The Devil

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

The glinting steel filled will’s vision. And one thought seared: Carpenter’s great betrayal had doomed them all. He jerked back in anticipation of the blade’s sinking into his skull, just as he sensed a flurry of movement and a sudden impact. His attacker spun away. The deflected blade ripped through the flesh above his cheek and tore into his tangle of black hair. Blood dripped on to the flags.

In agony, he stumbled back, wiping at the burning wound with his sleeve. His gaze fell upon Carpenter, who was sprawled across the stone floor, pinned down by Launceston. ‘Kill me,’ Carpenter pleaded, staring into the aristocrat’s pale, impassive face. ‘Do it now, as you vowed.’ When the Earl didn’t respond, Carpenter blinked away tears and wailed, ‘If you do not end my life, I will betray you again and again until I have slain you all. You will not leave this place.’

Will saw Meg hovering over Mandraxas with her dagger drawn, Grace and Jenny beside her, all of them gripped by Carpenter’s plight. Blood trickled between his fingers. He saw the truth in the treacherous spy’s words. Sooner or later, Carpenter would attack them again. With a surge of bitter regret for the friend he once knew, he drew his own dagger from his boot.

As he levelled the blade, Launceston caught his wrist to block the strike. ‘Let him live,’ the Earl said, his voice quiet but his eyes flashing a warning.

‘From his own mouth he has damned himself, Robert. We will never escape with a traitor in our midst.’

‘He is no traitor.’ The aristocrat pointed a wavering arm at the ghastly figures watching from the mirrors. ‘They have infected him with their vile magics.’

‘Is this true, John?’ As he spoke, Will winced in pain from his wound.

‘Some foul creature crawls inside my head,’ Carpenter replied, his voice a ragged whine. ‘It rides me like a Barbary mare, forcing me to do its bidding, and, God help me, I cannot resist. Whatever it demands, I must do — even murder my friends.’ He screwed up his eyes to hide the tears of shame and regret.

‘It seems our King has long since set his own schemes in motion,’ came Deortha’s voice. ‘The Caraprix can only work its spell when it has been accepted freely.’

‘They tricked me,’ Carpenter raged. His voice caught and he choked, ‘I am too weak. I wanted an escape from this life. I should have resisted.’

Will sighed. More than anyone he understood the manipulations of the Unseelie Court. ‘Robert, the outcome is still the same. John cannot be trusted. We cannot take him with us.’

‘No,’ the Earl spat, his face alight with a rare show of passion. ‘I will be his keeper.’

‘That burden may be too great, even for you, Robert.’

‘I will watch him like a hawk, and whenever that enchantment drives him to commit traitorous acts I will be there,’ Launceston said, his grey, blank eyes fixed on Will.

‘Take my life, I implore you,’ Carpenter begged again, his voice cracking. ‘I cannot bear to live this way, with a life that is not my own.’

The Earl peered into his friend’s tear-flecked eyes for a long moment. Will wondered what thoughts turned in that unreadable mind. He could barely hear when Launceston spoke. ‘You have saved me. I will save you. I can do no less.’ Turning back to Will, he added, ‘This is my burden now, for all our days if necessary. I am prepared. You must trust me.’

Will watched Carpenter in his torments and nodded. ‘You are a good man, Robert, for all your weaknesses.’

A sharp cry of pain echoed across the chamber. Will whirled round. He was a fool; he had allowed himself to be distracted for too long. Mandraxas had made his move and taken Meg by surprise, knocking the dagger from her grasp, and now his long fingers were clamped around her wrist. One touch, no more. But it was enough. The Irish woman’s face had drained of blood. Where the King’s hand gripped, her skin was marbling. Mandraxas smiled in triumph at Will, knowing he could never reach him before the graven transformation had spread to the point of death.

Will drew his sword as the beautiful Irish spy swooned. Yet he had barely moved when shock flared in the King’s face. Meg tumbled from his grasp. The Fay King staggered back, grasping at the dagger embedded in his thigh.

Ashen-faced, Jenny stepped back, her hand shaking. Mandraxas stared at her, a look of such sadness and disbelief that it could only have come from a broken heart.

When Will reached him, the King had barely moved, seemingly drained of all resistance by his love’s blow. One clout from the hilt of the spy’s rapier and he fell to his knees once more. ‘Stay back,’ Will warned Meg, who had staggered to her feet, shaking her head as she fought to gather her thoughts and rubbing furiously at the skin on her arm. ‘He is mine and mine alone.’

Yet the Fay’s gaze remained fixed on Jenny, weighted with infinite grief. Will hated what he saw there. He thought of Mandraxas and Jenny’s long years as consorts, of caresses and shared moments, of gentleness and intimacy and joy. And love. How much easier it had been when he had thought his love simply stolen. What a stew of confused emotion this was; how bitter it tasted. His sword at the ready, he circled the stricken King, imagining what it would feel like to skewer the one who had torn the heart out of his life so long ago. In his mind’s eye, he saw the gout of blood and the death-rictus on Mandraxas’s face. Hatred seared his chest. He wanted vengeance.

Around them, the chamber had grown silent. He could feel Deortha’s gaze upon him, willing him to complete their pact: execute the King who had betrayed his own people, for power, yes, but for love too.

‘Deortha. Once the deed is done, I would not wish to tarry here. Which way?’ Will called, his eyes not leaving the Fay King.

‘On the far side of the chamber there is a door,’ the sorcerer replied, triumph creeping into his voice.

Will’s hand shook. The tip of his rapier nicked the King’s flesh. For a moment, simmering rage hardened his face and then he sucked in a deep breath and calmed himself. Jenny turned away, sickened by what she feared was to come.

‘You can keep your worthless life,’ Will growled, putting up his sword. Mandraxas twitched. Incomprehension crossed his pale, refined features. From the corner of his eye, the spy glimpsed cold rage beginning to glow in Deortha’s face. ‘I am not you,’ he continued. A deep calm settled over him, and his sombre words were tinged with sadness. ‘Nor am I the man that others think me. Not England’s greatest spy, nor the rake driven solely by selfish urges. The truth is harder to define, even for me. More than anything under Heaven, I want my revenge for what you did. But that would sacrifice all men and women to the righteous fury of the Unseelie Court, and even as cold-hearted a knave as I could not plumb those depths. And yet. .’ He waved his index finger in the air. ‘And yet. . I saw an opportunity here for a clever man. . or a reckless gambler, one or t’other.’

‘And you were always both,’ he heard Meg whisper.

Still clutching at the wound in his thigh, Mandraxas looked bemused. Will turned to Jenny, his voice growing more intense. ‘A slim chance to achieve the two ends to which I have dedicated my life — to save you and to deal the Unseelie Court a crushing blow that might set them back years, if not for ever.’ He took a deep, juddering breath and smiled at his love. Returning his attention to the Fay, he raised the tip of his sword and held it against the King’s chest. ‘If you are allowed to live and return to your people, the Unseelie Court will be riven by strife as factions battle for supremacy. Those who support you, and those, like Deortha, who wish to see the return of their true Queen. For how long?’ He shrugged. ‘For those such as you for whom time is meaningless, it may well be an eternity. Divided, you would have little time for your war against men.’

‘You are mistaken,’ Will heard Launceston’s hushed voice. ‘You are indeed England’s greatest spy.’

Her eyes sparkling, Meg beamed. ‘You might well have ended this war we all thought would last for ever.’

Will held up a bloodstained hand, hardly daring to believed it himself. He looked round. Jenny and Grace were both smiling in disbelief, tears of relief glistening in their eyes. Jenny mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ He refused to consider why she was thanking him. There would be time for that conversation later.

Fury finally ignited in Deortha’s face. ‘Lies and deceit. I should have expected no better from a man.’

‘True,’ Will replied with a shrug. ‘We are worse than beasts in the field.’

‘Have you no honour?’

Placing a finger on his chin, Will feigned a moment of reflection. ‘Honour? What is honour? Does it buy me good sack in the Mermaid? I have saved my love and ended a war. I leave honour for better men than I. I am happy to remain a bastard.’

Deortha’s snarl echoed across the chamber until it was drowned by Mandraxas’s laughter. He stood, pushing away the tip of Will’s rapier with a slender finger. ‘So you refuse to kill. And yet on that hot night soon after I took from you the thing you valued most, I saw you slay an innocent man.’

Will felt the eyes of all there fall upon him. His breath caught in his chest as years of self-loathing bubbled up. Finally he nodded. ‘’Tis true, though I have never spoken of it to anyone.’ He glanced at Grace, noting the lines of worry in her face, and sighed. Bowing his head, he confessed, ‘When Jenny disappeared that afternoon, I barely held on to my wits. I searched every byway around Arden and in the depths of night came across a man struggling with Jenny beside a hedgerow. Blinded by fury, I leapt from my horse and beat him to death with my fists.’ His head flooded with the sensations of bones breaking under his knuckles and blood flowing over his fingers. He felt the weight in his heart that he had carried since that night.

‘But when he lay lifeless at my feet and I turned to embrace Jenny, I saw it was not her,’ he continued. ‘It was one of the silly village girls, known for her easy ways. The man was a footpad, so not a good man, and the girl was grateful that I had saved her from the fate he had intended.’ He swallowed. ‘But in truth, yes, I had killed an innocent man.’ He looked to Grace, expecting accusation or disgust, but he saw only pity. ‘That night when you came to me at the well I was washing the blood from my hands, though I could never clean the stains from my mortal soul. That night. . the course of my life changed. I learned that I am not a good man. And though I have tried to make amends for my crime, I know I never will.’

Grace ran to his side. ‘It is not true. You are a good man and you have proved it time and again.’

Mandraxas gave a cold laugh at the subtle blow he had struck. But as his amusement drained away, he pointed a threatening finger at Will. ‘You think yourself clever, but the schemes of mortals rarely turn out as planned. And I have nothing but time to take the prize.’ He glanced at Jenny, but turned away quickly so Will could not see his expression. Then he grasped the hilt of the knife in his thigh, and, with a grimace, slowly withdrew it. Tearing off a strip of cloth from the hem of his cloak, he began to bind the wound. Jenny hesitated, glancing at Will, and when he nodded she hurried to help the one who had been her consort for so long. The Fay King watched her as she tenderly tied the cloth round his thigh, but if he felt anything it did not show on his face. When she had finished, Mandraxas muttered something that Will could not hear, and then turned quickly and limped towards the stone steps leading out of the chamber of mirrors.

As if in a trance, Will watched him go, still barely believing that he had plucked some kind of victory from the direst of situations. Once the King moved into the penumbra beyond the circle of candlelight, he turned, beckoning the others to follow him. ‘Come, my friends, we must make haste,’ he said.

Yet barely had he taken a step when a sharp gasp brought him to a halt. He spun round to see Mandraxas staggering back down the steps, one hand clutched at his chest as blood fountained between his fingers. Will gaped in shock. The King half turned, his yearning gaze finding Jenny for one moment, and then he fell to the flagstones, dead. Jenny rushed to him with a cry of despair.

In his mirror, Deortha was smiling.

‘What is this treachery?’ Launceston said, menace curdling his voice.

A figure stepped out of the shadows from the foot of the stairs, holding a blade that dripped gore. It was Strangewayes. The red-headed spy looked across at his companions with a cold face and said, ‘The only treachery here is yours. And now there is an end to it.’