The Prince of Lies: Night's Masque - Book 3 (7 page)

“I… Yes, I suppose so. Though I cannot remember the rules.”

Adjaan made a face. “Do not tell my kinfolk, but neither can I. Still, one cannot argue with tradition, eh? Not when the outcome is so pleasing.”

Mal recalled something that Kiiren had once told him, about the skraylings using games and competitions to choose mates. Was that what had just happened here?

“You are well?” Adjaan asked, breaking into his train of thought. “And Erishen and Kiiren-
tuur
also?”

“Ah, yes, thank you, honoured one,” he said, struggling to bring his thoughts back to the matter in hand. “Or at least, so I believe. I have not heard from Sandy – I mean Erishen – for a few weeks, but my wife sent his greetings in her last letter. And Kit too.” He smiled to himself, remembering the inky scratch vaguely resembling a
K
at the bottom of the letter, guided by an adult’s hand.

Adjaan nodded. “You are here on dreamwalker business.”

So much for the pleasantries. “Am I so easy to read?”

“Yes.”

There was no polite answer to that. Mal had to remind himself that this was not his old friend, but a stranger who had taken over his role within the clan.

“Very well, then,” he said. “Let us get down to business.”

He told Adjaan about Selby: his capture and interrogation, and the unfortunate removal of his irons for a brief but unknown period.

“Careless,” Adjaan said. “You should have brought him to us for questioning.”

“That would have been… difficult. The Huntsmen would never have willingly handed him over to you.”

Adjaan muttered something under her breath. Mal wasn’t sure the skraylings understood the concept of swearing, but the outspeaker’s words had not sounded polite.

“And now you expect my people to… how do you say it? ‘Clean up after you’?”

“Of course not, honoured one. But I thought your dreamwalkers might have observed something.”

“When did this occur?”

“Yesterday, a little after sunset.”

Adjaan took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Mal waited. And waited. He was tempted to remove his own spirit-guard and try to follow her into the dreamlands, but suspected that would not be considered polite.

Eventually Adjaan’s eyes snapped open again.

“There was something, just the other side of the river.”

Mal’s heart sank. “What kind of ‘something’?”

“Njaaren could not be certain. Our patrols pay little attention to what goes on in the city itself, unless it appears to be a direct threat to us.”

“Please, honoured one; any information could be valuable.”

“Yesterday Njaaren saw a white light flare and dance amongst the souls within the Tower, and when it was gone, so were some of the others.”

“What others?”

“The off-duty guardsmen. They had woken.”

“That could just have been devourers,” Mal said with a shudder. He had once been chased across the dreamscape by the creatures, and seen them crash into the other dreaming minds around him, leaving nightmares in their wake.

“True. If this guiser was being hurt, as you say, the
hrrith
would have been drawn to him, and may have disturbed the sleep of the others. Or…” The skrayling gestured helplessly.

“Or it could have been Selby himself,” Mal said.

“Yes. It would depend upon his skill, of course. You are sure the
senzadheneth
here are young and inexperienced?”

“For the most part, yes. Jathekkil…” Mal forced out the name of his enemy. “Jathekkil turned to dream-magic only as a last resort, after he had failed to learn what he wanted from me through more… mundane means. I have no reason to believe that any of the others are markedly more skilful than he.”

“Then it seems unlikely he could have impressed a strong enough compulsion on any of the guardsmen.”

“A compulsion to do what?”

Adjaan shrugged again. “To do whatever he needed.”

“Like, tell the other guisers?”

“Yes. A simple image of the truth might suffice. If it was strong enough to make the man speak of it to those who might want to know.”

Mal swore under his breath, earning an icy look from the outspeaker.

“Thank you for your help, Adjaan-
tuur
,” he said, getting to his feet. “I will leave you to your meditations.”

He left the camp deep in thought. If only he had been able to call on the skraylings to fence Selby in, none of this would have happened. But he doubted they would have agreed to it, and in any case it would surely have attracted the attention of the others. No, the plan had been a good one, given the tools at hand. He would simply have to rethink his next move.

CHAPTER V

Ned perused the printed sheet, chewing at his moustache. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the apprentice, Jack, who had brought him the piece. The lad looked fit to wet himself with fear.

“Well,” he said at last. “It’s better than your last attempt.”

“Yes, sir. T-t-thank you, sir.”

“But see here.” Ned laid the sheet down on the table. “The spacing on the first word is all wrong. You want a number three ‘A’ on a word like that, then the ‘W’ will fit all snug against it. You have to take extra care with the capitals, or it looks a right old mess.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll try, sir.”

Ned handed him the sheet. “Do it again. And start with an empty frame this time. You’re going to have to reset nearly every line anyway, once you’ve got that first one right.”

Jack scurried away, the offending sheet clutched in his hand. Ned sighed. He had no idea what the other apprentices had been telling the boy – some gruesome but all-too-believable story about how their master had come to lose his hand, perhaps – but he appeared terrified of Ned. Perhaps Jack’s father beat him too often, or without reason. That sort of thing could make a boy fearful, if it did not make him a bully in his turn.

The doorbell jingled, and he looked around. A man in a sergeant’s steel gorget and kettle helm stood in the doorway.

“Good morning, officer,” Ned said, as calmly as he could manage. “What can I do for you?”

“Edmund Faulkner?”

“Yes.”

The sergeant stepped further into the shop, making way for half a dozen of his men. So many. What did they think he had done?

“You four.” The sergeant gestured to his men. “Take the back room. Round up everyone you can find. Journeymen, apprentices, the lot. Bradley, Moxon, start gathering up the evidence.”

“Evidence?” Ned stepped between the soldiers and the door to the workshop. “Evidence of what?”

The sergeant glared at him. “Sedition. Treason. The usual stuff.”

“But…”

“Out of my way, little man.” The soldier pushed him aside.

Ned swung his right arm wildly, catching the man on the jawline with his brass-and-steel fist. The soldier swayed back a little then recovered his balance.

“You little–”

He aimed a punch for Ned’s temple, but Ned was gone, ducking away and heading for the door. Something hit him from behind, and the next thing he knew, he was lying face down on the floor with one of the soldiers on top of him.

“I’m flattered, mate,” he groaned, “but perhaps another time?”

The soldier grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face against the splintery planks. Ned hissed in pain, forcing himself to lie still.

“Right, get him up,” the sergeant barked. “I want this place cleared and locked up within the hour.”

Rough hands hauled Ned to his feet. The rest of the printers were gathered by the display shelves. One of the guardsmen had a split lip and another a swollen eye; gifts no doubt from Peter, the bull-like journeyman who wound the presses and had biceps as thick as Ned’s thighs. Peter himself stood quiet and sullen, and Ned noticed that one of the soldiers had a hand on young Jack’s shoulder.

“Is this all of them?” the sergeant asked Ned.

“I…” He scanned the pale faces. “No. John Harris isn’t here.”

“Where does he dwell?”

Ned gave him directions.

“We’ll worry about him later.” The sergeant favoured Ned with an unpleasant smile. “You might want to take a purse with you, unless you fancy braving the Common Side.”

“You’re taking us to the Marshalsea?”

Several of the printers swore, and one cried out, “We ain’t done nothing!”

The sergeant ignored them. Ned went into the back office with a sinking heart, unlocked the strongbox and took out a bag of coins. The weight of metal felt good in his hand, like a weapon, but it would be a temporary defence at best. Even a short stay in the Marshalsea Prison could ruin a man, and a longer one was guaranteed to kill him.

Gabriel pushed his way through the crowd of players milling around the tiring house. As the principal actor in this new production he had his own dressing table at the back of the room, where the wooden-barred windows gave the best light for applying makeup. His costume hung on pegs nearby, covered in linen sheets to protect it from dust and grease. Gabriel lifted the plain fabric to reveal the magnificence beneath: a doublet and hose in cloth-of-gold, embroidered all over with fake pearls, and a scarlet cloak lined with white fur. They must have cost almost as much as the theatre itself, but a London audience expected a king to look like a king, especially when the players’ patron was himself a prince.

“About time, Parrish!” A hand clapped Gabriel on the shoulder, and he turned to see Will Shakespeare grinning at him. “You know, I’m happy to take the role if you don’t think you’re up to it. I do have every line by heart, you know.”

“I would hope so, since you wrote it,” Gabriel replied. He looked around the tiring house in irritation. “Where’s that wretched boy got to? I’ll never be ready at this rate.”

“Here, Master Parrish.” Noll, Gabriel’s former apprentice, scurried over. He’d had to give up acting when his voice broke, but Gabriel had found him work as a tireman with the Prince’s Men.

Gabriel started unbuttoning his doublet.

“No,” he told the boy, “don’t uncover them yet. Wait until the last minute. In fact, leave the cloak until I’m about to go on stage.”

He shrugged out of the doublet and handed it to Noll, then kicked off his shoes and unfastened his breeches. He was about to drop them when he heard raised voices out in the auditorium. He paused, a sudden chill running over his skin despite the muggy warmth of the tiring house. The other actors crowded back towards him as a group of armed men appeared at the stage door. Shakespeare stepped forward.

“Is something wrong, officers? I was assured that this play had been cleared by the Office of the Revels.”

The leading guardsman glared at him. “Who are you?”

“William Shakespeare, poet and actor, at your service.” He swept a bow.

“I don’t know nothing about no Shakespeare,” the guardsman said. “I’m here for a fellow by the name of Gabriel Parrish.”

Gabriel froze. There was no way out except into the auditorium and through the main gates; unlike the Mirror, this older theatre had no back entrance.

“Come back at three,” Shakespeare said. “The play will be over and you can do what you will with him.”

“My orders was to take him now–”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Shakespeare said in his most reasonable tones. “Gentlemen, there will soon be more than a thousand people out there on those benches and in the yard, all watching my good friend Master Parrish like hawks.”

“How do we know he won’t try and give us the slip?”

“You can post your men at the doors, if you like, but I assure you, he won’t be leaving. Will you, Parrish?”

Gabriel shook his head, not trusting his voice not to crack. How could he go through with the performance, knowing he would be arrested at the end of it?

“Even better than that,” Shakespeare said, draping an arm around the sergeant’s shoulders, “I’ll have a stool set up for you on the edge of the stage, just like the noble lords have. The king is in nearly every scene, and you’ll be within arm’s reach of him at all times. You cannot say fairer than that, eh?”

The sergeant squinted at the playwright. “What’s the play?”

“The History of King Richard the Second,” Shakespeare said. “Newly written and never before performed in a public theatre.”

“Are there battles, and bloody murder?”

“Oh yes,” Shakespeare said. “Rebellion and regicide too.”

He drew the sergeant aside, and winked at Gabriel as he turned away. Gabriel swallowed hard, and turned back to Noll.

“You heard Master Shakespeare. Come, transform me into a king.”

A king who would be thrown into prison by the end of the play. Fate had a twisted sense of humour.

The Marshalsea Prison stood a little back from the street, its entrance dominated by a turreted lodge. Ned and his employees were marched through the main gate and into a bare side room opposite the porter’s office. The door slammed shut behind them, and a key grated in the lock. Peter sank to the ground against the wall, and Jack huddled next to him.

“What now?” Ben, the other journeyman, asked.

Ned shrugged helplessly. His only previous experience of English prisons had been a short spell in the nearby Compter. Then there was that night in the Doge’s cells in Venice… Ned shuddered and pushed the memory aside.

“They call this the Pound,” said Nicholas, the oldest of Ned’s three apprentices. He boosted himself up on the wall and grabbed the bars of the high narrow window, trying to see out. “They’ll leave us here until they find a room for us.”

“Better than this one?” Jack said, his expression hopeful.

Nicholas looked at their master and jumped down. “Aye, if we can pay for it.”

“And if not?”

“If not they put us in the Common Side, where you’ll count yourself lucky to have stale bread once a day, and the rats come in the night to eat your face.”

He scrabbled in the air with fingers hooked like rats’ claws and chittered at Jack, who shrank back against Peter’s side.

“Stop affrighting the boy,” Ben said.

“It’s naught but the truth.”

“And how come you know so much about it?”

“My father died here,” Nicholas said softly. “Fell into debt, couldn’t pay back his creditors fast enough to get him out of here. He let the gaolers starve him to death rather than leave mother and me penniless.”