The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (10 page)

  When Baines returned, he produced a sheaf of letters readysealed and taught Mal the various ways of softening sealing wax just enough so it would not snap when handled. He also gave him a small knife, not very sharp but flat and of such thinness that when heated in a candle flame it could be slipped under a seal without disturbing it.

  "Watch you keep that hidden," Baines said. "We don't want the ambassador knowing what you're up to, do we now?"

  Mal resisted the urge to point out he was not a fool. The intelligencer had already made up his mind, that was obvious.

  After a couple of hours of painstaking practice Baines called a halt.

  "What next?" Mal asked.

  "When you've mastered the skill of cutting a seal and replacing it – without bloody breaking it in two – we'll move on to invisible writings and the use of ciphers."

  "Is that what these are?" Mal said, pointing out the sheets of numbers and nonsense words.

  "Aye, and the rest. Practice pieces, like your seals."

  Mal scanned one of the letters. The phrasing was a little odd in places, but he could see no hidden meaning. He looked at Baines in puzzlement.

  "That's work for another day," the intelligencer said, holding up a hand. "Enough."

  He tidied their work away into a cupboard and locked it.

  "Come back the day after tomorrow. If I'm not here, go straight home. I'll find you."

  Mal caught himself on the verge of asking Baines where he was going. No, that would not be a good idea. Baines would not tell him, and in any case it was probably best he did not know.

 

"All the costumes?"

  "All," Naismith said.

  Coby sat down next to him on the gallery bench and watched the workmen fitting the balustrades and other finely turned woodwork, but her mind was elsewhere.

  "But surely we do not need everything made new," she said at last. "There are some small parts–"

  "All must be of one piece, or the harmony of the thing is spoiled." He stood up and leant over the railing. "You! Carpenter fellow in the mustard jerkin. That third baluster along is upside down." He sat down again. "A pox on Dunfell! He should be here by now to keep an eye on this lot."

  Coby ran through her mental inventory of the costumes.

  "We have those Roman breastplates," she said, "the boiled leather ones painted to look like steel."

  "Lord Suffolk's antiquarians have determined that the Ancient Greeks wore bronze," the actor-manager said. "Besides, those breastplates have seen better days. I think they're older than I am."

  Coby ignored the attempt at a joke.

  "The soldiers will be standing at the back for most of the scene," she said. "No one will notice."

  "What about the people sitting in the lords' galleries? They will have a close view of the back of the stage."

  "All right, not the breastplates. And the helmets
do
need new plumes. But there must be something…"

  Naismith sighed and turned to look at her.

  "What's the matter with you, lad? Our patron has offered to restock our wardrobe with the finest costumes money can buy, and all you can do is protest. I thought you would be grateful not to have all that work to do."

  "I am," Coby said, trying not to let her resentment show. "So, if I do not need to make any costumes, what about other things? There are sides to be copied, a plot sheet to be written out, properties to be bought–"

  "All taken care of," Naismith said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Master Dunfell is managing everything."

  "Everything?"

  "Oh yes. He has been most thorough."

  So this was Dunfell's idea of helping her, by taking all responsibility out of her hands. No doubt if she confronted him about it, he would say he was making time for her to pursue the task he had set her. She wished he had chosen someone else to bestow his favour upon.

 

It was but a short walk from Ned's house to the new theatre at the far end of Bankside. The theatre field was empty of workmen for the moment, but the piles of sand, clay and straw spoke of recent – or imminent – industry. Sounds of hammering came from the theatre itself. The main doors stood open, so Mal wandered inside.

  "Hello?" he shouted, looking around. "Master Naismith?"

  "Who is that?" a voice called out from the galleries.

  "It is I, Maliverny Catlyn," he replied, stepping out of the shadowy entrance tunnel. "I come by appointment, to speak with your tireman."

  After a few moments he heard footsteps on the gallery stairs, then the young tireman appeared.

  "You still wish for lessons in Tradetalk?" the boy asked.

  "That's why I'm here."

  "We had best go outside. We shall not be able to hear ourselves think in there. And in any case, Master Naismith doesn't like anyone from outside the company spying on our progress."

  "Indeed not." Spying on actors? What would anyone want to do that for?

  As if guessing his thoughts, the boy added, "The Admiral's Men would give a good deal of money to know our plans for the contest."

  So that was what Ned had been up to, that night in the Bull's Head. Mal smiled to himself. Perhaps he should not have judged his friend so harshly.

  "You have the advantage of me, lad," Mal said to his companion as they walked across the field.

  "Sir?"

  "You know my name, but I do not know yours."

  "Jacob Hendricks, sir."

  "Dutch?"

  The boy nodded.

  "Anxious to get over there and fight?" Mal asked.

  Hendricks shook his head.

  Mal gave up that line of conversation. If the boy was going to be so taciturn, learning a language from him promised to be hard going. He looked around.

  "This is a poor spot to sit and talk. Look, there is shade, down there by the millstream."

  He pointed to a knot of alders on the edge of the pleasure gardens.

  Hendricks bit his lip. "I am not so sure."

  "Come now, we cannot stand around in the sun like labourers. And it seems we cannot sit in the shade of yon theatre either, lest I am suspected of eavesdropping."

  "Very well," the boy said. "It is just… Master Parrish said I should stay away from such lewd places. He–" Hendricks blushed like a girl. "He says I am too pretty for my own good."

  "What, you think I would ravish you?" Mal laughed. "Jesu, you're a child, for Heaven's sake!"

  "I'm not a child, I'm seventeen."

  "Aye, well, tell me again when your voice breaks and I might believe you."

  They crossed the little wooden bridge into Paris Gardens and sat down in the shade of the alders. Mal studied the boy's profile for a moment. Furrowed brow, a nose red and peeling from the sun, a bottom lip curled downwards in, what, frustration? Or misery? No sign of violence, but then not all bruises show. He wondered if that was why the boy hugged his ribs so protectively.

  "I suppose tempers are running short," Mal said. "What with the contest and all."

  "Something like that." The boy picked up an alder cone and threw it into the stream.

  Mal made a sympathetic noise. It was none of his business, and he did not press the matter further.

  "So, where shall we begin?" Hendricks said with forced cheerfulness.

  "How should I know?" Mal said, sitting alert with forearms propped on his knees. "You're the teacher."

  The boy glanced at him, ready with another retort, then seemed to change his mind. He smiled nervously.

  "Well, the first thing you need to know," he said, staring off into the distance, "is that Tradetalk uses English words, more or less, but not in the way an Englishman would do. The skraylings refuse to make certain letters, to whit, m, b and p–"

  "Why?"

  "It is said they find them effeminate, like a lisp. The upshot is, they must find new words for many common English things, such as mother, brother and the like."

  "And man and woman?"

  The boy blushed again.

  "Yes."

  "So, how do you say 'man' or 'woman'?"

  "Man is 'fellah'. Woman is 'she-fellah'."

  "Like she-wolf?"

  "Yes, I suppose so. But you address a man as 'sir', whatever his rank, and a woman as 'lady'. Not that you will need to address a woman in Tradetalk."

  "Is it true there are no womenfolk here?" Mal asked.

  Hendricks shrugged. "I have not seen any, nor no children neither. Perhaps they keep their women hidden, like the Turks are said to do."

  Mal repeated the Tradetalk words a few times. It all seemed simple enough, if a little barbaric to the ear.

  "Even the Turks are not so secretive," he said. "But then the skraylings seem fond of secrets."

  "And stories," Hendricks said. "That's why they come to the theatres so much, even those who cannot understand the speeches."

  "Your patron is a friend of the skraylings," Mal said. "And I hear yon theatre is being built with skrayling silver. That is a bold venture."

  "You sound as if you do not approve, sir," the boy said, eyeing him suspiciously.

  "On the contrary," Mal replied, cursing his clumsy approach to the issue. "I am all for seizing any advantage in a fight. Now, where were we?"

  By the end of the afternoon, Mal had a grasp of simple greetings and a few phrases that might be useful in the marketplace. From time to time he was even able to forget why he was learning all this and simply enjoy a pleasant afternoon in the company of a new friend.

  "I am indebted to you and your master," he said, getting to his feet and brushing dead leaves from his clothing. "If there is anything else I can do…"

  Hendricks stared at the glittering millstream for a long moment.

  "Teach me to fight."

  So, it was the other boys giving him grief, not the master.

  "I doubt I can help you," Mal said, not unkindly. "You will not come up against many apprentices armed with rapiers."

  The boy looked up, his expression unreadable. "Anything you can teach me… about being a man."

  Mal smiled. "Now that you really must learn for yourself. But– " Something about the boy's air of desperation reminded him of himself at the same age. "Part of my training was in unarmed combat and dagger-play. Perhaps that would be of some use?"

  Hendricks' eyes lit up and he nodded.

  "Though I warn you," Mal added, "if you ever come up against a man with a knife, your best stratagem is to run."

  "Run, sir?"

  "Like all the demons of Hell are after you."

 

Coby sat by the stream for a long time after Master Catlyn had gone. What was the point in going back to the theatre, if there was no work for her to do? And then there was this business of fighting lessons. She could not imagine what had possessed her to ask him. She didn't even like the man. No, that was not true. She had been determined not to like him after the way he had behaved at Goody Watson's, but he had changed his tune since then, indeed had been all politeness this afternoon. Not at first, perhaps, but then after they sat down together, he had suddenly changed. Was it something she said? Did he… oh Lord, did he suspect?

  And what if he does? a voice in the back of her mind asked. She had assumed he shared Faulkner's tastes, but what if she were wrong? She felt herself grow hot all over, and not from the sun. What if he tries to seduce me? She leant over the stream, trying to make out her reflection in the rippling surface. Stupid. Why would he be interested in a plain, skinny creature like me, when London teems with women far better supplied with feminine charms?

  She threw a twig in the stream and watched it float away. No, he did not know, she was certain of it. He would not have agreed to teach her to fight if he knew her to be a girl. The thought should have been comforting, but somehow it was not. She sighed. Anyone would think she wanted to be found out, like the guilty man in the proverb, running from shadows, afraid of everyone and everything.

  Well, that was not her. She had nothing to feel bad about, the rest of the world was to blame for forcing her into these desperate straits. Getting to her feet she marched back to the theatre. She would find something useful to do if it killed her.

 

Walking back along Bankside towards Deadman's Place, Mal wondered when he had stopped trying to get out of Leland's commission and started looking forward to it and, more to the point, why. The lessons with Baines and Hendricks provided new challenges, it was true, but was that all? Perhaps a part of him was just sick of running away. Very well, so be it.

  After crossing London Bridge he walked eastwards along Thames Street, emerging on the lower slopes of Tower Hill. In daylight the fortress looked far less ominous than it had by night. The crenellations of the walls and towers had begun to crumble with age, and moss and weeds had taken hold in every crack. The former Great Hall stood open to the sky, its roof timbers bare as the ribs of dead men. Only the Lieutenant's House, whitewashed and in good repair, gave any indication the Tower remained in active use. Mal hoped the ambassador's accommodation was in a better state than the rest of the fortress, otherwise the skraylings might be sorely offended.

  No sooner had he thought of the skraylings than his eye was drawn towards the stockade on the far side of the river. Within it could be seen many domed tents of some heavy fabric woven in the same patterns of interlocking triangles as the skraylings' tunics. A column of bluish smoke rose from somewhere near the centre. He set off down the hill at a lope, determined to cross the river before he could change his mind.

  "Westward ho! Eastward ho!"

  The familiar cries of the wherrymen echoed across the water.