Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

"The people should be comforted that these men are active in the defence of the nation."

"England's greatest spy is not comfort enough?" Nathaniel replied archly. "The talk in the taverns and ordinaries is all of a Spanish invasion. Since Mary's death, people are afraid. They see Spanish agents everywhere. Swarthy-skinned men are attacked in the street, and foreigners threatened over their meals. Will all this activity calm them, or frit them more?"

As Walsingham approached with a grave expression, Will said, "Fetch the items we discussed in the carriage. And hurry. From our Lord Walsingham's face, I fear that time is shorter still."

When Nathaniel had departed, Walsingham drew Will in conspiratorially. "The Enemy is abroad. Stories circulate hereabouts of a fearsome black dog with eyes like hot coals that leaves claw-marks in stone."

"Are we to be afraid of a dog, then?" Will replied. "We could toss it a bone and be done with it."

"I am pleased to see your spirits remain high, Master Swyfte, for we appear to be no closer to discovering the rogues who have taken the Silver Skull."

"Do not give up hope yet." Will told Walsingham what he had learned from Marlowe without disclosing the source of his information.

Glowering at the passing crowd, Walsingham was clearly concerned by Will's suggestion. "Alsatia is a dangerous place. There will be bloodshed if we send in an army, and no guarantee this Pickering will not escape with his prize."

"Then we do not send in an army," Will replied. "A few men, moving secretly, can achieve more, and quicker."

Walsingham nodded in agreement. "Even so, you will be strangers in a place where most are known to each other. And I am told they speak their own tongue down there-the thieves' cant. One wrong word could be your undoing."

"The quicker we are in, the quicker out."

Realising there was no alternative, Walsingham gave his approval before summoning over Dee. "The doctor has some gifts that may aid you."

From the depths of his hood, Dee's eyes glimmered. "Two items for now," he whispered. From a leather bag, he withdrew a handful of small muslin packages like the bundles of herbs a cook would drop in a stew. "Take care with these," he said, depositing the packages gently in Will's cupped hands. "Hold the loose knot at the top and shake them open. But be careful to look away. They will release a flash of light that will blind, and a loud noise to disorient the senses."

With a shrug, Will deposited them in the pouch at his belt.

Annoyed that Will was not more impressed, Dee delved into his bag once more for a leather forearm shield with two fastening buckles. When he touched a hidden catch, a seven-inch blade burst from a hidden compartment.

"There will come a time when you will be separated from your sword," he said, "but you will never be separated from this weapon. You can wound and kill at close quarters, and with stealth."

Will gave the weapon a cursory examination. "What, no codpieces that burst into flames? I could have had sport with that."

Snorting, Dee turned to Walsingham. "We place the security of England in the hands of a coxcomb!"

As Dee stalked away, Walsingham sighed. "Now you have offended him, and now I will have to deal with his foul temper. Since he started communing with angels, Dee has been like a devil, filled with fire and brimstone."

As he prepared to gather his crew to depart, Will scrutinised Miller who awkwardly accompanied Mayhew and the others in their questioning. "The new fellow. He seems ... slow."

"He is more quick-witted than he appears. He is a miller's son, shaped by hard labour. His strength will be an asset to you."

"And his lack of understanding of the Enemy and their guiles may be the death of us. Who does he think we fight?"

"Spanish agents." Walsingham was unmoved by Will's concerns, even though he knew the risks involved.

Hiding his irritation, Will noted the innocence in Miller's face. "If we encounter the Enemy, the shock may prove too great for him."

"Then you must provide a quick lesson."

"Quick lessons do not work. You know that. It takes time to accept that the world is not the way any of us are brought up to believe. The mind and heart are both fragile things, easily broken, repaired with the greatest difficulty, if at all."

"That is the way God made us, Master Swyfte. He is your charge now. I have faith you will see him right."

Walsingham returned to Leicester, who swaggered along the ranks of his men, enjoying the eyes of the public upon him. Urgently summoning Mayhew and the others, Will led them from the churchyard, past the shop where the fashionable London men bought their pouches of the New World tobacco, to a quiet spot beyond the bookstalls.

An incandescent rage appeared to be permanently burning just beneath Carpenter's skin. Unconsciously tracing a fingertip down the pink scar tissue on his face, he said, "Why did Walsingham see fit to throw us together?"

"I think he feels you will keep my feet on the ground, John."

"That I will do."

Turning his attention to Miller, Will shook his hand. "Tom. Lord Walsingham has only good words for you. I am Will Swyfte."

"I know you." A hint of awe laced the young man's words.

Snorting derisively, Carpenter pretended to inspect Saint Paul's Cross where a wild-eyed, grey-haired man prepared to deliver a sermon.

"You will have heard about some of our work," Will continued, "but know this: you may well see things across the course of this day that you find ... puzzling ... troubling-"

"Frightening," Mayhew interjected, staring at his boots.

"There is an explanation, and you will get it when our work is done," Will continued. "Till then, anything you see that makes little sense must be put from your mind. Do you understand?"

Baffled, Miller nodded.

"Let me put it another way," Launceston said in his precise, aristocratic tones, "if you fail to keep a steady course, and place us in danger, I will slit your throat as surely as I would an enemy's, and leave you where you fall for the rats to feast on."

Miller turned almost as white as Launceston.

"Steady now," Will said. "We must not go bragging about the speed and size of our blades. For I would win. Listen with care, for we have a matter to test even the greatest swords of Albion."

By the time Will finished explaining the task that lay ahead, Nathaniel had returned with a large, foul-smelling sack. From it, he distributed various items of clothing.

"What is this?" Mayhew clutched a hand to his mouth. "Foul vinegar rags stolen from the backs of three-day-dead beggars?"

"Master Mayhew, you are known around London as a man of exquisite taste for the finery of your dress," Will said. "But if you walk into Alsatia as a gallant, flashing that costly silk lining of your cloak, you will find yourself a honeypot for bees with a deadly sting."

In the cramped carriage on the road to Fleet Street, they quickly changed into the stinking rags, with much complaining from Mayhew and stoic acceptance from Launceston. Miller was eager, but Carpenter made a show of the mass of scar tissue that covered his back and left arm, casting sullen glares towards Will.

When they were done, Nathaniel said, "I have never seen ... nor smelled a more convincing group of foul beggars. You wear it well."

"I hear the buzzing of a gnat, Master Swyfte." Launceston sniffed. "I will swat it if I see it."

The carriage trundled to a halt next to a tiny alley where rats ran and clouds of flies swarmed in shafts of sunlight. "From here there is danger every step of the way," Will said. "We will be surrounded by people who would gladly slit our throats for a shiny button, but they are the least of our worries. The Enemy races to reach the Silver Skull before us." Will glanced down the alley to where it wound away into shadow. "And they come like the night. We must watch each other's backs." Will cast an eye towards Carpenter, who pretended not to notice. "Good luck, boys. We go for queen and country, and wine and a warm embrace when we are done. Let nothing keep us from our just rewards."

Leaping from the carriage, he plunged straight into the alley.

The boundaries of Alsatia were clearly demarcated by a piercing whistle from an unseen watchman somewhere near the rooftops. Heads held low by the weight of a harsh life, furtive eyes cast down, Will and the other beggars limped and stumbled in a tight knot, faces smeared with dirt they had scraped up on the way.

While the rest of London was filled with colour, noise, and life, on the boundaries Alsatia was eerily still. Stone tenements blackened by smoke and the accumulation of centuries of filth rose up four stories high. Overhanging upper floors on some of the newer buildings meant that little sun reached the rutted, puddled, narrow streets where a thin, grey light leached the colour from everything. Smoke blew back and forth along the byways like a constant fog from the blocked chimneys of the many who could not afford the services of a sweep.

On the fringes, the houses appeared deserted, the stink of excrement drifting from shattered windows and ragged doors. But as they progressed towards the heart of the quarter, life began to appear, in ones and twos at first, talking in hushed tones in the entrances to alleys, or slumped on doorsteps watching with mean eyes. The clothes were brown and grey and muddygreen, rough cloth, hard worn, wide-brimmed felt hats that could hide the features, pale skin and stubble, filthy fingernails. The women hung out of windows, faces lashed pink by the elements, hair prematurely grey. The doxies barely bothered to dress after each short, grunting encounter, pendulous breasts hanging out of torn, filthy dresses, makeup applied so halfheartedly it appeared to be the work of children, turning each one into a rouge and cream grotesque, a pastiche of sexual attraction. It did not appear to deter the men. The doxies carried out their trade on the street, against a wall, or on their backs in hallways, doors thrown wide, skirts pulled high, their faces implacable as the men thrust into them, sweating and cursing.

"Animals," Launceston said under his breath.

The stink grew more intense with each step. Rubbish was piled as high as a man on either side of every door, scraps of rotting meat, and bones, and vegetables, and the dung of animals, and the contents of chamber pots. Every heap was alive with rats. They carpeted the streets, swarming away from approaching feet to return a moment later. Clouds of flies filled the air, and white maggots glistened in the half-light.

As Will led the way, the piercing whistles followed them, but their tone was merely observational and not insistent.

Gangs of men flowed past them, ready for an afternoon's work seeking out the country gulls and foreign visitors who would be more amenable to the nip and foist relieving them of their gold-stuffed purses. They would prowl Saint Paul's, all the bowling alleys and ordinaries, the brothels, baiting rings, and theatres, seeking out their likely marks.

Everywhere was the glint of knives and cold, hard eyes. Will felt their gazes on his back, heard the rustle of whispers in his wake, but it passed as he knew it would; earning a dishonest living took precedence over the searching of a few beggars.

"Do you hear that?" Mayhew brought them to a slow halt, cocking his head to listen to some sound that escaped the rest of them. All they heard was the wind beneath the eaves, the occasional frightened shout in the distance, and the murmur of plotting voices every now and then.

"What do you hear?" Will caught sight of Mayhew's oddly troubled face.

"Music?" He strained to catch it. "The playing of some flute just beneath the wind, or behind it, or part of it?"

"Why bother yourself with that, you fool?" Carpenter growled. "They make merry here like the rest of us."

"No, I have heard it before." Mayhew appeared to be trying to recall a fading dream. "At ... the Tower?"

Miller had picked up on Mayhew's unease. "Why should a flute trouble you so?"

"'Tis nothing," Will interrupted. "Do not jump at shadows. There are harder dangers to concern you."

As they arrived at a crossroads, they all became aware of an eerie stillness lying across the area. It was as deserted as the first part of Alsatia they had entered. The cold wind had dropped and dense, choking smoke billowed all around.

It was Launceston who noted the most unnerving aspect. "The rats have fled," he said.

A hint of the flute-playing Mayhew had heard rose up and disappeared. Peering down each of the streets in turn, Will tried to discern the origin of the music.

Miller dabbed at his nose where a trickle of blood ran down to his upper lip. "What is this?" he asked, his eyes widening.

Will urged him to be silent. The flute-playing ebbed away to be replaced by the faint tread of boots upon the baked mud, drawing nearer. The dim sound drifted through the smoke and reflected from wall to wall so it was difficult to identify the source.

On a deeper level than their five senses, they understood the nature of what approached. Launceston slapped a cold hand on Miller's shoulder to steady him.

Turning slowly, Will stopped for the briefest moment at each street. "Which way, which way?" he muttered to himself.

Then, along the route to the west, almost lost to the swirling smoke, two hot coals nearly a yard off the ground moved towards them. The moment he glimpsed that almost insignificant blaze of colour in that shadowy place, several sounds came to Will from the same direction: a low, growling breath, barely audible but which made his stomach clench and the hairs on his neck tingle; the pad of a paw, the slap of a tensing leather leash as something strained against it; and then the measured tread of boots.

Will propelled Miller down the street that led to the south, the others following at his heels. They only came to a halt when the strained atmosphere had evaporated and there was no sign of pursuit.

Miller had grown pale. "Who was that?" he asked. "A ghost?"

"No spectre would haunt this foul place," Will replied. "Not when there are peaceful churchyards and castle towers sheltered from the elements." His grin took the edge off Miller's anxiety. "A man with a dog, no more. Probably for the fighting pit. But we could not risk it smelling us out. Even with these foul rags, we are sweeter to the nose than anyone else in this place."

Calming a little, Miller moved his fingers unconsciously to the dried blood under his nose, but before any errant thoughts could resurface, Launceston gave him a rough shove and they were back on their journey.

They had not gone far when Launceston appeared at Will's shoulder. In a low voice that none of the others could hear, he said, "Bringing that youth was a mistake. The knowledge of what we face, revealed in one shattering blow, will destroy him, and us along with him if we are not careful."

"Then we protect him until he can be prepared for the truth." Launceston was right, and in ideal circumstances Miller would have gone through the same slow stabilising process of induction and revelation as the rest of them. But Will understood Walsingham's urge to circumvent procedure: these were desperate times, and they were always short-handed compared to the force arrayed against them. "This is the hand we have been dealt. We must play it as best we can," he said firmly.