by Ian Garbutt
The figure drops a lopsided grin. ‘Oh, here’s a pair of high-and-mighty Masques come to put us to bed,’ she declares. ‘Too haughty to arrange entry by the usual means? If you want us, you pay like the rest.’
‘We’re looking for someone.’ Wasp’s voice catches. ‘You . . . You must let us in.’
‘Is that so? Well, I wear an Emblem too, only it’s on my arse. You’re welcome to kiss it, my pretties.’
‘I don’t have time for this.’
‘And I have no time for you. Go back to your gilded palace before I slam this door in your faces.’
Nightingale steps up. ‘Indulge her, just for tonight. She has a lesson to learn.’
Wasp doesn’t wait for a response. She barges into the hall and past a litter of squawking girls. Laughter and rowdy singing assaults her ears. Carpets, sticky with spilled wine, are littered with empty glasses, playing cards, a scattering of coins and the odd slipper. Men, many in their undershirts, chase girls from room to room. A hand grasps her thigh. She slaps it away A leering face, breath foul with brandy, wavers in front of her. A man sports a woman’s wig — an outrageous confection of fruit and paper ships — askance on his skull. Jewellery, enough to ransom a country, glitters on his fingers.
‘Come to play, have we?’ He makes squeezing motions with his fingertips. Wasp shoves him away, resisting the urge to sink her foot in his groin. Ribald laughter flutters down a passage to her left. Two men, dressed in breeches and nothing else, openly eye her.
‘Best leave that one alone, Johnny Look at her face. She’s a Masque and beyond the reach of even your purse.’
‘A Masque, eh? What’s a stuffed petticoat like that doing down here? ’Tis a place for games. I want to pump a woman’s well, not take her to the opera.’
More laughter. Wasp’s belly squirms. She glances behind her but can’t see Nightingale anywhere in the mêlée. Perhaps she’s returned to the carriage. If so, Wasp will skin her to her bones and never mind the consequences.
‘Moth.’ She struggles to make her voice carry above the racket. ‘Moth, are you in here?’
‘Bethany.’
She presses harder through the throng. The voice issued from a white-panelled door set into an alcove. Before Wasp can open it someone steps in front of her. The woman who’d accosted her at the entrance.
‘Move aside,’ Wasp demands.
‘This is no place for you. Go back to the House, to your silks and your silver. Read one of your hidebound books or sip tea out of a fine china cup. This is where the real work is done, pretty one. And where the debts are paid. Paid in sweat and tears. Leave now. Pretend you never came through that door. Hope you never come through it again.’
‘I can do what I wish. I’m a Masque.’
‘I’d say you just forfeited that privilege, m’dear.’
Wasp fumbles in her wig and draws out a fake rose attached to a long, vicious-looking pin. ‘My name is Wasp,’ she says, ‘and this is my sting. Move out of my way or you’ll fetch it in the throat.’ The woman shrugs and slips away. Wasp bursts into the room. Moth lies naked and spread-eagled on a bed. She’s face down, her limbs tied to the four posts with velvet strips. Her bare rump glistens with some sort of grease. Pink lesions crisscross her back.
In the corner furthest from the door cowers a bony stick of a man, naked himself except for a black mask covering his eyes and a leather codpiece sporting a protuberance like an overgrown nose. It, too, is slick with grease. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he blusters. ‘I was assured privacy. You have no right—’
Wasp slams the door, scoops a chair out of the other corner and sets it against the doorknob. On a table beside the bed lies a riding crop. The handle is still warm.
‘God, no—’
She slashes the crop across his face, putting everything into the blow. He screams and stumbles back against the wall. Her arm rises and strikes, rises and strikes, moving in rhythm like the water pump in a stable yard. She doesn’t know how many times she does this or for how long. Voices yell in the corridor outside. The doorknob turns, fists pound against the door. The chair creaks but holds. Wasp is conscious of Moth crying. Her tears only spur Wasp on. The cully is folded in on himself. He lifts his arms in a pitiful attempt at defence. She slices the crop across both wrists, opening them to the bone. Blood speckles her lips. His blood. The front of her gown is covered with it.
The chair splinters and breaks. The door falls open and Kingfisher is in the room, Nightingale on his tail. Behind him a dozen faces ring the doorframe.
Wasp is panting. The wig has fallen off. Her hair is a tangled nest across her face. Kingfisher’s dark face is as inscrutable as always. In the corner her victim sobs into the bloodied carpet.
Kingfisher holds out his hand. After a moment Wasp gives him the riding crop. The leather tip is frayed to ribbons.
‘Come,’ he says, ‘I shall take you home.’
‘I shall not leave without Moth.’
He doesn’t look at the bed, or the creature whimpering on the floor. ‘The girl will be taken care of. You have my word on that. Now you must return to where you belong.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
He lays a hand on Wasp’s shoulder, softly enough, though she feels tension in his muscles. His voice lowers to a whisper. ‘I have given you my word. You are a Masque. A Masque does not disgrace herself before others. You will walk out of here with dignity and you will do it now.’
Everyone’s attention is on Wasp as she steps through the debris. Behind her, Nightingale unties Moth from the bed. Kingfisher wraps her in a coverlet and hoists her into his arms. Murmurs ripple through guests and girls alike. Someone giggles. Faces are illuminated with the scandal of it all.
The scarred woman is waiting at the front door, which is open to the street. She curtseys as Wasp passes.
‘Perhaps you shall return after all,’ she says, tapping her ruined cheek.
‘You’re going to be punished, Wasp. You have mistreated a Cellar client. He has complained to the Abbess.’
‘What was I to do? He was torturing Moth.’
Hummingbird shrugs. ‘Cellar games can get a little rough. I doubt she was in danger of her life.’
‘How can such a place exist? How many girls are fed to that nightmare?’
‘Buying your freedom is expensive. Costs need to be recovered.’
‘Moth isn’t strong enough for that sort of life.’
‘I’m beginning to wonder if she’s strong enough for anything. You’re in no position to make decisions.’
‘What will happen to me?’
Hummingbird fingers the key to Wasp’s bedchamber. Wasp has been locked in all night. ‘Corrective training followed by a week of serfing for the Harlequins. You’ll go through House etiquette until you drop in your shoes.’
‘Serfing?’
‘Running errands, laying out our dresses, emptying pots, fetching our night possets. Demeaning work designed to teach you humility. If you’re a good girl you get the brand. If not, it’s the Cellar and this time you won’t be going as an uninvited visitor.’
Wasp tents her face with her fingers. ‘I shall be branded?’
The other girl nods. ‘It’s called being kissed by the flaming star. You’ll likely get it here, on the soft part of your arm just below the shoulder. Believe me, it doesn’t hurt as much as you think.’
‘Apart from Moth has anyone else been branded?’
‘Of course. No angels under this roof.’
‘When will it happen?’
‘Work hard and try not to think about it.’
‘Where is Moth? Can I see her?’
Hummingbird leaves the room and locks the door behind her.
‘Here, slip this between your teeth and bite down hard.’ The Fixer hands her a wad of velvet. ‘I’ll need to keep the iron pressed on for at least a second else the brand might fester. If you’re lucky you’ll faint. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone’s equal when fac
ed with the hot metal’s bite.’
‘Where are you going to do it? Here in the Mirror Room? Haven’t I enough scars?’
‘No, the Scarlet Parlour. And as for your scars, be thankful I don’t have to remove your Emblem.’
‘Why such barbarism?’
‘Barbarism? You horsewhipped a client. He’s cut to the bone and will carry scars for the rest of his life. I hardly think you can talk of barbarism.’
‘Shall we be alone?’
‘Your Sisters will witness, but they’ll be as quiet as a whisper. I’ll enter the room behind you and stand, hooded, to one side of the door. Beside me will be a brazier filled with hot coals and the branding iron. It’s all theatricals, designed to teach our girls to be obedient. Sometimes I oil my body to make it glisten like a demon’s. But you’ve already faced your fear, in a glass jar, and you can come through this. It won’t hurt any more than it has to and the wound will heal quickly. Now, the sooner you get there the sooner this will be over. No more locked door. No more eating alone in your bedchamber. You’ll be back in the fold before suppertime.’
‘You’re not taking me there? I have to go alone?’
‘This is your crime. Your punishment. I don’t expect you to be dragged or carried. You’re a brave lass, and you’ll demonstrate that bravery to us all.’
Wasp takes tiny steps along the passage and across the hall to the doors of the Scarlet Parlour. Not a soul anywhere. The desk and stairs, the candle-spiked alcoves are all empty. She strains her ears. Not a sound, as if the House is holding its breath in anticipation of a storm.
She wedges the velvet strip between her teeth as the Fixer had instructed. The laudanum is beginning to soothe the edges of the world, but her belly is swimming with nerves. She nudges open the door and steps trembling into the parlour. The rugs have been lifted, and laid out on the bare boards is the circle of glittering candles she’d been told to expect. All other lights have been doused. A dozen Sisters line the walls, vague ghosts in their white house gowns. All wear porcelain masks.
And there is the brazier, as if someone has torn the heart out of the fireplace and dumped it into a black iron witch pot. Wasp tries not to look at the coals, at the rod plunged into the brazier’s glowing innards. Already she fancies she can feel the iron’s heat, metal turned white from hours in the flames.
He is really going to do this, she thinks. He is going to burn me.
The laudanum seems to have fled her body. She’s startlingly awake, her mind sharp, nerve endings raw. Nostrils pick up the bitter scent of smoke and hot candle wax. She can discern the individual perfumes of the sisters. Their breathing. Shallow. Nervous.
Excited.
Please don’t let me scream.
The Fixer appears on the rim of the light circle, hooded as he’d said, and stripped to the waist. Shadows catch his scars and throw vicious lines across his upper body. Wasp bites down hard on the velvet. Her jaw flares with pain. The Fixer gestures at her to kneel then pinches her skin, hard, between thumb and forefinger. Then the iron’s bite. An angry hiss, like sizzling bacon. A wisp of greasy smoke. And the smell. Oh, the smell . . .
Candles tumble as she slumps forward onto the floor. A collective gasp sweeps the room. The Fixer’s arms curl around her shoulders and draw her upright. The Abbess appears out of the smoke, kneeling in front of Wasp, arms outstretched. Wasp throws herself into that forgiving embrace.
Eloise lays a breakfast tray beside the bed. Cheerful sunbeams radiate from her face. ‘You really are one of us now,’ she declares. ‘I hope it does not hurt too much.’
It hurts right enough, like a lump of flesh has been gouged from her arm. Wasp is forced to sleep, when she can sleep at all, on her right side facing the wall. During the day she suffers a dull ache. Night brings agony. Sometimes she’s forced to get up and pace the room or sit on the edge of the bed, shrouded in her coverlet.
It’s hard to think about Moth. For hours after the branding, Wasp lay in a bubble of misery. The girl who’d been the cause of this now seems the least important thing in the world. The thought of getting into more trouble, of even asking the wrong questions, leaves Wasp sick with fear. How brave she had thought herself, barging into the Cellar. How clever to escape a slow death in the Comfort Home. But the sight of those masked faces in the flickering gloom of the Scarlet Parlour was worse than any beating she’d previously endured.
The Fixer arrives at dusk to change her dressings. He checks the brand and declares it clean. ‘A good job.’
‘I’m glad you think so. It’s been two days and it still throbs.’
‘You’ll need to endure discomfort for a while longer. But it will fade. You have leave to stay in your bedchamber for the rest of the week.’
‘I don’t regret what I did. The Cellar is a horrible place.’
‘Better girls than Moth have been swallowed up by it. Think of it as a lid that lets the steam out of the pot. We’re safe in the House. Safe because of what happens there. You forget how much you have to be thankful for.’
He doses Wasp with a sleeping draught. This time she slips away at once. No dreams.
Nightingale’s Box
‘Come with me.’
Wasp’s half-awake eyes stare at Nightingale through tousled hair. Her face is puffy and disbelieving. She waves a hand in protest. ‘Why are you here? I don’t need to resume my duties yet.’
Nightingale indicates the wardrobe. ‘Find a day gown and put on your slippers.’
Wasp thumps out of bed with the grace of a Shire horse. Nightingale notices the bandage on the girl’s shoulder, the way she still favours it. That will pass soon. How quickly the hurt inside might heal is another matter.
Wasp dresses in silence then, at Nightingale’s beckoning, follows her along the passage. Every step is full of defiance. ‘Am I being punished again?’ Wasp demands. ‘Is this retribution for what happened at the Cellar? Isn’t my brand enough?’
Nightingale presses a gloved fingertip to her lips, opens her bedroom door and waves Wasp inside. She enters reluctantly, as if some form of spidery trap awaits, but no peril lurks in the walls, carpets or curtains. Nightingale closes the door and retreats to a corner. She points to the shelf beside her bed — to the item that sits there.
‘That box has been moved.’
‘You brought me here to tell me that?’
Nightingale waves a finger. ‘No one lays a hand on it but me. No one touches it, moves it or opens it. That rule is as fundamental to the House as any other. I know that casket’s place on the shelf to within a hair’s breadth. It has been tampered with.’
‘Don’t you keep it locked?’
‘No, Wasp, I don’t keep it locked. Not any more. That would defeat its purpose.’
‘D’you expect me to admit to touching it?’
‘I expect you to open the lid and tell me what you see inside.’
‘Can’t you look yourself, especially as you are so precious about who goes near it?’
‘I could look myself, but to do so would likely kill me.’
‘I don’t understand. Is it a trap?’
‘For me, yes. For you, not yet.’
‘Suppose I don’t do it?’
‘You will.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you can see that I’m frightened of what’s in that box.’
The girl thinks about that for a moment. She remains suspicious, and has a right to be, but the same determination that took her all the way to the Cellar will guide her hands now. ‘You don’t need to take it down,’ Nightingale prompts. ‘Just open the lid for a peek.’
She does as she is asked, her hands pink against the woodwork. Nightingale imagines a long sigh of air as the lid is prised open, though in truth it makes no sound at all.
‘A muslin bag,’ Wasp says, peering through the crack.
‘Is it full?’
A shake of the head. ‘No. Only half full. Tiny brown lumps of something are spilled across the bottom.’
Nightingale half sits, half collapses onto the bed. Her cheeks turn numb as the blood drains out of them. ‘Then it’s true.’
Wasp drops the lid and steps away from the shelf. ‘What’s true? What’s the matter?’
‘You’re catching me at a difficult moment, Wasp. Before we discuss this further I want you to tell me something. What would you be prepared to do in order to attain something you wanted? Or believed you wanted?’
‘I don’t know if I can answer that. A part of me wants to run away, to start afresh somewhere else. Another part of me wants to go home, to face the people who wronged me, though I’m not yet sure how I would accomplish that.’
‘You have no home outside the House.’
‘My village. I want to undo what was done.’
‘You are dead. You expect to resurrect yourself?’
‘You can’t kill me. Not that way. I never chose to come here. I was tricked into a carriage with locks and blinded windows. I’d sooner have been dragged behind a hurdle than suffer that.’
‘You blame your people? It’s their fault?’
‘No, it’s mine.’
‘You can’t go back. No one goes back. Think of the consequences. It’s not simply a matter of turning up on your own doorstep.’
‘I’m not sure I can live with the consequences of not doing so.’
‘Run away or seek revenge — an interesting choice. Suppose you were forced into making it?’
‘Why are you doing this to me? What kind of woman are you?’
Nightingale throws open her fingers. Calling cards, dozens of them, flutter to the rug. ‘This is who I am. The sum of me. Other people’s names scratched onto a piece of paper. That and a gold-trimmed day gown, and beautiful dresses that don’t belong to me.’
‘So? You had nothing when you arrived, like the rest of us.’
‘I had a daughter. ’
‘A child? Was such a thing allowed?’
‘I don’t know. I could never discover if the Fixer took my baby away because she was in danger from the House or in danger from me. All I remember is a cry. When she was born. It was far away, beyond the cloud of the dream makers. The Fixer says he tried to place her in my arms, but I couldn’t hold her, couldn’t put her to my breast. We were on the road and on the run. He had to beg milk for her tiny belly. I don’t recall her face. Did she look like me? Have my eyes, my cheeks, my hair? Even though I know none of these things I think about her every day.’