The Silver Skull by Mark Chadbourn Read Free Book Online Page B

leather bag a pair of cold-iron tongs which one of them used to grip the head tightly. Mary snarled and spat like a wildcat until the other assistant used a poker to ram bundles of pungent herbs into her mouth. When the cavity was filled, the snarling diminished, and the eyes rolled slower and finally stopped as the light within them died.

    A furore erupted as the terrified crowd shouted for protection from God, or demanded answers, on the brink of fleeing the room in blind panic.

    Leaping to the platform, Launceston asked the captain of the guard to lock the doors so none of the assembled knights and gentlemen could escape. Grabbing Bulle's dripping axe, he hammered the haft down hard on the dais, once, twice, three times, until silence fell and all eyes turned towards him.

    "What you have seen today will never be repeated, on peril of your life." His dispassionate voice filled every corner of the great hall. "To speak of this abomination will be considered an act of high treason, for diminishing the defences of the realm and putting the queen's life at risk from a frightened populace. One word and Bulle here will be your final friend.
    Do you heed my words?"

    Silence held for a moment, and then a few angry mutterings arose.

    "Lest you misunderstand, I speak with the full authority of the queen, and her principal secretary Lord Walsingham," Launceston continued. "Nothing must leave this room that gives succour to our enemies, or which turns determined Englishmen to trembling cowards. I ask again: do you heed my words?"

    In his face they saw the truth of what he said, and gradually acceded. When he was satisfied, Launceston handed the axe back to Bulle and said, "Complete your business. "

    Still trembling, the earl of Kent stood over Mary's headless corpse and stuttered in a voice so frail few could hear, "May it please God that all the queen's enemies be brought into this condition. This be the end of all who hate the Gospel and Her Majesty's government. "

    With tentative fingers, Bulle plopped the head onto a platter and held it up to the window three times so the baying crowd without could be sure the traitorous pretender to the throne was truly dead.

    Immediately, the doors were briefly unlocked so Henry Talbot, the earl of Shrewsbury's son, could take the official news of Mary's death to the court in London. As he galloped through the towns and villages, shouting the news, a network of beacons blazed into life across the country and church bells were rung with gusto.

    At Fotheringhay, Launceston spoke to each of the knights and gentlemen in turn, studying their eyes and letting them see his. Then he oversaw the removal of Mary's body and head to the chapel, where prayers were said over them as Dee's assistants stuffed the remains with more purifying herbs and painted defensive sigils on the cold flesh. Everything she had worn, and everything her blood had touched, was burned.

    Few beyond that great hall knew the truth: that terrible events had been set in motion, like the ocean, like the falling night, and soon disaster would strike, and blood and terror would rain down on every head.

CHAPTER 5
    SPECIAL_IMAGE-00014.jpg-REPLACE_ME

    SPECIAL_IMAGE-00109.jpg-REPLACE_ME fter Walsingham had finished speaking, silence fell across the Black Gallery, interrupted only by the crackle and spit of the fire in the hearth.

    "The Enemy has been planning the assault on the Tower for more than a year," Mayhew said eventually.

    Will now understood the depths of the worry he had seen etched into Walsingham's face earlier that night. "Long-buried secrets have come to light," he repeated. "Then we must assume they have the Key, or the Shield, or both, and are now able to use the weapon."

    "We have spent the last twelve months attempting to prepare for the inevitable,"
    Walsingham said, "listening in the long dark for the first approaching footstep, watching for the shadow on the horizon, every hour, every minute,