worked in a duke's mansion, had dukes not preferred to use illegitimate offspring of their own and had the House of Lords not been abolished anyway the year before, on grounds of being useless and dangerous.
Of course the brothel doctor was a quack, but he was a good quack, one of the best fake physicians in London. Of course, too, the doorman was a pimp; he was the bawd's own pimp, hectors always were.
The point was that running a good brothel required high standards of domestic comfort. Men might as well remain at home, unless they were pampered, fed and entertained here decently. It was not enough that the girls knew their stuff — though if girls worked for Priss Fotheringham, they certainly did. Gentlemen expected that there would be meat pies in a choice of flavours, dishes of oysters, fine wines, footstools, someone who could play a flute, books of undemanding love poems, and up-to-date copies of news-sheets, with both Royalist and Parliamentarian points of view.
Expensive claret was available to be taken on silver (well, pewter) trays to the finest rooms — claret which was more overpriced than ever, now that imports had been banned. For the half-hour, pay-a-few-pennies booths where the antique hags and girls who were just learning their trade worked, there was beer. It was brewed on the premises, brewed in fabulously large quantities by a waiflike solitary brewster. She kept to herself. She never went with men, regarding men as trouble. She had stayed here in the brothel because she believed she owed Priss something for extracting her from prison. Anyway, it was a job.
That evening she was alone in the kitchen. While the house was busy but all the men and girls were concentrating on the Half-Crown Chuck, or on more straightforward entertainment, and after Mrs Mildmay had gone home, this became the brewster's kingdom. The banked fire flickered on the whitewashed walls and glittered on the copper pans. It was warm; it was peaceful. It reminded the young woman of a kitchen in Birmingham where she had once been shown kindness. For company, she could hear the low hum of distant voices, congenial thumps, occasional bursts of music, soaring cheers and laughter. She was surrounded by happy people, yet had no need to interact with any.
Until now.
The bastard in the green velvet coat and gold-laced boot-hose had an arrogant strut and was more than tipsy. He wore an eyepatch shoved askew up on his forehead and tossed his blond ringlets in a way that she instantly recognised. He was foolishly proud of his luxurious coiffure and so sure of himself she almost laughed out loud. He made a dramatic start. 'What have we here? A choice morsel!'
'Not for you, Jem Starling!' riposted the brewster instantly. She would have kept quiet, but she saw that through his befuddlement he realised he knew her.
'Eliza!'
'Mistress Pernelle now'
'A good whore's name — ' Jem lunged towards her, falling over a joint-stool. 'You owe me a thrust, for giving me up to the constable — I'll have my revenge this minute — '
'You will not.' She felt oddly calm. That had something to do with three pints of her own brewed beer inside her. Since she last saw him, she had come through many experiences. She was like a forged sword: hammered, quenched, tempered, sharpened and polished; brought through fire and water to great strength and perfect balance. When she spoke, it was to her ears like the whip of a good weapon through the air. 'Take yourself off and forget you saw me. I have my own life and will not be bothered.'
'Damme, you'll repay your debts!'
'I owe no debts to you,' answered Mistress Pernelle, jumping up from the settle where she had been so cosy. She lost her temper, which seemed a good reaction to the possibility of losing everything. Why could men never leave a woman quietly by herself? Why must their uncontrollable jockums always drive them to impose themselves?
She snatched up a spectacular brass bed-warmer that had been preparing on the fire. Five foot long in the handle, the implement was burning hot and heavy with live coals inside it. She put all the effort she could into a mighty swing, expelling all her years of grief in the action. The great implement cracked Jem Starling's skull. He fell down without a cry and did not move. The warmer clanged to the floor, badly dented.
Mistress Pernelle sat back down on the settle very suddenly, white as ash, with her heart pounding.
'Blow me, you've only killed the blighter!' commented a new voice from the passage doorway. More trouble. A man was already in the room, bending over Jem's boots. 'If I tow him out into the yard, do I get the fun he was asking for?'
'Don't even dream of it.'
'Always worth a try! I'll dispose of him for you anyway. Let's chuck him over the gunnels before anybody cops us — ' A sailor. He was as good as his word, starting to pull the lifeless man to the back door. The girl rallied to help him, which speeded up the process. Beyond the door lay a lane, where Jem's body joined the drunks and riff- raff who were often found there, some clinging onto miserable life, some dead of cold or worse, all causing little public comment in this sordid area in the fields beyond the city walls. The sailor took coins from a pocket. 'Shall I save his boots?'
'I want nothing of his.'
'You knew him then.'
And I know you too, she thought to herself as they returned indoors. In the few moments while they removed the corpse, she had considered whether to say anything. One old acquaintance in a night was bad enough.
The sailor gazed at her. It was almost ten years since she had seen him. She had been about fourteen, and was now in her middle twenties, the age he must have been when he went away to sea. He was in his mid-thirties, a fit, lean man, dark-skinned from years of wind and weather, short, wiry, otherwise undistinguished-looking. One thing marked him out: he had the sing-song lilt of an ineradicable accent, one that came from as far inland as could be. She had noticed it immediately, feeling a pang of homesickness, and an urge to welcome him too. He had failed to spot that she spoke with the same intonation and vowels.
'Well, Mistress Pernelle!' The young sailor addressed her with the cocksure confidence of their home town. He had Midlands' goodheartedness too. He had known deprivation; he reacted kindly to her predicament. 'I covered him with leaves, nice and snug, but if he may be traced to you, you may like to think whether it is safe for you to remain here.'
She jumped up quickly, at that. With a pragmatic nod, she led the sailor down a passage to the brewhouse, where she normally slept on a mattress and kept her few belongings. Quickly putting together a bundle, she remarked that it had been in her mind to move on to a more respectable house. Brewing was a skill, she now realised; it could be marketed. The speed of her packing showed that her plans were already advanced. She turned her back and changed from her low-cut brothel gown into a plain skirt and jacket in unbleached linen, high on the neck, with a neat apron and white collar over it, clothes she must have hoarded ready for this day. She plumped a good hat on her head.
While he leaned on a malt shovel, waiting, the sailor revealed he too had dreams. He was carrying his savings and now planned to leave the sea, hoping to set up somewhere and earn his living on land.
'What can you do?'
'I can turn my hand to anything.'
'If you can work in a tavern,' suggested Mistress Pernelle, 'why don't you come along with me?'
'Do you have your own tavern, malt-masher?' chortled the sailor, with his easy grace.
'Not yet,' she quipped back, with the same wry humour. 'I shall have to begin in someone else's place, then persuade them to give it up to me.'
'Better bring your warming pan in case you need to bash heads.'
'No, that's Priss Fotheringham's own bed-warmer. I'll not be a thief — especially from her.'
'Well, it's true the pan got dinted badly. The next person who has it will be burned by the coals falling out. That should enliven the bawd's bed.'
'Say no more of bawds. My plan is to turn respectable.' She too had a few savings to bring to the venture, though she would not tell him so until she was sure that she trusted him not to drink or steal the money. 'We must go right across the city, where I am not known and the naval press-men will not look for you. Look out for purse- snatchers and pickpockets.'
They slipped out of doors and set off into the night. The sailor was intrigued. 'So why do you so suddenly trust your fortunes to a stranger?' At his side, the skinny brewster merely smiled, enjoying her mystery. 'My name is Nathaniel Tew — so who are you?'
