The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(23)

"Come in." The voice sounded like that of Baines.

Mal stepped inside and the door closed behind him.

Baines led him through to a dining parlour at the back of the house, looking out over a gloomy courtyard surrounded by other equally decrepit tenements. A straggly sycamore pushed its way through the mossy cobbles, and a cloud of metallic-green dung-flies buzzed around the midden. Mistress Faulkner's neatly tended vegetable garden was a vision of Paradise in comparison.

The room was dominated by a heavy oak table covered in the impedimenta of letter-writing: paper, ink bottles, quills cut and uncut, pen knives, a pounce shaker, sticks of sealing wax and a stub of candle burning in a pewter candlestick.

"Your first job," Baines said. "Make a pile of sealed letters to practise on later, when the wax is set hard."

He handed Mal a sheaf of papers, most with writing on them, and a small seal of the sort used by private persons.

"We'll practise with these first," the intelligencer said. "Later you'll learn to cut the larger seals of state and diplomatic papers. Now get on with it; I have other things to do."

Mal skimmed through the papers, but could make neither head nor tail of their contents. Some bore line after line of nonsense words, others had columns of pairs of letters as if meant as arithmetical exercises, though there were no totals at the columns' bases. Most, however, were in English – either everyday correspondence on a variety of subjects, or decidedly bad poetry. Mal chuckled to himself at the thought of Baines penning sonnets, then put the pages aside and set about his assigned task.

When Baines returned, he produced a sheaf of letters readysealed and taught Mal the various ways of softening sealing wax just enough so it would not snap when handled. He also gave him a small knife, not very sharp but flat and of such thinness that when heated in a candle flame it could be slipped under a seal without disturbing it.

"Watch you keep that hidden," Baines said. "We don't want the ambassador knowing what you're up to, do we now?"

Mal resisted the urge to point out he was not a fool. The intelligencer had already made up his mind, that was obvious.

After a couple of hours of painstaking practice Baines called a halt.

"What next?" Mal asked.

"When you've mastered the skill of cutting a seal and replacing it – without bloody breaking it in two – we'll move on to invisible writings and the use of ciphers."

"Is that what these are?" Mal said, pointing out the sheets of numbers and nonsense words.

"Aye, and the rest. Practice pieces, like your seals."

Mal scanned one of the letters. The phrasing was a little odd in places, but he could see no hidden meaning. He looked at Baines in puzzlement.

"That's work for another day," the intelligencer said, holding up a hand. "Enough."

He tidied their work away into a cupboard and locked it.

"Come back the day after tomorrow. If I'm not here, go straight home. I'll find you."

Mal caught himself on the verge of asking Baines where he was going. No, that would not be a good idea. Baines would not tell him, and in any case it was probably best he did not know.

"All the costumes?"

"All," Naismith said.

Coby sat down next to him on the gallery bench and watched the workmen fitting the balustrades and other finely turned woodwork, but her mind was elsewhere.

"But surely we do not need everything made new," she said at last. "There are some small parts–"

"All must be of one piece, or the harmony of the thing is spoiled." He stood up and leant over the railing. "You! Carpenter fellow in the mustard jerkin. That third baluster along is upside down." He sat down again. "A pox on Dunfell! He should be here by now to keep an eye on this lot."

Coby ran through her mental inventory of the costumes.

"We have those Roman breastplates," she said, "the boiled leather ones painted to look like steel."

"Lord Suffolk's antiquarians have determined that the Ancient Greeks wore bronze," the actor-manager said. "Besides, those breastplates have seen better days. I think they're older than I am."

Coby ignored the attempt at a joke.

"The soldiers will be standing at the back for most of the scene," she said. "No one will notice."

"What about the people sitting in the lords' galleries? They will have a close view of the back of the stage."

"All right, not the breastplates. And the helmets do need new plumes. But there must be something…"

Naismith sighed and turned to look at her.

"What's the matter with you, lad? Our patron has offered to restock our wardrobe with the finest costumes money can buy, and all you can do is protest. I thought you would be grateful not to have all that work to do."

"I am," Coby said, trying not to let her resentment show. "So, if I do not need to make any costumes, what about other things? There are sides to be copied, a plot sheet to be written out, properties to be bought–"

"All taken care of," Naismith said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Master Dunfell is managing everything."

"Everything?"

"Oh yes. He has been most thorough."

So this was Dunfell's idea of helping her, by taking all responsibility out of her hands. No doubt if she confronted him about it, he would say he was making time for her to pursue the task he had set her. She wished he had chosen someone else to bestow his favour upon.