The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (11 page)

  "What's the nearest stair to the skrayling camp?" Mal shouted to one of them.

  "That'll be Horseydown. Tuppence, an it please you, sir."

  Mal fished two pennies out of his pocket and stepped aboard the little boat. It felt good to have money to spare again.

  A few minutes later he disembarked at Horseydown Stairs, a hundred yards downriver from the stockade. Unlike elsewhere on the Thames, there were no wherries waiting to take passengers, only a small boat with a prow carved in the likeness of a seabird's head, moored to the jetty and unoccupied. He assumed it belonged to one of the skrayling merchant vessels that stood at anchor along the Southwark docks. He gave the wherryman an extra halfpenny for his inconvenience, and set off towards the stockade.

  The skrayling encampment stood on a narrow strip of ground, bordered on the north, south and west by the Thames and its tributary streams. Only a small wooden bridge connected it to Southwark at the western end. A pleasant enough situation, had it not been for the tanneries and forges upwind. If the intent was to isolate the skraylings whilst keeping them in plain sight, Mal could not think of a better location. It also made it impossible to approach the place unnoticed.

  For a moment he considered skirting around the common land south of the encampment – but then why bother to come at all, if he did not improve upon the glimpse he had gained from Tower Hill? He took a couple of deep breaths, like a man steadying his nerves before charging into battle, then took the faint path that ran directly towards the skrayling stockade.

  Not satisfied with the protection of river and streams, the builders had added a narrow moat connected to the Thames. On the south side, it was crossed by a wooden drawbridge where a double gate pierced the timber palisade. The gates were open, and skraylings armed with quarterstaves stood at either side of the entrance. The scent of tobacco drifted out across the common, along with unfamiliar cooking smells. He thought of all the strange peoples he had seen on his travels, but none were as strange as these creatures dwelling in his own country.

  He paused at the landward end of the drawbridge. Should he announce himself? Seek an introduction to the chief skrayling? He still knew too little Tradetalk to be useful and besides, why would they believe him? He wore no livery, carried no badge to prove his position.

  The distant murmur of skrayling voices stilled, and the notes of a woodwind instrument rose in its place. Soft, like a flute, but tuned to an alien key, even stranger than the music of the Turks. And yet the melody was hauntingly familiar, as if… That was it. A lullaby his mother used to sing, in the house by the sea. No. He had never heard it before, did not know it – how could he? Derbyshire was about as far from the sea as anywhere in England. Mal shook his head in confusion. Was he being bewitched? He made the sign of the cross, and the strange feeling faded.

  He was uncomfortably aware of the two guards watching him out of the corner of his eye. He swallowed and walked away, heading westwards towards Southwark. His footsteps echoed on the timber planking of the bridge as he crossed the stream, and he had to force himself not to break into a run.

 
 
 

Ned stripped the barbs from a crow quill and cut the tip into a nib. Only one more copy and he was done. Legal papers were not the most interesting of jobs, but at least he could do the work at home and keep an eye on his mother. And with Mal's new connections to draw on, he might even aspire to a post in one of the new scriveneries attached to the Inns of Court.

  He had just sanded the last page when footsteps sounded on the stairs and Mal appeared in the doorway.

  "Can I borrow a pen and a bit of paper?" Mal asked.

  "What do you want it for?"

  "A letter."

  "Who are you going to write to? You don't have any friends except me." It was cruel, but Mal was at his most handsome when he was vexed.

  "I have friends. Blaise Grey, for one."

  "Grey's not your friend," Ned replied. "If he was, he'd have helped you by now. Trust me, powerful men don't help underlings like us unless there's something in it for them."

  Mal glowered, but said nothing.

  "I don't think you're writing a letter at all," Ned went on. "I think you're writing a sonnet to that pretty apprentice-boy of Naismith's, the one you've been spending all summer with."

  "I am not."

  "After all I've done for you…" Ned sighed melodramatically. "Putting you up here, sharing my bed with you–"

  "And I'm grateful, truly. But
I
have a letter to write and
you
should be at Henslowe's."

  Ned shrugged. "It's only eleven."

  "That was twelve the clocks struck. Or can't you count either?"

  "Christ's hairy arse!" Ned snatched up his satchel and waved at the desk. "Help yourself. I'm off!"

  He ran down the stairs without a backward glance, through the kitchen and out into the garden, where his mother was hoeing the cabbages.

  "I'll be back for supper," he called over his shoulder as he vaulted the gate.

  The mastiffs in the bear-baiting kennels nearby bayed in response to his shout but soon they were well behind him, their clamour lost amongst the cries from the Clink prison. Desperate inmates stretched their arms through barred windows as Ned passed.

  "Spare a penny for an old soldier down on his luck, sir," one prisoner rasped through his few remaining teeth.

  Ned threw him a pitying glance before turning towards the house opposite the prison. Henslowe was generous in lending money to his employees, but visitors to his house could not avoid the grim reminder of what would happen if they abused that generosity.

  Ned knocked on the theatre manager's door and was admitted by a serving girl. He didn't know her name; maids came and went with the turn of the seasons, and they all looked much alike to him. She showed him into Henslowe's study, a gloomy wood-panelled chamber on the first floor overlooking the street.

  Henslowe's book chest stood open and empty, its contents piled on the desk and floor. The theatre manager was sifting through a pile of manuscripts bound with string. His greying hair was unkempt and he wore a loose gown over his underlinens and slippers on his feet, as though he had not thought to dress since rising.

  "I don't suppose you have Marlowe's final masterpiece hidden about your person, do you, Faulkner?" he asked, without looking up.

  "Umm, no, sir."

  Henslowe waved a hand at the piles of paper all around him.

  "A fortune invested in the theatre business, and what do I have to show for it? A chest full of feeble scribblings, and not one of them fit to put on for the ambassador."

  Ned doubted his words; most of the city's playwrights had sold their work to Henslowe in recent years. All except Will Shakespeare, who wrote exclusively for the Prince's Men.

  "Does it have to be something new?" Ned asked, remembering what Mal had told him. "The ambassador's never been to London before, and surely he cannot have heard any of our plays put on in the New World unless they be transcribed into Vinlandic."

  Henslowe put down the pile of manuscripts and stared at him.

  "You know, you may be onto something."

  "And he won't understand a word of it anyway," Ned said, warming to his subject, "so you could just put on something that looks good."

  "Looks good… Yes, yes. Pageantry, spectacle, that colour of beast." Henslowe clapped him on the shoulder. "Good thinking, Faulkner. I knew there was a reason I liked you."

 

Mal finished his writing, sanded and folded it, and put it into his pocket. It was not a letter, nor indeed a sonnet, damned be Ned's lewd imaginings. Though even a sonnet would be easier to explain than the nonsense text he now carried: Baines' latest assignment, a letter transposed into cipher from memory. It was hard enough keeping his intelligence training hidden from Ned, without having cipher keys in his possession. He would present his work to the intelligencer later. Right now he had other things to do.

  He was barely halfway along Bankside when he spotted Hendricks running towards him. The boy's straw-pale hair was dark with sweat, yet his doublet remained buttoned up. Mal had commented on it during their first wrestling lesson, but Hendricks had insisted he was more comfortable fully dressed. What kind of injuries must he be hiding, that he could not strip to shirt and hose? And yet the boy had not cried out when Mal threw him to the floor. Perhaps he was reading too much into the situation. Or perhaps the hurt was on the inside.

  Hendricks' look of worried concentration was replaced by a broad grin when he caught sight of Mal. He shouted a greeting and stumbled to a halt, wiping the sweat from his sunburnt brow.

  "I thought – I would not catch you," he panted as Mal approached.

  "Is something amiss? Can I help?"

  Hendricks shook his head, casting droplets of sweat about him. "Master Naismith is in the most dreadful temper, that is all."

  "He has not changed his mind about allowing you to teach me?" Mal asked. "I would not have you disobey your master."

  "Naught like that," Hendricks replied with a rueful smile. "It is the builders. They say it will take at least another two weeks to finish the carpentry, but we are due to perform at the end of the month and the stage is still not painted. Master Naismith blames Master Dunfell, Master Dunfell blames Master Naismith…"

  Mal laughed. "Then we are well out of it. So, where shall we go?"

  For a moment he thought of suggesting the Faulkners' house, but that would only add fuel to the fire if Ned found out.

  "An it please you, sir, it is time you practised your Tradetalk with others."

  "Others?"

  "Skraylings."

 

Billingsgate was one part of London Coby knew well. The greater proportion of its Dutch inhabitants lived there, close to the wharfs where their ships put in. All foreign vessels coming into London were obliged to dock there for their cargoes to be measured and taxed, including those of the skraylings, and a market had sprung up nearby to offer the latest wares from both New World and Old.

  To her surprise, Master Catlyn exchanged greetings with some of the Dutch stallholders in their own language. His accent was Flemish like her own, rather than the Zeelandic of the Amsterdam merchants, but he had no problem making himself understood.

  "Not many Englishmen speak my tongue," she said, looking at him with renewed curiosity.

  "I sailed to the Low Countries when I was nineteen," he said. "Living under siege, you learn what you need to survive."

  "You were in a siege? What was it like?"

  "Boring. Hungry. You don't want to know."

  Well, that closed that line of questioning. She racked her brains for another topic of conversation.

  "Did you never want to sail to the New World?"

  "Not I." He laughed. "Crossing the Channel was bad enough. My home county is landlocked, and as far from the sea as any in England."

  "Where is that?"

  "Derbyshire. The Peakland. You would find it very hilly, coming from…" He paused. "Where do you come from?"

  "Berchem, near Antwerp."

  He nodded. "I think we marched through there."

  "You did? Yes, I remember the banners…"

  She broke off, remembering also her father's stern admonition to stay well away from the English soldiers. Drunks and blasphemers, he called them. Despoilers of women. She was only eleven years old at the time and had not understood what he meant. Half a decade in London had been… an education.

  She steered the conversation, and their path, back to her purpose in coming here. Quickening her pace she led Master Catlyn through the market, past stalls piled high with fragrant Italian leather, baskets of almonds and garlic, and wheels of cheese studded with cloves. When she realised he was no longer at her side, she feared he had changed his mind about trying his skills out, but he had only stopped a few yards behind her to buy strings from a lute-maker.

  The Vinlanders' stalls were set apart from the other strangers, marked out by their brown-and-white striped awnings. Strings of dried peppers and puffed corn festooned many, though rather for decoration than purchase. Neither were much to the taste of Europeans.

  "You should talk to some of the skraylings," she said. "Perhaps buy something."

  "I have little to spend, and no one to buy for," he replied.

  "Then perhaps you could haggle badly and lose."

  They passed a stall selling ribbons dyed in vivid iris shades, brighter than anything made in England. The colours brought to mind the lights that hung outside the skrayling guild house after dark.

  "Why only blue, yellow and purple?" Master Catlyn asked, as if guessing her thoughts. "Surely red and green would be just as simple to make, and more popular."

  "You know how some men cannot tell red from green? So it is with skraylings. Red is dull in their eyes, so they do not use it."

  "Really? You didn't mention it before."

  "I'm sorry, sir. Names for colours are so little used in Tradetalk, I didn't think of it."

  They paused at another stall. This one held boxes of straw in which nestled earthenware and porcelain, much of it glazed a bright turquoise highlighted with yellow or white. The items themselves ranged from dishes and plates to grotesque figures with leering mouths and bulging eyes.

  The stall holder, a short skrayling with blue beads threaded in his mane, bowed to Master Catlyn and held out a small pottery figure of an animal, somewhat like a long-necked sheep. Its feet had been replaced with wheels, and a striped blanket was painted on its back.