The Silver Skull

CHAPTER 36

he cries of the hunting party echoed through the frozen forest, accompanied by the occasional crack of an arquebus that sent the birds shrieking through the black trees.

They waste their ammunition when they cannot see us," Carpenter gasped, his breath clouding in the subzero temperatures. Shivering uncontrollably, he pulled his thick woollen cloak around him, but could find no warmth.

"If fortune is with them, they can still hit us," Will replied. In the pack under his arm, he clutched the object Dee had treasured for so long, the thing that could only add to England's mounting power.

They struggled through the calf-deep snow in the face of the bitter wind, scrambling over fallen branches and plunging into hidden hollows where the brambles lost beneath the white blanket tore through their skin and left splashes of red in their wake. The wind was laced with snow and the grey clouds banking up overhead suggested another blizzard like the one that had disrupted their escape from Moscow.

"If we do not find our man soon we will freeze to death out here," Carpenter said. He no longer attempted to hide his fear. The bravado he had exhibited shortly after Walsingham had brought him into the fold had dissipated in the harsh reality of his very first undertaking. What he had seen in the snow-covered courtyards of the Kremlin fortress had changed his life forever. There would be no peace for him again. It was a feeling Will knew only too well, and he regretted it being inflicted upon Carpenter, however inevitable it had been.

"We must first lose our pursuers." Will glanced back, but there was no sign of the tsar's men in the half-light. "We cannot lead them directly to our man or all will be lost. "

A ferocious roar rolled out through the forest from somewhere at their backs.

What little blood remained in Carpenter's face drained away and he gripped Will's arm. "What was that? A bear?"

"Nothing to concern us." Will tried to urge him on, but he was rooted.

"It was with the tsar's men. With them!"

"The Enemy have many weapons at their disposal, and employ many beasts to do their work. You know that, " Will said, trying to calm him. He watched the spiralling panic in Carpenter's eyes with concern. At the outset, he had been afraid Carpenter had been sent on such an important mission too early, but as ever they were short of men.

"Is that what killed Jack and Scarcliffe and Gedding?" The scene of slaughter in Kitai-gorod, the walled merchant town beside the fortress, still lay heavily on both of them, but it had taken all Will's abilities to talk Carpenter through his devastation at the time.

Will grasped Carpenter's shoulders. The barks of the hunting party's dogs drew closer by the minute. `John, our lives mean nothing here. We do this not for personal reward, or acclaim, or the queen's favour, but for the people of England."

Carpenter stared at him, seeing only the pictures in his head.

`John. " Will shook him, too hard. "Though we both give up our lives here, we must see our burden delivered to London and to Dee. The safety of our country depends on us. We do not matter. Our lives are not important. Once you accept that fact, you are free. Do you understand?"

He nodded slowly, but Will was not sure he was convinced.

"If one of us falls, the other must make sure the package reaches our man so he can deliver it to the ship. That is the only thing that should concern us. You know the laws of our business: do not risk all we seek to achieve for the sake of one man. We are already dead. Repeat that."

"We are already dead," Carpenter said flatly. He blinked away a tear.

Another roar, so loud it felt like whatever had made the noise was only feet away. The hairs sprang erect on Will's neck.

It jolted Carpenter out of his stupor and together they drove on into the forest, increasingly thankful for the white snow as the light began to fade. Branches tore at their faces and objects hidden underfoot threatened to trip them, but they continued as fast as they could.

Another roar, close behind. The sounds of the hunting party had faded away as if they had decided to leave the pursuit to a more effective hunter.

"If it has our scent, we will never lose it," Carpenter gasped.

"There is a storm coming and that may provide cover for us and our tracks," Will replied.

For ten more minutes, they scrambled through the bitter Russian winter, no longer feeling their feet. The heat drained from their limbs until they felt leaden and only the threat of what lay behind drove them on.

Finally, as the gloom descended among the branches, a light appeared ahead: a lantern, gently swinging to draw them in.

"There!" Carpenter said with exultation.

Will was distracted by fleeting movement in the trees to his left. Afraid their pursuer had pulled ahead and was circling, he came to a halt and peered into the gloom. "We may need to take a different path," he said.

"What is it?"

"Whatever was at our backs could be lying in wait to attack us unawares. " He searched the trees, listening intently, but the snow muffled all sound. Another movement shimmered on the edge of his vision, closer to hand, a figure that was nowhere near as large as the roars of their pursuer had suggested.

"You see it?" Carpenter hissed.

And then Will did, and the cold that crushed the forest in its grip swept into every part of him. Standing among the trees, almost swallowed by the encroaching dark, was a woman, her leaf green dress floating around her in the wind.

Jenny.

His Jenny.

The cold did not appear to touch her. Her arms and head were bare, her skin so pale. She looked exactly as she had done that last time he had seen her, stepping through the cornfield to meet him, her eyes like the sun, her smile filled with love. Was she a ghost? A dream caused by the cold? Had she come to haunt him at the moment of his own death, as she had haunted him in the time since she had disappeared?

His heart went out, and then he was running towards her, oblivious to all else but the dim sound of Carpenter calling his name anxiously.

The roaring was so loud it felt like he was in the middle of a tempest. Whirling, he saw a huge, dark shape erupt from the trees and drive into Carpenter with such force he was thrown several feet against a tree. The beast descended on Carpenter in a storm of fangs and rending claws. Will was fixed to the spot in the shock and horror of the moment as the creature ripped through the clothes on Carpenter's back and sent a mist of blood into the air. Carpenter's screams were too painful to hear. Somehow he scrambled free and managed to draw his knife, but then the beast fell on him again.

It looked like a bear, but somehow more than a bear.

Will ran several steps towards the bloody scene and came to a slow halt. There was nothing he could do to save Carpenter.

Whirling, he searched the trees for Jenny, but only the wind whistled through the area where she had stood. He ran, calling her name, but there was no response, nothing to show she had ever been there.

Had she saved him from the beast's attack?

The ache in his heart was agonising, but he drove it down inside him, as he always had, and ran for the light, trying not to think about Carpenter and the awful sounds rising up behind him.

Within minutes, he was packed under heavy blankets in the back of a sleigh, hurtling down a steep track through the trees, with the crack of a whip echoing around him, and promises from his saviour that he would not rest until Will was at Arkhangelsk on a ship chartered by the Muscovy Company. England beckoned.

Lulled by the motion, his despair came and went on the edge of sleep. Wherever he was, he hoped Carpenter would forgive him, but the success of their task was paramount.

Obliquely, he recalled Walsingham telling him, "There is no room for any emotion," and at the time he thought he understood.

And he thought of Jenny, and however much he told himself it was a vision, he was sure something substantial was there, a hint, a hope, although he couldn't understand the whys of it.

Jenny was alive, he was sure. And he would not rest until he had discovered the truth.