and send him off.
That makes it easier to stare at your naked Saxon.
“Gráinne,” he said. “But you don’t go by that name. I understand.”
“You’re not one of them locals,” I observe.
“What gave it away?” he asked. I like a bit of dry humour. I laughed.
“So tell me, then, who are you and what is it brings you here? Who Sent you?”
“Classified,” he said.
“Never heard of him. Perhaps a Cornish name, is it? Protestant or Catholic?”
“’Tisn’t a name,” he said. “It means I cannot tell you. I am under orders not to tell you.”
“Are you? How’s your master expect you to get anything done, then? Once you’ve answered my questions to my satisfaction I’ll give you this extra money the fella left, and get you some clothes, both of which you’ll be needing. We’ve some extra shirts and drawers around for our favorite customers, since things do tend to get nicked here. But you’ll get no help from me until you answer my questions. Right idiot your master is if he thinks it works any other way.”
Clearly the fellow’s never been Sent before; he got a caged-bear look on his face, and I felt for him, but obviously it’s not safe to do anything until I know more. I’m passing as Protestant Irish, it’s my excuse for being in London instead of back home, but Protestant Irish is a hard act to play without giving it the full Puritan extreme and that’s not safe either. I have to watch my back all the time. I needed to know where his sympathies were.
And then he uttered such an idiot claim: “I’m here for a purely economic concern,” he says. “It’s just financial, I’ve got no political or religious affiliation.”
“Is it Protestant money or Catholic money you’re after?” I ask.
“It does not matter,” he says. “Not where I come from.”
“Where in God’s name do you come from?” I ask again. “May I go there with you? Because in the name of Our Lord’s mammy, if I could be someplace where money’s got no religion and religion’s got no money, I’d be a happier woman.”
He sits on the bed beside me, turned a little away so I can’t see his front so well (I did try to peek though). He said he would tell me as much as he could—anything that wasn’t “classified.” And here’s what he told me. I’ll make it as brief as I can, but it was quite the long chat we had about it:
He is from the future, from a land that will become an English-speaking nation some day—but not a part of England! So their accursed language triumphs, but they themselves do not. The fuckers lose most of Ireland as well, turns out. I don’t know how long it will take this to happen, maybe ten years, maybe a hundred. I pressed him for details, especially about Your Grace’s legacy of course, but he said he couldn’t give me any unless I let him get dressed, which I wouldn’t. It was great crack to see how uncomfortable he was being naked.
“Guess you don’t do that much in the future,” I teased him. “Thought that would be a constant across the ages—how bawdy-houses work.”
“I have never been to a bawdy-house before,” he said.
Of course I didn’t believe him, but it wasn’t important, so I pressed on, trying to learn more about this Future where the best-looking fellas speak English but are not, in fact, English. We spent no small sum of time discussing why wearing clothes would make it easier for him to speak. Otherwise, all I could get out of him was that the land that the English are now preparing to settle in the New World breaks away from England to become its own nation, and keeps speaking English but becomes notable for its deep regard of Ireland. This is especially true of the area where he himself had come from directly, which is a province with the queer enough name of Massive Shoe Hits (code, I expect). Anyhow, seems in the future there will be lots of Irish running around over there, but they’ll be speaking English.
“So where’s their loyalty?” I demanded, and he said it’s with themselves. “They get distracted with their new world, they don’t have the energy to stay preoccupied with old grudges. Eventually, I mean. It takes awhile.”
Beyond that the most I could get out of him was that he had come back in time to me, specifically, to seek my assistance. Wasn’t I flattered at that, I confess. “How did you know to find me?” I asked.
“Classified,” he said quickly, and then grimaced and corrected himself: “I can’t tell you. But I know you’re the right one for me to ask for help.”
“All right then. What be in it for me?” I asked. “Given you’ve no money to offer me, and refusing you are to tell me about the future, which is the only reason I’d be interested in you. Except maybe for playing around because you are a beautiful specimen of a man. I’ll wager all your children are beauties.”
“Might we continue this conversation once I’m clothed?” himself asks again, with a bit more urgency now as my words are having their effect and he’s beginning to get big and firm down below.
“Lordy, no,” I say. “I am enjoying this too much. Do you know how rare it is to sit next to a fellow who’s clean and nice-looking and isn’t asking anything of me? It’s enough to make me want to offer myself.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” he says, crossing his legs more than a bit awkwardly.
“Well then tell me why you are here,” I ordered.
“I need to convince a man named Sir Edward Greylock that he should invest his money in the East India Company.”
“Sure, I’ve heard of Sir Edward, we’ve some friends in common, if you take my meaning.”
“Oh, do you know how to find him?”
“I might,” I say, and it’s pretty confident I am about it. Your Grace might remember the wee peccadillo of last year with that German banker fellow and the silk merchant? Sir Edward is the German’s grand-nephew on his ma’s side, and I met him in passing at the funeral, but he was quite drunk so he wouldn’t remember me. However, knowing the family to be Protestant bankers I’ve kept a careful eye on all their spawn. And as Your Grace knows well, I’ve made it my business to win the confidences of some of the wenches working the taverns near Whitehall Palace, and I keep an inventory in my head of their regulars’ habits, same as they themselves do. So I happen to know that Sir Edward Greylock is a regular for late dinner at the Bell, on King Street, right by the stairs. I didn’t tell my Saxon all this, of course. First I had to know more from him. “Is it that you want to ruin Sir Edward, and the East India Company is going to fail?” I asked. “Or is it that you want him to succeed and it’s going to thrive? Answer if you want my help.”
“Neither, really. I just want to distract him from putting his money into another company. I’m trying to avoid something.”
“So it’s another enterprise that you want to see fail,” I said. He nodded once. “Is it Protestant or Catholic, this other one?”
“That’s truly got nothing to do with anything,” he insisted.
“If you know what comes of the East India Company, tell me, since that will be useful to somebody I know, and you’d better make yourself useful if you expect me to give a shite about you.”
“I can’t tell you what happens with the East India Company.”
“Classified, is it?”
“Yes. Classified.”
“Goodo. God ye good day, then,” I said cheerily, stood up from the mattress and headed for the little curtained doorway.
“Where are you going?” he demands, paling a little.
“I’m leaving you with your classifieds,” I said. “I’ll keep my own classifieds until you’re willing to have a fair exchange.”
And I left the room, went down the wee corridor and climbed down the steps to the ground level where the tavern is. I went out back, used the privy, then stepped back into the tavern to see if anyone was in need of me. But it was that time of day when the few men there are mostly there for the drink.
/> So having left the Saxon alone for about as long as it would take to walk a half mile, I returned to the wee chamber, and as I anticipated he was more willing to negotiate.
He allowed that the East India Company is a good investment for those who can risk it—it takes awhile to come to much, but then it will be around a long while and ’tis a private company with good returns on the investment in time. So, Your Grace, let me know if you’re interested in channeling some funds that way, and I’ll alert your agent here. If it’s good enough for a Fugger, it’s good enough for a Fucker.
Meanwhile, since I wanted him to see he’d get rewarded, and since sadly it seemed we weren’t going to have any kind of adventure while he was naked, I pulled out the extra set of drawers and shirt that were hiding under that very mattress the whole time and tossed them to him.
“I’ll help you find your Sir Edward,” I said, “but first we need to kit you out in more than underwear. Lucky for you it’s me you sought out, as I’m the one best knows how to get togemans for such a large lad.”
Once he had donned the threads I had for him, he relaxed a bit and even introduced himself properly: Tristan Lyons, he claims to be. Can’t make out where he’s really from by the name, any more than by the looks. (French, maybe? In which case likely Catholic, but not likely an ally even so. The French are slippery that way.)
I decided to take him to the Globe, on account of Dick Burbage has a closet full of costumes he did steal from Ned Alleyn. He played a heap of roles in his day, did Ned, so I was hoping we could make Tristan over into whatever would be most expedient for his undertaking.
’Tis a short walk from the Tearsheet to the Globe, mostly along the river, and one I never thought of as remarkable, but you’d think I was asking Tristan to eat a sewer. Practically retching the whole way he was, despite my taking him along the broader lane where gravel is laid down over the clay, and all the sewage lies neatly in the drainage ditches to the side of the streets, not like some alley where the offal sits right in the street once it’s dumped from above. ’Twas only a turd or two we had to sidestep, not counting the horse manure, which isn’t at all offensive, in fact it has a barnyard smell that reminds me of home.