by Anne Lyle
THE ALCHEMIST OF SOULS
"In her terrific debut novel, Anne Lyle conjures up a magical Elizabethan England of seedy glamour, long shadows, pulsating romance and heart-stopping adventure. The Alchemist of Souls is the calling card of a great new talent in the fantasy field."
– Mark Chadbourn, author of The Sword of Albion
"Anne Lyle's fluid writing brilliantly evokes the heady and gritty atmosphere of her alternate Shakespearean London – from the day-to-day life of theatre troupes to the pomp of official ceremonies."
– Aliette de Bodard, author of The Servant of the Underworld
"Anne Lyle's Alchemist of Souls teems with intrigue and magic worthy of the Bard himself, all set against the backdrop of Elizabethan London. The attention to historical detail brings the time and place alive and peoples it with characters I could instantly empathize with. An outstanding debut!"
– Lynn Flewelling, author of The Nightrunner series
"Murder, mayhem and intrigue at the court of Elizabeth I. All this and magic too makes for a great read."
– Mike Shevdon, author of Sixty One Nails
ANNE LYLE
The Alchemist of Souls
NIGHT’S MASQUE VOLUME I
They say this town is full of cozenage,
As, nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,
Dark-working sorcerers that change the mind,
Soul-killing witches that deform the body,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like liberties of sin.
Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
CHAPTER I
Darkness came early to the streets of Southwark, even in summer. The jettied upper storeys of inns shadowed the great thoroughfares and turned its alleys into foetid rat-runs that hadn't known sunlight since King Henry's time. Mal kept his hand on his dagger hilt, scanning every doorway and alley mouth out of habit, though his thoughts were elsewhere. By his side, his companion continued his own side of the conversation unheeded.
"Hmm?" Mal said at last, looking round as Ned clutched at his elbow.
The younger man's features were indistinct in the gloom, but the irritation in his voice was plain enough.
"I said, it's worth a try. Isn't it?"
"No." Mal quickened his pace, forcing Ned to break into a jog-trot to keep up.
"Fifty shillings, Mal–"
"Fifty-two."
"All right, fifty-two. Makes no odds if it's fifty or a hundred. Where else are you going to find that sort of money by Midsummer Day?"
"The answer's still no."
They walked on in silence for a while, Ned trailing at Mal's heels like a terrier after a deerhound. Despite the lateness of the hour, the streets teemed with Londoners determined to wring the last drop of pleasure from the evening. Dukes and bishops rubbed shoulders – and more – with sailors, whores, apprentices and players. The noise and stench were enough to deprive a newcomer of his wits, and the suburb's denizens ever ready to deprive him of his money.
"But you'd be good at it," Ned went on, when Mal halted to let a finely dressed woman and her maidservant cross the street. "You've got such an honest face."
"And I'd like to keep it that way," Mal replied in a low voice. "Getting branded in the ear isn't good for business."
The woman smiled at Mal and fingered the lace around her neckline. His eyes lingered for a moment on the curve of her breasts, then he shook his head regretfully. She pouted and walked off down the street, hips swaying.
"What business? You haven't had a job since Easter–"
Mal stopped dead in his tracks and Ned ran into the back of him.
"What–?"
"Shut up," Mal hissed, clenching his fist, thumb between first and middle fingers in the sign called "the fig". An ancient protection against evil, as well as a sign of contempt.
The crowds parted to reveal a group of man-like creatures, the tallest of them no bigger than Ned. They wore tunics of undyed wool, cream and dark brown woven in complicated geometric patterns, over breeches tucked into low boots. Silver-streaked hair hung loose about their shoulders or was braided like a girl's and threaded with beads. Most outlandish of all were their faces, painted in whorls of blue lines that disguised their not-quite-human features.
As the skraylings walked past, Mal thought he saw one of them turn and look up at him with slit-pupilled eyes. The skrayling's patterned face was somehow familiar, though his hair was more silver than – No, he was imagining things; these foreigners all looked alike, didn't they? He raised his hand to make the sign of the cross and his vision shifted; the skrayling was not looking at him at all, was staring straight ahead in fact. Mal finished the protective gesture and shoved his trembling hand into his pocket.
"What was all that about?" Ned asked as the crowds closed behind the skraylings.
"Nothing," Mal lied.
"They're not demons, you know, whatever the Puritans say."
"You think they're wondrous faery folk of the New World?"
Ned shrugged. "Why not? You've seen their camp; tell me that's not magic."
Mal had no answer to that. He well remembered his first glimpse of the skraylings' stockade at night, lit by lamps of cold blue, violet and yellow that never flickered despite the gusts of icy wind blowing in off the Essex marshes.
"You should be grateful to 'em," Ned said as they set off again. "Since they set a bounty on rats, there's been scarcely a hint of plague in the city."
"You think killing rats made the difference?"
"Something did. Why else would they be paying a penny a tail?"
Because they want everyone to forget that skraylings don't get the plague? He added aloud, "Perhaps they're fond of rattail soup."
Ned pulled a face. "Even I'm not that desperate. Hey, that gives me an idea!"
"Another one?"
"We could buy us a terrier and set ourselves up as rat-catchers. They say a good ratter can kill twenty a minute."
"And where would we get the money to buy a dog?" Mal said. "Tom at the White Hart wanted ten-and-six for that scrawny pup the other day."
"It was a little runt," Ned admitted. "My money would have been on the rat. So, where to? The Bull's Head?"
Mal ignored him. He was trying to decide whether or not to pawn his rapier. Not an attractive option, since his livelihood depended on it.
"Bull it is, then." Ned grinned and rubbed his hands together.
Mal glowered at his friend, cursing himself for letting his mind wander. He had been idle too long. In a fight, carelessness like that would get him killed.
"Anywhere but the Bull, I beg you!" he said. "I have no desire to spend another evening listening to your actor friends reciting interminable speeches and slandering their rivals. I'm for the Catherine Wheel." He set off down the street again.
"And I've no wish to spend another evening listening to your old comrades' tales of death and glory," Ned shouted after him. "At least at the Bull I might earn a shilling or two on my own account."
"Please yourself, but you go alone. I'll not be your pander."
Ned groaned. "All right, all right, you win. But you're buying."
The Catherine Wheel was as busy as a brothel mattress, and twice as pungent. The only difference was, the fleas here had steel teeth. Tucked away in a courtyard off the high street, the Wheel saw few outsiders venturing through its low door. Even if they did, one look told them to step back outside and seek somewhere more congenial. Somewhere the patrons still had the usual complement of eyes and limbs, for a start.
The first empty seats Mal came to were opposite a lone man who was muttering an endl
ess stream of oaths into his beer, mostly about the French and their filthy sexual practices. Ned rolled his eyes in protest so they moved on, Mal nodding to various acquaintances who inclined their heads in response but failed to beckon him over. They found themselves a table near the back door; the stink of the jakes wafted in whenever someone went in or out, but at least it was unoccupied. Ned said something that was drowned by the sudden roar from a group of dice-players nearby, and stamped off. He returned a couple of minutes later with two jacks of beer, grumbling under his breath.
"Right, you owe me a penny," he said, sliding one of the beers across the uneven tabletop.
Mal forced a smile. Ned's remark was too near the knuckle. He needed to earn silver, and soon. The fellow at the next table looked more respectable than most; he was apparently unmaimed and wore a well-cut frieze jerkin. Private armies might have been outlawed, but in a city where the watch was poorly paid and often infirm, a man with money and property to defend always had need of a few stout fellows who knew how to handle themselves in a fight. Mal tried to catch the man's eye, but he was deep in conversation with his companions.
Ned leaned across the beer-damp table. "Any prospects?"
"None so far."
"Well we need something to tide us over. And this time of year the city's full of fools just waiting to be parted from their money."
"You know what I think of your… devisings."
"Look." Ned lowered his voice. "I'll deal the cards and do all the talking. All you have to do is bet against the gull, and feign drunkenness."
"How can I bet when I have no money?" Mal asked. He took a sip. The beer was no worse than usual. No better either.
"So you'll do it, then?"
"No. And don't try it alone, either." He glanced meaningfully towards the bar, where a man with a belly like a pregnant mare was wiping tankards with a rag. "Sideways Jack has no love for coney-catchers; he'll skin you alive if you ply your tricks in here."
"As if I would," Ned replied, all injured innocence. "Credit me with some wits, mate."
The door of the tavern opened, and the taproom fell silent. Four men came in, wearing dark blue livery, scarlet cloaks and steel breastplates and helmets, and bearing pole arms with long blades that glinted in the candlelight. The foremost of the guardsmen, a man of about thirty-five with a broken nose and the bearing of a professional soldier, cleared his throat.
"I am Captain Edward Monkton of the Tower Guard. I seek one Maliverny Catlyn, lately of the parish of St Mary Overie–"
"No one 'ere by that name," Sideways Jack said. "Sir."
Monkton scanned the room. Mal forced himself to sit still and neither try to hide nor catch the man's eye. Long moments passed in which Monkton's gaze alighted on first one patron of the tavern, then another. All were youngish men with dark hair.
The captain advanced into the taproom, peering into the shadows. Then he looked back at one of his men, who nodded. Mal exchanged glances with Ned. As one they leapt from their seats and ran for the blessedly near back door.
"What in Christ's name–?" Ned gasped as they raced across the back yard, slipping in puddles of piss left by customers who hadn't made it as far as the jakes.
"Damned if I know!" Mal replied. "Come on!"
The back gate was padlocked. He rattled it in frustration. Any moment now the guards would come bursting through the back door.
"You go over the fence." Ned crouched with his hands laced together, ready to give Mal a boost. "I'll hinder them."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, yes! God's teeth, get out of here!"
Mal scrambled over the rough wooden paling, wincing as a splinter dug into his thigh, and dropped down into the alley. He could hear the shouts of the guardsmen as they slithered around in the muddy yard, and Ned protesting his innocence. No time to hang around. He jogged off down the alley as fast as he dared in the near-darkness, hand on his dagger hilt.
"Hold, sirrah!"
Mal skidded to a halt. A helmeted figure was silhouetted in the lamplight at the end of the alley. "Goddamn beefeaters!" he muttered.
He turned and ran back the way he'd come, looking for a side turning, but there was none. As he passed the back gate of the Catherine Wheel, it crashed open and two of the other guardsmen cannoned into him, crushing him against the brick wall opposite. He ducked slightly, elbowed the nearest man in the belly and pulled himself free of the mêlée. A moment later a fist like a half-brick impacted with his temple and he slumped against the wall, head reeling.
Someone grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him to his feet. His arms were pinned behind his back, none too gently.
"Maliverny Catlyn?" The captain held up a lantern and shone it in Mal's face.
"No, I just happen to look like him."
That earned him a fist in the guts. He gritted his teeth, forcing back the urge to puke up his beer.
"That's him, all right," said one of the other guards. "I've seen him in the Wheel a few times. When I was off-duty, of course, sir."
The captain grinned unpleasantly at Mal. "Right, boys, let's go."
They stripped Mal of his dagger and escorted him through the streets of Southwark to the down-river side of London Bridge. A sleek skiff bobbed amongst the wherries, with six men at the oars. Mal was pushed into the boat and the captain waved for him to sit.
"What are you arresting me for?" Mal asked, hoping they wouldn't risk upsetting the skiff by laying into him here.
"How should I know?" Monkton replied. "I was just told to bring you in."
Mal opened his mouth to protest again, but the captain shoved him onto the thwart. The skiff rocked alarmingly, and the soldiers laughed as he clutched at the gunwales.
"Enough!" The captain glowered at his men, then turned to Mal. "You, my friend, can squeal all you like once we get to the Tower."
The skiff cast off, and the rowers bent their backs, making slow headway against the incoming tide that threatened to drive it into the treacherous channel between the piers of the bridge. At last they broke free of the eddies and made their slow way downstream, bearing northwards towards the dark bulk of the Tower.
Crouched on the lower slopes of a hill on the eastern edge of the city, the Tower of London dominated the approach to the capital from the sea. Formerly the principal royal residence, the ancient fortress now housed Queen Elizabeth's chief enemies, detained at Her Majesty's pleasure in a style befitting their status. The Queen herself preferred the comforts of her father's palace of Nonsuch in Surrey, to which she had retreated in mourning for her late husband, Robert Dudley.
On the south bank of the Thames, opposite the Tower, a much smaller fortress squatted by the waterside. Though naught but a wooden palisade surrounded by ditches, it was no less forbidding than its ancient rival. Coloured lamps floated amongst the trees within and eerie piping sounds, like dying seabirds, echoed across the water. The skrayling colony. Mal made the sign of the cross and looked away.
The skiff lurched against the current as they turned sharply towards the water gate. Mal clutched the plank he was sitting on, hoping he didn't look as anxious as he felt. The severed heads of traitors, mercifully no more than silhouettes in the twilight, gave grim testimony to the fate awaiting those who defied their Queen. The splash of oars echoed from the stonework as they passed through a narrow tunnel under the wharf, then the skiff crossed the castle moat and entered the larger archway under St Thomas's Tower, emerging in a dank, shadow-hung pool where a flight of stone stairs led up to the outer ward. Mal was hurried up the steps and four of the guards closed in around him before he could so much as get his bearings.
A yeoman warder in scarlet livery beckoned to the captain, and Mal was taken a short way along the ward, through a sheltered rose garden and thence into a great courtyard with a tower at each corner. The warder unlocked a low door at the base of one of the towers, and Mal was escorted up the spiral stair and through another low door. It thudded shut behind him, and the key
grated in the lock.
It was no filthy cell they had brought him to, but an octagonal chamber perhaps twenty feet across. Opposite him a blackened stone fireplace gaped like a bear's maw, and glazed windows to either side of it let in the last of the dim evening light. A second door, to the right of the one he had just come through, proved to be locked also.
The chamber was plainly furnished with a bedstead curtained in plain woollen stuff, a table and bench, and a padded leather prie-dieu under the eastern window. Only the walls betrayed this place as a prison. His fingers traced the shapes carved painstakingly into the stone: names of former inhabitants, several Jesuitical inscriptions, and an E within a heart. Both Catholics and Protestants had been held here over the years.