Lodge gestured for them to approach the table, which was covered in a chaotic layer of papers scrawled in a barely legible hand. She did not envy the scrivener who had to make a fair copy.
"My best play yet," he said. "I have entitled it The Queen of Faerieland."
"Based on Spenser, is it?"
"Better than that." Lodge fairly quivered with excitement, like a child bursting to tell a great secret.
"What Master Lodge is trying to say," Dunfell put in, "is that he has borrowed from his recent travels, not from another poet. This is a skrayling story put into English."
"Devil take you!" Lodge turned scarlet. "You have ruined the ending, you pinch-souled capon. Go back to your accounts, and leave the recounting of tales to poets!"
Dunfell stepped back a little from the table, but did not leave the room. His fixed expression suggested he was used to the playwright's temper.
Lodge turned back to Master Naismith.
"It is a story I heard in Antilia, an ancient legend of three brothers of the Pescamocarti and their love for the Queen of the Forest. I have transposed it to the city of Athens…"
Whilst the playwright and the actor-manager bent over the manuscript, Master Dunfell motioned Coby to one side.
"Have you made any progress in the matter we spoke of?" he asked in a low voice.
"I- I found a letter," she said, "though it was only to his sweetheart."
"What did it say?"
"It was addressed to a lady named Jane, who has three sisters, and said he would be visiting her on the twenty-second of September."
"After the competition? Well, no matter. Go on."
"That is all, sir. I did not have time to read more."
"You do not have it."
"No, sir, I–" She could not tell Dunfell she had been caught red-handed.
"More than a month, and this is all you have found out? I must say I am disappointed. Very disappointed indeed." He wrinkled his pointed nose, as if she were a smear of dog shit on his shoe. "After all I have done for you and your master, I expected greater efforts to follow my instructions."
Coby hung her head and tried to look contrite.
"Needless to say," he went on, "I shall not be recommending you for a place in the duke's household. You may consider my own patronage of your career at an end."
She inclined her head submissively, though she was secretly relieved. The last thing she wanted was to work for such an odious man. She would rather take her chances amongst the actors, even at the risk of exposure.
"This is very good, Lodge," Master Naismith said, scanning a page. "Here, Dunfell, is this not most excellently written?"
Seeing Lodge bristle in anticipation of another argument, Coby put in, "Begging your pardon, Master Lodge, but why did you set it in Athens instead of the New World?"
"It is not your place to question your betters' judgement," Dunfell snapped.
Lodge looked taken aback at this unexpected ally, though Coby guessed it was only anger at herself that made Dunfell side with the playwright.
"No, let the boy speak," said Master Naismith. "'Tis a fair point."
Master Lodge launched into a long explanation full of words and allusions Coby did not understand. When he eventually paused for breath, Naismith put in: "Our scholarly colleague's point is, have you ever heard of these Peascod folk?"
"No, sir," Coby replied.
"And how much do you think the average playgoers know of them?"
"Not much, sir."
"Your first answer was nearer the mark. No, there is no drama in telling a tale of lands so far away that no one knows their names. No resonance with the audience, see? Instead, Master Lodge has taken the tale and reshaped it into something even the penny stinkards can make sense of. That's how you get bums on seats, lad."
Lodge gathered up his mess of papers into what Coby hoped was the correct order, and she stuffed them into her satchel. A skrayling play in a skrayling-sponsored theatre – let the Admiral's Men top that!