The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(34)

"Exactly."

Ned released him, and Mal picked up the lute. After a last look around the room, he unlatched the attic door and left.

Twenty minutes later he walked up to the gates of the Tower to report for duty. At least this time he was entering through the landward gate, and of his own accord. Two guardsmen in scarlet livery blocked the entrance with crossed partisans. He handed the nearest guard the letter of appointment Leland had given him back in June. The man perused it, his lips moving silently. I suppose, Mal thought, I should be grateful he doesn't need to follow his finger.

"All seems in order," the guard said at last.

"Thank you." Mal took the letter back and headed through the gatehouse.

"So you're the new Keeper of the Royal Menagerie," the guard said as Mal passed him.

"What?"

"Don't worry, you'll soon get used to the smell. When the wind's in the south…" The guard waved his hand in front of his face and wrinkled his nose.

"Do you know," Mal said, "I could do with a knowledgeable fellow like yourself on guard duty outside the ambassador's quarters. I think I'll ask the lieutenant to assign you to my command."

The guard's bloodshot eyes bulged. "No, sir, thank you, sir. I don't know nothing about skraylings, honest."

"That's a pity. Well, I'm sure you are best off here, then." Mal set off again. "Good day to you, gentlemen."

He crossed the causeway that spanned the moat, through a second, larger gatehouse and finally into the castle's outer ward. The narrow cobbled lane seemed to close in around him, and he hurried through the archway into the pleasanter surroundings of the inner ward.

As he approached the lieutenant's lodgings, Leland himself appeared at the main entrance. His golden hair and beard glowed in the sun, their curls merging into the bullion-work on his moss-green doublet.

"Catlyn!" The lieutenant beamed, as if Mal were an old friend. "Not run off to France, then, eh?"

Mal winced at the reminder of his elder brother's misdemeanours, but forced a smile and bowed.

"I'll have Captain Monkton show you around the place later," Leland said, "but for now I'll take you up to your quarters and you can get settled in." He strode off without waiting for an answer, leaving Mal to follow in his wake.

Monkton? Wasn't that the name of the man who had arrested him and thrown him in the Salt Tower for the night? Either Leland had a malicious sense of humour, which from what little Mal knew of him did not seem in character, or he had simply forgotten the circumstances of Mal's first visit.

The lieutenant led him back out into the outer ward, to the water stairs where Mal had disembarked all those weeks ago. Above it stood the timbered upper levels of St Thomas's Tower, now stripped of their severed heads. Leland turned right and climbed the short flight of steps to the tower entrance.

He opened the door and ushered Mal inside. They passed through a tiny vestibule into a pleasantly domestic dining room with painted plaster walls and a large stone fireplace. A long table dominated the room, draped with a ruby and cream patterned carpet that overflowed the benches standing either side. A throne-like chair, age-blackened and carved in an antique style, stood at its head. Two doors led off the dining room, one into an empty stone-walled chamber in the corner tower, the other into the rest of the apartments, which were further divided in two by a thin lath-and-plaster partition.

Mal explored the large divided chamber beyond the dining room. A bed with embroidered hangings stood in the far half; in the other, which was set out as a parlour, a short flight of steps led up to a heavy oak door.

"Is this where I will sleep?" Mal asked, gesturing to the bed.

"That is for Master Lodge," Leland replied. "We are fortunate to have found an Englishman fluent in the skrayling tongue. You will sleep here."

He led Mal up the stairs into the chamber beyond. Like the rest of the apartments it had recently been painted, and fresh rushes covered the floor. A large bed with crimson damask curtains dominated the space. Realisation dawned.

"This is the ambassador's bedchamber."

"Of course. How else are you to guard him day and night?"

"I–" Mal shivered. If he had known he would be living cheek by tattooed jowl–

"Well, I'll leave you to it. Monkton will be along shortly."

After Leland left, Mal went back down to the small parlour to wait for the captain. He glanced at the door to the ambassador's room. Don't be ridiculous, he told himself. You're no longer a small boy scared of the ghosts in the attic. He marched up the stairs and wrenched the door open.

Really, it was not so very different from his parents' chamber in Rushdale Hall. In addition to the canopied bed, there were chests for linens, a washstand with basin and ewer, and a close stool containing a Delftware chamber pot. The walls were hung with thick tapestries, though on a blazing August day they were scarcely needed. Another large iron-studded door in the far left corner appeared to lead to the walkway to the next tower. Mal tried the handle, but it was locked.

He was about to leave the room when he saw one of the tapestries stir. Drawing his rapier slowly and silently he padded towards it. The tapestry remained motionless. He prodded it with the point of the rapier. Nothing. He stepped to one end of the hanging and raised the edge with his blade.