The Merchant of Dreams (6 page)

“No,” Sandy said, “but as an outspeaker, it is his duty to–”

“–to be a ‘vessel for words, nothing more’,” Mal said. “Yes, I remember.”

“So what do we do?” Coby asked.

“We tell Walsingham and let the Privy Council decide,” Mal said. “We are intelligencers, not politicians. Like Kiiren, we are simply vessels for words.”

CHAPTER IV

Ned stirred the pottage again and lifted the ladle, blowing away the wisps of steam that rose from the surface. After a moment he took a cautious sip and grimaced. Too much rosemary, his mother would have said, but at least it gave the thin broth some flavour. He put the ladle down and set about laying the table. Gabe would be back from Shoreditch soon, and he was always ravenous after a day’s work. Ned smiled to himself. They’d settled into quite the domestic routine in the last two years, like an old married couple. It was a reassuring counterpoint to their other, secret lives, as informants in the pay of Sir Francis Walsingham.

Footsteps sounded on the garden path and Ned looked up, expecting the door to be flung open by a bright-eyed but weary Gabriel. Instead the owner of the footsteps halted and knocked, in a pattern he had not heard in many months. He all but ran to the door.

“Mal!”

His old friend grinned back at him, then engulfed him in a rib-crushing, horse-stinking embrace. Memories stirred, and old desires with them, but Ned pushed the thoughts aside. Their lives had gone separate ways long ago.

“God’s blood, it’s good to see you again,” he said when Mal finally released him. “What are you doing back in England, anyway?”

“Someone’s got to keep an eye on you. Sandy, you remember Ned, don’t you?”

“Ned Faulkner. Good to see you again.”

Mal’s brother bowed in that stiff way the skraylings had. Still as mad as a March hare, then, but not by the looks of it in a vengeful mood. And at least he was speaking English again.

“And my servant, Coby Hendricks.” Mal gestured to the slender figure at his side. The boy had grown, but was still as beardless as a eunuch. Perhaps he
was
a eunuch. That would explain a lot.

“How could I forget?” Ned replied. “Well met, Master Hendricks. So, how long are you here for?”

“Not long.” Mal took a coin out of his purse and tossed it towards Hendricks, who caught it with practised ease. “I don’t suppose Ned here made soup enough for five. Get a pie from Molly’s ordinary; I doubt she’ll have any meat this time of year, but ask anyway. And don’t eat it all on the way back, hollow-legs.”

The boy grinned, sketched a bow to his master and left.

“So…” Mal swung one long leg over the kitchen bench and sat down near the fire, “what’s the latest news from London?”

Ned stood with his back to the hearth, hands clasped in the small of his back like a boy reciting his lessons.

“Frobisher’s dead; caught a bullet besieging some Spanish fort in the Netherlands. They brought him home, but he died in Southampton.”

Mal nodded.

“You knew him?” Ned asked.

“Only by reputation. Go on.”

“Some Jesuit fellow, Southwell, was arrested late last year.” Ned watched his friend for a reaction, but saw nothing suspicious. Not that he was about to betray Mal’s Catholic sympathies to Walsingham, but it never hurt to keep your eyes open. “Been in the Tower since then, under Topcliffe’s tender care–”

“He confessed,” Mal said with a grimace.

“What do you think? Anyway, he’s up for trial next week. Sentence is a foregone conclusion, of course.”

“Of course. Anything else?”

“Just the usual: another half-arsed plot on Her Majesty’s life, thwarted by her loyal servants…” He tried not to look smug; somewhat unsuccessfully, it would appear. “Oh, and–” He glanced at Sandy. “Your skrayling friends have been quieter even than usual.”

Mal leaned closer. “Has there been trouble?”

“No, not that. But they’re seldom seen on the streets or at the theatre. They come out of their camp to do business, and go back again as soon as it’s over.” He cocked his head. “You’re not surprised.”

“It’s all of a piece with my own news–”

The back door flew open, bringing a gust of icy air that sent sparks flying up from the fire, and Gabriel strode into the kitchen. The actor’s thin cheeks were flushed with the cold and his cloak dripped half-melted snow into the rushes; he removed it in a swirl of forest-green wool and hung it on a peg by the door before turning to greet their guests.

“Catlyn!” Gabriel embraced Mal, and then his brother. “Good to see you both again.”

Ned went to shut the door, only to have it pushed open again by Hendricks. The boy muttered an apology and stamped his boots on the threshold. Crossing to the table he took a small pie from under his cloak and set it down.

“Salt cod and onion, sir,” he said. “It was the biggest I could get for the money, I’m afraid. Molly says it was such a bad harvest, flour is nearly twice the price it was last year.”

Mal looked at Ned for confirmation, and he nodded glumly.

“No matter,” Mal replied. “Come, sit down.”

The boy took off his cloak and gloves and sat down next to Mal. Gabriel joined them, and Ned spooned a little of the pottage into each bowl. Even with their whole loaf of bread, it would have made a meagre supper for five.

“You were about to tell me your own news,” he said to Mal, taking his place on the bench opposite Gabriel.

Gabriel shot him a reproving look and folded his hands on the table. Mal followed suit; Hendricks’ head was already bowed over his clasped hands. Whilst Gabriel said grace, Ned couldn’t help but notice out of the corner of his eye that Sandy just sat there, watching them all curiously.

Mal cut the pie it into five wedges.

“Cod and onion, eh? Looks like it’s mostly onion.”

He helped himself to a piece and passed the plate around.

Ned tried to raise the subject of Mal’s news from abroad several times during the meal, but Mal always neatly deflected his questions and instead took more than his usual interest in the doings of the theatre company. Gabriel, of course, was more than happy to be the centre of attention.

“Shakespeare says he’s nearly finished Romeo and Juliet,” Gabriel said, setting down his spoon, “so we will be playing it this summer.”

“Shakespeare says that every winter,” Ned replied. “How long has he been writing that play?”

Gabriel ignored him.

“I am to play Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, and die in a duel with Romeo. Burbage will be Romeo, of course.”

“I would like to see that,” Sandy said. “I have not been to an English theatre before, and we do not have anything quite like them in the New World.”

Away with the fairies after all then
. Ned stirred his pottage, biting his lip lest he say something discourteous. Poor Mal. He had had such high hopes of the skraylings being able to cure his brother.

“I doubt we are staying that long,” Mal said, breaking the awkward silence. He rose from his seat and beckoned to Hendricks. “My apologies, gentlemen, but we have urgent business in the city.”

“Tonight?” Ned said. “In the dark and the snow?”

“We’re only going across the river, not back to France.” Mal turned to Sandy. “Make yourself comfortable. We’ll be back before curfew.”

He patted his brother on the shoulder and departed with Hendricks in tow. Gabriel helped Ned to clear away the dirty dishes then excused himself, saying he had some sides to learn for tomorrow’s rehearsal.

Ned sluiced the bowls clean in a bucket of water and wiped each one dry with a rag, all the time feeling as though Sandy’s eyes were boring into his back. He still wasn’t entirely clear what had happened in that cellar two years ago, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Mal had said something about the duke having drugged everyone by burning a skrayling herb so they imagined things that weren’t there, but Ned knew what he’d seen. One moment Sandy had been bound back-to-back with Mal around a pillar, the next he was gone. If that wasn’t skrayling witchcraft, he was a Dutchman.

He looked up with a start to see Sandy standing over him.

“You’re afraid of me, aren’t you?”

“No,” Ned replied, glancing around the kitchen in the hope of spotting a handy weapon. The carving knife was still on the table, and the fire-irons out of reach on the hearth.

“Yes you are.”

“All right, yes, dammit.” Ned straightened up, putting as much distance between them as he could without actually retreating. “Now say what you have to say and be done with it.”

“Good. We understand one another. So understand this.” Sandy leant closer, fixing Ned with his dark eyes that were so like Mal’s – and yet unlike. “If you ever betray my brother again, I will come for you.”

Ned swallowed, unable to tear his gaze away.

“In the night, whilst you sleep,” Sandy went on. “And if you are very lucky, I will only kill you.”

Coby followed Mal through the darkening streets, her stomach churning in nervous anticipation. This was the first time she had accompanied Mal to Walsingham’s house, and she had no idea what to expect. The Queen’s spymaster had a formidable reputation as a man of brilliance, cunning, and dogged devotion to the Crown.

Their route took them over London Bridge and along Thames Street almost as far as the Tower. The streets were empty, most citizens having the good sense to stay at home on a night like this. A freezing east wind blew gusts of tiny snow pellets into their faces, and Coby bent her head against the onslaught, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders.

Just before Petty Wales they turned aside into Seething Lane, a narrow street lined with tall timber-framed houses. Mal went most of the way to the end and knocked on a door. It was opened almost immediately by a servant, who frowned at the two visitors in suspicion. Coby wondered if the Queen herself would come under the same scrutiny, if she turned up on the spymaster’s doorstep unannounced.

“Maliverny Catlyn, to see Sir Francis,” Mal said.

They were ushered inside and left to wait in a black-and-white panelled atrium whilst the servant went upstairs.

“Should we take off our cloaks, sir?” Coby asked in a whisper, conscious that she was dripping on the tiled floor.

“Best to wait until we know we are to be admitted,” Mal replied.

A voice sounded from the floor above: a woman, quietly insistent. Coby couldn’t hear whoever it was she argued with. A few moments later the servant returned, took charge of their damp cloaks and directed them up the stairs towards a half-open door. Before they could reach it, however, the door opened and a woman –
the
woman? – came out. She was about Master Catlyn’s age, small and dark-haired, with a heart-shaped face and shrewd dark eyes. Mal bowed deeply.

“Lady Frances.”

“Master Catlyn.” Lady Frances blocked his way into the bedchamber. “I suppose you are here to see my father on the usual business.”

“Yes, madam.”

“He is… not a well man. I will not have him troubled by ill news from abroad. You bring ill news?”

“There is seldom good news in our line of work. Please, Lady Frances; I swear I will not keep him long.”

She sighed, but bowed her head and let them pass.

The bedchamber was warm and stuffy despite the cold winter evening. Sir Francis Walsingham lay in the great carved and canopied bed, his face as pale as the candles that burned on the table nearby. Like the candles his flesh had a translucent appearance, as if he were already insubstantial as a ghost. Coby regarded Lady Frances in renewed sympathy; she had not been exaggerating her father’s illness.

The spymaster’s heavy-lidded eyes opened.

“Catlyn?” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“Sir Francis.” Mal knelt by the bed. “Sir, I will be brief. I bring grave news; the skraylings are planning an alliance with Venice.”

Walsingham’s expression became more alert, and he struggled to sit up. His daughter hurried to help him, propping him up with bolsters. “Are you sure?”

“I have it on the best authority,” Mal replied.

He began telling Walsingham about the shipwreck and their journey to Sark. Coby noticed he said nothing about the dream that had led them to the wreck, or his unease in the cathedral. She could hardly blame him; men had been burned at the stake for less.

Lady Frances resumed her seat by the bed, and busied herself sewing a sleeve onto a new linen shirt. Coby couldn’t help noticing that, although she never once looked in their direction, her expression changed from moment to moment, as if she were listening to every word and filing it away. Her father’s daughter in more than looks, it seemed.

“This bodes ill for our kingdom,” Walsingham said when Mal finished his tale. “If the skraylings take their trade elsewhere, Her Majesty’s coffers will be much the emptier. But what do you make of the business? You seem very certain of your informant.”

“We are but one small island,” Mal said, “and the New World is very large. It was inevitable, I think, that the skraylings would not be content with our friendship alone. The Spanish they despise, and with good reason: King Philip’s hubris in claiming the New World for the Pope was not well-judged. The French crown is…” He broke off with a laugh. “I’ve lost count of how many assassins have tried to murder King Henri. My… ah… manservant and I stopped at least two during in our time in Paris.”

Walsingham’s expression grew distant, and Mal glanced at Lady Frances briefly before continuing.

“The Holy Roman Empire is too strongly allied with the Pope,” he said, “as is much of Italy. And then there is Venice.”

“Ah, the Serene Republic.” Walsingham turned his attention back to his visitors. “Yes, they have long been out of favour with His Holiness. The enemy of our enemy should be our friend, but when it comes to business, a Venetian would sell his own grandmother. An alliance with the skraylings would allow them to reclaim their position as the trade centre of the Mediterranean.”

He coughed, each spasm racking his frame. Lady Frances poured wine and passed the cup to her father.

“I confess I have been expecting something like this for a while,” Walsingham went on when he had recovered his breath. “Ever since Naismith’s theatre burnt down, relations between England and the skraylings have cooled. At first I hoped it was a temporary setback, a misunderstanding over our ability to control seditious elements within the realm. After you left for France, the Privy Council ordered a great many arrests and executions, and yet the number of skrayling ships coming to London continues to decline.”