Flattening out the bedspread where the weight of the coin has made a tell-tale depression, Julian throws on his coat to cover the awkward and conspicuous bulge in his groin and heads downstairs. After giving cleaning instructions to Carling and Ivy, he learns that the Baroness has taken “an extremely unhappy” Mallory and left for the afternoon. Relieved that he doesn’t have to explain to the Baroness why he’s wearing a coat in ninety-degree heat, Julian runs out to Parliament Street.
It’s brutally hot out. It has been a nearly rainless August. Why can’t it rain just once in London, just once! Stepping over the horse manure on the cobblestones, Julian hurries to the Strand where he hops on a hackney carriage that takes him through Temple Bar to Cheapside.
Cheapside, the queen of thoroughfares, is wide like a boulevard and sports fountains and water channels. It has dozens of taverns, merchants’ mansions, luxury shops, milliners and cobblers, silversmiths and blacksmiths. Cheapside has everything, including the most venerable gold dealers in the world. Everyone in London shops on Cheapside on Saturday afternoons. The jammed congestion around St. Paul’s is so bad, Julian must hop off the carriage and walk the rest of the way to Goldsmiths Row, sweating in his absurd overcoat.
The building he enters is dark inside, a grand space like a cave chamber, but no amount of dimness can hide its ostentatious wealth. It’s not just the gold trinkets in the glass cases and the gold display platters on the walls. Even the crown mouldings, the door latches, and the sills on the windows are plated gold. Plated gold, right, not cast in gold? The candlesticks are gold, and the beveled edges of the polished oak table behind which Julian sits are trimmed in gold. The hands of all the softly chiming clocks are gold. The man across from him has a gold pocket watch laid out on the table to remind Julian of the value of time.
“How can I be of service, sire?” the elegant man says. He’s impeccably dressed in gray velvet and white silk. His name is Arnold Bertie. He is in the employ of the great Earl of Lindsey who is one of the owners of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths.
His fingers shaking, Julian slides the gold coin across the table. “I was hoping you could tell me something about this coin.”
Bertie doesn’t pick it up. That’s how Julian instantly knows it’s not counterfeit. The gentleman, for whom gold is his livelihood, doesn’t touch the coin with his hands. “Sire, please,” he says to Julian. “Do not slide it across the desk. You could scratch the coin.” Bertie pulls out a silk white cloth, a magnifying glass, brings forth the burning lantern, pulls closer the candlesticks, and tenderly picks up the gold piece with a white-gloved hand, laying it on the white silk. Wordlessly he examines it for no less than ten minutes. He treats the coin like a holy relic. From his drawer, he produces a scale and eases the coin onto it. “Astounding!” he cries. “Wherever did you get this?”
“It was a small token of affection from a deceased uncle.”
“Oh, this is no small token, I can assure you. What you’ve got here is one of the most exquisite coins ever to be hammered by the Royal Mint. It’s called angel. It’s an Elizabethan fine gold sovereign. Nothing even close to it is being made today. Or for that matter is likely to be made again. It is simply too expensive to produce. It is 23-carat gold, and precisely one-half of a Troy ounce. The coin is 99% pure gold. It is a work of art. And judging by its condition, yours has never been used.”
Julian doesn’t know what to say.
“Are you all right, sire? You look unwell.”
“I’m fine,” Julian says, his voice unsteady. “Please—continue.”
Bertie gazes upon the coin with reverence. “During the Elizabethan era, all our coin was hand-hammered like this one, but you can imagine how much labor that entailed, melting the gold ingots, softening them, casting them into blanks, hammering and softening them again. The hammering and annealing happened another twelve times before the edges were deemed sufficiently rounded, and that was just to make the blank, sire. Then it had to be coined in a hand-held die, coined with the precision of a master craftsman. These coins haven’t been minted for over a hundred years, at least not to my knowledge. Is it the only one you’ve got? Such a shame. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in selling this piece to us? Would you like me to see what we can give you for it today?”
“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in that,” Julian says evenly.
Clutching the coin inside a silk handkerchief, Bertie disappears. Julian, his nerves electrified, waits impatiently.
In a few minutes, Bertie returns. “Here’s what I can offer. The Charles II guinea, weighing barely half of this coin, and not comparable to it in either quality or gold content, is worth twenty-two shillings, so a little more than one pound sterling. For this coin, I can offer you three hundred shillings.”
Three hundred shillings. Julian is speechless. That’s fifteen pounds! Mallory would have to work six years to make that. As a keeper of a brothel, Julian would have to work three.
And there’s another 48 where it came from.
Julian knocks over the chair as he stands, dropping his hat on the floor. “I’m sorry, Bertie,” he says, clutching his groin where the coins warmly reside. “I’m in a terrible rush. Simply maddening hurry. I accept your offer, if you would be so kind.”
“Oh! Very good, sire. I am delighted. How would you like your money?”
“Three dimes, a hundred-dollar bill and eighty-seven ones,” Julian mutters in a daze. “I mean—ten guineas, fifteen crowns, and twenty-five shillings.”
With money in hand and coins in his crotch, he bows and backs out. Lost and breathless, Julian stands on Cheapside, trying to think, think! To the left of him is Poultry, to the right St. Paul’s. The river is up ahead, all around him is the London Wall. Where does he go? He’s boxed in.
He has stolen an unconscionable amount of gold. Julian is certain he and the dead lord can’t be the only ones who know about the fortune in the floorboards. For all Julian knows, Ilbert may know about it. If Fabian didn’t drop dead by accident, which seems less and less likely, he was probably killed for this money. Greater men have been murdered for far less. Now the killer will be coming to get what’s his, and he won’t stop until Julian is dead, and all the cullies are dead, and the Silver Cross is burned to the ground.
Is this Julian’s way of protecting Mallory?
Nearly fifty gold coins at fifteen pounds each. That is £735 in 1666. Motionless he stands, watching the slow carriages, the hurrying people, the cantering horses. He’s euphoric, but in trouble.
It’s impossibly hot out and he’s wearing a long wool coat to disguise his thievery. He looks like a criminal, looks guilty and sweaty, his face red and wet. Lowering his head, Julian hurries away from Cheapside, up St. Martin’s Le Grand to Cripplegate on the way to the familiar and haunted Clerkenwell. It’s all he knows. In the courtyard gardens of the church of St. Giles by Cripplegate, just outside the City gates, Julian finds a bench between the side of the church and the Roman wall and drops down. He needs a prayer. But how does one pray for help in a situation like this? He needs to hide the money is what he needs to do, and then he must persuade Mallory to run away with him. He was able to persuade Josephine to marry him, almost against her will, and he was able to persuade Mary—when it was too late. This time, he must do better, try harder. That’s why he’s been given a second chance! Where is it safe for him to stash it? He gazes around the empty garden, the quiet alley. The stone church stands silently, its grounds wilting with heavy, end-August browning leaves, the London Wall a few yards away. The last time, Julian wanted to take Mary to Italy. This time, with £700, they can go anywhere. They’ve been offered a new life. They can travel like the Pilgrims across the sea, to Massachusetts Bay Colony. But run they must; they can’t stay where they are, that’s for sure. He’s been lulled into a false sense of immortality,