The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(128)

Sandy stirred and moaned. "Mal?"

"I'm here," Mal replied. His words echoed loudly from the cellar walls, and he lowered his voice. "Did they hurt you again?"

"No. What happened? How did I get here?"

Mal whispered his thanks to Our Lady. His brother was unharmed and lucid, at least for the moment.

"Suffolk has us both captive," Mal replied. "He seems to think we are both possessed by a skrayling called Erishen."

"He is right, in a sense."

"How so?" Mal wasn't sure he wanted to know, but he needed every advantage he could lay his hands on if he was going to get them out of here.

"You remember Erishen's death," Sandy went on, "at the hands of the Huntsmen?"

"Yes," Mal replied, wishing he didn't.

"And the flight into darkness?"

"A little."

"Erishen should have sought refuge in the nearest unborn child, but he panicked and followed the trail of the lodestone necklace stolen by his murderer. That led him to our mother. He was careless enough to seek rebirth in a woman bearing twins."

"Careless?"

"When skraylings are taught about rebirth," Sandy said, "they are told to avoid twins. When two bodies share the same womb, the migrating soul can lose its way, be damaged, even broken in two…"

Two babes in one womb. It could have been him locked up in Bedlam, and Sandy free to study at Cambridge. Perhaps it would have been better that way. Sandy would have worked hard, instead of running about town with a head full of beer and dreams. But would Sandy the scholar have had an opportunity to meet Kiiren? Would he have been too poor and unworldly to pay the hospital bills? It was useless to speculate. They were both in God's hands, and He would do with them as He wished.

"A fragment of Erishen's soul and memories lodged in you," Sandy went on, "but most are in me."

"How do you know all this?" Mal asked. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"It was Jathekkil's doing. By freeing me from my iron shackles, he let Erishen loose again. At first I was lost in nightmares–" His fingers tightened on Mal's. After a moment he drew a shuddering breath and went on. "Terrible visions I would rather forget. But at last I learnt the truth."

"Yath-il–?"

"The man you call Suffolk. He is another like me. A skrayling in human flesh."

"But he's not mad." At least, no more than any other wicked man.

"He did not take a human body by accident. And he's not the only one."

"What are you saying? There are other skraylings masquerading as humans? Who are they?"

"I don't know. I shared Erishen's memories for only a few days, and what I saw was garbled. Perhaps given time I could tell you more, but…"

Mal felt his brother shrug.

"And now you are sane?"

Sandy laughed softly. "What is sanity? Am I sane for knowing I am possessed, and by whom?"

"I will get us both out of here, I swear," Mal said. "And if there is any cure amongst men or skraylings, I will find it."

Coby pressed her ear to the door, and immediately leapt back like a scalded cat. Someone, a girl by the sounds of it, was just the other side, singing quietly and slightly out of tune. A clatter of dishes followed, and the singing stopped.

Coby returned quickly to the scrubbed oak table and began piling a slice of bread with chunks of cold mutton. She had just poured herself a cup of ale when a girl of about her own age came through the left-hand door with an armful of clean dishes. The girl paused, bobbed an uncertain curtsey and then set about putting the dishes back in their places on the dresser. She glanced curiously at Coby once or twice as she began collecting another stack of dirty tableware. Her hands were red and coarse, and still damp from her work, and her dark curls escaped from her linen cap and stuck to her forehead.

"Haven't seen you here before," the girl said eventually.

"I'm with Suffolk's Men," Coby replied indistinctly, chewing on a particularly gristly bit of mutton. "The theatre company."

"You're an actor?"

"I'm Master Naismith's – the late Master Naismith's – apprentice. Was, I suppose."

It was not a lie; she had not said she was an actor, but the girl would no doubt assume. The girl looked her up and down, perhaps wondering what she looked like in women's clothing. A mistake. Coby quickly changed the subject.

"You must have heard about the fire?" she asked.

The girl nodded, wide-eyed. "Were you there?"

"I was. I–" She was not about to confess her role in it to this wench. But if she gained her confidence, she might learn something more about Master Catlyn.

"I had to rescue the Ambassador of Vinland from the flames," she said, congratulating herself on the girl's suitably awed expression.

"That must have been so dangerous." The scullery maid put down the pile of plates and wiped her hands on her apron. "I'm Margaret, by the way. Only everyone calls me Meg."

"A pleasure to meet you, Margaret," Coby replied, getting up from her seat and sweeping her best courtly bow. "I'm Jacob. Jacob Hendricks."

Meg giggled and blushed. Coby sat down again, and began relating a version of the previous day's events that cast herself in the lead role. Years of listening to the actors' boasting had not been for naught. Meg listened in rapt attention, her dishes forgotten.