asked Aylesford, who had gone rather pale.
‘Perhaps not in those exact words,’ Quare granted, ‘but his meaning was crystal clear, I assure you. The only measure of honour a journeyman possesses consists in the thoroughness of his submission to the authority of the guild. I’m surprised the grandmaster didn’t speak to you in a like manner about your duelling habits.’
‘He did.’ Aylesford slumped into his chair. ‘Only I didn’t understand until now. I guess I didn’t want to.’
‘Ah, there you are, darling!’ exclaimed Mansfield, his ugly face beaming up at the blonde barmaid who had arrived at last, a tray with five brimming mugs balanced on one shoulder. She set the tray down on the table, providing a generous flash of cleavage as she dispensed the drinks. Mansfield snaked a hand into the folds of her dress, and she brushed him away without a glance, as if he were a bothersome fly. Then, retrieving the empty tray, she stood back out of reach and eyed them with a tired but not entirely unsporting expression on her plump, pretty face.
‘Why do you treat me so cruelly, dear Clara?’ Mansfield complained. ‘Can’t you see how much I love you?’
The barmaid rolled her blue eyes. ‘I’m Arabella,’ she said, and jerked her chin in the direction of the other blonde barmaid. ‘That’s Clara.’
Mocking laughter erupted from around the table, though Aylesford did not join in. Nor did Mansfield, who flushed crimson and attempted to rally: ‘As the Bard has it, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet …’
Arabella sniffed. ‘I do smell an odour, but it has little of the rose about it!’
Mansfield’s colouring grew redder still, as if in emulation of that flower, and he developed a sudden interest in his ale.
‘You journeymen of the Worshipful Company are all alike,’ Arabella went on archly. ‘Only interested in one thing.’
‘And what might that be?’ asked Pickens with a leer.
‘Why, your clocks,’ she said, not missing a beat.
More laughter, after which Pickens added: ‘And our stomachs. We’ll have another of your tasty pies, Arabella, if you please.’
At which Mansfield, who had already drained his mug, spoke up: ‘And more ale.’
After Arabella had gone, Farthingale slapped the gloomy Aylesford on the back and returned to the earlier topic of conversation. ‘Buck up, old son. Honour is vastly overrated. What is it good for anyway except to make people puffed up or miserable or dead? Take it from me, you’re better off without it. Why, I’m a bastard, the whelp of a man who sits on an august throne, a man so far above the likes of you and me that there is more honour in one of his turds than in all the patrons of this fine establishment put together! And yet, which of us do you suppose is happier, eh? My right noble sire, whose every waking moment is spent in terror of some slight to his precious honour, who sees everyone in the world as his inferior, to be scorned or ignored accordingly, and who cannot publicly acknowledge the existence of his only son, or’ – and here he laid a hand over his heart – ‘that selfsame son, a humble journeyman so far below the notice of the great as to be invisible, a man who, having no honour, need never fear its loss, or risk life and limb in its defence, or say to himself that he cannot stoop to befriend this man or to bed that woman, who—’
‘For God’s sake, Prince Farthing,’ cut in Mansfield. ‘Must you drone on so?’
Farthingale was always rattling on about his royal father, much to Quare’s annoyance. The man wore his bastardy like a badge of honour despite his disparagement of the term. But all bastards are not created equal, Quare had found. Farthingale at least knew, or claimed to know, who his father was – and did receive a regular allowance … a liberal allowance. Quare, on the other hand, lacked all knowledge of his origins. Even the name of Daniel Quare had been given to him by a stranger, thrust upon him when he was a mere babe at the orphanage in Dorchester. Yet one day he would learn the truth. One day he would stand face to face with his father. On that day, he swore now for the millionth time, all debts between them would be paid, with interest, one way or another.
Farthingale, meanwhile, glared at Mansfield. ‘Lucky for you I have no honour, sir, or I’d be