Alys nodded. “How much space will they take in our store?” she asked.
“They’ll be padded and crated, I should think they’ll take the whole of the ground floor. But they won’t be there for long, if you will send them on your wagon to Sir James’s house.”
Alys gave one of her rare smiles. “You’re excited.”
“This is going to make our fortune!” Livia exclaimed. “And your wharf will become known as a place to ship beautiful works of art and luxuries. You won’t be heaving coal anymore.” She caught Alys’s hands and did a little dance on the spot; her joy was infectious.
“We’ve never heaved coal,” Alinor said.
* * *
That night the two young women talked as they undressed, and brushed each other’s hair.
“Thank you for looking after my darling Matteo today,” Livia said. “Was he really very good for you?”
“I’d forgotten what it was like to spend time with a baby so young,” Alys said. “He was perfect. He had the milk that Carlotta left for him and he slept for most of the time. I worked in the counting house, with him in the cradle at my side, and he and I sat with Ma for most of the afternoon. When he woke and cried, I walked him on the wharf and he watched the boats and the seagulls, I’m sure he was taking notice. He smiled and waved his little hands as if he was excited, and when he saw—”
“Yes, he is very clever,” Livia said absentmindedly.
“And you? You are happy with the premises that you have found? His house is adequate?”
Livia noted that Sir James’s name was apparently not to be mentioned. “Yes,” she replied. “There’s a big hall and an open gallery, and a garden. I can show about twenty pieces, I should think. I can use them as examples and take orders for more.”
“You’ve got more than one load?”
“It was my husband’s great passion,” Livia said. “I hoped to make a business from it, buying and shipping and selling.”
“I am surprised there are so many objects, so many people buying them.”
Livia smoothed her pillow and got into bed. “People were making them for hundreds of years,” she said. “So they are there, all round, if you know where to look, and you care to pick them up.”
“You pick them up? For free?”
“My first husband started his collection from his own land. His quarry had been worked for years, and some pieces were just lying around, and there was a ruin of a house nearby with some beautiful urns—vases. Then all the little farmers who had ancient villas on their land or temples buried in their fields learned that people will pay more for the pieces of stone than for the olive crops! So now they dig them up and sell them to collectors and agents for collectors. You can go into the market in Venice and buy pieces of marble or old jewels and gold rings on the same stalls where they sell oil.”
“There must be treasures in England too then,” Alys remarked. “When my mother was a little girl she used to collect old coins—not gold or silver but the old clipped coins of base metal, just tokens.”
“What would be the point of that?” Livia asked. “Nobody is going to buy chips of copper. It’s not like gold. There’s no profit.”
Alys gave a superstitious shudder. “No, there was no real point,” she agreed, getting into bed beside Livia. “She just liked them. She had a purse of them. It was…”
“What?”
“Just a purse, of dross.”
“No point at all,” the young woman said flatly, and leaned over and blew out the candle so the room was plunged into darkness.
JULY 1670, LONDON
Alys walked west along the quay to the merchants’ coffeehouse where she did her morning business. As a woman wharfinger she was a rarity in the crowded meetinghouse. Most of the other women merchants, shipowners, ship wives, and carter widows sent an apprentice or a son into the coffeehouses to meet with customers and clients. But Alys had been a regular in two or three coffee shops for years and knew that Paton’s in Harp Lane was the best place to meet shipowners for the Mediterranean and Adriatic trade.
She looked for Captain Shore, master of the Sweet Hope, who had taken Rob to Italy when he first went to study at Padua. The Captain usually met his customers at a table in a room at the rear of the warren of a building, and Alys glanced over the high-backed settles where a couple of captains were taking instructions and letters for their destinations. She approached a table where a broad man with thinning fair hair and a weather-beaten face was folding some papers into a wallet.
“Captain Shore,” she said pleasantly.
At once, he rose to his feet and offered his hand. “Good day to you, Mrs. Stoney. It’s good to see you.”
Courteously, he waited for her to sit in the chair opposite him, before he dropped back down onto the settle. “I was sorry to hear of the loss of your brother,” he said bluntly. “A fine young man… I got to know him on the way to Venice—Lord! It must have been ten years ago. But I remember him.”
“Thank you,” Alys said. “I need to send a letter of instruction to a storehouse in Venice about his goods. They belong to Rob’s widow, her personal furniture. There is a steward who will pack the things and supervise the loading on your ship. You’ll deliver to our wharf.”
“Not going to the legal quay to pay the duty?” the Captain confirmed. “Direct to you, we don’t need to report?”
“Yes, it’s her personal goods.”
“I won’t be responsible for their condition,” he warned her. “Furniture: never travels well.”
“Very well,” Alys agreed.
“Nothing dangerous?” the Captain specified. “No poisons or guns or cannon or anything I don’t want on my ship. No wildlife,” he added. “Nothing that needs looking after. No pets. No slaves. No vegetables or plants. Just goods.”
“It’s mostly stone,” Alys assured him. “Statues and the like.”
“Heavy then,” he said pessimistically.
“Will you do it?”
“Aye.”
“We’ll pay half now and half on receipt.”
He thought for a moment. “Five pounds a ton,” he said. “D’you know the weight of her furniture?”
Alys grimaced. “I don’t know for sure. But it can’t be more than six tons. I’ll pay you fifteen pounds now, and the rest, depending on weight, when you unload.”
“Agreed.”
“This is the storehouse.” Alys slid Livia’s letter of instruction to her steward across the table.
“Russo!” the Captain exclaimed, looking at the address. “Oh, I know him. I’ve shipped goods for him before. More than once.” He shot her a look from under sandy eyebrows. “I never knew he was anyone’s steward. I thought it was all his own business—sharp business at that.”
“My sister-in-law trusts him,” Alys replied. “He was her steward.”
“If he suits her,” the Captain conceded. “If you’re sure, Mrs. Stoney? It’s not your usual trade and he’s not the sort of man you’d usually deal with?”