‘What can be more pressing?’ the alchemist sneered.
‘Blood.’
The Earl strode away without giving the new arrivals a second glance. His thoughts were like the pristine winter snows, and a bitter wind blew through the ringing vaults of his mind. Returning to the Great Hall, he surveyed the members of the court and the palace workers, all entranced by the poetry of the masque. Launceston saw only meat upon bone.
At the front of the hall, in the centre of the twilit grove, a sturdy man in a peasant’s shabby jerkin was professing his love to the maiden on the bed of scarlet roses and blue forget-me-nots. Their words were an unknown language, their movements like the empty lumbering of the beasts in the field.
Making one rapid circuit of the hall, the ghastly-faced man saw no sign of the devil-masked killer, in either of his identities. The Earl knew the truth now. He understood the mind of his opponent, and the placid detachment it took to dismantle bodies, and the precision and the attention to detail. Launceston saw as the killer saw, and vice versa. They were of a kind. It was a simple enough observation, one that he could have made at any time in his frozen existence, and yet, in the clean, white world inside his head, he felt a troubling disturbance, a blemish, perhaps, or a crack.
As surely as the Earl put one foot in front of the other, events fell into place before him. There was only one path, one outcome.
Striding from the Great Hall, the pale spy ghosted through the gloomy, still palace to the chambers that had been set apart for Cecil and his work as secretary. The first room he tried was deserted. Without knocking, he removed his yellow mask and marched into the secretary’s own chamber.
His head in his hands as if he was afflicted by a terrible pain, the short, hunchbacked man stood at the window, looking out at the approaching fires. His crumpled face riven with sadness, the black-robed Robert Rowland stood by the cold, empty hearth watching his master. The record-keeper, his hands clasped behind his back, resembled a mourner at a funeral.
‘Leave us,’ Launceston said calmly, pointing his dagger.
Cecil whirled and looked down the length of cold steel in fury. ‘What is the meaning of entering my chamber unannounced?’
‘Urgency requires that convention is discarded. I am here to save one life and end another.’ The Earl’s empty, unblinking stare held the secretary’s gaze for a long moment, until, uncomfortable, the Queen’s Little Elf looked away.
‘I am your master. Leave now,’ Cecil demanded.
‘I have been cut adrift from the rules and regulations of the life I knew. At this moment, in this place, I answer to no man.’
‘To God, then?’ Rowland interjected, peering into the Earl’s face without understanding.
Launceston shook his head slowly.
‘You cannot make demands in my own chamber,’ the secretary insisted.
‘Then let us all stay together.’ The Earl looked from one man to the other. ‘Though know that you must live with the consequences of what you witness here. It will be inscribed in hellfire in the depths of your mind for all time.’
A shudder ran through the secretary. ‘You work for me no longer. You have always been a dangerous proposition, Launceston, but now you have crossed this line you have become a liability. And you must suffer the consequences.’
The Earl tested the tip of his dagger with his finger. A droplet of blood emerged and he studied it curiously for a moment. ‘So be it. There is a greater calling in life,’ he said, distracted. ‘There is a vast space within me that you have all filled with the minutiae of your lives. I do not claim to know or understand you. But now I hear a single voice ringing through that endless cavern. It is a new experience, and a troubling one, and I wonder if this is what it is like to be you.’ The sallow spy hummed for a moment, looking at the speck of blood this way and that. ‘To pass each day in the pain of emotion? How terrible that must be. I understand your actions a little now, and I fear for myself. For the first time in my cold life.’
‘What is this higher calling, if not God’s work?’ Rowland asked.
‘Why, friendship.’ Launceston looked up from the prick of blood and eyed the record-keeper. ‘Chill winds blow through this world, and I see no sign of God anywhere. Yet in the midst of all this misery, one man can still extend a hand of friendship to others, and lift them out of suffering, and offer them his strength, though they be strange and unfamiliar. Is that not the equal of any miracle?’
‘Blasphemy,’ Rowland hissed.
The Earl gave a humourless smile.
Cecil began to edge towards the door, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.
Launceston pointed the dagger at the secretary again. ‘Call the guards before I am finished with my business and I will take my ire out on you.’
The hunchbacked man came to a halt, unused to being ordered about in his own chamber, but knowing the Earl’s reputation too well to resist.
The spy turned to the record-keeper, raising one finger. ‘The work of the killer of spies has been much on my mind of late, Master Rowland. I imagine a bitter Catholic, trapped among his enemies, loathing the slow erosion of his religion, hating the state that inflicts such a cruel policy. And hating more the agents who carry out that state’s design. Am I correct?’
Rowland glared. His right arm twitched, his hands still clasped behind his back.
‘And then my considerations turned to the initial plan to slay the spies involved in a secret mission to the seminary in Reims, who may or may not carry with them information that could destroy the wider plot.’ Tracing his index finger along his right eyebrow, the Earl sauntered towards the hearth. ‘Who could possibly know the identities of those spies? Why, Sir Francis Walsingham, of course. But Sir Francis is dead. His records? They are missing. Who could have stolen them? Who would have access to them? Who would know their content?’
‘The record-keeper,’ the secretary exclaimed.
From behind his back, Rowland brought the curved ritual knife and waved it towards the Earl.
Launceston was unmoved. ‘But there was also the matter of the black marks upon the bodies of the murdered spies. The final piece of the puzzle. And then, this evening, I saw the ink upon the fingers of Will Swyfte’s young assistant and I began to wonder: what kind of man would have fingers stained with ink that he could smear, by accident, upon the bodies of his victims? A man engaged in constant scribbling. In accounting. In the keeping of records.’
‘You would be wise not to threaten me,’ Rowland growled, stepping back.
‘If I were wise, I would not be a spy.’ The Earl glanced towards the secretary, but still spoke to his prey. ‘You failed this night to murder my friend, and instead slew his love, but not in any ritual way that would serve your purpose. And you ran, and as you did, you imagined a new plan, did you not? You thought, who would make the greatest sacrifice, if this pattern were to be concluded? Why, the greatest spy of all. The master of spies.’
Cecil blanched.
‘You murdered my friend’s love at a time when he had discovered a spark of hope in his dismal, troubled life. You shattered his heart into a thousand pieces.’ A single tear trickled from the corner of the Earl’s eye. He touched it with his bloodstained finger, the two liquids mixing. He examined it with wonder. His first tear. ‘My friend!’
Launceston’s dispassionate face exploded into terrifying fury. Transformed into a storm of emotion as if all the lost feelings of an entire life had rushed back into him, he threw aside the trestle and thundered towards Rowland. A whirl of papers flew through the air. The blood drained from the record-keeper’s fear-torn face.
But then a glimmer of the devil-masked killer flared in his mad eyes and he lunged forward, driving his knife into the Earl’s arm. Launceston did not flinch. He gave no sign that he felt any pain. And with the blade still protruding from his flesh, he advanced.
With one fluid sweep from left to right, the sallow spy slashed open the neck of his victim. Blood gushing f
rom his wound, Rowland fell to his knees, clasping his hands in prayer.
The Earl did not stop there.
Launceston hacked and chopped and sliced and thrust and slit until he was slick with gore and what lay in front of him was barely recognizable. And with each blow, a little of the rage left him until his usual dispassionate expression returned.
The Earl took a long, deep breath.
Cocking his head to one side, he examined the mess at his feet as if he was considering from where it came and what it might have been.
‘May God have mercy on your soul,’ Cecil croaked, clutching on to the wall for support.
Launceston pulled the knife from his arm and threw it. The blade spun, glinting in the candlelight, until it rammed into the panelling, singing for a moment before falling still.
‘I have no soul,’ the Earl said.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
‘THE SCAR-CROW MEN ARE SURROUNDING THE QUEEN,’ STRANGEWAYES hissed from the door to the Great Hall, his hood pulled up around his forest-green mask. ‘At least, I think they are those monstrous constructions. Who can tell?’
Will Swyfte pulled the young spy aside and peered into the vast chamber. Centre-stage, the figure menacing the maiden tore off his mask to reveal another beneath, this one a hideous concoction of animal fur and leaves. A cry rose up from the audience, and many of the women turned away, their hands covering their eyes.
‘I will protect you from yon fiend,’ the peasant called out, drawing a wooden sword.
While most of the court and the palace workers were held rapt by the players, a few circled away from the crowd, moving from different directions towards the Queen. On her throne, Elizabeth’s eyes fluttered and her head sagged. She seemed oblivious to the masque playing out for her benefit. Beside her, Elinor whispered gently in the monarch’s ear.
‘We must defend Her Majesty. Quickly, now.’ Will turned back to the antechamber where the other spies waited with Dee and Raleigh. Although he had replaced his yellow mask, Launceston looked a nightmarish sight, his grey cloak, doublet and breeches sodden and black, and a bloody trail across the flagstones behind him. Beside the Earl, Carpenter stood in his sapphire mask, despair and determination fighting for supremacy.
‘You may leave us,’ Will said to Meg, who looked disconcertingly innocent in her doll’s mask. ‘You will find it too much of a conflict to protect a monarch so reviled by some of your countrymen.’
‘You mean you cannot be sure which way my blade will turn.’ The Irish woman pulled her scarlet hood over her red hair. ‘But I will play my part.’
From under his cloak, Will drew the Corpus-Scythe and thrust it into the alchemist’s hands. ‘Here, doctor. Do what you can with this. Its magics appear mysterious to me, but the Unseelie Court believe it can withdraw the spark of life that animates the Scar-Crow Men.’
Dee’s eyes glowed with an insane glee. His cloak of animal pelts swirling, the magician clutched the bone artefact to his chest and ran into a shadowy corner of the antechamber.
‘Now we make our stand.’ Will swung open the door into the Great Hall. ‘But take care where you point your rapiers,’ he added, casting an eye towards Launceston. ‘We shall not be thanked for skewering good, upstanding members of the court.’
‘How do we tell who is friend and who is foe, then?’ Carpenter snapped.
‘We have no friends, John. Only those who will harm us, and those who merely despise us. Let them make the first move and then act accordingly.’
Immaterial but oppressive, Mephistophilis settled on Will’s back, hooking his invisible talons into flesh. The spy sensed the devil’s disappointment at the repeated failures to oversee a horrible death. Perhaps this was the time, finally.
Will pushed his way into the throng in the Great Hall with the others close behind. Those he presumed to be Scar-Crow Men were approaching the Queen slowly, so as not to draw attention to themselves.
Mournful pipe music floated through the trees under the fake moon. The players had frozen into a tableau, the peasant disarmed, the unmasked beast-man looming over the maiden. The audience applauded.
Darting around the edge of the hall, the spies reached the Queen before the Scar-Crow Men. With a serpent-like hiss, Elinor dipped a hand into the folds of her skirts.
Red Meg, who was nearest to the maid of honour, struck like a viper, grabbing the woman’s hair and yanking back her head so that her own dagger could flash across the exposed throat. The female spy contemptuously dumped the dying Scar-Crow behind the throne, its skin growing mottled and black with the marks of the plague.
For one long, ringing moment, horrified silence fell across the court. When the furious cries erupted, Will and the other spies had already surrounded the stupefied monarch, their rapiers drawn and ready to repel any attackers.
‘Treason!’
‘Murder!’
‘A plot!’
‘They seek to kill the Queen!’
The voices were drowned by the ringing of cold steel. All around the circle of spies, the men of the court raised their swords to protect their monarch. Will surveyed the array of freakish masks – dogs, pigs, harlequins, wolves, glittering ensembles of jewels and gold – and realized it was impossible to tell the Scar-Crow Men from their human counterparts.
‘Should they come as one we will be overwhelmed,’ Tobias whispered aside.
Will was impressed by the resolve he heard in his former rival’s voice. ‘The great and good of the court are used to acting only in their own interests, Master Strangewayes. Each one here will first seek glory before they learn the advantages of humble teamwork.’
The words had barely left the spy’s lips when a man in a black and white embroidered doublet and a cherub mask lunged with his rapier. Will parried easily, but within a moment his blade was flashing in a blur to prevent three attacks at once.
The din of steel upon steel surged all around.
‘Can they not see we have our backs to the Queen and we are defending her?’ Carpenter snarled above the clash.
‘Their blood is up, and like any virgin boy in his first stew it has driven out their wits,’ Will called.
Distracted by one opponent, Strangewayes failed to parry a second and the rapier tore through the sleeve of his left upper arm, raising blood. He cursed loudly, but did not flinch from the fight.
Will parried low to his right, whipped up his sword to deflect a lunge from the cherub-masked man in front of him, and continued through to parry another thrust from a swordsman to his left. Barely had his steel stopped ringing when he returned once more to the first. On the next pass-through, he circled his rapier around the blade of his cherub-masked opponent and with a flick of the wrist disarmed him. The sword flew through the air, the women of the court scattering amid shrieks.
For long moments, Will saw only flashing steel and looming, garish masks. He heard only clash after clash until his ears rang. But then, rising above the clamour, came a high-pitched noise like a bow being drawn across a fiddle, the sound continuing on and on until his teeth were set on edge.
A man in a ram’s mask staggered, his hand fluttering to his forehead. Lurching back and forth like a drunkard, he pitched across the flagstones. The three swordsmen in front of Will hesitated and drew back a step, glancing at the prone figure.
Another man fell nearby, and a woman. Within a moment some twenty bodies were scattered across the hall floor. Dee had worked his magic. As the Scar-Crows dissolved into corpses, the masks hid the worst of the putrefaction but the exposed flesh of the hands and the rising stench sparked panic.
‘The plague!’ a woman screamed.
Will tore off his black mask and shouted, ‘Stay calm, good gentlefolk. Heed the words of Will Swyfte. I stand here as a loyal defender of our Queen. This is no mark of the plague, but a plot, now exposed.’
‘You have been charged with treason,’ a man called. ‘Why should we believe you?’
‘Swyfte speaks truly.’ A still-shak
en Cecil lurched across the room towards the throne. As he eyed Will, the spy could see his master’s sharp mind turning, sieving, weighing, seeking out the advantage in this situation. A flicker of a smile crossed the Little Elf’s lips. Turning to the gathered court, he called, ‘Where is the Earl of Essex? Is he not here to protect Her Majesty in this direst moment?’ He shook his head in dismay, sweeping an arm to the gathered spies. ‘Then thank God for my trusty men. For they each suffered hardship and false accusations to see this plot exposed. Master Swyfte is a hero, as we all know. Could anyone here believe him traitor?’
Launceston sidled up to Will and muttered, ‘I could slit his throat before he reaches his chamber.’
‘We will keep that option in reserve for now, Robert, but thank you for your kindness. Sir Robert Cecil is here to test me and make me a better man.’
The other spies stripped off their masks. Will saw the relief in each face, apart from Carpenter’s. The scarred spy looked as if he would never smile again. The secretary called for the ladies-in-waiting to help the Queen back to her chambers to recover, and then beckoned to the man who was once again England’s greatest spy.
While the bodies were dragged away, the spies rested, exhaustion clear in every face. Cecil beckoned for Will to follow him.
‘This is a time for forgiveness and understanding,’ the hunchbacked man said as he led the way through the antechamber and up the steps to the first floor. ‘We have had our differences, you and I, but much of that was undoubtedly caused by the wilful mischief spun by the Enemy’s agents.’
Will knew Cecil would betray him in an instant, if there was some personal gain in it. It mattered little. That was the game, and they both knew the rules.
‘I am sure any differences that remain can be smoothed over, for a small monetary fee and an extended period of recuperation in Liz Longshanks’ Bankside stew.’
‘Enjoy your time, Master Swyfte, for I will have need of you shortly. The Earl of Essex will no doubt remain a buzzing fly in my ear, and I must show Her Majesty that my network of spies is worth more than his.’ The secretary came to a halt at a window overlooking the hunting grounds. ‘I have half a mind to recruit his man Strangewayes. It would annoy the Earl no end.’
The Scar-Crow Men Page 42