The servants believed him, of course. They could hardly not, when he turned up rain-soaked and bloody-nosed some hours after the attack. He quickly changed into a borrowed shirt and his own clothes before leading the hue-and-cry back to the river bank. Of course the Huntsmen had long gone by then, but they had left evidence of their work. Mal swore under his breath. Someone had been creative with his instructions. A little too creative.
A little way along the ridge from where he had “escaped”, blackened timbers jutted from the earth: an X-shaped framework to which a man’s body was chained, upside-down. A fire had been set beneath it and the victim’s clothes and hair had already burned away, falling in sooty pieces into the ashes. For a moment Mal wondered if the bastards had done something similar to Erishen’s previous body, after… He pushed the thought aside. This was no innocent victim burned alive, only a hanged corpse of Selby’s height and build, dressed in his clothes to leave evidence: buttons, belt buckles, perhaps even rings. The Huntsmen were thorough, but not totally immune to temptation.
Selby’s steward halted, his expression needing no words. Somewhere behind them, one of the younger men was violently sick.
“Who would do such a thing?” the steward said at last.
“Witchhunters?” This was the last thing Mal wanted, but it seemed the only way to deflect suspicion from his allies. “Perhaps the madness has crossed the Narrow Sea.”
“But why our master?” another man demanded. “Who would think him a witch?”
“How should I know?” Mal took in the assembled servants with a look. “Has he been behaving strangely of late? Any peculiar instructions or absences?”
There were some shaken heads and mumbles of denial, but also one or two shared looks of enlightenment. If Selby had done anything in the least out of the ordinary – and as a guiser plotting to control the kingdom, he was certain to have done something odd at some point – gossip would soon turn it into symptoms of possession or devil-worship. That was how these things worked, after all.
“Put out the fire and retrieve the body,” Mal said. “He should be given a Christian burial, whatever his murderers believed. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to London and inform the Privy Council. If we have lawless bands of witchhunters roaming the country, someone needs to put a stop to it.”
CHAPTER IV
Even with a change of horses it took Mal until well past noon to reach London. He prayed Selby was safely mewed up in the Tower by now, but he could not afford the luxury of a visit just yet. News of Selby’s apparent death would reach the other guisers soon enough, and if Mal’s story was to hold water he needed to act as if it were true. Which meant reporting the incident to the Privy Council in Whitehall Palace. The County Coroner for Kent would deal with the murder itself, but the nature of the attack was a more serious business. Damn the Huntsmen to the innermost circle of Hell! He had been a fool to think he could use them and not pay a heavy price. As soon as he was sure he had the last scrap of useful information out of them, Grey would get his list and could round them up at his leisure.
The city sweltered and stank in the August heat, its open sewers too dry to wash the filth away. Mal pressed a clove-scented handkerchief to his mouth until he reached the cleaner air of Westminster, guiding his mount with his knees and leaving the reins loose so the poor beast could shake away the flies that filled the air like smoke. If plague did not follow on the heels of this latest poor harvest, it would be a miracle. Suddenly he was very glad his family were far from the capital, where they would at least be spared such horrors.
It appeared that Prince Robert felt likewise. The courtyards of the palace of Whitehall lay empty, only a few bored guardsmen at each gate to keep the hungry, frightened populace at bay. Mal gave his name and business, and was told that the Privy Council had dispersed for the summer; only Lord Grey had remained behind to deal with affairs of state. At least that made matters simpler. The formalities could be adhered to without drawing undue attention, and by the time the council reconvened, Selby would have been taken care of. Permanently.
Mal was show into a dining parlour that formed part of the councillors’ suite of chambers in the palace. The same room in which he had been questioned by Walsingham after his escape from Grey’s own father. He wondered if the duke knew that and was using it to throw him off balance, or whether it was mere coincidence. Probably the latter: Grey might have a talent for interrogation, but he lacked his predecessor’s subtlety.
The room was empty, however. No spymaster seated at the long oak dining table, no Baines standing by the door to prevent his departure. Mal made a discreet sweep of the room, looking for places where a hidden observer might lurk. No hollows behind the panels, nor concealed doors. The windows either side of the fireplace looked out onto a narrow courtyard, but the brick wall opposite was blank and the surrounding buildings’ windows too far away for a good view into the dining parlour.
Halting footsteps sounded in the corridor, giving Mal time to turn to face the door.
“Catlyn.” Grey paused in the doorway and looked around the room. “You came alone.”
Since there were no servants about, Mal went to the head of the table and pulled out the chair for the duke. Grey limped over and sat down, slow as an old man. Probably putting half of it on, just to make a point. He left Grey to settle himself and closed the door, resisting the urge to look out into the corridor for spies. If anyone were observing, it would only draw attention, and by the looks of the rest of the palace there was no one around in any case.
“You expected me to bring our… acquaintance here, my lord?”
“Those were my instructions,” Grey said. He undid the top two buttons on his doublet. “God’s teeth but it’s close today!”
“Shall I send for chilled wine?”
“Later. Let’s get this business over with. About Selby…”
Mal ran his tongue round a mouth suddenly dry at the mention of wine.
“Forgive me, my lord. I thought you said to take him into safe custody, not bring him into the midst of our enemies.”
“The palace is empty, as you must have seen. Where better to conceal him?”
“With respect, my lord, the Tower is a far more secure location.”
“And are you certain that neither the Lieutenant of the Tower nor any of his men are members of this conspiracy?”
Mal stared at the reflection of the candlesticks in the table’s polished surface. There were ways to uncover a guiser using the magics Sandy had taught him, but they required close contact and risked alerting the subject to one’s suspicions. Only a handful of his intelligencers had been tested – and cleared – thus far.
“No, my lord.”
Grey shook his head and tutted.
“But I do have men in the garrison,” Mal added. “It was they who took the prisoner into custody, and they are under strict instructions not to let him speak except to his interrogators.”
That much was true, if everything had gone to plan. The Huntsmen were no more keen to enter the Tower than Mal was to have them there, so he had arranged for Selby to be handed over to two of his most trusted agents on the outskirts of Tower Hamlets.
“Nonetheless, I do not appreciate independence in my subordinates,” Grey said. “Next time you will follow your orders to the letter. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And I want the names of these men of yours at the Tower. I trust they were included in your reports?”
“Of course. If you have pen and paper to hand, I’ll make a list for you.”
Grey gestured towards a cupboard on the far side of the room. “And when you’re done, I want a full written report of your doings in Kent. No, make that two reports. An official one for the Privy Council, leaving out all this conspiracy nonsense, and the real one.”
“What would you have the official report say, my lord?”
“Say whatever you like, as long as it puts them off the scent. For all we know, half of them could be in on the plot, eh?”
“Indeed, my lord.”
Mal found paper, quills and ink and set about scratching down a list of names. At this rate Selby would be tortured and executed before he got another look at him. Damn Grey and his reports! Should have run the bastard through good and proper instead of letting him live. Your honour will be the death of you, Mal Catlyn.
Writing the reports for Grey took until nightfall, by which time Mal’s right hand was stiff with cramp and his head pounding like a war drum. He had considered going back to Southwark and calling upon Parrish’s talents once more, but the less his friends knew about the goings-on in Kent, the better. So he painstakingly composed each story in outline – with many crossings-out and amendments – then wrote them out in formal language before burning all his notes in the fireplace. Without their masters to run around after, the remaining servants would be even more likely to notice something amiss and use it to their advantage if they could.
He found a manservant to bring him supper, and retired to the chamber he had slept in during previous sojourns at court. With a pleasantly full belly at last, and a final cup of wine to hand, he stripped to his drawers and lay down on the bed. He fingered the smooth round beads at his throat, remembering the dead skraylings he had found in the watchtower on Corsica, and his thoughts strayed eastwards to another tower, older but much closer. For one drunken moment he considered removing his spirit-guard and dreamwalking in search of Selby, of probing his enemy’s most secret thoughts as Sandy could do. With the palace empty, there might not be any other guisers in the whole of London, so now would be as good a time as–
No, dammit. The villain would be in irons, cut off from the dreamlands as effectively as any mortal man. That was a vital part of the plan.
No use for it; he would have to wait until the morrow. Yawning widely, he rolled over and surrendered to sleep.