The Devil's Looking-Glass (15 page)

‘By whom?’ Cecil snapped.

The pikeman moistened his dry mouth. ‘Men wait upon the
frozen
river. Men . . .’ His voice trailed away and his blank gaze roamed the room as he recalled what he had witnessed.

‘The Spanish,’ the spymaster said. ‘The ones who plot against the Crown?’ It was a small kindness, he knew, but it allowed the pikeman an opportunity to pretend.

The man nodded. ‘They would meet, upon the river, to discuss the terms of England’s surrender.’

Cecil threw a hard look at Essex. ‘Fetch the Privy Council. We should face this rabble shoulder to shoulder and show what Englishmen are made of.’

Essex bowed briefly and left. The pikeman followed. Once he was alone, the spymaster threw his head back and sucked in a gulp of air, trying to stop the shaking of his hands.

He found the Privy Council gathered near the River Gate, beady-eyed and grey-bearded, like a murder of crows in their black gowns, shivering in the chill coming off the river. Cecil flapped a hand to urge the sentries to drag open the gates. He stared at the widening crack with mounting dread, feeling his heart beat in rhythm to the creaks and groans of the protesting hinges. Finally the gates crashed wide with a resounding
thoom
. Cecil’s breath caught in his throat.

At first the expanse of white river appeared empty. A cold wind moaned over the icy wastes. The stark branches of the trees across the Thames on Bankside whisked. But just as he began to hope that the Enemy had departed, he glimpsed movement, as if a hunting party were emerging from a thick fog. Grey figures appeared in the centre of the frozen river, silent sentinels watching him with hate-filled eyes. Long hair and bone-white faces. Doublets and bucklers and breeches silvery with mildew as if they had been stored in dank cellars. On either side and behind the tight knot of the main group of ten or so, warriors waited. They appeared misty, their features hidden, as if glimpsed through a haze.

Cecil swallowed. Then he pushed up his chin and marched out. He prayed the Privy Council were following him. Resisting the urge to look back, he walked out along the jetty and climbed
the
short wooden ladder down to the ice. Through clear patches around his feet, he could see pale shapes swimming near the surface of the river beneath. He shivered, feeling himself moving into a world he no longer understood.

The spymaster came to a halt four sword-lengths from the Unseelie Court’s representatives. He turned a cold face towards them, but would not – could not – meet their gaze. At the centre of the group was a tall figure with long black hair, a sallow complexion and a beard and moustache waxed into points. Beneath a felt cap, shadows pooled in the eyes, but Cecil noted a cruel turn to the pursed lips.
This one is the leader
, the spymaster decided.

‘I am Lansing of the High Family,’ the Fay said in a whispery voice that somehow carried over the sighing of the wind. ‘All you hoped for has turned to ashes. These are the final days. Have you made your peace with your God?’

‘We are not afraid of you.’ Cecil hoped the defiance in his voice rang true.

‘Your last hope has died with the burning of your ship,’ the Fay continued as if he had not heard the spymaster’s comment. ‘This moment was inevitable, from the instant you betrayed us and stole our Queen. I find it laughable that you ever thought otherwise.’

‘We held you at bay for many years.’

‘The blink of an eye in the way we see time. We are eternal. We watch and we wait and we make our plans and when the time comes we strike, be it years or decades.’

‘How you must hate us,’ Cecil sneered.

Lansing knitted his brow. ‘Hate? Do you hate the beasts of the field? They are to be herded, and punished when disobedient, and slaughtered should we see fit. Is that not how it is in your fields?’ He looked across the troubled faces and then raised his gaze to the lights of the palace. ‘You lived in caves once. You hunted with stones and sticks. You whispered oaths to the moon and the trees and the wind. We watched you as you sat around your fires, praying the night would end. When you sowed your seeds, we were there. When you raised the stones and built
your
homes of timber and turf. When you tamed the horses and made weapons of iron. Always a whisper away.’ One corner of his mouth crinkled in a puzzled smile. ‘And then you challenged us.’ He looked directly in Cecil’s face. ‘I have peeled back your skin, and your flesh, and broken your bones and delved into the smallest part of you, and I have found you wanting. This judgement has been made. And now the time for talk is done, and silence must fall. Bring me our Queen and prepare for the harrowing.’

The spymaster sifted through Lansing’s words, seeing meaning hidden in the shadows behind them as only a spymaster could. He smiled, quick and fast. ‘No,’ he said. The Fay’s eyes narrowed. ‘If you want her, take her.’

In a single fluid movement the Earl of Essex drew his sword in readiness for a fight, as did a number of the younger Privy Councillors. Yet the Unseelie Court remained as still as the ice beneath their feet. The cold wind tugged at their hair, its whispers the only sounds across the desolate river.

As he searched those unreadable faces with their unblinking eyes, Cecil felt a moment of satisfaction. He spun on his heel, turning up his nose at the aged members of the Privy Council who had been cowering behind him. ‘Follow me,’ he said to them with only a hint of contempt, and strode back towards the jetty. Even at such a moment, he found himself smiling inwardly at the notion of the deformed little man he knew himself to be piping on the rats who had always secretly mocked him.

He felt the Fay leader’s cold gaze upon him, but he did not look back. Once he had passed the River Gate, he leaned against the stone wall, shaking, yet proud of himself.

Gathering himself, he turned to the other men. ‘We die with dignity, not as cowards. Let us to the Queen and see if we can find a sliver of hope in this time I have bought us.’ With that, he marched away, head high.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

SILENCE HAUNTED THE
dusty privy council chamber. In the candlelight, the blank face of Elizabeth, Queen of England and all its dominions, glowed as white as a death mask, the make-up so thick to hide the ravages of age and high office that flakes intermittently fell to the lace ruff round her neck. Her eyes, though, were black pebbles of despair, Cecil thought. She saw the end of her reign, of all England. She folded her hands in the lap of her golden skirts and looked around the sallow faces of her councillors. Few would meet her gaze. Finally her eyes alighted on the spymaster.

‘Sir Robert, it seems only you have the courage to speak. Throw me some crumbs of comfort.’

Cecil bowed. ‘Your Highness, these are indeed the worst of times. Our hopes of bringing Dr Dee home to bolster our defences have been dashed by our Enemy’s cunning. We feared an impending invasion.’ He moistened his lips, measuring Elizabeth’s mood from half-lidded eyes. ‘And yet in my encounter with those black-hearted fiends ’pon the frozen Thames, I spied a sliver of hope. Or, at the least, a moment to catch our breath.’

‘You almost lost all our lives there and then with your play of defiance, you fly-bitten whey-face,’ Essex muttered just behind the spymaster’s shoulder.

Ignoring his rival, Cecil continued, ‘In recent times, our Enemy have shown no desire to negotiate. They take what they want. And yet they come to us demanding that we bring their Queen to them. Why do they not storm this palace and seize her themselves?’ He paused for effect, raising his chin. ‘Because they cannot.’

‘If the threads of Dee’s defences still hold, they will not do so for much longer, Little Elf. The inevitable has only been delayed.’

‘That is true, Your Majesty.’

‘Then what use is the time you have bought us?’ The Queen leaned forward on her throne, her brow knitting beneath her auburn wig.

‘Majesty, I would suggest a final, desperate gamble.’ Cecil had thought long and hard about the options left to them while he waited for the Queen to make her way to the council chamber. He knew Elizabeth well. She was not weak. In times of anger or fear, she had a strong stomach for courses that would be unpalatable to many.

‘Speak,’ she said. ‘Even dry bread is a feast to a beggar.’

‘You are right to say our defences will crumble soon, without Dr Dee to bring his magics back to them. Yet we have one thing of value, one thing only, but it is a jewel beyond measure: the Faerie Queen herself.’

‘She will not offer us mercy,’ Elizabeth snapped.

‘No. But she has one other thing to offer us . . . her life.’ A shocked murmur ran through the black-gowned men at his back. Cecil watched the same shock light Elizabeth’s eyes. Yet she had steeled herself once to order the execution of another Queen, and that Queen her cousin; could the removal of one as despised as their immortal Enemy really be a step too far? Certainly, they had never encountered a more desperate time. ‘My counsel, Your Majesty, is that we build a pyre to the very top of the Lantern
Tower
. Should the Unseelie Court threaten us further, we set it alight and burn their Queen alive in her prison.’

‘And watch her die as we ourselves go down in flames?’

‘The Unseelie Court would not risk losing the only thing of value to them. It is a balance—’

‘It is a foolish notion!’ The Queen’s eyes blazed. ‘Do you think we can keep the Unseelie Court at bay for ever while our men stand by with brands? Once the defences collapse, they will be working their magics in every corner of the land. They will attempt to steal me out from under your nose, Sir Robert, and place
me
on a pyre, tempting you to blink first.’

Cecil bowed his head for a moment, allowing the monarch to calm, and then he replied in a quiet voice, ‘It is all we have, Your Majesty.’

Elizabeth slumped back in her throne, her chin falling to her chest.

‘This may not hold for ever, Your Majesty. In the end, we may all go down in flames, though knowing we have inflicted a wound that will burn our Enemy for all time. And yet, the Unseelie Court are cautious. Time, as their representative told me, means nothing to them. They will not take rash action. And so we may earn respite for a day, a week, a month, a year, while we search for some new defence.’

‘And live in dread? Never knowing if each night will be our last? I would rather . . .’ The Queen caught the word in her throat and shook her head. ‘While there is life there is hope. But only Dr Dee has ever found a way to shut out those foul creatures. Where will we turn in this hour of need?’

Cecil knew he had no answer, but he was spared a hollow reply. Outside the door, argumentative voices could be heard. Elizabeth scowled at the disturbance. ‘What is the meaning of this intrusion?’ the spymaster called. With a flamboyant sweep of his white cloak, Essex strode over and threw the door open. The two pikemen who guarded the entrance to the chamber had crossed their weapons to bar a young man. It was Swyfte’s assistant,
Nathaniel
Colt, flushed and sweating, his forehead streaked with the dirt of the road. Behind him, the spymaster glimpsed the young woman Grace Seldon. The news of her friend’s death had clearly sloughed off her with surprising speed, for her face had hardened and she looked to have recovered her fire. She pressed the assistant forward against the pikes. The young man saw the Queen on her throne and bowed his head. ‘Your Majesty,’ he murmured, playing with his cap.

‘Have you lost your wits?’ Cecil demanded. ‘Do you wish to call the Tower home?’

‘Sir . . .’ Nathaniel stuttered, ‘I . . . I must speak to you.’ He glanced back at Grace and found new strength in her determined look. ‘On a matter of great urgency,’ he continued with a deep bow. ‘I have a message from my master.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE RISING SUN
had set the sky ablaze. Gulls wheeled in the salty wind blowing from the east, greeting the morn with hungry cries. The forest of masts silhouetted against the red glow swayed as the great vessels strained at their anchors in Tilbury docks on the wide, grey Thames. The slap of sailcloth and the crack of rigging accompanied the shanties of the sailors on the only galleon abuzz with activity. To most of those who crowded into the taverns lining the quay, the
Tempest
was a ship of mysterious purpose. None knew the vessel had been set aside long ago for use by the secret service, a ghost in the ledgers of the quay master and the Queen’s tax men, often coming and going under cover of the night with a crew that rarely mixed with the other sea-dogs.

Shielding his eyes against the brassy dawn light, Will Swyfte allowed himself a tight smile of approval. His black and silver doublet was still smeared with ashes and soot from the fire aboard the
Gauntlet
, and the ends of his hair were singed. A small price to pay, he knew. ‘You have done us proud, Sir Walter,’ he said with a nod.

‘And you are a cunning dog, Master Swyfte, and a man after
my
own heart.’ Raleigh clapped his hands together, grinning at the success of the deception. In his lime-green doublet and ochre cloak, he looked out of place on the quayside with its barrels of stinking pitch, dusty piles of ballast and heaps of dung from the merchants’ carthorses. ‘Two ships provisioned, one by the Queen and one by the School of Night, one in full view and one in secret.’

‘Keep a door open for a quick exit, that has always been my code.’ Will closed his eyes and saw once again the wall of orange flame that had engulfed the
Gauntlet
. But they had been ready. The rowing boat towed along behind the galleon had always been their planned escape route should they come under concerted attack. While the other seamen leapt into the river, only to be consumed in a white-water frenzy by the ferocious creatures swimming there, he had battled through the flames with the other three spies. At the sterncastle, he, Launceston, Carpenter and the young spy, Strangewayes, had slid down the oiled rope into the dinghy and rowed away, an insignificant speck beside the blazing ship. The fast current had swept them towards Tilbury where Nathaniel awaited them, ready to be despatched to the Palace of Whitehall.