CHAPTER III
Someone was knocking on his bedchamber door. Or perhaps the palace was falling down. Mal rather hoped it was the latter, so that it wouldn’t be his problem.
“Go away,” he groaned, and buried his face in the bolster.
The knocking came again. More like hammering, to tell the truth. Only one person could knock like that. And if he’d bothered coming all the way to Whitehall, it must be important. Mal cursed under his breath. This was all he needed.
“Come in!”
He struggled upright, tangling his legs in the sheets. It had been a warm night for May and he was wearing naught but what he had been born in. A little self-consciously he pulled the sheet up around his waist.
“I don’t know why you’re bothering,” Ned said, closing the door behind him. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Mal made the sign of the fig at him.
“Pass me that decanter,” he said, waving at the dresser on the other side of the room.
“Aye, milord. Whatever you say, milord.” Despite his tone Ned obeyed, tucking the sheaf of papers he was carrying under his right arm so that he could lift the flagon with his good hand. “You look as crapulous as a cardinal. Late night, was it?”
Mal rubbed a hand over his face. “Could say that. Southampton dragged us all to the new theatre in Blackfriars, and then back here for a late supper. A very late supper.”
“You love every moment of it,” Ned replied. “Swanning around with the flower of the court. Sir Maliverny Catlyn, intimate of the Prince of Wales.”
“Robert wasn’t there. He said he had more important things to do. And no, I don’t love it. I’m too old for this game.” He took a gulp of the wine. It had gone a little sour overnight; perhaps he should send for sugar? Perhaps not. The sourness suited his humour. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“I have a letter for you. From your wife.”
Mal took it, pressed his lips to the creased paper and tucked it under the bolster. Was it only two weeks since he had left them? It felt more like a year.
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Later.” He would savour her words in private, without Ned breathing down his neck. “You didn’t come all this way so early in the morning just to bring me that letter, did you?”
“Early? It’s almost noon.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
Ned sat down on the end of the bed with a sigh. “I have the information you wanted. But you’re not going to like it.”
“Oh?”
“I went through all the papers you sent me, looking for mentions of the late duke and his intimates.”
“And?”
“One name seemed out of place. Sir William Selby.”
“Selby, Selby…” Mal scratched his brow. “Sounds familiar, but I can’t think where from.”
“He’s a Member of Parliament for Northumberland, owns a small estate down in Kent. In and out of London all the time.”
“That fits the pattern. Still, small fry by the sounds of it. So what’s the bad news?”
“Ten, fifteen years ago, he was a captain in the Berwick garrison, where he passed on letters from Scottish spies to our late master, Sir Francis Walsingham.”
“An intelligencer? He’s not still active, though, is he?” Mal said.
“Perhaps not. I had to dig deep into Walsingham’s old records to make the connection.” Ned shook his head. “Christ’s balls, Mal! What if he’s not out of the game? He was doing this long before we were; he could be in league with someone like Baines and we’d never know.”
Mal slapped Ned on the shoulder. “Don’t look downcast! We can use this to our advantage.”
“How?”
“Leave that to me. But thank you. For the first time since we returned to England, we have a glimpse of the enemy.”
The manor of Ightham Mote lay some thirty miles southwest of London, near the town of Sevenoaks. Mal’s intelligencers’ reports had led him to expect a fortified manorhouse with thick stone walls falling sheer to a moat, and in that he was not disappointed. The outward-facing windows were small, and the only entrance lay across a narrow wooden bridge. Mal’s conviction that here was a guiser stronghold deepened. There was still a risk that he was wrong, of course, and that all his careful planning of the past few weeks would come to naught, but he had delayed long enough. He had to start somewhere, and Walsingham had taught him that to break a conspiracy apart, you always targeted the weakest link.
He reined Hector to a halt at the bridge’s near end and dismounted. The planks of the bridge sounded hollowly under his booted feet; a sign of age, or was it deliberate, to make it harder to approach the house unnoticed? He wished there had been a way to find out more about the house before coming here, but too much attention would only have aroused Selby’s suspicions. Strangers were conspicuous in a quiet village like Ightham.
The low entrance door opened at his approach and a middle-aged man in russet livery greeted him.
“The master will see you in the great hall,” the porter added with a sniff, looking him up and down. Mal supposed he must look dusty and rumpled from his ride. “I’ll send a boy to tend to your horse.”
Mal stepped into the gatehouse and made a show of dusting himself down whilst surreptitiously glancing around. A hook near the doorway held a large iron key; stronghold or no, it appeared they did not lock the door during daylight hours. Careless of Selby, but it would save a good deal of trouble later.
The porter showed him across the courtyard and into a spacious chamber with a wide stone fireplace and half-panelled walls. A liver-and-white spotted hound lazed before the fire, but at Mal’s entrance it raised its head and growled.
“Quiet, lad,” a voice said from the opposite doorway.
Mal turned to see a well-dressed man of about forty with receding hair and doleful blue eyes. “Sir William?”
“Aye. And you must be Sir Maliverny Catlyn.”
A moment’s awkward pause, then Selby gestured to one of the heavily carved chairs by the fire. Mal edged around the hound and sat down.
“Let’s get to the point, shall we, Catlyn? You said you had a business proposition for me, one you needed to discuss in private.”
“Aye.” Carefully does it now. There’s still a chance that Selby is no more than he appears: an ex-soldier come into a handsome inheritance. How oddly alike we are. “I believe we have some acquaintances in common. The late Sir Francis Walsingham, for one.”
Selby smiled and leaned back in his chair. “Alas, poor Sir Francis. I don’t think I saw him after he fell sick in the winter of ninety-four, and I ceased working for him some years before that.”
“Did you know that Lord Grey has taken over his intelligence network, since his betrothal to Walsingham’s daughter?”
“No, I did not.”
There was no hint of duplicity in Selby’s expression. If anything he sounded worried.
“Then we have common cause,” Mal said. “Grey has sworn to Robert that he will hunt down his father’s former associates.”
“And what business is that of mine?”
“You are named in a good many of Walsingham’s papers, in conjunction with the duke.”
A curious expression crossed Selby’s features, amusement warring with sudden dread. “I dare say there’s been some mistake.”
“No mistake, Selby. And if I can find you out, so can he.”
“Why are you telling me all this? Do you expect a reward? Some favour in return? I have little influence except my vote in parliament.”
“I told you, we have common cause.” Mal stretched out his damp boots towards the fire. The hound twitched an eyebrow but otherwise ignored him. “How’s Prince Henry these days?”
“What? How should I know? I am no hanger-on at court.” Selby looked ruffled now. “Are you accusing me of something, Catlyn?”
“Not at all. I just thought we might share an interest in the prince’s welfare. The line of succession is so important, is it not?”
Selby sprang to his feet. “If you have come here to recruit me into some treasonous scheme, sir, you can leave now.”
Mal held up his hands placatingly. “You misunderstand me, Sir William. I know you have a special fondness for our young prince, that is all. As you did for the late Duke of Suffolk.”
Selby hesitated, and his look of outrage softened into a smile. Mal breathed a quiet sigh of relief. They had been on the right trail, then. Selby sat down again.
“Go on.”
“Let there be no more deceit or coyness between us, Sir William,” Mal said. “I know what you are, and I think you know more about me than you are letting on.”
“I know you to be a friend of the skraylings. Is that true?”
“A necessary deception,” Mal said. “My brother and I needed to earn their trust so that we could discover their plans. It took time, but now we have achieved that, we can make our next move.”
“Which is?”
“Ah, now, that would be telling. How do I know we can trust you?”
“I might ask you the same question.”
Damn it, we could dance around one another half the night. “Tonight. We will dreamwalk together, then there will be no secrets between us.”
He waited for Selby to claim he knew nothing of dreamwalking, afraid he had mistaken this country knight after all. Selby reached over and rang a bell by the fireplace.
“Bring us wine,” he told the servant who appeared a few moments later. “And make up a bed for Sir Maliverny. He’ll be staying the night.”
Mal inclined his head in thanks, hiding a smile of relief. Christ’s blood, but this plan had better work, otherwise we’re all as fucked as a tupenny whore.