The devil-masked murderer had to be found and stopped before the final defences fell.
Glancing around uneasily, Carpenter muttered, ‘Since you mentioned those Unseelie Court bastards were close at hand … close enough to look us in the eyes … I see them in every shadow. Hell’s teeth, I am like a child! Why don’t they show themselves and I can plunge my steel into their guts?’
‘Do not wish it upon yourself, John. The Enemy will strike soon enough.’ Will eyed the dark areas of the cathedral, as uneasy as his companion. ‘It is these Scar-Crow Men that trouble me more. Fay agents who can pass as human, or humans who have sided with the Enemy? I do not know how much of Devereux’s words I can trust. But one thing is for sure, now we have to watch our own kind too.’ He shook his head, concerned.
Carpenter grunted. ‘We are alone, then. There is nowhere we can be sure we are safe.’
Will could not argue.
After a break, the scarred man continued with his work.
Thoom, thoom, thoom.
Will cursed himself for jumping at shadows all day. As he had slipped through the city gates after leaving Bedlam, two pikemen in shining steel helmets were chatting lazily in the sun, but another watched Will as if he had committed some crime. On Corn Hill, a man in an emerald-coloured cap with a band of black and white triangles paused suddenly in his walk to turn and stare at Will in an accusatory manner. Brought to a halt by a flock of sheep being driven to market, a lawyer in a black gown and carrying a purple-ribboned sheaf of papers had glowered at him. The wife of a wealthy merchant had watched him from the first floor of one of the large houses lining Cheapside. A gentleman in a furred compass cloak engaged in buying a mutton pie from one of the street sellers locked eyes with him for a long moment.
Imagination or truth? Had the Unseelie Court already all but won and no one yet knew?
Thoom, thoom, thoom.
Will was drawn from his reverie as Carpenter came to a halt. In the summer heat, sweat trickled down the scarred man’s brow and soaked his doublet. The iron rod they had recovered from the cathedral tool store in the crypt was now jammed in the fractured joint between two flags. Gripping the top of the rod, the two men heaved together, and with a deep, resonant grinding the stone was levered free. Beneath was a layer of gravel and rubble that the masons had used to level the floor after the interment.
With the shovel they had also brought from the store, Will began to dig with determined strokes until the tool clanged against the stone that lay above the narrow burial vault. The spies paused, listening to the echoes roll out through the vast space. Along the nave, the ghostly figure of Launceston glanced back their way.
‘If I am to lose my head for this, my dying breath will be a curse to damn you to hell,’ Carpenter snarled.
‘Why this is hell, nor am I out of it,’ Will recalled, but there was a bitter note to the humour in his voice.
The scarred man only snorted, his gaze fixed on the stone covering now revealed. After a moment, he asked in a quiet voice, ‘What possesses you to do this? None of us could call Sir Francis Walsingham friend, but surely he deserves better than to have his rest disturbed?’
Tossing the shovel aside, Will plucked up the iron rod. ‘The dead are gone from this world. My concerns are for the living,’ he muttered. He drove the rod into the dusty groove along the edge of the scratched covering. ‘Why did Kit choose this grave to leave his message?’
‘Because he knew the defacement of our former master’s final resting place would eventually draw our attention,’ Carpenter said with a shrug.
‘That is one answer.’ Drawing a deep breath, Will prepared to put his weight against the rod. ‘Like all writers, Master Marlowe played tricks with words. In his hands, they often meant more than one thing at the same time. In the beginning, he wrote, here. A clue to the solution of the message he hid in his play, I am sure. The word. The keyword to his cipher. But I also feel he wanted us to look here for the beginning of this plot, or one beginning. There is usually more than one as events