LITMIR.BIZ

      Dredging his oars through the churning water, Natty Pykes grumbled under his breath. The pinching cold no longer pained his fingers; all feeling had long since been swept away by the deluge which hammered from the black heavens. It was a filthy, sousing October night. His cloak afforded little protection from the relentless rain and his hat slopped sadly about his ears. Through the driving downpour he stared at the two figures sitting in the stern of his boat and the storm stung his upturned face. Silently he cursed those gentlemen who had engaged him.

      The city was lost far behind them now, its mobbing crowd of chimneys and steeples obliterated by the storm. Through the drenching dark the small craft laboured. Swinging behind, the lanthorn made sparks of the pelting waters, and the surface of the river spat and fizzed like scalding fat.

      “’Tis enough to drown the fishes!” he cried, yearning to hear another voice besides that of the endless squall. “Quench the fires infernal, this would. We’ll see no other on the river, not in this foulness. Must be an urgent errand to prise you good masters out of doors.”

      His passengers made no reply. Throughout this drenching journey neither of them had uttered a word, but Natty Pykes had been a waterman for eighteen years and was nobody’s fool. As he ferried them ever further up the Thames, his shrewd and nimble mind made many quiet guesses. The large wooden apothecary box they carried was enough to tell him that they were men of physic and, judging by their attire, prosperous ones at that.

      Deeper into that awful night they pressed and the hours curdled by. Natty knew only the drag of the oars and the protest of his back; all else he pushed from his thoughts until at last new sounds came to his grateful ears through the rain.

      Urgent voices were calling and, turning stiffly, he glimpsed the landing stage of Hampton jutting out into the river. Lanthorns and guttering torches were held aloft to guide him, and Natty eyed the waiting figures with interest.

      Drawing closer, he saw among that restless gathering a man of high rank, whose chain of office glittered in the sputtering torchlight. As his boat pulled alongside the jetty, he knew that the grim expression fixed upon that noble’s face was not caused by the storm alone.

      Only when one of the palace guards hurried down the river steps to hold the craft steady did the waterman’s passengers stir. Binding their cloaks even more tightly about their shoulders, and taking up the apothecary box, they rose. Then, with greater poise and balance than even Natty Pykes could have managed, they alighted. Over the stone stairs the hems of their dark, concealing mantles went sweeping as they ascended to the landing stage.

      Natty wiped the rain from his face. “Goodnight to you, Masters,” he called, reminding them he had not yet been paid.

      The figures halted. One of them turned and a gloved hand appeared from the cloak’s heavy folds. Winking bright and yellow, a coin came spinning down to splash in the rainwater which sloshed inside the boat around Natty’s boots. The waterman snatched

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