The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(33)

CHAPTER IX

When they got back to Deadman's Place, Gabriel was in the back garden cutting kale for supper. Coby stopped to help him, glad to be free of Sandy's company for a while. The kale plants stood in neat rows, their lower leaves yellowed with frost. Most of the other beds were bare, or covered with half-dead weeds.

"Ned tries his best with the garden," Gabriel said, "but it was such a bad summer we scarcely had a harvest, never mind seed left over for spring. I dare say it'll turn to wilderness now he's gone."

His carefree tone had a brittle edge; Coby guessed he shared her loneliness.

They walked to the end of the garden. Over the hedge they could see the Rose Theatre, taller than any other building in Bankside, and beyond it and to the left… Her breath caught in her throat. A familiar-looking timber framework loomed against the evening sky. With the sun behind it, it almost looked like it was on fire.

"What's that?"

"Didn't I mention? They're building a new theatre on the site of the Mirror."

"Oh."

"Apparently it's going to be called the Swan. Everyone says it's a pity the name 'Fortune' was already taken, since that's what it's costing."

He laughed, and she couldn't help but smile back. They carried the piles of kale leaves into the kitchen, and Gabriel began tearing them up to add to their pottage. Sandy was sitting at the table with his back to them, reading by candlelight. Probably another of those mathematical treatises they had brought back from Sark. He usually read them at night, since they were in Latin.

Latin. Why would he be reading Latin so early in the evening? Had he put the spirit-guard on already? She moved round to the other side of table, and her guts twisted in panic. It was the red book from the library.

"Grey's book?" she cried out. "You stole Grey's book?"

Sandy looked up. Or rather, Erishen. She was already beginning to tell the difference.

"It's of no use to him."

"But… You stole it."

"I believe you already mentioned that." He turned his attention back to the ciphered text.

"When he finds out, we'll all be arrested." She went to the back door and looked out at the darkening sky. "There's still time to take it back, curfew isn't for at least another hour. We'll pretend we left something behind at Suffolk House and–"

"No, I will not give it back. It was not rightfully his to begin with."

"What's going on?" Gabriel said, looking round from the hearth. The firelight limned his delicate features, turning him into the image of his namesake, stern and beautiful.

"Master Alexander–" she spat out the formality "–has stolen the book we were supposed to be translating. It belongs to the Duke of Suffolk."

"It belongs to one of my kinsmen," Sandy said.

"Your dead kinsman. Long dead."

"But reborn. According to our laws–"
"I don't give a fig about 'your' laws. This is England. You've stolen the duke's property; that's a felony, and you will be hanged for it."

"Enough!" Gabriel said. "Is this true, Catlyn?"

"The book was in the possession of the duke," Sandy conceded.

"You brought stolen goods into my home?" He seized Sandy by the front of his doublet and hauled him to his feet. "Christ's bones, man, we could all hang for this."

"Then we had better leave for France before they come for us," Coby said.

"Now?" Gabriel said. "It's almost dark. Where would we get a ship at this time of night?"

"Leave that to me," Sandy said. "My kinsmen–"

"A pox on your so-called kinsmen!"

"Wait!" Coby cried. "He has a point. The skraylings aren't happy with all the spy-hunts and executions as it is; I'm sure they'd give Lord Kiiren's friends sanctuary."

Gabriel released Sandy, none too gently.

"So I am supposed to abandon my home and friends and flee into exile," he said in ominously quiet tones, "all because of a madman's whim?"

"You work for Walsingham too," she replied. "You know our lives could be forfeit at any moment. Look what happened to Marlowe."

Gabriel sighed, and shrank from wrathful archangel to a tired, frightened young man.

"I shall go and pack my belongings straight away," he said, heading for the stairs.

"He will be safer with us," Sandy said when he was gone.

He would have been safer if we had never come back to England. He would have been safer if Mal and Ned had never met. But she had not the heart to say so out loud.

? ? ? ?
Coby went over and over the contents of her knapsack in her mind, afraid she had forgotten something vital. Changes of shirt, drawers and stockings, all of which would no doubt be filthy by the end of the first fortnight; lockpicking tools; paper and a stick of black lead; wash-ball and flannel; comb; her precious supply of desert fire. And of course the knife on her belt and the pair of pistols Mal had given her for her birthday, along with a flask of gunpowder and a small bag of shot.

The gown and small-linens were laid out on the bed. Should she put them on now? Grey was looking for three men, so two men and a woman might evade the search better, but that would mean revealing her sex to her companions. After a moment's prevarication she folded them up and stuffed them into another sack. That was a decision she wanted to put off as long as possible.