the lintel. Dandon edged past him, making his way to the front door.
‘I expect Peter Sam to be here. A fortnight from now. I’ll have your letters. And by the time I do I’m sure one more death will not make much odds.’
Ignatius said nothing. He pulled himself back up in his seat, lowering his eyes to his page, and began to write again the notes that would exalt him, the notes that would exempt him, depending on the reader, until he heard the door click shut behind the pirate. It had been worth the wait.
Still writing, he spoke aloud to the empty room. ‘I trust you have heard enough, gentlemen?’
A pause ensued lengthy enough for the two men that waited in the garden to ready themselves, open the glazed double doors and step into the room. They had indeed heard enough. A hidden vent in the wall had carried the entire conversation.
He waited for the two to sit down on uninvited chairs at opposite sides of the study, their full-length black cloaks sweeping the floor. Prudently Ignatius finished his work, placed his stylus down and lifted his head to them.
Hiding his amusement he addressed them both. ‘Still the pretence of your masks, gentlemen? How very droll.’ In each dark corner his guests wore white clay Bauta masks and full tabarro lace that covered their heads and necks and ran beneath their tricornes.
The almost glowing Venetian masks stared back coldly with blank eyes. One of them spoke, the beak of the mask hanging over and away from the mouth, thus perfectly distorting the direction and identity of the voice.
‘Our anonymity preserves some dignity amongst ourselves, Ignatius. It is no deceit against your person.’
‘Quite,’ Ignatius noticed their canes impatiently trying to twist their way through the floorboards, while their dead faces betrayed nothing. The frustration of trying to engage with statues detached Ignatius even more from the emotions that his enterprises often provoked in him. ‘You have listened; you thus understood the full control that I enjoy over our situation. In a month, perhaps less, the secret of the porcelain will be here in this very study. Yours for the taking.’
‘For the purchasing, Ignatius,’ one of them snapped back. Ignatius bowed to the adroit observation.
‘Indeed. Now, as I understand, one of you,’ he waved a hand to them both, ‘owns a considerable iron refinery which might easily be turned to the production of the porcelain.’
A mask nodded back, the unseen and sweating face behind it quickly grimacing in regret at giving away the knowledge to Ignatius’s quick eye.
Ignatius spoke directly to the other mask. ‘And therefore I assume you, sir, would be the gentleman most able to purchase native lands that supposedly hold deposits of the appropriate clay?’
No nod or word was returned, but the ebony cane tried to screw itself through the elm-wood floor. Ignatius resisted the impulse to put ink to paper. The masks twitched and a muffled voice was heard.
‘You imply that our motives spring purely from profit, Ignatius. I say you are mistaken, sir.’
Ignatius rested an elbow on his desk and leant his chin on his hand in a pose eloquent of opening his mind to enlightenment. The mask continued. ‘You have spoken yourself to the very pirate now on his quest, of the importance of the porcelain to our country.’
Ignatius raised an eyebrow. ‘Your country?’
‘This country, these colonies, provide the most valuable commodities in the world. In less than a generation you may add cotton to the tally. Yet we are compelled and restrained only to sell our goods to the motherland, my pig-iron included, at a price set by men I have never seen. A third of the kingdom’s income is generated by the colonies yet we are taxed for the privilege and our countrymen may send no representative to our King’s parliament. If I wish to breed a horse I must write to a secretary in Whitehall. Yet if I need a garrison of soldiers to protect against the pirates and the Indians I must pay them from my own purse at a penny a day.’ Even muffled by the mask Ignatius could sense the bitter tone of personal grievance in the man’s voice.
‘I have lived here for almost a year, gentlemen. You bleat long but you have government and legislature enough of your own. Many of you grow wealthier than your fathers despite king and crown. And I’ve read nothing in your pamphlets of complaint except for the somewhat thwarted desire to grow