Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

But Mistress Dawtrey has another reason for wanting Eddie out. He is a Yorkist. All right, so most of the City is, but the garrison in the Tower under the command of Lord Scales is the King's. Unpopular though Scales and his garrison are, once he knows where Eddie is a quick sortie with a hundred or so professional soldiers could easily get down the seven or so blocks on East Cheap that separate us from the Tower and snatch him before the City can mobilise its own militia against them. Or so says Mistress Dawtrey, and the Alderman agrees.

And so, outside the attic, the household fidgets and chafes. Anish and his two secretaries, Moplahs from Malabar, lean hard-working youths who are losing their sight through working at their accounts and copying the Prince's letters in light which even at midday is no better than gloomy, work away at the books, pretending there is more to be done than there actually is, yet finding mistakes at the eighth or ninth perusal of their papers. The Prince himself sits in silence at the head of the big table in the hall, which annoys the Alderman since it is where he is accustomed to preside, and there he drums his fingers and stares with what he imagines is dignified melancholy at a future that has become obscure if not pointless. Actually he has chronic indigestion, which I try to alleviate with peppermint cordial I buy at an apothecary's at the Poultry Lane end of Old Jewry. And what an apothecary! What a shop! He has a dead tortoise hanging up, a small crocodile, bladders, musty seeds and it is all filthy. In Vijayanagara he would have been closed down as a health hazard.

And with every hour Mistress Dawtrey, who seemed such a buxom, welcoming person when we first arrived, bumbles about her household tasks, which consist mainly of chivvying the help, muttering beneath her breath about how the Queen will have search parties out by now all up and down Wading Street to the north-west and Ermine Street to the north, as if these are the only thoroughfares out of London to take us to the parts we want to go to. She herself has never left London and has no conception at all of what a place might be like if it be different from London.

Alderman Dawtrey, a vintner specialising in sweet Iberian wines, such as sack and malaga, keeps to his counting-house at the back of the property from where he sends out his apprentices to run errands to the quays, making sure his ships are sailing and welcoming those returning, and generally pretending to be busy. But in truth he is staying indoors because he knows if he goes out their worships the other aldermen and the justices of the City, too, might question him as to our whereabouts and he does not wish to involve them in falsehoods. Clearly the whole household welcomed us on the understanding that we would be there for one night at the most.

Well, there must have been a spy in the household, there usually is, because on the third night they come for us, for Eddie anyway, and know where to go. We hear the tramp of their feet coming up East Cheap, and…

'Eddie,' I say, 'that's soldiers, by the clink of their harness and the clatter of their horses' hoofs.'

But this is the first time he's got himself together enough to do it 'properly', that is with my legs spread beneath him, my knees up and splayed, and him lying on top of me supported by his elbows and his arms. And he bangs away in that position, like a pestle in a mortar, pleasuring neither of us as much as we do when I call the tune. But at least she's wet and ready for it, having done it in two of my ways earlier in the evening, so even if there's not much pleasure there's no pain either – though what I am colluding with, had I not been ready to let him do it this way, would have been rape.

However, that we have already been there before is almost our undoing, that and the way I have taught him to hold back, for now he is taking far too long,

'Come on, Eddie,' I cry, as we hear them hammering on the big street door below, 'gerroff will yer.'

See, I am already learning to speak English the way the natives do.

'Damn it, no,' he grunts, 'I'll not be hurried thus,' and he keeps up the same dull rhythm.

Then the quality of the sounds shifts to something nearer and more resonant as they get indoors. There's a crash of pewter and faience and I know that a fine Moorish bowl, freely painted in green and pale yellow patterns, which Mistress Dawtrey prizes, has gone from the big table to the floor. She'll not risk any more breakages and I can imagine the jerk of her head that sends them stamping up the first flight of carved stairs.

It's ladders from now on, two, the first coming through a wide square hole in the first floor, the second propped against the threshold of a low upright plank door that opens into our nest of love.

Thump, thump on the stairs, and thump, thump on my pelvis. Voices, harsh, deep, gruff, with a cleared throat and phlegmy rasp like stones off a shovel.

'He's up there, milord. Up that fucking ladder. Behind that door.'

Silence, then another voice, this time the Norman drawl. 'Come on, Eddie. We know you're there. Be a good chap and come down.'

'Bastard John Clifford,' says Eddie, in my ear. Then, much louder: 'Fuck oft", Clifford.' Then quieter again: 'Bastard hates me. He'll have my balls off before he hands me over to the hangman.'

But the thought doesn't stop him fucking me. Outside: 'Get an axe, old chap, will you?' Inside: 'His dad got killed at St Alban's, doesn't like Yorkists.' Thump, thump. 'Nearly there.'

Outside: 'Oh, for Christ's sake, try the fireplace in the main hall. -

Lots of running up and down stairs, up the ladders.

'Here, give it to me.' Thump, thump, and the plank door begins splitting not far above my head, and the axe-blade flashes briefly. Then a whoop of pleasure. Two actually.

One outside: 'He-e-e-ere comes Johnny!'

One inside: 'He-e-e-ere comes Eddie!'

Another plank comes loose, Eddie rolls off me, hauls me upright, stark naked as we both are, picks up a chest that's at the end of our makeshift bed and smashes it against the joists. At the second blow he's through and a shower of tiles goes skittering into the gully between the two roof ridges. He's not let go of the chest, though, and now heaves it at the door. 'Aaaargh!' and we hear a great crashing and banging as Clifford, I suppose, takes it on his midriff and falls off the ladder. From the musical, mystical chimes we hear I guess the chest bursts open and showers him with gold pieces.

Eddie's out on the roof, reaching in to get me, grabs a bare arm, hauls me out. Oh, Shiva, it's cold. And I slip down on my bum into the gully, with him slithering behind and almost on top of me. He gets me to my feet and for a brief moment I can take in the night, the stars, the roofs, hundreds of them, the spires, the rising three-quarter moon, the silver ribbon of the river, the rising threads of smoke from still smouldering fires. Then the cold strikes again, like a blow in my lungs, like knives on my feet and hands.

'Come on!'

Two things the Londoners live in mortal fear of: plague and fire. And against the latter the big houses, with yards closed off from the public thoroughfares, have rungs fastened into the walls so people can use the windows, even the highest windows, to get to safety. From where we are the highest, nearest window-sill is five feet below us and the top rung three feet below that. Eddie goes first then, holding the guttering with icy fingers, I lower my feet towards him so he can guide them on to the sill. The insteps of my feet feel ticklish, the rough loam of the wall between its timbers scrape my breasts. There is a brick frame round the window and I get the fingertips of my left hand between two narrow bricks.

It isn't a big drop. The lean-to roof, with a shallower camber than the roofs of the house, is below us. Several things now happen at once.