So, they did teach him the important words.
"The truckle bed won't be very comfortable," he said as a last resort.
"Nor will high bed, if I cannot sleep for fear of falling."
Mal gave up the argument. How he was going to explain this to Leland, he had no idea.
CHAPTER XI
Coby was getting ready for bed when a hammering on the front door made her start. The noise was followed by muffled shouting that sounded like threats. She ran down the stairs two at a time and found Master Naismith by the front door, looking worried.
"Open up, Nocksmith!" the voice came again. "I know you're in there!"
"Is that Master Lodge?" she asked her employer.
She glanced around the hall, hoping to see a walking stick or cudgel to hand. It was high time she made use of Master Catlyn's lessons.
"Aye," Naismith said. "Cup-shot as a rat in a malthouse, by the sounds of him."
"Shouldn't he be at the Tower, aiding the skrayling ambassador?"
Lodge banged on the door again.
"Oi, open up, I say! Or shall I tell th'whole parish how you were cuckolded by–"
Master Naismith unbolted the door and pulled Lodge inside. The playwright tripped on the threshold and made a grab at Coby, who dodged back so that he sprawled on the floor at her feet.
"What is all this, Lodge?"
The playwright stared up at him.
"S'all your fault," he moaned. "I wish to God I'd never heard of Suffolk or his Men."
"What happened?" Coby asked. "We saw you at the Tower this morning–"
"Did you? Did you see it all?"
"Well, not everything. We could not get close."
"Passed over, I was." Lodge mumbled something incomprehensible that sounded more like Vinlandic than English. "Like, like a spare prick at a wedding. Three years, it took me, three puking years…"
He demonstrated by rolling onto his side and throwing up on the floor.
"Tell Betsy to get a bucket of water, lad," Master Naismith told her. "And a mop."
A few minutes later, Coby returned with the unhappy maidservant in tow. Lodge was still moaning incoherently.
"Help me get him to his feet," Master Naismith said.
Coby took hold of one grimy sleeve and together they hauled him up. The playwright stank of brandywine, sweat and vomit. He stared from one to the other with unfocused eyes, then pulled himself free.
"Give it back," he said, gazing wildly around him. "I know you have it here." Seeing the open door of the dining room, he staggered away from them. "Where do you keep 'em, eh? Locked up safe as virgins in a nunnery, I'll be bound."
"What are you talking about?" Master Naismith called after him.
Lodge spun around and nearly fell over again.
"My play." He began to weep. "My beautiful, magnificent play."
His knees crumpled and he sank to the floor, head in hands. Coby exchanged glances with her master, who shrugged. She crouched by Lodge.
"What about your play?"
"He shan't have it," Lodge muttered. "Wasted. All that work…"
"Who shan't have it?"
Lodge looked up, a cunning glint in his pale green eyes. "Suffolk. Snubbing me before the Prince of Wales. If he thinks he can profit from my hard-won scholola – schoraly – learning, he can think again."
"Then you are not in the skrayling ambassador's service?"
"He will have none of me."
"Surely your services as a speaker of Vinlandic–"
"His Eske – Excellency speaks the Queen's English. I am… superfluous." Lodge hid his face in his arms again.
Coby got to her feet. All those lessons in Tradetalk she gave Master Catlyn, and the ambassador turns out to speak English? She began to laugh.
"S'not funny!" Lodge scrambled to his feet. "How would you like it, eh? Eh?"
He tried to grab the front of her doublet, but she caught hold of his wrist, ducked under his arm and threw him to the floor. Master Catlyn would have been proud, she thought, staring down at the limp body of the playwright. Then she realised he was not moving.
"Sweet Jesu," she whispered, stepping back with her hand over her mouth. "I think I killed him."
Betsy gave a shriek, dropped her mop and ran into the kitchen.
"Nonsense," said Master Naismith. "He is passed out, nothing more."
He was right. Lodge's chest was moving up and down steadily. A moment later the unconscious man began to snore.
"What are we going to do with him?" she asked. "We can't turn him out into the street in this state."
"We'll haul him out to the barn. He can sleep off the drink there, without troubling the rest of the household." He took hold of Lodge's shoulders. "Come, let us get him away so Betsy can finish cleaning up."
Fortunately the street was almost empty, this close to curfew. Between the two of them they managed to manhandle the playwright's dead weight out of the front door and down the alley to the barn. They dumped Lodge on a pile of hay by the opposite wall where he lay, slack-jawed and snoring, as if in his own bed. Master Naismith wiped his forehead with his shirtsleeve, then ushered her out of the barn and closed the door.
"Aren't you going to lock him in, sir?" Coby asked as he turned back towards the house.
"What, and have him cause more damage when he wakes? No, let him crawl home unremarked, like the misbegotten worm he is. If Lodge is out of favour, I want as little to do with him as possible."
"Should we then look for another play?"
"I fear it is too late. All we can do is carry on as planned, and hope His Grace's wrath is spent ere we come before him again."
Ned woke from uneasy dreams, though he could not for the life of him remember what he had been dreaming about. Something to do with… No, it was gone. He opened his eyes to total darkness. Gradually his sight adjusted, and he could make out faint shapes, black against grey. His heart skipped a beat. For a moment he thought he saw Mal standing at the end of the bed, pointing at him accusingly, but it was only Gabe's doublet hanging lopsided on a peg. A phantom wrought by a guilty conscience, that was all.
He rolled over and snuggled up to Gabriel, kissing his lover's back and neck and wishing he would wake up and distract him from this dark humour. They lay uncovered, the night being too hot for bedclothes, and in the pre-dawn light Ned could just make out the pale shapes of limbs side by side, darkly hairy against marble white. He moved against Gabriel, hunger woken now. The younger man stirred, rolled over, hands and mouth seeking Ned blindly. Ned turned his back and Gabriel took him, slow and sleep-drunk at first, then more urgently, their bodies turned slick with sweat. Gabriel nipped the back of his neck with sharp teeth, like a tomcat with his queen, and Ned yowled in ecstasy. Someone next door knocked on the wall in protest, but Gabriel only laughed, wild and defiant.
When they were both spent, Ned lay back with a heavy sigh.
"Why so melancholy?" Gabriel asked, brushing a stray lock from Ned's brow with damp fingertips.
"Just wondering what I did to deserve such bliss."
"Nothing good, I hope."
Ned turned to him with a start.
Gabriel frowned. "Something wrong, love?"
"No. I–" He shook his head. "Thought I heard something moving around."
"Probably just a rat. Go to sleep."
Ned shut his eyes, but sleep would not come. He had told his assailants as little as he dared about Mal, things that surely didn't matter. What if it wasn't enough? What if they came back here, threatened his mother, threatened… Oh God, what if they were watching him, knew about Gabe? The thought of those bastards hurting his darling boy…