The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (12 page)

  "Toy, give little one."

  Master Catlyn turned pale, and Coby thought he was going to puke.

  "Are you all right?" she murmured.

  "It is naught," he replied, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Someone walked over my grave, that's all." He turned back to the skrayling. "No little one. No she-fellah of I."

  So, he was not married. She had suspected as much, but the knowledge still pleased her. That in itself was worrying. She already risked too much by letting him touch her in their fighting lessons. Yet she felt at ease in his presence now, as she had never done with the actors. And if his kindness towards her was only that of an elder brother, it was for the best. Wasn't it?

  They moved on to another stall, where a slim androgynous figure with bronze skin and sleek black hair was roasting brickcoloured tubers over a brazier.

  "That is not a skrayling female?" Master Catlyn asked in an undertone.

  "No," Coby whispered back. "It is a man from the New World. See, he has dark eyes, and his features are as human as yours or mine."

  "What about his ears?"

  The man's earlobes were as big as apricots, stretched out of their natural shape by roundels of ivory.

  "It's not so very different from your earring, is it?" she said, then added, "He probably speaks Tradetalk, so he'd be as good a test of your skill as a skrayling."

  Master Catlyn cleared his throat and pointed to the brazier.

  "An they, sir."

  The man speared a sweet potato with a fork and wrapped it in a scrap of coarse cloth, grinning at them with tobaccostained teeth.

  "An denna, thank ye," he replied, holding out a scarred hand.

  As Master Catlyn fumbled in his pocket for a penny, a scrap of paper fluttered to the ground. Coby picked it up. It was a letter, and not sealed. This was her chance. Hardly daring to breathe, she turned her back on the stall and unfolded the paper.

  
My dearest Jane–

  Her throat tightened. No, it might only be a letter to a sister. She read on.

  
–I do most heartily wish you well, and assure you I have not for
gotten my promise to visit on the 22nd of next month. In the meantime
I will send 13oz of sugared almonds for you and your 3 sisters–

  "What have you there?" Master Catlyn asked.

  She hastily folded the strange letter and turned back to him.

  "You dropped this, sir," she replied, holding it out.

  He snatched the paper from her hand.

  "Did you read it?"

  She dropped her gaze to the ground, unable to lie to his face.

  "Did you read it?"

  "Yes, sir," she whispered. She wished she had never agreed to spy on him.

  "And what did you make of it?"

  "Only th-that you have a sweetheart, sir. And she likes sugared almonds."

  "Nothing more?"

  "No, sir. I didn't read any more."

  He put the letter back in his pocket, his expression thoughtful. She supposed she would have to report this to Dunfell. There was something odd going on, since sugared almonds were an expensive gift, an unlikely choice for a man who claimed to have no money.

  "I think I have had enough of markets," Master Catlyn said, taking his purchase from the stall holder. "And your master will be expecting you home for supper."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Sunday afternoon again, at five o'clock?"

  She stared up at him, hardly daring to believe, but there was no teasing look on his face. She had expected him to end their lessons together, after what she had just done. But why should he suspect her? She was just some boy to him, not a girl who might rival the mysterious Jane for his affections. She chided herself for thinking there could ever be anything but friendship between them.

  "Sunday," she said. "At five."

 

On Saturday morning she accompanied Master Naismith on another business matter. He would not say where, but instructed her to wear her best suit. Another visit to Master Cutsnail? She hoped not – there was no good news for the merchant.

  However, they turned north out of Thames Street, and a short walk up the hill brought them to the yard surrounding St Paul's Cathedral, where the chapmen had their stalls hung about with ballad sheets and stacked with books of all sizes. Here one could buy a family Bible or a volume of love sonnets, sundry classics in the original Latin and Greek or English versions of works by Machiavelli and Castiglione. There were even a few printed editions of plays; were they perhaps going to visit one of the printers who had their workshops in the streets around Paul's Yard?

  Master Naismith turned left through Ludgate, however, taking them outside the city walls. In Fleet Street, Coby's eyes were drawn towards the dark bulk of Bridewell Prison on the bank of the Thames. She shuddered. If she were ever found out to be a girl in men's clothing, she could be whipped through the streets and condemned to that horrible place, to be locked up with all the other "disorderly women" of the city.

  They walked on and Fleet Street became the Strand, the main road between the city of London and Westminster. On the riverward side stood many fine houses belonging to the greatest lords in the land: Arundel, Bedford, Somerset… and Suffolk, she realised with growing excitement. Their patron had built himself a grand new mansion at Charing Cross, to be close to Whitehall Palace in Westminster. She exchanged glances with Master Naismith, and he smiled.

  "You have guessed our destination," he said. "We are to meet Thomas Lodge, the playwright engaged by our patron to compose a play perfectly suited to the Ambassador of Vinland." He smiled again and added, "Master Lodge has been to the New World."

  The New World! It was one thing to meet skraylings who had journeyed so far, but an Englishman who had ventured across the Atlantic and returned safe was a rare marvel indeed. She wondered if he was as handsome as Master Catlyn.

  They reached the western end of the Strand, where the ancient marble monument to Queen Eleanor dominated the confluence of three roads: the Strand, King Street and Cockspur Street. On the southern side nearest the river stood Suffolk House, its pale stone walls and many glazed windows rivalling the nearby Palace of Whitehall. They entered through a gatehouse into a large cobbled courtyard where servants hurried back and forth on the duke's business. On either side stood the apartments of the gentlemen retainers; the great hall, a single-storeyed building even taller than the wings, took up the entire south side of the courtyard.

  "His Grace lives beyond the hall, in fine apartments beside the river," Master Naismith said. "I doubt we shall be invited into such rarefied company."

  A man of about forty, wearing the duke's blue-and-white livery and a harassed expression, greeted Master Naismith as one well known to him, and they were shown through a door in the west wing and up a spiral stair to one of the apartments. Two men were waiting for them in the small but comfortable parlour. Coby immediately and with a sinking feeling recognised Master Dunfell; the other she assumed to be Master Lodge.

  "Naismith, good to see you!" Lodge grasped Master Naismith's arm and shook it heartily.

  Coby hung back in the shadows, eyeing the playwright with disappointment. She had expected a dashing adventurer with a taste for poetry, like Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Philip Sidney, not this short scrubby-bearded fellow with a feverish glint to his gooseberry-green eyes.

  "So, what do you have for us?" Master Naismith asked, once the pleasantries were over.

  Lodge gestured for them to approach the table, which was covered in a chaotic layer of papers scrawled in a barely legible hand. She did not envy the scrivener who had to make a fair copy.

  "My best play yet," he said. "I have entitled it
The Queen of Faerieland."

  "Based on Spenser, is it?"

  "Better than that." Lodge fairly quivered with excitement, like a child bursting to tell a great secret.

  "What Master Lodge is trying to say," Dunfell put in, "is that he has borrowed from his recent travels, not from another poet. This is a skrayling story put into English."

  "Devil take you!" Lodge turned scarlet. "You have ruined the ending, you pinch-souled capon. Go back to your accounts, and leave the recounting of tales to poets!"

  Dunfell stepped back a little from the table, but did not leave the room. His fixed expression suggested he was used to the playwright's temper.

  Lodge turned back to Master Naismith.

  "It is a story I heard in Antilia, an ancient legend of three brothers of the Pescamocarti and their love for the Queen of the Forest. I have transposed it to the city of Athens…"

  Whilst the playwright and the actor-manager bent over the manuscript, Master Dunfell motioned Coby to one side.

  "Have you made any progress in the matter we spoke of?" he asked in a low voice.

  "I- I found a letter," she said, "though it was only to his sweetheart."

  "What did it say?"

  "It was addressed to a lady named Jane, who has three sisters, and said he would be visiting her on the twenty-second of September."

  "After the competition? Well, no matter. Go on."

  "That is all, sir. I did not have time to read more."

  "You do not have it."

  "No, sir, I–" She could not tell Dunfell she had been caught red-handed.

  "More than a month, and this is all you have found out? I must say I am disappointed. Very disappointed indeed." He wrinkled his pointed nose, as if she were a smear of dog shit on his shoe. "After all I have done for you and your master, I expected greater efforts to follow my instructions."

  Coby hung her head and tried to look contrite.

  "Needless to say," he went on, "I shall not be recommending you for a place in the duke's household. You may consider my own patronage of your career at an end."

  She inclined her head submissively, though she was secretly relieved. The last thing she wanted was to work for such an odious man. She would rather take her chances amongst the actors, even at the risk of exposure.

  "This is very good, Lodge," Master Naismith said, scanning a page. "Here, Dunfell, is this not most excellently written?"

  Seeing Lodge bristle in anticipation of another argument, Coby put in, "Begging your pardon, Master Lodge, but why did you set it in Athens instead of the New World?"

  "It is not your place to question your betters' judgement," Dunfell snapped.

  Lodge looked taken aback at this unexpected ally, though Coby guessed it was only anger at herself that made Dunfell side with the playwright.

  "No, let the boy speak," said Master Naismith. "'Tis a fair point."

  Master Lodge launched into a long explanation full of words and allusions Coby did not understand. When he eventually paused for breath, Naismith put in: "Our scholarly colleague's point is, have you ever heard of these Peascod folk?"

  "No, sir," Coby replied.

  "And how much do you think the average playgoers know of them?"

  "Not much, sir."

  "Your first answer was nearer the mark. No, there is no drama in telling a tale of lands so far away that no one knows their names. No resonance with the audience, see? Instead, Master Lodge has taken the tale and reshaped it into something even the penny stinkards can make sense of. That's how you get bums on seats, lad."

  Lodge gathered up his mess of papers into what Coby hoped was the correct order, and she stuffed them into her satchel. A skrayling play in a skrayling-sponsored theatre – let the Admiral's Men top that!

 
 
 

After church on Sunday morning Mal visited Bethlem Hospital again. To his relief his brother was improving, in both body and spirit. Either Mistress Cooke was being true to her word and giving him more care now Mal was a regular visitor, or… No, he could not let himself dare to think it. Sandy had had lucid spells before, but they never lasted.

  The weather had turned cooler again, and they stayed indoors all morning. Mal had bought a book in Paul's Yard which he thought Sandy might like. Something to dispel evil humours, and bring his thoughts to greater order and harmony.

  "'
The Whetstone of Wit
'," Sandy read out, "'which is the second part of Arithmetic: containing the extraction of roots; the cossike practice, with the rule of equation; and the works of surd numbers'." He looked up at Mal. "It's just abridged Euclid, you know."

  "You've read it."

  He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice, but Sandy knew him too well.

  "I've read everything here a hundred times." He gestured to the small pile of volumes by his bed. "Something twice- or thrice-read will seem fresh in comparison."

  Sandy settled down to read the mathematics treatise whilst Mal took out his lute. It took some time to tune, being so sensitive to the changes in the weather. The room was oppressively warm now, and he wondered if he should suggest they go outside, but it was looking like rain again. August was always a race to get the harvest in before the heavens opened.

  He started as Sandy clapped his book shut with a loud thump.

  "No," Sandy whispered, turning pale.

  "What is it?"

  Mal went to the door and pressed his ear against the rough wood. A burst of laughter came from downstairs. Not the hysterical shrieks and giggles of the inmates, but a colder, more mocking sound. Visitors.

  He looked around. Mistress Cooke had locked the door as usual, but what if she opened it from the outside? Surely she would not do that with Mal in here, but if one of the gentlemen flashed a little gold in her direction, she might think it worth the risk.