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Sac.”
    “Then you have heard incorrectly, madam.”
    “The matter of a boy.” She raised thin eyebrows. “A boy who was his apprentice and is now yours.”
    “He got the better bargain,” I said. “He got – and kept – the premium.”
    She threw back her head and laughed as freely as any man. The gesture exposed even more – if such a thing was possible – of her chest. I say chest for Lady Anne was not the
most well-endowed of women; her figure was scrawny although her skin was soft and fair. Her arms were her best feature and she knew it, taking care to display and use them obtrusively. Her hair,
uncovered, was a brownish shade. One does not pry into such matters as age but I fancied she was thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old – perhaps a decade older than myself.
    “If you do not make a profit from the boy,” she pointed out, “what other reason can you have for taking him on other than to spite Monsieur le Sac?”
    “But I will make a profit, Lady Anne. Three shillings and sixpence for every concert he plays.”
    “That seems a paltry return.”
    “You were born the possessor of a fortune, madam.”
    “True,” she said curtly. I fancy she was offended. “But there are more creditable ways of making a living than exhibiting yourself on a public stage. Even to be a tradesman is
more respectable.”
    “What about being a dancing master?” Demsey said sourly. He had been reddening with anger throughout our conversation, chiefly I believe at being so contemptuously ignored.
    I nudged my foot warningly against his under the table. “I assume you have said the same to Monsieur le Sac, my lady?” Did my anger show in my voice? I think not.
    The lady shrugged. “He is a foreigner. They have lower standards. I am told that in France they even tolerate musicians socially.”
    “How unfortunate,” Demsey said savagely.
    I indicated the crowded coffee-house. “Is this not a social occasion?”
    “One cannot govern whom one meets in public,” she said disdainfully. “One can, on the other hand, pick and choose who sits at one’s own dinner-table. No musician will
join me there, I assure you.” She leant forward. “I have an investment in Monsieur le Sac, sir, and I do not desire to see that investment threatened by a young man of little talent who
chooses to indulge in petty enmities out of envy and jealousy.”
    “That is a comprehensive assessment of my character, madam,” I said as coolly as I could. “And I would let no man utter it unchallenged. You take advantage of your
sex.”
    “So I do,” she agreed, rising. “And you can be sure I do it deliberately. Be warned, Mr Patterson.”
    And she swept from the room in a flurry of satin and lace.
     
    6
    BATTLE PIECE
Movement I
    I left Demsey to finish another slice of pie and strolled out upon the Key. A fitful sun shone, although there was little warmth in it; nonetheless the sailors on the Key were
sweating as they heaved cargo across the cobbles and hung it on pulleys to haul it on deck. There was a smell everywhere of fish and of coal. Downriver, a great plume of smoke billowed into the air
from the saltworks at Shields, close upon the sea. Today the smoke was almost pleasurable to look at, a thing of odd beauty; but I have known days – and many of them – when it comes
rolling up over the town and lies heavy and stinking in the hollows, setting everyone who ventures out of doors coughing. Demsey jokes that the smoke is the reason that we have no singers of note
in the town but must send south to the cathedral at Durham for them. We should banish the smoke by the erection of windmills surrounding the town, he says, and the man who builds the mills will
earn a great reward from the Corporation, for the clear air will encourage native singers and so spare us the airs and graces of their lordships from the sacred precincts.
    My mind was not at ease. It seemed that everyone was intent upon thrusting me into conflict with Le