The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(19)

She shrugged. "Never seen 'im before. He said he was come to talk to you about this new job."

Dear God, not another disgruntled young cockscomb looking for a fight. It was bad enough being accosted in the street, without them following him home and frightening poor old women out of their wits.

"Go and visit one of your neighbours," he told her. "I'll get rid of him."

She bobbed her head gratefully and hurried out of the door. Mal waited until she was out of earshot, then opened the door to the Faulkners' parlour.

A solidly built man of about forty stood to one side of the window, leaning against the crumbling lath-and-plaster wall. From his mousy brown hair to his workaday brown boots, he was as ordinary a man as Mal had ever seen. He made no move as Mal entered the room, only watched him calmly as if he were the host and Mal the unwelcome visitor.

"Who are you?" Mal said, drawing his rapier.

The man's eyes flicked to the blade then he raised his hands, holding them away from his own weapons.

"You can call me Baines." His accent was that of the city: gravel grating on the underside of a Thames wherry.

"What do you want?"

Baines looked him up and down. "Leland told you about the job."

"The ambassador? Yes."

"And you accepted."

"Yes. Look, what is this all about? Leland told me to report next month–"

"Leland ain't the one giving orders. Not directly, anyhow."

"I know this commission comes from the Queen. And you don't look like an officer of the Crown."

Baines sighed. "Are you going to put that pig-sticker away so we can discuss this like gentlemen?"

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because," Baines sneered "if I wanted you dead, you'd already be spilling your guts in the rushes."

Mal sheathed his sword. He didn't doubt the man's words.

Baines moved towards the empty fireplace. Mal noted he kept to the edges of the room, as if to avoid being silhouetted against the window.

"You work for Walsingham," Mal said. This was starting to make sense, of a sort. The Queen's private secretary was said to run the largest network of intelligencers in Europe.

"Give the man a round of applause. Yes, Walsingham. Christ's balls, you college boys aren't half slow on the uptake."

"What does he want with me?"

"That's for him to say. Me, I prefer not to know." He probed the corner of his mouth with a finger and flicked something into the fireplace. "Walsingham's house, Seething Lane, five o'clock. Tell no one where you're going."

Baines left, closing the door behind him. Mal watched him through the window, realising as he did so that this was where Baines had stood to watch for his own approach. He shook his head. What was he getting himself into?

After dinner Coby ran some more errands for Master Naismith, collecting the tradesmen's bills for the latest building work on the new theatre and delivering a list of the company's intended performances to the Office of Revels in Clerkenwell. She didn't mind the running back and forth; whilst her feet were busy, her mind was free to think and plan. It was one thing to arrange to meet this Catlyn fellow, quite another to get information out of him. Annoying he might be, but he was unlikely to be a complete fool, otherwise he would not have been chosen for whatever wicked scheme the ambassador's enemies had planned. She would have to be discreet and tactful.

On returning to Thames Street she found Gabriel Parrish in the parlour drilling the apprentices in deportment and womanly manners. Though apprenticed to Master Naismith, the boys took much of their instruction from Parrish since he had the most recent experience of playing women's roles.

"No, no, no!" Parrish cuffed Oliver around the ear. "Bend at the knee, not the waist. You're not a Bankside whore. Show him, Philip."

The older apprentice dipped gracefully and picked up the handkerchief that lay in the middle of the floor. At almost sixteen, Philip Johnson was at the height of his career, an experienced actor of female roles hovering on the brink of manhood. This would probably be his last summer of glory, before his voice broke and his boyish charms faded.

Coby cleared her throat.

"What do you want, Jacob?" Parrish asked without looking round.

"I need Philip for a short while, sir, to do a fitting for tomorrow's performance."

"If you got it right the first time," Philip said, "I would not have to–"

"It's your own fault. You fidget."

"Enough. Ladies, please!" Parrish rolled his eyes. "Philip, go with Jacob. Oliver, on with your practice. We will get this right if it takes all day."

Oliver dropped the handkerchief on the floor, and Philip pointedly stepped on it as he strode across to the door Coby held open for him. The boys were encouraged to behave like ladies at all times, in order that they avoid picking up masculine mannerisms, but this only added girlish spitefulness to their rivalry.

In the attic where Coby did most of her sewing, Philip stripped to his underlinens and stood in the centre of the room with arms folded. He was still at the gangly stage, all knees and elbows but yet to gain a man's full height or broad shoulders. Coby studied him out of the corner of her eye, anxious to learn every detail of boyish demeanour, even if her best model was one skewed by an actor's upbringing.