The Blackthorn Key

I went upstairs to my master’s room. He was still asleep, his chest rising and falling softly. I didn’t wake him. Instead, on the table beside his bed, I left the piece of apple pie I’d set aside for him. Back in the shop, I placed the open cube on the counter beside Master Galileo’s book, right where Master Benedict would be sure to see it.

Tom was still fondling the shilling. “What are you going to do with this?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I’ll go see if I can find a best friend who’ll help me spend it.”

“I’m a best friend.”

“Oh? Well, then, what do you think I should do with it?”

“Buy icy cream?” he said hopefully.

“Today? It’s so cold out.”

“I love the cold.”

“You just said you hate the cold.”

Tom looked indignant. “I never said that.”

“All right.” His face lit up, as bright as the fire. “But we have to save a penny.”

“For what?” he said.

“What else?” I grinned. “Eggs.”

? ? ?

It may be a lot of money, but on a holiday, a shilling doesn’t go as far as you’d think. By late morning, the rain had stopped. The cobbled streets remained an awful muck, and the rain did nothing to ease the clogs in the gutters, so the roads smelled as horrid as ever. But the clouds broke, and the warmth of the sun reflected in the face of the city. Banners hung everywhere, strung from one balcony to another, flashing colors, patterns emblazoned brightly with the king’s coat of arms. The crowds pressed, packing every street to see the sights, the gardens, the entertainers: jugglers and acrobats and musicians, even a dancing horse. And though it was officially a day of rest, the street vendors were out, calling like crows, trading on the goodwill of the holiday to charge ridiculous prices for treats people wouldn’t otherwise buy.

I’d never bought anything in my life, as I’d never had any money. The few pounds I’d inherited as a baby had been saved by the masters at the orphanage to cover my admission fee to become an apprentice, and apprentices didn’t get paid. As for Tom, his family sold a lot of pies, but he never had any money to spend, either, since his father kept his purse strings tighter than a hangman’s noose.

So the shilling went. I spent the first four pennies on two orange water icy creams, as promised. The confectioner even let us make it ourselves, Tom furiously cranking the handle that churned the cream, milk, and sugar with the orange water in a bucket immersed in salted ice. It was so tasty, I bought a third icy cream for us to share, dripped this time with honey and lemon. After that went one penny each for walnut sugarplums and a handful of chewy chicle imported all the way from the New World, and two more for a lunch of hot, steaming lamb with spiced potatoes and peas slathered in chive butter. That left us with two: one for half a dozen gassy rotten eggs, the other burning a hole in my pocket.

The eggs, of course, were not for eating. On Oak Apple Day, everyone wore a sprig of oak to honor the return of our king, Charles II, the Merry Monarch, whose life was spared by God when he hid from Puritan traitors high in the branches of an oak tree. After a decade of exile and oppression, our king had regained his rightful place in 1660 after the tyrant Oliver Cromwell died and the city’s government of brutal, joyless Puritans fell. Now London was allowed to have festivals—and fun—once more.

Only the most boring of men would stay indoors today—or Puritans, I suppose, who might have found it troubling to see children dancing around the maypoles, the girl in the lead waving a thick oak staff with a Puritan’s sun-bleached skull rattling on top. As for everyone else, they’d better sport the oak on their lapel or they’d get pelted. Fruit was a popular choice, and mud was readily available. But I’d always felt that rotten eggs made a real statement.