The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(138)

"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."

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.