The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(39)

“You did say you wanted to see everything.”

“I suppose I did, didn’t I?” He picked up a handful of sheets from the nearest stack. Tailor’s bills, unpaid by the look of them, and several decades old. “Are the late duke’s personal letters here?”

“I’m not certain. They might still be in the library, if my husband has not finished with them.”

“You’ve seen them?”

“Yes, in the desk. It has a great many pigeonholes and drawers.”

“Locked drawers?”

“Some of them, yes.” She looked abashed. “I could not find a key to fit them, and I could hardly ask Lord Grey.”

“I think I can help you there. Please, show me.”



A preliminary search of the desk revealed nothing more incriminating than a collection of letters written by Blaise to his father from school and university.

“How are you going to get into the drawers?” Lady Frances asked, unfolding one of the letters.

Mal extracted a number of skeleton keys from his boots, hat brim and dagger scabbard, placed there against the threat of arrest and imprisonment.

“Fear not, I’ve learnt a few tricks as part of my profession.”

Taught to him by his wife, though he was hardly going to tell Lady Frances that. He began probing the first lock. Lady Frances put aside her husband’s letters and came over to watch.

After a few tries the lock gave way, and its fellow yielded to the same skeleton key. The left hand drawer turned out to be empty, but the right hand one contained a small sheaf of letters in various hands, including several from Lord Burghley.

“Have you found anything?” Lady Frances asked.

Mal showed her the letters.

“Nothing strange about Burghley and my father-in-law exchanging letters,” she said. “He was Lord Treasurer, after all, and had dealings with all the great lords of the realm.”

“And too old, I think, to be a danger. He must be past his threescore years and ten by now.”

“Nearer four score. And in poor health besides. Baron Buckhurst has had to take his place on the council.”

Buckhurst. His name wasn’t on Selby’s list, nor was Burghley’s. Was that significant? Come to think of it, none of the Privy Councillors were named. That boded ill. Mal began to feel more certain than ever that it was the omissions that mattered, not the names on the list.

On a hunch he pulled out both drawers, and let out a low whistle. The empty one was a hand’s breadth shallower than the one he had found the letters in. A secret compartment! Remembering Baines’s training, he took out his riding gloves and felt around cautiously. One could never rule out poisoned needles and other traps. There. The back panel tilted when you pushed on the top and sprang back into place when you let go.

“I’ll need something to hold it open,” he said, and drew his dagger.

A few moments later he was staring at a small bundle of letters tied with silk ribbon. Love letters? Hardly daring to trust his luck he pulled the ribbon loose and began reading.



Right honourable my good and dearest lord, my most humble and bountiful thanks for all your kind wishes for my health. The days wax long in your absence, and my heart is so afflicted that I curse the sun for its mockery of my dark humour. I greatly fear that time will soon be upon me when my soul shall be taken up to Heaven, but I know that with your care I shall be delivered safe into a new life.



“This is it,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Clear evidence of Jathekkil’s amayi.”

“I know not that word, amayi. It is not Latin, though it sounds much like it.”

“It is a skrayling word, my lady, meaning a trusted companion.” When she looked puzzled, he recalled that she still believed the late duke had plotted against the skraylings, not that he was one of them. “Forgive me. I spend too much time with my brother. I forget that others do not understand our private speech.”

He scanned to the end of the letter.



I pray most earnestly for your own good health and happiness. Your very assured and loving kinsman, Wm Selby. Sent this viijth day of June, 1575.



“No, this cannot be correct,” he said aloud. “Selby was a young man when this letter was written. Why would he fear imminent death?”

He sorted through the other letters. This was the last, and some went back as far as the 1540s, written in a boyish hand.

“These are not from the man I arrested.”

Lady Frances tapped a folded letter against her lips.

“Selby. Selby.” Her dark brows drew together in concentration. “The late Sir William inherited Ightham from his uncle, also Sir William Selby.”

Mal swore under his breath. “And did he die twenty-three years ago, as these letters suggest?”

Lady Frances shrugged. “Thereabouts, as I recall. I know not the precise date. Why?”

There was nothing for it but the truth, or some version of it that Lady Frances might believe.

“Our enemies believe in reincarnation, like the followers of Pythagoras. They choose their recruits from those they believe are their dead members reborn.”

“Oh.” Her eyes widened in shock. “Then they are heretics as well as traitors.”

“Indeed, my lady. Now you understand why I must root them out.” He shuffled the letters distractedly. “The person I seek is twenty years old or so. Most likely another courtier, and one more powerful than Selby, judging by their schemes so far.”