Silent Court by M. J. Trow Read Free Book Online

looking for his hat. ‘Yes, you,’ he repeated, ‘and next time I won’t give you any leeway at all.’
    Marlowe recovered the man’s dagger from where it had bounced under the table and, tossing it in the air, handed it to Faunt hilt first.
    ‘How will you get there?’ the secretary asked.
    ‘By ship to the Hook,’ Marlowe told him. ‘Thereafter we shall see.’
    ‘You can’t just turn up at William the Silent’s court,’ Faunt said. ‘There’ll be watchers on the roads. The whole place from Antwerp to the Zuyder Zee will be crawling with Spaniards. How’s your Spanish?’
    ‘Non-existent,’ said Marlowe.
    ‘You can’t go as a tutor. It worked with Shelley, but Nassau has his own people. An Englishman would stick out like a sore thumb.’
    ‘If he has his own people, why am I going at all?’ Marlowe asked.
    ‘I didn’t say they were any good.’ Faunt wobbled his goblet for a refill, still dabbing at his swollen lip. ‘In fact, I’m appalled how lax Nassau’s court is. People coming and going all over the place. His headquarters is in some bloody converted nunnery so it’s about as safe as a snake pit. You’re some sort of playmaker, aren’t you? Mummer or something?’
    ‘Something.’ Marlowe nodded.
    ‘There’s a troupe of Egyptians recently passed through this town of yours, making for the coast.’
    ‘Are they?’
    ‘They are. Find them, Dominus Marlowe. Join them. And get to Delft before Hell opens up.’

THREE
    A llys Fludd knew better than to try to talk her husband out of doing his constabulary duties, but that didn’t stop her. She stood at the stirrup of his hired horse and held on with one hand, her baby cradled in the crook of her elbow and little Kate hanging on to her skirts.
    ‘Joe,’ she said. ‘If you would only tell me where you are going. When you’ll be back. You have that cabinet half finished in your workshop and it will be me who has to explain when it isn’t ready.’
    Fludd was not a natural horseman and having someone hanging on to one stirrup didn’t make him feel any more secure in his seat. He had asked at Hobson’s stables in Trinity Lane for their fastest horse and he was already feeling that may have been a serious mistake, as the stupid animal caracoled round and round as soon as it felt his grip on the rein tighten even slightly. Fludd was afraid that the animal’s flicking hooves would kick his daughter into the middle of next week, but he was also afraid that he would fall off and look as much of an idiot as he felt.
    ‘Allys,’ he begged. ‘Please let go and let me get on. The sooner I’m gone, the sooner I’m back and the cabinet can be finished and this mad animal can be back in the stables and all will be back to normal.’
    ‘Normal, Joseph Fludd, normal? And what is normal here, may I ask?’ Before he could even part his lips, she answered her own question. ‘I’ll tell you what’s normal. You, chasing off after all and sundry, players, murderers, scholars. When you became Constable for the first time,’ she said, with heavy emphasis, ‘you promised me it was just for a while. You promised me it would only be once. You promised me that it was just a matter of gathering up the drunken men of the town and putting them in the castle to sober up. You said there would be no mixing with the Colleges, no…’ With every new thought, she shook the stirrup from side to side and it was obvious to Fludd that she was wishing it was his neck. The effect might be the same; the skittish, highly bred horse was on a knife edge and one more shake would break the fragile bond of her final wit and she would be off possibly never to come back to earth.
    ‘Please, Allys,’ he said, jogging and jigging in the saddle and hopelessly grabbing the reins. ‘Please, stop that or I will be thrown. If you want me dead, then carry on; if you want me alive, and I assume you do, then please, step away from the horse.’
    Allys Fludd came out of the tunnel