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The sixteenth century is a dirty grey, on the streets of London. The Court is a dirty red-gold, to match their Queen, but the color suits the Master less. His jacket is black and suspiciously clean - he'd rather risk suspicion than cultivate a proper unwashed air.
The man across from him is at no risk of being mistaken for a time traveler. His face is grimy and his sleeve has been used as a handkerchief. His ink-splattered hands brush hair back from his face, and the Master can see that the man's ears are docked, a marker of some misdeed. Edward Kelley is a charlatan and a criminal, but he knows more than he should. The Master plans to use every one of Kelley's talents.
"What are you searching for?" asks Kelley. "The angels have many answers."
"I'm looking for a good friend of mine," says the Master. He smiles, prompting an answering smirk. "I know he is in London, though I know not where or to what end. I hope the angels have news."
"A friend?" Kelley's smirk stretches into a grin, inviting a retraction, or an elaboration. They brush the tip of the Master's tongue, details about his enemy, his schoolmate, his obsession-
"A friend," says the Master. "A Doctor, by trade."
"I know many doctors," says Kelley. "But let us ask."
Kelley murmurs and chants, and his eyelids twitch as his eyes roll back in his sockets. He speaks in a tongue that the Master's TARDIS cannot translate. It may not be a language at all. The Master cannot tell where the artifice begins and where it ends, and he suspects that Kelley has little idea himself.
"The Doctor is with the Court," says Kelley, a rattling purr of English, delivered with exposed white eyes and clutching, shaking hands. "Ask Thom Walsingham where he is."
"Walsingham's in France," says the Master. The Doctor's here, he knows he is-
"Then to France you will go," says Kelley. His eyes fix on the Master again, the pupils tiny from the return of light, and the Master does not shudder, does not blink. "And I will go with you, Master."
There is a moment when the Master is frightened, just a moment, when he thinks this man may be able to see too much. But Master is a common form of address, is it not? For well-to-do men, who are paying their lessers.
Kelley smiles, and the Master smiles, and France is just across the Channel.