The Silver Skull

CHAPTER 27

cross a desolate moor where the standing stones raised high by ancient people stood against a lambent moon in a starry sky, Will ran. The muffled sound of fiddles and pipes drifted across the gorse and sedge behind him, and a sickly-sweet smell of honeysuckle tainted the warm breeze. Under his feet, vibrations ran through the soft ground accompanied by a dim clanging, like a blacksmith's hammers, never slowing, beating out the shape of his past and his future in dark caverns far below. Then, behind him somewhere, a hunting dog howled, familiar and blood-chilling, and within moments the howl was moving towards him at great speed, and he knew he would never escape his fate ...

He woke in a cold sweat, tied to a chair in a shaft of moonlight breaking through a window. His hidden blade was useless to him, bound as tightly as he was. Beyond the dirty glass, he could see tall stone houses, the windows dark. The dusty boards under his feet were bare, the plaster on the wall crumbling. He could smell damp, and a hint of human decay, but also that familiar underlying scent of honeysuckle. He was in the Fairy House.

The last thing he recalled was standing on the upended side of the carriage, sword in hand, as the black dog attacked. He felt its hot breath, saw its teeth stained with the blood of the driver and horse it had slaughtered ... and then nothing.

As his senses returned, he realised he was not alone. Presences waited, unmoving, in the dark at his back; he couldn't estimate the exact number, but instinctively he felt there were at least three.

"You have me, then," he said.

After a moment of hesitation, the measured tread of boots revealed lion Alanzo, dressed as though for court, in a ruff, a linen shirt, a crimson and gold beaded doublet, padded breeches, and stockings, topped off by a velvet hat at a carefully positioned angle. He rested one hand on the pommel of his sword and studied Will.

"You cut a fine figure, Don Alanzo," Will observed. "If I did not know better, I would think you dressed for royalty."

"I return to Cadiz tomorrow," he replied in his heavy accent. "And then to glory, to the beginning of the end of England. With my prizes in hand."

"Not all your prizes."

"No, one evades me."

"And it will continue to do so."

"I think not." Don Alanzo examined his polished nails with theatrical nonchalance. "Already our agents close upon it. It is only a matter of time before your assistant is located and the Shield returned to us. Edinburgh is not a large city, and the people have no love of an Englishman."

Will stifled a pang of regret that he had placed Nathaniel in danger, and hoped that it was some previously unseen Spanish agents pursuing him and not the Unseelie Court. As he had always feared, his vow to Nathaniel's father continued to haunt him. "Nathaniel has a surprising degree of animal cunning. You may well be disappointed," Will said blithely.

Don Alanzo's lips curved with a faint, mocking smile. "You have not disappointed us yet."

There was much unsaid in the smile. "What are you saying, Don Alanzo?" Gently, Will tested the strength of the bonds around his wrists. As he had expected, they held fast; Don Alanzo would not make any mistakes.

"You recovered the artefact for us, where we and our allies had failed."

Will quickly assimilated Don Alanzo's implication. "You let me escape with Kintour and the cipher."

"Of course. Your reputation is well known. If there is one man in this world who could break a cipher, and overcome the traps of those Templar Knights, it is the great Will Swyfte." His mocking smile grew wider and stated, quite plainly, that Will was not at all great. "Reidheid, who plays both sides in this game, fed you the information we required about the existence of this house, and then it was only a matter of waiting for your arrival."

"A good plan," Will said. "One that I would have been proud to put into effect myself. Except ... one of your allies lies dead ..."

Don Alanzo's features remained unreadable.

"And you do not have the prize you sought," Will continued.

"As I said, only a matter of time."

"Which is what all failures say." Will was pleased to see Don Alanzo flinch. "Your allies are a poor choice, Don Alanzo, and do you no credit. Do you think they would not slit your throat, and every throat in Spain, once you have served their purpose?"

Don Alanzo's eyes flickered towards the unseen presences behind Will. "Do you think we are not aware of that? Shared interests cross boundaries of suspicion."

"Men are judged by the friends they keep."

Don Alanzo laughed. "And we should only ally ourselves with people we like? How naive! Why, Master Swyfte, if that were the case, I think you would struggle to find allies even within your own court."

"We are not talking about the French here, Don Alanzo. Or Venice, or Florence, or the Hapsburgs, or even that weak and feeble Russian, Feodor. The Unseelie Court is a half-starved wolf waiting in your parlour."

"And you think Spain is not? England is a corruption upon the world. Your arrogance spins out of control, standing against God and Rome, overthrowing laws and truces and order whenever it serves your purpose. You are despised by all freethinking men, and soon you will see black sails on the horizon. The dark ship that reeks of rot approaches your land, and it is already too late to turn it back."

Don Alanzo summoned one of those who stood behind Will. The Silver Skull stepped into the shaft of moonlight, his mask glowing with white fire, and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Will.

"Who are you?" Will asked.

"His identity is not important," Don Alanzo said. "There are many people prepared to sacrifice all they have to ensure England is destroyed. It is the sacrifice itself that matters."

"Play the hero in your game. We all do the same," Will said. "In the end, there are only winners and losers."

"Sadly, your role is already defined. If you think the lack of the Shield will slow our plans, you are sorely mistaken. This grand weapon has many uses. While it remains in our hands, you will always be in danger."

"Then my best endeavours will go to returning it to the Tower."

"I think not." Don Alanzo caught the Silver Skull's arm and guided him towards the door. "I take no pleasure in the suffering you are about to endure," he continued. "This is war, and the stakes are high, but still ... You will reveal the whereabouts of the Shield, and then it all ends."

Don Alanzo and the Silver Skull stepped out of the room, and for a while there was no response to Will's mocking questions. At his back, he felt the weight of the remaining people in the room, studying his strengths, mental state, resilience, turning over his flaws and weaknesses, like hunters circling their prey. He knew exactly what was to come.

Finally, Cavillex stepped before him. The superiority Will had witnessed at the palace had been replaced by a cold indifference, though Will thought he sensed an intense rage burning just beneath the surface.

"I have a question: how many of your kind have fallen by a mortal hand?" Will asked blithely.

Cavillex ignored Will's taunting. He was handed a small silver tray, but held it just above Will's line of vision.

"It was surprising. I found it just like killing a man," Will continued. "Or a dog."

"It is a while since you have eaten," Cavillax began. "Would you like a bite, to fill your belly?" From the tray he plucked a fragrant, golden biscuit and wafted it under Will's nose. The scent of honey, butter, and spices filled his senses, and despite himself, Will's hunger magnified unnaturally. "Or a drink of water?" Cavillex poured a goblet of crystal water from a silver jug. Suddenly, Will's throat was as dry as a summer street.

Overwhelmed by the urge to consume the biscuit and water, his head spun, but he forced himself to resist. He knew the consequences of accepting food and drink from the Enemy; he would not forget Kintour.

"Thank you," he said, "but my appetite has fled."

Cavillex leaned in and said quietly, "That would have been the easy road."

"I would give you the gift of a challenge," Will replied. "For life is nothing, if it is not tested."

"No challenge," Cavillex stated.

Behind him, Will could hear the sound of metal upon metal, the clink of objects being arranged upon another tray, the clack and whirr of items being tested. In his head, he began to picture their shape and purpose, and forced himself to stop.

"You will never defeat us," Will said.

"Us?" Cavillex said. "Ah. The brotherhood of man. You think yourself my equal. Of course. Yet in the New World, you treat your own kind like slaves, and slaughter them as if they have no value. As you did the Moors. As you have done, even your own countrymen, over the steady march of the centuries. We stood in our glades, and by our lakes, and on the hilltops, and watched, slack-jawed and silent, as you tore through your fellow creatures. When the Norman, William, invaded your nation, one hundred thousand fell before his will in the north. Thirty thousand dead of starvation in Ireland under your own queen's campaign. How many more have been sacrificed to your pathetic arguments about religion? You are animals falling on each other in the field. You do not deserve to exist."

Will could not deny the sting of truth in Cavillex's words. "That is not the sum of us," he replied.

"What makes a man, then?" Cavillex enquired. "Let us investigate."

Hands grabbed Will's shoulders roughly and flipped his chair backwards. Just at the point when he expected his head to slam against the boards, it came to a gradual rest. A member of the Unseelie Court supported the chair on either side, but he could not see the details of their faces.

Cavillex loomed over him with the water jug. "This gift is given freely, and without obligation," he stated.

He poured the water slowly from the spout, down Will's chest, allowing it to flood across his face and into his breathing passages. It was barely more than a trickle, but Will was forced to inhale it, and instantly he was overcome by a sudden sensation of drowning. His limbs thrashing involuntarily, he tried to draw himself up, but Cavillex's two helpers held him tightly in place. Choking, his attempts to breathe were crushed by an overwhelming feeling of water filling his lungs and of slow suffocation. Darkness closed around his vision and stars flashed across his mind.

When he thought he was about to die, the water flow stopped. Coughing and spluttering, he sucked in a huge gulp of air. His vision cleared to reveal Cavillex an inch away from his face.

"This is just the beginning," he said.

Retreating, Cavillex filled the jug from another source out of Will's sight with a meticulous, slow pouring. Will tried to respond angrily, but his throat was raw from his rasping breath, and the residue of the water in his lungs and nasal passages made him choke once more.

Hanging over Will again, Cavillex said, "Once more, before I begin my questions. To soften you." He poured again.

This time the flow was faster, the water gushing down Will's nose and filling his airways in an instant. He choked, thrashed, could not draw a breath of air as the sensation of the water flooding his lungs magnified.

I'm dying, he thought. It was the only conscious notion before the involuntary responses to drowning took over: a wild panic rising from the heart of him, lashing everything from his head beyond the darkness of death rushing in from all sides. Frantically, he fought, but his captors maintained their grip with ease. A fire consumed his chest. His throat was a solid block through which no air could pass. His brain fizzed and winked out.

When he came round, the chair had been set vertically once more. Uncontrollable convulsions gripped him briefly as his mind fought with the belief that it had died, and the acute sensation of water filling his lungs to capacity. Every time Will recalled it, panic surged through him; the experience had embedded it deep in his mind, beyond his control.

His heart thundered so hard the blood in his ears muffled every sound, and it took him a second or two to realise Cavillex was speaking. "I am told that is what it feels like to drown. You should thank me. I have given you knowledge that few men have: of the dark landscape beyond the edge of death."

"Free me and I will give you an experience beyond that," Will rasped through his raw throat.

"Where is the Shield?" Cavillex asked.

Will didn't respond. Shuddering, he filled his lungs with air and clung on to the memory of breathing.

The chair was upended roughly, and this time his head did slam on the boards. The water gushed onto his face a moment later.

After his ordeal, his consciousness returned in a flood and his furious reaction threw the chair to one side so that he slammed hard onto the floor. His captors left him there.

"What do you know of Dartmoor?" Cavillex asked.

Wrong-footed by the question, Will fought through the sensations of drowning that still washed through him. "Dartmoor?"

"What happened there?"

"I have heard tell of that wild place in the west, but I have never been there."

"What happened there!" Cavillex's voice cracked with emotion. For someone who had maintained his equilibrium from their first meeting, his loss of control was shocking.

"Hunting?" Will ventured. His mind raced to draw connections. Why was Cavillex interested in Dartmoor? What had happened there?

Before he could conclude his thoughts, the chair was flipped over again and the water flooded into his breathing passages with a force he had not experienced before. This time he blacked out quickly.

Cavillex roughly shook him awake. Will could see in his captor's drawn features that he had expected success much quicker.

"How do we break the defences that keep us from exerting our will over your land?" he asked.

"You will have to ask Doctor Dee that."

Taking a step back, Cavillex looked into the street below as he steadied himself. "You know you will not survive this hour. For the remainder of your brief life, there will only be a cascade of pain and suffering, tearing your mind into ribbons. Save yourself. Seek salvation. Tell me what I need to know and you will be spared that misery. I will end your life in an instant. You have my word."

"God gave us memories for when the world gets too harsh. I have much to remember," Will replied.

"Very well."

Will waited for the chair to be upturned again, but instead Cavillex nodded to one of his associates who ventured to the back of the room and returned with another silver tray. Cavillex placed it on the floor in the moonlight where Will could see it. Lined up across it was a row of cruel instruments, so strange that their use was barely imaginable. Will saw gleaming blades, tongs, bands, screws, needles, and clamps.

"The question remains: what makes a man?" Cavillex reflected. "We shall find out. Blood and gristle and meat and bone. This part fits that part. But where in that jumble of raw, bloody mass is the glimmer that thinks and feels? Or is it all just an illusion? Are men mere puppets made of meat that imagine themselves something more? Have you told yourself a lie for so long in your stories and mythologies that you have come to believe it?"

Turning his back to Will, he studied the tray of instruments, waving his slim fingers in the air over them until he decided on his selection.

"We have existed on the edge of your world for a long, long time," he con tinued. "Over the ages, we have probed the mysteries of this existence, plumbed the depths of life, climbed the peaks of experience. We have come to understand the minds of mortals with the eye of an artist. Like wizards, we can conjure miracles from the base stuff of your being. We can distil the finest evocation of pain from the mist of your lives. We have learned to draw out suffering in minute increments, each one blossoming like flowers into something beautiful and delicate." He turned back to Will and revealed what he held in his hand. "Once you have gained our attention, your time here is over."

"Get on with it," Will said. He focused his mind on the information about jenny with which Cavillex had taunted him. In it, he found hope, and strength.

He woke to find his captors sluicing the blood from the floor with a bucket of water. His body was a symphony of pain, his thoughts floating in and out of the rhythm. He had lost track of how long Cavillex had been working on him, but he knew he had not answered a question, and he had not given up Nathaniel. He would stay true to his vow to the end. That could be a long time coming, he knew. True to his words, Cavillex was an expert in drawing out suffering, building then releasing the pressure only to build it again. Survival was no longer an option. It had come down to a battle of wills, as Will had always known it would.

"What makes a man?" he said to Cavillex. "Defiance in the face of brutality and oppression."

"The Spaniard was right, you know. You think you are the hero in this play? You are not."

Will spat a mouthful of blood. "There are no heroes."

"You will tell me what I need to know."

Will sighed. "Let us dispense with this chat. You already torture me with your words. Boredom is your greatest weapon."

Nonchalantly, Cavillex selected another tool from the tray. Gritting his teeth, Will steeled himself.

Through the window came the distant sound of voices. Briefly, Cavillex hesitated, then continued towards Will as he considered which new part of his body to assault. The noise continued to draw closer, a crowd, shouting angrily. Hazy from the pain, Will couldn't make out the words.

The crowd washed up against the building, their voices so loud Will couldn't hear Cavillex's quiet words. Somewhere below them a window shat tered. Objects clattered against the side of the house. Puzzlement briefly crossed Cavillex's face, and he turned back to the window. Will watched his body stiffen as he studied the scene in the street below.

"It appears you have gained the attention of the good people of Edinburgh," Will said wryly.

A rain of missiles rattled against the wall, and a steady boom echoed from the front door as the crowd attempted to break it down. When Cavillex turned to Will, his expression was cold and murderous.

"Does it serve your purpose to stand and fight?" Will asked. "Or will you melt into the mist as you always do?"

Thoughts crossed Cavillex's face, all of them unreadable. He looked to his assistants and nodded.

"So, your pleasure has been cut short," Will croaked brightly. "It appears my life is to end much sooner than anticipated."

"No," Cavillex said.

"No?"

"I told you, our skill at drawing out suffering is unmatched. Your kind has woken an angry beast. And you have gained our attention. Your activities in the past were an irritation, easily forgotten, like all your kind. But this night you killed one of our own-"

"Who caused the death of one of my own."

"No matter. When you kill a rabbit in the field, do you give it a second thought? But you have slain something unique and wild and astonishing."

Will was surprised to see tears sting Cavillex's eyes.

"You have stolen from this world something wonderful. Yes, we have noticed you. And your crime against all there is must be punished."

"This is never going to end," Will replied. "You prey upon us, we shut you out. You attack us, we attack you. You kill one of ours, we kill one back. What is there to gain?"

"It will end, and soon," Cavillex said. "And your corruption upon the face of this world will be wiped away, and you will be forgotten."

The window burst inwards, showering glass all around Cavillex, but he didn't flinch. His attention was fixed solely on Will as if there was nothing else in the world that mattered.

"You have gained our attention," he repeated in a quiet voice that was filled with such emotion it carried above the roar of the crowd. "You have someone you love?" He let the final word roll around his mouth with contempt. "Not the one we spoke of earlier. Someone close to you now. A friend, perhaps, someone you hold in affection." His gaze was heavy upon Will.

Grace.

Cavillex nodded. "I see now. A woman. When we leave this place we will find her."

"No," Will said.

"We will take her. We will show her the heights of our skills. We will make the fibre of her being ring out with unimagined agonies. But she will live. Until we bring you back to us, and then we will slowly slaughter you in front of her, so that everything in her heart that she felt for you is corrupted by her final memory of your suffering. And then we will set her free to live with her misery. A life lived in that manner is usually short."

"No!" Will raged.

Cavillex's cold smile was the cruellest tool he had used that night.

"No!" Will roared until his throat burned, and tore at his bonds until his already bloody wrists were numb, and he threw himself against the chair in a futile attempt to break free. He thought of Grace, and he thought of jenny, and his anger consumed him. If he could have freed himself, he would have torn Cavillex limb from limb. All the pain he had suffered in his life, and the agony that so many around him had suffered, was to be magnified.

It will never end.

When the fury finally cleared, Cavillex was gone.

Within minutes, the door to the street burst in and the mob raced through the building, smashing doors and windows, but they found no sign that the Unseelie Court had been there-just an old, deserted house left to its ghosts.

Calling for help above the tumult, Will was finally answered by Nathaniel and another man. When they paused briefly in front of him, concern lit their faces and he realised how he must look, covered in blood, with too many wounds to count.

"They are all small things," he croaked. "A physician will stitch them in no time. Help me." The biggest wound lay inside him.

The other man rejoined the mob, and as Nathaniel fumbled to untie Will's bonds, he said, "I returned to the carriage and when I did not find you there, I knew you must have been brought to this foul place."

"You disobeyed me, Nat. You put at risk everything for which we fight."

"You would never have left me behind, were I in need," Nathaniel responded defiantly. The bonds fell to the floor, and he helped Will to his feet. Though he struggled to stand unaided, he was too weak.

"Thank you," Will said. Though only two words, the depth of his gratitude was clear.

"I would be a poor assistant if I let my master die when it was in my power to prevent it."

"You have undreamed-of abilities, Nat. You raised a mob."

"Not an easy task. The people here lived in fear of ... your enemy."

Will winced when he heard the beginnings of understanding in Nathaniel's words.

"But I convinced them that together they had a power they did not have alone," Nathaniel continued, before adding quietly, "That, and a promise of some small reward if they saved your life."

"Small reward?"

"Quite a large one, truth be told."

"You are giving away the queen's money, Nat. Walsingham will not be pleased that you have bought such a poor thing with her fortune. Help me out of here, quickly. There is much to do-"

"Not for you. If you lose more blood you will die, Will."

"I cannot rest. Grace is in danger." Will swayed, close to fainting.

"You must see a physician first."

Resting against the doorjamb, Will said weakly, "Then I must ask more of you. Leave Edinburgh now. Take whatever money you can from Reidheid's house, and a horse, and ride for London. Find Walsingham and tell him Grace is in danger from the Enemy. She must be protected at all costs."

"And the amulet?"

Will hesitated. "I would not wish this upon you if it were not an emergency, Nat."

"And if you did not call upon me in a time of crisis, I would not forgive you, Will."

"The amulet must be delivered to Walsingham. It is not safe here. You will be safer once you cross the border into England, but you will still be a target. Your life will be at risk. Keep to the highways. Avoid the moors and the hills and the lakes. If you can, find someone to travel with you at all times. Do you understand me?" Will caught Nathaniel's arm with a desperation that troubled his friend.

"You can count on me, Will."

As Nathaniel helped Will slowly out of the house, Will dwelt on the cold passion in Cavillex's words and wondered if it was already too late.