The Merchant of Dreams

by Anne Lyle

  A few minutes later Grey himself appeared, bearing a small book bound in red leather. Coby recognised it as the one he had been perusing when she went to Ferrymead House to rescue Mal. Sandy accepted it graciously and began flicking through the pages, his brow creased slightly as he read. If it had been Mal, Coby would immediately have guessed there was something wrong. She was careful to keep her own expression blank, however. After a moment he looked up.

  “This is in a very old dialect,” he said to Grey. “It may take me a few days to translate it properly.”

  Grey nodded curtly. “Very well. But do not think to cozen me; I expect results by the end of the week.”

  Sandy returned the book to its owner, and they made their obeisances and left.

  “Is there something wrong?” Coby asked as they made their way back to Southwark.

  “It is in a language I do not recognise,” Sandy replied.

  “What?” Coby halted, heart sinking. “You can’t translate it?”

  “I can transcribe it, and then perhaps someone else can be found to translate it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The document is written in the Aiyaluran script, but the language is not Aiyalura as I had thought. There are many languages in the New World, and I know only a few of them.”

  “And if we can’t find anyone else who knows this tongue?”

  Sandy shook his head. “There must be a solution. I did not come all this way for nothing.”

  Sewing a coif and hemming other pieces of linen for kerchiefs took Coby until well after nightfall, and she fell into her bed too exhausted to worry about the morrow. It was full light when she woke, and she dressed hurriedly and ran down to the kitchen, fearing that Sandy might have left without her. Instead he was stirring a pot of barley gruel over the fire and whistling a strange melody.

  “You’re cheerful this morning, sir.”

  Sandy put down his spoon and straightened up.

  “Last night, whilst I slept, I remembered,” he said. “I remembered where I had seen the language in the duke’s book.”

  “Where?”

  “It is Latin.”

  “Latin? But why Latin?”

  “I think it is intended as a cipher; a cipher within a cipher, in fact.” He passed her a sheet of paper, which she recognised as the copy of Grey’s notes she had made from memory to show Mal. “Imagine for a moment that you are a scholar well-versed in Latin. What would you make of that?”

  “It’s nonsense,” she said. “Just squiggles.”

  “Indeed. And whilst the ‘squiggles’, as you call them, mean something to me, the words do not.”

  “But you and Mal both went to school,” she said. “Do you not remember your Latin?”

  He took the sheet of paper back, looked at it, and sighed.

  “Kiiren could not heal me completely. I am… in two pieces. As I am now, I am Erishen, and can read this script, but not the language. And if I were to put on a spirit-guard again, I would forget how to read the script. Now do you see why it is a double cipher?”

  “No one can read it,” she said, with a shiver of excitement. “Not Christians, and not skraylings. Only guisers. If they’ve been to school, of course.”

  “Exactly. And being drawn to power, they will seek out any opportunity to gain knowledge. Latin is essential for any learned man, is it not?”

  “So what do we do?”

  “We will have to transcribe the original, of which this is but a crude imitation. I will read out the words to you, as best I can, and you will write them down.”

  “But I don’t know Latin.”

  “Just do your best to represent the sounds in your English letters, and we will hope to make sense of them later.”

  “I’ll try.”

  She made her way back upstairs, deep in thought. If they were to go back to Suffolk House, perhaps she could turn the situation to her own advantage. Grey might not be willing to confess to a liaison with Lady Frances, but there were other ways to glean intelligence. Time to put her skills to good use.

  This time they were shown into a book-lined room on the ground floor of Suffolk House and Grey was not present, only a middle-aged man in dark blue servant’s garb with a gilded unicorn badge on a chain about his neck. Coby’s heart sank.

  “Master Dunfell,” she said, bowing. She turned to Sandy. Please let him remember he’s supposed to be Mal. “Sir, I don’t think you were introduced to the late duke’s secretary, were you?”

  “We met at the theatre,” Dunfell said with a sniff. “Briefly.”

  To her relief Sandy inclined his head in acknowledgement and managed a polite bow.

  Dunfell went over to the desk and opened an unlocked cupboard, from whence he took a sheaf of blank paper and some uncut quills. He set them down next to the enciphered book and fussed with the inkwells.

  “His Grace instructed me to provide you with all the materials you may need,” he said. “Dinner will also be provided, in the servants’ hall. I will send someone to fetch you at 1 o’clock.”

  “Of course, sir,” Coby said. “Thank you, sir.”

  Dunfell favoured her with a brief, icy look and left without another word.

  “He doesn’t like you,” Sandy said.

  “He asked me to spy on Mal, back when I worked at the theatre. I’m afraid I disappointed him.” She picked up a quill and searched on the desk for a pen knife. “What are we going to do about the book, sir? Lord Grey expects a translation.”

  “We will make the true transliteration first,” Sandy replied, “then if need be I will invent something to satisfy Grey.”

  It took them a good hour to transcribe the first page, by which time Coby’s head was aching. This was more difficult than any cipher Mal had taught her.

  “May we rest a while?” she asked Sandy, flexing her cramped hand. “I have business of my own here.”

  “Oh?”

  “Your brother’s business.” It was enough of the truth for now. “Please, stand watch at the door, will you?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see. Just cough loudly if you see anyone coming, all right?”

  She unbuttoned her breeches, ignoring Sandy’s curious gaze, and thrusting a hand into her drawers retrieved a small canvas roll about four inches long and an inch thick. She untied the cord holding it closed then with a practised flick of the wrist unrolled the bundle across the desk, revealing a set of miniature skeleton keys, perfect for opening desk drawers and other small locks. Smiling to herself she set to work.

  The locks were old and of a simple design, but rather stiff. She cursed her ill luck in having no oil to ease the movement, but it would only leave telltale stains anyway. Instead she patiently probed the wards until she found a skeleton key that fitted, then twisted with all her might. After a few moments’ grimacing and cursing, the key turned in the lock.

  The desk drawers contained a number of letters addressed to the duke, but none in the same hand she had seen on the letters of introduction written by Lady Frances. If Grey were indeed pursuing the lady, either their negotiations had not reached the stage of exchanging love-letters, or he kept them somewhere more private than his library. An absence of evidence was not evidence of absence, Mal had often told her. Still, it eliminated one line of enquiry.

  Just then the bell rang for dinner. Coby carefully rolled up her lock-picks and stowed them in her drawers, along with the folded sheet of transliteration. Best not to leave it lying around for inquisitive servants like Dunfell to find, or the game would be up.

  After dinner they returned to the library and Coby retrieved the sheet of paper from her codpiece. Sandy took a beaded pouch from his pocket and shook the contents onto the table. It was the skrayling necklace that Mal had said protected him from the guisers as he slept. Sandy fastened it about his neck and drew a deep breath. His features softened, as if another soul looked out of his eyes. Not Erishen, but Alexander Catlyn once more. Her throat tigh
tened in sympathy for Mal.

  She swallowed and looked away, pretending a sudden interest in the contents of the bookshelves. Her mother had taught her to read and write – a useful skill for a tradesman’s wife, and an essential one when Coby had worked in the theatre – but reading for pleasure was a luxury she had never picked up the taste for it. She drifted around the library, running her fingers over the leather bindings.

  Sandy coughed. She looked round, but he had gone back to his reading. She made another circuit of the room. Another cough.

  “Sorry, am I distracting you, sir?”

  “Only a little.”

  She went and stood by the window. The library was positioned about halfway along the southernmost range of buildings, where its tall windows could catch the best of the daylight. From here she had a fine view of the gardens sloping down to the river, the palace of Whitehall and beyond that the delicate stonework of Westminster Abbey. Spring sunlight glittered on the water and warmed the panes of glass that separated her from the outside world. She watched the boats heading downstream towards the sea, and wondered where Mal was, and what he was doing. Being seasick, no doubt. She smiled to herself and tried to pretend it was only the dazzling light that made tears well in her eyes.

  “No. Oh no no no no no.” Sandy leapt to his feet and backed away from the desk as if the book were about to burst into flames. “No. No that.”

  “What’s wrong, sir?”

  Sandy muttered something in a garbled mixture of English and Latin.

  “Here, let me take that off,” Coby said, remembering Mal’s warning. “You’ve been wearing it far too long.”

  She thought he was going to fight her off, but he stood meekly and allowed her to remove the spirit-guard. Just in time she thought to pull up a chair as Sandy’s knees gave way.

  “Sir, are you ill?”

  Sandy was as white as a sheet, and looked as though he was going to faint. Coby ran to the door and called for a servant.

  “Quickly, fetch some wine! My master is unwell.”

  She returned to Sandy’s side and hurriedly stowed the necklace in her pocket, then took his left hand in her own. His flesh was cold and unyielding as marble.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she whispered, though it was not the man before her she was apologising to.

  A few moments later the servant arrived with a flagon and a silver cup. The look he gave Coby as he left suggested he thought she might run off with it if not watched.

  She filled the cup and held it out to Sandy. When he did not respond, she lifted it to his lips and urged him to drink. He took a sip, and then another.

  “Erishen?”

  Dark eyes turned upon her, solemn and thoughtful.

  “I have found what I sought,” he said. “And now I wish I had not.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This is not just any guiser’s journal. This is a copy of a much older document, a record of the journeys made by the Birch Men, five hundred years ago.”

  “Birch Men?”

  “From your northern lands, or so they said.” Erishen closed his eyes for a moment. “Tall, fierce men, with white skin and yellow hair like birch trees in autumn. Men like you.”

  Coby frowned. The Dutch had not travelled to the New World so long ago.

  “You mean the Danes? Master Catlyn told me how they sailed to the New World and brought back stories of the skraylings.”

  “Not just stories,” Erishen said. “They took some of our kinfolk with them. This book was written by those captives, after they escaped. Several lifetimes after.”

  Sweet Jesu. “Guisers here in England, hundreds of years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do they still live?”

  “I think it unlikely, but I cannot be sure until I have translated the rest of this book.”

  “Then we must do it, as fast as we can.” And pray that you are right.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Ned ducked into the cabin, kicking the door shut behind him to keep the weather out. Rain sluiced down the diamond-paned windows and seeped through the gaps around the frames, adding to the perpetual dampness of the ship’s interior. Shaking the water from his hair he made his way to the far end of the dining table, where he set down the covered plates he had brought up from the galley.

  “There you go,” he said, removing the pewter lids to reveal mounds of pinkish grey mash. “Sir.”

  Mal looked up from the map he had been studying and gave him a wan smile.

  “Where’s that?” Ned asked.

  “Venice.”

  Ned pushed the unwanted plate aside and leant over Mal’s shoulder. The details of the map were hard to make out in the gloom. “Looks like a fish to me.”

  “It’s a fanciful map of the city,” Mal replied, “but I’m told the island is more or less this shape.” He traced a broad blue line that curved like an S, cutting the island into two unequal halves. “See, that’s the Grand Canal, and there’s the Piazza San Marco, Saint Mark’s Square. They say the basilica is beyond compare.”

  “What’s this place?” Ned pointed to an over-large building south of the basilica with rows of round-topped arches drawn across its façade.

  “It says…” Mal referred to the numbered key in the corner of the map. “Palazzo Ducale. The Doge’s Palace.”

  “What’s a ‘doge’ when he’s at home? Some sort of duke?”

  “Not exactly. The Doge is of noble birth but is elected by his fellow citizens, like the Lord Mayor of London.”

  “Huh. Is that why it’s called a republic?”

  He listened with half an ear whilst Mal described the workings of the Roman senate and speculated on the similarities with modern Venice. It seemed to take Mal’s mind off his seasickness; now, if only he could be persuaded to eat. Perhaps if he were set an example? Ned straightened up and went round to the other side of the table.

  “Do you reckon the skraylings are there yet?” he said, sitting down.

  Mal looked off into the distance, his fingers twitching as he did the reckoning in his head. “No. They cannot be many days ahead of us, even if they left Sark when we did.”

  “I can’t wait to see Lord Kiiren’s face when you turn up hot on his heels. He’s bound to know you’re up to something.”

  “It’s not him I’m worried about.”

  “Oh?” Ned scooped up a spoonful of the salt-beef-and-chunny mash. It was plain fare, but filling, and at least there was some meat in it.

  “The other skraylings are from a different clan,” Mal said. “They aren’t going to like me talking to Kiiren, not if they think I’m in Venice on the Queen’s business.”

  “Then you’ll have to convince them you’re there for some other purpose.”

  “Yes, but what?”

  “I thought that was what Raleigh was for? To be your Trojan horse.”

  “That ruse may fool the Venetians – with any luck they’ve never heard of me, and won’t connect me with Kiiren – but the skraylings are another matter.” Mal stared at the map, tracing the contours of the island with one finger. “Fear not, I’ll think of something before we reach Venice.”

  “And if not?”

  “We are in God’s hands, and can only do our best.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Ned replied around a mouthful of mash. “I don’t fancy going back to London to tell Walsingham we’ve failed.”

  “We haven’t failed yet. And I don’t intend to.”

  The ship lurched over the crest of another wave, and Mal’s plate slide a few inches along the table.

  “I hope my brother is faring better than we are,” Mal said. His face was pale in the cabin’s gloom. “I swear I would rather face a dozen guisers than another Atlantic storm.”

  “No more nightmares, then, since we came aboard?”

  Mal shook his head. “Not of that sort.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s likely to be any guisers on board anyway. Are there?”

  “It
’s not impossible, but no, you’re right. Why would they risk one of their own on a hazardous sea voyage, when there’s plenty of mischief they could be getting up to in England?”

  “Such as?”

  “Whatever manoeuvring at Court will bring them the most power, I suppose.”

  Ned muttered a curse under his breath. God-damned monstrous witches, they should be rounded up and burned, and their skrayling friends sent back to the New World with their tails between their legs.

  “Still, they can work magic from afar, can’t they?” he said after a moment, glancing at the rain-blurred window. “That’s how you were spirited away.”

  “True. But over hundreds of miles of ocean? I pray they do not have that kind of power.”

  “So do I. Though I’d be happier if I had some kind of protection like yours.”

  “Oh I’m sure something could be found,” Mal said with a shadow of his familiar grin. “Master Warburton is certain to have some leg-irons around.”

  “I’m not that desperate,” Ned replied hurriedly.

  Mal sipped his watered wine and glanced at the plate of mash. A moment later he was leaning over the edge of the table, retching up what little he had eaten this morning. Ned sighed and went to fetch a bucket of sea water.

  Mal folded up the map and stowed it in the pack in his locker, then threw himself onto his bunk. He cursed Walsingham for pressing Raleigh upon him, Raleigh for his eagerness to set sail, and most of all himself for agreeing to this voyage. They should have gone overland, through France and northern Italy, despite the risk of spring floods. But Ned was not accustomed to hard riding, and he needed Coby to… His heart contracted at the memory of her in his arms, her mouth on his, her slender body warm against his belly… His hand strayed down to his groin, but the seasickness had robbed him of even that small comfort, and he abandoned the attempt with a curse of frustration and rolled over in the bunk.

  The pearl earring pressed against his cheek, and after a moment’s indecision he took it out. Surely there were no guisers here on the ship? And if there were, better to know of it than remain ignorant. He hauled himself out of his bunk, retrieved his knapsack and stowed the earring in its pouch. It would be a pity to lose such a rich jewel, and he would need it when he returned to England.