The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(27)

"I don't suppose you have Marlowe's final masterpiece hidden about your person, do you, Faulkner?" he asked, without looking up.

"Umm, no, sir."

Henslowe waved a hand at the piles of paper all around him.

"A fortune invested in the theatre business, and what do I have to show for it? A chest full of feeble scribblings, and not one of them fit to put on for the ambassador."

Ned doubted his words; most of the city's playwrights had sold their work to Henslowe in recent years. All except Will Shakespeare, who wrote exclusively for the Prince's Men.

"Does it have to be something new?" Ned asked, remembering what Mal had told him. "The ambassador's never been to London before, and surely he cannot have heard any of our plays put on in the New World unless they be transcribed into Vinlandic."

Henslowe put down the pile of manuscripts and stared at him.

"You know, you may be onto something."

"And he won't understand a word of it anyway," Ned said, warming to his subject, "so you could just put on something that looks good."

"Looks good… Yes, yes. Pageantry, spectacle, that colour of beast." Henslowe clapped him on the shoulder. "Good thinking, Faulkner. I knew there was a reason I liked you."

Mal finished his writing, sanded and folded it, and put it into his pocket. It was not a letter, nor indeed a sonnet, damned be Ned's lewd imaginings. Though even a sonnet would be easier to explain than the nonsense text he now carried: Baines' latest assignment, a letter transposed into cipher from memory. It was hard enough keeping his intelligence training hidden from Ned, without having cipher keys in his possession. He would present his work to the intelligencer later. Right now he had other things to do.

He was barely halfway along Bankside when he spotted Hendricks running towards him. The boy's straw-pale hair was dark with sweat, yet his doublet remained buttoned up. Mal had commented on it during their first wrestling lesson, but Hendricks had insisted he was more comfortable fully dressed. What kind of injuries must he be hiding, that he could not strip to shirt and hose? And yet the boy had not cried out when Mal threw him to the floor. Perhaps he was reading too much into the situation. Or perhaps the hurt was on the inside.

Hendricks' look of worried concentration was replaced by a broad grin when he caught sight of Mal. He shouted a greeting and stumbled to a halt, wiping the sweat from his sunburnt brow.

"I thought – I would not catch you," he panted as Mal approached.

"Is something amiss? Can I help?"

Hendricks shook his head, casting droplets of sweat about him. "Master Naismith is in the most dreadful temper, that is all."

"He has not changed his mind about allowing you to teach me?" Mal asked. "I would not have you disobey your master."

"Naught like that," Hendricks replied with a rueful smile. "It is the builders. They say it will take at least another two weeks to finish the carpentry, but we are due to perform at the end of the month and the stage is still not painted. Master Naismith blames Master Dunfell, Master Dunfell blames Master Naismith…"

Mal laughed. "Then we are well out of it. So, where shall we go?"

For a moment he thought of suggesting the Faulkners' house, but that would only add fuel to the fire if Ned found out.

"An it please you, sir, it is time you practised your Tradetalk with others."

"Others?"

"Skraylings."

Billingsgate was one part of London Coby knew well. The greater proportion of its Dutch inhabitants lived there, close to the wharfs where their ships put in. All foreign vessels coming into London were obliged to dock there for their cargoes to be measured and taxed, including those of the skraylings, and a market had sprung up nearby to offer the latest wares from both New World and Old.

To her surprise, Master Catlyn exchanged greetings with some of the Dutch stallholders in their own language. His accent was Flemish like her own, rather than the Zeelandic of the Amsterdam merchants, but he had no problem making himself understood.

"Not many Englishmen speak my tongue," she said, looking at him with renewed curiosity.

"I sailed to the Low Countries when I was nineteen," he said. "Living under siege, you learn what you need to survive."

"You were in a siege? What was it like?"

"Boring. Hungry. You don't want to know."

Well, that closed that line of questioning. She racked her brains for another topic of conversation.

"Did you never want to sail to the New World?"

"Not I." He laughed. "Crossing the Channel was bad enough. My home county is landlocked, and as far from the sea as any in England."

"Where is that?"

"Derbyshire. The Peakland. You would find it very hilly, coming from…" He paused. "Where do you come from?"

"Berchem, near Antwerp."

He nodded. "I think we marched through there."

"You did? Yes, I remember the banners…"

She broke off, remembering also her father's stern admonition to stay well away from the English soldiers. Drunks and blasphemers, he called them. Despoilers of women. She was only eleven years old at the time and had not understood what he meant. Half a decade in London had been… an education.