The King's Diamond by Will Whitaker Page B

move she was both helping me and throwing up another barrier in my way.
    â€˜You are right,’ I told her. ‘I am feeling a good deal less thankful already.’
    She sat back in her chair, stroking the polished wooden knob of the seal, her face wearing a faint smile.
    â€˜Having second thoughts?’ she said.
    I reached for one of the goosefeather pens that stood in the pewter inkpot, and tapped off the excess ink.
    â€˜By God, no.’
    â€˜Wait!’ She put the seal down and leant towards me. ‘Dear Richard. You are taking a very great risk. And you are asking me to share in that risk too. Would it not be far, far better to stay with me? Work for the family business? Go where I advise, with our dear, trusted old Mr William to look after you? Build yourself up little by little: that is the best way in trade. You cannot swallow the whole world in one bite, my Richard. Why do you want to strike out fresh paths of your own, when there is so much for you here?’
    Her voice was soft and seductive. Before her on the table lay the two documents: one threatening me with its brutal terms of repayment; the other, I suspected, intended to daunt me with the sheer size of the loan. I saw plainly what she was up to. If I embarked on my venture and succeeded, she made a handsome profit; the thought of those two hundred marks doubtless attracted her. If I failed, I would be in her debt, and entirely in her power. I would have to work for years to pay off what I owed her, travelling where she sent me, and buying what she told me to buy. She would be able to remind me forever after that she had been right and I had been wrong. I wouldbecome her creature, a humble minion of the house of Dansey. Even if she never saw her money again, power like that was cheaply bought at a thousand marks. There would be no question of my ever affording another venture on my own.
    That was if I failed. But to succeed: to be my own man, to escape the Thameswater stink, the murky family world that had become a prison to me, and rise into a sphere my mother could not guess at, that was worth any risk.
    The ink on the pen tip had gone dry. I forced myself not to show my rage. I said, ‘Do you have any other conditions to add before I sign?’
    She rapped the seal on the table, suddenly irritated.
    â€˜Only that you take along a family servant, whom I shall pick for you. I would not like to think of you entirely alone on your wild errand. That is acceptable?’
    â€˜Very well.’
    I dipped the pen once more in the pot, angrily splashing ink on its pewter rim. ‘You will have your twelve hundred marks,’ I told her. ‘And I shall make my profit, I promise you.’
    I signed the document with a quick flourish, R. Dansey . It was done. I had mortgaged myself: there was no going back. My mother pulled the paper towards her and handed me the bill of exchange. She looked at me, thoughtful, and a little surprised, as if she had not expected me to accept her bargain. I stood up.
    â€˜Listen to me, my Richard,’ she said. ‘You have a sharp eye for gems, I will grant you that. But, by God, you have the heart of a child. See that you do not go the way of your father.’
    I looked back at her levelly. ‘I am following in no one’s footsteps. Not his, and certainly not yours.’
    She looked back up at me with a faint frown. ‘I am very much aware of that.’
    I folded the bill of exchange crisply in three, and stooped to kiss her on the cheek. Then I walked quickly out of the room, down thestairs and through the warehouse. I was fuming. That second document seemed to drag at me like a stone about my neck; a bargain with the Devil that one day I would be forced to pay. But as I emerged into the moist air of the riverside, my anger and fears left me, and I felt only exhilaration. That night, as I lay in my bedchamber, unsleeping, I worked out the various conversions and began to conceive all