The Prince of Lies: Night's Masque - Book 3 (16 page)

As Mal neared the Sign of the Parley he noticed that the front gate was ajar. He paused in a doorway on the other side of the street. This was it. Should he run, or let them arrest him?

Long moments passed, with no sign of armed guards. At last the door opened and a fair-haired lad in travel-stained clothing stepped out into the street. Mal burst out laughing with relief, and ran across the road to greet his wife.

Coby hunched over the kitchen table, poking a spoon distractedly into her own pottage whilst watching Susanna feed Kit. It was a messy business, since Kit was old enough now to use a spoon himself, and provided harmless amusement for them all. Even Sandy managed a smile, though he was grey-faced from a sleepless week on the road.

As soon as they had finished supper Mal ushered her upstairs, insisting that the dishes could wait until morning. In truth she was only too glad to get out of the filthy clothes she had been wearing for the past few days, and her nakedness had the predictable effect on her husband.

“Not too sleepy yet?” he asked, getting into bed beside her.

She chuckled and ran her fingers through the dark wiry curls covering his chest. There were a few more silver ones than she remembered. “Perhaps not that sleepy…”

The night was mild and close, and sweat quickly pooled between their bodies as they moved together. She couldn’t help but giggle as they parted with a loud squelch, like a boot being pulled out of mud.

“You find my lovemaking ridiculous, do you?” Mal pulled a face, barely visible in the late evening gloom.

For an answer she drew him closer and kissed him again.

“Oh, I have missed thee, good wife,” he sighed when she let him go. “Though unless you have other garb in your saddlebags, methinks my wife had best disappear and we will put it about that her cousin Jacob is back in London.”

“No, I have nothing else besides the gown I lent to Susanna,” she said quietly, staring up at the shadowed canopy. “We were able to save very little from the fire.”

He sat up in bed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I cannot believe Frogmore betrayed us.” His voice was steel-edged, as if a different man sat by her side than the one who had made gentle love to her. “Is there no one we can trust?”

“We have each other,” she said. “And Sandy, and Kit.”

“Aye.”

She looked up at the bitter tone in his voice. “It wasn’t your fault–”

“No? If I hadn’t made such a bold move against Selby, the other guisers would never have taken their revenge on… on my loved ones.” He slammed a hand against the bedpost, making Coby jump. “Damn it, you nearly died, and Kit and Sandy too. And Rushdale is…”

She reached out a hand to comfort him, but pulled it back. She knew he wouldn’t thank her for fussing over him as if he were Kit with a scraped knee.

“The house can be rebuilt,” she said softly. “We still have the land and all its income.”

“I can’t do it anymore.” His voice was so low, she had to lean closer to make out his words.

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t keep up this fight against the guisers. Not if…” He looked down at her. Coby swallowed. She had never seen him so wretched, not even after he had been tortured by the Venetians. “I can’t lose you.”

“We can’t give up, not now–”

“Yes we can. We can go back to France, or even further. Venice wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Coby shuddered at the memory of the devourers coursing through the narrow city streets, tearing people apart. London was dangerous enough, but no power on Earth would get her back to Venice. She reached out a hand and laid it on his.

“And what about all the other lives they will steal in our absence? If we stand by and let them do this blasphemous thing, how will we ever live with ourselves? What reason will we give, come Judgement Day, for abandoning our countrymen to their fates?”

“Perhaps you are right,” he said after a moment. “But we cannot fight them alone. We need allies.”

“Much good our alliances have done us so far.”

“I was perhaps unwise to trust the Huntsmen,” he said. “They are too easily swayed by their hatred of the skraylings, too easily manipulated into turning against anyone connected with them.”

“Then who? Is there anyone we can trust? Anyone we can be sure is not a guiser, or one of their allies?”

“I don’t know.” He lay back down. “Let us sleep on it. Perhaps inspiration will strike when I am less weary.”

Coby laid her head on his shoulder.

“Promise me one thing?”

“Hmm?”

“Promise you won’t send me away again.”

“I–”

“We have to stay together from now on,” she said, levering herself up on one elbow and fixing him with her gaze. “If they come for us, I would rather die by your side than hundreds of miles away.”

He hesitated, and she narrowed her eyes at him, preparing to argue further.

“Very well,” he said at last. “I promise.”

“Good. And I think Lady Catlyn will rise from the ashes after all. I can make more gowns easily enough, especially if I sell some of my jewellery.”

“So anxious to be back in skirts?” he asked with a smile.

“No, but I will not give those villains the satisfaction of thinking they have us beaten. And in any case, you will need a pair of eyes – and ears – amongst the ladies of the court. This Lady Derby could just as easily be a guiser as any of the men.”

“Very well. I’ll ask Lady Frances, and perhaps she can exert her influence to get you a place in the Princess of Wales’s household. But promise me you’ll be careful.”

She lay back down and snuggled close to him. “I’m always careful.”

She refrained from adding,
It is you who needs to be careful, my love
.

CHAPTER XI

Soon after her arrival in London Coby went to Goody Watson’s and bought the best second-hand clothing her budget would stretch to: a plain woollen bodice and skirts for Susanna, and a couple of silk gowns for herself. The latter were somewhat out of fashion and the embroidery needed mending but they were good enough for court, especially for the wife of a country knight. It would not do to dress above her station.

Thus transformed once more into Lady Catlyn, it was time to face her next challenge. Lady Frances Grey had agreed to consider recommending Coby to the Princess of Wales as a lady-in-waiting, but wanted to meet her first. On the following Thursday, therefore, Coby’s mare was groomed and saddled, and she and Mal rode to Suffolk House to dine with the Greys.

The dinner itself passed in a blur of fine tableware and elaborate dishes flavoured with sugar and spices. Thankfully the duke did not share the current craze for the skraylings’ hot pepper, but there were plenty of other delicacies on offer. Coby had been forced to learn to eat in a more ladylike fashion since giving up her boy’s guise, but she still filled her plate with a gusto that raised a few eyebrows. She flushed and tried to eat as daintily as Lady Frances, cutting her food into tiny morsels that hardly needed any chewing.

At last the dishes were cleared away and the gentlemen retired to the library to discuss business.

“Won’t you join me in taking a turn about the garden, Lady Catlyn?” Lady Frances said, getting to her feet. “It’s such a fine afternoon.”

“Is that wise, my dear, in your condition?” the dowager duchess asked. “We wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.”

“I’ll send for a warm cloak,” Lady Frances replied. “And Lady Catlyn will make sure I don’t stay outside too long, won’t you, my dear?”

“Assuredly, my lady.” She glanced sidelong at Lady Frances, but if the duchess truly were with child, her condition had not advanced far enough to show.

The gardens of Suffolk House stretched down to the Thames. Coby had seen only glimpses of them, last time she was here with Sandy, and though they were barer at this time of year they had a stark elegance that fitted their mistress better. Low box hedges traced elaborate knot patterns around beds just starting to break into fresh leaf, with violets and daffodils adding a splash of colour to the gloom. At the corners of each bed, red-and-blue painted poles topped with the unicorn of Suffolk gleamed in the spring sunlight. A gilded pleasure-barge, almost as fine as the Queen’s, rocked at its mooring place, ready to take the duke and duchess to their estate upriver or to one of the many royal palaces.

“So, your husband wishes you to spy for us at court,” Lady Frances said.

“Um, yes, my lady. He is well aware of the great service you did your father in that respect.”

“I would be happy to do so again, of course, but it appears that God has other plans for me.” She stroked her stomacher and smiled in contentment. “I hope to provide my husband with an heir, as you have done for yours.”

Coby had no answer to that.

“I must say,” Lady Frances went on, “you look a great deal like that servant of Sir Maliverny’s, the one he brought to my father’s house before he went to Venice. What was his name…?”

“Jacob Hendricks, my lady. He’s my cousin.”

“Ah, well, that would explain it.” The smile she gave Coby suggested she was not fooled. “A pity he had to leave your husband’s service.”

“Y-yes, my lady. He… he had news of my uncle and aunt, whom he feared had perished at sea, so of course Sir Maliverny had to let him go back to Antwerp to see them.”

She wished it were the truth, but no news had ever come to her of her parents’ fate, though she had made enquiries amongst the Dutch community in London for years afterwards.

“And yet I heard he was seen entering the Sign of the Parley not three weeks ago,” Lady Frances said.

Coby froze, clutching her hands together and staring at the bright yellow trumpets of the daffodils that shook their heads in the breeze as if mocking her.

“My dear…” Lady Frances halted by a bower covered in climbing roses, their new leaves still dark crimson and folded against the frost. “If I am to recommend you to the Princess of Wales, I must have the truth from your own lips. Are you or are you not the same person I saw three years ago, in the service of Sir Maliverny Catlyn?”

Coby swallowed. If she lied now, would Lady Frances report her to the city authorities for lewd and unwomanly behaviour? But surely she would not cause a scandal over something that had happened so long ago? She licked lips suddenly gone dry as old leather.

“Yes, my lady.”

“And are you a man or a woman?”

Coby felt a flush rise from her collar.

“A woman, my lady, upon mine honour.”

“Well, that is something. I would not like to think that your husband was making fools of the entire court.”

“No, my lady.”

“And the child; he is yours?”

“No, my lady.”

“You have taken your husband’s bastard into your family?”

“Certainly not, my lady.”

Lady Frances laughed. “Now that was the truth, if a little too near the knuckle, eh? Men are such wayward creatures…”

“Kit was born in wedlock,” Coby said stiffly. “But… his parents were unable to look after him. Venice is a rich city but there are poor people to be found there too, as everywhere.”

“So your son is an Italian pauper, whom you and your husband took in out of the kindness of your own heart.”

“Yes, my lady.” It was true, after a fashion. And perhaps other truths would bolster it. “My husband wanted an heir and I… I fear I may be barren.”

“I am so sorry, my dear.”

Coby nodded her thanks, a sudden overwhelming grief choking the words in her throat. Until she had said it aloud just now, she had not admitted the truth of it, not even to herself. But there it was. Three years of marriage, and no sign of a child. Perhaps it was a punishment from God after all, for her unnatural ambition in trying to live like a man.

She was vaguely aware of Lady Frances holding out an embroidered handkerchief, and realised that tears were spilling down her cheeks. She took it and blew her nose loudly.

“Well, you have proven yourself capable of great discretion already, and more than able to look after yourself. I shall write to Princess Juliana immediately, and recommend you to her.”

Coby curtsied deeply. “Thank you, my lady.”

“But I warn you, be on your guard. You may be well-versed in the ways of men’s deceptions, but women are just as cunning and twice as ruthless. After all, we have so much more to lose, do we not?”

The Princess of Wales sat stiff-backed on a carved chair under a canopy bearing the arms of the Duchy of Lancaster – a legacy of her ancestors’ heritage – quartered with the leopards and fleur-de-lys of the English royal coat of arms. Around her were seated her ladies-in-waiting in order of precedence: some on stools at the side of the low dais, others on cushions at her feet. Coby, as newest and least important of them, had a cushion off to one side and half-hidden behind a senior lady; a position that suited her very well, since it meant she could observe most of the royal party as well as those being presented to the princess.

Such observances were her only amusement in a life of stifling routine: dressing the princess when she rose, eating when she ate, amusing her when she grew bored, going to bed when she felt weary. How the other ladies endured it, Coby could not fathom. No wonder they were all obsessed with marriage. At least as head of a household they would have some control over their own lives, especially if their husband were often at court. Coby was a curiosity to them, a married woman who had nonetheless chosen service to the princess. Over the past few weeks she had had to use all her wits in fending off their endless questions and speculations, and she still was not sure she had convinced them she was not seeking an affair with a more powerful nobleman. This was particularly irksome as it put her at odds with Lady Derby, the one woman Coby had hoped to befriend. Lady Derby clearly considered her a rival, whilst simultaneously dismissing the possibility that any man could be interested in such a plain creature of common stock and no wealth. Coby was beginning to wish she had let “Lady Catlyn” die in the fire after all.

Her thoughts were diverted from such dark musings by a sudden blare of trumpets. She looked up, and was surprised to see Lady Frances Grey standing in the doorway, accompanied by a tall, skinny girl of about twelve or thirteen. They approached the princess and curtsied so deeply that Coby began to wonder how they would stand upright again.