Topaz disembarked and handed the boatman a few coins. She waited as Amethyst gathered her skirt and clamored from the barge, dragging her sack of offerings, skinning her knee on the barge's jagged edge.
“We are going to Whitechapel,” Topaz called over her shoulder as Amethyst slung the sack over her shoulder. The coins at the bottom smacked against her hip and she winced in pain. She would have handed it to the groom to carry, but he carried two bulky sacks slung over his own back.
They left the bustle of the Thames commerce behind and headed north up the Tower Bridge Approach. The Tower loomed ahead of them. A semicircular bastion cut off its thick eastern wall, the structure blackened under centuries of soot and grime.
The sky above became a blanked-out pattern of blue patches as they
