The Silver Skull

CHAPTER 12

assing through the flow of drunks from the tavern, Will and the others joined the rear of the crowd at the entrance to the tenement. As people jostled for a view of the mysterious spectacle, Will eased his way past sharp shoulders and elbows until the laughter and quizzical shouts gave way to sudden silence. A moment of confusion ended in panic, shrieks, and barked warnings, as those near the front tried to drive back into the flow of the ones joining the crowd.

When Will broke through the flow with renewed urgency, at first he couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. Slumped across the step against the door jamb, the local children had placed a scarecrow, straw protruding from the sleeves and neck of worn clothes, head lolling on the chest beneath a widebrimmed felt hat. Yet something about the well-stuffed shape held him fast.

A moment later, the scarecrow shifted.

"A game!" Miller chuckled under his breath. "I have seen this before, in my village. A child hides inside it!"

"Away," Will urged as gently as he could, trying to push Miller back against the weight of the crowd behind him.

The scarecrow lurched to its feet, stumbling and swaying on the step, straw hands going to a face that was at once twisted knots of straw and hazel switches and also completely human. Terrified eyes rolled insanely. Twig fingers clawed at the place where the mouth should have been, and a mad mewling came from deep inside it. With a pleading arm, the scarecrow reached out to the crowd, but as it staggered around the arc, everyone moved back, unnerved, trying to believe it was some joke, knowing in their hearts what they were really seeing.

Miller's eyes widened. Grabbing his shoulder in an attempt to drag him away, Launceston urged through clenched teeth, "Get him out of here!" But Miller threw Launceston and Will off, and stepped towards the scarecrow.

Flailing desperately, its puppetlike movements drove the crowd to silence until an old woman whispered, "The Devil has been here."

That was enough. "The Devil! The Devil!" jumped from mouth to mouth as the mob fell apart in uproar.

One bull-necked, bald-headed man was not convinced. Stepping forwards, he tore open the scarecrow's jacket and ripped at the straw beneath. The scarecrow's desperate mewling grew louder.

Golden straw rained across the street as the frenzied search for the hidden occupant tore through the insides. Finally his fingers scraped the back of the jacket and the expression of dumb realisation that crept across his face was devastating to see.

"There is nothing in it," he croaked. "It is the Devil's work."

Falling to its knees, the scarecrow futilely clawed up the straw and stuffed it back inside. Its mewling was now a loud whine that set the teeth on edge.

"It is one of Pickering's men," someone else said, "taken by Old Nick for his sins."

The horror that gripped the crowd broke out in anger and cruelty. With cudgels and boots they attacked the scarecrow as it flopped and flailed and emitted muffled whines on the ground. From one of the tenements, the baldheaded man emerged with a burning stick pulled from the hearth. Faces torn by fear, the crowd parted with a desperate hope that here would be an end to it. Dragging the scarecrow to its feet, the bald man thrust the blazing stick into the scarecrow's gaping belly. The straw caught immediately. With roaring flames engulfing the figure in a second, greasy black smoke billowed up between the tenements. Women clutched their ears to keep out the mewling noise as the scarecrow at first ran back and forth, then staggered, and finally fell to its knees and grew silent as the blaze consumed it.

Finally, nothing remained but black ashes, half-burned boots, and remnants of clothing. Kicking through the ashes with a fury that revealed his secret fear, the bald man searched for any blackened bones, and only calmed when he saw there were none.

As their anger dissipated, a deep unease fell on the silent crowd. Miller tore off the hood of his cloak, tears of fear streaking his pallid face.

"What happened to him?" he croaked.

Will and Launceston did their best to bundle him away, but the damage had already been done.

"Strangers." A pointing finger was levelled at Miller.

"Strangers," another repeated.

"They did it."

Hands tore at Will's cloak. Carpenter's sword was revealed, and Mayhew had his hood ripped from his head.

"Strangers! "

It did not matter whether they were agents of the law or responsible for the terrifying event that had just unfolded, Will saw that he and the others were a vent for the crowd's churning emotions. Throwing off the men attempting to grip his arms, he drew his sword and carved an arc around him with the tip of the blade.

The others were not so quick. "The Devil!" quickly gave way to "Spies!" and "The law!" followed rapidly by the call to arms of "Clubs!" which was soon ringing out loudly along the street. Men rushed from the tavern and the buildings all around, armed with whatever they could pick up to defend their illicit livelihoods, quickly joined by women and children who were just as ferocious.

A cudgel clattered across Mayhew's temple, sending a gout of blood spattering in a wide arc. Stunned, he staggered back until Carpenter caught him, his sword now drawn. But the crowd surged in such numbers that there was no room to use his blade, and soon he was swamped in bodies, fists and sticks and bottles raining down on him.

The mob was kept at bay by Will's flashing sword, but he could not see a way out. Overhead, the whistles rang out from the rooftops, and more people ran to the disturbance by the minute from all around the area. There was no point reasoning with them; the normally febrile emotions of the criminal class in defending their territory against suspicious intruders were now infused with the fear engendered by the scarecrow and burning as furiously as that thing had done.

Worse, the whistles had drawn the attention of the underworld security force. Daggers were being drawn and razors pulled from the lining of cloaks. The people of Alsatia would only be sated when five torn bodies were found on the edge of the Thames at daybreak.

Miller, Launceston, Mayhew, and Carpenter were lost to Will beneath the roiling sea of bodies, but he could hear the thwack of wood on flesh and the slap of boots and fists.

With a flourish, he plucked one of Dee's packages from his pouch and unfurled it, shielding his eyes with his arm. As the powder within met the air, the resounding bang made his ears ring and the flash burned through his closed lids, but it brought turmoil to the already anxious crowd. With yells and shrieks, the attackers surged back. Dazed and covered in blood, Miller quickly found his equilibrium as Will dragged him from the mud. Mayhew, Launceston, and Carpenter staggered towards him, similarly bloody and bruised.

As their eyes and nerves recovered, the mob circled warily. Will knew it would only be a matter of moments before they rediscovered their courage, and the sheer weight of numbers would bring him down.

"Follow my lead," he said quietly to the others, "and do not tarry, for if you fall behind they will be like wolves upon you."

Spinning, he kicked open the door at his back and raced into the smoky, damp-smelling shadows. A woman sat next to the hearth, sharpening a knife on a leather strap, a filthy, naked child playing at her feet. She glared at Will hatefully as he flashed her a smile and said, "Apologies. We shall not be staying for dinner."

The roaring mob thundered in pursuit. Will ran through the tenement and out of the back door onto another street with Launceston, Miller, Mayhew, and Carpenter at his back.

"Fool!" Launceston snapped at Miller. "If we survive this, I will take it out of your hide."

"Master Miller has prevented our day from becoming too dull," Will said, "and tedium is the most unforgivable crime of all. You will thank him for this later."

They ran west along the street, the mob slowed by the narrow passage of the tenement. But as the whistles blasted urgently from the rooftops, more streamed from alleys into the street ahead, trying to block their way.

"They will not rest until we are dead," Carpenter said. "They fear we are taking the secrets of their crimes away with us."

Gripping his sword tightly as he ran, Mayhew said fiercely, "I will take a hundred of them with me when I go! Damn the Spanish and the Enemysometimes I wonder if the real enemies are within." He ducked his head low as bottles and stones rained down around them. "Perhaps what we do is wrong. This rabble is not worth protecting."

As the mob drew in from all sides, Will saw it would be pointless trying to fight; they faced an army as ferocious in the defence of their beliefs as any foreign force. "We must find a place to hide," he said, "at least till night falls, and we can move on under cover of darkness."

"Hide where?" Carpenter snapped. "They will ransack any filthy hovel we choose to make our castle. Look-they are everywhere!"

"And did you accept defeat so easily when we fled across the snows of Muscovy with Feodor's men at our heels?" Will said. "Or did I dream us hiding like foxes in the roots of a tree?"

"I wish it had been a dream," Carpenter spat. "At least then I would not have these scars to itch morning, noon, and night."

Will could feel Carpenter's eyes on his back, and knew his associate wished his gaze was a dagger.

With a bellow, a man wearing a butcher's leather apron erupted from a door, swinging a bloodstained cleaver directly towards Will's head. Ducking beneath the arc, Will brought the pommel of his sword crashing against the back of the assailant's head. That was enough to deter him, but Launceston stepped in swiftly and slit the butcher's throat. Gurgling, and attempting to stem the arterial spurt, he plunged to the ground.

"A warning to the others," Launceston said before Will could speak.

The shouts of the mob grew louder, but their advance slowed. They were wary now, but just as murderous.

Will scanned the ranks moving in along both ends of the street before kicking his way into another tenement. "Bar the door behind us!" he called as he ran to open the rear door onto the next street.

Mayhew and Carpenter jammed what little furniture they could find in front of the door, and then made for the back door before Will summoned them to follow him up the stairs.

"Has the Devil taken your mind?" Carpenter shouted. "We will be trapped up there!"

"Follow him," Launceston said with cold insistence. "He is no fool."

Launceston and Mayhew propelled a dazed Miller up the stairs after Will. At the bottom, Carpenter hesitated for a moment until the sound of the mob drew towards the door and then he reluctantly followed.

Just as they reached the top of the creaking stairs, the front door burst open and the torrent of angry voices flooded through the tenement and out of the back door.

"They will be back the moment they find we are not in the street," Carpenter snapped, exasperated, "and this is the first place they will search."

"But they will not find us," Will said, "for we shall be disappeared."

Forcing his way through a door into a room filled with detritus and a bedroll on the bare boards in one corner, Will enjoyed the confusion for a moment and then pointed up to where a hatch led to the loft space. Mayhew and Launceston boosted him up, and then Will helped the others scramble into the dusty dark space filled with the flapping of nesting birds and the scurrying of rats along the rafters. Here and there, missing tiles allowed shafts of sunlight to punch through into the gloom.

Below, the muffled sounds of the mob washed around the tenement.

"You are still a fool," Carpenter raged. "They will find us here in time."

"Why, if I did not know better I would think you wanted us to fail," Will replied.

Keeping his head low, Will loped along a rafter to the end of the loft where a crawlspace led through to the loft of the adjoining tenement.

"The houses are all connected," Mayhew noted.

"The builders left the ways so they could move swiftly from roof to roof to finish their work. Now, follow."

Will crawled through the space into the next loft and continued along the row of tenements to the end house where they made their way down to the ground floor. While the hubbub continued further along the street, they took advantage of the billowing smoke to slip across to the opposite tenement and make their way rapidly up the stairs and into the loft space of the next row.

They finally came to rest halfway along the row where the roof was missing enough shingles to give them a view across Alsatia.

"We are surrounded by an army of cutthroats who will kill us the moment we emerge," Mayhew said, peering at the crowd milling along the street. "We are trapped here."

"We wait until nightfall and try again." Will hated wasting time when they were in danger of losing the Silver Skull at any moment, but after the disturbance all of Alsatia would be on watch for hours.

Launceston leaned in close and nodded towards Miller, who huddled in a corner, head bowed. "The boy was a mistake," he whispered. "It is not his fault, but that matters not now. Look at him. He will break at any moment. That makes him a danger to what we do here." Pausing, Launceston attempted to show a modicum of compassion, but all Will saw was cold efficiency. "We should dispatch him now and be done with it."

"Let me talk to him," Will said. "We all recall our introduction to this world. He may find his feet quickly."

"Or he may not. And what then?"

In Miller Will saw the innocence that the rest of them hardly remembered, the pleasant days of his rural upbringing, and he regretted the toll taken by the hard business of life. When he went over, Miller didn't look up.

"Was that the Devil's work?" Miller's voice was a ghostly rustle. The country burr was clear, and Will realised the youth had been suppressing it, probably to appear more sophisticated to his new associates.

"Not in the way you mean. But it is certainly devilish."

"I heard stories of these things, in the tavern, and around Swainson's hearth one winter night, but. .." He chewed his lip, drawing blood. "They were just stories. Not real. But that ... That should not be!" Finally, he looked up at Will with wide eyes stung by tears.

"You are right. It should not."

"They burned him alive! Whatever happened, the poor soul was still inside somewhere. And they burned him!"

"People do terrible things when they are scared. We are taught to see the world a certain way. A clockwork place, where the sun rises in the morning and sets at dusk, and all happens as it should. Tick-tock. But the world is not like that."

As Miller wiped away his tears, Will saw a hint of defiance that gave him hope. Perhaps that was what Walsingham had recognised. "What is it like, then?" Miller asked.

"It is a place where night can fall at noon, and cows give blood not milk. Where mothers can find strange creatures in the cribs where their babies lay only a moment before. Where mortal men do not rule and never have." He cast an eye towards Launceston, Carpenter, and Mayhew, who whispered conspiratorially on the far side of the loft. "I will tell you the truth of these matters," he said quietly, squatting next to Miller. "Listen carefully, and then I will answer any questions you have, as much as I can. But you must not cry, or rail to the heavens, or give any sign of fear. You must accept these things like the man that our Lord Walsingham saw when he chose you to defend our queen and country. Do you understand?"

Miller nodded.

"Good man. These secrets would have been revealed to you at the Palace of Whitehall over time, and they would have been allowed to settle on you, so they did not disturb your mind. But there was no time for that, and so you must hear them now, hard, and cold, and painful."

"Tell me. Make sense of what I saw."

"Sense? No, there is no sense to any of this, but I will help you understand as best I can. The stories that you heard at Swainson's hearth are true. Every story that you laughed off in the light of day but feared deep in your heart at night is true."

"The Devil-"

"Yes, by other names. Devils. A race of them. For as long as we have walked on this Earth, they have preyed on us, for sport, out of cruelty, for malign purposes. They have transformed us, like that poor wretch you saw in the street, tormented our nightmares, twisted our limbs, stolen our children, driven our old men to their graves, slaughtered our young men, and drunk their blood, and bathed in it. No forest was ever safe for us, no lonely moor, no quiet, moonlit pool or river's edge or mountaintop, for they would come from under hill and mound and treat us like cattle, or worse, like rats, forced to play for the mouser's enjoyment before one swipe of claw bares innards to the light."

Will paused to allow his words to sink in. Disbelief, and the hint of a smile flickered on Miller's face. It was the first sign, Will knew from long experience, and it would pass. There would be worse to come, not just then, but for many nights after, if not a lifetime.

"You have had an education of the history of this land?" Will asked.

"A little."

"Then let me tell you of the true history, the secret history. England has always been at war-"

"Always?"

"Not with the Spanish, or the French, the Scots or the Welsh or the Irish."

"With this race of devils?" Miller's disbelief had already started to turn.

"I dress it up in fine clothes to call it a war," Will continued, "but really we have been in rags, 'pon our knees. The Enemy did what they wanted with us. Killed, stole, tormented. And we could not fight back, for they were too powerful."

"They have magic?"

"They can do things we cannot. They have guile and secret knowledge. Magic? It seems that way at times, but I am just a humble spy and do not understand such things." Will spoke calmly and carefully, smiling to make his words appear simpler than they were. "In truth, they are more dangerous than wolves, they see like eagles, swim like fish, are stronger than bears, more cunning than snakes. They are there and gone in the twinkling of an eye. Most importantly, they value our lives not a whit. In their eyes, we are as far beneath them as the sheep of the field are beneath us."

"And this Enemy ... you say they have been attacking us forever? Then why have I not seen nor heard of them?"

"You have, in stories, in whispers. They are always known by other names. You called them the Devil yourself. But our kings and queens have always ruled that their existence should be kept a secret from the common man as much as is possible. For if the good men and women of England knew the terrors that could pluck them from their lives at any moment, they would be driven mad with fear, and all we have tried to build here would fall into an abyss."

In the street below, the clamour had ebbed away as the mob returned to their plots and plans. But even in the silence there was little peace.

"Tell me what they do," Miller said.

"I will tell you some of what they do," Will replied. "A flavour, but there is no time to tell you all." And I would not see your hope extinguished, Will thought. "In Chanctonbury Ring, in Sussex, the Devil appears every Midsummer Eve, the local people say, and plucks one poor wretch from his hearth to take beneath the clump.

"In Tolleshunt Knights in Essex, not far from your quiet home, these people of the dark engaged in carnal displays on the banks of the bottomless pool in the place known as the Devil's Wood. One year, a local landowner attempted to build a house there, and the unholy crew ripped out his heart, screaming that his soul was lost.

"At Wandlebury Camp, near Cambridge, a night rider will appear under the full moon to challenge all-comers. The wounds he inflicts bleed anew on the anniversary of the night they were inflicted. In the Lickey Hills in haunted Worcestershire, the local folk tell how the Devil and his chief huntsman Harry-ca-nab hunt wild boars, and if they cannot find their game they hunt the locals."

For nearly an hour, Will detailed the atrocities, the blood-soaked fields, the devastated lives and stolen children, the changelings, the disappeared, the hunted and the haunted and the corrupted. His litany of misery covered every quarter of England, and reached back as far into the past as historians had documented. It was as he had been told in the days after he had been recruited by Walsingham, and Miller's reaction was the same, the disbelief shading to shock, then to a creeping, cold devastation at the realisation that there was no safe place.

Stretching his legs, Will watched the clouds blowing across the afternoon sky as he completed the first part of his account. "In Atwick, in Yorkshire, no one dares drink at the local spring. In York ... at Alderley Edge ... at Kirkby Lonsdale and Castleton Fell ..." His words dried up, but the silence that followed said enough.

"My grandfather disappeared in the marshes at Romney, following a mysterious light. We never found his body," Miller began hesitantly.

"They are everywhere, Tom Miller. In every part of this country, and beyond too, I would wager. We have all been touched by them, though we might not realise it. They may exist on the edges of what we see, but they are always there. They have always been there."

"What are they?" Miller asked. "Are they-?"

With a reassuring smile, Will held up a hand to silence him. "The farmers do not speak their name, lest they answer. They call them the Fair Folk or the Good Neighbours. You know who they are."

"My mother said they helped."

"Some did. But there is a cruel group among them who find us game for hunting, or sport when they are bored." As he looked out past the broken tiles, across the smoky city, Will could feel the eyes of Launceston, Mayhew, and Carpenter on his back, all waiting to see how Miller would deal with the news. He had revealed to him the problem and brought him down; now it was time to uncover the solution. "But no more," he added.

"But ... the scarecrow in the street. They do not leave us alone," Miller said, puzzled.

"No. There are other accounts, but fewer now. Mere skirmishes, to let us know they still exist. The hot war we fought with their kind has blown cold." Will struck a defiant tone as he turned back to Miller. "We found a way to fight back."

"Against a power like that? How?"

"Your thanks should go to Doctor Dee. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558 and received the truth of these matters passed down across the years through royal channels, she decided it was time to take a stand. The people of England could no longer be the plaything of an outside power. Determined to end generations of suffering, she turned to her teacher, advisor, and confidant Doctor Dee, and brought him close, charging him with the task. Through his esoteric studies, Dee came upon a solution, and after a night in which it is said storms tore England apart and ghosts walked in every churchyard, England's defences were secured."

"How did Doctor Dee achieve such a thing?"

"In this business of secrets, Dee keeps his closer than any. Whatever he did ... whatever price he paid ... it changed everything overnight. The Enemy could no longer attack us with impunity. They retreated to their distant homes, seething that those they considered so lowly had now risen up to challenge their rule."

"If we have locked them out, how do they return to torment us?" Miller asked.

"Over time, they still find a way through here or there, a quick blow, but it is nothing like before. Yet in their absence they are even more dangerous. Their loss of power has wounded them. Always arrogant, they refuse to accept they now have equals and are determined to bring us once again to our knees. Now, instead of seeing us as sport, they see us as a threat, and they are determined to destroy us for all time. And so they plot, and bide their time, and search for a way through our defences. We must be ever vigilant, for we do not know where or when their decisive blow will come. And it will come, sooner or later. Their intellect, and their anger, burn hot. They have been spurned, and they will want a vengeance that will clear us from the world."

"And this business with the Silver Skull?"

Will was pleased to see that Miller's unease had dissipated a little. His brow was furrowed as he turned over the information, weighing options, realising, Will hoped, that there was no need to be fatalistic.

"They have never launched such a bold attack before, which suggests this artefact is of the greatest importance to them. And the only thing they consider important now is our destruction."

"So ... so ... we do not fight the Spanish?"

"We do. We are in a bitter struggle with our Earthly enemies for our continued existence as a nation. That is how it always has been, though our lot was made more difficult by Henry's decision to break with Rome. But now the Enemy stirs and manipulates our Catholic opponents. Indeed, not just Spain, or France, but all the foreign monarchs. We should stand shoulder to shoulder against a common foe, but religion is a formidable wedge. Catholic? Protestant? It means nothing to me. We are all brothers in our skin. But the Enemy is skilled at finding weaknesses and exploiting them to their own advantage."

Cleaning his nails with his knife, Launceston came over. Will could see he had softened in his opinion of Miller now that the youth had not lost his head. "At times it appears the whole world is against us, with the Enemy manipulating all to crush us. But we have risen up off our knees and now that we have gained freedom, we shall not let it go again. We will do whatever it takes to survive."

"And this is our job, then?" Miller asked.

"This is the true reason for our network of spies," Will agreed. "Yes, we have agents in the foreign courts and we continually gather information against our Earthly enemies, but the real reason for our existence is the true Enemy."

"We operate in the shadows, always presenting two faces to the world," Launceston continued, "but the true nature of our fight, and the Enemy we face, must never be revealed. For the people of England would lose hope if they knew the scale of the forces ranged against us."

"After Dee's defences were secured, the first plans for a secret service to oppose the Enemy's renewed attention were laid by Elizabeth's chief minister William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and in 1566 he summoned our Lord Walsingham to enact the strategy that we now see through today."

Miller clutched his temples. "My head is spinning. I can no longer tell what is truth or fiction. This all seems like a dream. A nightmare."

"A nightmare indeed," Launceston replied, "and we continue to take those bad dreams back to the Enemy's door. We have fought them to a standstill in the twenty-two years since Lord Walsingham came to court, and there have been casualties on both sides. The battle will continue, cold, and hard, and fought forever in the shadows. I cannot see an end to it."

"We cannot defeat them?" Miller asked.

"They are like the sea," Launceston replied.

"But if our defences ever crack, they would wash us away in the flood," Will said. "We cannot let that happen. Our guard must not fall for an instant. You see now the importance of the work we do?"

"It is all down to us?" Miller's voice had grown thin and reedy.

"England and our queen demand the best of us," Will said. "We shall not let them down."

Outside, a flock of birds rose suddenly into the sky, cawing discordantly as they swooped across the rooftops. It was a strangely desolate sound that touched them all.

"I would be alone with my thoughts for a while," Miller said quietly. "You have given me much to ponder."

Once again, Launceston fixed an incisive eye on the youth.

"Take your moment," Will said, "but when night falls the time for thinking will have passed. Then we act."