‘And what is that?’ Coke asked. ‘The small square that abuts the main bedchamber?’
The builder peered. ‘That, sir, is a second privy office. You do not wish to be feeling your way downstairs in the middle of the night, nor be groping for pots – neither you, nor especially Mrs Coke.’
Coke grunted. Sarah did not hold that title yet. His hope was that today’s enterprise might convince her to assume it. Still, he hesitated. It was a great deal of money, this business of buying a house.
‘These lines?’ he said, jabbing down.
‘Water pipes.’ It was the second man who replied. He had not been there with the master mason the first time Coke had visited the site. His assistant no doubt, a strange-looking fellow with a nose that had once been badly broken by a blade, probably in the late king’s wa
