Mark Chadbourn - The Scar-Crow Men

And was that why the playwright had cursed Will with a devil that tormented his thoughts and drove him towards an early grave? The spy had thought it an aid, but as Mephistophilis gripped him tighter by the day, he began to wonder otherwise. It would not be long until an end came, he was sure, and his soul would be damned.

Even if that were the case, Will missed his old friend deeply, missed the kindnesses, missed the only man who had understood his life. He could never blame Kit.

As the spy followed the rutted lane around a bend, he saw the silhouette of a church steeple against the starry sky and the low outlines of what appeared to be houses. All was dark.

His horse trotted on.

The trees thinned out as he neared Wykenham, but on one great gnarled oak on the outskirts the spy noticed that a piece of timber had been roughly nailed. Dismounting, Will led his steed over and struck a flint to a handful of dry grass and twigs. The flames fanned up, the orange glow illuminating his brooding face as he leaned towards the timber and read what had been marked there in pitch.

Keep out. The devil is here .

As the spy climbed back on his horse and rode the last length of lane into the village, his skin began to prickle. He felt unseen eyes upon him and an unsettling atmosphere, like the tension before a storm. On the soft night breeze, what sounded to Will like whispers were caught and distorted, but it might have been just the wind in the eaves. A door banged. The shriek of the hunting owl floated across the still street from the yews in the churchyard.

Where to begin the search for clues? The spy tied up his horse and strode into the middle of the street, turning slowly. Long, yellowing grass grew against the timber and daub walls. Panes were shattered and doors hung ragged.

Investigating the nearest home, Will smelled damp and mildew. Pieces of furniture remained in place, stools, benches, a trestle spattered with bird and rat droppings, and flasks and knives stood ready for a meal never to be completed.

Only ghosts lived in Wykenham.

Moving from silent house to silent house, he neared the church where rumour said the greatest atrocity had been committed. The wind moaned through the yews as if to welcome him.

Standing at the lychgate, Will was caught by a movement on the edge of his vision back along the moonlit street. Whirling round, he searched the shadows. All was still. Yet he was sure he had seen someone dash across the way, keeping low.

A door banged, and again, and again, the rhythm matching the beat of the spy’s heart.

At the far end of the village, near where he had left his horse, a shadow bobbed from an open door and was gone in the blink of an eye. Another appeared at the edge of a house on the opposite side of the street. Now he was seeing movement everywhere, as if the dead of Wykenham were gradually waking.

Drawing his rapier, the spy counted at least seven figures slipping in and out of the shadows along the street, all of them converging upon him.

Will’s blood thundered in his head as the shapes crept nearer. He was ready for a fight. Looking around for a place to make a stand, he sensed someone behind him. Turning, he was confronted by another shadow stepping free from the gloom beneath the lychgate.

The last thing the spy heard was a low voice saying, ‘You have found hell.’

Will came round on his knees in the darkened nave of the church, amid the faint scent of old incense and with the moonlight breaking through the stained-glass windows. His wrists ached from where he had unconsciously chafed them against the ropes binding him to a roughly constructed timber cross-frame. His head throbbed, more with anger that he had allowed himself to be taken like a novice than from whatever potion had been used to still his senses. And that failure would undoubtedly cost him his life, for Marlowe’s killer — or killers — would never allow him to walk free. He yanked hard at the bonds and rattled the frame furiously, but they held tight.

When the spy looked down, he saw a circle had been inscribed around him with some kind of pigment the colour of blood. Magical symbols were scrawled on the outside and four stubby, unlit candles had been placed at what he presumed were the cardinal points.

Peering into the dark, he thought he glimpsed movement. ‘Reveal yourself,’ he shouted, his voice laced with cold rage.

Footsteps echoed off the flagstones. A figure emerged into a moonbeam, the familiar face dappled by the reds, greens and blues of the stained glass. Dressed in a black half-compass cloak over a fine black doublet embroidered with silver crosses, Thomas Walsingham, second cousin to the old spymaster, Sir Francis, bowed. When he rose, he tugged at the tip of his beard and gave a lopsided grin. Will had not seen him since they had stood together beside Kit’s grave on the day of the funeral in Deptford Green.

‘You are a long way from your grand new home in Chislehurst,’ the spy noted.

‘Needs must when the devil drives.’

Will could contain his anger no longer. ‘You were Kit’s friend,’ he spat.

‘Yes, I was. And patron too, as you well know.’ In the flicker in Walsingham’s eyes, Will saw the hint that this rich, elegant man had been more than a friend.

‘Do ye still need us?’ a voice called from somewhere near the font. Three figures emerged from the gloom. After the patron’s appearance, the spy was not surprised to see any of them.

Sullen-faced and grey of hair, Ingram Frizer would not meet Will’s eye, as he had refused to do in that warm room when he made his claim of self-defence at the inquest into Marlowe’s murder. Beside Frizer were the other two key players in that mockery of an investigation: the moneylender Nicholas Skeres in a shabby brown doublet, and Robert Poley, the spy and cunning deceiver. Poley wore an old black cloak that hung down to his ankles.

‘Take yourselves back to your business. This matter is near an end.’ The patron dismissed the three men with a flutter of his hand.

‘There are too many spies,’ Will muttered, unable to hide his bitterness.

Walsingham nodded. ‘We are good at our deceits. Sometimes so good we can even forget what is real and what is a lie.’ A shadow crossed his face.

‘So, a conspiracy, then.’ Will strained at his bonds.

‘A conspiracy indeed. There is no other way to describe the School of Night.’

‘You are one of them?’

Tugging his beard once more in thought, the patron replied, ‘We are many. Though we are not all known to each other, so there are mysteries and secrets among us, too. Raleigh and the others at Petworth had no idea of our involvement in this matter. It had to be that way. We could not risk word of our plans leaking out.’

‘I see that clearly. They would be less than pleased to know you had murdered one of their own.’

Walsingham gave a sad smile. ‘You think poorly of me. Understandable under the circumstances, but it still stings. I always admired you, Master Swyfte. You were a good friend to Kit. You made his life richer and provided a light to guide him through the darkness. For that, I thank you.’

Will was stung by the incongruous tenderness in the patron’s voice. There was love, certainly, a confirmation of what the spy had seen in the man’s eyes earlier.

Clapping his hands together, Thomas gave a silent laugh at the spy’s expression. ‘You have questions. Of course you do. But they are not for me to answer.’ He gave another bow accompanied by a flamboyant sweep of his arm. ‘Perhaps we will meet again, Master Swyfte, in another place.’

‘In hell?’ the spy growled.

‘Hell is all around us. I aspire to somewhere greater.’ And with that, Walsingham swept down the nave and disappeared into the dark.