The Scar-Crow Men (11 page)

‘This business reeks of the Unseelie Court,’ the scar-faced man spat. ‘Whenever there is something that stinks of churchyards and night terrors, they are not far behind.’

‘They have been silent in recent times but they circle us like wolves, ready to fall upon us when we display the merest sign of weakness,’ the Earl agreed.

Will took the edge of the sheet and hesitated, thinking of Kit beneath the filthy blanket on the floor of Mrs Bull’s lodging house.

‘You know the bastards are skilled at finding weaknesses and exploiting them. They see our greatest desires, our basest yearnings, and they twist them and draw them out until we follow like fools.’ Launceston’s right hand trembled in anticipation as he watched his leader holding the sheet corner.

‘Get on with it, then,’ Carpenter snapped, flashing a glance towards the shape under the shroud. ‘If these remains can tell us aught of this mystery, let us look and be away.’

The Earl leaned over the trestle as if trying to see through the sheet. ‘You are abnormally squeamish, John. You are no stranger to death.’

‘Not in this form. Some deaths come naturally. Others are necessary. But this …’ Carpenter choked on his words as he pointed to the sodden sheet. ‘This is an abomination.’

‘Let us see.’ Will steeled himself and stripped back the shroud.

Carpenter recoiled, covering his mouth in horror.

Launceston still hovered over the trestle, bemused. ‘I think that is Gavell,’ he muttered.

The corpse was almost unrecognizable as the man who gambled away his meagre earnings in the inns of Bankside. Where two brown eyes had been were now black holes. The straw-coloured hair still stood up in tufts on the head, but the skin of the face, neck and torso had been carefully removed to reveal the oozing, red musculature beneath.

‘Why, this is the work of a master,’ the Earl breathed. He hovered for a long moment, seemingly oblivious to the meaty smell coming off the body. In a slow examination, he moved around the torso, his nose a hand’s-width from the flesh. ‘See here, and here,’ he whispered. ‘The merest knife cuts. The skin has been removed with great skill. This is no butcher’s work.’ His brow furrowed and he looked up. ‘The curious knife you described, the one wielded by your masked attacker. Could it have been designed for this?’ He waved a hand across the sticky corpse.

‘I would say’, Will mused, ‘that it would have been perfectly designed for this task.’ He had a sudden vision of himself lying upon the trestle.

‘What is the point?’ Carpenter’s voice was almost a shriek. ‘Kill a man and be done with it, but why take time to flay him, unless you have lost your wits?’

‘Why, indeed?’ Will rubbed his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully on his chin-hair. He felt a wave of compassion. Gavell was by no description a good man, but he deserved a better ending than this.

‘Wait, what is this?’ the Earl mused. He indicated black streaks smudged across several areas of the raw flesh. Examining them for a moment, he shook his head and moved on. Finally he stood back, his breath short. ‘This may simply be a work of art, like one of Marlowe’s plays. The same attention to detail. The same loving care.’

Will stared into Gavell’s empty eye sockets for a long moment, allowing the detail of the murder to settle on him, and then he said, ‘No. Two spies dead. An attempt on the life of a third. I cannot believe that it is by chance. Turn the body over.’

‘God’s wounds!’ Carpenter cursed. ‘Leave the poor sod be.’

‘If this is a plot, we must divine its nature from whatever we have to hand,’ Will stressed. ‘Turn him over.’

Muttering oaths under his breath, the scar-faced man kept his eyes averted as he gripped the sticky shoulders. Launceston took the ankles without a second thought, and together they eased the body off the puddle of congealing blood with a low, sucking sound. Carpenter grimaced.

Gavell’s grisly remains clunked face down on to the trestle. Will pointed to a mark carved into the muscle of the dead man’s back: a circle, bisected at the compass points with short lines, and with a square at its centre.

‘From this we can surmise that Gavell was not simply dispatched because of the work he did,’ he said. ‘This is not a crude murder. There is thought and meaning in this design.’

‘But what does it mean?’ the Earl asked.

Circling the trestle slowly, Will ignored the question and reflected on the matter at hand. ‘Is someone attempting to kill the spies of England, one by one?’ he said thoughtfully. ‘And if so, to what purpose? Our lives already have little value and we are easily replaced.’

‘Because of what we know?’ Carpenter suggested.

‘And what do we know?’ Will paused as a notion struck him. ‘We know a matter of the greatest importance: the existence of the Unseelie Court. It is a secret held only by the Queen herself, the Privy Council, and we spies under the command of Sir Robert Cecil. It is considered too terrible to be discussed beyond that small group. Even Essex has not been allowed to tell his men, which must leave him greatly aggrieved, for his spies can never be effective without that knowledge.’ Pondering, Will began to walk around the table once more.

‘Yes.’ Launceston’s eyes were like lamps in the half-light. ‘For if all the spies who knew of the Enemy were killed, who could ever stop them?’

Coming to a halt, Will leaned against the damp stone wall and folded his arms. ‘Which raises one other troubling matter. Everyone in England recognizes the work I do as a spy. But who knew Gavell participated in these dark arts?’

Will took another look at the raw, red body. ‘I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we should heed Master Marlowe in these matters,’ he said quietly, ‘and seek a solution ourselves. Our lives may depend on it.’

‘Surely you do not suspect Cecil?’ Carpenter exclaimed. ‘Or any in our greater circle?’ He turned his back on the corpse and looked towards the steps, as if planning his exit.

‘I suspect everyone until I have proof otherwise,’ Will replied. ‘There is too much that is unknown here, and little that makes sense with the information we have to hand. I would learn more first.’

A loud booming resonated from the deadhouse door above them. Will raised a hand to quiet the other two.

‘A watchman delivering a body,’ Carpenter whispered. ‘Or a beadle.’

At the top of the steps, the deadhouse door creaked open. A loud voice echoed, demanding entry.

‘That is no watchman,’ the Earl said quietly.

Other raised voices were followed by a cry that could only have come from the mortuary assistant.

‘Quickly.’ Flinging the shroud back over the corpse, Will whirled a pointing finger towards a haphazard pile of boards and unused trestles in a large alcove beside the steps. As they darted towards the hiding place, there was another cry and a clatter. The drunken assistant slid down the steps and sprawled on the flagstones, where he lay in a stupor, moaning gently.

The three spies eased themselves behind the trestles and boards and ducked low, finding positions where they could look out into the shadowy mortuary. They’d barely settled into place when the pounding of boots down the stone steps heralded the arrival of five men, their rapiers drawn. The intruders all wore tall-crowned, flat-topped black hats and black cloaks that reached down to their ankles. Will strained to see their faces, but they kept the brims of their hats pulled down. They paused at the foot of the steps and scanned the cellar before the leader said in a gruff voice, ‘Empty. Go.’

With well-drilled speed and efficiency, the other four men responded to the order, fanning out across the mortuary to examine the bodies on the trestles. Uneasy, Will wondered if they were part of the militia. Certainly, the leader stood with an air of authority as he watched his men move quickly around the underground room.

A low, short whistle came from the man who had found Gavell’s body under the sheet. The leader marched over to inspect the corpse and gave a nod of approval. With busy hands, the four other men wrapped the seeping body in the shroud and then, on a count of three, lifted it on to their shoulders.

Will, Carpenter and Launceston exchanged suspicious glances. Gavell’s remains belonged to his family. This theft went against the very laws of the land; no authority would have sanctioned such an act.

The men marched towards the steps, the leader following behind like a mourner. As he neared the hiding place, the glare of a candle lit his face under the brim of his hat. His eyes were the colour of steel, his cheeks pockmarked, and he sported a well-trimmed black beard. Will knew he had seen that face before, perhaps somewhere among the personal guards of one of the nobles at court, but he could not recall exactly.

The mortuary assistant moaned loudly as the intruders passed with Gavell’s body, and he struggled to raise himself up on his arms. The leader of the black-cloaked men stooped down to grab the drunken assistant’s filthy shirt at the neck, and with a rough movement hauled the bleary-eyed face up.

‘If anyone asks what happened to the body of the flayed man, you do not know,’ the steely-eyed man growled. ‘If you speak of this, you will quickly find yourself one of your own customers. Do you understand?’

His eyes wide with fear, the assistant nodded.

The leader of the intruders flung the man back down on the flagstones, and waved a hand at his waiting men. ‘Get him out to the cart and away, quickly. Like the last one,’ he ordered in a low, gravelly voice. ‘No trace must remain.’

The men lurched up the steps with the sticky, cloth-wrapped body, and after a glance around the vaults the leader followed, casting one final, brief look at the mortuary assistant. In that stare, Will read the man’s thoughts: he considered killing the drunken sot, but knew it would raise even greater questions. A missing body could be explained away. A murdered mortuary assistant would have consequences.

When the deadhouse door boomed shut behind the intruders, the drunken man released a pathetic whimper and scrambled up the steps, no doubt to lose himself in more beer. The three spies eased themselves out from their hiding place and stood in troubled silence for a moment.

‘What does this mean?’ Carpenter asked quietly. ‘He said,
Like the last one
.’

‘Another murder, then,’ Launceston mused. ‘Hidden before we heard of it. But who was the victim?’

‘Someone at court is covering the bloody trail,’ Will replied, his expression grave. ‘This plot reaches further than we ever imagined – to the heart of England itself.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CUPPING HIS HAND AROUND THE CANDLE FLAME, OSWYN HASARD
strode through the silent chambers of the sleeping Nonsuch Palace. The glow flared under the brim of his tall-crowned hat, lighting the steel in his eyes. Though it had been three hours’ hard riding from London, the stink of the deadhouse still clung to the black-cloaked man. The flayed body had been weighted with stones and dumped in the river to feed the fishes, like the other two, and his men had been sent to their beds, their lips sealed. With still an hour to dawn, the night had been a success.

Whispered voices reached his ears as he neared the oak-panelled chamber overlooking the palace gardens. Glimpsing the faint glow of a candle, he moistened his thumb and forefinger and extinguished the flame of his own light, slowing as he reached the door, which stood ajar. Peering through the crack, he saw his master, Lord Derby, in huddled conversation around a stubby candle with the Earl of Essex. The two men could not have been less alike: Essex, strong, handsome and filled with the vigour of youth, aglow in his white doublet and cloak; Derby, heavy-set in his black gown, broken-veined cheeks the colour of ham above his wiry grey beard. The darkness appeared to press in tightly around the two figures.

‘Why should I trust you?’ Essex was asking, eyeing the other man suspiciously.

‘I have your best interests at heart, as always,’ Derby responded firmly. ‘The Queen’s Little Elf has become troublesome within the Privy Council, guiding Her Majesty away from the light and into the shadows.
He
can no longer be trusted.’

The Earl’s eyes gleamed.
Exactly what he wants to hear
, Hasard thought.

‘Cecil’s power is based in part upon his network of spies. If they were constrained … relieved of their influence … crushed … there would be an opportunity for your own band of spies to gain ascendance,’ Derby continued in a whisper, ‘and the Queen would have no choice but to anoint you as her true favourite at court.’

Essex tugged at his beard, already imagining the power he might wield. ‘And what do you gain from seeing Cecil cut down to his true size?’

‘There are a few of us in the Privy Council, at court, in positions of authority, who are distressed at the path England has taken since the glorious defeat of the Spanish navy. At that moment we were on the cusp of a golden age. Power. Control of trade. Influence.’ Derby’s eyes flashed. ‘All that opportunity has slipped through our fingers. We are beset on every side by enemies, including the one we fear most.’

Essex nodded gravely.

‘I do what I do for England,’ Derby continued. ‘There is no personal gain.’

‘Noble motives,’ the Earl replied with a nod. ‘At first I feared this was some plot to dethrone Elizabeth. If that were true, I would have been forced to move against you. As it is …’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘Cecil’s spies must be removed from the game in the first instance, and then … we shall see.’

With undue eagerness, Derby grasped the other man’s hand and pumped it. ‘You have made the right choice,’ he said. ‘Those who do not stand with us are against us.’

Essex nodded, smiled and made to remove his hand, but Derby held fast. Hasard felt a ripple of unease. Wide-eyed and grinning, the older man leaned forward, a soft, breathy laugh escaping his gritted teeth. With his thumb, he began to stroke the back of the Earl’s hand. The caress was not a suggestion of intimacy, Hasard could tell, but it was still breathtakingly inappropriate. His master looked as if he had lost his wits.

Unsettled, Essex tore his hand free, muttered a goodbye and hurried away. Hasard pressed himself back into the shadows so he would not be seen.