The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(9)

The print shop had closed up for the day, so Mal let himself in by the wicket gate. As he crossed the yard a blonde head poked out of the upstairs window. Mal broke into a smile – the very man he sought. If anyone could dream up a few fictional weaknesses to present to Grey, it was a playwright.

“Catlyn!” Parrish called down. “How went your enterprise?”

“Middling well. But I need to talk to you.”

“Sorry, I have business with the Prince’s Men tonight. Is tomorrow soon enough?”

“Tomorrow will do. Where’s Ned?”

“In the shop, I think. He’s been working late on a rush job.”

Mal saluted him and went through the back door of the shop. Immediately his nose was met by the sharp bitter smell of ink and the vanilla must of paper. He picked his way around the stacks of pamphlets and boxes of type and eventually found Ned at his desk in the office. The younger man looked up from his ledgers and broke into a grin.

“Good news, I hope?”

“When is there ever good news in our line of work?” Mal replied. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Burbage got wind of a half-arsed copy of Romeo and Juliet doing the rounds, so he wants us to have an official version to sell in its place. I’ve been manning the press on our other jobs so we can get it typeset in time.”

He yawned and flexed his ink-stained left hand. The right rested motionless on the ledger, the edges of its intricate brass joints shining like molten gold in the lamplight.

“You deserve a beer,” Mal said. “And I need one.”

“All right. I’m about done here anyway.”

Mal followed Ned across the yard to the kitchen. The fire had been banked for the night, but Mal lit a spill from the embers and touched it to a candle stub whilst Ned moved about the darkened room with the ease of familiarity.

“So,” Ned said, bringing two leather jacks of beer to the kitchen table, “what’s afoot?”

Mal told him about Grey, everything except the instruction to report on the other agents. Ned interrupted from time to time, often with questions that Mal had no answer to, and cursed Grey at regular intervals. At last the tale was done and they sat in silence, drinking their beer.

“You reckon there’s any way we can get out of it?” Ned got to his feet and went to refill their tankards.

“Working for Grey? No, I doubt it. Besides, this could be the very chance we’ve been looking for.”

Ned looked up from the beer tap. “How so?”

“Right now we only know one guiser’s identity for certain. Prince Henry, the Duke of Suffolk as was.”

“Blaise’s father.”

Mal nodded. “Coby said that Grey had a substantial collection of his father’s paperwork, not just that book Sandy stole. And now we have an ally within his very household.”

“It’s a good start. But wasn’t the book useless?”

“Aye, but there could be other evidence: letters from their fellow conspirators, perhaps even a diary. But getting our hands on that will take time. In the meantime, I need you to redouble your efforts.”

“I’m doing my best, Mal–”

“I know, but if Grey gets his hands on Walsingham’s papers, that could be the last we see of them. I can stall him for a while, tell him I need them in order to compile the reports he wants, but after that…”

“All right. One of my journeymen has a nephew looking for an apprenticeship, so I dare say I could take a bit more time away from the presses.”

“Thank you.” Mal drained his tankard. “I’ll do what I can to help, but I don’t have your eye for handwriting, you know that. And if I don’t get up to Derbyshire before the summer’s out, my wife will have my guts for lute-strings.”





CHAPTER III



Someone was knocking on his bedchamber door. Or perhaps the palace was falling down. Mal rather hoped it was the latter, so that it wouldn’t be his problem.

“Go away,” he groaned, and buried his face in the bolster.

The knocking came again. More like hammering, to tell the truth. Only one person could knock like that. And if he’d bothered coming all the way to Whitehall, it must be important. Mal cursed under his breath. This was all he needed.

“Come in!”

He struggled upright, tangling his legs in the sheets. It had been a warm night for May and he was wearing naught but what he had been born in. A little self-consciously he pulled the sheet up around his waist.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering,” Ned said, closing the door behind him. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Mal made the sign of the fig at him.

“Pass me that decanter,” he said, waving at the dresser on the other side of the room.

“Aye, milord. Whatever you say, milord.” Despite his tone Ned obeyed, tucking the sheaf of papers he was carrying under his right arm so that he could lift the flagon with his good hand. “You look as crapulous as a cardinal. Late night, was it?”

Mal rubbed a hand over his face. “Could say that. Southampton dragged us all to the new theatre in Blackfriars, and then back here for a late supper. A very late supper.”

“You love every moment of it,” Ned replied. “Swanning around with the flower of the court. Sir Maliverny Catlyn, intimate of the Prince of Wales.”