The Scar-Crow Men soa-2

by Mark Chadbourn

  In the silence that followed, Carpenter thought the world had tumbled into darkness. His heart felt like it was going to burst. Tears burning his cheeks, he held Alice while the last of her life drifted away and then his body was racked with sobs.

  After a while his wits returned and he looked up to see Launceston watching him with an unsettlingly placid expression. The Earl held his mask in his left hand and his head was half-cocked, as if he was trying to grasp something beyond his comprehension.

  ‘You can never understand!’ Carpenter raged. ‘You feel nothing! And, God help me, I wish I was like you!’

  Screwing his eyes tight shut, Carpenter allowed his head to drop to his chest, so broken he was sure he would never heal again.

  And when he looked up, Launceston was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Holding aloft one lit candle, Will slipped into the darkened throne room, closing the door quietly behind him. Shadows flew away from the dancing flame. His footsteps echoing in the large, deserted space, he strode across the wooden floor towards the grand high-backed chair topped by gilt curlicues. The spy turned to his right and was confronted by a threatening figure, its shadowed features distorted by a harsh, glimmering light. For a moment, he stared back at his reflection in the large, silver-framed mirror. Gooseflesh prickled his arms.

  What watched there, hidden behind the faces of all who looked into the glass?

  Faint strains of lyrical music drifted up from the masque. The sound of laughter. A cheer of excitement. Applause. But in the spy’s head, the drum beat relentlessly.

  At the mirror, Will turned to face the darkened room and took six measured paces. He pictured in his mind’s eye a compass rose lying at his toe and around it an invisible circle. Orienting himself, he imagined the north road running from the palace gates and set down the lit candle. The flame flickered sharply although there was no breeze, and from one corner he thought he heard a rustle as though of a giant serpent uncoiling.

  The black-masked man collected three more candles and placed them at the remaining cardinal points around his imaginary circle. He lit the one to the south with his flint. When the chamber grew a shade colder, the spy recalled the chill in Griffin Devereux’s cell beneath Bedlam.

  The candle to the east flickered into life. Will’s throat became dry with apprehension.

  Hesitating for only a moment, he lit the final candle, to the west, where the dead go. All four flames bent away from the mirror and then returned to upright. His breath clouded.

  Will felt a knot form in his stomach. Turning to the looking glass, he studied his brooding reflection and the four points of light at his feet. Despite the unsettling atmosphere that had developed in the room, he couldn’t see that anything had changed.

  ‘Go on,’ Mephistophilis urged in the spy’s ear, the first time his private devil had spoken to him since its near-lethal ploy in Paris had failed. It was a sign, Will knew, that danger was close.

  ‘Quiet, now,’ he said firmly. At the mirror, he levelled his left hand, slowly moving it forward until the tips of his fingers brushed the surface … and then continued on. The cool glass flowed around his hand like quicksilver. Shocked, he yanked his arm back.

  Mephistophilis gave a low, throaty laugh.

  Drawing his rapier, Will stepped forward, passing through the looking glass with a sensation that felt like light summer rain. He found himself in the same empty throne room, but here the candles on the floor were extinguished and the only light came from the silvery rays of the moon breaking through the window.

  Where was he?

  The spy felt oddly disorientated; the proportions in the chamber seemed slightly wrong, the lines of the walls, floor and ceiling distorted, but not enough for him to find it possible to pinpoint exactly where the sensation originated.

  In the cool chamber, the sharp scent of limes hung in the air. Although Will could hear disquieting pipe and fiddle music fading in and out, the mirror-palace seemed still.

  Opening the door a crack, the spy listened until he was convinced no one waited in the corridor beyond, and then he slipped out. No candles were lit, but as he moved along the corridor he found he could see by the light of the brightest moon he had ever experienced.

  The Enemy, so close all this time and yet we never knew it.

  When Dee’s defences began to crumble, the Unseelie Court must have moved into their nest, as Marlowe had put it, still unable to storm through the chambers of Nonsuch but close enough to extract the people they needed to replace — like Grace — and to set their Scar-Crow Men in motion.

  Will’s skin crept at how the mirror-Nonsuch resembled the real palace in almost every aspect: but he saw no sign of life, no light, no warmth. He felt like he was looking at a stone-and-timber version of the Scar-Crow Men, an illusion of the human world but with something terrible lurking behind the facade.

  The spy glided down the stone steps towards the ground floor. Somewhere in that dark palace the Corpus-Scythe was being held, he was sure, close enough to the Scar-Crow Men to be used if it were needed.

  Where the steps emptied on to the long corridor, he spied a grey-cloaked, silver-haired figure marching towards the Great Hall. Will followed at a distance. When the hall door opened, he glimpsed a silent crowd of the Unseelie Court facing the far wall where the masque was being performed in the real Nonsuch.

  What would happen if the devil-masked killer was allowed to make his final sacrifice? Will saw how the Fay army would sweep across the hunting grounds to storm Nonsuch, while the High Family stepped through the mirror to take control of England, with their Scar-Crows as puppets. The horrors that would follow seared through his mind.

  His breath hard in his chest, the spy peered into the room. In eerie silence, almost a hundred and fifty members of the Unseelie Court stood mesmerized before a tall, slender male of such imposing presence that he could only be a member of the High Family, Will guessed. The Fay’s hair was silver-streaked with black along the centre, his expression fierce. As he communicated soundlessly, the Fay traced patterns in the air with elegant movements of his hand. A small creature resembling a hairless ape crawled around his body, its eyes gleaming with a golden light.

  Another hooded figure stood just behind the silver-haired leader, a woman. As Will watched, the Fay waved a hand towards her and she removed her hood. It was his Queen, Elizabeth, the same powdered face, the same red wig, but filled with more vibrancy than the monarch he had seen at the masque in the real Nonsuch. A Scar-Crow, he thought. The final piece in their plan. The Unseelie Court would replace the real Elizabeth with this simulacrum and rule unquestioned, with complete obedience from the entire population.

  Straining, Will peered around the door to see more of the hall. One sound, one too-sudden movement, and he knew he would be torn apart in the blink of an eye.

  From the rear wall of the vast chamber to the first line of Fay was a space of about five men lying head to toe, and in it, on a dais like the font in a church, was the artefact of human bone topped with a skull glowing with a faint green light. The Corpus-Scythe.

  Will saw his great opportunity, but to move so close to the Enemy and hope not to be seen was a madness that would have done his former Bedlam mates proud.

  His breath tight in his chest, he slipped into the gloomy Great Hall and dropped to a crouch, balancing on the tips of his fingers and toes. He cast one eye towards the ranks of the Unseelie Court.

  At the far end of the hall, the silver-haired leader held the attention of the Fay. Shrouded in his black cloak, Will crept forward, every movement slow and precise.

  Time seemed to stop. The spy felt his hated Enemy so close that he could almost reach out and touch them. One glance back, one slight turn of the head and he would be seen. Barely breathing, Will’s muscles burned with the effort of control.

  When he reached the dais, he kneeled, one hand on each side of the Corpus-Scythe. The door seemed a world away.

  As the spy raised
himself up a little more to grasp his prize, a series of high-pitched shrieks and squeals ripped through the silence. Will’s heart thundered.

  At the far end of the hall, the hairless ape-creature was bounding up and down on the shoulder of its master, waving its arms in his direction. Its cries of alarm rang up to the rafters.

  As one, the Unseelie Court turned.

  Will was overwhelmed by row upon row of searing eyes and fierce, cadaverous faces.

  As one, the Unseelie Court moved.

  Grabbing the Corpus-Scythe, the spy bounded towards the door in a billow of black cloak. He threw the door open with a resounding crash and raced into the corridor, his own footsteps drowned out by the thunder of an army of boots at his back.

  Flashing one glance behind him, Will saw the Fay only a hand’s-breadth away from his cloak, their eyes filled with hatred, their mouths snarling with fury, their silence only making them more terrifying.

  To his left, the shadowy entrance to the narrow stairs loomed up in the moonlight. Will threw himself into the opening, taking the steps two at a time. The clatter of hundreds of boots rang off the walls behind him. His Enemies were closing.

  Halfway up the steps, the spy tucked the Corpus-Scythe under his left arm and drew his rapier, whirling and thrusting in one movement. The tip of his blade drove into the neck of the nearest Fay. Amid a spurt of crimson, the foe grasped the wound and pitched backwards into his fellows. Will followed through with a stroke up and to his left, ripping open the face of another Enemy, and then he thrust once more into the heart of a third.

  As the wounded and dying Fay fell, they blocked the steps and slowed the pursuit of the Court’s army. Spinning, the spy bounded up the remaining steps. At the corridor, he heard his Enemies drawing nearer again. Blood thundered through his head. Grimly determined, he ran as fast as his feet would carry him, crashing through the door into the throne room.

  He was met by a terrible sight. Reflected in the great mirror, a swarm of white-faced, corpse-like things raced, grasping hands outstretched, mere inches from his back. He could almost feel their icy breath upon his neck.

  Sprinting the final distance, Will leapt directly at the mirror. Those bony fingers tore the air a hair’s-breadth from his cloak. Passing through the shimmering reflection, he landed in the real throne room. In one fluid movement, he slid the Corpus-Scythe along the boards, upending and extinguishing two of the candles.

  Turning, the spy slammed the hilt of his rapier into the mirror. The glass shattered, a thousand shards raining down to the floor. Will threw himself backwards, his eyes locked on the empty frame, still not believing.

  After a moment, his rapid breathing began to subside. He was safe, for now. But there was no time to waste.

  Snatching up the Corpus-Scythe, Will ran to the window and flung it open on to the warm late August night. The flickering fires of the Unseelie Court army were drawing ever closer.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  ‘Seal the doors. Now,’ Launceston barked across the echoing entrance hall. From the hidden pocket in his cloak, he pulled the pouches of herbs and salt that all Cecil’s spies carried and tossed them to Meg and Strangewayes. ‘Pour the concoction along the thresholds of doors and windows, anywhere where it is possible to gain access to the palace.’

  ‘This mixture will hold them only for a short time. The Enemy is determined. They will find a way inside.’ The Irish woman removed her mask and poured the carefully prepared grains along the foot of the door.

  ‘What is out there?’ Tobias stammered. ‘I … I saw lights, fires in the trees …’

  ‘If we live through this night you will learn everything you need to know. And if we do not live, the answer will be made plain to you in the most terrible way imaginable. Now, to work.’ As the sallow-faced Earl turned to leave, a thunderous hammering boomed at the door.

  The red-headed woman leapt back in shock. Peering through the leaded window to the circle of torchlight around the entrance, her fearful expression turned to one of bemusement. Swinging open the door, Meg called, ‘Quickly. The Enemy draws near.’

  ‘Do you think I am blind?’ Dr Dee roared as he strode inside. Raleigh followed, and two men Launceston didn’t recognize. ‘We rode through hell to be here. Only my skill and experience enabled us to break through the Enemy’s ranks,’ the alchemist bragged, casting a lascivious glance at the Irish woman. She gave a flirtatious smile in return. ‘And you,’ the magician added, ‘are forgiven.’

  Meg curtsied.

  ‘Why are you here?’ the Earl demanded.

  ‘Because you need me now more than ever,’ Dee snapped, his searing gaze a stark contrast to the hollow eyes of the dead creatures stitched into his cloak. ‘It was my intention to see you all fester in your own juices, until my associates pointed out that I would be festering alongside ye.’

  ‘Then do whatever you must, doctor,’ Launceston urged. ‘Begin the work of rebuilding your defences. I have a more pressing matter to attend to.’

  ‘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 o
f 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?’