The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT




GRACE’S HEART BEAT FAST AS SHE WATCHED THE QUEEN’S MEN FROM the window. In the inner ward, under the glaring red lamp of the setting sun, they marched in step, back and forth, back and forth, the tramp of their black leather shoes providing a relentless background rhythm to life at Nonsuch. A bloody crimson sash fell across their burnished cuirasses, and there was blood on their minds too.

With each passing day, the young woman found the atmosphere in the palace more unbearable: suspicion, fear and doubt wrapped around them all like a shroud.

Grace hurried along the corridor, avoiding the knots of advisers and Privy Councillors who had been huddling in quiet, intense conversation everywhere for the two weeks since Will had been hauled off to Bedlam. Talk of traitors operating within the court had unnerved everyone.

Carrying a jug of fresh water for the Queen’s ablutions, Elinor approached. She nodded to Grace and gave a humourless smile, but her gaze was as sharp as a dagger. As Grace passed, she heard the maid of honour come to a halt and turn. Watching me, the young woman thought. Spying.

As she moved through the palace, Grace felt eyes upon her everywhere. A serving girl pausing with a bowl of eggs. A Privy Councillor, crow-like in his black gown, watching her with implacable beady eyes. Two knights stopping their conversation to study her as she passed.

You will drive yourself mad with this worry, she repeated to herself.

Grace waited at the end of the corridor until Elinor’s footsteps had faded away and then she opened the small door in the panelled wall and stepped into the tight-winding back stairs. At the foot, she listened to ensure the kitchen workers had left the area before crossing the flour-sprinkled kitchen annexe that still smelled sweetly of the honey cakes that had been prepared for that evening’s meal.

Skipping to the door, she slipped out into the warm evening. A cloud of midges swirled in the sun’s last rays. Breathing deeply to ease the tightness in her chest, she smelled the lavender from the formal gardens and the rosemary and mint planted in rows just outside the kitchen door.

Dressed in his best brown doublet embroidered with patterns of green ivy, Nathaniel waited near the orange-brick garden wall, still warm from the day’s sun. He offered her a posy and bowed formally, his cheeks and large ears glowing a dull red. Grace laughed quietly and gave a small curtsy. Will’s assistant played his part well, she thought.

‘Good evening, Grace. Will you walk with me a while?’ he asked in a clear voice that carried across the gardens.

‘I will,’ she replied, ‘though I cannot be long. I still have work.’

Shoulder to shoulder, hands clasped behind their backs, they walked away from Nonsuch through the winding paths of the gardens, looking, as Grace had hoped, like two young lovers on a quiet romantic stroll. Once out of sight of the palace behind a tall row of yews, they moved quickly through the gate in the wall into the deer park.

Nathaniel’s face darkened as he offered Grace a hand over the large stones thrown across the rutted path that ran between two banks of nettles. ‘We take a risk, even now,’ he whispered.

‘All is risk,’ the young woman stated firmly. ‘I hardly dare breathe in the palace for fear of a hand on my shoulder. There is talk that two of the boys from the stables and three kitchen workers have already been taken away for crimes unknown. If we are to help, we must act.’

‘I do not disagree,’ Nat said, ‘but that does not make this any easier. Even two lovers out on a summer’s eve is a cause for suspicion in this atmosphere.’ He led the way along the line of the wall until they reached the edge of the palace grounds. ‘I hoped to visit Will in Bedlam to see they were treating him well, but I was told the Keeper has orders to admit no one.’

‘Nor is there any escape from that foul place. It is worse than Newgate,’ Grace replied. She had vowed to shed no tears in public for the man she held so deeply in her affections, nor to offer even a word that would reveal any anxiety over his fate. That would not help. Only a clear head and a strong heart would be of use.

The bats were already flitting from their roosts in the dark woods that lay beyond the rolling grassland surrounding the palace. Steeling herself, Grace plucked up her skirts and ran, with Nathaniel close beside her, glancing back every few steps to see if they were being pursued. Even when they reached the shelter of the trees, the young woman still expected to hear cries of alarm at her back.

Ducking under the low-hanging branches, they avoided the thick banks of briar and progressed fifty paces into the cool, shadowy interior. Nathaniel brought them to a halt and gave a short, low whistle. After a moment it was answered away to their right. Stumbling in the growing gloom, they came to an old oak tree that five men linking hands could not have encompassed. As they looked around, two figures dropped from the branches as silently and stealthily as cats.

Carpenter pressed a finger to his lips as Launceston prowled the perimeter, one hand cupped to his ear as he peered into the dark beneath the trees. Their cloaks were smeared with mud and the green of tree bark from three days of living rough.

‘Let me go to Bedlam to try to help Will,’ Grace said, once they had exchanged curt greetings.

‘What could a woman do?’ the pallid spy sneered.

She raised her chin defiantly and fought to keep her voice steady. ‘I would remind you, sir, who sits on the throne.’ Ignoring the Earl’s quizzically raised eyebrow, she continued, ‘In the past, I have been reckless—’

‘I recall risking life and limb in Spain trying to save your foolish life,’ Carpenter snarled.

‘I am not that same woman who strode blithely into danger following her heart. Wisdom has come to me, later than I might have hoped, but there it is. I will do anything in my power to aid Will in his hour of need, and to help save our Queen from this plot. Do not underestimate me, Master Carpenter.’

Shrugging, the spy flashed a smirk at Launceston which only made Grace angrier.

‘Listen to her,’ Nathaniel interjected. ‘We all walk different paths, and we all have different parts to play in this business. Grace can help as much as any man.’

‘As much?’ Launceston said in a quiet, strong voice. ‘Can she slit a throat? For this matter will come to blood in the end. There is no other way.’

Drawing his dagger, the Earl turned suddenly and peered into the dark. Leaves rustled in the breeze. Tense, they all grew still, but after a moment he returned his blade to its hiding place though his gaze continued to search the gloom.

‘Robert and I will maintain our search in London for whoever has been killing our fellow spies,’ Carpenter whispered. ‘Once we have him, we should find out more about this plot. You do what you can here at Nonsuch.’ He sighed. ‘Though London is no place to be these days, with rumours of curses and magics and the corpses of plague victims moving of their own accord down in the pits.’

‘How … how long do we have before they make a move on Will’s life?’ Grace ventured.

The scarred spy shook his head. ‘Not so quick that it will look like the law is being circumvented. Not so long that he will prove a threat to the plotters.’ He ran a weary hand through his long hair, revealing the ugly mass of pink tissue on the side of his face. ‘Two spies, a fool and a woman against our Enemy,’ he sighed. ‘Kill us now and be done with it.’

Nathaniel bristled. Holding up a hand to calm him, Grace stepped close to the spy. ‘It is time to stop complaining, Master Carpenter, and to accept that the four of us here are all we have. And we shall not be easily defeated, even if it costs my life.’

The scar-faced man eyed her curiously, struck by the passion in her voice.

‘Who are the enemy?’ Nathaniel snapped, still annoyed at being called a fool. ‘The Spanish? Catholic agitators?’

Carpenter and Launceston exchanged a glance and weighed their words. After a moment, the Earl breathed, ‘It does not matter which hands move the pieces in this game. The ones we must be concerned with at the moment are our own – our former allies, perhaps even our friends. We must be prepared to be betrayed on any side.’

‘Can we trust each other?’ Nathaniel pressed, his jaw set.

Before anyone could respond, their attention was caught by flickering lights moving far off among the trees; some were pale, some blazed red and gold like torches.

Nat caught the scarred spy’s arm and hissed, ‘Guards from the palace hunting for us.’

Carpenter’s face drained of blood. He shook his head slowly.

‘We must leave this place. Now,’ Launceston snapped. ‘We have little time.’

Breathlessly, they ran towards the edge of the woods, the lights closing on them.

‘What are they?’ Grace gasped, almost stumbling as she leapt over exposed roots. ‘How do they move so fast?’

‘No questions!’ Carpenter snapped. ‘Save your breath. And do not look back under any circumstances.’

On every side, the lights moved through the trees faster than any man could run. Grace’s heart pounded with the rhythm of her feet.

As they closed on the edge of the woods, Launceston raised a hand to slow them, and then waved them behind a twisted old oak. Ahead, there was only a short run across the open grassland to what Grace told herself was the safety of the palace garden walls. A thin line of fiery light remained along the western horizon. Soon it would be dark.

Grace could see Launceston had heard something. His dagger drawn, the Earl stalked around the tree, keeping low. The young woman felt her heart would burst.

The lights glowed dangerously close.

A cry of alarm tore through the stillness. Spinning round, Grace saw one of the Earl of Essex’s advisers standing beside a tall elm tree, pointing at them. The lanky, ruddy-faced man’s mouth hung wide and the jarring, high-pitched sound he was making was like iron on glass.

All around, the lights began to change direction. In an instant, Launceston had darted from the shelter of the oak and plunged his dagger into the neck of the pointing man. The shrieking ended with a sticky gurgle.

As Carpenter reached the Earl’s side, Grace darted towards the two spies with Nathaniel close behind. But as she neared, she saw horror become etched in the scarred man’s face as he glanced at the body of the adviser.

Turning suddenly, the spy held up his hands and shouted, ‘Stay away! Do not look at the body! Do not look!’ Carpenter bounded towards the woman. ‘Run!’ he shouted. ‘Back to the palace, before they see your faces!’

Behind the spy, the lights swirled and drew near. In their faint glow, Grace thought she could now see shapes, like foxes, though larger, grey and indistinct, bounding sinuously among the trees towards them.

Turning, she lifted her skirts and ran towards the comforting candlelight of the palace. Nathaniel was by her side, urging her on.

At her back, she heard the pounding of the two spies’ feet as they began to follow, but then the sound took a different direction and was accompanied by Carpenter’s furious cursing and his companion’s loud mockery. The two men were trying to draw the pursuers away, Grace realized.

Sacrificing themselves for me, she thought, her eyes stinging with tears.

A ferocious spitting and snarling erupted at her back, and she almost stumbled in terror. She had heard nothing like that sound before. Dimly amid the cacophony, Grace heard the two spies shouting in defiance.

Crashing through the gate in the garden wall, the young man held it open until they were both safely through and then slammed it shut. They ran on along the winding paths amid the perfume of night-scented stock, the terrible animal sounds dying down until only silence lay across the countryside.

Hidden in the dark by the palace walls, they came to a halt, leaning against the warm brick to catch their breath. Grace was crying silently, and she wiped her tears away with the back of her hand before Nathaniel saw. ‘What … what was that?’ she croaked. Her thoughts were like mercury, unable to make sense of what she had seen and heard.

The assistant took a deep breath and then said with a confidence that she knew was for her benefit, ‘The enemy agents are accompanied by hunting dogs. That is how they discovered us so quickly.’

The woman found it easier to accept his explanation. She glanced back along the dark garden and asked in a quiet voice, ‘Master Carpenter and the Earl of Launceston – are they alive or are they dead?’