Mama grabbed my hand, spun round and marched away. What? Adventurers didn’t…
George Symons raced after us. If I ever repeated the words he shouted, Mama would have taken me to the edge of the city and left me there. Mama just carried on walking. George Symons grabbed her arm and we jolted to a stop. Mama didn’t like anyone to touch her and I saw her warning-face flash on. George Symons wisely let her go.
She said, “I’m not travelling with Portuguese.”
“Not all the crew are Portuguese.”
“The Portuguese stole me from my family. I will not travel with them. I do not believe that they will take me where I want to go.”
George Symons dared to touch Mama’s arm again, but gently. “Please take the boat. You will be safe. You’re only travelling to Southampton.”
“I would not travel across to London with them.”
“You have my word.”
“I don’t trust your word. I don’t trust anybody’s word.”
She started walking again, pulling me after her.
“Then our whole plan is ruined,” he said.
“Yes,” Mama said. “Our whole plan is ruined if there is only one way to travel to Southampton.”
“He already has my money! I had to pay him extra too, because you’re a woman.”
Mama laughed. “Yes, a woman on a boat is supposed to bring bad luck, unless you’ve stolen her away from her family.”
A little smile played on George Symons’ lips. “But you’ve already given up your lodgings. Will you and your child walk the streets?”
Mama stared him down. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
That was true, but I had hoped that fighting the giant rat in the grain store would be the last time. We once stole into a sheepcote and I’d spent the night cuddling up to a ewe for warmth. That hadn’t been so bad, even if the owner was most displeased to see us in the morning.
Mama walked quickly like she already knew our destination. George Symons puffed by the side of us.
“Please,” he said. “Stop.”
Mama stopped. The bridge was up ahead. The tide was low and the water between the piers seemed almost still. Grey smoke curled from the merchants’ houses above the arches. The gates into London must have been open because there was already a queue of carts waiting to cross over.
Mama turned to face him, hands on her hips. “I have stopped, Master Symons. What do you wish to say to me?”
“There’s a dyer’s son,” he said. “I met him in the Saracen last week. He’d come up from Winchester to deliver alum to Cloth Fair. He was waiting for some dresses to be made up for his sisters and mother. If he hasn’t already left, perhaps I can persuade him to deliver you to Winchester. From there, it’s an easy journey on to Southampton. Does that route suit you better?”
“Yes,” Mama said. “It does.”
“He’s lodging at the Old Swan. Shall we take our chances on the bridge?”
I nodded so hard, I’m surprised my head didn’t bounce off and hit a wherryman.
I only had to take one step on to the bridge to know that I wasn’t in Southwark any more. Southwark looks like a giant has wrapped his arms around it and squeezed. The houses lean towards each other, squashed in the middle and bulging out at the top so you can almost reach out from the top storeys and touch each other’s hands over the road. The alleys wind and wriggle between the houses, sometimes barely wide enough for a starving dog, sometimes leading to a sudden dead end. These are the haunts of vagabonds and thieves and those with no bed, or even a sheepcote, for the night.
The houses and shops on the bridge are different. It’s like the giant clapped the buildings into a block and poked a stick through the length of it to make a pathway. The top storeys of the houses swell over the road, and over the water as well.
The gateway loomed above me. A few years ago, we were lodging in an attic off Long Southwark. Our tiny window faced out towards the river and the first thing I’d see as the sun came up was the dark circles of the traitors’ heads on their long stems sprouting out from the roof of the gate. I had never longed to get any closer, but here I was, staring up at the bulging shapes. I used to think that traitors turned that black colour when they died, but Mama said the heads were preserved in tar to make them last longer. Birds swooped around them, looking for, well, untarred bits and left their own white decorations. Today there were five heads. When we lived in Tooley Street, I once counted more than twenty.
I looked away towards the rainbow house in the middle of the bridge. That’s not its proper name, but it should have been. It covers the whole width of the bridge with an arch in the middle to pass through. Two carts were jammed in front of the arch. They had been trying to edge past each other, but their wheels had become locked together. The carters were yelling and so were all the people trying to get past them. George Symons went to push his way through the crowds, but Mama didn’t follow. I was happy to wait, staring at the colourful house and its strange onion-topped towers and gold weather vanes. If I was a good adventurer, would I have enough money to buy a house like that? If I did, it wouldn’t be over a river.
The carters finally decided to take action. The one heading south persuaded his horse to back up to let the other one pass. After they’d exchanged a few more curses, the way was clear. Well, clear apart from all the other carts and people on horseback and beggars and customers
