The Prince of Lies

by Anne Lyle

  “How long…?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know. Not until after the funeral. Perhaps not until after the coronation. If we cause trouble before Robert is crowned, the guisers might use that to their advantage.”

  She nodded. “I have waited four years. I can wait four months.”

  Footsteps sounded in the next room, and they stepped apart. Mal snapped a curt bow to his wife and strode to the outer door without a backward glance. Like Orpheus leaving the underworld, except that he would not risk everything for one last sight of his beloved wife’s face. More lives than their own were at stake this time.

  Coby made her excuses to the queen, saying she had a headache, and fled to her bedchamber. She had been dreading this meeting ever since she had sent Ned to Derbyshire, and now it was over she was at a loss as to what to do next. She was not about to forgive Mal for what he had done, but touching him, looking into his eyes, she had very nearly weakened and kissed him. Even now she ached to run after him, tell him she still loved him… She brushed away tears with the heel of her hand. Loved him, yes, but could she ever trust him again?

  “My lady?” Susanna’s voice came softly from the doorway.

  Coby took a deep breath, then another, before she dared speak.

  “Bring me some wine. And the tincture of valerian.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  By the time the Venetian girl returned, Coby had regained a semblance of calm, but she dripped the medicine into her wine nonetheless. Taking a seat by the window she sipped the tart liquid whilst Susanna bustled about the bedchamber, folding clean linen and putting it away in the press.

  Coby sighed. Only three weeks into the period of official mourning and the already tedious court routine had turned into a cage of empty ritual. Even their daily prayers felt more like a burden than a release, which only added to her guilt and frustration.

  “I’m not bothering you, am I, my lady?”

  “No, not at all.” Coby lowered her wine cup into her lap. “Come and sit down.”

  “My lady?”

  Coby waved her over, and the girl complied, perching on the edge of the window seat as if ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

  “I know I have not been the best of mistresses of late,” she began, staring down into her cup, “and I am sorry for that. But I hope that one day soon all our worries will be over.”

  “Master Cristoforo…” Susanna whispered.

  “Yes.” She looked up and smiled. “We must be patient, as we have been these past four years, but yes, God willing my son will be returned to us.”

  “But how?”

  “That I cannot tell you. But I wanted you to know…” Because you are my only true friend in all this, she wanted to add. But a lady did not speak so candidly to servants. “Leave me. I think I shall sleep a while.”

  When the girl had gone, Coby drained the cup and set it down on the table. A lady I may be now, but I never wanted to be one, and it has brought me no happiness. If this venture fails and we yet live, perhaps I shall become Jacob again and make my own way in the world once more. A life of poverty and peril is better than another year in this cage.

  Mal did not go straight to see Kit after visiting his wife. First he returned to the Sign of the Parley, and a reunion with his brother. He was expecting the haggard appearance of a man who had been spending too much time dreamwalking, but Sandy looked surprisingly well, if a little… unorthodox. He was clean-shaven again and had let his hair grow long, even going as far as to braid a few sections as he had done when living on Sark with Kiiren.

  “I take it you’ve been spending time with the skraylings,” Mal said, sitting down at the kitchen table.

  “Adjaan has sailed back to Vinland with young Hretjaar,” Sandy replied. “Until her replacement arrives, the skraylings have no outspeaker, so I have been deputised.”

  “The elders trust you with such a role? I thought we were abominations in their eyes?”

  Sandy shrugged. “Sekharhjarret persuaded the other elders that they needed a liaison with the English more than ever, now that the Queen is dead. And none of them speak enough of your tongue to pass muster at court.”

  Mal tried not to boggle at the idea of his unsubtle brother manoeuvring the tricky currents of Prince – now King – Robert’s court.

  “Perhaps I can use your new-found diplomatic talents,” he said. “I want to see Kit.”

  He had already decided not to bring up his agreement with Coby until after the visit. Sandy was bound to object, and Mal was not willing to wait to see his son, nor to risk arousing the guisers’ suspicions by being openly at odds with his brother.

  “Now?”

  “No time like the present. But dress like an Englishman, will you? We don’t want to forcibly remind Prince Henry that we’re hand-in-glove with the skraylings.”

  He took his saddlebags up to his old room and washed his face, and a few minutes later Sandy appeared at the door. He had combed out his braids and was wearing a wine-red doublet and hose, knee-length riding boots and a black velvet cap.

  “Much better,” Mal said, and led the way downstairs.

  At Whitehall Palace they were admitted to the princes’ chambers with surprising readiness. Mal couldn’t help wondering if this was some stratagem of Henry’s designed to throw them off-balance, or simply boyish impatience. Either way Mal intended to spend as little time in the princes’ company as possible, lest any suspicion of his intent become apparent. He hoped he might be able to talk privily with Kit, however, and glean as much about his situation as possible before deciding on a plan.

  The princes’ antechamber had been pressed into service as a schoolroom, though it looked more like a battlefield at the moment. A line of chairs had been arranged at one end, and Prince Henry stood on the middle one, waving a wooden sword. A handful of other boys crouched in front of the improvised battlements, arguing among themselves. Mal caught something about “the heads of our enemies” before the princes’ tutor, a thin-faced man with a shock of white hair, clapped his hands and called the boys to attention.

  Prince Henry glared at Mal and Sandy. For a moment Mal thought that Jathekkil would get the better of him, but Henry was evidently in more control of himself than he had been as an infant. Instead he merely thrust his wooden sword through his belt and watched them, arms folded.

  It was his elder brother, Edward, who addressed them.

  “Gentlemen, what brings you here?”

  Mal swept a low bow. “With your permission, Your Highness, I would like to speak to my son. In private.”

  “Very well.” The prince gestured for Kit to rise.

  Kit got to his feet but said nothing, only stared at the floor. Mal’s heart sank. Had Henry broken his spirit after all?

  “Catlyn!” The schoolmaster brought his springy cane down on a pile of books with a sharp thwack. Mal had to suppress his own urge to snap to attention. “Bid your father and uncle good day.”

  “Yes, Master Weston.”

  “In Latin, boy!”

  “Etiam, magister.” Kit bowed, though he still did not meet Mal’s eye. “Salvete, pater et… patrue.”

  Mal returned the bow. “Salve, mi fili.”

  “You are excused from your lessons, Catlyn,” Weston added. “For one half hour.”

  The other boys groaned in envy until a snap from Weston’s cane brought them back to order. Sandy made to cross the space to Kit’s side, but Mal shook his head. He held out a hand, and Kit walked slowly towards him.

  “It’s been a long time, son,” Mal said, putting an arm around Kit’s shoulder and leading him towards the door.

  Sandy closed in on his other side and tentatively ruffled the boy’s hair. Kit looked up sharply, and Sandy withdrew his hand, a hurt expression in his eyes.

  “Give him time,” Mal murmured to his brother. He looked down at Kit. “You’ve grown so much I hardly recognised you.”

  Kit said nothing.

  “Shall we go alo
ng to the gallery?” Mal said as the doors closed behind them. “It’s a little cold outside to walk in the park.”

  “The girls walk in the gallery.”

  “Oh, well, we wouldn’t want to disturb them, would we? How about the library, then? I think I saw a globe in there.”

  Kit shrugged, which Mal took for as much agreement as he was likely to get.

  They made their way downstairs in silence, through a parlour where a handful of elderly courtiers snored by the fire, to the prince’s library. Mal closed the double doors carefully behind them.

  “How are you enjoying your lessons?” he asked.

  Kit shrugged again, then glanced shyly up at him. “I like the Odyssey. We’ve just started reading it in Greek.”

  “The Odyssey? I always preferred the Iliad.” Mal sat down by the globe. “What about you, Sandy?”

  “I liked the plays, especially The Birds, with all the singing and dancing. I think they must have reminded me of home. Of Vinland.”

  Mal shot him a glance. Was he planning to awaken Kiiren? That was the last thing he needed.

  “And the princes?” Mal quickly changed the subject. “Are they good companions?”

  “Edward will be king one day. I will gladly serve him.”

  The boy had been well schooled, he had to give them that. “And Henry?”

  Kit’s eyes widened and he glanced from his father to his uncle and back again. Mal gave an inward sigh of relief. They did not own him, then.

  “I do not ask you to say anything disloyal,” he told Kit. “But you do not like him as well as his brother, is that it?”

  Kit nodded, his mouth twisting in misery. Mal leaned over and kissed his brow.

  “The boys at school used to tease me a lot too. But we are stronger than that, eh?”

  Kit nodded again.

  “Well.” Mal clapped his hands together. “Enough of such gloomy thoughts. How about a game of Hoodman Blind? I think Uncle Sandy should go first.”

  They improvised a hood by pulling Sandy’s hat down over his eyes, and Kit dodged around him, giggling. Sandy eventually caught him and made a play of not knowing whether it was Mal or Kit, which earned him some scorn from his nephew.

  “Well if you’re so clever, you can take a turn,” Sandy said, and plopped the hat onto Kit’s head. It didn’t need much pulling down to obscure his vision.

  Kit soon caught Mal and pulled him down onto his knees so that he could touch his face. Now, here was a dilemma: would Kit remember that his uncle was clean-shaven, or should Mal give him a clue? Kit chewed his bottom lip for a moment.

  “Father,” he said at last and pulled the hat off, grinning.

  “How did you know?”

  “I heard your sword scrape on the floor when you knelt down.”

  Mal laughed. “You knew all along? So why all the face-patting?”

  Kit said nothing, only threw himself into Mal’s arms. Mal hugged him back, tears pricking his eyes.

  “I missed you too, son.”

  CHAPTER XXI

  King Robert spared no expense on his mother’s funeral, perhaps not wanting to be thought ungracious for having to wait so long for his throne. The horses drawing the hearse were draped in black velvet decorated with embroidered plaques of the royal arms, as was the lead coffin in which the late queen’s body lay. Lady Frances Grey, as wife of the preeminent peer of the realm, led the procession of mourners along the short route from Whitehall Palace to Westminster Abbey. The surrounding houses were packed with onlookers leaning out of doors and windows, some even perched on the rooftops clinging to the gutter, and all weeping and sighing as if their own mother were in the coffin passing below. The funeral service was plainer than the Queen herself might have preferred, but no one could accuse it of lacking dignity, and the coffin was at last laid to rest in the vault of her father King Henry, until such time as a fitting monument could be constructed.

  In the weeks that followed, Mal plotted the rescue of his son. The coronation procession would no doubt start from the Tower of London as was traditional, which meant a brief period of them all being lodged there together: himself, Sandy, Coby and Kit. Tempting as it was to make use of that proximity, he knew that the Tower guard would be more watchful than usual with so many important guests under their protection. No, it was at the banquet after the ceremony that their best chance lay. Everyone’s guard would be down, and they could slip away together unnoticed. All he had to do was arrange for a swift boat to be waiting to take them downriver to Deptford and they could be on a skrayling ship to Sark before they were even missed.

  And from there, who knew? Perhaps even as far as the New World. That was the one place the guisers would never follow them.

  By the day of the coronation the Queen’s household was as restless as Coby had ever known it. Or perhaps it was her own impatience to be out of the Tower and putting Mal’s plan into action. Quite what his plan was she did not know, and he had refused to tell her, saying it was better she did not know in case Olivia caught a glimpse of her dreams. The thought of that woman poking around in her mind made Coby shudder, and she readily agreed to Mal’s terms. All she knew was that he and Sandy would make their move at the coronation feast, and that she was to stay as close to Kit as possible. Were they planning to spirit her away, as Sandy had done to Mal from these very apartments ten years ago? It seemed unlikely with so many guisers around, but perhaps Mal was relying on the skraylings to back him up for once.

  “Lady Catlyn?”

  “Hmm? Oh, sorry!”

  Coby finished lacing up the back of Queen Juliana’s gown and stepped out of the way of the other ladies-in-waiting. As the lowliest of the Queen’s attendants she got all the least popular tasks, particularly once the other ladies found out how good she was at mending.

  “Why so serious?” Lady Derby whispered, nudging her in the ribs.

  “A little tired, that’s all,” Coby lied.

  “Not long now,” her companion replied, as if reading her thoughts. “I shall be so glad to get out of this dreary old place. The traitors and the ravens are welcome to it.”

  The Queen stepped into her shoes, then the two of them knelt to restore the folds of her skirts to their former neatness.

  “It’s traditional,” Coby said as they resumed their places at a discreet distance. Every English king since King William’s day had started his coronation procession from the Tower.

  “I heard a most alarming rumour about these apartments,” Lady Derby whispered, glancing about the bedchamber. “They say the skrayling ambassador slept in this very room. In that very bed.”

  Coby suppressed a smile. Not in that bed, or so her husband had told her. The ambassador was not accustomed to English fashions, and had preferred the servant’s bed on the floor. “So I believe.”

  “Were you here for the ambassador’s arrival?”

  “Alas, no.” Another lie. She was hardly about to confess to masquerading as a boy, apprenticed to a theatre company. “It was before… before Sir Maliverny and I met.”

  Just saying his name brought back the pain of their separation. Only a few more hours, and his promise would be put to the test.

  “Hard to believe it was ten years ago,” Lady Derby said. “I wasn’t at court then, of course, being but a girl.”

  They watched in silence as other ladies draped heavy ropes of pearl about the Queen’s neck and fastened an elaborate standing collar of gauze and lace and beadwork to the back of her gown. Diamonds and gold thread winked in the sunlight reflecting off the Thames. Coby found herself unconsciously smoothing her gown, and clasped her hands in front of her. After so many weeks in drab black it was a relief to be wearing pale colours again, even if she couldn’t help fretting about soiling the fine silk. Old habits died hard.

  At last the Queen was ready and there was nothing left but to wait until they were summoned down to the outer ward to mount their palfreys. Some of the ladies offered to play cards with the Queen in the dinin
g chamber, a suggestion Juliana gladly agreed to. Coby was debating whether or not to join them when a knock came at the door leading to the Wakefield Tower, on the other side of the ward. She crossed the room and opened the door a crack.

  “Kit, what are you doing here?”

  “Mother, can I come in?”

  Coby looked around, but the bedchamber was now empty.

  “Of course, sweetheart. What is it?” As Kit came through into the light, she took in his flushed features and over-bright eyes. “Have you been fighting with the other boys again?”

  “No, Mother. But look what Father gave me for my saint’s day!”

  He turned his slender body to display a swept-hilt sword, the very image of his father’s rapier in miniature, hanging from his left hip. Coby forced a smile. Dear Lord, how quickly they grow up!

  “I hope it’s not sharp,” she said.

  Kit pulled a face. “Father said it had to be blunted in case I hurt one of the princes and got sent to the Tower for good.”

  “Well, he’s right. It’s not a toy. And you know your Ten Commandments.”

  “I know. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ But Father has killed men, hasn’t he?”

  “Only to protect the people he loves.”

  “Then it’s all right for me to kill people too. If someone was hurting you, or Father, or Uncle Sandy.”

  “No!”

  “Then why did Father give me a sword?”

  “Because it’s the mark of a gentleman to wear one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because lesser men are not permitted to.”

  “Why?”

  Coby sighed in exasperation. “Because then they would always be killing one another in the streets and God would be angry. Now run along before you’re missed.”

  “Yes, Mother.” He flashed a grin at her and disappeared through the door.

  So like his father. She smiled to herself, and went to sit with the other ladies. Tonight could not come soon enough.