The Scar-Crow Men

by Mark Chadbourn

  The spy looked back at the children chasing each other alongside the laden horses of the caravan. What kind of man was he to show such callous disregard for the lives of the people who had protected him? Meg appeared to care little about the harsh decision they had taken for the greater good, but Will felt it weigh heavily on him every moment of the day.

  The Moon-Man returned to his wife Sabina, who rode a horse with baskets hanging down its flanks. Their two boys, Goliath and Samuel, had taken a liking to Will, enjoying his tales of adventure. He felt another pang of self-loathing at their warm glances.

  He looked back down the slope, but the shadow was gone. Whatever was out there would be back soon, though, he was sure of it.

  He strode back to the slow-moving column where Red Meg played with the gypsy children. She had warmed to the Egyptians during the seven days the two spies had accompanied the caravan, sharing the travellers’ food round their fires under starry skies, and listening to the lilting poetry of their strange, secret language. On their journey across the flat Midlands plain, Will had seen his Irish companion peel away layers of deception to reveal what he believed were her genuine feelings. At times, he had almost grown to trust her.

  The sun broke through the clouds as the caravan made its way steadily upwards. It was hot and muggy with the threat of rain. The dusty air of the track across the lowlands gave way to the scent of fern and cool, damp vegetation. As a dark band of forest loomed ahead of them, Silvanus made his way back. He wore a relieved smile.

  ‘We are nearing a safe place,’ he said, dabbing at the sweat on his brow with a red kerchief. ‘We have made camp here many times before. The tracks through these hills are always dangerous, with footpads and rogues roaming constantly. But there are many places nearby that the Good Neighbours call their own. When we move so close to their realm, we always take more care.’

  Meg looked at the hillside and then down into the lowlands where the shadows of clouds scudded across the woods and meadows. ‘This reminds me of home,’ she said with a note of yearning. ‘Where are we?’

  The Egyptian pointed from the shimmering line of the River Dane in the green valley towards the nearest heavily wooded mountain beyond the hillside. ‘That is the White Peak and this wood ahead is Back Forest. In there is our destination. Lud’s Church.’

  ‘A church?’ Meg asked. ‘You are God-fearing men, then?’

  Silvanus grinned. ‘This church has been here much longer than the ones you know. It was old before the Bible was written.’

  ‘And who worships in that house of God?’ Will enquired.

  The Moon-Man only smiled.

  When the caravan wound its way under the cool canopy of Back Forest, the singing of the Egyptians grew quieter. The children kept closer to their mothers, wide, bright eyes searching the shadows among the trees. They could hear birdsong and the movement of small woodland creatures in the verdant undergrowth, but they all felt an odd weight upon them, as if the forest was holding its breath, watching the strange beings wandering into its midst. Will found the sensation unsettling, but not threatening.

  The two boys, Goliath and Samuel, stepped in close to the spy, taking his hands. ‘Tell us a story, master,’ Samuel, the older boy, whispered, trying to be brave. ‘Tell us again how you fought the bear with your bare hands.’

  Picking up Goliath, Will continued to hold the other boy’s hand as he spoke again about his exploits. Meg rolled her eyes at her companion’s heroic exaggerations and the weakness of his jokes, but she stayed by his side nonetheless, head down as she listened to his words. Glancing down at Samuel, Will had the strange feeling that he was looking at himself, on his way to hunt for birds’ eggs with his friends in the Forest of Arden. He was surprised by a brief but powerful pang of loss.

  The caravan wound through the ancient greenwood, the track wide enough only for one person at a time. Their low, rhythmic singing rolled out among the gnarled trees. Although the Moon-Men were moving up into the highlands, Will noticed the front of the column had started to dip down. Eventually he came to a set of uneven steps cut into the grey bedrock, so old and worn by generations of feet they might have been formed by nature. The steps led into a chasm that had been created by a great landslip, as wide as the height of two men, the bottom lost to the dark. The singing stopped as each man, woman and child began their descent. Shafts of evening sunlight slashed through the jumble of overhanging trees, illuminating areas of moss-covered sandstone on the sheer walls.

  The chasm was even cooler than the dense wood. As his eyes adjusted to the half-light, Will saw it was thickly overgrown with fern, bracken and long grass. When they reached the gulley’s stony foot, Meg looked up in awe at the patchwork of green leaf and blue sky as high overhead as the top of a steeple. ‘It is indeed a church,’ she whispered.

  Silvanus turned back to Will and said, ‘Only on the day of midsummer does the sun reach to the very bottom of this sacred place. They say that, in the time before the church-people came to England, men and women ventured here to bow their heads to old gods.’

  ‘A good choice,’ Will replied with a nod. ‘It would not be difficult to defend this place against brigands.’

  ‘There is more to this sanctuary than that,’ the gypsy said, looking along the chasm to where his people were already pulling their bundles off the horses. ‘Some places even the Good Neighbours must walk with care.’

  Silvanus went to help his wife erect their shelter. Along the soaring sandstone walls, the men unfurled brightly coloured squares of linen, draping them over arrangements of poles, while the women folded sheets for bedding. When they were done, fires were lit in the gathering gloom, the sparks swirling upwards towards the slash of cerulean sky. Huddled around the flames, the garishly painted women prepared the stolen poultry and trapped rabbits for the evening meal, their faces even more grotesque in the red light.

  Meg called Will over and they sat under a shelter, watching the flickering light throw looming shadows across the wall of the chasm. ‘How does it feel – a tool of the English state, now on the run and allied with the very outsiders your government and people have hounded?’ the Irish woman teased.

  ‘Life surprises us with different roles when we least expect it.’

  With a wistful expression, Meg watched the children at play.

  ‘I hear there is little love for Englishmen in your homeland,’ Will enquired from beneath the wide brim of his felt hat.

  ‘Would you expect any different after the massacres your Earl of Essex inflicted on my people?’ There was a crack of restrained anger in her voice. ‘Our lands sold off so that wealthy Englishmen can settle their plantations in Munster? Our women raped by your adventurers? The Irish have long memories, Master Swyfte.’

  ‘Yet here you are, helping the long-hated enemy. Apparently, life surprises us all with improbable roles.’ Will pushed his hat back, letting the flickering flames illuminate his features. ‘I wonder, do you truly help Henri of Navarre? Or do you aid Hugh O’Neill, with his ambitions to rule Ulster without interference? Or do you stand with the Gaels who just want blood for blood?’

  Meg jumped to her feet. ‘You have been a spy so long that all you see is politics,’ she snapped. ‘There is more to life than that.’ She marched off among the flapping shelters and disappeared into the dark at the end of the chasm.

  Will was baffled by the woman’s reaction. But when he made to follow her, he noticed an old gypsy staring at him. The man’s long white beard had been stained green at the tip, and there were bells in his snowy hair. He pointed a wavering finger. ‘There is a shadow with you,’ the Moon-Man said in faltering English. ‘It eats its way into your heart. If you do not rid yourself of it soon, you will die.’

  ‘We all die, sooner or later,’ Will retorted. But he was stung by the Egyptian’s words, for they echoed his own fears that his devil was drawing closer. As if Mephistophilis sensed his thoughts, the spy heard a faint laugh close to his ear.

  His mood
now dark, Will made his way through the camp to where the elders prepared the nightly defences. Chanting quietly, one of the gypsies sprinkled salt and herbs at the foot of the stone steps. Silvanus was looking up to where a patch of night sky was visible among the overhanging trees. He appeared to be unnerved by a rustling in the undergrowth near the lip of the chasm.

  ‘We will be safe?’ Will enquired.

  ‘As ever.’

  ‘But you are worried.’

  ‘I have never known the Good Neighbours to be so persistent. They like their mischief, but are easily bored and usually seek out other sport.’ Silvanus watched the trembling in the undergrowth subside, then shook his head and turned to the spy. ‘I fear something terrible is about to happen. It is in the cards that the women read every night. In the visions the old men have.’ He kneaded his hands together, glancing back up to the top of the chasm. ‘This devil-haunted land … What is happening? Are any of us safe?’

  Returning to the shelter, Will accepted chicken and a knob of stolen bread from Sabina, which he gnawed on deep in thought, his mood growing more unsettled by the moment. Silvanus could sense it; they all could. England was slipping back into the hands of the Unseelie Court.

  After the food, amid the crackle of the fire and the contented chatter of those around him, his eyelids fluttered. In the centre of the camp someone was playing a fiddle. The women would be dancing, their coloured calico scarves flying around their bare shoulders, their black hair lashing the air, the bells at their ankles jangling in a frenzy.

  As he slipped towards sleep, an odd thought struck him. The Egyptians had the same word for life and death: merripen. What did it mean?

  Through the dark of his head, Mephistophilis drew closer, whispering truths that he didn’t want to hear.

  Will was roughly shaken from his deep slumber. The fires had died down to red ashes and a strong wind blustered with a hint of rain upon it.

  ‘You must help us.’ Silvanus’ frightened face filled the whole of Will’s vision. When the gypsy pulled back, the spy saw many others standing nearby, watching him uneasily. ‘Samuel is missing, his bed empty. We have searched all of Lud’s Church, but he is not here.’ The Moon-Man glanced fearfully in the direction of the stone steps.

  Clambering to his feet, Will shook the last of the wool from his head. Meg was away to one side, comforting the boy’s mother. ‘He is a clever lad. He knows better than to wander off, especially at night, and in this place.’

  Silvanus bowed his head, his voice falling to a whisper. ‘Yet my son is not here.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  LIGHTING A LANTERN, WILL STRODE TOWARDS THE UNEVEN STONE steps, Silvanus beside him. The other Egyptians clustered back near the ruddy glow of the embers. Holding the lamp high, the spy glanced up into the impenetrable dark. Fat droplets of rain fell on his face, and he could hear nothing under the roar of the wind in the trees.

  ‘There are two defences, yes?’ he asked.

  ‘One here at the foot, and one at the top,’ the Moon-Man replied. ‘We will be safe as long as we do not cross the final boundary.’

  ‘Come, then.’

  Emerging from the chasm first, Will searched his rain-lashed surroundings in the dancing lantern light. He held a firm hand out behind him to halt the gypsy’s progress. ‘There is no need for both of us here. Return to the bottom and I will shout down if I find Samuel.’

  ‘I must help,’ the Moon-Man protested, his dagger shaking in his hand.

  ‘You would only hamper my search. I move quicker and faster alone, and too much noise would only draw the attention of what we both fear is out here.’ Will held Silvanus’ gaze until the gypsy nodded. As he descended, the man cast reluctant glances over his shoulder until he disappeared into the dark.

  Once he was sure his friend was gone, the spy set the lantern on the woodland floor just beyond the top step. ‘Let the boy go,’ he said, just loud enough to be heard over the gale.

  Beyond the circle of light, he thought he glimpsed a dark figure in the trees. He could feel its menacing presence acutely. Blood began to trickle from his nose.

  With slow steps, the lurker emerged into the light.

  ‘I know you,’ Will said. Recalling vividly the horrific events of that snow-blanketed night in Cambridge when he first met Marlowe, he felt anger at the torment this thing must have caused Kit over the years.

  ‘And I know you.’ Will could see an equally deep loathing in the Hunter’s eyes. In the crook of his arm, the Fay dragged Samuel, one sharp talon curled at the neck. The boy’s eyes were dazed, his lips working silently.

  ‘Name yourself,’ Will demanded.

  ‘Xanthus.’ His lizard tongue flickered over his lips. ‘Thricefold will your punishment be. For the shame you inflicted on me at our first meeting. For my brother, slain by your hand. And for Cavillex of the High Family, executed at your order. Thricefold the suffering for the misery you have caused.’

  ‘And your despised breed have torn from my life the woman I love and my closest friend. All your misery does not even come close to a balance for those crimes. Not if I killed another hundred of your people. A thousand.’ The spy drew his rapier and waved the point back and forth. ‘Draw nearer, and I will do to you what I did to your brother.’

  As the rain began to torrent, Xanthus dug his talon a shade deeper into the boy’s neck. Samuel mewled weakly. ‘You cannot hide behind that protective line. Give yourself up. For the boy’s life. Or stay there and have his death upon your conscience for ever. Either way, you will be destroyed.’

  Will watched the dazed look fade from Samuel’s eyes. As the lad glanced up at the bone-white face next to him, he was gripped with terror. Trembling, his gaze fell on Will and he cried, ‘Master. Help me.’

  ‘You will kill him anyway,’ the spy laughed dismissively. The warm summer rain pelted his face, soaking him to the skin.

  Xanthus shook the boy like a rag doll, eliciting howls of terror that stabbed into Will’s heart. ‘Your blind arrogance reaches new heights,’ the Hunter raged. ‘We are always honourable. Your kind are the kings of deceit and trickery and betrayal.’ His eyes fixed firmly on Will, the Fay lunged for Samuel’s throat.

  ‘Stop!’ the spy called. ‘Let him go.’

  Lightning flashed overhead, and the roar of the wind in the trees sounded like a great beast circling the three figures.

  The pale thing shook the wailing boy again.

  ‘Very well. You bleed like any man,’ Will called. ‘Come turn my sword red.’ Defiant, he stepped across the invisible line.

  Xanthus dangled Samuel at arm’s length, then let the lad drop to the wet turf. In a burst of white lightning, the young gypsy scrambled past the spy and threw himself down the rain-slick sandstone steps into Lud’s Church. Will watched a victorious, yellow-toothed smile creep across the Fay’s face. Dipping one hand into a pouch at his side, the Hunter tossed a handful of sparkling golden dust into the air, and as the wind swirled the glittering cloud around him, he disappeared.

  The spy darted forward to where his enemy had stood, but his blade cut only thin air. Whirling, he saw only swaying trees and driving rain and the black slash of the yawning chasm.

  ‘Damn you,’ Will cursed under his breath.

  Continuing to turn, he glimpsed a flash of Xanthus crouched near the foot of a twisted oak. A moment later his opponent was moving closer from the opposite direction, once again vanishing in the blink of an eye.

  The spy continually slashed his rapier in the hope that chance would aid him so he could carve a chunk out of his enemy. The thunder rumbled. Rain poured down his face and turned the ground beneath his feet to mud.

  ‘Farewell,’ the quiet voice rustled just behind his ear.

  Jerking round, Will was caught in the lamps of loveless eyes, warm, meaty breath washing into his face. Silver glinted, a dagger, the hilt curved into the shape of a dragon’s head, black symbols inscribed on the blade.

  Instinctively, Will rolled
away from Xanthus; too late. The dagger sprayed his blood into the driving rain. Throwing himself backwards, he skidded along the muddy turf, pain searing his chest. Yet, although the blade had ripped his flesh through his doublet, the wound was shallow.

  As Will searched for his invisible attacker, a thought came to him. At the instant the Hunter struck, the spy had glimpsed blood trickling from the corners of his foe’s eyes. Had the glittering dust taken a toll?

  He breathed deeply and allowed the storm’s fury to fade into the background. Locked in concentration, he turned slowly on the balls of his feet, each moment stretching, every detail magnified. Rain drifted down, flickering drops of white caught in the lantern light. Branches swayed, grass trembled.

  And then he saw it: a splash in a puddle with no obvious cause; the kind of splash a foot would have made. His enemy was unseen, but still there, still corporeal, a fitting target for cold steel.

  Will knew Xanthus would already have moved on. He had to be quicker. In a sheet of lightning, he glimpsed a shadow cast on the wet turf, and thrust his rapier into what seemed to be thin air.

  A cry rang out.

  The Hunter flashed into view, clutching a wound in his side. Snatching a small pouch from the folds of his cloak, Will flung a handful of the gypsy concoction of salt and herbs into the face of the writhing figure. There was a sound like lamb fat sizzling in a fire. Howls of agony spiralled up into the storm. Xanthus was on his feet in a moment, his face scarred and smoking, but he was lurching, off balance. Weakening, Will thought.

  In his fury, the fading Hunter flung himself at the spy, stabbing wildly with the silver dagger. Each frenzied blow drove closer until the blade nicked Will’s cheek. Recoiling, he stumbled, and in a flash Xanthus was upon him, pinning his arms to the ground.

  The Fay raised his dagger over his head. ‘For my brother. For Cavillex. For all the crimes committed against my people—’