The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT




THE HOWL OF A HUNTING DOG DRIFTED ACROSS THE NIGHT-shrouded countryside, low and mournful in the stillness. It was joined by another, and then another, the baying of the hounds becoming one insistent, hungry voice.

Breathless from the chase, Will grabbed a leaning elm to halt his careering descent down the steep hillside. In the dark, exposed tree roots threatened to break his neck, tufting grass obscured sudden drops where the soil had slipped away in heavy rain, and rabbit holes peppering the slope promised to break ankles or tear ligaments.

The spy held out a helpful arm to the red-haired woman scrambling down the bank behind him. She clutched for branches to prevent a sudden fall and tore at her crimson skirts where they were caught on brambles. Dirt streaked her face and sweat glistened on her knitted brow.

‘I do not need your aid,’ Red Meg responded ferociously, as if he had offered to take her there and then.

‘This is not a time for pride, my lady. Proclaim your independent spirit now, but it will only result in a noose round both our necks by dawn.’

The Irish woman let forth a stream of cursing the like of which Will had heard only in the bustling shipyards along the Thames. ‘Do not think me some weak and bloodless woman,’ she snapped. ‘I have fought your marauding countrymen with a sword, a dagger and an axe across the bogs and mountains of my home. And I have survived, alone, in the cities of Europe and Africa, where women are traded like goats and treated worse.’

‘We have an entire village in pursuit and you would rather proclaim your independence? You will be the death of us.’ With a shake of his head, the spy set off down the slope once more, skidding among the great old oaks and tangled hawthorns. Occasionally, he stopped to look back and saw Meg keeping pace, determination etched on her face. Grudgingly, he had to accept that her boasts were all true; few other women could have survived the privations they had experienced since escaping the hot, plague-ridden capital.

His heart racing, Will cast his mind back across the two weeks since the escape from London under a mound of dirty sackcloth in the back of a cart. When he had scrubbed the plague-pit filth from him, he had bought cheap clothes, and then he and Meg became Samuel Maycott, a draper, visiting family in the north with his wife Mary. He stole a dagger from a blacksmith and allowed his beard to grow unkempt. As they continued north, they were passed by riders distributing pamphlets. Under an engraving of his face, so crude as to be barely recognizable, was the legend: England’s Greatest Spy – Traitor. And beneath it, William Swyfte, hero of the perfidious invasion by the Spanish fleet, wanted for treason. By order of the Privy Council. A reward has been offered.

The spy’s thoughts burst back into the present as he careered from the foot of the hillside into a meadow, the long grass swaying like silvery water in the moonlight. Behind him, torches and lamps glimmered like fireflies among the trees. The baying of the hounds rolled down the hillside, closer now.

The two fugitives had been running since sundown when a field worker drinking his beer by the hedge had chanced to talk to them, and had grown suspicious. But Will was tiring now, he could feel it. His leaden legs shook and fire seared his chest, and he guessed Meg was in a worse state, though she never complained.

The spy heard the pounding of the Irish woman’s feet in the undergrowth. Out of control, she burst from beneath an oak into the meadow straight into Will’s arms. Strands of auburn hair fell across her face, and when she blew them back, the spy found himself looking deep into her emerald eyes. For all her forthright playfulness, her cheeks still flushed, and she was the one who pulled away.

‘Master Swyfte,’ she breathed with a hint of embarrassed laughter in her words, ‘you are my saviour.’

‘I will do my best to live up to that title, my lady. Though at the very least I can promise you an entertaining ride to the bitter end.’

‘I heard you were an accomplished rider, sir. I would see it at first hand.’ Her teasing smile faded as she glanced over her shoulder to the dark, wooded hillside.

An undulating cry rumbled behind the baying of the dogs and the increasingly loud shouts of the nearing villagers. Unnatural and unsettling, it throbbed into the very core of Will’s being.

‘Let us not tarry, Master Swyfte,’ Meg said, a flicker of unease in her eyes.

They ran.

Halfway across the meadow, with their twin trails snaking out through the long grass behind them, Will glanced back. The lights were now flickering along the tree-line, and he caught a whiff of pitch from the sizzling torches. The otherworldly cry was caught in the wind, setting his teeth on edge.

When they reached the far side of the meadow, Will realized their time had all but run out. Meg was slowing by the moment, and the pursuers and their dogs were gaining ground. Ahead lay only more meadows, a stream, no tree cover or anywhere they could hide.

‘Stop,’ he called, skidding to a halt.

The Irish woman whirled, her eyes blazing. ‘I never give up!’

‘Nor is that my plan.’ He dropped to his knees and pulled his flint from his doublet.

His companion saw instantly what he was doing, but looking towards the bobbing lights she insisted, ‘There is not enough time.’

‘Let us pray that there is. For it is our only hope of escaping that rabble.’ Will struck the flint once, twice, a third time. The crack of the stone was lost beneath the howl of the dogs and the jubilant cries of the villagers who saw their quarry had come to a halt.

His full attention focused on the flint, the spy struck it again. This time a spark caught on the yellowing grass along the hedgerow. It had not rained for nearly two weeks and under the hot summer sun the countryside had baked and the vegetation had grown tinder-dry. A cloud of fragrant white smoke swirled up. The grass crackled, the red spark licking into golden flames that spread along the foot of the hedgerow.

Will glanced back at the meadow. White faces now loomed out of the gloom beneath the lights of lantern and torch. The tone of the hounds’ howling became uncertain as they scented the smoke, and the spy watched the pursuers slow. Flames surged up the hedgerow with a sudden roar that carried far over the quiet landscape. Within moments, a wall of red, orange and gold rushed across the grassland. White smoke became grey, billowing in thick clouds that soon obscured the hesitant villagers.

Shielding his face against the heat, Will stepped away from the fire, coughing as the acrid fumes stung the back of his throat. ‘Come,’ he gasped. ‘This should provide us some cover, at least for a while.’

Impressed, Red Meg nodded as she lifted her skirts and hurried away from the blaze. ‘Your reputation is not unwarranted, Master Swyfte. But we are still in an ill pickle.’

Behind them, the dogs’ frightened barks were drowned out by the long howl of the thing they feared more. A note of jubilation edged the cry. Whatever was there sensed its prey at hand.

All humour now gone, the Irish woman cast a troubled glance at Will. Neither of them spoke as they clambered over a stile and ran across the next meadow.

When they reached the other side, Meg said in a hesitant voice, ‘What do you suggest?’

‘You know as well as I there is little to gain by running. If the Enemy is at our backs in open countryside, it will not relent until it has us.’

‘Stand and fight, then? But where? And do you have the strength to defeat one of those foul things?’

Will guessed his companion already knew the answer.

They reached a rutted lane, the edges lined with nettles. At the top of the stile, Will looked back to the thick fog drifting across the meadow. Dark smudges of villagers moved through it, more hesitant but refusing to give up. Yet the spy’s attention was caught by a wilder activity away to his left. Something bounded across the meadow, outpacing the men with the dogs. Will found it hard to discern its true nature; at times it moved on all fours, at others it rose to two feet, with a loping gait. It kept fast and low at all times.

Meg had seen it too. ‘It will be on us in moments,’ she said, drawing herself up. ‘Unsheath your sword. I will use my dagger. If we are to die this night, let it be with blood on our blades.’

Spinning round, Will surveyed the dark countryside. One glint of moonlight stirred a hope.

‘I am not ready to die yet.’ He leapt from the stile to run along the lane.

As they moved away from the roaring of the fire, they could hear the tinkling of water falling across stones.

A change in the wind brought dense clouds of smoke sweeping all around the two fugitives. The keening cry of their now-hidden pursuer became louder. Will wondered if the thing at their backs was circling them, choosing its moment to strike.

The shouts of the hunting party had grown angrier. The hounds were baying again, and they too were drawing nearer.

Out of the smoke, an old stone bridge emerged, the worn and crumbling parapets dappled with lichen. As Meg ran to cross it, the spy caught an arm around her waist, forcing her off the dusty lane and down the grassy bank to the stream he had heard earlier. Will didn’t slow their pace and they splashed into the cool, black water up to his calves.

Meg flashed a questioning look, but he only urged her into the dark beneath the bridge’s single arch. Amid the smell of wet vegetation, they came to a halt against the chill stone, drawing the dank air into their burning chests. Through the other arch of the bridge, they could see grey tendrils of smoke floating past and the hellish glare of the fire burning across the meadow.

‘Running water dulls the senses of the Enemy,’ Will whispered. So Dr Dee had told him, and he hoped the alchemist was right.

Meg nodded.

But would the stream dull those senses enough to mask the presence of the quarry hiding beneath the bridge? the spy wondered.

The night was punctured by the shouts of the hunting party trying to decide which way to go along the lane. Will heard someone give an order to split into two groups. But then the strange, reedy cry echoed nearby and he felt Meg’s body tense beside him.

They waited, listening to the distant crack of the fire and the splashing of the water. The cry came again, not far from the bridge, and then ended suddenly.

It knows we are here, Will thought.

Meg sensed it too. She held the spy’s gaze, offering a silent prayer. He felt her body grow taut once more, and he was sure their hearts were beating so hard they could be heard beyond their bodies.

A soft tread rustled above their heads. It paused, began again.

Searching.

Nails scraping on stone. Low, rasping breaths. A thump as the predator leapt on to the parapet of the bridge.

The Irish woman flinched, her mouth working against Will’s hand. Pulling her close, he held her tight to prevent her crying out by accident.

‘Can’t see nothing down here!’ a young man’s voice rang out from further up the lane.

A growl rumbled out from deep in the throat of the thing waiting above. The spy heard it leap from the parapet and scuttle down to the other side of the bridge. Hiding from the approaching men, he guessed.

Footsteps pounded along the dried mud of the lane to the edge of the bridge. Dogs snuffled in the undergrowth. Within a moment, however, the hounds began to whimper and then turned tail and ran back along the lane.

‘What’s wrong with ’em? They afeared a summat?’ Will heard one man say.

‘The fire. Beasts don’t like it,’ another replied.

‘’Ere. Let’s have a look over the bridge,’ a third said.

From the sound of the footsteps cresting the stone structure, the spy guessed that three was the total number of villagers in the group. The men tramped a little farther down the other side of the bridge and then stopped. Will imagined them looking out into the night.

‘Back home?’ the first began. His next word was drowned out by a terrible roaring. The three men shrieked as one.

Meg folded into the spy’s body, glancing fearfully through the arch where the hellish fires blazed. The men scrambled backwards, their yells unintelligible beneath the deafening rage of their attacker. Will heard the thing race up the bridge, and then there was a sound like ripping silk again and again and again. The screams of the three men pierced the night.

Something fell into the stream with a loud splash. When the water settled, Will saw the dead eyes of one of the villagers staring back at him, the mouth wide in terror.

The cries became whimpers and gradually died away, but the crunch and spatter continued a while.

Then silence fell.

The spy realized he had stopped breathing. Meg was rigid too. Will tried to imagine the predator standing above his head, caught in the lamp of the moon, stained red from head to toe. Was it licking its lips? Was it looking hungrily to where the rest of the hunting party searched? Or was it listening slyly, waiting for Will to emerge from hiding?

Now he could hear the frightened, questioning voices of the other villagers following the screams of the dying men. The thing must have decided it had no further appetite for slaughter, for Will heard it turn and lope from the bridge along the lane in the opposite direction.

‘We must be away from here before we are discovered,’ the spy whispered.

His companion was loath to move and pressed her back against the stone of the arch, but Will grabbed her cold hand and gently eased her away. Within a moment they were splashing along the stream, scrambling over slippery rocks down the channel between the meadows.

Horrified shouts echoed through the dark behind them as the villagers found their fallen friends. ‘God’s wounds,’ one man exclaimed. ‘The Devil is abroad this night.’

And Will could not deny it.