The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER FIFTEEN




‘KEEP WATCH? FOR WHOM?’ BAFFLED, NATHANIEL EXAMINED THE wash of faces streaming along the nave of St Paul’s. Gentlemen displayed the fine silk linings of their cloaks and cutpurses slyly eyed the gullible and the rich. Merchants and lawyers ambled with clients, servants swapped gossip and usurers barked for trade. The din echoed up to the cathedral’s vaulted roof, tongues from across Europe colliding with accents from all England, Scotland and Ireland. Deals were negotiated, bargains made, crimes and conspiracies planned and meetings held. Despite the threat of the plague, Paul’s Walk was busier than any nearby street.

‘Watch for anyone watching me,’ Will replied under his breath. He kept his head down, trying to lose himself in the throng. Every sense buzzed. He edged through the press of bodies, the sweet smell of incense mingling with the sour sweat of the herd. Here and there, bright afternoon sun slanting through the stained-glass windows threw rainbows across the honey-coloured stone, small points of beauty in the middle of confusion.

Will located Sir Francis Walsingham’s final resting place with ease. Many had forgotten the location, but that sad, understated funeral had been burned into his memory as the point when everything changed.

As the old spymaster’s second cousin, Thomas, had hinted at Kit’s funeral, the lettering stood out on the unmarked stone flag that lay above the grave, despite the numerous feet that had trudged across it in the days since it had been penned. Squatting beside the steady flow of passers-by, the spy read what had been clearly scrawled in desperation: In the beginning was the Word.

Under beginning and Word had been drawn a tiny circle with a line through it: Marlowe’s private signature for his closest friend, a message for Will’s eyes only. A code? The line came from the Gospel of John and continued: And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

What had Marlowe been trying to tell him, and what was the relevance of the double signature of bisected circles? Had Kit meant to highlight the two words – beginning and Word?

‘Will?’ Nathaniel hissed in warning. Half standing, Will peered through the stream of people to see three stern-faced men moving purposefully through the crowd towards the grave, their gaze fixed on Nathaniel.

‘Come,’ the spy whispered. Keeping low, he weaved through the crowd with Nat close behind him. When they reached the great east door, he glanced back and saw the glowering men had caught sight of him. Now in no doubt as to their intention, Will watched them thrusting their way through the bodies in his direction.

‘Who are they?’ the young assistant said with a note of concern. ‘More cuckolded husbands seeking recompense?’

‘Would that they were. Run, Nat. I fear it would not do to encounter those three now.’

The churchyard was just as crowded as the nave. Men haggled for business, raising their voices to drown out the preachers bellowing their prophecies of the End-Times to small clutches of the devout. As he ran past, Will snatched a handful of the cheap, sensational pamphlets from one of the sellers and flung them up into the air. The fluttering sheets only adding to the confusion, as the cursing seller scrambled to gather them up.

The two men raised angry cries from all quarters as they shouldered their way through the throng. Glancing back, Will saw the three pursuers had now drawn their rapiers.

‘Stop them!’ one of the men yelled. ‘Thieves!’

A brave soul dressed in a flamboyant, expensive cloak stepped forward to apprehend the fugitives. Before he could utter a sound, Will had knocked him flat with one punch. But others were already moving in to answer the call.

‘This does not bode well,’ the assistant said, glancing around uneasily.

‘Nat, where is your sense of adventure?’ Will unsheathed his sword as he ran, flashing it back and forth to clear a path.

‘I left it in the box where I keep my wish for an early grave,’ the young man gasped, trying to keep up with his master.

Will came to a halt at the line of carts and horses trundling along the rutted street. On the other side was the jumbled sprawl of houses and filthy alleys south of Maiden Lane where he knew they would be able to lose themselves if they gained a little distance.

Glancing around for a likely opportunity, he saw heads turned suddenly away from the street, man after man crossing himself and muttering prayers. Even before he smelled the sickening spoiled-eggs stench, he knew what was coming.

As the death-cart trundled into view, Nathaniel too tried to turn away, but Will grabbed him and said, ‘This is no time to be worrying about your mortal soul, my friend. If we are fortunate there will be time enough to make amends to God.’

Grabbing the assistant by the scruff, the spy hauled him into the flow of carts. The angry calls of the carters cracking their whips and yanking on the reins to steady their horses drowned out Nathaniel’s protestations.

‘Not a moment to lose, Nat,’ Will said, eyeing the three men who had just broken through the confusion to reach the cathedral gates. He dragged the young man down the centre of the street in between the rows of carts. They came to the death-cart where the driver and his assistant sat on the bench with their heads bowed, their drawn faces scarred by the things they had been forced to witness. In the back, the corpses were piled high, tightly wrapped in stained sheets.

As Will ducked by, he flicked the tip of his rapier into the horse’s flank.

The beast reared up, whinnying in shock. Up too went the cart, the bodies tumbling like sacks of grain into the road, the driver and assistant both flung from their bench. The horse close behind also reared to avoid the grisly cargo dumped in its path, and within a moment beasts all around were skittering wildly, the carters fighting to keep them under control as their wagons swerved and ground to a halt. Along the edges of the street, men and women were shouting and calling to others to come and see the spectacle.

Will kept a tight grip on Nathaniel, dragging him under a cart to the other side of the street. He allowed himself one glance back to see the three pursuers caught up in the crush, before squeezing through the raucous mob and away into the quiet alleys beyond.

Racing along a convoluted path among the houses, he finally brought Nathaniel to a halt beside an old beer barrel where a dog sheltered from the day’s heat. A pall of smoke hung over the still alleys from the fires smouldering outside many of the homes. The Lord Mayor had directed that all refuse should be burned three times a week to help limit the spread of the plague. No one wandered these streets. Most of the traders’ premises were shut and the familiar cry of ‘What do ye lack?’ had been silenced. Used to the constant din of London, the thunder of hammers on anvils, the booming of the workshops, the shouting and singing and fighting and streets near-packed from wall to wall with people and animals, Will found the scene unaccountably eerie. London held its breath so death would not notice it.

Hands on his knees, Nathaniel sucked in gulps of air. ‘Who were those men?’ he gasped.

Will continued to search the smoke-clogged alley for any sign of pursuit. He knew that from now on he would never be able to rest. ‘Someone would prefer that the murder of Kit Marlowe remain a closed book,’ he replied. Had Thomas Walsingham mentioned the defaced grave at the playwright’s funeral to draw him into the open? Will wondered. Or had some other dark power decided that spies could no longer roam free in London? Step by step, they were being whittled back.

‘Nat, I have work for you, if you can bear to be in this foul, disease-ridden city a moment longer,’ the spy began.

The assistant eyed his master suspiciously, wondering what was to come next.

‘In his letter, Kit said: The truth lies within. But seek the source of the lies without. The first sentence clearly implies he had hidden a message within the play he sent me. The second …’ Will raised one finger as he turned over his conclusion to be sure it was correct. ‘The lies refers to the story. A fiction. What Kit meant was that we should look in the world around us for the origin of his story of Faustus. If I am correct that will point us in the direction of the answers we need.’

‘There were some plays from abroad about Faust, yes?’ The words were muffled as the assistant covered his mouth and nose to keep out the death-stench.

‘Perhaps. Perhaps there is more to it than that. And I want you to find the answer for me. There are scholars who know these things in London. Seek them out.’ Will clapped a hand on the young man’s shoulder.

‘And you? If even the great and famous Will Swyfte can be hunted in the streets of London I would think you would want to find a safe bolt-hole.’

‘Of course not, Nat. That is exactly what they would expect me to do.’ Though his eyes glittered like ice, Will grinned. ‘First, I go to find John and Robert at our agreed meeting place to share what we all have discovered. And then I ride to the very source of this danger and these lies – Nonsuch Palace.’