CHAPTER THREE
LIVERPOOL TUMBLED AWAY down the hillside towards the River Merse where the thick fog bank held its breath, waiting. Yet above the town the night was clear, the Everton Beacon stark against the starry sky. Moonlight limned the blue-tiled rooftops. Candle flames glowed in diamond-pane windows. Here was life, grubby and bloody and loud. Down on James Street, not far from the black bulk of the Old Castle, packs of sailors roamed like dogs from stew to tavern, lured by the fresh meat calls of the competing whores displaying their breasts in the lamplit doorways. Snarls and snapping punctuated the drunken laughter. Bruised knuckles crashed against jaws as rivals brawled, rolling among the contents of emptied chamberpots to the baying of their yellow-toothed fellows.
Liverpool stank of brine and cesspits and smoke.
One desperate doxy keen to earn her bed for the night ventured into the shadowed alley where she had glimpsed three men lurking. From the gloom, John Carpenter watched her approach. Pulling down the front of her dirty emerald dress, the rouge-smeared woman put on a seductive smile. ‘Come hither, lads,’ she called, hands on hips. ‘The comfort of these thighs will give you sweet dreams when you’re tossing away on the waves.’
When she saw one of the men step from the enveloping dark, she breathed a relieved sigh. Carpenter knew her thoughts: a few moments of grunting was a small price to pay for a good night’s rest. And the well-cut grey doublet and grey woollen cloak, free of stains and wear, suggested a gentleman, no less. Then a shaft of light from the lantern over the door of the White Hart struck his companion’s face and she all but cried out. His skin was bloodless, and his dark eyes held a hellish glow.
‘Away, you pox-ridden whore,’ Robert, Earl of Launceston, ordered in a voice like autumn leaves. ‘Trouble us no more or feel the prick of my dagger – and not the kind you are used to.’
Realizing it was a man after all and no grim spectre, the doxy cursed at the shock she had been given. She turned to summon the sailors to teach this elf-skinned scut a lesson. Before she could cry out, Carpenter leapt from the shadows and placed one hand on her mouth to stop her. His hazelnut doublet was of a rougher cut than his fellow’s, but still clean, and though his long, dark hair fell oddly across the left side of his face, he eased a charming smile on to his lips to soothe her. He pressed a silver coin into her grimy palm and released his hand from her mouth.
‘My friend has poor manners, mistress. He knows not what it is like to work hard for a living,’ he said, with a bow. ‘Take this and buy yourself a night off your back.’
The woman giggled and curtsied, flashing one fleeting murderous glare at the Earl as she darted towards the inn to spend her earnings on drink. Once she had gone, Carpenter turned on the noble and hissed, ‘Sometimes I think you are more of a threat than our enemies.’
‘I am heartened to learn that you think. ’Twas my assumption that you had the wits of a hound, running round in circles yapping and baring your teeth before hunting for food and sleep.’ The Earl peered past his fellow spy with studied disinterest, searching the passing faces for the missing Dee. He was a gaunt man, slim but powerful, yet even those who did not know him recognized that there was something askew, something strange about the way his cold gaze penetrated as though he were peering through skin and muscle to see the sticky organs within, or the manner in which his hand twitched towards his hidden dagger with unsettling regularity.
‘I should give thanks that you did not slit her throat there and then,’ Carpenter sneered. He pulled his black cap low over his eyes. ‘One full day without you trying to skewer an innocent. Let us celebrate!’ He felt weary from the effort of restraining his companion’s murderous instincts and exhausted by the lonely, unceasing work of the spy. He wanted to be free of that world; even the mundane life of a book-keeper held its attractions, or that of a tailor. Anything. Unconsciously, he scratched the scars that marred his face beneath the fall of his hair, the mark of the thing that had attacked him in Muscovy and a constant reminder of the price this business exacted from him.
‘You bicker like old women,’ the third man in the alley whispered. Tobias Strangewayes was new to their band, as raw as a country apprentice. Red-headed and wiry, the younger man had fancied himself as good a spy and swordsman as Will Swyfte. But when he discovered the true nature of the threat they faced, his arrogance was blunted. Strangewayes still thought highly of himself; he proudly showed off the blue silk lining of his cloak, like some fop parading in Paul’s Walk, but Carpenter knew he could be relied upon in a fight.
‘And you keep a civil tongue in your head or else I will cut it out,’ Launceston breathed. Strangewayes scowled in response.
The strain was taking its toll on all of them, Carpenter could see, those wearying hours in the saddle riding north from Nonsuch Palace, and then the futile search for Dee through Liverpool’s dingy streets. They were starting to tear at each other like caged curs. Blades needed to be drawn and traitors carved, blood stirred and thoughts that fed upon themselves driven out.
‘We are all defined by our nature,’ he muttered to himself.
‘Since dawn we have watched these streets without any reward,’ Strangewayes complained. ‘That Irish slut has taken to her rooms, wherever they might be, and she will stay there until she can board the ship with her prize and gain the protection of a crew of cock-led apple-johns.’
‘And then it will be too late,’ Carpenter snapped. ‘We will never see Dee again, and this land will be overrun by the things that walk with printless feet and cast no shadows on this earth. And then you, you red-headed puttock, will know what it is like to thrash in the throes of a nightmare from which you can never wake.’
‘I am a good Christian man, and I have the shield of God above to protect me,’ the younger spy announced, his chin raised in defiance of his seasoned companions.
Launceston and Carpenter exchanged a glance and each gave a dismissive shrug.
‘You have no faith in anything,’ Strangewayes continued, his cheeks growing red. ‘You drink to excess, you gamble, you dally with whores . . .’
‘The world is harsh and you must take comfort wherever you find it,’ Carpenter said, secretly wishing he had the other man’s spirit.
‘My heart is only for Grace. I need no other woman.’ The red-headed spy pushed past the two other men and strode to the edge of the reeking alley. ‘I believe there is more to this life than the filth and the misery we see around us. A higher purpose, hidden yet in plain sight, if we only had eyes to see it.’
‘You are a true spy,’ Launceston mocked in a dry tone, ‘always seeing a face behind the one presented to the world.’
‘The plan has not yet been revealed to us, but that does not mean it is not there. And, yes, we are spies and we should be used to peering beneath the surface for deeper truths. But you two have been worn down by the meagre diet of deceit and death. You turn your eyes away from the light and see only shadows.’
Carpenter could not disagree.
‘Hrrrm.’ The familiar breathy sound, like a death rattle, rolled along the alleyway; Launceston had seen something that had struck him as curious.
‘What is it?’ Carpenter asked.
The Earl was looking up at the thin sliver of night sky between the eaves where a few stars sparkled. ‘Someone passed overhead,’ he said.
‘On the rooftops?’
Launceston nodded.
Carpenter joined Strangewayes and the Earl at the edge of the alley and craned his neck up. The rooftops were a jumble of thatch and tile and plain wood, a silhouetted confusion of angular shapes against the lighter sky. Conditioned by years of strife, the spy feared the worst. The three men spun in a slow gyre, searching the eaves. ‘Nothing,’ Carpenter said after a moment. ‘You were mistaken.’