Master Cowell pointed at them in turn, counting.
‘There are only six? I asked for eight! Eight, I said. Where are my drummers? The Gold Coast Gordons?’ He looked at the youth with the scars. ‘Do you know of them? I was told they were the best African-styled drummers in London.’
The young man smiled and spoke. He had the most elegant voice Cato had ever heard. Indeed, if his eyes had been closed, he would have said he was listening to a gentleman, and one with money.
‘They are not known to me, sir. And I can honestly say that the name is about as African as a Yorkshire pudding.’
The greybeards sniggered.
‘Good, good,’ Master Cowell said, obviously not listening. ‘And, you two!’ He pointed at the greybeards. ‘For God’s own sakes look to your mouths and keep them shut! Your few teeth shame both yourselves and our orchestra.’
The scarred youth raised one eyebrow. ‘This is unlike any orchestra I have ever seen in my life, sir.’
Master Cowell laughed. ‘You are just a black! What know you of orchestras? This is a completely novel experiment. The African Orchestra! Utterly of my own devising!’
‘I am much more than just a black, sir! I am Prince Quarmy of Bonny. It is only your ignorance that cannot see that. In my father’s court we have the best musicians from the Bight of Benin to the Bight of Bonny. The Assante court musicians are legendary!’
One of the old men tugged at the youth’s sleeve and whispered: ‘Careful with your words, young man. Prince or not, you’ll get us all put out on the street without even the sweet sound of a few coins rattling in our pockets.’
Master Cowell stared. ‘Listen, boy. I do not care if you are the Holy Roman Emperor! Tonight you are my orchestra and you will play your damnedest or you shall not see my money.’ He clapped his hands again. ‘You must dress yourselves in the costumes you will find downstairs, quick sharp! Then up here to strike up an African sarabande – it is my own composition. Costumes now!’ The music master ushered them downstairs to a room next to the kitchens.
‘They expect us to wear this?’ Quarmy held up a scrap of what looked like black and white pony-skin, and from the curl of his lip Cato imagined he had at least served princes if he was not one himself. ‘We will freeze! Outside snow lies in the streets and we are expected to wear nothing! This is so much foolishness!’
Cato had to stop himself laughing, but his mood changed when he saw one of the old men’s backs, a mass of weals from a whipping long ago.
‘You reading my back, young man?’ he said when he saw Cato looking. ‘The Good Fortune Estate, east out of Spanish Town, Jamaica, fifteen years ago, I reckon.’
The others all looked too. ‘I tried to stop the buckra – overseer to you – selling my baby boy far away. I didn’t sleep on my back for near enough three months.’
The youth with the collar took off his shirt and turned round. ‘I got mine in Richmond just one month past. I can no more play any tune than fly.’ He lowered his voice. ‘My name is Rowlands. I’m off into London as soon as I can loose this collar around my neck and slip away into the city.’
The old men nodded but Quarmy looked at Rowlands as if he was a speck of dirt.
Rowlands bridled, and Cato worried that he’d knock the Prince of Bonny down in an instant.
Cato leaned close. ‘I can help you with that collar. If you let me, I can spring the lock in two seconds. I’ve been able to pick those collars since I could walk!’
Rowlands nodded, his face flushed with relief.
Quarmy dropped the pony-skin back onto the floor. ‘Well, I for one am not having it. These costumes are an affront!’
Suddenly two white men – one short and dark haired, the other tall and fiercely red-headed – came and stood in the kitchen doorway, watching them change.
‘This is no sideshow, gentlemen.’ Quarmy moved to shut the door. ‘And tell Master Cowell we will not humiliate ourselves in these scraps!’
‘No, um . . .’ one said.
‘Too right,’ said the other, holding out a hand. ‘We’re the Gordons. Balls, masques and revels.’
‘Drumming and percussion.’ The short one held up a hand drum. ‘The latest African styles. Of the highest quality. We’ve played for the crowned heads of Europe.’
‘Well, some of them,’ said the tall one.
‘There’s none better!’
The room went quiet.
The tall red-head looked sheepish. ‘Even if we’re not actually blood brothers. Or, as you may have noticed, Africans.’
The smaller one lifted up a scrap of pony-skin. ‘And we are most definitely in agreement with you about the outfits!’
The oldest greybeard burst out laughing.
While the drummers introduced themselves, Cato took a small pick out of his waistcoat pocket, leaned over to Rowlands and slipped the lock in two seconds.
‘My God! ’Tis done.’ Rowlands smiled and hid the collar deep under the pile of pony-skins. ‘As if the metal was butter!’
‘Anything is easy,’ Cato said, ‘if you know how to do it.’
When Master Cowell returned to chivvy them up to the ballroom, he was furious. ‘You are an African orchestra! I am spending good money on authentic African musicians.’
The Gordons moved to leave but Master Cowell was so desperate he shut the door. ‘Oh, you’ll all stay. But you would look so much more authentic in the skins!’ He shook his head. ‘From what I have heard, these blacks are all as strong as oxes and a bit of cold wouldn’t hurt!’
Quarmy stepped forward. His voice was low and soft but so full of authority that any trace of doubt Cato might have had about his heritage was wiped away. ‘We will not wear them. If you want music, we will play in our own clothes, like gentlemen.’
There was a chorus of ayes and Cowell held Quarmy’s gaze for a few seconds, but it was the music master who looked away first.
Up in the ballroom, the servants had left except for one small girl polishing up an enormous looking-glass. Her face was red with effort and Cato thought of Addy in the fine house in St James’s. Maybe she would see the Stapletons as they left for the ball. Maybe she would be readying Lady Elizabeth. He took out his violin. More likely Addy would be in the kitchen washing the pots.
The music on the stands was clear enough – a sarabande – but made dull in the writing. Quarmy suggested a minuet instead and started up a strong tune, the one Cato had heard last in the pleasure gardens south of the river and a favourite of Bella’s.
Rowlands looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s not the collar now, Cato; it’s the fact that I am no musician. I should slip away before the dancing,’ he said.
‘Don’t be a fool, man. You are a slave and have a duty to your owner,’ Quarmy said.
Rowlands smarted. ‘You are the fool!’
The greybeards held Rowlands back and scowled at Quarmy. ‘You have no idea, young man, none at all.’
Cato tried to keep the peace. ‘Come now, brothers, we are to work.’ He made Rowlands sit close by him. ‘Just follow our movements, and smile,’ he said. ‘I’ll cover for you.’
Rowlands still looked nervous. ‘Then truly I owe you my soul, sir.’
Cato had forgotten how much he enjoyed playing. The Gordons were excellent drummers, and Quarmy and the light-skinned boy, Isaac, were good. The well-dressed crowd filled the ballroom and the dancing began. After Master Cowell’s dirge-like sarabande they played two of the most popular minuets and then there was a lull in the dancing. Cato scanned the crowd for Bella. So many colours, silk and satin, and embroidery that must have vexed the eyes of roomfuls of needlemen and -women in garrets all over Spitalfields. Women wearing rubies redder than a glass of claret, gentlemen with powdered wigs and buckles on their shoes that would fetch good money if you knew where to take them. A woman wearing black pearls and green emeralds. Cato thought there was enough money walking around the ballroom to buy Mother Hopkins the whole town of Bath, let alone one good-sized house. Just one of
the necklaces or pairs of earrings, or even one of the finely worked jackets, would feed the poor children of Smithfield for a year. Truly, Mother Hopkins was never more correct when she said that life was unfair.
Suddenly Cato realized he was staring. It was a necklace he had seen before, the diamonds outshining the wearer’s smile and sparkling more than any of the other jewels in the whole room. He looked up to the wearer’s face and her eyes locked with his. For a second a look of puzzlement crossed Lady Stapleton’s fine pink-white face. Cato was sure she would remember the little boy in the navy-blue suit and matching turban who had vanished all those years ago. But then she smiled and turned away. Cato took a deep breath and picked up his violin.
Rowlands was nervous too. ‘Did someone notice I wasn’t playing?’
‘This crowd would not notice a sack of gold on a dung heap,’ Quarmy said as he rubbed rosin on his bow.
‘It’s nothing,’ Cato said. He could see the Lady Elizabeth at the centre of a little group of admirers, and her diamonds shone like tiny moons.
Rowlands followed Cato’s stare. ‘Some necklace!’ he whistled.
Quarmy was not impressed. ‘My family had bronzes made by artists, which were passed down for generations. Those are merely rocks dug up from the earth and strung on thread. That woman who wears those stones is nothing, a nobody. I can read it in her every move!’
‘So why then are you here playing tunes for the nobs, like the rest of us? Why are you not in the crowd dancing and laughing?’ Rowlands asked.
‘That is what I am asking myself at this very instant.’ Quarmy tucked his violin up under his chin, and even though he pretended he was not interested in the lords and ladies, Cato could see he was by the way he scanned the crowd.
Maybe, Cato thought, he was looking for someone too. It was possible – after all, everyone had their own stories, and if Quarmy was an African prince, Cato imagined his story would be more interesting than most. Maybe it would make a good ballad: how he gained the scars across his face, how he fetched up in London. Cato was thinking there was money in the tale when he realized Quarmy was following someone with his eyes.
Cato looked out into the crowd. Quarmy was watching a beautiful young woman in a tall white fur hat, the fur so white it shone and dazzled. The young lady walked with the bearing of a princess, cutting through the crowd, and behind her followed what looked, near enough, like some Cossack soldier, also fur hatted and with a sword that reached the floor. Behind him was a stooped black-clad elderly woman with a puff of grey hair.
‘Foreigners,’ Rowlands said, watching. As the young woman walked through the crowd, heads turned, and she acknowledged her admirers with a strange fierce smile.
Cato stared too.
‘Magnificent!’ Quarmy muttered under his breath, then looked embarrassed and turned away.
Cato smiled. ‘She’s the business, is she, that one?’
Quarmy cleared his throat. ‘I think you’ll find, if you were to converse with said lady, that she is of some family of note, of lineage.’
‘Of what did you just say?’ Rowlands asked.
‘Lineage!’ Quarmy sighed. ‘It means breeding, family, quality.’
‘Indeed, sirs.’ Cato nodded and struggled to keep his face from cracking with laughter. ‘I do agree she must be from a family of high renown and fame.’
And Cato told himself he wasn’t lying because Mother Hopkins’s family was famous throughout the City of London and beyond.
He watched as the woman in the fur hat was introduced to Sir John Stapleton, who seemed transfixed as she took off her hat and a river of bright golden curls cascaded around her shoulders. He kissed her hand and she dipped the tiniest of curtsies. There was laughter and even a ripple of applause.
Quarmy nodded approvingly. ‘I would say that the lady is most definitely nobility, from the Baltic lands perhaps.’
Master Cowell was suddenly there in front of the musicians, red-faced and anxious. He tapped his baton on the nearest music stand.
‘Places, gentleman, places. We have a Russian countess in our midst who has requested the Foxhall minuet! Your finest efforts, gentlemen!’
Cato picked up his bow. Bella was the centre of attention. Jack looked uneasy but stern in his Cossack uniform and Mother Hopkins had found a seat somewhere at the side of the hall.
When Cato looked through the dancers as he played, he could see Bella dancing with Sir John at the centre of the ballroom. Mother Hopkins had been right: she did make a most excellent Russian countess.
* * *
Rowlands slipped away into the night as soon as the ball was over. Cato put his fiddle into its case, turned round and he had gone.
Quarmy was dismissive. ‘He will last five minutes in St Giles, that one, before he is either pressed for the navy or his master claims him. He should not have betrayed his owners. They paid good money for him.’
‘And that makes the transaction fair? I think not! Have you never heard the tales of the slave ships? Of the plantations where men lose hands, feet, tongues for speaking out of turn?’ Cato said.
Quarmy closed his violin case and sighed. ‘If anyone is foolish enough as to let themselves be taken into capture—’
Cato was bursting with rage. ‘That is not how it happens! So much money is made by those who buy and sell people, people like you and me—’
‘I will speak of this no more,’ said Quarmy curtly. ‘You are ignorant of the fact that I know a deal more about slavery than a street musician ever could.’
Cato was shouting. ‘I have been bought and sold, sir, more times than you could count. And I would not wish that experience on my worst enemy. No, sir, not even on you, who seem to have been born wearing blinkers like a carriage horse and have no idea of moving your head from left to right to even see a glimpse of the truth!’
Quarmy seemed unmoved. ‘Slaves and masters. Masters and slaves. That is the order of things.’
‘I assure you,’ Cato said, trying to contain his anger, ‘to these Englishmen, I am no different to you. They see our skin colour and put us all in the same boat, free or no, prince or slave. To the ruling classes we are nothing!’
Quarmy picked up his violin. Cato could see he was angry now, and his voice shook. Good, thought Cato.
‘How could you think that you and I have anything in common, sir?’ asked Quarmy. ‘I am a prince, sir. I am a prince. My father was – no, is: for all I know he still lives – a king. I came here to school for a gentleman’s education.’
‘So why are you earning coins playing the fiddle then, Prince Quarmy? Explain that.’
Quarmy made to speak but Cato had had enough. ‘No, don’t tell me. I have a home to go to, a fire and a bed, and no time to listen to your inventions.’
For an instant Cato thought he saw what looked like longing pass across the haughty young man’s face.
‘This is an evil city for one without money,’ Quarmy said, and walked away without looking back.
Cato shrugged. He had more to think about than princes. In the ballroom the white-aproned servants were back sweeping up the mess made by the nobility. Cato picked up his fiddle case and stepped out into the London night.
Up in the clear cold winter sky the stars shone like specks of diamond. The city was silver with frost and what noise there was seemed to carry pin-sharp through the brittle air: a couple of dogs barking loud enough to raise Cain in the east; somewhere in the west, metal-rimmed carriage wheels and iron-shod horses’ hooves; a girl singing, her high sad voice telling of lost love. Cato thought of Rowlands, out in the cold on his first night of freedom, and of Addy cooped up in a garret in St James’s.
He walked quickly, making for home across the frosted cobbles.
‘You should have heard him! He was drooling all over me!’ Upstairs in the parlour above The Vipers no one was asleep. Bella loosened her stays and sat down. She put on her newly minted Russian accent.
‘Oh, Sir John, you are spoilink me.’
>
‘Give it a rest, Bell,’ Jack said, peeling off his knee-high boots, but Bella was still high from the dancing.
‘And his missus! I’ve got her like that!’ Bella pinched her finger and thumb together. ‘She’s taking me up Swallow Street tomorrow to a milliner what knows her. You’ll never guess, Mother, it’s only Gold and Archer’s – you know, your mate Solly Gold’s place! She says she simply must have a fur in the Russian style. She loves her threads, that Lady Stapleton!’
‘Cato, you’ll get over the milliner’s in the morning. Let Sol know my Bella’s to have a lend of whatever she likes. Tell Sol she’s working and they’ll be plenty in it for him, what with the Stapleton girl’s custom.’
‘Yes, Mother,’ Cato said.
Mother Hopkins sighed. ‘We needs her a house. Countess Ekaterina can’t live here. Jack and Sam, you get yourselves over to Soho.’
‘Don’t you think Ekaterina needs something flasher than Soho, Ma?’ Sam asked.
‘No. She’s only just arrived in town, which means she don’t know London so well. Her people over in Russia—’
‘In Pskoff,’ Bella corrected her.
‘Bless you,’ Jack said.
‘Leave the joking outside, Jack. Her people, they’d not know the latest news. They’d find her a ken somewhere that was fashionable ten years ago – that’s the way of things. Soho it is.’
‘Do mean Mr Tunnadine’s house?’ said Jack. ‘He owes ya, remember, Ma, for that job in Epping last year when we got his horses back for him off that toad Sullivan?’
Mother Hopkins smiled. ‘Joshua Tunnadine’s a good old cove, and me and him have more history than you imagine. I knew him first when I was no older than you, Bella, up in London with the fair . . .’ Mother Hopkins looked dreamily into the fire. ‘Old Joshua’ll lend us his house, I reckon, if you tell him it’s for me, boys.’
Tunnadine, Cato thought. He’d be the one to ask about Mother Hopkins, then.
‘It’s well and truly done, Ma,’ Jack said, knocking back his beer.
A Nest of Vipers Page 6
