Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

CHAPTER 9

s the black carriage rattled at speed through the archway and out of the Bull Inn's yard, Grace stepped from the shadows by the east wall and dropped her hood, ignoring the lecherous stares from the carpenters at work on the temporary stage. Her own carriage waited a little further along Bishopsgate. She didn't have to follow Will's carriage to know his destination: Marlowe had been one of his few confidants since Will had recruited him after the reports of a brilliant, and more importantly daring and transgressional, student at Cambridge.

Her heart beat fast as she skipped across the cobbles. Will would be angry if he knew she was following him, but she had recognised the glint in his eye at the Palace of Whitehall: he felt that the business in which he was engaged had something to do with jenny's disappearance. His work remained a mystery to her, as it should, but she could not find peace until she understood the truth of what had happened to her sister and she feared Will would never tell her even if he uncovered it, under some misguided sense of duty to ensure her protection. Marlowe would tell her everything; she had always been able to wrap him around her finger.

Good Kit, she thought. Too gentle and sensitive for the demands placed upon you.

The actors delivered their speeches in declamatory fashion, something about lost love and fairies stealing hearts under cover of the night. It distracted her briefly, so she did not see the four men arrive in the shade beneath the archway. Their well-polished boots were expensive Flemish leather, their cloaks thick and unblemished, their hoods pulled low to mask their features, gloves tight on their hands.

They had followed Grace at a distance from the palace, where they had observed her meeting with Will from the shadows.

Blood was on their minds, and righteous vengeance in their hearts.

The end was drawing near.

CHAPTER 10

ill's carriage raced towards Saint Paul's, past the crowd thronging through Cheapside market. Rival apprentices spilled dangerously close to the wheels as they beat each other furiously. Blood flowed across the street and respectable gentlemen darted wildly to avoid randomly thrown blows.

Amid the cacophony, traders loudly competed with each other to ensnare the attention of passersby, focusing most of their attention on the smartly dressed servants from the grand four-story homes of the goldsmiths that lined the street.

Old Saint Paul's, with its blasted spire towering five hundred feet above the rooftops, was the heart of the City and a stone anchor in a rapidly changing world. In the bustling, sun-drenched church precinct, Will found Walsingham, like a black crow, his beady eyes flickering over the men that Leicester marshalled before the puzzled eyes of the booksellers, merchants, lawyers, and servants looking for work. Beside him, Dee hid his identity with a deep hood.

Mayhew had assembled the members of Will's team nearby: Launceston, his ghastly complexion and saturnine disposition unsettling many in the churchyard; John Carpenter, whose handsome features were marred by a jagged scar that ran from temple to mouth on his left side; and one who was clearly Tom Miller, the new recruit, as big as a side of beef with hands that could encompass a child's head and an expression of edgy confusion.

Mayhew and the others passed among the crowd swarming around the church, questioning cutpurses, cutthroats, beggars, and coney-catchers, who were as numerous as the respectable tradesmen who sought business around Saint Paul's, and those who had come simply to parade their expensive, highly fashionable cloaks and doublets.

Nathaniel cast a perceptive eye over the proceedings as he followed Will from the carriage. "These are dark times indeed for so many of the great and good to be gathered in public away from the security of their halls of privilege."

"The people should be comforted that these men are active in the defence of the nation."

"England's greatest spy is not comfort enough?" Nathaniel replied archly. "The talk in the taverns and ordinaries is all of a Spanish invasion. Since Mary's death, people are afraid. They see Spanish agents everywhere. Swarthy-skinned men are attacked in the street, and foreigners threatened over their meals. Will all this activity calm them, or frit them more?"

As Walsingham approached with a grave expression, Will said, "Fetch the items we discussed in the carriage. And hurry. From our Lord Walsingham's face, I fear that time is shorter still."

When Nathaniel had departed, Walsingham drew Will in conspiratorially. "The Enemy is abroad. Stories circulate hereabouts of a fearsome black dog with eyes like hot coals that leaves claw-marks in stone."

"Are we to be afraid of a dog, then?" Will replied. "We could toss it a bone and be done with it."

"I am pleased to see your spirits remain high, Master Swyfte, for we appear to be no closer to discovering the rogues who have taken the Silver Skull."

"Do not give up hope yet." Will told Walsingham what he had learned from Marlowe without disclosing the source of his information.

Glowering at the passing crowd, Walsingham was clearly concerned by Will's suggestion. "Alsatia is a dangerous place. There will be bloodshed if we send in an army, and no guarantee this Pickering will not escape with his prize."

"Then we do not send in an army," Will replied. "A few men, moving secretly, can achieve more, and quicker."

Walsingham nodded in agreement. "Even so, you will be strangers in a place where most are known to each other. And I am told they speak their own tongue down there-the thieves' cant. One wrong word could be your undoing."

"The quicker we are in, the quicker out."

Realising there was no alternative, Walsingham gave his approval before summoning over Dee. "The doctor has some gifts that may aid you."

From the depths of his hood, Dee's eyes glimmered. "Two items for now," he whispered. From a leather bag, he withdrew a handful of small muslin packages like the bundles of herbs a cook would drop in a stew. "Take care with these," he said, depositing the packages gently in Will's cupped hands. "Hold the loose knot at the top and shake them open. But be careful to look away. They will release a flash of light that will blind, and a loud noise to disorient the senses."

With a shrug, Will deposited them in the pouch at his belt.

Annoyed that Will was not more impressed, Dee delved into his bag once more for a leather forearm shield with two fastening buckles. When he touched a hidden catch, a seven-inch blade burst from a hidden compartment.

"There will come a time when you will be separated from your sword," he said, "but you will never be separated from this weapon. You can wound and kill at close quarters, and with stealth."

Will gave the weapon a cursory examination. "What, no codpieces that burst into flames? I could have had sport with that."

Snorting, Dee turned to Walsingham. "We place the security of England in the hands of a coxcomb!"

As Dee stalked away, Walsingham sighed. "Now you have offended him, and now I will have to deal with his foul temper. Since he started communing with angels, Dee has been like a devil, filled with fire and brimstone."

As he prepared to gather his crew to depart, Will scrutinised Miller who awkwardly accompanied Mayhew and the others in their questioning. "The new fellow. He seems ... slow."

"He is more quick-witted than he appears. He is a miller's son, shaped by hard labour. His strength will be an asset to you."

"And his lack of understanding of the Enemy and their guiles may be the death of us. Who does he think we fight?"

"Spanish agents." Walsingham was unmoved by Will's concerns, even though he knew the risks involved.

Hiding his irritation, Will noted the innocence in Miller's face. "If we encounter the Enemy, the shock may prove too great for him."

"Then you must provide a quick lesson."

"Quick lessons do not work. You know that. It takes time to accept that the world is not the way any of us are brought up to believe. The mind and heart are both fragile things, easily broken, repaired with the greatest difficulty, if at all."

"That is the way God made us, Master Swyfte. He is your charge now. I have faith you will see him right."

Walsingham returned to Leicester, who swaggered along the ranks of his men, enjoying the eyes of the public upon him. Urgently summoning Mayhew and the others, Will led them from the churchyard, past the shop where the fashionable London men bought their pouches of the New World tobacco, to a quiet spot beyond the bookstalls.

An incandescent rage appeared to be permanently burning just beneath Carpenter's skin. Unconsciously tracing a fingertip down the pink scar tissue on his face, he said, "Why did Walsingham see fit to throw us together?"

"I think he feels you will keep my feet on the ground, John."

"That I will do."

Turning his attention to Miller, Will shook his hand. "Tom. Lord Walsingham has only good words for you. I am Will Swyfte."

"I know you." A hint of awe laced the young man's words.

Snorting derisively, Carpenter pretended to inspect Saint Paul's Cross where a wild-eyed, grey-haired man prepared to deliver a sermon.

"You will have heard about some of our work," Will continued, "but know this: you may well see things across the course of this day that you find ... puzzling ... troubling-"

"Frightening," Mayhew interjected, staring at his boots.

"There is an explanation, and you will get it when our work is done," Will continued. "Till then, anything you see that makes little sense must be put from your mind. Do you understand?"

Baffled, Miller nodded.

"Let me put it another way," Launceston said in his precise, aristocratic tones, "if you fail to keep a steady course, and place us in danger, I will slit your throat as surely as I would an enemy's, and leave you where you fall for the rats to feast on."

Miller turned almost as white as Launceston.

"Steady now," Will said. "We must not go bragging about the speed and size of our blades. For I would win. Listen with care, for we have a matter to test even the greatest swords of Albion."

By the time Will finished explaining the task that lay ahead, Nathaniel had returned with a large, foul-smelling sack. From it, he distributed various items of clothing.

"What is this?" Mayhew clutched a hand to his mouth. "Foul vinegar rags stolen from the backs of three-day-dead beggars?"

"Master Mayhew, you are known around London as a man of exquisite taste for the finery of your dress," Will said. "But if you walk into Alsatia as a gallant, flashing that costly silk lining of your cloak, you will find yourself a honeypot for bees with a deadly sting."

In the cramped carriage on the road to Fleet Street, they quickly changed into the stinking rags, with much complaining from Mayhew and stoic acceptance from Launceston. Miller was eager, but Carpenter made a show of the mass of scar tissue that covered his back and left arm, casting sullen glares towards Will.

When they were done, Nathaniel said, "I have never seen ... nor smelled a more convincing group of foul beggars. You wear it well."