"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.
She steered the conversation, and their path, back to her purpose in coming here. Quickening her pace she led Master Catlyn through the market, past stalls piled high with fragrant Italian leather, baskets of almonds and garlic, and wheels of cheese studded with cloves. When she realised he was no longer at her side, she feared he had changed his mind about trying his skills out, but he had only stopped a few yards behind her to buy strings from a lute-maker.
The Vinlanders' stalls were set apart from the other strangers, marked out by their brown-and-white striped awnings. Strings of dried peppers and puffed corn festooned many, though rather for decoration than purchase. Neither were much to the taste of Europeans.
"You should talk to some of the skraylings," she said. "Perhaps buy something."
"I have little to spend, and no one to buy for," he replied.
"Then perhaps you could haggle badly and lose."
They passed a stall selling ribbons dyed in vivid iris shades, brighter than anything made in England. The colours brought to mind the lights that hung outside the skrayling guild house after dark.
"Why only blue, yellow and purple?" Master Catlyn asked, as if guessing her thoughts. "Surely red and green would be just as simple to make, and more popular."
"You know how some men cannot tell red from green? So it is with skraylings. Red is dull in their eyes, so they do not use it."
"Really? You didn't mention it before."
"I'm sorry, sir. Names for colours are so little used in Tradetalk, I didn't think of it."
They paused at another stall. This one held boxes of straw in which nestled earthenware and porcelain, much of it glazed a bright turquoise highlighted with yellow or white. The items themselves ranged from dishes and plates to grotesque figures with leering mouths and bulging eyes.
The stall holder, a short skrayling with blue beads threaded in his mane, bowed to Master Catlyn and held out a small pottery figure of an animal, somewhat like a long-necked sheep. Its feet had been replaced with wheels, and a striped blanket was painted on its back.
"Toy, give little one."
Master Catlyn turned pale, and Coby thought he was going to puke.
"Are you all right?" she murmured.
"It is naught," he replied, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Someone walked over my grave, that's all." He turned back to the skrayling. "No little one. No she-fellah of I."
So, he was not married. She had suspected as much, but the knowledge still pleased her. That in itself was worrying. She already risked too much by letting him touch her in their fighting lessons. Yet she felt at ease in his presence now, as she had never done with the actors. And if his kindness towards her was only that of an elder brother, it was for the best. Wasn't it?
They moved on to another stall, where a slim androgynous figure with bronze skin and sleek black hair was roasting brickcoloured tubers over a brazier.
"That is not a skrayling female?" Master Catlyn asked in an undertone.
"No," Coby whispered back. "It is a man from the New World. See, he has dark eyes, and his features are as human as yours or mine."
"What about his ears?"
The man's earlobes were as big as apricots, stretched out of their natural shape by roundels of ivory.
"It's not so very different from your earring, is it?" she said, then added, "He probably speaks Tradetalk, so he'd be as good a test of your skill as a skrayling."
Master Catlyn cleared his throat and pointed to the brazier.
"An they, sir."
The man speared a sweet potato with a fork and wrapped it in a scrap of coarse cloth, grinning at them with tobaccostained teeth.
"An denna, thank ye," he replied, holding out a scarred hand.
As Master Catlyn fumbled in his pocket for a penny, a scrap of paper fluttered to the ground. Coby picked it up. It was a letter, and not sealed. This was her chance. Hardly daring to breathe, she turned her back on the stall and unfolded the paper.
My dearest Jane–
Her throat tightened. No, it might only be a letter to a sister. She read on.
–I do most heartily wish you well, and assure you I have not forgotten my promise to visit on the 22nd of next month. In the meantime I will send 13oz of sugared almonds for you and your 3 sisters–
"What have you there?" Master Catlyn asked.
She hastily folded the strange letter and turned back to him.
"You dropped this, sir," she replied, holding it out.
He snatched the paper from her hand.
"Did you read it?"
She dropped her gaze to the ground, unable to lie to his face.
"Did you read it?"
"Yes, sir," she whispered. She wished she had never agreed to spy on him.
"And what did you make of it?"
"Only th-that you have a sweetheart, sir. And she likes sugared almonds."
"Nothing more?"
"No, sir. I didn't read any more."
He put the letter back in his pocket, his expression thoughtful. She supposed she would have to report this to Dunfell. There was something odd going on, since sugared almonds were an expensive gift, an unlikely choice for a man who claimed to have no money.
"I think I have had enough of markets," Master Catlyn said, taking his purchase from the stall holder. "And your master will be expecting you home for supper."
"Yes, sir."
"Sunday afternoon again, at five o'clock?"
She stared up at him, hardly daring to believe, but there was no teasing look on his face. She had expected him to end their lessons together, after what she had just done. But why should he suspect her? She was just some boy to him, not a girl who might rival the mysterious Jane for his affections. She chided herself for thinking there could ever be anything but friendship between them.
"Sunday," she said. "At five."
On Saturday morning she accompanied Master Naismith on another business matter. He would not say where, but instructed her to wear her best suit. Another visit to Master Cutsnail? She hoped not – there was no good news for the merchant.
However, they turned north out of Thames Street, and a short walk up the hill brought them to the yard surrounding St Paul's Cathedral, where the chapmen had their stalls hung about with ballad sheets and stacked with books of all sizes. Here one could buy a family Bible or a volume of love sonnets, sundry classics in the original Latin and Greek or English versions of works by Machiavelli and Castiglione. There were even a few printed editions of plays; were they perhaps going to visit one of the printers who had their workshops in the streets around Paul's Yard?
Master Naismith turned left through Ludgate, however, taking them outside the city walls. In Fleet Street, Coby's eyes were drawn towards the dark bulk of Bridewell Prison on the bank of the Thames. She shuddered. If she were ever found out to be a girl in men's clothing, she could be whipped through the streets and condemned to that horrible place, to be locked up with all the other "disorderly women" of the city.
They walked on and Fleet Street became the Strand, the main road between the city of London and Westminster. On the riverward side stood many fine houses belonging to the greatest lords in the land: Arundel, Bedford, Somerset… and Suffolk, she realised with growing excitement. Their patron had built himself a grand new mansion at Charing Cross, to be close to Whitehall Palace in Westminster. She exchanged glances with Master Naismith, and he smiled.
"You have guessed our destination," he said. "We are to meet Thomas Lodge, the playwright engaged by our patron to compose a play perfectly suited to the Ambassador of Vinland." He smiled again and added, "Master Lodge has been to the New World."
The New World! It was one thing to meet skraylings who had journeyed so far, but an Englishman who had ventured across the Atlantic and returned safe was a rare marvel indeed. She wondered if he was as handsome as Master Catlyn.
They reached the western end of the Strand, where the ancient marble monument to Queen Eleanor dominated the confluence of three roads: the Strand, King Street and Cockspur Street. On the southern side nearest the river stood Suffolk House, its pale stone walls and many glazed windows rivalling the nearby Palace of Whitehall. They entered through a gatehouse into a large cobbled courtyard where servants hurried back and forth on the duke's business. On either side stood the apartments of the gentlemen retainers; the great hall, a single-storeyed building even taller than the wings, took up the entire south side of the courtyard.
"His Grace lives beyond the hall, in fine apartments beside the river," Master Naismith said. "I doubt we shall be invited into such rarefied company."
A man of about forty, wearing the duke's blue-and-white livery and a harassed expression, greeted Master Naismith as one well known to him, and they were shown through a door in the west wing and up a spiral stair to one of the apartments. Two men were waiting for them in the small but comfortable parlour. Coby immediately and with a sinking feeling recognised Master Dunfell; the other she assumed to be Master Lodge.
"Naismith, good to see you!" Lodge grasped Master Naismith's arm and shook it heartily.
Coby hung back in the shadows, eyeing the playwright with disappointment. She had expected a dashing adventurer with a taste for poetry, like Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Philip Sidney, not this short scrubby-bearded fellow with a feverish glint to his gooseberry-green eyes.
"So, what do you have for us?" Master Naismith asked, once the pleasantries were over.