The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(38)
The new livery turned out to be a surprisingly good fit, and less gaudy than Mal had feared; no crimson velvet or gold braid to be seen. True, the short trunk hose were a little old-fashioned and showed rather more of his leg than he was accustomed to, but the black silk doublet was cunningly tailored to allow ease of movement, as he found out when he drew his rapier and tried a few feints and lunges. The servants retreated in alarm, not even bothering to take the dirty towels with them. Mal continued his exercises, losing himself in the familiar moves almost to the point of forgetting where he was, and why.
His concentration was broken by a fanfare from the direction of the river. The ambassador! With a curse Mal sheathed his sword and ran down the tower stairs, praying he could find his way through the maze of buildings in time.
CHAPTER X
At the main gatehouse he was greeted by a red-faced Leland.
"Catlyn, where the hell have you been?"
"My humble apologies, Sir James, I–"
"Never mind that. The barge is almost across the river. Come on!" He directed Mal through a side door and across a narrow drawbridge to the wharf.
The rain had eased off, but a fine mizzle drifted in from the west. Mal recalled from the briefing that the visitors would be disembarking at the Queen's Stairs, with the opening ceremony being held on the wharf-side, as was traditional. Awnings had been set up between the river and the moat, some in royal red, white and green, others striped blue and white. Courtiers clustered beneath the dripping canvas, complaining about the unseasonable weather that threatened to ruin their plumed bonnets. Several of them glared or muttered as Mal was escorted to the foremost canopy, by the edge of the Thames.
At the front of the royal pavilion the princes sat side by side, resplendent in matching black velvet and cloth-of-gold. Robert's three children – ten year-old Princess Elizabeth, her younger sister Isabella and little Prince Edward – sat on cushions nearby under the watchful eye of their nurse.
"Why isn't Mama here?" the little boy asked in a loud voice.
The ladies in the crowd laughed at this, but the nurse quickly hushed him. Princess Juliana had gone into her fourth confinement, and whilst she had birthed three healthy children so far, no one was taking further success for granted.
The Prince of Wales, dark-complexioned and dour as his father, was gazing out over the Thames, a faraway look in his grey eyes. Mal made his obeisance in the fashionable French style as he neared the thrones, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the ground. Prince Arthur gave him an appraising look, but Robert seemed scarcely to notice him. Mal bowed again for good measure, and took his place near the rear of the royal pavilion.
Trumpets blared. Mal craned his neck to see over the black velvet caps of the noble lords who crowded the royal pavilion. Dozens of small barges and wherries rowed back and forth at a discreet distance from the wharf, crammed to the gunwales with eager spectators. Beyond them, a ceremonial barge decked out in blue and gold was gliding across the murky water, oars dipping to the beat of a pair of deep-voiced drums.
Though English in design, the vessel was manned entirely by skraylings. Most were tall by skrayling standards and broadshouldered, clad in geometric-patterned tunics of dark blue and white. In the centre stood two older skraylings in merchants' robes and a dark-haired figure wearing vivid blue. More than that he could not make out at this distance.
"Historic day, eh, Catlyn?"
Mal turned to see Leland beaming at him. Lodge hovered at his elbow, clutching a sheaf of papers.
"Oh?" Mal said.
"First time their ambassador has set foot in England."
"Didn't he set foot in Southwark before boarding the barge?" The words slipped out before Mal could stop himself.
Leland flushed.
"A trivial detail. This is the landing history will recall."
Of course. This is what will get put in the chronicles, not some unceremonious disembarking observed only by dockhands and wharf-rats. He fidgeted with his lace-trimmed cuffs, wishing his first introduction to a skrayling didn't have to take place in such a public manner.
"The Master of the Queen's Music has outdone himself again," Leland said. He waved towards another awning, where a trio of flautists were doing their best to murder a rondeau.
"Is that meant to be skrayling music?" Mal asked. It sounded little like the playing he had heard at the stockade.
"It has a wondrous melancholy air, has it not?"
The music was soon drowned out by the approach of the royal barge. As it came closer, the rhythm of the drums quickened into something almost dance-like. Mal was surprised to see that two of the skraylings were in the bows of the barge, leaping back and forth between the two drums and striking them with their bare hands. Two others in the aft clashed cymbals in a complicated counterpoint. The rest of the crew pounded on the deck with elaborately carved and ribbon-bedecked staves.
The barge bumped against the jetty, and the crowd drew back. The drummers concluded their performance with a final flourish and the skrayling guards, as Mal supposed them to be, disembarked, rapping their staves on the stones as they went and chanting in their own tongue.
The skrayling guards arranged themselves in two lines, their teeth bared in an unmistakable warning, and between them walked the guests of honour. The elders had the typical whitestreaked manes of their kind, and their faces were covered in swirling tattoos of a subtly different design to those of the guards. The leading figure, who must surely be the ambassador, wore long robes similar to those of English scholars, made of lapis blue brocade and fastened with a broad sash of white and gold. He was also a good deal younger than his companions, perhaps no older than Mal himself, though with a serene air that belied his age. He wore his black hair cropped short, and his face, though mottled pink and grey in a symmetrical pattern, had no tattoos at all. Without the patterns obscuring his features he looked, if anything, less human: the high-bridged, flattened nose and thin bluish lips were more reminiscent of a beast's muzzle, the pupils of his eyes more obviously oval than round. An Antilian? He certainly resembled Lodge's description of the city-dwellers.