The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE




15 June 1587

The carriage thundered across the cobbles of the wharf at such a speed it almost turned on its side. The horse was sweat-slick and foaming at the mouth, the driver, Edmund Shipwash, thrashing his whip as if he were demented. When the coach careered to a halt beside the barrels of pitch and coils of oiled rope, Kit Marlowe hurled the door open and leapt out, followed closely by Jerome Pennebrygg, both of them wearing the tricorn hats and black gowns of the English College, the Catholic seminary at Reims.

From his rowboat, skimming the waves towards the quay, Sir Walter Raleigh could see the terror etched on the two men’s faces in the lamplight.

What could have transpired to elicit such a reaction?

Four men on horseback galloped on to the wharf in a similar state of panic. Raleigh recognized Clement, Makepiece, Gavell and the slippery Robert Poley. Just as he wondered where the final spy was, a hunched, wild-eyed figure crawled out of the carriage and sat next to the wheel, looking around fearfully as if he expected God to strike him dead at any moment.

Good Lord, the adventurer thought. Could that really be Griffin Devereux, the cousin of the Earl of Essex?

Running to the edge of the quay, Marlowe peered out across the dusk-shrouded waves. When he saw the rowboat, he all but screamed, ‘Hurry! For God’s sake, man, hurry!’

Raleigh knew all the spies from their work in London and he could not imagine any of them so filled with dread. As his rowers steered his vessel into the quay at Saint-Pol-de-Léon, he eyed the gloom that cloaked the small town on the north-west coast of France, but could see no sign of what had frightened the men.

When the rowboat bobbed in against the wharf, Shipwash almost leapt from the stone steps into the vessel. ‘Steady on,’ the adventurer barked, but within a moment the other spies were all throwing themselves on to the wet boards among the unsettled crew.

‘Wait!’ Marlowe shouted, his voice cracking. ‘We cannot abandon the thing we have brought, if England is to survive.’

Hesitating on the brink of the quay, Poley cursed and then ran back to the young playwright. They delved into the carriage and emerged, sweating and blowing, with a large wooden chest bound with chains which they dragged across the cobbles to the water’s edge.

‘What is in there?’ Raleigh demanded. ‘The body of one of your poor victims?’

Marlowe gave the adventurer such a haunted look that Raleigh dared not ask again. He ordered his men to haul the box on to the boat, and then watched as Marlowe helped Devereux on board. The crazed man sat in the prow, his arms hugged around his knees, his eyes darting.

Before he joined the others, Poley paused to set fire to the barrels of pitch with his flint and some scraps of sailcloth. Rearing up, the horses voiced their fear as the flames roared up into the night.

‘Row, damn you to hell!’ Shipwash shrieked once Poley was on board. ‘Get us away from this devil-haunted country.’

As the vessel pulled away from the quay, Raleigh noticed a curious sight: the rowers nearest to the chest lost grip of their oars and reeled on their benches, each one glancing back towards the box as if whatever was within called to them in a voice only they could hear.

The rowboat ploughed through the waves towards the galleon at anchor in the deep water. As the smaller vessel neared the creaking ship, Raleigh glanced back to the wharf and in the red and gold glare of the flames thought he glimpsed figures lurching with an awkward gait to the water’s edge.

The spies scrambled up the ropes as if consumed by madness. Once the rowboat and its strange cargo was hauled aboard, the adventurer strode the still-warm deck, his gaze continually and uneasily drawn to the quay, although it was impossible to see anything in the dark but the blazing barrels.

‘Raise the anchor,’ Gavell yelled.

‘I am the captain here,’ Raleigh bellowed. ‘Get below deck or I will have you clapped in irons.’

As the crew slowly drew the anchor, the spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham emerged from the captain’s cabin, his hands folded behind his back. Black-gowned, he stood erect, his dark gaze moving steadily across the men until it alighted on Marlowe, who sat by the rail with his head in his hands, staring at the chest. All the crew gave it a wide berth.

‘It went well?’ the saturnine spymaster enquired.

‘No,’ the young playwright responded, a sob bubbling under the word. ‘We have looked upon hell and we are all changed. Especially … especially poor Devereux.’

‘What did you see?’ Raleigh asked, feeling a chill despite the warm night breeze.

Marlowe shook his head. ‘I cannot speak of it. But it will haunt me for ever.’

‘And the chest?’ Walsingham said.

‘Not here.’ Marlowe nodded to the crew. ‘Spare them.’

When the box had been dragged into the captain’s cabin, the adventurer helped Marlowe unlock the padlocks that held the chains tight. Raleigh dabbed at a dribble of blood at his nose. Closing his eyes, the playwright steadied himself before he hauled open the lid for the spymaster to peer inside.

The explorer recoiled before he had even seen the contents, a convulsive reaction felt at some level he didn’t understand.

Chained in the box, knees against his stomach, was one of the Unseelie Court. His eyes burned into the three men who looked down upon him, and they all thought they would never forget what they saw in that glare until their dying day. He looked like a pool of ink in the bottom of the chest, dressed in black doublet and breeches, his hair black too. A piece of filthy cloth had been tied across his mouth.

‘He is Fabian of the High Family,’ Marlowe choked. ‘The things he does …’ He chewed the back of his hand, unable to complete his sentence.

Raleigh felt the atmosphere in the room grow more intense, as if a storm was about to break. None of them could bear the eyes upon them any longer, and the spymaster gave the order to close the chest.

‘How did you capture him?’ the explorer asked in disbelief. He was trembling, despite himself.

‘It may well have cost me my soul,’ the playwright replied in a small voice. ‘But I had to! I had to!’ He ranged about the cabin like a cornered beast, unable to draw his gaze away from the box. ‘We must question him, at the Tower, and find out the truth of the monstrosities he performs. What do they mean? What terrible thing does the Unseelie Court plan for them? Why, it could be the end of all England! And then we have to return and seize the Corpus-Scythe—’

‘No.’ The voice boomed from the door. The three men turned to see one of the crew, a short man with grey whiskers and a ring in his ear.

‘You dare speak to your betters?’ the spymaster said with a cold fury.

‘Hold your tongue,’ Raleigh cautioned. ‘Return to your post—’

‘I was placed on board this ship by my master, Lord Burghley.’ The sailor looked from one man to the other.

Walsingham glared with such intensity that the explorer thought he would take a dagger to the outspoken sailor. ‘We spy on each other now?’

‘Lord Burghley has greater plans that he cannot see disrupted,’ the sailor said, offering a scroll sealed with red wax. ‘He bid me give you this should such a situation arise.’

Walsingham tore open the scroll and scanned it. ‘Leave now and do not speak to me again upon this voyage,’ he said to the new arrival without once looking at him. When the sailor had gone, the spymaster crushed the parchment in his fist in anger. ‘The fool,’ he muttered, forcing a wan smile when he remembered Raleigh. ‘It appears Lord Burghley does not want the presence of the Unseelie Court diminished in France. While the Enemy maintains a vital presence among our rivals, it weakens those who compete against us for gold and trade, and thereby strengthens England’s position.’

‘Politics? No, not here,’ Marlowe hissed, tears of anger stinging his eyes. ‘This matter is about more than our petty earthly rivalries. We must deliver this one to London for questioning about the Enemy’s plans. The atrocities they undertake at Reims will have terrible repercussions for our countrymen. Do you not understand?’

‘Silence,’ the spymaster snapped. ‘Do not question business that is beyond your understanding.’

‘And this is beyond your understanding,’ the playwright raged. ‘You did not witness the horrors we experienced in the English College or you would never agree to this. Our only chance of survival is to act now, not play games.’

In his desperation, Marlowe was on the brink of damaging himself irreparably, Raleigh saw. As it was, Walsingham would not easily forgive such open questioning of his orders. ‘England is in a struggle for survival on many levels,’ the explorer said calmly, trying to soothe the spy’s temper. ‘There is no easy choice between right and wrong, and it is the role of the statesman to balance the many competing interests of a great nation attempting to survive in a harsh world.’ Even as he spoke the words, Raleigh did not wholly agree with them. From the terrified state of the spies, he suspected this matter truly was greater than mere politics.

Marlowe looked broken. ‘I do not agree,’ he said in a small voice filled with power. ‘It should be about right and wrong. That is all that matters.’

‘You are naive,’ the spymaster said.

‘Leave now,’ the explorer urged quietly. ‘Spend some time in reflection, and then ask for your master’s forgiveness.’

His head bowed in frustration, Marlowe trudged from the cabin. But as he opened the door, terrified cries resounded from the deck. When the playwright’s face drained of blood, Raleigh realized the spy’s worst fears had been confirmed. Drawing their rapiers, the two men raced towards the disturbance.

On deck, in the dying heat of the evening, the crew fought furiously along the starboard rail against a stream of shadowy figures attempting to board the galleon. Swords glinted in the light of the swinging lanterns. The explorer ran to join his men in the fight, only to come to a juddering halt when he saw their faces ragged with fear and incomprehension.

Raleigh’s gaze was drawn inexorably to the nearest assailant and his breath caught in his throat.

Beneath a wide-brimmed felt hat, a face of straw.

Ivy eyes, hands of yew, teeth of blackthorn, a tattered jerkin and breeches stuffed with dried vegetation.

A constructed man. Yet with all the animation of a living being. It snarled and snapped, its human-like eyes glowing with a sickening intelligence.

With horror, the explorer watched the straw man lunge for the nearest sailor, gripping him with an unnatural strength and tearing out his throat. The man’s scream turned to a wet gurgle. Blood splashed on to the deck.

‘Do not yield! Do not treat them like barleyfield scarecrows,’ Marlowe yelled as he ran along the line of struggling crewmen. ‘They are bred for slaughter. Run them through. They can die like any man.’

As if to prove his point, the young playwright darted into the melee and thrust his rapier through the heart of a straw man. The lurching thing squealed with the voice of a baby, clutching at its chest.

Raleigh recoiled, pressing his hands to his ears to block out the hideous sound. It soared up to the rigging, growing ever louder, until not a man could bear it.

Blood seeped through scarecrow fingers. Sickened, the adventurer could not tell from where that life-essence came.

More straw men clambered over the rail, dripping wet with seawater, and attacked with a greater frenzy, as if the thing’s dying shriek had driven them to greater extremes. Wildwood arms wrapped around a sailor and shattered his spine. Another man fell with a face torn in two. Across the deck, the scarecrows lurched towards anything living, silent until wounded when they joined in with the howling symphony of agony.

Marlowe, too, renewed his attack. His face fixed with determination, he slashed his rapier across straw throats and plunged it into overstuffed bodies. Raleigh flung himself into the fight alongside the playwright.

‘These are just the start,’ the younger man gasped with tear-stung eyes. ‘There is worse to come.’

‘Clear room at the rail!’

The explorer recognized Walsingham’s booming voice. Glancing back, he saw the spymaster standing alongside two white-faced sailors who had dragged the chained chest from the captain’s cabin.

The straw men come for the one in the chest, Raleigh realized.

‘Send him over the side,’ Walsingham said coldly.

While the battle raged, the two gasping crewmen hauled the chest to the rail, lifted it with a grunt and a curse, and then rolled it over the edge.

The resounding splash was like a bell signalling the end of the battle. The scarecrows let men drop to the blood-soaked deck, unfurled wooden fingers from pulsing necks, and turned away from killing blows. One by one, they stumbled towards the rail and climbed over the side, following the siren song of their master.

The grim-faced crew staggered back, hands pressed to mouths, to a man trying to make sense of the horrors they had witnessed.

Raleigh ran to the rail and peered into the black water. ‘What were they?’ he asked.

Marlowe shook his head and turned away, a man on the edge of despair.

The adventurer caught the playwright’s arm and asked, ‘The one you brought here … Fabian. Will the Unseelie Court let us escape now he is dead?’

‘They are hard to kill,’ Marlowe said in a flat voice. ‘I would not worry yourself unduly.’

Walsingham strode over, his expression unreadable. ‘Set sail for Kent, Sir Walter,’ he said. ‘Master Swyfte waits for us, expecting news of a great victory. He will be disappointed.’

Marlowe rounded on his master. ‘We will rue this day,’ he raged. ‘We had here a chance to stop the horrors that are moving steadily towards England. Playing games with politics has doomed us all.’

The spymaster’s graven expression was a warning of the punishment that awaited the young playwright. ‘When we return to the Palace of Whitehall, you will tell me all you know. But you will speak to no one else of what you discovered in Reims, do you understand?’

Dismally, Marlowe nodded. ‘And what of poor Devereux? This last day has destroyed him.’

‘Set him free,’ Walsingham said, turning on his heels and striding towards the cabin. ‘He has lost his wits. What harm can he do?’