The Silver Skull

by Mark Chadbourn

  As they entered the Thames estuary, Will ordered Courtenay to put them ashore before they reached Tilbury. The grey-sailed ship would take the most direct route, slowing to navigate the upper reaches of the river to London Bridge before the Enemy moved to smaller boats to reach the palace. They had a chance to make up some time on the faster ship.

  Parched by the dust, they finally reached the city walls during the hour before dawn. Admitted by the night watch, they thundered through the deserted streets to the west where the palace sprawled hard against the river. As they neared, Will’s attention was caught by the inexplicable and troubling faint green halo around the Lantern Tower.

  Dead guards littered the eastern gateway, features ravaged by disease. Without slowing to examine the corpses, Will, Launceston, and Carpenter continued to the yard next to the Black Gallery.

  “No sounds of resistance,” Will whispered. “The guards have been surprised and defeated before they could sound the alarm.”

  Carpenter indicated through the archway to figures making their way among the adjoining buildings. “Our arrival was noticed,” he said. “The palace is overrun. Is it too late?”

  “Courtenay will soon be here to raise the alarm and seal off the palace, as ordered.” Will directed them towards the Black Gallery. “Till then we must do what we can.”

  “They will try to hunt us down, but their attention is elsewhere,” Launceston said, once they were inside. “That will help us evade capture.”

  At the stairs to the Tryst Rooms, Will said, “We must go our separate ways. I will attend to the Lantern Tower. The Unseelie Court will attempt to break through the defences Dee has put in place. You must protect the queen at all costs.”

  Carpenter and Launceston raced up the stairs to take the route through the connecting buildings to the queen’s quarters. The lock at the entrance to the Black Gallery turned with a clank as Will ran into the map room, locking the door behind him. He proceeded through Dee’s personal library to his workshops and then out into the warm night.

  Over hundreds of years, the random development of the palace had left a confusing ground-plan for those unfamiliar with its maze of passageways, courtyards, gardens, and buildings, grand and mundane. For Will, it provided ample shadowed doorways and dark places as he attempted to make his way to the Lantern Tower unseen.

  The faint glow around the tower’s summit still troubled him. He had heard the rumours of unearthly noises emanating from the tower at night, but he had always put that down to a widespread suspicion of Dee and his work.

  He took a circuitous route to the range of buildings where the tower stood. Carpenter had been correct: the palace was overrun. Figures prowled through the quiet buildings and searched the open spaces. They ignored the sleeping servants and the members of the court, but culled all armed men as soon as they came upon them.

  Unable to help, Will was sickened when he saw a good man’s throat slit, a nightwatchman run through before he had even seen his opponent. He tried to estimate the numbers, but they were constantly and rapidly moving. Of the Silver Skull, there was no sign.

  Whenever his fears for Grace surfaced, he mercilessly drove them from his mind and concentrated on reaching the tower. On more than one occasion, he had to double back through the deserted kitchens or into the banqueting house to approach from a different direction. Once he had to take refuge in a store filled with an odd mix of carpenters’ materials and unwanted items from one of the ships moored at the palace wharf—fishing nets, grapnels, sailcloth, and barrels of pitch. He hid behind a pile of dirty rope while footsteps paused briefly at the door before moving on.

  Afterwards, as he stalked along a dark gallery listening for fugitive footfalls, he was overcome by a disturbing sensation of being watched. The feeling grew so powerfully he was convinced someone was hiding in the gallery, but he could find no one among the furniture or behind the tapestries. Finally, as he prepared to leave with every hair on the nape of his neck prickling, he glanced into a large mirror. Instead of his reflection, he saw Malantha, watching him as though she stood in the room with him. Instantly, he was jolted back to the strange mirror that stood in the ritual room in Seville. He smashed the mirror with his sword hilt, but even in the glittering shards he could see her hateful gaze multiplied a hundred times. He hurried out before he was discovered, but the unsettling sensation stayed with him.

  When he reached a window overlooking the courtyard that surrounded the Lantern Tower, he saw he was too late. Before the door at the foot of the tower, three shadowy figures watched a fourth who knelt over one of the pulsing glass globes, although this one glowed with a dull, ruddy light like a blacksmith’s forge. The kneeling figure busied himself with some unseen activity before the globe. Whatever he was doing, the quality of its light altered repeatedly.

  Will Dee’s defences hold? Will wondered.

  Four more figures entered the courtyard from the direction of the river. At the forefront, Cavillex strode purposefully towards the tower, a barely restrained look of triumph on his face.

  The globe flared darker. The door opened.

  HAPTER 56

  arpenter and Launceston sprinted along the echoing corridors of the upper floors as they wound their way towards the queen’s rooms. From the windows, they watched the Unseelie Court dispatching guards with brutal efficiency, peering into rooms, darting through doorways, moving steadily towards the royal residence.

  “Hold,” Launceston insisted as they crept along the Blue Gallery. He called Carpenter back to a view over the lawns and paths that lay in front of their destination where Grace was pointing to the queen’s chambers. Her head was bowed slightly, a dreamy smile on her lips. Beside her, Mayhew stood with his hood removed so that the Skull gleamed brightly in the moonlight.

  “She is entranced,” Carpenter said. “She cannot help herself.”

  “Still, she guides them—she knows the palace better than Mayhew. If the opportunity arises, she may need to be removed from the game.”

  “Save your bloodlust for Mayhew, Robert. That damned traitor deserves to be carved like a side of beef.” Carpenter glared at the Silver Skull for a moment, all his secret loathing now directed towards his former ally.

  No guards waited at the queen’s door, and there were no bodies. The door itself was slightly ajar.

  Fearing the worst, Carpenter pushed it open, his sword drawn. The windowless antechamber was dark and empty. They waited a second until their eyes adjusted to the gloom and then entered, but no sound came from the bedroom beyond. At the doorway, they hesitated, fearing the consequences of breaking into the queen’s chamber at night, despite the seriousness of the occasion. Finally, Launceston grabbed the handle and flung the door open.

  A flickering candle on a side table illuminated another empty room. Carpenter and Launceston exchanged an uneasy glance when they saw the bedclothes had been torn back roughly.

  “We are too late,” Carpenter said. “They have her.”

  Acting as if he had not heard, Launceston stood deep in reflection.

  “The Unseelie Court is on its way! We must leave or they will trap us here!” Carpenter insisted.

  “If the Enemy had already arrived, the guards would be dead at the door,” Launceston mused. “No, they left to investigate the attack. Perhaps they were directed by … someone.”

  “Then where is the queen?” Anxiously, Carpenter glanced back towards the antechamber, already imagining Enemy footsteps drawing nearer.

  Launceston turned slowly, and then allowed his attention to focus on the candle. Its flame bent in a draft, although the windows were shut and heavy drapes drawn across them. Striding quickly to the candle, he followed the direction of the draft to the oaken panelling marked with the queen’s initials. Along one edge was a dark vertical line. With his fingertips, Launceston eased open a hidden door.

  “A secret passageway,” he said. “Not sealed tight amid a hasty exit.”

  “Enough talk.” Carpenter thru
st Launceston into the passage and closed the door behind them with a soft click.

  The passage was dry and dusty. Rats scurried ahead of them. They continued in the dark for a little way, wishing they had brought the candle with them, until a soft glow appeared ahead. Swords raised, they edged forwards slowly.

  From the dark, a figure clattered a sword against Launceston’s weapon. The fight was brief and the attacker driven back, until the half-light washed over them.

  “Marlowe!” Carpenter exclaimed.

  Relief flooded Marlowe’s face and he lowered his sword. “Thank all the powers there are,” he breathed. “I am more dangerous with a quill than a sword. I thought this was the end of me.”

  He led them along the passageway to a series of windowless rooms. In the first, Nathaniel waited with Walsingham and Dee, their faces drawn. Through the half-open door to the adjoining room, they could just make out the queen, seated on a chair, her head bowed, her face as white as Launceston’s in the gloom. Without her red wig to cover her grey stubble she was a picture of age and impotence far removed from the regal figure they had all seen in public.

  “She would not have you see her like this,” Walsingham said quietly. He closed the door a little more, but there was only one light and he did not want to plunge her into darkness.

  “Is it as bad as we fear?” Dee asked.

  “Worse. The Enemy has the run of the palace,” Carpenter replied.

  Walsingham hung his head dismally. After a moment, he said, “The queen would already be lost if Master Marlowe and Master Colt had not raised the alarm. There is still hope—”

  He was interrupted by a loud crash echoing from the queen’s bedchamber, followed by more as the furniture was thrown roughly around.

  “Trapped,” Launceston said. “How long before they find the passage?”

  HAPTER 57

  crambling out of the window, Will pulled himself up onto the roof. The lichen-crusted tiles threatened to crumble beneath his boots and pitch him to the courtyard far below. The door to the Lantern Tower hung open, and though Cavillex had ventured inside, Will knew it was the place Dee mysteriously treasured most and he would have installed a series of doors and defences.

  The tower was one of the newest constructions within the palace complex, erected rapidly not long after the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign by her decree and under Dee’s strict design. Around the top of the tower, beneath the conical tiled roof topped by a weather vane, ran decorative battlements to give the tower gravitas. Will hoped the stone was secure enough to take his weight.

  A golden dawn dispelled the gloom that would have made his task impossible. Weighing the grapnel he had recovered from the store of unwanted ships’ items in which he had hidden, he steeled himself, and then whirled it around his head before loosing it. His first attempt didn’t even reach the tower. The second time the grapnel bounced off the stone wall with a resounding clang that he feared might draw attention. The third attempt failed too, and the fourth. A quarter of the way up the tower, the globe’s ruddy glare was visible through one of the windows.

  On the fifth occasion, the grapnel caught on the battlements, slipped a little, and then held tight. Wrapping the oily rope around his wrists, he put all doubts out of his mind and launched himself off the roof.

  The battlement held. Bracing against the impact, he steadied himself and began to climb rapidly. One floor below the top, he swung in an arc to crash through one of the arch-shaped windows. Jagged glass tore the skin on his hands and arms, and he tumbled into a bone-numbing landing on the stone steps. Scrambling to his feet, he drew his sword. Above him, the way was barred by a heavy oak door marked with a series of Dee’s sigils. From beneath it, the familiar green light gently pulsed.

  The stairs spiralled down to another floor, and from somewhere below that he could hear the sound of Cavillex talking in a language he didn’t recognise. As he prepared to descend, an odd feeling convulsed him: his thoughts twisted like the eels they hauled from the muddy waters of the Thames, and his stomach knotted and heaved. Blood dripped from his nose.

  Cavillex, he thought. But the notion did not seem correct.

  Before he could consider what it meant, a door crashed open below. Bounding down the steps, he found himself in a room that covered the entire floor of the tower, and on a table in the centre was the Shield.

  As he made to grab the artefact, a trapdoor into the room burst open. A queasy feeling of dread filled the space. As his senses skewed, shadows flew, accompanied by a distorted noise that reminded Will of crows in a winter sky. The dank, underground smell of loam. He knew what was coming, and however much Dee prepared him to deal with the disorienting qualities of the Unseelie Court, he was never ready.

  Grey figures surged. Will caught only the briefest impression of hateful eyes and churchyard faces amid a pooling dark before he was enveloped in a furious battle.

  His perceptions slid around the room’s new occupants. All he could do was slash and lunge with his sword in wild abandon, feeling some blows parried, others tearing through bodies. One of the Enemy fell at his feet. Another thrust a blade that tore open the flesh on Will’s neck. The Enemy were faster than most men, their stamina greater, and though Will’s swordskill was more refined, the fight was unequal.

  Briefly, Will glimpsed Cavillex, red-rimmed eyes flaring, his contempt too strong to contain, but it felt like the dark was closing in from every side. Somehow he managed to keep himself between the Shield and his opponents.

  Three of the Unseelie Court moved around him like ghosts at twilight. But they were substantial. He laid one down with a thrust through the heart, but the other two surged forwards from opposite sides. Will parried the first, rolled quickly out of the way of the other.

  As the second drove a sword towards his chest, Will dropped to his knees and flipped backwards. When he came up, he caught the toe of his boot under a stool, thrashing it viciously into his opponents’ faces. The crunch of shattering bone echoed across the room and one of them went down. As the other attacker sprawled over the falling body, Will laid open his throat with the tip of his sword, following through with two heart-thrusts to end their lives.

  Another attacker ran forwards. Will didn’t even attempt to confront him. Stepping to one side at the last moment, he rammed his hand at the back of his enemy’s head, propelling it into the window, and through it. As the broken glass ripped open his opponent’s face, Will heaved both elbows onto the back of the neck, driving the shards at the base of the window through the throat.

  The elemental fury that consumed Cavillex was so potent Will could barely look at him. “How honourably you kill.” The voice, like stones dropped on a coffin, echoed from all parts of the room.

  “There is no honour in any of this,” Will replied. “Only survival.”

  As Cavillex stalked forwards, Will levelled his sword and said with a humourless grin, “We have business, you and I.”

  “Why, we have been in business for a long while,” Cavillex said enigmatically. A bone white hand gestured towards the Shield. “You transported that item to the place where we needed it to be.”

  Will laughed, but Cavillex’s oppressive aura sucked any humour from his voice. “You try to make a cake out of crumbs.”

  “I make the truth out of shadows … shadows to you. What safer place for the Shield than here? If we had kept it in Edinburgh, you would not have let us rest. With it here, we could go about our work untroubled, knowing the item we valued most was ready for us when the time was right.”

  Another manipulation. Was he that easy to direct?

  “You always do our bidding,” Cavillex said, as if he could read Will’s thoughts. “You, your fellows. We know what makes your hearts beat faster. We understand your fears and sadnesses. We see the crack in the door, ready to be pushed wide.” The weight of his attention became unbearable. “We run you, like you run the animals in the field.”

  Keeping his sword trained on Cavillex, Will
fumbled blindly until his fingers closed on the Shield. “You could set the Silver Skull loose, destroy all of London, perhaps all of England. Why do you need the Shield?” he asked.

  “Because we do not wish to destroy all.” His presence sucked every glimmer of light from the room. Will felt as if he was standing in the deepest dungeon. “Dartmoor looms large in the minds of my people. And there are greater punishments than death, as you well know.” An icy smile, challenging Will to deny it.

  A clatter rose up from the stairs. Cavillex didn’t look, but his smile grew broader as if he knew exactly who was coming. Without taking his eyes off Will, he gave a languorous summons with the fingers of his left hand, and the Silver Skull climbed through the trapdoor.

  “Mayhew. You are a traitorous bastard—” Will began emotionlessly, until he was interrupted by another figure behind the Skull.

  “Grace.” His eyes flashed to Cavillex. “If you have harmed her—”

  “She has not been harmed. See?” Pale fingers eased under Grace’s chin to raise her head. She blinked dreamily, her gaze finally alighting on Will.

  “Will … it is so good to see you,” she said.

  “Our entrance to the palace would have been much more difficult without her help,” Cavillex said.

  Other members of the Unseelie Court bustled into the room, surrounding Grace. It was impossible for Will to get to her. Backing away until his heel was on the first step of the flight he had descended, Will moved his sword back and forth, ready for the first attack, but he could never overcome the weight of numbers.

  “We shall go from this room, and take your queen and infect her with a disease that will eat away her skin, her bone, her senses, yet keep her alive,” Cavillex said. “She will suffer unimaginable agony, without respite.”

  Will thought he saw Mayhew flinch.

  “Once we have her, we will release a plague across all London,” Cavillex continued. “An entire city will die in a moment. With the Shield, we will be untouched by the whirlwind of disease unleashed by the Silver Skull, and we will walk through it, alongside your queen so she can see the corpses rotting in the street. Then we will take her to our home, to live on with the memory, and the pain.”