"Did you meet the Prince Consort?" Mal asked.
Monkton grunted. "I was not here in his day."
He unlocked another door and they went down a narrow stair, emerging on the Tower Green near the lieutenant's lodgings.
There they were shown through the antechamber into a small dining parlour. Leland was pacing up and down before the fire, a sheet of paper in his hand. A stocky man in his midthirties with sunburnt features and bright, almost manic eyes sat watching him, his lips moving silently.
Leland greeted the two men somewhat distractedly, and continued with his pacing, muttering something unintelligible. Monkton appeared to be accustomed to the lieutenant's eccentric behaviour; he went straight over to the table, where a silver flagon steamed, giving off a scent of cinnamon and apples.
"Splendid idea," Leland said. "This damnable language turns a man's throat to dust."
Monkton poured a little of the hot, spiced wine into silver goblets and handed them to Leland, Mal and the stranger.
"Your health, sirs," Mal said.
"The Queen," Leland replied.
"Of course. The Queen."
Mal took a cautious sip. It was the last of the old vintage, its sourness tempered with sugar and spices.
"You have met Thomas Lodge?" Leland asked, gesturing to his other guest.
"No, sir," Mal replied. He sketched a polite bow, unsure of the other man's status. The stranger was fashionably dressed, but his garments lacked the jewels and intricate embroidery that only the very rich could afford.
"Lodge is newly returned from a voyage to the New World," Leland said, "and will be our translator for the ambassador and his party."
So this was the man with whom he would be working for the next few weeks. He would have to keep an eye on him, in case someone tried to use him as a go-between to get to the ambassador.
"You are a sailor?" he asked.
Lodge flushed a deeper shade of red. "I am a poet. You may have heard of A Looking Glass for London and England…?"
Mal racked his memory. Yes, Ned had once mentioned copying some sides of that play for the Admiral's Men.
"I have not heard it played," he said, "but I am told it is very entertaining, especially the casting of Jonah out of the belly of the whale."
Lodge sniffed in disdain. "There is a great deal more to it than spectacle."
Leland stepped into the awkward silence.
"The voyage must have given you many ideas for new plays," the lieutenant said.
"Indeed it did," Lodge replied, looking pleased with himself. "I have sold one already – but I say too much." He put down his wine.
"The Queen of Faerieland," Mal said. Now he knew where he had heard the name before.
Lodge narrowed his eyes. "Are you a spy?"
"Me? No!" Mal laughed nervously. "Merely an acquaintance of Suffolk's Men. I've been taking lessons in Tradetalk from their young tireman."
Lodge raised an eyebrow. "Really? What did you make of it?"
"It was surprisingly simple to learn."
"Simpler than this, then," Leland said, handing Mal the piece of paper he'd been studying.
The sheet of paper bore three short sentences written in clear round-hand.
Kaal-an rrish, senlirren. Kaalt tokuur London-an iin tuuraq. Iin kaal-an lish hendet tutheeq.
"His Grace the Duke of York insists the visitors are greeted in their own tongue," Leland said with a pained expression. "Wanted me to do the whole damned speech in it, but the Queen's ministers argued him out of it, thank the Lord."
"It certainly looks very odd," Mal replied.
"That's what I told Lodge here, though he swears he has it aright."
"I spent nigh on a year in Vinland," Lodge said, his pale eyes glinting. "I promise you, Sir James, this is their tongue, faithfully transcribed to the best of my skill."
"It had better be, sirrah, else Her Majesty will have you swinging from a gibbet faster than you can say 'Hey nonny nonny'."
Lodge muttered something under his breath, but did not press the point. Leland took back the sheet of paper, folded it up and slipped it into a pocket. Gesturing to his guests to sit down, he took his own place at the head of the table. The servants brought in dinner, and whilst they ate Leland regaled his guests with stories of the Tower's long history and its more colourful inhabitants, whilst Monkton tried unsuccessfully not to look bored.
"Do you smoke?" the playwright asked, holding out a leather tobacco pouch whilst tamping down his own pipe with a yellow-nailed thumb.
"Thank you, no," Mal said.
"Quite right too," Leland said. "Damned filthy foreign habit."
Lodge shrugged. He went over to the fire and lit his pipe with a bit of kindling.
"Of course it wouldn't do to say that in front of the ambassador," Leland added. "Help yourself to more wine, Catlyn."
"Perhaps Master Lodge could tell us more about his adventures in the New World," Mal said. Better put the man at ease, if he was going to get anything useful out of him.
"Absolutely," Leland put in. "Do enlighten us, Lodge. Did you see any of their women? What are they like?"
Mal leant in closer, curious to know if Lodge had better information on the topic than young Hendricks.
"I regret to say I cannot confirm their existence, except in legend," Lodge replied. He paused to suck on his pipe. "Though I sailed all along the coast of Vinland and round the Isles of Antilia, I was unable to gain admittance to the Seven Cities. The race dwelling therein is quite different from the skraylings who visit our shores, and they are not welcoming to strangers."
"They are hostile?" Monkton asked.
"No," Lodge said. "Merely aloof. Almost monastic, one might say."
"But no women, eh?" Leland said.
"That was the peculiar thing," Lodge replied. "My skrayling guides referred to the city-dwellers as iiseth, which in other contexts translates as 'women', but from the little I saw of them, I can only assume it was a misunderstanding. The citizens were squat burly folk with bluish skin and short raven-black hair. They wore no face paint but in other respects were unmistakably skraylings."
"Perhaps the word was intended as an insult," Mal suggested.
"No," Lodge said, "my guides were very respectful towards them."
"No accounting for foreigners, eh?" Leland said.
"Well, if you gentlemen will excuse me, I'm for bed," Lodge said. He tapped out his pipe on the hearth, refilled his goblet and carried it off with him.
When the playwright had gone, Leland went over the arrangements for the visit at length: who would be attending the arrival ceremony, which noblemen were out of favour and especially to be watched, and the duties expected of Mal.
"Day and night, mind," Leland said in conclusion. "I want no assassins creeping up on our guests whilst they are my responsibility."
"Will the skraylings not bring their own bodyguards?" Mal asked.
"Undoubtedly," said Leland. "But what do they know of Christians? Can they even tell an Englishman from a Spaniard?"
"Even if they could," Monkton said, "I hardly think our enemies would be so clumsy as to send one of their own openly."
"Perhaps not." Leland drained his glass, and looked at Mal, his eyes narrowing. "But there are plenty of Papist sympathisers here in London. A man who could claim to have broken up our alliance with the skraylings would find rich rewards in Spain. Or France."
Mal nodded. "Sark."