The Prince of Lies: Night's Masque - Book 3 (5 page)

Selby hesitated, and his look of outrage softened into a smile. Mal breathed a quiet sigh of relief. They had been on the right trail, then. Selby sat down again.

“Go on.”

“Let there be no more deceit or coyness between us, Sir William,” Mal said. “I know what you are, and I think you know more about me than you are letting on.”

“I know you to be a friend of the skraylings. Is that true?”

“A necessary deception,” Mal said. “My brother and I needed to earn their trust so that we could discover their plans. It took time, but now we have achieved that, we can make our next move.”

“Which is?”

“Ah, now, that would be telling. How do I know we can trust you?”

“I might ask you the same question.”

Damn it, we could dance around one another half the night.
“Tonight. We will dreamwalk together, then there will be no secrets between us.”

He waited for Selby to claim he knew nothing of dreamwalking, afraid he had mistaken this country knight after all. Selby reached over and rang a bell by the fireplace.

“Bring us wine,” he told the servant who appeared a few moments later. “And make up a bed for Sir Maliverny. He’ll be staying the night.”

Mal inclined his head in thanks, hiding a smile of relief.
Christ’s blood, but this plan had better work, otherwise we’re all as fucked as a tupenny whore.
 

As soon as he retired to bed, Mal lit a candle and waved it back and forth thrice at his bedchamber window, praying his allies would take the hint and come soon. He took off his doublet, shoes and stockings, repeated the signal and then sat down on the bed to wait for the household to settle down for the night. There were not a great many of them, as far as he could tell, but most were men between twenty and forty. Nothing unusual in that, but it meant they were likely to put up a fight. Most likely none of them were guisers, though, apart from their master. At least so Mal hoped. Otherwise… well, they would deal with that problem if it came to it. Slaughtering the entire household was not part of the plan.

As soon as all was quiet, he crept barefoot down the stairs and let himself out into the courtyard. The hound lay with its nose poking out of the kennel, snoring and twitching in its sleep. Mal tiptoed across the cold, damp cobbles, praying silently. He was going to have to do this skin-to-skin, or Selby would notice immediately. The fellow was probably already waiting in the dreamlands; much more delay and he would become suspicious.

The hound wuffled to itself but did not stir. Mal crouched and laid a hand on the beast’s head, reaching out to touch its dreaming mind with his own. A barrage of scents overwhelmed him, he was running on all fours through long wet grass… Holding onto his sense of self he led the hound further into deep, dreamless sleep, the way Sandy had showed him. It wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, but that should be enough. He crossed the yard and slipped into the short wide passageway that led to the front door.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Candlelight flooded the passage, and Mal froze. A girl of about eighteen, dressed in a servant’s cap and apron, stood in a side doorway.

Mal yawned prodigiously. “I’m afraid I couldn’t find a pisspot in my chamber.”

“I’m very sorry, sir. I’ll fetch one for you, shall I?”

“I don’t want to be any trouble. I’ll just go outside and do it in the moat–”

“Oh, it’s no trouble, sir. Just you wait there.”

“If you’re going to the kitchens, a flagon of small ale wouldn’t go amiss,” Mal called after her.

When he was sure she had gone, he eased back the bolts on the front door, taking care not to make a sound. Finally he took down the door key from its hook, turned it in the lock and quickly replaced it.

Hearing footsteps approach, he stepped back towards the courtyard. The maidservant emerged from the side door, dangling an empty pisspot from one hand and carrying a pewter tankard in the other.

“Most excellent wench!” Mal drawled, blocking her path back inside. He held out his left hand, and she dutifully gave him the tankard. “Perhaps you would come up to my chamber and stow yon crock safely?”

She clutched the pisspot to her chest. “If you insist, my lord.”

“I am no lord, merely a knight of the realm.” He took a swig of the ale. “The Prince of Wales himself dubbed me, you know.”

The girl smiled politely.

“Come, give me the pisspot,” Mal said, “and I’ll retire alone. There’s no pleasure in a reluctant woman.”

She held out the pot, her arm trembling, and Mal took it from her gently.

“Now, get you gone,” he said with a jerk of his head towards the door, “and we’ll tell your master no more of this little adventure, eh?”

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Mal swept a bow, flourishing the pisspot, and made his way back up to his room. Poor child, he’d given her quite a fright, but at least it had kept her eyes away from the door. Now there was nothing more to do but wait.

He used the pisspot, slid it under his bed and lay down. This next part would be cold and uncomfortable, but they had to make it look convincing, at least until Selby was under control.

He closed his eyes, knowing he could not put this off much longer. Taking a deep breath he put all thoughts of his waiting allies aside and focused on the skraylings. The guisers must have some idea of what was happening in the camp, so it was hardly a betrayal. He recalled his first visit there, with Kiiren – no, he mustn’t think of Kiiren either. Adjaan, that was safer. He conjured up a vision of the female outspeaker, kneeling at her desk.

“This is your plan?” Selby said, materialising silently at his side. “To bring skrayling women to England?”

“We need more recruits, don’t we, if we are to take over? A period of stability will allow that. And once the womenfolk see what humans are really like, surely they will easily be convinced that we are in the right?”

Selby smiled at him. “Your enthusiasm is gratifying, Catlyn, but–”

Mal jerked awake, certain he had heard a shot. The hound in the courtyard yelped, and the gun spoke again. Damn those idiots, they’ll wake half the neighbourhood! He snatched up his dagger and ran across the landing to Selby’s bedchamber, flattening himself against the wall just as the door opened.

Selby poked his head out.

“What’s going on down there?”

Mal put the blade to Selby’s throat, pressing just hard enough to break the skin. There, let him magic his way out with cold steel tainting his blood.

“You duplicitous whoreson,” Selby hissed. “Jathekkil should have ripped your crippled soul from your body when he had the chance.”

Shouting and sounds of fighting came from below. William Frogmore and his Huntsmen, subduing the servants with brutal efficiency. This was the part of his plan he had not told Grey about; the duke would hardly approve of employing the very villains he had promised the Prince of Wales he would hunt down.

Moments later three men in nondescript dark clothing, their lower faces covered by kerchiefs, pounded up the stairs. Mal nodded to their leader, but continued to hold Selby at knifepoint until one of the Huntsmen had him gagged and in iron manacles. Mal stood patiently whilst the “robbers” tied his own hands behind his back and gagged him, then Frogmore led both captives downstairs to the courtyard, where the servants were being held at gunpoint. Selby struggled and jerked his head towards Mal. Frogmore cuffed him hard, making him stumble. Mal feigned concern, but his need for acting was short-lived. Amid the jeering laughter of the Huntsmen, he was seized and thrown over a horse’s back like a sack of meal.

One of the men swung himself into the saddle behind Mal and the raiding party set off into the Kentish countryside. They passed out of sight of the manorhouse and cut across a field of half-rotted wheat stubble. What was Frogmore playing at? Surely this was far enough from the manorhouse that they could dispense with the ruse and let him ride in comfort.

About half an hour later they halted under a twisted oak. The ground before them fell steeply for a dozen feet then levelled out to a broad, grassy riverbank, the waters beyond silver-limned by the rising moon. Mal was hauled off his horse and he sank to his knees, head reeling from hanging upside-down for so long. He watched Selby stumble down the slope towards a waiting boat, flanked by Frogmore’s men. When they were out of earshot, someone untied Mal’s bonds and he pulled the gag down, licking his dry lips.

“Damn it, Frogmore,” he muttered, “you didn’t have to carry me all the way.”

Frogmore held out a hand and hauled him to his feet.

“Had to make it look good. Speaking of which…”

Mal saw the punch coming, too late, and tried to dodge. His foot slipped on a mossy tree root and he couldn’t avoid Frogmore’s fist slamming into his nose. He heard rather than felt the snap of cartilage.

“Christ’s balls!” He dabbed at the blood running down into his moustache. The young cur was enjoying this far too much.

Frogmore shrugged. “You wanted your escape to look convincing. Sir.”

“Get to the boat,” Mal told him. “I don’t suppose you could leave me a horse for the journey back to Ightham?”

The servants believed him, of course. They could hardly not, when he turned up rain-soaked and bloody-nosed some hours after the attack. He quickly changed into a borrowed shirt and his own clothes before leading the hue-and-cry back to the river bank. Of course the Huntsmen had long gone by then, but they had left evidence of their work. Mal swore under his breath. Someone had been creative with his instructions. A little too creative.

A little way along the ridge from where he had “escaped”, blackened timbers jutted from the earth: an X-shaped framework to which a man’s body was chained, upside-down. A fire had been set beneath it and the victim’s clothes and hair had already burned away, falling in sooty pieces into the ashes. For a moment Mal wondered if the bastards had done something similar to Erishen’s previous body, after… He pushed the thought aside. This was no innocent victim burned alive, only a hanged corpse of Selby’s height and build, dressed in his clothes to leave evidence: buttons, belt buckles, perhaps even rings. The Huntsmen were thorough, but not totally immune to temptation.

Selby’s steward halted, his expression needing no words. Somewhere behind them, one of the younger men was violently sick.

“Who would do such a thing?” the steward said at last.

“Witchhunters?” This was the last thing Mal wanted, but it seemed the only way to deflect suspicion from his allies. “Perhaps the madness has crossed the Narrow Sea.”

“But why our master?” another man demanded. “Who would think him a witch?”

“How should I know?” Mal took in the assembled servants with a look. “Has he been behaving strangely of late? Any peculiar instructions or absences?”

There were some shaken heads and mumbles of denial, but also one or two shared looks of enlightenment. If Selby had done anything in the least out of the ordinary – and as a guiser plotting to control the kingdom, he was certain to have done something odd at some point – gossip would soon turn it into symptoms of possession or devil-worship. That was how these things worked, after all.

“Put out the fire and retrieve the body,” Mal said. “He should be given a Christian burial, whatever his murderers believed. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to London and inform the Privy Council. If we have lawless bands of witchhunters roaming the country, someone needs to put a stop to it.”

CHAPTER IV

Even with a change of horses it took Mal until well past noon to reach London. He prayed Selby was safely mewed up in the Tower by now, but he could not afford the luxury of a visit just yet. News of Selby’s apparent death would reach the other guisers soon enough, and if Mal’s story was to hold water he needed to act as if it were true. Which meant reporting the incident to the Privy Council in Whitehall Palace. The County Coroner for Kent would deal with the murder itself, but the nature of the attack was a more serious business. Damn the Huntsmen to the innermost circle of Hell! He had been a fool to think he could use them and not pay a heavy price. As soon as he was sure he had the last scrap of useful information out of them, Grey would get his list and could round them up at his leisure.

The city sweltered and stank in the August heat, its open sewers too dry to wash the filth away. Mal pressed a clove-scented handkerchief to his mouth until he reached the cleaner air of Westminster, guiding his mount with his knees and leaving the reins loose so the poor beast could shake away the flies that filled the air like smoke. If plague did not follow on the heels of this latest poor harvest, it would be a miracle. Suddenly he was very glad his family were far from the capital, where they would at least be spared such horrors.

It appeared that Prince Robert felt likewise. The courtyards of the palace of Whitehall lay empty, only a few bored guardsmen at each gate to keep the hungry, frightened populace at bay. Mal gave his name and business, and was told that the Privy Council had dispersed for the summer; only Lord Grey had remained behind to deal with affairs of state. At least that made matters simpler. The formalities could be adhered to without drawing undue attention, and by the time the council reconvened, Selby would have been taken care of. Permanently.

Mal was show into a dining parlour that formed part of the councillors’ suite of chambers in the palace. The same room in which he had been questioned by Walsingham after his escape from Grey’s own father. He wondered if the duke knew that and was using it to throw him off balance, or whether it was mere coincidence. Probably the latter: Grey might have a talent for interrogation, but he lacked his predecessor’s subtlety.

The room was empty, however. No spymaster seated at the long oak dining table, no Baines standing by the door to prevent his departure. Mal made a discreet sweep of the room, looking for places where a hidden observer might lurk. No hollows behind the panels, nor concealed doors. The windows either side of the fireplace looked out onto a narrow courtyard, but the brick wall opposite was blank and the surrounding buildings’ windows too far away for a good view into the dining parlour.