The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1 (48 page)

  "Your Grace."

  The duchess smiled graciously at them both, though Coby thought she looked tired and worried. Hardly surprising, when both she and her husband had come so close to death.

  "You are the young man who helped everyone escape from the theatre," the duchess said to Master Parrish.

  "Not I, Your Grace," he replied, gesturing to Coby. "That was all Hendricks' work."

  "Really? And so young." She beckoned to one of her ladies, who handed over a velvet pouch. "For your pains."

  Coby bowed again. "R-really, Your Grace, it was not I. Master Catlyn rescued your husband. Him and Lord Grey. I just helped the ambassador down the stairs."

  "Oh. Well, perhaps you could give this to Master…"

  "Catlyn."

  "Indeed." She dropped the purse into Coby's palm, as if reluctant to touch an underling's flesh.

  "I will," Coby replied. She forced out the words. "When I see him again."

  "Splendid." The duchess gathered her skirts about her. "Come Nan, come, Jane."

  She swept out of the room in a rustle of silk brocade, the ladies-in-waiting scurrying after her like lapdogs. Master Parrish let out a soft whistle.

  "A formidable woman," he said.

  "She's terrified," Coby said quietly.

  "What?"

  "She might be dressed as if for a visit to court, but she wears no makeup or jewels. And something is wrong. You heard what she said on the stairs."

  "They were talking about the duke."

  "Yes. And… and now I remember." Yes, that was it.

  "Remember what?"

  Footsteps sounded in the hall.

  "I'll tell you when we're well out of here."

  They were shown back out to the gatehouse where, at Master Parrish's prompting, Coby tipped the porter for his troubles. She felt rather guilty for spending Master Catlyn's money without his say-so, but it might come in useful later to have a friendly ear in the duke's household.

  When they were well out of sight of Suffolk House, she seized Master Parrish's arm and dragged him into a doorway. "Yesterday, in the carriage after the fire, the duke said something to his son, and he said it was too far."

  "What was too far?"

  She lowered her voice, afraid they were already attracting too much attention from passers-by. "Somewhere the duke wanted to go, instead of his house in London."

  "Such as…?"

  "Ferrymead Park."

  "Ferrymead?" Master Parrish stared at her. "But why there?"

  Coby grinned in triumph. "Because that's where they've been keeping Sandy. And that's where Master Catlyn is now."

  "That's – It's madness. Why would the duke abduct Mal and his brother?"

  "I don't know," Coby replied. "But why else would His Grace be so anxious to travel in his wounded state, unless there was something there, something more important than his own life? And is it not a marvellous coincidence that he owns a house so close to one of the palaces, just as Ambassador Kiiren saw?"

  Master Parrish shrugged. "It does look very odd, I'll grant you that. All right, let's go and find Ned. It's as good a trail to follow as any."

 

"Where do you think you're going?"

  A shape detached itself from the shadows under the stairway and blocked his path. Ned groaned. Not him again!

  "I don't have time for this," he told Baines. "I've got business to attend to."

  "What sort of business?"

  "None of yours."

  The next thing he knew, Baines had twisted one arm up behind his back and was using his other hand to grind Ned's face into the rough-cast wall of the shop.

  "None of my business, eh?"

  Ned willed himself not to struggle. That would only encourage a bully like Baines.

  "Still, it's a bit early in the morning to set you loose in the taverns," the intelligencer growled in his ear. "So how about you tell me what's so urgent?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  The pressure increased until Ned yelped in pain.

  "No," he whispered to the wall. Not this time. He would not betray Mal again.

  "Do you serve your Queen or not?"

  "All right, all right!" His mind raced, trying to come up with something that would satisfy the intelligencer. "I was going to the Tower to see Mal. Thought he might know what was happening with the contest, what with the Mirror burning down and everything. I owe Henslowe some money."

  Baines released him with a grunt of disgust. Ned raised a hand gingerly to his cheek, and hissed as his fingers brushed raw flesh. This was going to be a beauty of a bruise, and maybe a scar to boot.

  "Well then," Baines said, "in that case we can go together."

  "What?"

  "Walsingham wants to know what happened yesterday. Seems your friend Catlyn was in the thick of the action."

  "No!"

  "What do you mean, no? He was there, wasn't he?"

  "Yes. Yes he was," Ned sighed. This was all going to come out soon enough. "But you'll be wasting your time. He's not at the Tower."

  Baines drew his knife. "If you're lying to me again, Faulkner–"

  "It's the truth. Mal was taken from the Tower last night."

  "Who by?"

  "How should I know? All I know is, he's gone."

  "So that's what Naismith's whelp was doing here. And here's me thinking you boys were just getting together for a game of Hoodman Blind." He smirked. "I think you'd better come with me anyway."

  "No, I–"

  Baines seized him by the arm.

  "You can come quietly and with all your guts on the inside, or not. Up to you."

  He marched Ned down to the river and they caught a wherry across the Thames, disembarking on the quayside under the shadow of the Tower's outer walls. Ned fully expected to be dragged inside and thrown into the darkest dungeon, but they carried on past and turned left at the top of Tower Hill.

  "Where are you taking me?" Ned asked, trying to keep his voice from quavering.

  Baines made no answer. After a few yards they turned right into a narrow street lined with tall timber-framed houses. Baines stopped at one of the doors near the far end, knocked, and they were let in.

  "This is Walsingham's house," Ned hissed, when the servant had left them to wait in the black-and-white panelled atrium.

  Baines nodded curtly. Ned stared down at his cracked and scuffed shoes, feeling very shabby in the starkly elegant surroundings of the spymaster's home. The servant returned a few moments later, saying Sir Francis wanted to speak to Baines, and the intelligencer disappeared through a doorway set into the panelling. Ned was left in the atrium to ponder his fate. Should he run now? There didn't seem much point; Baines would just hunt him down and bring him back here again. In pieces.

  Eventually the servant reappeared and conducted Ned through the same door, down a passageway and out into the garden. Baines stood, hands folded behind his back, on the far side of a small lawn. Beyond him, the Queen's private secretary was a blot of inky darkness against the jewellery-box colours of the flower bed. Ned pulled the cap from his head and clutched it nervously in both hands as he approached them.

  "Baines tells me Maliverny Catlyn has gone missing," Walsingham said, clipping a long drooping stem from a honeysuckle and dropping it into a basket at his feet.

  "Yes, m'lord." Ned swallowed, then added, "Spirited away by magic, m'lord."

  The shears clicked loudly, then were silent. Walsingham turned to face him, his dark eyes burning like embers in his parchment complexion. Ned clutched his cap tighter.

  "Magic," Walsingham said. "Do you mean to say witchcraft?"

  "I– I don't know, m'lord."

  "I am no lord. 'Sir' will suffice."

  "Aye, m'lord – I mean, Sir Francis."

  "Why was this not reported to me sooner?" Walsingham asked Baines.

  "I didn't know nothing about it, sir, not until Faulkner opened his mouth just now."

  "Then perhaps," Walsingham said, "you would be so good as to find out."

  "Yes, sir. Right away, sir." Baines snapped a bow and went back into the house.

  Ned gazed after him, wondering what he was supposed to do now.

  "So you are Edmund Faulkner, the one survivor of a certain little conspiracy," the spymaster said.

  Ned couldn't think of an answer that wouldn't incriminate him further, so he merely ducked his head in obeisance. Walsingham tossed the shears into the basket with a clatter that made Ned jump.

  "Nervous as a cat on a kennel roof," Walsingham said with a smile. "So, what have you not told me yet?"

  "Nothing, sir."

  "Come now, there must be something more. There is always more to a story than first seems." He gestured for Ned to walk with him back to the house. "This is no simple plot to replace a bodyguard with his double, is it?"

  "I wouldn't know, sir."

  "You wouldn't know. But I do. If these men have witchcraft at their disposal, why not attack the ambassador directly? Unless it is not the ambassador who is the target."

  "They were after Mal all along," Ned breathed. "But why?"

  "That is what I would like to know. And that is why I must know everything you know, or suspect."

  Ned bit his lip, uncertain how much to tell Walsingham. Was it betraying his friend, or helping him?

  "Mal and his brother are in or near one of the royal palaces, west of London," he said at last.

  Walsingham halted on the threshold and turned to stare at Ned, squinting against the sunlight. "How do you know this?"

  "Hendricks told us, sir."

  "Us?"

  "Me and Gabe, sir. Gabriel Parrish the actor, I mean."

  "I know who Parrish is. How did Hendricks find out?"

  "Don't know, sir," Ned replied. He wasn't about to tell Walsingham that Mal was consorting with underage boys. It had nothing to do with the disappearances, and would only get Mal into serious trouble when they did find him. "I suppose he went to see the ambassador on some errand, what with the theatre burning down."

  "Hmm." He ushered Ned into a parlour that overlooked the garden. A fire burned in the grate, but it was still shadowed and chilly. "What were you up to this morning, Faulkner?"

  "Sir?"

  Walsingham sat down in a chair by the hearth with a sigh.

  "From what Baines told me, it sounds dangerously like another conspiracy. Hendricks running back and forth on mysterious errands when he should be mourning the loss of his master, Parrish no better, and you just happen to be right there in the middle…"

  "We were going to find Mal and Sandy," Ned blurted out. "Take a boat upriver, and look for them."

  "But you don't know where they are."

  "Well, no, sir, not exactly where. But we have a rough idea."

  "A rough idea. So, you plan to go blundering around the Thames valley in search of two men who have been locked away where no one can find them."

  Ned hung his head. Put like that, it did sound stupid.

  "Still, it might prove fruitful," Walsingham added.

  "Sir?"

  "There is a chance you may alarm the conspirators into showing their hand too early."

  Ned grinned. Now he was on surer ground. "Like a bluff at cards."

  "Precisely." Walsingham picked up a small bell that stood on a table at his elbow, and rang it briefly. "Very well, continue with your scheme, and tell Baines to supply you with whatever you need. We wouldn't want you to walk into a trap unarmed, would we now?"

  "No, sir. Thank you, sir."

  The manservant appeared, and Ned followed him back to the atrium. A trap? He didn't like the sound of Walsingham's plan one bit, but on the other hand, what choice did they have?

 

Before the sun had climbed halfway to its zenith Mal had exhausted all his ideas on how to get them out of their cell. He had hoped that if Sandy could magic him here, Sandy could magic him back, perhaps even magic them both back, but his brother had lapsed into a silence as profound as any Mal had seen before. No amount of pleading or cajoling raised so much as a flicker of recognition. At least he was not screaming or twitching in one of his terrible seizures, for which Mal thanked God at least once an hour.

  His other hope was that he might attract attention by waving something from the window. With an entire palace and its dozens of windows only a hundred yards away, someone must surely see him and wonder what was going on in Suffolk's country mansion. However, the bars prevented the window from being opened more than a finger's breadth, and the small thick panes were impossible to break.

  At around noon, footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Dinner, perhaps? Mal went over to the door to listen, but could hear no voices. A key grated in the lock. Mal flattened himself against the wall, and as the door opened he kicked it wide and launched himself at the armed retainer, sending them both careening out into the corridor. They struggled for a moment, then Mal heard a familiar voice say:

  "I wouldn't do that if I were you."

  He whirled, and the retainer's staff hit him in the ribs from behind. Mal staggered and caught himself against the door frame – and froze when he saw a crossbow pointed straight at Sandy.

  Blaise was dressed for riding in a doublet and hose of buff leather trimmed with brown velvet, and his face was flushed with exertion. The crossbow, a heavy German hunting model inset with mother-of-pearl, was tucked casually under his arm.

  "I must say, Goddard," he remarked to the retainer in idle tones, "When I heard your report, I thought you'd been drinking my father's best sack. But here he is, as large as life. How are you, Catlyn?"