Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

A gasp ran through the room as her black gown fell away. A bodice and petticoat of crimson satin flared among the dark shapes. It was a bold, almost brash statement, and in it Launceston once again saw two opposing faces: crimson was the colour of the martyr, but it was also the colour of sex, and Launceston could see the effect it had upon some of the elderly men around. Though forty four, Mary was still a beautiful, alluring woman. She flaunted the swell of her bosoms and displayed her cleavage, as though she was available for more than death.

"Death is not the end," she said. "For me. And there are worse things than death by far, as you will all come to know."

With a flourish of her petticoat, she knelt, pausing briefly at the level of Bulle's groin before placing her head upon the block. Launceston had the briefest sensation that she was looking directly at him. With another disturbing smile, she stretched out her arms in a crucified position and said, "In manus tuas, Domine."

Bulle's mask hid whatever he thought of this display, if anything He swung the heavy woodcutter's axe above his head and brought it down. It thudded into the block so hard Launceston was sure he could feel the vibrations. Mary made no sound, did not move, continued to stare at the assemblage, still smiling. Bracing himself, Bulle wrenched the axe free and brought it down again. The head lolled forwards, hanging by one piece of gristle that Bulle quickly cut.

Stooping to pluck the head by the hair as he had been ordered, Bulle called out, "God save the queen." All apart from Launceston responded, "Amen."

But Mary had played one last trick on her executioner. Her auburn hair was a wig that now flapped impotently in Bulle's hand, the grey-stubbled head still rolling around the platform.

His breath tight in his chest, Launceston kept his gaze upon it, aware a second before the others that the eyes still swivelled in their sockets.

The head came to rest at an angle and Mary surveyed her persecutors. "Two queens now you have plucked in your arrogance," she said, a slight smile still lying on her lips, "and the third that will fall shall be your own. "

The knights and gentlemen cried out in terror, making the sign of the cross as they pressed away from the platform. Even the sheriffs guards lowered their halberds and shied away.

"Against you in the shadows, the powers align," Mary continued. "Death, disease, destruction on a scale undreamed of-all these lie in your days ahead, now that long-buried secrets have come to light. Soon now, the thunderous tread of our marching feet. Soon now, the scythe cutting you down like wheat. The shadows lengthen. Night draws in, on you and all your kind. "

Two hundred men were rooted as their worst fears were confirmed and a mood of absolute dread descended on the great hall. As Mary's eyes continued to swivel, and her teeth clacked, Bulle fell to his knees, his axe clattering noisily on the platform. Launceston thrust his way through the crowd to Beale and shook him roughly from his daze.

"Yes, of course," Beale stuttered, before hailing two men who waited at the back of the crowd. Launceston recognised them as two of Dr. Dee's assistants. Rushing to the platform, they pulled from a leather bag a pair of cold-iron tongs which one of them used to grip the head tightly. Mary snarled and spat like a wildcat until the other assistant used a poker to ram bundles of pungent herbs into her mouth. When the cavity was filled, the snarling diminished, and the eyes rolled slower and finally stopped as the light within them died.

A furore erupted as the terrified crowd shouted for protection from God, or demanded answers, on the brink of fleeing the room in blind panic.

Leaping to the platform, Launceston asked the captain of the guard to lock the doors so none of the assembled knights and gentlemen could escape. Grabbing Bulle's dripping axe, he hammered the haft down hard on the dais, once, twice, three times, until silence fell and all eyes turned towards him.

"What you have seen today will never be repeated, on peril of your life." His dispassionate voice filled every corner of the great hall. "To speak of this abomination will be considered an act of high treason, for diminishing the defences of the realm and putting the queen's life at risk from a frightened populace. One word and Bulle here will be your final friend. Do you heed my words?"

Silence held for a moment, and then a few angry mutterings arose.

"Lest you misunderstand, I speak with the full authority of the queen, and her principal secretary Lord Walsingham," Launceston continued. "Nothing must leave this room that gives succour to our enemies, or which turns determined Englishmen to trembling cowards. I ask again: do you heed my words?"

In his face they saw the truth of what he said, and gradually acceded. When he was satisfied, Launceston handed the axe back to Bulle and said, "Complete your business. "

Still trembling, the earl of Kent stood over Mary's headless corpse and stuttered in a voice so frail few could hear, "May it please God that all the queen's enemies be brought into this condition. This be the end of all who hate the Gospel and Her Majesty's government. "

With tentative fingers, Bulle plopped the head onto a platter and held it up to the window three times so the baying crowd without could be sure the traitorous pretender to the throne was truly dead.

Immediately, the doors were briefly unlocked so Henry Talbot, the earl of Shrewsbury's son, could take the official news of Mary's death to the court in London. As he galloped through the towns and villages, shouting the news, a network of beacons blazed into life across the country and church bells were rung with gusto.

At Fotheringhay, Launceston spoke to each of the knights and gentlemen in turn, studying their eyes and letting them see his. Then he oversaw the removal of Mary's body and head to the chapel, where prayers were said over them as Dee's assistants stuffed the remains with more purifying herbs and painted defensive sigils on the cold flesh. Everything she had worn, and everything her blood had touched, was burned.

Few beyond that great hall knew the truth: that terrible events had been set in motion, like the ocean, like the falling night, and soon disaster would strike, and blood and terror would rain down on every head.

CHAPTER 5

fter Walsingham had finished speaking, silence fell across the Black Gallery, interrupted only by the crackle and spit of the fire in the hearth.

"The Enemy has been planning the assault on the Tower for more than a year," Mayhew said eventually.

Will now understood the depths of the worry he had seen etched into Walsingham's face earlier that night. "Long-buried secrets have come to light," he repeated. "Then we must assume they have the Key, or the Shield, or both, and are now able to use the weapon."

"We have spent the last twelve months attempting to prepare for the inevitable," Walsingham said, "listening in the long dark for the first approaching footstep, watching for the shadow on the horizon, every hour, every minute, vigilant."

"And now all our souls are at risk," Mayhew said. Upending the bottle he'd been steadily draining, he was disgusted to find it empty. "So that traitorous witch Mary was in the grip of the Enemy. Is no one safe from their sly control?" he added. "How much of the misery she caused was down to her, and how much to whatever rode her?"

"We will never know," Walsingham replied. "The past matters little. We must now concern ourselves with the desperate situation that unfolds."