Episode 2 Taboo

-THOYT:

-'I attended Mr Delaney's funeral and a ghost appeared,

'a son we all thought dead in Africa.'

-SIR STRANGE:

-James Keziah Delaney.

-THOYT:

-Dear Lord Almighty, is that your brother?!

Your father was poisoned.

I would say heavy doses over a short period.

One thing Africa did not cure is that I still love you.

'Now he is returned

'and Delaney's will leaves him everything, including Nootka.'

Britain and the United States are currently at war.

Sell this land for a reasonable price.

Nootka Sound is not for sale.

I can give you whatever you like - boys, girls.

You have two hours to get out.

I know things about the dead.

I'd hoped to settle this matter in a modern way,

but that is not going to be possible. He's all yours.

This Nootka Sound is a curse.

It will bring the King and Empire down upon your head.

This programme contains some strong language and some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

DOOR CLOSES

Pick it up.

HE LAUGHS SOFTLY

So, you've no problem with the principle of obeying me,

just the execution.

-Execution?

-Of Delaney. I told you to take care of it.

It is taking a little longer than I anticipated.

If you open up that ball of paper,

you'll see notice of your dismissal from the East India,

dated two days hence.

Only Delaney's death will render it obsolete.

THUNDER RUMBLES

WIND HOWLS

GULLS CALL

This is going to bring the house down around it.

IT THUDS

Damn thing!

Beg your pardon.

So what's this for?

To keep things safe.

What things?

BRACE SIGHS

And Brace?

Go to hell!

You marched with Tremain. Now you can march with me.

March where? For what bloody purpose?

For the purpose of staying alive right now.

HE SCOFFS

You may choose to leave my services if you wish, Mr Brace.

What is it about you bloody mad Delaneys?

Hang it in the meat locker. GUN CLICKS

Just keep the powder out of the steam.

Bloody madhouse again!

While we're on the subject of housekeeping,

I mean to have a word with you about food.

-You're hungry?

-No.

Toward the end, you said my father rarely ate.

Aye, he lived on air and honey beer.

-From where?

-From a man in Feather Lane.

Look, it was cheaper than the tavern and, er,

-your father only gave me coppers.

-What man?

A man who's since died...

..and his wife since left.

Why do you ask?

Because I am more generous than my father.

From now on, we drink beer only from bottles and wine from flasks.

That's all.

Go.

DOOR SLAMS

-MAN:

-'Gentlemen, Jardine, Matheson and Company

'would like to commence this candle auction

'with a published list of 12 items for sale.'

Each item on the list will be auctioned for the length of time

it takes for its allotted candle to burn down one inch.

When the inch is burned, the last bid will win.

First item on the list -

a merchantman brig commandeered from the Spanish fleet by Captain Reeves,

this last 12 months and one.

Currently, the brig is named Felice Adventurero.

Who will start the bidding?

610. 620.

630. 640.

650. 660.

Do I have 670?

680.

690.

700.

SOFT CHATTER

DELANEY: £800.

-MAN:

-I say!

MURMURING

-MAN:

-Who is that?

Felice Adventurero sold for £800 to...?

The Delaney Nootka Trading Company.

I spoke to old Grady afterwards.

He said Delaney told him he was going to use the ship for trade.

-With whom?

-He said the company was called Delaney Nootka Trading.

He is planning to reopen up the trading post

to assert his ownership. That fucking man will hang for treason!

KNOCKING

Sir, I already have a strategy in my head.

KNOCKING CONTINUES

Sir.

Why?

Why wouldn't he even look at our offer?

Why would he defy logic and the King?

I believe he is simply trying to raise the price.

Why did he know so much about the border negotiations, hmm?

How did he know they were taking place in Ghent?

The location is a state secret.

And where did he get the money to BUY A SHIP?!

Hmm?

Jesus Christ!

Am I the only one in this company with a brain?

They got to him first.

Either in Africa or on the journey back to London.

One of their agents approached him, briefed him,

gave him money and secured his services.

Who, who did, sir?

The fucking Americans!

DOG BARKS

BUZZ OF CONVERSATION NEARBY

MEN SHOUT

HAMMERING

Atticus!

ATTICUS!

James Delaney.

Well, look at you.

Sit down.

Give me back my horse.

What's the biggest thing you saw?

For my files - my book about the world.

What's the biggest thing you saw in Africa?

An elephant.

How tall was it?

Atticus, give me my horse back.

100 foot high, some of them, I've heard.

Atticus, you stole my horse and you left your name...

..so what do you want?

As you may recall,

I'm going to write a book one day about all I know about the world.

-I don't care.

-And I've been to most places,

but not the devil's back yard where you went.

What's the biggest thing you saw, and the smallest?

And also the money your father owed me.

HE SLAMS THE TABLE Ah! See, there it is.

Nothing changes.

Are you more comfortable with business than with learning, James?

£20 is what I'm owed.

I know you have gold - you just bought a ship - so pay up.

-For what?

-Well, you know, when someone wants a man killed,

-they come to Dolphin.

-What, still?

My directory of knowledge covers every fucking thing

from cradle to grave - birth, love, death,

-it all goes into the river of my book.

-Hmm!

When someone wants a man killed, they come to Atticus.

Well, about a year ago, a gentleman comes in,

sat right there where you are now,

and says, "How about old Horace Delaney,

"the mad bastard lighting fires by the river?

"Say he falls in, the current takes him, how about that?"

So I says to the gentleman...

"I sailed with old Horace all around the world."

See? So I said, "You go or I'll slit your gizzard

"and drop you in the current you had planned with Captain Delaney."

And who was this gentleman?

What was the smallest thing you saw?

Human kindness.

An ant.

HE SNIGGERS THEN WHEEZES

Was he a company man?

I'd say he wasn't East India.

More from up Leadenhall.

I could tell by the cut of his jib.

-So, how much will you give me for not killing your father?

-Nothing.

He's dead.

-Well, £15...

-£15.

-..and the return of your horse.

I will give you £15, minus the heels on my boots...

..and I will need your eyes and ears from now on as well.

Yeah, well, the enemies you're stirring up, James,

you'll be needing them, my boy.

HORSES TROT NEARBY

CLOCK STRIKES

How is he this morning?

Toe and arse this morning, sir.

Oh, God.

I know about his toe. What happened to his arse?

One can only imagine.

Solomon Coop, your Highness.

How is your TOE this morning?

My toe is the first item of business.

You evidently don't read the papers.

Oh, you mean the blockade?

Fuck them!

Now, the red crosses are the positions of the American ships.

They are attempting to blockade our trading routes to the West.

And the blue crosses are the Royal Navy ships,

um, preparing to engage.

Why did you make the Americans red?

Why did you make them red? It's us who should be red.

We wear red.

The Admiralty drew up the map.

Now, they say that the Irish

are supplying the blockade with tack and pork,

but they will soon run short of powder.

Get the Admiralty to draw the map again,

and make the British red and the Americans...

green or something, since they are so new.

HE LAUGHS

But of course, your Highness.

I had a dream last night.

I was lying in the North Sea. My body was England.

I was an island... Coop, pay attention!

All these shrimps, like devils, with little bows and arrows,

were surrounding me, firing into my flesh.

You really must try and drink more from the green bottle

and less from the pink.

It wasn't just a dream.

It was a premonition.

The shrimps were the American ships.

Hear me, Coop.

I am lying in the ocean like a whale

and no-one in my Privy Council will raise a musket barrel!

You sail this close to my nose,

a kind of classless rebels,

and you show me red crosses.

Your Highness, they will run out of powder.

And I have run out of fucking patience.

Tell the Admiralty, although the gossips say

that all Prinny wants is flowers and waltzes,

in truth, Prinny also demands the American ships be sunk,

the survivors hanged,

the bodies of the drowned nailed to the church walls of Ireland

to stop their rebels making common cause.

-Do you want me to write this down?

-YES!

-What the fuck is this?

-Oh, it's, um, from the East India.

Fuck them as well.

I intend to.

MEN AND WOMEN CHATTER

GLASS CLINKS

DOG BARKS

-Who are you?

-Winter.

-Miss Winter.

-No, just Winter.

-Just Winter.

-I live with the whores, but I'm a virgin.

-Why are you following me?

-To save your life.

Mistress Helga gave information to a man with a silver tooth.

I spy on her. From the conversation,

he meant to do you harm, and the mistress knew it.

She wants you dead, so she can have her rooms back.

Hmm.

How old are you?

13.

Why would she keep you and not rent you?

Too ugly. She says, one day, I'll catch a man and he'll carry me away.

Someone like you.

I spied you, too.

Tell me about this man with the silver tooth...

..Winter.

I can show you where he's moored, if you want.

He sleeps on this ship alone?

He takes a particular girl abroad and does mean things,

but there's no-one else.

Are you tricking me?

No.

They say you was in Africa.

What is it like?

Is everybody naked?

Hmm.

I want to go to America.

Promise to take me to America one day.

New York or Boston?

SHE GIGGLES

The current here heads for Gravesend.

You know navigation.

Yes. Us larks all want to be sailors.

BELL RINGS

-That's his sloop.

-Right.

ANCHOR SPLASHES

Why do you even believe I'm telling the truth?

Because...

What are you going to do?

Well, I shall ask him why he's been sent to kill me...

..and by who.

Stay.

HE PANTS

METALLIC RATTLING

LANTERN RATTLES

FLOORBOARDS CREAK

HE SNIFFS

CONTENTS RATTLE

EXPLOSION

CHURCH BELL CHIMES

FOOTSTEPS APPROACH

HE SNIFFS

The very same smell.

Same smell as what?

As your father's clothes when he would go dancing on the foreshore

and light his fires.

BEADS RATTLE

Brace, where did my father keep his most important things?

What is it you're looking for?

The Nootka Sound treaty.

HE SNIFFS

It may be written on deerskin.

So what you're saying is...

"Brace, do you have any idea where I can find ma ain death warrant?"

I may need to prove to a tribunal

that the land was acquired by treaty and not by conquest.

Tribunal?

Yeah.

Or they'll proudly try to seize it and claim it as a spoil of war.

Sir, I have seen nae deerskin treaty,

nor have I seen fairies or water sprites.

But what I do have are Malay coins, enough to bury you.

Prayer beads, not enough to get you to heaven.

And hashish, enough to ease my grieving

when the East India Company slit your throat,

which, of course, they will.

HE CHANTS IN UNKNOWN LANGUAGE

CHANTING STOPS, BEADS RATTLE

You have appointments today.

Breakfast will be out in half an hour...

..if you can contrive to stay alive that long.

DOOR SLAMS

Ah!

Ah...

HE SIGHS

PEOPLE CHATTER

DOG BARKS

CHILD LAUGHS

MAN GASPS

SHE SIGHS

Thank you.

That was turning out to be a long, drawn-out process.

I'd benefit from a period of reflection.

Do you have a girl here called Winter?

You can have any girl you want.

I do not have a girl of that name.

No?

A mulatto?

I would kill for a mulatto - the Danish pay double.

Hmm...

I met her.

-People are saying you're mad.

-I am.

MOANING AND GRUNTING IN THE NEXT ROOM

I like to see what lies beneath.

Hmm?

You have goodness in you.

-What goodness?

-You do, you do.

You have goodness in you - I can see it in your eyes...

HE TUTS

..and you have the same eyes as her.

Winter, she's your daughter, isn't she?

And that's why you don't rent her.

Am I wrong?

I would rather that you worked with me rather than against me.

-Work at what?

-Necessary evil.

And whorehouses are full of secrets, and secrets, to me, are weapons.

I would very much like to talk business...

..but I would like you inside of me, Mr Delaney.

It's my first condition.

I need to know where Mr Silver Tooth is hiding.

Your new friend.

Do you know him?

-I will ask after the Malay.

-Ah...

..the Malay?

Hmm.

Thank you for your help.

-MAN:

-Mr Delaney?

GULLS CALL

The Felice Adventurero - it's all yours now, sir.

HAMMERING

Thank you.

HAMMERING CONTINUES

RAT SQUEAKS

HE GRUNTS

HE SIGHS

HE MUMBLES TO HIMSELF

What was this ship?

What was this ship?

Me and you. See you. Ah.

MUMBLING CONTINUES ..Ah!

SCREAMING

Help me! Captain!

MALE AND FEMALE VOICES CRY OUT

HE MUTTERS IN UNKNOWN LANGUAGE

MUTTERING CONTINUES

HAMMERING

LAUGHTER AND CHATTER ECHOES

LAUGHTER AND CHATTER CONTINUES

Holy Christ! Where the hell have you been?

I made a fire in your room for the mice.

In Parliament today, they'll be debating the beating of servants.

The Whigs want to protect you.

I believe that would lead to anarchy.

Are you not ever hungry?

I ate in the whorehouse.

To qualify as food, it needs to be solid.

LOUD SLURPING

I made some coffee - that'll be stone-cold.

Aren't we all?

Where the hell are you going now?

Someone has been brought to London to try and kill me.

I want to speak to them and ask them why.

Clean it.

BABY CRIES

-I'm looking for Dr Dumbarton.

-Follow the smell inside.

-I'm off-duty.

-I have a wound in my left shoulder.

-A bullet wound?

-A splinter...

..from the mast of a ship called the Yankee Prize...

..that was struck by a Yankee ball.

So I should call you comrade?

We shall see.

How God makes his colours, I know not,

but I'm pursuing him through his chemicals.

They said you were a doctor.

A sheep is a sheep, but also meat and wool.

This is my pastime - fixing colours in cloth.

The demand for flags is always high in times of war.

So you are three things, yes?

You are a doctor...

..you are a merchant...

..and you are a spy.

Unless you tell me who sent you,

I will have to ask you to leave at the point of a gun.

A man who called himself Colonay.

Uh-huh.

Not yet in Hell?

No, Ponta Delgada and the Azores.

Similar.

-You should know the wound in the shoulder is no longer used by us as a signal.

-No?

No, we change the codes when we think that perhaps

the scum British have overtaken it.

And you do not trust the name Colonay?

THE DOCTOR SCOFFS

What do you want?

I want a line of conference

with the President of the 15 states of America.

My name is James Delaney.

That name means nothing.

But it will to the President and his representatives,

who are travelling to the negotiations in Ghent.

The border between the United States and Canada is being drawn up

in a very...quiet... closed room, no?

You see, I have something of great value to your nation.

Something the British are trying to kill me for.

And what?

You seek protection?

I have demands.

-Demands?

-HE LAUGHS

You tell Carlsbad my name.

-And who's Carlsbad?

-Carlsbad is the head

of the American Society of Secret Correspondence in London.

I know that name, because Colonay told me it.

He was drunk.

He was trying to push his jelly up a whore.

Carlsbad will know my name and know my business.

GUN CLICKS

I'm afraid you've used the wrong words.

Get out.

Do you treat sickness of the mind, Doctor?

Just keep walking.

You're mad to have even come here.

We are an angry nation.

Yeah.

I'm counting on it.

Good day.

KNOCK ON DOOR

Post for you, madam.

I intend to begin by reading your father's last will and testament,

and then I shall try to reason with his creditors.

Have you decided yet what you will do with Nootka?

-Yes, I will use it for trade.

-With whom?

-There are only savages at Nootka.

-Then I will trade with them.

-I hear you bought a ship.

-I did,

then I discovered that it was formerly used for carrying slaves.

I checked the vessel's log and, before it was taken by the Spanish,

it was once owned by the Honourable East India Company.

The shackles were all cast in London.

-The East India don't deal slaves.

-No, no, they don't.

But they do run cloth and trade beads to Tangiers

with the Scarfe family,

and then slaves to Trinidad...

..from Bunce Island...

..through Spanish privateers.

For one with such close connections, I am surprised that you don't know.

And what connections are they?

Mr Thoyt...

..you have been my father's lawyer for the past 40 years.

And in all that time, you reported every detail

of his most intimate business to his enemies at the East India Company.

You are their whore.

The same as almost everyone else in this city,

apart from those who are actually labelled a whore.

Come on, James.

When you left London, the East India was a trading company.

Now it is God Almighty.

The Prince Regent fears it.

No government in the world dares to stand up to it.

It owns the land, the ocean, the fucking sky above our heads.

It has more men and weapons and ships

than all the Christian nations combined.

You think all who submit are evil.

No.

We are submitting to the way the world has become.

All the good men in London...

..who fight them are washed up at Tilbury.

They could hold a congress.

Or perhaps they could simply board a ship and sail to Boston,

where the Company dare not go.

So...

you'll add treason to the list?

The King and Company after your head.

It's all rabble - pitch makers, carpenters.

Your father didn't pay any bills for four years.

They feel deeply aggrieved and talk of seizures.

I'm not being at all fanciful when I ask if you are armed.

I am armed.

MEN GRUMBLE

-There he is!

-Shame on you!

VOICE SHOUT OVER EACH OTHER

Let the man through!

Where's the money, Delaney?!

SHOUTING CONTINUES

Gentleman! You are all here,

subsequent to a written notice of Horace Delaney's death.

DERISORY LAUGHTER

I'll deal first...

-GAVEL BANGS

-..with the beneficiaries and then

with the division straight after.

I said straight after!

-CANE BANGING

-Shut up! Let them get on with it.

-THEY QUIETEN DOWN

-We've waited long enough.

MURMURS OF AGREEMENT

Mr Delaney died a widower.

He is survived by two children, both present at this division.

Of his daughter, Zilpha Annabel Delaney, now Zilpha Annabel Geary,

there is no mention in this last will and testament.

GASPS AND CHATTER

To his son, James Keziah Delaney,

is left the only existing assets of the Delaney estate,

including the Nootka trading post and landing ground on the Pacific

north-west coast of the Americas, in what was formerly Spanish America.

-Whatever you have, you will sell...

-GAVEL BANGS

There must be order for me to continue!

-We can leave now.

-No. We will haunt this nigger to justice!

-GAVEL BANGS

-He's already haunted.

Come.

GAVEL BANGS REPEATEDLY, SHOUTING

Be sure of this, Delaney!

That legacy is your death sentence!

SHOUTING CONTINUES

-GAVEL BANGS REPEATEDLY

-Out of my way!

I must have order in order to continue!

I dug new foundations for that old bastard...

-GAVEL BANGS

-..and I never got a penny.

The son does not inherit the debts of the father.

SHOUTING

James Delaney has declared a new trading company in his own name.

COIN RATTLES ON THE FLOOR

And my father's debts amounted to a sum total of £215 and 17 shillings.

Behold, £215 and 17 shillings.

Mr Thoyt will pay each one of you exactly what you are due,

but you will form an orderly line.

You will form an orderly line.

MOVEMENT

QUIET CHATTER

-MAN:

-Orderly!

I didn't expect that. He's a better man than his father.

Hurry up!

At least he's sorting his father's debts.

What I'm owed isn't in that pile of coins...

..since I'm not listed on the final division notice.

You see? The old skinflint didn't even pay for his whores!

LAUGHTER

And what exactly is it that my father owed you?

He owed me a lifetime of care.

A lifetime of devotion.

He owed me kisses and love.

He owed me a home and a fire and perhaps children some day.

In short, he owed me all that is due from a husband to a wife.

My name is Lorna Delaney, formerly Lorna Bow,

and, two years ago in Dublin,

-Horace Delaney and I were married.

-MURMURING

And I have proof that I am his widow.

I'll have my clerks divide up the silver.

Madam?

Come to my office.

Calm, pretty, certain, fragrant.

Calm, pretty, certain, fragrant.

This is an Irish document.

It may take a little time to validate.

I can wait.

But Mr Delaney's son knew nothing of any marriage.

How would he? He was in Africa.

But he often spoke of you. He was very, very proud.

-Why Dublin?

-Well, he was on business.

Yes, but your business is here, isn't it?

You're an actress who appeared on stage at the Theatre Royal

in Covent Garden in a play called The Painted Savage.

I found a programme with an illustration in an empty drawer.

Well, if my likeness was in there, the drawer wasn't empty.

If the paperwork from Dublin is validated,

Miss Bow will have a legal claim against his estate

-as widow.

-Mrs Delaney is my name.

Bow was the name that I used for the stage.

-Are you a good actress?

-Your father thought so.

And was that before or after he lost his mind?

Well, love is a kind of madness, isn't it, Mr Thoyt?

Or have you never experienced it?

My father was a very sick and old man.

Do you have proof of consummation?

I have letters, many letters professing his feelings for me.

A line from memory is...

"Oh, Lorna, it is in a moment

"that I would leave this cursed house by the river

"and go to the Americas with you and live there, naked and savage,

"and yet, we would have each other and be together."

That kind of thing.

Do you possess any other documents of his?

-I have letters.

-Other than letters?

Well, what kind of documents?

Well, proof will come from pen and ink.

I will dispatch an enquiry to the Trinity Church in Dublin

and request a personal account from the priest. Until then,

I suggest you two refrain from any further contact with each other.

Well, I have no love for the theatre.

And I spend very little time in German brothels.

MEN CHATTER

MEN SNIGGER

Was he in there? The man - did you see him in the room?

Yeah. It was him that came to the door and was indeed in the room.

He was the one who declared your legacy a death sentence.

Hmm. You, er...

You want him to fall into the river, James?

No, the river will take him of its own accord.

Here.

BUZZ OF CONVERSATION

DOOR CLOSES

Ah, Thoyt, sit down.

So, gentlemen...

..tell us of this widow.

Can none of you read?

Or are you all too busy trying to catch my eye and only pretending

to read the agenda before stretching your necks again?

You, what's your name?

-Godfrey, Sir.

-Well...

..Godfrey, read aloud item nine on the agenda list of ten.

"During the final division of the estate of Horace Delaney,

"there appeared...an actress."

An actress.

Who claims to be the widow.

A dispatch arrived from Dublin. The marriage is confirmed

-and is legal.

-CANE TAPPING

What is the significance of this, Mr Godfrey?

It's not written down. You have to work it out.

HE SCOFFS

-Pettifer.

-Hmm?

The girl is an opportunity.

Thoyt, tell them the possibilities of this "opportunity".

She would have a claim against James Delaney for

shared ownership of Nootka.

Bravo.

A whore actress to the rescue of the mighty East.

It is not a foregone conclusion. She would need to file suit.

Oh, Mr Thoyt.

This widow will have sole claim on Nootka

in the event of James Delaney's death.

An event which may be imminent.

MUSICIANS TUNING UP

-MAN:

-Ladies and gentlemen, please, welcome to London

violin virtuoso Nicolas Mori.

Tonight, composer Ludwig van Beethoven's Sixth Symphony.

MUSICIANS BEGIN

ECHOED LAUGHTER AND CONVERSATION

SHE SIGHS

James, please, don't.

What?

I missed you. I couldn't bear to see you alone.

Do you know, this is so old, I could even laugh at you?

And yet you came outside to see me.

Because, otherwise, you would've come to me

-and made very loud declarations.

-I would, yes.

Is it my loudness that troubles you?

In the forest, no.

In the jungle, no.

You used to straighten your skirt

and march away like nothing had ever happened.

Who marched away?

And thank God you did.

God?

-This is very simple, James.

-Hmm?

-Take away a little ancient history.

-You live in the East, I live in the West.

-Mm-hm.

There are no practical difficulties.

Apart from that great big river that connects us.

Did you really eat flesh?

Why don't you tell your friends that you're sick

and you can come and hear everything?

BUZZ OF CONVERSATION INSIDE

APPLAUSE INSIDE

I would laugh at you, but you're not well.

-Ah, ah, ah!

-And I can't stand to have you

-this close to me...

-Well, that is a shame, isn't it?

Because I will always be this close to you.

Won't I?

MUSICIANS PLAY INSIDE

BEETHOVEN'S SYMPHONY NO 6 CONTINUES ON SOUNDTRACK

BLADES SWIPE, STABBING THUDS

LOUD CRACK

CRIES OF PAIN

TRIBAL SINGING