so Emily stood her ground and had herself measured, and agreed with whatever was suggested, and then she left.
When she finally got outside into the open air, there was a man talking to Alice, beside the buggy. It was a familiar enough sight, and proof that not everything had changed in this world.
‘Why, Alice, who’s this?’
‘Em, this nice man was just telling me some fascinating rumours.’
I thought the only rumours these days were war rumours. Emily looked at the man Alice was talking to, who was peering back at her, shading his eyes. He was lean and broad-shouldered, dressed in a long leather greatcoat stained and worn by both travel and time. His face had a few scars that could have come from fighting, one of them dividing an eyebrow in two. His moustache and beard were cut neatly short.
‘Perhaps you would care to introduce us,’ she prompted Alice.
‘The name’s Griff, ma’am,’ said the man. He was well-spoken enough, but seemed the sort of careworn character that Alice would not have deigned to look at before the war. Now she was starved of attention, and apparently anyone would do.
‘I hope my sister has not been annoying you with her talk, Mr Griff.’
‘Not at all, ma’am. She’s been kind to spend a few words on a poor traveller.’
‘I wonder that you have not taken the Red, under the King’s orders, Mr Griff,’ Emily said. ‘I’m sure a man like you would be a valuable asset to the war effort.’ Certainly this Griff seemed to have more intact limbs than most of the other men within sight, always excepting Mr Northway’s robust henchmen.
Griff tapped his nose conspiratorially ‘We all serve in our own ways,’ he told her, with a smile that invited her to smile back.
All he got from Emily was a frown. She leant towards her sister and murmured, ‘Alice, would you explain to me what is going on? I’ve seen you cross the street to avoid men less shabby than this.’
Her sister made an exasperated expression. ‘Oh, you’re so shallow, Emily!’
‘Me? I am shallow?’
‘Well, really. Mr Griff, I hope you won’t mind me saying: I saw him eyeing the buggy, and I thought he was watching us, and so I did my duty and went out to ask him what business it was of his. Only, we fell to talking, and . . . may I tell my sister what you were saying?’
‘So long as it goes no further, miss,’ Griff agreed in a low voice.
‘Mr Griff has told me he is a servant of the King,’ Alice explained to Emily in an excited whisper. ‘Not in the way that all of us are, but a real one, travelling the kingdom as His Majesty’s eyes and ears. We must invite him home with us.’
Emily blinked. ‘We must not.’
‘Em, he’s met the King,’ Alice insisted.
Emily closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the events of the day suddenly building like a pressure in her skull. ‘Forgive us, Mr Griff, but we shall be leaving very shortly.’ And, true enough, she could see Poldry along the street, doddering along with a laden basket.
Griff gave that easy smile again. ‘Not at all, Miss Marshwic. It’s about time I was on my way, myself.’
‘Oh, but really—’ Alice started.
‘No, Alice,’ Emily snapped firmly. ‘I’m sure Mr Griff has plenty of important business to attend to.’ The stare she gave the man was pointed, and he made a brief bow and then set off, the smile still firmly in place.
Poldry arrived just then, with a meagre haul of bread and cheese, bacon and mutton, and he ducked into Mrs Shevarler’s shop to haggle over the dressmaker’s share. Alice had her arms folded tightly, her familiar indication of bad temper.
‘Why do you always find a way to ruin things for me?’ she demanded, in a fierce whisper.
Emily frowned. ‘Alice, you cannot simply invite some stranger into—’
‘A servant of the King—’
‘What would a servant of the King be doing here?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ Alice snapped crossly. ‘Who do we know that has his hand in the King’s coffers every minute of the day?’ She sent a fierce look towards the Mayor-Governor’s offices across the market square. ‘And who knows what might have come of that, if we had shown Mr Griff some proper hospitality! Don’t you care about our family, Emily? About our prospects?’
‘Alice, that is exactly what I do care about.’ Emily fought to keep her voice down. ‘A strange man under our roof– what would people