The Scar-Crow Men

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE




‘THE DEVIL!’

Fearful whispers clashed with cries of terror and then resolved into a tumult that tolled relentlessly throughout the echoing corridors of the English College.

‘The Devil!’

‘The Devil!’

‘The Devil has come to Reims!’

Will threw himself from his hard bed and hammered upon the locked door of his chamber, calling to be set free. His shouts were picked up by the other young priests who had yet to be released from their night-prisons, and after a moment a key turned in the lock and the bolt was drawn. When the door was thrown open, an ashen-faced older priest held Will’s gaze with a look of abject despair before he lurched on to the next chamber.

Turning in the direction of the loudest cries, the spy felt a hand on his arm. It was Hugh, his expression etched with concern. ‘Perhaps it would be wise to remain in your chamber,’ the young man suggested. ‘You have not yet allowed God’s great spirit inside you and so you may be vulnerable—’

‘I am strong,’ Will replied. ‘Come.’

Following the throb of conversation, he raced ahead of Hugh past several praying priests to a small crowd gathered around the entrance to the Mary Chapel. Shouldering his way through the unsettled men, Will was greeted by a scene of devastation, pews upended, the altar shattered, candles smashed into shards of wax, iron candlesticks twisted in ways that would require an inhuman show of strength.

And at the end of the chapel the great gold cross had been turned on its head and rammed into the shattered flagstones.

In one corner squatted a young man wearing a priest’s black robes, his arms gripping his knees. Will saw madness in the roaming eyes and the tight grin. The priest’s scalp was bloody where he had clearly torn out handfuls of hair. One bleeding lock still hung from his fingers.

Hugh appeared at the spy’s shoulder. ‘Charles,’ he whispered, crossing himself.

The priest in the corner began to claw at his cheeks with jagged fingernails. ‘Caelitus mihi vires,’ he called, but the resonant voice was that of an old man. The other priests recoiled from the doorway with cries of horror.

My strength is from heaven, Will translated. The devil played his part well.

Stifling a pang of guilt that he was responsible for the priest’s suffering, Will allowed Hugh to lead him back along the corridor where a clutch of grim-faced older priests were approaching from the opposite direction. At the front of the group lumbered the gout-ridden bulk of Father Mathias.

‘Leave this place immediately,’ the limping priest boomed. ‘We shall cast the Devil out of our brother in this house of God and send the thing back to hell with his arse afire.’

As he pushed his way through the younger men to begin the exorcism, Father Mathias’ suspicious eyes fell briefly on Will. Soon it would be a time for accusations and interrogation to determine who had brought the Devil into the seminary. The spy guessed he had the better part of a day before they came for him.

‘Come, Francis, pray with me for the soul of our brother Charles,’ Hugh gently advised.

‘You were right, my friend, and I should have heeded you. This business lies heavily on me. Allow me a while to reflect in solitude in my chamber. I must decide if I am capable of waging this war against the powers of evil.’

When the priest gave a sad, understanding nod and joined the flow of serious young men heading towards the cathedral for mass, Will moved quickly away from the hubbub.

‘Damn you, Mephistophilis,’ the spy muttered. ‘When the time comes for you to drag me down to hell, I will fight you every step of the way.’

Despite his guilt, Will saw that his plan had worked perfectly. Fear lay heavy across the seminary. The priests saw the Devil in every shadow, and the day’s lessons were soon abandoned as the men bustled in confusion, seeking solace from the older priests or rushing to prayer time and again. The spy used the chaos to his advantage, ranging back and forth across the length and breadth of the school in his search for anything that might have raised Marlowe’s suspicions during his stay.

By late afternoon Will had cast a dispassionate eye on teaching chambers filled with stools, the deserted studies of the older priests, the silent library, gloomy chapels, the kitchens, the stores and every other space he could find.

Frustrated, he returned to the cloisters where he watched the lengthening shadows. Chanting floated across the square of grass, punctuated every now and then by curses and screams from poor Charles.

Kit would have followed a trail with the same meticulous attention to detail that he had used to plot his intricate stories. But what had been his first hint?

Will let his attention drift from the shadows plunging across the grassy centre of the sunlit cloister to the aged, carved columns along the walkway. He saw the light and the shade, the natural stone and its hand-worked state. He thought of angels and devils and where he stood ’twixt heaven and hell. And then he considered the two faces he – and all men – presented to the world.

Within a moment his footsteps were echoing off the walls like shots from a matchlock. He found Hugh kneeling at the rear of the cathedral. Barely able to contain his urgency, the spy waited for the younger man to finish his contemplation. When the priest stood, Will said in a tone of hazy confusion, ‘Brother Hugh, I seek your help in my reflections.’

‘I am your servant, Francis. I will do whatever I can to shine a light along the path to God.’

Urging the priest to walk with him, the spy said with one hand to his furrowed brow, ‘Forgive my questions. They may make little sense to you, but my thoughts often lead me on a merry dance. I have been reflecting on this great seminary in which I find myself – this breeding ground of thought. It is very old, no?’

Hugh gave a shrug. ‘Old? Is fifty years old? The Cardinal de Lorraine founded the school through Papal Bull—’

‘Not the school, my friend,’ Will interrupted with a regrettable snap of irritation. ‘The stone and mortar and very fabric of this place. This part of Reims has been a centre of religious thought for many centuries.’

Hugh held open the door for the spy to pass through. ‘Ah,’ the priest said. ‘Then hundreds of years. The cathedral, the basilica, the glorious buildings you see around … outside of Rome you will find no greater monument to Christianity.’

Leading the way back to the seminary, Will continued to feign bafflement. ‘I have heard tell that the old masons who built these glorious structures often made hidden places below the ground, secret chambers to hide treasures in times of strife, or to keep safe the great teachings of God above.’

‘I know why you ask these things.’ The priest’s voice dropped to a lower register as he spoke.

‘You do?’

‘I have heard the same stories. And more besides. They say it is the reason we are locked in our chambers by night … that there is a secret place beneath the cathedral and the seminary where the Devil lives, with a gate to hell itself. Our brothers fight a daily battle to keep the Adversary locked below ground, but there is always the danger he will break through. And so it has proved.’ He rested a hand on Will’s shoulder. ‘I am sorry, Francis. I thought these tales had no more substance than the ones the old wives tell around their hearths. Nor did I wish to frighten you needlessly. Now we should all speak of them so that we remain on our guard.’

Nodding, Will’s thoughts skipped several paces ahead. To lurk beneath the feet of godly men in one of the holiest places in Europe would suit the Unseelie Court’s perverse outlook, the spy decided. The sacred and the profane, joined as one. ‘And of course, no one knows the entrance to these hidden places, should they exist.’

‘No,’ Hugh said in a grim tone that suggested he did not want to discover such a thing.

‘There are records here of the priests who studied?’

‘Of course,’ the younger man replied, curious at this strange question. ‘And copies are sent to Rome.’

So that the Pope knows where his best spies are, Will thought. ‘Take me to them, brother. I have questions about a former priest.’

Puzzled, Hugh led the way to a large chamber at the rear of the seminary, lined with shelves creaking under the weight of parchments and volumes. It was deserted, as Will had expected in the atmosphere of terror that Mephistophilis had brought to the place. The air was filled with the sweet smell of the ink the scribes used to keep their records. Dust motes floated in a shaft of sunlight falling through the small window high on the west wall, but the rest of the chamber was gloomy.

Lighting a candle with his flint, Will searched along the shelves while the young priest waited uneasily at the door. ‘When Brother Cuthbert returns, I am sure he will tell you all you wish to know.’

‘I am sure Brother Cuthbert has more important matters to concern him than my meanderings,’ the spy muttered.

The candle flame illuminated a volume with the date 1587 inscribed on the spine. Removing it from the shelf, Will carried it to a cluttered trestle and flicked through the pages, each one headed by a name, followed by an account of their residence and studies at the seminary. He paused when he came to the name Christofer Marley. Tracing a finger along the flourishing script, he found the location of the playwright’s former chamber and then turned to the priest.

‘I need your help once more, my friend.’ The spy cast a concerned eye at the slant of the sunbeam. The hour was drawing late.

From the silence that had fallen across the seminary, Will knew the rite of exorcism had ended and Father Mathias and his fellow priests would be resting. But not for long.

Like all the other chambers of the young priests, Marlowe’s old room contained a single small window, a bed and a stool. Will’s eyes fell upon the item that held all his hopes, a Bible, well thumbed, the leather spine splitting. Placing the heavy volume on the bed, he turned the pages, scanning each one with a studied eye. The black print fell into a background blur. It was the white space between the lines that drew his attention. And there, in Genesis, he found what he had hoped for, and expected, from a spy as clever and diligent as Kit Marlowe: a single dot above the letter B of beginning.

‘Brother Hugh, I would thank you for the kindness you have shown me since I entered this place. You are a credit to your faith. I apologize now for any misery I may have brought into your house, but needs must when the devil drives.’ A wry smile flickered on to the spy’s lips.

‘You speak as if we will never meet again?’

‘This world is filled with mysteries, my friend, and I would not dare to predict what may happen even one hour hence. But for now I must be left alone with the word of God, to mull over the meaning hidden within.’

‘The meaning is plain, Francis,’ the priest said with a bow.

‘Indeed it is, if one has eyes to see.’ Will stood beside the door, waiting for the other man to leave.

‘I will pray for you, my friend.’

‘Pray for yourself, brother. I already have friends in low places.’

When a confused Hugh departed, the spy returned to the Bible. He doubted Marlowe would have used an obscure keyword for his favourite cipher. The message had been left for any spy who followed in his tracks, and who would need to uncover his secrets.

And there, on the very first page, on the very first line, was the sign: In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The word earth had been underlined.

Good Kit, shunning heaven as always, Will thought.

Once he had located a quill and some ink, the spy knew he could decipher the message in no time. He felt a bittersweet sensation of loss and warmth. His old friend continued to speak to him from beyond the grave, and sometimes, if he allowed himself, Will could almost imagine that Kit had never left.

The thought was quickly drowned by his sense of urgency. Soon Father Mathias would come for him. Soon night would be falling and whatever walked the halls of the seminary after dark would be abroad.

The sands of time were running rapidly through the glass, and he still needed to find the gateway to the underworld so he could begin his descent into hell.