Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

In the middle of the room, Will scanned the faces slowly for any clue to the man who had laughed. A faint click reached his ears, and a second later the boards fell away beneath his feet.

CHAPTER 15

s Will surfaced from a deep, dark pool, the first thing he saw was the ruddy, grinning face of Pickering's jester filling his entire vision. "Life is an illusion," the jester hummed with a slight sibilance. "Laugh now, for there will be none of it when you are gone."

When the jester tumbled away with an insane giggle, Will was overwhelmed by the colours, sounds, and smells of his surroundings. Fiddle music soaring over a hundred drunken, clamouring voices. Woodsmoke and roasting pig, fat sizzling and spattering in the darting flames. Lanterns dancing on the awnings of stalls, the brightly coloured canvas glowing in reds, greens, and golds, banners on the tall poles flapping in the breeze. Jugglers and fire-eaters moved among the crowd, alongside the vendors selling hot pies and sausages. The Thieves' Fair had transformed a dirty courtyard constantly thrown into shade by the crumbling tenements into a sea of colour and life that raised the spirits of people dragged down by day-to-day survival.

Will turned his attention to Miller, who was bound to a wooden frame beside him. Beyond, Carpenter, Mayhew, and Launceston hung from a beam by their wrists, toes just resting on the cobbles. Their faces bloomed with bruises and cuts from a harsh beating.

"Tom, are you well?" Will called.

"No bones broken. When you fell through the trapdoor, they rushed us, and beat us with their cudgels. We took several of them with us as we went down, but that only inflamed them more."

Around the market, the thieves' strong-arm men patrolled with cudgels clutched in meaty fists. Glowering eyes watched every face for sign of trouble. Sizing up the force, Will reckoned they were a formidable barrier to any way out of that enclosed space.

"What now, Will? They mean to do us in, I fear," Miller said in a low voice.

"Keep steady. An opportunity will present itself."

"I am not afraid. Better to go this way, looking a man in the eye, than facing up to those things that should not exist in any sane world."

Miller held himself defiantly, despite the bonds. Will had decided he liked him, and admired the way he fought to keep his equilibrium in the face of knowledge that filled him with dread, but the fatalistic note in his voice was a concern.

"Tom, you must trust me," Will said. "I have stared into some dark and dismal holes in my short but exhilarating life, and yet here I am."

A commotion on the far side of the fair caught their eye as a torchlight procession made its way among the stalls. Cheers rose in its wake. When the parade drew near, Will saw the torches were held by young women in fine dresses, coquettishly flirting with the men they passed. They were accompanied by five men in the masks and costumes worn at the feast. At the head of the procession was a tall, wiry man in a robe embroidered with so much silver and gold thread it gleamed like a lantern in the reflected torchlight. He wore a white mask with a long, cruel bird's beak that arced down at the end and several peacock feathers sprouting from an elaborate headdress. It was flamboyant and unthreatening, but through the eyeholes Will glimpsed an aloof, menacing persona.

"Is that him?" Miller whispered. "Laurence Pickering?"

"We forced him to step out of the shadows," Will replied. "But he still wears his mask."

As Pickering led the procession forwards, Will saw more prisoners trailing behind them, bound with ropes and covered in blood and bruises, and at the back a cloaked figure who walked accompanied by two guards, but unbound. The prisoners appeared Spanish in dress and features, and from the way the crowd assailed them with threatening gestures and the occasional missile, Will guessed that was correct.

Pickering came to a halt in front of Will and looked him up and down silently.

"Life is an illusion," Will said wryly. "Laugh now, for there will be none of it when you are gone."

"You are far from the fields you know. This is my court now." Pickering rolled the words around his mouth like pebbles. A note of at least rudimentary education shaped his tone, which was a dangerous thing for a man brought up among the rough criminal class of London where the skill of cutting purses and handling a knife or a razor were taught at the mother's apron.

"You appear to lead a grand life. I am surprised your fame has not spread further afield," Will said.

"I do not seek attention. Indeed, I detest it. I am a private man-"

"And the work you do does not thrive in the full light of the sun."

Pickering hardly blinked, which added a strange, detached manner to his demeanour as though he were examining another species. "I would not appreciate more of your kind crawling around here like beetles on a dung-heap. And that is why I cannot allow you to return to your masters to tell them what you know."

"You think very highly of yourself. I have no interest in you, whatever title you give yourself, nor in your society of rogues. All I require is the return of an item that belongs to Her Majesty's government."

"I think not. I know your kind. Your pride has been hurt." Pickering motioned to the wooden frame and the taut bonds. "You would have to return to teach one such as me a lesson."

"I have far better things to do."

Pickering flinched as though Will had slapped him. "I am king here. I rule. I command men and women to do my bidding. I have riches at my disposal. I may act upon any whim. I have my own army. Your kind would prefer I did not exist. You think I-and all these good men and womenfolk-are the dirt beneath your feet. But you cannot dismiss me. And especially now, for I hold your life in my hands." Pickering fought to hide a quaver in his voice. Will gave a knowing smile that only angered the King of Cutpurses more.

Raising one hand imperiously, he snapped his fingers. From behind the prisoners, two of Pickering's men brought out a tall figure in a black robe. The Silver Skull glowed like the moon. With great bearing and dignity, hands clasped calmly in front of him, he looked directly into Will's face.

"Fine workmanship indeed, but that is little silver for a man of your standing," Will said. "Why, I would give you the same amount in gold to buy back that entertaining mask."

"You think me a fool too," Pickering noted. "The value of the thing lies beyond the silver."

Will looked deeply into the shadowy eyeholes of Pickering's mask. "And what did your cousin Bulle the hangman tell you of this thing?"

"I know that it is more than a mask. That some think it has a great power hidden within it. And I know interest in it reaches far beyond our shores."

Will's attention fell on the Spanish prisoners who glowered among the armed guards. "That is an interesting way to negotiate a sale with Spain."

"Do you take me for a traitor?" Pickering snapped. "Again, you show your contempt for me. I am as good a man as you, a true Englishman."

"Then I admit I am confused."

"It was my intention to arrange an exchange with the Spanish, and then to steal their gold. However, they proved their untrustworthiness and attempted to trick me first. Like you, they did not give me the respect I deserved, and so paid the price." He turned to examine the Spanish spies. "Or will do before the hour is out."

Since he had awakened, Will had been testing the bonds, but they were fastened with the thieves' reek-wort knot, considered to be unbreakable. "English gold would be much more rewarding," he said.