Being a small insight into the life and dealings of a Franco-Swiss wine merchant, in several-as-yet-unwritten parts.
[b]I: The Little Shop North Of The River[/b]
Somewhere in a gas lit alley, in the labyrinthine streets of the City that was once London, on the corner of what was known as Cloth Fair, near Barbican north of the Stolen River, sat a small shop. Although ‘sat’ does not quite describe the peculiar, slanted placement of the building, sloped as it was against the snaking tendrils of the Echo Bazaar that run beneath the streets of the city like gnarled and ancient tree roots. ‘Squatted’, or perhaps ‘clung’, would be more fitting. It was not on a main thoroughfare even before the City fell, and now few would ever reach it if they did not already know the way.
It was not known to the aristocracy, this little shop, with its cracking paint on its windowsill, its bent and warped glass panels held in by a lattice of straining lead. Nor many of the gentry, for one’s reputation was not best served by being seen frequenting a shop that bore a roof repaired with tiles from the ruins of cities past.
To some, however, this little shop, with its worn and painted sign swinging forlornly in the low, breath-like air currents of the cavern, and its jolly, wine-red door and polished brass knob, was a sanctuary from the day-to-day business of the City. It was a place where one could spend an afternoon in erudite conversation over a cup of imported coffee or tea. It was a place where one could wile away a few hours with a glass of surface wine and a hard-to-find, harder-to-read book.
Its interior was lit by candlelight and gas-light, where fine old English oak panels, worn and with some gaps, made up the floor. Here and there, a stain spoke of a spilt glass or dropped bottle, and one or two bore witness to more pugnacious and sanguine origins. Bookcases propped the creaking beams of a slowly buckling ceiling, filled with an eclectic range of subjects. Here, a treatise on alchemy. There, a herbal of the British Isles. Somewhere, a traveller’s account of the city of Constantinople. Tables of alpine wood and chairs carpented in mountainside workshops littered the floor space. On the peeling, papered walls hung old family portraits, blackened by the soot. They depicted a sizeable family of French and Swiss origin, sometimes standing before vineyards, and other times before wineries. The most recent were a series of daguerreotypes, although the faces of some members had been slashed in what seemed like a fit of violence.
All these things were merely distractions from the main attraction of this little store. The cabinets.
Mahogany and teak. Fine crystal glass. Gold fittings and inlay. Neat, carefully arranged shelves. Rows and rows of bottles imported at great expense from the vineyards of Europe. You would not find Grand Cru on the shelves, for the shopkeeper felt it was too commonplace for his tastes. No indeed, here you would find bottles of Parisian Champagne, made from grapes that produce a natural hallucinogen, served to you in a small glass with a delicate pewter teaspoon of Prisoner’s Honey. Here you would find goldwasser, absinthe, single malts, tokaji, frost-bitten wine and a strange sort of liqueur that smelt vaguely of rosewater and mint.
And behind the counter, its surface consumed by ledgers, a mechanical register, and a well-worn and clearly loved tome of family history, you would find the proprietor of this little shop. He was of slight build, and rather short. Blond hair with streaks of grey surrounded his cranium. Across his nose was balanced a delicate pair of pince-nez. His dark blue suit had seen better days, but the white of his starched collar shone in the reflected candlelight. A small scrap of linen in his top pocket danced with the colours of mirror-glass, and from his purple waistcoat hung a battered golden fob that chimed the hour, roughly nine minutes after the rest of the City’s bells had announced it.
His face wore a smile that creased a little at the edges. His forehead bore one or two wrinkles, depending on the light, and his nose was sharp, drawing the attention of the eye away from the lake-blue eyes that shone beneath light brown eyebrows. His hands were folded across the counter, and in the shadow of his sleeves could just be seen a pair of silver cufflinks inscribed with the initials: A.V.D.
This was Armand Verseau D’Alterac, and as the sign outside, bearing its bottle of wine and elaborate carving of a cockroach attested, this little shop was ‘The Inebriated Cockroach’, bastion of the strange and unusually drinkable in the city of London, whether above or below the surface.
But not mushrooms.
Never mushrooms.[li]