The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(110)

Mal made a derisive noise. "The Ned Faulkner I know never wallowed in self-pity."

"Perhaps you don't know me as well as you think."

"Enough!" Mal sighed. "We've both lost loved ones to these bastards. Don't let them force us apart too."

He held out his hand, and Ned grasped it, then embraced his friend. Mal stank of smoke, even worse than Gabriel. Not surprising: he must have been in the thick of it. Ned released him and craned his neck to get a better look at the coach. The skrayling guards were gazing in all directions, as if expecting an attack at any moment.

"What's going on, Mal? Is someone trying to kill the ambassador? Did–" His blood ran cold. "Your brother…"

"I didn't see him. I don't think this attack was part of their plot."

"If not, then who?"

Mal shrugged. "Plenty of people hate the skraylings."

"I remember a time when you were not so fond of them yourself," Ned replied.

Mal stiffened, and Ned cursed his stupid mouth. Not a wise thing to say within earshot of a dozen of them.

"What would you have me do to help?" Ned said. "Go back to Baines?"

Mal glanced at Gabriel. "Take him home first. I'll deal with Baines. If I need you, I'll send word."

"Thank you."

Mal nodded curtly and returned to the coach. After a moment the vehicle lurched into motion and continued on its way.

"What was all that about?" Gabriel asked, staring after the retreating cavalcade.

"I think…" Ned bit his lip. "I think I might be forgiven."

Coby unlatched the front door of the Naismiths' house and slipped inside. The murmur of women's voices came from the front parlour. One of them, surely Mistress Naismith, was sobbing inconsolably. Coby crept past the door towards the stairs, but before she could reach the bottom step, Betsy emerged from the kitchen, her face pale and streaked with tears.

"Oh, Jacob!" she cried, and ran up to hug Coby. "We thought you were dead too!"

She burst into tears, burying her face in Coby's chest. The parlour fell silent for a moment, then a group of middle-aged women poured out, exclaiming over Coby in mingled tones of relief and disapprobation.

"My dear boy," one of the women crooned, stroking Coby's singed hair. "Your mistress has been so worried about you."

Coby glanced at Mistress Naismith, but her master's widow was already returning to the parlour.

"Don't mind her," another of the neighbours said. "We all thought it was Naismith come home after all."

"You, girl," the first woman said to Betsy. "Go and fetch hot water for Master Hendricks here."

Betsy released Coby, much to her relief, and went back to the kitchen, though with many a smiling, tearful glance backwards.

"So," a third woman asked Coby in a low voice, "is it true? Is Naismith dead?"

She nodded. "I saw it with my own eyes."

The women burst into exclamations of grief, though to Coby's eyes their performance seemed well rehearsed.

"He died almost instantly," she added. "I am certain his suffering was very brief."

Leaving the women with this crumb of comfort, she headed upstairs to her room. She wanted to strip off her filthy clothes straight away, but decided it was wiser to wait for Betsy to bring the water. Instead she paced the small chamber, wondering how soon she could ask to be excused. Mistress Naismith was too wrapped up in mourning her husband to care about a mere apprentice. Coby was a little surprised at that. Her master had often praised his wife, but received little but complaints in return. Although, Coby reflected, if she had been stuck at home whilst the menfolk toured the country or caroused at the taverns, she would have been jealous and frustrated too.

She wandered about the room, unable to settle. Her eyes fell upon the sheets of paper pinned to the wall above her bed: her earliest sketches of the trapdoor mechanism. She pulled them down and tore them into little pieces, fighting back tears. If she started crying now, she feared she would never stop.

A knock on the door made her start. She opened it to find Betsy waiting with a bucket of warm water in one hand and clean towels under her arm. The girl bobbed a curtsey, and Coby showed her in, shoving the wad of torn paper into her pocket.

"Have you seen the boys?" Coby asked, as Betsy set the towels down and poured some of the water into the bowl on the washstand.

"No, we–" The girl put her hand to her mouth. "You don't think…?"

Coby shook her head.

"I'm sure they were in the first rush of people to escape the tiring house," she said. "Perhaps they went home to their own families, to reassure them?"

She didn't think Philip would do such a thing out of concern for his parents, so much as from a desire to avoid Mistress Naismith's wailings.

"Yes, yes, I'm sure that's it," Betsy said, nodding a little too hard, as if trying to convince herself. "You're so clever, Jacob, I would never have thought of that."

Coby turned away and unbuckled her belt, hoping Betsy would take the hint and leave. She did not. An involuntary hiss of frustration escaped Coby's lips.

"You're not hurt, are you?" Betsy asked, coming closer.