The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (15 page)

  "
The Queen of Faerieland
," Mal said. Now he knew where he had heard the name before.

  Lodge narrowed his eyes. "Are you a spy?"

  "Me? No!" Mal laughed nervously. "Merely an acquaintance of Suffolk's Men. I've been taking lessons in Tradetalk from their young tireman."

  Lodge raised an eyebrow. "Really? What did you make of it?"

  "It was surprisingly simple to learn."

  "Simpler than this, then," Leland said, handing Mal the piece of paper he'd been studying.

  The sheet of paper bore three short sentences written in clear round-hand.

  
Kaal-an rrish, senlirren. Kaalt tokuur London-an iin tuuraq. Iin
kaal-an lish hendet tutheeq.

  "His Grace the Duke of York insists the visitors are greeted in their own tongue," Leland said with a pained expression. "Wanted me to do the whole damned speech in it, but the Queen's ministers argued him out of it, thank the Lord."

  "It certainly looks very odd," Mal replied.

  "That's what I told Lodge here, though he swears he has it aright."

  "I spent nigh on a year in Vinland," Lodge said, his pale eyes glinting. "I promise you, Sir James, this is their tongue, faithfully transcribed to the best of my skill."

  "It had better be, sirrah, else Her Majesty will have you swinging from a gibbet faster than you can say 'Hey nonny nonny'."

  Lodge muttered something under his breath, but did not press the point. Leland took back the sheet of paper, folded it up and slipped it into a pocket. Gesturing to his guests to sit down, he took his own place at the head of the table. The servants brought in dinner, and whilst they ate Leland regaled his guests with stories of the Tower's long history and its more colourful inhabitants, whilst Monkton tried unsuccessfully not to look bored.

  "Do you smoke?" the playwright asked, holding out a leather tobacco pouch whilst tamping down his own pipe with a yellow-nailed thumb.

  "Thank you, no," Mal said.

  "Quite right too," Leland said. "Damned filthy foreign habit."

  Lodge shrugged. He went over to the fire and lit his pipe with a bit of kindling.

  "Of course it wouldn't do to say that in front of the ambassador," Leland added. "Help yourself to more wine, Catlyn."

  "Perhaps Master Lodge could tell us more about his adventures in the New World," Mal said. Better put the man at ease, if he was going to get anything useful out of him.

  "Absolutely," Leland put in. "Do enlighten us, Lodge. Did you see any of their women? What are they like?"

  Mal leant in closer, curious to know if Lodge had better information on the topic than young Hendricks.

  "I regret to say I cannot confirm their existence, except in legend," Lodge replied. He paused to suck on his pipe. "Though I sailed all along the coast of Vinland and round the Isles of Antilia, I was unable to gain admittance to the Seven Cities. The race dwelling therein is quite different from the skraylings who visit our shores, and they are not welcoming to strangers."

  "They are hostile?" Monkton asked.

  "No," Lodge said. "Merely aloof. Almost monastic, one might say."

  "But no women, eh?" Leland said.

  "That was the peculiar thing," Lodge replied. "My skrayling guides referred to the city-dwellers as
iiseth
, which in other contexts translates as 'women', but from the little I saw of them, I can only assume it was a misunderstanding. The citizens were squat burly folk with bluish skin and short raven-black hair. They wore no face paint but in other respects were unmistakably skraylings."

  "Perhaps the word was intended as an insult," Mal suggested.

  "No," Lodge said, "my guides were very respectful towards them."

  "No accounting for foreigners, eh?" Leland said.

  "Well, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I'm for bed," Lodge said. He tapped out his pipe on the hearth, refilled his goblet and carried it off with him.

  When the playwright had gone, Leland went over the arrangements for the visit at length: who would be attending the arrival ceremony, which noblemen were out of favour and especially to be watched, and the duties expected of Mal.

  "Day and night, mind," Leland said in conclusion. "I want no assassins creeping up on our guests whilst they are my responsibility."

  "Will the skraylings not bring their own bodyguards?" Mal asked.

  "Undoubtedly," said Leland. "But what do they know of Christians? Can they even tell an Englishman from a Spaniard?"

  "Even if they could," Monkton said, "I hardly think our enemies would be so clumsy as to send one of their own openly."

  "Perhaps not." Leland drained his glass, and looked at Mal, his eyes narrowing. "But there are plenty of Papist sympathisers here in London. A man who could claim to have broken up our alliance with the skraylings would find rich rewards in Spain. Or France."

  Mal nodded. "Sark."

  "Quite. The French haven't forgiven us for handing the island over to the skraylings."

  "I will be most vigilant," Mal assured him. "No villain will get within five yards of His Excellency, I swear."

 

As Ned walked home from the Bull's Head, the sun was sinking between the houses at the far end of Bankside in a blaze of gold. Perhaps that was why he didn't see the man standing in his path until it was too late.

  "Scuse me." He tried to step around the fellow, who was built like the piers of London Bridge, the ones they called "starlings". The man clamped an enormous hand on Ned's shoulder.

  "We want a word with you, sirrah," a voice hissed in his ear.

  Ned tried to turn, and found himself being pushed into an alley by two men. Alleys he was used to, but two men at once was more than he cared to handle.

  "Look, gentlemen, I'm happy to have all the words you want, but is this the place for it?"

  Starling slammed him against the wall. "Shut yer gob!"

  First they want a word, then they want me to shut up, Ned thought. I wish they'd make up their minds.

  At last he got a look at the second man, or at least as good a look as could be managed in the shadows. He was about Ned's own height, a slight, weasel-faced man wearing a fustian doublet that had seen better days. Ned felt sure he had seen the fellow before, but then there were plenty like him in Southwark.

  "You a friend of that whoreson Maliverny Catlyn?" Weasel Face asked.

  "What?"

  "You 'eard him." Starling took Ned's left bicep in his huge fist, and squeezed.

  "Ow, yes, yes I know him. But not all that well–" He clenched his teeth against the pain as the big man squeezed again.

  "You sure about that?"

  "Yes," Ned gasped.

  Starling squeezed, his iron-hard nails biting into the muscle, until Ned was sure his fingers must meet in the middle. He felt tears welling in the corners of his eyes, but he refused to make a sound. He'd had worse than this from some of his customers.

  "That's enough," Weasel Face said. "We're not getting anywhere."

  The iron grip loosened and Ned sagged against the wall, nursing his bruised bicep.

  "Nah," he went on, "there's a much easier way to get what we want."

  Ned looked up. There was something in the man's voice that made his flesh creep.

  "Got your attention, have I? So, you're going to tell me everything you know about Catlyn."

  "And if I don't?"

  "Well, now, let's see." The man took a knife from his belt and began paring his nails. Ned watched him, waiting for the threat to come. Sweat trickled down the back of his shirt. The knife didn't look particularly sharp, but depending on what they had in mind, it might not need to be. He weighed up his options. The big man wasn't holding him. How far could he get before they grabbed him again? Probably not far enough.

  The knife slammed into a timber beside his ear.

  "Don't think of running," Weasel Face said. "Won't do you no good anyway."

  "Why not?"

  "Because when you hear what I have to say, you'll be glad we're here with you and not somewhere else."

  Ned stared at him.

  "What's the phrase?" His captor leered. "Oh yes. 'We know where you live.'"

  "You wouldn't," Ned growled.

  "Ah, but we would, you see. And you'd better believe it." He sheathed the knife. "So, are you going to tell us what we want to know, or are me and my friend going to pay a visit to your dear, sweet, silver-haired old mother?"

 

The dream began in darkness, but this time it was different. One moment he was riding through the woods, surrounded by masked men, next thing he knew he was on foot and alone. The trees thinned and he found himself on open moorland. Short wiry grass rippled underfoot, though there was no wind. The sky above was a dull nacreous grey; not storm clouds, he realised with a shock, but a sky without moon or stars, as if all the lights of heaven had been smeared like paint across a black canvas.

  The moor was studded with great limestone boulders, some taller than himself.
Things
lurked behind each one; he couldn't see them but he knew they were watching him. He wanted to turn and run but he knew they would pursue him. He looked beyond the boulders, wondering if he could slip past the waiting creatures. In the distance, warm lights burned here and there – farmsteads perhaps? No, too many. A town, a city even. The lights seemed to multiply before his eyes; a few winked out, but were replaced by more. He watched for what felt like an eternity, and eventually the lights began to disappear. He sensed the creatures' disappointment. They had been hoping he would try to cross the moor.

  Then from the edge of sight came a new light, searing bluewhite that flooded his vision. He flung up his arms and squinted, desperate to see if this new arrival were friend or foe, but his eyes would not obey. He had to keep his eyes open or the others, the cruel ones, would be upon him in an instant–

 

Mal jerked awake. A valet was setting down a plate of bread and a tankard on a small table.

  "Did you say something, sir? Anything I can get you?"

  "No." His mouth was sour and sticky with sleep. "Wait. I need a clean shirt–"

  "We have your new livery laid out ready, sir," the man replied.

  "Livery? Oh, of course."

  The valet snapped his fingers, and two body-servants stepped forward, linen towels draped over their arms. "Perhaps a shave, sir, before you break your fast?"

  Mal gratefully accepted. The last thing he wanted was to turn up to the ceremony with bloody scrapes on his face. He got out of bed and took a chair by the hearth, leaning his head against its back and listening to the crackle of the kindling as the fire caught. Rain rattled against the many-paned windows. Autumn was coming early this year.

  "Stayed at the Tower before, sir?" One of the body-servants brushed rose-scented lather onto Mal's cheeks whilst the other stropped a razor.

  "Uhnnee unce," Mal replied, keeping his mouth shut against the soap.

  "Grand place, sir. At least for those of us on the right side of the locked door, eh?" The servant gently turned Mal's head to one side and began scraping the dark stubble from around his beard.

  The new livery turned out to be a surprisingly good fit, and less gaudy than Mal had feared; no crimson velvet or gold braid to be seen. True, the short trunk hose were a little old-fashioned and showed rather more of his leg than he was accustomed to, but the black silk doublet was cunningly tailored to allow ease of movement, as he found out when he drew his rapier and tried a few feints and lunges. The servants retreated in alarm, not even bothering to take the dirty towels with them. Mal continued his exercises, losing himself in the familiar moves almost to the point of forgetting where he was, and why.

  His concentration was broken by a fanfare from the direction of the river. The ambassador! With a curse Mal sheathed his sword and ran down the tower stairs, praying he could find his way through the maze of buildings in time.

 
 
 

At the main gatehouse he was greeted by a red-faced Leland.

  "Catlyn, where the hell have you been?"

  "My humble apologies, Sir James, I–"

  "Never mind that. The barge is almost across the river. Come on!" He directed Mal through a side door and across a narrow drawbridge to the wharf.

  The rain had eased off, but a fine mizzle drifted in from the west. Mal recalled from the briefing that the visitors would be disembarking at the Queen's Stairs, with the opening ceremony being held on the wharf-side, as was traditional. Awnings had been set up between the river and the moat, some in royal red, white and green, others striped blue and white. Courtiers clustered beneath the dripping canvas, complaining about the unseasonable weather that threatened to ruin their plumed bonnets. Several of them glared or muttered as Mal was escorted to the foremost canopy, by the edge of the Thames.

  At the front of the royal pavilion the princes sat side by side, resplendent in matching black velvet and cloth-of-gold. Robert's three children – ten year-old Princess Elizabeth, her younger sister Isabella and little Prince Edward – sat on cushions nearby under the watchful eye of their nurse.

  "Why isn't Mama here?" the little boy asked in a loud voice.

  The ladies in the crowd laughed at this, but the nurse quickly hushed him. Princess Juliana had gone into her fourth confinement, and whilst she had birthed three healthy children so far, no one was taking further success for granted.

  The Prince of Wales, dark-complexioned and dour as his father, was gazing out over the Thames, a faraway look in his grey eyes. Mal made his obeisance in the fashionable French style as he neared the thrones, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the ground. Prince Arthur gave him an appraising look, but Robert seemed scarcely to notice him. Mal bowed again for good measure, and took his place near the rear of the royal pavilion.