CHAPTER III
Coby strode through the dusk, hoping she had chosen the right direction. She could hardly return to the skrayling camp in the middle of a funeral.
The wind rustled the gorse bushes, and the last rays of the setting sun caught the tips of their thorny branches, gold and… lilac? She turned, and saw three figures striding across the rough ground towards her. Skraylings, carrying coloured lanterns. She was not keen to speak with them, but they appeared to be heading towards Lord Kiiren's camp, and at least with them to guide her she wouldn't have to worry about getting lost and falling off a cliff. She waited patiently for them to catch her up.
The three skraylings halted a few yards away and raised their lanterns, peering at her through the gloom. She thought she recognised one of them from the crowd at the wrestling match, but she couldn't be certain. All three had iron-grey hair and wore the elaborately patterned tunics and jewelled hair-beads of senior merchants. The swaying lamplight distorted their tattooed faces, and for a moment Coby could almost believe the story that they were born from the bark of trees.
"You go Kiiren?" one of them asked.
"Aye."
He gestured somewhat to his left. "Here. We too go."
Coby bowed her thanks and followed the elders across the heath. Thankfully they did not speak to her further, though they exchanged a few words in Vinlandic. She thought she caught the word senlirren, which she knew meant "outspeaker", since it had been Lord Kiiren's title in London.
They followed a small stream to where it disappeared over a lip of stony ground into a narrow defile. The southeast-facing hollow was already as dark as night, lit only by a fire over which a large pot bubbled, giving off an enticing savoury smell. Mal and Sandy were hunkered down by the fire; they both got to their feet as the elders approached, and bowed. The skraylings returned the gesture, then without another word ducked into Kiiren's tent.
"Where on Earth have you been?" Mal asked Coby, draping an arm about her shoulder. "You nearly missed supper."
They sat down opposite Sandy, who stirred the pot with a wooden spoon, seemingly oblivious to their presence. Coby studied him discreetly as they waited. Last time she had seen Sandy Catlyn, he had been in the grip of whatever fiendish enchantment the late Duke of Suffolk had inflicted on him in that cellar. He appeared sane enough now, though he was still quiet and withdrawn even compared to his brother.
A few moments later Kiiren and the elders emerged from the tent.
"Please forgive me, Catlyn-tuur," Kiiren said to Mal. "I am called away on clan business. Please, enjoy your supper without me. I will return in the morning."
Kiiren embraced Sandy, then the four skraylings departed in silence.
"I wonder what that was all about," Coby said, watching them leave.
Mal told her about his conversation with Kiiren. He said nothing about their findings on Corsica, however, and Coby guessed he had not yet broken the bad news to Sandy. She wondered if the ambassador had known any of the dead skraylings.
"Then Lord Kiiren was right," she said when Mal finished. "Whatever this other clan are up to, they expect him to help."
Across the fire Sandy tasted the pottage, nodded to himself in satisfaction, and ladled some into a wooden bowl.
"We will have to share," he said, passing it to Mal. "Kiiren and I have only the two."
Mal handed the bowl and a spoon to Coby. The pottage was thick and salty, made with mussels and the fat yellow corn the skraylings brought with them from the New World. After a few greedy mouthfuls she remembered her manners and passed it back to Mal.
Whilst she waited for her next turn, she took off her shoes and put her feet as close to the fire as she dared. The flames had died down, but the damp wood still popped and spat occasionally. She wriggled her toes, frowning at the hole in one stocking.
"I suppose you two have had a lot to catch up on," she said as Mal passed the bowl back.
They shrugged in unison. Mal grinned, but on catching Sandy's eye he sagged, expression grave again. Coby bent her head over the soup bowl. Well, that went really well. She racked her brains for a subject that might provoke more than a shrug.
"Perhaps you can help me with something, in the morning," she said to Sandy.
Both men looked at her quizzically.
"Master Catlyn has been teaching me to fire a pistol," she went on, "but I can barely hit a target once in five shots. I thought that if I could understand how the bullet moves, I might be able to improve my aim."
Sandy sighed. "Alas, I can no longer read half the books I brought from England, and I forget much of what I read before. Kiiren's healing has… changed me."
"Oh. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." He smiled. "There may be other ways I can help you. Some adjustment of the gunpowder mix–"
"No!"
Mal put a hand on her arm. "It's all right. There's no need to change anything. You just need more practice with the pistols."
He took the bowl from her unresisting hands and she wrapped her arms about her knees. Learning to fire a pistol had been easy enough, but every time she loaded it she thought of the adulterated flash-powder that had made the stage cannon explode, killing her previous master. She suspected this was the reason Mal made her continue with the training, to inure her to such thoughts, like making someone get back on a horse after falling off. Knowing it was for her own good didn't make it any easier.
She couldn't blame Sandy, of course. Why should he know about the fire at the theatre? He and Mal had seen so little of one another since they rescued him from Suffolk's clutches. What the brothers needed was more time together.
"I would like to come to England with you," Sandy said, as if reading her thoughts.
She looked up, startled. Could he do that? If Mal could dream of things that really happened, anything was possible.
"You overheard?" Mal said. "Then you know Kiiren said no."
Sandy smiled. "He said no to you taking me. He did not say I cannot go of my own will."
"All right. If you think he'll agree, we'll ask him in the morning."
? ? ? ?
Mal woke to discover that Coby had hogged the blanket in the night, leaving his back exposed. He sat up, rolling his shoulders to work out the stiffness. Perhaps a few fencing drills would loosen him up a bit and get the blood flowing again.
He scrambled out of the tent on hands and knees and stood to stretch in the icy morning air. Across the slate blue sea, a distant line of mist marked the coast of France. Skraylings might not be welcome there, but as long as Sandy behaved himself he should be quite safe. Safer than in England, at any rate. Jathekkil might be out of the game for a while, but there were other guisers in England who might wish to take up his cause against the Catlyn twins. No, best to complete their business in London as fast as possible and then put a few hundred miles between themselves and their enemies. In the meantime, he needed to keep his wits sharp and his blades sharper.
Drawing his rapier he adopted a seconda guardia stance, blade at chest height and horizontal with the ground, left hand raised defensively, weight on his forward foot. Footwork first: forward, then back. Again. Now with the blade: forward and lunge – and back. As formal and controlled as a courtly dance, and as well-practised. One should be free to study one's partner, without having to give a thought to the steps…
A rattle of stones to his left sent him whirling about, sword raised, but was only Sandy coming up from the beach with a string of brown eel-like fish. Mal quickly sheathed his blade.
"Breakfast," Sandy said, grinning.
He knelt and gutted the fish and threaded them on sticks, whilst Mal fetched dried bracken from the canvascovered store behind the tent and laid a fire. Coby emerged a few minutes later, yawning and combing her fingers through her pale hair.
"Did someone mention breakfast?"
Soon the fish were giving off a mouthwatering aroma. Sandy left them to keep an eye on the cooking and returned after a few minutes with cornbread and a jug of aniig. Mal couldn't help but notice that Sandy had now put aside his skrayling garb and was dressed in his old clothes, the ones he had been wearing when Mal rescued him from Suffolk. The faded doublet was tight across the shoulders where Sandy had filled out in the past year and a half.
"Is that a good idea?" Mal asked him. "Kiiren won't be happy if he thinks I put you up to this."
"I am the elder by many lifetimes. I go where I will."
Mal had no answer to that. It was too easy to forget he was talking to an ancient skrayling, not the brother he had known since childhood.
"I should warn you," he said slowly, "when we get to England, we'll be staying in Ned Faulkner's house."
Sandy's eyes narrowed.
"I know that name." His expression hardened. "He delivered me into the hands of our enemy."
"He was forced into it," Mal said.
"So many men claim."
"Do you remember the others who took you from Bedlam? It was they who forced him."
"My memories of that time are unclear," Sandy replied.
"But you remember me."
"We share a soul. I cannot forget that."
"Then you know you can trust me," Mal said. "And I trust Ned."
Sandy bent his head to his breakfast, though Mal could tell from the set of his brother's shoulders that the discussion was not over yet. He looked over at Coby, but she was licking the fish grease from her fingers and studiously ignoring both of them. Perhaps they should take lodgings elsewhere, despite the expense. He wondered if he could persuade Walsingham that news of the skraylings' voyage was worth a pound or two of the Queen's money. Probably not.
They were just tidying away the remains of breakfast when Kiiren appeared at the lip of the dell. His expression was as guarded and inscrutable as Mal had ever seen it. Mal braced himself for an argument over Sandy's leaving.
"I have spoken with kin of those who died," Kiiren said, when he had joined them by the hearth. "They have sung mourning, and will take news back to our homeland."
"And the bodies?" Coby asked.
Kiiren sighed. "It is unfortunate. But many die far from home; it is our fate." He glanced at Sandy, and his brow furrowed.
It was something Mal had never considered before. What had happened to Erishen's previous body, or to the unfortunate skrayling he and Sandy had seen murdered that night over a decade ago? Was Europe strewn with the lost bones of Kiiren's people?
"Sandy has asked to come to London with me," he said, wanting to get this over with.
"Very well," Kiiren replied.
Mal stared at him, all arguments dying on his lips.
"Mourning is private time," Kiiren went on. "It is best if you leave as soon as possible. One of our ships will take you over to France; we cannot spare time for journey to England."
Sandy hugged the skrayling, grinning at Mal. "Of course. Thank you, amayi."
Mal quickly retrieved his and Coby's packs from the tent.
"Let's leave them to say their farewells," he said, and ushered her up the path out of the dell.
"Lord Kiiren gave in very easily," Coby said when they were out of earshot.
"Too easily. If I were of a suspicious turn of mind, I'd think he wants to be rid of us for reasons of his own."
"Such as?"
"Now that is the question. And unfortunately, on an island inhabited by none but skraylings, we have no means of spying on him to find out."
"What if Kiiren changes his mind about Sandy coming with us?"
"Then I will go back down there and beat some sense into him."
Coby broke into a grin and he smiled back, not certain how seriously he meant it. To come this close to getting Sandy back, and then fail? No, he would not accept that. His left hand strayed to his sword hilt, thumb rubbing the pommel absentmindedly as they walked back towards the main camp.
Erishen ducked into the tent and scanned its contents. Apart from his clothes, everything here belonged to Kiiren, or was shared between them.
"You must take silver, to buy new garments," Kiiren said, entering the tent behind him. "The less the humans notice you, the better. And you must remember to call yourself by your English name."
"Sandy. Short for Alexander. I will remember."
Kiiren squatted in front of the chest and lifted the lid. For a moment he just crouched there, his hands grasping the front of the wooden box tightly, then he moved a pile of linens aside and pulled out a string of silver ingots. They rang like festival chimes, a cheery sound at odds with Kiiren's solemn mood.
"You can exchange these for English coins at the guildhouse," Kiiren said, handing them over.
Erishen looped the cord over his head and tucked the ingots inside his doublet.
"You will also need to cut these." Kiiren reached up and touched his braids. "Sit down, I will see to it."
Erishen knelt on a mat whilst Kiiren fetched an obsidian blade from the chest. Skraylings had little need of razors, since they grew no facial hair, but their healers had many uses for the slivers of black stone and Kiiren had been obliged to trade for one after he complained once too often about Erishen's beard. Erishen winced at the tearing sound as each braid was severed. It felt like Kiiren was cutting them close to the scalp; he would be as crop-headed as a girl at this rate.
At last it was done, and Kiiren put the severed locks aside.
"Will you burn them?" Erishen asked, running his fingers through his shorn locks. He felt naked with his head so bare.
"I thought I might make a keepsake from them, as humans do," Kiiren said softly. He went back to the chest and took out a small leather pouch decorated with tiny white shell beads. "Take this also."
Erishen took the pouch from him, loosened the neckstrings and peered at the contents. His eyebrows rose.
"Use it only at need," Kiiren said. "I had hoped to keep you here until all danger was past, but–"
"You think Jathekkil was not working alone?"
"I think it is best not to make assumptions."
"Thank you, amayi." Erishen pocketed the pouch.
They stood awkwardly for a moment, then Erishen held out his arms and enfolded the skrayling in a gentle embrace. This was not the first time they had been parted, nor would it be the last. He laid his cheek against Kiiren's hair, which was nearly as short as his own.
"You're leaving the island too," he murmured.
Kiiren shifted in his arms and looked up. In the dim light of the tent, his eyes were like a hunting cat's: pupils round and black as obsidian spheres, irises topaz-dark. "How did you know? Did you spy on the qoheetanishet?"
"No," he said with a smile, "but you would not give me up so readily unless you had plans that did not include me."
Kiiren looked abashed. Erishen bent to kiss his brow. Dear, innocent boy. It is always so easy to get the truth out of you.
"How long will you be gone?" he asked, letting a plaintive note creep into his voice.
"All summer, perhaps."
"You are going home?"
"No, not so far." Kiiren stood on tiptoe and whispered a name in Erishen's ear.
"I do not know the place."
"No, but your brother does."
Erishen grinned at him. Perhaps his amayi was not so innocent after all.
England was still in the grip of winter when they arrived in Southampton. Mal, never the best of seafarers, hired horses for an overland journey to London rather than spend another day on a cramped and freezing ship. At Coby's insistence he bought a cloak for Sandy and riding gloves and woollen caps for them all in Southampton before they set off, and was vastly grateful for them himself before they were halfway to Winchester. Even at noon, patches of hoar-frost lingered in the shade, and the horses' breath steamed in the still air.
They spent their first night at the Dragon in Petersfield, after a gruelling day's ride along roads slick with ice-puddles. In the inn yard Mal dismounted stiffly then held the reins of Sandy's horse, ready to catch his brother if he fell.
"I was riding horses long ere you were born," Sandy muttered. "Though this body is out of practice, I confess."
"Hush!" Mal stepped closer. "Do not let anyone hear you talk like that. Or do you wish to be locked up in Bedlam again?"
Sandy narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. Mal suppressed the urge to cross himself. Back on Sark he had begun to hope that Kiiren was wrong and Sandy was cured after all, but this was almost worse than the raving. At least in Bedlam he had been his old self between attacks. This Erishen was a stranger in his brother's skin.
When they entered the inn, the locals stared and muttered into their ale. Mal hoped it was only surprise at seeing identical twins, and not darker suspicions. Both he and Sandy favoured their French mother too well in their looks: an advantage for an English spy in France, a liability here in England.
Mal paid for a private room on the upper floor, big enough for the three of them. There was one large bedstead and a servant's palliasse, a wash-stand with a cracked basin, and a couple of pisspots.
"Not exactly the best welcome back to England," Mal said.
"We've stayed in worse," Coby said, peeling back the bedsheets. "That inn outside Paris, for one."
"Don't remind me. I think I was picking lice out of my breeches for a week."
He threw his saddlebags down and sat on the edge of the bed to let Coby pull his boots off. She wrinkled her nose at the state of his stockings.
"I'll go and ask for hot water to be sent up, shall I, sir?" she asked, setting the boots to the floor.
"Aye. And order supper, if we're not too late."
After she had gone, Sandy rummaged around in his saddlebag and produced a small leather pouch. By the way he handled it, Mal guessed it contained something heavy and perhaps fragile. Sandy sat down on the end of the bed and stared at it, a frown creasing his brow.
Mal leant on the bedpost and cocked his head on one side in a silent question. Sandy looked up.
"A gift from Kiiren," he said, tipping the contents onto the worn coverlet beside him as if reluctant to touch whatever it was.
Kiiren's gift turned out to be a string of the same beads Mal had found beside the road on Corsica. Perhaps larger, and certainly rather more of them, enough to go right round a man's neck. A spirit-guard.
"I thought wearing iron made you soul-sick?" Mal forced the words out.
"It does, in time. But I must wear it, or leave myself defenceless." Sandy sighed and prodded the necklace with a fingertip. "I do not think Jathekkil was the only guiser in England, do you?"
It was something Mal had thought about a lot in the past year and a half. Particularly in the small hours, when he couldn't sleep.
"You didn't put it on when we landed."
"I doubt there are any guisers this far from London. Nor are there enough dreamers in these small towns to disturb my own sleep. But in the city… How soon will we be there?"
"At this pace? Perhaps the day after tomorrow, if we suffer no mishaps."
"Then I should get accustomed to the feel of it, at least when I sleep."
"You expect something… bad?"
"It has been a while. I really do not know." He unbuttoned his doublet and loosened the drawstring on the neck of his shirt. "Will you help me? I am afraid I…"
Mal picked up the necklace. The metal beads were ice cold after the journey, and he breathed on them to warm them a little. Sandy pulled the neck of his shirt open, and Mal knelt on the bed behind him and slipped the loop of beads over his head. His brother flinched and his breath caught.
"Sorry! Did that hurt?" Mal asked, fastening the catch.
"No," Sandy replied after a moment, and with a flush of joy Mal recognised something different in the timbre of his voice, something more like the brother he knew.
"Alexander?" He scrambled off the bed and moved round to get a clearer view of his brother's face. "Is that you?"
"Of course it's me," Sandy replied with a smile. "Who were you expecting?"
"But… Erishen…"
"He is still inside me. He… we are still me." He grinned at Mal's puzzled expression. "You remember when we were fourteen? We broke into the cellar and drank father's best muscat until we were sick."
"Do I ever!" Mal laughed. "Between the hangover and father's beating, I thought I was going to die."
"And you know how, when you're drunk, you say and do things… things you would never dream of when you were sober?"
"Aye." All too well.
"It's like that. I remember saying and doing things, but it doesn't feel like it was me who did them. And yet it was me. Well, that's what it's like. Being Erishen."
"And now?"
"Now I'm sober, for a while. Until I take the spiritguard off."
"Then he comes back."
"No. Then I am him again."
"How is that different?"
"I don't know. It just is."
"I don't understand, and I'm not sure I want to. As long as you're back…"
Footsteps sounded in the corridor, and a moment later Coby came in, carrying a jug and three leather tankards.
"Supper is on its way, and hot water in about an hour." She rubbed her arms. "It's a bit cold in here, isn't it? Why don't we go back down to the common room?"
"No," Mal said, as she turned to leave. "Sandy's not in the humour for company. Are you, Sandy?"
Sandy appeared about to say something, but shook his head.
"Very well," Coby said, and set about filling the tankards.
"I suppose," Sandy said, when they were all settled on various corners of the bed, "you want to know what the skraylings were up to, on that ship you found?"
"You know?" Coby asked, leaning forward. "Why didn't you say sooner?"
Mal hushed her. "Go on."
"They were sailing to Venice."
"Venice? Why Venice?"
"I don't know. Something to do with a new alliance, I think."
"But the Vinlanders are allied with England," Coby said.
"Those you know as Vinlanders consist of many clans. Kiiren and the merchants in Southwark come from the same clan, the Shajiilrekhurrnasheth, but there are others on Sark now. Or hadn't you noticed?"
Mal snorted. "I can barely tell one skrayling from the next."
"Is that why there was another outspeaker there?" Coby asked. "The one we found–"
"Dead? Yes."
"And these other clans," Mal said. "They want an alliance with Venice?"
"Yes, I believe so."
"But their outspeaker is dead now, so there's nothing to worry about," Coby said. "Is there?"
Sandy pulled a face. "They have requested Kiiren's services as outspeaker, so they can mount another expedition."
"But he isn't a member of their clan."
"No," Sandy said, "but as an outspeaker, it is his duty to–"
"–to be a 'vessel for words, nothing more'," Mal said. "Yes, I remember."
"So what do we do?" Coby asked.
"We tell Walsingham and let the Privy Council decide," Mal said. "We are intelligencers, not politicians. Like Kiiren, we are simply vessels for words."