CHAPTER XVIII
Mal woke slowly, stiff with cold. The brazier had gone out in the night, and his back was no longer numb from the skrayling salve. He rolled onto his side. Needles of sunlight pierced the seams of the tent, threading the gloomy space with lines of sparkling dust. The blue silk panels on the tent walls glowed softly.
He rubbed his eyes. Kiiren sat behind the brazier, watching him with those catlike amber eyes. Had he been sitting there all night?
"Good morrow, Catlyn-tuur," Kiiren said. "You sleep well?"
"Tolerably," Mal replied, grimacing. He shifted into an upright position. "I have to go to church today. I could be fined if I don't."
"Of course you go," the skrayling replied. "You must spend time with your people."
Mal needed no further prompting; he thanked Kiiren and left for Southwark as soon as his own clothes were returned. His shirt was in a sorry state, so he gladly accepted Kiiren's offer of a plain linen tunic in its place. It felt a little odd, wearing it under his doublet, but hopefully no one would notice.
He attended service at his parish church of St Mary Overie, hoping to see Ned there, but oddly there was no sign of his friend amongst the congregation. He thought to ask Mistress Faulkner, but she was with a gentleman friend whom Mal had never seen before. Well, good for her; a poor widow deserved companionship in her old age.
After the service he went straight to Bethlem Hospital. Sandy was in much better health than he had been two months ago, though still rather thin and unkempt. As the weather was so hot today, indeed too humid to be cooped up indoors, the nonviolent patients had been allowed out into the courtyard, to see the sky and feel the sun on their faces. Sandy, however, remained in his cell.
"I would like the keys to my brother's shackles," Mal told Mistress Cooke.
"Oh, I can't do that, sir. Master Cooke says the bad cases ain't to be let out, no matter what."
"I will take responsibility for my brother."
The matron shook her head, her chins wobbling. "I'm sorry, sir."
"I would reward you for your pains," Mal said, taking out his purse. "Let us say, an extra week's fees?"
The woman's eyes lit up at the gleam of silver.
"Just for an hour, mind," she said, tucking the coins into her soft, freckled bosom. It would be a bold thief who dipped for that.
Mal took Sandy out into the courtyard and sat him on the bench under a great linden tree. His lute was left behind at the Tower, alas, but a few pence procured the loan of a draughts board from the warder.
When Mal returned to the bench, Sandy had something cupped in his hands and was examining it closely.
"What have you there?" Mal asked, sitting down next to his twin.
Sandy held up his hands. Perched on one palm was an enormous hawkmoth with dusky pink-and-black wings. The moth's feathery antennae quivered.
"Very fine. Perhaps you should let it be about its business, though. Whatever that might be."
He set out the board and pieces and let Sandy make the first move.
"They are treating you well?" Mal asked. He prodded a counter forwards.
Sandy shrugged. A lock of dark hair fell over his face, and he pushed it back absentmindedly – a painfully familiar gesture.
"I'm sorry I didn't visit last week," Mal said. "I have a new job, and there was much to do in preparation."
"You didn't come yesterday either," Sandy said, hopping his piece across several squares.
Mal stared at him. "You know about that?"
"I heard the girl telling someone, out in the hall. He sounded angry."
"Probably one of Leland's men." Mal did not voice his real concern, that it could have been another assassin. Had his plan inadvertently thwarted a second attack? "I'm sorry about that. I was supposed to come here with some other people, but I thought they would rather go to the fair instead."
Sandy nodded. "I would rather go to the fair than come here."
"I did bring you something," Mal said. He produced the Bartholomew Baby, retrieved from his knapsack after the hasty retreat from the Tower. It had broken in half and some of the gilt had rubbed off, but Sandy's face lit up when he saw it. Taking it from Mal he glanced around the courtyard, broke off a piece of the lady's gown and stowed the rest of the gingerbread doll inside his shirt.
Mal rubbed his left arm. The tattoo was healing well, thanks to the skrayling's salve, but the morning was already hot and sweat was trickling down inside his tunic sleeve, making the still-tender skin sting like nettle rash.
"Fleas?" Sandy asked, taking a bite of gingerbread.
Mal laughed and shook his head. He took off his doublet, rolled up the tunic sleeve and pulled the bandage away to display the tattoo. "What do you think, Sandy? Sandy!"
His brother had given a strangled cry and turned as stiff as the gingerbread doll, arms and legs rigid and trembling. His eyes rolled back in their sockets and he began to toss his head from side to side, moaning.
"Help! Someone help us!" Mal shouted, taking hold of Sandy's head and trying to get the piece of gingerbread out of his brother's mouth before he choked on it.
One of the warders came running. "Gawd help us, the lad's possessed!" he wailed.
"Don't be an ass." Mal glared at him. "It's just a fever brought on by the sun's heat."
He didn't believe it himself, but it seemed to reassure the warder, at least for the moment.
"Let us get him inside," Mal told him. "Cool shade and a drink will soon bring him to rights."
The warder fetched a stretcher and they carried Sandy, still twitching and moaning, back to the gatehouse and his own bed. Some of the other inmates watched them go, moaning in sympathy. Back indoors the air was humid and pungent, promising little respite for any fever victim, but at least the cell was out of public view.
"Bring wine – the good stuff, mind, none of that vinegary swill," Mal said, pressing a shilling into the warder's sweaty palm. "Now, if you please."
Sandy had stopped moaning but was now muttering to himself in the secret language of their childhood.
"Sandy? Sandy, are you all right?" Mal whispered, crouching on the edge of the bed.
His brother opened his eyes and sat up. His pupils were enormous, great pools of darkness that seemed to draw Mal in…
"It? omiro?" Sandy asked. Who are you?
"It's me, Mal. Remember?"
Sandy screamed. Mal threw his arms around him, trying to quiet him before he set off the whole ward. Sandy writhed in his embrace but despite having a madman's desperate strength he was too frail from his long confinement to break free. Mal held him tight until he stopped struggling, then reluctantly snapped the gyves around Sandy's wrists and ankles before he could gain his second wind. Sandy's pupils shrank in an instant, like a door slamming shut, and he slumped back on the bed. Mal stroked the sweat-damp hair from his brother's brow, blinking back tears, then sank to his knees beside the bed and prayed to St Giles, patron of madmen, cripples and those with the falling sickness.
The warder eventually returned with a cup of sweet hippocras, made the sign of the cross at the sight of Sandy, and fled. Mal coaxed a few drops of the wine between his brother's lips.
Sandy gazed up at him with wide eyes. "Mal? What happened?"
"A brief fit, nothing more," Mal said. "We should not have sat out in the sun so long."
Sandy closed his eyes again, and soon his breathing began to slow and his features relaxed in sleep. Mal stayed with him whilst the sun traced its slow path across the floor, alternately pacing the cell with soft tread and kneeling in prayer for his brother's soul.
At last the bells of nearby St Botolph's tolled five, and Mal remembered he had promised to return to the skrayling compound by six. He knocked on the cell door to be let out. The thought of leaving Sandy in this condition and being unable to visit him for a whole week tore at his heart, but what could he do? They would both have to endure the separation as best they could.
When Mal returned to the compound he was shown back to the small tent. Kiiren was seated cross-legged on a large woollen cushion next to the brazier, where a lidded metal jug stood heating. The jug's spout emitted a thin wisp of steam. That smell again: bitter and woody yet strangely pleasant.
"Please, sit," Kiiren said in a low voice.
He took the pot off the fire and whisked the contents, sending up a cloud of steam. Mal breathed it in, and felt his spirits lift a little.
"What happens now?" Mal asked. "This… is not a good start to your stay in London."
"We go back to Tower, perhaps tomorrow."
Tomorrow, the day after, a week from now; Mal didn't care any more. He just wanted to see Sandy again.
"Next Sunday," he said firmly, "I must have time for my own affairs."
"Of course. We honour your customs." Kiiren looked thoughtful. "Day of sun. So many of you humans revere sun in different ways, yes?"
"We do not revere the sun as the pagans of old did," Mal replied, trying to shake off his melancholy. A discussion of history would perhaps take his mind off his troubles. "But we kept their names for the days of the week. You know about the gods of the Greeks and Romans?"
"I speak of humans that live near my homeland."
"I have heard rumours," Mal said. He leant forward, hoping to learn something of use to Walsingham. "Beyond Antilia, a mighty empire rich in gold."
"Always it is gold with humans." Kiiren gave a hissing laugh. "Gold, tears of sun… And yet you Christians still not agree if sun travel round earth, or earth round sun."
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the hiss of steam and the distant strains of Vinlandic music.
"Last night…" Mal began cautiously. "Last night you said it was unwise to take my earring out, but that I would come to understand."
"It was not safe for you to join us." Kiiren lowered his voice. "The others may have set spies amongst the clan. And even if they have not, the elders must not know about you. Not yet. As soon as you came amongst us, I hurried to conceal you. I am sorry if I hurt you, but it was needful to be swift."
Mal felt none the wiser after this "explanation", but he let it pass. Kiiren had just admitted there were factions amongst the skraylings and that they spied on one another, just like the nations of Christendom. That fact alone was a useful titbit to take back to Walsingham. The strange vision of the mists, on the other hand, was not something to reveal to the spymaster, at least not yet. The skraylings had powerful magics, that was clear, but he needed to know more.
Recalling the vision brought another memory to mind: his conversation with Kiiren before the meeting. Light of my soul, the ambassador had said. Perhaps it meant something different to skraylings.
"This is something to do with Erishen," Mal whispered.
Kiiren produced a wooden box from which he took two small cups carved from lapis lazuli. Mal stared at them. The skraylings valued the deep blue stone more highly than gold, and these cups comprised enough to buy a fleet's worth of skrayling cargo. Kiiren whisked the contents of the pot again, then poured the foamy brown liquid into the cups.
He passed one to Mal. "What believe your people is happen to them after they die?"
Mal hesitated, wondering what to make of this sudden change of topic. He took a sip of his drink.
"What is this?" he asked, trying not to pull a face.
"We call it shakholaat," Kiiren replied. "It is good for weariness, of body and spirit."
Mal took a longer drink. The hot, bitter liquid was definitely an acquired taste. His mouth began to tingle slightly. The stuff must be spiced with the hot pepper the skraylings loved so much.
"Their souls pass on," he said, returning to the question Kiiren had posed, "to whatever destination God deems fit: Heaven, Purgatory, or Hell."
"I hear much talk of Heaven and Hell," Kiiren said, "but what is this… Purgatory?"
"It is a place – some say a great mountain on the other side of the world – where the souls of those who did not turn away from God in life, but who are yet too sinful to enter straight into Heaven, are purged of their sins so they might be fit to enter therein."
Kiiren smiled and nodded politely, but said nothing.
"You do not have similar beliefs?" Mal asked.
"Beliefs, no. There are things we know as fact." He put his cup down, and leant towards Mal, hands clasped in his lap. "We have no stories of afterlife, as you call it, no Heaven or Hell, no Purgatory. When man dies, his spirit is gone. Like candle flame." He made a gesture, touching his fingertips together with his hand pointing upwards, then spreading them suddenly, like a flame dispersing into smoke. "But there are those amongst us whose spirits are strong, and they can be born again and again. If they find mortal shell."
"Pythagoras believed as much, though Christians call it heresy," Mal said, trying to frame his argument in terms that would not offend. "My people are… not tolerant of other faiths."
"And yet there is disagreeing between Christians, is there not? Some follow Great Father in city beyond Inner Sea, and some defy him."
Mal guessed he was referring to the Pope.
"That is true. For fifteen hundred years we were one Christendom; but in the last few generations, everything has changed."
"This does not please you."