fight?'
'Spanish agents.' Walsingham was unmoved by Will's concerns, even though he knew the risks involved.
Hiding his irritation, Will noted the innocence in Miller's face. 'If we encounter the Enemy, the shock may prove too great for him.'
'Then you must provide a quick lesson.'
'Quick lessons do not work. You know that. It takes time to accept that the world is not the way any of us are brought up to believe. The mind and heart are both fragile things, easily broken, repaired with the greatest difficulty, if at all.'
'That is the way God made us, Master Swyfte. He is your charge now. I have faith you will see him right.'
Walsingham returned to Leicester, who swaggered along the ranks of his men, enjoying the eyes of the public upon him. Urgently summoning Mayhew and the others, Will led them from the churchyard, past the shop where the fashionable London men bought their pouches of the New World tobacco, to a quiet spot beyond the bookstalls.
An incandescent rage appeared to be permanently burning just beneath Carpenter's skin. Unconsciously tracing a fingertip down the pink scar tissue on his face, he said, 'Why did Walsingham see fit to throw us together?'
'I think he feels you will keep my feet on the ground, John.'
'That I will do.'
Turning his attention to Miller, Will shook his hand. 'Tom. Lord Walsingham has only good words for you. I am Will Swyfte.'
'I know you.' A hint of awe laced the young man's words.
Snorting derisively, Carpenter pretended to inspect Saint Paul's Cross where a wild-eyed, grey-haired man prepared to deliver a sermon.
'You will have heard about some of our work,' Will continued, 'but know this: you may well see things across the course of this day that you find ... puzzling ... troubling-'
'Frightening,' Mayhew interjected, staring at his boots.
'There is an explanation, and you will get it when our work is done,' Will continued. 'Till then, anything you see that makes little sense must be put from your mind. Do you understand?'
Baffled, Miller nodded.
'Let me put it another way,' Launceston said in his precise, aristocratic tones, 'if you fail to keep a steady course, and place us in danger, I will slit your throat as surely as I would an enemy's, and leave you where you fall for the rats to feast on.'
Miller turned almost as white as Launceston.
'Steady now,' Will said. 'We must not go bragging about the speed and size of our blades. For I would win. Listen with care, for we have a matter to test even the greatest swords of Albion.'
By the time Will finished explaining the task that lay ahead, Nathaniel had returned with a large, foul-smelling sack. From it, he distributed various items of clothing.
'What is this?' Mayhew clutched a hand to his mouth. 'Foul vinegar rags stolen from the backs of three-day- dead beggars?'
'Master Mayhew, you are known around London as a man of exquisite taste for the finery of your dress,' Will said. 'But if you walk into Alsatia as a gallant, flashing that costly silk lining of your cloak, you will find yourself a honeypot for bees with a deadly sting.'
In the cramped carriage on the road to Fleet Street, they quickly changed into the stinking rags, with much complaining from Mayhew and stoic acceptance from Launceston. Miller was eager, but Carpenter made a show of the mass of scar tissue that covered his back and left arm, casting sullen glares towards Will.
When they were done, Nathaniel said, 'I have never seen ... nor smelled a more convincing group of foul beggars. You wear it well.'
'I hear the buzzing of a gnat, Master Swyfte.' Launceston sniffed. 'I will swat it if I see it.'
The carriage trundled to a halt next to a tiny alley where rats ran and clouds of flies swarmed in shafts of sunlight. 'From here there is danger every step of the way,' Will said. 'We will be surrounded by people who would gladly slit our throats for a shiny button, but they are the least of our worries. The Enemy races to reach the Silver Skull before us.' Will glanced down the alley to where it wound away into shadow. 'And they come like the night. We must watch each other's backs.' Will cast an eye towards Carpenter, who pretended not to notice. 'Good luck, boys. We go for queen and country, and wine and a warm embrace when we are done. Let nothing keep us from our just rewards.'
Leaping from the carriage, he plunged straight into the alley.
The boundaries of Alsatia were clearly demarcated by a piercing whistle from an unseen watchman somewhere near the rooftops. Heads held low by the weight of a harsh life, furtive eyes cast down, Will and the other beggars limped and stumbled in a tight knot, faces smeared with dirt they had scraped up on the way.
While the rest of London was filled with colour, noise, and life, on the boundaries Alsatia was eerily still. Stone tenements blackened by smoke and the accumulation of centuries of filth rose up four stories high. Overhanging upper floors on some of the newer buildings meant that little sun reached the rutted, puddled, narrow streets where a thin, grey light leached the colour from everything. Smoke blew back and forth along the byways like a constant fog from the blocked chimneys of the many who could not afford the services of a sweep.
On the fringes, the houses appeared deserted, the stink of excrement drifting from shattered windows and ragged doors. But as they progressed towards the heart of the quarter, life began to appear, in ones and twos at first, talking in hushed tones in the entrances to alleys, or slumped on doorsteps watching with mean eyes. The clothes were brown and grey and muddygreen, rough cloth, hard worn, wide-brimmed felt hats that could hide the features, pale skin and stubble, filthy fingernails. The women hung out of windows, faces lashed pink by the elements, hair prematurely grey. The doxies barely bothered to dress after each short, grunting encounter, pendulous breasts hanging out of torn, filthy dresses, makeup applied so halfheartedly it appeared to be the work of children, turning each one into a rouge and cream grotesque, a pastiche of sexual attraction. It did not appear to deter the men. The doxies carried out their trade on the street, against a wall, or on their backs in hallways, doors thrown wide, skirts pulled high, their faces implacable as the men thrust into them, sweating and cursing.
'Animals,' Launceston said under his breath.
The stink grew more intense with each step. Rubbish was piled as high as a man on either side of every door, scraps of rotting meat, and bones, and vegetables, and the dung of animals, and the contents of chamber pots. Every heap was alive with rats. They carpeted the streets, swarming away from approaching feet to return a moment later. Clouds of flies filled the air, and white maggots glistened in the half-light.
As Will led the way, the piercing whistles followed them, but their tone was merely observational and not insistent.
Gangs of men flowed past them, ready for an afternoon's work seeking out the country gulls and foreign visitors who would be more amenable to the nip and foist relieving them of their gold-stuffed purses. They would prowl Saint Paul's, all the bowling alleys and ordinaries, the brothels, baiting rings, and theatres, seeking out their likely marks.
Everywhere was the glint of knives and cold, hard eyes. Will felt their gazes on his back, heard the rustle of whispers in his wake, but it passed as he knew it would; earning a dishonest living took precedence over the searching of a few beggars.
'Do you hear that?' Mayhew brought them to a slow halt, cocking his head to listen to some sound that escaped the rest of them. All they heard was the wind beneath the eaves, the occasional frightened shout in the distance, and the murmur of plotting voices every now and then.
'What do you hear?' Will caught sight of Mayhew's oddly troubled face.
'Music?' He strained to catch it. 'The playing of some flute just beneath the wind, or behind it, or part of it?'
'Why bother yourself with that, you fool?' Carpenter growled. 'They make merry here like the rest of us.'
'No, I have heard it before.' Mayhew appeared to be trying to recall a fading dream. 'At ... the Tower?'
Miller had picked up on Mayhew's unease. 'Why should a flute trouble you so?'
''Tis nothing,' Will interrupted. 'Do not jump at shadows. There are harder dangers to concern you.'
