Read Online The Scar-Crow Men by Mark Chadbourn - Free Book Online Page B

communicated more than words could ever express and then he hurried away along the street.
    Puzzled, Will peered into the sack. A sheaf of dog-eared papers lay at the bottom. He shrugged, and found his attention drawn back to the coffin as the pall-bearers shouldered it once more.
    ‘Will?’ In her black mourning dress, Grace gently touched his sleeve, her eyes still red from crying. ‘We both loved Kit. He was a kind and gentle man, for all his troubles. But now I worry for you. His death has burned into your heart, and I can see you change by the moment. Do not let it harden you.’
    Although her face was flushed with grief, Will could see elements of her sister, Jenny, in her stance, and once again he was transported back to that summer’s day when his love was cruelly snatched from his life. He put the thought from his mind.
    ‘Kit deserves justice,’ he responded, his expression grim. ‘I do not believe he received it at the inquest this morning, and this poor excuse for a funeral only adds insult. He deserved better. If those who used him while he was alive cannot find it within them to give him justice, then that duty falls to me. And I will seek it out in a much harsher manner than they ever would.’
    The procession wound its way into the graveyard. The parish church of St Nicholas was solid and unremarkable. The final resting place of one of England’s greatest playwrights was an unmarked grave near the church’s north tower, and there a small group of men waited. Will was puzzled to see Thomas Walsingham, the second cousin of Sir Francis, stylish in black and gold, his lithe, powerful build that of a fencer. How could he have arrived from his home in Chislehurst so quickly, when the funeral had been announced only that morning? Will wondered.
    He knew Thomas, a year older than the playwright, and wealthy, had been one of Marlowe’s patrons. He had also been a longstanding friend of Kit’s through their service in the spy network, and Kit had been staying on and off at Thomas’s house for most of the last month.
    Walsingham nodded to Will and gave a sad smile.
    As they gathered around the hastily dug grave, Will left Grace to be comforted by Nathaniel and joined Carpenter and Launceston.
    ‘There are too many spies in this affair for my liking,’ he whispered to the other two men. ‘Poley, who was there at Kit’s death. Now Walsingham.’
    Launceston stared deep into the hole as though he were considering jumping in. ‘We are a loathsome breed. Worse than snakes,’ he replied in a bloodless tone.
    Once the funeral was over, Will sent Carpenter and Launceston on their way and then paused by the grave to throw in a handful of the rich Deptford soil. Thomas Walsingham broke away from the small group of Marlowe’s acquaintances to join him.
    ‘This is a harsh accident,’ the patron said as he stared at the cheap coffin.
    ‘An accident? You believe it is so?’ Will replied in a cold voice.
    ‘Ingram Frizer did not mean to strike the killing blow. I have spoken to him at length, beyond the evidence he gave at the inquest. Poor Kit was like a wild thing, driven momentarily mad by the pressures of his double life.’
    ‘That seems like an easy answer.’
    ‘Frizer would not lie to me.’
    ‘You know him well?’
    ‘I am his master.’
    Will flashed a look towards Walsingham, but the man’s expression was emotionless, his gaze fixed on the grave. The spy felt cold at the revelation of yet another hidden connection. ‘Do you know what business they gathered here in Deptford to discuss?’
    Walsingham folded his hands behind his back and raised his face to the sun. ‘Not in the detail. Frizer told me it was mundane matters, of loans and debts, and some dealings in the unpleasant world they were all forced to inhabit. Nothing of import. This is more about Kit’s state of mind than what transpired in that room.’ His tone was reasonable, but something about it did not ring true to Will.
    ‘I have