Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

"You are a child," Launceston said baldly.

Carpenter was so taken aback by the insult, he could only gape.

"Or a dog," Launceston continued, not caring what Carpenter's response might be. "You whine and whine. `Poor me, I have been so mistreated.' But you live, do you not? You survive. You are stronger."

"You do not know what deprivations I suffered at the hands of the tsar's torturers," Carpenter snapped.

"Whine and whine," Launceston continued. "You think you are the only one to suffer? To experience pain in the line of our work?"

Carpenter thrust his knife towards Launceston, but the earl only gave it the merest attention before returning his attention to the guards swarming around the palace. "Master Swyfte remained true to his work. He completed his business, as directed, and England is better for it."

"Is it?" Carpenter growled. "I have seen no sign of the object we retrieved since the day Swyfte brought it back. And I paid for it with my agonies!"

Launceston shrugged. "He was not distracted by emotions. There are bigger things here than your petty feelings. Child."

Trembling with emotion, Carpenter could barely hold the knife still, but Launceston no longer gave it, or Carpenter, even a cursory glance. Carpenter slumped back against the rocks and ran his still shaking hands through his hair, casting brief murderous glances towards Launceston.

"You trouble me, Carpenter," Launceston continued. "If you give in to your emotions so, it makes me wonder how far you will go to gain revenge to soothe your poor, hurt feelings."

"What are you saying?" Carpenter snapped.

"Perhaps you would even go so far as to ally with the Enemy to see Master Swyfte paid back in full."

Barely had Carpenter begun the lunge with his knife when Launceston's own knife was at his throat.

"Stop now!" Mayhew interjected. "If we cannot trust each other, we will forfeit our own lives when we are in the thick of it. We must protect each other's backs."

Slowly, Carpenter relented, although his emotions barely subsided.

"You have never given in to your emotions?" Mayhew said to Launceston.

"No." The earl's face became more ghastly as the shadows lengthened.

Mayhew eyed him curiously. "You speak little about your past. We have all been touched by misery, or by the hand of the Enemy. Why have you given yourself to this business?"

"Sport," Launceston replied.

"Sport?"

"Yes, I like to kill our Enemies."

They sat in silence until night had fallen.

Finally Launceston prised himself from the top of the spoil-heap and said simply, "It is time."

Across the desolate landscape they moved, hoods pulled down to hide their faces. As they neared El Escorial, Launceston motioned for them to use more caution. The guards watched the approach to the palace and continued to patrol the perimeter. Others were stationed in the vast formal gardens.

"Impregnable, they say," Launceston mused.

"I do not know who I fear for the most," Mayhew said. "Us trying to get in, or Swyfte trying to get out."

Launceston levelled his knife at the guards. "I fear for them."

CHAPTER 40

till raw from his beating earlier, Will was dragged through the palace by the guards. From a courtyard open to the moonless sky, and under one of several porticos, he eventually arrived at statues of David and Solomon flanking the entrance to the basilica, the central point of the whole complex. Philip waited for him there, and motioned for the guards to take him in.

"A fine place for torture." Will admired the huge dome overhead and the granite simplicity of the basilica's interior, which perfectly reflected Philip's character.

Still dressed in mourning black, Don Alanzo waited by one of the Doric columns with Grace beside him. She met Will's eyes once, then looked away.

"There will be no torture here," Philip said.

"No physical torture," Don Alanzo added, bowing apologetically when the king glared at him.

Philip motioned for the guards to wait outside. They were reluctant to leave their monarch alone with a potential assassin, but they checked Will's bonds one more time and whispered threats in his ear before departing.

Once the door to the basilica was closed, Malantha appeared from behind one of the columns. Will had the briefest flash of chalky skin and her implacable gaze before she unveiled her potent sexuality, at odds with the sanctified surroundings.

"I am starting to believe you are a guilty secret," Will said. As she levelled her icy, unblinking stare at him, Will had the impression she was imagining slowly opening up his body.

Shifting uncomfortably, the king quickly changed the subject. "Today saw the funeral of Don Alanzo's father. A great man, brought low by a dog."

Will glanced over at Don Alanzo, whose hateful glare never left Will's face. "You will not believe me, but I offer my condolences again, in good faith," Will said.

"My sister refused to come to the funeral," Don Alanzo said. "She blames me for our father's death. She will have nothing more to do with me, she says, and has ensured I will be refused entry to her convent. Now you have taken two people from me. You will pay for both of them." He bowed curtly to Malantha, who gave a brief, dismissive nod in return. "Our allies ... your Enemies ... are correct. Sometimes death is not enough to right a wrong. Pain must be inflicted in the heart, and the mind, and on the soul."

Will looked to Grace. "Do you see now what you stand with? Do not trust them, Grace."

Striding forwards, Don Alanzo struck Will forcefully across the face with his leather gauntlet. Blood bloomed on his lip.

"Please do not hurt him," Grace begged. "I will do anything."

"Of course you will," Malantha said.

"I have brought you here," Philip said to Grace, "under the eyes of God, so you will know there is no treachery in my words when I make this offer: help us and we will spare your friend's life."

"No!" Will shouted. "Do not believe them!"

Don Alanzo struck him again.

"You vow, before God?" Grace said.

"I so vow."

"The Unseelie Court will not allow it," Will spat. "He is so under their spell that even the threat of damnation will not deter him."

This time Don Alanzo knocked Will to the floor.

"Please," Grace sobbed, wringing her hands.

"I so vow!" Philip said firmly.

"I will do anything you ask. But please ... please ... do not hurt him anymore."

Philip nodded to Don Alanzo, who guided Grace to the door as Will struggled to his feet. By the time he had shaken off the effect of the blow, Grace had gone.

"And so the torture begins," Malantha said.

"And you save my life?" Will sneered, spitting a mouthful of blood.

"Once she has done her duty, we will allow you to live," Malantha replied, "although you will be in no state to enjoy it. We will ensure your friend gets to see how you work. Inside. In your mind, when you scream and cry and beg for us to take her life instead. And then you will know she must live on with the knowledge of what she saw, and it will never leave her." She raised her arms in a flamboyant request for applause. "My brother proposed your death, I know, but he lacks my assured touch in these matters."

"An honourable man," Will accused Philip, who made to leave. "Wait. You have an aspiration to higher wisdom," Will continued.

"What do you mean?" Philip asked suspiciously.

"The design of this building, your great monument, is based upon the Temple of Solomon, as described by Flavius Josephus."

"You are an educated man? And a spy who deals in death and deceit?"

"I am a man of contradictions, like all men," Will replied. "My point being that you would not have chosen this design, nor selected the statue outside that door, if you did not aspire to the Jewish king's great wisdom. Then rise to it. There is still time to walk away from the path you have chosen."

"The war I fight is a just one. I have the support of the pope himself. God, Master Swyfte, is on my side."

"If God is on any side, it is certainly not the Devil's."

A tremor crossed Philip's face, but before it could spread, Malantha stepped behind him, her hand rising to caress his neck out of sight of Don Alanzo. But she kept her icy eyes on Will the whole time, flaunting her power.

Philip's face hardened. "This world will be a better place when England is crushed."

"Our differences are clear, but what we share is much stronger," Will pressed. "I ask one final time, not as Protestant to Catholic, nor as Englishman to Spaniard, but as a man to another man, as members of the great brotherhood of men, I ask you again, turn away from the path you have chosen. Or else you must suffer the consequences."

Philip gave a weak, boyish laugh. "You stand before me in chains ... on the brink of humiliation, and pain, and death ... and you give we an ultimatum?"

"You should kill me now. It is the only way you will be safe," Will replied calmly, seeing in Philip's eyes that he would not be swayed.

Philip laughed again, but with an unsettled note, before stepping to the door near the altar that led to his private quarters. Before he left, he turned to Malantha and said, "You will come to me tonight?"

"Of course," she said.

A simple smile leapt to the king's lips and he hurried out, closing the door behind him.

"Now the children have left, you can be about your adult business," Will said.

"We have no need to sully our hands with your blood at this point," Malantha replied archly. "For now, only one thing remains to be done."

Barely able to stop himself shaking with emotion, lion Alanzo loomed over Will. "The time for talk has passed. The end of Philip's Enterprise of England and the end of this business begins this night. And your end too. I leave with your friend, Grace, within the hour, to join our Armada and to continue to England."

"What do you plan?" he demanded.

"We will affix the Silver Skull to your friend's head and when she is delivered to England she must choose, between her country and the man she loves," Malantha intoned. "Release the power of the Skull, or see you torn apart as we discussed."

"You will do that anyway."

"We will," Malantha said.

"Grace will choose England," Will stated.

"You truly believe that?" Malantha nodded when she saw the response in Will's eyes. "And in this way we will destroy everything."

CHAPTER 41

ising up like a spectre, Launceston slit the guard's throat, holding his head back by the hair so the gush of arterial blood avoided his uniform. Once the guard's convulsions had ended, Launceston stripped him naked and wrapped the uniform tightly in his cloak.

As they emerged from the dark of the rough land still scattered with the detritus from El Escorial's construction, Carpenter and Mayhew discarded the rattling stones they had used to attract the lone sentry from the approach to the palace. In the shadow of the monolithic building, they studied the clockwork maneuvers of the guards once again.

Carpenter's throwing knife drove deep into the temple of the second sentry. Catching the guard before he fell, Carpenter dragged him back into the shadows, away from the torch under which he had stood.

When the sentry's uniform was secured, Mayhew selected a young guard who had broken off from the patrol to urinate on the edge of the wasteland. But Mayhew's clumsy approach dislodged a shower of rocks down a slope to splash in a muddy pool. Whirling, the guard saw Mayhew as he stumbled towards him, and struggled to lower his pike at the same time as he forced his manhood back in his clothes.

As Mayhew desperately threw himself forwards, the pike head ripped a gash across his cheek. His pained cry shocked the guard so much he dropped both his weapons. Wild with fear that the noise would bring other guards, Mayhew flailed into the sentry. Thrashing together on the ground, Mayhew eventually managed to clamp his hands around his opponent's throat. Spitting and gasping and clawing at Mayhew's face, the guard continued to fight while Mayhew increased the pressure.

Consumed by his desperation, he continued to choke the guard long after any motion had ceased. Carpenter and Launceston finally dragged him off and shook him roughly.

"Steady yourself!" Carpenter hissed vehemently. "You are going to be the death of all of us!"

Once Mayhew had calmed, Launceston rested his hands on his associate's shoulders and said, as if offering friendly advice, "At even the first sign that you are allowing your emotions to run free, I will slit your throat and leave you for dead. Do you understand?"

Mayhew nodded.

Carpenter continued to flash murderous glares at Mayhew as they took the final guard's clothes and wrapped them securely in Mayhew's cloak before dumping all three bodies in the bog.

"What if he does not come?" Mayhew asked.

"This is the hour, this is the night. If he is able, he will be ready for us," Launceston replied. "And if he is already dead or disabled, then we look for the Silver Skull, and then the girl."

"And leave him here?" Carpenter pressed.

Launceston nodded. "We are ready?"

Crossing the wasteland, they were all acutely aware they only had a little time before the sentries were missed and the alarm raised. Further down the slope towards the village, they found their location by nose alone. Like Hampton Court Palace, El Escorial utilised advanced construction techniques: water piped in, waste taken out.

The sewer tunnel emptied onto the slope and flowed away from the palace so the stench never reached the walls. Lined with granite, the sewer was big enough for a grown man to crawl along, as black as pitch with a choking stink that left them all gagging as they stood at the opening. Tying kerchiefs across their mouths and noses, they fixed their cloak bundles on their backs, and then exchanged a brief glance as they decided who would go first.

With a shake of his head, Launceston dropped to his knees and splashed into the sewer. Carpenter roughly thrust Mayhew next, before taking up the rear. Within seconds, they were all coughing and spluttering, swearing profusely, yet obliquely thankful that the vile smell distracted them from the oppressive claustrophobia of the dark, stifling space.

After five minutes of slow progress, Mayhew had a revelation. "This is our lives in essence," he spat. "Crawling through shit and piss towards an uncertain future."

"At least on this occasion you can keep your head above the surface," Launceston replied. "We should be thankful for that."

A little further on, Launceston came up hard against an obstruction. Feeling around in the dark, he realised it was an iron grille. Just as he informed the others, there was a loud click as a hidden switch was triggered and another grille slid into place behind Carpenter. Mayhew whimpered loudly.