Deception (7 page)

It has been such a busy day and I have had no chance to write in my daybooke, so I have brought it to the Great Hall. We are having a special Frost Fair Masque. There is an intricate ice sculpture of a noble dragon—at least there was. It was put too near the fire. Now it looks like a deformed donkey!

Her Majesty is wearing a wonderful silver gown with pearls and diamonds sewn all over the skirt. The stomacher is embroidered with a design in blue and silver thread that looks like icicles. She has been crowned Monarch of the Ice and is in an excellent temper. Monsieur de la Mothe-Fénelon is paying her very pretty compliments and she is replying in her perfect French.

The black-and-white walls of the Great Hall are draped in pure white silk and gauze, to make us feel as
if we are inside an ice palace. And in the middle of the hall, Will Somers's troupe is entertaining us. Musicians are playing music with bells that sound like the tinkling of ice. French Louis, Gypsy Pete, and Peter and Paul, the dwarf twins, are leading the great company of tumblers. They are all dressed as snowflakes and icicles and are cartwheeling round the hall.

Masou looks splendid in his Jack Frost costume and mask, all silver sparkles. He is skidding and tumbling across the rushes on the floor, doing a wonderful likeness of a very bad skater on the ice. Everyone is laughing.

I had to lay down my daybooke just now. There was a great roll of drums and everyone fell silent. I couldn't help watching what was going to happen.

“Beware!” cried Masou in ringing tones. “The Spirit of the River is among us!”

Several of the ladies let out screams as a huge figure burst in through the doors. It was dressed in tarnished and muddied armour, with blue and green ribbons trailing like weed from its arms. It had a huge head and went among us, groaning and wailing.

Then the Queen stood up and strode to the centre
of the hall. “Desist, thou foul monster of the river!” she declaimed.

I love it when Her Majesty takes part in masques— and she nearly always does. She has a fine speaking voice, which makes me go all tingly, and you are assured of a happy ending, for no one dare beat the Queen!

“Have pity on me, O Monarch of the Ice,” growled the beast. He fell at her feet with a clatter that echoed round the hall.

Her Majesty placed her slippered foot upon his back. “The Thames is conquered and held in thrall by my Reign of Frost!” she declared, and we all clapped and cheered and stamped our feet. She is truly magnificent.

Now I must try to concentrate or I will forget what I learned at the Tower today. I will write it all in order, and hope Masou does not try to put me off by pulling his usual faces at me as he capers by.

This forenoon Sir Edward arrived at Whitehall, looking very splendid on his gleaming black horse, and followed by his servants. Our mounts were brought to us in the courtyard. I was wrapped in my thick cloak and today made no quarrel with Mrs. Champernowne about wearing my mask, for there was a bitter wind and the air is particularly biting
when you're on top of a horse. Lady Sarah had found her mask, which was fortunate as she had a rather nasty rash on her cheeks and did not want Sir Edward to see it. I expect the rash came from the potion she bought at the Frost Fair. Olwen did warn her. I think Sarah was lucky she hadn't turned green and still had her nose.

“Follow me, ladies,” called Sir Edward, turning his horse towards the Court Gate with a flourish. “I will take you on a journey of discovery.”

It is a long ride to the Tower—especially for those of us who don't like being on horseback. We went up Lud Gate Hill, turned away from St. Paul's towards the river and then along Thames Street.

As we rode out of Thames Street we finally came within sight of the Tower itself. We could see the long turreted ramparts of grey stone and the White Tower rising up beyond them. It was an impressive sight.

I noticed a small, straggly group of people clutching silver items and queuing outside the gate and along the side of the moat. I wondered briefly what they were doing there, but was too excited at the thought of what was within the walls to think about it for long. Soon I might find the clues I was searching for. I couldn't wait to see the mint.

We dismounted at the Bulwark Gate. Our grooms stayed with the horses, but Sir Edward's pages came with us. So did his attendant. Poor Sir Edward, thinking he needed protection from Maids of Honour!

I expected us to go straight to the mint but Sir Edward seemed to be keen to give us the Grand Tour of the Tower first. As soon as we had crossed the bridge over the moat and were inside the great walls he stopped. “I have chambers here in the Byward Tower on the right,” he said, pointing to a twisting staircase that led up a small tower at the corner of the great castle walls. “It is a fine dwelling with a view across the Thames. There is only one thing which mars my peace and it is that dratted bell.”

We looked up and saw a bell tower.

“When it tolls in the night it can make me jump from my bed,” Sir Edward told us.

Lady Jane tittered sympathetically and fluttered her eyelashes at him. But I thought it more likely that the noise from the two taverns near the base of the tower would interrupt his sleep.

Sir Edward led us through the arches of the Byward Tower towards yet another tower, this one named after St. Thomas. Faith! The place should
be named “The Towers,” for it is full of them! This one straddled the moat, and there was a tunnel that led out to the Thames, barred by an old, green-stained gate.

Sir Edward took us up some stairs into a large vaulted chamber and offered us mulled wine and sweetmeats to restore us after our long ride.

We took our masks off—except poor Lady Sarah, of course. I nearly snorted my wine down my nose at the sight of her trying to drink without taking her mask far from her face.

Sir Edward made a pretty speech to welcome us to the Tower. I just wished he'd cut it short and take us straight to the mint, but there was no chance of that. So I gazed out of a window across the river. The Thames was not frozen here, to the east of London Bridge, and it was teeming with barges, wherries, ferry boats, and tall-masted vessels.

At long last Sir Edward finished his speechifying. Surely we were going to the mint now!

“Ladies, shall I escort you to view the armouries?” he asked.

I stifled a groan. At this rate it would be midnight by the time we got to the mint.

Then he saw our less than enthusiastic expressions.

“No,” he said quickly, “'tis, perchance, too frightening for such delicate guests.”

Offering Lady Sarah his arm, he led us back past the Byward Tower and along a cobbled way that was as busy as any street in London. Lady Jane walked stiffly behind them, with her nose in the air.

“This is Mint Street,” Sir Edward told us as he tripped along. “The whole operation of the mint takes place within these buildings you see before you.”

The way was long, and followed the length of the outer wall, with single-storey buildings on either side. I saw armourers, workmen, laundresses, maids, and Yeomen of the Guard in their red uniform.

My stomach lurched with excitement. I knew I must keep my eyes open for anything suspicious. There might be someone working here who had a secret or two.

The first thing I noticed as we stepped through the low door into the silver-melting room was how hot it was.

“Welcome to my domain, ladies,” Sir Edward said proudly as his pages took our cloaks.

There was a huge roaring fire in the centre of the room and smoke rose up to a vent in the roof. A man in a leather tunic was putting silver plates, bowls, and
jugs into one of the melting pots that stood over the fire.

“Usually our silver comes from the Exchange, and a little from our own mines in the West Country,” Sir Edward told us. “However, the supply is not enough for our needs if we are to have Her Majesty's coin ready when she wills it. Therefore we are obliged to buy silver from the good folk of our fair City.”

So now I knew why there had been that queue of people outside the Tower. They'd been waiting to exchange their silver for some money from the mint.

Sir Edward took a battered old silver tankard and held it over one of the melting pots. “I shall perform some magic for my esteemed guests,” he declared.

Ladies Sarah and Jane gasped prettily. They looked as if they were hanging on Sir Edward's every word— but I wager they would have been hard pressed to remember any of it afterwards. Carmina and Penelope had begun chattering betwixt themselves about the fine jewellery they would have with such a hoard of silver, and were paying no attention whatsoever.

“You will see,” continued Sir Edward, “how a discarded drinking vessel such as this can become a brand-new coin of Her Gracious Majesty's realm.”

He passed the tankard to a labourer, who lowered it into the cauldron. Before our eyes the liquid silver swallowed it up.

“What happens now?” asked Mary Shelton.

“We make silver ingots,” Sir Edward explained.

Two workers took wooden poles and fitted them to the sides of one of the cauldrons. Then they carried the heavy pot in the fashion of a litter over to an iron tabletop on trestles. They rested the pot down and ladled the melted silver into long grooves in the iron. We watched the beautiful stream of liquid silver filling the grooves. Even Lady Jane looked fascinated at this.

“The ingots must be cooled, reheated, and cooled again to strengthen the metal,” said Sir Edward. “But that is a wearisome process to watch. Follow me and we shall see the silver beaten thin and cut into blanks.”

He led us into the next workshop, where five labourers were beating the silver ingots flat on anvils. The noise was deafening. Then we went through a third room, where men with shears were cutting the metal into small rough squares—which Sir Edward called “blanks”—and throwing them into baskets.

“And finally, my ladies,” Sir Edward called, “we
shall see the magic completed. Please be so good as to go with me to the Press House.”

We followed a young boy, who staggered under the weight of a basket full of blanks. He took us outside and along to the last doorway in Mint Street.

“This is the gold and silver Press House,” announced Sir Edward. The room was large, with windows all down one side to let in as much light as possible. It was full of men toiling away at workbenches with large hammers.

The boy put down his heavy basket and ran between the benches, giving each man a handful of blanks.

Sir Edward went to the nearest workman. “Dickon here will show you how we strike a coin.”

Dickon was not at all awed by the presence of noble young ladies. He grinned and showed us two long, thick lengths of metal, each with a design on one end. “These be called dies, your noble graciousnesses,” he told us. “The end of each is pressed with the design for either side of the coin.” He held up one of the dies. “This die we call the pile. Each pile is pressed with our blessed Majesty's likeness directly from Mr. Anthony's engraving.”

I looked at the likeness. It was just as I remembered
from the designs that Mr. Anthony, the Mint Engraver, had brought to Her Majesty at Whitehall.

He rammed the spiked end of the pile into his workbench and placed a blank on the top. Then he held up the other die. “This be the trussel—see, it has the griffin pressed on its end.”

He placed the trussel so that the griffin design on the end of it was covering the blank. Holding it steady with his left hand, he took a hammer in his right and struck the top of the trussel, hard. Then he lifted the trussel away to reveal the griffin imprinted on the metal. He took a small pair of shears and trimmed the metal into a circle. Now it looked exactly like the coins the Queen had shown me.

“And there you 'ave it, my honourablenesses!” he said, handing the coin around. “With my skill I can do thirty of these a minute.” He stood up as if he were expecting applause like an actor at a play.

“Thank you, Dickon,” Sir Edward said quickly.

“That will do. Carry on with your work.”

I looked at the trimmings on the bench in front of me. “What happens to all these spare pieces of silver?” I asked. I wondered if someone was managing to smuggle them out to be melted down for the counterfeit coins.

A pale man with a grey beard stepped forward. “When the blanks have been cut, the trimmings are gathered, weighed, and accounted for, my lady,” he said solemnly. He bowed. “Jacob Petty at your service. I am Her Majesty's Master Moneyer. I oversee all the labourers.”

“All silver is carefully weighed by me first thing in the morning,” Sir Edward put in. “And then the silver coins and trimmings are weighed again at the end of the day. The weight must always be the same. We cannot have any of it finding its way out of the Tower. And the trussels and piles are counted and locked safely away each night by good Jacob here, or myself. I am proud to say that nothing has gone missing while I have had the honour to hold this post.”

I was impressed. However flowery Sir Edward might appear, he was obviously a very conscientious Mint Warden. But I also felt quite baffled. How could anyone steal tools or silver in the face of such safeguards?