Mal was woken in the night by Sandy’s return from the skrayling guild-house. He listened in growing despondency to the news and resolved to report to the Privy Council immediately, in the hope of stopping this persecution before it went any further. After a swift early breakfast he saddled Hector and set off for the palace.
The wheels of state turn slowly, however, and the sun was approaching its zenith before a liveried servant arrived to announce that the council were ready to see him at last. He was escorted from the antechamber, across an inner courtyard and into the atrium of the Council Chamber itself, the guards’ pole-arm butts clicking on the stone flags in time with the thud of their booted feet, until they came to a sudden halt before a pair of dark oak doors carved with the royal arms. Two more guards stood at attention either side; they opened the doors, and Mal was ushered inside.
The room beyond was not vast, but the space from the doors to the table at the far end seemed to stretch endlessly away from him. One of the men seated behind the table coughed. Mal remembered himself and bowed, low enough to show his respect for Prince Arthur, whose red hair was the only patch of colour in the sombre company. At the prince’s right hand sat the short hunched figure of Sir Robert Cecil, the Secretary of State; on his left was the Lord High Admiral, Lord Howard of Effingham; and on the admiral’s left the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Egerton. The fifth member of the council was very like to Effingham in age and looks, though his silver beard was even longer; Mal guessed him to be Baron Buckhurst, the Lord High Treasurer. If Gabriel’s report was correct, Olivia now had the prince under her thumb, but there was still hope she had not bewitched all of them.
Mal stopped a respectful distance from the polished table, his hands clasped behind his back, head up but eyes respectfully lowered. Sweat trickled down his back, and not only from the sticky heat of a July afternoon. The silence stretched out before him as the five men passed documents between themselves, reminding him of the Venetian Grand Chancellor and his secretaries. At least here he was not in imminent danger of torture. Not yet.
Cecil coughed and tossed aside the sheet of paper he had been reading.
“A very thorough investigation, Master Catlyn.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You must have worked through the night to assemble such a long list of names from Palmer’s paperwork.”
“I had assistance. My colleagues in Lord Grey’s service–”
“Ah yes. Still, such a pity.”
“Pity?” Mal’s stomach lurched.
“Yes, to spend so many hours on such a fruitless exercise.”
“I do not think it fruitless, begging your pardons, sirs. It opens up many avenues of enquiry–”
“Do you presume to tell us how to conduct the administration of the realm, Master Catlyn?”
“No, sir, of course not.” Was the prince in charge here, or Cecil? As Secretary of State, he had taken over many of Sir Francis Walsingham’s responsibilities, if not his spy network.
“As I was saying, a fruitless exercise.” Cecil leaned across the table, fixing Mal with his dark eyes. “I put it to you that Nathaniel Palmer is an innocent party in this. A decoy. You say it is he who fired at the King and then took his own life?”
“Aye, sir.”
“A dreadful slander against an upright citizen, is it not? What cause have you to connect Palmer with the assassin?”
“His horse, sir. I followed it–”
“I read the report. A livery horse, open to hire by any that wants it. Is that right?”
Mal bit back the urge to point out that this too was in his report. “Aye, sir. And Palmer was the last to hire it.”
“And this is the whole of your evidence against him?”
Mal hesitated, but he could not say any more without incriminating himself.
“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.