The Scar-Crow Men (24 page)

Purple bruises patchworked the spy’s face and body and every joint ached from the ferocious beatings he had endured. The men Cecil had dispatched to escort Will to the hospital had treated him as they would any other traitor, with fists and feet and pricks of daggers, just for sport. But once the gates of the feared lock-up had clanged shut, the true pain had begun. Still seething from his treatment at Will’s hands, the Keeper had found new sport in an inmate whose fame reached far beyond the walls of London.

‘You raised yourself above me, and now you are beneath me. Indeed, beneath all men,’ the key-holder had growled before launching the first of many assaults. Will had resisted, but, hampered by manacles and ropes, he could do little but soak up the pain until unconsciousness freed him from the agony.

With his eyes now used to the permanent half-light, he watched the stained door. The beatings would continue, but his time would come, and then there would be vengeance aplenty.

As his gaze fell away, Will thrust himself back against the damp stone wall in shock. He was not alone. Sitting in the corner opposite him was Jenny. She wore the same blue dress he recalled from the day she disappeared, but her pale skin was now mottled, her black eyes dark-ringed as though she were being consumed by sickness. She eyed him through a curtain of lank, dirty hair, her too-thin arms wrapped around her legs. In her face the spy saw none of the love he remembered. Instead there was coldness, and suspicion, and perhaps contempt, as if she would never forgive him for abandoning her.

Everything about her appearance was designed to hurt, and even though Will knew that was the intent, he could not meet her gaze.

‘And so Griffin Devereux was correct. I now have my own devil, like Faustus in Kit’s play, to tempt me with sweet words and thereby condemn me to eternal suffering.’ The spy laughed without humour. ‘But you waste your time, creature of the dark – what do I call you? Mephistophilis, in honour of my friend? ’Twill suffice. For one, according to the words Kit wrote, it was Faustus who condemned himself. He opened the
door. His devil only held it wide for the man to pass through. I will not make that mistake.’ Will stretched out his legs to ease the ache from the manacles. ‘And second, I do not believe in hell, or heaven for that matter. There is no hand of a loving God in the suffering I have witnessed in my life. And damnation is here with us, not waiting at the end of our lives. Men are the devils, inflicting pain upon their own for personal gain.’

‘Your bitter thoughts will hollow out your soul.’

The spy was sickened by the voice. It had the gravelly, phlegm-tinged tones of an old man, yet it issued from the full lips that he had kissed those years ago on the edge of the Forest of Arden. ‘Why go through these trials, if all is as you say?’ the devil continued. ‘If you believe this life is pointless, end it now and be done with it.’

Will kicked out at a rat which had been eyeing his bare feet. ‘I see you would find pleasure in my passing, which only encourages me to grip tighter to life,’ he replied.

‘You think after the cruelties inflicted by the Unseelie Court that there is anything left of the Jenny you recall so fondly? You think she can return to a simple life in Warwickshire when she has been so spoiled?’

‘Quiet!’ the spy snarled. The chains clattered as he lunged forward, but the manacles stopped him long before he got near the dark presence.

Mephistophilis gave only the faintest smile, but it was tinged with triumph. ‘What will you do when you find her and she begs you to end her life? When you look into her eyes and see no love there, no hope, no softness? When you see only Bedlam, for ever?’

Will regained his composure, leaning back against the glistening stone even though the turmoil still raged inside him. ‘I thank you,’ the spy said in a calm voice. ‘In harsh times, it is easy to lose your way and give in to hopelessness. But you have fanned the flames of my anger, and that will light my way in even the darkest night.’

Mephistophilis didn’t move, its gaze heavy and unwavering. A fly crawled in the lank hair.

‘So you have found your voice now,’ the man continued. ‘Will you explain the vision you showed me when we first met in the Rose Theatre?’

The devil shook its head with slow, deliberate moves. ‘Knowledge or power is never given freely, and you have nothing to offer me. Your soul is already damned. I will torment you in this dark place through your few remaining days, and then I will take your life, and that small, misty thing that makes you who you are.’

‘I have heard worse threats,’ Will said blandly.

The rat returned, scurrying up to the form of Jenny. It sniffed at the skin of her foot and rolled over, dead.

‘Here you sit, in the dark and the filth,’ the devil whispered, ‘a man who lives by his sword, now impotent. And while you rot away, death moves ever closer to the ones you love, and a shadow as dark and cold as the final night falls across your country. And still you see only a small part of the plot.’

‘What do you mean?’ Will’s knuckles grew white where they gripped the rusty chain that held him fast.

‘Your great foe has grown weary of the blows you have struck against it down the years.’ The devil lowered its head slightly so the black eyes were almost invisible behind the wall of hair. ‘A Queen stolen. Then a member of their ruling family slaughtered like a beast in the field. Every blow struck by each side contributing to a mounting spiral of agony. But now they have called, “Enough!”’

The spy studied the brooding demonic presence to try to pick any truth from the stream of lies. He sensed, however, that on this occasion Mephistophilis felt he could cause more damage by openness.

‘Your Enemy sees there is nothing to gain from this carefully balanced war,’ the devil continued. ‘They have had their fill of the little irritations you pose. Away from the light of your attention, they weave their web, across this entire world. They stir great powers. They draw darkness up from the depths. They plot death and destruction on a scale only dreamed of by gods. War, plague, starvation – they pull these threads together, slowly but relentlessly, and by the time you see the shape of their thoughts it will be too late. Your kind are an infestation, in their eyes. A plague. And they will not rest until you have been eradicated.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

THEY’RE COMING
.

Slipping out into the moonlit corridor, Nathaniel was sickened to realize that once again he had been tormented by the dream that had haunted him for nigh on five years. Ghastly, cruel faces looming out of the shadows. Under a full moon, grey, fluttering shapes pursuing him across a lonely moor. And a feeling of dread so great that upon waking he was left in a pool of sweat, his heart pounding. But this time the terrible things they had whispered to him were new and strange. Who was coming?

The way is beginning to open
.

What way? Was he losing his wits?

The assistant had only closed his eyes for a while until the palace had drifted off into sleep and he could slip into Roger Cockayne’s chamber and steal back the play. Laced with mockery, the echoes of the dream-words still rustled around his head.

As he entered the corridor in the western range, the young man paused. He heard a whisper of movement off in the dark towards the far end. Glancing around, he saw the only hiding place was in an alcove beside a large iron-studded chest underneath a gloomy portrait of Old Henry, the Queen’s father. As he eased into the space and crouched down, pulling his cloak over him, he noticed several doors were silently opening.

Mouthing a silent prayer, he peeked out through a fold in his cloak. Five hooded figures skulked past, paying no attention to each other. What mischief would those creeping figures be planning at that time of night? he wondered. Who were they that they kept their faces hidden?

His suspicions mounting, he held his breath and waited.

Once he was sure the men had passed, Nat slipped out of his hiding place. Hoofbeats and the rattle of carriage wheels now echoed in the inner ward.

Through the window, the young man glimpsed a black coach stark in the moonlight. He saw it was adorned with peacock feathers, and so the property of someone high and mighty, perhaps a Privy Councillor. Unsure why, he felt a tingle of unease.

A cloaked and hooded man jumped down from the coach and held out his hand for a second passenger. A pale, slender hand extended from the shadows, a woman, Nat realized. As she stepped down to the cobbles, the assistant saw she too hid her identity in the depths of a hood.

A pikeman ambled up from the direction of the gatehouse, his burgonet and cuirass agleam in the pale light. The woman and her escort paused, their heads turned away from the approaching man.

Nathaniel felt an incomprehensible dread. As the pikeman stepped up, the escort whipped a gleaming dagger from the depths of his cloak and thrust it under the guard’s chin and into his skull. Withdrawing his blade just as quickly, the hooded man stepped back to avoid the gush of crimson as the poor pikeman fell to the cobbles.

The young assistant clutched the wall in shock. The murder of a pikeman, in the open, within the palace ward? The like had never been heard of before.

On the brink of raising the alarm, Nathaniel froze when he saw shadows sweeping across the open space from the palace. More men, all cloaked and hooded, perhaps some of them the ones who had passed him earlier. He thought he counted ten at least, but they moved too quickly for him to be sure, collecting the body of the pikeman and carrying it out of sight towards the western range. The escort led the mysterious woman to the palace as if nothing had happened.

Nat’s heart beat faster.

Silently, he ran back the way he had come. At the first set of stone steps, he began to creep down in search of the plotters, only to hear several soft treads rising from around the turn in the stairs. His breath caught in his chest. Dashing back into the corridor, he searched around, unsure where was the best place to hide.

As the footsteps neared, the young man pressed himself into a doorway, hoping the hooded figures would not pass by. Screwing his eyes tight shut, he prayed.

The footsteps emerged into the corridor and moved away from him. Peeking out, Nathaniel glimpsed the hooded figures with the woman among them gliding stealthily towards the Queen’s throne room, where she oversaw the meetings of the Privy Council almost every day.

What could the plotters possibly want in that chamber? It would be empty at this time of night, and there was nowhere to hide; it contained only the throne, for the Privy Councillors always stood in Her Majesty’s presence.

Stepping out from the doorway, Nathaniel resolved to follow. He had barely gone ten paces along the moonlit corridor when he realized his mistake. A single set of footsteps was approaching from the direction of the throne room. As he turned, he glimpsed a flurry of movement at the other end of the corridor; more plotters were drawing near.

Trapped
.

Just as Nat thought his heart would burst in his chest, he felt a hand clamp across his mouth and he was dragged back into a chamber. The door whispered shut behind him and a woman’s voice hissed in his ear, ‘Make no sound.’

His body pressed against the wood panelling in the inky room, the assistant’s eyes grew wide with terror. The footsteps approached. If the fingers had not been clamped so tight against his mouth, he was afraid he would have called out, but then the plotters passed by and he sagged with relief.

His saviour withdrew her hand.

‘You,’ he whispered, shocked.

In the gloom, the young man recognized the red-headed woman he had encountered outside the Rose Theatre. ‘Lady … Shevington?’ She too was cloaked and hooded, and for a moment he wondered if she was another of the plotters.

‘Do you always lumber around at night like a wounded bull?’ the Irish woman murmured as she opened the door a crack and peered out into the now-still corridor.

Nathaniel made to ask another question, but the woman pressed a finger to her lips to silence him and stepped out. With her cloak billowing around her, she ghosted through the shadows on the edge of the moonbeams towards the throne room. The assistant wanted to call out a warning – there would have been no time for the plotters to leave the chamber – but she was too far ahead.

Nat’s thoughts were a ball of confusion. He no longer had any idea what was happening, nor why the Irish woman was prowling the palace at night. Conflicted, he caught up with Lady Shevington as she pressed her ear to the door, her brow furrowed. All was silent.

Gripped with horror, Nathaniel saw her reach for the handle, and though he lunged to stop her, she swung the door open.

The throne room was empty.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

BLOOD SPATTERED INTO THE FILTHY, URINE-STINKING STRAW
scattered across the floor of the Abraham Ward. Will slammed into the stone flags, and before he could dispel the ringing in his skull, he felt fire blaze in his ribs, his thighs, his arms, his chest. Cudgels rained down. Foot after foot lashed out. He felt new agony sear upon old, but the ropes binding his hands behind his back gave him no chance of escape.

Through the haze of pain he could hear a cacophony of shrieks, roars and catcalls, which sounded to him like feeding time at the Queen’s menagerie at the Tower. A crowd of Bedlam’s lost souls turned away from the display of violence, tearing at their greasy hair or pressing their hollow-cheeked faces into their filthy hands, fearing they would be next. The other inmates slumped in blank stupors in their dank cells, but still moaned with each blow struck.

The three burly men surrounding Will paused, hands on knees, breath wheezing into chests that were unused to such concerted exertion. Through one half-closed eye, the battered man could see that his tormentors were little more than cut-throats and rogues, giving up their time drinking cheap ale to take the Keeper’s coin. Hair and beards unkempt, their doublets were worn and stained, the colours faded into muddy browns and greys, their jerkins mottled with the dirt of the street.