The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(54)

Of virtue into venery."

"The refrain is the same as before," she added.

"So we perform for money," Dickon Rudd said. "And if my japes bestir a woman to lust, what of it?"

Coby put her hand over her mouth to cover a nervous snigger. The thought of anyone lusting after Master Rudd was, well, laughable.

"Peace!" Master Naismith glared at the clown. "Have some respect for those more cruelly defamed. Go on, boy."

Coby glanced at Master Parrish and swallowed. This next verse was perhaps the most venomous of all.

"Unnatural actors, aping graces,

Flaunt their shorn and painted faces

Like the New World's savage races–

Whoring boys in sodomy."

Parrish's face betrayed no emotion as she read, only a slight tightening of the clasped hands hinting at the turmoil beneath. The city authorities usually turned a blind eye to their citizens' sexual misdemeanours, unless it involved children. And now Parrish was staying under the same roof, sleeping in the same chamber as the apprentices. The accusations in the poem would be hard to ignore.

Eager to have the business over, Coby read the final verse.

"Set apart from God's creation

And Christ's message of salvation,

How should any Christian nation

Hold with such vile heresy?"

"There," Eaton said. "What did I tell you? Does not the Pope himself rail against the skraylings' rejection of the Gospels?"

"And you are the good Protestant, I suppose," Rudd replied. "Who was it cried God's vengeance? And who is least slandered in this doggerel?"

Eaton turned pale. "You think I wrote that?"

"Can you prove you did not?"

"Enough!" Master Naismith moved between them, holding up his hands. "No one here is the perpetrator of this foul deed, of that I am certain."

"Then who?" Eaton asked, looking round at them all. "There is nothing in the style to suggest any playwright of my acquaintance. 'Tis more like a street ballad."

"This is futile," Rudd said. "We should take the matter to the Privy Council. Such infamous deeds should be rooted out."

"No," Parrish said in a low voice. "I beg you, do not."

"Angel is right," said Master Naismith. "Mark the mentions of a glass, and the name Jonah. This quarrel may be aimed at Master Lodge, but we are all tainted by association."

"Then what are we to do?" Eaton asked.

"Do? We do nothing," Master Naismith replied. "Coby here has already thwarted the villain's evil intent by finding the notice before anyone else could read it. The failure of his scheme is justice enough."

"He may try it again," Parrish said. "He must have a copy of the verse – what is to stop him from posting it anew?"

"We must set a guard on the theatre," Coby said.

They all looked at her.

"Splendid idea," Master Naismith said. "And since you were so diligent in rising at sparrow-fart to catch this fellow, who better to do it?"

Coby's heart sank. This was not what she had planned at all. On the other hand she was in no position to argue, since she had no other work to speak of.

"Very well," she said. "I will pack up my belongings and install myself at the theatre until the performance."

CHAPTER XIV

As she passed the boys' bedchamber on her way up to her own room, Coby realised she had not seen either Philip or Oliver all morning. Had they used the confusion to slip away to the fair, as Betsy had told her? After gathering her belongings together, she went back downstairs, and found Master Parrish doing the same in the boys' room.

"You're not leaving, are you, sir?"

She recalled Faulkner's warning, and the desperate look in his eyes.

"How can I sleep in here," Parrish replied, "after what has been said today?"

He snatched up his razor and wash-ball from the night stand and stuffed them into a side pocket of his knapsack.

"You can have my room," Coby said. "I shan't need it for a few days, and there's a bolt on the inside so you won't be disturbed in the night."

Parrish managed a tight smile. "Thank you. I wasn't easy about going home tonight. I would not have it thought I was turned out, or had any reason to feel guilty."

"There is one thing, sir." She told him about her conversation with Betsy. Well, all the relevant parts anyway.

"Gone to Bartholomew Fair, you reckon?"

Coby nodded.

"Then I think we need to fetch him back," Parrish said. "By force of arms, if need be."

Coby produced the two cudgels from her bundle.

"Will these do?" She handed one to Parrish and he hefted it thoughtfully before tucking it into his belt.

"You know how to use it?" he asked her.

"A little."

"Good. I hope it won't come to it, but the fair's a pretty rough place."

Bartholomew Fair was one of the great events of the London year. Ostensibly limited to the three days of Bartholomew's Eve, the saint's day itself and the day after, in practice the fairgoers often lingered for a week or more afterwards, much to the inconvenience of the traders of Smithfield, whose ground the fair occupied. Craftsmen and entertainers of all kinds flocked from miles around, creating a miniature city of booths and tents whose alleys were even more noisome and crowded than those of the rest of the capital.