The Triple Goddess (35 page)

When the last of them had gone, Carew noticed Arbella idling at a distance and beckoned her over.

‘So how did it go?’

Arbella smiled at the disingenuous question. ‘You’ve probably gathered that I took your advice and dropped the slip off the balcony. What followed was extraordinary to say the least, and I owe it all to you. Underwriters were like frenzied trout rising to a hatch of mayfly. If you ever have cause to feel wistful about your reputation having faded, I can assure you that it hasn’t and you needn’t. And it’s done me no end of good, if you can call it that, at the office. Thank you very much for that too.’

‘I’m glad. No doubt Mr Goldsack grabbed his share of the headlines.’

‘The whole front page. His image is now more lustrous than ever.’

‘He’s nobody’s fool and a lot pickier than people think. I suppose he wanted it all for himself?’

Arbella was not surprised by Carew’s percipience. ‘I couldn’t believe it, he used a special stamp with “one hundred per cent” pre-cast in it. But I just went to back to see him about that, and he agreed, as graciously as Bullion Bill is capable of behaving, to make do with twenty.

‘Which, while most people wouldn’t call that a definition of a man who is prepared to play second fiddle, at least means he accepts that he’s part of a market and not a one-man band. I do hope you’re all right with that: you seem to have been expecting something of the sort.

‘Here’s the slip. Isn’t it amazing how his line landed in the number two spot and dead straight? And there are twenty-one other hits, all higgledy-piggledy. That’s what I told Oink, it’s a real pig’s breakfast. Unlike his food that didn’t go down well but I don’t care. He’s hardly in a position to complain, I did him proud; or rather you did.’

‘Well done. Look, I’ve even found my old stamp and inked it up.’

Carew put his stamp, which was a wine-dark sea colour, down in the leader’s position above Goldsack’s, wrote two per cent against it in e
ncre de Havane
, entered the reference 001 in the boxes, signed it “Carew” in a sloping hand with a denuded goose quill, and rocked his wooden blotting-paper holder over it.

Arbella was thrilled to watch him writing his name, and held her breath while he did it for fear of distracting him or making the pen jump.

The underwriter sat back with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘It’s been many a long year since I did that, and I never thought it would happen again, which makes for a red letter day for me as well. At least my handwriting hasn’t deteriorated too much. And now I’ll have a card to enter and put in a file box. When the old risks expired I burned all the cards and used the boxes to keep flies in, so I’ll have to evict those.

‘Which is appropriate: while none of them ever caught a fish, I have now landed a contract for an entire fishing fleet all on my own!’

Both of them laughed.

‘Now then, shall we?’ Carew stood and buttoned his jacket. ‘The old man awaits.’

‘The old man?’

‘My father. You did say you wanted to see him again, didn’t you? Now’s your chance, if you can spare the time; which I’m sure you can’t, but it’s my visiting day, and as much as he always says he doesn’t want to see me, though he would never admit it he’d be most put out if I didn’t show up. You can leave your slipcase on the box, no broker would ever touch another’s, not even yours.’

Arbella, trying to remain calm, folded her precious document, tucked it carefully away, and followed Carew out of the Room.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Carew walked quickly and only slowed when they got to Trinity Square Gardens. ‘I wonder,’ he said, eyeing the tourists, ‘if we might sit for a moment before we go over. There are a few other things you ought to know about my father before we beard the lion in his den.’

Several pigeons flew off an unoccupied bench as they approached, and after inspecting it they took the cleaner end. ‘You should know,’ Carew said gravely, ‘that my father is possessed by the desire to make another voyage. A final final one.’

Arbella had no time to register how ridiculous this latest revelation was. ‘At his age? Well, not age in the sense of...but in this era? Where would he go? There can’t be many places left to explore; bits of Antarctica, I suppose, though there will soon be chain hotels going up even there, on beaches instead of being surrounded by icebergs. These days, as Cleopatra said, “…there is nothing left remarkable |Beneath the visiting moon.”’

‘There is to him: El Dorado. El Dorado still awaits him, he is convinced of it.’

‘Perhaps Bullion Bill would take him. He must know where it is, maybe he even owns it.’

‘Two egos like that in the same ship? They’d kill each other before they left port, and if not then, when they fall out over the spoils.’

‘El Dorado,’ said Arbella, wanting to get a historical perspective on the situation, ‘is the mythical capital of Guiana, and refuge of the defeated Incas. It is said to lie at the source of the Caroni river, which is a tributary of the Orinoco.’

‘My father still believes in the city; that it is made of gold, and that blocks of it lie about the place like logs for anyone to pick up who happens by. It’s Mr William Goldsack’s dream of paradise, a Carrara for gold instead of marble except one doesn’t have to go to the trouble of quarrying the stuff.’

‘But El Dorado doesn’t exist.’

Carew looked straight ahead. ‘It does to Sir Walter Ralegh, though whether in actuality or figuratively I can’t tell. His idea of Guiana remains that of the country he once described, in a report to Lord Cecil, as “a country that hath yet her maidenhood.”

‘It’s not gold he hankers for any more, or the spirit of adventure. By returning to the scene of Wat’s death, he imagines that he might find some means of puncturing the membrane that separates life from death; of neutralizing the Cordial’s effect and enabling him to escape the living Purgatory he is in. The man today is very far from being the one who is remembered for the bravado and wit of his speech from the block; for the things he said to the headsman, and the pipe he smoked in front of the King to rile him.’

Arbella remembered. ‘It was that stunt that started the tradition of allowing condemned men a final cigarette.’

Carew continued, ‘Every human being, he says, needs the certainty of death to give meaning to life, and depth and context. Without it one can only ponder new horizons without any prospect of reaching them. Nothing can ever be proved, no ambition realized, no plan consummated. That is why he is so unhappy in his durance. The rest of us have not taken it as hard as he has.’

‘Is there any help that one might offer him, which he would deem acceptable?’

‘Papa has never taken on board anything I have to say. He refuses my emotional support. If either of his sons had to die, he wishes it had been me; that’s a cruel thing to say but it’s true. Wat was everything he wanted in a son; whereas to him I was always a skulking scholar, a milquetoast who dabbled in finance because he wasn’t brave enough to live like the man he was.

‘Papa always said I must have come from the Throckmorton side of the family, because he recognized nothing of himself in me.’

‘Surely you undervalue your importance to him. You have been his prop and mainstay ever since.’

‘I was in an old village church once, in the country, and there was a tablet on the wall, on which was written the epitaph of an eighteenth century boy who died at the age of twelve years and six months. I memorized the words, because they seemed such a perfect encapsulation of how the loss of a beloved person creates a memory of perfection that can never be sullied:

‘

The Good Talents he had received from Nature

Were improved by Reflections even at that Tender Age.

He was not only Innocent in his Manners,

But Virtuous upon Principle:

His truly Amiable Temper,

His sacred Regard to Truth & Sincerity,

His Affection & Duty to his Parents

Procured him the Love of all that knew him,

That can only be Equalled by their Sorrow for his Loss.

‘That’s how my father thinks of Wat. After his death he adopted Henry, the Prince of Wales, as his surrogate, and when Henry died, allegedly of typhoid fever, it broke his heart for the second time.

‘The Prince shared my father’s love of the sea and enthusiasm for exploration, though Henry had no first-hand experience of it. His most valued possession was a model ship that Papa made for him as a child; he was clutching it as his spirit left him. He was a brave lad. He had no love for his father King James, and publicly expressed great affection and sympathy for Sir Walter. “No man but my father,” said Prince Henry, “would keep such a bird in a cage.”

‘Papa often quotes that remark, to contrast it with my own statement that, “Sir Walter Ralegh was condemned for being a friend to the Spaniard, and lost his life for being their enemy.” I got into very hot political water for saying that, I can tell you, but he thought no better of me for it.’

‘Frankly,’ said Arbella, ‘it seems to me that you are more like your father than Wat ever was. You have Sir Walter’s brains, and have repeatedly risked your career and livelihood in the pursuit of your beliefs. You created a great and enduring institution that epitomizes the highest standards of ethical behaviour. Lloyd’s of London is a symbol of trust and honour throughout the world. He should be proud of what you have achieved.’

Carew pointed to the Tower and started to get up. ‘Shall we?’

At the busy road they had to wait some time for a break in the heavy traffic of lorries belching diesel fumes; but finally the light at the junction of Byward Street and Great Tower Street turned red, and they dodged across.

Carew led the way down Petty Wales to the Middle tower entrance to the Tower of London, where a Yeoman Warder was puffing his chest and bawling, ‘Nah then nah then let’s be ’avin’ yer’, to the tourists milling around the ticket office. ‘Move along there move along.’

As before they were greeted and waved on through by Beefeater George, who hoped that Carew’s raven-damaged foot had healed satisfactorily, and that Arbella had not caught a chill after the thunderstorm. ‘You spend so much time ’ere, missy,’ he said, ‘you should consider becomin’ a tour guide. Then we’d be able to see even more of you.’ George nudged Carew and winked at him.

They made directly for the Bloody tower and began climbing the stairs, with Carew taking them two at a time while Arbella followed slowly in her high heels on the uneven steps. At a landing there was a velvet rope across the foot of the staircase where it continued on up, and a sign on a stand advising that the level above was closed to the public until the following morning. Carew detached the brass hook from the ring on the wall, held the rope aside for Arbella, and reattached the rope behind himself.

In front of them was a stout oaken door, cross-grained with iron bands and studs. Carew hammered on it and they waited in silence.

After a moment there was a shuffling sound on the stone floor, a drawing of bolts, a jangle of keys and the clunk of the lock being turned twice. The door swung wide to reveal a small, harassed-looking man with shoulder-length hair like Carew’s, except that it was grey and lank. A hank of it stood out from the side of his head. He was dressed in a faded doublet and hose, over which a cotton apron with a frilly edge and orange flowers on it was tied at the waist. He was wiping his hands on a dish towel.

The man started at the sight of Arbella and took a step backwards. Then he made a slight bow. ‘Good morrow, milady.’ Arbella heard his back click as he straightened.

Arbella smiled. ‘Good morrow to you.’

Before anyone could say anything further, there was a roar from within. ‘Grammaticus! Where is my coffee, sirrah? Cometh it from Africa? A man cannot expel berlady scholarship onto the berlady page without coffee and lots of it. And bring firewood and a shawl; methinks I think I caught a chill walking on the leads last night.’

Ralegh’s servant Grammaticus, as Arbella assumed him to be, rolled his eyes. ‘Prithee come ye in, come ye in,’ he said. He closed the door behind them, locked it again, deposited the keys on a table by the entry way, and picked up an earthenware coffee-pot that had been set there. He must have been carrying it through from the kitchen when he was diverted by Carew’s knock.

Arbella said, ‘Does he really need a fire going at this time of year?’ The sun was streaming through the open door from the living room windows and down the passageway.

‘Fires in summer, milady, open windows in winter. That’s the way he is.’ Grammaticus turned and shouted. ‘Master Carew is here, and...’

‘Send him away!’ came the blast from within. ‘Damn, that moth-eaten raven just be-shat my manuscript. God, what hath it been eating? And now it tryeth to bite me.’

‘Ravens do not bite,’ roared back Grammaticus, raising his eyebrows at Carew; ‘it is an edentulous species.’

‘The bird hath a beak the size of a mattock. I will pluck it for its quills to write with and have it roasted alive.’