by Anne Lyle
"Rest assured, sir, I would not have asked you to come here if there were any alternative."
Walsingham raised an eyebrow in disbelief, but allowed himself to be shown to the seat at the head of the table. Mal paced back and forth, trying to get his thoughts in order.
"Well?" Walsingham said.
"I have reason to believe someone is plotting against the ambassador." There, it was said.
"Tell me something I do not know," the spymaster replied.
"You know who is behind this plot?"
"Of which plot do we speak?"
"Which plot?"
"Master Catlyn, my intelligencers bring me news of plots daily. Spare an old man's memory and tell me which one has you so concerned you must drag me from my supper."
Mal apologised, and told Walsingham everything Hendricks had told him, and as much of Sandy's history as he thought necessary.
"And it never occurred to you to tell me you had a twin brother?" Walsingham asked, when Mal's account was over.
"No, sir. He is – was locked up in Bedlam, and often so mazed in his wits that I cannot fathom how he could be of use to anyone."
"But he does have spells of lucidity."
"Yes, sir."
Walsingham nodded. "That might be enough to give a desperate man hope."
Mal hung his head. His own hopes had been raised – and dashed – so many times in the past nine years.
"Well, there is only one thing for it," Walsingham said at last. "The ambassador must have a new bodyguard."
"Sir?"
"If you are no longer guarding him, then they cannot use your brother as a false replacement. We will have to make the dismissal public, of course, to the damage of your reputation, but…"
"No." He had wanted release from this job, but not at such a price. "Sir, you cannot."
"Do you presume to tell me my business?"
"They will kill my brother the moment he ceases to have any usefulness."
"Alas, I fear you are correct."
"But–" Mal stared at the Queen's secretary. "He's my brother."
"We must all make sacrifices in the name of our Queen and country, Master Catlyn."
Mal shook his head, desperately trying to come up with a way out of this.
"Surely you want to know who is behind this?" he asked Walsingham.
"My agents will look into it, of course."
"And what will they find? One of the abductors is already dead, the second was no doubt using a false name, and the third…" Mal hesitated. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. No, he would not return betrayal in kind. That crime was on Ned's conscience alone. "I swear on my honour he knows nothing more than he has already told."
"What do you suggest?"
Mal took a deep breath. "A two-pronged attack. First, hold the hearing into the deaths of Mistress Faulkner and her killer as soon as possible, and have Ned Faulkner acquitted and released."
"You think to use him as bait?"
"This Kemp fellow wanted him dead. He may try it himself this time."
"And I thought you were merely asking a favour for a friend," Walsingham said, smiling thinly.
"The favour I ask," Mal said, "is that your agents catch Kemp before he kills Ned."
"I will instruct them to do their best."
Mal inclined his head in thanks. He was putting Ned in terrible danger, he knew, but it was better than allowing him to be tortured for information he did not have.
"Second, let me continue in my duties. I will find an opportunity to expose myself to the plotters, that they may be drawn out. The men who took my brother were mere pawns, I am certain. But we may capture a rook, or even a king, if we are patient."
"And if they succeed?"
"We must bring the ambassador into our plan. Each time I leave his presence and return, I must give some secret word or sign to prove who I am. If the sign be not given, his guards will arrest me, or rather, my brother."
"You hazard much," Walsingham said. "If these plotters lay their hands on you, they may kill you."
"They will most certainly kill my brother if I do not try this."
"Very well. I will leave it to you to inform the ambassador of his part in this, and to arrange your watchword."
Footsteps sounded on the stair outside, and the door to the apartments flew open.
"Sir Francis!" Leland strode into the room, beaming. "To what do we owe this honour?"
"You will forgive me if I do not rise," Walsingham said. "This damp weather gets into my bones."
Leland made a sympathetic noise.
"I came to pay my respects to the ambassador," Walsingham went on. "Alas, I fear I timed my visit very poorly. I had quite forgotten that His Excellency would be seeing no one tonight."
"Damned peculiar custom," Leland replied. "Still, we have to respect our guest's wishes, eh?" He turned to Mal. "Any trouble at the theatre today?"
"No, sir, not a thing," Mal said, taking his cue from Walsingham.
"Excellent, excellent." He bowed to the spymaster. "Would you join me for a cup of wine before you leave, Sir Francis? I would appreciate your opinion on some plans I am drawing up."
"Of course."
Walsingham gestured to Mal, who helped him out of the chair.
"Please pass on my greetings to His Excellency," he told Mal. "I will endeavour to return at a more auspicious time."
"I am sure you will be very welcome, sir," Mal replied.
After they had gone, Mal paced the dining chamber, deep in thought. Walsingham apparently did not trust Leland enough to reveal his knowledge of the plot against the ambassador; did that mean he suspected the lieutenant of being involved, or had the spymaster become over-cautious in his old age? Leland made no secret of his contempt for the skraylings, but on the other hand he seemed too blunt and straightforward a man to plot in secret. Either that, or he was a better actor than any at the theatre.
The door to the ambassador's bedchamber stared at him accusingly. He was just putting off the inevitable. Kiiren had to be told, and watchwords agreed on. He would keep Sandy's name and identity out of it, though. He was not ready to discuss his brother – or his past – with a skrayling, no matter how friendly. And there was still this Erishen business to get to the bottom of. No, he would play his cards close to his chest, and see what more he could find out. Sandy's life might depend on it.
Coby headed west from London Bridge, but not along the Strand. It occurred to her she could defer her decision, and be useful to both sides, by investigating the disappearance of Master Catlyn's brother. Ned Faulkner had said he didn't see which way the coach went after the wherry returned him to Bankside, but perhaps others had been more observant.
Reaching the head of Three Cranes Stairs, she looked around. The first crush of playgoers returning across the river had long dispersed, and a number of wherries bobbed idly in the current, awaiting new passengers. She thought of asking if any of them recalled seeing Sandy and his captors, but the wherrymen had a poor view of the lane from the river.
She turned into the Vintry, a triangular quay surrounded on its two landward sides by warehouses. The quay swarmed with sailors, dockhands and customs officials, as well as the whores and pickpockets who infested every crowd like lice on a beggar. The larger ships could not sail this far up the Thames, but lighters ferried wine and other luxuries to the warehouses around the Vintry. Though it was some distance from their camp, many of the skrayling merchants also rented storage here, away from the stink of Billingsgate and the coal market.
Coby ducked as a crane loaded with wine barrels swung overhead. As she turned away she collided with an ebony-skinned dockhand. The man grimaced through the sheen of sweat and grime coating his features and swore at her in a fluent mix of English and Arabic. She backed off, muttering an apology; the man was twice her size, with biceps as big as her head.
Heading away from the riverside she noticed a group of perhaps half a dozen skraylings at the doors of a warehouse. T
heir leader was arguing with a short, red-faced man, punctuating his Tradetalk with angry gestures towards a barge moored at the quayside.
"What's going on, mistress?" Coby asked a middle-aged woman in the fine woollen gown of a merchant's wife.
"My husband just inherited that warehouse from his cousin," the woman said, "and now the foreigners want to pay their rent to his widow, as if it belonged to her."
"They do seem to have a lot of respect for women," Coby replied.
Not that she knew a great deal about their customs, but if Lodge's play were anything to go by, skrayling queens were revered more than any Christian king.
"Perhaps I can help," she said. Getting on a good footing with these people might help her investigation.
Before the woman could protest, Coby stepped forward.
"Excuse me," she said to the red-faced man. "In the name of the Queen's peace, perhaps we could come to some agreement here?"
The man stared at her. "Who are you to butt in here, whelp?"
"I am a servant of the Duke of Suffolk, and have assisted in his transactions with Merchant Cutsnail."
"You? You are scarcely more than a boy. Be off with you, before I call the watch!"
The skrayling merchant held up his hand and addressed her in Tradetalk. "You know Qathsnijeel?"
"I have drunk aniig with him."
This appeared to satisfy the skrayling.
"These English think they can change our contract," he said, baring his teeth, "because of the death of one of their men, and now they try to double our rent."
"Double?" She looked at the warehouse owner. "Is that true?"
"Well, I–" The man mopped his face with a striped kerchief. "There are running costs. And taxes. My cousin didn't keep the roof in good repair, and the price of vermin control has tripled in the last year–"
She held up her hand.
"Are you happy, sirs, with the state of the warehouse?"
The skrayling stared at the ground. "It has not been as good as we would like."
"But you would pay more if it were better."
"Yes."
She turned back to the warehouse owner. "If you were to begin repairs before increasing the rent, that would be a show of good faith, would it not, sir?" He seemed about to protest, so she added, "They always pay on time, do they not?"
"Oh yes, my cousin did praise them for it."
"And you," she said to the skraylings, "will pay your rent to this man's wife?"
She gestured to the woman in the crowd, who turned pale as the skraylings bowed to her in unison.
"If she is the new mistress of this property, yes."
"Good," Coby replied, clapping her hands together. "My lord Suffolk will be most pleased with this happy outcome."
"I– I will send him a butt of my finest sack immediately," the warehouse owner said, shaking her hand.
"Thank you."
She wondered what on Earth the duke would make of this unexpected largesse. Given the size of his household, he would probably not even notice.
"There is one more thing," she added. "You have men patrolling this wharf night and day?"
"Of course."
"Then perhaps they may recall something that happened yesterday, around noon."
The warehouse owner beckoned to a tall, heavy-set man in a leather jerkin.
"Wat, you were on duty yester noon, were you not?"
"Aye, sir."
Coby cleared her throat, picking her words carefully. "Master Wat, did you see a coach arrive here yesterday, with four men in it? One got out and caught a wherry, and the rest drove away again."
"A coach, you say?" He scratched his head. "Plenty of coaches fetch up here in the early afternoon, bringing folk what want to cross the river." He nodded knowledgeably. "That's when the plays start."
"But not so many before noon, I dare say," Coby prompted.
"That's true enough. Aye, come to think on it, I did see one betimes. I remarked that the fellow who got out looked more like a servant, and an ill-kempt one at that."
That certainly sounded like Ned Faulkner. "Do you remember anything else? Which way did the coach go, afterwards?"
"Now that was the odd thing. They waited a long time, until the servant was well across the river and out of sight. I was going to go and ask their business, but just as I stepped out, three more men got out and boarded another wherry, and the coach left without them."
"Was one of them tall and thin, with black hair?"
"Aye," the watchman said. "I got a good look at his visage; he was staring about him like he'd never seen the river afore."
"Which way did the wherry go?"
"Why, upstream of course. I watched it for a good while, until it disappeared round the southward bend towards Westminster. Beyond that, I can't say."
"Thank you again, gentlemen." She bowed, trying not to show her elation. "My master will hear of your faithful service."
Heart pounding, she ran back to Thames Street to make her excuses to Mistress Naismith. The thought of that unfortunate young man being carried away by ruffians, and to who knew what fate, had made up her mind. Tonight she would return to the Tower, and hazard the consequences.
CHAPTER XXIV
The Borough Compter was attached to the courthouse in Long Southwark. It had once been part of the parish church of St Margaret, its jewel-coloured windows replaced with plain glass and its Biblical murals whitewashed over. The walls were not white any more, but stained brown with the sweat of guilty men.
Ned hunkered on his heels against the wall to which he had been shackled by one ankle, unwilling to sink into the vermin-infested straw that covered the floor. At least he was in one of the upper rooms, where prisoners who could pay the gaolers' fees were kept. Down below, in filth and gloom worthy of Hell, were the debtors and other wretches who had run out of money or had no one to support them. Ned patted the purse hanging round his neck under his shirt. Gabe had given him a few shillings, since he had fled the scene of his crime with almost nothing. All Ned had to do was avoid being robbed by the other prisoners within reach of his chains.
The cell had room for perhaps a dozen men, with heavy staples cemented into the walls at intervals of a few feet. If the gaolers chose to use short chains, they could easily keep the prisoners apart, but they seemed to find it more entertaining to allow them enough freedom to torment one another. Word soon got around that Ned had murdered a man twice his size, and thankfully so far no one had seen fit to challenge him to prove it.
He glanced from side to side. The man on his left was curled up in the filthy straw, shivering as if with a fever; Ned noticed that the prisoner beyond him gave the poor wretch as wide a berth as the chains would allow. Plague? Ned muttered an oath and turned his attention to the man on his right. A scrawny fellow with thinning mousy hair, he sported a large purple-and-yellow bruise on his forehead that did nothing to improve his homely looks.
"Don't I know you?" Ned asked him.
The man peered at him, but said nothing.
"I saw you in the Bull's Head, when Naismith was hiring," Ned went on. "You're an actor, right?"
"Now and again," the prisoner said with a shrug. "Beats real work."
"Ned Faulkner. Philip Henslowe's copyist, amongst other things."
"John Wheeler," the man grunted. He looked Ned up and down. "They say you killed a man."
"He broke into our house and–" He could not say it out loud, not in this place. "It was kill or be killed."
To Ned's surprise, Wheeler broke into laughter. "Then I should count myself lucky the fellow who did this was armed with naught worse than a three-legged stool."
He touched the bruise gingerly, and winced.
"Are you – were you playing in the contest?" Ned asked.
"Not any more. I had a small part with Suffolk's Men, but…" He moved his leg, rattling the chain that pinned him to the wall.
"They play for the ambassador tomorrow, I hear," Ned said.
"Without me. Not that I care."
"Oh?"
"My part is already played," Wheeler said with a smirk.
Ned stared at him. Was this the fellow who had been sowing discord amongst Suffolk's Men with libellous doggerel? He launched himself across the gap that separated them, and pinned the unsuspecting actor to the floor.
"I should beat you into a bloody pulp for what you've done," Ned growled, and punched Wheeler in the mouth, splitting his lip. "That was for Gabriel."