The Silver Skull (9 page)

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

v

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SPECIAL_IMAGE-00111.jpg-REPLACE_ME 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.

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SPECIAL_IMAGE-00003.jpg-REPLACE_ME 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."

"The people should be comforted that these men are active in the defence of the nation."

"England's greatest spy is not comfort enough?" Nathaniel replied archly. "The talk in the taverns and ordinaries is all of a Spanish invasion. Since Mary's death, people are afraid. They see Spanish agents everywhere. Swarthy-skinned men are attacked in the street, and foreigners threatened over their meals. Will all this activity calm them, or frit them more?"

As Walsingham approached with a grave expression, Will said, "Fetch the items we discussed in the carriage. And hurry. From our Lord Walsingham's face, I fear that time is shorter still."

When Nathaniel had departed, Walsingham drew Will in conspiratorially. "The Enemy is abroad. Stories circulate hereabouts of a fearsome black dog with eyes like hot coals that leaves claw-marks in stone."

"Are we to be afraid of a dog, then?" Will replied. "We could toss it a bone and be done with it."

"I am pleased to see your spirits remain high, Master Swyfte, for we appear to be no closer to discovering the rogues who have taken the Silver Skull."

"Do not give up hope yet." Will told Walsingham what he had learned from Marlowe without disclosing the source of his information.

Glowering at the passing crowd, Walsingham was clearly concerned by Will's suggestion. "Alsatia is a dangerous place. There will be bloodshed if we send in an army, and no guarantee this Pickering will not escape with his prize."

"Then we do not send in an army," Will replied. "A few men, moving secretly, can achieve more, and quicker."

Walsingham nodded in agreement. "Even so, you will be strangers in a place where most are known to each other. And I am told they speak their own tongue down there-the thieves' cant.

One wrong word could be your undoing."

"The quicker we are in, the quicker out."

Realising there was no alternative, Walsingham gave his approval before summoning over Dee. "The doctor has some gifts that may aid you."

From the depths of his hood, Dee's eyes glimmered. "Two items for now," he whispered.

From a leather bag, he withdrew a handful of small muslin packages like the bundles of herbs a cook would drop in a stew. "Take care with these," he said, depositing the packages gently in Will's cupped hands. "Hold the loose knot at the top and shake them open. But be careful to look away. They will release a flash of light that will blind, and a loud noise to disorient the senses."

With a shrug, Will deposited them in the pouch at his belt.

Annoyed that Will was not more impressed, Dee delved into his bag once more for a leather forearm shield with two fastening buckles. When he touched a hidden catch, a seven-inch blade burst from a hidden compartment.

"There will come a time when you will be separated from your sword," he said, "but you will never be separated from this weapon. You can wound and kill at close quarters, and with stealth."

Will gave the weapon a cursory examination. "What, no codpieces that burst into flames?

I could have had sport with that."

Snorting, Dee turned to Walsingham. "We place the security of England in the hands of a coxcomb!"

As Dee stalked away, Walsingham sighed. "Now you have offended him, and now I will have to deal with his foul temper. Since he started communing with angels, Dee has been like a devil, filled with fire and brimstone."

As he prepared to gather his crew to depart, Will scrutinised Miller who awkwardly accompanied Mayhew and the others in their questioning. "The new fellow. He seems ... slow."

"He is more quick-witted than he appears. He is a miller's son, shaped by hard labour. His strength will be an asset to you."

"And his lack of understanding of the Enemy and their guiles may be the death of us.

Who does he think we fight?"

"Spanish agents." Walsingham was unmoved by Will's concerns, even though he knew the risks involved.

Hiding his irritation, Will noted the innocence in Miller's face. "If we encounter the Enemy, the shock may prove too great for him."

"Then you must provide a quick lesson."

"Quick lessons do not work. You know that. It takes time to accept that the world is not the way any of us are brought up to believe. The mind and heart are both fragile things, easily broken, repaired with the greatest difficulty, if at all."

"That is the way God made us, Master Swyfte. He is your charge now. I have faith you will see him right."

Walsingham returned to Leicester, who swaggered along the ranks of his men, enjoying the eyes of the public upon him. Urgently summoning Mayhew and the others, Will led them from the churchyard, past the shop where the fashionable London men bought their pouches of the New World tobacco, to a quiet spot beyond the bookstalls.

An incandescent rage appeared to be permanently burning just beneath Carpenter's skin.

Unconsciously tracing a fingertip down the pink scar tissue on his face, he said, "Why did Walsingham see fit to throw us together?"

"I think he feels you will keep my feet on the ground, John."

"That I will do."

Turning his attention to Miller, Will shook his hand. "Tom. Lord Walsingham has only good words for you. I am Will Swyfte."

"I know you." A hint of awe laced the young man's words.

Snorting derisively, Carpenter pretended to inspect Saint Paul's Cross where a wild-eyed, grey-haired man prepared to deliver a sermon.

"You will have heard about some of our work," Will continued, "but know this: you may well see things across the course of this day that you find ... puzzling ... troubling-"

"Frightening," Mayhew interjected, staring at his boots.