The Scar-Crow Men

‘The Unseelie Court have already struck!’ Will began to round the table. Fearful, Cecil hurried around to the other side. ‘I witnessed their involvement in a vision,’ the spy continued, ‘but more importantly, my men have seen the Enemy working alongside a group of English plotters. Men of authority, it would seem by their actions, who have attacked me and my allies.’

‘You are mad!’

Will watched the spymaster’s eyes, still unsure if he had any connection to the wider plot. ‘’Tis true. Even while we fight among ourselves, our true Enemy unveils a grand plot that could threaten the Queen’s own life and all of England. This is not a time for secrets—’

‘No.’ Turning away, Cecil waved a hand to silence Will.

‘You must go to the Privy Council—’

‘No!’ The spymaster whirled back, eyes wide and fearful. Will was struck by the intense reaction. ‘Your grief has swept your wits away. You see plots where there are none. The Unseelie Court working with Englishmen! Listen to yourself.’

Will’s anger abated. He scrutinized Cecil again, his trembling hands, his slippery gaze, his too-strong denials. Stepping back from the table, Will folded his hands behind his back. ‘Our defences are crumbling,’ he said with as much calm as he could muster. ‘The ones Dr Dee put in place all those years ago. The ones that have kept our Queen and country safe from the supernatural foe that has preyed upon us since the Flood.’

The spymaster snorted.

‘The Unseelie Court whittle us away one piece at a time.’ Will held Cecil’s gaze. ‘Soon there will be only the heart of those defences, the one who resides atop the Lantern Tower at the Palace of Whitehall.’

Shock burst in Cecil’s face and he turned away so he would not reveal any more of his inner thoughts. ‘I do not know what you mean,’ he said.

‘I think you do. They will not relent while we keep their monarch in chains,’ the spy continued.

‘You think we can bargain with them?’ Cecil roared, his face now red with rage. He caught himself, stabbing a thin finger towards Will. ‘You should not know these things. You cannot be trusted—’

‘Who can?’ Will snapped. ‘Spies are being murdered, Gavell, the most recent—’

‘A rumour, thankfully untrue.’

‘I saw the body myself.’

Cecil hammered a fist on the table. ‘There was no body in the deadhouse. I sent my own men to investigate.’

‘Because it was removed, by those parties unknown that have allied themselves with our own true Enemy. A grand lie in the making, to keep us sweet until it is too late. Where are Clement and Makepiece?’

In the spymaster’s hesitation, Will saw that the Little Elf also feared the two spies were dead, as suggested by the list of names Launceston and Carpenter had discovered at Marlowe’s lodgings.

‘Drunk in some inn or other, I would expect,’ the hunchbacked man lied.

Will leapt around the table to grab Cecil by the gown, thrusting his face close. ‘Are you one of the traitors who have betrayed us? Or is it Essex and his own band of spies, and you see some advantage to yourself in letting him play his game?’ Will shook the spymaster roughly. ‘Who had Kit killed? Tell me!’

‘You have gone too far!’ the spymaster shouted. ‘Sinclair!’

The door crashed open and the towering mercenary stalked in, glowering. Instantly he drew his rapier, growling like an animal as he advanced. In the red mist of his own anger, Will pushed Cecil aside and went for his own sword. Then, struck by how quickly his simmering rage had burned out of control, he fought to contain himself, allowing his hand to fall impotently to his side.

‘Take Master Swyfte to his chamber and hold him there,’ the spymaster ordered, leaning on the table to calm himself. He cast an accusatory eye on Will and said under his breath, ‘I allow you some small leeway for the madness your grief has caused, but you have much to answer for. Do you think you can speak secrets vital to England’s security without consequence? You will be taken before the Privy Council tomorrow to answer the accusations against you.’

‘What accusations?’ Will growled. ‘That I speak the truth?’

‘That Marlowe has infected you with his atheism.’

‘You wish to silence me.’ Will’s cold, unwavering gaze brought an involuntary shudder from the spymaster. ‘What, then? The Tower? My head on a spike at London Bridge?’

‘Take him.’ Cecil turned away from that awful stare.

Sinclair grabbed Will and propelled him towards the door.

‘This is not the end of this matter,’ Will said icily, with no further regard for his own well-being. ‘Kit’s death will be avenged. And all who stand in my way, whoever they might be, whatever position they hold, will pay.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE THUNDEROUS KNOCKING HAD AN INSISTENT EDGE. WILL opened the door to find an unsettled Nathaniel, who pushed his way into the chamber without waiting to be invited. From the shadows in the corridor, a solitary pikeman watched, as he had from the moment Sinclair had bustled the spy into his quarters.

‘I thought I was going to be locked out of the palace. They questioned me at the gatehouse for near an hour,’ Nathaniel said, taking off his cap and running a hand through his hair. ‘What has happened? Is the Queen’s life under threat?’

Will closed the door and guided his assistant towards the table where a meagre portion of bread and cheese and some wine had been placed by a servant. He was not in the Tower yet, so the spymaster had to treat him with a modicum of dignity. ‘The Queen is well, but it appears Sir Robert has taken my warnings to heart. Some small good may come from this night.’ He carved himself a piece of cheese and spiked it with his knife. He sighed. ‘I fear I have let my mouth run away with me.’

Nathaniel eyed his master askance as he removed his cloak. ‘You speak those words as if they are somehow new to you.’

‘This time there may be more at stake than hurt feelings. In anger, I revealed a secret I have carried with me for several years. A secret that goes to the very heart of England and the Queen’s security – and, in truth, what it means to be an Englishman and how we perceive ourselves in the world.’ The spy made to eat the cheese, stared at it for a moment and then tossed the knife and morsel on to the table. ‘And I, God help me, must defend the ideal, knowing the darkness and violence that lies behind it. Am I then as tarnished?’

‘You are too hard on yourself, as always.’

Smiling at the young man’s loyalty, Will poured Nathaniel a goblet of malmsey wine. The assistant, who rarely drank to excess, took the offering hesitantly.

‘There are plots upon plots unfolding all around us, Nat, and we can no longer trust all that we once held close. You must be on your guard,’ Will said, his face serious.

‘Is this why you are held prisoner?’

Will poured himself some wine and rested one foot on a stool as he drank. ‘It takes more than one guard to hold me prisoner.’

‘Ah, yes, I forget myself,’ the assistant said. ‘England’s greatest spy. The great Will Swyfte towers above all normal men.’ His gaze fell on the sheaf of papers set on the table in a pool of candlelight. ‘You have been reading Kit’s play.’

Will traced his fingers across the surface of the wine-stained first page. ‘Kit was a greater man than even his most ardent supporters believed,’ he said. ‘There are deep messages in this play, about our propensity for pride, certainly, but also the lengths we will go to to fulfil our own personal quests, even when we know to do so will damage us or those around us.’ Though Will knew Marlowe was writing about himself, the play was unsettlingly apt for his own situation; he could no more give up on his search for Jenny than Faustus could walk away from his deal with the Devil. He found a page and read, almost to himself,

‘Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God,

And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,

Am not tormented with ten thousand hells

In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?’

‘Unlike you, I am a God-fearing man,’ Nathaniel sniffed, ‘and I do not like all this talk of devils and hell. Remember: speak his name and you will summon him.’

‘You are a fortunate man, Nat, for you have found your own private heaven in employment with me,’ Will said, lightly.

Nathaniel snorted.

Will tapped his finger on the papers. ‘But in his cleverness, Kit has hidden messages here on two levels. The one in symbolic form, in the themes of the play, and that will be hard to decipher without knowing the author’s intent. But look here for the other.’

On a line halfway down the page, Will pointed to a letter O with a barely visible dot beneath it. He flicked on two pages and let his finger trail down the lines until he located a W marked with another dot. Three pages on, another highlighted letter appeared.

‘A code,’ Nathaniel said.

‘A cipher, to be exact. A code involves the substitution of words or phrases, a cipher the substitution of letters.’ Will pointed to a page where he had copied out marked letters – E, T, M, I, T, O, W, R, W, E. ‘I have not yet collected all Kit’s hidden marks, but even then I will not be able to understand the meaning.’

‘The cipher is too hard to break?’

Moving the quill and ink pot to one side, Will sat on the stool and found a clean page. ‘Kit always used what is known as a Vigenère Square,’ he said. ‘Vigenère was a French diplomat who studied the codes and ciphers of the great masters Alberti, Trithemius and Porta and then developed their work into his own system. It is remarkably strong because it uses not one but twenty-six separate cipher alphabets to conceal a message.’

Will took the quill, dipped it in the pot of ink and proceeded to draw a grid of twenty-six by twenty-six squares. Above the grid, he inscribed the alphabet, and then numbered each row from one to twenty-six down the side. ‘This is the plaintext,’ he said, pointing to the alphabet at the top, ‘where we choose the letters we want to encrypt.’

Along the first row of the grid, he then wrote the alphabet beginning with B and adding A in the twenty-sixth box. On the second row, he began the alphabet with C, adding A in the twenty-fifth box, and B in the final one.

‘The system continues, shifting the letters one space to the left on each line,’ he explained. ‘Then it is a matter of using a new row of the grid to encrypt each new letter of the message you wish to send.’

Nathaniel puzzled over the Vigenère Square for a moment and then concluded, ‘But how does the one receiving the message know which rows have been used? You have twenty-six different choices for every letter. It would take a lifetime to determine the true choices from the multitude available.’

‘Nat, you are cleverer than you appear,’ Will said with a warm smile.

Nathaniel gave a dismissive shrug.

‘The hidden message can only be understood with the use of a keyword, known to both the sender and the receiver,’ Will continued. ‘Pay attention now, for even the cleverest may stumble here.’

‘Speak slowly, master, for I am but a thick-headed country boy, and not someone who keeps the wheels of your complicated life spinning,’ Nathaniel said archly. He sipped his wine in a studiedly aloof manner.

‘Let us say the keyword is BLACK, and our message begins, Marlowe says.’ Will wrote the message and then above the first five letters wrote BLACK, and the same over the second five. ‘We repeat the keyword across the entire message. Then we take our Vigenère Square. See, the first row begins with B. That means the first letter of our message must be encrypted with this row.’

He traced his finger along the plaintext alphabet above the grid until he found the M of Marlowe and continued down to the first line to find the letter N. ‘N is the first letter of our coded message. Then we proceed to the row beginning with L, then A, then C and so on until the entire message has been encrypted.’

Leaning in, Nathaniel thought for a moment before circling the keyword with the tip of his index finger. ‘And you are about to tell me Master Marlowe uses a different keyword for every message, and you have no knowledge of the current one.’

‘Remember, Nat, before you outgrow your boots, a little intellect is like a little gunpowder – enough to blow your hands off, but not enough to achieve anything worthwhile.’ Will poured himself another goblet of wine, realizing how much he valued the company of his assistant. He had taken it for granted for a long while, as he had so many other things in his life.

Tearing off a chunk of bread, Nathaniel chewed on it lazily. ‘I am warmed by the knowledge that you always have my best interests at heart, and I am duly chastened,’ he replied in a tone that dripped acid. ‘Why, if I got ideas above my station, I might demand a higher wage and then I would be beset by the problem of how to spend my earnings, instead of bare survival.’

With some of the tension relieved, Will returned his attention to Marlowe’s play and the secretly marked letters. He could try to guess the keyword, but he knew it would be a futile exercise; Kit would never have chosen anything obvious. But the fact that he had sent Will the annotated play in the first place indicated that he expected Will to break the cipher.

The defacement of Walsingham’s grave was part of the puzzle, Will was sure. In the beginning was the Word. The easiest answer was that the keyword was God. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. But it was too short to create an effective cipher, and Marlowe always revelled in double meanings; the one on the surface meant one thing, but the one beneath was more important, more profound. The answer lay there somewhere. Why that biblical quotation? Why Walsingham’s grave? The clues and hints had been sent through different channels so they would not all be intercepted, each one only beginning to make sense when they were viewed as part of the whole. There were still pieces missing, but Will was convinced he was drawing closer to the solution.

‘This puzzle will not be solved without a great deal of thought,’ he mused. ‘Nat, you appear troubled by your own discoveries. Tell me what you found out about the origin of Kit’s play.’

Suddenly weary, Nathaniel leaned back and sighed. ‘I spoke to scholars aplenty, labouring away in their dusty rooms. I did not rest. And now I rather wish that you had not given me this task.’ The assistant steadied himself with a gulp of wine. ‘I am told Master Marlowe’s story of Doctor Faustus is based upon a much older one of a man who sold his soul to dark powers for knowledge. This is detailed in Latin pamphlets that have been preserved for many years. There was also another fiction, in German, based upon this legend and published six years ago, and some feel Master Marlowe may have had a translation and used this as the basis for his play.’

‘A story circulating for years, told and retold ... That is not the answer I needed, Nat.’

‘There are many elements of Master Marlowe’s play that are not apparent in the original story,’ the assistant continued. ‘It is believed that he also drew upon another tale, one that is founded in truth. You have heard of Wykenham?’

‘I know of children’s fairy stories. A village of ghosts. Empty houses where the living dare not walk.’

‘Ghosts! Would that that were the only horror.’ Nathaniel grew animated, his eyes widening. ‘Yes, that is the story they tell in the inns and markets to frighten the gullible, but the truth is worse. Wykenham is in Norfolk, a hamlet not far from the coast. Secluded. Little more than one street of pretty houses and a church. Empty houses, yes. Empty houses now.’ Nathaniel eyed Will suspiciously to see if the spy knew more than he was saying. ‘I heard tell that the truth was hidden by Sir Francis Walsingham, God rest his soul, to keep the peace in Norfolk, and farther abroad, I would wager.’

‘If that is true, Nat, I have not heard it. Sir Francis ensured a great many things were kept secret for the security of the realm, and it is certain he would not have shared them with me unless I needed to know.’ Intrigued by the unfolding story, Will leaned across the table. Shadows cast by the candle distorted his features and Nathaniel briefly trembled.

‘This business concerns one Griffin Devereux, a distant cousin of the Earl of Essex.’

Will hadn’t heard the name at court and his brow creased in doubt.

‘You will not have heard of him, for, with Essex’s complicity, Sir Francis spread untruths and rumours and false information until all who might have known the truth doubted the existence of Griffin Devereux. Even Essex denies him. Even Devereux’s own father denies he exists,’ Nathaniel stressed.

Will thought for a moment. Was this the man Kit had identified in the name scratched into the table in his lodgings – not Essex, but his cousin? ‘What did he do to deserve this treatment?’

‘Why, he set himself up as Faustus. I do not know if he had experience of those Latin pamphlets, or those books that Dr Dee kept under lock and key at the Palace of Whitehall and in his library in Mortlake, which the mob destroyed all those years ago, but Devereux had occult knowledge. He spoke to devils.’ The assistant laid the palms of his hands flat on the tabletop, steadying himself. ‘He bartered with them, and tried to control them. And on a November night four years ago, he travelled from his home to Norfolk to complete his bargain with Lucifer. They say the storm that swept in from the sea was the worst in living memory. Thunder so loud it made a man deaf, and rain like stones. Lightning shattered the steeple at Wykenham where Devereux was completing his incantation, unbeknown to the good people of the hamlet.’

Will smiled.

‘What?’

‘These stories always have these atmospherics. Would it be as good a tale if it happened on a summer’s day?’

‘I was told!’

‘I do not doubt you, Nat. But I take nothing at face value. People embellish these tellings to help them understand, or to cover up their own fears.’ Will pressed his fingers together and peered over the tips at the frightened young man.

‘Perhaps you are right,’ Nathaniel accepted, running a trembling hand through his hair. ‘For if Devereux had completed his foul act on a summer’s day, without the Devil whispering in his ear ... If it had been Devereux and nothing more, it would have been too much for any man to bear, for then it might mean that we are all capable of such things.’

‘Go on, Nat.’

‘I will tell it as I was told, and leave it to you to judge the truth of it,’ the assistant replied, his unease bringing a crack to his voice. ‘Devereux called down the Devil to Wykenham, but Old Hob demanded more than the paltry offerings Devereux had brought with him. His incantation failed. He was forced to swallow the Devil whole, and with the thing inside him he went out into the night and killed every living soul in that place. He slit the throats of children in their beds, dashed in the heads of babies with a rock, set fire to farmers’ wives as they ran screaming from their homes, put out eyes, pulled out lights, hacked and cut and slaughtered all who moved like they were animals in the field. And when he was done, not a single man, woman or child lived in Wykenham. He had murdered the entire hamlet.’

‘What happened to him?’ Will still could not mask his disbelief.

‘He was found the next day, naked, in the churchyard, covered with the blood of his victims, wearing a hat of skin. His wits had been driven from him, and the Devil lived inside him.’ Crossing himself, Nathaniel bowed his head.

‘There was no trial? No execution?’

‘No. Sir Francis, Essex and the Queen herself felt the truth would cause even more damage. We were facing uprisings within and invasion from Spain without. Better to shut Devereux away and pretend he never existed. Then it would be as if the things he did had never taken place either.’

‘If Sir Francis destroyed all signs that this happened, how does your informant know?’ Will pressed.

Nathaniel took another sip of wine and closed his eyes for a moment as he drove the terrifying visions from his mind. ‘A vicar from an adjoining parish was there on the day Devereux was found,’ he replied in a small voice. ‘He wrote a pamphlet. When it was published, all copies were seized and destroyed, and the vicar silenced. Most were destroyed. One or two found their way out, as these things do, and they are now kept in the libraries of scholars and debated at length, in secret to avoid the attention of your own kind.’

Will still wasn’t sure he believed the story. It sounded to him like a blood and thunder tale for a dark night, but if there was truth in it, it would certainly be the kind of thing that intrigued Marlowe. ‘And you say they let such a monster live? How? Where?’

‘Why, in London.’

Will laughed. ‘Where in London could such a man be kept without everyone knowing?’

‘In Bedlam, of course.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

MURMURING A FEARFUL PRAYER, GRACE WAS GRIPPED BY THE vision of death she spied through the crack in the Queen’s bedchamber door. Elizabeth lay rigid on the sheets, skin a waxy white and smallpox-scarred, cheeks hollow, tufts of greasy grey hair sprouting among the bald patches. Her Majesty’s wide eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

On the brink of raising the alarm, Grace released her own tightly held breath when she noticed the faint rise and fall of the monarch’s chest. Without her red wig and make-up, Elizabeth looked much older than her sixty years, frail and withered and a far cry from the warrior queen who had told the world only five years ago that she had the heart of a king. The strain of maintaining power in the face of multiple threats to her rule had taken a terrible toll.

Relieved, the lady-in-waiting gathered up her dark grey overskirt and pulled away from the door, only to be caught by the sight of a shadow moving across the bedchamber. It had been so still within the room she had not known anyone else was present.

It was Elinor Makepiece, one of the six maids of honour who tended to the monarch most closely. Although the woman had dressed herself in pretty pale green, she could do little to disguise her plain looks and heavy features, or her unruly thick brown hair. Yet her manner was always pleasant. All the Queen’s other ladies had tongues like knives, but Elinor had offered many kindnesses when Grace first began her service in the royal household.

Her thoughts flashed to Will, who had helped secure the post for her, she knew, though he had denied it. He still treated her like the girl she was when they first met, at the cottage in the Forest of Arden, as he came courting her elder sister, Jenny. In frustration, she absently tugged at the blue ribbon holding back her chestnut ringlets, then glanced down at her slender frame. Could he not see she was a woman now? She had curbed her impulsiveness, a little at least, yet still he was blind to her charms. All he did was try to shield her from the work he did, and make light whenever she questioned him about serious matters.

Her simmering annoyance faded as she watched Elinor. At that hour, the older woman should have been hurriedly tidying the Queen’s make-up and removing the bowl of water she had used for her ablutions, Grace knew, but instead she moved with a puzzling lethargy. No maid of honour would ever dawdle in Elizabeth’s presence while she lay in bed. The other ladies of the bedchamber had already departed.

Grace was transfixed by Elinor’s steady, purposeful steps, a cloth slowly folded here, an ornament brushed by fingers there, but no movement that could disturb Her Majesty in her half-sleep. To the younger woman, it seemed almost as if the maid of honour was circling Elizabeth, waiting for a moment to draw closer.

When the Queen’s eyes flickered, the other woman made her move. Like a snake, she darted low near Her Majesty’s pillow, her head turned away so Grace couldn’t tell what was being said. The younger woman was gripped by the oddness of the scene: against all convention, Elinor, rigid, looking away, speaking without being spoken to, and speaking at length.

The Queen appeared to be asleep, even as she responded.

After a long moment, the maid of honour stood up and Grace retreated from the door so she would not be seen. Hurrying across the Privy Chamber and out, she put on a bright smile to deflect the stern glance of the Gentleman Usher, but the incident continued to trouble her.

As she made her way to her chamber, she heard a faint commotion on the ground floor. Creeping down the echoing stone steps to the entrance hall, she saw an unfamiliar woman in a scarlet cloak ordering the servants to bring in her belongings. In the candlelight, Grace couldn’t see the woman’s face in the depths of her hood. All around her, the servants worked incessantly, carrying her possessions and preparing a room.

Grace caught the arm of one of the serving girls, still sleepy-eyed from being woken. ‘Who is that?’ she asked.

‘It is the Lady Shevington. Wife of the Viscount Shevington,’ the girl said with a country burr.

Grace’s puzzled expression brought a shy smile from the serving girl. ‘No one knew he had taken a wife,’ she whispered behind her hand. ‘He has not been seen at court for many months since he took up the Queen’s business in Ireland.’

Grace knew that meant Viscount Shevington was most likely a spy, reporting back on the tensions as the English attempted to secure control of Ulster, but news from that part of the world was always thin and frequently distorted.

‘Where is Viscount Shevington?’ she asked.

The serving girl flashed a glance at the woman in red. ‘Still in Ireland, Lady Margaret says. He will be joining her shortly to report back to the Queen.’

As the serving girl hurried about her business, Lady Margaret threw back her hood, revealing hair that was only a few shades darker than her cloak. It was the woman Grace had seen pressed against Will by the church in Deptford during Kit Marlowe’s funeral.

The lady-in-waiting felt a flush of anger tinged with jealousy. She hated feeling that way and left quickly, but she couldn’t stop herself wondering why the woman had come, what she wanted.

Back in her chamber, Grace threw the window open and leaned out into the warm summery night. As she looked around the inner ward below, she was caught by a curious sight. A man lowered himself by rope from a window and quickly found the dark at the foot of the walls. Shocked, she realized it was Will. He crept in the direction of the gatehouse.

As Grace began to wonder what secret business engaged her friend’s attention, the thought died suddenly. She thought she glimpsed more movement a few paces behind him, a blur as if it were only mist; or a ghost. Will was oblivious to his silent companion. She lost sight of the pursuer in the shadows, if it had even been there, but she couldn’t shake off the chill it left in her.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

BEDLAM.

The screams rang out into the still dawn air, even through stone walls as thick as a man’s arm. His grim face shadowed in the depths of his hood, Will Swyfte hid in the lea of the hospital wall, making sure his arrival had not been witnessed.

With each passing moment, he felt his sense of foreboding grow stronger. Where were the Unseelie Court? Like ghosts, the Enemy were defined by the subtle patterns of terror they drew in the world, the trail of blood and ruined lives, but those otherworldly predators remained unsettlingly elusive. Though he could feel their eyes upon him, the tug of their subtle manipulations, he could not understand why they had not yet shown their hand.

Eyeing the feared Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem, Will saw only a crumbling wreck, like those inside. Moss and sprouting grass and sickly twirls of elder had turned the roof green. Panes were cracked or missing and the gaps filled with mildewed wood, the glass too dirty to see out or in. Open sewers flanked Bedlam so that the air was always heavy with the stink of excrement. In the courtyard in front of the hospital, yellow grass grew among the broken cobbles and the cracked flags, and when it rained a stagnant pond grew like a moat to keep out the world.

Will knew that on Bishopsgate Street Without, just beyond the city wall, merchants travelling north to the villages or south into London often paused, thinking they had heard someone call their name, or a whisper from one of the passers-by, or some other voice rustling in the spaces among the rumble of cartwheels, the rat-tat of horses’ hooves, and the back and forth of sellers and apprentices. When they realized the true origin of the sound, they moved on quickly, their heads bowed as if the mere act of hearing would infect them with the illnesses of Bedlam’s inhabitants.

His black cloak billowing around him, the spy dashed across the open courtyard to the main door. Will had heard that the governors of Bridewell, who had inherited the management of Bedlam from the City of London, were more concerned with the cut-throats and thieves in the great prison than with the insane patients of the Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem. No one cared about those lost souls. No one remembered them, or wanted to remember them.

It was the perfect place to keep a devil-haunted man who had slaughtered an entire village.

Hammering on the old, splintered door with the hilt of his dagger, the spy waited for long moments until he heard unhurried footsteps shuffle near from the other side. The door creaked open to reveal the Keeper. The face was not one Will recalled from his last visit five years ago, but the hospital’s overseer was cut from the same cloth. It was not work for soft men, and his features carried the same marks of easy cruelty and quick brutality. Unkempt black hair, a beard that had not been trimmed in weeks, a filthy undershirt and brown jerkin, he could have been any rogue found in the more dangerous streets of the capital.

‘I would speak with one of the patients,’ Will said, keeping his head low so his face remained shrouded.

The Keeper hawked phlegm and spat. ‘Too early. Later. Family?’

Will pulled a leather pouch from his black and silver doublet and waved it in front of the overseer so the coins jangled.

Lizard-tongue flicking out over his lips, the man’s eyes sparkled. ‘Who do you want to see?’

‘One Griffin Devereux.’

The light died in the man’s face, and his sullen gaze flitted around the deserted courtyard over the visitor’s shoulder. ‘Nobody here by that name.’ Will found the lie so obvious he almost sighed at the Keeper’s brazen stupidity.

‘My time is short, my patience shorter. Take the money. Buy yourself a shave and a haircut. Some clean clothes. You may then be able to look in the mirror without retching.’

Growling, the man made to close the door.

Will kicked the heavy door so the sharp edge smashed into the Keeper’s broken-veined face. Blood spattering from pulped lip and gouged nose, the man howled as if he was one of his own inmates. The spy dived in, driving his fist into the dazed face, and as the overseer went down backwards, arms windmilling, Will caught the neck of his filthy undershirt to lower him slowly to the cold flagstones.

Whipping out his dagger, he pressed the tip against the man’s neck and leaned in so his face was close enough to smell the Keeper’s beer-sour breath. A droplet of blood rose where steel met flesh. ‘A good man has been murdered. My friends’ lives hang by a thread. Do not cross me,’ the hooded man hissed.

‘You ... you are Will Swyfte,’ the Keeper gasped, his eyes glistening with tears of dread.

‘Take me to Griffin Devereux or I will cut you into chunks and feed you to the dogs on Bishopsgate.’

Dragging the whimpering man to his feet, the spy thrust him across the gloomy entrance hall and towards the Abraham Ward. Pitiful cries echoed from behind the locked door. Will kept his dagger at the man’s back as he fumbled through his jangling ring of iron keys and then they stepped into a long, dark hall that reeked of despair. Scattered with filthy straw, with cells on either side for the patients, the ward fell silent at first. But when the Keeper slammed the door and turned the key in the lock, the throat-torn screams echoed as one as if a great beast had been woken.

‘How many patients?’ Will asked, casting his gaze towards the clutching hands reaching through the barred windows of the cells. His nose wrinkled at the choking stench that rose up from the Great Vault, the hospital’s overflowing cesspit beneath the ward.

‘Twenty-one.’ The Keeper’s eyes flickered towards Will’s blade. ‘On the books.’

‘And the one we are visiting?’

The Keeper shrugged, said nothing.

Some of the patients were kept in chains in their filthy, vermin-infested cells and allowed no contact, ‘for the sake of their wits’. The calmer ones were free to roam around the Abraham Ward for a few hours a day. Some wore little more than rags.

‘Poor wretches. Who pays for their keep?’ Will enquired, his attention caught by one inmate who had the fresh, unmarked face of a child.

‘Their parishes, or a family member, or a livery company,’ the surly man grunted in reply.

‘And who pays for our patient?’

Again the Keeper didn’t respond. After a moment, he muttered, ‘I ask what I think I can get, depending on how fine their companions are dressed. No less than ten shillings a quarter. Some here have wealth. Merchants. Men from the law courts. We have a fellow from the university at Cambridge. One has been here for twenty-five years, another for nigh on ten.’

The cacophony of the Abraham Ward ended with the slamming of a sturdy door. The sullen man led Will down a flight of stone steps to the hospital’s vaulted brick cellars. The ever-present stink of the cesspit mingled with a smell of damp and age. The Keeper took a candle to guide them past rubble and puddles. Rats fled into the shadows before them.

At the western end of the cellars, a heavy door was set in the wall. Candlelight danced through the small, barred window.

‘He has many visitors?’ Will asked.

‘Only one in all the time he has been here. An educated man with the face of a boy.’ The gruff man looked Will up and down and added, ‘Good clothes like you. A cloak with crimson lining. Gold in his purse.’

Kit.

Turning back to the door, the Keeper hesitated. He tried to moisten a mouth that had grown dry and sticky, his eyes flickering around as he fumbled with his keys. The candle flame threw wild shadows across the salt-encrusted brick.

‘Leave me alone to speak with him,’ the spy demanded.

‘Gladly.’

‘Raise the alarm and you will die. Keep your tongue still and you will get your coin.’

The man nodded, though Will could see the raw hatred in his eyes at his treatment. As he found the right key, the Keeper added, ‘Do not listen to his lies. He is the prince of lies.’

‘I will weigh all his words.’

The Keeper snorted, clearly believing that Will had misunderstood the severity of his warning. ‘I tell you this because I would not wish it upon any man. Not even you,’ the man continued, his heavy-lidded gaze filled with loathing. ‘He has a manner about him, friendly at first, but he worms his way into your skull, and soon you find yourself thinking things no God-fearing man would think. He can twist your thoughts with words alone, and make you do what he wants. Make you his puppet.’

‘He committed the acts of which he is accused?’

‘He is capable of them.’

‘Why do you keep him here, away from the others?’ Will glanced around the dank cellar.

The sweaty, overweight man bowed his head, his voice falling to a whisper. ‘On his first night, I placed him on the Abraham Ward. He spent the night whispering to a wretch in the next cell, a merchant, who cried and wailed for hours. In the morning, he was silent. He had plucked out his own eyes.’ The Keeper continued to stare at the door as if he feared it would suddenly fly open. ‘Devereux will never leave here. He deserves to have his head on a pike at the crossroads within the walls, but that will never happen. He has powerful friends. Sometimes I think they fear death will not hold him, and he will return to seek vengeance on his tormentors.’

No sound came from the other side of the door. Will had the feeling that the cell’s occupant was waiting too, listening to their breathing, his own breath caught in his chest as he anticipated a hand reaching out for the door handle.

Finally the Keeper stirred. He wrenched open the door and stepped aside to allow Will to enter. There was a space a little longer than the length of a grown man’s arm before a row of floor-to-ceiling iron bars. Beyond them was a cell larger than the ones that lay off the Abraham Ward, perhaps twelve foot square. Straw was scattered across the damp stone flags. Illumination came from a single stubby candle in a pewter holder placed on the floor against one wall. Rats rustled through the straw just beyond the circle of light, giving an impression that the cell was filled with many people.

The door closed behind Will with a boom.

CHAPTER TWENTY

GRIFFIN DEVEREUX STOOD IN THE CENTRE OF THE CELL, LOOKING over his right shoulder at Will, with a smile of pleasant, innocent warmth. Will had expected a monster, but he had the impression he was studying an eager-to-please child. Tall and slender, the inmate had a pale complexion, his eyebrows and short beard blond, but his head was shaven. He wore all black – shirt, doublet, breeches – with fine embroidery in gold; it was the dress of a nobleman, but the dark colour only made his skin appear translucent.

As Will looked closer, he saw a faint shabbiness to the smiling man’s clothes, a touch of silvery mould, wear on the elbows and knees, hanging threads, from his time in the cell. Devereux’s hands had the delicate bone structure of an artist, and he folded the long, thin fingers together in front of him in a manner that was both studied and relaxed.

‘You honour me.’ His voice was gentle, and in it Will heard a deep sadness.

‘My name is Will Swyfte. I am a friend of Kit Marlowe, who visited you once.’

Devereux nodded. ‘Poor Kit.’

‘Why poor Kit?’

‘His troubles weighed heavily on him. He longed for death. A release.’

‘You knew all this from one meeting with him?’

‘Kit and I met before, long ago. But I see many things that are not apparent to others. Kit, though, poor Kit, wore his misery clearly. He could not hide it. You know this.’ His tone compassionate, the prisoner turned to face his visitor and gave a slow, sad nod.

Will attempted to get the measure of Devereux from his eyes, which were the colour of a winter sky over the moors. He expected to see deceit, cruelty, the kind of mask cultivated by men for whom violence was only a heartbeat away, but there was only heart-wrenching honest emotion.

‘How is London?’ Devereux said with touching hope. ‘Bright and filled with life? Have the fashions changed? What song is popular in the taverns? Can you ... can you sing it for me?’ He caught himself, letting his head fall. ‘No. I do not wish to hear your answers. It will only make this cell seem darker still, and the hours reach out longer than they do. Have you ever been imprisoned?’

‘From time to time, but never for long.’ Will glanced around the confines of the cell, accepting what it must be like to live in a world with such oppressive boundaries.

‘Perhaps you understand, then, a little.’ The prisoner took a step away from the bars, putting his head back and letting his eyelids flutter shut, imagining, the spy guessed, the city beyond the walls. ‘Those who still have the luxury of freedom would think they would miss the conversations with their friends and family. The joys of a masque, or a feast.’ The poor wretch shook his head slowly. ‘I miss the sun on my face, in my garden on a May morning. The birdsong.’ He traced the notes through the air with the fingers of his left hand. ‘I miss the sound of rain upon the glass. Such a little thing, but when I sit here and remember, I cannot halt the tears.’

Will shrugged. ‘London is a vile place at the moment. The plague is here. There have been many deaths. The stink ... the smoke of the burnings ...’

Devereux smiled sadly. ‘You do me a kindness, Master Swyfte, and I thank you for your compassion.’

‘Why did Kit come to you?’

Lowering his head, Devereux held Will’s gaze for a moment, his smile growing fixed, and then he turned his face away. ‘He thought I could shine some light on the darkness of his existence.’ He gave a faint, hollow laugh. ‘Light. Here.’

‘Kit wrote a play, about a man who sold his soul to the Devil for knowledge, ambition.’ Heeding the Keeper’s warning, the spy stood stock-still, his face revealing nothing of his inner thoughts.

Without meeting Will’s eye, the prisoner extended a languid arm towards the shadows in the corner of the cell. ‘The stories that surround my life provided colour for the background to his tale.’

‘Just stories?’ the spy pressed.

Devereux turned his back fully to Will, his head falling and his shoulders hunched. His quiet voice had the merest hint of despair. ‘When men do not understand the hearts of their fellows, they invent fictions to make sense of the world. It is an easy comfort.’

‘Did you teach Kit some of your magic?’

Facing the spy once more, Devereux laughed bitterly. ‘There is no such thing.’

‘An incantation, the ritual lines and words drawn upon a circle? To summon a devil, as his character did?’ Will pressed.

With a step, Devereux disappeared fully into the shadows in the far corner of the cell beyond the reach of the guttering candle flame. His voice floated back to the light. ‘There is no magic, in any form. Only the dark of the human soul. We do the things we do, driven by devils that we alone create in our hearts and minds, and then we layer our blame upon them so we can sleep easily, or sleep at all.’

Will’s eyes narrowed as he tried to see into the gloom. ‘There is some truth in what you say, but not the whole truth. I have seen signs of what many would call magic. There are powers that are not rooted in this world.’

A long silence followed. Will thought he had offended Devereux, but then the prisoner stepped back into the candlelight. The spy was puzzled to see a subtle change had come over the other man. The muscles of his face had tautened in a different configuration, only very slightly, but it made him seem almost another person: his cheeks appeared hollow, his brows falling lower over his eyes, which had hardened a touch. Will could no longer see the simple emotions in them.

‘How well did you know your friend?’ The prisoner’s voice was now much deeper, and had the country accent found in the villages of Norfolk. Devereux’s hunched shoulders and slight stoop suggested a farm labourer rather than the elegant, educated man the spy had first encountered. Will searched the prisoner’s face for any sign that this was a game, but Devereux appeared oblivious to any change.

‘As well as any,’ the spy replied.

With a grunt, the prisoner shuffled around, kicking up the straw. ‘Not well at all, then.’

‘Every man has hidden chambers where he keeps the private parts of himself safe from the harsh observance of the world. That is no great insight.’

‘But it is in those chambers that the truth of a man lies. If we cannot pass behind their closed doors, we can never know anyone.’ Devereux flashed a surly glance.

Folding his arms, Will puzzled over what he was observing in the cell. ‘And what did Kit hide from me that is important?’ he asked.

‘Places he’s been, and people he’s met, aye.’ Devereux chewed on a nail thoughtfully. ‘And his true nature.’

‘What is that?’

‘Ah, well, there’s the thing. What is the true nature of anything?’ The prisoner gave a little chuckle to himself.

Tiring of the back and forth, Will’s voice grew hard. ‘What is your true nature?’

‘I’m a simple man,’ the cell’s occupant replied with a shrug.

Though his words hinted at deception, there was no sign Devereux was playing a game. This new character was so different, and the change so puzzling, that the spy could only assume that the prisoner was as mad as all the other men in the Abraham Ward, despite first appearances. Perhaps Devereux spoke the truth when he said he did not believe in magic, and the atrocity he had committed was nothing more than the action of someone who had completely lost his wits.

A thought struck Will and he asked, ‘What is your name?’

‘Samuel.’

‘Not Griffin?’

After a long pause, Devereux replied, ‘Griffin is here.’

‘Where?’ Will asked, his curiosity piqued.

The prisoner rapped his temple with irritation. ‘Here!’

Mad indeed, Will thought. ‘Which of you spoke to Kit Marlowe?’ he asked in a kindly manner so as not to annoy the man further.

‘Both of us.’

‘And neither of you spoke to him of magic?’

Devereux made a circle with his forefinger and thumb, a sign the countryfolk used to ward off the evil eye or the attention of witches.

‘Or devils?’ Will continued.

‘Do not speak of such things!’ Crouching, the prisoner wrapped his arms around him and glanced furtively into the dark corners of the cell. ‘If you say the Devil’s name he will appear.’

‘Tell me—’

‘No! I will tell you nothing!’ He thrust a hand towards Will as if he were wielding a knife. His face contorted in an animalistic grimace before he dropped his head, rocking gently.

Will weighed if it was worth questioning Devereux any more. Before he reached a conclusion, the man in the cell stood up suddenly. Another change had come over him. Now he held his head at a proud angle, and there was a touch of cruelty at the edge of his mouth. Where as before he had exhibited the discomfort and rough edges of a labouring man, he now had the bearing of an aristocrat.

‘You have a changeable nature,’ Will said.

‘We are all many things, Master Swyfte. Thinker, worker, lover, student.’

‘Killer?’

‘That too. And I would wager you know as much about it as I.’ Tugging gently at his beard, Devereux gave a knowing smile.

Reflectively, the spy paced along the small space between the bars and the chamber wall. ‘I would ask my question again, then,’ he said. ‘Why did Kit visit you?’

‘For the same reason any stranger seeks out another. To learn. Although,’ the prisoner added thoughtfully, ‘Master Marlowe was not so much of a stranger.’

Will glanced at Devereux. ‘When did you first meet Kit?’

‘I met several of your associates before, Master Swyfte. Sadly, many of them are now, and recently, deceased.’

‘You speak of spies.’

‘That I do.’

‘You were a spy?’ Will came to a halt in front of Devereux, now eyeing the prisoner as he would a predator.

The cell’s occupant tugged at his beard thoughtfully. ‘After a fashion. In that I did the work of spying, on a particular occasion, at the behest of my distant cousin, the Earl of Essex, who in turn was charged by Sir Francis Walsingham. But it was not my employment as such. I agreed to aid my country, and was paid handsomely. It changed my life in a great many ways, for good and ill.’

The revelation that Devereux had been a spy had a queasy inevitability, Will felt. Their business burrowed into the flesh of life like ringworm, corrupting and destroying everything. His anger flared, but he was brought up sharp when he saw the prisoner observing him with a sly smile as if his inner thoughts were laid bare. ‘And this was when you first met Kit?’ the spy demanded.

‘It was. He was a different man, then. He had hope, and his future lay ahead of him, long and bright. That changed, of course, as it did for all of us.’

‘Tell me of this occasion on which you met Kit.’

Smiling, the prisoner clasped his hands together. ‘You move too quickly, Master Swyfte,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘Let us savour our time together. There are things I would speak of. I receive little news within these four walls, less entertainment, no joy. Allow me some simple pleasure.’

This incarnation of Devereux had a sly wit about him that the other two did not exhibit. Will tried to understand the origins of these characters; they were each undoubtedly Devereux, sharing many of the same mannerisms, yet each also definably different. Had the original Griffin Devereux been shattered by his experience in Norfolk into fragments of his true self, each with a life of its own? Was it some product of the magic he attempted? The curse of seeking to achieve forbidden wisdom?

Certainly, this third incarnation had the part of Devereux that was dangerous, black depths hidden beneath shifting surfaces.

‘I hear you are a man forged by your own hardship,’ the man said.

‘We are all shaped by the obstacles we encounter in our life.’ Leaning against the wall with studied nonchalance, Will folded his arms.

‘Shaped, yes, but not made. Your experience created a new man. You are not the Will Swyfte you once were, I hear.’

‘From Kit?’

‘No.’ Devereux paused playfully. ‘I hear whispers that never reach the ears of most men.’ Cocking his head to one side curiously, he appeared to be listening to those whispers there and then. ‘A woman, hmm? Stolen from you. For a long time you hoped she was still alive, despite all evidence to the contrary, and now you are sure. But you still do not know where she is, or how you can reach her. You do not know if she is suffering at the hands of her captors, and that question torments you. Perhaps it destroys you a little with each passing day? Am I correct?’

Ignoring the question, Will responded, ‘There is only one source that could have provided you with that information, and they are masters of lies.’

Devereux flicked the toe of his leather shoe towards an inquisitive rat. It scurried away. ‘Why, I thought that was the work carried out by you and your kind, Master Swyfte. Untruths. Deceit. Subterfuge. Are you saying I heard this talk from one of your own?’

‘You twist words and thoughts deftly,’ Will noted. ‘You know of whom I speak.’

‘The Unseelie Court.’ The prisoner gave a faint, teasing smile. ‘The ones who have tormented Englishmen since the Flood. Shadows on the edge of all we do, guiding us, shaping us, running us for sport. Slaughtering us. Stealing the babies from their cribs, and poisoning the cattle in the fields, as they crawl out from beneath their hills or lakes, or wander from the deep, dark forests, or dance like ghosts in the stone circles thrown up by the giants of long ago.’ Devereux traced one long finger along his chin thoughtfully. ‘Those?’

Refusing to play the man’s game, Will waited patiently.

‘But they have not been heard from for long months, Master Swyfte?’

‘And that absence is as worrying as if they were here with us. More so. The Unseelie Court never leaves us, Master Devereux. If they are not actively destroying lives, then they are planning to do so.’

‘Ah.’ The prisoner’s tone was mocking.

Will’s voice hardened. ‘Now, I have had my fill of your games. Kit Marlowe has been murdered. I will not rest until I find who was behind that crime, though I have to hunt down the highest in the land.’

‘The highest in the land? The Queen herself?’

‘I will follow the trail of blood to its source.’ Will fought to keep the emotion out of his voice. ‘I care not for my own safety. Justice for my friend is my sole motivation. You know more than you say. Speak now.’

‘Or what? Where is the gain for me?’ the prisoner replied, holding his head at a haughty angle.

Will’s eyes narrowed. ‘The gain? When I leave this foul-smelling cell you will still be alive.’

With snake-like speed, Devereux sprang close to the bars. Will stood his ground. Though the mercurial man’s smile remained, his eyes darkened in response to the threat. The spy realized it was the first sign of honesty this incarnation had exhibited, the briefest glimpse of the true, chilling nature that hid deeply beneath layers of distraction.

‘You think you could kill me?’ the prisoner growled.

‘You make a play of black magic, but a blade would loose your blood as it would that of any other man.’

Devereux searched the spy’s face for a hint of weakness, and found none. ‘But I have powerful friends.’ His true nature slipped beneath the surface once more.

‘I told you. In this instance, I care little for the powerful, and what they can and cannot do to me,’ Will replied.

‘You ride towards the edge of a cliff, Master Swyfte,’ the prisoner cautioned, ‘and I fear you do so wilfully.’

In anger, Will lunged, gripping Devereux’s worn doublet and yanking him forward so hard his head crashed against the bars. The iron rang gently with the impact. With his left hand, the spy whipped out his dagger and pressed it against the other man’s pale neck. ‘If you cannot give me the answers I require, delve into yourself and pull out one of the shadows that can,’ Will snarled, his forehead pressed against the cold iron bars so his eyes were only inches from Devereux’s roving gaze.

‘Do you really want me to do that, Master Swyfte?’

‘I need information, Master Devereux, and I am in no mood to wait.’

‘And you will accept the consequences?’

‘In the work I do, the price is always high. Do what I ask.’

‘Very well.’ The man’s head dropped as if he were in thought, but when he glanced up again, Will involuntarily flinched. Once again, Devereux’s face had altered, this time substantially. The muscles pulled the mouth wider and down at the ends, the cheeks hollower; the eyes had retreated into pits of shadow, and when the candlelight caught them, Will saw the black pupils had expanded to cover the irises and most of the whites. There was nothing in them that was recognizably human.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

DEVEREUX PULLED HIMSELF FREE FROM WILL’S GRIP AND RETREATED to the centre of the cell where he squatted like an ape, his breath deep and rumbling. For long, silent moments, his head on one side, he levelled an unblinking gaze. Will felt as if it was delving deep into his thoughts.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. He shivered. The room appeared to have grown colder.

‘Your friend called me Mephistophilis.’ The squatting man’s voice was hoarse, strained and crackling like an old man’s, the words formed as if he was unused to speaking. Chilled, Will felt it was as if some beast had slipped beneath Devereux’s skin and now wore his appearance like clothes.

‘Is that your name?’ he demanded.

‘There is power in naming, and power in words. A word turns something into what the word says it is, not what it is in essence. That is a form of magic, is it not? To shape the world without by a conscious thought within?’ With a long thin finger, Devereux traced an arc in the straw. He looked as if he was preparing to pounce, desperate to tear Will limb from limb.

‘I am angel or devil, whichever you choose to call me,’ the prisoner added.

‘I could never imagine you an angel.’

The slow rumble of Devereux’s breath was the only reply. Will could now see the cloud of his own breath.

‘Then I will address you as Mephistophilis, if that is your wish,’ the spy said, ‘though I wonder if you are truly a devil, or some terrible part of Devereux himself, released from the depths of his mind by the atrocities he committed.’

‘A good question. You must decide upon the answer for yourself.’ Its black eyes did not blink.

‘You came to Devereux after he murdered all those poor souls in Norfolk?’

‘How could I not answer when the summons was so loud and clear?’

‘And now you ride him like a mare.’

‘I am always with him. Sometimes near, sometimes afar, but always there. To the end. And beyond. Once summoned, we cannot be dispatched until the deal is complete.’

Devereux continued to trace a pattern in the dirty straw with the tip of his index finger, but his intense gaze never left Will’s face. Still biding his time, the spy thought. Waiting for him to take a step too close to the bars, to drop his knife or bare his neck. ‘Then I know you, and I can weigh the value of your words,’ Will said.

‘Oh, you do not know me,’ the crouching figure mocked. ‘You will never know me.’

‘Who killed Kit Marlowe?’

‘He killed himself, through his actions.’ The beast-like figure continued to breathe heavily, the rumbling echoes rolling around the cell.

Holding Devereux’s gaze, Will rested a hand on the cold hilt of his rapier. ‘So, we are to play games with words.’

‘Words are nothing but games,’ the prisoner growled.

‘Kit came to you to learn an incantation for summoning a devil. Why?’ the spy demanded.

‘To aid you, his most beloved friend. Even in the face of his own death, he thought of you.’

Will knew Devereux’s words were designed to sting, but that didn’t lessen their impact. ‘To guide me towards the one who has been killing England’s spies, and the plot now unfolding. And his final act was a success, which I would imagine troubles you greatly. There would be no joy for you in a selfless act. But there is a greater mystery here than murder, and it involves the Unseelie Court. You have knowledge of the nature of that plot?’

‘Before they wanted only their revenge for England’s grand betrayal and the capture and imprisonment of their beloved Queen. Now their ambitions have grown.’

‘How so?’

The beast smiled.

Will closed his fingers around his dagger, but kept it hidden from view for the moment. ‘I see I am not to get answers out of this conversation. Perhaps it would be better if I finished it now, and ended your own miserable life in the process.’

‘It is possible to learn without gaining answers. If you listen with care.’

‘Clues, then. Hints.’

‘Here is a hint, little man. This time you cannot stop the Unseelie Court until you find them. They are as close as a whisper and as far away as the stars. Close enough to step into the place you consider safest when the time is right. Sometimes you even look into their eyes and do not know.’ Devereux gave a low, mocking laugh.

‘I thank you. I will reflect on your hint at my leisure.’ Will noticed the prisoner’s breath did not cloud like his own, even though the temperature had fallen so steeply there was now the sparkle of hoar frost on the cell walls. ‘And the murders of England’s spies – it is by the hands of the Unseelie Court?’ he added.

‘It is by the hands of a man who serves the purpose of the Unseelie Court, although he may or may not be aware of that.’

‘And they kill the spies who know of their existence, the soldiers in this long war, to hide their path.’

‘Very clever, Master Swyfte. You have pieced together some parts of this great puzzle with no little skill. The very essence of the Unseelie Court’s plot is that they become, once again, invisible and unknown,’ the threatening figure replied. ‘But a death is not always simply a death.’

‘A riddle. I am told children and fools enjoy them.’ When the spy took an unconscious step towards the bars, he saw Devereux’s muscles tense. Quickly, he stepped back. ‘So they have not been killed simply because they are spies. Their deaths serve another purpose for the Unseelie Court.’

‘Three purposes, in fact. One: the murders mask the larger trail of those Good Neighbours. Two: they mask a smaller trail that may, perhaps, lead to the heart of their plot and the way to bring it all crashing down. And three ...’ Halfway between grin and snarl, Devereux’s lips curled back from pointed teeth.

‘Three?’

‘The Fay, as they have been called and sometimes call themselves, destroy England’s hard-won defences by degrees. Soon there will be nothing to keep them out in the night. And then ...’ The prisoner clapped his hands with dark delight.

Will shuddered. He pictured Gavell’s flayed body in the deadhouse, the strange mark upon his back. Now he understood. The Unseelie Court were using the deaths of the spies in some ritual that would peel back the magical defences the court astrologer Dr Dee had put in place all those years ago. That was why Carpenter and Launceston had encountered that vile thing in Bankside in broad daylight. As the defences yielded, the Enemy would be able to move more freely, until they could strike with impunity anywhere, at any time, liberate their Queen ... The spy had a terrifying flash of the beautiful, terrible Fay monarch walking free from the Lantern Tower at Whitehall, boiling with anger after years of imprisonment, fire and blood and destruction blooming in her footsteps like summer flowers.

‘How many more murders before it all falls apart?’ Will whispered.

‘Three. Only three. Each life must be taken at the right time, in the right place.’

Will clenched his fist in defiance. ‘Then we must stop more blood being spilled. I suppose you could not tell me the identity of the face behind the devil-mask?’

‘In his appearance you already know his nature, and through nature one can divine a man.’ The hunched prisoner levelled his gaze at a scurrying rat. It stopped in its tracks, held fast by the glare. After a moment, it fell on its side, dead. Devereux tossed it into a corner where it landed with a dull thud. ‘I know many things, but I have little to gain by telling you,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘You are scared of them, then. The Fay,’ Will taunted, hiding his frustration.

The prisoner gave a broad, dark grin. ‘Their agents dare not come near here,’ he whispered.

‘Who are their agents?’ Will’s eyes narrowed. He felt his anger grow at each of Devereux’s new obfuscations and deceits.

‘There is a play, performed in recent times at the Rose Theatre—’

‘If it was staged in recent times, how do you know of it?’ the spy interrupted sharply.

Devereux huddled even closer to the stinking, straw-covered floor and intoned in a low, resonant voice:

‘

Here, said they, is the Terror of the French

The Scar-Crow that affrights our children so

.

Then broke I from the officers that led me

,

And with my nails digged stones out of the ground

,

To hurl at the beholders of my shame

.

My grisly countenance made others fly

,

None durst come near for fear of sudden death

.’

‘More riddles,’ Will said scornfully. ‘You waste my time.’

‘Do I?’ The prisoner began to crawl around the cell, flashing occasional glances back at him. ‘There is a school that meets at night, wise men, artists, thinkers, and your good friend Kit was one of them. Yes, he had a secret life you never knew about. And they plot and they plan and they know more than you. And the writer of those words had heard of these agents, though he likely did not know the full truth, or he would have run screaming from his room and created no more fictions.’

Will laughed. ‘These are your fictions.’

‘Mine? No, all true.’ Devereux pressed his hands together in a mockery of prayer. ‘And here is another: if you would stop the agents you must find the Corpus-Scythe.’

‘And what is that?’

‘A tool, a weapon, a way for the Unseelie Court to control their puppets. For if the agents ever turned they could destroy all things, even the Fay.’

The spy listened to the cryptic comments Devereux made – the Terror of the French, the school that meets at night – and while they all hinted at a greater mystery, he felt only anger at the elusive nature of what he had been told.

Will stepped close to the bars.

The beast-like man turned suddenly, leaping like a cat towards the spy, mouth torn wide, spraying spittle and rat-blood. A rolling, ferocious snarl echoed off the brick walls. Will stood his ground, watching the prisoner rush towards him, hands like claws to tear out his throat.

At the very last, the spy stepped back. As both of Devereux’s hands reached through the bars, Will grabbed the wrist of one with his left hand, and with his right drove his dagger through the protruding palm. He continued his thrust, forcing the blade through the palm of the hand he gripped and continuing upwards with all his weight behind it until he had both of the prisoner’s hands impaled high over his head.

Roaring in agony, the creature realized he couldn’t escape, but still he writhed and tore until the blood rushed down his arms.

Will pressed his face close, smelling his opponent’s meaty breath. ‘I care nothing for you, or your life,’ he growled. ‘I have no time for your games. I seek only revenge for my friend’s death, and I will not be deflected.’

Those hideous black eyes loomed ever closer. ‘I will tell you nothing,’ Devereux snarled.

The spy twisted the knife.

Though he convulsed in pain, the possessed man remained silent, and when the agony passed he was eerily calm.

‘Who are the Unseelie Court’s agents?’ Will asked, just as calm.

Defiant, Devereux held his gaze for a moment, and then replied, ‘The Scar-Crow Men, and they are everywhere.’

‘How do I know them?’

‘You do not. They look like people you know, perhaps your own friends. But they are not. They are made of straw, or clay, or this, or that. You can trust no one. No one.’

Suddenly Will understood Kit’s exhortation in the note that accompanied his play. Trust no one. And suddenly he glimpsed some of the meaning behind the vision the devil had given him in the Rose Theatre.

A faint smile told him that his opponent had revealed the information only to cause further distress, unease, perhaps fear, or despair.

The black eyes narrowed. ‘Torture me all you will, but you harm only Devereux.’

‘What are you?’ Will asked with quiet intensity.

‘You know. In the dark of the night, when you fear the worst there is of life, you know.’

The spy ripped out his dagger and the prisoner fell away from the bars, rolling back across the dirty straw to coil like a beast once more. ‘I would tell you one more thing, given freely,’ he said, ‘for the more you progress into the heart of this thing, the more misery awaits you. And I would see you suffer.’

‘Tell me,’ Will said icily.

‘All you seek springs from one event.’ Devereux crawled forward to press his face against the bars, distorting his features monstrously as he peered at Will through the gap. ‘Follow the marsh-lights back through time. Follow that small trail. You will find it for yourself.’ His mouth split in a grin that was more hunger than humour, the teeth yellow and stained with blood.

‘You think you drive me towards destruction. You do not,’ the spy said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

‘You are already on the road and you do not see it. But you will. And soon.’ Devereux looked just past Will’s left shoulder and said, ‘Ride him well, coz, when the time comes.’

The hairs prickled on the nape of Will’s neck. Despite himself, he glanced back to see if the Keeper had entered the cell silently. There was no one behind him.

‘You are no longer alone,’ Devereux taunted. ‘You have a companion now, always there, one step behind, guiding, whispering, waiting. Your own devil. For as your friend saved you, he also damned you.’

‘This time your lies are too crude,’ Will snorted.

‘Your ending is already written, Master Swyfte, by the man you trusted most, and the final word is damnation.’ Devereux’s fat, shining tongue flicked out like a snake’s. He still had not blinked.

‘I choose my own ending,’ Will stated emphatically.

As he left the cell, the door closed firmly behind him, he heard Devereux begin a keening wail, desolate and haunting like hungry birds over a lonely moor. It followed Will up to the Abraham Ward where the crazed patients watched him in eerie silence, their eyes oddly fixed a pace behind his back, and the sound only ended when he was out of the gloomy building and into the hot sun of the new day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

JENNY IS STILL ALIVE.

Grace woke with a start. She was still caught up in her dreams, visions of shadowy figures, and a man with a shimmering head like the moon, and, oddly, her sister Jenny calling to her across a vast expanse of water. Jenny, whom she had not seen since she was a girl, but who still seemed as young and vibrant as the day she disappeared, though her eyes were filled with desperation, and, perhaps, fear.

It was a silly thought, she told herself. Just a dream. Nothing more.

And as that notion faded, she was struck by another. She felt a chill run through her entire body.

She was not alone.

Rigid with fear, the young woman lay on her back on her hard bed. A shaft of moonlight fell through the window across the linen sheet lying loosely over her white nightgown. The rest of her chamber was in deep shadow, but she was convinced someone sat on the stool next to her bed.

Grace could sense the presence looming over her, and smell a hint of musk, but more troubling to her, she discerned a faint, wet smacking in the stillness of the room. Fighting back the rising panic, she strained to hear.

Lips, she thought. The smacking of lips.

Someone was eating.

The young woman shuddered. Flee! the voices in her head screamed. Save yourself! Her heart thundered, but she stayed calm, telling herself that if she made a sudden move the intruder could kill her before she was halfway across the chamber.

With an almost imperceptible movement, Grace eased her trembling hand through the dark to the small stool on the other side of the bed where she had left her comb and looking glass. Her fingers closed on the cool silver handle of the mirror and she brought it back up steadily.

The wet smacking sound now seemed as loud to her as a tolling bell.

Behind her fear, the young woman felt sickened. What was it eating?

Grace thought of lashing out with the mirror and then escaping in the confusion, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. She had to see. With a smooth, gentle movement, she eased the looking glass into the moonbeam and tilted it so the milky light reflected across her bed.

Her chest tight with apprehension, the young woman snapped her head round to see what was caught in the glimmer.

In her plain, grey nightgown, Elinor, the Queen’s maid of honour, was hunched over like a bird of prey, talons curled. Her eyes were wide and white in the moonlight, her hair a wild, wispy mane.

Grace shrieked.

The older woman leapt to her feet, knocking over the stool, and lurched out of the chamber with the door banging behind her.

Sitting up in her bed, Grace covered her face and tried to calm her racing heart. She told herself Elinor must have been sleepwalking, although every sign had suggested the maid of honour was wide awake. But the younger woman was troubled most by what she had seen her friend doing in that brief flash.

A lock of Grace’s long, well-combed hair had been clamped between the maid of honour’s thin lips. She felt the end of the strand, still wet with saliva.

Elinor had been eating her hair.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

IN THE SWEET PLACES INHABITED BY THE UNSEELIE COURT, THERE is always music in the air, and beauty, and joy, and the haunting fragrance of honeysuckle. But not here. Fabian of the High Family wipes away a single tear searing his cheek and wonders how long he must endure the miseries of the cold human world. It is dark, the grand horizons obscured by stone walls, and echoing through them the thunderous rhythm of hammers upon anvils beating out the final days of man.

Fabian dreams of mirrors.

Selecting a long shin bone from the jumbled pile beside him, the doleful being proceeds to carve shapes and symbols in the yellow-white surface. Dressed in inky doublet and breeches, his hair black, his eyes too, Fabian reflects on the harsh decisions forced upon his people, known at times in the tongue of men as the Fay. And harsh they certainly are, for all poor mortals, that race which he admires so, and pities too. If only his brothers and sisters saw the Sons of Adam in the same light.

Sons of Adam. Fabian laughs at that. The stories they tell themselves! If only men knew the truth.

Finishing his carving, the black-garbed Fay takes the shin bone and inserts it into a hole in a circular piece of stone cut from bedrock under the light of the full moon. Silver symbols glisten on the stone in the seething red light of a brazier. Fabian waves his slender fingers over the collection of objects scattered across the bench – the skull of a bird, a pink seashell taken from the beach at dawn, a five-bladed knife, a globe that throbs with an inner white light – and wonders which one to select next.

The booming of the hammers does not slow, and it never stops.

Two looking glasses stand in the gloom on the edge of the low-ceilinged chamber. The surface of one clouds and a dim light appears within it. When the surface clears, Fabian sees a spectral figure, tall and thin and dressed all in grey, his long hair a gleaming silver with a streak of black along the centre. Clinging to his arm is a hairless, ape-like creature with golden eyes. It stares too long, too hard.

‘Lethe,’ Fabian says in greeting, his attention still focused on his work. ‘The Corpus-Scythe sings to me. I can hear the shape it wants to be. Soon now. Soon.’

The silver-haired being inscribes a circle in the air with his index finger, and laughs.

‘Do not hurt them. They shine like stars, if only you could see it,’ Fabian whispers, his voice almost lost to the din.

‘Your pleadings are tiresome,’ Lethe sighs. ‘Whatever you have discovered in your unpickings, the fact remains that the race of men are the architects of their own destruction. Have you forgotten that our Queen is now held at the top of a tower in one of their palaces?’ He clutches a hand to his mouth for a moment, fighting queasiness. His voice rising to a shriek, he continues, ‘Our Queen, a prisoner. Alone, suffering, a victim of man’s betrayal. The fuel for the very defences that have locked us out of the land where we once sought our sport.’

The ape-thing places one paw upon its master’s cheek to calm him.

‘We will have our Queen back, Fabian. But that is only the start,’ Lethe continues, his voice trembling with emotion.

Fabian chooses the five-bladed knife and affixes it to the stone with gold wire, muttering the ritual words under his breath as he does so.

‘Then we are to proceed?’ he asks when he has finished the next stage of his long, intricate task.

The silver-haired being claps his hands together with glee. The hairless ape-thing mimics its master. ‘For the Fay, for the great, glorious Unseelie Court, a new age beckons. We step out from our sweet, shadowy homes into harsh light. This course has been thrust upon us, but we shall not flinch. We shall remain resolute. And soon, soon now, only one world shall exist. Our world.’

The second mirror clouds, then glows. Fabian glances up to see inscrutable Deortha, staff in hand, the skulls of mice and birds braided into his hair. Behind the conjuror, four candles flicker in the centre of a stone chamber, their flames reflected in a hundred golden-framed mirrors covering the walls. A black-robed man kneels in front of a wooden cross. Muttered prayers rustle out into the still room.

‘Da, quaesumus Dominus, ut in hora mortis nostrae Sacramentis refecti et culpis omnibus expiati, in sinum misericordiae tuae laeti suscipi mereamur.’

The praying man wears a devil’s mask on his face and the wings of an angel on his back. Deortha gives Lethe a cold smile and a deferential bow. ‘Exaltus. We are to expect you soon?’

‘Soon. I am eager to look out over my new realm.’ Lethe strokes slender fingers across the head of the golden-eyed creature. It mouths the same words as its master speaks. ‘Your puppet dances to the tune we play?’

Deortha glances at the praying man. ‘His weakness was easy to find, and even easier to prise apart. He has allowed his love of his God to unbalance his fragile wits, and now he sees his deity everywhere. Even here.’

The two Fay laugh. Fabian shakes his head sadly.

‘And so he finds sanctity in the blood he spills,’ the conjuror continues. ‘He kills by our design. The victim, the time, the place. And with each life lost another part of England’s defences crumbles. This land will be ours, as it once was.’

‘And that is only the beginning,’ Lethe says, his pet says. ‘And our enemies know nothing?’

‘They go about their business as if all was well with the world, these foolish men. And so we move quietly and steadily, drawing ever closer, and by the time we are seen it will be too late.’

‘Soon, then,’ Lethe whispers, the glass clouding around him. ‘Soon.’

In the other mirror, Deortha turns to examine their puppet. His prayers complete, the man stands. Over his head, he raises the Gerlathing, the knife-that-severs-souls. The ritual blade glimmers in the reflected candlelight.

‘Tell me, angels of the Lord,’ the devil-masked man cries. ‘Who dies next?’

And on and on the hammers clash upon the anvils, beating out the final days of man.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE STEADY CLANG OF IRON ON STONE SOUNDED TO WILL LIKE THE remorseless proclamation of a funeral bell. He felt the vibrations run through his Spanish leather boots, up his black-clad legs and into the pit of his stomach as he crouched on Paul’s Walk in the dark belly of the cathedral. His stomach responded with a queasy sensation that only added to his feeling that the world was out of kilter.

In the wavering light of the candle, Carpenter’s scarred face glistened with a sheen of sweat. One blow with the iron rod along the join between the flagstones. Another.

Thoom. Thoom.

Along the nave, near the east door, Will could just make out Launceston standing guard in case anyone came to investigate the disturbance. The Earl was as grey and still as one of the statues of the saints that looked down from the alcoves along the north wall.

Crouching next to the candle to prevent the light reflecting through the stained-glass windows, Will watched Carpenter work. Chunks of stone were flying off the flag. Soon it would be possible to work the rod into the join and lift the paving.

‘Defacing a monument to God’s will. Disturbing the dead. Grave-robbing. Perhaps they could even make a case for necromancy,’ Carpenter growled, pausing to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. ‘I sometimes wonder if we can go any lower. But you always surprise me.’

‘I see it as my life’s work to provide you with new experiences, John,’ Will replied. ‘Besides, count yourself lucky. I am already wanted by the Privy Council after failing to present myself to them this morning, and they are not known for their moderation.’

When he had left Bedlam in the early morning sunlight, Will had made his way to the back room at the Cross Keys on Gracechurch Street where he had arranged to meet his two companions. Once the two men heard the information Will had gleaned from Griffin Devereux, they all agreed no more time could be wasted. The devil-masked murderer had to be found and stopped before the final defences fell.

Glancing around uneasily, Carpenter muttered, ‘Since you mentioned those Unseelie Court bastards were close at hand ... close enough to look us in the eyes ... I see them in every shadow. Hell’s teeth, I am like a child! Why don’t they show themselves and I can plunge my steel into their guts?’

‘Do not wish it upon yourself, John. The Enemy will strike soon enough.’ Will eyed the dark areas of the cathedral, as uneasy as his companion. ‘It is these Scar-Crow Men that trouble me more. Fay agents who can pass as human, or humans who have sided with the Enemy? I do not know how much of Devereux’s words I can trust. But one thing is for sure, now we have to watch our own kind too.’ He shook his head, concerned.

Carpenter grunted. ‘We are alone, then. There is nowhere we can be sure we are safe.’

Will could not argue.

After a break, the scarred man continued with his work.

Thoom, thoom, thoom.

Will cursed himself for jumping at shadows all day. As he had slipped through the city gates after leaving Bedlam, two pikemen in shining steel helmets were chatting lazily in the sun, but another watched Will as if he had committed some crime. On Corn Hill, a man in an emerald-coloured cap with a band of black and white triangles paused suddenly in his walk to turn and stare at Will in an accusatory manner. Brought to a halt by a flock of sheep being driven to market, a lawyer in a black gown and carrying a purple-ribboned sheaf of papers had glowered at him. The wife of a wealthy merchant had watched him from the first floor of one of the large houses lining Cheapside. A gentleman in a furred compass cloak engaged in buying a mutton pie from one of the street sellers locked eyes with him for a long moment.

Imagination or truth? Had the Unseelie Court already all but won and no one yet knew?

Thoom, thoom, thoom.

Will was drawn from his reverie as Carpenter came to a halt. In the summer heat, sweat trickled down the scarred man’s brow and soaked his doublet. The iron rod they had recovered from the cathedral tool store in the crypt was now jammed in the fractured joint between two flags. Gripping the top of the rod, the two men heaved together, and with a deep, resonant grinding the stone was levered free. Beneath was a layer of gravel and rubble that the masons had used to level the floor after the interment.

With the shovel they had also brought from the store, Will began to dig with determined strokes until the tool clanged against the stone that lay above the narrow burial vault. The spies paused, listening to the echoes roll out through the vast space. Along the nave, the ghostly figure of Launceston glanced back their way.

‘If I am to lose my head for this, my dying breath will be a curse to damn you to hell,’ Carpenter snarled.

‘Why this is hell, nor am I out of it,’ Will recalled, but there was a bitter note to the humour in his voice.

The scarred man only snorted, his gaze fixed on the stone covering now revealed. After a moment, he asked in a quiet voice, ‘What possesses you to do this? None of us could call Sir Francis Walsingham friend, but surely he deserves better than to have his rest disturbed?’

Tossing the shovel aside, Will plucked up the iron rod. ‘The dead are gone from this world. My concerns are for the living,’ he muttered. He drove the rod into the dusty groove along the edge of the scratched covering. ‘Why did Kit choose this grave to leave his message?’

‘Because he knew the defacement of our former master’s final resting place would eventually draw our attention,’ Carpenter said with a shrug.

‘That is one answer.’ Drawing a deep breath, Will prepared to put his weight against the rod. ‘Like all writers, Master Marlowe played tricks with words. In his hands, they often meant more than one thing at the same time. In the beginning, he wrote, here. A clue to the solution of the message he hid in his play, I am sure. The word. The keyword to his cipher. But I also feel he wanted us to look here for the beginning of this plot, or one beginning. There is usually more than one as events unfold.’

‘Now you are starting to speak like him,’ Carpenter sighed.

The spy pressed against the rod. As the stone lifted with a groan, such a foul stench rushed out that Will choked, and Carpenter turned away, covering his face. Gripping the edges of the heavy stone, the two men struggled to lower it on to the cathedral floor beside the gaping black hole. ‘What is that monstrous reek?’ the scarred man spluttered.

‘Those are not the usual vapours that come off a body in a state of flux,’ Will said, coughing. The acrid smell burned his nostrils and the back of his throat. ‘And certainly not three years after the passing. It reminds me of the odours that used to emanate from Dr Dee’s rooms at the Palace of Whitehall.’

Taking the candle, the spies tied kerchiefs across their faces and crawled to the edge of the hole. Inside lay a plain wooden coffin. With Carpenter gripping his ankles, Will lowered himself down and ripped off the lid of the box. The candle revealed the linen shroud that had been used to wrap the old spymaster’s body, now stained from top to toe. Setting his jaw, the spy grasped the rotting shroud near the head and tugged until it tore free. The flickering light revealed a death’s-head, the lower jaw hanging down so that it appeared that Walsingham was screaming his torment.

Carpenter let out a cry and then cursed loudly at his weakness. Dark holes stared where the eyes had been, the skin clinging to the bone like parchment, a mane of black hair still attached to the scalp.

‘God’s wounds,’ the scarred man exclaimed. ‘The colour of him!’

Walsingham’s corpse was bright blue. Will gave another tug at the shroud and part of it came away in his hands. The edges looked like they had been burned, and beside the corpse there was a similar scorching in the wood of the coffin. In some places holes had appeared.

‘What has happened to him?’ Carpenter gasped, once his companion was safely back on the cathedral floor and well away from the burning smells rising from the burial vault.

‘Poison.’ The two spies started at Launceston’s whispery pronouncement. He had come up silently behind them while they peered into the hole.

‘I fear Robert is correct,’ Will said, the candle flame dancing in his dark eyes. ‘In the months before his death, when he was suffering fit after fit, his physician provided him with numerous concoctions. And as you know, despite all attempts to save Sir Francis’ life, he deteriorated rapidly, almost as if the prescribed medicine was doing him more harm than good.’

‘Then you think the physician murdered him?’ Carpenter whispered, glancing towards the grave.

‘Either that, or the concoctions were adulterated before they reached our master’s lips,’ Will replied.

Launceston tapped one white finger on his chin in thought. ‘A subtle murder that would not draw attention to itself. Walsingham was the architect of our war against the Unseelie Court. With him gone there was a hole at the heart of our defences, and no obvious candidate to fill it.’

‘The Enemy has planned this for three years?’ Carpenter hissed incredulously.

‘It was indeed the beginning of their slow unveiling of the plot,’ Will replied. He stood up, cupping his hand around the candle flame to stop it going out. ‘With our master gone, there was no one to protect Dr Dee, the other prime mover in the long struggle with our supernatural foe. You recall his advice was soon being ignored and then he was dispatched to Manchester to be warden of Christ’s College.’

The Earl flicked a piece of rubble into the grave with the toe of his grey shoe. It landed with a soft thud. ‘Dee was heartbroken to be dismissed so,’ he said flatly. ‘After guiding Her Majesty in her youth, and then giving his all to the security of the nation, it must have felt like betrayal to be sent away as though he were worthless.’

‘That never made any sense,’ Carpenter grunted. ‘With Dee gone, who was supposed to ensure our magical defences would stay strong?’

‘Our master’s death left only chaos,’ Will mused. ‘Cecil and Essex jostling for the Queen’s ear. No good advice getting through the whispers, deceits and rivalry. Only confusion. While we continued blithely with our lives, thinking all was well, the Unseelie Court silently set their plot in motion. In the shadows they moved their pieces into place, unnoticed, shifting ever closer to the heart of our nation. Now we stand on the brink of destruction and it may already be too late to raise the alarm.’

Will strode to the edge of the grave and held the candle over the hole. The blue, screaming face loomed up out of the dark.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

‘TIME IS SHORT AND I MUST BE QUICK,’ WILL SAID, PEERING FROM Nathaniel’s chamber window over the sunlit palace grounds. ‘You will have many questions, but for now all I can tell you is that we are surrounded by great danger.’

‘Here, in Nonsuch?’ Grace asked incredulously, her eyes still sleepy at that early hour.

‘Especially here. Our Enemy has placed agents among us. People we once relied upon may now be working against us. No one can be trusted. Do you understand?’

Concerned now, Grace and Nathaniel nodded.

It was 4 June, three days since Kit had been laid in the ground. After their hard ride from London, Will, Launceston and Carpenter had slipped past the dozing guards into the still-sleeping palace. Speeding through the empty halls, Will had woken his assistant and the lady-in-waiting to warn them of what was unfolding.

‘For now, I would that the two of you remain safe,’ he continued. ‘At the first sign of trouble, leave the palace.’ He turned to Grace and added, ‘Go with Nat, to the village where his father lives. I will meet you both there if I can. In the meantime, I have work for you.’

Alert now, the assistant ran a hand through his unruly hair. ‘Tell me, I am ready.’

‘Go to my chamber and retrieve Kit’s play. My hope is that the cipher will reveal important information to help us to uncover the plot.’ Will stepped away from the window when a girl collecting eggs for the morning meal glanced up as if she had heard something.

‘You have broken the code?’ Nathaniel asked.

Will smiled tightly. ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was poison.’ He went to the chamber door and opened it a crack, peering out into the still corridor. Turning back to his worried friends, he added in a hushed voice, ‘Now, return to your business and keep up the pretence of normal life. At all times, you must act as if you know nothing. Do not draw attention to yourselves. Keep safe.’

Easing into the sun-dappled corridor, Will found Carpenter and Launceston skulking at the top of the stairs where he had left them. The clatter of feet and the call of friendly voices told them the palace was rapidly waking.

‘Visit Robert Rowland,’ Will whispered. ‘He was always a faithful servant to Sir Francis Walsingham, and as the keeper of the records of our business he will be able to locate what event united Kit and Griffin Devereux. Then perhaps we can get to the bottom of this matter before we end up at the bottom of a hole in the earth. And if the worst happens and I am taken, it will be down to you to bring a stop to this plot.’

‘Two men against the Unseelie Court,’ Carpenter laughed bitterly. ‘And should we stop the Spanish at the same time, just for sport?’

‘In your spare time, find who has been murdering the spies,’ Will continued sardonically, clapping the Earl on the shoulder. ‘Robert, I feel you have an understanding of the mind of the man who kills.’

Launceston nodded thoughtfully. ‘He has strong tastes, certainly, and a fire that burns brightly in his mind. I will try to divine the way he thinks.’

Will shook the other men’s hands in turn. ‘We have been down in the ditches for a long while, but now is the time to stand and be men. To business, friends, and if that business involves blood, so be it.’

At the sound of two giggling maids climbing the creaking stairs, the three spies separated, Will striding purposefully towards Cecil’s chamber. For once the spymaster’s bodyguard, Sinclair, was not smoking sullenly outside the door, casting a murderous eye over anyone who dared approach his master’s room. Without knocking, Will entered.

Cecil was leaning across a table scattered with charts of Ireland, sheaves of paper and the remnants of scrambled eggs and bread. He started when he saw Will, his eyes darting uneasily to the spy’s rapier. ‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ he hissed.

‘We must talk,’ Will said in a grave voice.

‘The time for talking is long gone. The Privy Council meets this morning to discuss your fate. Although, I would say, it was sealed the moment you decided not to honour them with your presence yesterday.’

‘There is more at stake here than my fate, or yours, for that matter.’ Seeing the window was open, Will went to close it so they would not be overheard. As the spy pulled it shut, the Little Elf darted around the table in an attempt to escape. Will was between him and the door in an instant, holding up one hand ready to push the frightened man back to the table if necessary.

‘Lay a finger on me and your punishment will be great indeed,’ Cecil said in a tremulous voice.

‘You have already told me my fate is sealed, and it is not wise to confront a man who has nothing to lose.’ Will calmed himself, snapping his fingers until his master retreated. ‘We have had our differences, you and I,’ he continued. ‘You have little respect for me, or the work I have done – I do not know why. But we must put all that behind us. We are on the brink of disaster. While we have looked elsewhere, to Spain, and France, and Ireland, the Unseelie Court have been quietly circling us. Their plans have fallen into place, unnoticed, unsuspected, and now an attack is imminent. Indeed, they may already have won and we race around like a hen who has not yet realized her head has been removed.’

Regaining his composure, the spymaster strode back to the table, refusing to dignify Will with attention.

‘I am still unsure if you are a part of this plot, but I am trusting my instinct, which has never failed me before,’ the spy said. ‘You are sly, manipulative, mendacious, and interested above all else in your own advancement, but I do not believe you would ever side with our greatest foe. True?’

Cecil flashed a sullen glare.

‘Agents of the Enemy lurk within this court, perhaps people you yourself trust. They could turn on all of us, on the Queen herself, at any moment,’ Will said. ‘Our only hope is to strike like snakes and drive them out. This very day. I risk everything to be here, now, making this plea, and so should you, Sir Robert. Take control. Lead our resistance, and I will stand at your side. Her Majesty needs you. England needs you.’

His shoulders sagging, the spymaster rested both hands on the table and bowed his head. ‘You will not judge me. Unlike you, I must fight for my own survival on a daily basis. There are men who move against me, and there always will be. This plot you mention ...’ He waved a hand in the air as if all he had heard was a trifle. ‘If it distracts Essex, then all is well and good. But I have heard nothing of it, and I hear and see more than you.’

‘You hear and see what you want.’ Will’s voice crackled with anger. ‘You are distracted by your own ambitions while England falls around you. Failure to act will mean a defeat from which we can never, ever recover.’

‘If I act as you say and we fail, or no one else joins this crusade of yours, then my power is weakened,’ Cecil snapped. ‘Better to wait until the path ahead is clear.’

‘That will be too late.’ Will felt a rising tide of hopelessness. ‘I beseech you, heed me. There is still time to act. If we can find a few trusted allies—’

The hunchbacked man hammered a fist on the table, over-turning a pot of ink that flooded a black stain across one of his charts. ‘You have been driven mad by your grief for Marlowe. You see plots where there are none, to give meaning to his death.’

Will drew himself up, his face stony. ‘Very well. Then I must act alone, and you, God help you, must accept the consequences.’

The door burst open with a resounding crash. Twelve figures filed in, most of them black-gowned with black caps, their faces severe. Among the clutch, Will recognized Lord Derby of the Privy Council, Roger Cockayne, one of Cecil’s advisers, and Danby the coroner, and one woman too: Elinor Makepiece, the Queen’s maid of honour.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ the spymaster barked.

‘Sir Robert, leave us, if you will,’ Derby said in a low, stern voice.

After a moment’s hesitation, the Little Elf scurried out of his own chamber with one uneasy backward glance at the door.

Coward, Will thought.

The spy looked along the row of faces, all of them unreadable, but the eyes glittered with a cold light. ‘So now you step out of the shadows,’ he began, his hand moving towards the hilt of his rapier.

In an instant, those implacable faces transformed as one into seething pits of fury. Mouths tore wide like those of wild beasts, teeth bared and spittle flying, and with a furious roar the men that had become beasts swooped down on Will Swyfte.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CLUTCHING TWO LARGE VOLUMES TO HIS CHEST, ROBERT ROWLAND, record-keeper to successive spymasters, entered his chamber with a bowed head as though he had a lifetime’s problems balanced on his shoulders. The lines on his forehead were stark against his sallow skin, his face muscles sagging so he looked as if he had suffered a palsy.

Chests and towers of books, bundles of documents tied with black ribbons and dog-eared charts covered the floor of the cramped, dusty chamber. The stale air smelled of vinegary sweat, the rushes unchanged in days.

‘Master Rowland. We feared we might miss you.’ Almost hidden behind a pile of books and parchments on the trestle, Carpenter lounged in the record-keeper’s chair. Launceston stood at the window, his back to the room, looking out over the inner ward.

In shock, Rowland cried out and dropped the two books.

‘We offer our apologies for this intrusion,’ came the Earl’s monotone from the window. ‘But matters are pressing, and politeness must wait its turn.’

‘What do you want?’ the record-keeper stuttered, gathering up the volumes and heaving them on to the only remaining space at the edge of the table. ‘Did Secretary Cecil send you?’

Carpenter gave a faint smile, hidden quickly. ‘Of course. Would we be here for any other reason?’

The Earl turned, tracing one finger through the silvery dust on a large volume. ‘We seek to inspect the records of our former master, Sir Francis Walsingham, in particular those pertaining to the work carried out by Christopher Marlowe. Our interest lies in any task where he may have been accompanied by one Griffin Devereux. I understand accounts were kept of every matter of business carried out under instruction from Sir Francis?’

‘They were.’ Distracted, Rowland searched through a heap of parchments for a quill. ‘Every piece of business conducted at home and on foreign soil. But you cannot inspect them.’

Carpenter jumped to his feet, knocking over a set of leathery books. Two silverfish scurried out from a spine. ‘You would deny us?’

‘I would deny you nothing, of course,’ the record-keeper replied, unsettled by the scarred man’s threatening demeanour. ‘But I no longer have those records. They went missing on the day of Sir Francis’ death.’

Launceston prowled around the table to take Rowland by the shoulders. ‘Who took them?’ he demanded.

‘I do not know. I came to put them in order after the body had been interred and there was no sign of them. I could only imagine that Lord Burghley had ordered them to be removed for safe-keeping, but when I asked him, he had no knowledge of it.’ Rowland pulled gently away from the Earl’s grasp. ‘I am sorry. I would help you if I could.’

Launceston exchanged a glance with Carpenter. ‘Will was right. This plot has been in motion for years, and the track has been well covered.’

Raised voices echoed from the ground floor, punctuated by angry shouts and the cries of women. Exchanging a silent glance, Carpenter and Launceston bolted from the record-keeper’s chamber. Outside the door, the two men ran straight into a concerned Nathaniel.

As they hurried along the corridor towards the source of the disturbance, the assistant slipped between the spies without meeting their gaze and hissed from the corner of his mouth, ‘Will’s chamber has been ransacked. Everything of value has been taken, including the play. I saw Roger Cockayne, one of Sir Robert Cecil’s advisers, leaving with the sheaf of papers.’

‘Damn them,’ Carpenter growled. ‘You must do whatever you can to retrieve that play. The information it contains could well be crucial, especially now.’

The raised voices rang off the stone walls. Inquisitive servants and curious ladies and gentlemen of the court streamed from chambers on either side, eager to discover what was causing the outcry.

‘If you value your life you will not fail,’ Launceston whispered.

‘You do not need to threaten me,’ Nathaniel replied. ‘I am driven by my duty to Will, not fear.’ The assistant slipped into the flow of curious people as they neared the top of the broad stone staircase that swept down into the entrance hall.

Standing at the back on tiptoes was Alice, her cheeks still flushed from the heat of the ovens, her apron white with dust from that morning’s baking. Her face lit up when she saw the scarred spy. His own face fell.

Carpenter eased in beside his love and whispered, ‘Alice, you must stay away from me from now on. I am a liability that will cost you your life.’ Although he knew it was right to distance himself, he still felt heartsick and couldn’t bring himself to look her in the face.

Yet when Alice turned her head slightly to whisper in his ear, her voice was defiant. ‘I will do as I please. You may think yourself my master, but that is not the case. Yes, I will take care – I know the work you do is dangerous – but I survived my last brush with adventure, John, and I will survive the next. That is what love means.’

Afraid for her, Carpenter returned his attention to the commotion unfolding near the large, iron-studded door in the entrance hall. With Launceston beside him, he edged forward until he glimpsed a battered Will. Two of Essex’s spies gripped his arms and the point of Strangewayes’ rapier was pressed over his heart. Carpenter began to despair.

Hands clasped behind his back, the Earl of Essex strutted around his men, a faint smile playing on his lips. His eyes held a note of triumph as he gazed at the shorter, black-gowned figure of Cecil cowering on the edge of the group. For the first time the spymaster looked uneasy, if not frightened, Carpenter thought.

A defiant glint in his eye, Will stood proud and erect, his smile revealing no fear. ‘I came here to warn of a plot against our Queen by our greatest enemy,’ he announced. ‘I will gladly go before the Privy Council to tell all that I know. We must be on our guard—’

Strangewayes cracked the hilt of his rapier into his rival’s face, stunning Will for a moment. ‘Enough of your lies!’ the red-headed man spat. ‘You will not wriggle out of this. Your past has caught up with you.’

Spattering blood on those nearby as he shook his head, Will reclaimed his wits. ‘I do not lie,’ he stated in a loud voice, ‘and I will risk further punishment, even death, to tell the truth of what I have discovered. We are beset by enemies on all sides.’

The red-headed spy struck Will again with the hilt of his sword.

And then Carpenter noticed something that chilled him. All around, men with faces like whips were whispering in the ears of Essex and Cecil and most of the other Privy Councillors. Danby the coroner was there, passing comment, and Lord Derby, pink, broken-veined cheeks above his grey whiskers, moved among his fellows with a nod and a quiet word. Carpenter could think of only one thing.

Scar-Crow Men.

Shaping views. Infecting thoughts with sly words. Twisting the outcome to whatever would lead to victory for the Unseelie Court.

The scar-faced spy’s heart began to pound. He glanced at Launceston and saw the grim-faced Earl was thinking the same. Carpenter began to suspect every face he looked into. How many agents were there? Who could be trusted?

A rush of urgent whispers swept through the crowd from the direction of the door leading to the palace’s long eastern range. A wave of bowing heads followed.

Rustling a cloak of gold edged with ermine, the Queen stepped into the entrance hall accompanied by one of her maids of honour. Carpenter recognized the maid’s plain looks and thick brown hair, but couldn’t place her name. Elinor somebody or other, he thought. Elizabeth’s face was a mask of white powder, but the scarred spy thought there was an odd cast to her features, a little dreamy as if she had only just woken.

‘What is the meaning of this outcry?’ the monarch demanded. Elinor stood unusually close to her mistress, her face turned towards the Queen’s left ear.

‘Your Majesty,’ Will replied before any other could speak, ‘I rode to Nonsuch this morning to warn of a plot against you, and against all of England.’

‘A plot, Master Swyfte?’ Elizabeth eyed the blood dripping from the spy’s nose. ‘Why is this the first I hear of this matter?’

‘Because we do not seek to trouble Your Majesty with outrageous lies and calumnies,’ Essex said with a flamboyant sweep of his arm. The monarch smiled at her most trusted courtier.

‘Your Majesty, I implore you to listen to what I have to say,’ Will pressed.

The Queen’s eyes flashed at his impudence; one warning was all the spy would be allowed, Carpenter knew, and that only because he had been in Elizabeth’s favour. ‘Secretary of State,’ she snapped. ‘Master Swyfte is in your employ. What do you have to say?’

Cecil cast a dark glance towards the grinning Essex while he gathered his thoughts. Carpenter could almost see his master squirming as he struggled to find a way out of his predicament.

Here is your chance, at the last, Carpenter thought. Stand up and offer your support for the man who has served you faithfully.

‘I have listened intently to the allegations of conspiracy made by this man,’ the spymaster began in a clear voice, ‘but I cannot say I find any truth in them.’

For a moment, Carpenter thought the Queen was about to dismiss the comment, but then he saw Elinor’s lips move, only slightly, her words unheard. Elizabeth cocked her head to one side, a faint expression of bafflement springing to her face. She said in a quiet voice, ‘What do you advise, my Little Elf?’

Cecil quickly extinguished the relief in his eyes and feigned thoughtfulness, one finger to his chin. ‘There is some suggestion of treason in Master Swyfte’s actions, certainly, Your Majesty, though that would be a matter for the Privy Council to consider. And the earlier charge of atheism remains, of course. For those reasons, I feel the Tower may be the preferred option, while evidence is gathered and a case prepared.’

The Queen nodded.

Launceston stepped in close to Carpenter and whispered, ‘All is well. We can free Will on the way to the Tower. There will be plenty of opportunities between Nonsuch and London for a cunning attack.’

For the first time that morning, Carpenter breathed a sigh of relief. There was still a chance to save something from the disaster that had unfolded with frightening speed.

Cockayne, the spymaster’s adviser, had been edging closer while his master spoke and he suddenly darted forward to whisper in Cecil’s ear. He was a small man, smaller even than the Little Elf, with a ruddy face and a shock of grey hair. Carpenter had seen him on the fringes of the secret service, but had never been wholly sure what he did.

The hunchbacked man listened intently for a moment and then announced, ‘Your Majesty, please excuse me, but new evidence has just been brought to my attention. Master Swyfte has been overheard raving to merchants in Cheapside about necromancy and other even wilder tales. It is my advice that he has been afflicted with the mania and should be pitied and not condemned for his actions. To that end, he should be sent to Bedlam until the Privy Council can look into his case.’

‘I hear your advice and it is good,’ the Queen said. ‘Dispatch Master Swyfte to Bedlam immediately. And may God grant him peace from his suffering.’

Reeling, Carpenter looked to Launceston, but the Earl’s face remained implacable. The Unseelie Court had won without a single weapon being drawn.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ALONG THE WINDING, NIGHT-SHROUDED ROAD LEADING TO THE Château de Pau, the trail of spectral carriages glowed with the lustre of pearl. Even the liveried horses and the coachmen, heads bowed, faces mercifully unseen, had the same misty luminescence, so that their appearances echoed the pale, glowing fish that lived in the deep cave pools of the nearby Pyrenees. Across the village clustering in the shadow of the castle, candles were extinguished and shutters closed so none would have to see what passed through their midst.

From a window atop the chateau’s tallest tower, Henri de Navarre watched the procession with a grim face. Tanned and tall and dressed in his best clothes – a forest-green doublet studded with pearl buttons in the shape of the cross and a flamboyant white ruff – he carried himself with confidence, but he knew this night would test his abilities to the limit.

‘They are ghost carriages!’ Henri’s loyal adviser, Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, gasped. Raising a trembling arm to point, the black-gowned, balding former soldier stood transfixed next to his master. ‘See, they appear from nowhere. The road is empty and then, suddenly, the carriages are there.’

‘The Unseelie Court enjoy their shows of spectacle,’ the elegant ruler replied, drawing himself up straight and folding his hands behind his back. ‘Breathe deeply, Maximilien, and hold fast. We have faced worse than this.’

‘You still feel this is the correct course?’ the adviser enquired.

‘There is no other. Europe is as turbulent as ever, and we must chart a smooth course if we are to bring all of France together,’ the tall, black-bearded man said in a soothing voice. ‘We are close to our long-held aim. The Catholic League is in disarray, and Philip of Spain falters. We must hold fast for this final heave, however testing it may be.’

The carriages trundled on to the six-arched stone bridge across the Gave de Pau, the waters black under the star-sprinkled sky.

‘Surely the Unseelie Court cannot be trusted as allies?’ the black-garbed man said.

Henri laughed. ‘None of our allies can be trusted. That is the way of this world, Maximilien. The Unseelie Court want what they want. We have our own aims. Somewhere there is common ground. But when they have served their purpose, we will drive them out.’

‘You think you can manipulate them in that way? With all their power?’

‘Elizabeth has succeeded in England. We can too.’

The battle-scarred adviser cast an eye towards his master. ‘And this threat they hold over our heads, these Scar-Crow Men, has no part in your calculations?’

The King waved a dismissive hand and said with a hint of bravado, ‘There are always threats, my friend. We deal with each one in turn, as we always have. Now, will you greet our guests and bring them to our table?’

His features etched with concern, Maximilien gave a bow and strode from the chamber. Once the door had closed, Henri let his brave smile fall, lines of worry appearing on his strong face. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he left the chamber and descended the spiral stone steps to the grand hall. It was ablaze with candlelight, for he could not abide any shadows when confronted by those foul creatures.

Along the middle of the high, beamed chamber was an oaken table with a daringly constructed centrepiece, a representation of the chateau surrounded with peacock feathers, lavender, violets and other fragrant flowers picked from the gardens that afternoon. Beside it stood an enormous pie, the crust formed in the shape of a crown, gilt and silvered so it shone in the candlelight. It contained an entire salted stag, a goose, six chickens and a rabbit. The rich aroma of the cooked meats and gravy filled the air, with underlying notes of the subtle spices of northern Spain. That was only the appetizer. The kitchens had worked hard all day to prepare a feast grander than any enjoyed by the crowned heads of Europe.

It was all part of a play, Henri knew, but the Unseelie Court were at their least dangerous when they were flattered. For a moment, he surveyed the gold and silver platters, the sparkling goblets and jugs of blood-red wine until he was sure all was perfectly presented. On his way into the annexe, he paused before the large, gloomy portrait of François hanging over the great stone fireplace where fresh-cut logs crackled and spat. He bowed his head briefly, knowing the old King would understand. The path of the monarch was never easy.

From the adjoining chamber window, he watched the carriages draw up at the chateau’s main entrance, but he pulled away before the occupants climbed out. After long, tense moments, Maximilien knocked and opened the door of the annexe. Putting on a warm smile, Henri stepped into the great hall.

With his very first glance across the assembled crowd, he felt a deep chill. Was he surveying a tableau arranged from the contents of a crypt? Bone-white, cadaverous faces were turned towards him, black-ringed, unblinking eyes staring. Nothing moved.

The clothes were flamboyant, mirroring no current fashion but somehow capturing elements of the clothes worn by the King’s ancestors across the centuries: voluminous shirts, bucklers, tied breeches and jerkins on the men, large skirts embroidered in odd designs and studded with pearls and white jewels on the women, their necklines plunging, their hair sculpted and dressed with more glittering jewels. Yet the scene was drained of colour. The clothes were grey, and there was an air of decay about them; they appeared to be dusted with mildew and were worn and scuffed with dirt as if they had lain long in the ground. To accompany that notion, the air was filled with the oppressive scent of clay.

Yet this vision passed in the blink of an eye so that Henri convinced himself it had been an illusion. Now the men all appeared handsome with square jaws and sharp cheekbones, their skin still pale but touched with a faint golden glow. The women had full lips, their thickly lashed eyes gleaming seductively. The clothes, however, remained the same grey, worn, strangely cut styles. Henri felt an odd queasiness at the juxtaposition of grave and voluptuous life, and as he looked around the faces he saw an unsettling hunger there, as if he were part of the coming feast.

‘Welcome to my home, honoured guests,’ he boomed, throwing his arms wide and laughing with studied joy.

One of the males rose from the foot of the table, stepping away from his place to approach the King with slow, languid steps. He sported long silver hair with a streak of black running down the centre, and was uncommonly tall and painfully thin, towering over Henri by a head, yet there was a graceful strength to his every movement. His eyes flashed emerald. Clinging to his arm was a hairless, ape-like creature with golden eyes. It stared at Henri too long, too hard. The Fay bowed, but undercut the show of respect with a faintly mocking smile.

‘And we are honoured to be in the presence of such a formidable ruler as Henri de Navarre. News of your prowess has reached even to our distant homes,’ the guest said with a slight sibilance. ‘My name is Lethe. I am the most senior member of the High Family here this evening. Some of my brothers and sisters have accompanied me, but sadly not all. There is pressing business across this world that requires the attention of my other siblings.’

The King bowed in return, continuing to smile though his breath was tight in his chest. ‘You have shown me great respect in bringing so many of your family here to my home,’ he said.

‘That only shows what great importance we place upon events now unfolding, and the value we see in having the great Henri de Navarre alongside,’ the spokesman for the Unseelie Court replied.

You need me, the French monarch thought, as I need you.

With a knitting of his brow that suggested irritation, Lethe studied Henri closely as if he had read the King’s thoughts, and then he swept an elegant arm towards his companions. ‘Come. Let me introduce you to the other members of my family.’

The tall, thin man led the way to a beautiful woman who sat at his left hand, shining hazel hair tumbling around her bare shoulders. Her allure extended far beyond her appearance. Everything about her drew Henri’s attention. She eyed the King with a look he had only ever seen in the brothels of Paris, but then she shifted that very same glance to her brother. The tips of her fingers brushed Lethe’s gently, the touch crackling like a summer storm with such passion that the French monarch was repulsed. ‘Malantha is our ambassador to the court of King Philip of Spain,’ the thin man said, holding his sister’s gaze.

‘You are a handsome man, King Henri. I look forward to enjoying your company,’ she breathed.

The monarch found the clear suggestion in her words almost obscene, though he continued to smile politely. ‘I am sure even a man of such devout ways as Philip finds you entrancing,’ he said with a bow. Malantha and Lethe exchanged a knowing glance.

Sitting opposite the seductive woman was a man so grotesquely fat he occupied two places. His head was shaven, his piggy eyes peering out beneath a heavy brow, his nose squashed, his lips plump and broad. Thick rolls of flesh fell from his jowls to his shoulders and he was naked to the waist, so that he appeared to be carved out of wax. His huge, hairless belly glistened with sweat. He was as ugly as the other members of the Unseelie Court were decadently beautiful. His eyes brightened as they fell on Henri. ‘You are a handsome man,’ he said in a buttery voice. ‘I heard the women were drawn to you, and now I see why.’

Chilled by the manner in which the fat man eyed him, Henri gave a curt bow.

‘Brother Globelus enjoys many pleasures,’ said Lethe, laughing. ‘His hunger is never sated.’

The King hid the relief he felt at moving on to the fourth and final member of the High Family present, but his unease returned just as quickly when he found himself beside a man with long jet-black hair and a sallow complexion, his beard and moustache waxed into points. The stern figure’s black eyes flashed with unconcealed hatred, but he would not let his gaze linger on Henri for even a moment. ‘Lansing,’ the Unseelie Court’s spokesman said. There was an odd note in his voice that made the French monarch think even Lethe was unnerved by this brother. ‘He speaks little, but sees all.’

The tall, thin man chose to ignore the other members of the Unseelie Court seated around the table and the ones watching with dark eyes from the far end of the great hall. Henri felt the tension in his chest ease when he could finally take his seat at the head of the table.

‘Eat, then. Enjoy all that this house has to offer,’ the monarch announced, pouring himself a large goblet of wine. But not one of the Unseelie Court made a move towards the food before them. They all continued to watch the King with those eerie, unblinking stares. Henri took a long draught to calm himself and then asked, ‘How goes your business in England?’

‘Well,’ Malantha replied, her eyes on the King from under heavy lids. ‘Our plans progress as we intended. Slowly but surely.’

Lansing spat on the rushes scattered across the floor. ‘Blood will run like rivers and the smoke of the pyres will blacken the skies. And not before time.’

‘We have more than one reason to crush them beneath our boots,’ Lethe said, glancing around his brothers and sister. ‘Cavillex will not be forgotten.’

Globelus waved a fat finger at the French monarch. ‘You are not concerned that your ally will soon be destroyed? England has long offered you support, has it not?’

‘I fear Elizabeth would not have been an ally for much longer anyway,’ the French monarch replied. ‘It is my desire to unite my country and to return to Paris to rule, but the Catholic League have been obstructive. However, I plan to renounce Protestantism shortly. That will disarm my Catholic enemies abroad and console the Papist population at home, and I will be free to complete my plans.’

A ripple of laughter ran around the table. Flushing, Henri felt the humour was at his expense, directed at his belief that what he said was in any way important. ‘Why take an interest in so small a country? I would have thought England beneath your notice,’ he said in a sharp tone that he instantly regretted.

After a moment’s silence, Malantha gave another of her shiver-inducing smiles and whispered, ‘Our plans now extend far beyond England. In the peace of our homes, we were content to see your kind as,’ she paused, searching for the correct word, ‘entertainment. Our gentle sport was viewed too harshly by the people of that foul land, and they sought to harm us. Deceive us. When all we offered was kindness. We realized, sadly, that we could no longer ignore threats made against us.’

‘The fields in which we played have become the fields in which we fight,’ Lansing added, his words laced with cruelty.

Henri wished he did not have to deal with these creatures, nor did he want to bring harm to any God-fearing man or woman at home or abroad. When he saw Lethe studying him again, however, he drove the thoughts from his mind and said quickly, ‘So France remains important in your plans?’

‘England’s defences slowly crumble,’ Malantha replied, waving one hand in the air, ‘and when they finally fall we must be prepared to move. France is perfectly sited for a speedy response.’

‘We thank you for your offer of aid,’ Lethe added, tracing one finger along the cleft in his smooth chin.

The French king poured himself another goblet of wine, knowing he must never lose control of his abilities in front of the Unseelie Court but unable to refrain from drinking. ‘I am glad to be of help,’ he said, ‘though I am sure your Scar-Crow Men would have encouraged my assistance had I not been forthcoming.’ Once again he regretted speaking out of turn.

But this time the Unseelie Court only laughed. ‘Who are these Scar-Crow Men?’ Lethe said, sharing a glance with Malantha that he did not mind Henri seeing.

‘If I knew that, my life would be much easier.’ The King sipped his wine, the goblet hiding the contempt that played on his lips. ‘I hear whispers ... rumours. It is always difficult to pick truth from such things. But I fear it is not always wise to trust anyone, even those I have known all my life.’

‘Why, you think we have agents everywhere, nudging you in the direction we require?’ Globelus said, laughing silently so his entire frame shook.

‘That cannot be,’ Henri replied. ‘For if it were true, you would not need to come here this night and everyone in Europe would be your puppets.’

A shadow crossed Globelus’ face. Lansing scowled.

‘And that tells me that if there are Scar-Crow Men, there must be some shortcomings in the plot.’ The King took his knife and sliced an apple into quarters.

Malantha’s smile grew wider, her full lips parting to reveal small, white teeth. ‘A wise man would never make assumptions,’ she said in a mellifluous tone. ‘A knife will never be cannon, but it can still steal a life.’ She clapped her hands twice. ‘Now, enjoy your meats, Henri, and sup your wine, for life’s pleasures pass quickly. For your kind. We will discuss our plans later, and draw up our treaty, and then, for a little while at least, Paris shall be ours. For now, the night has fallen and the moon is full. This is our time.’

At the end of the hall, two of the silent watchers drew fiddles from velvet sacks. Placing the instruments under their chins, they began to play a duelling melody, mournful at first. But gradually the tempo increased and the notes soared, summoning a sound that was both dark and exhilarating. Malantha rose and held out her hand for Lethe. Within a moment they were spinning around the room in each other’s arms. Two by two, the other members of the Unseelie Court joined them, until the entire hall was a whirl of dancing and the furious fiddle music rang from the beams.

Henri sat alone at the table with his goblet of wine, the fine banquet spread out before him, untouched.

As they twirled by, Lethe bent Malantha back so that her lips were close to the King’s ear. ‘Trust no one,’ she breathed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

GRACE’S HEART BEAT FAST AS SHE WATCHED THE QUEEN’S MEN FROM the window. In the inner ward, under the glaring red lamp of the setting sun, they marched in step, back and forth, back and forth, the tramp of their black leather shoes providing a relentless background rhythm to life at Nonsuch. A bloody crimson sash fell across their burnished cuirasses, and there was blood on their minds too.

With each passing day, the young woman found the atmosphere in the palace more unbearable: suspicion, fear and doubt wrapped around them all like a shroud.

Grace hurried along the corridor, avoiding the knots of advisers and Privy Councillors who had been huddling in quiet, intense conversation everywhere for the two weeks since Will had been hauled off to Bedlam. Talk of traitors operating within the court had unnerved everyone.

Carrying a jug of fresh water for the Queen’s ablutions, Elinor approached. She nodded to Grace and gave a humourless smile, but her gaze was as sharp as a dagger. As Grace passed, she heard the maid of honour come to a halt and turn. Watching me, the young woman thought. Spying.

As she moved through the palace, Grace felt eyes upon her everywhere. A serving girl pausing with a bowl of eggs. A Privy Councillor, crow-like in his black gown, watching her with implacable beady eyes. Two knights stopping their conversation to study her as she passed.

You will drive yourself mad with this worry, she repeated to herself.

Grace waited at the end of the corridor until Elinor’s footsteps had faded away and then she opened the small door in the panelled wall and stepped into the tight-winding back stairs. At the foot, she listened to ensure the kitchen workers had left the area before crossing the flour-sprinkled kitchen annexe that still smelled sweetly of the honey cakes that had been prepared for that evening’s meal.

Skipping to the door, she slipped out into the warm evening. A cloud of midges swirled in the sun’s last rays. Breathing deeply to ease the tightness in her chest, she smelled the lavender from the formal gardens and the rosemary and mint planted in rows just outside the kitchen door.

Dressed in his best brown doublet embroidered with patterns of green ivy, Nathaniel waited near the orange-brick garden wall, still warm from the day’s sun. He offered her a posy and bowed formally, his cheeks and large ears glowing a dull red. Grace laughed quietly and gave a small curtsy. Will’s assistant played his part well, she thought.

‘Good evening, Grace. Will you walk with me a while?’ he asked in a clear voice that carried across the gardens.

‘I will,’ she replied, ‘though I cannot be long. I still have work.’

Shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped behind their backs, they walked away from Nonsuch through the winding paths of the gardens, looking, as Grace had hoped, like two young lovers on a quiet romantic stroll. Once out of sight of the palace behind a tall row of yews, they moved quickly through the gate in the wall into the deer park.

Nathaniel’s face darkened as he offered Grace a hand over the large stones thrown across the rutted path that ran between two banks of nettles. ‘We take a risk, even now,’ he whispered.

‘All is risk,’ the young woman stated firmly. ‘I hardly dare breathe in the palace for fear of a hand on my shoulder. There is talk that two of the boys from the stables and three kitchen workers have already been taken away for crimes unknown. If we are to help, we must act.’

‘I do not disagree,’ Nat said, ‘but that does not make this any easier. Even two lovers out on a summer’s eve is a cause for suspicion in this atmosphere.’ He led the way along the line of the wall until they reached the edge of the palace grounds. ‘I hoped to visit Will in Bedlam to see they were treating him well, but I was told the Keeper has orders to admit no one.’

‘Nor is there any escape from that foul place. It is worse than Newgate,’ Grace replied. She had vowed to shed no tears in public for the man she held so deeply in her affections, nor to offer even a word that would reveal any anxiety over his fate. That would not help. Only a clear head and a strong heart would be of use.

The bats were already flitting from their roosts in the dark woods that lay beyond the rolling grassland surrounding the palace. Steeling herself, Grace plucked up her skirts and ran, with Nathaniel close beside her, glancing back every few steps to see if they were being pursued. Even when they reached the shelter of the trees, the young woman still expected to hear cries of alarm at her back.

Ducking under the low-hanging branches, they avoided the thick banks of briar and progressed fifty paces into the cool, shadowy interior. Nathaniel brought them to a halt and gave a short, low whistle. After a moment it was answered away to their right. Stumbling in the growing gloom, they came to an old oak tree that five men linking hands could not have encompassed. As they looked around, two figures dropped from the branches as silently and stealthily as cats.

Carpenter pressed a finger to his lips as Launceston prowled the perimeter, one hand cupped to his ear as he peered into the dark beneath the trees. Their cloaks were smeared with mud and the green of tree bark from three days of living rough.

‘Let me go to Bedlam to try to help Will,’ Grace said, once they had exchanged curt greetings.

‘What could a woman do?’ the pallid spy sneered.

She raised her chin defiantly and fought to keep her voice steady. ‘I would remind you, sir, who sits on the throne.’ Ignoring the Earl’s quizzically raised eyebrow, she continued, ‘In the past, I have been reckless—’

‘I recall risking life and limb in Spain trying to save your foolish life,’ Carpenter snarled.

‘I am not that same woman who strode blithely into danger following her heart. Wisdom has come to me, later than I might have hoped, but there it is. I will do anything in my power to aid Will in his hour of need, and to help save our Queen from this plot. Do not underestimate me, Master Carpenter.’

Shrugging, the spy flashed a smirk at Launceston which only made Grace angrier.

‘Listen to her,’ Nathaniel interjected. ‘We all walk different paths, and we all have different parts to play in this business. Grace can help as much as any man.’

‘As much?’ Launceston said in a quiet, strong voice. ‘Can she slit a throat? For this matter will come to blood in the end. There is no other way.’

Drawing his dagger, the Earl turned suddenly and peered into the dark. Leaves rustled in the breeze. Tense, they all grew still, but after a moment he returned his blade to its hiding place though his gaze continued to search the gloom.

‘Robert and I will maintain our search in London for whoever has been killing our fellow spies,’ Carpenter whispered. ‘Once we have him, we should find out more about this plot. You do what you can here at Nonsuch.’ He sighed. ‘Though London is no place to be these days, with rumours of curses and magics and the corpses of plague victims moving of their own accord down in the pits.’

‘How ... how long do we have before they make a move on Will’s life?’ Grace ventured.

The scarred spy shook his head. ‘Not so quick that it will look like the law is being circumvented. Not so long that he will prove a threat to the plotters.’ He ran a weary hand through his long hair, revealing the ugly mass of pink tissue on the side of his face. ‘Two spies, a fool and a woman against our Enemy,’ he sighed. ‘Kill us now and be done with it.’

Nathaniel bristled. Holding up a hand to calm him, Grace stepped close to the spy. ‘It is time to stop complaining, Master Carpenter, and to accept that the four of us here are all we have. And we shall not be easily defeated, even if it costs my life.’

The scar-faced man eyed her curiously, struck by the passion in her voice.

‘Who are the enemy?’ Nathaniel snapped, still annoyed at being called a fool. ‘The Spanish? Catholic agitators?’

Carpenter and Launceston exchanged a glance and weighed their words. After a moment, the Earl breathed, ‘It does not matter which hands move the pieces in this game. The ones we must be concerned with at the moment are our own – our former allies, perhaps even our friends. We must be prepared to be betrayed on any side.’

‘Can we trust each other?’ Nathaniel pressed, his jaw set.

Before anyone could respond, their attention was caught by flickering lights moving far off among the trees; some were pale, some blazed red and gold like torches.

Nat caught the scarred spy’s arm and hissed, ‘Guards from the palace hunting for us.’

Carpenter’s face drained of blood. He shook his head slowly.

‘We must leave this place. Now,’ Launceston snapped. ‘We have little time.’

Breathlessly, they ran towards the edge of the woods, the lights closing on them.

‘What are they?’ Grace gasped, almost stumbling as she leapt over exposed roots. ‘How do they move so fast?’

‘No questions!’ Carpenter snapped. ‘Save your breath. And do not look back under any circumstances.’

On every side, the lights moved through the trees faster than any man could run. Grace’s heart pounded with the rhythm of her feet.

As they closed on the edge of the woods, Launceston raised a hand to slow them, and then waved them behind a twisted old oak. Ahead, there was only a short run across the open grassland to what Grace told herself was the safety of the palace garden walls. A thin line of fiery light remained along the western horizon. Soon it would be dark.

Grace could see Launceston had heard something. His dagger drawn, the Earl stalked around the tree, keeping low. The young woman felt her heart would burst.

The lights glowed dangerously close.

A cry of alarm tore through the stillness. Spinning round, Grace saw one of the Earl of Essex’s advisers standing beside a tall elm tree, pointing at them. The lanky, ruddy-faced man’s mouth hung wide and the jarring, high-pitched sound he was making was like iron on glass.

All around, the lights began to change direction. In an instant, Launceston had darted from the shelter of the oak and plunged his dagger into the neck of the pointing man. The shrieking ended with a sticky gurgle.

As Carpenter reached the Earl’s side, Grace darted towards the two spies with Nathaniel close behind. But as she neared, she saw horror become etched in the scarred man’s face as he glanced at the body of the adviser.

Turning suddenly, the spy held up his hands and shouted, ‘Stay away! Do not look at the body! Do not look!’ Carpenter bounded towards the woman. ‘Run!’ he shouted. ‘Back to the palace, before they see your faces!’

Behind the spy, the lights swirled and drew near. In their faint glow, Grace thought she could now see shapes, like foxes, though larger, grey and indistinct, bounding sinuously among the trees towards them.

Turning, she lifted her skirts and ran towards the comforting candlelight of the palace. Nathaniel was by her side, urging her on.

At her back, she heard the pounding of the two spies’ feet as they began to follow, but then the sound took a different direction and was accompanied by Carpenter’s furious cursing and his companion’s loud mockery. The two men were trying to draw the pursuers away, Grace realized.

Sacrificing themselves for me, she thought, her eyes stinging with tears.

A ferocious spitting and snarling erupted at her back, and she almost stumbled in terror. She had heard nothing like that sound before. Dimly amid the cacophony, Grace heard the two spies shouting in defiance.

Crashing through the gate in the garden wall, the young man held it open until they were both safely through and then slammed it shut. They ran on along the winding paths amid the perfume of night-scented stock, the terrible animal sounds dying down until only silence lay across the countryside.

Hidden in the dark by the palace walls, they came to a halt, leaning against the warm brick to catch their breath. Grace was crying silently, and she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand before Nathaniel saw. ‘What ... what was that?’ she croaked. Her thoughts were like mercury, unable to make sense of what she had seen and heard.

The assistant took a deep breath and then said with a confidence that she knew was for her benefit, ‘The enemy agents are accompanied by hunting dogs. That is how they discovered us so quickly.’

The woman found it easier to accept his explanation. She glanced back along the dark garden and asked in a quiet voice, ‘Master Carpenter and the Earl of Launceston – are they alive or are they dead?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

THE LOW MOANS OF LOST SOULS DRIFTED LIKE THE WIND ACROSS frozen wastes. Bloodcurdling screams of agony punctuated the slow, constant exhalation of despair. In the eternal night of Bedlam there was no rest, nor easing of spiritual pain. No hope, no joy, no friendships, no love.

Pressed into the corner of his cramped cell on a thin covering of filthy straw, Will Swyfte listened, and waited. His time would come. In the midst of the enveloping misery, his vigilance was kept alive by the slow-burning fire of his anger. Despite the cold iron of the manacles that gripped his ankles, he would not give in, for Kit’s sake, and the sake of all the others now at risk from the creeping plot of the Unseelie Court.

The choking stink of excrement filled the air from the overflowing vault beneath the madhouse. Across the entire floor of the Abraham Ward the straw heaved and rustled as scurrying rats searched for the meagre morsels of food dropped by the inmates. In the night, their high-pitched squeaking only added to the chorus of suffering. Sometimes the spy was sure he could hear another sound echoing deep in the background: the cries of Griffin Devereux rising up from the depths, as if the black magician somehow knew Will was now incarcerated in Bedlam too.

Purple bruises patchworked the spy’s face and body and every joint ached from the ferocious beatings he had endured. The men Cecil had dispatched to escort Will to the hospital had treated him as they would any other traitor, with fists and feet and pricks of daggers, just for sport. But once the gates of the feared lock-up had clanged shut, the true pain had begun. Still seething from his treatment at Will’s hands, the Keeper had found new sport in an inmate whose fame reached far beyond the walls of London.

‘You raised yourself above me, and now you are beneath me. Indeed, beneath all men,’ the key-holder had growled before launching the first of many assaults. Will had resisted, but, hampered by manacles and ropes, he could do little but soak up the pain until unconsciousness freed him from the agony.

With his eyes now used to the permanent half-light, he watched the stained door. The beatings would continue, but his time would come, and then there would be vengeance aplenty.

As his gaze fell away, Will thrust himself back against the damp stone wall in shock. He was not alone. Sitting in the corner opposite him was Jenny. She wore the same blue dress he recalled from the day she disappeared, but her pale skin was now mottled, her black eyes dark-ringed as though she were being consumed by sickness. She eyed him through a curtain of lank, dirty hair, her too-thin arms wrapped around her legs. In her face the spy saw none of the love he remembered. Instead there was coldness, and suspicion, and perhaps contempt, as if she would never forgive him for abandoning her.

Everything about her appearance was designed to hurt, and even though Will knew that was the intent, he could not meet her gaze.

‘And so Griffin Devereux was correct. I now have my own devil, like Faustus in Kit’s play, to tempt me with sweet words and thereby condemn me to eternal suffering.’ The spy laughed without humour. ‘But you waste your time, creature of the dark – what do I call you? Mephistophilis, in honour of my friend? ’Twill suffice. For one, according to the words Kit wrote, it was Faustus who condemned himself. He opened the door. His devil only held it wide for the man to pass through. I will not make that mistake.’ Will stretched out his legs to ease the ache from the manacles. ‘And second, I do not believe in hell, or heaven for that matter. There is no hand of a loving God in the suffering I have witnessed in my life. And damnation is here with us, not waiting at the end of our lives. Men are the devils, inflicting pain upon their own for personal gain.’

‘Your bitter thoughts will hollow out your soul.’

The spy was sickened by the voice. It had the gravelly, phlegm-tinged tones of an old man, yet it issued from the full lips that he had kissed those years ago on the edge of the Forest of Arden. ‘Why go through these trials, if all is as you say?’ the devil continued. ‘If you believe this life is pointless, end it now and be done with it.’

Will kicked out at a rat which had been eyeing his bare feet. ‘I see you would find pleasure in my passing, which only encourages me to grip tighter to life,’ he replied.

‘You think after the cruelties inflicted by the Unseelie Court that there is anything left of the Jenny you recall so fondly? You think she can return to a simple life in Warwickshire when she has been so spoiled?’

‘Quiet!’ the spy snarled. The chains clattered as he lunged forward, but the manacles stopped him long before he got near the dark presence.

Mephistophilis gave only the faintest smile, but it was tinged with triumph. ‘What will you do when you find her and she begs you to end her life? When you look into her eyes and see no love there, no hope, no softness? When you see only Bedlam, for ever?’

Will regained his composure, leaning back against the glistening stone even though the turmoil still raged inside him. ‘I thank you,’ the spy said in a calm voice. ‘In harsh times, it is easy to lose your way and give in to hopelessness. But you have fanned the flames of my anger, and that will light my way in even the darkest night.’

Mephistophilis didn’t move, its gaze heavy and unwavering. A fly crawled in the lank hair.

‘So you have found your voice now,’ the man continued. ‘Will you explain the vision you showed me when we first met in the Rose Theatre?’

The devil shook its head with slow, deliberate moves. ‘Knowledge or power is never given freely, and you have nothing to offer me. Your soul is already damned. I will torment you in this dark place through your few remaining days, and then I will take your life, and that small, misty thing that makes you who you are.’

‘I have heard worse threats,’ Will said blandly.

The rat returned, scurrying up to the form of Jenny. It sniffed at the skin of her foot and rolled over, dead.

‘Here you sit, in the dark and the filth,’ the devil whispered, ‘a man who lives by his sword, now impotent. And while you rot away, death moves ever closer to the ones you love, and a shadow as dark and cold as the final night falls across your country. And still you see only a small part of the plot.’

‘What do you mean?’ Will’s knuckles grew white where they gripped the rusty chain that held him fast.

‘Your great foe has grown weary of the blows you have struck against it down the years.’ The devil lowered its head slightly so the black eyes were almost invisible behind the wall of hair. ‘A Queen stolen. Then a member of their ruling family slaughtered like a beast in the field. Every blow struck by each side contributing to a mounting spiral of agony. But now they have called, “Enough!”’

The spy studied the brooding demonic presence to try to pick any truth from the stream of lies. He sensed, however, that on this occasion Mephistophilis felt he could cause more damage by openness.

‘Your Enemy sees there is nothing to gain from this carefully balanced war,’ the devil continued. ‘They have had their fill of the little irritations you pose. Away from the light of your attention, they weave their web, across this entire world. They stir great powers. They draw darkness up from the depths. They plot death and destruction on a scale only dreamed of by gods. War, plague, starvation – they pull these threads together, slowly but relentlessly, and by the time you see the shape of their thoughts it will be too late. Your kind are an infestation, in their eyes. A plague. And they will not rest until you have been eradicated.’

CHAPTER THIRTY

THEY’RE COMING.

Slipping out into the moonlit corridor, Nathaniel was sickened to realize that once again he had been tormented by the dream that had haunted him for nigh on five years. Ghastly, cruel faces looming out of the shadows. Under a full moon, grey, fluttering shapes pursuing him across a lonely moor. And a feeling of dread so great that upon waking he was left in a pool of sweat, his heart pounding. But this time the terrible things they had whispered to him were new and strange. Who was coming?

The way is beginning to open.

What way? Was he losing his wits?

The assistant had only closed his eyes for a while until the palace had drifted off into sleep and he could slip into Roger Cockayne’s chamber and steal back the play. Laced with mockery, the echoes of the dream-words still rustled around his head.

As he entered the corridor in the western range, the young man paused. He heard a whisper of movement off in the dark towards the far end. Glancing around, he saw the only hiding place was in an alcove beside a large iron-studded chest underneath a gloomy portrait of Old Henry, the Queen’s father. As he eased into the space and crouched down, pulling his cloak over him, he noticed several doors were silently opening.

Mouthing a silent prayer, he peeked out through a fold in his cloak. Five hooded figures skulked past, paying no attention to each other. What mischief would those creeping figures be planning at that time of night? he wondered. Who were they that they kept their faces hidden?

His suspicions mounting, he held his breath and waited.

Once he was sure the men had passed, Nat slipped out of his hiding place. Hoofbeats and the rattle of carriage wheels now echoed in the inner ward.

Through the window, the young man glimpsed a black coach stark in the moonlight. He saw it was adorned with peacock feathers, and so the property of someone high and mighty, perhaps a Privy Councillor. Unsure why, he felt a tingle of unease.

A cloaked and hooded man jumped down from the coach and held out his hand for a second passenger. A pale, slender hand extended from the shadows, a woman, Nat realized. As she stepped down to the cobbles, the assistant saw she too hid her identity in the depths of a hood.

A pikeman ambled up from the direction of the gatehouse, his burgonet and cuirass agleam in the pale light. The woman and her escort paused, their heads turned away from the approaching man.

Nathaniel felt an incomprehensible dread. As the pikeman stepped up, the escort whipped a gleaming dagger from the depths of his cloak and thrust it under the guard’s chin and into his skull. Withdrawing his blade just as quickly, the hooded man stepped back to avoid the gush of crimson as the poor pikeman fell to the cobbles.

The young assistant clutched the wall in shock. The murder of a pikeman, in the open, within the palace ward? The like had never been heard of before.

On the brink of raising the alarm, Nathaniel froze when he saw shadows sweeping across the open space from the palace. More men, all cloaked and hooded, perhaps some of them the ones who had passed him earlier. He thought he counted ten at least, but they moved too quickly for him to be sure, collecting the body of the pikeman and carrying it out of sight towards the western range. The escort led the mysterious woman to the palace as if nothing had happened.

Nat’s heart beat faster.

Silently, he ran back the way he had come. At the first set of stone steps, he began to creep down in search of the plotters, only to hear several soft treads rising from around the turn in the stairs. His breath caught in his chest. Dashing back into the corridor, he searched around, unsure where was the best place to hide.

As the footsteps neared, the young man pressed himself into a doorway, hoping the hooded figures would not pass by. Screwing his eyes tight shut, he prayed.

The footsteps emerged into the corridor and moved away from him. Peeking out, Nathaniel glimpsed the hooded figures with the woman among them gliding stealthily towards the Queen’s throne room, where she oversaw the meetings of the Privy Council almost every day.

What could the plotters possibly want in that chamber? It would be empty at this time of night, and there was nowhere to hide; it contained only the throne, for the Privy Councillors always stood in Her Majesty’s presence.

Stepping out from the doorway, Nathaniel resolved to follow. He had barely gone ten paces along the moonlit corridor when he realized his mistake. A single set of footsteps was approaching from the direction of the throne room. As he turned, he glimpsed a flurry of movement at the other end of the corridor; more plotters were drawing near.

Trapped.

Just as Nat thought his heart would burst in his chest, he felt a hand clamp across his mouth and he was dragged back into a chamber. The door whispered shut behind him and a woman’s voice hissed in his ear, ‘Make no sound.’

His body pressed against the wood panelling in the inky room, the assistant’s eyes grew wide with terror. The footsteps approached. If the fingers had not been clamped so tight against his mouth, he was afraid he would have called out, but then the plotters passed by and he sagged with relief.

His saviour withdrew her hand.

‘You,’ he whispered, shocked.

In the gloom, the young man recognized the red-headed woman he had encountered outside the Rose Theatre. ‘Lady ... Shevington?’ She too was cloaked and hooded, and for a moment he wondered if she was another of the plotters.

‘Do you always lumber around at night like a wounded bull?’ the Irish woman murmured as she opened the door a crack and peered out into the now-still corridor.

Nathaniel made to ask another question, but the woman pressed a finger to her lips to silence him and stepped out. With her cloak billowing around her, she ghosted through the shadows on the edge of the moonbeams towards the throne room. The assistant wanted to call out a warning – there would have been no time for the plotters to leave the chamber – but she was too far ahead.

Nat’s thoughts were a ball of confusion. He no longer had any idea what was happening, nor why the Irish woman was prowling the palace at night. Conflicted, he caught up with Lady Shevington as she pressed her ear to the door, her brow furrowed. All was silent.

Gripped with horror, Nathaniel saw her reach for the handle, and though he lunged to stop her, she swung the door open.

The throne room was empty.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

BLOOD SPATTERED INTO THE FILTHY, URINE-STINKING STRAW scattered across the floor of the Abraham Ward. Will slammed into the stone flags, and before he could dispel the ringing in his skull, he felt fire blaze in his ribs, his thighs, his arms, his chest. Cudgels rained down. Foot after foot lashed out. He felt new agony sear upon old, but the ropes binding his hands behind his back gave him no chance of escape.

Through the haze of pain he could hear a cacophony of shrieks, roars and catcalls, which sounded to him like feeding time at the Queen’s menagerie at the Tower. A crowd of Bedlam’s lost souls turned away from the display of violence, tearing at their greasy hair or pressing their hollow-cheeked faces into their filthy hands, fearing they would be next. The other inmates slumped in blank stupors in their dank cells, but still moaned with each blow struck.

The three burly men surrounding Will paused, hands on knees, breath wheezing into chests that were unused to such concerted exertion. Through one half-closed eye, the battered man could see that his tormentors were little more than cut-throats and rogues, giving up their time drinking cheap ale to take the Keeper’s coin. Hair and beards unkempt, their doublets were worn and stained, the colours faded into muddy browns and greys, their jerkins mottled with the dirt of the street.

‘You dance around me like maids at the maypole,’ Will croaked through split lips, his swollen left cheek distorting his words.

Angered, a heavy-set roisterer with broken veins on his chapped cheeks snarled and stepped in to launch another kick. Will rolled out of the way, and the attacker stumbled off-balance, his scuffed leather shoe swinging in mid-air. Continuing his roll, the spy drove his legs up sharply into the back of the brutish man’s supporting knee. With a surprised cry, the rogue crashed down. Drawing his knees together, Will rammed them against his attacker’s jaw. There was a crack like a snapping branch and the lower part of the man’s face skewed to one side. His agonized howl became a feeble whimper.

‘One down, two to go,’ Will muttered, his body numb from two weeks of beatings.

The remaining two attackers stared in shock for a moment and then assaulted Will with furious blows from their cudgels. One shattered on impact, so great was the force. ‘He is a madman,’ the wiry assailant said as he threw the broken weapon away. ‘Bedlam is the right place for him.’

The spy gave in to the waves of pain, letting his thoughts find solace in the depths of his memory. It was a skill he had learned to master. This time he recalled Kit, and the first time they met, ten years ago on the second day of Christmas. Thick snow had blanketed the rooftops of Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, but the chill had spread deep into the hearts of the students who were being haunted by a series of mysterious events. Faces at windows. Locked doors mysteriously opening. Bodies washed up in the reed beds of the River Cam.

Marlowe had been one of those students, but unlike his peers he had been fearless, demanding answers, and that night he had encouraged two of his terror-stricken friends to follow a trail of inhuman footprints through the snow to the chapel.

‘We do not give in to the dark beyond the fire. We do not give in to fear. We are men,’ the budding playwright had called into the night.

Creeping into the incense-infused chapel, the three had been caught by a light around the altar. Kit had urged his two friends to investigate with him. The candle flames diminished. A low laugh rolled out, almost lost beneath the soughing of the wind. Unable to bear the fear any longer, one of the friends had turned and fled. As he reached the end of the choir, a whistle echoed, and the poor youth’s head flew from his shoulders, rolling across the flags to look up at Marlowe from his feet.

The playwright was transfixed, but his other friend fled too. Kit found him a moment later, stock-still. In the lantern light, he saw with horror that white, fatty rivulets of flesh now ran down the student’s face from beneath the hairline, his features a mess of drooping, unrecognizable skin as if he had melted. To Marlowe, Edmund looked like nothing more than the dripping candle in the lantern.

And that was when the thing that lurked there had revealed itself, pale and churchyard-thin like all its kind, black and blue concentric circles etched on its shaven head. Before it struck, Will burst into the chapel.

He remembered his greeting on that day: ‘My name is William Swyfte and I am in the employ of Her Majesty. Some would call me ratcatcher, but the vermin I destroy are bigger and more malignant than any you would find in the kitchens of Corpus Christi, young student.’

Wielding his rapier, the spy barely held the thing at bay. But he was only biding his time. When the pale attacker lunged through his defences, Will showered it with the contents of one of Dr Dee’s lethal pouches. The thing’s agonized cries rang off the vaulted roof and in a peal of thunder and a burst of darkness it was gone.

Will had come to wonder if this was the same being Carpenter had described in Kit’s lodging house in Bankside. Had the foul creature been stalking Marlowe ever since that night, trying to gain vengeance for what had later transpired? Was that the source of the haunted look that always lay deep in the playwright’s eyes?

It was the start of it, and the end of it. Will had taken Kit from the college and overseen his induction into the spy network. Over weeks, the playwright had learned all the horrors of the Unseelie Court and the demands that would be made of him to combat them.

Through the pain, Will felt a deep blast of regret. Kit had been filled with so much life, so much potential, and the spy had been forced to watch it fade away over the years. All of Marlowe’s miseries were Will’s fault. He had recruited him into the life of spying. He had been responsible for him, for that innocence Will himself had lost, and however much he had tried to protect his friend on their dismal journey through the dark, he had ultimately failed. Kit was dead.

With a crash of the door that made the inmates scurry into the shadowy corners of the ward, the Keeper hurried in. Sweating in the heat of the June day, his glowering gaze briefly took in the fallen rogue and then he growled, ‘Get that bastard back in his cell and make yourselves scarce. He has a visitor.’

Will forced a grin that sent blood running from his lips.

The two men snatched time for a few more kicks as the spy was dragged through the straw back to his dank cell. Hurled against the far wall, he lay where he fell, laughing quietly to himself. The door slammed shut and the shrieking of the inmates reached a crescendo, drowning out the Keeper as he bellowed for silence.

The cool stone floor soothed the fire burning through every fibre of Will’s body. Away from his captors, he accepted the waves of pain and let his thoughts wash on to the dark shores of his mind. He was only half aware when the door was opened once more and the Keeper said gruffly, ‘Call when you want out.’

Will’s eyelids flickered. As his gaze came into focus, he discerned a woman standing near the door, one hand sheltering the flame of a candle. Through his daze he was struck by the vibrant colour of her cloak, the blue of forget-me-nots, which reminded him of the dress Jenny was wearing on the day she disappeared. And then he felt sickened to realize that the colour now reminded him also of the devil that had taken his love’s form. Even his last, pure memory was turning towards death and decay, he thought with bitterness.

The woman’s hood was pulled low so that her face was lost to shadow.

‘Grace,’ the spy croaked. ‘You should not be in this foul place.’ He realized his mistake when the candlelight caught the visitor’s growing smile. He saw a hardness to the shape of the lips that his young friend had never exhibited.

‘The love-sick child was eager to visit the man of her dreams.’ The musical notes of the Gaelic tongue rang in the honeyed voice. ‘But I persuaded her to defer to a woman of experience.’

‘Mistress Penteney,’ Will noted. ‘I have yet to decide if you are an angel or a devil. I have had my fill of the latter.’

‘Lady Shevington actually.’ Throwing back her hood with a flourish, she smiled at Will’s puzzled expression. ‘I apologize for my earlier deceit. I was not yet ready for you to know my true identity.’

‘Viscount Shevington is in Ireland, carrying out the Queen’s business.’

‘Spying, you mean. Let us speak clearly.’ Casting a narrow-eyed glance through the bars in the cell door, the Irish woman satisfied herself they were not being overheard. ‘And I have been called both devil and angel in my time, but today, for you, I am undoubtedly a gift from heaven.’

Levering himself up on one elbow, the battered man struggled to form words through the dried blood on his puffed lips. ‘And I apologize for not receiving you in a better condition. Although at least I am alive.’

‘Not for much longer,’ the woman sighed. ‘The Privy Councillors have been directed to visit you here.’

‘In Bedlam?’

‘Your enemies will not risk you spreading dissent among your benighted countrymen out in the world of sane men, even for one moment. And so, for the first time, the Privy Council come to the accused, to this filthy, godforsaken hole. Why, it would be worth suffering this vile place for a while longer just to see those grey-bearded fools turning up their noses at the grime and the stink and the screams.’

Despite the pain, a wry smile crossed Will’s lips. ‘You have little love for our Queen’s foremost advisers, my lady. Why, that would be considered traitorous in some quarters.’

‘I am no daughter of this country. I do not need to bow my head and pretend.’

‘What? Not even now that you have taken the hand and name of Viscount Shevington?’ the spy said pointedly.

The Irish woman gave a sly smile in response. ‘Ah, yes.’

With shaking arms, Will pushed himself up the cold stone wall until he was in a sitting position. ‘Unless you were not his wife, of course,’ he said in a light tone that continued the game they were playing. ‘Unless, say, Viscount Shevington was dead, lost, perhaps, in one of the bogs of your homeland.’

‘Who knows what may have transpired in the long weeks since I last saw my beloved husband? Certainly, if that were to be true, I would mourn him dearly.’ The Irish woman set the candle down on the floor. ‘As much as I enjoy this banter with so great a hero, Master Swyfte, time is short.’

Tipping his head back so he could study her from beneath his swollen eyelids, Will replied, ‘I have all the time in the world, with only the rats, and my fellow inmates, and my friends with cudgels for company.’

‘Alas, were that so. I have heard the decision of the Privy Council has already been made. You will be judged of sound mind and taken directly from this place to the Tower for execution.’

Will grew serious. ‘You have heard?’

‘I keep my eyes and ears open, Master Swyfte.’

‘To learn that kind of information, you must keep them open in strange places. Bedchambers, perhaps.’

The woman did not flinch.

With the candlelight limning her flowing auburn hair, Will followed the line of the curls, considering their colour for the first time, the pale complexion, the flashing green eyes. ‘I have heard tell of a spy operating in Tyrone,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Some of my fellows who have had the pleasure of working in that green island call her Scarlet Mary. Her blade, they say, is as sharp as her tongue, and she is the equal of any man.’

The woman’s face gave nothing away. ‘I have heard those tales too. I believe she is also known as Red Meg O’Shee. Spies are everywhere, Master Swyfte, but no one is ever the person they appear to be. Surely you must know that by now?’

‘No more games, then,’ he said, dabbing at the blood trickling from his lips. ‘Why are you here?’

‘To offer you aid.’

‘Why? We do not know each other. And by all accounts Red Meg O’Shee would be more likely to slip a dagger between my ribs than reach out a helping hand.’

The Irish woman laughed, a hard and humourless sound. ‘In other times that would indeed be the case. But this plot threatens all. Not just England. My country, and all of Europe, could go down in flames should the Unseelie Court have their way.’

In her warning, Will heard the echo of the taunts whispered by his own private devil in that very cell. A great plan unfolding. The world of men turning towards night.

‘You are the very least of my concerns, Master Swyfte,’ Red Meg continued, ‘but a good man suggested you would make a formidable ally. That you understood the ways of our mutual Enemy better than anyone.’

‘A good man?’

‘The King of France, though not yet crowned as such.’ The Irish woman shrugged. ‘Only a matter of time.’

Will had heard the French monarch had taken many lovers, and from the glint in the Irish woman’s eye the spy guessed she had been one. ‘Henri? Our paths have never crossed,’ he said.

‘Nonetheless he knows of you, Master Swyfte, and the blow you struck against the Unseelie Court. All the crowned heads of Europe have heard of the unprecedented execution of one of the High Family, here, in England, after the failed Spanish invasion.’ She flashed a surprisingly respectful glance at Will. ‘I hear the Unseelie Court hate you, Master Swyfte, and not only for the murder of one of their kind; yes, and fear you too.’

Scarlet Mary prowled around the edge of the small cell, still keeping one eye on the door. Watching her graceful movements, Will tried to reconcile the brutal stories he had heard about the spy with the woman in front of him.

‘But that is a conversation for another time. First we must get you out of this predicament.’ The Irish woman gave an amused laugh seeing his disbelieving reaction to her words.

‘A bribe may have got you into my cell but the Keeper will not be so accommodating, given the importance the Privy Council have placed upon my incarceration,’ the spy replied. ‘Or will you carry me away with the help of your angel wings?’

Red Meg lifted up her skirts, without the slightest embarrassment at revealing the shapely line of her legs. From the inner folds, she produced a woollen pouch.

Pressing one long finger to her lips, she gave a lop-sided smile and said, ‘There is only one way out of Bedlam for you, Master Swyfte. You have to die.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

SHIELDING HIS EYES AGAINST THE JUNE SUN, SIR ROBERT CECIL clambered awkwardly down from the black carriage into the windswept yard of the Hospital of St Mary of Bethlehem. The cobbles still gleamed from the night’s great storm that had torn tiles from the roofs of many of the houses he had passed on the journey from Nonsuch.

As the spymaster let his gaze wander over dismal Bedlam, he gritted his teeth. It was a day of judgement that he would inevitably regret, but it was necessary.

Eschewing his workaday black garb, the Secretary of State had opted for clothes that he felt befitted the momentous occasion, a smart doublet of silver-grey with padded sapphire breeches and a matching blue cloak, cut so it did much to conceal his hunched back. Nothing, however, could hide the rolling gait that always revealed the curse of his twisted form. He hated the way everyone at court stared at him as if he were weak in mind as well as body, someone to be pitied, when his wits were sharper than any of theirs.

Looking around, Cecil saw the familiar loathsome stares were there too. Five other members of the Privy Council had gathered by the great oak door of Bedlam for the day’s business, a meagre feast of funereal garb and wintry expressions.

Glowering, the spymaster avoided his secretary’s helpful hand, and strode over. ‘Let us be brave in our decision,’ he urged the waiting council members, ‘and keep God in our hearts and minds at all times. It has been decided that an agreement by the six of us on the state of William Swyfte’s mind will be accepted by the full council later.’

Nodding, the other men muttered their agreement. All of them had skittish, unsettled eyes at the prospect of setting foot in Bedlam.

Cecil’s secretary, a pale, intense young man with the demeanour of a preacher, grabbed the iron ring on the door and pounded on it three times. A moment later, the Keeper appeared, bowing and fawning and then spitting in the palm of his hand and smearing it across his sleep-tufted hair to flatten it. Excited by the reverberations of the secretary’s knock, the inmates of the Abraham Ward clamoured wildly.

‘Ignore them, my lords. They’ll quieten down soon,’ the Keeper muttered, sweeping one chubby hand towards the newly whitewashed corridor that led to the ward.

‘Let us be done with it, then,’ the spymaster said, leading the procession of councillors behind the grubby man. ‘We have important business when we are done with this distraction.’

By that important business he meant ensuring he quickly regained favour in the eyes of the Queen, and that swaggering jackanapes Essex was consigned immediately to the shadows of Nonsuch. The spymaster was sickened by how much advantage this whole affair had cost him. Her Majesty would barely meet his eye, and his rival’s spies blustered around the palace as if they owned it.

Fresh straw had been scattered across the dirty floor of the Abraham Ward and bunches of newly cut purple lavender had been hung above every door. The sickly-sweet aroma did little to dispel the stink of the vault, but at least the Keeper had made some effort for his honoured guests, Cecil accepted grudgingly.

Their sweaty guide led the way to a locked door halfway along the gloomy ward. The spymaster hated losing an operative with the skills of Swyfte, but the spy was expendable, like all the men in the secret service. Yes, Cecil thought with a nod, the over-confident, smug, drunken, fornicating rake had certainly outlived his usefulness.

Selecting one large iron key from the huge ring he carried, the Keeper unlocked the cell door and swung it open. With another fawning bow, he raised an arm to direct the Privy Councillors inside.

Stepping across the threshold, the Little Elf took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. It was quiet, and he could just make out the dark shape of the spy lying on the floor near the far wall. The hunchbacked man was surprised. He had expected to be greeted by mockery, perhaps one of the caustic comments that he had tolerated for too long. Had the experiences in Bedlam been so terrible that the cell’s occupant had been broken, his wits gone, like the other unfortunates who resided in that foul place?

‘Master Swyfte,’ the spymaster said in a firm voice.

There was no response.

Impatiently, Cecil beckoned to the Keeper, who passed a candle in a wax-encrusted holder. With one hand to protect the wavering flame, the small man held the light in front of him. ‘Swyfte,’ he barked.

Shadows danced across the wall. Still the spy did not move. Just as he had started to believe he had been spared the unpleasantness of ordering an execution, Cecil heard a weak groan emanating from the figure in front of him. As he leaned in to urge the spy to sit, the words died in his throat.

Black dots flecked the back of the spy’s prone hand.

The spymaster’s chest tightened. With trembling fingers, he moved the candle to his left to reveal a glistening, bloody pool of vomit trickling from the edge of Swyfte’s mouth. Cecil’s mind screamed at him to flee, but it was as if the candle was drawn inexorably along the body. The man’s head was tilted at such an angle that the bare skin of his neck was revealed, and there, caught in the wavering light, was a purplish boil, and another just visible under the bloodstained ruff.

The spymaster recoiled as if he had been burned. ‘The plague!’ he cried, his voice breaking. ‘He has the plague!’

The other Privy Councillors hurled themselves away from the cell door, one of them stumbling backwards on to the floor in his fear and haste. Blood draining from his face, the Keeper clutched both hands to his mouth.

Cecil all but ran from the cell, slamming the door behind him. ‘This hospital is now under quarantine,’ he shouted, hurrying towards the exit from the ward. ‘Let no man enter or leave.’

The spymaster was afraid he was going to be sick from the terror sweeping through him, but the other Privy Councillors were all too distracted by their own inelegant scramble to escape from the plague-infested ward to notice Cecil. Cursing loudly, they jostled through the door and continued running into the yard where the carriages waited.

In the sun, the spymaster regained his composure. Turning to the blanched Keeper, he said, ‘God has already passed His judgement on William Swyfte, and may the Almighty have mercy on his soul. This matter is now closed. I will inform the Privy Council this afternoon.’

‘What ... what do I do with him?’ the frightened man whispered.

‘When he passes, call for a watchman who will send the death-cart,’ Cecil replied with a deep, juddering sigh. ‘The labourers will take the body on its final journey to the plague pits, where it will be buried with the other poor souls.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

THE CELL DOOR GROUND OPEN. AFTER A MOMENT OF SILENCE, A low voice said, ‘Stinks.’

‘Stinks everywhere in here,’ a gruff voice growled in reply. ‘Stink and madness go together.’

‘Looks dead.’

‘Ah, he does.’

Lying face down in the filthy straw, Will couldn’t see anything, but he guessed the two men were pulling cloths over their mouths and noses to keep out the noxious, infecting fumes of the plague. He sensed one kneel beside him, hovering for a moment before prodding him sharply in the back.

‘He’s done, all right. Not breathing. Cold,’ the death-cart labourer muttered. ‘Let’s get him out of here.’

Will’s head ached from where it had been pressed for hours against the chill flagstones. His limbs had ceased working within moments of taking the clear potion which Red Meg had left with him after she had applied the plague disguise over his exposed skin. He had found the sensation of his thoughts roaming freely within a seemingly dead body unsettling in the extreme at first, a foretaste of the grave, and, with his devil whispering in his ear, perhaps a flavour of hell too.

Inured by their daily dose of plague deaths, the labourers didn’t even give the spy a cursory examination as they rolled him in a fresh linen shroud. As the two men pulled the material tightly over his face, Will was overcome with panic that even his barely perceptible breathing would be stifled. Might he die while faking death? he wondered, the irony not lost on him.

Rough hands gripped his ankles and under his arms and he was lifted amid grunts and curses. The cloth smelled of damp and mildew. His mouth was dry, his tongue fat and unmoving and heavy in his cheek.

Swaying, the spy was carried across the cell. At the door, his head cracked against the jamb, stars flashing before his closed eyes. His ankles clattered against the wood. But the discomfort cleared his thoughts a little, and when the shroud snagged on the splintered wood of the old cell door, he felt the linen tugged from his face enough to let in a little cool air.

Quarantined in their cells, the inmates were silent, but Will was convinced he could once again dimly hear Griffin Devereux’s wild laughter rising up from the depths. There is more madness in the governance of England than there is in this pitiful place, the spy thought bitterly.

Cursing and wheezing behind their masks, the death-cart labourers carried Will’s body through the Abraham Ward, along the corridor and into the entrance hall, battering his bruised limbs on every door they passed. And then he was out in the hot sun, which warmed him even through the linen. From the street, he could hear the rattle of wheels on ruts, the whinny of horses and the whistle of carters, the hailing of good friends and the shouts of the guards on the wall above the city gate. Despite his predicament, his spirits rose after the long days in the stinking gloom of Bedlam.

His toes twitched involuntarily. The potion was starting to wear off, as Red Meg had told him it would.

The two men came to a halt, and then began a slow swing. Gathering speed, Will was swept back and forth three times, until, with a loud grunt, the labourers let go of him. The dizzying sensation of flying made his head spin. Winded, he crashed on to what he knew must be the back of the death-cart, with his feet higher than his head. The shroud tore away from the upper half of his face and sunlight seared his eyes through his lids, painful after the ever-present gloom of his incarceration.

As the stink of human rot swept into his nose, the spy’s stomach turned. Unmoving elbows and knees prodded his back, and with his limited vision he could make out four blackened fingers close to his face. The index finger was extended downwards as if pointing the way to the doom that awaited them all. Will felt a pang of fear that he might contract the plague, though he had heard that some physicians thought the dead were no longer infectious. If he had been a religious man, he would have prayed for that to be true.

Will could hear the death-cart labourers arguing nearby, but couldn’t make out their words under the stamp of the horse’s hooves and the breeze whistling around the hospital yard. After a moment, the two men climbed on to the cart’s seat and with a crack of the whip they lurched off.

Shaken roughly, the spy watched the cobbles pass beyond the edge of the cart. The horse took a wide arc, trotting through the open gates into the flow of traffic on Bishopsgate Without. Conversations faded away the moment the grim burden was seen. Will felt a shadow as he passed under the city walls, and then the rough ride eased as the cart rolled on to the smooth limestone and flint paving of Bishopsgate Street. As life began to return to his limbs, the spy gave in to the gentle rocking and the sounds of the vibrant city.

Ahead lay the plague pit, his final resting place.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

‘KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN AND STOP YOUR BICKERING OR YOU WILL be the death of us,’ Nathaniel hissed, a wide-brimmed hat pulled low on his face. Behind him, in the shadows of a court on the east of Bishopsgate Street, Grace glared at the woman they knew as Lady Shevington.

Smoothing down her crimson skirts, the Irish woman replied with a condescending smile, ‘Bickering only happens among equals.’

The younger woman’s tart response was drowned out by the loud honking of a flock of geese being driven south along Bishopsgate. With the traffic backed up in all directions, the carters and draymen yelled abuse, shaking their fists and their whips, but the drover marched along behind his birds, uncaring.

‘Will they bring the death-cart through this crowd?’ Nathaniel asked, concerned.

‘You must trust me. They will want him in the pit and buried, and the business done with as soon as they can,’ Red Meg replied. ‘They would not wait until the evening for a man like our Will.’

‘Our Will,’ Grace snapped. ‘You have spoken to him ... what? Twice?’

‘But I know a kindred spirit when I see one.’

Nathaniel thought his young friend was about to strike the auburn-haired woman. Grace’s face was flushed, her left hand gripped into a tiny fist.

Shouting, whistling and beating his stick on the limestone roadway, the drover moved his flock of geese on. The traffic began to flow once more, most of it running south to the river or west to the market at Cheapside. Shielding his eyes against the sun, Nathaniel continued to look north along the row of large houses, past the great stone bulk of St Helen’s Priory to the city walls. After a while, he saw a ripple pass through the merchants and servants bustling along the street’s edge as head after head ducked down and turned towards the walls of the houses.

‘It comes,’ he whispered, waving a hand to catch the attention of the women behind him.

With silence in its wake, the death-cart trundled along Bishopsgate Street, its progress as steady and relentless as the plague. Nathaniel tried not to think what horrors his master must be experiencing.

At the crossroads, the death-cart drifted out into the centre of the street. The flow of drays and carts gradually drew to a halt, allowing the morbid carriage to turn right on to a cobbled way.

‘Yes!’ Nathaniel exclaimed quietly. ‘We were right. They go to the Lombard Street plague pit.’

‘It’s the nearest one to Bedlam,’ Red Meg said in a bored voice.

Filled with anxiety, Grace urged, ‘We must hurry, before Will is thrown into the pit.’

‘Do not hurry!’ the Irish woman snapped. ‘We must not draw attention to ourselves. We will have time to stop those slow-witted fools, even if we adopt the steady pace of servants off to market.’

Nathaniel set off first from the lea of the shadowy court, darting among the horses and carriages and into Lombard Street. Clutching his hand to his mouth, he smelled the stench of rot long before he reached the location of the mass grave. In the summer heat, droning clouds of black flies swarmed overhead. Bloated and lazy from feeding, they formed a thick cover on windows, blocking out the light.

Twisting up the brim of his hat, Nathaniel spotted the two labourers sitting on the edge of the street in the shade of a whitewashed house, mopping the sweat from their brows before the exertions that were to come. A roughly erected wooden fence with a gate in it led to a field of churned earth where the trees, shrubs and flowers had been rooted up. Rats scurried over each other in their feeding frenzy. The land was divided into plots. Five had already been used, the fresh earth heaped atop them. In the sixth plot lay a yawning hole. Crossing himself, Nathaniel couldn’t help a shudder when he looked at it.

The two women arrived at his side a moment later. Grace’s face was drained of blood, her gaze skittering across the graves and the contents of the cart, but Red Meg was unmoved. She primped her auburn hair, a seductive smile alighting easily on her lips.

‘As agreed, we shall distract the labourers with light conversation and flirting,’ the Irish woman said, flashing a glance at Grace. ‘Are you capable of that?’

‘Yes, of course,’ the younger woman snapped.

‘You must creep to the back of the cart and search for Master Swyfte,’ Red Meg instructed Nat. ‘The effects of the death potion will not yet have faded, but your master should be able to walk a few steps with your support. Take him into that street to the north. We will meet you there.’

‘And if I am seen?’ Nathaniel replied.

‘Then I will leave you here to your fate.’

Red Meg stepped into the street with an unsettled Grace close behind. But they had barely taken a pace when they caught sight of five men in black cloaks and tall black hats striding along the street from the west. Rapiers hung at their sides, and their grim features told of men about serious business.

Returning to Nathaniel’s side, the Irish woman urged him into a small, shaded street to the south from where they could observe proceedings without being seen.

‘Who are they?’ Grace whispered.

‘I think they are the men who pursued Will and me from St Paul’s,’ Nat said, peering at the faces of the new arrivals.

The five men surrounded the two puzzled labourers. One of them, clearly the leader of the group, leaned down to talk in low, fierce tones, ending his speech with a sharp sweep of his arm towards the death-cart.

With sullen faces, the two shabbily dressed men hauled themselves to their feet. Grabbing the first shroud-wrapped corpse, they carried it through the gate on to the cleared land, kicking out at the rats swarming around their feet. They tossed the body into the grave with all the bored disrespect of a woodman stacking logs for the winter.

Appalled at the sight, Grace cried out so loudly that Red Meg had to shake her furiously. ‘You do not have the luxury of acting like a child any more,’ the Irish woman snapped. ‘You will be the death of us and of the man who clearly holds your heart.’

‘But Will—’

‘—has his life resting in our hands. Would you have it on your conscience that your own weakness killed him?’

Grace calmed, her face hardening. She glanced back to the mass grave, to which the two labourers were now carrying the second body under the vigilant watch of the five men. ‘What do we do now?’ she whispered.

‘Once they have deposited these poor souls they will fetch more,’ Nathaniel replied, his knuckles white where his fingers gripped the corner of the wall. ‘There is a shortage of land for the pits. They fill each to the brim before they start another.’

Barely had he uttered the words than one of the labourers broke off from his work to collect shovels from the rear of the cart. He rammed them into the heap of black earth next to the grave and returned to dispose of the rest of the bodies.

Shaking his head, Nathaniel gasped, ‘They are going to bury Will alive.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

HIS HEART POUNDING, WILL SUCKED IN A MOUTHFUL OF AIR AND fought to clear his sluggish head. Some life was returning to his limbs, but agonizingly slowly.

Black walls towered up on every side to a square of blue sky overhead, which seemed to him at that moment impossibly far away. Now that the linen had been torn clear of his face, he could see around the dank hole, half filled with mouldering corpses in shrouds stained with bodily fluids. The ones directly beneath him, where decomposition was well under way, were soft and yielding. His eyes watered and he gagged as the reek of escaping fumes seeped into his lungs.

At first the spy thought stones were being dropped into the grave, but as he rolled his eyes, he saw rats plummeting from the edge of the pit. Their movements had a feverish intensity. Many of the shrouds nearby had been gnawed through, and the rats ducked their heads into the gaps, their jaws working hungrily.

Will watched one rodent speed sinuously towards his exposed face, its jaws gaping wide in anticipation to reveal two rows of tiny white teeth. Snarling deep in his throat, he spat at the predator. The rat flipped over in shock and raced to easier prey. But the spy knew it was only a matter of time before the pack descended on him and ate him alive.

Hearing the grunts of the approaching labourers, he played dead again. A body crashed across him, pinning his arms.

‘Can you now see your end?’ the devil’s voice echoed from some corner of the pit that the spy couldn’t see. The rats continued their furious feeding, oblivious.

‘Leave me be,’ Will said under his breath. ‘I have work to do.’

Mephistophilis’ laugh was like a cold wind.

Bodies rained around the spy. But by the time the last one had crashed into the pit, he had almost regained enough movement in his arms to free himself.

Will wondered how much longer he had. He received his answer a moment later when the first shovelful of earth hit him full in the face. Spitting the soil from his mouth, he continued to press against the shroud, straining his unresponsive muscles, willing the potion to leave his body.

But the dirt fell in a black rain. Across his legs and torso, the rats scurried in a frenzy, snapping at the linen in their eagerness to feed before they were deluged. The square of blue sky seemed to recede. Will felt the earth cover his body, then his face, and his heart began to thunder.

Twisting his head, he found a pocket of air under a fallen corpse. Within moments the last of the light had winked out.

Stay calm, Will told himself. If you panic, you die.

He felt the weight upon him increase with each shovelful. With precise but painfully slow movements, the spy drew his leaden body out of the shroud, but he wasn’t fast enough. He was lost to a dark, stiflingly hot world. Each breath was small and shallow and a band began to tighten across his chest.

Drenched in sweat, Will dug his fingers into the corpses and tried to haul himself up. The earth was alive all around him with the constant churning of the rats.

Yet the dirt crashed down faster than the spy could move, filling his mouth, his eyes, his nose. Dread began to shred his thoughts.

For Jenny, he told himself. For Kit. For Grace and all the others relying on me.

‘But for yourself?’ his private devil whispered in his ear. ‘No, you have forsaken Will Swyfte in your embrace of death. And now it embraces you.’

‘You will not distract me,’ the spy hissed.

With the toes of his right foot, Will dragged the last of the shroud down, but the weight of the earth was now so great he could barely move his battered limbs. Making mole claws of his fingers, he began to drag soil from above him into the few spaces that lay below. Burrowing rats raked his flesh as they continued their own, more rapid journey back to the light.