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sinew. Unlike the other youths, he smelt pleasantly of river, not tobacco. An ironmonger by trade, he now seemed to do little more than make tackle for his fellow anglers.
    The cathedral was a city unto itself. All of London took exercise in Paul’s walk and posted notices at the Si Quis door, where Walton posted his signs for tackle. Taking a shortcut from Cheapside, butchers wheeled sides of beef through the transepts and down the hill to Paul’s wharf, bickering with fishmongers pushing their loaded carts back up. When the clatter broke into his sermons, Pegge’s father strode out from the choir to reprimand the tradesmen, stretching out his arms like Christ to block the raucous thoroughfare.
    But the young idlers in the nave were worse. Only a few, like Izaak Walton, would straggle into the choir to hear her father preach. Afterwards, Walton would followConstance into Paul’s walk, trying to discuss the sermon while she admired the Blackfriars actors walking up and down, learning their lines in their tight hose. But Constance liked toying with Walton well enough. Tormented him, in fact. He had been hanging about her for months, desiring more than laughter from her lips.
    Now, from behind Duke Humphrey’s tomb, where she had hoped to intercept Walton, Pegge saw the two of them coming down Paul’s walk. Constance stopped near a pillar, bestowing a salty kiss on his cheek, while he blushed right into the roots of his limp golden hair. Then she whispered something into his ear. Pegge knew that Con was telling him she was betrothed by the way Walton slumped like a dead-hearted grayling, a winter fish that sank to the bottom.
    Pegge watched him stagger out of Paul’s, and followed his drooping fishing rod to Tottenham. When he disappeared over the hill, she tied up her skirt and ran after the sad pole, her boots sticking out beneath her petticoat.
    As she fell in step, he lengthened his stride. After a while, he gave up trying to outpace her and said, “You had better go back. I am not coming home this night or two.”
    “Then I must go as well, to stop you doing yourself some injury. Unrequited love,” she explained, blowing out a plume of air.
    “This is between me and Constance and Edward Alleyn, who does not deserve her. Turn back at once, Pegge Donne.”
    Pegge fell behind, imitating his gait from a safe distance. He threw a few rocks at her to chase her off, but when oneof them grazed her, he put down his pole to adjust it until he saw she was unhurt.
    “You cannot come with me. I would have your father to answer to and I have had enough pain on your sister’s account.”
    “I will marry you instead of Con,” she offered. She held out her finger to show him the iron band he had made himself. “From Con’s sewing basket. I saw her hide it after you gave it to her.”
    She walked beside him for a while, but he looked so downhearted that she returned the ring. It was too big for her anyway.
    “You are only eleven, a child who knows nothing of these things.” He dropped it into his pouch, then said more kindly, “At any rate, your father would never agree. He has set his mind against ironmongers since his father began as one.”
    “By the time he has shifted Lucy and Bridget, he will be more eager. If you don’t marry me, he will barter me off to an old mackerel like Mr Alleyn. There was a nasty stink about it, though Mr Alleyn got the worst, Con being Con.”
    “You hardly know what a wife must do. There are things that pass between husband and wife that-” He turned his eyes away.
    “I know more than you think, for I have read my father’s poem about his mistress coming to bed.” She saw his grip slacken on the fishing rod. “You needn’t be so indifferent, Izzy. I must take off everything in order. First girdle, then spangled breastplate and happy busk, then gown andcoronet and shoes. It is not so hard and I shall manage quite well without Bess, for I don’t wear all those things that other