Sara never shows at thegreenhouse. So, eventually, Gilbert gives up and returns to the smithy.
“Not a good night to be out,” Marcus says when he sees him walk through the door.
“Kemp back?”
“Yes, sir. He’s upstairs looking for you.”
“He check the shitter yet?”
Marcus shakes his head. “Don’t think so. If you head out back now, you might be able to act like you was in there the whole time.”
The outhouse is at the rear of the smithy. In the mornings, there’s always a long line of men wanting to take a squat, but tonight the facilities are mercifully empty. Gilbert yanks open the door and ducks inside. For authenticity’s sake, he drops his pants and takes a seat, then watches the smithy through a crack in the boards.
Gilbert can hear Kemp carrying on from all the way across the yard, but he can’t make out most of what he says. He hears his name at least twice and knows it’s just a matter of time before Marcus suggests Kemp check the latrine.
When Kemp finally marches across the yard and rips the door of the outhouse open, Gilbert tries to act surprised by the interruption.
“Get out here,” growls Kemp.
“You need something, Master Kemp?” Gilbert makes a big show of pulling his pants up and is still cinching his belt when he feels Kemp’s fist connect with his jaw.
Nothing Kemp does should take Gilbert by surprise, but that punch does. He feels like his head’s come clear off his body, and the force of it sends him staggering backward.
“What’s this I hear about you getting a goddamntributeat the theater green?” says Kemp as he shakes out his hand and tries to flex his fingers.
It takes Gilbert a minute for his ears to stop ringing.
Kemp yanks him out of the outhouse. “You didn’t think I’d hear about it?”
“It just happened,” says Gilbert. “There wasn’t nothing I could do to stop it.”
“What were you even doing there?”
Gilbert rubs the side of his face, tries to think of something fast. “I was making a delivery.”
“Don’t give me that bull crap. Seth says you all cut out of here early.”
Seth Fenwick is one of Kemp’s newest apprentices, and clearly Ned has not gotten to him yet.
“He must have been confused,” says Gilbert, and before he realizes quite what is happening, Kemp is charging him like a bull. He knocks him flat on the ground, and Gilbert just lies there, staring up at the stars, too stunned to speak. Above him, Kemp snorts and spits.
“I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me why you weren’t at your forge this afternoon.”
Gilbert has long known that the best lies are half-truths. They roll off the tongue a little easier, and they usually check out if someone is of a mind to start asking questions. “I got word my sister’s daughter died in the fire.”
This news has at least some effect on Kemp. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Yes, sir,” says Gilbert. “She a good bit older than me.”
“And you say her daughter was in the gallery?”
Gilbert didn’t say anything of the sort, and now that Kemp has started to ask questions, he wonders if it was a mistake to use Della as his alibi. “We think so.”
For a moment, Kemp looks almost contemplative. Then he walks right up to Gilbert and feels around in his front pocket for the leather sleeve where they both know Gilbert keeps his pass.
Kemp removes the piece of paper and tosses the empty sleeve at Gilbert. The soft piece of leather lands on his chest with a quiet thwap.
Kemp holds the pass out in front of him, where Gilbert will be sure to see it. He wants Gilbert to plead with him, to beg him not to take it from him, but Gilbert is done with groveling.
