The Scar-Crow Men by Mark Chadbourn

attempts to draw him back to the fireside. At the time, Will had put that dark mood down to the drink and the regular melancholy of the writer, but now the note of finality in his friend’s words troubled him. Had Kit foreseen his own death? And had Will ignored those warnings? Had he failed his friend when Kit needed him most? If so, he was a poor friend indeed.
    After a moment, shuffling footsteps approached from the other side of the deadhouse door. It swung open with a juddering creak to reveal the mortuary assistant, his beard unkempt, his eyes heavy-lidded. He wore only a filthy shirt and a pair of equally stained hose, the feet a dark brown. His breath had the vinegary stink of ale. His slow, drunken gaze lay on the three arrivals before he looked around for a body.
    ‘We have no deposit for you,’ Will said with authority. ‘We are here to see a body. A man, brought in this day.’
    The assistant moved his stupid eyes from Will to Carpenter and then to Launceston. After he had taken in their fine clothes, he grunted and nodded, shuffling back the way he had come.
    ‘I think he means us to follow,’ Launceston sniffed.
    In the cool entrance hall, dirty sheets lay on the worn flagstones alongside a pile of splintered boards used for transporting the bodies. Two lanterns glowed on opposing walls. The assistant took one of them and, holding it aloft, lit the way down a flight of wide stone steps. At the foot, a large cellar was divided into four rooms by arches, the stone walls black with moisture, glistening in the wavering light of candles. In each vault, large, worn trestles stood in rows. The body of a woman rested on one, her skin white and pockmarked, her neck broken. Her clothes were poor and filthy. A whore, Will guessed. A gutter ran across the centre of the stone flags where the blood and bodily fluids could be sluiced.
    ‘As cold as the grave,’ Carpenter growled uneasily, unconsciously rubbing his pink scar.
    ‘And as foul-smelling as the Fleet,’ his leader responded. ‘But we are all used to the stink of death by now.’
    Launceston hummed a jolly tune.
    The mortuary assistant led them to the farthest vault, where a heavily bloodstained shroud was draped over a body on a trestle. ‘This one?’ he grunted.
    ‘Leave us,’ Will said. ‘We would be alone with our brother in this sad hour.’
    ‘I wouldn’t be lifting the sheet,’ the assistant grunted, turning and shuffling back up the steps.
    ‘We should not be here,’ Carpenter said, a hand to his mouth. He took a step away from the trestle. ‘Why put ourselves at even greater risk of the plague?’
    ‘The Lord Mayor and the Aldermen have decreed that no plague victims should find their way into the deadhouse. They are dispatched directly to the pits for burial.’ Will eyed the rusty stains that covered the entire length of the sheet.
    ‘This business reeks of the Unseelie Court,’ the scar-faced man spat. ‘Whenever there is something that stinks of churchyards and night terrors, they are not far behind.’
    ‘They have been silent in recent times but they circle us like wolves, ready to fall upon us when we display the merest sign of weakness,’ the Earl agreed.
    Will took the edge of the sheet and hesitated, thinking of Kit beneath the filthy blanket on the floor of Mrs Bull’s lodging house.
    ‘You know the bastards are skilled at finding weaknesses and exploiting them. They see our greatest desires, our basest yearnings, and they twist them and draw them out until we follow like fools.’ Launceston’s right hand trembled in anticipation as he watched his leader holding the sheet corner.
    ‘Get on with it, then,’ Carpenter snapped, flashing a glance towards the shape under the shroud. ‘If these remains can tell us aught of this mystery, let us look and be away.’
    The Earl leaned over the trestle as if trying to see through the sheet. ‘You are abnormally squeamish, John. You are no stranger to death.’
    ‘Not in