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

“Evening,” a voice growled from the shadows of a nearby alley. Its owner stepped out into the street: a nondescript man of middling years in the rough jerkin and hose of a labourer.

“Baines. What are you doing here?”

“Our esteemed employer sent me to deliver a message as soon as she heard you was back in London. I wondered what you was up to, visiting your heathen friends, so I followed.”

“You were spying on me.”

The intelligencer grinned unpleasantly. “Just doing my job.”

“So, you’re here now. What’s the message?”

“You’re to join her for supper on Thursday night. At the house in Seething Lane.”

Mal cursed under his breath. It was a good week’s travel to his estate in Derbyshire, which meant he would have to send Coby on ahead of him with only Sandy for protection. Still, with their main target still in London, perhaps the guisers would leave his family alone.

“Very well. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be about my own business. Alone.”

Baines gave him a mocking bow and disappeared back into the shadows. Mal headed for the livery stable, his former good humour souring like milk in a dairymaid’s bucket.

He returned to the
Hayreddin
an hour later with a hired coach and both horses. Night was falling, long shadows melting into the permanent gloom of the capital’s alleys: the perfect time to smuggle his family ashore unnoticed. Wrapping his cloak closer against the evening chill, he boarded the French galiote and made his way down to the cabin. The prospect of breaking the bad news to his wife slowed his steps, but there was nothing else for it. He forced a smile and opened the cabin door.

Kit was awake and sitting on Sandy’s lap, listening to his uncle tell him a story. Mal leant against the doorpost for a moment, wondering how many times this scene had played out across the centuries. Five hundred years, Sandy – or rather Erishen – had said, though not always with Kiiren. There must have been other
amayiä
before that, their names lost among the brothers’ fractured memories.

“Come,” Mal said, reluctantly interrupting the tale. “Curfew will be upon us soon, and I want you out of the city before the gates close.”

He led his wife up onto the deck, followed by Sandy carrying Kit half-hidden under his cloak and Susanna trailing in their wake. Youssef barked instructions to his men in a mixture of French and Arabic, and four of them disappeared into the ship, re-emerging a few moments later with the women’s baggage.

“Did you bring enough?” Mal said, looking back at them.

“Most of it is Kit’s,” Coby said with a sigh. “You would not believe how tiresome it is to travel with a small child. Susanna is a saint for bearing with all the work.”

“Better than her old life in Venice, surely?”

“Of course,” Coby said. “How could she not prefer honest employment to a life of wickedness?”

Mal suppressed a grin. Tempting as it was to point out his wife’s hypocrisy, he did not want to spoil their last few moments together. Though perhaps it was time to break the ill news? No, he would wait until they were in the coach. Best not to draw attention to themselves.

Kit stirred briefly as they got into the coach, blinked up at his uncle and settled down again with a beatific smile on his chubby features. Susanna sat stiff as a poker on the bench beside them, not taking her eyes off Kit.

They travelled in companionable silence for a while, Coby resting her head on Mal’s shoulder as they bounced along the cobbled streets. It was slow going up the hill to Bishopsgate, the horses straining at the traces and the coachman cursing like a Billingsgate fishwife.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” Mal said at last, swallowing his dread. “I’m not coming to Rushdale with you.”

Coby’s head jerked up. “What?”

Mal held up his hands to forestall her protests. “I am sorry, my love. Business keeps me here in the capital–”

“What business?”

“You know what business. The same as always.”

“But – I’ve not seen you in months. Can it not be delayed?”

He told her about Lady Frances’s invitation. Coby’s expression became grave.

“She hardly ever visits her father’s house, not since he died,” Mal went on. “If she wants to meet me there instead of at Whitehall Palace, there must be something badly amiss.”

The coach slowed to a halt. Mal stuck his head out of the window and discovered they had reached the city gates.

“I’ll come north as soon as I can,” he said, and leant over to kiss her farewell.

For a moment he thought she would deny him, then she melted into his arms and kissed him with such fervour that he was sorely tempted to go north after all. When the coach started moving again, he gently disentangled himself from his wife’s embrace, nodded farewell to his brother and leapt down into the street.

The coachman’s lad handed him Hector’s reins and he sprang into the saddle with a muttered curse. He would have to ride hard to get across London Bridge before the Great Stone Gate closed, and right now he could hardly see a damned thing. Wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve, he kicked the gelding into a trot.

On Thursday evening Mal made his way to Seething Lane, near the Tower of London. The house near the end of the street belonged to his employer, the daughter of the late spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, and was still used by Mal and his confederates for clandestine meetings. He wondered again what was so important that Lady Frances would return to her old home.

At his knock the door was opened by a servant in smart new livery, rather than one of the usual intelligencers. This did not bode well at all. He let the man take his cloak and usher him into the candlelit chamber.

“Sir Maliverny.” Lady Frances stepped forward to greet him. “How good to see you again.”

“My lady.” Mal bowed deeply. “You look well.”

It was no empty flattery; though past the first bloom of youth she was still handsome, and her flushed cheeks and the sparkle in her brown eyes appeared to owe more to health than fashionable cosmetics.

“And you also.” She stepped to one side. “I believe you know my lord the Duke of Suffolk?”

Mal froze as Blaise Grey unfolded his lanky frame from the high-backed chair where he had been sitting concealed from view. The duke got to his feet with the aid of a silver-topped cane and gave Mal a curt bow. His curly dark-blond hair was as untouched by grey as when they had been undergraduates together, but the chronic pain of an old sword wound had scored lines into his handsome features.

I suppose I should feel guilty about that, but I count it fair recompense for the torment he and his father inflicted on me.
 

“My lord.”

“Catlyn. It has been too long.” The duke held out his free hand towards Lady Frances, who smiled and laid her own upon it as if posing for a portrait. “It seems we are to be business partners after all.”

Mal glanced from one to the other. “The Queen approved your marriage.”

“Of course,” Grey said. “I was never one of her favourites, even at the height of my powers. I think she only procrastinated so that my dear Frances could stay with Princess Juliana a little longer.”

“Then you have my congratulations,” Mal said, forcing a smile.

“And you mine. A knighthood, an estate, a wife and a son, all within the space of a couple of years? How swiftly you have risen, since you came to me begging for work.”

Mal was saved from having to frame a polite response by the arrival of another of the liveried servants.

“Supper is served, my lord.”

They crossed the entrance hall to the dining room, which had also been woken from its long slumber and made fit for its new master. Silver plate and Venetian glass, laid out along the long polished table in quantities enough to furnish twice their company, reflected back the light of an extravagant number of candles. The servant lifted the lids from an array of dishes, filling the air with the savoury scent of meats, herbs and spices.

Lady Frances made small talk until the servant had withdrawn, whilst the two gentlemen glowered at one another over their plates of beef olives. Mal sipped his wine – predictably excellent – and wondered how he was going to walk away from this situation still breathing. Damn Grey! Of all the women at court to choose from, why did he have to pick Walsingham’s daughter? She was as old as him, with only one surviving daughter from her previous marriage, so she was hardly a good prospect for breeding an heir. On the other hand, scurrilous gossip at court implied that Grey’s injuries had made him impotent, so perhaps he had already resigned himself to the end of his line. And with Walsingham’s daughter came control of her late father’s spy network – an invaluable asset for an ambitious man like Grey.

“You may of course continue to use this house for meetings.” Grey said, setting down his knife. “I am anxious for business to continue as usual. Under my supervision, of course.”

Mal glanced at Lady Frances, but she had eyes only for her husband. Can she really be in love with him, and perhaps he with her? It was a comforting explanation for the turn of events, but not one he dared trust in.

“Of course, my lord,” he said. “I will send regular reports. Are you familiar with our customary ciphers?”

Grey hesitated just long enough for Mal to guess that the answer was no.

“Lady Frances has provided me with the necessary keys,” Grey said. “Compared to my work on the alleged skrayling texts you and your brother translated for me, Walsingham’s ciphers are child’s play.”

Mal ignored the insult. Unless Grey had been feigning all along, his ignorance of the book’s contents was proof he was merely human; the text had been written in a double cipher that only guisers could read. A cruel irony that his old enemy should be one of the few men he could truly trust.

“I hope you found the translation satisfactory, my lord.”

“Satisfactory? I dare say a tale of the Norsemen’s voyages would be of interest to an explorer or antiquarian, but it is of no use to me. Why my father thought it so important, I cannot fathom.”

“Your father was trying to root out an anti-skrayling conspiracy, my lord.” A lie, but one that came close enough to the truth to still make sense to Grey. Mal was not about to put his head in the noose by trying once more to convince Blaise of his father’s true nature. “To own any documents of potential use in that fight and be unable to read them… it would tax the patience of any man.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t ask his skrayling friends to translate them.”

“Perhaps he feared traitors amongst the skraylings themselves.”

Grey frowned and took a sip of wine. “Why would they side with humans against their own kind?”

“Who knows? They are still largely a mystery to me.” That at least was not a lie.

“No matter. If my father’s notebooks cannot avail me, I am certain I will find what I need in Sir Francis’s records. I swore to Prince Robert I would uncover my father’s lieutenants within the Huntsmen, and I shall.”

So that’s what all this is about: a crusade founded on misplaced filial loyalty and desperate self-preservation. Mal feigned an air of sympathy.

“Alas, my lord, if only it were that straightforward. The Huntsmen are troublemakers, to be sure, but they are mere footsoldiers, and their aim is simple: to rid England of the skraylings. The men I seek – that your father sought – have a much greater prize in mind.”

Grey’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Breaking our alliance with the skraylings is only a means to an end. The end of the Tudor line.”

“Most abominable treason! Do you have proof of this?”

“Not yet, my lord. But ever since I returned to England last summer, I have been doing everything in my power to infiltrate their ranks, starting with my late brother Charles’s associates in Derbyshire. It took a great deal of tact and guile, considering I am now famed for helping strengthen England’s alliance with the skraylings, but I have persuaded a few key men that it is all part of a longer term plan to destroy them. I’m afraid they really are very gullible at times.”

“Why have you reported none of this to me?” Lady Frances asked.

“Forgive me, my lady. I was not certain of my success until very recently, nor even of which men were truly traitors and which only idle malcontents. I would not black the reputation of any man without at least some evidence.”

“I want a list,” Grey said. “The names of everyone you have spoken to, with details of any gatherings or other potentially seditious activities they were involved in.”

“Of course, my lord.” An edited list, naturally. He was hardly going to reveal his most useful intelligence, at least not just yet. “Although their activities of late have been limited to boasting about their glorious past and drinking inordinate quantities of bad sack. With the skraylings mewed up in their camp two hundred miles away, they have little else to do nowadays.”

When they had finished supper, Grey suggested they retire to the parlour. Lady Frances excused herself, saying she was expected back at Richmond Palace early the next day, and bade both of them good night. In the entrance hall Mal tried to make his own farewells, but Grey forestalled him and steered him into the parlour, closing the door behind them.

“Let’s not beat about the bush, Catlyn,” the duke said. “I don’t like you, you don’t like me, but we have little choice but to cooperate in this matter.”

“I would be happy to withdraw from your service, my lord, if you would prefer. You can of course count on my complete discretion.”

Grey eased himself into the fireside chair. “Can I indeed? But who says I want to be rid of you?”

“My lord?”

“I need–” Grey made the word sound like it choked him to say it “–a man with your experience of Walsingham’s men. My wife… that is, my wife-to-be, has done a remarkable job of it for a woman, but it is not proper that she continue to consort with such ruffians.”

“That is why she asked me to act as her lieutenant,” Mal said.

“Indeed. And no doubt you know far more about them than she: not just their skills, but their weaknesses that our enemies could use to their advantage. Every man has his price, Catlyn.”