The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(133)

All this, Mal had determined from their first, brief visit to see the prince. He anticipated guards on each level, probably human; the other guisers must be spread thinly if the usurper was relying on them to control his kingdom whilst he lurked in here. Mal drew his borrowed sword and took the lead, putting each foot down with care to avoid the scuff of leather on stone.

Torches flickered in cressets, making the shadows of the tattered banners dance on the ceiling, but that was the only movement to be seen. The whole keep seemed oddly deserted, as if Henry had already taken his court back to Whitehall Palace, and yet surely that could not have been done within the few short hours since Mal had been imprisoned? He advanced through the great hall, a sick feeling in his stomach.

The hall was divided into two unequal halves by a massive retaining wall pierced by arches. Mal slipped into the shadow of the nearest and peered around the corner, to where he knew a door opened onto the great staircase. At last, a living soul! More torches illuminated the heavily built figure of one of the Huntsmen, standing guard at the entrance to the stairwell, feet apart, hands braced on the halberd before him. Even more ominously, he wore an executioner’s hood, so like the masks worn by the Huntsmen on their rides. The man’s eyes glinted through the slits in the black leather.

“Stay back!” Mal hissed over his shoulder at Coby.

He strolled forward, sword point drooping towards the floor.

“Ho there, good fellow! Will you step aside and let me and my companion visit the King?”

The Huntsman said nothing.

“Or does your loyalty to Lord Grey not extend beyond his threshold?”

“What would you know about loyalty, demon?” The Huntsman crossed himself and hefted his pole-arm.

“There’s been some mistake,” Mal said. “That was all a play, to fool the King–”

“No mistake.”

The Huntsman strode forward, sweeping the eighteen-inch blade in a lethal arc at belly height. Mal leapt back; a sword was useless at this range.

“Shoot him!” Mal yelled, throwing himself sideways and rolling as he hit the floor.

“I don’t have a gun, remember?”

Mal cursed and got to his feet. Something small flew past his head, too slow and silent to be a bullet. The Huntsman flinched, and the missile pattered to the floor and rolled away. Mal laughed. In lieu of weapon or powder, Coby was throwing her ammunition.

Another bullet sailed past the Huntsman’s head, and it was his turn to laugh – until the next caught him in the teeth with an audible crack. The man swore and spat blood, but the distraction was enough. Mal leapt forward and lunged, skewering the Huntsman’s right hand between the base of the fingers and through his wrist, the tip at last emerging below his forearm. Screaming, the man tried to wield his weapon one-handed but the balance was off. The halberd blade rang like an ill-tuned bell as it slammed into the stone floor. Mal lunged again, well below the padded jerkin, stabbing into the meat of the man’s thigh. As he withdrew the blade blood gushed forth and the Huntsman staggered and dropped his weapon, enfolding Mal in an embrace that threatened to crush the breath from his lungs. The two of them fell to the floor, the Huntsman closing his uninjured hand around Mal’s windpipe. Mal smashed the hilt of his sword against the brute’s skull to no avail.

As the world started to go dark, the pressure on Mal’s chest and throat suddenly eased. He blinked and saw a pale figure standing over him. Coby.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I… I don’t really know. I think I stabbed him. A lot.”

Her doublet and hose were covered in a fine spray of blood, as of many small wounds. She looked down at the sword in her hand. Mal’s borrowed sword.

“Well, someone had to,” he said, getting to his feet. Dear God, he was as soaked in gore as a Smithfield butcher, the other man’s blood sticky and disturbingly warm.

Coby looked pale enough to swoon. Best to get her moving; she could think about this later. He took the sword from her, gently, and wiped it on the dead man’s jerkin.

“Come on. We made enough of a racket to announce our arrival; let’s not keep the King waiting.”

The great stair was wide enough for three men to walk side-by-side – or for one man to wield a blade with ease. Mal led the way up to another floor identical in its plan to the one below, apart from a pillared gallery running round all four sides, like a cloister. This one was stacked to head height with breastplates, helmets and rusted coats of mail. A narrow passage led through the armoury to one of the corner towers, where a much smaller staircase spiralled upwards. Mal sheathed his sword and helped himself to a dagger from a pile on top of a barrel, taking one of the torches in his free hand. He nodded towards a rack of pistols.

“Grab a brace,” he whispered to Coby. “And a powder flask.”

She nodded numbly but complied. Damn, but I hate having to do this. I should send her back to Sandy, where she’ll be safe. But it was too late for that now. Nothing for it but to press on.

The stairs opened into a small room furnished as a bedchamber. The scents of qoheetsakhan and burnt flesh mingled unpleasantly in the air. The body of the other Huntsman lay in the middle of the floor, face down and stripped to the waist. Either dead or unconscious, by the look of it.

“I thought you preferred to have someone else do your interrogation for you,” Mal said to the slight figure sitting in the window-seat.