The Merchant of Vengeance by Simon Hawke Read Free Book Online

wrong?"
    "Oh, woe is me, for I am the most miserable girl who ever lived!" Portia wailed. "My life is over! My one chance for happiness has flown! Father has called the wedding off!"
    "He called it off?" Antonia said. "But 'twas to take place within a fortnight! I thought that he approved of Thomas and gave all his blessings to the match! Whatever could have happened to make him change his mind and call it off?"
    "A disaster has happened!" wailed Portia. "A most untimely, untoward, and unfair disaster! Father has discovered that Thomas's mother was a Jewess, and so that means that Thomas is himself a Jew! He has called off the wedding and has forbidden me to see or ever speak with Thomas again! Oh, fie! Oh, unbid spite! I think that I shall die!" And with that she buried her head in Elizabeth's shoulder and started sobbing once again.
    Antonia met Elizabeth's gaze and shook her head. "And you thought you had problems," she said wryly.
    Chapter 3
    The shop of Ben Dickens, the armourer, was one of the busiest in Cheapside. It was always full of hammering and clanging noises as the journeymen and apprentices worked at the forge and at the anvils on the heavy wooden trestle tables in the smoky room, bending and shaping metal into cuirasses and bucklers, leg harnesses and gauntlets, helms, visors and gorgets, elbow cops, and other pieces that made up heavy suits of armour, most of which, in all likelihood, would never see a real battle.
    The advent of firearms had made the armoured, mounted knight all but obsolete, save for ceremonial tournaments largely staged for entertainment. And if a nobleman did not require a full suit of polished and elaborately engraved armour for competing in a tournament—although such tournaments were truly not so much competitions as exhibitions and parades—then he would most likely order one, or several perhaps, to stand in a conspicuous location in his home. There it would often become a part of an elaborate display of anus, including swords and shields, pikes and halberds, and maces and axes, all bejewelled or otherwise embellished and mounted on the walls, often over coats of arms, so that they might give ostentatious testimony to the noble aristocracy of their owner, who probably did not have the faintest idea how to employ any of them in combat.
    Ben Dickens accepted all this philosophically. Unlike the vast majority of his customers, he had actually been to war and know from firsthand experience just what terrible damage such weapons could inflict. Consequently, he had no trouble will the fact that most of the weapons that he made were put primarily to passive, peaceful uses. Nevertheless, unlike some other armourers who did a brisk business in weapons that looked better than they functioned, Dickens prided himself on crafting weapons that could, if need be, serve their owners every bit as well upon the field of battle as they did upon the wall In some cases, they did, for while most of his clients were members of the aristocracy, more than a few were mercenaries or privateers. Though their weapons were generally plain and unembellished, they were no less well made for lacking ostentation.
    As Tuck and Smythe came in, Dickens looked up, saw them, and waved. To one who did not know him, it would have been difficult to tell who the owner of the shop was, for Dickens looked as young as any of his journeymen. Tall, fit, and well formed, with chestnut hair and dark eyes, he was dressed simply in well-worn brown leather breeches and a matching doublet, over which he wore a leather apron. He spoke for a moment to several of his craftsmen, and then approached them with a smile, a very large and ornate war sword in his grasp.
    "What do you think?" Dickens asked, holding up the two-handed great sword for Will and Tuck's examination.
    "Well . 'tis very large," Shakespeare ventured uncertainly. Dickens sighed and shook his head. "What do you think, Tuck?"
    "'Tis a very handsome sword, indeed," replied