The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(7)

At his knock the door was opened by a servant in smart new livery, rather than one of the usual intelligencers. This did not bode well at all. He let the man take his cloak and usher him into the candlelit chamber.

“Sir Maliverny.” Lady Frances stepped forward to greet him. “How good to see you again.”

“My lady.” Mal bowed deeply. “You look well.”

It was no empty flattery; though past the first bloom of youth she was still handsome, and her flushed cheeks and the sparkle in her brown eyes appeared to owe more to health than fashionable cosmetics.

“And you also.” She stepped to one side. “I believe you know my lord the Duke of Suffolk?”

Mal froze as Blaise Grey unfolded his lanky frame from the high-backed chair where he had been sitting concealed from view. The duke got to his feet with the aid of a silver-topped cane and gave Mal a curt bow. His curly dark-blond hair was as untouched by grey as when they had been undergraduates together, but the chronic pain of an old sword wound had scored lines into his handsome features.

I suppose I should feel guilty about that, but I count it fair recompense for the torment he and his father inflicted on me.

“My lord.”

“Catlyn. It has been too long.” The duke held out his free hand towards Lady Frances, who smiled and laid her own upon it as if posing for a portrait. “It seems we are to be business partners after all.”

Mal glanced from one to the other. “The Queen approved your marriage.”

“Of course,” Grey said. “I was never one of her favourites, even at the height of my powers. I think she only procrastinated so that my dear Frances could stay with Princess Juliana a little longer.”

“Then you have my congratulations,” Mal said, forcing a smile.

“And you mine. A knighthood, an estate, a wife and a son, all within the space of a couple of years? How swiftly you have risen, since you came to me begging for work.”

Mal was saved from having to frame a polite response by the arrival of another of the liveried servants.

“Supper is served, my lord.”

They crossed the entrance hall to the dining room, which had also been woken from its long slumber and made fit for its new master. Silver plate and Venetian glass, laid out along the long polished table in quantities enough to furnish twice their company, reflected back the light of an extravagant number of candles. The servant lifted the lids from an array of dishes, filling the air with the savoury scent of meats, herbs and spices.

Lady Frances made small talk until the servant had withdrawn, whilst the two gentlemen glowered at one another over their plates of beef olives. Mal sipped his wine – predictably excellent – and wondered how he was going to walk away from this situation still breathing. Damn Grey! Of all the women at court to choose from, why did he have to pick Walsingham’s daughter? She was as old as him, with only one surviving daughter from her previous marriage, so she was hardly a good prospect for breeding an heir. On the other hand, scurrilous gossip at court implied that Grey’s injuries had made him impotent, so perhaps he had already resigned himself to the end of his line. And with Walsingham’s daughter came control of her late father’s spy network – an invaluable asset for an ambitious man like Grey.

“You may of course continue to use this house for meetings.” Grey said, setting down his knife. “I am anxious for business to continue as usual. Under my supervision, of course.”

Mal glanced at Lady Frances, but she had eyes only for her husband. Can she really be in love with him, and perhaps he with her? It was a comforting explanation for the turn of events, but not one he dared trust in.

“Of course, my lord,” he said. “I will send regular reports. Are you familiar with our customary ciphers?”

Grey hesitated just long enough for Mal to guess that the answer was no.

“Lady Frances has provided me with the necessary keys,” Grey said. “Compared to my work on the alleged skrayling texts you and your brother translated for me, Walsingham’s ciphers are child’s play.”

Mal ignored the insult. Unless Grey had been feigning all along, his ignorance of the book’s contents was proof he was merely human; the text had been written in a double cipher that only guisers could read. A cruel irony that his old enemy should be one of the few men he could truly trust.

“I hope you found the translation satisfactory, my lord.”

“Satisfactory? I dare say a tale of the Norsemen’s voyages would be of interest to an explorer or antiquarian, but it is of no use to me. Why my father thought it so important, I cannot fathom.”

“Your father was trying to root out an anti-skrayling conspiracy, my lord.” A lie, but one that came close enough to the truth to still make sense to Grey. Mal was not about to put his head in the noose by trying once more to convince Blaise of his father’s true nature. “To own any documents of potential use in that fight and be unable to read them… it would tax the patience of any man.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t ask his skrayling friends to translate them.”

“Perhaps he feared traitors amongst the skraylings themselves.”

Grey frowned and took a sip of wine. “Why would they side with humans against their own kind?”

“Who knows? They are still largely a mystery to me.” That at least was not a lie.