The King’s Diamond

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Will Whitaker. The King’s Diamond

Will Whitaker. The King’s Diamond

Contents

HISTORICAL NOTE

PROLOGUE

PART 1. Topaz: a Perfect Sunshine Stone

1

2

3

4

5

PART 2. Scythian Emerald: a Courtesan among Stones

6

7

8

PART 3. Chrysoprase: the Lantern in the Darkness

9

10

11

12

13

14

PART 4. The Golconda Diamond: a Thorn in the Heart

15

16

17

18

PART 5. Ruby of Serendip: a Stone to Heat the Blood

19

20

21

22

23

24

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Author

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

Отрывок из книги

For Elizabeth and Alexander

Part 1

.....

‘Martin!’ she called. Into the room came Martin Deller, broad-shouldered, most trusted of the various strong-armed watchmen who guarded the warehouse. He had been in the family’s employ for years. I had seen him, in the dusk and early dawn, prowling the wharves without a lantern, moving with surprising stealth. I knew my mother relied on him absolutely. He carried with him a small chest, covered in red-and-white striped velvet, that had stood at the foot of my mother’s bed. I had never seen it opened, but had always supposed it contained lace collars or hoods, or stuff of that sort. Martin set it down heavily next to the table. My mother unlocked it and threw it open. It was filled with gold, bills and bonds: the proceeds of her many half-secret ventures. She looked from me to Thomas to William Marshe, and said, ‘The way we do business is about to change. We are going to buy a ship.’

Her plans, it seemed, had been laid well in advance; she had even picked out a vessel. The Rose was a great ship of some seventy tons. She carried a crew of forty mariners, whom we would have to recruit from the waterside taverns of the City, and had a pair of brass falconets against pirates, as well as a murderer, a light swivel-gun that could clear the decks if she were boarded. Next day William inspected her where she lay downriver, and declared her tight and well-bowed: ‘With a good wind, she will truly cut a feather.’ My mother nodded in satisfaction. She trusted William, as she had never trusted my father. And so the papers were signed, and bills of exchange handed over. She became ours in the spring of 1521, just before I turned sixteen. A few weeks later, my mother called me into the counting house. She sat stroking her chin with the feather end of a pen. It still surprised me to see her there. My father had been dead for only three months, but already she had transformed herself into that cool and independent business machine, the Widow of Thames Street.

.....