“Master Hester’s shop is near Paul’s Wharf, marked with the sign of a still,” she continued.
“Thank you, Mistress Field.” Paul’s Wharf must be near St. Paul’s Churchyard, and I could go there that afternoon. I redrew my mental map of today’s excursion.
After we said our farewells, Fran?oise and Pierre turned down the lane toward home.
“I’m going on to the cathedral,” I said, heading in the other direction.
Impossibly, Pierre was standing before me. “Milord will not be pleased.”
“Milord is not here. Matthew left strict instructions that I wasn’t to go there without you. He didn’t say I was a prisoner in my own house.” I thrust the book and the buns at Fran?oise. “If Matthew returns before I do, tell him where we are and that I’ll be back soon.”
Fran?oise took the parcels, exchanged a long look with Pierre, and proceeded down Water Lane.
“Prenez garde, madame,” Pierre murmured as I passed him.
“I’m always careful,” I said calmly, stepping straight into a puddle.
Two coaches had collided and were jammed in the street leading to St. Paul’s. The lumbering vehicles resembled enclosed wagons and were nothing like the dashing carriages in Jane Austen films. I skirted them with Pierre on my heels, dodging the irritated horses and the no-less-irritated occupants, who stood in the middle of the street and shouted about who was to blame. Only the coachmen seemed unconcerned, chatting to each other quietly from their perches above the fray.
“Does this happen often?” I asked Pierre, pulling back my hood so that I could see him.
“These new conveyances are a nuisance,” he said sourly. “It was much better when people walked or rode horses. But it is no matter. They will never catch on.”
That’s what they told Henry Ford, I thought.
“How far is Paul’s Wharf?”
“Milord does not like John Hester.”
“That’s not what I asked, Pierre.”
“What does madame wish to purchase in the churchyard?” Pierre’s distraction technique was familiar to me from years in the classroom. But I had no intention of telling anyone the real reason we were picking our way across London.
“Books,” I said shortly. We entered the precincts of St. Paul’s, where every inch not taken up by paper was occupied by someone selling a good or service. A kindly middleaged man sat on a stool, inside a lean-to affixed to a shed, which was itself built up against one of the cathedral walls. This was by no means an unusual office environment for the place. A huddle of people gathered around his stall. If I were lucky, there would be a witch among them.
I made my way through the crowd. They all seemed to be human. What a disappointment.
The man looked up, startled, from a document he was carefully transcribing for a waiting customer. A scrivener. Please, let this not be William Shakespeare, I prayed.
“Can I help you, Mistress Roydon?” he said in a French accent. Not Shakespeare. But how did he know my identity?
“Do you have sealing wax? And red ink?”
“I am not an apothecary, Mistress Roydon, but a poor teacher.” His customers began to mutter about the scandalous profits enjoyed by grocers, apothecaries, and other extortionists.
“Mistress Field tells me that John Hester makes excellent sealing wax.” Heads turned in my direction.
“Rather expensive, though. So is his ink, which he makes from iris flowers.” The man’s assessment was confirmed by murmurs from the crowd.
“Can you point me in the direction of his shop?”
Pierre grabbed my elbow. “Non,” he hissed in my ear. As this only earned us more human attention, he quickly dropped it again.
The scrivener’s hand rose and pointed east. “You will find him at Paul’s Wharf. Go to the Bishop’s Head and then turn south. But Monsieur Cornu knows the way.”
I glanced back at Pierre, who was staring fixedly at a spot somewhere above my head. “Does he? Thank you.”
“That’s Matthew Roydon’s wife?” someone said with a chuckle as we stepped out of the throng. “Mon dieu. No wonder he looks exhausted.”
I didn’t move immediately in the direction of the apothecary. Instead, with my eyes fixed on the cathedral, I began a slow circumnavigation of its enormous bulk. It was surprisingly graceful given its size, but that unfortunate lightning strike had ruined its appearance forever.
“This is not the fastest way to the Bishop’s Head.” Pierre was one step behind me instead of his usual three and therefore ran into me when I stopped to look up.