"What do you think?" Mal pulled out a pile of underlinens and began sorting through them. "Why does the laundress never send stockings back in matching pairs? I swear there's another man out there with an identical set of odd ones."
"There's something we need to talk about."
"Oh?" Mal looked up, then appeared to notice his brother was still wearing the spirit-guard. He closed the lid and came to sit on the bed. "What is it? Nothing's wrong, I hope?"
"No." Sandy shook his head. "At least, not yet."
He tried to find the words. Erishen would be able to explain it better, but Erishen might not put it right.
"It's… this voyage," he said at last. "It's dangerous, isn't it?"
"All sea voyages are dangerous. But yes. I'm going a long way away, to a far-off land where I have few friends."
"So you might not come back. You might… die."
"Yes."
Sandy nodded. "Erishen doesn't like that."
"Well, neither do I."
"You don't understand. Erishen wants to be reborn as a skrayling. He… I am not sure he can do it, if we die apart. If your half of our soul is lost."
"If I die wearing this earring, you mean. My soul bound in iron, like those skraylings we found."
"Yes."
"And if I do not? Will I have to face the devourers?"
Sandy looked away. He had no answer for his brother.
"It seems to me," Mal said slowly, "that Erishen is doomed either way."
"I know," Sandy whispered.
Mal put an arm around his shoulder.
"We are no worse off than we ever were. Far better, in fact. If you had died in Bedlam in shackles, Erishen would have been destroyed for certain. Now, at least he has a chance. And I have no intention of dying in Venice, or anywhere else. Not yet."
Sandy hugged him, blinking back tears. "I believe you, brother."
He reached behind his neck, unfastened the spirit-guard and let it fall into his lap. The world shifted, the ordinary surroundings of the bedchamber now unfamiliar, the man before him too pale of skin and dark of eye.
"Erishen?" Mal said softly.
"Our fate is in your hands, rehi. Do not fail us."
It was a mere four miles from Southwark to Deptford, a pleasant enough walk on a bright spring afternoon. Mal strolled along the Kent Road, eager to be off at last despite his dislike of travelling by sea. Coby walked at his side, uncharacteristically silent, whilst Sandy trailed just behind them, stopping to examine every new sight by the way. Ned and Parrish brought up the rear.
"This reminds me of being on tour with Suffolk's Men," the actor said. "Though 'tis far more pleasant."
"Aye," Coby said, emerging from her reverie. "No heaving the wagon out of potholes every half-mile, nor walking all day only to sleep in a barn at the end of it."
"With Naismith's snoring to keep us all awake. May God rest his soul."
Coby fell silent again. Mal knew the girl blamed herself for Naismith's death, even though it had been the work of anti-skrayling seditionists. He draped a companionable arm around her shoulder. She looked up at him with tired grey eyes and seemed about to say something, but evidently thought better of it.
As they passed Deptford Strand, Ned pointed to a handsome timber-framed house backing onto the river.
"Isn't that where Marlowe was murdered?"
Mal halted, curious. So this was where his fellow intelligencer had met his end. Hardly the low tavern of popular rumour, it looked to be a respectable establishment, a rooming-house or perhaps a private ordinary where a gentleman of modest means could hold a dinner for his friends. Or his enemies.
"Something wrong, sir?" Coby asked as they set off again.
"Just this chill morning air. I've become too used to the warmth of Provence."
Beyond the Strand lay the King's Yard, where the navy berthed its ships. A forest of masts, bare as winter trees or laden with snowy sails, showed above the warehouses and boat-sheds of the dockyard. Mal wondered if the Ark Royal was still there, a sleeping giant waiting out the spring gales before venturing back into the Atlantic. He did not relish the thought of sailing on such a large vessel. Even on his short dock-bound visit with Ambassador Kiiren, the navy's flagship had rolled disconcertingly in the river swell. He didn't like to think of what it would be like at sea.
The Falcon rode at anchor in the mouth of Deptford Creek, a short way further downriver. The galleon was not so large as the Ark Royal, but its clean lines spoke of greater speed and manoeuvrability. Mal counted eight gun ports along the near side, in addition to the smaller swivel-guns on poop deck and fo'c's'le. Creamy white sails flapped lazily in the rising wind, ropes rattling against the canvas.
He caught Ned eyeing the vessel nervously.
"You've seen plenty of ships before, surely?" he said.
"Aye, but I never stepped aboard one in my life."
"Lucky you," Mal muttered, hoisting his knapsack higher onto his shoulder.
He left Ned to bid his farewells to Parrish, and turned to Coby, but there was nothing to say that they had not said already. The girl stood with hands clasped behind her back, her mouth tight with emotion. Sandy stepped into the awkward silence.
"Tell my amayi I long to see him again," he said to Mal.
"I shall," Mal replied, and embraced him. "Take care of my… companion."
"Ah, Catlyn!" Raleigh was striding along the riverside towards them, but came to an abrupt halt as Sandy turned to face him. "Two of ye? The letter said naught about that."
"I came only to bid my brother farewell," Sandy put in before Mal could explain. He bowed. "Alexander Catlyn, at your service, sir."
Raleigh returned the courtesy. "Your brother says you are a mathematician."
"It interests me, yes. Though I am no expert."
"You must call by Durham House and introduce yourself. My friend Thomas Harriot would be glad of another man of learning to talk to." He turned to Mal. "Well, we must be away, sirs. Time and tide wait for no man."
Mal beckoned to Ned, who was deep in conversation with Parrish. The lovers embraced and exchanged discreet kisses, then Ned picked up his knapsack. Mal said farewell to Sandy, then there was only time to clasp hands with Coby and kiss her on the cheek before Raleigh pressed them once more to join him in the skiff that would take them out to the Falcon.
They climbed into the boat, though there was scarce room aboard for three men in addition to the rowers. Ned perched on a barrel of salt beef whilst Mal tried to make himself comfortable on a sack that crunched slightly as he shifted on it.
"Chunny," Raleigh said, indicating the sack. "Keeps better than ship's biscuit, or so I'm told."
"Dried potato?" Mal peered down at the sack. A wooden plaque carved with a distinctly skrayling emblem had been tied to the string around its neck.
"You know of it?"
"I accompanied the Ambassador of Vinland to a meeting with the guild-masters once," he said with a grimace. Soldiery could be dull, but listening to merchants' discussions was enough to send any man to sleep at his post.
"I'm trying it out in the hope of using it on my next long voyage. I've begun growing potatoes on my own estates in Ireland, but the drying of it is an art my tenants are still mastering, so I've had to buy this lot from the skraylings."
"Since they are already experts in the craft, would it not be easier to leave it to them?" Mal asked.
Raleigh smiled. "And give them all the profit on't? Certainly not."
A few minutes later the skiff bumped against the hull of the Falcon and they climbed the rope ladder to the rail. The sailors paused in their work to touch their woollen caps in acknowledgement of Raleigh's arrival. Mal noticed a few of them surreptitiously studying him and Ned when they thought the captain wasn't looking.
Raleigh showed them into the poop, a long narrow cabin with a ceiling barely high enough for Mal to stand upright without scraping his scalp on the planks of the deck above. A row of bunks were built into each side of the cabin under small arched windows, and the rest of the space was taken up by a great table and benches.
"My officers of marines sleep here in times of war," Raleigh said. "You and your man may make free with it."
He disappeared through a door at the far end, which Mal guessed led to the captain's cabin.
The bunks' sides were built high enough to stop a man falling out as the ship rolled. Two had bedding piled on them: sheets, thin blankets and a bolster, all stained with long use. Mal unstrapped his rapier and stowed it between the mattress and the ship's side, where it wouldn't roll around, then set about exploring the confines of their new lodgings. There wasn't much to inventory: a small locker beneath each bunk, a barrel of what looked to be wine, several lamps hanging from hooks and a storage chest full of pewter tableware.
"This isn't so bad," Ned said, looking around. "You told me ships were wretched places."
"They are, for the most part. The rest of the crew will be crammed cheek-by-jowl belowdecks, sleeping in hammocks and breathing the stink of the bilges."
"What are hammocks?"
"I'll explain later. Come, let's go out on deck and wave farewell to our friends."
"Tide's turning, captain!" one of the sailors called out as they emerged from the cabin.
"Raise the anchor, Master Warburton!" Raleigh called up to the poop deck. "All hands, prepare to make sail!"
Canvas tumbled down from the yardarms and caught the wind, and the ship began to move downstream. Mal stood at the frost-rimed stern rail, watching Deptford shrink slowly into the distance. Before they were more than a hundred yards from the creek he saw Sandy put an arm around Coby's shoulder, and for a moment it was as if he was seeing himself, watching his old life recede into memory. He shivered, and not just from the cold. The two figures on the shore were the most dear to him in all the world; what if he never saw either of them again?