The Scar-Crow Men

Will clenched his fist in defiance. ‘Then we must stop more blood being spilled. I suppose you could not tell me the identity of the face behind the devil-mask?’

‘In his appearance you already know his nature, and through nature one can divine a man.’ The hunched prisoner levelled his gaze at a scurrying rat. It stopped in its tracks, held fast by the glare. After a moment, it fell on its side, dead. Devereux tossed it into a corner where it landed with a dull thud. ‘I know many things, but I have little to gain by telling you,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘You are scared of them, then. The Fay,’ Will taunted, hiding his frustration.

The prisoner gave a broad, dark grin. ‘Their agents dare not come near here,’ he whispered.

‘Who are their agents?’ Will’s eyes narrowed. He felt his anger grow at each of Devereux’s new obfuscations and deceits.

‘There is a play, performed in recent times at the Rose Theatre-’

‘If it was staged in recent times, how do you know of it?’ the spy interrupted sharply.

Devereux huddled even closer to the stinking, straw-covered floor and intoned in a low, resonant voice:

‘ Here, said they, is the Terror of the French

The Scar-Crow that affrights our children so.

Then broke I from the officers that led me,

And with my nails digged stones out of the ground,

To hurl at the beholders of my shame.

My grisly countenance made others fly,

None durst come near for fear of sudden death.’

‘More riddles,’ Will said scornfully. ‘You waste my time.’

‘Do I?’ The prisoner began to crawl around the cell, flashing occasional glances back at him. ‘There is a school that meets at night, wise men, artists, thinkers, and your good friend Kit was one of them. Yes, he had a secret life you never knew about. And they plot and they plan and they know more than you. And the writer of those words had heard of these agents, though he likely did not know the full truth, or he would have run screaming from his room and created no more fictions.’

Will laughed. ‘These are your fictions.’

‘Mine? No, all true.’ Devereux pressed his hands together in a mockery of prayer. ‘And here is another: if you would stop the agents you must find the Corpus-Scythe.’

‘And what is that?’

‘A tool, a weapon, a way for the Unseelie Court to control their puppets. For if the agents ever turned they could destroy all things, even the Fay.’

The spy listened to the cryptic comments Devereux made — the Terror of the French, the school that meets at night — and while they all hinted at a greater mystery, he felt only anger at the elusive nature of what he had been told.

Will stepped close to the bars.

The beast-like man turned suddenly, leaping like a cat towards the spy, mouth torn wide, spraying spittle and rat-blood. A rolling, ferocious snarl echoed off the brick walls. Will stood his ground, watching the prisoner rush towards him, hands like claws to tear out his throat.

At the very last, the spy stepped back. As both of Devereux’s hands reached through the bars, Will grabbed the wrist of one with his left hand, and with his right drove his dagger through the protruding palm. He continued his thrust, forcing the blade through the palm of the hand he gripped and continuing upwards with all his weight behind it until he had both of the prisoner’s hands impaled high over his head.

Roaring in agony, the creature realized he couldn’t escape, but still he writhed and tore until the blood rushed down his arms.

Will pressed his face close, smelling his opponent’s meaty breath. ‘I care nothing for you, or your life,’ he growled. ‘I have no time for your games. I seek only revenge for my friend’s death, and I will not be deflected.’

Those hideous black eyes loomed ever closer. ‘I will tell you nothing,’ Devereux snarled.

The spy twisted the knife.

Though he convulsed in pain, the possessed man remained silent, and when the agony passed he was eerily calm.

‘Who are the Unseelie Court’s agents?’ Will asked, just as calm.

Defiant, Devereux held his gaze for a moment, and then replied, ‘The Scar-Crow Men, and they are everywhere.’

‘How do I know them?’

‘You do not. They look like people you know, perhaps your own friends. But they are not. They are made of straw, or clay, or this, or that. You can trust no one. No one.’

Suddenly Will understood Kit’s exhortation in the note that accompanied his play. Trust no one. And suddenly he glimpsed some of the meaning behind the vision the devil had given him in the Rose Theatre.

A faint smile told him that his opponent had revealed the information only to cause further distress, unease, perhaps fear, or despair.

The black eyes narrowed. ‘Torture me all you will, but you harm only Devereux.’

‘What are you?’ Will asked with quiet intensity.

‘You know. In the dark of the night, when you fear the worst there is of life, you know.’

The spy ripped out his dagger and the prisoner fell away from the bars, rolling back across the dirty straw to coil like a beast once more. ‘I would tell you one more thing, given freely,’ he said, ‘for the more you progress into the heart of this thing, the more misery awaits you. And I would see you suffer.’

‘Tell me,’ Will said icily.

‘All you seek springs from one event.’ Devereux crawled forward to press his face against the bars, distorting his features monstrously as he peered at Will through the gap. ‘Follow the marsh-lights back through time. Follow that small trail. You will find it for yourself.’ His mouth split in a grin that was more hunger than humour, the teeth yellow and stained with blood.

‘You think you drive me towards destruction. You do not,’ the spy said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

‘You are already on the road and you do not see it. But you will. And soon.’ Devereux looked just past Will’s left shoulder and said, ‘Ride him well, coz, when the time comes.’

The hairs prickled on the nape of Will’s neck. Despite himself, he glanced back to see if the Keeper had entered the cell silently. There was no one behind him.

‘You are no longer alone,’ Devereux taunted. ‘You have a companion now, always there, one step behind, guiding, whispering, waiting. Your own devil. For as your friend saved you, he also damned you.’

‘This time your lies are too crude,’ Will snorted.

‘Your ending is already written, Master Swyfte, by the man you trusted most, and the final word is damnation.’ Devereux’s fat, shining tongue flicked out like a snake’s. He still had not blinked.

‘I choose my own ending,’ Will stated emphatically.

As he left the cell, the door closed firmly behind him, he heard Devereux begin a keening wail, desolate and haunting like hungry birds over a lonely moor. It followed Will up to the Abraham Ward where the crazed patients watched him in eerie silence, their eyes oddly fixed a pace behind his back, and the sound only ended when he was out of the gloomy building and into the hot sun of the new day.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Jenny is still alive.

Grace woke with a start. She was still caught up in her dreams, visions of shadowy figures, and a man with a shimmering head like the moon, and, oddly, her sister Jenny calling to her across a vast expanse of water. Jenny, whom she had not seen since she was a girl, but who still seemed as young and vibrant as the day she