The Silver Skull - Mark Chadbourn

"As have we all, Kit. For good reason."

Understanding, Marlowe nodded and motioned to a stool. "Shall we drink as we did at Corpus Christi on that night when you inducted me into this business of fools and knaves-" He caught himself. "I am sorry, Will. My bitterness sometimes gets the better of me. This is not the life that was promised me, and there is no going back, but you have always been good to me."

"No apologies are necessary, Kit." Will pulled up a stool. Pain lay just beneath the surface of Marlowe's face and Will knew he was complicit in embedding it there. "We are all lost souls."

"True enough. Beer, then. Or wine? Some breakfast?" Marlowe laid down his quill and pushed his beer-spattered work to one side.

"Information is all I require."

Marlowe sighed. "Work, then. One day we shall drink like brothers. I see from your face this is a grave matter."

"The gravest. All England is at stake."

"The Spanish. Those stories of a fleet of warships, an invasion planned-"

Will shook his head. "The true Enemy."

"Ah." Marlowe's eyes fell and for a moment he pretended to arrange his work materials. "Tamburlaine the second is all but done. I have drained myself with tales of endless war and strife." He smiled. "What is it, coz?"

"Last night, from the Tower, the Enemy stole a magical item whose origins are lost to antiquity-a Silver Skull, attached now to an unwitting victim."

Filled with the intellectual curiosity that Will admired so much, Marlowe leaned across the table. "I have never heard of such a thing."

"It is one of the mysteries of ancient times, a great weapon once guarded by the Templar Knights." Will smiled. "Our Lord Walsingham and our ally Doctor Dee saw fit to keep knowledge of it well away from the likes of you and me."

"And that is why they are our masters! I would only have sold it for beer and a night of pleasure! And what is the purpose of this Silver Skull?"

"Our betters have spent nigh on two decades trying to divine that very thing, but its mysteries remain untouched."

"Yet if the Enemy has need of it, it must be a great threat indeed to our well-being," Marlowe said.

Will nodded slowly. "Within a short time of the Enemy taking the Skull, they lost it. Stolen by a gang of thieves and spirited away, like magpies caught by a shiny bauble. The Enemy searches for it even as we speak, and so do we. Whosoever finds it first wins everything."

"And so this thing is an act of God, waiting to be unleashed on the dumb populace."

"Our Lord Walsingham and Dee fear the Enemy knows the key to its use. But more, who is to say one of those rogues could not stumble by accident across it and unleash death in the twinkle of an eye? All our lives hang by a thread while the Skull remains beyond our grasp."

Leaning back against the wall, Marlowe swung one scuffed boot onto a stool and pondered. "I have many questions, about how the Enemy plans to use the Skull when England's defences against them still stand, and the timing of this act-"

"And I have no answers. There is mystery here. But we are out of time." As one of the drunken men on the floor stirred, Will leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "You are our eyes and ears in the underworld, Kit. You know of things that lie far beneath the notice of men of good standing. Who would have the Skull? Where would it be now?"

The brightness faded from Marlowe's face. "Walsingham did not send you."

"No."

"Even in this hour of need he cannot bring himself to deal with me!" A flicker of fear rose in his eyes. "He does not trust me, Will. And in our world what is not trusted often meets a bloody end."

"It will pass, Kit."

Angrily, Marlowe put the toe of his boot under the stool and flicked it across the room where it crashed against the wall. The man who had stirred looked up with bloodshot eyes.

"Out!" Marlowe yelled at him. "Fetch me the ordinary! I am hungry." When the man had lurched away to find the vintner for the Bull's daily stew, Marlowe rounded on Will. "As children we walked in summer fields and dreamed of the wonders that lay ahead. Yet we sold those dreams, and our lives, to defend England against something that can never be defeated, which waits, quiet and patient and still, until we let our guard slip, as it always will, and then we are torn apart in a gale of knives and teeth, unmourned even by our own. Mistrusted by our own! Look at what this business has made us, Will! See what we have become! We cannot trust those closest to us. We fear death from Enemy and friend alike. We are alone, waiting for that moment when it all ends. Where is the comfort in this world?"

"There is little for the likes of us, Kit. We live our blighted lives so others can sleep soundly in their beds. You know that." Will watched the hopelessness play out across his friend's face and it troubled him. He had seen it many times before on others and in every case it ended the same way, an insidious despair that found its roots in the very nature of their Enemy, spreading like bindweed until every part of a person was choked by it. He had seen men kill themselves, others throw themselves into danger with no care for their lives, and revelling when they met their end. More simply setting in motion their own demise through their quiet actions. "If this matter was not so grave I would not have troubled you, Kit. Time away from this business ... a lost week or more in one of your dens of iniquity will help you regain your equilibrium."

"Yes, of course, Will," Marlowe lied. "I am tired, that is all. Forgive me."

Though he feared the repercussions, Will pressed his friend for information. Marlowe was right: their business allowed little softness or compassion. The war was everything, and everyone was a victim.

Marlowe ran a hand through his hair as he steadied himself. "A gang of rogues near the Tower over night? No. There are no gulls there for them to prey upon. They would be near the stews or ordinaries, the baiting rings and taverns and theatres."

"They came upon the Enemy as they slipped away."

Marlowe shook his head; it still did not make sense to him. "The villains of London are an army, with generals and troops who march to order and follow detailed plans and strategy. They do not wait for their next meal, for they would starve."

"You say they knew the Enemy would be passing by?"

"Perhaps. As we have spies everywhere, so do they. A guard at the Tower, sending word as the Enemy took their moment. A Silver Skull would be a valuable prize, even if they did not know its true worth. I pity the poor sod who wore it for they will have cut it free by now." Marlowe made a slitting motion across his throat. "Who was he?"

Will shook his head. "This was not a random occurrence, then."

Marlowe shook his head slowly too.

"Then who is the general? Who could place an agent in the Tower?"

"The gangs of London are countries within a country. They have their own spies, yes, and their own forces to keep them secure. They even have their own land where a criminal can find refuge, and no one-not even the queen's own men-can touch them. In Damnation Alley and the Bermudas and Devil's Gap. By the brick kilns in Islington, and Newington Butts and Alsatia. Cutpurses and cutthroats, pickpockets and tricksters, the coney-catchers and head-breakers. Who would dare such an act? Why, all of them, Will."

Glancing through the window to where Nathaniel waited by the carriage, Will saw the inn yard now bright as the sun moved high in the sky. "Time is short, Kit. You run with these rogues. Give me a name. If you were to point a finger at a likely culprit, who would it be?"

His shoulders hunched as if carrying a great weight, Marlowe thought for a moment and then said, "There is one they call the King of Cutpurses. Laurence Pickering. Every week he holds a gathering at his house in Kent Street for all the heads of the London gangs, where they exchange information and drink and carouse with doxies. If Pickering is not behind this, he would know who is."

"I have not heard of this man."

"Few have. He has faces behind faces, and no one is quite sure which one is the real one, or if that is his true name. But I know one thing-he is the cousin of Bulle, the Tyburn hangman. Bulle himself admitted it when he was cup-shotten one night."

"Bulle?"

Marlowe raised an eyebrow at Will's sudden interest. "Why is that brute important?"

The image of Bulle hacking away at the neck of Mary, Queen of Scots, was still fresh in Will's mind, as was Walsingham's account of what happened after her death. "Because there are no random occurrences in this world, Kit. And Kent Street is where I should find this Pickering?"

"No. That is the front he presents to the world so he can pass himself off as an upstanding man. If he has something of value, it will be in one of the fortresses his kind have built for themselves, secure from any lawful pursuit." Marlowe turned over the possibilities in his mind and then announced, "Alsatia, below the west end of Fleet Street, next to the Temple. There is no safer place in London for the debauched and the criminal."

Will understood. "It has the privilege of sanctuary. Only a writ of the lord chief justice or the lords of the Privy Council carries any force there."

"And even then, not much. No warrant would ever be issued in Alsatia. I told you, Will-a country within a country. The citizens of Alsatia are, to a man and woman, criminal, and they will turn upon and attack any who come to seize one of their own. Have caution. If there is another way to achieve your ends, take it. You will not emerge from Alsatia with your life."

Will held his arms wide. "If we took no risks, Kit, how would we know we are alive?"

Marlowe laughed quietly. "How secure I feel knowing the remarkable Will Swyfte is abroad to keep the land safe." With a surprising display of emotion, he leaned across the table and grasped Will's hand. "Take care, Will. You have been a good friend to me, and my life would be worse if you were not in it." Tears stung Marlowe's eyes. His tumbling emotions were a clear sign of the tremendous stress he was under.

"You should know that taking care of myself is my greatest attribute. I will not be led gracefully towards the dark night, not while there is wine to be drunk and women to romance."

Marlowe was one of the few men who could see through Will's words, but he was kind enough not to say anything.

Rising, Will nodded his goodbye, adding, "Heed my words, Kit. Take time to find yourself."

"If this business ever let me, I would." He gave a lazy, sad smile, but when Will was at the door, he added, "I have an idea for a play in which a man sells his soul to the Devil for knowledge, status, and power. What do you think of that, Will?" His eyes were haunted and said more than his words.

Will did not need to answer. As he left the room, Will wondered, as he did with increasing regularity, if he would see his friend alive again. But his mind was already turning to the trial that lay ahead-an assault on the most notorious and dangerous part of London: Alsatia, the Thieves' Quarter.

CHAPTER 9

s the black carriage rattled at speed through the archway and out of the Bull Inn's yard, Grace stepped from the shadows by the east wall and dropped her hood, ignoring the lecherous stares from the carpenters at work on the temporary stage. Her own carriage waited a little further along Bishopsgate. She didn't have to follow Will's carriage to know his destination: Marlowe had been one of his few confidants since Will had recruited him after the reports of a brilliant, and more importantly daring and transgressional, student at Cambridge.

Her heart beat fast as she skipped across the cobbles. Will would be angry if he knew she was following him, but she had recognised the glint in his eye at the Palace of Whitehall: he felt that the business in which he was engaged had something to do with jenny's disappearance. His work remained a mystery to her, as it should, but she could not find peace until she understood the truth of what had happened to her sister and she feared Will would never tell her even if he uncovered it, under some misguided sense of duty to ensure her protection. Marlowe would tell her everything; she had always been able to wrap him around her finger.

Good Kit, she thought. Too gentle and sensitive for the demands placed upon you.

The actors delivered their speeches in declamatory fashion, something about lost love and fairies stealing hearts under cover of the night. It distracted her briefly, so she did not see the four men arrive in the shade beneath the archway. Their well-polished boots were expensive Flemish leather, their cloaks thick and unblemished, their hoods pulled low to mask their features, gloves tight on their hands.

They had followed Grace at a distance from the palace, where they had observed her meeting with Will from the shadows.

Blood was on their minds, and righteous vengeance in their hearts.

The end was drawing near.

CHAPTER 10

ill's carriage raced towards Saint Paul's, past the crowd thronging through Cheapside market. Rival apprentices spilled dangerously close to the wheels as they beat each other furiously. Blood flowed across the street and respectable gentlemen darted wildly to avoid randomly thrown blows.

Amid the cacophony, traders loudly competed with each other to ensnare the attention of passersby, focusing most of their attention on the smartly dressed servants from the grand four-story homes of the goldsmiths that lined the street.

Old Saint Paul's, with its blasted spire towering five hundred feet above the rooftops, was the heart of the City and a stone anchor in a rapidly changing world. In the bustling, sun-drenched church precinct, Will found Walsingham, like a black crow, his beady eyes flickering over the men that Leicester marshalled before the puzzled eyes of the booksellers, merchants, lawyers, and servants looking for work. Beside him, Dee hid his identity with a deep hood.

Mayhew had assembled the members of Will's team nearby: Launceston, his ghastly complexion and saturnine disposition unsettling many in the churchyard; John Carpenter, whose handsome features were marred by a jagged scar that ran from temple to mouth on his left side; and one who was clearly Tom Miller, the new recruit, as big as a side of beef with hands that could encompass a child's head and an expression of edgy confusion.

Mayhew and the others passed among the crowd swarming around the church, questioning cutpurses, cutthroats, beggars, and coney-catchers, who were as numerous as the respectable tradesmen who sought business around Saint Paul's, and those who had come simply to parade their expensive, highly fashionable cloaks and doublets.

Nathaniel cast a perceptive eye over the proceedings as he followed Will from the carriage. "These are dark times indeed for so many of the great and good to be gathered in public away from the security of their halls of privilege."