A pungent, seaweed-like odor permeated the air around London Bridge, taking on the more distinct smell of fish the closer Sebastian came to the bridge and its adjacent fish market.
For as long as anyone could remember, the bridgehead had been dominated by the fishmongers of Billingsgate. This was an area of brawny women in aprons shiny with fish scales, of men in slime-stiffened canvas trousers or the red-worsted caps of sailors. The tangled rigging of oyster boats showed in the breaks between the tightly packed buildings, and seagulls wheeled overhead, their plaintive cries mingling with the shouts of “Plaice alive, alive, cheap,” and “Mussels, a penny a quart.”
The stretch of the bridge approach known as Fish Street Hill was crowded with shops selling everything from cod and periwinkles to stores of wine, pitch, and tar. But in the warren of narrow lanes and mean courts to the west lived the fishmongers themselves, along with the costers who bought the fish of Billingsgate to sell on the streets of London.
Sebastian arrived by hackney, slipping easily into the persona he had chosen to adopt: Silas Nelson, a somewhat mentally deficient bumpkin from a small village in Kent. By the time he paid off his hackney at the entrance to the narrow passage leading to Bucket Lane, all trace of the self-confident viscount had vanished. His shoulders slumped, and he walked with his head thrust forward, his gaze flitting nervously from side to side, a foolish half grin plastered on his slack features.
It was a trick his former lover, Kat Boleyn, had taught him long ago, when she was first making her mark on the stage and he was an idealistic youth just down from Oxford. “It’s not enough simply to dress the part of a character,” she’d told him. “You need to let their personality infuse every fiber of your being—the way you walk and talk, your attitude toward yourself and others, even life itself.”
The lesson had served him well during the war, when he’d operated as an exploring officer in the mountains of Italy and the Peninsula. . . .
But he slammed his mind shut against those memories.
Now, shuffling along with an awkward gait, he cut through the passage to find himself in a dim lane of bleak, dilapidated houses that seemed almost to touch overhead, shutting out all sunlight. Tattered laundry hung from upper-story windows, while vacant-eyed children and half-starved, snarling dogs clustered in the narrow stretch of mud and steaming garbage that passed for a street. The air was thick with the smell of decay and excrement and the inescapable, oppressive odor of fish.
He knocked on the first door to his right and waited, still vaguely smiling.
No one answered.
Tipping back his head, he peered up at the cracked, grimy windows of the overhanging second story. He could feel the inhabitants inside, hear their soft whispers and furtive movements. But the door remained closed.
He moved on to the next house and rapped loudly on the worn, weathered door.
Silence.
“Hey!” he hollered. “Anybody home?”
Farther down the lane, a door opened and an old man came out leaning on a cane, a cap pulled low over his ears and a tattered scarf wrapped thick about his neck.
“Excuse me,” called Silas Nelson, hurrying toward him. “Can I talk to you?”
The man glanced once at Sebastian, then turned to walk in the opposite direction, his cane gripped tightly in his fist.
“Hey! I’m lookin’ for Mr. Stanley Preston; you know him?”
The man kept walking.
Silas Nelson drew up, his shoulders slumping more than ever. “Why won’t anybody talk to me?” he asked of the now empty street. Even the children had disappeared.
“Who’re you?” demanded a voice behind him.
Sebastian spun around.
A woman stood in the center of the muddy, refuse-strewn lane, her arms crossed at her chest, her head thrown back as she stared at him with narrowed, startlingly turquoise eyes. She looked to be somewhere in her thirties and was stunningly beautiful, with smooth café au lait skin and rich dark hair that peeked from beneath the red kerchief she wore around her head. She was built tall and slender, with a graceful long neck and high cheekbones and full lips.
“You deaf or somethin’?” she asked when he didn’t answer. “I said, who are you?”
“Silas Nelson, ma’am,” said Sebastian, snatching off his moth-eaten cap and executing a jerky bow.
The woman sniffed. “Ne’er seen you before. What you doin’ here?”
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but I’m lookin’ for Mr. Preston—Mr. Stanley Preston. Would you know him, by chance?”
“Ain’t no one by that name lives round ’ere.”
“I’m told he was here last Sunday.”