Mask of Night by Philip Gooden Page B

secured by Abel and me as if we were taking her into custody, were like bolsters.
    “These two young gentlemen will see to me now,” she said, and I would not have dared to controvert this.
    “My bonnet,” she said, and Abel let go of her arm to retrieve her headgear from where it lay.
    “There is a doctor near here,” I said, grasping at a way to get rid of our burden.
    “Oh, I know Hugh Fern,” she said. She was the sort of woman who would know everyone. “Take me to him.”
    We hobbled towards the Doctor’s gate, leaving the hapless carter to set himself in order and ponder how much he would have to pay in blood-money. The onlookers moved off as well, the show being over. Mistress Root enjoyed the experience of being held up by two able-bodied men, judging by the way she frequently paused to catch her breath and slump against us.
    I’d been wondering how to explain our reappearance at Doctor Fern’s but Mistress Root took matters in hand as we entered the front door. Standing in the great hall was the not unattractive young woman I’d glimpsed earlier, still in the company of the pocky man. They had been talking together.
    “Mistress Root,” said the young woman, looking up, surprised.
    “Susan, I am sent by your mother.”
    “What happened to you?”
    The young woman came towards us.
    “An oaf of a carter ran me down and would have trampled all over me if it hadn’t been for these young gentlemen here.”
    The woman called Susan looked grateful. Abel and I smiled our oh-it-was-nothing smiles. Meantime I was trying to work out who Susan was and her relation to Mistress Root. Now the young woman turned to the individual with the pitted skin.
    “Pearman, go and fetch the Doctor,”she said. “Mistress Root, you shall come into this chamber.”
    Abel Glaze and I would have released our hold on Mistress Root at this point – since she could certainly have walked unaided – but she seemed reluctant to be let go of, and we escorted her to a room on one side of the hall.
    It was evidently the place where Doctor Fern carried on his business. Every surface was covered with little bottles and vials, with bowls and flasks, with mortars and pestles of all sizes, with steel and wooden implements, surgical probes and gauges, and with boxes containing little male and female figurines. On the walls were shelves of books together with planetary charts and drawings of human figures in outline pierced by arrows to indicate which areas were influenced by which signs of the zodiac.
    I was reminded of an apothecary’s shop I had once visited off Paul’s Yard in London, not so much by the objects – everything here was much neater, newer and shinier than it had been in old Nick’s emporium, and there were no crocodiles or unicorn horns hanging overhead – but by the smell of the place. A queer, sweetish smell, as of substances ground, mixed and distilled together, in which one could catch fugitive threads: of lavender, cinnamon and beer, for example, and underneath all, a kind of dungy scent. Not unpleasant.
    We helped Mistress Root to a padded settle on one side of the room. She sat down heavily. We might have retreated at this point but she clutched at our sleeves.
    “Who are you, chivalrous gentlemen of the road?”
    There are some compliments you’d be just as glad not to receive, or people you’d rather not receive them from. This one was accompanied by a flirtatious wink of one of the currant-like eyes. Nevertheless we introduced ourselves.
    “We’re players,” said Abel. “Of the Chamberlain’s Company newly arrived in town. I am Abel Glaze.”
    “And I am Nicholas Revill, at your service, madam.”
    “Pardon?” she said, pulling me down. “I am deaf on this left side.”
    I repeated myself more loudly and nearer to the ear in question, although I think that rather than the information she wanted to have my breath on her muddy cheek. I would have wiped the mud away with my handkerchief but was afraid