The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(105)

The man frowned in thought and stared up at the rafters as if the information were written there in the soot.

“Can’t say as we do, but I’ll ask around.”

Coby thanked him again and went to bid farewell to Ned and Gabriel, who promised to be in Cambridge within the week.

“Won’t Burbage want you to play every tavern between here and Norwich?” she asked.

“He’s not Naismith,” Gabriel said. “The Prince’s Men don’t play for just any rabble. I’m more worried he’ll want to stop at some country house for the summer.”

“You mean like Lord Burghley’s new place?” Ned said. “I hear it’s fit for the King himself, God speed him to good health.”

“Burghley House?” Gabriel looked thoughtful. “Now there’s somewhere to aim for. It’s north of Cambridge, so perhaps we can persuade Burbage to press on to the town itself first.”

She bade them farewell again and ran out into the yard, just in time to see Mal arriving with the hired horses. Under cover of strapping their belongings behind the saddles, she told him what she had seen.

“Crates?” he said. “You’re sure?”

“No, I imagined them. Yes, I’m sure. What do we do?”

He sighed. “Even if they are for Shawe, I doubt our enemies would conveniently label them with his place of residence. We’ll go to Cambridge, and track him from there. That was the plan.”

“When have our plans ever gone the way we intended?”

He squeezed her hand where it rested on the saddle’s cantle.

“Don’t think like that. We have to get him back.” He patted the horse’s rump. “Wait there. I’ll go and fetch Sandy.”



Mal cursed under his breath. Sandy was not in the wagon where he was supposed to be. Surely he could not have gone far? He strode down between the stalls, peering into each one. He didn’t really expect to find his brother hiding in one of them, but perhaps the hayloft…

He was about to look around for a ladder when he heard a soft humming from the far end of the building, where the shadows were thickest. A single narrow beam of sunlight shone on the silken rump of a dapple grey, which was all Mal could see of the stall. Shielding his eyes against the light he moved forward.

“Sandy?”

His brother was standing by the horse’s head, fussing with its mane.

“Sandy. Thank the Lord, I thought you had run off, or done something equally foolish.”

“You mean like looking for Kit?” He smiled slowly. “Did that already.”

“You what? Sandy–” Mal looked around to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “You promised you wouldn’t try and dreamwalk until we were well away from London.”

Sandy ignored him. Mal realised he was braiding the horse’s mane, separating it into neat sections, and humming what sounded like skrayling music.

“Well?” he said at last. “What did you find?”

“He’s alive, and Shawe doesn’t have him yet.”

“Well, that’s good news, at least.”

“There’s more. Kiiren is beginning to awaken.”

“That’s not so good.” Mal went to step into the stall, but the grey stamped a back hoof. “Come on, we’d better find him before the guisers work out who and what he is.”

“I think perhaps they already know, and that’s why they took him.”

“So what do we do?”

“We get closer, then we use him as an anchor to take us straight to Shawe.”

“You think we have a chance against the alchemist?”

“The English guisers are weak compared to Ilianwe. I think we can–” Sandy grinned, his eyes seeming to flash gold in the beam of sunlight “–kick his arse.”





CHAPTER XXVIII



Kit stumbled along the dusty road, wincing every time a sharp-edged pebble bit into the sole of his foot. They had reached the edge of the marsh after another day’s travel and followed a little river northwestwards until it was crossed by a stone bridge. There they disembarked and took the road, which wound through low rolling hills. The boys’ legs were left unbound so that they could walk, but their captors hemmed them in on all sides, and one of the workmen threw his knife into a gatepost as demonstration of what would happen if they tried to run for it.

Kit’s feet were soon blistered and aching from walking barefoot, and he had to knuckle away the tears before Sidney or one of the men saw him. As the sun began to sink, however, they came to a lane that led off through a wood. Long cool grass grew on the raised strip between the wheel ruts, and Kit was able to ease his sore feet for a while.

At the end of the lane stood a ramshackle farmhouse, its windows no more than dark holes staring blindly across a weed-grown clearing. An equally shabby barn stood to one side, but to Kit’s delight the sound of a horse stamping its hooves came from within. Sidney had been right. But what if they escaped and Uncle Sandy missed them? No, his uncle would find him wherever he was, he was certain of that. And he would rather ride away from here than spend another day walking.

The well-dressed man paused on the edge of the clearing and whistled like a song thrush, two short notes repeated twice, followed by a long trill. After a few moments a figure appeared in the doorway.