Fools and Mortals. Bernard Cornwell

her letters as she dictated them, and in every one she had pleaded with my brother to return to his old job as an usher in a Warwickshire school.

      ‘But he won’t,’ Ned said with a grin, ‘he’s having a high time, he is. Just you wait and see.’

      At that time my brother had lodgings in the Dolphin, the tavern just north of the Bishopsgate, and that is where Ned took me. ‘I’m not letting you walk through London, boy, I’d rather let you loose in hell.’ He stopped his wagon beneath the huge inn sign on which a grotesque fish leaped out of the water, and gave me the newest letter my mother had dictated, a letter that had probably been written by Gilbert or by Edmund, then tossed me one of the two shillings I had given him. ‘Look after yourself, boy. It might be a grand city, but London can be dangerous.’