CHAPTER XXXIV
The night passed without any further sign of the strange dreamwalkers, and by dawn the rescuers were within sight of the town of Saffron Walden, nestled in the gently rolling hills where Cambridgeshire met Essex. Mal looked around at his companions’ grey faces, and wondered what he was going to say if anyone enquired as to their business. They looked as disreputable a bunch of vagabonds as ever were arrested by a zealous parish constable.
“There’s an inn, just up ahead,” Coby said, evidently having the same thought. “Perhaps we should stop there, rather than draw attention to ourselves by going into the town.”
“Agreed.”
Smoke was rising from the inn’s chimney and a maidservant stood in the doorway, sweeping dried mud and gravel back into the high road. She gave a sullen curtsey when Mal hailed her, but at the sight of his silver she let them in and went off to fetch breakfast.
They gathered in the corner of the taproom by the fireplace, with Kit curled up on one end of the settle, his head in Coby’s lap.
“We can’t outrun the guisers forever, you know,” she said, idly stroking Kit’s hair. “We have to leave England now, unless you have some idea of how to fight them.”
“I’ve been giving it some thought,” Mal said. “I went into this believing there was only a handful of them, but now we know Shawe has been recruiting others, that makes the task far more difficult.”
“How many others?” Ned asked.
“I asked Kit on the road,” Coby said, “and he thought there were about two dozen boys, in addition to Shawe and his lieutenant.”
“They’re only boys, though.”
“Yes, but you didn’t see what they can do,” Mal said. “This wasn’t just dream magic and illusions, it was… I don’t know what it was, but anyone who can conjure stuff out of thin air cannot be underestimated as an opponent. Imagine if they came to London and started loosing devourers onto the streets.”
They fell silent. The serving girl returned with jacks of small ale and plates of bread and cold meat which she set down on the table, but no one made a move to help themselves. She sniffed and left them to it, muttering under her breath about ungrateful foreigners.
“Another thing bothers me more,” Coby said quietly. “Why did they take the other boy as well as Kit? Was he a guiser all along, or did they simply make a mistake? How did they find and assemble all these boys in the first place?”
“They plan for the long term, we know that,” Mal said. “They must have started this scheme a good twenty years ago, long before the skraylings began seriously suspecting what they were up to.”
“I don’t think Shawe’s apprentices are guisers,” Sandy said.
“Not guisers? But I saw–”
“You saw them call upon the power of the dreamlands, yes. But those boys do not have skrayling souls. They are human.”
“But how?”
“You don’t remember our traditions, do you? Of how the tjirzadheneth came to discover the dreamlands and be reborn.”
Mal shook his head.
“Many, many generations ago, the skraylings were just like humans: trapped in their own heads, their own dreams. Then our ancestors discovered qoheetsakhan and found they could use it to enhance their own dreams and even penetrate the dreams of others. Through practice and discipline they learnt to master their souls and even overcome death. Shawe is trying to do the same to humans.”
For a while no one spoke. The scale… the enormity of Shawe’s scheme was beyond anything that Mal had imagined. To make an army of humans with the power of skrayling adepts, able to live forever if they so wished, but only by stealing the bodies of the unborn…
“How do we stop this blasphemy?” Coby said.
Mal drew a deep breath.
“I think we have no choice but to return to the Tower.”
“What?”
“I was not certain until I heard Kit’s – I mean Kiiren’s – account, but now I’m sure of it.” He swept his gaze around the table, taking in their worried looks. “Jathekkil is afraid of Shawe and his dreamwalkers. Why else do you think he’s still holed up in the Tower, the greatest armoury in the realm?”
“My brother is right,” Sandy said. “Rivalry and dissension were ever the guisers’ weaknesess.”
Ned stared at them both.
“So you’re suggesting we walk into one enemy’s stronghold in order to escape another?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“And what then?”
Mal shrugged. “I haven’t worked out the details yet.”
“Oh good. I was afraid you had some kind of bold plan that would end in us all dying.”
“Gentlemen, please!” Coby cocked a head towards Kiiren, who was huddling against Sandy, eyes wide. “Mal’s right. We have to get back to London before Shawe finds us. We’re safer hidden among a countless multitude of souls than out here in the countryside.”
“What’s to stop the prince arresting us the moment we set foot inside the city?” Gabriel said.
“Simple. We don’t.”
“So we get a boat to Southwark?”
“No, we take refuge at Charing Cross with Lord Grey. Much as it pains me to say it, he’s the one person in London we can trust.”
He looked around the table, expecting objections, but no one would meet his eye.
“That’s settled, then.” He reached across the table to claim one of the jacks of ale. “Eat up and take whatever ease you can; I want to be off within the hour. It’s at least a two-day ride back to London.”
The distant curfew bell was ringing by the time they reached Clerkenwell, but the watch didn’t venture out this far, even though London’s suburbs were spreading north almost as rapidly as Southwark was spreading south. Skirting north to avoid Lincoln’s Inn, the only witnesses to their passage westward were the herds of solemn-eyed cattle watching from the shelter of oak trees and flicking their ears against the swarms of flies that rose from the damp grass. From St Giles-in-the-Field the riders turned south down St Martin’s Lane and buildings gradually closed in around them, cutting off the last light of evening. A few faint stars could now be seen overhead, distant and uncaring. Mal shivered despite the warm night and prayed to Saint Michael that he was not leading his family into a trap.
He bade the others wait in the shadows of the lane whilst he and Sandy crossed the Strand to the gates of Suffolk House. Though he had said he trusted Grey, in truth he knew not what reception they would get after all that had happened. The duke might not be a guiser, but where did his loyalties now lie?
The minutes ticked by with agonising slowness as he waited for someone to answer the door. He glanced down the street, alert for any sign of the watch or, worse still, a lord’s retainers with nothing better to do than harass loiterers. He was just thinking it better to give up and find a way across the river to Southwark when the wicket gate opened.
“Master Catlyn?” The porter looked surprised, even a little alarmed. “Two Master Catlyns?”
“This is my brother,” Mal replied. “May we come in? I need to see Lord Grey urgently.”
“Of course, sirs. This way.”
The porter handed them off to another retainer who escorted the twins across the outer courtyard and through into the privy apartments. Mal stole a sidelong glance at the man: one of Grey’s personal guards by the look of him, broad-shouldered but light of step, staring straight ahead but nonetheless aware of everything around him. Including Mal’s attention. Mal looked away, focused on the house they were entering. Quiet. No sounds of music or merriment as one might expect in a rich man’s mansion on a summer’s evening, but it was hard to imagine Grey hosting a masquerade. He wondered how the duke passed his leisure hours. No doubt he was one of those men who lived for his work, the way others lived for pleasure.
So sure was he of this picture of his employer that he was surprised to be shown up to a spacious parlour where Grey, his wife and his mother were sitting around a table playing cards. Candles lit the players’ faces and the game in front of them, but the rest of the chamber was lost in shadows.
“Sir Maliverny Catlyn. And brother.” The guard snapped a bow and withdrew.
“A little late for a social call, is it not?” Grey folded his cards and put them face down on the polished surface, but did not get up. “I thought you’d fled the country.”
“My brother and I were called away on… business, my lord.”
“And has it been concluded in a satisfactory manner?”
“In as much as it could be, my lord. But there have been consequences that require your immediate attention.”
“Can it not wait until morning?” Grey yawned. “I fear I may have drunk rather more sack than is wise.”
Mal was not fooled. The duke looked perfectly sober.
“I’m afraid not, my lord.”
Grey gave an exaggerated sigh. “Noblesse oblige, I suppose. If you will excuse us, mother?”
“Really, Blaise, you need to come up with a new excuse for wriggling out of a losing hand.” The dowager duchess put down her cards and stood up, taking her daughter-in-law’s offered arm. “Let us leave the boys to their little games, my dear.”
Lady Frances gave them a wistful look as she passed. Mal responded with what he hoped was an encouraging expression, and she grinned back, nodding almost imperceptibly.
“Well, what is so urgent that you must interrupt my evening’s pleasures?” Grey asked when the door had closed behind the ladies.
“My lord, I must beg your indulgence a moment.”
He nodded to Sandy, who stepped behind the duke’s chair and put his hands either side of the duke’s head.
“What in God’s name are you–?” Grey’s eyes rolled up into his head and his cane clattered to the floor.
Mal hurried back to the door, ready to intercept Lady Frances if she returned quickly. He glanced over his shoulder.
“Well?”
“He is untainted,” Sandy replied, releasing Grey.
“Thank Christ for that.” Mal stepped outside, just in time to see Lady Frances enter the adjoining room. “My lady, I need your aid. My wife and son are waiting out in the street, along with Ned Faulkner and Gabriel Parrish. Please could you send someone to bring them to us, and stable our horses for the night?”
“Of course. You will all be staying?”
“That is my intent.”
She gave him a curious look but said no more. He guessed she would question his wife instead, hoping that womanly camaraderie would avail her where simple politeness had not. Perhaps he should have Sandy look at her too, but many more such incidents and they would become hard to conceal.
When he returned to the parlour Grey was rousing from the stupor that Sandy’s mind-probing had pushed him into.
“Are you unwell, my lord?” Mal asked. “Shall I pour you another cup of wine?”
“Yes, if you would.” Grey rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Came over somewhat giddy for a moment. Must be the heat.”
“It is very close in here. Sandy, open a window, would you?” Mal took a candlestick over to the sideboard and half-filled a clean glass with honey-pale sack. “You asked me to tell you about my business, my lord. I’m afraid it may take a while.”
Coby sat in the window-seat, arms around her knees, staring out of the window at the moonlight shimmering on the Thames. She was still wearing her boy’s garb, though Lady Frances had offered to lend her clean clothes. Tomorrow, perhaps. Tonight all she could think about was Kit. Kiiren. Whoever he was now. She hugged her knees tighter and swallowed past the lump in her throat. When the door opened she ignored it. She didn’t want to speak to anyone right now, not even Mal.
“Mamma?”
Her head jerked round. He was standing there in nothing but a shirt, a gleam of dark metal at his throat. His legs were skinny, and all red and scabby round the knees like an ordinary boy.
“Kit?”
He climbed onto the window-seat and wormed his way into her lap. His dark curls still smelt of the dream-herb smoke. It reminded her of Sandy, and she wondered if her brother-in-law was behind this.
“Kiiren says he’s sorry for upsetting you,” Kit said in matter-of-fact tones, as if talking about an errant younger sibling. “He was scared after being asleep for so long.”
“I know, lambkin.”
She wiped the betraying tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, then to cover the action she licked her thumb and cleaned a smudge from Kit’s cheek. He grimaced and buried his face against her doublet. After a while he looked up at her again.
“It doesn’t hurt, being him,” he said. “It’s exciting really. He knows so much, though he won’t tell me everything. He says I’m not old enough yet.”
“He’s probably right.” The former ambassador must have seen many things that were not good for a child to know.
“Father and Uncle Sandy are going to fight Prince Henry, aren’t they?”
Coby hesitated.
“Aren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“I want to go with them.”
“You’re not old enough. It’s far too dangerous.”
“But I hate the prince. He lied to me. He said he wanted to be my friend, but he–” Kit broke off, frowning. “And then Shawe killed my friend Sidney.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” She cradled his head against her shoulder, expecting him to cry.
“So.” He pushed himself upright, mouth set in a hard line. “I want to kill Henry.”
“Kit, darling, you can’t go around killing people. Especially princes.”
“But you said it was all right, to protect your loved ones. And Henry will hurt you and Daddy and Uncle Sandy if he’s not stopped.”
She sighed. “We’ll talk about it again tomorrow. Now go to bed. You’re tired, and so am I.”
He scrambled out of her lap, still glowering. She walked him to the door – he and Sandy had the adjoining bedchamber – and closed it behind him. Going over to the bed she began unbuttoning her doublet, then remembered herself and knelt to pray. For all their souls, but Kit’s most of all. If he had one left.
“Witchcraft?” Grey leaned forward in his chair. “How long have you known about this, Catlyn?”
Mal looked around uncomfortably. The two men were alone now, Sandy having excused himself as soon as his own part in this was done.
“A long time,” he said at last. “But I had no proof. Shawe had a powerful protector in the Earl of Northumberland, and there is no law against alchemy.”
“We must take this news to the Regency Council–”
“We cannot. They…” He halted as Grey’s words sank in. “Regency? Robert is dead?”
“Yesterday. You did not hear the news?”
“We’ve been avoiding inns and other travellers.” He shook his head. “Dear God… Then we must act quickly, or Prince Arthur too will be dead within the week.”
“Arthur? What has he to do with all this?”
“Nothing, except that he is the only other man in the kingdom with an indisputable claim to the throne. The conspirators who planned the assassination of King Robert and the murder of Prince Edward have one thorn in their side, one obstacle to total domination of the new king.” He leapt up from his seat and rounded on the duke. “It will take a couple of days’ preparation, but I believe I know how to stop them.”