The Darling Strumpet
Gillian Bagwell

Copyright

AVON

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in the U.S.A. by Berkley Publishing Group, an imprint of Penguin Group (U.S.A.) Inc., New York, NY, 2011

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2011

Copyright © Gillian Bagwell 2011

Gillian Bagwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847562500

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2011 ISBN: 9780007443307

Version: 2014-07-23

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my family:

My sisters

Rachel Hope Crossman

and

Jennifer Juliet Walker

My father

Richard Herbold Bagwell

And the memory of my mother

Elizabeth Rosaria Loverde

Epigraph

She’s now the darling strumpet of the crowd,

Forgets her state, and talks to them aloud,

Lays by her greatness and descends to prate

With those ’bove whom she’s rais’d by wond’rous fate.

From “A Panegyrick Upon Nelly”

Anonymous, 1681

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Cast of Characters

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Acknowledgments

Notes On Facts, Truth, And Artistic Licence

About the Author

About the Publisher

CAST OF CHARACTERS

NELL’S FAMILY

Eleanor Gwynn – Nell’s mother.

Rose Gwynn – Nell’s older sister.

Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford and Duke of St. Albans, referred to as Charlie – Nell’s first son.

James, Lord Beauclerk, referred to as Jemmy – Nell’s second son.

John Cassells – Rose’s first husband.

Guy Foster – Rose’s second husband.

Lily – Rose’s baby girl.

MADAM ROSS’S

Madam Ross – keeper of a brothel in Lewkenor’s Lane.

Jack – Madam Ross’s lover and bouncer at the brothel.

Jane – one of Madam Ross’s girls.

Ned – barman in the taproom.

Robbie Duncan – a regular client of Nell.

Jimmy Cade – an early regular client of Nell.

THE THEATRE

Charles Hart – leading actor, shareholder, and one of the managers of The King’s Company. Nell’s mentor and teacher.

John Lacy – leading actor, shareholder, and one of the managers of The King’s Company. Nell’s mentor and teacher.

Michael Mohun – leading actor, shareholder, and one of the managers of The King’s Company.

Walter Clun, also known as Wat – leading actor and shareholder in the King’s Comp any, specializing in character roles. Agrees to teach Nell to act.

Thomas Killigrew – founder and patent-holder of The King’s Company and a supporter and intimate of King Charles.

Betsy Knepp – actress in the King’s company. A friend of Nell and of Samuel Pepys.

Katherine Mitchell Corey, also referred to as Kate – actress in the King’s Company, specialising in character roles.

Dicky One-Shank – old sailor and scenekeeper at the Theatre Royal.

Harry Killigrew – son of Thomas Killigrew and lover of Rose Gwynn.

Aphra Behn – playwright with the Duke’s Company and friend of Nell.

Anne Marshall – actress in the King’s Company. Probably the first English woman to appear on the professional stage.

Rebecca Marshall, also referred to as Beck – actress in the King’s Company.

Moll Davis – actress in the Duke’s Company. Mistress of King Charles, and a rival of Nell’s.

Mary Meggs, known as Orange Moll – holder of the concession to sell oranges and sweetmeats at the Theatre Royal.

Margaret Hughes, also referred to as Peg – actress in the King’s Company and friend of Nell.

Edward Kynaston, also referred to as Ned – actor in the King’s Company.

Elizabeth Barry, also referred to as Betty – actress with the Duke’s Company and mistress of the Earl of Rochester.

Marmaduke Watson – young actor in the King’s Company.

Theophilus Bird, referred to as Theo – young actor in the King’s Company, son of an actor by the same name.

Nicholas Burt – old actor in the King’s Company.

William Cartwright – old actor in the King’s Company.

Frances Davenport, also referred to as Franki – actress in the King’s Company. Sister of Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Davenport, also referred to as Betty – actress in the King’s Company. Sister of Frances.

Elizabeth Weaver – actress in the King’s Company.

Betty Hall – actress in the King’s Company.

Richard Bell – actor in the King’s Company.

Anne Reeves – young actress in the King’s Company and mistress of John Dryden.

Matt Kempton – scenekeeper at the Theatre Royal.

Willie Taimes – scenekeeper at the Theatre Royal.

Richard Baxter – scenekeeper at the Theatre Royal.

Sir Edward Howard – playwright.

Charles II – king of England. Succeeded to throne upon execution of his father Charles I in 1649. Restored to the throne 1660.

Catherine of Braganza – Charles II’s queen, who had been the Infanta of Portugal.

James, the Duke of York – younger brother of Charles II and later King James II.

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham – intimate of King Charles. Friend and advisor of Nell. Playwright, poet, politician.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester – intimate friend of King Charles and Nell. Poet and playwright.

Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex – poet and playwright.

Sir Charles Sedley – playwright, and a friend of Dorset and Rochester. Known to his friends as ‘Little Sid’.

Barbara Villiers Palmer, Lady Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland – longtime mistress of Charles II.

Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth – unpopular French mistress of Charles II.

Hortense Mancini, Duchess Mazarin – tempestuous mistress of Charles II, who he had wanted to marry as a young man.

James Crofts, Duke of Monmouth – illegitimate son and oldest child of Charles II. Friend of Nell. The namesake of Nell’s little boy Jemmy.

Sir Henry Savile – courtier and friend of Nell’s. Charles’s Envoy Extraordinaire to France.

Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury – mistress of the Duke of Buckingham and mother of his child, the Earl of Coventry, who died as an infant.

Lady Diana de Vere – Daughter of Aubrey de Vere, the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford.

NELL’S HOUSEHOLD

Meg – longtime servant of Nell.

Bridget – longtime servant of Nell.

Thomas Groundes – Nell’s steward.

John – Nell’s coachman.

Tom – Nell’s chair man.

Fleetwood Shepard – courtier and poet. Tutor to Nell’s boys.

Thomas Otway – playwright and tutor to Nell’s boys.

OTHER FRIENDS AND ADVISORS

Samuel Pepys, also referred to as Sam – theatre aficionado, friend of Nell, and well acquainted with the king, Duke of York, and others at court through his position as Clerk of the Acts of the Navy Board.

Dr. Thomas Tenison – vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields and spiritual advisor to Nell.

CHAPTER ONE

London—Twenty-Ninth of May, 1660

THE SUN SHONE HOT AND BRIGHT IN THE GLORIOUS MAY SKY, AND THE streets of London were rivers of joyous activity. Merchants and labourers, gentlemen and ladies, apprentices and servants, whores, thieves, and grimy urchins—all were out in their thousands. And all with the same thought shining in their minds and hearts and the same words on their tongues—the king comes back this day.

After ten years—nay, it was more—of England without a king. Ten years of the bleak and grey existence that life had been under the Protector—an odd title for one who had thrown the country into strife, had arrested and then beheaded King Charles. What a groan had gone up from the crowd that day at the final, fatal sound of the executioner’s axe; what horror and black despair had filled their hearts as the bleeding head of the king was held aloft in triumph. And all upon the order of the Protector, who had savaged life as it had been, and then, after all, had thought to take the throne for himself.

But now he was gone. Oliver Cromwell was dead, his son had fled after a halfhearted attempt at governing, his partisans were scattered, and the king’s son, Charles II, who had barely escaped with his life to years of impoverished exile, was approaching London to claim his crown, on this, his thirtieth birthday. And after so long a wait, such suffering and loss, what wrongs could there be that the return of the king could not put right?

TEN-YEAR-OLD NELL GWYNN AWOKE, THE WARMTH OF THE SUN ON HER back in contrast to the dank coolness of the straw on which she lay under the shelter of a rickety staircase. She rolled over, and the movement hurt. Her body ached from the beating her mother had given her the night before. Legs and backside remembered the blows of the broomstick, and her face was bruised and tender from the slaps. Tears had mingled on her cheeks with dust. She tried to wipe the dirt away, but her hands were just as bad, grimy and still smelling of oysters.

Oysters. That was the cause of all this pain. Yesterday evening, she’d stopped on her way home to watch as garlands of flowers were strung on one of the triumphal arches that had been erected in anticipation of the king’s arrival. Caught up in the excitement, she had forgotten to be vigilant, and her oyster barrow had been stolen. She’d crept home unwillingly, hoped that the night would be one of the many when her mother had been drinking so heavily that she was already unconscious, or one of the few when the drink made her buoyant and forgiving. But no. Not even the festive mood taking hold of London had leavened her reaction to the loss of the barrow. Replacing it would cost five shillings, as much as Nell earned in a week. And her mother had seemed determined to beat into Nell’s hide the understanding of that cost.

Nell had no tears today. She was only angry, and determined that she would not be beaten again. She sat up and brushed the straw out of her skirt, clawed it out of the curls of her hair. And thought about what to do next. She wanted to find Rose, her dear older sister, with whom she’d planned so long for this day. And she was hungry. With no money and no prospect of getting any.

At home there would be food, but home would mean facing her mother again. Another beating, or at least more shouting and recriminations, and then more of what she had done for the past two years—up at dawn, the long walk to Billingsgate fish market to buy her daily stock, and an endless day pushing the barrow, heavy with the buckets of live oysters in their brine. Aching feet, aching arms, aching back, throat hoarse with her continual cry of “Oysters, alive-o!” Hands raw and red from plunging into the salt water, and the fishy, salty smell always on her hands, pervading her hair and clothes.

It was better than the work she had done before that, almost since she was old enough to walk—going from door to door to collect the cinders and fragments of wood left from the previous day’s fires, and then taking her pickings to the soap makers, who bought the charred bits for fuel and the ashes to make lye. Her skin and clothes had been always grey and gritty, a film of stinking ash ground into her pores. And not even a barrow to wheel, but heavy canvas sacks carried slung over her shoulders, their weight biting into her flesh.

Nell considered. What else could she do? What would buy freedom from her mother and keep food in her belly and a roof over her head? She could try to get work in some house, but that, too, would mean endless hours of hard and dirty work as a kitchen drudge or scouring floors and chamber pots, under the thumb of cook or steward as well as at the mercy of the uncertain temper of the master and mistress. No.

And that left only the choice that Rose had made, and their mother, too. Whoredom. Rose, who was four years older than Nell, had gone a year earlier to Madam Ross’s nearby establishment at the top of Drury Lane. It was not so bad, Rose said. A little room of her own, except of course when she’d a man there. And they were none of the rag, tag, and bobtail—it was gentlemen who were Madam Ross’s trade, and Rose earned enough to get an occasional treat for Nell, and good clothes for herself.

What awe and craving Nell had felt upon seeing the first clothes Rose had bought—a pair of silk stays, a chemise of fine lawn, and a skirt and body in a vivid blue, almost the color of Rose’s eyes, with ribbons to match. Secondhand, to be sure, but still beautiful. Nell had touched the stuff of the gown with a tentative finger—so smooth and clean. Best of all were the shoes—soft blue leather with an elegant high heel. She had wanted them so desperately. But you couldn’t wear shoes like that carting ashes or oysters through the mud of London’s streets.

Could she go to Madam Ross’s? She was no longer a child, really. She had small buds of breasts, and already the lads at the Golden Fleece, where her mother kept bar, watched her with appreciation, and asked with coarse jests when she would join Mrs. Gwynn’s gaggle of girls, who kept rooms upstairs or could be sent for from the nearby streets.

But before she could do anything about the future, she had to find Rose. Today, along with everyone else in London, they would watch and rejoice as the king returned to take his throne.

Nell emerged from under the staircase and hurried down the narrow alley to the Strand. The street was already thronged with people, and all were in holiday humour. The windows were festooned with ribbons and flowers. A fiddler played outside an alehouse, to the accompaniment of a clapping crowd. The smell of food wafted on the morning breeze—meat pies, pastries, chickens roasting.

A joyful cacophony of church bells pealed from all directions, and in the distance Nell could hear the celebratory firing of cannons at the Tower.

She scanned the crowds. Rose had said she’d come to fetch her from home this morning. If Rose had found her gone, where would she look? Surely here, where the king would pass by.

“Ribbons! Fine silk ribbons!” Nell turned and was instantly entranced. The ribbon seller’s staff was tied with rosettes of ribbons in all colours, and her clothes were pinned all over with knots of silken splendour. Nell stared at the most beautiful thing she had ever seen—a knot of ribbons the colours of periwinkles and daffodils, its streamers fluttering in the breeze. Wearing that, she would feel a grand lady.

“Only a penny, the finest ribbons,” the peddler cried. A penny. Nell could eat her fill for a penny. If she had one. And with that thought she realised how hungry she was. She’d had no supper the night before and now her empty belly grumbled. She must find Rose.

A voice called her name and she turned to see Molly and Deb, two of her mother’s wenches. Nell made her way across the road to where they stood. Molly was a country lass and Deb was a Londoner, but when she saw them together, which they almost always were, Nell could never help thinking of a matched team of horses. Both had straw-coloured hair and cheerful ruddy faces, and both were buxom, sturdy girls, packed into tight stays that thrust their bosoms into prominence. They seemed in high spirits and as they greeted Nell it was apparent that they had already had more than a little to drink.

“Have you seen Rose?” Nell asked.

“Nay, not since yesterday,” said Deb, and Molly chimed her agreement.

“Aye, not since last night.” She looked more closely at Nell.

“Is summat the matter?”

“No,” Nell lied. “Only I was to meet her this morning and I’ve missed her.” She wondered if the girls’ good spirits would extend to a loan. “Tip me a dace, will you? I’ve not had a bite this morning and I’m fair clemmed.”

“Faith, if I had the tuppence, I would,” said Deb. “But we’ve just spent the last of our rhino on drink and we’ve not worked yet today.”

“Not yet,” agreed Molly. “But the day is like to prove a golden one. I’ve ne’er seen crowds like this.”

“Aye, there’s plenty of darby to be made today,” Deb nodded. Her eyes flickered to a party of sailors moving down the opposite side of the road and with a nudge she drew Molly’s attention to the prospect of business.

“We’d best be off,” Molly said, and she and Deb were already moving toward their prey.

“If you see Rose …,” Nell cried after them.

“We’ll tell her, poppet,” Molly called back, and they were gone.

The crowds were growing, and it was becoming harder by the minute for Nell to see beyond the bodies towering above her. What she needed was somewhere with a better view.

She looked around for a vantage point. A brewer’s wagon stood on the side of the street, its bed packed with a crowd of lads, undoubtedly apprentices given liberty for the day. Surely it could accommodate another small body.

“Oy!” Nell called up. “Room for one more?”

“Aye, love, the more the merrier,” called a dark-haired lad, and hands reached down to pull her up. The view from here was much better.

“Drink?”

Nell turned to see a red-haired boy holding out a mug. He was not more than fourteen or so, and freckles stood out in his pale, anxious face. She took the mug and drank, and he smiled shyly, his blue eyes shining.

“How long have you been here?” Nell asked, keeping an eye on the crowd.

“Since last night,” he answered. “We brought my father’s wagon and made merry ’til late, then slept ’til the sun woke us.”

Nell had been hearing music in the distance since she had neared the Strand. The fiddler’s music floated on the air from the east, she could see a man with a tabor and pipe to the west, only the top notes of his tune reaching her ears, and now she saw a hurdy-gurdy player approaching, the keening drone of his instrument cutting through the noise of the crowd.

“Look!” she cried in delight. A tiny dark monkey capered along before the man, diminutive cap in hand. The crowds parted to make way for the pair, and as the boys beside her laughed and clapped, the man and his little partner stopped in front of the wagon. He waved a salute and began to play a jig. The monkey skipped and frolicked before him, to the vast entertainment of the crowd.

“Look at him! Just like a little man!” Nell cried. People were tossing coins into the man’s hat, which he had thrown onto the ground before him, and Nell laughed as the monkey scampered after an errant farthing and popped it into the hat.

“Here,” the ginger-haired boy said. He fished in a pocket inside his coat. She watched with interest as he withdrew a small handful of coins and picked one out.

“You give it to him,” he said, holding out a coin as he pocketed the rest of the money. Nell could tell that he was proud for her to see that he had money to spend for an entertainment such as this.

“Hist!” she called to the monkey and held up the shiny coin, shrieking with laughter as the monkey clambered up a wheel of the wagon, took the coin from her fingers, and bobbed her a little bow before leaping back down and resuming its dance.

Laughing, she turned to the boy and found him staring at her, naked longing in his eyes. He wanted her. She had seen that look before from men and boys of late and had ignored it. But today was different. Her stomach was turning over from lack of food, and she had no money. Molly and Deb had spoken of the wealth to be had from the day’s revelries. Maybe she could reap some of that wealth. Sixpence would buy food and drink, with money left over.

She stepped nearer to the boy and felt him catch his breath as she looked up at him.

“I’ll let you fuck me for sixpence,” she whispered. He gaped at her and for a moment she thought he was going to run away. But then, striving to look self-possessed, he nodded.

“I know where,” she said. “Follow me.”

HALF AFRAID THAT SHE WOULD LOSE HER PREY AND HALF WONDERING what had possessed her to speak so boldly, Nell darted through the crowds with the boy after her to the alley where she had spent the night. Slops from chamber pots emptied out of windows reeked in the sunshine, but the passage was deserted, save for a dead dog sprawled in the mud. Nell dodged under the staircase beneath which she had slept. The pile of straw was not very clean, but it would do. The boy glanced nervously behind him, then followed her.

With the boy so close, panting in anticipation, Nell felt a twinge of fear. For all the banter and jokes she had heard about the act, she had no real idea what it would be like. Would it hurt? Would she bleed? Could she get with child her first time? What if she did it so poorly that her ignorance showed? She wished she had considered the matter more carefully.

Her belly rumbled with hunger again. Why had she not simply asked the boy to buy her something to eat? But it was too late now, she thought. She pushed away her misgivings and flopped onto her back. The boy clambered on top of her, fumbling with the flies of his breeches, and heaved himself between her legs, thrusting against her blindly. He didn’t know what to do any more than she did, she realised. She reached down and grasped him, amazed at the aliveness of the hard member, like a puppy nosing desperately to nurse, and struggled to help him find the place.

The boy thrust hard, groaning like an animal in distress, and Nell gasped as he entered her. It hurt. Forcing too big a thing into too small a space, an edge of her skin pinched uncomfortably. Was this how it was meant to be? Surely not. Yet maybe to him it felt different.

She had little time to consider, as the boy’s movements grew faster, and with a strangled moan, he bucked convulsively and then stopped, pushed as far into her as he could go. He stayed there a moment, gasping, and then Nell felt a trickle of wetness down the inside of her thigh, and knew that he must have spent.

The boy looked down at her, with an expression that mingled jubilation with shame and surprise. He withdrew and did not look at Nell as he buttoned up his breeches and straightened his clothes. She grabbed a handful of straw to wipe the stickiness from between her legs. The smell of it rose sharp and shameful to her nose, and she wanted to retch. The boy reached into his pocket and counted out six pennies.

“I must go,” he said, and almost hitting his head on the low stairs, he ducked out and scurried away.

Nell looked at the coins. Sixpence. She felt a surge of power and joy. She had done it. It had not been so bad. And now she had money. She could do as she liked. And she decided that first and immediately, she would get something good to eat.

She used her shift to wipe as much of the remaining mess as she could from her thighs and hands, and then knotted the coins into its hem. She hurried back toward the Strand, her new wealth banging pleasantly against her calf.

The smell of food hung heavy in the air, and her stomach felt as if it was turning inside out with hunger. Earlier, she had noted with longing a man with a cart selling meat pies, and she sought him out, her nose leading the way. She extracted one of her pennies and received the golden half-moon, warm from its nest in the tin-lined cart. The man smiled at her rapturous expression as she took her prize in both hands, inhaling its heady aroma.

Voraciously, she bit into the pie, the crust breaking into tender shards that seemed to melt on her tongue. The rich warm gravy filled her mouth as she bit deeper, into the hearty filling of mutton and potatoes. She thought nothing had ever tasted so good. The pie seemed to be filling not only her belly, but crannies of longing and misery in her heart and soul. She sighed with pleasure, so hungry and intent on eating that she had not even moved from where she stood.

The old pie man, with a weathered face like a sun-dried apple, laughed as he watched her.

“I’d say you like it, then?”

Nell nodded, wiping gravy from her lips with the back of her hand and brushing a few crumbs from her chest. She was tempted to eat another pie right then, but decided to let the first settle. Besides, there were other things to spend money on, now that she had money to spend.

She again heard the call of “Ribbons! Fine ribbons!” The rosette—her rosette—cornflower blue intertwined with sun gold, its silken streamers rippling in the breeze—was still pinned to the woman’s staff. Waiting for her.

Nell raced to the woman, her face shining. “That one. If you please.” The woman gave her a look of some doubt, but as Nell pulled up her skirt and produced a penny from her shift, she unpinned the rosette from the staff.

“Do you want me to pin it for you, duck?”

Nell nodded, feeling grown up and important as the ribbon peddler considered her.

“Here, I think, is best.” The woman pinned the rosette to the neckline of Nell’s bodice and nodded approvingly. “Very handsome. The colour brings out those eyes of yours.”

Nell looked down and stroked the streamers. Even hanging on the rough brown wool, the gleaming ribbons were beautiful, and she wished that she could see herself. At home she had a scrap of mirror that she had found in the street, but she would have to wait until she went home to have a look. If she went home.

That brought back to mind her next task—finding Rose. The street was becoming more crowded, and she would have a hard time seeing the king when he came by, let alone her sister. She needed to find a perch from which she could view the road. But not the wagon with the red-headed lad. Given his urgent flight, he might not relish her company. And in truth, she did not think she would relish his. He had served his purpose. Now, perhaps, there were bigger fish to fry.

She considered the possibilities. The carts, wagons, barrels, and other vantage points at the sides of the road were packed. The windows of upper storeys would provide a superior view, if she could find a place in one.

She made her way eastward, searching windows for familiar faces but found none, and felt herself lost in a sea of strangers. She was almost at Fleet Street now. Surely Rose would not have come this far. She would go just as far as Temple Bar, she thought, and then turn back.

“Oy! Ginger!” The voice came from a window three floors up, where several lads were crowded. A stocky boy with close-cropped hair leaned out of the casement and regarded her with a wolflike grin.

Maybe she didn’t need an old friend. Maybe new friends would do.

Nell put a hand on her hip and raked the lad with an exaggeratedly critical glance, drawing guffaws from his mates.

“Aye, it’s ginger, and what of that?” she hollered. “At least I’ve got hair. Unlike some.”

The lads howled with delight, one of them gleefully rubbing his friend’s cropped poll and drawing a shove in response.

Playing to his audience, the boy took a deep swig from his mug and leered down at Nell. “You have hair, do you? I’d have thought you was too young.”

“Too young be damned,” cried Nell. “It’s you who must be too old, bald-pated as you are.” The lads set up a raucous cry at that, thumping their friend from all sides. Nell grinned up at them, gratified at their reaction and the laughter from the crowd around her. In her years selling oysters, she had found that a little saucy humour helped her business, and made the time pass more quickly.

“Come up and join us!” shouted another of the lads, a cheerful-faced runt with bright blue eyes.

“Aye, come aloft! Let me get a look at you up close!” cried Nell’s original sparring partner.

“And why should I?” Nell called back. “What do I want with the likes of you?”

“Come up and I’ll show you!”

“We’ve plenty to drink!” promised the thin lad, waving a mug. “And a view better than any in London!”

“Well, I could use a bit to drink,” Nell twinkled up at her admirers. There was a scramble at the window, and a few moments later, the door to the street-level shop flew open and one of the lads beckoned. He was gangly and sandy haired, and he giggled as he ushered her inside. She hesitated a moment, wondering if she was courting danger. But she followed him up the narrow stairs, finally arriving at the room where the boys were gathered.

“Here’s the little ginger wench!” The first lad swaggered over, chuckling as he eyed her. Behind him were the boy who had let her in, the scrawny lad, and a boy with dark brown hair and snapping dark eyes. They crowded around Nell, and she suddenly felt very small. But it would never do to seem shy, so she gave them a cheeky grin and chirped, “Pleased to meet you, lads. I’m Nell.”

They were all about sixteen years old, probably nearing the end of their apprenticeships, and it looked as if their master was nowhere near, for a barrel had been tapped and stood on a table at one side of the room. Each of the boys held a mug, and from their red faces and boisterous laughs, Nell guessed they had been drinking for some time.

“I’m Nick,” said the first boy. “This is my brother Davy, and Kit and Toby.”

The boys nodded their greetings, and Nell took the mug Kit handed her and drank. The dark stout tasted full and bitter, much heavier than the small beer she was accustomed to drinking, but she swallowed it down as the boys looked on, grinning. Feeling their eyes on her a little too keenly, she went to the window.

From this height, the view stretched eastward down Fleet Street toward St. Paul’s, and southwest past Charing Cross to Whitehall Palace. Across the road to the south, she could see over the walls of the grand houses along the Thames, their imposing fronts facing London and their capacious gardens sloping down behind to the river. Every wall, window, and rooftop was occupied, and the streets as far as she could see were aswarm. The noise of the crowd was growing louder. Nell heard drumbeats and the tramp of booted feet.

“Here they come!” Kit shouted, and the lads crowded to the windows around Nell. A shimmering wave of silver moved towards her, and she saw that it was a column of men marching. At the front was a rank of soldiers in buff coats with sleeves of cloth of silver, a row of drummers to the fore, rapping out a sharp tattoo as they swung along. Behind them marched hundreds of gentlemen in cloth of silver that flashed and shone.

Toby whistled. “Lord. Never knew there was so many gentlemen.”

“There wasn’t, a month since,” laughed Nick. “They was all lying quiet in the country or somewheres. Only now the king is come and it’s safe again ….”

The silver swarm was followed by a phalanx of gentlemen in velvet coats, interspersed with footmen in plush new liveries of deep purple and sea green.

“I didn’t know there was so many colours,” Nell breathed, awed by the beauty of the rich reds, greens, blues, and golds. “I didn’t know they could make cloth like that.”

“They can if you can pay for it,” said Davy.

“Aye,” Nick agreed. “I’ll wager Barbara Palmer has a gown of stuff like that.” He turned to Nell with a wink.

“Who’s Barbara Palmer?” she asked, not wanting to seem ignorant, but desperate to know.

“Why, the king’s whore!” Nick cried. “They do say she’s the most beautiful woman in England. Nought but the best for the king!”

Nell took this in with interest. The king’s whore. Wearing fine clothes. The whores she knew made themselves as brave and showy as they could, but she had never seen anything like the finery on display today.

The Sheriff of London and his men, all in scarlet, passed and were succeeded by the gentlemen of the London companies—the goldsmiths, vintners, bakers, and other guilds that supplied the City, each with its fluttering banner.

“There he is!” cried Kit. “Our master,” he explained, pointing to a beefy man in deep blue who strode along with his brothers in trade.

After the guilds came the aldermen of London, in scarlet gowns, and then more soldiers with tall pikes and halberds. But unlike the grim-faced soldiers who had patrolled the streets throughout her life, these men did not strike fear into Nell, for they couldn’t help smiling at the ringing cheers.

The roaring of the crowd exploded into a frenzy. Nell scrabbled for a hold on the windowsill and craned to get a better view.

The king was coming. Three men on horseback rode through Temple Bar, but the king could only be the one in the middle, in a cloth-of-silver doublet trimmed in gold, his saddle and bridle richly worked in gold. He turned from side to side to wave as blossoms showered down upon him. The throngs pressed forward, waving, throwing their hats into the air, calling out to him—“God save the king,” “God bless Your Majesty,” “Thank God for this day!”

“Those are his brothers,” Toby shouted to Nell. “The Duke of York and the Duke of Gloucester.” They were a dazzling sight, all in silver, riding side by side on three enormous dark stallions, radiant as angels in the noonday sun.

The king was close enough now that Nell could see him clearly. Big and broad shouldered, he sat tall in the gilded saddle, long booted legs straightening as he stood in the stirrups, as if he could not stay seated in the face of his people’s adulation. His long dark curls cascaded over his shoulders as he swept his hat from his head and waved it, turning to either side to acknowledge the cheers.

He smiled broadly, laughing with exuberance at the tumultuous welcome. “I thank you with all my heart,” he called, his deep voice ringing out amidst the clamour and cries.

“God save King Charles!” Nell realised it was her own voice. The king looked up, and Nell caught her breath as he looked her full in the face. He grinned, teeth showing beneath his dark moustache, eyes twinkling in his swarthy face, and called back to her, “I thank you, sweetheart!” Impulsively, Nell blew him a kiss and was immediately overcome with horror at the audacity of her act. But the king threw his head back and laughed, then blew a kiss to her, waving as he and his brothers rode on.

Nell giggled and bounced off the windowsill. “Did you see? He blew me a kiss!”

“Aye, and from what I hear of him, he’d offer you more than a kiss, was you close enough for him to reach you!” Nick guffawed. “He’s got a mistress who’s another man’s wife, and two or three merry-begotten brats by other women, they say. For who will say nay to the king?”

Not I, thought Nell.

The procession continued below, but once the king had passed, Nell’s attention was no longer focused exclusively on the street. Nick refilled her mug, and the other boys drifted away from the window to drink.

Nell was in high good humour, awed by the glamour of the pro cession and her exchange with the king. Her head swam a bit from the stout and from the excitement at being out on her own for the first time, in company with these older boys, almost men.

“What think you of the king, Nelly?” Kit asked.

“Oh,” she cooed, “he’s fine as hands can make him.”

“Not finer than me, surely?” cried Nick.

“Oh, no,” Nell shot back. “No more than a diamond is finer than a dog turd.” The boys roared and moved in close around her. At the heart of this laughing group, she felt worldly and sophisticated. She had been silly to doubt that she could handle the lads. They were eating out of her hand.

“Ah, Nick, you’re not good enough for Nell,” Toby chortled. “Mayhap you’d have better luck with Barbara Palmer.”

“Well, Nell?” Davy laughed. “Do you think she’d have him?”

“Aye, when hens make holy water,” Nell answered tartly.

“What?” Nick gawped at her in mock amazement. “How can you say such a thing? When you’ve hardly met me! Why, I have qualities.”

“Aye, and a bumblebee in a cow turd thinks himself a king,” she retorted. “Is there no end of your talking?”

“I’ll leave off my talking and set you to moaning,” Nick leered, sidling closer. “Once a mort is lucky enough to feel my quim-stake, she’s not like to forget it.”

Nell gave him a shove in the belly.

“Enough of your bear-garden discourse.”

“Aye, speak that way to Barbara Palmer, and you’re like to be taken out for air and exercise,” Toby grinned.

“No, you’d get worse than a whipping at the cart’s arse for giving her the cutty eye,” Kit shook his head. “Look the wrong way at the king’s doxy and you’ll piss when you can’t whistle.”

“How say you, Nick?” Davy asked. “Do you reckon there’s a woman worth hanging for?”

“If there is,” Nick said, “I’ve yet to clap eyes on her.”

“Don’t lose hope yet.” Nell batted her eyes at him. “The day is young.”

Eventually the last of the king’s train passed, followed by a straggling tail of children and beggars, but the crowds in the street below did not disperse. Drink flowed and piles of wood were being stacked in preparation for celebratory bonfires. The party would continue through the night.

“Come on, who’s for wandering?” Nick turned from the window. “To Whitehall!” he bellowed, once they were in the street. “I want to see this trull of the king’s.”

Their progress was slow, as the way toward Whitehall was packed with others wending their way there, and there were constant diversions. Musicians, jugglers, stilt walkers, and rope dancers performed, as if Bartholomew Fair had come early.

Before the palace, the gang crowded with others around a roaring bonfire. The windows of the Banqueting House glowed from the light of hundreds of candles. Carriages clogged the street, the coachmen and footmen gathered in knots to talk as they waited for their masters.

“The king’s having his supper now, before the whole court,” Nick said. “I reckon he’s got that Barbara Palmer with him.” He moved closer to Nell and she felt his eyes hot on her. He was quite big and the intensity of his gaze made her heart race.

“I know I’d have her,” he continued, “wherever and whenever I wanted, was I king.” The boys hooted their agreement, but Nick’s attention was on Nell now. He pulled her to him roughly and ran a hand heavily over her small breasts. She felt a surge of fear and tried to pull away.

Someone nearby cried out, the crowd stirred and buzzed, and Nell saw that the king had appeared at one of the windows of the Banqueting House. Nick loosened his hold on her and turned to gawk. The light blazing behind the king created a golden aura around him. The bonfires illuminated his face and made the silver of his doublet shine. He raised a hand to salute the crowds below, and they roared their approval and welcome.

Then a woman appeared next to him, and Nell knew that this must be the famous Barbara Palmer. She was darkly beautiful, her hair dressed in elaborate curls, and she wore a low-cut gown of deep red that set off the pale lushness of her bosom. As she leaned close to the king, sparkles and flashes of light from the jewels at her ears and throat cut through the shadows.

Nell had never seen a woman so stunning. She looked carefully, memorising every detail, and longed to be like her—gorgeously dressed, elegant, and at ease before the adoring crowds.

Barbara Palmer disappeared from view. The king gave a final wave to the crowds and followed her.

“Aye, just give me half an hour with her,” crowed Nick. “I reckon she’d be worth the price.”

“You’ll not earn the cost of her in your lifetime!” Davy gibed.

Nell felt a rush of envy. She didn’t want to lose the delicious new sensation of feeling admired and special.

“She may be beautiful,” she announced, tossing her tangled curls, “but she’s not the only one worth her price.”

This pronouncement produced a ripple of some indefinable undercurrent and an exchange of meaningful glances among the lads. Nick moved close to her, and she could not breathe for the nearness of him and his size. The firelight flickered orange on his face, and on the faces of the other lads, who stood flanking him and regarding her with new interest.

“Is that so?” Nick asked, taking a lazy drink. His eyes gleamed in the dark. “And just what might your price be?”

Nell’s stomach heaved with nervous excitement, but remembering Barbara Palmer’s easy confidence, she managed an inviting smile as she looked up at him. She thought of what Deb and Molly had said—was it only this morning?—about the riches to be made this night.

“Sixpence,” she said to him. And then, taking in the others with a flicker of her eyes, “Apiece.”

“Well, then. Time’s a-wasting,” said Nick, with a canine grin. He glanced toward the blackness of St. James’s Park, grabbed Nell by the wrist, and pulled her along, the other boys in tow.

The park was scattered with revellers, but there were secluded dens amidst the darkness of the spreading trees and tangled shrubbery, and in any case, no one was likely to ask questions, tonight of all nights. Nick drew Nell into a thicket of trees, and the others crowded in behind him.

This felt very different from the morning’s hasty coupling with the red-haired apprentice, and facing the four lads, panic rose in Nell’s throat. But there was nothing really to be afraid of, was there? A bit of mess and it would all be done. And she would be two shillings the richer. Best to get it over with. She turned to find the driest spot on which to lie, but before she could move further, Nick shoved her down and onto her back, pulled her skirt up to her waist, and was on top of her.

He leaned on one forearm as he unbuttoned his breeches, his weight taking Nell’s breath away, then spit on his palm, guided himself between her legs and entered her hard. Her nether parts were tender, and his assault made her gasp in pain. She bit her lip and struggled not to whimper.

Nick lasted much longer than the young apprentice had, and finished with a low growl and a deep sustained thrust that made Nell cry out. He looked down at her for a moment, vulpine triumph in his eyes, then, grunting, heaved himself off her, put his cock back in his breeches, and buttoned his flies.

“Who’s next?” he asked. There was a moment of hesitation, and he turned in irritation to his mates. “What ails you? I said who’s next?”

Toby came forward. He was faster than Nick, and Nick having spent within her made his entry easier, but still it was painful. Nell turned her head so that she would not have to look him in the eyes. The other boys needed no urging now. Davy and Kit hovered on either side of her, watching, eager for their turns, and Davy knelt between Nell’s thighs as soon as Toby was done. He hooked his arms under her knees, and he looked down at her keenly as he moved inside her, snarling like an animal.

The other boys laughed and called out their encouragement. Nell shut her eyes. Rocks and twigs pressed into her back, and the damp earth was soaking through her clothes. She didn’t feel elegant and enchanting, only uncomfortable and frightened. But it would soon be over. And the money would make it all worthwhile.

Kit nearly knocked Davy aside in his haste to get on top of Nell. She was so sore now that she could barely keep from crying, but managed not to let more than a stifled moan escape.

Finally, Kit finished, and sat back to fasten his breeches.

“Come on!” Nick ordered, yanking him to his feet.

“My money!” Nell cried, struggling to get up. “Two shillings.” Nick shoved her onto her back with a foot.

“Two hogs?” he sneered. “For that? We’ll not pay a farthing. You’re not only a whore, you’re a stupid whore, at that.”

Nell scrambled to her feet and caught at him. They couldn’t. After all she had suffered.

“You said—you agreed!” But Nick just flung her away, and she tripped sideways and fell to her knees as the boys ran, crashing away through the branches.

It was hopeless. She gulped, fighting back sobs. Every part of her ached; the insides of her bruised thighs were clammy; she was covered in mud. She tried to straighten her clothes, and cried out as she realised that her rosette was gone. In a panic, she looked and felt around her. And there it was. It must have come off when Nick first pushed her down and been crushed beneath her. It lay crumpled in the muck, its beautiful bright colours sodden grey.

The tears Nell had held back flowed now, and she wept, her body shaking, as she clutched the precious knot of ribbons in her hand. Nick was right. How stupid she had been, to think that she could ever be like the glorious Barbara Palmer. She was just a shabby little ragamuffin, fit for nothing better than selling oysters. Her dreams of freedom had been so much foolishness. She would have no choice but to go back to her mother, to endure the beating that she knew awaited her, and resume her life of drudgery.

When she had finally cried herself out, Nell pushed herself up, wincing in pain, and wiped her nose and eyes on her shift. Her fingers closed around the lump in the hem. Her remaining pennies were still there. One shred of consolation. But the money would not buy her lodging for the night, and she longed to lie herself down. She could go home. Or spend a second night on the street. Unless she could find Rose. That thought brought her to her feet. Rose would surely be at Madam Ross’s.

She emerged from the trees. There were still crowds gathered around the bonfires before the palace. She hurried toward Charing Cross, spurred on by hunger and weariness and the hope of comfort. Fires burned in the Strand and music drifted towards her on the warm evening breeze. She turned into the warren of narrow lanes that lay to the north of Covent Garden. She was near home now, and it felt odd to bypass the familiar close. But, resolutely, she made toward Lewkenor’s Lane.

“Nell!” Rose’s voice called her name. Nell rushed toward Rose and clung to her.

“I’ve been looking for you all the day,” Rose exclaimed, and then took in Nell’s state of dishevelment. “Wherever have you been?”

Nell’s tears burst forth again, and Rose guided her to a step, sat her down, and listened as the whole story came out in a rush. After she finished, Nell sat sobbing, overcome by humiliation and shame. Rose stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head.

“Oh, Nelly,” she said. “I wish I had found you this morning. If I had only known what was in your mind ….” She shook her head, considering, then put a finger under Nell’s chin and tilted Nell’s face to hers. Nell looked into her sister’s eyes, and Rose’s voice was gentle.

“I cannot make the world a different place than it is. But I can tell you this: Get the money first. Always.”

CHAPTER TWO

MADAM ROSS PURSED HER ROUGED LIPS. NELL FIDGETED UNDER THE examination and threw an anxious glance to Rose. The madam’s red hair, unblinking gaze, and the quick tilt of her head made Nell think of a russet hen. She supposed Madam Ross must be as old as her mother, maybe even older. But she was a very handsome woman, and elegant in the dark green gown which showed off her buxom figure.

“Hmph,” Madam Ross mused. “Good eyes, good skin. Hair not a bad colour, but monstrous wild.” Nell reached a hand up to try to smooth her curls and suffered Madam Ross to take her by the shoulders and turn her about.

“The beginnings of a nice little bosom,” Madam Ross commented. “And I make no doubt you’ll fill out more, like your sister. Yes, not bad at all. Lift your skirts.” Nell hesitantly pulled her skirt and shift to her knees.

“Higher, girl,” said Madam Ross, twitching Nell’s skirts to waist height. “Hmph. Very lovely little legs you have. And bit of feathering to the cuckoo’s nest, I see. Do you have your courses yet?”

“Aye,” Nell stammered. “Just.”

“Well, Rose can teach you what to do to keep yourself from getting with child.” She stepped back and regarded Nell for another moment, then nodded.

“Aye. You’ll do well. Some of them like the look of a game pullet who’s still but a child. We can sell you as a virgin for this day or two. And even without that, you’re a pretty impish little thing.” She smiled at Nell and then turned to Rose.

“She can lie in the room next to yours. Get her things today. We’re like to continue busy and we can use all hands.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Rose said, and Nell echoed her, “Aye, thank you very kindly, ma’am.”

Madam Ross nodded her acknowledgement. “Rose, make sure she has a bath. And help her to do something about that hair.”

She sailed out the door in a rustle of skirts, and Nell and Rose were left alone in Rose’s tiny room. Nell studied Rose, wishing as she frequently did that her own hair would fall in the smooth chestnut waves her sister had. Rose’s blue eyes were intent on her with an expression Nell couldn’t read, the colour standing out on her high cheekbones.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Rose asked. “’Tis not … all ease. You could go back home.”

“No.” Nell shook her head. “I’ll never go back. Besides, you know Mam would have me working the same way afore long. I must earn my keep in some way. I had rather be with you.”

“Very well.” Rose gave Nell a squeeze and a smile. “At least I can keep an eye on you here.”

THAT AFTERNOON, NELL AND ROSE WENT TO FETCH NELL’S FEW belongings from the Golden Fleece. Their mother, Eleanor, was behind the bar and scowled as they entered.

“I was wondering when you’d come creeping back. High time, too. There’s work to be done.” She turned back to the keg she had been tapping.

Nell’s heart pounded with fear, but knowing that Rose stood beside her, she found the courage to answer.

“I’m not coming back.”

Eleanor whirled to face her.

“What prating nonsense is that? Where else would you go?”

“With me,” Rose spoke up.

Eleanor shot from behind the bar with such violence that she sent a stool clattering to the floor, drawing the attention of the few tipplers who sat in a gloomy corner.

“With you? You talk hog-high. Are you so grand now that you’ve money to spare on the lazy little wretch?”

Rage overcame Nell’s fear.

“Lazy? You’ve worked me day and night since I could scarce walk. I don’t need you. I can get my own living!”

Eleanor’s face flushed and she lunged for Nell, but Rose stepped between them.

“We’ve come to get Nell’s things,” Rose said, toe to toe with their mother. “Madam Ross has taken her on. Stand aside.”

Eleanor stood her ground for a moment, eyes blazing. But Rose did not back down, and all the patrons of the tavern were watching now. With a snort of disgust, Eleanor moved away, and Nell followed Rose behind the bar to the stairs.

In the mousehole of a room she had shared with her mother for as long as she could recall, Nell gathered the few items of clothes she was not already wearing—her spare shift, a pair of woollen stockings, a ragged cloak and cap for winter. Her only other possessions were the precious shard of mirror wrapped in a bit of sacking, and a small doll, its body of stuffed cloth and its face a painted walnut. Nell had had the doll all her life, and Eleanor had told Nell that her father had made it for her. It was the only relic she had of his existence, the only evidence that he had once lived, and had loved her.

Eleanor looked up as Nell and Rose descended the stairs.

“You’re an ungrateful little fool. And that Ross woman is an even greater fool if she thinks any man will pay to bed the likes of you.” The words hit Nell like a slap across the face, but Rose put a steadying hand on her shoulder and guided her past their mother.

“Goodbye, Mam,” Rose said.

ROSE OPENED THE DOOR INTO WHAT WOULD BE NELL’S HOME AND place of work. The room was tiny, scarce big enough for a bed, a chair, and a stand that held a basin and bowl for washing and a towel. There were three hooks on one wall, for hanging clothes, and a battered wooden box in which Nell could keep her belongings. Roughcast walls rose to the dingy ceiling. Wide oak planks formed the floor, the grooves between them packed with ancient dust, the path from the door to the bed worn smooth from the passage of countless feet. A tallow candle stood in a bracket on the wall, but it was not lit, as the room’s best feature, the southward-facing window overlooking Lewkenor’s Lane, let in the noontime sun.

It was the most space that Nell had ever had to herself and she surveyed the little room with a sense of proprietorial delight. But the sudden change in her life was unsettling. She didn’t want Rose to leave her, and turned to her sister.

“What must I do now?”

“We’ll find you some better duds, and then you can sleep a bit before evening. ’Tis like to be busy tonight.”

“How will I know what to do?” Nell asked.

“Just chat as you’re used to at the Fleece. Not everyone in the taproom is there to dance Moll Pratley’s jig. If they want to go upstairs, they’ll pay Madam direct. She’ll tell you who to take next. Or Jack will.”

“Who’s Jack?”

“Madam’s man, who serves as bullyboy. Best to keep on his good side. He’ll have his way with one of the wenches once in a while, but if you’re lucky he’ll leave you be.”

“How much do we get paid?”

“The house takes two shillings. We get sixpence. But regulars are more like to be generous and give you extra coin, or bring you fal-lals of some sort.”

“Like what?

“Oh, garters, ribbons, maybe a fan or the like.”

Nell was pleased at the thought of owning such fine things and determined that she would get herself some regular customers as soon as ever she could.

“There’s more you need to know,” Rose continued. “You don’t want to get with child. You can’t work once you’re far along, and you’re like to get flung out before then anyway.”

Nell had not thought about pregnancy, and wondered what other unexpected hazards lay ahead.

“Come,” Rose said. “I’ll show you what to do.”

In Rose’s own little chamber, she produced a small lemon and a knife. She cut the lemon in two, squashed one half against a protruding knob in the bottom of a small wooden dish, and held up the resulting hollow little cup of rind and juiceless pulp.

“You put this up you, and set it so that it covers the entry to your womb.”

Nell goggled at her. “How will I know where it is?”

“Lie on your bed or squat down and put your finger up inside you. You’ll feel what I mean. A man’s seed is what gets you with child, do you see, when it gets into your belly. This helps keep it out. A little sponge soaked in vinegar will work, too. And after a man spends inside you, get up as soon as you can, use the chamber pot, and squeeze the stuff out. And wash between men.” She hesitated, and her fair face flushed pink as she spoke.

“Since your mind is made up, I’d best tell you some other things. Some men will prefer your mouth to your belly. It can be bad but at least it will not get you with child. When you think a cull is about to come off, get his yard as far back in your mouth as possible so you need not taste his spendings. Or have the necessary ready to hand so you can spit it out.”

Nell glanced at the chamber pot beneath the bed. It seemed that implement was quite an important tool of her new trade.

“What else?”

“Some will want to take you up the arse. It can hurt but you get accustomed. I’ll give you some salve. If you put a bit onto him or yourself it will make the business easier no matter where he takes you.”

“Even in the mouth?”

“No, of course not.” Rose spoke brusquely, dismayed at the depth of Nell’s innocence, and then continued more gently. “That’s different. The only difficulty there is breathing if he pushes in deep. You’ll learn.”

In the alehouse and around the bawds from her earliest days, Nell had heard of these practices, but she had never given them any particular thought. Faced now with such stark descriptions of what she would shortly be called upon to do, she quailed a little. But surely, whatever came would be easier than her previous work? No hauling sacks of charred scraps of wood and ash, no pushing the unwieldy barrow of oysters, its rough wooden handles making her hands blister and callus, the weight of the load through the long day wearing her out until all she could do was drop to sleep, exhausted. Surely this would be better.

She squared her shoulders and looked at Rose.

“Aye. I’ll learn.”

Rose stroked an errant curl out of Nell’s eyes and smiled.

“Come, let’s find you some rigging.”

This was a part of making ready that Nell thoroughly enjoyed. She watched in delight as Rose threw open the chest where Madam Ross kept a small store of clothes that had been left behind by girls who had been cast out or run away or died.

Rose rummaged through the brightly coloured garments, tossing flounced and ruffled articles into a heap on the floor. She pulled out a skirt and matching boned body in a blue that made Nell think of harebells. Its fabric was finer by far than any she had ever worn. She held the body against her chest and smoothed it so that the waist met hers. The fit seemed just right, the full skirt grazing the tops of her bare feet. In a moment Rose held up a pair of stays, their long laces trailing, and a shift of fine lawn.

“Perfect. Now all you need is shoes and stockings. You’ll have to start with some of mine. It’s best that way any road—you’ll have to pay Madam Ross for these out of your earnings, and the less you have to work off, the better. But before you put any of that on, you need a bath. A real one, all over.”

Nell looked up at Rose, startled. She washed, using a bucket of water and rough lye soap to get the oyster brine and smell from her hands and arms and face. But bathing her whole body? She had never considered that.

A tub large enough to sit in stood in a small room off the kitchen, and Rose and Nell had only to carry enough buckets of hot water from the great kettle on the stove to fill it partway, and enough cold water to make the temperature bearable.

Nell looked at the steaming tub dubiously, but Rose was impatient.

“Come, off with your clothes. You’ll feel better. And you’ll look better. Keep in mind, you’re a good deal more bedraggled than what Madam is accustomed to taking in.”

Nell pulled off her dress and smock, lifted a leg over the rim of the tub, and waggled her toes in the warm water. It did feel good, and she climbed in and sat down so that the water rose above her waist.

“Wet your head. I’ll wash your hair,” Rose directed. Nell closed her eyes and submerged herself. The water was already an opaque browny grey. Rose handed her a cloth and a pannikin of brown soap, and pulling a stool close to the tub, she rubbed soap briskly into Nell’s hair. Nell submitted, enjoying the novel sensations.

“Well, wash yourself, goose,” Rose laughed.

Nell dutifully scrubbed herself. The water grew dingier, and her skin, flushed in the heat, got pinker. The ever-present feel of sweat and dirt was gone. She breathed in the steam and felt it clear her nose.

So far, her new life seemed more promising than the one she had left. She turned around and smiled up at Rose.

“I knew you would save me.”

Rose shook her head and grimaced wryly.

“I haven’t saved thee, treacle. I’m afraid you’ve jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. But in truth I don’t know what else to do with you.”

After she was bathed and her old clothes set aside for washing, Nell returned to her little cubbyhole. The clean, soft stuff of her new shift clung to her damp skin and gave off a faint scent of lavender and beeswax. Her wet hair made her head pleasantly cool. The bath had helped ease the aches from her mother’s beating and the scrapes and bruises of the lads’ brutal use of her in the park.

She climbed into the bed. It was far more comfortable than the little straw-stuffed pallet she had slept on for as long as she could remember, and had clean linen sheets, a pillow, and a wool coverlet. She curled into this new luxury and went immediately to sleep.

NELL WOKE TO SEE ROSE COMING IN WITH PART OF A COLD MEAT pie and a mug of small beer.

“Feeling better?”

“Much.”

“Good. Eat, and then we’ll get you dressed.”

Nell ate ravenously. Rose stopped her from wiping her hands and mouth on her shift, giving her a napkin instead.

When Nell had finished eating, Rose laced her into the stays. They were only covered in linen, not silk like Rose’s, but pretty little tabs fluttered around the bottom. The stiff boning made her stand differently and forced her small breasts upward so that their swell showed above the scooping neckline.

“Here,” Rose said, handing her shoes and stockings, “stampers and vampers.” Nell had only worn heavy grey woollen stockings, in the winter, and these were much finer, and a creamy white. The shoes were a revelation, too. Made of brown leather, they had a little heel that pitched her weight forward. She giggled as she took a tentative step. Walking in these would take some getting used to, especially as they were a bit too big for her, and Rose had stuffed the toes with rags.

Rose combed and parted Nell’s hair as gently as she could, though her natural thicket of curls, not improved by having been slept on wet, was in a tangle. Then she scooped something sweet-smelling from a small pot and smoothed it into Nell’s hair. Nell sat breathless as Rose formed ringlets on either side of her head and a fringe of tiny curls on her forehead. Rose viewed her creation.

“Would you like to see?”

Nell skipped along behind Rose to the little room where the chest of clothes was kept and approached the full-length mirror.

It seemed that it was the face of a stranger staring out at Nell. Her hair, usually matted and its colour dulled by dirt to an indifferent reddish brown, had altered into a glowing copper, with a shine and smoothness to the curls that danced around her head. Her skin had lost its greyish pallor, and her lips and cheeks glowed with a rosy flush. Her dark eyebrows and eyelashes stood out in contrast to the clean whiteness of her skin, and her hazel eyes sparkled.

The dress had transformed her into a young woman. The tightly laced body bared her shoulders, emphasized her bosom, and made her slender waist even smaller. The sleeves ended just below her elbows with a frill of lace, and the skirt fell in graceful folds. The blue of the fabric, like the depths of the ocean on a cloudy day, set off her colouring to perfection. Nell turned to Rose, no words coming to express her astonishment and gratitude.

Rose smiled. “Aye, you’ll do.”

Nell turned sharply at the sound of tapping footsteps. Madam Ross swept in, clad for the evening in a gown that alternated stripes of gleaming black and a colour like molten honey, which made Nell think of a tortoiseshell cat.

“Very fetching,” Madam Ross said. “Indeed, much better than I would have thought, given what a wretched little thing she appeared this morning.”

Nell smiled shyly up at Madam Ross.

“Have you eaten, child?”

“Oh, yes, thankee, ma’am.”

“And your sister has told you what you must and must not do? Good. Then we shall very shortly set you loose upon the unsuspecting town.”

She gave a little chuckle and went, her heels clicking on the planks of the floor.

Nell turned to Rose. “What did that mean?”

“I think it means, little sister, that Madam Ross thinks the gents will like you.”

THE AFTERNOON WAS LENGTHENING INTO A WARM SUMMERLIKE evening as Nell followed Rose downstairs and into the large taproom for her first night of her new work. She felt self-conscious and apprehensive. Her initial foray with the red-headed boy had been impulsive, fuelled by hunger and desperation. With Nick and the others, any wariness she might have had was overcome by drink, and in the end she had had no choice. But this felt different. She was very sore from the previous night and wished that she could turn and run. But where was there to go?

The tables were crowded with men, and most of the girls were already present. As Nell watched their darting movements, the swirl and flounce of their brightly colored finery, and listened to their high-pitched raillery and chatter, they reminded her of the exotic songbirds she had seen for sale on the streets. And despite her new apparel, she felt like a small brown wren among them.

Rose went to a prosperous-looking man who called to her, and Nell was left on her own. She wanted to hang back unnoticed. Having spent so much of her childhood in similar surroundings, she drifted to where she felt most at home—near to the bar. The barman, of middle years and with a face as English and unexceptional as a crab apple, had a row of slipware mugs half filled and was topping off another. He looked friendly, Nell thought, as she peered at him, her head barely clearing the top of the bar.

“Do you want me to take these over?” she asked.

The barman gave her a lopsided grin.

“Aye, that’d be a right help,” he nodded. “And who might you be?”

“Nell. I’m Rose’s sister. I’m working here now.”

“Well, Mistress Nell,” he said, “I’m Ned. And since you ask, you can take these to those lads, and bring back the dead men.” He nodded toward four young army officers at a table in a corner and the litter of empty vessels before them. Nell expertly grasped the handles of four full mugs and made her way across the room. One of the lads was just reaching the end of a story and the group broke into laughter as she set the mugs on the table.

“You’re new,” one of them commented as he took up his drink. Four sets of eyes focused on her and it hit Nell with a sudden shock that she was there for their purchase. The first lad’s dark eyes were intent. She flushed and then, annoyed with herself at her shyness, tossed her head and gave the group a cocky smile. She recalled the line that Rose had instructed her to use.

“I’m Nell,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, gentlemen.” She dropped them a curtsy, gathered the empties, and hurried back to the bar. The place grew busier, so she continued to deliver drinks. It gave her something to occupy herself and made her feel less conspicuous, and after a lifetime of her mother harrying her not to be idle, she felt she should be doing something.

Madam Ross bustled into the room an hour or so after Nell had entered. In her wake came a man that Nell guessed must be Jack. He was above average height and muscular in a lean and catlike way, and though he did no more than amble to the bar, casually surveying the room and nodding at an acquaintance or two, he conveyed a sense of coiled danger. Nell could see why Rose had said that his mere presence was usually enough to discourage troublemakers. She remembered, too, what Rose had said about his occasionally requiring the services of one of the girls, and hoped that he would not find her to his liking.

Rose hurried up to Nell and leaned close to speak to her.

“The missus won’t like it if she sees you back here. You’ve got to get out and speak to the men.”

“But what will I say?”

“It doesn’t matter; you’ll think of something. Ned—give me a cup of comfort for Nell, would you? Here—drink this down. It’ll take the edge off and make things easier.”

Nell wrinkled her nose at the brandy but made herself swallow it in a gulp. She coughed, and tears came to her eyes, but almost instantly she felt a warming sensation followed by a pleasant numbness.

“Better?” asked Rose. “Good. Come with me.” She pulled Nell with her to the table where she had been sitting with her gentleman and his friend. “Mr. Green, Mr. Cooper, this is my sister Nell.”

“The usual phrase is ‘one of my cousins,’ is it not?” asked Mr. Cooper with a leer, peering at Nell over spectacles. He was fat and greasy looking and Nell instantly hated him.

“Yes, sir, but I do not speak in jest or in cant. She really is my sister.”

“Pretty little thing,” Mr. Cooper commented to Mr. Green. Nell felt she might have been a doll on a shelf, the way he spoke as if she were not there to hear him. She thought of him touching her and wanted to run, but was stopped from further action by the arrival of Madam Ross at her side.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Come, Nell. A gentleman is asking for you particularly.” She led Nell away and glanced at the table of officers in the corner. “Mr. Cade. He says you’ve met. Take him upstairs. And treat him well. It will do us no harm to be in well with the army lads.”

Nell nodded, her heart suddenly in her throat. The young officer who had first spoken to her was making his way towards her. He was rather handsome, with dark curling hair and a face bronzed by the sun, and he had seemed friendly enough. Nevertheless, she was afraid. The brandy was making the noisy room echo around her and she felt rooted to the floor.

Madam Ross gave Cade a seductive smile and a half bow as he approached. “Here she is, sir. Enjoy yourself, pray.”

Cade returned the bow and the smile.

“Of that I have no doubt, madam.”

With a flutter of her fan, Madam Ross drifted off, and Cade turned and looked down at Nell.

“Lead on, little one.”

His speech was casual, but his eyes were bright and she could sense the heat of his desire as he followed her out of the taproom and up the stairs to her room.

As soon as they were in the door, he shoved her against the wall, plunging one hand down her bodice and the other beneath her skirts, reaching between her legs and exploring her roughly. Nell caught her breath at the suddenness of his assault. Images of the previous night flooded her mind and she fought down panic.

Cade lifted her skirt and grasped her around the waist, thrusting against her backside. Nell could feel his hardness beneath his breeches. He pulled himself away and stood looking at her for a moment, his breathing rapid and his eyes like coals.

“Take your clothes off,” he commanded, pulling off his sword belt. She was frightened, but with his eyes on her she was more frightened not to obey, and she fumbled with the hooks of her bodice and skirt and dropped them to the floor. He ran his hands over her bare shoulders and throat, then unlaced her stays. When they were free he pulled her shift over her head. Standing there in nought but stockings and shoes, Nell felt more naked beneath his gaze than she would have if she had worn nothing.

“Come, wench. Onto your knees.”

So here it was, Nell thought. If this was her chosen trade, this was a part of it, and she had better get used to it than fight it.

She knelt before Cade and unbuttoned his breeches. His cock sprang forth like a living thing. It seemed enormous, and was alarmingly ruddy and purple. Nell took it into her hand and tentatively licked the head. It felt velvety beneath her tongue, and tasted slightly salty, of sweat and something more, but was not vile, as she had feared it might be. Cade moaned and grasped a handful of her hair and thrust himself into her mouth. Nell felt her gorge rise and instinctively pushed him away. She turned from him, gagging and coughing. Fear rose in her. She was a failure at this, too, and would be turned out.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her eyes fixed on his boots. “Only I haven’t—”

“You haven’t had a prick in your mouth before?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, first time for everything, isn’t there? Come, try again. I won’t hurt you.”

Nell once again took him into her mouth, and he did not push so deep into her throat this time. She did nothing except let him move inside her, but that seemed to be all that was required.

After a few moments, he withdrew and pulled her onto the bed. His breeches around his knees and still wearing his boots, he nudged her thighs apart. Nell remembered the salve that Rose had left with her, but it was too late now.

Her nether parts were bruised, and Cade’s entry hurt. She thought that if last night had been anything to go by, at least this would not last long. She was relieved to find that she was right. After only a few minutes, his thrusts sped up and Nell felt the spasm as he shoved hard and spent within her.

She felt his heartbeat slow along with his breathing before he rolled off her. She was unsure what she should do, but he seemed not to expect anything more. He gave her a brief smile and tousled her hair.

“That’s a good girl.”

Evidently Nell had given satisfaction, for Cade gave her tuppence on his way out, and as she was washing herself, Madam Ross came to tell her not to bother dressing, as two of Cade’s brother officers had paid for her services.

“Here’s Lieutenant Dawkins,” she said. Dawkins, big and blonde, was out of his coat before Madam Ross had shut the door behind her, and without a word he pushed Nell onto the bed and settled himself between her legs.

“Oh, God, but you’re tight,” he moaned in her ear. He moved slowly, lying heavy on top of her. Nell felt that she would smother under his weight and wrenched her head to the side, gasping for breath. Dawkins felt even bigger than Cade inside her, and she wondered how big a man’s pego could be. She thought with alarm of the enormous member of a stallion. Surely no man could be as huge as that?

A fist thundered on the door.

“Hurry up, you poxy bastard. Are you going to take all night about it?”

“Piss off,” Hawkins answered, not interrupting his purposeful stroke.

The owner of the voice, Lieutenant Harper, was waiting outside the door and gave Dawkins a leering grin as they met in the doorway. He was a ruddy-faced young man with sandy red hair who reminded Nell of a fox.

“Give her a good one?” he asked, with a glance at Nell.

“Better than you could manage, mate,” Dawkins returned, and was gone.

Harper came to the edge of the bed where Nell sat naked and squeezed her small breasts in his hands, pinching her nipples until they stood erect and hard.

“Go on, open my breeches,” he said. She obeyed. “Look what a star-gazer I’ve got. And it’s going right down your gullet.”

He pulled Nell to her knees and shoved himself into her mouth, and she fought the urge to gag.

“Suck, wench.”

Nell did as he told her. Her lips hurt, stretched wide, and she wished he would stop. She felt his thrusts grow quicker but was not prepared for the sudden explosion of hot liquid into her mouth, and she choked and struggled as he held her head in place. When he withdrew, his mettle ran down Nell’s chin and onto her bare chest. She scrambled for the pot under the bed and retched into it.

“What, wench, do you not like the taste of my buttermilk?” Harper laughed as he wiped himself with his shirt and buttoned his breeches. “Well, you’ll come to it with use. Still, here’s tuppence for you. You’ll do better next time.”

After Harper had left, Nell wanted nothing more than to sleep. But, afraid of being cast out if she failed to live up to Madam Ross’s expectations, she washed herself, wincing as she did so, dressed, and went back downstairs. Rose beckoned and looked searchingly at her.

“How are you faring?” she asked. “Not too bad?”

“Not too bad,” Nell responded, though she tottered on her feet with exhaustion. “Will it always hurt so much?”

“No,” said Rose. “You’ll grow used to it by and by. Remember the salve.”

Madam Ross was approaching, an approving smile on her powdered face.

“You’ve done well. All the gentlemen were most pleased.” She looked at Nell’s dishevelled hair and bleary eyes.

“That’s enough for your first night. Go to bed now. Those lads and more will be back tomorrow.”

CHAPTER THREE

AS MADAM ROSS HAD PREDICTED, THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE KING’S arrival were busy. The town was crowded with Royalists returning from the years of exile at country homes, with village lads who had come to see the king’s arrival and stayed to look for work, with sailors eager to ship once more under the proud flag of a monarch, and with huge numbers of soldiers glad to be done with fighting and hardship. London was mad with joy. Anything seemed possible now that King Charles was back, and Nell listened enthralled to the gossip and stories about the growing court at Whitehall. “That Barbara Palmer doesn’t trouble to hide from anyone, not even her husband, that she’s the king’s mistress!” Rose exclaimed. “I’ve heard that he spent his first night at the palace in her arms.”

“Of course, he has no wife,” chimed in plump Jane, one of the girls who had taken a special liking to Nell. “But still, he makes mighty bold with his dalliance.”

“And who’s to stop him?” asked Rose. “Harry Killigrew told me that the king has half a dozen bastards. He’s got a boy that was born to him on Jersey afore he and his court moved to France, and he’s brought the lad to live at the palace. Thirteen years old, and the spitting image of his father. Harry says the king so dotes on and dandles him the whisper goes he might be acknowledged a lawful son.”

When she heard bits of news about the king, Nell thought again of his darkly handsome face, jaunty carriage, and booming joyous laugh as he had ridden by, and the electric excitement she had felt when his eyes met hers. It was unbearably tantalizing to know that he was even now somewhere only a few miles away, doing—what? Whatever kings did, though what exactly that might be, she was not sure. Each piece of information she gained only made her long for more, and she added each new fact or story to the growing picture in her head of a life unimaginably different from hers.

Some of what Nell heard about the king and the goings-on at court fitted in some shadowy way with her own new observations about men. They seemed to be ruled by their desires in a way that she was not, and she realised that she held a kind of power over the men whose attention she caught. This was a novelty, and a mystery to be explored.

“They’re like pups, these lads,” laughed Jane, “tumbling all over themselves to get at you, their heads so full of cunt they can’t think of aught else. Mr. Killigrew says his new young actors are so bad, he’s going to hire me a-purpose so they can keep their minds on their work.”

“Actors?” Nell asked.

“Aye,” said Jane. “The playhouses are to open again. Tell her, Rose. I forgot all that Harry said.”

Nell had met Harry Killigrew a time or two. He was a wild young buck who had burst onto the scene in London recently, having fled from Heidelberg, where he had wounded a man in a duel. He ran with a rakish crowd of young bloods and visited Rose frequently. Nell thought his dark unruly hair and golden-hazel eyes were striking, but she was a little afraid of him.

“Harry’s father, Tom Killigrew, was a theatre man in the old days,” Rose said. “He fought for the king in the war, and now his loyalty is rewarded. His Majesty has given him one of the patents for the new playhouses.”

“That’s it,” said Jane. “It’s to be the King’s Company, and Mr. Davenant will run the other one.”

Never having been in a theatre or seen a play, Nell could not quite imagine what they might be like. Perhaps she would find out later. For the present, she had matters of more immediate interest.

Jimmy Cade, her client from that first night, had become a regular. Nell liked him well enough, and as Rose had said, there was a certain ease in bedding a man she was used to. She need not fear what the encounter would bring, and as she became more familiar with his preferences, she could better give him what pleased him, ensuring herself a steady source of money.

In contrast to the hot haste of their first encounter, Cade became more relaxed with Nell, not only stopping to take his boots off before he joined her in bed, but frequently chatting with her after. He was young, but he had seen action in the war, and she liked to hear his stories about battles and military life.

She watched him dress one hot afternoon, when they had dozed off after their bout and then awoken for a second round. His uniform made her think of her father, and she wondered if he had looked or moved as Cade did.

“My da was in the army,” she said.

“Was he? And where is he now?” Cade asked, struggling with his boots.

“He died,” Nell said softly. “In prison in Oxford. He lost all in service of the king.”

“Long since?” Cade asked, looking at her more carefully.

“When I was but a baby. I never knew him.”

“I’m sorry for it, Nelly. There were too many died, too many babes left fatherless.”

Nell nodded silently. There was nothing to say, nothing that could express the pain that flooded her heart, the longing for something she had never known and would never know. Tears welled from her eyes, and she knuckled them away.

Cade buckled on his sword belt and picked up his hat, then gave Nell’s damp cheek a gentle stroke. She wished he wouldn’t leave her alone, but he was already at the door and spoke over his shoulder.

“I’ll see you soon, little one.”

“WHAT WAS OUR DA LIKE?” NELL ASKED ROSE LATER. “WHY DID HE go to prison?”

Rose shook her head sadly. “I don’t remember much. I was very small myself. I remember him coming in the door and sweeping me up into his arms, laughing as he talked to me. Least, I think I do. Then he was gone. I remember Mam crying. It frightened me and I ran to her. But she pushed me away and shouted at me to leave her be.”

The sisters sat in silence for a few moments. The past was locked away, behind an impenetrable wall. Their mother was the only link to that distant time. But Nell found it impossible to think of her mother as other than she was now—bitter, blowsy, and hard. Was it possible that Eleanor Smith had once been young and happy, had brightened at the sound of her man’s footsteps at the door, had had a tender smile for Rose and Nell or ever regarded them as other than a burden? If so, that woman was long dead. And Nell knew that Rose was her only ally in a harsh and unpredictable world.

THE CONVERSATIONS WITH CADE AND ROSE SEEMED TO HAVE OPENED a rift in Nell’s mind, a doorway to a rolling mist of fear and sadness. She could not shake off the dark shadows, and for the rest of the day she was weighted with a profound sense of loss and terror.

That night, Nell tossed fitfully before finally slipping into a dream. She was alone in a dark and narrow passageway. It might have been the lane outside her mother’s home, or the alley where she had spent the night when she had run away, or perhaps it was a place dimly remembered from deeper in her memory. It was night, and a thick fog swirled, obliterating the moon and stars. The wintry wind bit into Nell’s bare feet, penetrated the thin rags that covered her. Her teeth chattered in the cold, and she was so hungry that a pit seemed to gape at her very core. An aching loneliness seized her. She knew she would die if she did not find shelter and company.

The fog deepened. She crept forward, reaching out a hand to feel her way. Her fingers scraped along something clammy and hard, like the stone landing steps left bare when the river’s tide receded, their surface greened over with the teeming life of the water. The slimy feel of the wall repulsed Nell, but a gust of air blew from the opposite side of the passageway and it seemed that some cliff yawned there. She feared that she would fall into oblivion and hugged close to the cold stone.

A shaft of light shot through the darkness. A door had opened ahead, and Nell knew that if she could just get through it, she would be safe. She stumbled forward, clawing at spectral cobwebs that drooped from above. Each step was a battle, and she despaired of getting to the door. But it was close now, the warmth and light beyond it a beacon to her soul, and she could hear voices and laughter within.

She reached the threshold, fingers scrabbling on the cold damp stone. Behind her loomed darkness, the icy and fetid reek of a tomb, and nameless terrors. Another few inches and she would be safe.

The door slammed shut with a reverberating thud.

“No!” The night enveloped Nell’s cry. Her hands blindly sought a way to open the door, but its surface was smooth and heavy iron, with no knob, no keyhole, no way in. She beat against the door with her fists, but her hardest blows made no noise. Shrieking, begging, she pounded. But nothing happened and no one came.

In that moment of desperation and hopelessness Nell awoke and found herself alone in her bed. She was cold, and clutched the covers around her. She longed for someone to hold her and make all well. Her thoughts went to her mother, and she began to weep.

Erratic, frequently drunk, and occasionally violent though her mother might be, she was the only parent Nell had ever known, and she found that the loss of her mother terrified her even more than the unpredictability that living with her had meant.

She clung to her pillow and sobbed. All the bravery and cheer she had thought she had was hollow. She felt ashamed and an utter failure. In the endless watches of the night, with the world in cold blackness outside the window, she was only a frightened and wretched child.

She went from her room, pushed open the door of Rose’s little chamber, and slipped to the side of the bed. Rose was alone, and Nell crept in beside her. She had shared a pallet bed with Rose for most of her life, until Rose had struck out on her own, and it was immeasurably comforting to feel the warmth of Rose’s body and smell her scent. Rose stirred.

“What’s amiss?”

“I was afeared. A dream.”

“All’s well. Come to sleep now.” Rose drew Nell to her and draped a protective arm around her. Nell nestled closer. Safe in the snug cocoon of the shared bed, the demons receded and her shivering ceased, and soon she was asleep.

IN THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE MORNING SUN, NELL’S FEARS OF THE previous night lost their overwhelming power. She would not go back to live under her mother’s thumb. She would see her mother when she could stand proudly, and prove that she had done well for herself. What that might mean, Nell had no clear idea. But she had a new determination. She would be someone to be reckoned with.

THE SUMMER BROUGHT BRILLIANT BLUE SKIES, SUNLIT DAYS, AND balmy evenings. Although the long hours of daylight meant that the crowds at Madam Ross’s stayed late, and the hours of sleep were fewer, Nell woke with the dawn. The house was quiet then and the glorious new mornings held the promise of adventure.

One sparkling August morning it occurred to her that she missed the river. She hadn’t been near it since her daily sojourns to Billingsgate fish market to buy oysters, and she made her way towards London Bridge. She didn’t mind the long walk into the City—she had made it often enough pushing the oyster barrow, and it was unutterable freedom to dance along unencumbered.

Shopkeepers were just opening for business, folding down the bulkheads that served as counters by day and shuttered up their shops by night. Street vendors were out in great numbers, their wares fresh and their spirits not yet worn down.

“A brass pot or an iron pot to mend!” called a man with a bag of tools slung on his back, beating the butt end of a hammer on the bottom of a pot.

“Knives or scissors to grind!”

“Delicate cowcumbers to pickle!”

“Fine ripe strawberries!”

The cries of the hawkers rose and mingled in pleasant chaos. A man and a boy sang out in harmony, “Buy a white line! Or a jack line! Or a clothes line!” their words cascading in a catch.

“Buy a fine singing bird!” Nell stopped to admire the pretty little finches a small boy carried in a wicker cage. She was hungry and her attention was momentarily caught by a middle-aged woman balancing a great basket of green muskmelons atop her head, but instead she bought a dipper of milk from a milkmaid, whose buckets were suspended from a wooden yoke over her shoulders. Nell could imagine too well the weight and was grateful she had no buckets, baskets, or barrows weighing her down.

She made her way onto the bridge. She knew of a child-sized gap between two of the houses that crowded the bridge’s span, and from this secret perch, she surveyed the scene. London stretched away to the west, its fringes fading into green countryside. The river surged beneath her, the high tide creating powerful eddies around the great starlings that supported the bridge. The boats travelling downstream glided easily, while the boatmen making their way upstream against the current pulled and strained mightily.

Nell watched the passengers in the crafts with a mixture of curiosity and envy. She had never been in a boat. Quite apart from the cost, she had never had reason to go anywhere that her own feet could not take her.

She watched two gentlemen getting into a wherry upriver at Three Cranes Stairs. Several more watermen waited for passengers, and Nell made up her mind that she would go down there, and perhaps even get into a boat.

As she made her way to the landing stairs, the scent of the river, fresh and alive, stirred her excitement. Three burly watermen were gathered on the stairs, their tethered boats bobbing in the current. A leaping fish broke the surface of the water and then disappeared once more into the greeny depths. The youngest of the men, his dark hair tied into a queue at the back of his head, squinted into the sunlight as he lounged on one of the steps. He cocked his head to the side as Nell approached, and the two others broke out of their conversation and turned.

“How much does it cost? To go in a boat?” she asked.

“That depends!” laughed one of the fellows, his face a deep red-brown from years of working in the sun. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know,” Nell said. “I’ve never been anywhere.”

“It’s sixpence for a pair of oars,” he began.

“That’s ‘oars,’ now, mind,” put in another of the men, “not ‘whores.’ But perhaps you’d know better than I about the socket money for a brace of bobtails?” The others laughed, but the first waterman swatted the joker with his cap.

“’Ere, leave the girl alone, Pete.” He turned back to Nell, his blue eyes startling against the mahogany of his skin. “Pay no mind to ’im, sweeting, ’e has the manners of a dog. It’s a twelver to Whitehall, eighteen shillings to Chelsea, three bull’s-eyes to Windsor. Half again as much if the tide’s against you.”

It seemed silly to spend money to get to the other side of the river or to the palace, and even if she had the five-shilling fare to Richmond, what would she do there?

“Another time,” she smiled. “I’ll take shank’s mare today.”

“Another time then, sweeting,” the man grinned. “When someone else is paying.”

CHAPTER FOUR

IN OCTOBER THE EXECUTIONS OF THREE OF THE MEN WHO HAD instigated the execution of the king’s father, King Charles I, were to take place at Charing Cross. The king had spared the lives of dozens, but the few who had been directly responsible for his father’s murder would die the terrible death reserved for traitors. A blood thirst seized London, and Nell listened to some lads in the street describing what would happen.

“They’ll hang them first,” one said. “But not until they’re dead—only insensible, like. Then they’ll cut them down, still breathing, and carve out their guts and hearts. And then they’ll hack their carcasses into quarters, coat them in tar to make them keep, and post them on pikes at all the gates of the City.”

THE DAY OF DEATH ARRIVED, AND NELL AND ROSE JOSTLED FOR standing space around the scaffold. The crowds reminded Nell of the throngs that had welcomed the king only a few months earlier, but the mood was savage and sour. Packs of drunken lads roved, as they had on that spring day, but today they seemed like feral dogs.

Surrounded by tall strangers, Nell could not see anything but a patch of sky above, and suddenly she began to feel that she couldn’t breathe. She clutched Rose’s hand, fearful of losing her in the crush, and to her shame, she began to shake and cry.

“Let’s go,” she pleaded. They threaded their way out of the seething mob. Nell fought down a rising sense of panic, and by the time they reached the edge of the crowd, her breath was coming in ragged gulps and her heart was pounding.

She sank to the ground and hugged her knees to her chest, trying to stop her shivering. Rose squatted and peered at her.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Nell gasped. “I don’t want to see it. I’m afraid. Do you mind?”

“No,” Rose shrugged. “I’ve no great desire to watch anyone being butchered.”

There was a roar from the crowd. The condemned men must be arriving. It would begin soon. Nell struggled to her feet.

“Let’s get away now.”

MADAM ROSS’S ESTABLISHMENT WAS FULL TO BURSTING THAT evening, and Nell had her first taste of the phenomenon of men who have felt the brush of violent death wanting to deaden the resultant chill by immersing themselves in warm flesh. The men she took to her bed that night were sodden with drink and un usually sombre, brutal, or even tearful. All wanted to erase the sights and sounds of the day and to remind themselves that they still lived and breathed.

Jimmy Cade and some of his officer friends came late in the evening, and after he had spent he lay with Nell, stroking her hair and face with unwonted tenderness.

“It had to be done,” he said. “There must be severe punishment for a crime as foul as the murder of a king. But it’s not a spectacle I’d want to see again. You can’t help but feel the blade in your own gut as you watch it going into the poor bastards, imagine your own innards being wound out before your eyes, seeing your own blood sluicing over the scaffold.”

“Horrible.” Nell shuddered.

“And somehow it seemed to me that even worse than the pain was the loneliness.”

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, it was the look in Harrison’s eyes.” Cade paused, remembering. “In the middle of a crowd that stretched as far as you could see. But not a friendly face among them. Voices shouting for his death, the slower the better. And he knew what he was in for. It seemed he tried not to cry out, not to give them the satisfaction.”

“But did he cry out?” Nell asked.

“Oh, yes,” Cade said. “The fires of hell would have been a mercy after that death.”

Two more regicides were put to death a day or two later, and another ten within the next few days. The savagery of the executions seemed to have unleashed a wild mood in London.

“Death to all traitors,” Nell heard Jack snarl to one of his cronies. “Too bad they didn’t keep them another fortnight and do them on the Fifth of November.” The other man cackled his agreement.

The next afternoon Nell sat with Ned the barman and Harry Killigrew. It was too early for much business, and though it was freezing cold outside, the taproom was cosy, the flames in the fireplace chasing away the shadows in the corners and reflecting in the dark panes of the windows.

“What’s the Fifth of November?” Nell asked Ned.

“Why, it’s Guy Fawkes Day,” he said. “Sure you’ve heard of him? A Papist. Tried to blow up King James and all the lords in the House of Parliament, he did. When was it, Harry?”

“Sixteen hundred and five,” Harry said. “But they discovered the plot. ‘Fawkes at midnight, and by torchlight there was found,’” he quoted. “‘With long matches and devices, underground.’”

“So the king and all were saved,” Ned continued, “and Fawkes and the others that had intrigued with him were put to death. It used to be kept as a great holiday, but then you’re too young to remember that. In the old days, it was a right party. A great rout of people in the streets, fireworks everywhere. And of course we young ’uns would always build a Guy to burn.”

“But not before we got our penny,” Harry chimed in. Ned laughed at Nell’s blank expression.

“The Guy was a dummy, do you see, meant to be like Guy Fawkes. We would parade it through the streets, crying out ‘A penny for the Guy!’ And then the Guy would be put into a bonfire. Fires all over London, there were, in them days.”

“I’ll warrant there’ll be a Guy or two this year again,” Harry said.

HARRY WAS RIGHT, AND ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER BONFIRES LIT THE night sky and Guys of wood and straw and cloth blazed at the center of baying crowds. It was a busy night in Lewkenor’s Lane, and Harry swaggered into the taproom in company with several other young men, whooping and in high spirits.

“We’ve done it!” he crowed to the room. “We put the final nail in old Nol Cromwell’s coffin tonight!”

“Aye,” laughed one of his mates. “We’ve just given a show at the old Red Bull, with the blessing of the king himself! The theatre is back again, and no mistaking.”

“You couldn’t have chosen a better day for it than Bonfire Night!” Ned called from behind the bar. “Death to killjoys and traitors, and up with merriment!”

Cheers greeted this remark, and the lads were welcomed with slaps on the back and drink all around as they drew up stools and benches around a table. Their jubilation was contagious, and Nell worked her way through the admiring crowd that gathered around Harry and his crew. Rose and Jane had joined them, and Rose made room for Nell on the bench next to her.

“Here’s to the King’s Men!” Harry raised his tankard and all joined in the toast.

One of the company, a hulking man in his thirties with one squinted eye somewhat lower and larger than the other, who might have looked threatening were it not for the grin that split his face, banged his fist on the table for quiet.

“Here’s to His Majesty, who brought us back. And may tonight be the first of many shows to come!” Voices joined in from all over the room. “To His Majesty!”

Ned fought his way through the crowd and set a great jug of ale on the table before the squint-eyed man.

“Walter Clun!” he cried. “I saw you play at the old Blackfriars when I was but a boy. I remember it still—I laughed ’til I came near to piss myself.”

“Aye, that’s me,” Clun chortled. “Not a dry seat in the house.”

“Wat!” Harry called across the table to him. “Where are the others? I thought Charlie Hart was coming?”

Wat Clun threw up his hands and rolled his eyes heavenwards.

“Now there you have me, lad. I told Charlie not to be such a stick-in-the-mud, and to shepherd the old men here on this our night of triumph. But will he now? That is the question!”

“And here’s me all this time thinking the question was ‘To be or not to be’!”

The voice boomed from the door, and Wat surged to his feet, roaring with laughter.

“Charlie! My own true heart! You’ve come after all!”

The dark-haired newcomer enveloped Wat in a bear hug and kissed him loudly on both cheeks.

“Aye, I’ve come, and the other old men with me!”

Hart was indeed accompanied by several men who were noticeably greyer than the lads at the table, but there was nothing old about him, Nell thought. He was about thirty, tall and well built, and the grace and energy with which he moved made her think of the rope dancer she had seen at Bartholomew Fair. His dark eyes shone with happiness as he returned cries of greeting from all sides.

“Who’s that?” Nell whispered to Rose and Jane.

“Charles Hart,” Rose answered. “He’s Mr. Killigrew’s leading actor. Mighty fine, isn’t he?”

“Fine as a fivepence,” Nell agreed.

Tables, stools, and benches were shuffled until all the actors were seated. Nell noticed that the younger men made way for the older, their deference tinged with admiration and affection. Wat Clun turned to Hart.

“Now then, Charlie, what do you say?”

“We’ve made a good start on it,” Hart said. “And I raise my cup to each of you. To John Lacy and to Michael Mohun. Whose light shone through the long dark days. And without whom we’d not be here tonight.” The men on either side of Hart acknowledged the murmurs of agreement from their fellows.

Big John Lacy, sitting to Hart’s left, surveyed the faces around him. “Back onstage again. I didn’t think I’d live to see the day. Here’s to you, my old dear friend, and the lord of the dance, Charles Hart! And to His Majesty. God save the king!”

“God save the king!” The room echoed with the cry. Nell gazed at the solemn faces of the older actors around the table. For the first time she felt ashamed of her whoredom, and she wanted desperately not to have to relate to the players as a whore. She felt sure that they embodied some mystery and wisdom, and she wanted only to be in their company and listen to them. She glanced around the room and was relieved that Madam Ross was nowhere to be seen and that Jack was engaged in a game of dice at a corner table and was paying her no mind.

Soon the spirit of the gathering lightened as the talk turned to the afternoon’s performance.

“A good house, and a merry, especially considering the weather,” Lacy said.

“True enough,” Hart agreed. “But then, considering how long some of them had been waiting to discover how it came out, perhaps they didn’t mind braving the cold.”

Nell was puzzled by the laughter at this remark.

“Why were they waiting?” she ventured to ask. She felt self-conscious when all eyes turned to her, but Lacy answered her cheerfully.

“The theatres were outlawed under Old Nol, thou knowest that? Well, during that time, some of the old actors twice put up this same play at the Red Bull, and were twice stopped and arrested.”

“But now,” Nell ventured, “now you can play again?”

“Yes, thanks be to God and to Charles Stuart,” Wat nodded. “And after eighteen long years, here we sit before you, the King’s Company, in business once again.”

Nell was chagrined that she had missed an event of such momentousness as the actors’ triumphant return to the stage. Jimmy Cade and a few of his friends came in the door, and he caught her eye. She was usually happy to see him, but she lingered at the actors’ table for a few minutes.

“This play you played today,” she queried, “will you give it again?”

“We will,” Hart said. “But we’ve other fare for the next few days.”

“And then”—Lacy grinned—“on Thursday, we move to better quarters, indoors, and give the first part of King Henry the Fourth.”

“I wish I could see it.” Nell looked up at him, hope shining in her eyes.

“And so you can,” Lacy said. “Even better, come to our rehearsal tomorrow. Then you can say you saw it before any in London.”

Nell gave him a happy grin and danced off to find Jimmy Cade. By the time she returned downstairs, most of the actors had left. She longed to hear more about the theatre and couldn’t wait until she could follow up on Lacy’s invitation.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE NEXT MORNING, NELL WOKE TO FIND THAT THE INSIDES OF HER thighs were streaked with blood, and she threw a fervent thank-you heavenward upon discovering that Rose had also started her monthly courses, and so they would both be excused from work and free to watch the King’s Men rehearse.

Shortly before ten o’clock, they arrived at what had formerly been Gibbons’s Tennis Court in Vere Street, only a few minutes’ walk from Lewkenor’s Lane. Nell had heard that the place, just off the southwestern corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, had been for some time a resort of the gentry and nobility, offering not only tennis and bowls but the highest quality victuals and drink, sheltered gardens, and a large coach house.

Nell looked around excitedly as Harry welcomed them into the new playhouse. The high-ceilinged room was flooded with sunlight from the rows of windows at the backs of the galleries that lined the two long walls of the building. Knots of men and boys huddled and bustled in preparation for the morning’s work, and with a thrill Nell recognised many of the actors she’d seen the previous evening.

“It will be the finest theatre that London has seen,” Harry said. “Much better than the Red Bull.”

“Why?” Nell asked.

“It’s a proper building, not just a yard open to the wind and rain. Less than fifty feet from the stage to the back of the house, so the actors will not have to shout to make themselves heard. It’ll be more like playing at court in the old days.”

“Very fine,” Rose agreed.

“You’re looking fine yourself this morning,” Harry said with a wink. “Come, let’s have a closer look.” He pulled her into the shadows under the gallery at the back of the theatre, and Nell took the opportunity to wander closer to the stage, where Wat Clun was in conference with one of the younger actors. He grinned as Nell approached.

“Well, I see you’ve come to join us. What do you think of the place?”

“It’s grand,” Nell beamed. A raised stage at one end of the room sloped down a little from the darkly panelled back wall with its two doors, to within a few feet of the first row of green-upholstered benches. Candles in many-armed brackets were mounted along the galleries at the sides of the stage, reminding Nell of the light that had blazed forth from the Banqueting House on the night of the king’s return.

“Come,” Harry called. “It’s about time.” A handful of people were seated on the benches in the pit before the stage, but Harry led Nell and Rose up narrow steps to the upper gallery at the back of the theater.

“Boxes for gentlemen,” he said. “Much more comfortable than below.”

“To your beginners, please.” Nell looked down to where a man with a sheaf of papers before him on a table was calling to the actors. They disappeared through the doors at the back of the stage, and silence fell. Harry pulled Rose onto his lap and she giggled. Nell wondered how they could think of anything else when the play was about to begin.

A group of actors swept onto the stage with an air of regal gravity. They seemed to be wearing their own clothes, but had bits and pieces of what Nell thought must be their costumes. A grey-haired actor that she recognised from the previous night wore a heavy robe of red velvet and a crown, so he must be the king. Some of the others wore capes or had swords hanging at their sides.

The king glanced around at the men surrounding him, and spoke.

“So shaken as we are, so wan with care,

Find we a time for frighted peace to pant

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils

To be commenced in strands afar remote ….”

Nell was enthralled by the majestic words, and strove to understand them. To her relief the next scene was much easier to follow, and funny. Wat lumbered onto the stage, a huge tankard in his paw, stretched luxuriously, scratched his arse, and demanded of the fair-haired young actor who followed him, “‘Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?’”

“‘What a devil hast thou to do with the time of day?’” the youth cried. “‘Unless the blessed sun himself was a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of day!’”

Nell thought she had never seen anything so funny as the picture of virtuous outrage on Wat’s face.

“Look at him,” she chortled to Rose and Harry. “Like a great round baby caught with stolen sweetmeats.”

Her heart skipped a beat when Charles Hart strode onto the stage in the next scene, his dark eyes full of snapping fire, and she feared for his safety when he raged at the king, his deep voice seeming to shake the walls as he cried, “‘My liege, I did deny no prisoners!’”

When Harry Percy, in the person of Charles Hart, made ready to depart for the war and took tender leave of his wife, played by a young man, as true-to-the-life a woman as any that Nell had ever seen, she felt her own soul ache for his going.

When the rehearsal was done, Nell sat still for a few moments, not wanting to let go of what she had experienced. She felt drained and yet exhilarated, and as if she was changed in some way. In the course of the three hours she had felt herself consumed with the passions of the king, the prince, of Harry Percy and his wife, of fat Sir John Falstaff and all the rest, had felt as though she herself had lived through all their griefs, their rages, and their joys. She did not want to leave the charmed atmosphere of the playhouse. She lingered to watch as the actors gathered on the benches below, and was overjoyed when Wat Clun waved at her. Dragging Rose after her, she bounded down to where he stood and beamed up at him.

“Well, sweeting, and what did you think of your first play?” he asked.

“It was a wonder! You were so funny!”

Clun grinned.

“Come to see Beggars’ Bush tomorrow afternoon. It’ll be our last show at the Bull.”

“Truly?” Nell cried. “Can we, Rose?”

“Aye,” Rose nodded. “We’ll not miss such a kind offer.”

ON THE WAY HOME, NELL CAPERED BESIDE ROSE, HOPPING ON ONE leg in circles around her sister and then coming alongside.

“I thought the prince was wondrous,” she mused. “Why should his father be displeased with him?”

“Why, for his mad freaks and rogueries with ruffians and low company such as Falstaff and the others. Bowsing, stealing, wenching.”

“But once the old king was dead could not Hal do as he pleased?”

“I suppose he could.”

“And why was Harry Percy so angry?”

“Lord, I don’t know. I couldn’t follow it all, in truth.”

“And why—”

“’Fore God, Nell, you wear me out!” Rose cried in exasperation. “Save your questions for Harry or the actors.”

Nell did not understand how Rose could not share her burning curiosity to know everything about the play, the players, and the theatre. She held her tongue, but her mind seethed with questions. Though she didn’t have to work that night, she haunted the taproom, hoping that the actors might come in, and when Harry Killigrew strode in followed by two of the younger actors, she raced over to them.

“How can you remember all those words? What play did you play this afternoon? Where do the plays come from?”

Harry laughed. “You’d best sit down if you’ve got so many questions.” Nell plopped herself on a bench facing the fair-haired young actor who had played Prince Hal.

“How many plays are there?” she demanded.

“What, how many plays in the world?” he laughed. “That I cannot tell, but I can tell you what we’ve played over the past weeks, and what we’ll give again. The Traitor, Wit Without Money, The Silent Woman, Othello, Bartholomew Fair—”

“Where do they come from?” Nell interrupted. “And how can there be so many plays if there have been none for so long?”

“The two companies divided the plays from the old days,” said Harry. “And my father got the best of those, as he did with the actors.”

“Is it all lads and men?” Nell asked. “Are there no women players?”

“Up ’til now,” Harry said, “it’s always been boys acting the women’s parts. But that’s soon to change. His Majesty saw women on the stage in Frankfurt and thought it a charming innovation.”

“Mr. Killigrew says he’s going to try putting a woman on the stage in a few weeks,” the youngest of the lads said. “My dad says it will cause rioting in the streets, either from outrage or from lust.”

Nell joined in the laughter, but was intrigued.

“Who are they, these women? Where do they come from?”

“Oh, they’re pretty, likely-looking wenches my father has found somewhere,” Harry shrugged. “Girls with a quick wit who are like to be able to learn their words.”

“Not married. And orphans, likely,” said the fair-haired actor. “For who would want their wife or daughter on the stage?”

“Sir William Davenant at the Duke’s Company has a couple of girls about your age in his care,” Harry said. “Betty Barry and Moll Davis. Perhaps he’ll make something of them.”

“But that’s all to come,” said the fair-haired lad. “Mr. Killigrew will not risk putting women on just yet. Certainly not when we play at court in a fortnight’s time.”

“Is there a playhouse there?” Nell asked.

“There is,” Harry answered. “The Cockpit. It’s fallen into a sad state. But it’ll soon be right again, eh, Marmaduke?”

“With not a penny spared,” the fair-haired young man agreed. “My brother’s a plasterer and he says there’s night work as well as daytime labour. The king’s in a tear to get the job finished, and when it’s done, it’ll be mighty fine.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON, NELL AND ROSE MADE THEIR WAY UP ST. JOHN Street to where the Red Bull stood near Clerkenwell Green. There was already a crowd at the door to the playhouse, and Nell was seized with fear that there would be no room for them. But when Rose told their names to the man with the box for the money, he nodded and waved them in with a smile.

The square yard was open to the winter sky, with enclosed galleries along three sides and a stage across the fourth. Despite the chill breeze, the benches in the galleries were quite full, and even the ground before the stage was crowded with men, women, and children, all eating, drinking, talking, and laughing. In the middle of this seething crowd, Nell could not even see the stage. Rose grasped her hand and they worked their way forward. The stage stood some five feet high from the ground, so that those standing at the back of the pit could see as well as those at the front, but its height meant that Nell had to look almost straight up to see it.

The play began and Nell was pleased to see Wat Clun, Charles Hart, and other actors from the previous day’s rehearsal. The story rocked merrily along—everyone, it seemed, was in disguise, and at the end of the play all were revealed as their true selves. Charles Hart turned out to be a nobleman, and not only was he reunited with the girl he had been forced to forsake, but she proved to be the daughter of a duke, so all ended happily, if improbably.

Dusk was coming on when the play finished, with rain clouds lowering overhead, and Nell was shivering despite the heavy cloak she clasped around herself and tired from standing for two hours. Yet she didn’t want to go. The play had transported her, made her forget about Madam Ross’s place. She had been in two playhouses now, and different though they were, they had both seemed to hold magic within them, to make her thrill with an excitement she had felt only once before—while watching the king’s return to London.

THE OLDER ACTORS DID NOT RETURN TO MADAM ROSS’S IN THE weeks after the King’s Company moved to the Vere Street theater, but Harry and the younger actors were frequent visitors. When Harry went upstairs it was with Rose, and, as Jane had said, Tom Killigrew had retained her services for his lads. Nell was happy that matters had fallen out so. She desperately wanted to be thought well of by her new acquaintances, and though they must know she was part of Madam Ross’s covey, she felt on more solid ground with them than she would have if she had to take them to her bed. When they came in of an evening, she always wanted to hear the particulars of the day’s performance and begged them for news of the doings at the playhouse.

“Well,” said Marmaduke Watson one night in early December, “Sir William Davenant has been training his women players, we hear, though they’ll not be fit to send onstage for some time.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “We’ll beat him in that race, for we’re putting a woman on the stage in a few days’ time.”

“Who?” Nell asked. “What will she play?”

“Anne Marshall,” Harry said. “She’s to play Desdemona in Othello.”

“And after that,” Ned Kynaston said glumly, “who knows? Two weeks ago I played Arthiope in The Bloody Brother. But old Killigrew has told me that when we put it on again in a fortnight, I’m to play Otto instead, and Charlie Hart’ll have a woman to his lover.”

A few days later Nell besieged the actors with questions about how the first performance by a woman had succeeded.

“Well, they didn’t riot,” young Theo Bird said.

“Hardly,” Marmaduke put in. “They ate it up.”

“I’d have been better,” said Kynaston. “And prettier, too.” The lads laughed, but Marmaduke shook his head and winked at Nell.

“Can you not keep playing women’s roles, too?” she asked. Kynaston stared into his tankard and didn’t answer.

“No,” said Harry. “Neddie’s good, but when you put him next to the real thing, they’re as different as chalk and cheese. Actresses. That’s the future.”

Another question was on Nell’s lips, but the words froze unspoken. Madam Ross’s man Jack was making his way toward the table, scowling, his eyes fixed on her. She couldn’t stand the thought of him bullying her before the actors, and she mumbled something to them as she scrambled off the bench and towards another table of men. Jack’s big hand closed hard on her upper arm, and he yanked her to face him.

“You’re not paid to take your ease,” he growled.

“I was just talking,” she answered, her throat constricted by fear and shame, knowing that the actors were surely watching.

“Less talking, and more time on your back or your knees.” Jack’s fingers tightened around her arm. Obviously enjoying her discomfort, he reached his other hand under her skirt, and shoved his fingers hard inside her.

“That’s your worth,” he said, his breath hot on her face, thrusting deeper into her. “That and only that. Don’t get above yourself, or I’ll teach you a lesson you’ll not forget.”

He gave a last vicious twist of his hand before letting Nell go, and she ran from the room, too mortified to face Harry and the other lads and too terrified to remain in Jack’s presence.

AFTER THAT, NELL NO LONGER SAT WITH THE ACTORS UNLESS JACK was absent. When he was present, she kept quiet and out of his way, anxious not to give him any excuse to shame her further. She thought with longing of the theatre and begged Jane to tell her any news of the actors, but Jane had little interest in what the players did when they were not at Madam Ross’s.

In late December, Jack disappeared without explanation. Madam Ross made herself scarce as well, disappearing into her rooms on the top floor of the house, and the girls whispered their conjectures about what had happened. On the second day of Jack’s absence, Nell dared to hope that he had gone for good. The establishment was a much happier place with only Ned there to mind the shop.

Nell was overjoyed when Harry Killigrew came into the taproom one quiet afternoon a few days before Christmas. He ambled over to the table where Ned sat with Rose, and Nell joined them, happy at her unaccustomed freedom and the holiday mood that prevailed. Christmas under Cromwell had been kept as a day of fasting and atonement, but this year was different. Harry had been at court, where preparations for the festivities had been going on for days.

“You should see the palace,” Harry said. “Holly and ivy everywhere, and a great Yule log. The king’s mother and two sisters are visiting, and the king will keep the twelve days of Christmas as in old times, with masques, mummers, and banquets every day. We gave a show at the Cockpit last night, and the wine was flowing like water.”

Nell thought of what she had been doing the previous night. It had been a particularly unpleasant evening. The fat and revolting Mr. Cooper had fumbled with his limp prick, and struck her when even her sucking failed to rouse him. And then there had been a party of soldiers who were drunk and brutal. She had cried herself to sleep, despairing at the thought that she had no way out.

“Tell me more about the king and the court,” she begged.

“It’s like a fairy land,” Harry said. “There’s music and dancing every night. The king has a consort of twenty-four violins, and musicians of every other kind as well. He outdances all the court and sings when he can dance no more.”

In her room alone that night, Nell wondered what the music of twenty-four violins would sound like, and tried to picture the king and his courtiers dancing, their finery sparkling in the gleam of a thousand candles. She thought of the king’s mistress Barbara Palmer, radiant at his side. She drew herself up straight, trying to feel the weight of a gown heavy with jewels, and danced, imagining herself partnered by the king, and watched by a host of onlookers at a great Christmas feast.

But on Christmas Eve, Nell heard that the king’s sister Mary had died of the smallpox, and instead of revelry, Whitehall was sombre and still, the court dressed in purple mourning clothes instead of jewelled finery. Nell felt herself in mourning, too, as Jack returned to Lewkenor’s Lane and resumed his rule.

The New Year of 1661 dawned cold and icy. The Thames froze, and Nell and Rose delighted in the frost fair that sprang up, with booths selling food and drink, and entertainments presented to joyous crowds. They ran and slid on the snow-covered ice, enjoying the novel view of London from the middle of the frozen river, then warmed themselves with hot wassail.

In February, coins bearing the king’s face were minted and began to replace the old currency. The king’s likeness was noted elsewhere, too, as Barbara Palmer bore a daughter that was rumoured to be Charles’s child.

On St. George’s Day, the twenty-third of April, the king’s coronation brought celebratory throngs to the streets once more. The royal barge sailed down the river from Whitehall to the Tower, followed by a flotilla of craft bearing dignitaries, and then a flood of sightseers crammed onto any vessel that would float. The night sky blazed with fireworks, and London revelled until dawn.

ONE EVENING IN EARLY JULY NELL ENTERED THE TAPROOM TO FIND Harry, Marmaduke, and young Theo Bird slumped around a corner table, uncharacteristically subdued and glum.

“What’s amiss?” she asked.

“We’ve been playing to scant houses all the week, and each day it gets worse,” Theo said. “Davenant has opened his new playhouse, and everyone and his wife is going to see his opera.”

“Even the king has been,” added Marmaduke.

“But why?” Nell asked.

“Because he’s built a much grander theater,” Marmaduke said. “It’s got painted scenery that moves, and machines—angels and gods coming down from the heavens and so on. Pageantry. Singing.”

“Don’t forget Hester Davenport,” Theo said.

“Who’s she?” Nell asked.

“One of Davenant’s actresses,” Harry said. “Toothsome. Bonnie and buxom. She’s taken the fancy of everyone from the tom turd men to the Earl of Oxford.”

“And there are two parts to the poxed thing,” Marmaduke lamented. “So everyone has to go twice.”

“The Siege of Rhodes,” Harry snorted. “More like the siege of Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”

“But things are bound to get better,” said Nell. “People tire of a new thing soon enough, is what Rose always says.”

“Not this,” said Harry. “We’ll have to keep up with the Duke’s Company or we’re sunk.”

Not long after, Nell heard from the lads that Tom Killigrew had leased a plot of land off Drury Lane and would build a fine new theatre that would accommodate the new fashion for moving scenery and machinery and would outshine Davenant’s playhouse in style and grandeur. It was to be called the Theatre Royal.

SOON AFTER NELL LEARNED OF KILLIGREW’S PLANS FOR A NEW theatre, Harry became a page of honour to the king, as his father had been to the previous King Charles, and took up residence at Whitehall. He still came to see Rose, but not as frequently. Marmaduke Watson, Ned Kynaston, and the other younger actors of the King’s Company continued to drink in the taproom, but when Jack was around, Nell avoided their company. She still ached with shame at their having witnessed Jack’s humiliation of her, and wanted to be sure she gave him no reason to repeat the performance.

She longed to take part in the players’ banter and jokes, but disciplined herself instead to cultivate regular customers and keep them happy. The more of them she had, the less she would be available for just any brute who might come in the door. One of her favorites was a young man by the name of Robbie Duncan, who seemed to seek her out for her company as much as for pleasure in bed. He worked with his brothers in their father’s cloth exporting business, and on only his third visit he had brought her a length of soft brown wool that would serve to make a new cloak for the winter. And Jimmy Cade visited her frequently, always tipping her a few coins.

WHEN HARRY KILLIGREW DID VISIT LEWKENOR’S LANE, HE BROUGHT word of each story and scandal at Whitehall. In Nell’s second autumn at Madam Ross’s, London buzzed with the news that King Charles had ennobled Roger Palmer, the husband of his mistress, bestowing on him the titles of Baron Limerick and Earl of Castlemaine—with the shocking provision that the titles were to pass only to any children born by Barbara Palmer.

“In other words,” Harry explained, “the king is granting titles to any bastards he should father on Mistress Palmer, and Roger Palmer is to stand by without complaint.”

THE FOLLOWING SPRING, NELL SAW PEOPLE PUSHING CLOSE TO THE ballad singer near the Maypole in the Strand, shoving to buy his broadsheets.

“What’s the news?” she asked a tired-looking woman with a small child in tow.

“The king is to marry! A princess from Portugal.”

Catherine of Braganza arrived in May, and Nell and Rose listened as Harry related the latest news from court.

“Barbara Palmer is seven months gone with child, and she’ll not be budged from Hampton Court, queen or no queen, and has even been made a lady of the queen’s bedchamber. I’m glad I won’t be in the king’s shoes when those two ladies meet.”

In August, Nell joined the throngs watching the water pageant in honour of the royal marriage. Standing on a barrel, she craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the new queen and wondered what she must think about sharing her residence with the king’s mistress and children.

The taproom was busy that night, and the patrons were more drunk and disorderly than usual. Jack broke up a fight, cudgelling the instigator into bloody insensibility before throwing him into the street. The tables were packed with drinkers and the girls didn’t even bother to leave their rooms when they had done with one man, but took the next from the lines outside their doors.

It was well into the wee hours when the last man left Nell’s room and no other appeared. She was exhausted, but put her head out the door of her room to be sure that no one was waiting. Jack was coming down the hallway, steady on his feet despite the half-empty bottle in his hand. His face was flushed and his eyes glinted dangerously as he bore down on Nell.

She ducked backwards but he blocked the door as she tried to close it. She retreated as he entered the room, kicking the door shut behind him. He reached her in two strides and pulled her by her hair onto her knees in front of him as he sat on the edge of the bed. He took a long pull from his bottle, set it on the floor, unbuttoned his breeches, and shoved himself into her mouth.

He smelled of piss and sweat and brandy, and Nell gagged as his flesh hit the back of her throat. She struggled against him, but he yanked her head up and down, his cock choking her. She pushed at him, desperate to draw a breath, but his iron grip would not release. She felt that she would faint or die unless she could free herself. Without thinking, she clamped her teeth down.

Jack gave a roar of rage and pain and let go of her. She scrabbled away from him, but he lifted her by her hair and smashed her across the face so hard she went sprawling face-first onto the bed, and he was on her before she could move, kneeing her legs apart. Nell heard him spit, and screamed as he forced himself into her arse. A filthy hand smelling of brandy was clamped over her mouth, stifling her cries. Another hand clutched her throat, fingers digging into her flesh.

It seemed to go on forever. Nell had never felt such searing pain. She sobbed into Jack’s hand, her tears running down to mingle with snot as he slammed into her. At last he spent, giving a final deep thrust that Nell thought would split her. He left without a word, and Nell lay shivering and whimpering. After a time she crept into Rose’s room, and Rose started awake at the sound of Nell’s sobbing.

“Lord, what’s happened?”

“Jack,” Nell whispered. “He came for me and I didn’t mean to, but I bit him. So he hurt me.”

“He hit you?” Rose pulled Nell into her arms.

“More than that. He—” Nell couldn’t make herself say the words, but Rose understood her gesture.

“Let me see, honey.” Rose gently examined Nell. “You’re not bleeding, that’s a mercy. Here, this will help.” Tears streaked Rose’s face as she applied salve to Nell’s battered flesh.

“Oh, Nell,” she whispered, “truly I don’t know what to do. It will do you no good to speak to the missus. And if you try to say him nay, it will only make him more determined to have what he wants. Let me see can I think of something.”

THE NEXT DAY WHEN NELL WENT INTO THE TAPROOM, JACK RAKED her with a look of triumph that made her sick to her stomach. She was powerless to stop him, and he knew it. That night he again forced his way into her room and brutalised her, enjoying her fear and pain.

Over the next weeks Nell avoided being on her own and tried not to cross Jack’s path, but there were times when he appeared seemingly from thin air, and she had nowhere to run.

WITH THE CELEBRATIONS OF THE KING’S BIRTHDAY ON THE TWENTY-NINTH of May, Nell was amazed to realise that it had been two years since she had run away and embarked on her new life. She had gained freedom from her mother, as she had set out to do. She was better fed and clothed and she had several regulars whose money she could count on. But she did not like having to submit herself to the use of strangers, and Jack’s visits were now almost nightly. She was always frightened, and despaired of finding a way out of the hell her days and nights had become.

As it happened, an escape presented itself that Nell could not have anticipated. Robbie Duncan noticed the bruises on her arms and throat and the livid blue-yellow patches on the insides of her thighs.

“What happened there?” he asked, his face darkening. “Come, tell me,” he said gently when she didn’t answer.

“It’s Jack,” she whispered, clutching the sheet around her. “Madam’s man. He—he comes to me sometimes, and …” She could not finish the sentence, and could not bring herself to look at him. He squatted on his haunches before her.

“He hurts you? He means to hurt you?”

She nodded.

“He cannot do this to you. I will not allow it,” Robbie exclaimed, springing to his feet, but Nell knew that his slender frame was no match for Jack’s sinewy muscularity.

She shrugged. “But he can. There is nought I can do to stop him.”

Robbie paced and seethed, and finally stood before Nell.

“Come and live with me. He cannot come to you there. I will take care of you.”

Nell was astonished at the proposal, but Robbie was likeable enough and, given the choice, she would rather bed one man than many.

So, with a payment from Robbie to Madam Ross for the loss of one of her stable, Nell became his. She packed her few belongings in a sack and moved to Robbie’s room at the Cock and Pie Tavern, at the top of Maypole Alley, only a few streets from the only homes she had known.

CHAPTER SIX

LIVING WITH ROBBIE, NELL FELT AS IF SHE WERE PLAYING AT BEING a wife. While he was at work at his father’s business in the City during the day, she tidied their room and fetched food from a cookhouse so that she had supper ready for him when he came home, and Robbie told her of his day and any news.

“The king is to have bearbaiting at Hampton Court for Whitsuntide, as he did last year. Savagery. That’s one old custom that would have been better left in the past. The playhouses are bad enough. Oh, and Lady Castlemaine is brought to bed of a boy. He’s to be called Charles Palmer and Lord Limerick, as though he were the son of her husband, but no one believes that.”

“Barbara Palmer’s husband had her son christened in the Popish church,” Robbie told Nell a week later over dinner. “But today the king took the child and had him rechristened in the Church of England. He’ll not have his son raised a Papist, bastard or no.”

“And how did Palmer take that?” Nell wondered.

“Not well,” said Robbie, chewing on a beef bone. “He’s broken from his wife at last and gone to France.”

That night, to Nell’s surprise, Robbie went to sleep without touching her. She scarcely knew what to think and lay worrying. Was he tiring of her? Would he cast her out? But in the morning he seemed as usual, and she grew used to the novel idea that a man might not always want to couple.

Being free from Jack’s attentions and serving the needs of many men was a welcome change. Nell’s body healed, and Robbie was gentle with her in bed. But before long, she found that the sameness of her days grew tedious. She missed the companionship of Rose and the other girls, but because she wanted to keep out of Jack’s way and because Robbie did not like her going there, she stayed away from Lewkenor’s Lane.

Rose joined her sometimes for little outings, to watch the river traffic from the bridge, or to walk as far abroad as the countryside of Moorfields or Islington. There was usually something of interest to be seen at Covent Garden—rope dancers, jugglers, or occasionally a display of prize fighting.

One brilliant summer day Nell and Rose set out on a pilgrimage to St. James’s Park, near the palace.

“I hope we’ll see the king,” Nell said.

“Perhaps we will,” Rose said. “Harry says the king has laid out a mint of money making the park fine again and walks out most days.” Harry Killigrew had recently become groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York.

The park, with its blooming flowers and trees, seemed a paradise to Nell, and a world away from the dark land of nightmare where she had last been with Nick and the other boys on the night of the king’s return.

“Look!” cried Rose, clutching Nell’s arm.

Not fifty paces from where they stood, King Charles strode along in earnest conversation with some puffing minister who struggled to match his pace, the royal retinue straggling along behind. Nell watched, entranced.

“He’s even more handsome than I remembered him.”

“He is that,” Rose agreed. A bevy of ladies strolled in the king’s wake, decked in summer finery. The breeze caught their gowns and made Nell think of ships in full sail.

“Look, it’s Lady Castlemaine!” cried Nell. “I wonder where’s her baby?”

“Why, ladies like that don’t care for their own kinchins, but leave them to nurses. That’s why she can look so fine so soon after birthing.”

“Look at that blue gown,” Nell sighed. “Why, now it appears gold!”

“Changeable silk,” Rose said. “You’d have to lay out a month’s earnings to pay for that. But look at the patches now—those are cunning and would be easy enough to fashion.” Many of the ladies’ faces were adorned with small black patches in the shapes of stars, moons, suns, and animals.

“That’s the high kick, that is,” Rose said.

“I think it looks silly,” said Nell. “Besides, they’re like to itch most fearsome. I’d scratch them off in a minute.” She looked with longing at the pretty gloves, though, in a rainbow of shades of soft leather, and at the ladies’ full-brimmed hats with ribbons rippling from them.

The weather was so fine and Nell’s spirits so high, she didn’t want the rare day of pleasure to end.

“Let’s not go back yet,” she pleaded. “I’ve heard tell there’s an Italian puppet show at Covent Garden that would make a dog laugh. And I’ve a month’s mind for some cherries.”

So it was evening before she climbed the stairs to Robbie’s room, with the guilty recollection that the tuppence he had given her to buy candles had been spent during the day’s outing.

“You spent it!” Robbie cried. “And what are we to use for light?”

“It’s not so dark,” Nell pleaded. “I’ll get candles tomorrow.”

“I’ll get the candles myself,” he fumed, yanking the door open. “Since I cannot trust you to do as you’re told.”

Nell lay awake that night, chafing with resentment. It was only tuppence, after all, and the first money she had spent on herself since moving in with Robbie.

In the morning she strode into the taproom of the Cock and Pie downstairs. Cath, the barmaid, looked up from the jug she was washing and took in Nell’s stormy face.

“You’ve a bee in your bonnet, I see.”

“Are you hiring?” Nell demanded. Cath laughed.

“Unhappy with Robbie, are you?”

“I’ve no money to spend but what he gives me and I cannot do anything but what he tells me,” Nell fretted. “I spend my days alone and I’m so bored I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“Best think twice afore you leave,” Cath cautioned. “Bored and fed is better than free and hungry.”

Nell slumped onto the stool opposite Cath.

“You’re right. I’ve nowhere to go. But please, to keep me from jumping in the river, have you no shred of gossip or excitement to share?”

“Well, that I do, now you mention it,” Cath smiled. “Mr. Killigrew is to build his playhouse just across the road.”

AS SOON AS THE GROUND WAS THAWED, THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE theatre were laid in the old Rider’s Yard. Now walls covered the framing, and acres of heavy oak planking and dark and gleaming hardwood disappeared into the maw of the growing theater. Each day Nell watched carpenters, masons, woodcarvers, and plaster-workers come and go, their tools slung in bags on their backs.

One summer day when the labourers had stopped work for their midday meal and were gathered outside to eat, sitting atop piles of lumber or leaning against the theatre’s wall, she slipped in at the back door. Skeletal frames of timber stood in the hush of the midday sunlight that filtered through chinks in the unfinished ceiling. A mist of sawdust blanketed the rough-hewn floors.

Nell made her way through a doorway in a wall that was not yet built, and realised that she must be standing upon the stage. She crept silently forward, hardly daring to breathe. The centre of the space was a soaring emptiness. Like a cathedral, she thought. Galleries for spectators lined the walls. She wondered what it would be like to stand on that stage before an audience, and thought of how Lady Castlemaine had surveyed the crowds before Whitehall on the night of the king’s return. She snapped open an imaginary fan and swished it languidly before her, her head held high, her chin tilted coquettishly.

“Lud, Your Majesty,” she trilled, batting her eyelashes, and gave the invisible king a pouting smile.

A harsh bark of laughter and the sound of clapping startled Nell so much that she almost cried out. A figure stumped toward her from the shadows at the back of the theatre. It was a grizzled old man in a loose shirt and pantaloons, with a long pigtail, and Nell was amazed to see that he was missing the lower part of his left leg and walked on a wooden peg.

“I meant no harm,” Nell began. “I’ll go.”

“Don’t go on my account,” the old man said with a grin. “I was enjoying it. And any road, I’m just a harmless old carpenter.”

“You look like a sailor,” Nell said, staring at his weather-beaten face.

“And so I have been, since before I’d a beard to my face. But I’m too old for that now, and happy to have a berth ashore. A playhouse is much like a ship, you know—canvas, ropes, rigging—and needs a crew just as a ship does.”

“I wish I could work at the playhouse.”

The old sailor squinted at Nell and tapped a finger alongside his nose.

“And mayhap you can. I hear the king has ordered that from now it’s only women are to act the parts of women.”

“No boys?” Nell asked.

“No boys. Not in petticoats, leastways. The Duke’s Company sent little Moll Davis onto the stage but a month or two ago. A pretty little thing she is, and much cried up, too. About your years, I’d think.”

Nell had been so cut off from her theatre friends that she had not heard that bit of news. She felt a surge of jealousy towards pretty little Moll Davis.

“How came she to be in the Duke’s Company?”

“I don’t know,” the old man shrugged. “But if there’s call for one actress, there’ll be call for more, as sure as eggs is eggs.”

“What’s your name?” Nell asked.

“Richard Tarbutton is the one my old mam gave me. But my mates call me Dicky One-Shank.”

“I’m Nell. Nell Gwynn.”

“Nell Gwynn,” said Dicky One-Shank, his blue eyes disappearing in the weathered folds of his face as he smiled. “I’ll remember that.”

“HE SAID THERE ARE TO BE NO MORE BOYS PLAYING WOMEN’S PARTS, but only girls,” Nell excitedly told Robbie that night over supper. “Actresses.” She said the word reverently.

“Actresses!” Robbie spat, throwing down a chicken bone. “Whores, more like. The only reason for putting women on the stage, mabbed up like slatterns, is so that men can look on them with lust.” He snorted again, tore a hunk of bread from the loaf, and furiously sopped it in the gravy on his plate.

Nell thought, but did not say, that he had had no objection to looking on her with lust when she was at Madam Ross’s place. He seemed to have little sense of humour these days, and more and more she did not speak what was in her mind for fear of rousing his irritation.

THE DAYS SHORTENED INTO WINTER DARKNESS, AND THE THAMES froze again. Nell and Rose walked onto the deep and shadowy ice, encrusted with sludgy snow, but Nell lacked the joy she had felt the previous winter. And Rose was downcast.

“Is summat amiss?” Nell asked, and was surprised to see tears in Rose’s eyes.

“Harry’s got married. Lady Mary Savage.”

“Oh.” Nell hardly knew what to say. Of course Rose knew as well as she did that gentlemen like Harry would never marry girls like them, however much they enjoyed their sport and company. But knowing didn’t stop the hurting.

“Hard luck, that is,” she ventured. Rose nodded, turning her head aside and wiping away tears.

“I was a fool to let myself care for him as I did,” Rose said.

“No,” said Nell. “You can’t help how you feel, Rose, any more than you can stop the rain from falling. He don’t deserve you anyway. You’ll soon find someone that treats you far better, I warrant.”

Rose tried to smile, and hugged Nell to her.

“Oh, sweet girl, what would I do without you?”

ONE MORNING IN FEBRUARY, NELL AND ROBBIE WERE AWOKEN EARLY by a pounding at their door. Jane, breathless and red faced, rushed in past Robbie.

“Oh, Nell! Rose has been taken up for theft!” She choked out her story between sobs. “The shoulder clappers came at dawn. They had a gentry cove with them claimed she’d pinched his larum.”

“Oh, no,” Nell gasped. The punishment for the theft of something as valuable as a pocket watch was the gallows.

Nell was so terrified she could not think, but Robbie was cooler.

“Where stands the matter now? What’s been done?”

“Madam’s gone to Whitehall to see can Harry help.”

“And Rose?”

“Clapped up in Newgate.”

Newgate. The name alone evoked darkness and despair. Nell knew that debtors rotted there in misery for years, as her father had languished in prison in Oxford. And all London knew of the regular pageant of death, when condemned prisoners were led from the prison to be driven in carts through jeering crowds and pelted with offal on their way to Tyburn Tree, the enormous three-sided gallows that could accommodate twenty-four nooses, and the resultant twenty-four swinging corpses.

“I must go to her!” Nell cried.

“No,” Robbie said harshly. “You can do her no good.”

But Nell would not be deterred.

“’Tis no place for a girl,” Robbie said, grim faced, shoving his hat onto his head.

“No, and no more is it a place for Rose than it is for me,” Nell retorted, stamping with impatience to be gone. Robbie had no answer to that, and they set off, Nell racing along in front of him.

The winter morning sky was leaden grey, the wind blew bitter cold, and a light shower of snow fell icy wet.

When they arrived at the gates of the prison, Nell’s stomach tightened with fear. The ponderous stone walls towered before her, broken only by narrow slits. The enormous ironclad portals led into a cobbled courtyard, crowded with the morning’s desperate traffic—prisoners in irons shuffling through the doors that led into the depths of the prison; guards and soldiers, grim and armed; the usual London rabble of beggars and urchins; legions of wives, lovers, mothers, sisters, and friends. A foul stench permeated the air, a noxious mixture of human and animal waste, vomit, blood, rotting food, and the unmistakable odour of death. A grizzled guard stopped them.

“If she was shopped this morning, trial might be tomorrow,” the guard shrugged when Robbie explained their errand. “Or mayhap the day after. No way of knowing.”

Robbie turned away, but Nell stayed where she was.

“Can I not see her?” she asked.

“That thou cannot.” The guard ran a tongue over his chapped lips and wiped his nose with the back of a dirty hand. Nell stared at him with hatred, taking in the broken and rotten teeth, the rough stubble on the heavy cheeks, the purple nose running in the cold air. She darted past him through the door. She was young and fast, but his stride and his reach were much longer than hers. He grabbed her by the hair and flung her down. She scrambled to her feet and, in a rage of humiliation and helplessness, ran at the man before Robbie could stop her. Disbelief and growing annoyance on his face, the guard caught her and held her from him at arm’s length. He shook her hard, then lifted her so that her face was close to his. She smelled beer and onions and felt the moist warmth of his breath.

“Get yer arse out of here. And don’t come back, unless you want summat worse.” He dropped her, and she cried out as she landed on the cobblestones. All the fight gone out of her, Nell wanted only to flee before she shamed herself by crying. Robbie, grey faced and silent, helped her to her feet.

“Can you walk?” he asked.

Nell knew he was angry and nodded without meeting his eyes, hot tears falling onto her cheeks.

“We’ll go to Madam Ross’s,” Robbie said shortly. “You can wait until there’s news.”

At Lewkenor’s Lane, Nell was relieved beyond measure that Ned was presiding over the bar and Jack was gone. The girls were gathered in the taproom like a flock of unsettled chickens, some crying, some railing against the cully who had turned Rose in, some taking a morbid enjoyment in the dramatic prospect of the execution of one of their own. They squawked and fluttered at the sight of Nell and Robbie.

“Nell!” Jane cried. “Whatever’s happened to you?”

“Nothing,” said Nell. “We tried to see Rose, is all, and the bandog flung me out on my breech.”

“The brute!” cried Jane.

“Aye, for shame!” chimed black-haired Nan. “What call had he to treat you so?”

“I tried to get past him. Came near to doing it, too,” Nell said, brightening.

“What a plucky thing you are,” said Jane. “Come, let me bind your wounds, little warrior.” The other girls clucked with sympathy while Jane fetched a basin of water and a cloth and gently wiped the grit from the scrapes on Nell’s hands and knees, crying out all over again at the red and purple blotches that already bloomed on her soft skin.

It was after noon when Madam Ross returned.

“Harry’s gone to ask for the king’s help,” she told the girls. “He’ll come here as soon as there’s word.”

So there was nothing to do but wait. Robbie went on to the City. Exhausted by the strain of waiting, Nell went upstairs to Rose’s room and climbed into bed. She could smell Rose’s scent on the bedclothes and pulled them tightly around herself. Wrapped that way, she could close her eyes and believe that Rose lay next to her. Surely Rose was safe and would be back. But fear clutched at her, and she sobbed, finally falling asleep on the tear-dampened pillow.

THE BLEAK AFTERNOON HAD TURNED TO WINTRY DARKNESS WHEN Nell awoke. She raised her head to see Rose coming through the door into the little bedchamber with Harry Killigrew. He was uncharacteristically subdued and stood by awkwardly as Rose flung herself into Nell’s embrace and began to sob.

“Oh, Nelly,” Rose finally whispered, “I was so frightened. I was afeared they was going to turn me off.”

“I tried to get you out,” Nell cried. “But I couldn’t. I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Rose was half laughing and half crying. “Oh, little one. You have the heart of a lion and nought to be sorry for. It took a pardon from the king himself to get me free.”

She nodded towards Harry and, reminded of how much she owed to his help, launched herself into his arms.

“I’ll leave you to your sister,” he said. “I’ll come tomorrow to see how you’re faring.”

When he had gone, Nell tucked Rose into bed and dashed out to the nearest cookhouse for a couple of hot pies. She and Rose sat together in the warm bed, the golden light of the candle in its wall bracket reflected in the black of the icy windowpane. Rose begged Nell to stay the night with her, and they nestled side by side in the darkness.

“When I went there today, it made me think of Da,” Nell whispered.

“Aye. I thought of him, too,” Rose answered. “I cannot bear the thought that he died alone in such a place.”

She drew a shuddering breath.

“When they took me in, I could hear such awful moans and sobbing and screaming. Like souls in hell. And Nell …” She paused.

“They took me down this horrible passage, all dank and grey. And past this little room. And in it I could see arms and legs that had been chopped off, and heads and other parts. Like a butcher shop for men.”

Nell had no words for the horror of the image the words forced into her mind. She thought again of the traitors’ deaths suffered by the men who had killed the first King Charles, and the black and featureless things she had seen on pikes on London Bridge and at the City gates, which she knew were the tarred heads and quarters of executed men. Like souls in hell, Rose had said. But Nell could not imagine a hell that could be any worse than a world in which such things were possible. She slept uneasily that night and dreamed again of the door slamming shut, of being left alone and terrified in a cold and hostile landscape.

It was not until morning that Nell asked Rose the question that had been gnawing at the back of her mind.

“Did you, Rose? Did you pinch the watch?”

“No,” Rose said. “But I think Jack did.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

ROSE CAME SMILING INTO NELL’S LODGING ONE MORNING A FEW weeks after her deliverance from Newgate.

“Harry’s got a way for me to get out of Madam Ross’s!” she said. “When the playhouse opens, there will be need of two wenches to sell oranges and sweetmeats. Harry says he can get me one of the situations, and you can have the other, if you want it.”

“When do we start?”

“Not ’til May,” Rose laughed. “And Orange Moll has to give us the nod.”

“Who’s she?”

“Mary Meggs is her proper name. She holds the licence to sell fruits and nuts and such. But Harry says he’ll make it all come right.”

NELL STOLE A QUICK LOOK AT ROBBIE THAT NIGHT AS HE ATE. “ROBBIE,” she said, “Rose has got me and her work at the playhouse. Selling oranges and so on.”

“You have no need of work.”

“But I could earn my keep. And perhaps I’d meet gentlemen who would want to do business with you.”

Robbie snorted. “Who would want to do business with you, more like.”

Nell held her tongue. First she had to meet Orange Moll. If all went well and the job was hers—well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

A FEW DAYS LATER, SHE AND ROSE PRESENTED THEMSELVES AT WILL’S, the fashionable coffeehouse in Russell Street at Covent Garden, to be inspected by the formidable Orange Moll. Harry was there with her, lounging against the bar. Nell surmised he must have made some impudent remark, for he roared with laughter, while Moll struggled to assume a look of dignified disapproval rather than the chuckle of flattered amusement that threatened to erupt.

Harry hailed the girls, and Moll turned to look at them. She was very round, billowing over the stool on which she sat, her capacious bosom overflowing the low neckline of her dress. Nell noted the shrewd evaluation in the quick glance. She felt like a heifer at Smithfield Market, but could tell that Moll was pleased with what she saw.

“Aye,” Moll said. “They’re comely-looked wenches, both of them. I’ll warrant you’ve been peddling more than oysters, have you not?”

Before Nell could think how to respond, Rose, at an almost imperceptible nod from Harry, looked Orange Moll straight in the eye, and said, “Yes, ma’am. I’m at Madam Ross’s. And Nell was lately, too.”

“Well, that’s all to the good,” said Moll. “A pretty mab who know how to catch a gentleman’s eye, and how to jest and flirt, will sell far more than a prim stick who thinks herself above it. Very well, we’ll give you a try. The plays begin at three. You’ll work from noon until the show is over and the folk have gone. Oranges are sixpence, and a ha’penny of that’s yours to keep.” She gave the girls a knowing smile.

“And there’s more of the ready to be made, for a girl who has her eyes open and her wits about her. Now. Have you ever et an orange? No? Well, here’s your first, then.”

She gave Nell and Rose each an orange and showed them how to peel off the dappled skin to get at the pulp beneath. Nell inhaled the pungent scent and bit into a segment. The sweet tang of the juice was wonderful, different from anything she had tasted.

“Sweet Seville oranges,” said Moll. “All the way from Spain, where it’s warmer.”

The golden oranges, like little suns, conjured in Nell’s mind images of a sultry land of constant languorous summer.

ROBBIE LOOKED GRIM WHEN NELL MENTIONED THE PLAYHOUSE AGAIN that night as they lay in bed. She had been bursting all day with the anxiety of talking to him and the fear of what he would say.

“Let me try it,” she begged. “You’ll see, no ill will come.”

“You may try it for a week,” he said finally. “But I don’t like it a whit. And if you come to any mischance in that time, you’ll stop, and no argument.” He turned his back to her and pulled the covers over his head, and Nell reckoned she had best leave it at that.

THE NIGHT BEFORE SHE WAS TO BEGIN AT THE PLAYHOUSE, NELL’S head was too full of thoughts of the next day for sleep to come. Robbie snored softly next to her in the dark. She slipped out of bed and padded to the window. The moon hung low and bright in the warm night sky. She regarded the stars in wonder. So many of them. She recognised some patterns that she knew—the Great Bear, the Small Bear, the Hen and Chickens—and wondered how many people had looked up at that same moon and stars since time began.

A watchman passed below, crying out, “Two o’clock of a fair, clear night, and all is well.” All was well. Whatever the next day might bring, it must be good. The stars stood guard over her fortunes. And maybe somewhere, too, her father watched.

IN THE MORNING NELL DRESSED IN THE BEST CLOTHES SHE HAD, A skirt and body in russet. She had washed her shift and it peeped out clean and white at her elbows and neckline. She took out her precious ribbon knot of blue and gold from the small box under the bed where she kept her few treasures—the shard of mirror; her little doll; a silk handkerchief left behind in her room at Madam Ross’s by some man; a pink rose she had plucked and hung upside down by a thread to dry, its papery petals giving off a sweet scent, like memories of another day.

Rose arrived, flushed and smiling, her brown curls and blue eyes set off by a saffron-coloured gown. As soon as she knew she had work at the playhouse, she had left Madam Ross’s and moved into a room above the nearby Cat and Fiddle Tavern, and she looked happier than Nell remembered seeing her.

It wasn’t far to the playhouse, but as Rose and Nell stepped into Bridges Street, the familiar thoroughfare seemed altogether different. A parade of fine carriages choked the way, and Nell realised with a start that their destination must be the theatre. She had not thought about so many people going to hear the play. But it stood to reason that everyone would want to be present for the first performance at the fine new Theatre Royal. And she would be a part of it! She felt a thrill, and then a stab of doubt. What made her so sure of herself? Maybe Moll would decide that she had made a mistake, that she wanted someone older, taller, fairer. Someone better. After all, who was she but a ragamuffin from the squalid streets?

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