The Silver Skull Read Online Free PDF Page B

state, where the queen guided a nation that permanently threatened to come apart at the seams from pressures both within and without. Whispers and fanfares, long, dark shadows and never-extinguished lights, conspiracies and open rivalries. The palace was a puzzle that had no solution.

    The carriage came to a halt under a low arch in a cobbled courtyard so small that the buildings on every side kept it swathed in gloom even during the height of noon. Few from the court even knew it existed, or guessed what took place behind the iron-studded oak door beside which two torches permanently hissed. The jamb too was lined with iron, as was the step.

    The door swung open at Will's knock and admitted him to a long, win dowless corridor lit by intermittent pools of lamplight. The silent guard closed the door and slid six bolts home.
    Will's echoing footsteps followed him up one flight of a spiral staircase into the Black Gallery, a large panelled hall. Heavy drapes covered the windows, but it was lit by several lamps and a few flames danced along a charred log in the glowing ashes of the large stone fireplace.

    A long oak table filled the centre of the hall, covered with maps, and at the far end sat Mayhew, one louche leg over the arm of his chair. His head was tightly bound in a bloodstained cloth and his left arm was in a sling. He was taking deep drafts of wine from a goblet, and appeared drunk.

    Will always found Mayhew difficult. He was hard, in the manner of all spies forced to operate in a world of deceit, and had little patience for his fellows, more concerned with the latest courtly fashions. He liked his wine, too, when he was not working, but he was a sullen, sharp-tongued drunk.

    Walsingham emerged at the sound of Will's voice, his features drawn. He listened intently as Will told him about the attack on the Enemy and their loss of the mysterious prisoner from the Tower, but he passed no comment.

    "The queen has been informed?" Will asked once he had finished his account.

    "I advised her myself," Walsingham replied. "She is fully aware of the magnitude of what lies ahead."

    "Which is more than I am." Will expected a terse response, but the principal secretary was distracted by the sound of slamming doors and rapidly marching feet.

    Through a door at the far end of the hall, two guards escorted a man wearing a purple cloak and hood that shrouded his features. The guards retreated as the new arrival strode across the room to the fire.

    "I can never get warm these days," he said, holding out aged hands to the flames. "It is one of the prices I pay."

    The man threw off his hood to reveal a bald pate and silvery hair at the back falling over his collar. As he turned to face the room, fierce grey eyes shone with a coruscating intellect and a sexual potency that belied his sixtyodd years.

    "Dee!" Mayhew visibly started in his chair, slopping wine in his lap.

    Dr. John Dee cast a disinterested eye over Mayhew. "You have not aged well," he said, before slipping off his cloak and throwing it over a chair.

    To the outside world, Dee was a respected scholar and founding fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge who had been an advisor and tutor to the queen, whose General and Rare Memorials Pertaining to the Perfect Arte of Navigation had established a vision of an English maritime empire and defined the nation's claims upon the New World. Few knew that Dee had been instrumental in helping Walsingham establish the extensive spy network, providing intelligence and guidance as well as designing many of the tools the spies used to ply their dangerous trade.

    But Will had heard other rumours: that Dee had turned his back upon his studies of the natural world for black magic and scrying and attempts to commune with angels. Will had presumed this had contributed to Dee's fall from favour-for five years he had been absent from the court in Central Europe. The last any of them had heard of him was in Bohemia a year ago.

    "No word