The Scar-Crow Men (52 page)

‘Patience, thou flap-mouthed ninny. Let us consider what we have learned. The killer of spies is a man who perceives his victims as less than human, for who could commit such atrocities if the victims were seen as father, brother, son?’

Carpenter felt unsettled by his companion’s perception. He knew the mind of the butcher too well. ‘Yes, a God-fearing Catholic perhaps, who has let his beliefs drive reason from his mind. Who believes he is doing God’s work.’

‘Hence the angel’s wings.’ Through the eyeholes, Launceston’s eyes flashed. ‘A Catholic who has been forced to deny his faith. Who lives a secret life.’

‘Many do.’

The yellow-masked spy continued to look purposefully around the entranced audience.
Searching for someone in particular
, the scarred man thought. ‘In the wrong man, these things build, like barrels filled with still-fermenting beer that blows the lids right off. Why, to contain such heartfelt beliefs can drive a man mad. And where, in all of England, would such a man most have to hide his beliefs?’

‘Here, in the heart of government.’

Launceston nodded. ‘Amid the very persecutors of his faith. Such a person would show the world the visage he saw on those he hated.’

‘A devil’s mask.’

‘A man who pretends to be a devil, but thinks himself an angel.’

The play paused for the moment with the maiden awoken by her menacing suitor, the elves scattering in fear. With the excitement deferred, the musicians teased the members of the court with another lively dance. The fiddles began, the hautboy rang out.

‘But who would be capable of such things?’ the scar-faced man asked.

‘Who, indeed?’

While the Earl studied the lines of men and women forming on both sides of the hall, Carpenter noticed a woman in pale yellow skirts and bodice waving from the doorway leading out of the Great Hall. Even in her mask and in the half-light, he recognized his love, Alice Dalingridge. She had clearly seen through his disguise too. Yet something in her frantic waving alarmed him. The sapphire-masked spy thrust his way through the throng. When he reached the door, he was troubled to discover Alice was no longer there.

Stepping outside the hall, he heard the scuffle of footsteps in the stillness ahead. He ran through the antechamber and up the four steps into the long corridor. Anxious, he noticed all the candles had been snuffed out. At the far end of the corridor, the scarred man glimpsed a ghost, a whirl of pale yellow skirts, gone in an instant.

‘Alice?’ Carpenter called. His voice rustled along the walls and disappeared into the dark.

He felt his skin prickle with apprehension.

His chest tightening, the scarred man raced along the inky corridor to where he had seen the pale form. He skidded to a halt next to the steps down to the kitchens, smelling the spicy aromas of that evening’s pork.

Grasping a candle in its iron holder, Carpenter lit it with his flint. Apprehensively, he watched the flame dance as he held it in front of the draughts rising up from below. He could hear no sound. Drawing his rapier, he descended.

He wanted to call Alice’s name, but resisted. Better to go stealthily, he thought. Refusing to think about what might be ahead, he settled into his five senses, the grip of cold steel in his hand, the echoes of his footsteps, the dancing shadows, the rising scents of baked bread and strawberry wine, and the taste … the iron taste of fear in his mouth. But not for himself.

In the caverns of his mind, her name rang out:
Alice … Alice
… and the echoes of promises made in the dark.

Waves of heat from the crackling ovens washed up the stairs. With sweat beading his brow, the spy eased into the echoing kitchens, looking all around. Shadows drifted across the brick-vaulted ceiling. A row of trestles ran down the middle of the chamber, still streaked where they had been wiped down by the kitchen workers after the meal. Sacks of flour lined one wall. Fragrant cured hams hung from hooks overhead. One swung gently from side to side.

At first the spy refused to accept what his eyes told him. ‘Let her go,’ he whispered. Tossing the candle to one side, he tore off his blue mask and set it on the end of the trestle.

In front of the ovens, the black-cloaked man in the devil mask held Alice with one arm around her waist, the other holding a dagger to her neck. His angel wings cast a grotesque shadow on the orange bricks behind him. Alice’s mask had fallen away, and she stared at the spy with wide, terrified eyes.

‘It is me you want,’ Carpenter urged. ‘You have used Alice to draw me out, and now you have me. Set her free so you can complete your vile business and loose all hell upon this place.’

‘No, John!’ the woman cried, tears burning her cheeks.

His head spinning from fear for his love, the spy forced himself to remain calm. Making a show of it, he sheathed his rapier, but inside his cloak his left hand closed on his dagger unseen. ‘See, I am unarmed,’ he said. ‘Set her free.’

Carpenter’s eyes locked intently on Alice’s.

Keeping the dagger pricking the woman’s neck, the devil-masked man unfurled his other arm and beckoned for the spy to step forward. With a shudder, Carpenter saw a droplet of blood appear on his love’s pale skin.

The scar-faced man stepped forward, presenting his chest for the blade. ‘One final time: set her free now, or so help me I will carve you like those hams above.’

‘John, go now,’ Alice cried. ‘If you die, I do not want to live.’

‘Hush. Your life has more value than mine.’ Carpenter fixed his gaze on the slits in the devil mask. The eyes within were tinged with madness.

Sobbing, Alice was barely able to catch her breath.

For one long moment, two pairs of eyes were locked in concert. Then, fluidly, the devil-masked man hurled the woman aside, thrusting his dagger towards the spy’s chest.

Alice screamed.

Lurching away, Carpenter sought to bring his own blade out from beneath his cloak, but he was an instant too slow. He sensed death’s cold breath on his neck.

And then the spy felt Alice’s hands thrust him aside.

Stumbling to one knee, Carpenter jerked his head up to witness the devil-masked man’s blade plunge into Alice’s heart. The black stain spread too fast across her pale yellow dress. For one moment that seemed eternal, Carpenter was locked in hell.

Alice had given her life for his.

His love’s startled eyes fell on the spy, and a final, sad smile sprang to her lips. As she slipped to the floor, pulling the dagger from the hands of her murderer, the spy caught her and cradled her in his arms. Tears seared his eyes.

Seeing his advantage was gone, the devil-masked man ran, the crack of his footsteps echoing off the brick walls.

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 façade.

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.