The Devil

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The mirror swung open without a sound. Blinking in the glare of candlelight after so long stumbling through the dark, Carpenter looked round a small antechamber lined with leather-bound books. On a trestle in a corner stood rolls of yellowing charts, a human skull with a fragment of pate missing, an ivory-handled knife with a curved blade and a small silver casket. He could still smell the sweet aroma which had hung in the air since they had entered the mirror maze. But over the top of it now drifted the reek of human sweat.

His head swam from the visions that had floated across his mind’s eye since he had become separated from the others. His love, Alice Dalingridge, calling to him, still as beautiful as when she had been alive. His father, now so long in the grave, showing him how to chop wood behind the thatched cottage in the forest clearing. And that thing tearing at his face in the frozen Muscovy woods, when Swyfte had left him for dead and he had felt all hope desert him. Time no longer meant anything to him. He might have been in that black, glass world for years.

With a shaking hand, he wiped the sweat from his brow and steadied himself. At least that damnable whispering had left him in peace. Creeping forward, he listened at the door to the next chamber. When no sound reached his ears, he opened it a crack and peered inside. Amid shelves of books, Dee sat on a stool in front of the cold hearth, his back to Carpenter. The old man had his head in his hands, deep in thought.

The spy drew his dagger in case he had to prick the alchemist to urge him to obey. As he prepared to step into the chamber, a hand fell on his shoulder. He almost cried out and lashed out with his knife. The steel whipped a hair’s breadth from Launceston’s throat. Pulling the door shut, Carpenter pushed the Earl to the other side of the antechamber and whispered, ‘You fool. I could have killed you.’

He flinched at the other man’s penetrating gaze. ‘What was your intention?’ the Earl asked in his blank, emotionless voice.

‘To capture Dee, of course.’ Carpenter’s gaze flickered away from the other man’s probing eyes.

After a moment, the Earl spoke, his tone measured. ‘I have had little comfort in my life, despite the land my family has owned, and the wealth we have amassed — or perhaps because of it. My father was not a man given to sentiment. Ledgers and balance sheets prescribed the limits of his life; the cold stone of our castle, rarely heated even in winter, was the womb of his existence. He sought to teach me harsh lessons, feeling, mayhap, that it would best prepare me for the kind of life he lived. Cellars and drains and holes were my billet. Days spent in dark and damp, with only rats and beetles for friends. Blood and bruises and broken bones. No traitor in the Tower fared worse. I wonder sometimes if God made me the monster I am, or if it was my father.’ He wrinkled his nose and shrugged. ‘It matters little. We are what we are.’

Carpenter glanced towards the door, half expecting Dee to come out and cast some vile spell on them. ‘Why are you telling me these things?’ he asked in irritation.

‘I killed him. My father. He was my first. At the time I thought it would ease the ache that reached deep inside me.’ Launceston cocked his head, narrowing his eyes as he stared into the middle distance. ‘It only increased my appetite. When something has been taken away, we try to replenish the space left behind with other things, but that is like filling the sea with sand.’

‘You are a madman. Why speak like this, now, here?’

‘You have lost the woman you loved, seen your face scarred and the very foundations of your life shaken. You are trying to fill the sea with sand,’ the Earl said.

Carpenter furrowed his brow, trying to tease out the meaning in his companion’s words. He sensed a weight there and it puzzled him. Launceston rarely spoke, and never expressed his innermost thoughts or feelings. Indeed, Carpenter had come to believe the Earl had none.

‘I know not what Lansing offered you when you were his prisoner, but it was a deal with the devil,’ the aristocrat said, his voice now a whisper. And then Carpenter understood: no one saw into the Earl, but Launceston had seen into him. ‘Your belief that you can achieve your heart’s desire has blinded you to the truth.’

‘The bastard offered me nothing,’ Carpenter lied, with a derisive laugh. ‘I resisted all his attempts to torture me.’

‘The Unseelie Court rarely have need to torture. And I know you better than you know yourself,’ the other man replied, turning his gaze towards the candle flame. Carpenter thought he appeared to be trying to dredge up the remnants of whatever human emotion had survived from his earliest days; a monk trying to comprehend the ways of a Bankside doxy might have looked equally baffled. ‘The decision you make this day will define the course of the rest of your life,’ Launceston continued. ‘I will not stand in your way, whatever you choose. You have stood by me when most other men would have walked away in disgust — that is something I have never known in my life, and I value it more than you could understand. For the first time in my dismal existence, I have found a place where I am at ease, here among men who deal in false faces and deceit yet hold themselves to a higher standard than most honest men-’

‘I made no deal with Lansing,’ Carpenter interrupted, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.

Launceston continued as if the other man had not spoken. ‘-and I feel there is a place here for you too, if only you would open your eyes to it. In the midst of all this strife, we can find peace — yes, and Swyfte too — to replace the things that have been stolen from us. Seek out the morals that have always guided you-’

Carpenter laughed. ‘I am being lectured on morals by a man who has killed children.’ If he had expected the Earl to be stung by the gibe, Launceston did not show it.

‘We must not become the men the Unseelie Court believe us to be,’ the aristocrat ended. His searching gaze fixed upon the other man’s face.

Carpenter felt the guilt rise inside him. How weak he had been, and he had known it and tried to deny it. Yet here was a man without a heart refusing to judge him and wanting him to aspire to greater things. What a mad world they had entered when they had stepped within the tower.

‘I made no deal with Lansing,’ he repeated, adding in a gentler tone, ‘and I would never have given Dee up to them. Let us work together to capture the old man and deliver him to the Tempest. Then perhaps we can escape this steaming hell and return home.’

But as they crept back to the door, he felt his falsehoods lying heavily upon him. Amends would need to be made. He shook his head to dispel the bitter taste of failure and saw traces of candlelight stream through the air. ‘There is still magic at play here,’ he muttered.

Easing open the door, he peered through the crack. Dee still sat in the same position, bowed in front of the hearth. Carpenter wondered if the old man had died, so still was he, but he drew his dagger none the less. With a man like Dee he would take no chances. Holding his breath, he eased towards the hunched figure. His head throbbed and his mouth felt dry. When he crooked his arm to slip it round the alchemist’s neck, he suddenly felt a fist grab the back of his shirt and drag him backwards.

A breeze whisked past his face as an axe-blade swung from the shadows above and smashed into Dee’s side, throwing him to the flagstones. Carpenter gaped. One step further and it would have been his head rolling across the floor. Launceston knelt and picked up a thread that had been broken as Carpenter entered. Another of Dee’s traps, but with this one he had paid the price.

Yet as Carpenter whirled back to the fallen figure, he saw the truth in the shapeless robes. Pulling them to one side, the spy revealed a frame of twisted saplings. ‘How could I ever have believed that was Dee?’ he muttered.

‘You were entranced by whatever spell the alchemist has woven here,’ Launceston said. His tone was flat, but he clearly did not want Carpenter to blame himself.

Carpenter sighed. ‘So the old man still hides away. We must resume our search.’ He turned towards the door so that the aristocrat would not see the worry in his face. Deep inside, he could feel the Caraprix wriggling, and whispering its seductive words. Deep inside, he could feel himself dying by the moment.