The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(101)

One of what? The Huntsmen? If Wheeler somehow knew about that, and said so under torture, Mal's tenure as the ambassador's bodyguard would be over in the snap of a finger. Perhaps literally.

When he entered the Tower, one of the skrayling guards asked for the watchword.

"Shakholaat," Mal replied, hoping he had pronounced it correctly.

The guard inclined his head in acknowledgment and told him the ambassador wanted to see him right away. Mal went up the steps and knocked on the door. There was no reply.

"Your Excellency?"

Still no answer. He unlatched the door and went in.

Kiiren was staring out of the window, hands clasped behind him, spine taut as a bowstring. Mal unstrapped his sword belt and laid the rapier and dagger on the bed. What he wouldn't give for a good clean fight against the bastard behind all this, instead of creeping around the city like a thief in the night.

"Where have you been all day?" Kiiren asked without turning round.

"Out on your business," Mal replied, unbuttoning his doublet. It was the truth, more or less. "I visited Naismith and had a look round his new theatre. I'm concerned about your safety tomorrow–"

"My safety?" Kiiren turned, and Mal saw with shock there were tears in his eyes. "What about your safety? I wait here all afternoon, I do not know if you are alive or dead."

"I am sorry–"

Kiiren all but flew across the room and hugged him tightly, then held him at arm's length.

"I thought I had lost you again, amayi."

"You don't get rid of me that easily," Mal replied with a laugh.

"We will call off this foolish contest," Kiiren said, "and leave here. Someone else can take my place."

"Sir, you cannot." Walsingham would have his head on a pike if he let the ambassador snub the princes like this. "We must catch the men who are plotting against you."

"Why do you care so much for these people? Are you not one of us any more?" He stared at Mal. "Have others turned you against me?"

What others, Mal wanted to ask, but felt it was best not to reveal his ignorance.

"Of course not," he said.

The skrayling's expression softened. "No, I do not think they would ever convince you." He released Mal and walked away. "But I cannot allow you to put your life before mine. You will give up this guarding of body and remain here, where you are safe."

"No."

"Please, amayi. For me."

"No," he said more firmly. "Do not ask this of me."

"Why?"

"Because they will kill the man whom they plot to replace me with." Play along with this superstition of theirs, for Sandy's sake. "These Christians are not reborn, and they believe their souls go to a terrible place if they die without a priest's blessing. If that is true, I cannot bring such a fate upon even one of them."

"You were always gentle one, amayi. Very well, I trust you in this."

"Only in this?" Mal took off his doublet and threw it on the bed.

"In all things."

When Mal turned back round to face Kiiren, the skrayling's eyes widened.

"You are hurt, amayi!"

Mal looked down at his shirt. It was spotted with the girl's blood, as if he had done as she feared and taken her maidenhead. Perhaps he had in a way. He smiled to himself. She was not so very plain, to tell the truth. A little too skinny for his tastes but quick-witted, and lively enough to be promising.

"It's nothing," he said. "Just pig's blood, from a careless butcher's boy in the market."

He stripped off the filthy linen, scrubbed it under his armpits, then rummaged around in the chest at the foot of the bed for a clean shirt. After a moment's thought he pulled off the bandages as well, salved the tattoo, and allowed Kiiren to help him with clean dressings. Whilst he was tended, he rehearsed in his head what he was going to tell the ambassador.

Kiiren tied the last of the bandages and planted a moth-wing kiss on his bare shoulder. Mal shrugged him off and pulled on his shirt. Best to get this over with, before Wheeler started naming names in an attempt to stop the agony.

"There is something more I must tell you, sir, though it pains me to do so. Something I would not have you hear from others." He drew a deep breath. "You know there are enemies of the skraylings in England, calling themselves Huntsmen."

"Of course."

"Did you also know there are many of these Huntsmen in the lands where I grew up?"

"It has been reported to me, yes. How else you think I find you?"

"Then you know my elder brother Charles is – or, I should say, was – one of them?"

"Yes."

"Did your informants also tell you that… that I am one too?"

"You?" Kiiren stared at him. "How can this be? To kill your own kind…"

He backed away, the blotched pattern on his face more pronounced than usual.

"I killed no one," Mal assured him. "When I was sixteen, they forced me to join against my will, took me on one of their rides. I… I saw Erishen murdered."

Kiiren muttered something in the skrayling tongue in a venomous tone Mal had never heard from the mild-mannered ambassador before. He looked up.