‘Where are they?’ Carpenter roared, waving his blade for good measure. One of the doxies pointed to the fourth door, which hung ajar. The red-faced man threw himself against the wall as Carpenter crashed by. The spy kicked open the door and dashed inside.
By the flame of a single candle, the desperate man saw that the sparsely furnished room was empty. The window hung open, the sticky scent of the hot night drifting inside. He felt a void within him. Fearing he would see Alice broken in the alley below, or worse, fearing he would not see her at all, he pushed his head out into the night.
‘John?’
At the sound of the hesitant voice, the spy felt a heady rush that exceeded his most drunken night. He spun round to see Alice crawling out from beneath the bed, and within a moment he had her tight in his arms. ‘Clever girl,’ he whispered. ‘You saved yourself.’
‘Clever girl?’ Launceston stood in the doorway, his pale face a cold mask. ‘This foolish mare may well have damned us all.’
‘Do not speak to her that way!’ Carpenter thrust his blade towards his companion.
‘I only came to warn you, John. The Privy Council have branded you … and Robert … traitors, as they did your friend Will. There is a price on your head. The whole of London will be looking for you soon.’
‘It is too late now.’ The Earl’s unblinking stare lay heavy upon his companion.
‘Say one more word about her and I will run you through,’ Carpenter replied, his voice trembling. Turning to Alice, he exchanged a few quiet words of comfort and once he was sure she could return safely to Nonsuch, he saw her on her way.
Carpenter found Launceston waiting for him in the cobbled square next to the market. Pennebrygg was gone. The ragged remains of his ear was still nailed to the post.
His fists bunching, Carpenter stormed towards his companion. ‘Do not criticize me. I did what I did out of love. You would never understand that.’ He saw the familiar flare of blood lust in the Earl’s eyes, but he could not hold back. ‘Nothing matters to you apart from your own all-consuming urges.’
Somehow Launceston restrained himself.
Carpenter’s shoulders sagged. ‘You will never change — there will only be blood until they finally catch up with you and mount your head above Tower Bridge. I have ruined my life keeping your hunger contained, Robert, and it was all for nothing. It means nothing to you. I only wish to be free.’
The Earl looked towards the empty post as if he had not heard a word his companion had said. ‘This play is almost over,’ he whispered. ‘The players are about to leave the stage. And when they are gone, there will be no applause. Only silence.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Hiding in the alcove midway along the Grand Gallery, Tom Barclay watched the door to the throne room suspiciously. He was a bear of a lad, with muscles built from carrying sides of beef in the kitchens and shouldering barrels of ale in the cellars, but he had enough grace to creep along empty corridors without drawing attention to himself. Like everyone in Nonsuch, he had been caught up in the potent stew of mistrust and doubt that filled the palace from morning to night, and so when he glimpsed Elinor, the Queen’s maid of honour, leading a hooded figure through the silent passages at first light, he had feared the worst.
The kitchen ovens could do without him for a while, the young man decided. If he discovered something of import, he might be rewarded by the Privy Council, perhaps Her Majesty herself.
The throne-room door creaked open and Elinor slipped out alone. Tom thought there was something almost rat-like about her in the way she scurried, shoulders slightly hunched, casting sly glances all around. He imagined her with whiskers and tiny paws, two sharp front teeth protruding over her bottom lip. He had never liked her.
Once the woman had disappeared at the far end of the gallery, the kitchen lad eased out of the alcove and crept along the panelled wall to the door. It stood ajar. No sound came from within.
Peeking through the gap, Tom saw the hooded figure standing in front of the large, silver-framed mirror on the far wall. He could see now it was a woman, her head slightly bowed as if in deep thought. The rest of the chamber was empty apart from the low dais on which the Queen’s throne sat. Determined to discover the identity of the mysterious woman, he dropped low and crept around the edge of the door.
After a moment, the woman let out a deep sigh which appeared to echo loudly in the stillness of the chamber. She raised her head and removed her hood.
The young lad was shocked to see it was the Queen. She wore her fiery red wig and had applied her white make-up, which he always found gave her an unsettling corpse-like appearance. She looked as tired as he had seen her on every occasion recently, her shoulders slightly hunched, her arms hanging limply at her side and her eyes containing a faraway look as if she were drifting in a daze.
Afraid that he would be seen, Tom began to creep out. But then he glimpsed something troubling.
The mirror.
At first, the young lad couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. The Queen’s reflection stared back at her, but this Elizabeth held her head proudly, her eyes flashing, and a darkly knowing smile played on her lips. And she was not alone. In the looking glass, elegantly tall, pale-skinned figures stood around the monarch. Tom saw they wore doublets and bucklers and robes that harked back to a different time, and their eyes blazed with an unnatural light. The man who stood next to the Queen was slender, with long silver hair streaked black down the centre. The lad was terrified by the unaccountable cruelty he saw in that face. The figure clutched what Tom at first took to be an ape, but it was hairless and its eyes glowed golden in the early light.
Tom felt a rush of dread as he recalled every terrifying story he had heard on dark nights by the hearth. But he was caught fast by that eerie sight.
The silver-haired man gave a small, victorious smile to the true Elizabeth, and mouthed the word, ‘Soon.’
And then young Tom could bear it no more. He bolted from the room, only to run straight into a small crowd waiting just outside the door. Stuttering, he began to recount the terrifying thing he had seen, only for the words to die in his throat. Elinor was there, and Lord Derby of the Privy Council, and Roger Cockayne, the adviser to Sir Robert Cecil, and others he didn’t recognize, but they were all as still as statues, their unblinking gazes fixed upon him.
‘Please help me,’ Tom whispered.
As one, the faces were torn by savagery. The waiting figures became snapping and snarling wild beasts, and they set upon the kitchen lad.
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
