Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

"And you cannot bring jenny back by protecting me. Nor can you erase the pain of her loss. But we cannot help ourselves, can we? We are both cursed to repeat our mistakes, trying to save the one person who reminds us of that time when all was right with the world."

She looked away sharply. He knew it was because tears had sprung to her eyes, but she would not show him what she perceived to be a weakness. Much of what she said was true, he knew, but Grace was more to him than a symbol of what had been lost. In the midst of his own grief, he had been devastated to see the effect of jenny's disappearance on her. It had torn out her heart at first, and then replaced her happiness with a slow-burning bitterness. He cared for her deeply, and he would not have her suffer any more.

Grace saw him wrestling with her account of his motivations and softened. "Jenny haunts us both. The manner of her passing ... here one moment and then gone, no body to bury or grieve, no truthful account, only guesses and hints and what-might-have-beeps ... Neither of us can find rest while there are so many questions still to answer, and no likely answers forthcoming." She bit her lip and looked away out of the window to where the servants carried cuts of ham to the kitchens from the back of a wagon.

"This is not the life either of us would have chosen, but it is the one we have," he said. "You have accepted that jenny is gone for there is no evidence to show otherwise. That is sensible. I believe she is still alive because there is no evidence to show she is dead. Less sensible, perhaps, but it is all I am capable of doing. Whatever happened that day is lost to us. For now. But I have seen ..." He caught himself. "I do not believe the world is as simple as most people accept. There are spaces in it for strange things to happen."

"For jenny still to be alive?" she mocked.

"Perhaps."

"You hold on to a ghost and it slowly sucks the life from you. You will never find peace, or happiness, while you look back, and while you grip tightly to fantasies, and ask question upon question. You are here, now. You must take some joy ... some love ... or all will be wasted."

"I only ever wanted my jenny. She was right for me. There will be no other."

Grace turned away from him, pretending to examine the servants once again.

"Whatever happened to her, she is still with me every day," he continued, "here and here." He touched his temple and his breastbone. "I would not give up that to dull what pain I feel."

"If one of us is the child here, wishing and hoping, it is not I," she said brusquely. "I will continue to search for answers in my own way. And if you continue to keep secrets from me, I will be forced to go to even greater lengths."

Watching her march back along the corridor, head down, cheeks burning, Will felt a deep sadness for what she had lost, and a determination that she would, at least, have a happier life ahead. If he failed Grace, he failed Jenny; he failed in everything.

Putting aside his emotions, he made his way to the Tryst Rooms, where Henry had attempted to woo Ann Boleyn, away from the scrutiny of his wife. They were now set aside for Walsingham's use, and lay on the second floor above the hall that Dee had christened the Black Gallery.

Nursing their wounds, Mayhew sat gloomily in one corner, drinking wine despite the earliness of the hour, while Launceston and Carpenter ate bread and sausage as they turned over the previous night's events.

"Where is Tom?" Will asked.

"Away brooding," Launceston replied.

"I would not have him on his own after what he saw."

Mayhew let out a theatrical sigh. "We cannot mollycoddle the boy. He must learn to deal with these things, as we all have."

"He did not have the benefit of a slow admission to the secrets of the world, as we have," Will replied. "Find him and bring him here."

Cursing quietly, Mayhew levered himself from his chair and sloped out.

Carpenter pushed his plate away and growled, "At least the failure of this mission left no one dead. Or scarred."

"There are no failures, and no victories either, you know that. Just a constant shifting back and forth, with casualties on both sides. That is the true tragedy of our war: it will never be won."

"Defeatist." Carpenter sniffed. Then: "I presume Walsingham will want to hold someone accountable for our failure to recover the Silver Skull."

"Again, John, no failure, however much you want to apportion blame. This struggle continues. We have reached a turn in the road, and we must embark on another direction."

"Yet we still do not know what this Silver Skull does," Launceston said, or why it is so important to the Enemy. Perhaps it is simply meant to distract us from the real threat."

"All will become clear in time," Will replied. So far he had only told Walsingham what he had witnessed of the Skull's capabilities, and Miller had been sworn to silence, although the disease-powers appeared to be the last thing on his mind.

Nathaniel appeared at the door to the Tryst Rooms and summoned Will over. "Lord Walsingham is ready for you now," he said. "Should I be prepared for fanfares and fawning crowds?"

"Not this time, Nat. This matter is still a tangled web, which requires some unpicking."

Nathaniel held the door open. "A case not concluded in time for an ordinary in the tavern? Your reputation is in danger."

"We all have our bad days, and I fear this one will get worse before it gets better."

They took Walsingham's black carriage and followed the cluttered, noisy streets east to the Tower. As was often the case, Nathaniel pretended to show no interest in the matter under investigation while asking oblique, circuitous questions in an attempt to assuage his curiosity. And as was usual, Will pretended not to notice, and batted them away with an insouciant manner. It was a game between friends, but with serious intent: in his ignorance, Nathaniel rattled the cage door, but Will had made it his business never to let him realise what beast lurked within.

The carriage was admitted through the main gates of the Tower into a furious hive of activity, the like of which Will had not seen before. Soldiers brought weapons from the Tower's armoury, while other groups escorted bruised and battered prisoners to the cells for interrogation.

Will ordered Nathaniel to stay with the carriage, and then sought Walsingham out in his rooms in the White Tower. In a room filled with charts and documents, Will found him making plans for England's defences with a small army of advisors. The atmosphere was strained, the advisors failing to grasp the urgency of Walsingham's requests. By their reckoning, an invasion was weeks away, at the earliest, and his suggestion that disaster could strike within hours or days filled them with incredulity. Will realised he had never seen Walsingham lose his temper, but there was a frightening intensity about him that Will had witnessed before on occasion; in those times he appeared capable of anything.

Once the advisors had been dismissed, Walsingham led Will along the corridors and down the winding stairs into the bowels of the White Tower.

"It would be easier if you could guide them with more than hints and innuendo," Will said.

"That is our burden," Walsingham replied. "Only a very few understand the true nature of the war we fight. The rest must accept our guidance on faith alone."

"No sign of lion Alanzo or the Silver Skull?"

"Our informants watch all the highways out of London, and the ports of Kent and Norfolk, Sussex and Dorset. They have vanished like the mist."

"You have informed the queen?"

"Of only the most basic details. One must walk a line between providing an adequate summation of the threat facing the nation and leaving the monarch paralysed by fear." Walsingham waited for the guards to unlock a large, iron-studded door before continuing. "We have struggled with the outbreak of disease many times during Elizabeth's reign. The thought that such devastation could be unleashed by an enemy in the blink of an eye, in one of our cities, perhaps even in London itself, is beyond the comprehension of most minds. But we know the depths to which the Enemy will go to destroy us. And the Spanish, of course, would seize upon such internal chaos to launch an invasion from without. We are in a state of high alertEngland's future hangs by a thread. Never have matters been so critical."

"Then we cannot afford to delay here," Will said. "Pickering is our only link to the Skull, and the Enemy's plans."

At the foot of the stairs, in the deepest part of the White Tower, they were confronted by another oaken door flanked by two guards, who unlocked it and closed it swiftly behind them. The room beyond was vast and unpleasantly gloomy. A handful of torches at large intervals created a permanent twilight that obscured many of the workings of that place. Occasional moans or cries emerged from the shadows, like the haunting voices of lost souls, and there was a heavy stink of excrement, urine, and blood.

A tall man in his early forties, fair-haired, with bright eyes and an easy smile, walked out of the dark to greet them. He clasped his hands before him with an expression of continual glee. Jeremiah Kemp, England's torturer-inchief, enjoyed his work.

A constant succession of Catholic spies, and potential spies, criminals, traitors, and informants passed through his doors, Jesuit priests, minor aristocrats, lawyers, farmers, gentlewomen, and wealthy merchants. Kemp treated them all with equal care and attention.

"Welcome, my Lord Walsingham, Master Swyfte," he said with a shy smile and a deep bow. "All is ready for you."

"Pickering?" Walsingham asked.

"He has been softening. Please come and see." Kemp led them past every imaginable device of human torture to one of the wooden posts that supported the ceiling of that underground chamber. From near the top of the pillar, Pickering hung from an iron bar supported by staples in the wood, his hands fastened into iron gauntlets attached to the bar. It was a deceptively simple instrument. The weight of the suspended body caused the flesh in the arms to swell, creating the agonising sensation that blood was about to burst from the end of every finger.

His face drawn and badly bruised, Pickering watched them with dazed eyes.

"Are you ready to confess?" Walsingham asked him.

"I am but a lowly thief," Pickering croaked. "I know nothing of these matters of state." His weak voice sounded truthful, but Will caught the briefest shadow flicker in his eyes.

"You like games?" Will asked. "Chess?"

Pickering eyed him hatefully.

"The pawns are removed from the game early. There is little to be gained by extending their lives."

"Unless they are clever pawns, with aspirations to rise to be the true power on the board." Pickering's eyes gleamed.

Will nodded. "Then we know where we stand." Turning to Kemp, he said, "Let us introduce our guest to the Duke of Exeter's Daughter."

"Certainly, Master Swyfte." Kemp clapped his hands to summon the guards to bring Pickering down from his perch. Though he had only been on the pillar for a short while, his legs were too weak to support his weight.

The guards dragged him to the end of the chamber where the rack stood before a row of candles, a wooden bed stained with bodily fluids, a ratchet system for turning at one end.

"The Duke of Exeter was an inventive man when he was the constable of the Tower, and he devised this method to ensure full truth and honesty from those he entertained," Will said. "You are aware how this works?"

Pickering shook his head, but his expression suggested his imagination was already hard at work.