by Anne Lyle
Erishen only hoped his brother had put the plan into motion by now. The thought of Frogmore and his friends riding south into a trap made him chuckle aloud, drawing Kiiren’s attention.
“Come on, amayi, time for bed. You can sleep in my room tonight.”
Susanna bade her charge good night and settled down to her mending. Erishen smiled to himself as he went through into the bedchamber. Ever since he had caught the nursemaid enjoying lustful dreams about his brother and diverted them to be about himself instead, she had been decidedly more compliant. The release from guilt had made her happier to serve his sister-in-law as well, so he considered it a job well done.
He shut the door behind him, and went to draw the bed-curtains against the chill evening air. Tomorrow the killers of his people would be gone and he and Kiiren could return to their familiar routine. Perhaps he would even take his amayi to see the young sheep. Childhood innocence was short for their kind, and all the more precious for it.
Coby paced her bedchamber, unable to settle. Even with two locked doors between herself and her guests, the thought of stripping down to her shift made her stomach turn over. And what about Susanna? Had the girl the sense to lock her bedchamber door? She should go and check, but that would mean going through the guest chamber.
The clothes hanging up on the closet door caught her eye. What if she dressed as Jacob? Frogmore and his men might not even recognise her, and they would pay a male servant little attention. With pounding heart she undressed and slipped into the familiar garments. Her hair had grown long in the past couple of years, so she tied it with a ribbon at the nape of her neck and covered her head with a flat woollen cap. Finally she picked up the chamber pot, draped a linen towel over the top and went over to the door.
She pressed her ear to the wood, but could hear nothing. Slowly she turned the key and eased the door ajar. The next chamber was dark, but a light showed beneath the door opposite. Coby crept across the room and listened at the far door. A faint rustling, as of the pages of a book turning. Best to act like someone who had every right to be there. She seized the handle and opened the door.
Erishen woke with a start. He thought he had heard someone cry out, but the house was silent. Reaching out in the darkness he felt Kiiren sleeping at his side, sprawled carelessly on his back. Erishen eased out of bed and fumbled with flint and tinder, cursing the primitive humans for their ignorance of lightwater. A creak of floorboards from the outer room, and a muffled cry. Erishen stood between the door and the bed, unlit candlestick in hand.
The latch clicked up and the door swung open, letting in the warm, diffuse light of a lantern. Erishen could see only a dark shape behind it, but below the lantern a sword blade gleamed like molten gold.
“Nehetsjelen!” he hissed. “Adringsjelen!”
“Hold, demon! Depart that poor wretch’s body or we will burn you from it!”
“I am not one of your demons,” Erishen replied. “Though you may come to wish I were.”
Behind him, Kiiren began to stir. The man with the lantern stepped into the room; as Erishen had suspected, it was Frogmore. One of his confederates filled the doorway behind him, also bearing a sword. Frogmore jerked his head to the side.
“Take the child; we will exorcise the demon from him after I have disposed of this one.”
The second man edged round behind his leader, eyes darting nervously from Erishen to Kiiren and back.
“Touch him and I will destroy you,” Erishen said softly.
The Huntsman lifted the cross hanging from his neck to his lips. “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”
Erishen reached out to Kiiren and felt the power of the dreamlands flood his limbs. A green glow filled the air behind him, mingling with the lamplight to give their attackers’ faces a sickly yellow hue.
“I give you one last warning,” Erishen told them.
The Huntsman charged the bed, sword hacking at Erishen, who ducked so that the blade whistled over his head and slammed into the bedpost. Erishen straightened and kicked him hard in the groin, so that he fell backwards, dropping his sword and groaning. That left only Frogmore. Erishen threw the candlestick at him, but his opponent was not so easily put off. Frogmore advanced on the bed, making short rapid feints with his blade. Erishen edged back until the bedframe pressed into his calves. If the steel touched him or his magic…
“Under the bed, amayi!” Erishen called over his shoulder. “Hide from the bad men!”
Frogmore took advantage of the distraction to lunge. Erishen dodged to one side and forward, embracing Frogmore like a long-lost friend. The Huntsman, taken aback by the move, hesitated just long enough for Erishen to raise a hand to the man’s face and close the connection between them. As the sword fell from Frogmore’s nerveless fingers, Erishen summoned his power and stepped into the dreamlands, taking Frogmore with him.
The young man’s eyes widened in terror as he took in the nacreous sky and dark, desolate landscape. Erishen released him, and he began to back away.
“Where am I?”
“The home of your worst nightmares,” Erishen said softly.
At those words, dark shapes began to stir in the shadows.
“Farewell.”
Erishen stepped back into the waking world to see the remaining man down on elbows and knees, poking his sword blade under the bed.
“Come out, you little–!” His voice choked off as Erishen kicked him hard in the side.
Erishen steadied himself on the bedpost, his head swimming from the effort of transporting Frogmore against his will. The Huntsman rolled over and lashed out with both feet, knocking Erishen to the floor. He raised the sword in both hands – and the world filled with smoke and thunder.
A voice, half-familiar, though Erishen couldn’t make out the words for the ringing in his ears. He sat up, looking round wildly for Kiiren.
“Are you hurt?”
A hand reached down out of the smoke, with a pale face behind it. Coby. She helped him to his feet.
“Where is Kiiren? Where is my amayi?”
Something slammed into his legs, almost knocking him over again.
“I’m here, Uncle Sandy.”
Erishen picked the boy up and hugged him, eyes filling with tears. He wiped his face with his nightgown sleeve. The gunsmoke didn’t seem to be clearing.
“Come on!” Coby tugged at his arm. “They’ve set fire to the house.”
Coby left Sandy tearing sheets up and tying them into a makeshift rope, and ran back into the nursery. Susanna was stuffing Kit’s clothes into a travel chest, her face set in hard lines.
“We have no time for that,” Coby told her.
Susanna ignored her. Coby went to the farther door, opened it a crack and closed it again with a curse as smoke billowed into the room. No chance of getting out that way. She pulled Susanna away from the trunk and dragged her towards the door. Already the heat of the fire was palpable, ancient timbers and panels fuelling its fury.
In the bedchamber she found Sandy opening the window overlooking the courtyard.
“Wait!”
She pushed him to one side of the window, flattened herself against the opposite side and peered out. Figures moved in the courtyard below, but they were hard to make out in the darkness. Friend or foe?
“Let’s try the other side,” she said.
No movement there. She eased open the casement and scanned the outbuildings. Please, Lord, let Frogmore not have brought a horde of confederates to surround the house and pick off anyone who tries to escape. But there was no sign of Huntsmen, only the screaming of horses trapped in the stables. Coby knotted one end of their makeshift rope around the stone mullion that divided the bedchamber window into two arched sections.
“I will go first,” Sandy said, “and you must throw Kiiren down to me.”
“Very well.”
He passed Kit to her and she stood back to let him scramble over the windowsill and down into the stable yard. Kit held out a hand, so
bbing.
“Sssh, lambkin, you’ll be with him again soon.”
She leaned out of the window to see Sandy in the flowerbed below, arms raised. It wasn’t easy to get Kit onto the windowsill, and letting go was even harder. For a long moment she stood there, holding him tight and blinking back the stinging tears.
“Come on!” Sandy shouted.
Taking a deep breath she lifted Kit free of the window and let go. He shrieked as he fell, but Sandy caught him and they tumbled to the ground in a joyful heap, laughing with relief.
“Now your turn,” she said to Susanna.
The girl stared at her, wide-eyed. “No, I cannot. It is too far.”
“No, it’s not. Here, let me show you. And I will catch you at the bottom.” She took Susanna by the shoulders. “Swear to me that you will follow.”
“On my mother’s soul,” the girl whispered. “Please, mistress, hurry!”
Coby clambered over the narrow sill, thanking God for the protection of her breeches, and lowered herself down on the makeshift rope. The linen sheets scraped against her fingers, but the rough brick wall below the window offered plenty of footholds and she made the next couple of yards without difficulty. Her toes encountered a slight ledge, no more than two fingers’ breadth deep, and she paused for a second. This was the stonework around the window below, which meant glass instead of bricks. No toeholds, and she was nearly out of sheet. With a muttered prayer she dropped down another yard, kicking forwards as she went. Glass cracked and leading buckled under the impact, but the window held, and a moment later she was standing on the sill below, heart pounding and gasping for breath. Letting go of the sheet she turned around and jumped the last couple of feet onto the gravel path, landing a little awkwardly and skinning the heel of one hand. She got to her feet and looked up.
“Susanna! Come down, it’s quite easy!”
The girl’s face appeared at the window, and for one horrible moment Coby thought she would refuse. Susanna began to cough as the fire spread into the bedchamber, and after a desperate glance back over her shoulder she scrambled over the windowsill. Coby stifled a laugh. Like the Venetian whore she had once been, Susanna was wearing knee-length drawers, and had tucked her nightgown into them to keep it out of the way. She clambered down the sheets as far as the ground-floor window, then Coby helped her the last few feet. Susanna crossed herself, muttering a prayer of thanks, and pulled her nightgown free to cover her legs once more.
Coby crouched and rummaged in her satchel for her powder-horn.
“Take Kit and hide in the garden,” she told Sandy. “Susanna, go to the stables and let out the horses.”
“Where are you going, mistress?”
“I’m going to find out if any of those bastards escaped my house.”
“And if they did?” Sandy asked.
Coby looked up from loading her pistol. “Then they’ll wish they hadn’t.”
She ran over to the corner of the house and flattened herself against the wall, clutching her pistol in one trembling hand. Shooting a man – even one threatening her son – had not been as easy as shooting a devourer, and she would rather not have to do it again. She edged closer to the corner and looked round. A low wailing came from the courtyard, and long shadows cast by the flames moved across the ground. Taking a deep breath she stepped out into the open.
The house was ablaze now, black smoke blotting out the sky and flames vying with the rising sun to light the surrounding gardens. Servants in varying states of undress and distress had gathered to watch the conflagration.
“Get away from the house,” Coby shouted at them, weaving her way through the throng. She scanned the smoke-grimed faces. “Lynwood! Where is Lynwood?”
“Here, my lady,” the steward wheezed, stepping forward. His silver-grey hair stuck up in a halo around his bald pate and he wore a long woollen gown dotted with singe-marks. He didn’t seem to have noticed her own unorthodox garb. So much for a disguise. Then she realised that she had lost her cap on the climb down and her hair had come loose. She brushed it back distractedly.
“Have you seen our guests, Lynwood?”
“Three men rode away, my lady, not long ago. The other two I have not seen.”
“One of them is dead, but William Frogmore himself…” She shrugged. “Perhaps he perished in the fire.”
“I am sorry, my lady–”
“Don’t be. He and his men started it.” She looked around at the servants huddled over their scant piles of belongings. “Get everyone down to the lodge. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
At that moment several horses cantered around the side of the house and away down the drive. Susanna appeared close behind, smoke-stained but uninjured. Coby ran up and embraced her.
“The Huntsmen are gone. Come, let’s find Kit.”
Mal woke with a start and swept a hand across the empty side of the bed, wondering where his wife had got to. Probably fussing over Kit, even though that was Susanna’s job. He smiled. She had taken to the boy better even than he’d hoped…
He blinked and looked around again. This was not Rushdale. The bed was too small, the windows and ceiling too low. He was in Southwark, in the house behind the Sign of the Parley.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, the remnants of the dream melting away even as he tried to recall them. A dream? More like a nightmare, a jumble of memories of the theatre fire from which he, Coby and Ambassador Kiiren had barely escaped with their lives. He could almost smell the smoke again, the stink of it on his clothes and in her hair… He shook his head. It was just the morning smell of the suburb, as the fires and furnaces were lit to power the tanneries, forges and other industries deemed too noxious to be allowed within the city itself.
There was nothing for it; he was awake now. With a groan of frustration he climbed out of bed, crossed to the washstand and splashed tepid water on his face. A trip to the barber’s, perhaps, and then to court, to try and glean information about Shawe’s whereabouts without arousing anyone’s suspicions. At least the guisers hadn’t tried to have him arrested yet. Perhaps he should write to Coby and let her know it was safe to come down to London. No, best to wait a little longer. They were safe enough where they were.
The household assembled in the park lodge a mile down the valley. A quick tally revealed only two servants missing, and there was still hope they might have fled into the hills and yet be found safe. However there was no food, and despite the chill of a March morning no one wanted to start a fire in the hearth.
“Send everyone home to their families,” Coby told the steward. “I ought to take my son to London. His father should not hear the news from strangers.”
“Of course, my lady.”
“And set some of the men to round up the horses. The coach may be beyond saving, but we can still ride.”
“Aye, my lady.” He made his obeisance and shuffled away.
She was still wearing her boy’s garb, of course, having lent her gown to Susanna. She had her jewellery box and some money, and they could clean themselves up at the first inn they came to. The important thing was to be on their way to London as soon as the horses could be found.
Whilst they waited, she took Sandy aside.
“What on Earth happened back there?” she whispered. “Did you see Frogmore?”
He grinned slyly. “I took him into the dreamlands and left him there.”
“You what? Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’ve never done it before. He might come out of his own accord, like a pea is expelled from the ripe pod. Or he might die there, or dissolve into nothing. In truth, I care not.”
He smiled down at Kit. The boy had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion despite his terrifying night, and now lay curled on a pile of sacking.
“Still, why Frogmore?” Coby said, trying not to think about what Sandy had just said. “I thought he was our friend.”
“He w
as there at the capture of Selby, was he not?”
“Yes, but… You think Selby got into his mind, made him do this?”
“He must have done. Him, or one of the other renegades.”
She shivered, thinking of how she had let the man into her home even though she had not entirely trusted him or his companions. “We have to warn Mal. If Frogmore could be turned traitor, more of the Huntsmen may do likewise.”
“I agree. We should never have allied ourselves with them. Their hatred makes them weak.”
Coby left him to watch over Kit. If hatred makes the Huntsmen weak, then our love for one another makes us strong. Strong enough to defeat them – and the guisers? She shook her head. Her feelings for Sandy bordered on fear, not love. Was he really any better than them, if he could send a man into oblivion without a second thought? She did not like to think ill of him, for Mal’s sake, but she would be glad when Sandy was no longer her responsibility.
CHAPTER X
Mal stared at the sheet of paper on the desk before him, as if by sheer force of will he could make Selby’s confession resolve itself to a list of the actual guisers instead of accusing half the court. Either the guilty were named alongside the innocent, or their names had been wilfully omitted, but there were so many on each side that neither approach looked fruitful. He slammed his fist down on the table, making the ink-bottle jump. Damn Selby! And damn Shawe, for being so elusive.
The alchemist had not been seen for many months, at least not by anyone within Mal’s circle of acquaintance. Most likely he was hidden away at the home of his patron the Earl of Northumberland, but gaining entrance to Syon House would not be easy. Of Mal’s acquaintances at court, Sir Walter Raleigh was wintering in Cornwall after being wounded in the Irish expedition last year, and whilst the Earl of Essex was related through marriage to Northumberland, the two men had little in do with one another. No, Mal’s chief hope lay in Blaise Grey who, as a neighbour of Northumberland’s, might reasonably be invited to dine with him at some point.