“I have never been to a bawdy-house before,” he said.
Of course I didn’t believe him, but it wasn’t important, so I pressed on, trying to learn more about this Future where the best-looking fellas speak English but are not, in fact, English. We spent no small sum of time discussing why wearing clothes would make it easier for him to speak. Otherwise, all I could get out of him was that the land that the English are now preparing to settle in the New World breaks away from England to become its own nation, and keeps speaking English but becomes notable for its deep regard of Ireland. This is especially true of the area where he himself had come from directly, which is a province with the queer enough name of Massive Shoe Hits (code, I expect). Anyhow, seems in the future there will be lots of Irish running around over there, but they’ll be speaking English.
“So where’s their loyalty?” I demanded, and he said it’s with themselves. “They get distracted with their new world, they don’t have the energy to stay preoccupied with old grudges. Eventually, I mean. It takes awhile.”
Beyond that the most I could get out of him was that he had come back in time to me, specifically, to seek my assistance. Wasn’t I flattered at that, I confess. “How did you know to find me?” I asked.
“Classified,” he said quickly, and then grimaced and corrected himself: “I can’t tell you. But I know you’re the right one for me to ask for help.”
“All right then. What be in it for me?” I asked. “Given you’ve no money to offer me, and refusing you are to tell me about the future, which is the only reason I’d be interested in you. Except maybe for playing around because you are a beautiful specimen of a man. I’ll wager all your children are beauties.”
“Might we continue this conversation once I’m clothed?” himself asks again, with a bit more urgency now as my words are having their effect and he’s beginning to get big and firm down below.
“Lordy, no,” I say. “I am enjoying this too much. Do you know how rare it is to sit next to a fellow who’s clean and nice-looking and isn’t asking anything of me? It’s enough to make me want to offer myself.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” he says, crossing his legs more than a bit awkwardly.
“Well then tell me why you are here,” I ordered.
“I need to convince a man named Sir Edward Greylock that he should invest his money in the East India Company.”
“Sure, I’ve heard of Sir Edward, we’ve some friends in common, if you take my meaning.”
“Oh, do you know how to find him?”
“I might,” I say, and it’s pretty confident I am about it. Your Grace might remember the wee peccadillo of last year with that German banker fellow and the silk merchant? Sir Edward is the German’s grandnephew on his ma’s side, and I met him in passing at the funeral, but he was quite drunk so he wouldn’t remember me. However, knowing the family to be Protestant bankers I’ve kept a careful eye on all their spawn. And as Your Grace knows well, I’ve made it my business to win the confidences of some of the wenches working the taverns near Whitehall Palace, and I keep an inventory in my head of their regulars’ habits, same as they themselves do. So I happen to know that Sir Edward Greylock is a regular for late dinner at the Bell, on King Street, right by the stairs. I didn’t tell my Saxon all this, of course. First I had to know more from him. “Is it that you want to ruin Sir Edward, and the East India Company is going to fail?” I asked. “Or is it that you want him to succeed and it’s going to thrive? Answer if you want my help.”
“Neither, really. I just want to distract him from putting his money into another company. I’m trying to avoid something.”
“So it’s another enterprise that you want to see fail,” I said. He nodded once. “Is it Protestant or Catholic, this other one?”
“That’s truly got nothing to do with anything,” he insisted.
“If you know what comes of the East India Company, tell me, since that will be useful to somebody I know, and you’d better make yourself useful if you expect me to give a shite about you.”
“I can’t tell you what happens with the East India Company.”
“Classified, is it?”
“Yes. Classified.”
“Goodo. God ye good day, then,” I said cheerily, stood up from the mattress and headed for the little curtained doorway.
“Where are you going?” he demands, paling a little.
“I’m leaving you with your classifieds,” I said. “I’ll keep my own classifieds until you’re willing to have a fair exchange.”
And I left the room, went down the wee corridor and climbed down the steps to the ground level where the tavern is. I went out back, used the privy, then stepped back into the tavern to see if anyone was in need of me. But it was that time of day when the few men there are mostly there for the drink.
So having left the Saxon alone for about as long as it would take to walk a half mile, I returned to the wee chamber, and as I anticipated he was more willing to negotiate.
He allowed that the East India Company is a good investment for those who can risk it—it takes awhile to come to much, but then it will be around a long while and ’tis a private company with good returns on the investment in time. So, Your Grace, let me know if you’re interested in channeling some funds that way, and I’ll alert your agent here. If it’s good enough for a Fugger, it’s good enough for a Fucker.
Meanwhile, since I wanted him to see he’d get rewarded, and since sadly it seemed we weren’t going to have any kind of adventure while he was naked, I pulled out the extra set of drawers and shirt that were hiding under that very mattress the whole time and tossed them to him.
“I’ll help you find your Sir Edward,” I said, “but first we need to kit you out in more than underwear. Lucky for you it’s me you sought out, as I’m the one best knows how to get togemans for such a large lad.”
Once he had donned the threads I had for him, he relaxed a bit and even introduced himself properly: Tristan Lyons, he claims to be. Can’t make out where he’s really from by the name, any more than by the looks. (French, maybe? In which case likely Catholic, but not likely an ally even so. The French are slippery that way.)