The Devil's Looking-Glass (10 page)

It had been four days since the Faerie Queen had issued her hate-filled warning, four long, wearying days of organizing the militia, spinning a web of deceit to sustain the rumour that the suspected attack came from Spanish agents, surreptitiously spreading a long line of salt and protective herbs among the beacons to bolster Dee’s failing defences. Four days of hope and worry.

‘Will our preparations be enough?’ he asked, rubbing at the scar tissue under his hair. It was an unconscious tic in moments of anxiety, harking back to that bitter night in Muscovy when the bear-thing had left him for dead.

‘Hrrrm,’ Launceston murmured, acknowledging the question without answering it. He looked across the slow-moving river
towards
an orange glow in the east. Another ring of beacons surrounded the docks at Greenwich where men laboured through the night to provision their requisitioned galleon, the
Gauntlet
, for its long ocean crossing.

‘Can you not offer me even a crumb of comfort?’ Carpenter snapped. He fought down his bitterness.

‘What good would that do?’ the Earl breathed, his dry voice almost lost to the wind.

Carpenter prepared to give a barbed response, then thought better of it. What was the point in wishing his companion could comprehend such trifles as human feelings? Instead he muttered, ‘We are modern men, not superstitious fools like the country folk, and I have long since discarded the Bible’s cant. But sometimes I hope . . .’ The word caught in his throat. ‘Tell me, Robert, do you think there might be a God?’

‘If there were a God, would He allow a thing like me to exist?’

Carpenter heard no self-pity in his companion’s voice, only an acceptance of his unnatural urges. For a moment, he recalled the diabolic vision of the Earl drenched in blood. He felt surprised that the emotion it stirred in him was not disgust, but sadness. ‘I have had my fill of this business,’ he sighed. ‘It wears me down by degrees, and seals me away in a dark place where I fear I will never see the sun again. I would break away . . . and soon.’

‘Where would you go?’ The Earl drew his grey woollen cloak around him and stepped beside his companion to look out over the jumbled roofs of the city. ‘This business has stolen your life. No family, no woman, no friends, no trade. We company of travellers are all you have.’

Carpenter gave a bitter laugh. ‘This is it, then? You are my family, and Swyfte, and that red-headed maggot-pie Strangewayes? Kill me now and be done with it.’

‘The Enemy will come soon enough,’ Launceston said, looking up to the billowing smoke from the bonfires. ‘Even when Dee’s defences were strong, they still wandered across our territory. The alchemist only kept them from attacking in force. Now not all
our
charms will hold them at bay for long. We must hope that we can be at sea before they strike. At least if we can regain Dee we stand a chance of repelling them.’

And without Dee there is no hope at all
, Carpenter thought.

Cries of alarm rang up from the dark of the water’s edge far below them. Frowning, Carpenter stifled his pang of anxiety as he peered over the battlements. Some waterman in distress, he tried to tell himself. The sound of running feet echoed. More cries.

‘The river is protected by the charms on the wherries working their way back and forth between the banks,’ Launceston said, as if he could read the other man’s thoughts. ‘All is as Dee prescribed.’

‘I can see nothing,’ Carpenter snapped. ‘Come.’

He wrenched himself away from the battlements and ran down the winding stone steps, Launceston only a few paces behind. In the ward he shouted to the guards to open the gates. Out of the fortress they raced, and along the grey walls to the river’s edge. The cries of fright had ebbed away. Only the lapping of the Thames broke the silence.

Struggling to see in the thin light of the crescent moon, Carpenter found the muddy path by the black water. It was low tide and the river reeked from the stink of offal dumped unlawfully in the flow by the city’s butchers after night had fallen. On a small stretch of gravelly shore, he glimpsed the flare of torches bobbing in the dark. He cast an uneasy glance at his companion, but the Earl’s sallow face was impassive.

Carpenter crunched across the slick stones, feeling colder by the moment. His hand searched for the hilt of his rapier for security. Nearing the crackling torches, he made out a group of six watermen in caps and thick woollen cloaks to keep them warm in the chill of the open river. Their attention was gripped by something he could not see. The Earl had drawn his dagger and was keeping it hidden in the folds of his cloak.

‘We are on the Queen’s business,’ Carpenter announced with
a
snap in his voice, grabbing the shoulder of one of the watermen and easing him aside. ‘What is the meaning of this outcry?’

Six faces turned towards him in the dancing light of the torches, each one etched with fear. One of the men stretched out a trembling arm to point. The spy followed the line of his finger.

Hunched on the edge of the cold, black water squatted a man clad in the filthy corselet of an old soldier. His breeches were coated with river mud, his hair and beard wild, his face drawn from a life lived in hedgerow and street. He had the thin frame of a man who went too long between meals. Beside him, a rod and line was set in the mud and gravel and a small fire had been built with driftwood, ready to be lit. The figure didn’t move, his gaze fixed on the eddies lapping against the shore.

Dead
, Carpenter thought. But even as the notion crossed his mind, he found himself unsettled by a faint shimmer across the man’s body.

Launceston must have seen it too, for he grabbed one of the torches and held it over the still form. The old soldier all but glowed, like some apparition.

Carpenter took an unconscious step back. The dead man was rimed with frost, his hair and beard white, his skin gleaming with ice crystals as though he had spent a night out in a Muscovy winter. ‘What is this?’ the spy exclaimed. An autumnal chill hung in the air, but nothing that could account for such a state.

Launceston squatted beside the soldier, moving the torch around so he could examine the frozen face for some clue as to what had occurred.

A murmur washed around the huddling watermen as if a dam had broken. One blamed the devil, another the Fair Folk, a third some curse or other.

The Earl withdrew his dagger and jabbed the point against the man’s cheek. A
clink
echoed above the gentle lapping of the river. ‘Solid,’ he mused. ‘Like ice.’ He jabbed harder and the side of the soldier’s face shattered. Shards of frozen flesh rattled on the gravel.
The
squatting body teetered for a moment, then fell back, cracking into a hundred hard fragments.

The watermen cried out as one and fled back along the river’s edge towards their boats.

‘Zounds! What evil is this?’ Carpenter gasped.

‘I fear it is the beginning of something,’ Launceston breathed, rising to his feet. He waved the torch over the glistening remains one final time and then turned to the water. ‘Of what, I am not entirely sure.’

‘Would the Unseelie Court attack a starving soldier fishing for his supper? There must be some other answer.’

‘If you leave this work, if you flee into a new life, I will come with you,’ the Earl murmured in a distracted tone. Gripped by the sight of the shattered body, Carpenter barely realized what his companion had said before the Earl added, ‘In this mystery lies the key to what we will face in the days ahead, if we can only divine it.’

‘And if we cannot?’ Carpenter asked.

‘Then winter comes early for all of us.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CANDLES SUMMONED GLITTERING
Jewels from the Stained glass window above the altar. The Lady’s Chapel in the Palace of Whitehall had heard the whispered devotions of monarchs, lords and ladies, but this night it was Strangewayes’ low voice that rustled up into the shadows. Head bowed, he knelt on the cold flags, hollowed by too much doubt and fear.

‘Dear Father, hear my prayers,’ he entreated, his pressed palms shaking. ‘Deliver us from the evil that draws nearer by the day.’

The only answer did not come from God. ‘Tobias?’ His name echoed from the dark at the back of the chapel.

The young spy stumbled to his feet, running one trembling hand through his auburn hair. ‘Who goes?’ he snarled, shock adding a crack to his voice.

A hooded figure stepped into the candle glow. His heart leapt when he saw that it was Grace, wrapped in a thick woollen cloak against the growing chill. She folded back the cowl and forced a weak smile. ‘Come back to the fire. You have been here in the cold for too long.’

‘Soon,’ he said. ‘I find some peace here in the midst of all this
turmoil
. And if God hears my pleas, then we have hope in the struggle that is to come.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘We have defeated the Spanish before. Surely we can again.’

Strangewayes felt a pang of regret that he had to lie to her. It seemed a betrayal of the love they shared. And yet how could he not deceive her, when her sanity, perhaps even her life, was at stake? Swyfte had warned him time and again how many others had been driven mad by knowledge of the Unseelie Court. ‘You are the voice of reason, Grace. I worry for naught, I am sure,’ he replied, putting on a confident smile. ‘It is in my nature to grow anxious before a battle.’

‘Then you must listen to Will,’ she said with a warmer smile. ‘He is always as calm as a millpond.’

The spy flinched, but he nodded politely. ‘’Tis good advice. I will be along once I have finished my devotions.’

Her face darkened. ‘We have only been close for a matter of weeks, Tobias. I miss your gentle words, and I would enjoy your company before the Queen’s business calls you away once more.’

Once she had left, his heart grew heavier. All his sacrifices were for her alone. He would do anything to keep her safe in the face of the supernatural threat that circled all their lives. After a moment, more footsteps disturbed his thoughts and he was surprised to see Sir Robert Cecil emerge from the gloom. The spymaster gave a faint nod of greeting. Tobias, as always, found his master’s eyes unreadable.

‘Sirrah, I must apologize,’ Cecil said. ‘It was only my intention to pray awhile here. Like you, I am a godly man. I could not help but overhear your exchange with your woman.’

‘Grace and I have nothing to hide.’

‘I would think not.’ Cecil knelt before the altar and made the sign of the cross upon his chest. ‘Pray with me,’ he said, beckoning the other man to join him.

Strangewayes knelt, his uneasiness in his master’s presence giving way to the churn of his own troubles.

‘You have been a loyal and trusted servant since you joined my band, sirrah,’ Cecil said, his head bowed. ‘That has not gone unnoticed.’

‘I do whatever is required of me in service to the Queen.’

‘Of course, of course.’ The spymaster nodded. ‘And I would be remiss if I did not reward you for that service.’

‘A job well done is its own reward. That and the knowledge that I serve God.’

‘You would do well to accept this reward, Master Strangewayes, for it is only a small thing. A warning.’ He paused for one moment, allowing the weight to build. ‘I fear for the safety of Mistress Seldon.’

Tobias jerked his head towards the spymaster. ‘Grace? What are you saying?’

‘You must beware of Swyfte. He is always scheming to his own ends, and he cares little who gets hurt in the process.’

‘What do you know?’

Cecil closed his eyes, muttering a prayer.

After a moment, Strangewayes shook his head. ‘There is no love lost between Swyfte and me, but I cannot believe he would allow Grace to suffer unnecessarily. Indeed, he has protected her since her sister, Jenny, was lost.’

The spymaster shrugged. ‘If you are certain—’

‘You must tell me. If Grace is in peril, I will do whatever is necessary to protect her.’

A small smile flitted across Cecil’s lips, gone before Strangewayes could be sure he had seen it. ‘All I can say for now is that you must keep close watch on our friend, Master Swyfte,’ the older man repeated. ‘At this time of greatest threat he is at his most dangerous, and he will do aught to save his own neck. Even sacrificing those closest to him. Never let him out of your sight. Listen to his weasel words. Judge him. You do not have to accept my account. Trust your own heart. And if you feel he is about to betray us to save himself, you must be prepared to act in an
instant
, for to tarry for even a moment could cost us all dearly, including the life of your woman.’

Strangewayes bowed his head. A part of him had always feared that Swyfte could not be trusted. ‘What should I do?’ he whispered.

‘There is only one course. You must slay him before he drags us all down to Hell.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

GREY MIST ROLLED
across the river. The night-sounds of sleeping London whispered through the fog like the breath of a child at sleep: the calls of the beadles, the hoots of owls from the wooded shores, the splash of oars and creak of rigging. Along the quayside at Greenwich, pikemen in burgonets appeared to glide out of the folding cloud. Darting eyes searched for the foreign agents they had been told were preparing to attack. They glowered at the boys heaving cordwood to the beacons, hurling abuse to mask their fear. Beyond the circle of light cast by the sizzling lantern over the inn door, two men huddled together in intense conversation. Both kept their heads down to obscure their identities.

Will Swyfte glanced suspiciously at a merchant’s cart further along the quay. The horse snorted and stamped its hooves as the bleary-eyed driver nodded in his seat. Two bickering labourers heaved an oak cask of salt beef off the back of the cart. Cursing, the men lowered the barrel to the cobbles and then trundled it to the winch beside the
Gauntlet
. The provisioning of the galleon was almost complete, salt fish, biscuit, wine, water and rice all
stored
in the hold. They would be set to sail at dawn, as planned. Will hid his unease. It had been seven days since the Faerie Queen’s warning, three since Launceston and Carpenter had discovered the frozen soldier on the river bank, with nary a sign of the Unseelie Court.