Mark Chadbourn - The Silver Skull

SILVER SKULL

SWORDS OF ALBION

OTHER TITLES BY

MARK CHADBOURN

THE AGE OF MISRULE

WORLD'S END

DARKEST HOUR

ALWAYS FOREVER

SILVER SKULL

SWORDS OF ALBION

MARK CHADBOURN

an imprint of Prometheus Books

Amherst, NY

Published 2009 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books The Silver Skull-Swords of Albion. Copyright © 2009 by Mark Chadbourn. All rights reserved.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

redit must go to four hundred and thirty years of authors responsible for the primary, secondary, and tertiary texts that provided the research and resources for this work.

On the matter of dates: at the time of this story, England still used the old Julian calendar while the rest of Europe had adopted the new Gregorian calendar, with which we are all familiar today. To avoid any confusion, I have used the Gregorian dates for all events.

Spies are men of doubtful credit, who make a show of one thing and speak another.

-Mary, Queen of Scots

PROLOGUE

ar beneath the slow-moving Thames, a procession of flickering lights drew inexorably towards London from the east. The pace was funereal, the trajectory steady, purposeful. In that hour after midnight, the spectral glow under the black waters passed unseen by all but two observers.

"There! What are they, sir?" In the lantern light, the guard's fear was apparent as he peered over the battlements of the White Tower, ninety feet above the river.

Matthew Mayhew, who had seen worse things in his thirty years than the guard could ever dream in his worst fever-sleep, replied with boredom, "I see the proud heart of the greatest nation on Earth. I see a city safe and secure within its walls, where the queen may sleep peacefully."

"There!" The guard pointed urgently.

"A waterman has met with disaster." Mayhew sighed. With a temper as short as his stature, the Tower guards had learned to handle him with care and always praised the fine court fashions he took delight in parading.

The guard gulped the cold air of the March night. "And his lantern still burns on the bottom? What of the other lights? And they move-"

"The current."

The guard shook his head. "They are ghosts!"

Mayhew gave a dismissive snort.

"There are such things! Samuel Hale saw the queen's mother walking with her head beneath her arm in the Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula. Why, the Tower is the most haunted place in England! The Two Princes, Margaret Pole, Lady Jane Grey ... all seen here, Master Mayhew. Damned by God to walk this world after their deaths."

Mayhew studied the slow-moving lights, imagining fish in the deep with their own candles to guide their way through the inky dark.

The guard's fear made his lantern swing so wildly the shadows flew across the Tower.

Steadying the lantern, Mayhew said, "When this great fortress was built five hundred years gone, King William had the mortar tempered with the blood of beasts. Do you know why that was?"

"No, no. I-"

"Suffice it to say," Mayhew interrupted wearily, "that you are safe here from all supernatural threat."

The guard calmed a little. "Safe, you say?"

"England's defences are built on more than the rock of its people."

The lights veered away from the centre of the river towards the Tower of London where it nestled inside the old Roman walls, guarding the eastern approach to the capital. Mayhew couldn't prevent a shiver running up his spine.

"Complete your rounds," he said sharply, overcompensating in case the guard had seen his weakness. "We must ensure that the White Tower remains secure against England's enemies."

"And the prisoner you are charged to guard?"

"I will attend to him." Mayhew pressed a scented handkerchief against his nose to block out the stink of the city's filth caught on the wind. Sometimes it was unbearable. He hated being away from the court where the virtues of life were more apparent, hated the boredom of his task, and at that moment hated that he was caught on the cold summit of the White Tower when he should have been inside by the fire.

He cast his eye around the fortress where pools of darkness were held back by the lanterns strung along the walkways among the wards. The only movement came from the slow circuit of the night watch.

The Tower of London was an unassailable symbol of England. Solid Kentish ragstone formed the bulk of the impregnable White Tower, protected by its own curtain wall and moat, with a further curtain wall and thirteen towers guarding the Inner Ward beyond. Finally, there was the Outer Ward, with another solid wall, five towers, and three bastions. Everything valuable to the nation lay within the walls-the Crown jewels, the treasury, the Royal Mint, the armoury, and England's most dangerous prisoners, including Mayhew's personal charge.

As he made his way down the stone steps, he was greeted by the clatter of boots ascending and the light of another lantern. William Osborne appeared, his youthful face and intelligent grey eyes unsettled. Mayhew contemptuously wondered if he now regretted giving up his promising career in the law to join the Queen's Service out of love for his country, not realising what would be asked of him.

"What is it?" Mayhew demanded.

"A disturbance. At the Traitors' Gate."

Where the river lights were heading, Mayhew thought. "The gate remains secure, and well guarded?" he asked.

Osborne's face loomed white in the lamplight. "There are six men upon it, as our Lord Walsingham demanded."

"And yet?"

Osborne's voice quavered with uncertainty. "The guards say the restraining beam moves of its own accord. Bolts draw without the help of human hand. Is this what we always feared?"

Pushing past him with irritation, Mayhew snapped, "You know as well as I that the Tower is protected. These guards are frighted like maidens." For all his contempt at his colleague's words, Mayhew's chest tightened in apprehension.

Walsingham said it could never happen, he reminded himself. He told the queen ... Burghley ...

Trying to maintain his decorum, he descended to the ground floor with studied nonchalance and stepped out into the Inmost Ward. The whitewashed walls of the Tower glowed in the lantern light.

"Listen!" Osborne's features flared in the gloom as he raised his lantern to illuminate the way ahead.