Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

"Very good, Master Mayhew. I like a man whose brain stays sharp even after wine."

Mayhew didn't attempt to hide his displeasure. As Will stretched an arm out of the window and banged a hand on the roof of the carriage, the driver brought the horses to a halt with a loud, "Hey, and steady there!"

Half stumbling, Mayhew clambered out of the carriage without a backward glance and weaved his way towards the shade at the side of the street.

"Master Mayhew has a choleric disposition," Nathaniel noted. "And he likes his wine more than you do."

"Life is a constant struggle between virtue and vice, Nat. We cannot all be as worthy as you. Master Mayhew has served the queen well across the years, but what has been asked of him has taken its toll. Do not judge him harshly."

Will banged the carriage roof again and the wheels lurched into motion. After a pause, Nathaniel enquired with an air of studied disinterest, "This business is truly pressing?"

"You know I cannot say more."

"Yes. Better I remain in ignorance than be dragged into duplicitous affairs that could cost me my sanity or my life. The view from the poles above the gatehouse tower at London Bridge is not one to which I aspire." He paused. "But still. An assistant's work is better carried out with a little light."

"You do your job well enough, Nat. I have no complaints. I would not add to your burdens."

Nathaniel shrugged, but Will could see the curiosity burning inside him. It was difficult to move so close to the secrets without peering too deeply into the shadows; Will understood that urge well and had learned to control it within himself. But to know more about Will's work truly would be dangerous to Nat's life and his sanity. The less he knew, the safer he would be. In his ignorance, Nathaniel did not understand, of course, thinking the only threat was a few Spanish agents, but for all his barbed comments he remained an obedient assistant, and had worked much harder than Will had anticipated when he promised Nathaniel's father that he would employ him, and keep him well.

The carriage turned north away from the cobbles of Cheapside into the rutted, narrow tracks that formed the majority of the city's streets. Soon the choking stink of the city swept in through the open windows, the dung and the rotting vegetables and household waste deposited morning, noon, and night from doors and windows of the ramshackle hovels into the narrow thoroughfares. Even the mayor's order to burn each home's rubbish three times a week appeared to have little effect. Nathaniel coughed and spluttered and clutched his hand to his mouth and nose, futilely banging the pomanders hanging within the carriage to try to extricate more scent.

The heat of the day was already growing by the time they arrived at Bish- opsgate. The Bull Inn was a three-story stone building with rows of tiny windows looking out from dark, low-ceilinged rooms. Without breaking its pace, the carriage rushed through the arch into the cobbled yard at the back where plays were regularly performed. In one corner, members of the resident acting troupe intoned loudly and performed tumbles, though many of them were still clearly hungover. A pair of carpenters lazily erected a temporary trestled stage.

Nathaniel waited with the carriage, and after a brief exchange with the vintner, Will made his way to a small back room set aside for "private affairs," usually gambling or the plotting of criminal activity. Smelling of stale beer and sweat, it was uncomfortably warm. While two men snored loudly in drunken sleep on the floor, a third wrote at a table.

Dark eyes that appeared old and sad stared out of a young, pale face framed by long black hair. A small moustache and close-clipped chin hair attempted to give him some appearance of maturity, though his sensitive face still made him look much younger than his twenty-four years.

"Kit," Will said. "I thought I might find you hiding here."

Lost to his imagination, Christopher Marlowe blinked blankly until his thoughts returned to the room and he recognised Will. He smiled shyly. "Will, good friend. I am currently not in my Lord Walsingham's favours and thought it best to lay low to avoid his wrath. He has a cold face, but a terrible fire within."

"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."