The Scar-Crow Men (34 page)

‘You have two shadows.’

The spy glanced back and saw that Dee was right. Stretching behind him was his own shadow, and, beside it, another, over-lapping, but twisted, monstrous.

‘What have you done?’ the elderly man asked in a small, troubled voice.

‘It appears I can never be afflicted with loneliness,’ Will said, attempting to make
light. When he saw Dee’s expression remained unmoved, he added with a flamboyant sweep of his arm, ‘
Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast. What shall I do to shun the snares of death?
’

‘Well you may ask.’ The alchemist circled the spy, examining him this way and that. ‘You have been cursed.’

‘My devilish companion was conjured during the performance of Marlowe’s new play, a warning from Kit.’ Will gave a shrug to show he was unmoved by the threat.

‘Then in his aid your friend has damned you.’ Will was surprised, and troubled, by the hint of pity in Dee’s voice.

‘This curse can be lifted?’

‘By the one who set it. And he is dead. I wish it was within my power to provide a solution, but for all my subtle skills there is nothing I can do when such a thing has been raised by another.’ For a long moment, the magician plucked at the sleeves of his gown in reflection, unable to meet the younger man’s eye. ‘The devil will burrow deeper into the heart of you until he destroys you from within, and there is nothing you can do about it. There is no way for me to sweeten this bitter pill, Swyfte, and I know you would not want me to. You are a strong man, and you have shouldered much suffering in your life, and I have no doubt you will face this with the valour I see in you. I would not have it this way, but there it is. You are doomed, and the end will not be pleasant.’

‘Enough, doctor,’ the spy interrupted. ‘I have carried burdens before, and I am more concerned with surviving tomorrow, and the day after, than with what miseries may or may not await me in the future.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘Live for today, and let the devil take what may be.’

The alchemist appeared oddly touched by the young man’s words. He moved rapidly to the clutter at the rear of the chamber, knocking over piles of books until he found a large wooden chest. ‘A little help in the battle to come would not go amiss, eh?’ From the depths of the chest, he pulled a wooden tube and a velvet pouch and offered them to the spy.

Will examined the object: the tube was hollow and the pouch contained small, sharp arrows.

‘Our adventurers treat the New World men as savages, but their knowledge is quite profound. That is a blowpipe. Tip those darts in poison, slip one in the end …’ Dee mimed a blowing action. ‘They travel far … farther now that I have improved the design.’

‘Poison, you say?’

The alchemist drew several small cloth bags out of the chest. ‘I have refined the potions over the years. The blue paste …’ He grinned. ‘Even those white-skinned bastards will recoil from that one.’

Will slipped the gifts into the secret pockets in his cloak.

‘One final thing.’ Dee held up another tube which appeared to be made of iron, but which the spy could see was much lighter. The elderly man pressed a hidden knob and four hooked arms snapped out.

‘A grapnel,’ Will exclaimed, taking the device. Attached to the bottom was a coil of
rope that was thinner and lighter than any he had encountered before. ‘This is no weight at all.’

‘What wonders I could have provided for England’s spies if only I had not been exiled to this cold, wet town,’ the alchemist grumbled. ‘But there you have it. Use the tools wisely and well. Now, let us find your friend. After staring at you, my eyes need some relief.’

Dee snuffed out the first of the three candles lighting the room.

‘We must travel to meet our fellow conspirators, great men all, names that will surprise you, and they will have some of the answers you seek,’ the alchemist said. ‘If what you say is true and the old defences are falling, the journey will be dangerous. I can protect us a little, but even my vaunted abilities may not enable us to survive.’

‘So be it.’ Will snuffed out another candle. The shadows closed in around them, with only the flickering light of the final candle and the dull red glow of the dying fire illuminating the room. Dee pulled his cloak around him and stepped towards the door.

‘Where do we travel?’ the spy asked.

The alchemist turned back to the younger man, his eyes sparkling. ‘We go to see the Wizard Earl.’

Will snuffed out the final candle and the dark swept in.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND’S FACE RESEMBLED A DEATH-MASK BENEATH
its frosting of white make-up. At Elizabeth’s side, Elinor, her ever-present maid of honour, whispered words that no one else heard as she guided Her Majesty through the clutch of carpenters and artists at work on the scenery for the forthcoming masque. Cecil lurched in her wake, looking like a frightened dog, with the big mercenary Sinclair glowering over his shoulder, and trailing at the rear was Rowland, the record-keeper, distracted by the rolls of parchment tumbling from his arms.

Standing in a sunbeam where sawdust danced, Grace watched her mistress pass by with growing concern. New faces had appeared at the court over the last few days, men and women who answered to no one, but who seemed to have the Queen’s ear. Who were they? What was their business?

When Nathaniel entered, Grace joined him out of sight behind a still-wet canvas painted to resemble the greenwood. ‘It is becoming harder to meet,’ the young woman whispered. ‘Her Majesty has appointed another lady-in-waiting, a young girl by the name of Mary Wentworth. It appears her sole task is to follow me wherever I go.’

‘The Privy Council has this morning agreed the execution of two more
traitors
. A stablehand and a butcher from Leadenhall who delivered pork for the kitchens,’ the young man replied bitterly. ‘The case against them was flimsy. Their deaths are solely to cause fear at court. If everyone is suspected, attention does not fall easily on the true culprits.’

‘And Master Cockayne?’

‘Since his return from London, he never seems to leave his chamber. I fear we have lost our best chance to recover Kit Marlowe’s play,’ Nat sighed.

‘Among the women who sew together, there has been talk of mysterious lights at night in the fields around the palace, a ghost seen on the Grand Gallery, and voices heard in empty rooms,’ Grace whispered, peering around the edge of the scenery. ‘The portents are growing. And still no word from Will.’

‘Why speak of Will? You have a suitor now.’ The young man’s tone was acidic as he nodded towards the door. Strangewayes was looking around the hall.

‘Nat, you know my heart is for Will only,’ Grace said unconvincingly. ‘I spend time with Tobias’ – she caught herself – ‘Master Strangewayes for the information he can provide. He has eyes and ears all over Nonsuch.’

‘And what if he is part of this plot, and he keeps an eye upon you while you are using him?’ Nat leaned in and whispered, ‘You are playing with fire, Grace. But both of us will be burned if you are wrong.’

When he walked away, Grace allowed the colour to fade from her cheeks. She was annoyed that her friend treated her like some little girl. At first Tobias Strangewayes had appeared no more than a braggart, swaggering around her and making no attempt to hide his lustful thoughts. She had found it surprisingly easy to manipulate him.

But on a hot early morn when she had been sent to collect flowers from the garden, she had found him standing among the yew trees, his head bowed in grief. ‘I have received news that my brother, Stephen, is dead,’ he had said in a hoarse voice. ‘In Venice, though the circumstances remain to be explained.’ He had tried to speak further, but the words would not come.

Grace had seen a man in the grip of loneliness and confusion. Her heart had gone out to him, and for the next hour they had spoken deeply and personally. She still did not know how she truly felt about the red-headed man, but she accepted that she no longer had contempt or scorn for him.

Beaming when he saw her, Strangewayes stepped over. ‘Will you walk with me a while?’ he asked. ‘In the gardens?’ His eyes darted around and his smile faded. ‘There is something I must tell you.’

Puzzled, Grace followed him into the warm, lilac-scented garden.

‘I feel in my heart I can trust you. Is that true?’ he asked.

‘Of course. What troubles you?’

Tobias ran a hand through his red hair. ‘Sometimes I feel I am bound to be one of Bedlam’s Abraham Men. My master employs a keeper of records, one Barnaby Goodrington, a clever fellow with a sharp wit. Whenever we discussed business, we got on well. But in recent days, he …’ His words dried up.

‘Has seemed like another man?’ Grace continued. ‘Acted oddly, perhaps?’

‘Yes! Yesterday he began to cry when I told him a joke. And he is not the only one. Fulke Best, Christopher Norwood, Agnes Swetenham in the kitchens. They all seem like … echoes of the people I knew. Always distracted, sometimes addled even.’ He paused, fighting against himself, and then said, ‘I am loath to say it, but I wonder if Swyfte was right.’

‘Help me,’ Grace urged.

‘Help
you
?’

‘There
is
a plot here, I know it.’ She steeled herself and decided to speak out. ‘And I have been charged to uncover it. Before he was murdered, Kit Marlowe hid a cipher in one of his plays. It tells of the conspiracy. I need your help, Tobias. Master Cockayne is a part of this conspiracy and he has hidden the play in his chamber. If we are to stop the tragedy that will ensue, we must steal it back.’

Grace saw her companion look at her in a new, unsettled light. ‘You are a woman. These are not matters for you.’

Grace flushed with anger. ‘We have a queen who has proved herself the equal of any man—’

Strangewayes shook his head furiously. ‘What you are talking about would be considered treason. Steal from an adviser to Sir Robert Cecil? How do I know you are not one of these plotters, trying to entice me into your web?’

The young woman watched the red-headed man’s face harden and she knew she had lost him. ‘Forget what I said, Tobias. I spoke out of turn.’ As she stepped to the garden door, she could feel the spy’s eyes heavy upon her back.

Had she made a terrible mistake?

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

THE CRIMSON CROSS ETCHED ON THE DOOR SEEMED TO GLOW IN
the suffocating dark of the mud-baked street. Carpenter shuddered. It spoke to him of the transience of life, of those now mouldering in the earth and of the cold and bloody deaths yet to come. As he approached the cramped, timber-framed house in the shadow of the Tower, he wished he had a God who would offer him respite from the horrors of that life.

‘Hrrm,’ Launceston muttered as he glanced along the row of silent homes, ‘the plague has taken its toll here.’

‘And it will take another two victims if we do not hurry, you beef-witted foot-licker.’ Carpenter tied the cloth tighter across his mouth and nose, but the apple-sweet stink of bodily rot still choked him.

Every door along the street had been marked with the sign of the plague. No candles glowed in any of the windows. No voices drifted out into the night, no husbands and
wives arguing, or mothers singing their babies to sleep, or drunken apprentices winding their way home. There was only the warm July wind moaning under the eaves.

Now, Carpenter paused, resting his fingertips on the rough wood but not finding the courage to push it open. Each passing day, he wanted to be out of this morbid business a little more, to start afresh with Alice. He refused to accept that he was ruined for the mundane world, as the Earl insisted. He could still escape the shadows and the lies and the insidious threat of the things that came at midnight.

What you fight holds you in an embrace
, Launceston had once said.

‘Let us be done with this so we can all move on with our lives,’ the scar-faced man growled, thrusting open the door.

Inside, the reek of rot was even stronger. Carpenter pressed his hand to his mouth to stop himself gagging. ‘When we find Shipwash I will gut him myself for putting us through this,’ he muttered.

‘What better place to hide?’ the Earl whispered, adding without a hint of irony, ‘No one in their right mind would dare venture into a plague-house.’

‘We left our own wits behind the moment we agreed to spy.’ But Launceston was right. If one of the doxies from the Cross Keys had not seen Shipwash entering the house with bread, they would never have found him.

In the faint moonlight breaking through the dusty windows, Carpenter looked around the small room. It was a meagre place with a hard-packed mud floor and three stools before the empty grate. A bunch of dried lavender hung from the beams.

With a twirl of his finger, the scarred spy directed Launceston towards the stairs. As they crept across the room, a door at the rear of the house banged. Carpenter jumped, half drawing his rapier. The door banged again, and again.

Just the wind.

Careful not to wake the sleeping Shipwash, Launceston tested each step for creaks as he climbed the stairs. The scarred spy could only think how terrified of the Unseelie Court their fellow spy must be that he would risk a gruesome death among the victims of the sickness.

Crossing the room, Carpenter felt moisture fall on to the back of his hand. A droplet gleamed darkly in the moonlight on his pale flesh. Following its trail upwards, he saw a black stain spreading across the plaster between two beams, and more drips waiting to fall.

‘God’s wounds!’ the spy cursed. ‘Get up there, quickly.’

The Earl bounded up the wooden steps with the scarred man clattering at his heels. In the bedroom, they found a hellish scene. Shipwash, flayed to the waist, his eyes missing, lay in a pool of spreading crimson. Runic symbols had been drawn on the walls in some of the poor soul’s blood.

Carpenter slumped against the door jamb. ‘Damn him. If only he had stayed with us.’ His heart sinking, he bowed his head.

Only two more victims
.

And then the Unseelie Court would rule over all. England would burn, and the deaths
from the plague would seem like nothing compared to the carnage that would follow.