The Merchant of Dreams (Night's Masque, #2)(89)

Mal smiled. With Bragadin dead those strings had been cut, but he wasn't about to tell Cinquedea that. Such valuable intelligence was better kept in reserve.

"You want me to share what I learn," he said, "in return for help in getting into the skrayling palace."

"Yes."

He considered for a moment. Walsingham had recommended the man, and surely it could do no harm to the English cause?

"Done."

Cinquedea rapped on the roof of the cabin, and Pessotelo turned the gondola back towards Rio Tera degli Assassini.

It felt like only a few moments later that they arrived at the street's end. Mal eased his cramped limbs out of the cabin and stepped ashore gratefully.

"Well?" Ned asked softly.

Mal simply grinned.

They were halfway down the street when a man stepped out of the shadows. A man in a red doublet and breeches, carrying a short pike.

"Sbirri!" Cinquedea hissed. "You betrayed us!"

"Not I," Mal said, drawing his rapier.

A squad of the red-clad constables appeared at the end of the street, cutting off their escape. Mal turned back to the gondola, but Pessotelo was already plying the oar. Cinquedea leapt aboard the departing vessel with enviable grace. Mal eyed the distance, but the moment's hesitation cost him. He turned to face the advancing constables. One of them uncovered a lantern.

"Put up your sword," a voice called from the darkness. "I have men with crossbows trained on you and your companion."

By sunset most of the sewing was done, but Coby feared she would have no time for her own business if she helped Valentina to finish it. She therefore went to find Gabriel and told him her plan.

"Why do I have to stay here and keep the girl amused?" He folded his arms like a petulant child. "I am just as anxious to see Ned as you are to see Mal. Let Sandy read to her, and we will go to the embassy together."

"Valentina doesn't like Sandy; I think she's afraid of him. No, she will tell Zancani I left her to finish my work, unless she is kept sweet."

"I hope you don't expect me to make love to her," he said with a sniff.

"Just tell her a story, or sing, or something. Anything."

She shooed him out of the room and began changing into her boy's clothes. Not only would it be safer, alone in a strange city, but the less connection between Zancani's players and the English ambassador the better, at least until she knew Mal's plans.

She slipped a purse containing the few coins Zancani had paid them into her pocket, and made her way out through the early evening crowds. It was a relief to be back in her familiar garb and free to move around without attracting unwelcome notice. Now there was just the small problem of finding her way to the English ambassador's house in a strange city where she did not speak the language. She decided the first thing to do was to get some distance from the inn before asking directions, so she set off in what she hoped was a southwards direction, towards the Grand Canal.

Half an hour later she was footsore and hopelessly lost. The Venetian streets appeared incapable of going in one direction for more than a hundred yards before turning a corner, opening into a square whose only streets led off in entirely the wrong direction, or ending abruptly at the edge of a canal, with no bank or bridge by which to continue. She tried asking for directions, but the few Venetians she could find who spoke English or French only smiled and nodded and said "straight on". There was nothing for it but to spend a little of her precious silver on a gondola.

She found her way to a busy canal-side and hailed a gondolier. He rattled off a price, and she only hoped that he had understood her directions. She scrambled aboard and entered the little cabin with a whispered prayer for God's protection. He had not failed her yet.

The bells were tolling the first hour after sunset as they navigated yet another small canal. This one described a dog-leg path under a bridge and around a red and white house, but the gondolier steered his craft to a set of weedgrown steps.

"We're here?" she asked.

The man gestured to the red-and-white house. "Inglese."

She handed over the money, praying he was telling the truth, and realised with a sinking heart that she did not have enough left to pay for a gondola back to the inn. Taking a deep breath to quell her panic, she walked up to the house and knocked on the door.

After a few moments, the door opened and a gaunt old man looked out.

"Si?"

"I'm looking for Master Catlyn. Is he here?" she asked in English.

The man paled. "N… no. I mean yes."

Coby's heart leapt in expectation.

"That is, he was," the servant added. "But he left about an hour ago."

"Did he say when he'd be back?"

The man looked away. He was hiding something, Coby was sure of it.

"Who is that, Jameson?"

The door opened wide to reveal the last person she wanted to see.

"Sir Walter."

Raleigh's wind-burned face was redder than usual, as if he had been drinking.

"The same," he said. "And who might you be?"

Coby sketched a bow.

"J… Jacob Hendricks. Master Catlyn's valet."
Raleigh frowned. "I thought Faulkner was his manservant."
"Yes, he is. In London. I served Master Catlyn in France."