PROLOGUE
London,
14 May 1602
THE STREETS of Southwark were dark and deserted. The air smelled of waterweeds, sewage, and dead fish. He instinctively held her hand more tightly. “We ought to have gone straight along the riverside. Anyone could easily get lost in this tangle of alleyways,” he whispered.
“Yes, and there’s a thief or a murderer lurking around every corner.” She sounded pleased. “Wonderful, right? Much, much better than sitting in that stuffy room in the Temple building, doing homework!” She picked up the heavy skirts of her dress and hurried on.
He couldn’t suppress a grin. Lucy had a real gift for seeing the bright side of any situation in any historical period. Even Shakespeare’s England, which was supposed to be a Golden Age but looked distinctly sinister just now, held no terrors for Lucy. The opposite, if anything.
“A pity we never get more than three hours,” she said, as he caught up with her. “I’d have enjoyed Hamlet more if I hadn’t had to see it in installments.” She neatly avoided a squelchy puddle of mud. At least, he fervently hoped it was only mud. Then she performed a few dance steps and twirled around. “Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all … wasn’t that great?”
He nodded, and had to make a huge effort not to grin again. He grinned too often when he was with Lucy. If he didn’t watch out, he’d end up looking like some kind of village idiot.
They were on the way to London Bridge. It was a shame that Southwark Bridge, which would have been a much more convenient place for them to cross the river, wasn’t yet built. But they’d have to hurry if they didn’t want anyone at home to notice that they’d taken this secret trip to the early seventeenth century.
How thankful he would be to take off this stiff white ruff again! It felt like the big plastic collars that dogs have to wear after an operation.
Lucy turned the corner, making for the river. She still seemed to be thinking about Shakespeare. “How much did you give that man to let us into the Globe Theatre, Paul?”
“Four of those heavy coins—don’t ask me what they’re worth.” He laughed. “To him, they could well be a year’s wages.”
“Anyway, it worked. The seats were super.”
Walking fast, they reached London Bridge. Lucy stopped, as she had on their way to the theater, to look at the houses built right over the bridge. But he led her on. “You know what Mr. George said: if you stand under a window too long, someone’s going to empty a chamber pot on your head,” he reminded her. “And you’ll draw attention to yourself.”
“You’d never know you were standing on a bridge, would you? It looks like a perfectly normal street. Oh, look, a traffic jam! It’s about time they built a few more bridges.”
Unlike the side streets, the bridge was crowded with people, but the carts, carriages, and litters trying to get across to the opposite bank of the Thames could hardly inch their way forward. From up ahead, Lucy and Paul heard voices, curses, horses neighing, but they couldn’t see exactly what was holding up the traffic. A man in a black hat leaned out of the window of a coach right beside them. His starched, white lace ruff came up to his ears.
“Isn’t there some other way across this stinking river?” he called to his coachman in French.
The coachman shook his head. “Even if there was, we can’t turn back—we’re stuck! I’ll walk on ahead and find out what’s happened. I’m sure it will start moving again soon, monsieur.”
Grunting something, the man put his head, complete with hat and ruff, back inside the coach, while the coachman climbed down and made his way through the crowd.
“Did you hear that, Paul? They’re Frenchmen,” whispered Lucy, delighted. “Tourists!”
“Yes, terrific, but we must go on. We don’t have much time left.” He vaguely remembered reading that, at some point, this bridge had been demolished and rebuilt later fifteen yards farther along the river. Not a great place for time travel, then.
They followed the French coachman, but after a while, the people and vehicles were crammed so close together that there was no way of getting through.
“I heard a cart carrying casks of oil caught fire,” said the woman just ahead of them, to no one in particular. “If they don’t watch out, the whole bridge will go up in flames.”
“Though not today, as far as I know,” murmured Paul, taking Lucy’s arm. “Come on, let’s retrace our footsteps and wait to travel back on that side of the river.”
“Do you remember the password? Just in case we don’t make it in time?”
“Something about gutting caves, wasn’t it?”
“Gutta cavat lapidem, you idiot. Dripping water wears away stone.” Laughing, she looked up at him, her blue eyes bright with pleasure, and suddenly he remembered what his brother Falk had said when he asked about the perfect moment for doing what he wanted to do. “I wouldn’t make long speeches if I were you. I’d just do it,” Falk advised him. “The girl can only slap your face, and then you’ll know.”
Of course Falk had wondered aloud exactly who the girl in question was, but Paul didn’t want any of those discussions beginning, “You do know, of course, that any links between the de Villiers and Montrose families are purely a business relationship?” and ending, “What’s more, all the Montrose girls are silly cows, and later on they get to be dragons like Lady Arista.”
Silly cows, indeed! That might apply to the other Montrose girls, but definitely not Lucy.
Lucy, whom he loved more every day, to whom he’d confided things he had never told another living soul. Lucy, someone you could literally—
He took a deep breath.
“Why have you stopped?” asked Lucy, but he was already leaning down to press his lips to hers. For three seconds, he was afraid she was going to push him away, but then she seemed to get over her surprise. She returned his kiss, at first cautiously, then putting her heart into it.