"Right, lads," Monkton barked. "Look sharp! I have here for you a lesson in what happens to men who fail to follow orders."
He held out his hand for Mal's sword, then gestured to him to remove his doublet. Mal complied, trying to ignore the soldiers' catcalls. Monkton led him over to the wall, where a pair of manacles was fastened at head height. Evidently this was a regular punishment.
"Shirt off as well," Monkton said. "We don't want you dying of a festering cut."
Mal stripped off his shirt, revealing the bandage on his left arm.
"Been in the wars already, have we?" Monkton said with a sneer.
Mal faced the wall and raised his arms, and the manacles were closed around his wrists. He sank his forehead on his hands, bracing himself for the first blow. Monkton exchanged banter with the soldiers, stretching out the moment of anticipation until Mal was almost ready to scream at him to get on with it, for God's sake. Then there was a whistle and snap of leather and sudden sickening pain that drove the breath from his lungs. Again and again the lash fell, until the soldiers' jeers blurred into the sound of blood roaring in his ears.
After a while he was aware of Monkton unlocking the shackles, and surmised his punishment was over. Someone pressed a tankard of ale into his hands. He gulped it down, hoping to dull the pain, and the soldiers laughed. When he had drained the tankard, Monkton thrust Mal's bundled-up garments and his sword into his hands and escorted him back to the tower. Mal stumbled along, his guts a cold knot of shame. He should have let the ambassador go to Bethlem; nothing he might have seen there could have been worse than this humiliation.
Ned trudged along Thames Street in the pouring rain. He wanted to run back to Gabriel and forget all about yesterday's visit from Kemp, but his laggardly conscience had pricked at him all day. With the courage of several pints of beer inside him and Gabriel urging him to get it over with, it had seemed such an easy thing to do. Now, as he neared the Tower, his courage began to desert him.
He emerged into Petty Wales and stared at the massive fortress, grey and forbidding under the lowering rain clouds. In there, men were imprisoned, tortured and executed, or simply left to die. Why, he asked himself for the umpteenth time, had he ever thought this was a good idea?
It was the right thing to do, that was why. Mal would have done this long ago, if their situations had been reversed. He only hoped his friend could protect him, though he knew he did not deserve such consideration.
With feet like lead he followed the path round to the left, through the Bulwark Gate and up to the crenellated gatehouse at the near end of the L-shaped causeway that spanned the moat. Two guards in the familiar livery of scarlet cloaks and dark blue jackets stood in the inadequate shelter of the passage under the gatehouse. Torches in iron cressets hissed as the wind drove veils of rain through the archway. In the flickering light, the entrance to the fortress put Ned in mind of the gates of Hell.
One of the guards stepped to the edge of the passageway, squinting through the rain dripping off the brim of his helmet. He levelled his partisan at Ned and looked him up and down.
"What do you want?"
Ned drew himself up to his full height, aware he must look like a drowned rat, with his hair plastered to his skull and his shoes leaking rainwater.
"I'm here to see the Ambassador of Vinland's bodyguard. MMaliverny Catlyn."
"Catlyn, you say?"
Ned nodded, looking from one to the other.
"What do you want with him, anyway?" the second guard asked, peering at him suspiciously. "Here, aren't you that little runt we ran into last time we had trouble with Catlyn?"
"Who, me? No, that wasn't me," Ned lied. "Must have been someone else. So, can I see my friend?"
"Wait there."
The guards flipped a coin, and the one who had first pointed his partisan at Ned lost. He set off across the causeway, grumbling at his ill luck.
"Can I at least come in out of the rain?" Ned asked the remaining man.
The guard shrugged and stepped back a couple of yards to let him under the archway. Ned was already as wet as he was going to get, but at least he would be out of the wind. He stared at the worn stonework and tried not to shiver too obviously.
As they waited in silence, Ned ran the previous conversation back through his mind. What was it the other guard had said? Last time we had trouble with Catlyn… He blanched. If Mal was in trouble again, he had to get out of here. He began to back away.
"Oi, where are you going?" the guard shouted.
He blocked Ned's escape with his polearm and glared at him in what Ned assumed was meant to be a menacing manner. It might have worked better if the man had not possessed a nose like an over-ripe strawberry and the flaccid build of a habitual drunk.
"Having second thoughts, are we? Makes me wonder what's so important you come all the way here in the pouring rain."
Ned slumped against the wall in defeat. He just wanted this to be over with.
After what felt like an age, the other guard reappeared, crossing the causeway at a brisk walk. Mal was not with him. Ned resigned himself to having to go further into the fortress. This plan was getting worse by the minute.
The guards conferred in low tones, and the red-nosed man laughed.
"It's more than whips he'll get where he's gone, poor sod," he said to his companion, just loud enough for Ned to hear. "I bet you a pint to a bucket of piss he'll not be able to sit down till Michaelmas."
"What's going on?" Ned asked, dread curdling in his stomach.
"You're too late," the other guard told him. "He ain't here."
"What do you mean, not here?"
"He's gone. Skraylings up and left this afternoon, and took Catlyn with them."
"Left? Where did they go?" He had sudden visions of Mal being shipped off to Sark, or even the New World.
"How should I know? Now clear off, before the curfew bell rings and we have to arrest you."
Ned turned and set off for home. There was nothing for it; he would have to go along with Kemp's plan, and God have mercy on his soul.