The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(107)

“Yes!” he whispered in triumph as it came free.

He tossed it to the floor and set to work on the next one. That would do. He could probably get through a gap that big. He jumped down to the floor.

“Right, this is it,” he said. “Come on, Sidney, give me a proper boost this time. I’m going to climb through.”

Sidney pouted. “Why do you have to go first? I’m oldest.”

“I’m the tallest, and it’s my plan.”

“Very well.” Sidney crouched and laced his hands together. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Kit placed his left foot in Sidney’s hands and pushed up with his right, leaping for the window frame and catching hold of it with both hands. A splinter dug into his palm and he nearly let go, but desperation drove him on. He pulled himself up until his head and shoulders were through the gap and wriggled for all he was worth, ignoring the scraping of the broken slats on his back and legs. A few moments later he rolled free of the window and lay on his back in the grass, panting.

A dark shape loomed over him.

“Going somewhere, gentlemen?”



Mal urged his mount on to as swift a pace as his companions could manage, and by nightfall they had reached the village of Hoddesdon on the Great Cambridge Road. Being a comfortable day’s travel north of London the village was well supplied with inns, though most of them were full at this time of year with farmers going to and from the various summer fairs. Mal ended up paying over the odds for three spaces in the common room of the Swan, a large timbered building on the high street.

“No dreamwalking tonight,” he warned his brother over supper. “The last thing we need is you shining out like a beacon to our enemies.”

Sandy merely nodded, but his eyes spoke eloquently of his frustration.

Mal’s own frustrations were of a less noble sort. He longed to curl up with his wife and forget his troubles for a while in the pleasure of her kisses, but would be impossible here. The best he could manage was to slip an arm around her waist under the thin blankets, and then only because the inn was so full that everyone was crammed cheek by jowl anyway.

“We’ll get proper accommodation in Cambridge,” he told both of them, as they set off next morning on fresh horses. “The town should be quiet, since most of the students will have gone home for the summer.”

“Do you know anyone there?” Coby asked, guiding her nag alongside his.

“It’s been a long time, but I dare say a few of the masters who taught me are still alive. One of them must surely be able to introduce me to someone who has met Shawe.”

“We should have spoken to that friend of his before we left London. Harry someone-or-other?”

“Thomas Harriot?” Mal shook his head. “He’s Northumberland’s pet. If he knows where Shawe is, I doubt he’d tell us, and he’d certainly tell Northumberland we’d been asking after him. And Northumberland will tell Prince Henry, you can be sure of that.”

Sandy spoke for the first time. “Jathekkil already knows where we are going. You left Renardi alive.”

“I could hardly murder him in cold blood,” Coby replied. “Anyway, even if I killed the doctor, Prince Henry would have guessed I spoke to him.”

“Henry may have warned Shawe, but we can’t let that stop us,” Mal said. “Cambridge itself should be safe at any rate. Shawe prefers remote manorhouses, the better to conceal his alchemical experiments.”

“So where is he?”

“Somewhere far enough outside the town for secrecy, but most likely not so far that he is cut off from his allies. The Fens are a lonely place; we should not have too much trouble finding him.”

“Like looking for a needle on a bare floor instead of among the rushes.”

“Exactly.”

They rode on for a while in silence, past newly harvested cornfields and orchards heavy with blushing apples. Despite the cold spring the year had been a good one, an unexpected blessing to counteract the horror of events in London.

“You and Sandy should put on your disguises now, before we arrive,” Coby said. “Best you get used to them.”

They drew aside into a copse of ash and maple, and Coby handed out the clothes. For Sandy, a serving woman’s gown with a linen coif to cover his hair and a broad-brimmed hat to hide his face; for Mal, a scholar’s black robe and cap. Sandy shaved his chin smooth with his obsidian razor, and Coby applied a little powder to cover the remaining dark stubble.

“Don’t you have a disguise?” Mal asked her.

She shook her head. “They’re looking for Lady Catlyn. I’m better off like this.”

“Renardi could have described you to our enemies.”

“We’ll have to take that chance. I will be of no use in a fight encumbered by skirts, and I have not the time nor skill to change my face.”

After Mal had drawn the robe on over his other clothes, Coby carefully painted extra white hairs into his beard and hair, to make him seem older.

“You look half a skrayling now,” Sandy jested. “Perhaps I should braid beads into your hair.”

Mal pulled a face. “Perhaps I should cut off your hair, make you look more like a skrayling woman.”

“Enough!” Coby stepped between them, her eyes bright with tears. “Kit lies captive, and all you can do is make merry?”