The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (40 page)

  "Again."

  On the third attempt she managed to grab his wrist and tried to twist his arm, but he was far too strong for her. Eyes locked, they contended for the knife for several heartbeats before he glanced sideways. Without thinking she followed his gaze. Almost casually he twisted his arm from her grasp, leaving her off-balance. She stumbled against him, and hot pain bloomed across her belly.

  "Careful, you idiot," he growled, pushing her away.

  Then he looked down at the blade, and at the stain spreading outwards from the slash in her clothing.

  "Let me see that."

  "It's naught but a scratch, I assure you, sir." She pressed her hand to her left side, praying she would not faint. She could not let him see…

  "Nonsense, it bleeds too fast. Here, take off your doublet."

  Coby stepped back, shaking her head.

  "If you want to learn to fight with steel, you have to learn to deal with the consequences," he said. "Now take off your doublet."

  She did so, fingers trembling. Master Catlyn pulled up her shirt and frowned when he saw the corset. The blade had sliced into it after nicking her skin, and the bottom edge was already red with blood.

  "What is this?" he asked with a laugh. "Are you such an old man you need hold your stomach in with this?"

  "Not my stomach," she muttered.

  His eyes travelled upwards, paused at her breasts, then examined her face for several moments. She returned his gaze with a strange feeling of detachment. She had imagined being found out in so many different ways – including being injured – that it was almost as if it had already happened.

  "You are a girl," he said at last.

  She nodded.

  "Well, maid or man, that cut needs stitching. Do you have needles and thread here?"

  "In the tiring house," she said, trying to breathe slowly.

  "Good." He glanced around. "I will also need clean linen. And a candle." He set off for the stage door. "And some wine or brandy, if you have it."

  "The candles are in the office, in a box under the table," she rasped. "And if you look behind the stack of new seat-cushions, you'll find a small glass bottle wrapped in a bit of sacking."

  "All right." He looked back at her, concern in his eyes. "Take that damned thing off and sit down."

  She leant against one of the two pillars and unlaced the corset, listening to Master Catlyn clattering about in the tiring house. He had taken the revelation so calmly, like it was nothing out of the ordinary. She didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. Mostly she felt like she was going to be sick.

  By the time he returned, she was sitting against the base of the pillar, clutching the front of her shirt against her breasts and feeling horribly naked. He knelt at her side, set down his armful of supplies and pulled up the shirt just high enough to expose the wound.

  "Hmm, not too long or deep, but a stitch or three will help it heal cleanly," he said.

  He rummaged in the sewing basket and produced a skein of silk thread and the curved needle she used for mending props and padded costumes. She winced at the thought of it being stuck into her own flesh.

  "Is this the right stuff?" he asked, holding up a bottle. The blue-green glass had a knobbly texture, like cobblestones.

  "Yes. Master Naismith bought it from a skrayling apothecary. It is accounted a sovereign remedy for stage nerves."

  Master Catlyn uncorked the bottle and sniffed. His eyebrows went up, and he began to cough.

  "That should do the job very well," he said faintly.

  He took one of the squares of linen and upended the bottle against it. The sharp scents of juniper, mint and distilled spirits filled the air.

  "This will sting somewhat," he said, bending closer.

  "I thought you wanted me to drink – owww!"

  "I did warn you."

  He cleaned the wound, probing gently around it with rough-tipped fingers. She had been looking away, staring up at the empty galleries, but now she turned her gaze to his head, which was level with her breasts as he bent over to examine the wound. Her heart felt like it would break free of her chest, it was pounding so hard. Surely he must be able to hear it?

  "Right," he said, straightening up. "Now to get down to business."

  He began to unstrap his sword-belt. She swallowed hard and clutched the shirt tighter. She was alone with a man, a man who knew her sex and had touched her naked flesh…

  "What, you think I would ravish you, and you in such a sorry state?"

  Coby looked away, afraid he would see willingness in her eyes. Would it be ravishment if she wanted him?

  He slid the dagger scabbard from his belt and put it aside, then folded the belt, right sides together.

  "You'll want to bite down on that, if you've never been stitched before," he said. "Your master won't thank me if you bite through your tongue."

  He lit the candle with a flint and tinder, then held the point of the needle in the flame.

  "W-what are you doing?"

  He looked up, smiling. "You're not the only one with a skrayling trick or two up your sleeve. I learnt this one on campaign." He turned his attention back to the needle. "Burning off the grease and dirt helps prevent the wound from festering."

  "You're going to stitch me up with a hot needle?" she squeaked, shuffling around the pillar.

  "It will cool very quickly," he replied, shaking it in the air. "Here, I'll quench it in your tincture, just to be certain."

  The needle hissed as it came into contact with the liquid. Coby shuddered.

  "Come now," Master Catlyn said, threading the needle. "If you want to be a man, you'll have to learn a man's courage."

  "That's easy for you to say," she muttered. He seemed not to hear.

  She placed the folded leather in her mouth as instructed. The needle pierced her skin and she fought back a whimper, biting down on the leather strap until she feared she would leave permanent marks in it.

  "Breathe," he murmured. "That's right. One more."

  One more turned into two more, several more. She began to wish he had let her drink from the bottle. Instead she prayed silently for courage and, above all, chastity. The pain is punishment for my sins. The sin of lust. And pride, to think I could learn to fight like a man.

  When it was finally over, he cleaned the skin around the wound once more then bandaged her ribs. He helped her to her feet and held out her doublet so she could put it back on, but she shook her head.

  "I will have to soak everything straight away to get the blood out," she said, bending awkwardly to pick up the corset. "My Sunday best, too."

  "You are better with a needle than I," he said. "I dare say they will soon be mended."

  "But I will not," she whispered. Now her secret was out, how soon before everyone knew?

  "I knew there was something amiss," he went on, "that first afternoon in Paris Gardens. But I confess I didn't suspect… this. How long–?"

  "Five years," she said. "At first it was just a travel disguise to keep me safe from the soldiers, but then when I lost my family… I had no other choice, apart from whoring. And that I will not do."

  He nodded in approval. "I suppose your name is not Jacob, either. What shall I call you?"

  "I think you should address me the same as ever, sir," she said after a moment's consideration, "otherwise you may make a slip of the tongue."

  "Does no one else know?"

  "No. It was never the right time, somehow."

  "And now?"

  She shook her head. "I must ask you not to tell anyone. I am still not ready to face the world in my true guise."

  He fixed her with his dark, intense gaze. "Your secret is safe with me."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "I would do no less for any good friend," he said. "Stay here. I'll fetch you a bucket of water from the mill-stream to wash your bloodied clothes, then I must get back to the Tower."

  She crouched to blow out the candle and put away the needles and thread. Why did men never tidy up after themselves?

  She paused, basket and candle forgotten for a moment. A good friend, he had called her. Well, it was a place to start – if only she could be sure she could trust him. He was an intelligencer, an informant upon other men. What would he not say, or do, in the service of that spider, Walsingham?

 
 
 

So, Hendricks was a girl. It made a strange kind of sense: the beardless chin, the unbroken voice, the refusal to go swimming… If he did not see through the disguise before now, it was hardly surprising. Despite her coyness this afternoon, he had seen enough to guess she scarce needed a corset to conceal her figure. He wondered what she would look like in a gown. Probably no more convincing a woman than any other lad who minced across a stage.

  He walked back to the Tower deep in thought. Was there anyone within the world of the theatre whom he could take at face value? Not Hendricks, certainly not Ned; who was next? Naismith seemed too indolent a man to go to the effort of deceit, but he could not say the same about Thomas Lodge. The playwright had the kind of overweening pride that often led men astray. Then there was Wheeler: was he acting alone, or did he have allies?

  At least he was now certain Hendricks would keep her mouth shut. He had been careless to confide so much in her, though women had a knack for worming men's secrets out of them without giving anything away in return. Damn her for making a fool of him, and damn himself for being so blind!

  As he walked through the outer ward towards the ambassador's quarters, he heard the splash of oars echoing in the tunnel under St Thomas's Tower. Moments later an uncomfortably familiar tableau came into view: a skiff rowed by red-cloaked guardsmen, with a manacled prisoner sitting on the thwarts, head bowed.

  "Who is that?" he asked Captain Monkton as the prisoner was led, struggling like a wild animal, up the stairs.

  "Some actor suspected of distributing seditious pamphlets." Monkton laughed unpleasantly. "Topcliffe will soon have him speechifying."

  The prisoner screamed and redoubled his efforts to break free. The name of Richard Topcliffe was enough to loosen any man's bowels. It was said the Queen's interrogator had been granted permission to set up a torture chamber in his own house in London, the better to develop his own methods of extracting confessions.

  As for the identity of the struggling man, he must be Wheeler, the fellow who had tried to steal the play scripts. What was he doing here, unless… Perhaps Hendricks had been right about Wheeler being the author of the scurrilous poem. The city authorities were as edgy as new recruits on the eve of battle, ever since that business with the Guildhall libel back in May.

  Wheeler stared wild-eyed at Mal as he was dragged towards the gateway under the Bloody Tower.

  "I know you!" he shouted. "You're one of them!"

  Monkton looked at Mal, his eyes narrow with suspicion. Mal shrugged, trying to keep his rising fear in check.

  "I've never seen him before in my life," he said, and walked briskly up the stairs of St Thomas's Tower before his face could betray him.

  One of what? The Huntsmen? If Wheeler somehow knew about that, and said so under torture, Mal's tenure as the ambassador's bodyguard would be over in the snap of a finger. Perhaps literally.

 

When he entered the Tower, one of the skrayling guards asked for the watchword.

  "
Shakholaat
," Mal replied, hoping he had pronounced it correctly.

  The guard inclined his head in acknowledgment and told him the ambassador wanted to see him right away. Mal went up the steps and knocked on the door. There was no reply.

  "Your Excellency?"

  Still no answer. He unlatched the door and went in.

  Kiiren was staring out of the window, hands clasped behind him, spine taut as a bowstring. Mal unstrapped his sword belt and laid the rapier and dagger on the bed. What he wouldn't give for a good clean fight against the bastard behind all this, instead of creeping around the city like a thief in the night.

  "Where have you been all day?" Kiiren asked without turning round.

  "Out on your business," Mal replied, unbuttoning his doublet. It was the truth, more or less. "I visited Naismith and had a look round his new theatre. I'm concerned about your safety tomorrow–"

  "My safety?" Kiiren turned, and Mal saw with shock there were tears in his eyes. "What about your safety? I wait here all afternoon, I do not know if you are alive or dead."

  "I am sorry–"

  Kiiren all but flew across the room and hugged him tightly, then held him at arm's length.

  "I thought I had lost you again,
amayi
."

  "You don't get rid of me that easily," Mal replied with a laugh.

  "We will call off this foolish contest," Kiiren said, "and leave here. Someone else can take my place."

  "Sir, you cannot." Walsingham would have his head on a pike if he let the ambassador snub the princes like this. "We must catch the men who are plotting against you."

  "Why do you care so much for these people? Are you not one of us any more?" He stared at Mal. "Have others turned you against me?"

  What others, Mal wanted to ask, but felt it was best not to reveal his ignorance.

  "Of course not," he said.

  The skrayling's expression softened. "No, I do not think they would ever convince you." He released Mal and walked away. "But I cannot allow you to put your life before mine. You will give up this guarding of body and remain here, where you are safe."

  "No."

  "Please,
amayi
. For me."