“If you are content to wait, sir, I can make up some cartridges for you.”

“I will do that myself,” said Lacroix. “I will have the time.”

“Very proper,” said the gunsmith. “But they don’t all know how, sir. Some of the young gentlemen of the militia. You will know, of course. I shall place everything in a little parcel for you, then you shall do it all as you please.”

He made himself busy. As he measured out the powder—a job done on scales by the window, no flickering candle nearby—he said, “Are you cavalry, sir?”

After a pause, “Yes.”

The gunsmith nodded, concentrating. “I can usually guess that right.”

“How so?”

“Many things. The weapons. Also the way a man stands and moves. Infantry officers are always trying to see over the top of something.” He laughed. It was perhaps an old joke of his. Presumably he had a different joke to tell to infantrymen.

“On your way back, are you?”

“What’s that?”

“Going back. You’ve been on leave, I think.”

“Yes,” said Lacroix. “On my way back.”

“Well,” said the gunsmith, tying off the parcel, “I wish you good fortune. I’m sure we all do. And with this”—he lifted the parcel with both hands—“they will not find you undefended. You have the means here to bring down a wall, let alone a man.”

In the Star he found space for himself at one end of a table near a window that let him see the cross-trees of the Jenny. A woman came by and he ordered a glass of brandy and water. The man on the bench beside him was dressed in the striped costume of a Scaramouche. He had a drink in front of him but seemed to be sleeping. On the floor, under the bench, Lacroix found part of a newspaper. It was two weeks old and was, in places, damp from spilled beer, but he spread it out on the table and began to study it. Bristol news. The coming and going of ships: Swallow, Briton, Hero, Kate. The sale of goods, the sale of land. A patented method for fattening swine. Over the page (and beneath the strangely exact imprint of a hobnail boot sole) was the story of two women found dead in a room in Bedminster, victims of hunger. No one seemed sure of their names or how long they had lived in the room. Below this was a paragraph describing the stoning of an alderman’s house by a mob that had smashed the windows then sung “Millions be Free” and other revolutionary songs.