Ink and Steel

“Hundred fifty,” Tom said. “Or a few pounds worth of pewter,” he said, that grin returning. It seemed appropriate, somehow, given Baines has used the trick himself. “I thought it best to attend to Cecil’s, pardon, Sir Robert’s demands regarding the inestimable Master Baines while he was still occupied with the affairs of his late father.”

How do you intend to pass it to them? Plant, not pass. Tom drew his dagger and picked at a cuticle with the point, not quite as idly as Will thought he meant to make it look. Interesting, Will said. I don’t see you clambering in windows The clambering is Ben’s part.

“Sir Thomas.” Ben looked up from arranging the debased nobles and sovereigns in tidy rows across the face of the map.

“You re youngest, Ben. And,” a circular gesture of the knife, “strongest.”

Ben sighed, his brow wrinkling like that of a bull-baiting dog. “Aye. And once the coins are placed, Sir Thomas, how do we make sure Baines spends them rather than dispensing with them?”

“The property will be searched.” Tom sheathed his knife and picked up a silvery coin, turning it in the light. “Leave that to me. These are better than some I’ve seen.” Will wasn’t sure what drew his attention to the window; a shadow across theshutters or the faintest of sounds. Ben, he said in Jonson’s ear, is there a stair out your window?

“A drainpipe,” Ben answered in an undertone, following his gaze. “Over the kitchen garden.”

“Sir Thomas, you were followed but far from the best.”

“I’m minded of a time in France,” Tom continued, never missing a beat as he drew his sword and moved to the window in silent footsteps. Ben came around the board, catching his sword from the back of the chair it hung on and easing it from the soft leather sheath. He caught Tom’s eye, and Tom nodded as Will hastily scooped the jingling counters of a hanging offense back into their bag. Ben hurled the shutters open and Tom lunged, reaching, cursing softly and jerking back a moment later.

“Missed him,” he said, over a rustling crash and then the sound of running footsteps. “Ben, go after.”

Jonson didn’t hesitate. He dropped his rapier inside the window and planted one hand on the sill, vaulting over with a grace that belied his height. Will winced at the thump from ten feet below, but Ben sounded unhurt as he calledup “BLade! He must have stepped aside as Tom snatched the sword up and dropped it, point-first so it would stick in the earth.

“Tis Gabriel Spencer.” Tom was already moving for the door. Will grabbed his sleeve as he went by. Tom couldn’t: too much chance of being spotted and recognized, even in that nondescript, unfashionably blue doublet that was too broad across the shoulders.

“No.” A moment’s startled regard, and then

“Will?” Tom’s voice was suddenly his cousin’s, his eyes as full of cold necessity as Sir Francis had ever been.

“Make sure Ben understands.”

“Oh, Christ on the Cross.” Will nodded and stuffed the coins inside his doublet, hitching his stubborn right leg as he stumbled for the stairs. He wasn’t about to catapult out a window like a man eight years younger, but Will was surprised how fast his halting gait, assisted by a grip on the banister, brought him into the courtyard.

Ben must have caught up with Gabriel Spencer by the innyard gate. He had the smaller man lifted off the ground by the collar, Spencer’s hand and a dagger pinned high against the timbers.

I’m about to order a man to kill.Will swallowed, as best he could, conscious of the clunk of the coins insidehis shirt. Tyburn hanging,he thought, and then he thought about Kit in a hearth-warmed kitchen, trying so hard and so falsely to smile.

“Ben,” Will said. Let him down.

Ben turned over his shoulder, startled. Will nodded, and picked up the blade that Ben must have dropped when he manhandled Spencer against the wall. Will held the rapier toward Ben, hilt-first, careful of the edge. Ben dropped Spencer, more tossed him to his feet and stepped back far enough to grasp it, keeping a questioning sideways attention on Will.

“He heard everything,” Will said in an undertone, hearing a different voice in the place of Spencer’s sudden, comprehending pleading. “This is what a Queen’s Man is. This is what a Queen’s Man does. Why, so it is.”

Ben stared for a moment, aghast. And then a soldier’s composure settled over the rough features, and he stepped to block Spencer’s rabbity bolt for the gate.

“Draw, Gabe,” he said tiredly, as his blade came up and he turned to extend the line of his arm.

Spencer glanced from Will to Ben, and back. He slipped his main gauche into the proper hand, and reached across his belt to his rapier hilt. “This is murder, Ben. It’s a hanging.”

“Right of clergy,” Ben said, piggy eyes narrowing under the cave of his brow. “I read latin. It’s a branding. Counterfeiting is a hanging.” Draw your blade, and you’ve got a chance.