Slowly the group drifted back to the manor, but Adam o’the Cogs was reluctant to leave and lingered at the threshold.
Nursing a badly grazed arm and hobbling upon an injured foot, the groom returned to the barn and Master Tewkes eyed him with undisguised hostility.
By now the choking vapour had thinned to a haze and Doctor Dee edged closer to the fallen horse. Faint tremors still shivered across Belladonna’s battered form, but the flames were dying and the astrologer stooped over her to prise one of the contorted sections free. A fresh cloud of smoke rose from inside and he held his whiskery face clear until it dispersed.
“Now,” he said, bending over the hole he had made, “let us see how this wickedness was achieved.”
“Permit me, My Lord,” Jenks said, limping towards him. “I know the workings better than any.”
Master Tewkes thrust out his hand to prevent the man from going any further. “You remain where you are!” he objected, his voice loaded with reproach and accusation. “You have engineered enough this night.”
Startled by the charge, Jenks backed away in fright. “You cannot think I was responsible for this,” he gasped. “My hands are clean of any blame.”
“Was it Spanish gold or French which bought your base treason?” Tewkes persisted. “A quartering is too merciful a punishment for you!”
The groom turned pale and he stared imploringly at Sir Francis. “It is not true!” he denied. “On my life it is not!”
Peering over Doctor Dee’s shoulder, Walsingham did not even look up at him. “I will listen to neither plea nor indictment till we have determined what truly happened here this night,” he said. “What have you learned from this wreckage, Doctor?”
The astrologer raised his head and drummed his slender fingers irritably upon one of the steel flanks.
“Alas!” he confessed. “My limited knowledge of the new stars is greater than my understanding of this once noble charger’s internals. ’Tis a grievous pity that the one man who could aid us was the beast’s victim.”
Covering Master Dritchly’s body with the cloak that Henry had just brought, Lord Richard snorted with contempt at the scholar’s apparent lack of concern. “Grievous indeed!” he said.
Hearing the talk, Adam plucked up his nerve and stepped into the barn. “Beg pardon, My Lords,” he began, “but I may be able to assist.”
Everyone stared at him and in the accompanying silence the boy wished he had not volunteered but had waited instead for the return of Jack. Lingering by the door, Henry watched in admiring fascination. He would never have dared approach those nobles and he suspected that his friend had just earned himself a whipping.
“You?” the secretary snapped in amused disbelief. “What can a cog urchin possibly …?”
“I know how to put a cow together, make it walk and eat so its bags fill with milk,” Adam retorted impulsively. “Which is more than you do.”
Master Tewkes gave a shout of indignation and raised his hand to strike the insolent boy.
“Wait!” Lord Richard intervened. “The lad’s mine to deal with – not thine, Master Secretary. If any discipline is needed, it’ll not be measured by your hand.”
Tewkes’ nostrils flared in outrage and his bird-like head darted aside, looking to Sir Francis for support. “Let the boy approach,” came Walsingham’s astonishing response.
Leaving the secretary fuming behind him, Adam crossed to where the great mechanical lay upon the ground and knelt before it. The metal was still hot. His face tingled in the baking airs and his fair hair rippled as he leaned over the opening that the astrologer had made.
“Bum boils,” he murmured, unconsciously using a favourite phrase of Henry’s. Never in his life had he seen such a mangled confusion of workings. Within the stricken creature all was twisted and blackened. Strands of stinking smoke curled up from the inaccessible recesses where occasional sparks still spat and sizzled, but there was no more danger and Adam lowered his head inside for a more thorough inspection.
Along the horse’s length, a few brass wheels were still spinning, but others were fused and welded to their spindles. Springs were stretched and distorted, the teeth of every cog had been worn smooth, levers were bent and broken, and the four pendulums which Belladonna boasted had actually been melted out of shape.
“This was no shaking sickness,” he declared. “Master Dritchly never told of this happening.”
An indulgent smile lifted the corners of Doctor Dee’s white beard. “What then?” he asked. “Enlighten us.”
Gingerly reaching his hand up inside the neck, the apprentice felt along the bellows pipe and winced when his fingers burned on a fragment of smouldering metal. Cursing under his breath, he proceeded until his stinging fingertips found what he was seeking.
“The ichors are there,” he said, “but the vessels are all cracked and broken. The cordials have leaked out and boiled away.”
A puzzled frown scrunched the boy’s brow.
“What is it?” the astrologer asked.
“Not sure. There seems to be something else here … if I can only …”
Master Tewkes folded his arms and tutted peevishly. “What use is this?” he complained. “The young idiot is making geese of us all.”
“Here!” the boy exclaimed, extracting a small glass phial from the horse’s insides. “It was attached to one of the ichor pipes – definitely doesn’t belong there.”
Taking it from him, Doctor Dee walked over to where a lantern hung on the wall and examined the vessel in detail. The bottle was spherical in shape, with a tapering neck tipped with a barbed, silver needle which appeared capable of piercing the toughest leather. Inside the phial were the dregs of a dark, indigo-coloured liquid and the old man sniffed them tentatively.
Thoughtful and silent, he passed it to Walsingham and the Queen’s spymaster received the object with great solemnity.
“Is it as we feared?” he asked.
Doctor Dee inclined his head. “It is,” he answered. “The enemies of Englandia have contrived a way of distilling a new and deadly ichor.”
“Then the intelligence furnished by my agents in Europe was correct,” Walsingham reflected. “With this mordant liquid those hostile powers can transform any mechanical into a killing engine.”
The old astrologer looked questioningly at Adam. “In your opinion,” he began, “how long would the effects of this loathsome venom take to work its evil within such a creation as that horse?”
“Can’t tell you that, Sir,” the boy replied, taken aback to be treated with such respect from so important a figure. “I never seen nothing like it before.”
“Your finest guess then?”
Adam looked in at the extreme damage once more and shrugged. “Not long I don’t reckon,” he said finally. “To pump round all the feeder veins wouldn’t take no more than a quarter hour.”
“Remarkable boy,” the Doctor observed.
Weighing the glass vessel in his palm, Sir Francis brought his piercing glance to bear upon the groom and the man struggled to proclaim his innocence.
“No other has been near the horses this night!” Walsingham said, his assured, level voice more daunting than any shouted threat. “Who else could have done this?”
“As God is m–my witness …” Jenks stammered.
“Search him and his belongings,”