The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(2)

Mal looked away, unable to meet his brother’s eye. It was hard to keep secrets from someone when you shared a soul.

“You didn't need to do it. I had him disarmed and at swordspoint.”

“He could have been an assassin.”

“Him?” Mal shook his head over the sorry figure on the ground. “He’s naught but a common thief. Plenty of them on the roads into London; the only wonder is we haven’t been troubled by any before now.”

“Still, I had to be sure.”

“And was he?”

Sandy pulled a face. “No.”

“Don’t fret yourself. We were in London for weeks after we first got back from France; if someone was set on killing me, they’d have tried it before now.” He stepped over the man, picked up his dagger and returned it to its sheath. “No, whoever sent that assassin after me on Raleigh’s ship seems to have backed off. Probably doesn’t want to upset the prince.”

“The boy is barely four years old; I cannot think he leads our enemies yet.”

“Not Henry; his father, Robert.” Mal looked around for the horses. “It’s a good hour’s ride to Southwark. If we want to talk to the skraylings before Youssef’s ship docks, we’d best hurry.”



The suburb of Southwark had grown outwards in all directions except one. On its eastern edge the boundary was still the stream just past Morgan’s Lane, crossed by a wooden bridge. The common land beyond lay as empty as ever, apart from a few grazing cattle and of course the skrayling encampment. Evidently no one was so desperate for land that they wanted to build within a stone’s throw of the aliens.

“Remember,” Mal said as they drew near the gates, “we offer help first, ask favours after.”

He dismounted and stepped onto the near end of the bridge across the moat surrounding the camp. He recalled his very first visit here, trailing after Ambassador Kiiren in the pouring rain, shirt sticking to the bloody welts on his back. The fact that he had been the first human to set foot inside the compound had been lost on him at the time. He wondered if others had been admitted since then, though he knew of none for certain apart from himself and Sandy. The skraylings kept to themselves, even more so now they knew that traitors within their own people had infiltrated the English aristocracy in the past and might try to do so again.

“Sir Maliverny Catlyn and Alexander Catlyn, to see Outspeaker Adjaan,” he said to the guard. The title still sounded foolish to his own ears, but there it was. The Queen had decided his actions in Venice had deserved a knighthood, and who was he to gainsay her?

The skrayling’s tattooed face remained impassive, but he bowed politely and waved them through. Mal breathed a sigh of relief. He had not been sure they would be welcome here in the wake of Ambassador Kiiren’s death, which was why he had not visited the skraylings upon his return to England. Only the necessity of protecting his family drove him to it now, and though the skraylings were a peaceable folk for the most part and he did not fear an attack, still he could not help but glance about him, hand on rapier hilt, as they entered the compound.

The camp was much as Mal remembered it: an area of about two acres filled with domed tents of a heavy canvas patterned in cream and black triangles, zigzags and interlocking squares. In the centre a great pavilion rose amongst the smaller tents, and trees grew here and there, hung with the blown-glass spheres the skraylings used for lamps. This early in the evening the trees were dark, but already a lamp-tender was passing among them with his ladder, emptying out the spent lightwater into a bucket that glowed faintly when he passed into the shadow of a tent.

“Do you know this new outspeaker?” Mal asked his brother as they dismounted.

“Adjaan?” Sandy shook his head. “The name is not familiar to me.”

A movement in the crowd caught Mal’s eye and he shifted his grip on the rapier hilt, but it was only a young skrayling in a clerk’s brown tunic and trousers. The lad stumbled to a halt, his amber eyes wide at the sight of the visitors, then he seemed to remember himself and made a hesitant obeisance, hands raised palms outwards.

“Erishen-tuur?”

“H?,” Sandy replied, returning the obeisance.

Mal forced a smile. Erishen was the name of the skrayling soul that had reincarnated in the twins. He supposed he should find it reassuring that at least some of the skraylings still considered the Catlyn brothers near-kinsmen, but it made him uneasy nonetheless.

The clerk rattled something off in Vinlandic and beckoned to the two men.

“He says the outspeaker will see us now,” Sandy told Mal. “She is in her office.”

“She?” Mal caught his brother’s arm, slowing him down so that they were out of earshot of the young clerk. “I thought female skraylings never ventured across the ocean?”

“Times change,” Sandy replied. “Even for us.”

Mal bit back a comment. If Sandy now thought of himself as more skrayling than human, was that not Mal’s own fault as much as anyone’s? He was the one who had handed his brother over to the creatures to be “cured” of his madness.

The clerk led them along a raised wooden causeway to a cabin on the far side of the compound. It resembled the skraylings’ dome-shaped tents, except that it was roofed with a spiral of wooden tiles shaped like fish scales, and its walls were carved in simple lines to emphasise the grain of the timber. Folding doors on all sides let in the spring air and revealed its inhabitant kneeling at a low table heaped with books and papers. Turquoise-blue lamps hung from the ceiling, giving the cabin interior the appearance of an underwater cave. Sandy muttered something under his breath but Mal had no time to ask him what he meant, since Outspeaker Adjaan was already rising to greet them.