The Scar-Crow Men Read online

  ‘I see and hear many things in my business.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Will?’ Grace was standing at the corner of the tower with a hurt expression. She looked from Will to the woman who stood so close, they could have been involved in a lovers’ tryst.

  ‘Return to the graveside, Grace. I will be back soon,’ he said with a sharpness that he instantly regretted.

  With a cold expression, Grace held Margaret’s gaze for a moment. The Irish woman gave her a smile that Will only ever saw women share among themselves; it circumscribed a position of strength.

  Once Grace had gone, Will hardened. ‘Now. Your business.’

  With a skip in her step, the flame-haired woman moved away from the wall into the warm sun. ‘I am a wife and I tend my home well, Master Swyfte. I only meant that as I go about my chores I keep my eyes and ears open to the gossip of my neighbours.’

  ‘And one of your neighbours threatened to kill me?’ Will mocked. The woman still gave no sign of lying, but he didn’t believe her. He had started to accept that she was as skilled at deceit as he was.

  Will was puzzled to see her come to a sudden halt and the blood drain from her face. ‘I am innocent,’ she said in a whispery voice. The spy realized her widening eyes were looking past him to the yews.

  A figure stood in the stark interplay of shadow and sunlight beneath the swaying trees, framed by ragged gravestones. The spy’s stomach knotted when he saw it was Jenny, followed by a moment of excruciating dislocation when he realized it wasn’t Jenny at all. Those same black, hateful eyes fell upon him as they had in the Rose Theatre.

  Will sensed Margaret hurry away, but his attention was locked on the cruel imitation. He felt a sudden attraction, a part of him desperately trying to make up for the years of grief and yearning. But another part of him was repulsed, and the point where the two sides met left him sickened.

  ‘Is this it, then? I have my own devil now to torment me?’ the spy whispered to himself.

  Drawing his rapier, Will ran into the dense copse of yews only to find that whatever had waited there was gone. Only a wisp of brimstone remained in the air to show it had ever been. But he could feel its black eyes on him even then, and a deep, chilling dread that was so tightly wound around him he was afraid it would never leave.

  Will already understood what Marlowe was describing in the play he had half heard the other night at the Rose: to want and never gain was a special and very personal hell.

  CHAPTER TEN

  REACHING THE TOP OF THE ROPE, WILL HAULED HIMSELF SOUNDLESSLY over the battlements into the shadows of the walkway overlooking the western road out of London. Crouching, he peered along the wall to where the guard leaned against his pike under the glow of a gently swaying lantern. The man’s head nodded, and the spy heard the drone of juddering snores.

  Easing the rope up, Will tested the grapnel was secure and then lowered himself down into the deserted Palace of Whitehall. He would have found it easier to gain access by hammering on the eastern gate to rouse the guards, but he didn’t want anyone to know he’d been there.

  Slipping through the dark among the jumble of stone and timber-framed palace buildings, Will felt that he had spent the last two days trying to navigate sandbanks in the fog. He glimpsed meaning among the shifting strands of devils and murder and knife-wielding masked men, but it disappeared before he could tack a course towards it. One beacon remained clear, though: the Unseelie Court.

  The scarecrow staring with Marlowe’s eyes. The pale figures pursuing him with lethal intent.

  The empty palace with its ringing halls and blank windows was the wrong place to contemplate the stuff of nightmares. Even though the Queen and the court had long since fled London to escape the plague, Will felt he was being watched.

  Creeping to the edge of a large cobbled courtyard, he let his eyes rise up the tall tower that stood at its centre. At the very top of the Lantern Tower, as it had always been known for no good reason that he could see, a faint green glow rolled and folded, like the lights people said they often glimpsed in the northern skies.

  Will felt his stomach knot and an ache rise deep in the back of his head. The sole occupant of that tower burned so fiercely not even stone walls could contain her power.

  Always alert, four steely-eyed guards in helmet and cuirass walked the courtyard, hands only an inch from pike or musket. The tower itself was filled with lethal traps, many newly installed, but it was the unseen defences that were the most deadly, Will knew. The court’s former alchemist, Dr John Dee, had ensured nothing could get in and the prisoner could never get out, for if that were to happen England would fall.

  England’s guilty secret.

  Few people knew the tower’s secret, only Her Majesty and a handful of her most trusted men. But Will had learned the truth, and it had eaten away at him for five years now.

  Her protectors slaughtered, the immaculate, terrifying Queen of the Unseelie Court had been stolen in an act of grand betrayal during a convocation to discuss peace in the generations-long struggle between men and their supernatural foe. An uneasy truce was no use to a nation caught between the twin poles of fear and ambition, and Queen Elizabeth and her advisers had realized her forbidding counterpart could become the fulcrum of Dr Dee’s magical defences, a shield that could keep the great Enemy at bay for evermore.

  Watching the green light wash out, Will imagined the Fay Queen sitting in her cell, seething, plotting, waiting for the moment when her imprisonment would end and a new reign of terror could be unleashed upon the land.

  Dread and grief intermingling, the spy’s mind flashed back to a small hamlet not far from Stratford, beside the green, green Avon, where he had stood next to Kit Marlowe in front of a dense wall of briar reaching up higher than his head. Some of the twining growth was as thick as his arm, the thorns as sharp as knives. It had not been there the day before.

  ‘I am ready,’ the playwright had said, holding his chin up defiantly.

  Will had glimpsed the fear in the young man’s eyes and nodded. ‘I am sure you are. But it is one thing to learn about the Unseelie Court in the safety of the Palace of Whitehall and another to meet them in the pale, grave-tainted flesh.’

  Marlowe swung the axe above his head and began to hack through the dense vegetation. What sounded like a muffled scream echoed through the briar with each blow. ‘They will not scare me,’ the young man replied.

  Will hoped Sir Francis Walsingham and his strange, mad aide, Dr Dee, were correct and Marlowe was ready for his first encounter with the supernatural foe. He had seen other men destroyed by their first brush with the nightmarish force. ‘Remember,’ he said gently, ‘the mind rebels against the slightest contact with those foul creatures. They are beyond all reasoning, the source of all fear, the secret behind all the most blood-chilling stories told on a winter’s night since the days of your ancestors.’

  ‘I know,’ Kit gasped, sweat dripping as he hacked. ‘There is some quality to them that can drive a man mad. But I am prepared.’

  In the centre of the briar wall, the two men heard the muffled screams more clearly. Marlowe blanched, pointing. Arms stretched wide, a man hung in the twisting strands, his eyes wide with terror. Only when he stepped closer did Will see that the briar was driven through the man’s flesh, through his very body, piercing one cheek, or one side, or one leg, and bursting out of the other. Small thorny twists had stitched his lips together so that however much he wanted to express his agony, he could not cry out.

  ‘What do we do?’ Marlowe whispered, sickened.

  ‘There is nothing we can do. The Unseelie Court have turned cruelty into a fine art.’ With a soothing smile, Will stepped forward and plunged his dagger into the poor soul’s heart.

  Marlowe crumpled for a moment, but when he had recovered, he hacked through the remaining briar with angry determination. On the other side, the two men saw a quaint thatched cottage with whitewashed walls and a trail of woodsmoke rising fro
m the chimney. A young woman stood by the door, pretty but heavy-set in the manner of country girls. She smiled at the new arrivals and brushed down her corn-coloured skirts.

  But Will and Kit couldn’t tear their gaze away from the figure who stood beside her. Tall, with long brown hair, sallow skin and doublet and breeches of grey, he looked back with fierce contempt almost masked by a supercilious smile. Will felt his stomach churn, and he saw the blood trickling from his companion’s nose. Marlowe was shaking and Will placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady him. ‘Be resolute,’ he whispered.

  The playwright nodded, drawing his rapier. The two men advanced on the pale being, but they had barely covered half the distance to the cottage when the Fay leaned in to whisper in the woman’s ear.

  ‘No,’ Will shouted, breaking into a run.

  A shadow crossed the woman’s face. The supernatural being gave a cruel smile and in the blink of an eye he was gone.

  When the two men reached the woman, she was humming a pleasant song and rocking gently from side to side. ‘Did you meet my husband?’ she asked in a musical voice. ‘He has been punished for kissing that harlot Rose Culpepper.’

  ‘You called that thing in?’ Will asked, unable to hide his sadness at the pain the woman had inflicted upon herself and her love in her hurt.

  She nodded and beckoned. ‘Come indoors and see my beautiful baby. He sleeps so quietly.’

  Marlowe looked full of dread.

  The two men followed the good wife into the warm, smoky interior. She went straight to a crib near the hearth. ‘My boy, my Daniel,’ she said with love.

  In the crib was a twisted briar mockery of a baby, blackened and covered in thorns, but it writhed as its mother cooed over it. Sickened, Marlowe turned away.

  ‘That is a beautiful child, indeed,’ Will said. ‘Now, my friend would like to see your garden, while I attend to a matter here.’

  The woman smiled, but her eyes showed little sanity left. Hesitantly, Kit led her outdoors, casting troubled glances at his companion.

  Once they had gone, Will snatched the changeling from the crib. It spat and lashed out tiny, thorny hands. He hurled it on to the fire where it cried like a real baby before it was consumed by the flames.

  Barely had the last screech died away when Will heard Marlowe shouting. He rushed out into the small herb garden, only to see his friend hunched over the bank of the rushing spring river that curled past the cottage.

  ‘She threw herself in,’ Kit gasped, reeling.

  ‘Though her mind was destroyed, a part of her knew the truth. That is why we fight the foul Unseelie Court. They prise open the weaknesses in the human heart and destroy from within. They have done this since man first walked England’s green land and they will try to do it until judgement day if we are not vigilant.’

  After a long silence, Marlowe said quietly, ‘And I will stand by your side, God help me. Though my life be corrupted by dread from this moment on, I do what I must for my fellow man.’

  Proud but sad, Will had clapped his friend on the shoulder and led him back to their horses with the promise of a night of wine to dull the memories, but they both knew Kit’s life was changed for ever.

  Will flashed back to the moonlit courtyard, his heart heavy with grief at his friend’s passing. That day in Stratford their friendship had been forged, for they had shared an experience, however terrible, that set them apart from their fellow men. Despite Will’s fears, Marlowe had survived and grown to be an effective spy. A good man, a sad man, and now he was gone.

  What part, if any, had the Unseelie Court played in his friend’s demise?

  Looking to the top of the Lantern Tower, Will whispered, ‘Kit will be avenged. And if I find your pale hands stained in his blood, you will pay a thousandfold. I vow this now.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘WHO KILLED CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE?’ CARPENTER ASKED IN A low voice. The guttering candle in the centre of the beer-stained trestle illuminated the unease in his features.

  Enveloped in the shadows that engulfed the rest of the small, hot, low-ceilinged room, Will and Launceston leaned in to the dying flame.

  ‘We have a few suspects,’ Will mused, his mood as dark as when he had left the Palace of Whitehall. ‘Frizer, the one who stood accused at the inquest. Poley, his associate, a man we all know is capable of anything.’ He paused, damping down his anger. ‘Or even Thomas Walsingham, Kit’s patron. There were always rumours that their relationship was more than just business, but who knows? I saw little sign of grief in him. Yet Kit’s young friend Tom said Marlowe was gripped with a fear for his own life that very same morning. Would he then proceed to a meeting with the men he was afraid would kill him?’

  ‘When your attacker’s devil-mask slipped at the Rose, you say you thought you knew the face beneath?’ Carpenter enquired.

  ‘’Twas a glimpse. The merest suggestion of recognition. I would not say more than that.’

  ‘Hrrrm,’ the Earl said thoughtfully. ‘One spy dead, another attacked. But what part does this devil of yours play? This vision you had of the Unseelie Court?’

  Will listened to the sound of energetic lovemaking reverberating through the ceiling from the room of one of Liz Longshanks’ doxies. The bedroom at the top of the Bankside stew, and his favourite comely companions, pulled at him, but instead he was there, sequestered in the private room at the back where the rich merchants drank before indulging their carnal desires. ‘I have thought about this a great deal, and I have come to believe that it was a warning.’

  ‘From whom?’ Launceston breathed.

  ‘Kit Marlowe. He knew nothing of conjuring devils. All he conjured was words. I have no idea how he could have brought that … that thing,’ the spy flinched at a painful vision of Jenny, black eyes gleaming, ‘into existence on the stage.’

  ‘There are plenty in the government and the court who considered him devilish for his outspoken views,’ the white-faced man continued.

  ‘The vision felt like it was a portent, perhaps, or some kind of guidance, though it had the feel of a dream. Fractured. Symbolic. Off-kilter.’

  ‘Then what use is it?’ Carpenter sniffed.

  Frustrated, Will reflected for a moment, then plucked a new candle from the mantelpiece and lit it with the dying flame of the old. The shadows in the room fled to the corners. From under his stool, he pulled the coarse sack young Tom had given him at the funeral, and tipped the sheaf of papers on to the table. Carpenter leaned past him to read the title scrawled on the front in Marlowe’s familiar flourish.

  ‘The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Why, it is only the play Marlowe presented at the Rose the other evening,’ the scar-faced man snorted. He went to a pewter tray on a stool in the corner and poured himself a goblet of malmsey wine.

  With deft fingers, Will plucked the folded letter from under the string around the bundle. ‘Kit was keen that I received this work, and he has never given me one of his plays before.’ Holding the letter close to the candle, he scanned it quickly. The words had been written at speed, scrawled feverishly and at times blotted where the ink hadn’t dried before the letter was folded.

  I fear this may be our last communication, my dear, trusted friend. The truth lies within. But seek the source of the lies without. Trust no one.

  By the time Will had read the note, Carpenter was once again at his shoulder, his brow now furrowed. ‘Trust no one? This sounds to me very like a plot.’

  ‘That explains why Kit was not at his first night. He was in hiding.’ Will got up and went to the tray to pour himself some wine. He placed one foot upon a stool and sipped his drink, brooding.

  Launceston drew his long, white fingers over the sheaf, stopping to tap on the wax that sealed the string. ‘A secret message, then. A warning,’ the Earl suggested in his whispery voice.

  ‘Trust no one,’ Carpenter repeated. ‘He states the obvious, for once. Damn this world we inhabit. Everyone keeps secrets, separate lives. We know li
ttle even of those we depend upon.’

  ‘As in life,’ Will said with a shrug.

  Carpenter drained his drink in one go and slammed the goblet down on the trestle. ‘We expend all our energies keeping secrets from each other,’ he snarled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘What would our old master Sir Francis have said? Since his death, our world has fallen into darkness, and we all march on the short road to hell.’

  Will became aware of Launceston scrutinizing him. He had come to believe the Earl was acutely sensitive to the emotions of others because he couldn’t feel or understand his own. ‘What is it, Robert?’ he asked, taking a sip of his wine.

  The Earl spread the fingers of both hands on the trestle before him. ‘I am thinking about the Irish woman you encountered in the churchyard, the one who spoke to your assistant at the Rose. She knows of the plot, somehow. You did not recognize her?’

  ‘He has forgotten more women who have graced his bed than you or I have ever encountered,’ Carpenter muttered.

  ‘She is not familiar, though I will pay strict attention if she crosses my path again. Perhaps she is a friend of Kit’s.’ He returned his gaze to the letter. The truth lies within. The playwright always chose his words with precision.

  Launceston was thinking the same, Will could see. ‘If Marlowe could have written clearly, he would, but he was afraid his message would be intercepted,’ the Earl noted, tapping one scrupulously clean fingernail on the table. ‘And so, perhaps, he hid clues to what he knew within the words of his own play? The truth lies within would suggest that approach.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ As Will swigged his wine, he was struck by a revelation. ‘At the graveside, Kit’s patron told me that Sir Francis Walsingham’s grave at St Paul’s had been defaced. It puzzled me at the time. Who would do such a thing? But now I wonder … Tom met Kit at the river, not far from the cathedral.’

  Carpenter leaned in, eager. ‘Marlowe could have left another message. He would have known such an act would reach our ears eventually.’