Ambergate (15 page)

“I won’t, I swear,” she said, seemingly determined. I was touched; I did have a friend in the world, after all.

“We must hide the mark,” she said, chewing her lip. “The sleeves of these evening gowns are too short. If only we had a bracelet!”
Then she fetched a lace handkerchief and a velvet ribbon. She folded the handkerchief into a neat square, put it over my scar
and tied it on to my wrist with the ribbon. “There! Plenty of girls wear their kerchiefs that way. It does not look strange
at all.”

I prayed not. Tonight I would be gone, I thought. Once I had delivered my letter into Mistress Bundish’s hands and was in
her employ, I would be safe, I was sure. I took the letter from my jacket pocket, in case Ma Drazel should come snooping again,
and slipped it into my bodice.

Feeling a little easier, I followed Becca down the stairs to the bright candlelit hall, and into the parlor. Connie and Rose,
curled and perfumed, were giggling nervously together on the couch: Rose in her dancing costume, which was bright yellow and
flounced almost to the knee.

Anora whisked in, the wineglass in her hand already half-drained. “Merely to steady the nerves,” she said gaily. “But none
for you, my dears, before you perform. Now—we will do as we always do, you understand. I shall greet the gentlemen and once
they are somewhat merry and relaxed in the drawing room”—she winked roguishly—“I shall announce you one by one.”

She inspected me, then nodded approval. “Scuff—you shall be Miss Susanna tonight. You look enough like our dear Sukey for
our usual patrons to be quite taken in once they are in their cups.”

She looked from me to the others; the wineglass quivered in her hand. “Tonight you must all be especially charming, for a
little bird has told me we may have a special visitor coming.” She lowered her voice and her eyes gleamed. “Word from my young
spy is that the Lord Protector’s son staying out at the Windrush military camp has heard about us!”

The girls burst into a babble of questions while she nodded and smiled. “He will come incognito, of course, so that no one
recognizes him.”

I sat, stunned and silent.

Becca touched my hand as soon as Connie and Rose, still talking excitedly, had followed Anora out. “You are gone so pale.
What is it?”

“It is very bad, Becca,” I said, “or it may be, I don’t know. He may bring soldiers with him.”

“You think they will send you back to the Capital as Recompense?”

I nodded mutely, and she took my hand; we sat close, my fingers trembling in hers. She did not shriek or twitter or ask more
questions; she was no mere puppet after all.

“But you look so different now,” said Becca at last, very earnest and solemn, “so different in your finery. And you have a
name—Miss Susanna. No one will know that you have not always owned it.”

“I hope it will be enough,” I said.

Dusk fell outside. For a long while we heard loud raps of the knocker as the guests arrived and were greeted by Ma Drazel,
who showed them into the drawing room. The fire leapt in the grate each time the front door opened, for we had the parlor
door wide to listen.

The men brought with them the damp night air and their deep voices. Next door the conversation and laughter swelled: Anora’s
low gurgle, echoed by guffaws from the gentlemen. Connie and Rose were called in, and the piano began to tinkle beneath the
merriment; there were sudden bursts of clapping. It grew very warm once they had stopped arriving: I could smell the wine
and food, and the hot eagerness of the guests.

Then Becca was called in, and I was alone.

Then Rose came for me.

They were sitting—lolling—about, and were already some way drunk, I think, for their eyes had that bulbous, glassy gleam.
I do not know how many guests were in there, perhaps upwards of thirty; it seemed to me there were red shining faces everywhere,
and stout legs in satin breeches that might trip me up. Some had even brought their floozies: overpainted women in tight bodices.

I bent my head and made my way between the chairs to the piano, where Connie had stopped playing and was engaged in polite
talk with a seedy-looking fellow in an embroidered waistcoat. I could see Anora waiting for me, half-impatient, but with her
crooked smile placed on her face. “Ah,
Sukey, dear,” she whispered to me, putting her glass carefully down on the piano.

I did not correct her.

“Miss Susanna will sing for us,” she announced to the assembly, and hiccuped discreetly.

There was a tipsy roar as I stepped out, and some began to clap. I could still hear talking, but thought I should begin. I
fixed my eyes on a far alcove where there was a plaster statue of a girl with a tiny linnet on her shoulder; she was almost
naked.
The Eagle preserve me
, I thought, and I began to sing.

I gave them “Come, Let Us Frolic While We May,” for I hoped it might sober them up with its mournful message of mortality.
My mouth was very dry; I could scarce get the words out. All the same, my weak little rendering was greeted with leery applause.

As the clapping died away, I heard the knocker go again, the front door open. A cold draft blew into the room, and more guests—two
young men, youths. Darting around them like a puppy was Shadow.

I felt a rush of heat to my face, and my heart began to beat quickly. I dared not look more closely, for with one quick glance
I had recognized the Lord Protector’s son, Caleb Grouted, and with him, Corporal Chance.

I lowered my head and melted back behind the piano and Connie’s seated figure. I stood against the curtains where I hoped
the candlelight would not reach me, and looked around for Becca. She was seated at a table in an alcove nearby, with an old
gentleman, who was almost asleep—or
drunk—his lolling head propped on his hand and his powdered wig off and sitting on the tabletop like a large iced cake.

I could see Anora at the end of the room, seating the two young men with many a curtsey and coquettish flutter of her fan.
She knew who they were, although they wore no uniforms. The other guests paid them little attention, continuing their carousing
and making an immodest amount of noise.

Somewhere Shadow hovered beyond the candlelight; I could no longer see him. I prayed he was still there and making some plan
for my escape. I wondered how I could ever leave the room without being seen.

I slipped over to Becca. “Sing in place of me,” I pleaded.

She looked up in surprise. The old man gave a gentle snore. “But what will Anora say?”

“Please. It’s important.” She understood it was, by the look on my face, and stood up immediately. She went to the piano and
whispered to Connie, who began the first bars of the song that begins “Sweet Sir, I Must Say No,” while I drew back, away
from the candles.

Becca sang with gusto and a great deal louder than I had; but it seemed that some of the guests were discontent. To my dismay
and alarm, I heard mutterings of “Can we not have the other one again—Miss Susanna?”

I could hide no longer.

“There she is,” someone cried, and the next moment Anora had glided over to me and had pulled me into the candlelight in front
of the piano.

“My voice has gone,” I muttered to her, trying to shrink into the polished floorboards. I dared not raise my head.

“Nonsense, girl,” she hissed, endeavoring to keep the smile attached to her face. Her eyes had a hard glitter.

“Sing them something—anything! You know who is here!” She moved back so that I stood alone before them all. I looked up at
last.

Caleb Grouted would have no idea that I was the girl he had been looking for, since he had never seen me face to face. I could
not see if Corporal Chance recognized me, for he sat in shadow. I began hesitantly to sing “I Left My Love by the Amber Gate,”
for I could not think of another; it was the song that came into my head, with all the words complete.

Gradually, the murmuring ceased, and, apart from the crackling of the fire and the occasional snore from the gentleman in
the alcove, there was silence in the room. The strange dreaminess of the song seemed to hold them all, like a magical binding
of beasts. For the length of the first verse, their glassy eyes grew focused, their befuddled faces sober.

Then the spell was broken. I hesitated a little too long before starting on the second verse. In that moment the Lord Protector’s
son leapt to his feet and shouted thickly, “And what do you know of the Amber Gate, Miss Susanna?”

I stared at him in bewilderment. Was this some trick question to trap me?

“It is merely a song, Sir,” purred Anora, but her hands clenched together in agitation at her bosom. “It has naught of fact
to do with the old story of the lost gate. Does she not sing it to your liking?”

“Aye, let the wench proceed,” shouted another guest. “What nonsense is this?”

“Get on with it!” hissed Anora, glaring at me.

But the words had gone.

I stared in consternation from one face to another, trying to remember the words of the song, while the murmuring grew to
a grumble of impatience. Caleb Grouted had subsided into his seat, muttering. Chance had shifted into the candlelight and
was staring at me too hard, his mouth compressed.

I lurched sideways, as if faint. It was a desperate ploy, but as if I had rehearsed her, Becca rushed toward me, crying out,
“She needs fresh air!” She bent over me, and whispered in my ear, “I’ll get you out!”

I leaned on her heavily, my eyes half-closed. “Whatever happens, you’ll always be my friend, Becca.” Did I think it or say
it? I hope I managed to say it, for it was in my heart and still is now.

Connie rose as soon as she saw us and made as if to help support me from the room, but suddenly Anora was there, brushing
both of them aside in fury. She whipped a tiny bottle under my nose. I knew I was lost, then.

“You will recover and sing on!” she said grimly, and held me fast.

The smelling-salts were vile; I flailed in her grip, choking. Becca and Connie, on either side of us, gave little cries of
distress; one or two of the guests began to protest.

And then, cutting through the confusion by the piano, a boy’s high voice yelled out from the doorway: “Look to yer backs,
Sirs! The Lawman comes!”

I don’t know what happened then, there was such uproar in the room: shrieks and swearing and commotion. Caleb Grouted and
Chance were somewhere in the midst of the throng pressing forward to the door and out into the hall. Connie had blown out
the candles. Anora had left my side immediately and was nowhere to be seen.

“She’s gone to open the back door,” whispered Becca, in my ear. She pulled at my arm. “Come upstairs with us now, out of the
way.”

The other girls had already disappeared. The Lawman was the last person I wanted to see, but I hesitated a moment in the confusion
and darkness, and lost Becca. Then I felt a tug on my skirt. It was Shadow. “Wot yer doin’, ‘angin’ about?” he hissed fiercely.
“Look slippy!”

In bewilderment, I let him drag me from the room, which had now almost emptied. The front door was wide open onto the dark
street. I could hear running water outside, and quick footsteps—people leaving the house, or coming toward it?

The steps died away into the distance, and then suddenly it was just Shadow and me outside on the cobbles and the house was
behind us; and we were dashing down Kaye Street, toward the riverfront.

The moon was out over our heads like a great silver ball, bouncing off the rooftops. A touch of frost nipped the air and cut
through my thin silk gown. “Shadow!” I gasped,
struggling to keep my skirts from dragging in the rivulets of filthy water. “Shadow! The Lawman!”

His eyes glinted in the moonlight. “Nifty wheeze, eh?”

“You mean, it wasn’t true?”

“Nah!” He looked scornful. “That lot gets taken in easy. Terrified of losin’ their tradin’ licenses. The Lawman round ‘ere,
‘e’s dozy, always tucked up snorin’ instead of doin’ ‘is duty.”

I was overcome with gratitude. “Thank you, Shadow. I could never have escaped without you.”

He put his hand out to slow me. “Careful,” he whispered. “There’s people about.”

We could hear footsteps clipping the cobbles along a side street a little way behind us. It sounded like two different pairs
of feet, but their owners were trying to tread softly, warily. The hairs on the back of my neck stirred.

Shadow put a finger to his lips, then pulled me into a narrow doorway out of the moonlight. He kept a grip on my skirt as
if he suspected I might flee in fear, and we waited, my heart hammering.

After a minute they came swiftly past us, two male guests from the salon, still breathing heavily, too intent on their flight
to notice us. They must have left through the back door, gone past the cottages and cut through. We stayed where we were,
scarce breathing, straining our ears.

More footsteps, not so quiet this time. As they came closer I heard a voice: young, careless, arrogant, the words slurred
with drink. A voice I knew.

“Wasn’t worth staying for, anyway. Glad to be out of it, eh, Chance?” Feet scuffled as Caleb Grouted nudged Chance.

“Still, if we’d been caught there, Mather would not have been pleased, nor my pa for that matter.” A snigger, then, peevishly,
“Where are those damned horses? Hope you know your way in this squalid little place.” The Lord Protector’s son kicked out
and a fish head flew past my skirts.

I couldn’t hear what Chance replied, but I saw him, clear in the moonlight. He seemed sober, looking to left and right as
he strode along, as if watching for any sign of the Lawman. I felt Shadow’s clutch tighten on me as he reached us; Chance
looked away across the street and then straight at us in the doorway.

His eyes rested on us for a second, then swept on, and he passed by.

“Close shave, eh?” whispered Shadow after their footsteps had died away into the night.

I took in a breath of cold, salty air. My teeth were chattering. “Thank the Almighty!” I said, and I put my hand up to the
amber on its thong. “But where can I hide till it’s light?”