PETER SPIED A queue of massive coal-wagons before the steelyard of Billingsgate, and decided that these were a better way to convey tons of gold around London than the frail coaches and sedan chairs scurrying like cockroaches up and down the river’s banks. And so all commerce in fish and coal was suspended for an hour as the galley forced its way into Billingsgate Dock. It was most inadvisable for anyone but a visiting Tsar. Anyone the least bit English-looking would have been torn limb from limb by the fishwives the moment he stepped onto the wharf. Daniel—who did happen to be English-looking—was paralyzed by anxiety throughout this maneuver. But within thirty seconds of the Tsar’s leaping from the gunwale of the galley to the scaly lid of Billingsgate Wharf, he was in the driver’s seat, and holding the reins, of an empty coal-wagon. Its owner, seeing Peter stride toward him, had simply flung the reins at the Tsar’s head and jumped out. Later he tossed the whip up in case Peter had need of it. The fishwives, too, were strangely compliant; they abandoned their stalls and lined up along wharf’s edge to enjoy the spectacle. That, Daniel realized, was what enabled Peter to get away with it: not that he was the Tsar (for no one knew this), but the pageant of his coming. It did not matter how much business these people were losing; any money they made to-day would be spent to-morrow, but this event was one they’d tell tales of for as long as they lived. Moreover, the place was after all a Market, not a Palace, Parliament, College, or Church. Markets drew a particular sort of person, just as those other places drew different sorts. And the sorts who found a market a congenial and rewarding place to be, were those who thought quickly on their feet, and adapted to unlooked-for happenings with facility; they were, in a word, mercurial. The driver of that coal-cart had perhaps ten seconds in which to make up his mind what he ought to do. Yet he had decided . And probably rightly. Daniel noted at least one purse being tossed at him by an aide of the Tsar.