by Anne Lyle
"Sandy!"
His brother looked round for a moment from where he stood in the barge's prow, arms wrapped about the diminutive skrayling. He gazed at Mal with dark eyes that seemed to look right through him, sparking a jolt of some buried memory that strove to reach the surface of Mal's mind but floundered like a drowning man and was gone. The barge swung round and Sandy disappeared from view behind its central canopy.
Dammit, now they really were on their own. Kiiren had what he came for, and he was leaving the rest of them to the wolves.
CHAPTER XXXVI
Coby turned to look at Mal. He was deathly pale, his eyes unfocused. Had he lost so much blood already? It was hard to tell against the blackness of his livery doublet. Without thinking she let go of both oars and put her palms to his face.
"Don't die on me," she whispered.
He coughed and managed a weak grin. "I'm in no fit state."
Over his shoulder she glimpsed a pale-haired figure in the stern of the barge, swinging a coil of rope. Gabriel Parrish. Moments later the rope sailed overhead and she flailed for it.
"Careful!" Faulkner shouted at her. "Here, take this and wrap it round the cleat."
He passed her a loop of rope. When she looked blank, he pointed to the two-pronged metal thing on the prow, where the painter was still tied. She clambered past Mal and wrapped the line around it as best she could before the retreating barge pulled the rope taut. Faulkner threaded the loose end under the thwarts and secured it, just to be certain.
"They could have bloody stopped to pick us up," Faulkner muttered. "Here, let me see him."
"I'm fine," Mal replied, waving him away.
Coby slid onto the thwart on his good side.
"You don't look fine," she told him.
"S'not the first time I've been shot at." He peered at the wound. "Closest, though."
"We're going to have to get nearer to the barge," Ned said, pointing to the next bend in the river. "We're going to be all over the place at this rate."
Fortunately Parrish had had the same idea, and had enlisted one of the skraylings to help him haul the skiff in. They picked up speed, slowly edging closer to the barge's stern. Mal seemed to be rallying now they were getting away, though his face was still pale and drawn. She clutched his good hand and talked to him in a low voice.
"We did it, sir. We found you both and got away. See, we're nearly to the barge."
"And then what?" he rasped. "What happens when we get back to London?"
"Don't worry about it. Your brother is safe. That's all that matters, right?"
He nodded. "Aye."
She looked back upstream. The prince and his men were already leaving the jetty, heading back into Ferrymead House.
"What will they do?" she asked Mal.
"Ride ahead," he replied. "There are no bridges between here and London, so unless they commandeer a vessel…"
"You think they would try to stop us?"
"I don't know. A diversion to Bartholomew Fair is one thing; assaulting the Prince of Wales' mentor is a touch more serious."
He started to laugh, but it turned into a grimace. Just then the skiff's prow bumped against the stern of the barge, knocking them all aftwards. Strong hands reached down to haul them aboard, and for a moment all was a confusion of greetings in English and Vinlandic.
"Catlyn-tuur!" the ambassador cried, rushing to his former bodyguard's side. "Come, sit down and let me tend your hurt."
"That's all you seem to do," Mal muttered, but allowed himself to be led away.
Faulkner and Parrish were likewise reunited, entangled in a passion embrace in a corner of the barge's stern. Coby found herself alone once more. No, not alone. Sandy was staring at her, his brow furrowed. Then to her surprise he bowed in the skrayling fashion.
"Hësea."
It sounded more like a sneeze than a greeting, but she bowed politely in return.
"I don't think we've been properly introduced, sir," she said. She sounded idiotic in her own ears, but what else was one to say? "I am Jacob Hendricks, of Suffolk's Men."
"Erishen."
"That's your name? Erishen?"
He nodded. Well, if the madman wanted to pretend he was a skrayling, Coby was not going to argue.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go and see how your brother is doing."
Mal drained the cup Kiiren handed him, grimacing at the bitter taste.
"What the hell do you put in this brew?"
"Many herbs," the ambassador replied. "I shall not bore you with names."
He had stripped off his robes and wore a plain brown tunic like a skrayling servant. By his side was a multi-tiered wooden box full of glass bottles and strange implements. Mal unbuttoned his doublet and shrugged out of it, gritting his teeth against the pain.
"Tsh, let me do that," Kiiren said. "You will make bleed worse."
"How did you come to be here?" Mal asked as Kiiren examined the bullet wound with professional detachment.
"Your friend Gabriel came to me and told me your friends had gone to house of Lord Suffolk near palace. I think perhaps you might need my help, so I tell Leland-tuur Lord Suffolk sends for me."
"And he believed you?"
Kiiren smiled. "Lie down now. You will soon feel… strange."
"I feel fine," Mal lied. Either the boat had started to fly through the air, or something was very wrong with his sense of balance.
As he began to sway on his feet, Kiiren eased him onto the bench and propped him up on pillows.
"Close eyes and sleep," the skrayling said. "When you wake, all will be mended and we will be back in London."
Mal opened his mouth to protest, but he couldn't feel his tongue any more.
"Nnnnh…"
Coby knelt at Mal's side, clutching his cold hand. Ambassador Kiiren had said the coldness was normal, but that she could warm Mal's hand with her own if she wished. She scanned Mal's pale features, wondering what torments he had been through during his brief captivity. Apart from the clotted blood on his lower lip, there was no sign of outward hurt. Ambassador Kiiren had cleaned up Mal's left earlobe and reinserted the pearl earring; he seemed to think it important, though she couldn't for the life of her imagine why.
She was vaguely aware of the ambassador and Sandy sitting on cushions nearby, murmuring together in the strange language. All this magic made her uncomfortable, now she had seen it up close. She would never forget that scene in the cellar, everyone frozen as if time itself had stopped. And yet if she and Ned had not intruded, perhaps Blaise would have killed both brothers. Why was Suffolk behind all this, anyway? Surely he did not want to see the ambassador harmed? It made no sense for him to sponsor a theatre company and then conspire against the judge of the contest. Too exhausted to think straight any more, she retreated into the memory of Mal pulling her close in the little boat and half-dozed, half-daydreamed most of the way back to London.
She roused when his hand tightened on hers and she realised he was awake. He opened his eyes, squinted up at her, mumbled something, then coughed.
"Drink," he wheezed.
Coby passed him the cup Ambassador Kiiren had left with her for just this purpose. She held it to his lips and he sipped.
"Water?" he asked with a grimace.
"The ambassador assured me it's clean," she replied.
He drank the rest obediently, then tried to sit up. He turned pale, leant over the side of the bench and retched thin sticky fluid onto the deck. She wondered when he had last eaten.
"Lie back," she sighed, and went to fetch a bucket of river water.
"Where are we?" he asked when she returned.
"Nearing Westminster."
"No one's tried to stop us?"
"Not yet."
He rubbed his brow with the heel of his right hand. "It's only a matter of time."
"Will… will they arrest you?"
He nodded, not looking at her. "How can they not? I cut Blaise down and left him for dead."
&nb
sp; She recoiled a little. Knowing that Mal had once been a soldier was one thing; hearing him speak so casually about killing a man… Recalling their fighting lessons together, she realised how much he must have been holding back. Lucky, then, she had only fading bruises and one accidental cut to show for it.
He appeared not to notice her reaction.
"I thought I'd seen the last of the Tower," he said with a grimace.
"Sir Francis will vouch for you," she assured him. "Ned got the lock-picks from Baines, so I'm sure Walsingham must know of our mission."
"What? God's teeth, can he not keep a secret for five minutes together? I swear I will knock some sense into him one day. If I ever get the chance."
She stared at him, realising with horror they might have only minutes together before he was taken from her forever. Minutes she did not want to spend discussing Ned Faulkner.
"Sir, I–"
Gunfire sounded from downstream.
"I think we've arrived," he said.
Ned stood in the bows of the barge, watching for the first sight of London. As they rounded the last bend before Westminster the view opened up, revealing the broad green expanse of Lambeth Marshes to their right and the palace of Whitehall to their left. Beyond Lambeth the city was a dark stain on the Middlesex bank of the Thames, covering the gently rising slopes almost as far as Islington.
He instinctively ducked as the shots rang out. Gabriel crouched next to him, peering over the gunwales, his delicate profile taut with apprehension.
"What was that?" Ned asked him, not daring to rise. He'd been shot at enough for one day.
"There's a line of skiffs across the river, between the palace and Lambeth Stairs. Royal guards by the look of it."
"Christ! And here was me thinking we'd got away with it."
The oarsmen slowed their pace, and the ambassador picked his way past them to the bow, Sandy trailing in his wake. It was uncanny how much he looked like Mal now, though he had not spoken an intelligible word to Ned since they had escaped Ferrymead. Ned resisted the urge to cross himself. Out of his wits Sandy might be, but this was something different. Something… wrong.
Kiiren spoke to Sandy in the strange language, and the tall man ducked into the covered bower.
"They try to stop us?" the ambassador asked Gabriel.
"It looks that way," Gabriel replied.
Kiiren nodded, and shouted something to the oarsmen. They continued to row ever more slowly, until the barge was drifting along mostly by force of the current. As they drew within an easy bowshot of the blockade, the central skiff rowed forward a few yards.
"If it please Your Excellency," the officer in the bow shouted, "His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales demands that you hand over the man named Maliverny Catlyn. Immediately."
"And if I do not?" Kiiren replied.
"Then my lord prince regrets that measures will be taken, to the great dismay of your people."
Kiiren drew himself up to his full height.
"Dismay will be his, if alliance between our people is broken."
"Is that a threat, sir?"
"No. I wish to… negotiate."
"I will convey your request to His Highness."
The skiff turned towards the western bank and soon reached Westminster Stairs, a long jetty projecting into the river. The remaining vessels manoeuvred to close the gap, their weapons still trained on the barge.
"Will the prince negotiate?" Gabriel asked the ambassador.
"I hope so," Kiiren replied softly.
"We could give them Sandy instead," Ned jested.
The ambassador turned a blotched grey and white, and Gabriel kicked Ned with the side of his foot, glaring at him and mouthing imprecations.
"Sorry," Ned muttered. "It was just a thought."
"So what do we do, Your Excellency?" Gabriel said.
"We wait. And hope your prince's mind has not been poisoned against us by Suffolk."
Mal swung his legs round and eased himself into a sitting position. He was damned if he was going to lie here like an invalid any longer, even if he wasn't ready to get to his feet and fight his way out. Hendricks watched him with concern, poised to leap to his aid should he falter. He smiled, hoping to reassure her he wasn't about to throw up again, and was rewarded with a softening of expression, though her grey eyes remained bright with anxiety.
He looked through the curtains towards the river. Crowds lined the banks, perhaps expecting some sudden and dramatic conflict between skraylings and royal guards. With any luck they would be disappointed. The shouted exchange had ended better than he feared, but he was not out of the woods yet. Kiiren's negotiations might fail. No, best not to invite defeat by thinking about it. He glanced across at his brother. Sandy sat cross-legged on the cushions, his expression as inscrutable as any skrayling. Had Erishen taken him over completely?
He was about to ask Hendricks to fetch the ambassador when Kiiren appeared in the curtained doorway.
"I have done my best," the skrayling said. "Now we wait."
"You have a plan?" Mal asked.
"I am hoping you have one," Kiiren replied. "I have negotiated many trade treaties, with my own people and with humans of lands beyond ours, but you Christians think very strangely. I do not know what will sway your prince to our cause."
Mal pondered for a moment. "He is his father's son, and his mother's also. Ambitious, yes, but cautious. He will not easily set aside this alliance, not if Walsingham has anything to do with it."
"Ah yes, your friend Walsingham. But he is only one man. How many sit on Privy Council? Six? Seven?"
"Eight at least, including the prince. But Effingham may be on our side. Without the skraylings on Sark, the Narrow Sea will no longer be safe for our ships, nor the Atlantic. The Lord High Admiral could lose many vessels to the Spanish."
"Even so, that is only two. And your prince cannot set aside the law. If you killed a man–"
"Begging your pardons, sirs," Hendricks put in. "Are we certain that is true?"
They both looked at her.
"You wounded Grey," she went on. "But Suffolk's physician is very good, by your own account. He may not be dead yet, nor his father neither."
"There is still the assault to answer," Mal countered.
"But not, perhaps, murder. Not yet."
"Your friend sees truly," Kiiren said. "If Suffolk and his son both live, perhaps prince will be merciful."
Mal shook his head. "I like not these odds."
"But it is worth a try, sir, is it not?" Hendricks gazed up at him earnestly.
"I will send message to our best physicians, to attend upon Suffolk," Kiiren said.
"No."
They both looked at Mal.
"Why not?" Hendricks asked.
"Because if either of them dies under the skraylings' care, all is lost. They will say the ambassador sent them to finish what we started."
"So what do we do?"
"We must trust to the skills of Doctor Renardi," Mal said. "And pray."
Kiiren clicked his tongue. "Pray if you wish, but I will talk to prince."
"No, there is no time, not if we wish to move whilst the Greys still live." If they live. "You must hand me over now, and I will take my chances."
Hendricks turned pale and opened her mouth to protest, but he squeezed her hand in reassurance and warning.
"Tell them," he went on, "tell them you will release me into the custody of Sir Francis Walsingham and none other."
"You trust Walsingham?" Kiiren asked.
"As much as any man. If he is an ally of Suffolk, he dissembles very well, and plays a game of deceits that would put a Southwark card shark to shame."
"Very well." Kiiren lowered his voice. "I must take your brother to our camp. It is time to reveal what is done here."
"You were very keen to keep it a secret, once," Mal said.
Kiiren nodded. "It is forbidden for us to take human form. But now I know Erishen did not do this willingly, I thin
k perhaps he may be forgiven."