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  A clean garment is pressed into her other hand along with a linen cap. She tugs it over her bare head and knots it under her chin. Her fingers are shaking. The garment is a plain smock but kind to her skin when she slips it on. When she’s finished, Baldy turns her to face one of the mirrors.

  ‘Look there. What do you see? No, don’t be afraid.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You’ve come this far, Kitten. Tell me what you observe.’

  She cracks open an eye. ‘Something ugly. A gargoyle.’

  ‘That will change. The House of Masques works a special kind of magic.’ He grins. ‘Soon you will forget you ever laid eyes on the starved, beaten creature reflected in that looking-glass.’

  Beth backs away. ‘I don’t believe your smiles. I’ve seen them before. In the other place. Heard the sweet words. Felt the slash across my face. A wet towel. Or a strip of my own soiled linen. Afterwards I’d sometimes hear the man who beat me talking in the passage outside. About sons or daughters, about his home and what he planned to do for the harvest festival. I was an interruption between the gin jug and the fireside hearth. A bit of filthy business that had to be dealt with before he took to his warm bed.’

  She fingers the smock. ‘Every Sunday after service he brought back a parson who pressed a handkerchief to his nose while he prayed for me, the lost sheep. You never saw a blessing spat out so quickly, or a man so pale about the gills. I thought he could help me. I slipped him a note scribbled on the corner of a page of Scripture with a sliver of burned candlewick. He took it to my captor and I had to sit in the dark for a week. So don’t go grinning at me, doctor man. I doubt you’re even a real surgeon.’

  Baldy regards her for a moment. ‘Bed for you now, I think,’ he says. ‘You’ve earned your rest. I shan’t torment you any more tonight.’

  The Dream World

  Nightingale sits on the bed, pomander caught in her slack hands. Any interruption and the fingers will snatch tight on the drawstrings. No scent tickles out to delight the nostrils. It is full of the dream makers, and she takes it everywhere.

  She had returned to the House earlier than expected. An awkward Assignment. Some city buck come of age and wanting to make a mark. He walked fast and talked faster, eager legs tangling in his walking stick. At dinner he spat food over the tablecloth. Twice he dropped his fork into his quail. Then he knocked over his wine, most ending up on his cream breeches. His wits unravelled and the evening threatened to do likewise. He stared at his feet when she delivered the Touch, his formerly proud face threatening to collapse in on itself. She was trained never to show disdain, always to keep her tone moderate and her expression interested.

  ‘I saved my allowance for months for this,’ he said. ‘I fear I’ve become something of an oaf.’

  ‘Don’t be concerned, sir,’ she said, delivering a smile. An oaf was exactly what he’d been but he brightened at her warmth, knowing nothing of the frost behind it.

  Nightingale checks her face in the looking-glass. Powder and rouge have survived the night, though her eyes show too much red. Her client’s choice of club was fog-thick with smouldering tobacco.

  She examines both hands, flexes her fingers inside the velvet gloves. Stains darken the material. Clumsy. The marks smell of bitter fruit.

  She opens the dresser drawer and finds a plain cotton pair that will serve the night. Keeping gloves in her room is a privilege Nightingale guards. The fresh pot of hand salve the Fixer has provided sits next to a vial of scent.

  Everything is in its proper place. She can’t suffer another mistake. Squeezing both eyes closed she peels off the soiled gloves and lets them drop onto the rug. Working by touch she applies salve into her hands and wrists. Her nails will need clipping soon.

  She fumbles for the cotton gloves. Too quickly. Her fingers catch in a seam and one of the gloves tumbles into her lap. She scrabbles in the folds of her house gown. Nothing. Colours have begun to burst behind her eyes. What if it’s slipped under the dresser? She will have to get down on hands and knees and grope for it.

  Stupid, stupid.

  There, by the leg of the chair. Fingers snatch it up, burrow inside. She is safe. Long, deep breaths. Let the panic pass. In the looking-glass, her now opened eyes are still red-tinged. She touches the polished silver key which hangs pendant-like around her neck. Clients often enquire about it. She tells them it belongs to a chest full of her mother’s things. A sentimental trinket with no real value. The box it fits belongs on a waist-high shelf beside her bed. Above her pillows a crucifix is nailed to the wall. She often muses over which is the darker vice.

  Other clients don’t notice the key. It’s one more shiny bauble amidst a glittering spray of jewellery. Clothes shed, it lies naked against her throat. She’s always conscious of that smooth, cool metal, feeling it move with each breath.

  She has not always possessed the key. The Fixer would have given it to her sooner had she demanded, otherwise it remained tucked away in his bag of potions. Winning his trust had proved a bitter task.

  Indeed, Nightingale has never used the key. It’s symbolic, a talisman to convince herself she’s in charge of her own fate. The box itself is unlocked. No maid would find anything of value inside.

  Sometimes Nightingale imagines touching the box. In these daydreams her hands are perfect, and her bare fingers trace the grain of the wood, smooth and firm under her skin. A flick of the wrist and the box will open. No one is there to stop her. She can take what is inside and return to the go-away place. But if she does, the Fixer can never bring her back.

  This is my purgatory, she thinks. God willing it never turns into hell.

  What she needs to keep the horrors away is in the pomander. A pinch. A sprinkling. Barely enough to register a taste. When empty, the Fixer takes her pomander and an hour later, perhaps two, hands it back. A voiceless transaction.

  There was a time when the dream makers drew the skin across her bones, tightened her mouth to a gash and put darkness under her eyes. Shapes and colours swirled in her mind. Distinct memories were rare. Everything else was a stew of brandy, music, bodies and, always, laughter. Fights had broken out over her, she recalled. Men had been badly injured. A single sentence from her father.

  ‘No bastard will get its fingers in our pot.’

  The Fixer demanded she break the dream makers’ hold, no matter the cost. Nightingale had endured it for him and for the life she’d birthed. No child would call her mother while she was dirty. She suffered the sickness that stretched hours into eternities, the convulsions, the foulness. The thing that kept her head out of Bedlam was the Fixer’s lips mouthing the promise that if she could do it he would return her daughter. Yet when she hauled herself partway out of that dark tunnel he had changed his mind.

  ‘You don’t deserve to be a mother,’ he told her. ‘At best you might open a crack in the clouds where your head abides. But you need more than a crack to raise a child. You’ve done well to get this far, but not well enough. Prove to me you’re capable and then perhaps we’ll talk.’

  ‘Haven’t I been through enough?’

  ‘No. What if you’re lying glassy-eyed and she’s bawling through want of food or a clean behind? What if an ember tumbles from the hearth while she’s lying squirming on the rug? You can’t look after yourself, let alone a baby. This House is the only life you have. It’s as potent a drug to you as anything you swallow, and no place for an innocent.’

  The dream makers were waiting to soothe the blow. To Nightingale they were sweet medicine, yet she had not entirely fallen back into the tunnel. The Fixer’s crumbs were enough to keep the hunger away. The poisoned light filled her up, made her walk and talk, but she would go no further.

  I must prove I’m worthy, became her mantra.

  Her injured heart warned against the guiles of men yet perversely this made her more sought after in her House Assignments. The ice girl from whom everyone hoped to chisel secrets.

  She had convinced her Sisters
that she wore gloves around the House because of sensitive skin. A cheap and easy lie. Once, when the poisons in her mind swirled the wrong way, she saw the satin curl and turn black. Ripping off the gloves, Nightingale found her hands charred into crone-sticks. She screamed herself into insensibility. Eloise, arms pregnant with laundry, found her collapsed across the dresser. She ran to fetch the Fixer who came with the medicine and changed the colours of the world.

  Another time she cut herself when a brandy glass broke in her grasp. A shard sliced through the material of her glove. The Fixer said it had to come off if he was to treat her. ‘You can throw a tantrum if you like,’ he told her, ‘but if you do I shall leave you to bleed and they can bury you in those gloves.’

  Nightingale had struggled to no effect. The Fixer removed her glove with a long blade. When he touched her bare fingers she thought she would faint. The cut was not as deep as he feared and once he’d stopped the bleeding he bathed her skin. ‘Beautiful,’ he declared, ‘like a dove wing. So pale and pretty.’ But she would not believe it.

  She knew what she owed the doctor and the dark man. She had been scrutinised and somewhere within her fevered bones was revealed the shade of what she might become. In the Fixer lay something the dream makers could never have granted. He opened the door in her head and let the real world back in. She ought to have hated him for that, but through the hard weeks of near madness he was there, not with comforting words but challenging, daring, provoking. As he wiped clean her sodden face his eyes filled her world. ‘Now you must decide whether to live or die. Show me if I have wasted my time.’

  Nightingale returns to her bed. Kingfisher is bringing a new girl. He has sent word ahead and will arrive with the Kitten tonight. That is the second newcomer this month. Nightingale must ensure the proper order of things is maintained. She intones her prayers, leans over to kiss the crucifix then throws herself into the rich, silken swaddling of her bedclothes.

  The Gilded Cage

  Beth opens her eyes. A flat plaster ceiling. Cream walls topped by elaborate coving. Junk everywhere. Wooden crates, coils of rope, an old broom, other things she doesn’t recognise. She tries to turn her head. Everything aches.

  Footsteps. Heavy, measured. A face bends over her. That bald head again. Glittering blue eyes. The nose sliced by a puckered white scar. A hand cups her chin and turns her head one way, then the other. He fingers her cheek. She sinks her teeth into his wrist.

  He steps back, hand clamped around the bite. Blood seeps between his fingers. She waits for him to strike her. He shakes his baldy head and walks over to a dresser. He pours water into a basin, bathes the wound and binds it with a strip of linen.

  She casts about. A pair of shears lies on top of a canvas bag just a couple of feet away on her side of the bed. She flexes her hands. They aren’t bound. Good. She glances at Baldy. His back is still turned. She gauges the distance and gets ready.

  ‘If you’re fixing to stick me with those things,’ he says, ‘the base of the neck’s the best place.’

  She wants to ask him if he’s got eyes in the back of his head but the words won’t come. She falls back on the mattress. Baldy turns and watches her. He’s taken his jerkin off. He sponges down his chest and under his arms. The marks on his body resemble scars.

  The room has one window and one door. The window is small and square. The glass is grimy and she can’t see anything outside. The door’s made of barred wood and looks like a bull couldn’t smash it down.

  Baldy stops washing and comes over to sit beside the bed. He doesn’t bother putting his jerkin back on. Droplets ripple over his chest. More slide down his forearms.

  ‘That’s the only way in and out of here, and I’m keeping it locked, at least for now. You can’t open the window so don’t try. Stay away from it. If I’m outside in the alley and see your face anywhere near that glass I’ll put the shutters across and you can sit in the dark.’

  He waits for that to sink in. She manages a nod.

  ‘You’ll still be wondering where you are. All that will come. You’re safe as long as you don’t cause trouble.’ He leans forward. His breath smells of onions and hot mutton. ‘When you’re allowed outside you might think about running away. The man who brought you here knows the ins and outs of this town and can sniff your trail better than any hunting cur. Don’t make him fetch you back or I’ll have to tie you to this bed. I’ve got a few days only to get you fixed then you’ll be taken to see the Abbess. She owns the house and will explain what’s wanted from you.’

  He dabs fresh paste on her bug bites then brings a pan from the hearth. ‘Herb-infused broth,’ he explains. ‘My own recipe. Whatever shit you’ve been fed before, it’s done your belly no good. We have to be careful or you’ll bring this up as quick as you can swallow it.’

  He goes away often. Sometimes for a little while. Other times longer. She hears him outside, talking, moving things around. Other voices reply. Sometimes it is the dark man. Usually it’s women. When alone, she sits and learns every crack and cranny of the roof and walls. She doesn’t go near the window or bother to try the door. Usually when he returns his face is grave and he doesn’t say much. He feeds her before eating his own dinner.

  At night she lies in the dark. It can be a long time before she gets to sleep, if at all. He says he can’t trust her with a candle. It might fall off the table and set something alight. The fire is stoked up. It has a metal door with a grate on the front, which he’s bolted. It traps most of the heat. ‘I’ll fetch an extra blanket if you’re cold,’ he says.

  Mice scurry inside the walls. Sometimes when she closes her eyes it’s like she’s in the Comfort Home again. Baldy is snoring somewhere nearby. The noise seems to rattle through the rafters. She wonders what he’s dreaming about.

  In the morning, when he brings breakfast, she has a question for him.

  ‘Am I supposed to thank you for all this?’

  He puts down the trencher. She smells hot coffee. A treat. ‘D’you reckon you should hate me instead?’

  ‘Why not? I’m a prisoner just the same. You’re not feeding me out of compassion.’

  He points to the ugly marks on his back and chest. ‘See these? I showed a young woman compassion. I fetched a beating and lost what little I had.’

  He strokes her forehead. Nothing much, but she pulls away. How many other women have those hands touched?

  ‘Where’s my dress?’

  ‘I burned it. The thing was stinking and riddled with bugs. I brought you something else.’

  A linen gown. Brown with a cream apron. Something a milkmaid might put onto go to a harvest dance.

  ‘The fit looks about right,’ he says. ‘Might have to tuck it in here and there. There’s a pair of slippers too, and some woollen stockings.’

  ‘Where’d you get them? From someone else you kidnapped?’

  His cheeks pink. ‘You can do without if you prefer.’

  She wears the garment and he brings supper. Real food. A strip of beef, potatoes in butter. A smattering of carrots.

  ‘You can feed yourself,’ Baldy says. He places a chair in front of the table and a set of wooden cutlery beside the trencher. It’s the most Beth’s had in a while and she has to struggle not to bolt it.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asks between mouthfuls.

  ‘My name isn’t any of your concern.’

  ‘I have to call you something.’

  He laughs. ‘I’m the Fixer, and right now I’m the only father you’ve got.’

  Bethany finishes the meat and the last of the potatoes. ‘Why are you so bald?’

  ‘Sometimes I have to work with filthy people. Lice get in your scalp, your eyebrows, under your arms, in your breeches. Shaving’s the only way to keep them off.’

  ‘Filthy like me?’

  He nodded. ‘Like you.’

  ‘Why am I here?’

  ‘You’ve been bought and I’ll deliver you on time.’

  ‘Bought for what?’

/>   ‘That’s not for me to tell. Be glad you’re alive.’

  He goes out again. Bethany naps for a while. Afterwards she gets up and wanders about, picking things up and putting them down again. She feels itchy and foul. Pulling the brown linen gown over her head, Bethany tosses it on the bed, kicks off the slippers, bends over and peels off the stockings. Standing naked in the middle of the room, she picks up a sponge and starts bathing herself with water from the Fixer’s ewer. She wipes her arms in long, lazy strokes, dabs her breasts and slips the sponge between her thighs. Water dribbles down her legs and pools at her feet. It’s like being caressed by angels.

  Beth’s so lost in herself she fails to hear the Fixer come back. He’s standing in the doorway, looking at her. Three long strides bring him across the room. His face is black with anger.

  ‘Put your clothes back on.’

  ‘You’ve seen me naked before, tended my wounds, cleaned up my blood. Why should it trouble you now?’

  He scoops up her crumpled garments in his fist and holds the bundle under her face. ‘That was different naked. Put on your clothes.’

  She takes the gown and slips it back on. He waits, back turned, until she’s dressed.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re angry. I was bare enough when you slapped those ointments on me.’

  ‘If I need to doctor you then that is an agreement between us. Otherwise you will treat me like a gentleman, whether you still believe yourself a lady or not.’

  It’s the end of her last day in this room and the sun set an hour ago. The Fixer sits in front of the hearth. Bethany is perched on the edge of the bed. They don’t say anything. They don’t look at one another. He has the iron doors on the fire open and flames paint his face orange. He stares right into them but Beth doesn’t know what he’s really seeing. She’s wearing her smock. A trencher of bread and cold meat sits on the table beside the bed but there’s no hunger to satisfy. Instead she’s fidgeting as if a nest of ants lies under her rump. She opens her mouth to say something then closes it again.