Alsatia, Coke thought with a shudder, striding into the shadows of the first crumbling warehouse. He had lived here once. When he was first back from the Continent and his purse could run to nothing else, ’61 and part of ’62. Left as soon as he was able, on the proceeds of the first successes of his new career. You didn’t keep gold about your person in Alsatia. Not when you shared a room with a dozen other people, some of whom could sniff it beyond the stench that smothered the place like a fog.
Thrusting his nose into his cloak’s neck, liberally doused anew with sandalwood, and keeping one hand in Dickon’s collar to prevent dawdling, Coke advanced deeper into the warren.
Though he’d been away only three years, he was soon lost. Alsatia shifted constantly. Hastily made shacks thrown up f
