The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (25 page)

  He got as far as buttoning his doublet before Gabriel spoke.

  "You trust me, don't you, Ned?"

  He paused. This was not how he'd expected it to begin. When he didn't answer, Gabriel looked up, an expression of such despair on his face that Ned went to him and knelt at his feet.

  "Of course I do." He took Gabriel's hands in his own.

  "I– I know I've done some wicked, sinful things in my life," Gabriel said. "But I never forced myself on anyone, nor forced them–"

  "What's this all about, love?" He moved to sit on the bed, and put his arm around Gabriel's waist.

  Gabriel proceeded to tell him about the previous day's discovery, though his account was so garbled Ned could scarcely make head or tail of it.

  "A libel?" he said at last. "About Suffolk's Men?"

  The actor nodded, biting his lip. "Such terrible things it said…"

  "Come on, it can't be that bad."

  In a small voice Gabriel recited the verse pertaining to himself.

  "Lies and conjecture," Ned said, trying to convince himself as much as his lover. "Like you say, you never forced anyone to do anything they didn't want to, did you?"

  "No, of course not. But…"

  He glanced up at Ned. No words were needed; they both knew to what depths a man could sink, if his very survival was on the line.

  "But that was long ago, surely?" Ned replied. "And the rest is but idle gossip, and scarcely a secret."

  "It's one thing for tongues to wag," Gabriel said, "no one expects otherwise. But when it is written down, published for all to see, and in a point-by-point list of such slanders–"

  "I thought you said it was a poem?"

  "Poetry?" Gabriel grimaced. "I would not grace it with such a title. Rank doggerel of the feeblest kind."

  "So that's it. You are ashamed to be insulted in bad verse. Now if Marlowe–"

  The slap came out of nowhere, leaving Ned's cheek stinging. Suddenly they were both on their feet, eye to eye.

  "Leave Kit out of this, you puny upstart scratcher of other men's words!" Gabriel's eyes filled with tears. "You're not fit to speak his name."

  Ned said nothing. He knew Marlowe had had many lovers, but had never been able to get Gabriel to admit how he felt about the playwright. Until now.

  "I'm sorry, Gabe," he said quietly.

  He slipped his arms around his lover's waist and pulled him close. As angels went, Gabriel was a pretty sorry specimen at the moment, dark circles under his eyes and hair unkempt. Ned lifted a hand to smooth those golden locks, but Gabriel shrugged him off.

  "Three months," the actor said, pacing the narrow room. "Three months since those bastards murdered him."

  "I know."

  "Atheist, my arse. They killed him to shut him up. Didn't want him confessing to debauching half the Court. He had nothing to do with that libel, and they knew it."

  "You think it's happening again?" Ned asked. "The sedition, the arrests, the…?"

  He fell silent, sick to his stomach at the images running through his head: Gabriel tormented, broken… dead.

  Gabriel snorted. "Who needs torture when you have a willing informant?"

  "What do you mean?"

  The actor sank down onto the bed again, hands clasped before him.

  "If the Privy Council find out, they will question everyone here. Including Philip."

  "So?"

  "What if he lies? What if he tells them I… that I…"

  "He wouldn't."

  "You don't know him." Gabriel shook his head. "I thought I was doing the right thing, hauling him out of that stew and knocking some sense into him, but you should have seen the look in his eyes. He'd denounce me in a heartbeat, and probably accuse young Hendricks of being complicit in the crime."

  "You're serious, aren't you?"

  Gabriel nodded.

  "How will anyone find out?" Ned asked. "Would Philip go to the city fathers himself?"

  "We haven't told the boys why the rehearsal was cancelled, and Naismith burned the cursed thing when we were done with it. I think we are safe for now, unless the villain posts a copy somewhere else. In any case, perhaps we are not his only target. These things seldom appear alone, but spring up in clumps like toadstools on a cowpat."

  Ned closed his eyes, trying to shut out the knowledge that Gabriel was right. Someone was targeting the skraylings and anyone connected with them, and Ned would bet his life it was the innocents who would suffer. The villains doing the dirty work, and their masters pulling the strings, would get off scot-free as usual.

  He should tell Gabriel about Kemp, warn him of the real dangers facing him – No. Let him calm down a little before plying him with more bad news. He would be safe enough here for a couple of hours.

  "I have to go," he said, clapping Gabriel on the shoulder. "And I'm not sure when I'll be able to come back."

  "What is it? Where are you going?"

  "There's something I have to do, and it's best you know nothing about it."

  The actor caught hold of him by both arms.

  "Can't it wait a while?" Gabriel gazed down at him with redrimmed eyes. "Please, Ned."

  He sighed. "All right. A few more hours can't hurt. I'll stay here until supper, on one condition."

  "Anything." Gabriel smiled, his face lighting up with a hint of his old wickedness.

  "Tomorrow you go to rehearsals," Ned told him, trying to sound masterful. "The show must go on, remember?"

  "I promise," Gabriel murmured, and pulled him down onto the bed.

 
 
 

Mal woke just before dawn to find the girls preparing to leave. He tried to persuade them to stay a little while longer, but they shook their heads and continued dressing. They had not spoken a word since they arrived.

  When they had gone Mal rose and dressed, too alert now to sleep longer. The truckle bed was empty, and for a horrible moment he feared this had all been a clever ruse to distract him and abduct the ambassador. He wrenched open the door and leapt down the stairs into the parlour. Running into the side-chamber he pulled the bed-curtains aside – and found Kiiren curled up in the centre of the bed like a cat, fast asleep.

  With a smile Mal let the curtain fall. This was the perfect opportunity to re-examine some of the gifts for signs of secret correspondence. He picked out three books from the cabinet and carried them through into the bedchamber. The lamps had all gone dark and he had no idea how to relight them, so he found a candle and lit it with his own tinderbox.

  Without a key there was little hope of even recognising one of the more subtle ciphers, so he contented himself with skimming the pages for passages containing numbers, incongruous phrases or illustrations containing odd symbols. Nothing jumped out at him, and in the end he returned the books to the cabinet, frustrated. If someone was communicating directly with the ambassador, they were using means beyond his skill to uncover.

  Eventually servants arrived with hot water and breakfast, and Mal vacated the bedchamber so the ambassador could wash and dress in private. Snatching up a hunk of bread, he wandered out into the ward. The rising sun was already warm, but leaden clouds massed on the horizon. He climbed to the wall-walk and leant on the parapet, watching Southwark stir to wakefulness.

  The sound of approaching footsteps woke him from his reverie, and he looked round.

  "Shirking your duties already, Catlyn?" Monkton said. "I should report this to Leland."

  "Can't a man break his fast in peace?" Mal threw the heel of bread into the river below. With a shrill cry a seagull folded its wings and plunged after it, followed by several of its fellows. "Where's the ambassador going today, anyway?"

  "Bedlam."

  "Bedlam?" Mal tried to keep the panic out of his voice. "Why?"

  Monkton shrugged. "Why not?"

  "Where is Leland?" Mal pushed past him, heading down the steps towards the inner ward and the lieutenant's lodgings.

  "He's gone to inspect the fort at Tilbury," Monkton called after him. "Won't be back until after noon."

  Mal skidded to a halt, turned, and ran back along the outer ward. If Kiiren went to the hospital, he might see Sandy, and surely even a skrayling could not miss the resemblance. His other brother's gambling debts were shameful enough, but insanity in the family… There had to be a way to stop this.

  The ambassador's coach was stopped outside St Thomas's Tower, with the mounted skrayling guard lined up behind it, and Kiiren was already climbing in. Mal ran up to the driver.

  "There's been a change of itinerary." A plan was starting to form in his mind. Yes, that would do it. "Rumours of plague at the hospital. It's not safe for our guests."

  The coachman made the sign of the cross. "Wild horses wouldn't drag me there, sir, not if there's plague about. Where to, then?"

  "Bartholomew Fair," Mal said, climbing up beside him. "Where else?"

 

Today being the day after St Bartholomew's, the fair was still in full swing. By the time the coach reached Newgate Market, near the western end of Cheapside, the traffic was so thick they could make no headway at all.

  "Best walk from here, good sirs," the coachman yelled down. Kiiren leaned out of the coach window and shouted some instructions to the skrayling guards. Eight of them dismounted, leaving the remaining four to look after the horses. The guards gathered around the coach door and then moved outwards to form a clear space in which the ambassador could safely disembark. The skrayling party was now causing an even bigger obstruction as fairgoers stopped to watch this latest diversion.

  After a moment's hesitation Mal jumped down from the driver's seat. He pushed his way through the crowds, scanning every face for any hint of malice towards the skraylings or, worse still, guarded neutrality. He saw nothing to arouse his suspicions, only open curiosity and the natural impatience of people whose holiday was not starting as quickly as they wished. Even so, he remained on alert. After Wednesday's attack he was taking no chances.

  At last the guard was formed up in a U-shape around Kiiren, with Mal at the front to close the square, and they moved off. He felt uncomfortably conspicuous, the object of so many stares that, in truth, probably slid straight past him to the peculiar party trailing in his wake. He led the skraylings through Newgate, the massive gatehouse in the city walls that also served as a prison, and up Giltspur Street towards the fair. The traffic was at its worst here, though no one seemed to want to get too close to a group of fearsome skrayling warriors, so they were able to move comparatively swiftly into Smithfield itself.

  The permanent buildings of London gave way to a temporary town of stalls and alleys, punctuated by larger spaces where entertainers tumbled, played instruments or performed tricks – or sometimes attempted all three at once. On a low wooden stage a fire-eater, stripped to the waist and with a belly even bigger than Sideways Jack's, was flourishing a blazing torch. A drum rolled, and the fire-eater thrust the torch into his mouth. His eyes bulged, his scarlet face dripped with sweat, then he removed the extinguished torch from his mouth with a grand gesture and bowed thrice. His audience whooped and cheered. The fire-eater's assistant, a lad as skinny as his master was gross, carried round his drum, which doubled as a collecting bowl. A rain of small coins beat a second drum-roll on its surface.

  "It is custom to give money for shows?" Kiiren asked Mal when the noise had died down enough to speak.

  "It is how these men earn their living, sir."

  Kiiren nodded thoughtfully, then produced a purse from his belt and took out a shilling. Mal dropped the coin onto the drum, reflecting that the sum was nicely calculated to be generous but not ostentatious. The fire-eater's assistant thanked him profusely and bowed towards the ambassador's party, hand on heart.

  The skraylings moved on, eager to see all the sights.

  "What are they?" Kiiren asked, leaning close to Mal to be heard over the crowd. "They are shape of people, but what is purpose?"

  Mal saw he was looking at a stall heaped with Bartholomew Babies, the gingerbread dolls decorated with dried fruit and gold leaf which were bought by the thousand to take home to children and grandchildren. He explained they were for playing with, and for eating.

  "Your children eat images of people?" He shook his head. "It is… most strange to us."

  "It's traditional," Mal said. He had never thought about it before, but he supposed it might seem odd to a stranger.

  Out of loyalty to his own culture rather than any particular desire for gingerbread, he purchased one of the dolls, a fashionably dressed lady about eight inches high, in a gilded ruff and saffron-painted gown with currants dotted over her skirts.

  "For your little one, good master?" the stall-holder asked.

  "Erm, no," Mal said, though it occurred to him as he handed over his pennies that Sandy would like it.

  The man peered around Mal at the skraylings. "If you're looking for their quarter," he said, "it's over that way, at the Cow Lane end."

  "Thank you." He ought to have known the skraylings would be here in force, being ever ready with goods and trinkets to sell. He smiled to himself. This plan of his was turning out better and better.

  He turned back to the ambassador's party.

  "I'm told your people have a number of stalls here; perhaps Your Excellency would like to visit them?"

  Kiiren nodded. "It is my thought also. Please, lead on."

  Mal headed westwards, hoping the gingerbread-seller had not been wrong. The day was warm and humid after the recent rains – too warm to be traipsing round a crowded fair. He eased a finger under the collar of his doublet and wondered if he dare unbutton it. Leland wasn't here to see him after all, and the skraylings doubtless knew little of English etiquette.