The King's Diamond by Will Whitaker

and trusts. Why should he trouble himself with you?’
    I turned on her. ‘My jewels will be better.’
    â€˜Hm!’ It was a grunt of amusement. ‘How, in the name of all the saints, will you accomplish that?’
    I swung myself down on to a stool and crouched towards her table. William, I noticed, had his eye on me. He was sharp, for all his dropsical appearance, and he was measuring me up just as surely as my mother. ‘The stones that flow into London come to us from Antwerp or Bruges, and before that from Genoa or Venice. The Italians and French keep the best for themselves: Heyes and the others simply sit on Cheapside and wait for what the traders bring them. I shall not do that. I shall go to Venice, and catch the gems as they land from the East. I shall bring back such stones as have not been seen. I shall …’
    â€˜Why not go further?’ said William, with his half-smile. ‘To Cairo, or even to Serendip or Golconda?’ He was testing me, trying out just how fantastically high my plans might soar. I shook my head.
    â€˜There is too little time. To make my profit, I must be in with the first. When the lady succumbs to the King’s charms, the flow of gifts will slow. Henry will no longer want what is most rare and fine. A fewlittle tokens will do. Like the New Year’s gifts he still sends to Bessie Blount.’
    William sat back and nodded. ‘I see I am to lose you, Mr Richard.’ He glanced across at my mother, who tapped the table with her fingers in impatience.
    â€˜I shall be the one to decide that.’ She turned back to me. ‘And so you are asking me for a loan. A very, very large one. That is it?’
    I stood before her and nodded. The Widow of Thames Street frowned. She rapped the Dansey seal on the table and said, ‘I shall settle nothing until the Rose comes home.’
    Mr William was due to set out any day, and myself along with him. I had hoped to avoid this voyage. I put my hands on the table. ‘But that will be too late: speed is everything. Surely you see that?’
    My mother stood up slowly and rested her hands next to mine. She said softly, ‘I see you are running ahead a little too fast.’
    I looked back at her, angry. ‘Very well,’ I told her. ‘Let the Rose sail first. But I am not going with her. My place is here, where I can watch the Court.’
    My mother drew in her breath and lowered her brows for a fight. But then she appeared to change her mind, and smiled. ‘As you prefer.’
    I turned and walked out of the room. It was two weeks before the Rose at last dropped downstream from the Tower with the tide and vanished out to sea, carrying her usual outward cargo of dank-smelling English woollens. It might be months before her return. I waited with impatience. I tried to believe that my mother intended to use some of the profits of the Rose ’s venture to fund my own; but more likely she hoped to weaken my purpose through delay. I spent the time moodily patrolling the town for news. I had to know I was right: and I had to know the lady’s name. I needed to have a face, a form, a mode of beauty in my mind before I began to buy: for stones are as varied and fickle as women themselves. But my Uncle Bennet could tell me nothing of any new royal mistress. All the news fromCourt was of the ambassadors from France, and the new Holy Catholic League that the Pope was forming to fight the overreaching ambition of the Empire and fling the Spanish and German armies out of Italy. His Holiness had been joined in this alliance by Florence and Venice, and then by France, and these states were busily employed in raising armies. But our own King, after swift deliberation, had decided on strict neutrality. That way, said Bennet, Henry could be the peace-maker, the one all the other powers came to, begging for help and offering favours in return. With this pleasant thought, King Henry had left London