Will held up a hand as the procession of gypsies slowed and a man in an ochre turban embroidered with black crescents and stars turned towards them. His dark eyes gave nothing away, but his hand slipped surreptitiously inside his robes, no doubt to grasp a hidden dagger.
‘Tell me,’ Will said to his companion, sweeping one hand towards the colourful throng, ‘these Egyptians, as you call them, travel through the loneliest places in Europe, across the cold, dark moors and by lonely lakes, over mountaintops and by the sacred wells and pools and stones, all the places where the Unseelie Court are at their strongest. Yet they are here. They still live. Why have they not been slaughtered, or turned to straw, or lured underhill by haunting music to emerge old and broken years later?’
Meg’s brow furrowed in thought.
The gypsy came over and gave a deep bow, as practised in pretence as any spy. ‘We are but poor travellers, blown hither and yon in this world by the winds of need,’ he said in a deep voice flavoured with an unidentifiable accent. His right hand still hidden in his robes, he held the left out, palm up. ‘Spare a kindness to help us through this day and the dark night that follows.’
‘I will do more than that,’ the spy replied. He held out the matchlock. ‘Take this firearm. It will earn you a pretty penny if you sell it at market, or you might find it offers you better protection along the dangerous roads of England.’
With one suspicious eye on Will, the man brought his hand out of his robes and took the musket, turning it over to inspect it. He nodded. ‘A good piece. And in return …?’
‘You allow us to travel with you for a while.’
The gypsy shook his head. ‘We do not allow strangers in our group.’
‘I am not a stranger.’ The spy placed a hand on his heart. ‘Te’sorthene.’
The man weighed the spy carefully. ‘You speak our secret language,’ he said with a hint of threat.
Will held the Moon-Man’s gaze. ‘In Krakow, three years gone, your people and I had a common enemy. The Fair Folk. We escaped by working together. I would hope we can do the same now.’
Nodding non-committally, the gypsy examined the musket again and returned to the caravan, where he engaged in whispered conversations with his fellows. After a few moments, he flashed a gap-toothed grin and said, ‘We thank you for your gift and offer our hospitality on our journeys across this land. My name is Silvanus, my wife is Sabina. We have two boys. You are welcome to travel with my family and share our food.’
‘Thank you. As we are among friends, my true name is Will Swyfte.’
‘We do not discuss the Good Neighbours around our fire, but as you raised the matter …’ Silvanus whispered gravely, looking past the spy into the open countryside. ‘Though it is summer, I feel the cold breath of winter on my neck. There has been peace in England for many years now, but this is a devil-haunted land once more.’
CHAPTER FORTY
‘IF YOU WISH TO SAVE MY LIFE, WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL me?’ Edmund Shipwash sobbed. His heels scraped on the crumbling stone parapet surrounding the blue-tiled roof of St Paul’s Cathedral, the rest of his body hanging out over the void, buffeted by the hot morning breeze. The winding, filthy streets of London throbbed with the working day’s rhythms more than two hundred feet below.
‘I am a man of contradictions,’ the Earl of Launceston replied in his whispery voice, his fist caught in the front of Shipwash’s emerald doublet. ‘Answer the question.’
Shipwash whimpered as his body swayed from side to side. Swooping overhead, the gulls mocked him with their cries.
‘Robert,’ Carpenter cautioned, shielding his eyes from the glare of the snaking river to the south where the sails of the vast seagoing vessels billowed as they left the legal quays. The scarred spy could see his pale companion loosening his grip. The Earl was imagining what their captive would look like lying among the throng in the churchyard, his body broken and bleeding.
Launceston sighed and nodded.
‘I have not seen Frizer or Skeres or Poley since Kit Marlowe was killed,’ Shipwash burbled. ‘No one knows where they are. Not in London, no.’
As we had heard, Carpenter thought with irritation. The trail to the devil-masked killer was as cold as Launceston’s heart. When they had escaped by the skin of their teeth from the supernatural forces haunting the woods to the south of Nonsuch, the two spies had plunged straight into London’s underworld, beating and burning and cutting in search of the answers Will had demanded. But there was no sign of the man charged with the playwright’s murder, nor his two accomplices.
‘And what of Thomas Walsingham, Marlowe’s patron?’ the Earl demanded.
A black stain spread across Shipwash’s breeches. ‘N-no. Not seen. Nowhere.’
The rich cousin of the old spymaster had something to do with this business, Carpenter could feel it in his bones. But like the other three men, Walsingham had vanished. His fine home in Chislehurst stood deserted.
‘Bring him in,’ Carpenter spat.
Reluctantly, Launceston hauled their captive on to the baking roof. Shipwash fell to his hands and knees and vomited. The Earl sighed once more. ‘Now what will the fine gentlemen and ladies think when they climb up here on Sunday morn for their weekly enjoyment of the view?’
Catching the scruff of the captive’s jerkin, the Earl dragged the man lazily to where Carpenter leaned on one of the tower’s buttresses. His sandy hair plastered to his head with sweat, Shipwash pressed his hands together as if he were praying to the bad-tempered man.
‘I am no angel,’ Carpenter said with a cruel wave of his hand. ‘If I were, you might have a chance of escaping the fate that awaits you.’
‘Please,’ the terrified man begged. ‘The Unseelie Court are hunting me? And I am to die, like Marlowe?’
‘And Gavell and Clement and Makepiece,’ Launceston sniffed, examining his nails. ‘Yes, you are on the list.’
‘I know nothing of any list!’
‘It is a list of all spies who worked with Kit Marlowe at the behest of our old master Sir Francis Walsingham. Tell us what matter you were engaged in and there may still be some thin hope,’ the scarred man growled.
‘But you know our business! Oft-times we have no idea who else works with us.’
Carpenter feigned boredom. He looked past the pall of smoke hanging over the clutter of poor plague-ridden houses near the Tower towards the tenter grounds on either side of Moor Fields. Long strips of crimson and popinjay blue fluttered in the wind where the cloth finishers were drying and stretching their recently dyed textiles.
Shipwash began to cry. ‘The Unseelie Court! I am a dead man.’
‘How fragrant it could be up here above the foul-smelling streets with the wind bringing the scents of the fields to the north,’ the Earl’s nostrils flared, ‘if not for the stink of piss and sick.’
The captive looked up. ‘I … I kept records. I know that is grounds for treason. But I thought—’
‘You thought you might blackmail someone, somewhere, with some secret or other you had gleaned along the way.’ Carpenter shrugged. ‘Well, we have all considered it at some time or other. Life is hard and a little coin helps it pass easier.’
‘But why is this important?’ Shipwash asked, standing shakily.
‘If we find why the Unseelie Court wish those named in the list dead, we may be able to discover who wields the knife,’ Launceston muttered. ‘Or not.’
‘You could protect me,’ the frightened man said hopefully.
‘No point.’ The scar-faced spy turned up his nose at the man’s urine-stained breeches. ‘The Enemy will simply find another victim to help break down our hard-fought defences.’
‘But if our devil-masked killer still thinks you are handy for a little throat-slitting and flaying, we may yet draw him out into the open,’ the Earl said with a quiver of excitement.
Carpenter sighed and rolled his eyes.
‘What? You seek to use me like cheese in a mousetrap?’ Hor
rified, Shipwash looked from one spy to the other.
‘For the moment, we will keep you safe,’ Carpenter snapped, glaring at his companion. ‘Now fetch your records.’
The two spies accompanied their anxious colleague down the three hundred steps into the nave. Outside in the rumble of cartwheels and the reek of dung, Carpenter pulled his cap low and sidled up to where his love, Alice, waited with a pot of New World paprika for the palace kitchens. ‘Tell Swyfte’s assistant we have our man Shipwash,’ he whispered. ‘He may yet have the information we need.’
‘Can I kiss you?’ the kitchen maid teased, her eyes sparkling.
‘No!’ The scar-faced man’s cheeks flushed, though it was more with excitement than embarrassment. ‘Alice, I thank you for what you do. But take no risks. I could not bear it if—’
‘Hush,’ she said. ‘If I can help bring this terrible business to an end and we can be together once again, then that is worth any risk.’
Full of gratitude, Carpenter could only give a curt nod and hurry back to his companion.
‘You are a fool,’ Launceston said with surprising emotion. ‘You play games with her life.’
‘Alice is her own woman. I have no more power to drive her away than I have with … you.’
The two spies held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Behind them, heels suddenly clattered on the worn flagstones surrounding St Paul’s. The men spun round to see Shipwash racing away through the crowds swarming into the nave in search of work.
‘Damn him,’ Carpenter cursed. The scarred man and the Earl plunged into the throng, hurling bodies out of their path. Past the bellowing preachers they ran, knocking over booksellers and upending servant girls, elbowing merchants and kicking out at children. But by the time they reached the cart-clogged street, their former captive was nowhere to be seen.
‘Ah,’ Launceston said, placing a finger to his lips in reflection. ‘That went well.’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
IN A FRENZY OF GLEAMING BLACK WING, THE CROWS FEASTED ON the fine banquet of young Edward Tulse. Eyes gone, white bone shining through the tatters of his face, the kitchen boy was losing his identity one peck at a time. A day after his life had been taken, the lad still hung from the gallows at Nonsuch, and there he would remain until another victim was chosen to take his place.
And that will not be long, Grace thought.
Hurrying silently along the first-floor corridor, the lady-in-waiting tried to avert her eyes from the grisly sight, but the deteriorating corpse said too much about life in the palace. The boy, who struggled with some deformity of the mouth, had been as good-natured as anyone consigned to labour all day near the hot ovens during the summer. He could never have been a spy reporting back to his secret Catholic masters.
The young woman paused at the end of the corridor and listened. Outside the crows had been disturbed, taking wing as one, a shadow of black feather and bloody beak passing across the sun. So soon after dawn only the kitchen staff would be up preparing the morning meal, but she could not take any risks. Everywhere she went someone was watching her with beady, suspicious eyes. And not just her.
Accusations were coming thick and fast to the Privy Council: of treason, atheism, unnatural acts, and any other crime that could be imagined. Men and women looked at their friends and acquaintances and wondered who was reporting on whom, and which person could be trusted, and who had most to gain by bringing another down.
‘You are well?’
Grace stifled a cry of surprise. It was Nathaniel, who had crept up on her as stealthily as a cat.
‘You said to be light of foot,’ he muttered. He looked pale, with dark circles under his eyes.
‘I did not say scare me into an early grave.’
‘This creeping around takes its toll, ’tis true. I have not slept well since we parted company with Will. At every noise, I feel they are coming for me in my sleep.’
‘What have you uncovered?’
‘I whiled away an hour with Jane Northwood in the gardens yesterday evening,’ he winced, ‘and someone owes me a great debt for that. After listening to all the gossip of every dalliance and slight and rivalry in the entire court, I began to feel my life drain from me. But by the time the bats were flitting overhead, a lull in the conversation finally appeared and I could ask my question. She tells me Master Cockayne is away in London on some business.’
‘Come, then,’ Grace said, excited. ‘We must search his chamber.’
Her friend’s face grew grave. ‘And if we are caught we will be hanging out there with Edward Tulse.’
‘Now, Nat, before the palace awakes,’ the young woman urged softly.
With a sigh, Nathaniel nodded. He led the way through the still corridors to Cockayne’s chamber, three doors from the spymaster’s own room. Grace listened at the door. No sound came from within, and after a moment she steeled herself and stepped inside.
The chamber was barely bigger than a box, with a trestle, a chair, two stools and mounds of parchments and books. The woman felt her heart sink as she surveyed the piles of papers, but she gave a weary nod to Nathaniel and they began to sift through them. Grace tried to picture Cecil’s adviser at work in the room, a small man, ruddy-faced and grey-haired, hunched over these volumes deep in thought. Where would he hide the play?
The young man tossed parchments aside with seeming disregard. ‘At least we will have some distraction from all this misery,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, what?’
‘Jane Northwood told me there is to be a masque, to take the Queen’s mind off the plague drawing closer to her palace. Costumes and music and dancing, with the most lavish scenery and devices and machines ever to grace Nonsuch. All paid for by the Earl of Essex.’ Nathaniel flashed his friend a grin. ‘If he cannot fawn enough, he will buy his way into the Queen’s favour. They say he has even hired Sir Edmund Spenser to pen the words and verses. Perhaps not the best choice when his Faerie Queen antagonized Lord Burghley so.’
The sound of footsteps echoed outside the chamber.
Nathaniel quickly moved to a corner out of immediate sight from the entrance to the room, but Grace stood transfixed.
The door swung open to reveal a scowling Tobias Strangewayes, rapier drawn. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snarled in a low voice.
The woman flinched from the spy’s gaze. Her blood growing cold, she approached the man, holding her hands before her. ‘Please, Master Strangewayes, I beseech you. This is not how it appears.’
Every fibre of her being thrummed with awareness of Nat only feet away.
The spy began to look around the room. Grace snatched out a hand to touch his cheek. The shock of that contact almost threw them apart.
Keep your eyes upon me, the woman silently prayed.
She forced a flirtatious smile, like the ones she had seen Meg conjure so easily. Her fingers remained on the man’s cheek, hot and tingling and so brazen it might have been an embrace. Uncomfortable, Grace thought, I have never been so forward before.
‘It appears that you are one of the traitors at large within Nonsuch Palace.’ His tone was harsh, and he began to look around the room again.
Panic made the woman’s heart flutter. Forcing herself to overcome her resistance, she parted her lips and stepped so close to Strangewayes that her body brushed against his. She balanced on tiptoes, wavering, so that he knew she could easily fall forward and press her breasts against his chest. Her cheeks flushed with awkwardness, but she widened her smile to turn it into a colouring of passion.
Strangewayes swallowed, his brow furrowing. His gaze still wanted to dart.
Keep. Your. Eyes. On. Me.
‘You are a brave and honourable defender of our Queen and I am but a lowly servant of Her Majesty, but we wish the same thing: her safety and security,’ Grace breathed. ‘I followed a hooded man to this part of the palace, but lost sight of him. Then I saw this door was ajar—’
The red-headed spy made to step into the chamb
er. Her heart beating faster, Grace leaned forward so her lips were close enough to kiss him.
‘If I was seen … why, I fear for my safety. I have no strong protector here at court.’ She held his wavering gaze until a faint smile leapt to his lips.
‘You have one now,’ he said gently. ‘My master sent me to …’ He hesitated. ‘To request some information from Master Cockayne …’ His voice tailed away.
At this time of day? Grace thought. It seemed that the Earl of Essex was taking advantage of Cockayne’s absence to look into the business of his rival, Sir Robert Cecil.
‘Would you walk with me awhile until I find peace?’ the woman whispered.
Strangewayes nodded, eager to be away from the chamber now he had been caught out.
Her blood throbbing at the close call, Grace flashed a glance at a rigid Nathaniel as she left the chamber.
She knew she had earned only a brief reprieve. Before she had been all but invisible; now that Strangewayes had discovered her among Cockayne’s things she had been noticed. One more false step would bring her immediately to the attention of the powers at Nonsuch, and then her life would truly hang by a thread.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
‘SOMETHING FOLLOWS US STILL. DO YOU SEE?’ SILVANUS POINTED down the rolling Staffordshire uplands to where the lush meadows fell against a dense strip of shadowy woodland. Will followed the line of the gypsy’s finger. Squinting, he could glimpse a grey shape flitting among the trees, though under the slate-grey skies at the end of the day he could not be sure it was not a trick of the light.
‘The same thing you have seen for the last three nights?’ the spy asked.
The man bobbed his ochre turban in a grave nod. His face was painted scarlet from the festivities in the village they had just left, where the gypsies had played their roles as fortune-tellers, magicians and performers. They had been given enough scraps of food to last them three days. ‘It draws closer with each day, sometimes appearing from the east, sometimes the west, searching for a break in our defences. It plans to attack if it can find a way in, or it would have left us alone long ago.’
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