Read Online The Day of Atonement by David Liss - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Liss
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alone and vulnerable and in danger.
I was glad I had come.
I slept for nearly eight hours. When I awoke, I immediately regretted the lack of a servant. Acquiring one would be among my first tasks. For now, I dressed myself and then emerged to the common room to order food. Earlier the tavern had been crowded, but now there were only a half dozen or so haggard-looking men, all residing in the inn itself, I supposed.
While most of Lisbon was unsafe after sunset, the English streets were not, for they were well lit and patrolled. Even so, it was quickly apparent the Duke’s Arms was not a popular destination beyond the bustle of daylight hours. The food, I discovered, was indifferent, the drink well watered. None of it was appallingly bad, but neither was it particularly good. Mosquitoes hovered about the patrons, and enormous flies gathered in clouds above the dishes. It was an inn for those who could ill afford to bring their business elsewhere.
I sat alone by the fire, eating cold chicken and crusty Portuguese bread, washing it down with thin porter. The other men in the room were older, with fraying wigs or no wigs at all, several days of beard growth, eyes and noses and cheeks red with lack of sleep and too much drink. In the fine homes and estates of the Bario Alto were those who had played Lisbon’s mercantile lottery and won. These were the men who had lost. None of them showed any interest in talking to the new man, and I was content to return the indifference.
After I ate and called for a second pot of porter, Kingsley Franklin set down his rag and walked over on stiff legs.
“All to your liking?” Franklin lowered himself into a chair, grunting and grimacing as he did so.
“The food could be better,” I said.
“Couldn’t be worse. But at least there’s plenty of it, eh?”
“Better a full stomach than a pleased palate,” I opined, saluting my host with my drink.
“A man after my own heart,” Franklin said with evident pleasure. “Tell me, sir, if I may be so bold as to ask. How do you mean to begin your business here?” He sounded less like he was prying and more like he wished to offer advice.
“Have you something to suggest?”
“I know a thing or two.” He shrugged. “You’re used to London and its great size, but Lisbon is a small city. A man can’t help but know his fellows’ business, and what is true for your ordinary João is twice as true for us English. There’s not so many of us that we miss knowing one another, and some keep a better eye upon opportunity than others.”
There was no reason not to jump in, then. Both feet. No point looking down. “Do you know a man named Charles Settwell?” I had written to my father’s old friend care of the Factory, and Settwell had written back, but our communication had been necessarily guarded.
Franklin looked as though he’d just bitten into something rancid. “What can you want with him?”
I felt my pulse begin to race. That was not the reaction I wished to hear when the man who had saved my life was mentioned. “His name was given to me as a merchant of note.”
Franklin shook his head. “He was once, true enough. But he’s fallen on hard times.”
“How so?” I asked, making every effort to appear indifferent.
Franklin shrugged. “I can’t say I know the details, but I can tell you he sold his house in the Bario Alto and now lives in some wretched place on Madeleine Street, on the cusp of the Alfama, the very worst part of the city. Full of Gypsies and escaped slaves and cutthroat Moors, over there. If you want to advance in Lisbon, you’ll need better friends than Settwell. Who you know makes all the difference, and if you make the wrong contacts from the first, you’ll never recover.”
“My information is clearly not current,” I said, making certain I appeared only vaguely disappointed. It took no small effort. Every instinct I had urged me to rise from my seat and rush to the Rua Madalena. Charles
I was glad I had come.
I slept for nearly eight hours. When I awoke, I immediately regretted the lack of a servant. Acquiring one would be among my first tasks. For now, I dressed myself and then emerged to the common room to order food. Earlier the tavern had been crowded, but now there were only a half dozen or so haggard-looking men, all residing in the inn itself, I supposed.
While most of Lisbon was unsafe after sunset, the English streets were not, for they were well lit and patrolled. Even so, it was quickly apparent the Duke’s Arms was not a popular destination beyond the bustle of daylight hours. The food, I discovered, was indifferent, the drink well watered. None of it was appallingly bad, but neither was it particularly good. Mosquitoes hovered about the patrons, and enormous flies gathered in clouds above the dishes. It was an inn for those who could ill afford to bring their business elsewhere.
I sat alone by the fire, eating cold chicken and crusty Portuguese bread, washing it down with thin porter. The other men in the room were older, with fraying wigs or no wigs at all, several days of beard growth, eyes and noses and cheeks red with lack of sleep and too much drink. In the fine homes and estates of the Bario Alto were those who had played Lisbon’s mercantile lottery and won. These were the men who had lost. None of them showed any interest in talking to the new man, and I was content to return the indifference.
After I ate and called for a second pot of porter, Kingsley Franklin set down his rag and walked over on stiff legs.
“All to your liking?” Franklin lowered himself into a chair, grunting and grimacing as he did so.
“The food could be better,” I said.
“Couldn’t be worse. But at least there’s plenty of it, eh?”
“Better a full stomach than a pleased palate,” I opined, saluting my host with my drink.
“A man after my own heart,” Franklin said with evident pleasure. “Tell me, sir, if I may be so bold as to ask. How do you mean to begin your business here?” He sounded less like he was prying and more like he wished to offer advice.
“Have you something to suggest?”
“I know a thing or two.” He shrugged. “You’re used to London and its great size, but Lisbon is a small city. A man can’t help but know his fellows’ business, and what is true for your ordinary João is twice as true for us English. There’s not so many of us that we miss knowing one another, and some keep a better eye upon opportunity than others.”
There was no reason not to jump in, then. Both feet. No point looking down. “Do you know a man named Charles Settwell?” I had written to my father’s old friend care of the Factory, and Settwell had written back, but our communication had been necessarily guarded.
Franklin looked as though he’d just bitten into something rancid. “What can you want with him?”
I felt my pulse begin to race. That was not the reaction I wished to hear when the man who had saved my life was mentioned. “His name was given to me as a merchant of note.”
Franklin shook his head. “He was once, true enough. But he’s fallen on hard times.”
“How so?” I asked, making every effort to appear indifferent.
Franklin shrugged. “I can’t say I know the details, but I can tell you he sold his house in the Bario Alto and now lives in some wretched place on Madeleine Street, on the cusp of the Alfama, the very worst part of the city. Full of Gypsies and escaped slaves and cutthroat Moors, over there. If you want to advance in Lisbon, you’ll need better friends than Settwell. Who you know makes all the difference, and if you make the wrong contacts from the first, you’ll never recover.”
“My information is clearly not current,” I said, making certain I appeared only vaguely disappointed. It took no small effort. Every instinct I had urged me to rise from my seat and rush to the Rua Madalena. Charles
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