‘Back home?’ the first began. His next word was drowned out by a terrible roaring. The three men shrieked as one.
Meg folded into the spy’s body, glancing fearfully through the arch where the hellish fires blazed. The men scrambled backwards, their yells unintelligible beneath the deafening rage of their attacker. Will heard the thing race up the bridge, and then there was a sound like ripping silk again and again and again. The screams of the three men pierced the night.
Something fell into the stream with a loud splash. When the water settled, Will saw the dead eyes of one of the villagers staring back at him, the mouth wide in terror.
The cries became whimpers and gradually died away, but the crunch and spatter continued a while.
Then silence fell.
The spy realized he had stopped breathing. Meg was rigid too. Will tried to imagine the predator standing above his head, caught in the lamp of the moon, stained red from head to toe. Was it licking its lips? Was it looking hungrily to where the rest of the hunting party searched? Or was it listening slyly, waiting for Will to emerge from hiding?
Now he could hear the frightened, questioning voices of the other villagers following the screams of the dying men. The thing must have decided it had no further appetite for slaughter, for Will heard it turn and lope from the bridge along the lane in the opposite direction.
‘We must be away from here before we are discovered,’ the spy whispered.
His companion was loath to move and pressed her back against the stone of the arch, but Will grabbed her cold hand and gently eased her away. Within a moment they were splashing along the stream, scrambling over slippery rocks down the channel between the meadows.
Horrified shouts echoed through the dark behind them as the villagers found their fallen friends. ‘God’s wounds,’ one man exclaimed. ‘The Devil is abroad this night.’
And Will could not deny it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
‘You can never outrun the thing that the Unseelie Court has set on your trail,’ Meg warned, her mood dark as she wrung out the hem of her bedraggled skirts. A boiling July sun was beating down on the barleyfields edging the stream where the Irish woman and Will were resting. They had sought the shade of an ash tree five miles away from the bloody bridge.
‘Then I will stand and fight.’ His legs weary from the long run, the spy watched the lonely countryside for any sign of movement.
‘This is not just any foe,’ the woman pressed. ‘It is one of their hunters. I have seen them at their murderous work, pursuing my countrymen through the forests. They never stop until they have their prey.’
‘I have killed their kind before,’ Will said bluntly, ‘and I can do so again.’
Meg snorted, dragging her fingers through her damp, tangled auburn hair. ‘You are a stubborn man.’
‘What do you suggest? That I roll over and die?’
After a moment’s pause, the woman ventured, ‘Come away with me to Europe. I have seen your worth. There is good pay to be had for men and women of our skills. Spies are always in demand at the courts of great nations. We can change our names, our appearances, and with England fallen, the Unseelie Court will not care about two poor, bedraggled mortals.’ With studied, heavy-lidded eyes, she breathed into his ear, ‘We could become rich. More than that, we could experience many delights in each other’s company.’
‘Your offer is tempting, Mistress O’Shee, but I will not abandon England.’ Will could not tell his companion of the notion that truly set him afire: the one slip in his tormentor’s subtle assault when death seemed close in the plague pit, the hint that Jenny still survived in a hot land across the sea.
‘Ho! What have we here?’
Will leapt to his feet, on guard in an instant. He was looking straight into the barrel of a musket.
On top of the bank across the stream, four armed men and a woman in dirty, ragged clothes levelled their weapons. The men were old soldiers, morion helmets tied under their chins with red tape, their bodies encased in mud-splattered corselets with tassets to protect their thighs. Two carried matchlocks, the rest rapiers. Wearing filthy grey skirts and only a corset on top, the woman stood with one hand on her hip. From the knowing look in her eye and the brazen way she held herself, Will guessed she was a doxy.
‘Have ye not heard,’ the man at the front said with a sneering smile, ‘’tis not safe to travel along the byways of England. Rogues and ruffians wait at every turn. But for a small contribution, we can ensure safe passage for you through these dangerous fields.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Unless, of course, ye be Will Swyfte, in which case there is more than a pretty penny to be had.’
Will sized up the soldier, noting the easy stance and the confident gleam in his eye, and the cheeks flayed by the elements that suggested he had been living rough for a long time. Was he one of the disenchanted soldiers returned from Sir Francis Drake’s failed attack upon Portugal four years earlier? One of those who had caused such violent trouble in London during the Bartholomew Fair?
‘Oh, please, sir, do not harm us,’ Meg protested, instantly adopting a terrified expression. She skipped lightly across the stream to the side of the footpad.
‘Leave now,’ Will said in a calm voice, his eyes locked on his opponent’s, ‘and you will not be harmed.’
The man shook his head in incredulity while his companions fell about in mocking laughter. With a shrug, Will drew his rapier. The group fell silent, their faces darkening.
‘Fool,’ the outspoken footpad muttered. He went to strike his flint to ignite the fuse of his matchlock, but before a spark had flown Meg had knocked the musket from his hands, thrusting her dagger towards his neck. The doxy lunged for the Irish woman, but was brought down in a flash when a small fist rammed against her jaw.
Will bounded across the stream and drove the tip of his rapier into the wrist of the soldier fumbling with the other matchlock. As the footpad fell back, howling, the spy turned his blade on the remaining two men.
‘Drop your weapons or I will kill your leader,’ Meg spat, her face now hard, the edge of her dagger digging into the exposed throat of her opponent.
‘Kill him, then,’ one of the other men muttered, his eyes darting from Will’s sword to his mate.
‘Honour among thieves,’ the spy said in an acid tone. ‘Come on, then. Let us finish this now.’
Floating over the meadows came the rhythmic tinkling of bells and the sound of rich, deep voices singing in a strange language. ‘Moon-Men,’ one of the footpads whispered to his mate. ‘They will cut out our hearts and eat them if they catch us here.’
Sheathing their swords, the two men scrambled up the bank and were soon racing away through the ripening barley. The dazed doxy and the other old soldiers followed close behind.
‘What scared them so?’ Meg mused as she watched the robbers disappear into the sun.
‘Footpads are all cowards,’ Will replied, plucking up the dropped matchlock. He held out a hand to his companion, who took it with a playful curtsey and they made their way back across the stream and up the bank.
‘We make a good team, Master Swyfte. No enemy could stand against us,’ the woman said. ‘We would be rich in no time.’
‘Or dead. For we both throw caution to the wind.’
The sound of the bells and the singing drew nearer. Just beyond the hedgerow a large crowd of people processed along a lane. Poised in thought, Will listened to the music as he watched the bobbing heads pass slowly by. Brilliant scarlets, golds and azure blues blazed among the greenery of the countryside. He saw an opportunity.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘let us have some pleasant company and conversation.’
As they set off across the meadow, Will glanced back at the open countryside. He had the uncomfortable feeling of eyes upon him. Their pursuer had found them again, he was sure, and was biding its time until nightfall.
