Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

Parched by the dust, they finally reached the city walls during the hour before dawn. Admitted by the night watch, they thundered through the deserted streets to the west where the palace sprawled hard against the river. As they neared, Will's attention was caught by the inexplicable and troubling faint green halo around the Lantern Tower.

Dead guards littered the eastern gateway, features ravaged by disease. Without slowing to examine the corpses, Will, Launceston, and Carpenter continued to the yard next to the Black Gallery.

"No sounds of resistance," Will whispered. "The guards have been surprised and defeated before they could sound the alarm."

Carpenter indicated through the archway to figures making their way among the adjoining buildings. "Our arrival was noticed," he said. "The palace is overrun. Is it too late?"

"Courtenay will soon be here to raise the alarm and seal off the palace, as ordered." Will directed them towards the Black Gallery. "Till then we must do what we can."

"They will try to hunt us down, but their attention is elsewhere," Launceston said, once they were inside. "That will help us evade capture."

At the stairs to the Tryst Rooms, Will said, "We must go our separate ways. I will attend to the Lantern Tower. The Unseelie Court will attempt to break through the defences Dee has put in place. You must protect the queen at all costs."

Carpenter and Launceston raced up the stairs to take the route through the connecting buildings to the queen's quarters. The lock at the entrance to the Black Gallery turned with a clank as Will ran into the map room, locking the door behind him. He proceeded through Dee's personal library to his workshops and then out into the warm night.

Over hundreds of years, the random development of the palace had left a confusing ground-plan for those unfamiliar with its maze of passageways, courtyards, gardens, and buildings, grand and mundane. For Will, it provided ample shadowed doorways and dark places as he attempted to make his way to the Lantern Tower unseen.

The faint glow around the tower's summit still troubled him. He had heard the rumours of unearthly noises emanating from the tower at night, but he had always put that down to a widespread suspicion of Dee and his work.

He took a circuitous route to the range of buildings where the tower stood. Carpenter had been correct: the palace was overrun. Figures prowled through the quiet buildings and searched the open spaces. They ignored the sleeping servants and the members of the court, but culled all armed men as soon as they came upon them.

Unable to help, Will was sickened when he saw a good man's throat slit, a nightwatchman run through before he had even seen his opponent. He tried to estimate the numbers, but they were constantly and rapidly moving. Of the Silver Skull, there was no sign.

Whenever his fears for Grace surfaced, he mercilessly drove them from his mind and concentrated on reaching the tower. On more than one occasion, he had to double back through the deserted kitchens or into the banqueting house to approach from a different direction. Once he had to take refuge in a store filled with an odd mix of carpenters' materials and unwanted items from one of the ships moored at the palace wharf-fishing nets, grapnels, sailcloth, and barrels of pitch. He hid behind a pile of dirty rope while footsteps paused briefly at the door before moving on.

Afterwards, as he stalked along a dark gallery listening for fugitive footfalls, he was overcome by a disturbing sensation of being watched. The feeling grew so powerfully he was convinced someone was hiding in the gallery, but he could find no one among the furniture or behind the tapestries. Finally, as he prepared to leave with every hair on the nape of his neck prickling, he glanced into a large mirror. Instead of his reflection, he saw Malantha, watching him as though she stood in the room with him. Instantly, he was jolted back to the strange mirror that stood in the ritual room in Seville. He smashed the mirror with his sword hilt, but even in the glittering shards he could see her hateful gaze multiplied a hundred times. He hurried out before he was discovered, but the unsettling sensation stayed with him.

When he reached a window overlooking the courtyard that surrounded the Lantern Tower, he saw he was too late. Before the door at the foot of the tower, three shadowy figures watched a fourth who knelt over one of the pulsing glass globes, although this one glowed with a dull, ruddy light like a blacksmith's forge. The kneeling figure busied himself with some unseen activity before the globe. Whatever he was doing, the quality of its light altered repeatedly.

Will Dee's defences hold? Will wondered.

Four more figures entered the courtyard from the direction of the river. At the forefront, Cavillex strode purposefully towards the tower, a barely restrained look of triumph on his face.

The globe flared darker. The door opened.

CHAPTER 56

arpenter and Launceston sprinted along the echoing corridors of the upper floors as they wound their way towards the queen's rooms. From the windows, they watched the Unseelie Court dispatching guards with brutal efficiency, peering into rooms, darting through doorways, moving steadily towards the royal residence.

"Hold," Launceston insisted as they crept along the Blue Gallery. He called Carpenter back to a view over the lawns and paths that lay in front of their destination where Grace was pointing to the queen's chambers. Her head was bowed slightly, a dreamy smile on her lips. Beside her, Mayhew stood with his hood removed so that the Skull gleamed brightly in the moonlight.

"She is entranced," Carpenter said. "She cannot help herself."

"Still, she guides them-she knows the palace better than Mayhew. If the opportunity arises, she may need to be removed from the game."

"Save your bloodlust for Mayhew, Robert. That damned traitor deserves to be carved like a side of beef." Carpenter glared at the Silver Skull for a moment, all his secret loathing now directed towards his former ally.

No guards waited at the queen's door, and there were no bodies. The door itself was slightly ajar.

Fearing the worst, Carpenter pushed it open, his sword drawn. The windowless antechamber was dark and empty. They waited a second until their eyes adjusted to the gloom and then entered, but no sound came from the bedroom beyond. At the doorway, they hesitated, fearing the consequences of breaking into the queen's chamber at night, despite the seriousness of the occasion. Finally, Launceston grabbed the handle and flung the door open.

A flickering candle on a side table illuminated another empty room. Carpenter and Launceston exchanged an uneasy glance when they saw the bedclothes had been torn back roughly.

"We are too late," Carpenter said. "They have her."

Acting as if he had not heard, Launceston stood deep in reflection.

"The Unseelie Court is on its way! We must leave or they will trap us here!" Carpenter insisted.

"If the Enemy had already arrived, the guards would be dead at the door," Launceston mused. "No, they left to investigate the attack. Perhaps they were directed by ... someone."

"Then where is the queen?" Anxiously, Carpenter glanced back towards the antechamber, already imagining Enemy footsteps drawing nearer.

Launceston turned slowly, and then allowed his attention to focus on the candle. Its flame bent in a draft, although the windows were shut and heavy drapes drawn across them. Striding quickly to the candle, he followed the direction of the draft to the oaken panelling marked with the queen's initials. Along one edge was a dark vertical line. With his fingertips, Launceston eased open a hidden door.

"A secret passageway," he said. "Not sealed tight amid a hasty exit."

"Enough talk." Carpenter thrust Launceston into the passage and closed the door behind them with a soft click.

The passage was dry and dusty. Rats scurried ahead of them. They continued in the dark for a little way, wishing they had brought the candle with them, until a soft glow appeared ahead. Swords raised, they edged forwards slowly.

From the dark, a figure clattered a sword against Launceston's weapon. The fight was brief and the attacker driven back, until the half-light washed over them.

"Marlowe!" Carpenter exclaimed.

Relief flooded Marlowe's face and he lowered his sword. "Thank all the powers there are," he breathed. "I am more dangerous with a quill than a sword. I thought this was the end of me."

He led them along the passageway to a series of windowless rooms. In the first, Nathaniel waited with Walsingham and Dee, their faces drawn. Through the half-open door to the adjoining room, they could just make out the queen, seated on a chair, her head bowed, her face as white as Launceston's in the gloom. Without her red wig to cover her grey stubble she was a picture of age and impotence far removed from the regal figure they had all seen in public.

"She would not have you see her like this," Walsingham said quietly. He closed the door a little more, but there was only one light and he did not want to plunge her into darkness.

"Is it as bad as we fear?" Dee asked.

"Worse. The Enemy has the run of the palace," Carpenter replied.

Walsingham hung his head dismally. After a moment, he said, "The queen would already be lost if Master Marlowe and Master Colt had not raised the alarm. There is still hope-"

He was interrupted by a loud crash echoing from the queen's bedchamber, followed by more as the furniture was thrown roughly around.

"Trapped," Launceston said. "How long before they find the passage?"

CHAPTER 57

crambling out of the window, Will pulled himself up onto the roof. The lichen-crusted tiles threatened to crumble beneath his boots and pitch him to the courtyard far below. The door to the Lantern Tower hung open, and though Cavillex had ventured inside, Will knew it was the place Dee mysteriously treasured most and he would have installed a series of doors and defences.

The tower was one of the newest constructions within the palace complex, erected rapidly not long after the beginning of Elizabeth's reign by her decree and under Dee's strict design. Around the top of the tower, beneath the conical tiled roof topped by a weather vane, ran decorative battlements to give the tower gravitas. Will hoped the stone was secure enough to take his weight.

A golden dawn dispelled the gloom that would have made his task impossible. Weighing the grapnel he had recovered from the store of unwanted ships' items in which he had hidden, he steeled himself, and then whirled it around his head before loosing it. His first attempt didn't even reach the tower. The second time the grapnel bounced off the stone wall with a resounding clang that he feared might draw attention. The third attempt failed too, and the fourth. A quarter of the way up the tower, the globe's ruddy glare was visible through one of the windows.

On the fifth occasion, the grapnel caught on the battlements, slipped a little, and then held tight. Wrapping the oily rope around his wrists, he put all doubts out of his mind and launched himself off the roof.