The Prince of Lies (Night's Masque, #3)(95)

“Well?”

“Aye, sir.”

Cecil picked up another sheet of paper, folded like a letter and bearing the greasy stain of a wax seal on its upper edge.

“Would it surprise you to learn that Master Palmer is alive and well?”

Mal stared at him. “Aye, sir, it would.”

He took the proffered letter from Cecil and scanned the few short lines. Regret to have inconvenienced your lordships… Called away on urgent business… Horse stolen north of Islington…. It looked credible enough, but Mal would stake his life on it being a forgery. If Palmer were alive, why would they need a letter as evidence?

“So you see, Master Catlyn, it could not possibly have been Palmer who shot the King, could it?”

“I suppose not, sir.”

“Indeed I put it to you that your identification of the body was wholly mistaken and prompted by your well-known partisanship towards the skraylings.”

“Sir?”

“The assassin, Master Catlyn, was a skrayling, not a Christian man.”

“No, my lords, I swear. I examined it myself, and my brother confirmed–”

“Your brother Alexander.” This from Egerton, a former lawyer elevated to one of the highest posts in the land and the man who had eventually issued Ned and Gabriel’s pardon. Mal breathed a little more easily.

“Yes.”

“Who spend many years in Bethlem Hospital, and then sojourned among the skraylings. Who last night went to their guild-house on some secret mission?”

So, Cecil and his intelligencers had swayed Egerton to their cause.

“He was making enquiries about Palmer, on my behalf,” Mal said.

“Was he now?”

“Yes, sir.”

Egerton snorted and looked at his colleagues. “I do not think a madman can be considered a very credible witness, do you?”

Mal had no answer. He was not about to agree with the lawyer, but neither was there much point in gainsaying the truth.

“So,” Cecil said, “we have your word that the assassin was Palmer, and Palmer’s own word – countersigned by credible witnesses – that he was nowhere near London on that day. Whom do you think I’m inclined to believe, Master Catlyn?”

The guisers who are pulling your strings. Unless you are one of them yourself.

“What do you intend to do about it?” he asked instead. “Hand the body over to the skraylings for identification?”

“Really, Catlyn, do you think us so naive? The body has already been quartered and displayed above the gates of the city. Such a pity the head did not survive in any useful condition. No–” Cecil laced his blunt fingers together “–we shall stamp out this rebellion before it spreads.”

Prince Arthur spoke for the first time.

“The skraylings will be expelled from the realm,” he said, “and forbidden to return on pain of death.”

A little late for that, since they are probably leaving the city as we speak. “Does that include Sark, Your Highness?”

Arthur turned to his left.

“Eventually,” Egerton conceded. “The island was gifted by Her Majesty the Queen, of blessed memory, and can therefore only be taken away by her heirs. God willing King Robert will recover and enact this reversal; if not, his heirs will surely do so.”

His heirs. Then they are already planning for Edward’s accession. Is Arthur complicit in all this?

“I think our business with Master Catlyn is concluded, don’t you, gentlemen?” Cecil said, glancing around the table.

The other Privy Councillors nodded, and Mal breathed a sigh of relief.

“You are dismissed. But take care, sir; your bias in this matter has been noted.”

Mal bowed and backed out of the council chamber. Though he was relieved beyond measure to have escaped arrest, it was now clear that the conspirators behind the assassin had achieved their principal goal: to expel the skraylings from England. From now on, the guisers would be free to exercise their powers in the capital, with no one to gainsay them.





CHAPTER XXV



The tolling of the city’s bells could mean only one thing: another royal death. Mal stopped a palace servant in the passageway.

“What’s happened? Is the King dead?”

“Prince Edward, God rest his soul,” the man replied, making the sign of the cross.

Mal echoed the gesture absentmindedly. Dear God, that meant Henry was now Prince of Wales… He ran out into the courtyard and shouted to a groom to fetch his horse.

The city streets were crowded with citizens debating the latest news, but the people scattered as Mal spurred his mount onward, through Ludgate and down to London Bridge. One thought blazed in his mind: that he had to get Coby and Kit out of the Tower before another day dawned on this benighted kingdom.

After a brief stop in Southwark to gather everything he needed, he rode back into the city and along Thames Street to the Tower. Approaching the castle gate he adopted what he hoped was an authoritative air.

“I wish to speak to my wife, Lady Catlyn,” he told the older of the two guards, a stout fellow of about forty with streaks of grey in his spade-shaped beard. “I’ve brought clean clothes for her and my son.”

The guard squinted at Mal from the archway and stepped forward into the sunlight.