The Silver Skull - Mark Chadbourn

In the icy flash of the glance Launceston levelled at Miller, Will saw the earl would not shy from taking matters into his own hands if Miller placed them, or their mission, at risk. None of them were strangers to shedding blood, but killing came particularly easy to Launceston. Marlowe had once said something was missing inside him. Will would need to pay careful attention.

As they pressed deeper into Alsatia, the residents felt safer from the unwanted scrutiny of the law-keepers. Dice was played noisily on doorsteps, or cards on ramshackle tables at the side of the street. Disabled men and women abandoned by society tried to scrape a living begging, and sometimes the criminals would take pity and toss them a coin.

Outside a tavern, amid heaps of vomit and reeking lakes of urine, people sprawled drunkenly across the street with no one to move them on. The noise from the open doors and windows of the tavern was deafening, inebriated conversations delivered at a bellow against a backdrop of fiddle music and ferociously contested gambling.

Occasionally brawls would begin, but they were swiftly broken up by men armed with cudgels who kept the order among the unruly class. They were likely in the pay of the gangs, Will guessed, ready to be sent to the defence of any member of the community being dragged out to face justice.

One man lay facedown, his skull split open and his blood flowing into the mud and the urine. Will saw the hands of his own men going instinctively to their swords, knowing what they would face if they were found out. The close call with the Enemy and his dog had unnerved them all.

As Will prepared to enter the tavern to search for information, an uproar echoed from the end of the street where men and women ran towards the entrance to one of the tenements.

"Someone is in danger," Will guessed from the tone of the cries. "Let us investigate."

CHAPTER 11

s Will and the others were taking their first steps into Alsatia, Grace was already progressing into the filthy, smoke-filled streets. Marlowe had always liked her, and it had not taken a great effort to worm Will's destination out of him. Although he would not speak directly of the nature of Will's business in the Thieves' Quarter, his occasional unguarded comment told Grace her instincts were correct: there was some connection to jenny's disappearance. Marlowe warned her of the dangers awaiting a young woman alone in Alsatia-it was not the court, it was certainly not Warwickshirebut the drive to discover the truth about her sister overrode all else.

But as she stood on a street where a man at a table took receipt of purses, jewellery, silk handkerchiefs, and occasionally coats and boots, she cursed her ignorance. She thought she would be able to find Will easily-he was often recognised and hailed by upstanding men and women-but here there was no trace of his passing, and she was lost, and her perfumed handkerchief could not keep the foul smells from her nose. And now a group of four men were casting surreptitious glances her way, and muttering among themselves. She was not naive; she recognised the hunger in their eyes.

At least a woman alone was no threat and she was not troubled by the majority of the other unsavoury characters she saw. But as she attempted to retrace her steps to the London she knew, the men began to follow her.

Her heart beat faster, but she tried not to give in to panic, for she knew that would only attract more unwanted attention. Keeping her head down, she skipped a stinking puddle, unsure whether she should move down the centre of the street where everyone would see her or keep in the shadow of the tenements where she could be snatched in through one of the open doors. Opting for somewhere between the two, she kept up a fast pace, deciding that she hated that place more than anywhere she had been in her life. Every face had either a hint of cruelty or the stain of life's crushing ills. She saw no hope anywhere. The desolation made her yearn for Will; he had kept his own hope alive in the face of, as she saw it, all reason. He truly believed jenny still lived. More than anything she didn't want that hope crushed, but she feared the worst. Soon he might find out the truth, and what then for him?

That thought prompted a stark memory: on the fourth day after jenny's disappearance when a black carriage had arrived at the home of Will's family just as night fell, a waning moon casting a silver light over the Warwickshire cornfields. A mysterious visitor, armed guards at the door, and then Will emerging at dawn to tell her, "There is a great secret to the way the world works. Nothing is as it seems."

Will appeared to dread that was true, but as Grace glanced back at the four men loping in her wake, elbowing each other and flashing lascivious grins while their eyes remained furtive and hard, she fervently hoped that was the case.

The street to her right was wider and had more traffic. Grace took it in the hope that the men would leave her alone under the gaze of others. But she had not gone more than twenty paces when a rough hand grabbed her arm.

The youngest of the men, with sandy hair and a ruddy complexion covered with pox scars, said, "Walk with us, lady. These are rough parts and you need strong arms to keep you safe."

"I fear that cure will be worse than the disease," Grace said. "Leave me. I would walk alone."

She tried to throw off his hand, but he only held her tighter, and then the other three men were moving to surround her.

"Aid me!" Grace called to the people moving along the street. A man with grey hair and hollow cheeks only winked at the men and moved on. A fat woman threw back her head and laughed, and her friend pointed and made a sexual gesture at the men, who laughed and called back rudely.

"You will get no help round these parts," the pox-scarred man said.

Grace launched a sharp kick at his shins, and as he yelped and staggered back towards his associates, she ran. Along the street, jeers and encouragement to pursuit rose up loudly. Catching her quickly, the men bundled her through the open door of one of the tenements.

Grace careered across the mud floor to come to rest against a damp wall. The place was bare apart from a table and a chair, and a fire stoked with cheap coal smoked into the room.

Laughing as they loosened their hose, the four men ranged across the room, blocking her escape.

"Come near me and I will tear out your eyes," she hissed. The men only laughed harder.

Sliding up the wall, Grace hooked her fingers like claws as her attackers approached. Through the filthy window, she glimpsed movement: more of the jeering locals coming to witness her degradation, she guessed.

But when the door clattered open, it was four cloaked men who burst in. Grace had as little time to react as her attackers before a drawn sword was thrust into the heart of the pox-scarred man, and just as quickly withdrawn and slashed across the throat of another. Grace had only ever seen one person exhibit that degree of skill with the blade.

"Will," she murmured with relief.

The remaining two attackers had only a second to plead for their lives before they too were run through. Sickened by the cold efficiency of the kills, Grace turned away, but she was also troubled that a part of her was triumphant.

When she turned back, her saviour stood before her. She went to throw her arms around Will, only for an unfamiliar face to be revealed when the hood was thrust back: aristocratic, with an aquiline nose and dark eyes that were as charismatic as Will's, a waxed moustache and chin hair, swarthy skin.

"Greetings, mistress," he said. "I am lion Alanzo de las Posadas, and you will now accompany me."

"Spanish spies," Grace gasped.

Don Alanzo gave a curt bow.

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."