The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(43)

"Surely your services as a speaker of Vinlandic–"

"His Eske – Excellency speaks the Queen's English. I am… superfluous." Lodge hid his face in his arms again.

Coby got to her feet. All those lessons in Tradetalk she gave Master Catlyn, and the ambassador turns out to speak English? She began to laugh.

"S'not funny!" Lodge scrambled to his feet. "How would you like it, eh? Eh?"

He tried to grab the front of her doublet, but she caught hold of his wrist, ducked under his arm and threw him to the floor. Master Catlyn would have been proud, she thought, staring down at the limp body of the playwright. Then she realised he was not moving.

"Sweet Jesu," she whispered, stepping back with her hand over her mouth. "I think I killed him."

Betsy gave a shriek, dropped her mop and ran into the kitchen.

"Nonsense," said Master Naismith. "He is passed out, nothing more."

He was right. Lodge's chest was moving up and down steadily. A moment later the unconscious man began to snore.

"What are we going to do with him?" she asked. "We can't turn him out into the street in this state."

"We'll haul him out to the barn. He can sleep off the drink there, without troubling the rest of the household." He took hold of Lodge's shoulders. "Come, let us get him away so Betsy can finish cleaning up."

Fortunately the street was almost empty, this close to curfew. Between the two of them they managed to manhandle the playwright's dead weight out of the front door and down the alley to the barn. They dumped Lodge on a pile of hay by the opposite wall where he lay, slack-jawed and snoring, as if in his own bed. Master Naismith wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, then ushered her out of the barn and closed the door.

"Aren't you going to lock him in, sir?" Coby asked as he turned back towards the house.

"What, and have him cause more damage when he wakes? No, let him crawl home unremarked, like the misbegotten worm he is. If Lodge is out of favour, I want as little to do with him as possible."

"Should we then look for another play?"

"I fear it is too late. All we can do is carry on as planned, and hope His Grace's wrath is spent ere we come before him again."

Ned woke from uneasy dreams, though he could not for the life of him remember what he had been dreaming about. Something to do with… No, it was gone. He opened his eyes to total darkness. Gradually his sight adjusted, and he could make out faint shapes, black against grey. His heart skipped a beat. For a moment he thought he saw Mal standing at the end of the bed, pointing at him accusingly, but it was only Gabe's doublet hanging lopsided on a peg. A phantom wrought by a guilty conscience, that was all.

He rolled over and snuggled up to Gabriel, kissing his lover's back and neck and wishing he would wake up and distract him from this dark humour. They lay uncovered, the night being too hot for bedclothes, and in the pre-dawn light Ned could just make out the pale shapes of limbs side by side, darkly hairy against marble white. He moved against Gabriel, hunger woken now. The younger man stirred, rolled over, hands and mouth seeking Ned blindly. Ned turned his back and Gabriel took him, slow and sleep-drunk at first, then more urgently, their bodies turned slick with sweat. Gabriel nipped the back of his neck with sharp teeth, like a tomcat with his queen, and Ned yowled in ecstasy. Someone next door knocked on the wall in protest, but Gabriel only laughed, wild and defiant.

When they were both spent, Ned lay back with a heavy sigh.

"Why so melancholy?" Gabriel asked, brushing a stray lock from Ned's brow with damp fingertips.

"Just wondering what I did to deserve such bliss."

"Nothing good, I hope."

Ned turned to him with a start.

Gabriel frowned. "Something wrong, love?"

"No. I–" He shook his head. "Thought I heard something moving around."

"Probably just a rat. Go to sleep."

Ned shut his eyes, but sleep would not come. He had told his assailants as little as he dared about Mal, things that surely didn't matter. What if it wasn't enough? What if they came back here, threatened his mother, threatened… Oh God, what if they were watching him, knew about Gabe? The thought of those bastards hurting his darling boy…

They would have to stop seeing one another. Gabriel would not understand, might never forgive him, but Ned could not forgive himself if anything happened to him. It could wait until morning, though. For now, he could enjoy a last few hours' bliss. Taking Gabriel's unresisting hand in his own and pressing it to his lips, he settled down to watch his lover sleep.

? ? ? ?

Mal did not bother to undress that night, though he unstrapped his rapier and laid it on the counterpane within easy reach. He lay awake for a long time, listening to the castle's night noises and the faint sound of the ambassador's breathing. From time to time he got up and went to the window, but saw only the blue and gold glimmer of lights reflected in the river. He looked back at their counterparts arrayed about the bedchamber, and the motionless shape of the sleeping skrayling. Day and night, Leland had said. Well, he would do his best.

Some time before dawn the skrayling lamps faded and went out. The next thing Mal knew, the room was filled with early morning sunlight and the skrayling attendants were bustling in and out with jugs of water and armfuls of linens. He looked around for Kiiren and found him kneeling by the fireplace with his back to Mal, stark naked, washing his face in an ornate basin.