The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER THIRTY




THEY’RE COMING.

Slipping out into the moonlit corridor, Nathaniel was sickened to realize that once again he had been tormented by the dream that had haunted him for nigh on five years. Ghastly, cruel faces looming out of the shadows. Under a full moon, grey, fluttering shapes pursuing him across a lonely moor. And a feeling of dread so great that upon waking he was left in a pool of sweat, his heart pounding. But this time the terrible things they had whispered to him were new and strange. Who was coming?

The way is beginning to open.

What way? Was he losing his wits?

The assistant had only closed his eyes for a while until the palace had drifted off into sleep and he could slip into Roger Cockayne’s chamber and steal back the play. Laced with mockery, the echoes of the dream-words still rustled around his head.

As he entered the corridor in the western range, the young man paused. He heard a whisper of movement off in the dark towards the far end. Glancing around, he saw the only hiding place was in an alcove beside a large iron-studded chest underneath a gloomy portrait of Old Henry, the Queen’s father. As he eased into the space and crouched down, pulling his cloak over him, he noticed several doors were silently opening.

Mouthing a silent prayer, he peeked out through a fold in his cloak. Five hooded figures skulked past, paying no attention to each other. What mischief would those creeping figures be planning at that time of night? he wondered. Who were they that they kept their faces hidden?

His suspicions mounting, he held his breath and waited.

Once he was sure the men had passed, Nat slipped out of his hiding place. Hoofbeats and the rattle of carriage wheels now echoed in the inner ward.

Through the window, the young man glimpsed a black coach stark in the moonlight. He saw it was adorned with peacock feathers, and so the property of someone high and mighty, perhaps a Privy Councillor. Unsure why, he felt a tingle of unease.

A cloaked and hooded man jumped down from the coach and held out his hand for a second passenger. A pale, slender hand extended from the shadows, a woman, Nat realized. As she stepped down to the cobbles, the assistant saw she too hid her identity in the depths of a hood.

A pikeman ambled up from the direction of the gatehouse, his burgonet and cuirass agleam in the pale light. The woman and her escort paused, their heads turned away from the approaching man.

Nathaniel felt an incomprehensible dread. As the pikeman stepped up, the escort whipped a gleaming dagger from the depths of his cloak and thrust it under the guard’s chin and into his skull. Withdrawing his blade just as quickly, the hooded man stepped back to avoid the gush of crimson as the poor pikeman fell to the cobbles.

The young assistant clutched the wall in shock. The murder of a pikeman, in the open, within the palace ward? The like had never been heard of before.

On the brink of raising the alarm, Nathaniel froze when he saw shadows sweeping across the open space from the palace. More men, all cloaked and hooded, perhaps some of them the ones who had passed him earlier. He thought he counted ten at least, but they moved too quickly for him to be sure, collecting the body of the pikeman and carrying it out of sight towards the western range. The escort led the mysterious woman to the palace as if nothing had happened.

Nat’s heart beat faster.

Silently, he ran back the way he had come. At the first set of stone steps, he began to creep down in search of the plotters, only to hear several soft treads rising from around the turn in the stairs. His breath caught in his chest. Dashing back into the corridor, he searched around, unsure where was the best place to hide.

As the footsteps neared, the young man pressed himself into a doorway, hoping the hooded figures would not pass by. Screwing his eyes tight shut, he prayed.

The footsteps emerged into the corridor and moved away from him. Peeking out, Nathaniel glimpsed the hooded figures with the woman among them gliding stealthily towards the Queen’s throne room, where she oversaw the meetings of the Privy Council almost every day.

What could the plotters possibly want in that chamber? It would be empty at this time of night, and there was nowhere to hide; it contained only the throne, for the Privy Councillors always stood in Her Majesty’s presence.

Stepping out from the doorway, Nathaniel resolved to follow. He had barely gone ten paces along the moonlit corridor when he realized his mistake. A single set of footsteps was approaching from the direction of the throne room. As he turned, he glimpsed a flurry of movement at the other end of the corridor; more plotters were drawing near.

Trapped.

Just as Nat thought his heart would burst in his chest, he felt a hand clamp across his mouth and he was dragged back into a chamber. The door whispered shut behind him and a woman’s voice hissed in his ear, ‘Make no sound.’

His body pressed against the wood panelling in the inky room, the assistant’s eyes grew wide with terror. The footsteps approached. If the fingers had not been clamped so tight against his mouth, he was afraid he would have called out, but then the plotters passed by and he sagged with relief.

His saviour withdrew her hand.

‘You,’ he whispered, shocked.

In the gloom, the young man recognized the red-headed woman he had encountered outside the Rose Theatre. ‘Lady … Shevington?’ She too was cloaked and hooded, and for a moment he wondered if she was another of the plotters.

‘Do you always lumber around at night like a wounded bull?’ the Irish woman murmured as she opened the door a crack and peered out into the now-still corridor.

Nathaniel made to ask another question, but the woman pressed a finger to her lips to silence him and stepped out. With her cloak billowing around her, she ghosted through the shadows on the edge of the moonbeams towards the throne room. The assistant wanted to call out a warning – there would have been no time for the plotters to leave the chamber – but she was too far ahead.

Nat’s thoughts were a ball of confusion. He no longer had any idea what was happening, nor why the Irish woman was prowling the palace at night. Conflicted, he caught up with Lady Shevington as she pressed her ear to the door, her brow furrowed. All was silent.

Gripped with horror, Nathaniel saw her reach for the handle, and though he lunged to stop her, she swung the door open.

The throne room was empty.