The Devil's Looking-Glass Part 5

THE MAN SURGED through the sea of bodies flowing along Cheapside in the wan morning sunlight. Furious servants heading to the market yelled curses and apprentices searched for stones to hurl at his back, but still he ran, casting anxious glances over his shoulder. He was swarthy-skinned, the wide-brimmed felt hat he had used to hide his ident.i.ty long since lost.

Will thundered in the running man's wake. *Queen's business,' he bellowed. The crowd peeled away on either side. He was lighter on his feet than the other man, stronger and faster, though he had barely slept since his haunting conversation with the Faerie Queen.

Sensing his pursuer was closing the distance, the fugitive threw himself into a flock of geese, kicking wildly until he drove them into a frenzy of honking and beating wings. The birds scattered across the street in Will's path. Without missing a step, the spy vaulted on to the back of an apple cart trundling through the flock, scrambled over the seat beside the startled carter and leapt across the flapping obstruction, allowing himself a tight smile. His prey was oblivious of what lay ahead. As they pa.s.sed the towering five-storey houses near the Great Conduit where apothecaries sold herbs and spices, he watched the runaway glance round in shock. At the eastern end of Cheapside, at the Stocks Market confluence of three great thoroughfares, an army of labourers was milling around with armfuls of cordwood for the ring of beacons that were to be built beyond the city's northern wall, while men in sun-burnished burgonets and cuira.s.ses looked on.

The swarthy man put his head down and tried to weave his way through the confusion without drawing attention, but the towering heap of firewood blocked most of the trivium and the three streets were choked with jumbles of carts and frustrated merchants. As the fugitive stumbled, trying to force his way through the throng, Will called out again, *A traitor to the Queen! Stop that man!'

Three pikemen swung their weapons towards the runaway. When he veered away from them, Will sprinted the last few yards and hurled himself forward. The two men crashed across the cobbles. Will leapt up in an instant, drawing his knife and pressing the tip against the fugitive's neck. The man snarled in Spanish. Will only grinned.

Through the gathering crowd, Cecil barged his way from where he had been overseeing his hastily planned gathering of fuel. *What have we here?' he snapped.

*A Spanish spy.' Will sheathed his blade as the pikemen levelled their weapons at the prisoner. *Our earthly enemies see an opportunity to make mischief while we are so distracted.'

The spymaster leaned in close and whispered, *Prompted by the Unseelie Court, no doubt. That witch Malantha of the High Family is working her wiles upon Philip of Spain.'

*Threats wait in all quarters. We must never lower our guard.' Will's attention was caught by Grace and Nathaniel pushing their way through the throng. Grim-faced, they stopped beside the labourers unloading the wood from the carts, their eyes urging him to come over.

*To the Tower with him,' Cecil barked. *We will see how loose his lips are after he has rested 'pon the rack.'

As the spymaster directed the pikemen, Will made his way over to his two friends. *Grace, I know I have not seen you since my return from Liverpool, but now is not the time-'

*This is not a social visit,' she interjected, clasping her hands together against her emerald skirt. *I have grave news.'

*Give her a moment of your time, Will,' Nathaniel put in. *You will not regret it.' The spy had rarely seen his a.s.sistant looking so serious.

*Speak, then,' he said.

Grace glanced towards Cecil, still strutting along the ranks of pikemen. *When I was at Nonsuch, I overheard your master speaking . . .' she paused, blanching, *of Jenny.'

Will furrowed his brow, remembering Cecil's mention of Jenny the previous night. *He knows little about her.'

*Not so.' Grace recounted what she had overheard as the court fled Nonsuch. Will felt his pulse quicken. Could this be true? Cecil had some knowledge of what had happened to Jenny that day so long ago? The spy looked over to where the Queen's spymaster bustled about, gesticulating at the a.s.sembled troops. He felt a cold nugget of anger form in his stomach. Were that so . . . should the spymaster have kept such information from him . . . he could not be held responsible for his actions.

Always the voice of caution, Nathaniel said, *Perhaps Grace misheard. And it is often hard to divine the truth from eavesdropping.'

*Perhaps.' Will continued to watch Cecil, now in deep conversation with the commander of the pikemen. He knew the nature of the man, and all the things of which he was capable.

Grace leaned in and whispered, *This business you are involved in in Liverpool, and here in London, does it concern Jenny?'

*I cannot say,' Will replied truthfully, for anything involving the Unseelie Court was linked to his love's disappearance.

*Do not treat me like a child.' Grace raised her chin in defiance. *She is my sister, and I would know what you know.'

Will could barely draw his gaze from Cecil. He felt the anger starting to burn through him. *You know you must not ask me these things,' he said, more sharply than he intended. *We will talk later.' Unable to contain himself any longer, he strode over to the spymaster. *I would have words,' he said curtly.

Cecil began to dismiss him, until he saw the cold look in Will's eyes. The spymaster edged to the lee of a cart where they could not be overheard, and nodded.

*I am told that you have information about my Jenny's disappearance,' Will said, as calmly as he could.

Practised at revealing nothing of his innermost thoughts, Cecil only pursed his lips in thought.

*Last night you feigned ignorance of her,' the spy snapped. *You know more than you are saying.'

*I know nothing.'

*Do not lie to me!'

*Or what, pray tell?' Cecil blazed. *Are you doubting my word?'

Will steadied himself. This was not the time. *If you know anything of what happened to Jenny, tell me now.'

Cecil snorted. *What has come over you? You conjure these suspicions out of thin air. Why should I know anything about your woman? Walsingham was spymaster when she disappeared, was he not?'

Will searched his master's face for a long moment. Grace had been adamant in her a.s.sertion of what she had overheard, and Cecil was a man enveloped in secrets. There was a mystery here, for sure, but Will could see he would get no joy from the other man. He frowned, weighing his options, his suspicion of the spymaster grown a hundredfold.

*I know no more than you,' Cecil pressed through gritted teeth. *Why would I?'

Will felt queasy at the thought that his masters might have known something about Jenny's disappearance for all these years and told him nothing. What reason could they have? Unsure of his ground, he stalked away, though a part of him wanted to drag Cecil to one side and beat the truth out of him.

Beside the pile of cordwood, he glanced back. The spymaster was watching him intently. Will knew that look and realized he should be on his guard from now on. He pressed on into the crowd, his shoulders heavy, and didn't stop until he rested in an alley beside a grocer's shop. Leaning against the damp wall, he closed his eyes, trying to calm his churning thoughts. If Cecil kept many secrets, he had a few of his own. Dipping into the leather pouch at his hip, he pulled out Dee's obsidian mirror, which he had wrapped in a thick velvet cloth to keep safe. He studied the gla.s.s for a long moment. He would find the answers he needed whatever the cost.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

AN ARC OF fire blazed across the night-dark fields surrounding London. Spirals of gold sparks, whipped up in the breeze, rose from the beacons enclosing the city from the marshy western reaches by the grey Thames to the riverside woods beside the eastern city wall. Carpenter leaned on the battlements at the top of the White Tower and felt the acrid smoke sting the back of his throat.

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, surrept.i.tiously 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 superst.i.tious 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 G.o.d?'

*If there were a G.o.d, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 impa.s.sive.

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 sh.o.r.e.

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 gla.s.s 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 G.o.d. *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 G.o.d 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 G.o.dly 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.'