Plague Child. Peter Ransley

name. George nodded slowly, looking at me, as if he was understanding something for the first time, though I had no idea what it was.

      ‘That was about the time, master, you . . . er, found the money to buy the new press, the new type from Amsterdam –’

      ‘Borrowed it!’ Mr Black said sharply, as though regretting these disclosures. ‘Just so! Borrowed the money!’

      He half moved his glass to his lips, realised it was empty, and had a little argument between himself and the bottle. He put his glass down with resolution, then looked at the drying newssheets, his eyes gleaming with pleasure, turned back to the bottle, hesitated, turned regretfully away, then saw me, with a smile on my face at this little dance and, before I could remove it, to my utmost surprise smiled back. He poured more wine and pointed at me.

      ‘I thought I had brought the very devil into this place, the printer’s devil, did I not, George?’

      ‘A most subtle devil,’ said George, looking steadily at me.

      ‘Oh, come, George!’ His gesture included not only the well-equipped workshop, but the new cedar chest in the room where we ate, with its flagons and candlesticks – not silver, but the most expensive pewter, polished to look very like. ‘Is not all this a sign of God’s favour?’

      George turned his steady, unblinking gaze on his master. ‘“Prosperity will not show you who are your friends. Or good servants.” Ecclesiasticus, twelve eight.’

      The drink brought out a totally different side of Mr Black. He looked as solemn as ever, but I swear there was a twinkle in his eye.

      ‘Come, George. “Whose friend is he that is his own enemy, and leaves his own cheer untasted?” Ecclesiasticus, fourteen five.’

      I had never heard Mr Black trump one of George’s quotations before. George looked completely put out. Mr Black clapped him on the shoulder.

      ‘Come, gentlemen – drink up!’

      George refused, and when Mr Black moved to my tankard, said: ‘The boy has had enough, sir.’

      Mr Black waved him away. ‘He has had but little.’

      ‘Aye, plus what he took at the alehouse,’ George said.

      I jumped up. ‘I did not go to the alehouse!’

      ‘You stank of it when you came in!’

      ‘I was in a fight!’

      ‘A tavern brawl!’

      ‘Stop this! You will wake the house!’

      For the first time, the rebuke from Mr Black was for both of us, not just me. And, for the first time, he questioned me without automatically assuming my guilt.

      ‘Did you go into an alehouse?’

      I hesitated. Going into an alehouse had led to some of my worst beatings, and was the main reason why apprentices were thrown out of their Guilds. But that was because they drank, diced and whored. I had not even had one drink, or one pass of the dice.

      ‘No, sir,’ I said.

      ‘Mark the hesitation,’ said George.

      ‘Are you speaking the truth?’ The sternness reappeared in Mr Black’s speech, beginning to fight with his conviviality.

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      George’s lips moved quietly, but I caught the prayer on his lips. ‘Oh Lord, guide him, let him see the error –’

      ‘Stop that, George!’

      George did so, abruptly. His pale face seemed to twist and shrink, his lips still moving but no words coming out. Mr Black turned sharply, almost knocking a chair over. He sat heavily at the head of the table, in the leather seated, high-backed chair he had recently bought, looking like a judge.

      George found his voice. ‘Ask him how he got into the fight.’

      ‘I was attacked. Thieves who tried to get the speech.’

      ‘Why didn’t you tell us all this before?’ George’s voice was acid with scepticism.

      ‘There has been no time!’

      ‘Apprentices from Merrick?’ said Mr Black.

      ‘No, sir. I never saw them before. One had a sword.’

      George looked up at the ceiling in disbelief, but Mr Black leaned forward sharply.

      ‘A gentleman?’

      ‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’

      ‘Perhaps once was?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Describe him.’

      ‘A thin face. A beard like the King. He was wearing a beaver hat.’

      ‘Like half London,’ said George.

      ‘The other?’

      ‘A lowpad. Shoulders like a bull.’

      George laughed. ‘It’s a tale from a halfpenny broadsheet! He’s lying.’

      Mr Black jumped up. His good mood had disappeared as quickly as it came. He seized his cane, which had become a stranger to me in recent months. ‘Are you?’

      ‘No, sir!’

      I ducked as I saw the cane move and flung my hands round my head, wincing in anticipation. But the blow never came. The cane clattered as he flung it on the stone flags. His face looked tortured. I feared he had been struck by the strange ailment that affected him at times when he would stand quite still, as if struck by some vision others could not see.

      George backed away, muttering. ‘The boy has cursed you. I saw his lips move.’

      Mr Black shook his head, as if he was shaking off the vision, like a dog shaking off water. He seized me by the shoulders and shook me. ‘Are you lying?’

      ‘No, sir!’ I sobbed, more frightened by the strange contortions of his face than the violence.

      He shook me again, and pushed his face into mine. ‘It’s as import ant for you as it is for me that you tell me the truth! Do you understand, you little fool?’

      I pulled away from him with a rush of anger that overcame my tears. I did not consider myself a fool and I was certainly no longer little.

      ‘It’s true – I heard one of the men asking another ’prentice about a boy with red hair and then the man turned round and saw me and I ran and then –’

      ‘Where was this?’

      The words dried up in my mouth. Normally I would have lied. Told him the street, anywhere, but the look on his face was so alarmed, so urgent, I felt compelled to tell the truth.

      ‘The Pot.’

      A sad smile played round George’s mouth. ‘Now we have it, sir, now we have it.’

      I expected to be given the beating then. I wish they had. George was clearly relishing the thought. He picked up his old composing stick with the rusty metal end from which I still bear a mark on my left temple. But Mr Black waved him away. He gave me a look of such sadness it cut me more sharply than any whip or stick.

      ‘Oh, Tom, Tom, I was beginning to trust you.’

      Now I could not stop the tears bursting out of me and with them a torrent of words. He must have beaten more of his obsession with sin into me than I realised, but it had all been concealed from me until a little kindness let it out. That, and my realisation that the words that were going to change the world could have been lost because of my desire for a drink.

      I confessed drink. I confessed pass dice. I confessed lusting after Mary, the pot girl. I confessed cursing his daughter. I confessed, although I feared it would be the greatest sin of all in Mr Black’s eyes, drinking and getting into