The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(63)

After a moment's hesitation Mal jumped down from the driver's seat. He pushed his way through the crowds, scanning every face for any hint of malice towards the skraylings or, worse still, guarded neutrality. He saw nothing to arouse his suspicions, only open curiosity and the natural impatience of people whose holiday was not starting as quickly as they wished. Even so, he remained on alert. After Wednesday's attack he was taking no chances.

At last the guard was formed up in a U-shape around Kiiren, with Mal at the front to close the square, and they moved off. He felt uncomfortably conspicuous, the object of so many stares that, in truth, probably slid straight past him to the peculiar party trailing in his wake. He led the skraylings through Newgate, the massive gatehouse in the city walls that also served as a prison, and up Giltspur Street towards the fair. The traffic was at its worst here, though no one seemed to want to get too close to a group of fearsome skrayling warriors, so they were able to move comparatively swiftly into Smithfield itself.

The permanent buildings of London gave way to a temporary town of stalls and alleys, punctuated by larger spaces where entertainers tumbled, played instruments or performed tricks – or sometimes attempted all three at once. On a low wooden stage a fire-eater, stripped to the waist and with a belly even bigger than Sideways Jack's, was flourishing a blazing torch. A drum rolled, and the fire-eater thrust the torch into his mouth. His eyes bulged, his scarlet face dripped with sweat, then he removed the extinguished torch from his mouth with a grand gesture and bowed thrice. His audience whooped and cheered. The fire-eater's assistant, a lad as skinny as his master was gross, carried round his drum, which doubled as a collecting bowl. A rain of small coins beat a second drum-roll on its surface.

"It is custom to give money for shows?" Kiiren asked Mal when the noise had died down enough to speak.

"It is how these men earn their living, sir."

Kiiren nodded thoughtfully, then produced a purse from his belt and took out a shilling. Mal dropped the coin onto the drum, reflecting that the sum was nicely calculated to be generous but not ostentatious. The fire-eater's assistant thanked him profusely and bowed towards the ambassador's party, hand on heart.

The skraylings moved on, eager to see all the sights.

"What are they?" Kiiren asked, leaning close to Mal to be heard over the crowd. "They are shape of people, but what is purpose?"

Mal saw he was looking at a stall heaped with Bartholomew Babies, the gingerbread dolls decorated with dried fruit and gold leaf which were bought by the thousand to take home to children and grandchildren. He explained they were for playing with, and for eating.

"Your children eat images of people?" He shook his head. "It is… most strange to us."

"It's traditional," Mal said. He had never thought about it before, but he supposed it might seem odd to a stranger.

Out of loyalty to his own culture rather than any particular desire for gingerbread, he purchased one of the dolls, a fashionably dressed lady about eight inches high, in a gilded ruff and saffron-painted gown with currants dotted over her skirts.

"For your little one, good master?" the stall-holder asked.

"Erm, no," Mal said, though it occurred to him as he handed over his pennies that Sandy would like it.

The man peered around Mal at the skraylings. "If you're looking for their quarter," he said, "it's over that way, at the Cow Lane end."

"Thank you." He ought to have known the skraylings would be here in force, being ever ready with goods and trinkets to sell. He smiled to himself. This plan of his was turning out better and better.

He turned back to the ambassador's party.

"I'm told your people have a number of stalls here; perhaps Your Excellency would like to visit them?"

Kiiren nodded. "It is my thought also. Please, lead on."

Mal headed westwards, hoping the gingerbread-seller had not been wrong. The day was warm and humid after the recent rains – too warm to be traipsing round a crowded fair. He eased a finger under the collar of his doublet and wondered if he dare unbutton it. Leland wasn't here to see him after all, and the skraylings doubtless knew little of English etiquette.

Fortunately, either the directions had been correct or luck was on Mal's side again. The rough rectangular booths of the regular stallholders gave way to circular tents with domed roofs, their sides decorated with the same geometric patterns as the skrayling guards' tunics. Everywhere Mal looked there were tattooed faces, silver-streaked manes and bared fangs. He swallowed hard. Daniel in the lion's den, he told himself. Stay calm. He wondered if this was how the skraylings felt whenever they walked the streets of Southwark.

The crowds thinned out a little as the ambassador's party entered the skrayling quarter. The narrow lanes of the fair were still crowded, but people did not push or jostle as much, and their demeanour was more sober and reserved. Those here on serious business had no wish to offend the foreigners, and those who came to gawp were content to keep their distance.

The skrayling merchants were selling their most popular wares at the fair: tobacco, carved beads and exotic herbal mixtures guaranteed to cure any ill. Here and there a charcoal brazier topped with a heavy clay pot shimmered in the summer heat, giving off an enticing scent. A sudden rattle of explosions from one had Mal reaching for his rapier, until the vendor lifted the lid with a flourish to reveal a pile of fluffy white grains. He offered a dish of them to Mal, who picked up a grain and cautiously put it in his mouth, expecting this new delicacy to be hot and perhaps spicy. It turned out to be chewy and rather bland, not nearly as flavoursome as the scent it gave off when cooking. He politely declined the rest.