The Armourer's House

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  Tamsyn didn’t say anything about the snow, because she knew that if she did, the Almost-Twins would come rushing over to look, and she wanted her window-sill and the scarlet tulip all to herself. But she didn’t have it like that very long, because as soon as Littlest had finished his bread and raisins and wiped some of the stickiness off on Bunch, he came trundling over to join her. Still, she didn’t mind Littlest, any more than she would have minded Piers. She liked Littlest and Piers best of all the Dolphin House family.

  ‘Tamsyn,’ said Littlest firmly, ‘help Littlest up,’ and he began to scramble up on to the window-sill.

  Tamsyn put her arms round his middle and heaved him up beside her. ‘Upsy-daisy.’

  ‘Littlest loves you,’ said Littlest, staggering to his feet on the cushions and holding on to her face to keep himself steady.

  Tamsyn hugged him close, feeling all warm inside because he was such a dear little boy. ‘Do you, Littlest?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yiss,’ said Littlest. And then he saw the whiteness outside. ‘Snow!’ he shouted, very pleased with himself for having remembered since last year. ‘Snow! Snow! Snow in dis street! Littlest likes snow.’ And he began to jig up and down, holding on to Tamsyn’s face with one hand and beating Lammy’s tin legs against the window with the other, because of being so pleased.

  Then of course the Almost-Twins came rushing from the fire and flung themselves against the window to look, breathing all over the panes so that the little, dancing candle-flames were blotted out, and shouting and exclaiming and making a great deal of noise. And in the middle of it all there came a bobbing torch down below, and a knocking at the workshop door – and Uncle Martin had arrived!

  The Almost-Twins made a rush towards the stairs, but somehow Tamsyn got there before them, even though she had remembered to lift Littlest down from the window-sill first. She kilted up her brown skirts and went whirling down and down and round and round, calling as she ran, ‘Uncle Martin! Uncle Martin! It’s me! I’m coming! It’s me, Uncle Martin!’

  The workshop was full of the leaping red light of the forge fire, so that it glowed like the heart of a ruby; and the street door was open, and there, with the whirling snow-storm behind him, was Uncle Martin, square and blithe and ruddy, beating the snow from his bonnet, and Uncle Gideon, still in his leather apron, striding to meet him with hand outstretched. But Tamsyn got there first! With one final squeal of ‘It’s me, Uncle Martin!’ she flew straight into his arms, and Uncle Martin caught her up and hugged her as though he never meant to leave off.

  ‘Tamsy!’ said Uncle Martin. ‘Why, Tamsy, my honey, how you’ve grown!’

  And Tamsyn drove her nose harder and harder into his chest, and dragged him down and clung round his neck, and all she could say, and she couldn’t say that very clearly, because of her nose being so squashed, was just ‘Uncle Bartid! Uncle Bartid!’ over and over again. At last Uncle Martin stopped hugging her, and shook hands with Uncle Gideon, and the Almost-Twins came clamouring round him, quite forgetting their bow and curtsy in their excitement, and Piers left the bellows to Timothy and came over in his quiet way to wring Uncle Martin’s hand, and Uncle Martin was trying to greet everybody and pay the boy who had guided him from the inn at the same time. Then Aunt Deborah came rustling downstairs with her wide skirts gathered in one hand and Littlest’s sticky paw in the other, looking perfectly lovely and quite unruffled by all the noise and excitement, to tell Uncle Martin how glad they were to see him. ‘Though indeed, I do not think you can doubt that,’ she said, smiling at him, as Littlest added his own voice to the uproar.

  ‘My Uncle Martin!’ said Littlest loudly, ‘I’ve got my new shoes on – look!’ and he stuck out one fat foot in a little square-toed crimson shoe, to prove it.

  ‘Vain little poppet!’ said his mother; and then she looked at Uncle Martin again, and said, ‘Come your ways upstairs; you must be tired and hungry, and supper will soon be ready.’

  So Piers picked up Uncle Martin’s saddle-bags, and they all went upstairs again somehow, with Tamsyn clinging to Uncle Martin’s hand. And presently they sat down to supper, even Littlest, who was being allowed to stay up late for the very first time, in honour of the occasion.

  It was very hard to keep the Silence at Meals rule that evening, especially for Tamsyn, because there were so many things bubbling inside her that she wanted to say to Uncle Martin. But supper was an extra-specially nice one, with pink marchpane and sticky dried fruit and roast goose and things like that; and that helped a lot, especially as Tamsyn was very hungry after not having had much dinner; because if you are busy enough eating, you haven’t really time to talk much, however badly you want to. So she sat as quiet as a mouse, eating everything that came her way, and smiling blithely at Uncle Martin across the glimmering candle-flames, with a lovely warm feeling of happiness inside her.

  Presently supper was over and Silence at Meals was over too, and Meg the Kitchen cleared away the dishes, and Aunt Deborah came back from putting a very sleepy Littlest to bed; and everybody gathered round the fire of pine logs. (You couldn’t burn coal in London while Parliament was sitting, in case the smoke might be bad for the Members.) The grown-ups sat in their great upright chairs, and the children squatted on their heels among the warm rushes, and Bunch sprawled with his front to the blaze, fluttering his paws and twitching his ears as he chased dream rabbits. Tamsyn sat between Piers and Uncle Martin, blinking at the fire like a baby owl, and feeling very happy, and very full, and a little sleepy, and rubbed her cheek against Uncle Martin’s knee until he began to tickle the back of her neck, just as he used to do in the old days before she left Bideford and came to live in the Dolphin House. At first everybody talked a lot, Tamsyn too; but after a time it was just the grown-ups who talked, and talked, and talked; and Tamsyn got more and more sleepy, and blinked faster and faster at the dancing flames, until she really did look just like a baby owl with soft, fluffed-out feathers and bright, blinky eyes. Everything seemed blurred into a golden mist that was made of happiness and sleepiness and firelight all mixed up together; and presently, out of the mist she heard Uncle Martin talking about the Joyous Venture, how she would be launched in a month’s time and sailing for the West Indies on her maiden voyage in the spring; and the trade with the New World, which would be a very great trade one day, and about how the Joyous Venture would be able to outsail any ship of the West Country, because she was to carry topgallant sails like the Great Harry, the King’s Flagship. Oh, she would be beautiful! Swift and beautiful, sailing wide-winged into the Golden West. . . .

  Aunt Deborah said suddenly, ‘Bedtime, poppets, and here’s Tamsyn half asleep as she sits! Run along now, my dears.’

  So they collected their candles and made their bows and their curtsies, and went trooping upstairs, shivering and squeaking because it was so very cold in the bedrooms. Long after Beatrix was asleep Tamsyn lay rubbing her cold feet together to warm them, staring at the queer snow-light on the ceiling through a gap in the bed curtains, and listening to Uncle Martin’s voice in the parlour below and the whisper of the falling snow beyond the window. But at last she fell asleep, and dreamed that she and Piers and the red tulip were all three sailing into the west, through sapphire seas frilled with white waves and trimmed with dear little leaping dolphins.

  For two days Uncle Martin was out most of the time about the business that had brought him to London Town; and generally Uncle Gideon or Piers or Timothy went with him to show him the way to wherever he wanted to go, because he had only been to London once before, and that was nearly twenty years ago, when he came to see Uncle Gideon and Aunt Deborah married, and so he did not remember his way about very well.

  Then on the third evening, while they were all sitting round the fire after supper, Meg the Kitchen came stumping upstairs with a note for Uncle Martin, and said that a seaman had brought it and gone away again because there was no reply.

  ‘Ah, from John Bourdekin,’ said Uncle Martin, beginning to read the not
e. ‘You remember him, Gideon? He was apprenticed in Braund’s shipyard along East-the-Water when we were little lads.’

  ‘Yes, I do remember him, though I’d not given him a thought for twenty years.’

  ‘Then you don’t know that he has risen to be Master Shipwright at Deptford Royal Dockyard?’ asked Uncle Martin, with his funny red eyebrows shooting up towards his hair.

  Uncle Gideon shook his head and said that he certainly did not, and that he supposed Uncle Martin was going to see him.

  ‘Why, yes,’ said Uncle Martin. ‘I liked John Bourdekin in the old days, and I’ve always had a mind to see round a Royal Dockyard. I sent word to him yesterday that I was in London, and meant to visit him, and this is his reply, bidding me go down tomorrow. Will you ride with me?’

  Uncle Gideon shook his head again. ‘No, no, Martin old lad, I hardly knew him.’

  ‘Will you lend me Piers, then, to show me the way?’ asked Uncle Martin.

  Uncle Gideon looked at Piers doubtfully, and said, ‘I should not think he knows it himself.’

  But Piers said, ‘I do, sir! I know it quite well!’ in a voice that cracked with eagerness.

  So it was arranged that Piers was to ride down to Deptford with his Uncle next day, and oh! Tamsyn did so wish she were going too. She wished it so desperately that her wishing showed all over her face, and Uncle Martin looked at her very hard for a moment, and said, ‘Do you want to come very badly, honey?’

  Tamsyn wanted to come so badly that she couldn’t speak a word; but she nodded, with her eyes fixed beseechingly on Uncle Martin’s face and her hands screwed together in her lap.

  Now of course it wouldn’t have been fair for Uncle Martin to have taken Tamsyn and not the others, but Beatrix didn’t care much for ships and was afraid of getting dirty or falling down holes, and Giles was going to play football with some friends, and neither of them wanted to come, so after a little discussion Uncle Martin asked Aunt Deborah if she would lend him Tamsyn for the day.

  ‘But Mistress Bourdekin won’t want a strange little girl to spend the day,’ protested Aunt Deborah, laughing. ‘It’s different about Piers, because he’s going to show you the way – at least I hope he is; but there’s no excuse for Tamsyn to go. You can’t just take people to spend the day with perfect strangers who haven’t invited them – really you can’t!’

  ‘I can,’ said Uncle Martin, quite simply, and his eyes began to dance. ‘But if ’twill set your mind at rest, I did mention in my letter that I should probably bring a couple of my kinsfolk with me.’

  ‘Well,’ said Aunt Deborah, and she looked from Uncle Martin’s dancing eyes to Piers’ eager face and Tamsyn’s beseeching one. And she said, ‘Very well, you shall have her, Martin; but please don’t let her fall into a dry dock if you can help it.’

  And Tamsyn jumped up and flung her arms round Aunt Deborah’s neck and hugged her.

  9

  Down to Deptford

  So next morning Tamsyn put on her second-best russet-brown kirtle – not her best kirtle, because you cannot really enjoy yourself much in a dockyard in your best kirtle, and not her everyday kirtle, because you cannot very well go visiting in your everyday kirtle, even if the neat patch on the skirt where you tore it on a nail does hardly show. Then Aunt Deborah muffled her close in her warm frieze cloak of kingfisher blue with the orange-tawny lining to the hood. And she was waiting on the doorstep with Uncle Martin a good ten minutes before Piers rode up on one of the horses that had been ordered from the Fountain Tavern, leading the other horse behind him.

  Uncle Martin swung into the saddle, and Uncle Gideon lifted Tamsyn up to the pillion. The horse was a very tall one, and the ground seemed a very long way away, but that only made it all seem even more exciting.

  ‘Hold tight, my honey,’ said Uncle Martin; and Tamsyn twisted her hands in his belt and said she was, and they were off!

  Along the crowded streets they went at a trot, and then they swung right and clattered across London Bridge. It was bitterly cold, with a little icy wind and a sky the colour of grey sheep’s wool that seemed almost to touch the pointed gables of the houses, and the hurrying crowds blew on their fingers and had very red noses, but they all had on their brightest clothes and they all seemed very happy, for tomorrow was Christmas Eve.

  The three-day-old snow had been churned to a brown slush underfoot, but along every wall-top and window-ledge and gable-corner it was clean and crisp and white, as though it had just that minute fallen; and when they reached the Southwark shore, and Tamsyn looked up at the spire of St. Mary of the Ferry as they rode by, she saw that every ledge and cranny and fretted pinnacle carried its load of frozen snow.

  Southwark was even more crowded and noisy and cheerful than the City had been, but then it always was, because all the strolling players and pickpockets and dancing bears who weren’t wanted in London were ferried across to Southwark by order of the Mayor and Aldermen and left there. Even the roofs had a rakish sort of look, and the clothes of the people were extra-specially bright, as though to make up for some of them being extra-specially ragged. There were fights going on at street corners, and a wandering fiddler playing a jig in the gutter with a little dog in a red jacket dancing for pennies.

  On rode the three, threading their way through the busy crowds, past the Tabard Inn, and took the Canterbury Road. Soon the crowds grew thinner and the houses were left behind, and they were out in the open country; and the road led away and away between whitened fields, beckoning them down to Deptford, where the great ships were lying. High in the bare, lacy tops of the elm trees last year’s rooks’ nests swayed against the grey sheep’s-wool sky, and the wind that swayed them smelt cold, tingling, raw, exciting cold; it smelt of snow.

  Tamsyn sniffed hard, and it did smell of snow.

  ‘There’s more snow coming,’ said Piers, sniffing too.

  ‘Ah well, as long as it doesn’t come on before we get back tonight,’ said Uncle Martin.

  ‘More snow for Christmas,’ said Tamsyn blithely. ‘How nice!’

  Round the next bend of the way they passed a countryman bringing in a great bale of scarlet-berried holly to market, and exchanged Merry Christmases with him, and soon after that the road branched and they headed down towards Deptford.

  Then the little cold wind began to smell quite different. It still smelt of snow, but it smelt of other things too – exciting things: salt and pitch, rope and timber and wood smoke. And quite suddenly, over the brow of a hill and round the corner of the road, there was Deptford! A huddle of grey and russet roofs and the river beyond, and the bare woods beyond again; and between the town and the river was the Royal Dockyard, and the tapering masts of the King’s ships rising above the roofs of the houses.

  ‘Look!’ cried Tamsyn. ‘There are ships!’

  ‘Why, honey, there generally are, in a dockyard,’ said Uncle Martin, laughing.

  Piers didn’t say anything, but Tamsyn knew that he understood, and that he felt just the same as she did about those tall ships.

  They rode down into the narrow streets beside the Dockyard, and the smell grew stronger and more breathtakingly exciting, and every other house seemed to be a ship’s chandler’s or an instrument maker’s. The crowds were mostly sailors in salt-stained clothes with gold rings in their ears, and at the end of every alley-way was the grey shimmer of the river and the white wings of the wheeling gulls. After asking their way once or twice they found the Master Shipwright’s house in a narrow court close to the Dockyard wall. It seemed very quiet there after the busy streets, for the houses round it all belonged to important Dockyard folk, and it did not lead anywhere, and so there was no coming and going in it at all. It was a nice court; the houses had each a little strip of garden before them where blue-green snowdrop snouts were already poking up through the snow-speckled earth, and high above the russet roofs at the far end rose the masts of a tall ship.

  What a lovely place to live, thought Tamsyn, so close to the great Yard, wit
h the fine men-of-war coming and going, and always new ships being built and launched and sailing away down to the sea, and other new ships taking their places.

  Mistress Bourdekin was standing in her doorway as they reined up. She was as tiny and brown and shrivelled as a winter leaf, and her eyes were as bright as a robin’s, and her gown and kirtle as gay as holly-berries. ‘Here you are!’ she cried, darting out to greet them. ‘I heard the horses and I knew it must be you – and the little maid too! Poor chick, she must be shrammed with the cold. Come your ways in, good people, come in out of the cold, all of you this moment! Peter will take the horses up to the stable. Peter! Pe-ter! Where has that boy got to! Peter!’