God that he and Audrey kept separate chambers; he could not face her malicious chatter tonight. He had given his body-servant leave to visit the kitchens and the man was probably roaring drunk somewhere by now. Well, he was tired enough to sleep in his clothes tonight, and not for the first time. He pushed open his chamber door and was surprised to find the room well lit already. It wasn’t Dermot, his valet, though, because no one came to assist him. His eyes swept the room and he started violently when he noticed the figure watching him from the shadows of his bed-curtains. His sudden fear and bewilderment pushed him back towards the door.
“Stay,” the stranger said, and the voice stopped Sir Thomas dead where he stood. He knew that voice. He lunged forward and swept the curtains aside, then stepped back in confusion as the candlelight fell full on the face of the man reclining insolently on the bed, propped up by pillows and resting his boots on the counterpane. It was not Kit, of course; Kit was dead. This was one of the foreign princes that Lord Haggard had brought with him to present at court, Kryštof, the younger of the two. Walsingham thought the striking young man had been staring at him earlier in the evening, now he was certain of it and found himself staring back like a fool. He hadn’t been so attracted to anyone since Kit—he wrenched his attention back to the man in front of him.
The prince was exotically dressed, completely in black, which accentuated the extreme pallor of his skin. He wore a black silk doublet appliquéd with black velvet arabesques, and full soft black velvet trousers that met knee-high black calfskin boots, in place of the exaggerated pansied slops, padded canions and hose, and the painted slippers that fashion demanded. Indeed, like the trousers, the boots were an obvious affectation, as no gentleman would wear them except when riding, preferring to show off his calf-muscles (padded, if necessary), and ankles. The shirt was an affectation too, and an expensive one, as not just the falling band, but the whole thing was made of the finest cobweb lawn, dyed to the deepest black, the most costly of colors. It was so sheer that one could see the well-formed muscles of his arms through the open sleeves of the doublet and, since he now had the doublet unfastened, his finely sculpted collar bones and an intoxicating expanse of upper chest. Suddenly Walsingham, in his sapphire velvets, paddings, and jewels felt vulgar and gaudy, tricked out like a harlot at Saint Audrey’s Fair.
The prince was smiling as if he could read thoughts, the plain black silk eye patch he wore giving his quizzical expression a sinister cast. “I am not going to hurt you,” he said, and the lazy, amused voice tugged at Walsingham’s memory again, but his eyes denied his panicked thoughts.
“What are you doing here?” he rasped out.” This is my private chamber.” The dark man nodded and patted the bed next to him. Walsingham found himself inching forward, only to be stopped dead again by the light falling on the man’s languid right hand as it rested on his raised knee. He had to get a closer look, he had to. He crossed the remaining distance in two steps and grasped the unresisting hand. He turned it to the light, and saw there what he feared to see, the odd T-shaped scar he knew so well. He crumpled on the bed. “No, no, it’s a trick, isn’t it? Who are you?” The last came out in a broken whisper.
“Why, Sir Thomas, you know right well who I am, you were there when we were presented at court. I am Prince Kryštof of Sybria, here with my older brother Prince Geofri.” His amiable voice hardened into tones as menacing as the whisper of a snake’s passage over a stone floor. “What you must needs concern yourself with, Tommy, is who I was.”
“Who were you then?” The words jerked out as though hooked, while the prince rubbed the scar thoughtfully with his left thumb.
“Do you remember when I got this? You had not married, then. We wandered the grounds of Scadbury like two lovers in Arcadia, and I carved your initials in the great beech out there. Do you remember how the dagger slipped?” He ran the tip of his forefinger down the line that formed the upright of the ‘T’. “You