Wasp (37 page)

‘Your Masque is preparing herself,’ the Abbess says. ‘Go and wait for her. You can forgo any disguises. Raven will serve as your hostess tonight.’

The parlour girl appears and places a gloved hand on Wasp’s arm. Raven’s eyes are swimming with a mixture of bemusement and curiosity. Word has indeed spread quickly through the House.

Wasp fixes her gaze on Raven’s back as she leads the way into the Scarlet Parlour. Her bodice is a rainbow of glittering, gem-encrusted embroidery, the colours shifting in the candlelight as she moves. Heels click on the polished floor.

The divans in the Scarlet Parlour are freshly brushed, the cushions plumped and undisturbed. Raven makes a sweeping gesture. Wasp chooses a seat at random and perches on the edge, knees pressed together, hands clasped in her lap.

‘What will be m’lady’s pleasure?’ the parlour girl enquires.

Wasp stares blankly for a moment. Of course. House custom with newly arrived clients. Wasp has experienced it before, but to be a recipient, to sit on the other side of the curtain, now that is a foreign land.

‘Brandy.’

Raven lifts the crystal decanter and pours a generous measure. Wasp’s hand shakes as she accepts it. She presses the rim to her mouth to steady the trembling. She’s seldom tasted brandy. Wine, yes, and a little gin if in the mood for something sharp. However the colour appeals, and a tentative sip spreads warmth across her tongue. She swallows, eyes closed. The clock chimes the half hour.

No use, even the drink can’t help her relax. Wasp stands and traces the pattern of the rug with her feet as it spirals out from the centre. Despite spending an hour with powder and rouge she feels terribly exposed, and her stomach is performing butterfly loops.

She fingers her Emblem. In the mirror it had seemed very stark sailing the pink, round ocean of her cheek. Her growing hair, now satin smooth and glossy with health, is tucked under a pink-tinted wig. A soft gown of sapphire taffeta hugs the now generous curves of her body. The garment looks spectacular, provided she doesn’t stretch too far or bend over unexpectedly. The rich scent she’d dabbed behind her ears and on the underside of both wrists flowers the air.

‘Don’t let her scare you,’ Hummingbird had advised, ‘whatever you have planned. Be sure to dress like the Queen and use all the weapons a young woman can muster. Beauty is the best armour. You may not defeat her in those stakes but, by heaven, you can give her something to think about.’

The door opens. Nightingale glides into the room, lethally dressed in a scarlet gown trimmed with white bows. Her eyes are as sharp as flint. She plucks the glass Raven offers her, swallows the contents with effective grace then dips a professional if insolent curtsey.

‘I am at your service.’

Wasp puts down her glass. ‘Let’s go.’

‘So, my Sister, tell me what delights you have in mind. I take it this is no whim, that the evening’s festivities have been carefully plotted? No destination was mentioned on my scroll and the Abbess refused to enlighten me.’

Wasp settles back in the seat of the hire carriage. The Abbess offered her Leonardo’s services but he’s the last person Wasp wants on this excursion. The Abbess didn’t press the matter nor ask any questions. She seemed distracted.

‘Actually, Nightingale, I want
you
to escort
me
somewhere.’

‘Oh? An opera? A gavotte? Perhaps coffee in one of the finer houses? Or would you prefer a stroll by the river so we can chat. I promise not to laugh as you spill your secrets into my ear.’

Wasp shakes her head. ‘Has Moth been taken from the House?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Moth. Has she gone? Answer me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you will take me to her.’

The carriage lantern bleeds yellow over Nightingale’s face. ‘A mighty peculiar way to satisfy your curiosity, Sister. If you want to see her that badly then I’m sure a visit, or even an extensive stay in her new accommodation, can be arranged.’

‘Save your poison for the House. I’m your client. Do as I ask.’

‘Poison?’ Nightingale leans over and, to Wasp’s astonishment, grasps her hand. ‘Whatever point you wish to prove, the Cellar is no place to do it. If your desire is to humble me then I’ll clean out your bedchamber, serve you breakfast, help Leonardo sweep the stables, anything you like. But believe me, Sister, the Cellar is not an establishment where anyone in the House chooses to go.’ Wasp shakes her hand free. ‘Lean out of the window and give the driver directions. I want to see this “Cellar”.’

Nightingale, face pinched, does as instructed. The carriage jolts forward.

‘Will it be a long journey?’ Wasp asks.

‘No.’

‘Whatever happens when we get there I want your support, do you understand?’

‘I am your paid escort, though I suspect this adventure will end up costing you a lot more than the Abbess’s fee. May I ask what you propose to do when we arrive?’

‘That depends on what I find.’

‘What part of the city is this?’

Terraced dwellings, low-slung warehouses, higgledy-piggledy buildings dotted around as though they’d fallen out of the sky Close by, the stink of the river. No carriages, drunks or hawkers. Somewhere a cat is yowling at the moon. Upstairs windows show few lights. Yet the feeling of a hundred hidden eyes shivers the spine.

‘This is a borderland,’ Nightingale says. ‘An in-between place. A threshold between pretty parks and gin-soaked gutters. Two worlds living off one another need a place of parley, a market, a trading place. There are no such people as “withs” and “withouts”. Both have things the other wants and here is where the bartering is done. No constables, no footpads. No face that will willingly recognise yours or be recognised in turn. In the pretty crescents they will cut your purse. In the gin shops they’ll cut your throat. But here you can buy what you want or sell what you have to offer.’ Nightingale flicks out her tongue as if tasting the night. ‘We’re not supposed to be here. If Kingfisher catches us—’

‘Kingfisher doesn’t know where we are and our hire driver is two streets away tending to his horses. Now where is the Cellar?’ The Harlequin gestures towards a house bracketing one end of a terrace. ‘I tell you, Wasp, I don’t like this. Masques or not, we don’t fit here. Inside that house are people who wouldn’t twitch at turning your gown inside out and you along with it. These are not common men I speak of but high-class sparks who, for sport, would slice a person to pieces with their sword tips. If anything goes wrong the Abbess will have us both branded.’

‘Why? What is this place?’

‘It’s a brothel.’

‘What?’

‘A brothel. A whorehouse. Call it what you will. You cannot say you didn’t suspect. There is more to the workings of the House than sending pretty girls out to sup with gentlemen. Tell me what man wouldn’t wish to take his interests further after having been whipped up to a frenzy of delight by his charming companion? Carriages are always ready to whisk clients off to the Cellar. They are taken from abstinence to the feast table and it blows their senses to the stars. In such a mood they’d sell their own shirts for a tup. Whatever a man’s taste he’ll find an agreeable flavour within those walls.’

‘You are lying to me.’

Nightingale looks exasperated. ‘No, Sister, I am not lying. The Cellar is a place for men with bulging pockets and bulging breeches, both begging to be emptied. It is a place where dreams come true. Dark dreams. The House of Masques is only the gilding on a black lily.’

‘I’m going in, and you’re coming with me.’

‘You won’t be permitted. You enter by invitation or not at all.’ Wasp skitters across the street, satin slippers clacking on the paving. Windows beam at her with candle-bright eyes. In the moonlight the stonework resembles a dead face punctured by a dark, vertical mouth. The front door is painted some awful blood colour. ‘I can’t find a doorknob,’ Wasp says, running her fingers across the wood.

‘You have to knock to get in. One glimpse of you and the door will slam in your face.’

‘Then I’ll find another entrance.’

‘You’ll be caught.’

Stairs descend to the mouth of the basement, blocked at the top by a barred gate. Wasp hitches up her gown and mounts the iron railing skirting the front of the house. One wrong foot and she’ll tumble head first into that dark hole.

I won’t back out, not with Nightingale watching
.

She jumps. Her petticoats catch on a spike and rip. Any other time it would prove funny, but at least she lands on both feet. The gate is secured by a single bolt. Wasp hurries up the steps, slides it back and admits a paler than usual Harlequin.
Why are you so afraid?
Wasp thinks.
What is it about this place that scares you?

Bawdy music seeps through the windows. Laughter. Raised voices. Curtains block sight of the interior. Wasp grasps the brass latch. It won’t budge. She rattles the metal in its fixings then pushes against the door with both hands. Nothing.

‘Damn you all, where is she?’

A small wicket opens. Curious eyes peer out. A lock clicks. Yellow light spills across the step. An apparition emerges, a demonic figure in a red slammerkin and a wig that brushes the top of the doorframe. Her face is a hollow pit of powder and rouge as if someone has gathered up the soft folds of her flesh and pinned it to her cheekbones. And there is the scar, the blurring of skin where an Emblem has been.

The figure drops a lopsided grin. ‘Oh, here’s a pair of high-and-mighty Masques come to put us to bed,’ she declares. ‘Too haughty to arrange entry by the usual means? If you want us, you pay like the rest.’

‘We’re looking for someone.’ Wasp’s voice catches. ‘You
 . . . 
You must let us in.’

‘Is that so? Well, I wear an Emblem too, only it’s on my arse. You’re welcome to kiss it, my pretties.’

‘I don’t have time for this.’

‘And I have no time for you. Go back to your gilded palace before I slam this door in your faces.’

Nightingale steps up. ‘Indulge her, just for tonight. She has a lesson to learn.’

Wasp doesn’t wait for a response. She barges into the hall and past a litter of squawking girls. Laughter and rowdy singing assaults her ears. Carpets, sticky with spilled wine, are littered with empty glasses, playing cards, a scattering of coins and the odd slipper. Men, many in their undershirts, chase girls from room to room. A hand grasps her thigh. She slaps it away A leering face, breath foul with brandy, wavers in front of her. A man sports a woman’s wig — an outrageous confection of fruit and paper ships — askance on his skull. Jewellery, enough to ransom a country, glitters on his fingers.

‘Come to play, have we?’ He makes squeezing motions with his fingertips. Wasp shoves him away, resisting the urge to sink her foot in his groin. Ribald laughter flutters down a passage to her left. Two men, dressed in breeches and nothing else, openly eye her.

‘Best leave that one alone, Johnny Look at her face. She’s a Masque and beyond the reach of even your purse.’

‘A Masque, eh? What’s a stuffed petticoat like that doing down here? ’Tis a place for games. I want to pump a woman’s well, not take her to the opera.’

More laughter. Wasp’s belly squirms. She glances behind her but can’t see Nightingale anywhere in the mêlée. Perhaps she’s returned to the carriage. If so, Wasp will skin her to her bones and never mind the consequences.

‘Moth.’ She struggles to make her voice carry above the racket. ‘Moth, are you in here?’

‘Bethany.’

She presses harder through the throng. The voice issued from a white-panelled door set into an alcove. Before Wasp can open it someone steps in front of her. The woman who’d accosted her at the entrance.

‘Move aside,’ Wasp demands.

‘This is no place for you. Go back to the House, to your silks and your silver. Read one of your hidebound books or sip tea out of a fine china cup. This is where the real work is done, pretty one. And where the debts are paid. Paid in sweat and tears. Leave now. Pretend you never came through that door. Hope you never come through it again.’

‘I can do what I wish. I’m a Masque.’

‘I’d say you just forfeited that privilege, m’dear.’