did not need to see, but there was no blocking out the sounds of the city—the cries of street vendors, hawking their goods in Portuguese and English; the snatches of Arabic and African and Brazilian languages; the strumming of guitars and mandolins, and the pounding of drums. I did not raise my head, and I looked no farther before me than navigating the street demanded. I did not want to see Lisbon. Not yet. It was one thing to gaze at the city from a distant vantage point upon the Tagus, quite another to see it from the streets—to be upon those streets.
For a moment, I was near dizzy with regret. I wanted to be back in London. Not that London was home—not anymore. I had burned my bridges there. I had not so much as told Mr. Weaver I was leaving, let alone explained where I was going—though I left him a letter, revealing all. In the weeks before my departure, I quietly sold all I had of worth. I gathered all the money I had saved over the years and traveled by coach to Falmouth to board the next Factory packet. All my life, events had pushed me from one place to another. In this, I had chosen my way, made my own terrible choice. It was what I said to myself, and yet, as I had boarded the packet, I had felt as though the course I was on had always been inevitable.
The inn was at the intersection of two unmarked streets, sitting astride the hill so the ramshackle wooden building looked as thoughit might, at any moment, give way and topple face forward into the street like a drunkard. And inside, the common room was full of sots who appeared as though they might, at any moment, topple face forward onto the floor. They were, to a man, British—almost all English, with a few Scotch voices thrown in and one accent decidedly Cornish. None were Portuguese, and that, no doubt, was how the patrons liked it. The British in Lisbon wanted a place to be away from their hosts and their papist ways and the unceasing scrutiny of the Inquisition. Even so, there would be familiars of the Inquisition within the tavern, and every man there knew it. The Inquisition had many powers, but first among these was ubiquity. Inquisitors had the coin to buy agents in any walk of life. Some men went more willingly than others, but in the end no one refused to serve. Anyone who drew the attention of the Inquisition did its will, either outside the Palace dungeon or within it. Most chose to earn gold rather than lashes.
I crossed the warped wooden floors, strewn with sawdust, past English laborers—not a Factory man among them—and approached the counter. I pretended not to notice I was the only gentleman present, the only man in wig and waistcoat, the only man with silver buttons and buckles. The only man who troubled to wave his hands at the buzzing clouds of mosquitoes. The other patrons, however, appeared entirely indifferent to my presence. Indeed, they demonstrated the same indifference to their own lives.
Behind the bar stood a huge man, unusually tall, whose massive frame was composed of broad shoulders and muscular arms, but also an enormous belly that protruded out over his breeches. Like his patrons, he went wigless, and the stubble on his scalp suggested he shaved his head as protection against lice. He dressed in the common Portuguese manner—simple and rough and inexpensive. And like a Portuguese, he was bearded, though his ginger facial hair came in rough patches. The round, too-wide face surrounding his unkemptwhiskers was red and blotchy and deeply creased. Humming rather loudly to himself, he kept his gaze deliberately down as he washed out tankards with an oily cloth.
I watched as the heavy man left streaks of grease inside the tankards. My expression must have betrayed revulsion, because the man stopped and met my gaze with a steely look of contempt.
I knew him.
The coincidence ought not to have surprised me. Probably fewer than a thousand Englishmen lived in Lisbon, and I fully expected to see men I recalled from my
For a moment, I was near dizzy with regret. I wanted to be back in London. Not that London was home—not anymore. I had burned my bridges there. I had not so much as told Mr. Weaver I was leaving, let alone explained where I was going—though I left him a letter, revealing all. In the weeks before my departure, I quietly sold all I had of worth. I gathered all the money I had saved over the years and traveled by coach to Falmouth to board the next Factory packet. All my life, events had pushed me from one place to another. In this, I had chosen my way, made my own terrible choice. It was what I said to myself, and yet, as I had boarded the packet, I had felt as though the course I was on had always been inevitable.
The inn was at the intersection of two unmarked streets, sitting astride the hill so the ramshackle wooden building looked as thoughit might, at any moment, give way and topple face forward into the street like a drunkard. And inside, the common room was full of sots who appeared as though they might, at any moment, topple face forward onto the floor. They were, to a man, British—almost all English, with a few Scotch voices thrown in and one accent decidedly Cornish. None were Portuguese, and that, no doubt, was how the patrons liked it. The British in Lisbon wanted a place to be away from their hosts and their papist ways and the unceasing scrutiny of the Inquisition. Even so, there would be familiars of the Inquisition within the tavern, and every man there knew it. The Inquisition had many powers, but first among these was ubiquity. Inquisitors had the coin to buy agents in any walk of life. Some men went more willingly than others, but in the end no one refused to serve. Anyone who drew the attention of the Inquisition did its will, either outside the Palace dungeon or within it. Most chose to earn gold rather than lashes.
I crossed the warped wooden floors, strewn with sawdust, past English laborers—not a Factory man among them—and approached the counter. I pretended not to notice I was the only gentleman present, the only man in wig and waistcoat, the only man with silver buttons and buckles. The only man who troubled to wave his hands at the buzzing clouds of mosquitoes. The other patrons, however, appeared entirely indifferent to my presence. Indeed, they demonstrated the same indifference to their own lives.
Behind the bar stood a huge man, unusually tall, whose massive frame was composed of broad shoulders and muscular arms, but also an enormous belly that protruded out over his breeches. Like his patrons, he went wigless, and the stubble on his scalp suggested he shaved his head as protection against lice. He dressed in the common Portuguese manner—simple and rough and inexpensive. And like a Portuguese, he was bearded, though his ginger facial hair came in rough patches. The round, too-wide face surrounding his unkemptwhiskers was red and blotchy and deeply creased. Humming rather loudly to himself, he kept his gaze deliberately down as he washed out tankards with an oily cloth.
I watched as the heavy man left streaks of grease inside the tankards. My expression must have betrayed revulsion, because the man stopped and met my gaze with a steely look of contempt.
I knew him.
The coincidence ought not to have surprised me. Probably fewer than a thousand Englishmen lived in Lisbon, and I fully expected to see men I recalled from my
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