petticoats and high-heeled, pom-pommed shoes. In the India shop languid men and women sipped tea in an exotic-smelling cave while rolls of Smyrna cottons and Persian silk were flung down for their inspection. Next door, the lace shop frothed with Burgundian, Holland, cut and point-work that shaded from clotted cream to May blossom. 'I'll have some of the Flanders for baby's bib,' a female customer was saying. 'Eighteen shillings a yard? Extortion. Oh well, if one must, one must.'
Eighteen shillings. With eighteen shillings the unknown mother and baby who'd died in Dog Yard would be living yet.
At Bride Lane they parted. Peter Simkin entered the curl- icued portals of the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks Hall and handed in the list. The secretary who took it gave it a glance and said: 'St Giles up again, Master Simkin? More pox, I'll be bound.'
But as he dined off steak pie and porter at the Ring o' Bells in the Vintry, Peter Simkin heard his fellow-clerks from St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster and St Clement Danes admit that their lists were up too.
'Like our Searcher says, the cold nipped 'em,' said St Clement Danes, and the others agreed.
The talk turned to the war against the Dutch, but it seemed to Peter Simkin that the steak pie and porter lacked their usual flavour.
Outside, Penitence was waiting for him. He handed her a thumb-bread he'd saved from dinner. 'Any luck?'
Munching, Penitence shook her head. 'P-p-printing's out.'
The week before she had abandoned the idea of sewing as an employment prospect; London was awash with Huguenots escaping from Louis XIV's persecution, and all of them, as far as she could tell, were in the clothing trade. The answer was always the same: there were more seamstresses than there was work.
Today she'd tried peddling her other expertise and gone round every printing shop in the area of St Paul's, to be told they rarely employed journeyman printers and didn't employ women at all.
She'd been surprised to discover how few master printers there were. The recent Licensing Act, it appeared, limited their number to thirty-six. 'Is that L-London?' She'd asked at Stationers' Hall. The porter, who was ushering her out, shook his head. 'Country-wide.'
A country with only thirty-six printers. And them only allowed to print what they're told. There'd been more in New England; admittedly they'd mostly been small, apart from the one in Cambridge, but they'd been free. Small wonder there were so many illegal cock-robin shops, like the one in the Rookery's Goat Alley. She blamed it on the King. Cromwell wouldn't have stood for it.
'Ain't you got no other skills?' asked Peter Simkin, sympathetically. She hadn't; at least, none that would give her employment. There wasn't much call in London for tracking moose.
From her balcony that night Penitence Hurd watched the sun go down. Then she went to bed. Then she got up again and watched the moon come up.
What is it? What was calling her? What demon down there in the scented night was whispering this itch into her veins?
Perhaps it was the war. The City that day had throbbed with hatred against the Dutch; merchants grumbling that Norway was nothing more than the United Provinces' forest, that the Rhine banks and the Dordogne were just Dutch vineyards, that Spain and Ireland grazed Hollandish sheep, that the Bank of Amsterdam dominated trade between the Old and the New Worlds.
Bartholomew the Dutch. She didn't give a fig for them, or the war. Some older battle was pulsing in her blood, some unchristian thing which this night had rolled up all the springiness of springtime into a cowslip ball and tossed it into her lap.
She crossed her attic and opened the shutters of the other window merely to let in more air, and happened to notice, not that she was interested, that the play-actor's window was in darkness. He hadn't come back from Drury Lane yet.
The man was making a considerable impact on Dog Yard, which had taken to him, or, as
Eighteen shillings. With eighteen shillings the unknown mother and baby who'd died in Dog Yard would be living yet.
At Bride Lane they parted. Peter Simkin entered the curl- icued portals of the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks Hall and handed in the list. The secretary who took it gave it a glance and said: 'St Giles up again, Master Simkin? More pox, I'll be bound.'
But as he dined off steak pie and porter at the Ring o' Bells in the Vintry, Peter Simkin heard his fellow-clerks from St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster and St Clement Danes admit that their lists were up too.
'Like our Searcher says, the cold nipped 'em,' said St Clement Danes, and the others agreed.
The talk turned to the war against the Dutch, but it seemed to Peter Simkin that the steak pie and porter lacked their usual flavour.
Outside, Penitence was waiting for him. He handed her a thumb-bread he'd saved from dinner. 'Any luck?'
Munching, Penitence shook her head. 'P-p-printing's out.'
The week before she had abandoned the idea of sewing as an employment prospect; London was awash with Huguenots escaping from Louis XIV's persecution, and all of them, as far as she could tell, were in the clothing trade. The answer was always the same: there were more seamstresses than there was work.
Today she'd tried peddling her other expertise and gone round every printing shop in the area of St Paul's, to be told they rarely employed journeyman printers and didn't employ women at all.
She'd been surprised to discover how few master printers there were. The recent Licensing Act, it appeared, limited their number to thirty-six. 'Is that L-London?' She'd asked at Stationers' Hall. The porter, who was ushering her out, shook his head. 'Country-wide.'
A country with only thirty-six printers. And them only allowed to print what they're told. There'd been more in New England; admittedly they'd mostly been small, apart from the one in Cambridge, but they'd been free. Small wonder there were so many illegal cock-robin shops, like the one in the Rookery's Goat Alley. She blamed it on the King. Cromwell wouldn't have stood for it.
'Ain't you got no other skills?' asked Peter Simkin, sympathetically. She hadn't; at least, none that would give her employment. There wasn't much call in London for tracking moose.
From her balcony that night Penitence Hurd watched the sun go down. Then she went to bed. Then she got up again and watched the moon come up.
What is it? What was calling her? What demon down there in the scented night was whispering this itch into her veins?
Perhaps it was the war. The City that day had throbbed with hatred against the Dutch; merchants grumbling that Norway was nothing more than the United Provinces' forest, that the Rhine banks and the Dordogne were just Dutch vineyards, that Spain and Ireland grazed Hollandish sheep, that the Bank of Amsterdam dominated trade between the Old and the New Worlds.
Bartholomew the Dutch. She didn't give a fig for them, or the war. Some older battle was pulsing in her blood, some unchristian thing which this night had rolled up all the springiness of springtime into a cowslip ball and tossed it into her lap.
She crossed her attic and opened the shutters of the other window merely to let in more air, and happened to notice, not that she was interested, that the play-actor's window was in darkness. He hadn't come back from Drury Lane yet.
The man was making a considerable impact on Dog Yard, which had taken to him, or, as
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