The Scar-Crow Men

by Mark Chadbourn

  It was the perfect place to keep a devil-haunted man who had slaughtered an entire village.

  Hammering on the old, splintered door with the hilt of his dagger, the spy waited for long moments until he heard unhurried footsteps shuffle near from the other side. The door creaked open to reveal the Keeper. The face was not one Will recalled from his last visit five years ago, but the hospital’s overseer was cut from the same cloth. It was not work for soft men, and his features carried the same marks of easy cruelty and quick brutality. Unkempt black hair, a beard that had not been trimmed in weeks, a filthy undershirt and brown jerkin, he could have been any rogue found in the more dangerous streets of the capital.

  ‘I would speak with one of the patients,’ Will said, keeping his head low so his face remained shrouded.

  The Keeper hawked phlegm and spat. ‘Too early. Later. Family?’

  Will pulled a leather pouch from his black and silver doublet and waved it in front of the overseer so the coins jangled.

  Lizard-tongue flicking out over his lips, the man’s eyes sparkled. ‘Who do you want to see?’

  ‘One Griffin Devereux.’

  The light died in the man’s face, and his sullen gaze flitted around the deserted courtyard over the visitor’s shoulder. ‘Nobody here by that name.’ Will found the lie so obvious he almost sighed at the Keeper’s brazen stupidity.

  ‘My time is short, my patience shorter. Take the money. Buy yourself a shave and a haircut. Some clean clothes. You may then be able to look in the mirror without retching.’

  Growling, the man made to close the door.

  Will kicked the heavy door so the sharp edge smashed into the Keeper’s broken-veined face. Blood spattering from pulped lip and gouged nose, the man howled as if he was one of his own inmates. The spy dived in, driving his fist into the dazed face, and as the overseer went down backwards, arms windmilling, Will caught the neck of his filthy undershirt to lower him slowly to the cold flagstones.

  Whipping out his dagger, he pressed the tip against the man’s neck and leaned in so his face was close enough to smell the Keeper’s beer-sour breath. A droplet of blood rose where steel met flesh. ‘A good man has been murdered. My friends’ lives hang by a thread. Do not cross me,’ the hooded man hissed.

  ‘You … you are Will Swyfte,’ the Keeper gasped, his eyes glistening with tears of dread.

  ‘Take me to Griffin Devereux or I will cut you into chunks and feed you to the dogs on Bishopsgate.’

  Dragging the whimpering man to his feet, the spy thrust him across the gloomy entrance hall and towards the Abraham Ward. Pitiful cries echoed from behind the locked door. Will kept his dagger at the man’s back as he fumbled through his jangling ring of iron keys and then they stepped into a long, dark hall that reeked of despair. Scattered with filthy straw, with cells on either side for the patients, the ward fell silent at first. But when the Keeper slammed the door and turned the key in the lock, the throat-torn screams echoed as one as if a great beast had been woken.

  ‘How many patients?’ Will asked, casting his gaze towards the clutching hands reaching through the barred windows of the cells. His nose wrinkled at the choking stench that rose up from the Great Vault, the hospital’s overflowing cesspit beneath the ward.

  ‘Twenty-one.’ The Keeper’s eyes flickered towards Will’s blade. ‘On the books.’

  ‘And the one we are visiting?’

  The Keeper shrugged, said nothing.

  Some of the patients were kept in chains in their filthy, vermin-infested cells and allowed no contact, ‘for the sake of their wits’. The calmer ones were free to roam around the Abraham Ward for a few hours a day. Some wore little more than rags.

  ‘Poor wretches. Who pays for their keep?’ Will enquired, his attention caught by one inmate who had the fresh, unmarked face of a child.

  ‘Their parishes, or a family member, or a livery company,’ the surly man grunted in reply.

  ‘And who pays for our patient?’

  Again the Keeper didn’t respond. After a moment, he muttered, ‘I ask what I think I can get, depending on how fine their companions are dressed. No less than ten shillings a quarter. Some here have wealth. Merchants. Men from the law courts. We have a fellow from the university at Cambridge. One has been here for twenty-five years, another for nigh on ten.’

  The cacophony of the Abraham Ward ended with the slamming of a sturdy door. The sullen man led Will down a flight of stone steps to the hospital’s vaulted brick cellars. The ever-present stink of the cesspit mingled with a smell of damp and age. The Keeper took a candle to guide them past rubble and puddles. Rats fled into the shadows before them.

  At the western end of the cellars, a heavy door was set in the wall. Candlelight danced through the small, barred window.

  ‘He has many visitors?’ Will asked.

  ‘Only one in all the time he has been here. An educated man with the face of a boy.’ The gruff man looked Will up and down and added, ‘Good clothes like you. A cloak with crimson lining. Gold in his purse.’

  Kit.

  Turning back to the door, the Keeper hesitated. He tried to moisten a mouth that had grown dry and sticky, his eyes flickering around as he fumbled with his keys. The candle flame threw wild shadows across the salt-encrusted brick.

  ‘Leave me alone to speak with him,’ the spy demanded.

  ‘Gladly.’

  ‘Raise the alarm and you will die. Keep your tongue still and you will get your coin.’

  The man nodded, though Will could see the raw hatred in his eyes at his treatment. As he found the right key, the Keeper added, ‘Do not listen to his lies. He is the prince of lies.’

  ‘I will weigh all his words.’

  The Keeper snorted, clearly believing that Will had misunderstood the severity of his warning. ‘I tell you this because I would not wish it upon any man. Not even you,’ the man continued, his heavy-lidded gaze filled with loathing. ‘He has a manner about him, friendly at first, but he worms his way into your skull, and soon you find yourself thinking things no God-fearing man would think. He can twist your thoughts with words alone, and make you do what he wants. Make you his puppet.’

  ‘He committed the acts of which he is accused?’

  ‘He is capable of them.’

  ‘Why do you keep him here, away from the others?’ Will glanced around the dank cellar.

  The sweaty, overweight man bowed his head, his voice falling to a whisper. ‘On his first night, I placed him on the Abraham Ward. He spent the night whispering to a wretch in the next cell, a merchant, who cried and wailed for hours. In the morning, he was silent. He had plucked out his own eyes.’ The Keeper continued to stare at the door as if he feared it would suddenly fly open. ‘Devereux will never leave here. He deserves to have his head on a pike at the crossroads within the walls, but that will never happen. He has powerful friends. Sometimes I think they fear death will not hold him, and he will return to seek vengeance on his tormentors.’

  No sound came from the other side of the door. Will had the feeling that the cell’s occupant was waiting too, listening to their breathing, his own breath caught in his chest as he anticipated a hand reaching out for the door handle.

  Finally the Keeper stirred. He wrenched open the door and stepped aside to allow Will to enter. There was a space a little longer than the length of a grown man’s arm before a row of floor-to-ceiling iron bars. Beyond them was a cell larger than the ones that lay off the Abraham Ward, perhaps twelve foot square. Straw was scattered across the damp stone flags. Illumination came from a single stubby candle in a pewter holder placed on the floor against one wall. Rats rustled through the straw just beyond the circle of light, giving an impression that the cell was filled with many people.

  The door closed behind Will with a boom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  GRIFFIN DEVEREUX STOOD IN THE CENTRE OF THE CELL, LOOKING over his right shoulder at Will, with a smile of pleasant, innocent warmth. Will had expected
a monster, but he had the impression he was studying an eager-to-please child. Tall and slender, the inmate had a pale complexion, his eyebrows and short beard blond, but his head was shaven. He wore all black – shirt, doublet, breeches – with fine embroidery in gold; it was the dress of a nobleman, but the dark colour only made his skin appear translucent.

  As Will looked closer, he saw a faint shabbiness to the smiling man’s clothes, a touch of silvery mould, wear on the elbows and knees, hanging threads, from his time in the cell. Devereux’s hands had the delicate bone structure of an artist, and he folded the long, thin fingers together in front of him in a manner that was both studied and relaxed.

  ‘You honour me.’ His voice was gentle, and in it Will heard a deep sadness.

  ‘My name is Will Swyfte. I am a friend of Kit Marlowe, who visited you once.’

  Devereux nodded. ‘Poor Kit.’

  ‘Why poor Kit?’

  ‘His troubles weighed heavily on him. He longed for death. A release.’

  ‘You knew all this from one meeting with him?’

  ‘Kit and I met before, long ago. But I see many things that are not apparent to others. Kit, though, poor Kit, wore his misery clearly. He could not hide it. You know this.’ His tone compassionate, the prisoner turned to face his visitor and gave a slow, sad nod.

  Will attempted to get the measure of Devereux from his eyes, which were the colour of a winter sky over the moors. He expected to see deceit, cruelty, the kind of mask cultivated by men for whom violence was only a heartbeat away, but there was only heart-wrenching honest emotion.

  ‘How is London?’ Devereux said with touching hope. ‘Bright and filled with life? Have the fashions changed? What song is popular in the taverns? Can you … can you sing it for me?’ He caught himself, letting his head fall. ‘No. I do not wish to hear your answers. It will only make this cell seem darker still, and the hours reach out longer than they do. Have you ever been imprisoned?’

  ‘From time to time, but never for long.’ Will glanced around the confines of the cell, accepting what it must be like to live in a world with such oppressive boundaries.

  ‘Perhaps you understand, then, a little.’ The prisoner took a step away from the bars, putting his head back and letting his eyelids flutter shut, imagining, the spy guessed, the city beyond the walls. ‘Those who still have the luxury of freedom would think they would miss the conversations with their friends and family. The joys of a masque, or a feast.’ The poor wretch shook his head slowly. ‘I miss the sun on my face, in my garden on a May morning. The birdsong.’ He traced the notes through the air with the fingers of his left hand. ‘I miss the sound of rain upon the glass. Such a little thing, but when I sit here and remember, I cannot halt the tears.’

  Will shrugged. ‘London is a vile place at the moment. The plague is here. There have been many deaths. The stink … the smoke of the burnings …’

  Devereux smiled sadly. ‘You do me a kindness, Master Swyfte, and I thank you for your compassion.’

  ‘Why did Kit come to you?’

  Lowering his head, Devereux held Will’s gaze for a moment, his smile growing fixed, and then he turned his face away. ‘He thought I could shine some light on the darkness of his existence.’ He gave a faint, hollow laugh. ‘Light. Here.’

  ‘Kit wrote a play, about a man who sold his soul to the Devil for knowledge, ambition.’ Heeding the Keeper’s warning, the spy stood stock-still, his face revealing nothing of his inner thoughts.

  Without meeting Will’s eye, the prisoner extended a languid arm towards the shadows in the corner of the cell. ‘The stories that surround my life provided colour for the background to his tale.’

  ‘Just stories?’ the spy pressed.

  Devereux turned his back fully to Will, his head falling and his shoulders hunched. His quiet voice had the merest hint of despair. ‘When men do not understand the hearts of their fellows, they invent fictions to make sense of the world. It is an easy comfort.’

  ‘Did you teach Kit some of your magic?’

  Facing the spy once more, Devereux laughed bitterly. ‘There is no such thing.’

  ‘An incantation, the ritual lines and words drawn upon a circle? To summon a devil, as his character did?’ Will pressed.

  With a step, Devereux disappeared fully into the shadows in the far corner of the cell beyond the reach of the guttering candle flame. His voice floated back to the light. ‘There is no magic, in any form. Only the dark of the human soul. We do the things we do, driven by devils that we alone create in our hearts and minds, and then we layer our blame upon them so we can sleep easily, or sleep at all.’

  Will’s eyes narrowed as he tried to see into the gloom. ‘There is some truth in what you say, but not the whole truth. I have seen signs of what many would call magic. There are powers that are not rooted in this world.’

  A long silence followed. Will thought he had offended Devereux, but then the prisoner stepped back into the candlelight. The spy was puzzled to see a subtle change had come over the other man. The muscles of his face had tautened in a different configuration, only very slightly, but it made him seem almost another person: his cheeks appeared hollow, his brows falling lower over his eyes, which had hardened a touch. Will could no longer see the simple emotions in them.

  ‘How well did you know your friend?’ The prisoner’s voice was now much deeper, and had the country accent found in the villages of Norfolk. Devereux’s hunched shoulders and slight stoop suggested a farm labourer rather than the elegant, educated man the spy had first encountered. Will searched the prisoner’s face for any sign that this was a game, but Devereux appeared oblivious to any change.

  ‘As well as any,’ the spy replied.

  With a grunt, the prisoner shuffled around, kicking up the straw. ‘Not well at all, then.’

  ‘Every man has hidden chambers where he keeps the private parts of himself safe from the harsh observance of the world. That is no great insight.’

  ‘But it is in those chambers that the truth of a man lies. If we cannot pass behind their closed doors, we can never know anyone.’ Devereux flashed a surly glance.

  Folding his arms, Will puzzled over what he was observing in the cell. ‘And what did Kit hide from me that is important?’ he asked.

  ‘Places he’s been, and people he’s met, aye.’ Devereux chewed on a nail thoughtfully. ‘And his true nature.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Ah, well, there’s the thing. What is the true nature of anything?’ The prisoner gave a little chuckle to himself.

  Tiring of the back and forth, Will’s voice grew hard. ‘What is your true nature?’

  ‘I’m a simple man,’ the cell’s occupant replied with a shrug.

  Though his words hinted at deception, there was no sign Devereux was playing a game. This new character was so different, and the change so puzzling, that the spy could only assume that the prisoner was as mad as all the other men in the Abraham Ward, despite first appearances. Perhaps Devereux spoke the truth when he said he did not believe in magic, and the atrocity he had committed was nothing more than the action of someone who had completely lost his wits.

  A thought struck Will and he asked, ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Samuel.’

  ‘Not Griffin?’

  After a long pause, Devereux replied, ‘Griffin is here.’

  ‘Where?’ Will asked, his curiosity piqued.

  The prisoner rapped his temple with irritation. ‘Here!’

  Mad indeed, Will thought. ‘Which of you spoke to Kit Marlowe?’ he asked in a kindly manner so as not to annoy the man further.

  ‘Both of us.’

  ‘And neither of you spoke to him of magic?’

  Devereux made a circle with his forefinger and thumb, a sign the countryfolk used to ward off the evil eye or the attention of witches.

  ‘Or devils?’ Will continued.

  ‘Do not speak of such things!’ Crouching, the prisoner wrapped his arms
around him and glanced furtively into the dark corners of the cell. ‘If you say the Devil’s name he will appear.’

  ‘Tell me—’

  ‘No! I will tell you nothing!’ He thrust a hand towards Will as if he were wielding a knife. His face contorted in an animalistic grimace before he dropped his head, rocking gently.

  Will weighed if it was worth questioning Devereux any more. Before he reached a conclusion, the man in the cell stood up suddenly. Another change had come over him. Now he held his head at a proud angle, and there was a touch of cruelty at the edge of his mouth. Where as before he had exhibited the discomfort and rough edges of a labouring man, he now had the bearing of an aristocrat.

  ‘You have a changeable nature,’ Will said.

  ‘We are all many things, Master Swyfte. Thinker, worker, lover, student.’

  ‘Killer?’

  ‘That too. And I would wager you know as much about it as I.’ Tugging gently at his beard, Devereux gave a knowing smile.

  Reflectively, the spy paced along the small space between the bars and the chamber wall. ‘I would ask my question again, then,’ he said. ‘Why did Kit visit you?’

  ‘For the same reason any stranger seeks out another. To learn. Although,’ the prisoner added thoughtfully, ‘Master Marlowe was not so much of a stranger.’

  Will glanced at Devereux. ‘When did you first meet Kit?’

  ‘I met several of your associates before, Master Swyfte. Sadly, many of them are now, and recently, deceased.’

  ‘You speak of spies.’

  ‘That I do.’

  ‘You were a spy?’ Will came to a halt in front of Devereux, now eyeing the prisoner as he would a predator.

  The cell’s occupant tugged at his beard thoughtfully. ‘After a fashion. In that I did the work of spying, on a particular occasion, at the behest of my distant cousin, the Earl of Essex, who in turn was charged by Sir Francis Walsingham. But it was not my employment as such. I agreed to aid my country, and was paid handsomely. It changed my life in a great many ways, for good and ill.’