Free The Silver Skull by Mark Chadbourn Page A

still made him look much younger than his twenty-four years.

    "Kit," Will said. "I thought I might find you hiding here."

    Lost to his imagination, Christopher Marlowe blinked blankly until his thoughts returned to the room and he recognised Will. He smiled shyly. "Will, good friend. I am currently not in my Lord Walsingham's favours and thought it best to lay low to avoid his wrath. He has a cold face, but a terrible fire within."

    "As have we all, Kit. For good reason."

    Understanding, Marlowe nodded and motioned to a stool. "Shall we drink as we did at Corpus Christi on that night when you inducted me into this business of fools and knaves-" He caught himself. "I am sorry, Will. My bitterness sometimes gets the better of me. This is not the life that was promised me, and there is no going back, but you have always been good to me."

    "No apologies are necessary, Kit." Will pulled up a stool. Pain lay just beneath the surface of Marlowe's face and Will knew he was complicit in embedding it there. "We are all lost souls."

    "True enough. Beer, then. Or wine? Some breakfast?" Marlowe laid down his quill and pushed his beer-spattered work to one side.

    "Information is all I require."

    Marlowe sighed. "Work, then. One day we shall drink like brothers. I see from your face this is a grave matter."

    "The gravest. All England is at stake."

    "The Spanish. Those stories of a fleet of warships, an invasion planned-"

    Will shook his head. "The true Enemy."

    "Ah." Marlowe's eyes fell and for a moment he pretended to arrange his work materials.
    "Tamburlaine the second is all but done. I have drained myself with tales of endless war and strife." He smiled. "What is it, coz?"

    "Last night, from the Tower, the Enemy stole a magical item whose origins are lost to antiquity-a Silver Skull, attached now to an unwitting victim."

    Filled with the intellectual curiosity that Will admired so much, Marlowe leaned across the table. "I have never heard of such a thing."

    "It is one of the mysteries of ancient times, a great weapon once guarded by the Templar Knights." Will smiled. "Our Lord Walsingham and our ally Doctor Dee saw fit to keep knowledge of it well away from the likes of you and me."

    "And that is why they are our masters! I would only have sold it for beer and a night of pleasure! And what is the purpose of this Silver Skull?"

    "Our betters have spent nigh on two decades trying to divine that very thing, but its mysteries remain untouched."

    "Yet if the Enemy has need of it, it must be a great threat indeed to our well-being,"
    Marlowe said.

    Will nodded slowly. "Within a short time of the Enemy taking the Skull, they lost it.
    Stolen by a gang of thieves and spirited away, like magpies caught by a shiny bauble. The Enemy searches for it even as we speak, and so do we. Whosoever finds it first wins everything."

    "And so this thing is an act of God, waiting to be unleashed on the dumb populace."

    "Our Lord Walsingham and Dee fear the Enemy knows the key to its use. But more, who is to say one of those rogues could not stumble by accident across it and unleash death in the twinkle of an eye? All our lives hang by a thread while the Skull remains beyond our grasp."

    Leaning back against the wall, Marlowe swung one scuffed boot onto a stool and pondered. "I have many questions, about how the Enemy plans to use the Skull when England's defences against them still stand, and the timing of this act-"

    "And I have no answers. There is mystery here. But we are out of time." As one of the drunken men on the floor stirred, Will leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "You are our eyes and ears in the underworld, Kit. You know of things that lie far beneath the notice of men of good standing. Who would have the Skull? Where would it be now?"

    The brightness faded from Marlowe's face. "Walsingham did not send you."

    "No."

    "Even in this hour of need he cannot bring himself to deal with me!" A flicker of fear rose in