Page 14 of The King's Man
Thamsine took the ale and turned without looking, colliding with a man who had just entered. Ale slopped from the pot over his jacket.
‘You stupid girl,’ the man roared.
‘Why doncha watch where ye’re going?’ Thamsine snapped back, employing her best cockney accent.
‘Now then, Dutton, it was an accident,’ Kit said as Thamsine set the jack down and grabbed the cloth from the table where she had left it and began dabbing ineffectually at the man’s damp coat.
‘Don’t I know you?’ Dutton demanded, peering at Thamsine’s face.
Thamsine straightened and looked him in the face. The man, middle-aged with fair, greying hair and a moustache and beard of a style fashionable ten years previously, was a stranger to her.
‘I don’t think so, sir,’ she said.
‘Damn it, I never forget a face,’ Dutton persisted.
‘Too many taverns, Dutton,’ Kit said. He clapped a hand on the man’s shoulder and turned him toward the private parlour. ‘Forget about this wench. The others are waiting.’
Dutton cast Thamsine one long, last furious look as Kit propelled him away from her.
Jem clapped a hand on Thamsine’s shoulder. ‘Don’t take Cap’n Dutton to heart, lass. He’s a sad excuse for a man. Reckon he’s already had a skinful tonight.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the fireplace. ‘Go on, give us a song. Abel’s waiting.’
In the corner by the fireplace, an elderly man had produced a fiddle and struck up a tune. Thamsine set the remains of the jack of ale down beside him and climbed up onto an empty stool.
‘Come cease your songs of cuckold’s row,
For now ’tis something stale,
And let us sing of beggars now,
For that’s in general,
In city and in country,
Men from high to low,
In each degree of quality,
Are beggars all a row.’
The taproom fell silent, the audience listening in rapt attention and occasionally adding an intercession in agreement with the sentiments of the words.
At the door to the private parlour, Kit Lovell leaned against the doorframe, a jack of ale in his hand, to listen. Even with the light behind him and his face in the darkness, she felt his eyes on her face and she felt as if she sang just for him.
‘I saw a handsome proper youth,
And he was wondrous fine,
But when I understood the truth,
His case was worse than mine,
On wine and drabs, he did all spend,
Which wrought his overthrow,
So fortune plac’d him in the end,
With beggars all a row.’
