The Alchemist of Souls (Night's Masque, #1)(66)

"What do you want?"

Ned drew himself up to his full height, aware he must look like a drowned rat, with his hair plastered to his skull and his shoes leaking rainwater.

"I'm here to see the Ambassador of Vinland's bodyguard. MMaliverny Catlyn."

"Catlyn, you say?"

Ned nodded, looking from one to the other.

"What do you want with him, anyway?" the second guard asked, peering at him suspiciously. "Here, aren't you that little runt we ran into last time we had trouble with Catlyn?"

"Who, me? No, that wasn't me," Ned lied. "Must have been someone else. So, can I see my friend?"

"Wait there."

The guards flipped a coin, and the one who had first pointed his partisan at Ned lost. He set off across the causeway, grumbling at his ill luck.

"Can I at least come in out of the rain?" Ned asked the remaining man.

The guard shrugged and stepped back a couple of yards to let him under the archway. Ned was already as wet as he was going to get, but at least he would be out of the wind. He stared at the worn stonework and tried not to shiver too obviously.

As they waited in silence, Ned ran the previous conversation back through his mind. What was it the other guard had said? Last time we had trouble with Catlyn… He blanched. If Mal was in trouble again, he had to get out of here. He began to back away.

"Oi, where are you going?" the guard shouted.

He blocked Ned's escape with his polearm and glared at him in what Ned assumed was meant to be a menacing manner. It might have worked better if the man had not possessed a nose like an over-ripe strawberry and the flaccid build of a habitual drunk.

"Having second thoughts, are we? Makes me wonder what's so important you come all the way here in the pouring rain."

Ned slumped against the wall in defeat. He just wanted this to be over with.

After what felt like an age, the other guard reappeared, crossing the causeway at a brisk walk. Mal was not with him. Ned resigned himself to having to go further into the fortress. This plan was getting worse by the minute.

The guards conferred in low tones, and the red-nosed man laughed.

"It's more than whips he'll get where he's gone, poor sod," he said to his companion, just loud enough for Ned to hear. "I bet you a pint to a bucket of piss he'll not be able to sit down till Michaelmas."

"What's going on?" Ned asked, dread curdling in his stomach.

"You're too late," the other guard told him. "He ain't here."

"What do you mean, not here?"

"He's gone. Skraylings up and left this afternoon, and took Catlyn with them."

"Left? Where did they go?" He had sudden visions of Mal being shipped off to Sark, or even the New World.

"How should I know? Now clear off, before the curfew bell rings and we have to arrest you."

Ned turned and set off for home. There was nothing for it; he would have to go along with Kemp's plan, and God have mercy on his soul.

CHAPTER XVII

Coby stood on the balcony, watching the rain pour down into the theatre yard. The actors had finally gone home to their suppers after spending the entire day in rehearsal. They seldom had the luxury of such lengthy preparation, but with the contest only days away, Master Naismith was doing everything in his power to ensure they were as ready as their patron desired. The actors seemed to have forgotten the business with the poem already, and even Master Parrish was back with the company as if nothing had happened. Master Naismith was not so complacent, however, and had bade Coby stand watch again, even though it was the Lord's Day tomorrow.

Well, tonight she was not going to sleep in the open gallery and get rained on, that was for certain. Not when there was a snug box-office to sleep in, and no one around to gainsay her. Why carry the cushions down to the gallery, when she could make her bed right here?

She went inside, shrugged out of her doublet and shoes then, after a moment's indecision, pulled up her shirt and began unlacing her corset. Though she had grown accustomed to wearing the constricting garment, it still itched on warm, humid nights like this, and she was glad to put it aside for a while. After all, it wasn't as if anyone was here to see her. Comfortable at last, she tucked her shirt back into her hose, stretched out on the cushions and closed her eyes.

Their departure from the Tower was heralded by a low rumble of thunder, and moments later the heavens opened. The little gull-headed boat that ferried them across the river offered no cover from the weather, and Mal found himself wishing for one of the royal barges with its canopied seats. The guards seemed untroubled by it, however, and bent their backs to the oars without complaint.

By the time they reached the south bank of the Thames he was soaked to the skin and shivering in delayed reaction to the flogging. One of the guards pounded on the gates with his staff until they opened, and the ambassador's party splashed across the little drawbridge. Walkways made of wooden planks raised a few inches above the ground criss-crossed the encampment, bridging runnels that guided the rainwater back into the moat. Apart from themselves and the gate guards, the camp could have been deserted, all its inhabitants having apparently retreated to the shelter of their tents.

Mal assumed he and Kiiren were being led straight to the enormous pavilion that rose in the centre of the encampment like a mother hen over her brood of chicks. Instead the guards turned aside at the last moment and escorted them to an otherwise unremarkable-looking tent. In size it was not unlike the ordinary soldiers' campaign tents he was accustomed to, about a dozen feet across and slightly higher than a tall man, though it was round instead of square. Next to the tent stood a large shrub of a kind Mal had never seen before, with enormous drooping oval leaves that were just beginning to turn yellow. Somewhere nearby a slow, mournful melody was being picked out on a stringed instrument. He felt like he had crossed the seas to the New World and entered the skraylings' own country.