The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT




AT NORTHUMBERLAND’S COMMAND, THE SERVANT BROUGHT WILL a goblet of good sack. Meg flashed him an irritated glance as she was ushered out to a bedchamber the Earl was having prepared for her.

The spy feigned a sympathetic nod, but he took some pleasure from the Irish woman’s fury at her exclusion from a source of vital information. Once she had departed, he flopped into a chair next to the fire and for the first time was acutely aware of his exhaustion.

He eyed the great men sitting around him. There was George Chapman, the playwright and scholar, his bald pate glinting in the light of the candle that Northumberland now carried over to set beside the fire. He had just turned thirty and was an acquaintance of Marlowe through his patron, Sir Thomas Walsingham. Beside him sat Thomas Harriot, almost the same age as Chapman and a student of the stars and numbers. Dressed in a black gown with a white ruff, his hair receding, Harriot had a sensitive cast to his features. There were two other men Will did not know, but the spy was struck most by the final guest.

In his jewelled doublet of green and red, Sir Walter Raleigh cut a dashing figure, strong of jaw, dark-eyed, with a well-tended brown beard and moustache and curly hair. He studied Will with a wry smile, the heel of one Spanish leather boot resting on his knee.

‘Master Swyfte, it has been a while since we met. But despite the threats currently emanating from London, I remember only the great things you have achieved … and, of course, those drunken nights in Liz Longshanks’. I would have you on one of my expeditions to the New World and soon,’ he said in a strong, rich voice.

‘Perhaps that can be arranged, if we survive the coming weeks.’

The spy knew Raleigh would not succumb to the lies issued by the Privy Council, for the soldier and explorer had been on the receiving end of them himself. Only a year ago, the Queen had appointed him Captain of the Yeomen of the Guard and rewarded him with houses and estates after the success of his expeditions to the New World. He had been Elizabeth’s favourite. But then he fell from grace when the Queen discovered his secret marriage to one of her ladies-in-waiting, young Bess Throckmorton. Her Majesty’s temper had been incandescent, Will recalled. Raleigh had been imprisoned and Bess dismissed from court. Though the adventurer was now a free man, he had still not been pardoned by the monarch.

‘You will forgive me, but this is a strange and surprising collection of fellows,’ the spy said, sipping his sack.

‘Come now, Master Swyfte,’ Northumberland laughed. ‘As a spy you should know of many hidden connections that exist in modern life.’

‘Still,’ Will said, ‘I would be hard-pressed to define what you all had in common.’ He eyed Dee, who still ranged around the room, whispering to invisible companions. The alchemist had nothing in common with anyone.

‘The School of Night,’ Raleigh began, taking a goblet of sack from the Earl, ‘is a name we use to hide our identity, though Marlowe always threatened to insert it into one of his plays.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘That will not now come to pass.’

‘A secret society, then.’ Will laughed. ‘I sometimes wonder if there is a man in London who is not a member of some hidden clique or other. Perhaps we are all members of many and in the end we are working against ourselves unbeknown.’ He shrugged and sipped his sack. ‘Or perhaps this business of spying has made me a cynic.’

Dee prowled over to the fire and roared, ‘You are a fool, Swyfte, but a wise one. Indeed we plot because everyone else plots. There are secret wars raging all the time in this world. Nothing is as simple as it seems at first glance.’

Raleigh leaned forward and said, ‘In a world of lies it is easy to dismiss everyone, but I would say this to you: Kit Marlowe sided with us. Indeed, he was there at the very beginning.’ He held the spy’s gaze until he was sure his meaning had been understood. And it was: if Kit believed in this School of Night then it surely had value.

Will called for more sack, and then looked to the alchemist. ‘Dr Dee suggested you plotted against the Queen and England itself. Can this be true?’

A chill had grown in the room despite the season and Northumberland tossed another log on the fire. A shower of gold sparks shot up the chimney. ‘Not England. Never that,’ he said. ‘We do what we do for England.’ Glancing around at his fellows for support, he added, ‘But England is more than the Queen, more than the Privy Council. It is an idea.’

‘That sounds very much like treason,’ the spy said quietly.

‘Which is why,’ Dee snarled from the far corner of the room where he had cloaked himself in shadows, ‘once Marlowe was suspected of being a member of our little group the charge of atheism was levelled at him.’

‘The charge of atheism,’ Raleigh continued, his voice dripping with contempt, ‘that great scythe which cuts down all who stand before it. For who would speak out in favour of a man who sets himself in opposition to God? Who makes a jest of the scripture and calls Mary a whore and Jesus Christ a bastard justly persecuted by the Jews for his own foolishness? Who practises black magic and conjures devils? Atheism – easy to prove with fabricated letters and the statements of criminals, and hard to argue against. The Privy Council had finally decided to move against us, and Marlowe was to be the first. They thought they could get him in the Tower and then torture him to give up our names. But he was murdered before their plan could be put into effect.’

The spy looked to the dark where Dee stood. ‘Then Kit’s murder was the work of the Enemy. The Privy Council had other plans for him.’ When he got no reply, he realized the corner of the room was empty. Unseen, the alchemist had sneaked out.

‘We know of whom you speak – the Unseelie Court, the Fair Folk, the Good Neighbours,’ Harriot said with a nod when he saw Will’s surprise. ‘We have known of them for a good many years.’

‘We are aware only that Kit was slain,’ Chapman added, steepling his fingers in front of him, ‘but not by whose hand. There are plots upon plots here, and as we sit and look out, we feel no one can be trusted.’

‘True enough,’ Will said. Sick in his stomach at the thought of his friend’s death, he rose from his chair and sauntered to the window, looking out across the dark deer park. ‘What is your purpose, then? Why are you opposed to the Queen and the Privy Council?’

‘We are opposed to the Unseelie Court too,’ Raleigh called gently across the room. ‘Indeed they are the reason for our existence.’

Northumberland whispered to the two men Will didn’t recognize and they nodded and quickly left. ‘Our friends would prefer their identities to remain a secret,’ he explained. ‘Even from you. They have much to lose, and they are the closest to being uncovered.’ He strode over to Will’s side and continued, ‘We are, if you will, a third way, between the Unseelie Court and the Crown. And we have found ourselves caught in the middle of this damnable world, hated by both sides, hunted, threatened, our lives at risk. But we seek only peace.’

‘Peace?’ Will snorted. ‘There can be no peace with the Enemy.’ He thought of Jenny and his devil gave him a painful tweak.

‘That is an understandable first reaction,’ the Earl replied. ‘But hear what we know and your views may change.’

A glittering corona of light shimmered through the diamond-pane glass. It disappeared so quickly that the spy thought it must have been a reflection of the candle standing on the stool near the hearth. But then another came, and another, earth-bound stars twinkling among the dense, black row of trees running along the slope of the high ground beyond the deer park. The chilling familiarity of the sight drove Will’s hand instinctively to his rapier.

‘The Unseelie Court are here,’ he said in a low, determined voice.

The other men rose from their seats and gathered behind him, peering out into the night. ‘Do not concern yourself for now,’ Raleigh declared. ‘Our defences will suffice until dawn.’

‘The skulls on the poles?’ Will enquired, his eyes following the sweep of fires along the tree-line. An army waited. The house was under siege.

Chapman folded his hands behind his back and raised his chin in an attempt to show defiance, though the spy sensed uneasiness behind his movements. ‘We draw from the growing knowledge of the natural sciences, and from studies of the occult. We have designed our defences with the help of the greatest minds and the most arcane knowledge. They are secure.’

‘You stand between the light and the dark, between man and the Devil, and you expect to win?’ Will said with barely hidden scorn. ‘What conjured this madness in your heads?’

Raleigh rested a heavy hand on Will’s shoulder. ‘Let me tell you a tale of madness and horror. Of the part good Kit Marlowe played in the formation of our group. Then you will understand.’

While the fires blazed in the night, and cries rose up that sounded like no animal the spy knew, a hush fell across the room as Raleigh began to speak.