When Gods Die

Chapter 26

Sebastian stayed talking to the ex-soldier for some time. He bought some beef roasted on a spit and some ale, and they ate it together and discussed in soldierlike detail the Portuguese campaign and the hardships of the last winter and Colonel Trant’s daring exploits in Coimbra. It was another ten minutes or more before Sebastian slowly brought the conversation around, again, to the dark-haired beauty in the red pelisse.

The soldier was convinced the lady had been alone. But he still could not remember seeing her leave; nor could he remember any of the other visitors to the inn that day.

Sebastian slipped another coin in the man’s cup and turned toward the inn door. Ducking his head to avoid the low lintel, Sebastian pushed into a common room thick with the smell of ale and warm, closely packed bodies. A roar of boisterous male voices mingled with the clatter of platters and the clink of pewter tankards. Then one man’s voice, louder than the others, carried clearly. “If you ask me, they ought to let the poor old King out and lock up his son. That’s what they ought to do.”

There was a moment’s hush, as though everyone in the room had paused at once to draw breath. Then another man, this one from the shadowy recesses of the darkly paneled room, grumbled, “Lock up the lot of them, you mean. They’re all as daft as me Granny Grim-letts. Every blasted one of them.”

A chorus of laughter and Hear, hear’s, swelled around the room as Sebastian worked his way toward the bar.

As unassuming as a shy young man just up from the country, he ordered a pint. Then he stood with one elbow resting on the bar, his gaze drifting slowly around the crowded room to the wide upward sweep of carpeted stairs just visible through the open doorway. Guinevere would never have come in here to the common room. But the inn had rooms upstairs and doubtless a private parlor, as well. The place might be far from fashionable, but it was nonetheless respectable, at least from the looks of things.

As for what a lady such as the Marchioness of Anglessey was doing here, in Smithfield, it seemed to Sebastian that the number of possible explanations was rapidly narrowing. There was only one reason he could think of for a lady to avoid the smart, fashionable hotels such as Steven’s or Limmer’s and seek out an inn so hopelessly outré that there could be no danger of her encountering any of her acquaintances here. But it was a reason Sebastian found himself oddly reluctant to credit.

Still sipping his ale, he shifted his attention to the innkeeper. He was a big man, tall and muscle-bound, with a shiny bald head and the broad nose and full lips of an African. But his skin was the palest café au lait, hinting at a heritage that was at least half-white, if not more.

The man was aware of Sebastian in that way all good innkeepers are aware of a stranger. When Sebastian ordered another pint, the big black man brought it over himself. “New to town, are you?” said the innkeeper, slapping the pint on the ancient, scarred boards between them.

The man’s accent was a slow drawl that whispered of magnolias and sun-baked fields and the crack of an overseer’s whip. Sebastian took a sip of his ale and gave the man a friendly smile. “I’m secretary to Squire Lawrence, up in Leicestershire. But my father spent some time in Georgia as a young man. Is that where you’re from?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “South Carolina.”

“You’re a long ways from home. Do you miss it?”

The black man peeled back his lips in a hard smile that showed his strong ivory teeth. “What do you think? I was born a slave in the summer of 1775, exactly one year before them Yankees come up with what they call their Declaration of Independence. You ever heard o’ it?”

“I don’t believe so, no.”

“Oh, it’s a grand-sounding piece o’ writin’, no gettin’ away from that. All about equality and natural rights and liberty. Only, them fine words, they was only meant for white folks, not for black slaves like me.”

Sebastian studied the thickness of the man’s strong neck, the way the veins stood out on his forehead. It was a long way for one man to have come, from being a slave on a South Carolina plantation to owning an inn on Giltspur Street in Smithfield. “I understand they’re a sanctimonious lot, the Americans.”

The black man laughed, a deep rumbling laugh that shook his chest. “Sanctimonious? Yeah, that’s a good one. They like to think they’re a glorious, godly nation, sure enough, like some shining beacon on a hill that’s gonna lead all mankind out o’ the darkness o’ tyranny and into the light. Only, look at what they done. They done killed all the red men and stole their land, and then they brung us black folks from Africa so’s we could do all the hard work and them white folks, they don’t need to get their lily-white hands dirty. Uh-uh.”

“Squire Lawrence always says the Americans really fought their revolution because the King refused to allow them to disavow their treaties with the red men.”

“Your Squire Lawrence sounds like a smart man.”

Sebastian leaned forward as if imparting a secret. “To be honest with you, the Squire asked me to come here to London to make a few inquiries for him. A few discreet inquiries,” Sebastian added with emphasis, clearing his throat and glancing hurriedly around, as if to make certain no one could overhear. “It’s his sister, you see. She left the protection of her home last week. We believe some folks from the village gave her a ride to Smithfield, and I’m hoping she might have come here. For a room.”

The big man’s broad African features remained impassive. “We don’t get a lot of ladies around here. You might try the Stanford, over on Snow Hill.”

“I checked there already. The thing is, you see, I’ve discovered that a lady was seen entering the Norfolk Arms, just last Wednesday. A young lady with dark hair and a red pelisse. Now, as far as I know, Miss Eleanor’s pelisse is green, but she certainly has dark hair, and she could always have bought herself a new pelisse, couldn’t she?” Sebastian paused, as if reluctant to divulge the truth. “I hesitate to say it, but we fear a man may be involved.”

The innkeeper wiped a cloth over the ring-marked surface of the bar. “Last Wednesday, you say?”

“Yes,” said Sebastian, all effusive eagerness. “Have you seen her?”

“Nah. I don’t know who told you such a daft thing, but we’ve had no ladies here. Must have been some farmer’s wife he seen, up for last week’s market.”

The innkeeper wandered away while Sebastian went back to sipping his ale and regarding his surroundings. The Norfolk Arms might be in Smithfield, but its clientele was not, for the most part, drawn from the likes of drovers and market people. The two Israelites conversing in low voices over near the window could probably buy and sell the King of England several times over, while at a table near the door, a small huddle of men was sharing a bottle of brandy.

Good French brandy, Sebastian noticed, his eyes narrowing. One of the men bore ink-stained fingers that suggested a clerk, while the rest had the look of barristers and solicitors from the nearby Inns of Court. As Sebastian watched, one older gentleman with a shock of graying hair and a powerfully jutting jaw raised his brandy and proposed a toast. “To the King!”

The words were quietly said, so quietly that someone with hearing less acute than Sebastian’s would never have heard them. The others at the table likewise raised their brandy, their voices murmuring, “Hear, hear, to the King,” as they deliberately waved their glasses above a nearby water pitcher before taking a sip.

Sebastian paused with his own ale halfway to his lips. To the King over the water. It was an old toast, dating back a hundred years or more, a ruse by which men could seemingly drink to the health of the reigning Hanoverian monarch while in reality maintaining their allegiance to that other king, the dethroned Stuart King James II and his descendants, condemned forever to live in exile.

Over the water.