Wasp (38 page)

Wasp fumbles in her wig and draws out a fake rose attached to a long, vicious-looking pin. ‘My name is Wasp,’ she says, ‘and this is my sting. Move out of my way or you’ll fetch it in the throat.’ The woman shrugs and slips away. Wasp bursts into the room. Moth lies naked and spread-eagled on a bed. She’s face down, her limbs tied to the four posts with velvet strips. Her bare rump glistens with some sort of grease. Pink lesions crisscross her back.

In the corner furthest from the door cowers a bony stick of a man, naked himself except for a black mask covering his eyes and a leather codpiece sporting a protuberance like an overgrown nose. It, too, is slick with grease. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he blusters. ‘I was assured privacy. You have no right—’

Wasp slams the door, scoops a chair out of the other corner and sets it against the doorknob. On a table beside the bed lies a riding crop. The handle is still warm.

‘God, no—’

She slashes the crop across his face, putting everything into the blow. He screams and stumbles back against the wall. Her arm rises and strikes, rises and strikes, moving in rhythm like the water pump in a stable yard. She doesn’t know how many times she does this or for how long. Voices yell in the corridor outside. The doorknob turns, fists pound against the door. The chair creaks but holds. Wasp is conscious of Moth crying. Her tears only spur Wasp on. The cully is folded in on himself. He lifts his arms in a pitiful attempt at defence. She slices the crop across both wrists, opening them to the bone. Blood speckles her lips. His blood. The front of her gown is covered with it.

The chair splinters and breaks. The door falls open and Kingfisher is in the room, Nightingale on his tail. Behind him a dozen faces ring the doorframe.

Wasp is panting. The wig has fallen off. Her hair is a tangled nest across her face. Kingfisher’s dark face is as inscrutable as always. In the corner her victim sobs into the bloodied carpet.

Kingfisher holds out his hand. After a moment Wasp gives him the riding crop. The leather tip is frayed to ribbons.

‘Come,’ he says, ‘I shall take you home.’

‘I shall not leave without Moth.’

He doesn’t look at the bed, or the creature whimpering on the floor. ‘The girl will be taken care of. You have my word on that. Now you must return to where you belong.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

He lays a hand on Wasp’s shoulder, softly enough, though she feels tension in his muscles. His voice lowers to a whisper. ‘I have given you my word. You are a Masque. A Masque does not disgrace herself before others. You will walk out of here with dignity and you will do it
now
.’

Everyone’s attention is on Wasp as she steps through the debris. Behind her, Nightingale unties Moth from the bed. Kingfisher wraps her in a coverlet and hoists her into his arms. Murmurs ripple through guests and girls alike. Someone giggles. Faces are illuminated with the scandal of it all.

The scarred woman is waiting at the front door, which is open to the street. She curtseys as Wasp passes.

‘Perhaps you shall return after all,’ she says, tapping her ruined cheek.

‘You’re going to be punished, Wasp. You have mistreated a Cellar client. He has complained to the Abbess.’

‘What was I to do? He was torturing Moth.’

Hummingbird shrugs. ‘Cellar games can get a little rough. I doubt she was in danger of her life.’

‘How can such a place exist? How many girls are fed to that nightmare?’

‘Buying your freedom is expensive. Costs need to be recovered.’

‘Moth isn’t strong enough for that sort of life.’

‘I’m beginning to wonder if she’s strong enough for anything. You’re in no position to make decisions.’

‘What will happen to me?’

Hummingbird fingers the key to Wasp’s bedchamber. Wasp has been locked in all night. ‘Corrective training followed by a week of serfing for the Harlequins. You’ll go through House etiquette until you drop in your shoes.’

‘Serfing?’

‘Running errands, laying out our dresses, emptying pots, fetching our night possets. Demeaning work designed to teach you humility. If you’re a good girl you get the brand. If not, it’s the Cellar and this time you won’t be going as an uninvited visitor.’

Wasp tents her face with her fingers. ‘I shall be branded?’

The other girl nods. ‘It’s called being kissed by the flaming star. You’ll likely get it here, on the soft part of your arm just below the shoulder. Believe me, it doesn’t hurt as much as you think.’

‘Apart from Moth has anyone else been branded?’

‘Of course. No angels under this roof.’

‘When will it happen?’

‘Work hard and try not to think about it.’

‘Where is Moth? Can I see her?’

Hummingbird leaves the room and locks the door behind her.

‘Here, slip this between your teeth and bite down hard.’ The Fixer hands her a wad of velvet. ‘I’ll need to keep the iron pressed on for at least a second else the brand might fester. If you’re lucky you’ll faint. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone’s equal when faced with the hot metal’s bite.’

‘Where are you going to do it? Here in the Mirror Room? Haven’t I enough scars?’

‘No, the Scarlet Parlour. And as for your scars, be thankful I don’t have to remove your Emblem.’

‘Why such barbarism?’

‘Barbarism? You horsewhipped a client. He’s cut to the bone and will carry scars for the rest of his life. I hardly think you can talk of barbarism.’

‘Shall we be alone?’

‘Your Sisters will witness, but they’ll be as quiet as a whisper. I’ll enter the room behind you and stand, hooded, to one side of the door. Beside me will be a brazier filled with hot coals and the branding iron. It’s all theatricals, designed to teach our girls to be obedient. Sometimes I oil my body to make it glisten like a demon’s. But you’ve already faced your fear, in a glass jar, and you can come through this. It won’t hurt any more than it has to and the wound will heal quickly. Now, the sooner you get there the sooner this will be over. No more locked door. No more eating alone in your bedchamber. You’ll be back in the fold before suppertime.’

‘You’re not taking me there? I have to go alone?’

‘This is your crime. Your punishment. I don’t expect you to be dragged or carried. You’re a brave lass, and you’ll demonstrate that bravery to us all.’

Wasp takes tiny steps along the passage and across the hall to the doors of the Scarlet Parlour. Not a soul anywhere. The desk and stairs, the candle-spiked alcoves are all empty. She strains her ears. Not a sound, as if the House is holding its breath in anticipation of a storm.

She wedges the velvet strip between her teeth as the Fixer had instructed. The laudanum is beginning to soothe the edges of the world, but her belly is swimming with nerves. She nudges open the door and steps trembling into the parlour. The rugs have been lifted, and laid out on the bare boards is the circle of glittering candles she’d been told to expect. All other lights have been doused. A dozen Sisters line the walls, vague ghosts in their white house gowns. All wear porcelain masks.

And there is the brazier, as if someone has torn the heart out of the fireplace and dumped it into a black iron witch pot. Wasp tries not to look at the coals, at the rod plunged into the brazier’s glowing innards. Already she fancies she can feel the iron’s heat, metal turned white from hours in the flames.

He is really going to do this,
she thinks.
He is going to burn me.

The laudanum seems to have fled her body. She’s startlingly awake, her mind sharp, nerve endings raw. Nostrils pick up the bitter scent of smoke and hot candle wax. She can discern the individual perfumes of the sisters. Their breathing. Shallow. Nervous.

Excited.

Please don’t let me scream.

The Fixer appears on the rim of the light circle, hooded as he’d said, and stripped to the waist. Shadows catch his scars and throw vicious lines across his upper body. Wasp bites down hard on the velvet. Her jaw flares with pain. The Fixer gestures at her to kneel then pinches her skin, hard, between thumb and forefinger. Then the iron’s bite. An angry hiss, like sizzling bacon. A wisp of greasy smoke. And the smell.
Oh, the smell
 . . .

Candles tumble as she slumps forward onto the floor. A collective gasp sweeps the room. The Fixer’s arms curl around her shoulders and draw her upright. The Abbess appears out of the smoke, kneeling in front of Wasp, arms outstretched. Wasp throws herself into that forgiving embrace.

Eloise lays a breakfast tray beside the bed. Cheerful sunbeams radiate from her face. ‘You really are one of us now,’ she declares. ‘I hope it does not hurt too much.’

It hurts right enough, like a lump of flesh has been gouged from her arm. Wasp is forced to sleep, when she can sleep at all, on her right side facing the wall. During the day she suffers a dull ache. Night brings agony. Sometimes she’s forced to get up and pace the room or sit on the edge of the bed, shrouded in her coverlet.

It’s hard to think about Moth. For hours after the branding, Wasp lay in a bubble of misery. The girl who’d been the cause of this now seems the least important thing in the world. The thought of getting into more trouble, of even asking the wrong questions, leaves Wasp sick with fear. How brave she had thought herself, barging into the Cellar. How clever to escape a slow death in the Comfort Home. But the sight of those masked faces in the flickering gloom of the Scarlet Parlour was worse than any beating she’d previously endured.

The Fixer arrives at dusk to change her dressings. He checks the brand and declares it clean. ‘A good job.’

‘I’m glad you think so. It’s been two days and it still throbs.’

‘You’ll need to endure discomfort for a while longer. But it will fade. You have leave to stay in your bedchamber for the rest of the week.’

‘I don’t regret what I did. The Cellar is a horrible place.’

‘Better girls than Moth have been swallowed up by it. Think of it as a lid that lets the steam out of the pot. We’re safe in the House. Safe because of what happens there. You forget how much you have to be thankful for.’

He doses Wasp with a sleeping draught. This time she slips away at once. No dreams.

Nightingale’s Box