The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(130)

“I want to stay with my husband,” Coby said, before any of them could answer.

“Right you are, madam,” the warder said. “If you want to be locked up here, that’s your business. My business is to keep the guilty ones in, not the innocent out.”

He led them up a narrow flight of stairs and unlocked the door at the top.

“Plenty of room for both of you in there,” he said, ushering Mal and Coby inside.

“What about my brother?” Mal cried out as the door began to close. “He’s not well, he needs an attendant–”

“Sorry, sir, can’t have you all in one cell. Your brother will be comfortable enough on the floor above.”

He closed and locked the door, and their footsteps receded upwards.

“It was worth a try,” Mal said, shuffling around the room in his chains. “Do you know, this is the very cell I was held in, all those years ago?”

“When Monkton had you hauled in off the streets of Southwark, do you mean?”

“Aye. Ten years, can you believe that?” He cocked his head on one side, peering at the wall. “I remember these carvings like it was yesterday. Though I think there are a few more of them now.”

“Some of the prisoners must have been here a long time,” Coby replied, crouching to examine an elaborately carved roundel resembling a zodiac or horoscope.

The note of fear in her voice was unmistakable. Mal crossed the cell, rattling his manacles in frustration. She looked up and stood to embrace him.

“I hope you’ve brought your lockpicks,” he murmured against her headdress.

She looked towards the door. “As soon as the guards have gone, I’ll free you.”

They stood there in silence for what seemed like hours, and at last the footsteps came back down and past them and the door at the bottom of the stairwell slammed shut.

“Do you have a knife?”

“Just a seal-cutter, in the lining of my left boot. I thought they’d find anything larger.”

“Good. Easier than using my teeth.”

He sat down on the bed and she pulled the boot off and extracted the tiny blade, a thumb’s length of wafer-thin steel made for cutting the seals from letters. She took off her bodice, turned it inside-out and began carefully cutting the seams.

“What are you doing?”

“I could hardly walk in here with my tool-roll, could I? Especially in these clothes.” She bit her lip in concentration as she picked away some thread. “So, whilst you and Sandy were busy with Grey, I borrowed needle and thread from Lady Frances and made a few… alterations.”

She put down the blade and pulled a metal rod from the unpicked seam with a grin of triumph.

“You’ve sewn your entire set of skeleton keys into your clothing?” he said, trying not to laugh.

“Not all of them. I left out the small ones that are only any use for jewellery boxes and the like, and a few of the very largest.”

Within half an hour she had an impressive collection of metal tools laid out on the blanket between them, and she unlocked Mal’s fetters in short order. The lining of the bodice lay in ruins, but she put the garment back on as tidily as she could. Mal took great pleasure in tucking all the stray bits of fabric inside: all around her waist, at the back of her neck, along the front where the stiffening plumped up her breasts… He bent to kiss the soft warm skin, taking her in his arms as the hunger enveloped him. She giggled and made ineffectual attempts to push him off.

“We don’t have time for this,” she murmured into his hair.

He raised his head. “We have until sunset. After that, we may never get time again.”



Ned folded his arms and held his ground. Lady Frances might be a duchess, but she was only a woman when all was said and done.

“I swore to my best friend that I would guard his son with my life. I can’t do that if he’s half the breadth of the Thames away.”

“You exaggerate, Master Faulkner. Christopher will be only a few yards distant from the guest apartments. If there is any trouble, you can be with us in moments.”

“And how will I know if there’s trouble, if there’s half a dozen stone walls between us?”

She sighed and drew him towards the window.

“My husband has men on the main gate–” she gestured towards the streetward entrance to Suffolk House “–and in the gardens also, lest anyone approach from the river. If we are attacked from either side, the alarm will go up.”

“And if we are attacked from within?”

“You are accusing my servants of treachery?”

Ned chewed his moustache. How much to tell her? Hell, f*ck Mal’s tiptoeing around the truth; secrecy was for sneaky bastards like Henry.

“Not your servants,” he said. “The enemy. They’re sorcerers; they can appear out of thin air, bringing devils and who knows what with them.”

Lady Frances made the sign of the cross, though to her credit she did not quail.

“What are we to do?”

Ned thought back to their escape from Anglesey Priory.

“For a start, arm your men with all the crossbows you have. A few steel-tipped bolts should slow our enemies down. But most of all, make sure Kit – Master Christopher – doesn’t take off that necklace he’s wearing.”