Page 61 of The Phoenix Bride
The next day, I have my morning appointment, and then I go toTemple Bar, running a little late. When I arrive, Jan is not there.
I presume irritably that he is late because he is hungover—as I am—or because he spent the entire night at Mother Tiffin’s, as I know he went back there after we parted ways. I spend a good forty minutes sitting by myself in the booth, scowling, before the serving girl comes and demands I buy something or get out.
I leave the coffeehouse, going for a walk around the neighborhood. Once I return it is over an hour past the time we are supposed to meet. I walk again. He is still not there. I am now concerned.
His house is nearby, so I go there first. No one answers my knocks. The only other solution I can think of is Mother Tiffin’s, so I pay for a cabbie to take me there. I walk down the narrowstreet with a growing sense of foreboding, and I stop to find the place with its windows smashed, door broken on its hinges.
I stare at it, horror slowly filling my belly. There is a candle seller in the store opposite, so I turn around and enter cautiously into the shop, the bell above the door announcing my arrival. The room smells strongly of tallow and oil. A portly, red-faced man stands by a counter in the corner, snipping at old wicks. Hegrowls a greeting, but he seems more interested in his task thanme.
“Pardon,” I say, and he glances up. “Do you know what happened to the alehouse across from here?”
He raises his brows. “The molly house, you mean? ’Twere raided in the night by the constables. They all got dragged to the bailey.”
I groan. “Jan,burro,” I say to myself.
“Good luck you weren’t there, then,” the man says. “Nasty business, if you ask me. I knew Ma myself. Nice lass. The fellers, too. They weren’t harming no one.”
I thank him and leave, swearing softly under my breath. This has happened before. Never when I was at Tiffin’s, but at least twice when Jan was; the charges had amounted to nothing—a slap on the wrist and a small fine—but there is always the risk of a particularly zealous bailiff and a quick march to the noose.
Beginning the short walk to the bailey, I press my fingers against my money pouch, wondering if I have enough on me for a bribe; I imagine not. I would pray now, if I felt as if it would do anything. I know, intellectually, that Jan is likely to be fine—but my imagination is often cruel. I see gallows in my mind, the jeering of a crowd. My grip on the pouch tightens.
When I reach the monolithic edifice of the bailey, the outside is heaving with people waiting to petition. It is as representative a group of Londoners as I have ever seen: distraught mothers,sozzled gentlemen, bedraggled children weaving between legs. The highest and the lowest of the city, all united in the need for complaint.
If Jan was arrested the previous night, he will have had his trial by now. There is nothing for me to do except wait by the gate and hope I can see him as he is led out of the courtroom. I lean against the brick wall and measure my breathing, trying to tamp down my anxiety.
The last time I was here, waiting for Jan, Manuel had been with me.
It was the spring before the summer he’d died. We’d been walking together, discussing the Royal Society’s most recent lecture, when we’d passed Tiffin’s and I noticed it had been cleared out. The panic I’d felt then—Manuel had seen it in my face immediately. He’d said, “David, please, it’ll be all right,” as I gasped for breath. In Portugal, such an arrest would have invariably led to an execution. I’d known that Jan had been there; I’d been certain he’d die for it.
There is an irony to that now, standing beside Manuel on that April day, weeping in terror thatJanwould be lost to me.
Manuel had come with me to the bailey. We stood in this very spot, him watching me with his amber-brown eyes, lids half lowered. He knew what the molly house was; he had inferred, as anyone would, that I had a friend there because I sometimes frequented it myself. I kept waiting for judgment or disgust, but he waited with me in the same, silent placidity he always did, soothing me occasionally with soft smiles and platitudes.
It made it worse, somehow, that he wasn’t disgusted, that he wasn’t shocked. If he had been, it would have justified my cowardice. If he had been, then I would have been certain he’d never caught on, he’d never realized what I felt.
But even then, I didn’t tell him. We stood together in front ofthe bailey, and everything I’d left unsaid curled like smoke between us, disappearing into the breeze. And when Jan came out—exhausted, shaking, but well enough—I had been so relieved I’d laughed, and Manuel had laughed with me.
There is no one here to laugh with me now.
I press my back more firmly against the wall, cross my arms, close my eyes. Even here in the shade, it is mercilessly hot. I can almost pretend I am in Lisbon, imagine cicadas chirruping from the trees edging our home, the ripe-sweet scent of the pomegranates.
There is a loud, creaking sound—the gate swinging—and my eyes fly open. A dozen men in various states of disorder are pouring out of the bailey, their clothes covered in mud, blood, or both. Laughing in joy at their escape, many of them embrace as they limp or scurry away. Among the crowd is Jan, who appears uninjured; when he spots me, he gives a great cry of pleasure before loping toward me.
“David!” he says, sweeping me into a hug. “You are here! How?”
“We were supposed to meet this morning, remember? I heard what happened at Mother Tiffin’s. I came to find you.”
He takes a step back and shakes his head. “Yes, of course. I…Terrible,” he says. “It was terrible. A few managed to flee, but the rest of us were taken. The constables were rough, too.”
“Are any of your friends in need of a doctor? Are you?”
“Good of you to ask, but no. We have been fortunate—only scratches. And released, also, albeit several sovereigns lighter.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I turn away from him. My memories of Manuel, the strain of the morning—the ever-lingering thought ofCecilia, Cecilia, Cecilia,like a drumbeat beneath all else—these things have affected me more than I thought they would.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I say roughly. “I was terrified.”
“Ah,schatje,” he replies, using the Dutch term fordearest,and he embraces me. “Courage, David. It would take more than this to fell me.”
