The Devil's Looking-Glass

Another blast tore open the main deck. An orange sheet of flame rushed up through the fissure, catching stays and canvas and lines as it swept along the vessel. A sailor was caught in the inferno and, screaming in agony, hurled himself overboard in a bid to quench the flames. Will choked, holding up an arm to protect his face from the searing heat pressing in on every side. They had perhaps only a moment before the powder store blew, taking the galleon and every man aboard to kingdom come. Yet the fire beat him back at every turn.

‘Is this how it ends, then,’ Strangewayes gasped, his face ruddy in the light of the flames, ‘for us, for England?’

Will spun round, searching for a path through the conflagration. Then, as the mainmast cracked with a sound like cannon-shot, the blazing sailcloth plunged down towards them.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

FLAMES ROARED UP into the night. Dancing orange light flared across the frozen river as the listing galleon was consumed in the jaws of the conflagration. Blackened wood cracked and spat. Black snow fell across the icy waste, flakes of charred canvas swirling in the breeze. In the trees on the far bank of the Thames, Sir Robert Cecil watched from under lowered brows and thought of the midwinter fire festivals in the far north. No celebration here; it was a bonfire of all their hopes. After so long holding the Unseelie Court at bay, England was lost.

Sickened, he reined in his skittish horse, no longer able to see a path ahead. What would he tell the Queen? That Dee was lost to them? That they should free the Faerie Queen immediately and plead for mercy from the Fay when they came like a storm in the night?

His bodyguard shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. He was a big man, his face a map of scars, but he sensed his master’s dismay and had grown scared. ‘Swyfte and his men?’ he asked.

‘Dead and gone. They failed us all.’

The galleon’s powder store exploded, the deafening blast a bitter punctuation to his comment. A plume of fire soared high above the treetops. Shards of smouldering timber and burning sailcloth rained down. The spymaster’s horse whinnied in terror and reared up, almost throwing him from its back. With a curse, he fought to bring it under control. When the fog of smoke cleared, nothing of the Gauntlet remained save a few burning staves slipping below the black water.

Cecil covered his eyes, hoping the soughing of the wind in the branches would soothe him after the din. Yet when he raised his head to survey the dismal scene, he felt as if despair would be lodged in his heart for ever. Damn Swyfte for raising his spirits! After such hope, this failure tasted even more bitter.

‘Back to the Palace of Whitehall,’ he snarled to his bodyguard. ‘I must give the Queen my counsel.’ He urged his mount back on to the lonely road to London.

As he rode, his gaze flickered towards the white ribbon of the Thames glimpsed through the trees. He could no longer see any sign of the misty figures he had witnessed sweeping towards the galleon. From a distance, they had looked like moon-shadows, but he knew their true nature. Even if he had raised the militia, they would have stood little chance of repelling the invader. The tales of the days when the Unseelie Court roamed across England without hindrance haunted him, and always would. The ruined lives, the lost souls. Jane, poor Jane. Still visiting him every night without fail.

As the two riders thundered towards London’s walls, the bodyguard bellowed to the sentries to open the gates. Inside the city, their hoofbeats rattled off wattle walls. Candlelight gleamed in windows here and there, but the cold streets were empty. Cecil had thought the explosion at Greenwich would have brought the curious and fearful out into the night, and he wondered if somehow they all sensed that grim atmosphere. Stay with your families and pray for all our souls, he silently implored.

And on they rode, out of the West Gate and up to the Palace of Whitehall, ablaze with lanterns to hold the night at bay. Within the walls, Cecil felt the tightness in his chest ease a little. An illusion, he knew. He took in the pikemen marching in their ranks and the sentries lining the walls in preparation for what was undoubtedly to come, and then he hurried towards the Black Gallery. He dreaded giving the Queen the news that he had failed her – Elizabeth’s temper burned hot – and he had resolved to lay the blame squarely at Swyfte’s feet, when a woman darted out of the shadows to confront him. It was the spy’s mare, Grace Seldon, the one Swyfte had sworn to protect and who mooned over him like a girl who had yet to bleed. She was wrapped in a cloak the colour of forget-me-nots, but her eyes were pink from lack of sleep. Her hair had been pulled back with little care and tied with an old ribbon.

‘Sir, pray tell me news of William Swyfte.’ She lifted her fine-boned face up to him, as pale as the moon. ‘He came to me in a manner that suggested he feared he would not be returning—’

‘Then you should have listened to him,’ the spymaster barked, trying to push by the lady-in-waiting. ‘Master Swyfte has passed from this world, God save his meagre soul.’

The woman’s eyes widened for a moment as she clutched her fluttering hands to her lips before falling back in a swoon. Cecil regretted his cruel response for the inconvenience it had caused him. Turning, he beckoned to his bodyguard. ‘Take her to the physician so she does not clutter up this place, and do not allow her near me again.’ Women were a mystery to him, and a weakness to all men. Swyfte had been proof enough of that.

He hurried into the Black Gallery, hoping for a moment to order his thoughts before he faced the Queen. Instead, he found the Earl of Essex pacing the chamber. In the candlelight, the Earl was all aglow in a white doublet and half-compass cloak and breeches the colour of snow. A fine show, Cecil inwardly sneered. So wealthy and gallant and charming, no smuts would ever dare taint his attire.

‘At last,’ the Earl snapped, stabbing a finger towards the spymaster. ‘Hiding yourself away to avoid all blame while England burns?’

‘Someone has to keep the wheels of government turning in this time of trouble.’

‘I suspected you were arranging a ship to flee to Flanders, or France.’ Essex narrowed his eyes.

‘You think we can run from them?’ Cecil snorted.

The Earl slumped on to a bench, head in hands. The spymaster glanced at the other man askance, surprised to see the usual swagger stripped away.

‘We have lived fat for so many years, we have forgotten what it was like. The bodies in the ditches leaking pus and shit. The children stolen from their cribs. Women turned to stone, and men left blind or mad.’ Essex ran his fingers through his lustrous hair. ‘Perhaps we should run, whatever you say. They will come for us first, the ones who kept them at bay and colluded in the imprisonment of their Queen. Not the ignorant common man who goes about his life with eyes only on the next meal. If we earned ourselves even a day more of life, that would be of some value.’

Cecil lumbered to the hearth and tossed another log on the fire. It had grown chill in the room. ‘I would hold your tongue, sir,’ he replied with unconcealed disgust. ‘We do not run like rats. We have sworn an oath to stand by the Queen, and England.’

Essex stared into the corner of the chamber, unable to meet the other man’s eye.

‘The Privy Council?’ Cecil asked.

‘Has gathered, as you requested. What will be your advice to the Queen?’

Before the spymaster could answer, pounding feet drew nearer and the door crashed open. A pikeman lurched in, his helmet askew and his cheeks flushed. The spymaster could see the flames of fear licking in the man’s eyes. ‘I plead indulgence for this rude entry, sirs,’ the man stuttered, ‘but your . . . your attendance has been requested.’

‘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.

Raleigh eyed the other man askance. ‘You knew the Unseelie Court would be lured by the Gauntlet. And once that vessel was destroyed, they would have no reason to believe you had prepared a second ship. A strong plan, a winning one.’ He paused. ‘Have you made your peace with the loss of the good men who died in the attack?’

Will raised his head to watch the sailors climbing the lines like monkeys, as if he had not heard. ‘Every war has its casualties. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten,’ he said after a moment. Though Raleigh nodded, the spy could hear the unspoken codicil: the men had not been asked to give up their lives, and would not have accepted if they had. With each day, it seemed he made another accommodation with his conscience. How far was he prepared to go to bring Jenny home; how many lives was he prepared to sacrifice? He had no answer, though he wondered if the Unseelie Court’s bleak judgement of human nature was true. He cast an unsettled glance back along the winding Thames. ‘I fear I must take my leave. Time is of the essence. Our Enemy will not be blind to my guile for much longer and we must reach open water before they give pursuit. But I thank you for your aid. I am in your debt.’

Raleigh tugged at his beard and smiled. ‘You are indeed, Master Swyfte. Do not forget our agreement.’

Raleigh played a long game, not so far removed from the machinations of the Unseelie Court, Will realized. The information he brought back from the New World – should he ever return – would be more valuable than gold to the School of Night. The great men who made up the numbers of the secret society could translate knowledge into power with ease. But what were they plotting? Why was the New World so important to them? Raleigh would certainly never tell. With a smile and a nod, the explorer slipped into the shadowy alley beside the shipwright’s workshop where he had tethered his horse.

Turning back to the Tempest, Will pushed past the queue of men carrying the last of the provisions up the plank. At the poop deck rail, he searched the broad river to the west where the grey fug of London’s home fires tainted the sky. No sign yet of any pursuit, but it would come. The wolves of the Unseelie Court would sniff the wind and know their prey was loose.

‘Master Swyfte. We are ready to sail.’ The booming voice cut through the raucous singing of the labouring sailors. Captain John Courtenay was a giant of a man, seasoned by the sun and the salty wind, his brown beard and hair proudly untamed. No other could be trusted to lead the expedition into the dangerous uncharted waters that lay ahead. A veteran of the New World, he knew all that had yet been learned of that mysterious place. He knew of the trade routes where they might encounter heavily armed Spanish galleons bringing their rich hauls of silver and spices back to Europe, and of the river inlets bristling with fleets of small boats filled with Indians with blowpipes. He knew, too, of the plants that brought sickness and death, and of those that supplied bountiful fruit; of the taste of the wind that heralded a tropical storm. He had helped claim Nova Albion for the Crown and had been at Sir Francis Drake’s side during the sacking of Cartagena and the capture of San Augustin in Spanish Florida.

And yet there were some who believed him quite mad. Bloody Jack, they called him, the sea-dog who tore out the throats of his enemies with his teeth and dyed his beard blood-red before every battle. Will wondered if that wild nature was the result of the torture the captain had received at the hands of the Spanish, his mind as scarred as his face, which was marred by a ragged pink X that ran from temple to jaw. Yet for what lay ahead, a madman was the sanest choice of all.

‘Unfurl your sails, captain. We cannot depart soon enough.’

‘Do ye have a course for me yet?’

‘Soon. Take us out of the Channel and into the wide Atlantic, and then I will have what you need. But I must warn you – we venture close to the very home of the Unseelie Court.’

He waited for the captain to berate him for embarking on a quest that could only be suicide for every man aboard. Instead, Courtenay laughed, too loud. ‘Finally we shall take the battle to those pale bastards. Too long have we cowered, Master Swyfte. Let them come in their thousands, with their magics and their creatures and their phantoms, let them drag me down to Hell, I will take down a hundred for every man we lose and die with no fear in my eyes.’

Will saw the unsettling gleam in Bloody Jack’s eye. No other man would go so willingly to the source of the nightmares that had plagued humankind since Eden. He knew then he had made the right choice. Bloody Jack threw his arms wide and burst into song, striding back to the main deck to watch his men swarming up the rigging to the yards.

Will stared into the distance, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. The sun was turning gold in a cloudless blue sky and haze hung over the river where it flowed towards the sea. It was a good day, and likely to be warm for the season. He frowned. His spirits should have been soaring, but all he could sense were the shadows closing in on every side.

On the quarterdeck, Carpenter and Launceston stood against the rail, bickering. Will had seen the signs and he feared Carpenter’s mood was growing darker still. The Unseelie Court had a way of infecting men with a creeping despair that usually ended in death. Carpenter should have been stripped of his duties and given time to recover, yet here Will was, taking the wounded man to the very heart of the thing that was slowly destroying him. As for Launceston – who knew what moved in his dark depths? Yet did that give Will the right to lead the Earl by his nose to his potential doom? And there on the forecastle was Strangewayes, still struggling to come to terms with the haunted world in which he found himself. Will had stolen him from Grace, denying two people happiness in one fell swoop, and hurting one whom he had professed to protect.

He turned away from his men, feeling the weight of his decision. Had he damned everyone he knew and his own soul in the process? He wondered if it was the natural order for men to become as terrible as the things they fought. Yet the stakes were high, and no reward was easily bought. This was the path he had chosen and no other would lead to victory.

As the wind filled the sails and the anchor rose from the river in a cascade of glittering jewels, the Tempest began to pull away from the quay, gathering speed. Will leaned on the rail, watching the fields move away from him, and the oaks and elms, and all that he knew. And he wondered if he would ever see England again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE POOP DECK heaved on the heavy swell and a good wind filled the sails. Under blue skies, the Tempest scudded towards the New World, bearing down hard on the darkness and the mystery. Yet Will and Captain Courtenay stood at the rail and looked out across the choppy water at their back. They watched a wall of grey cloud rolling across the white-topped waves on the eastern horizon, keeping pace with the galleon. Both men felt uneasy.

‘Master Swyfte, I fear we have a problem.’ Captain Courtenay removed the beechwood and brass tele-scope from his eye. ‘If that is a natural formation, then I am a toad-spotted skains-mate.’

Will took the tele-scope and studied the drifting fog. Even so powerful a tool as Dr Dee’s most recent invention could not pierce that dense cloud. No sign of pursuit had troubled them as the Tempest sailed out of the Channel, past southern Ireland and into the wide Atlantic. But when that strange cloud appeared one hour ago, Will had felt the first prickle of unease. ‘Does it appear to you to be drawing closer?’ he asked.

‘Hard to tell. The ocean plays tricks on the wits. I have seen seasoned sailors look at the green waves and believe them the fields of their home. They step out to walk a while and sink straight to the bottom.’ Bloody Jack took back the tele-scope and shoved it into the waist of his salt-stained breeches. ‘And islands that seem a cannon-shot away can take days to reach.’

‘Then there is little we can do but watch and wait,’ Will replied. ‘And if it is some threat unleashed by the Unseelie Court, we must be prepared to act.’

Courtenay threw his head back and laughed. ‘You have indeed led us by the nose into Hell, Master Swyfte. Should we fight the devils at our back or flee towards the devils that lie ahead? Now that is a choice!’

As the captain made his way to the main deck, angry cries rose up from the crew. A hooded figure wrapped in a plain brown woollen cloak flew out of the doorway to the lower decks and sprawled across the sandy boards. The first mate prowled out a moment later, a swarthy man with a drooping black moustache and only one eye. Brandishing his sword, he loomed over the fallen figure.

‘A stowaway, lads, stealing the food from our barrels,’ he roared. ‘Over the side with ’im!’

‘Stay your hand.’ Will bounded down the steps from the poop deck. With the cold efficiency for which they were known, two sailors had already hauled their captor half over the rail. They glanced back towards Will, unsure.

‘Do as ’e says,’ the first mate muttered. He eyed the spy from under low brows, making no attempt to hide his irritation at being overruled.

The sullen sailors dragged the writhing stowaway back from the brink and threw the cloaked figure to its knees. When the first mate yanked back the hood to reveal the stranger’s identity, a shocked murmur ran through the watching crew.

‘A woman!’ the first mate exclaimed.

‘Grace?’ Will uttered, stunned.

The young woman looked up at her former protector with defiance. ‘I could have remained hidden for days longer, if not weeks, if that rat had not startled me. What a foolish girl I am.’

The spy reeled. ‘Are you mad?’ He couldn’t help but think of the dangers she now faced.

At the outcry, Strangewayes, Launceston and Carpenter stumbled from below deck where they had been drinking sack and playing cards in the captain’s quarters. The young spy gaped when he saw his love.

‘Say nothing,’ Grace snapped, eyes blazing, ‘or I will be forced to show you the edge of my tongue.’

Launceston shook his head, bored. ‘I thought this would be a matter of interest that might relieve the tedium of this long journey. Who would choose a life on the waves? Only jolt-headed malt-worms, that’s who.’ He eyed the crew with contempt, either oblivious or uncaring of the murderous glances they shot back, and sauntered below deck once again.

‘This woman of yours will not be satisfied until she has ended all our lives,’ Carpenter blazed. ‘I knew it from the moment I first laid eyes on the reckless sow.’

‘Still your tongue,’ Will ordered. Grace feigned an air of haughty indifference and looked away.

‘From this day on, we will have to risk our own necks to keep her safe. As usual,’ Carpenter continued.

‘I said, be silent.’ Will’s voice crackled with anger.

Strangewayes’ face had drained of blood. He held out a hand to help the woman he loved to her feet and she took it as if she were accepting an invitation to dance. ‘Why did you do this, Grace?’ he murmured.

‘I am no weak little thing,’ she said with defiance. ‘If this matter concerns my sister, I would be a part of it.’

‘Your sister?’ Carpenter said, baffled. ‘Have you taken a knock to the head?’

Will’s heart sank. Was that what she had taken from their parting words? His conscience was already on its knees, and here was another burden for it.

Strangewayes stepped closer to her and hissed in her ear, ‘You are aboard a ship full of lustful seamen who will not feel a woman’s soft embrace for many months.’ He looked around the silent crew. ‘But that is the least of your worries. Do you have any notion of the terrible situation you have placed yourself in?’ His voice cracked with despair, and he looked at Will. ‘We must turn back.’

‘No,’ Grace exclaimed, her eyes widening. ‘You cannot abandon this voyage because of my . . .’ Will watched her choose her words carefully, ‘foolishness. Too much is at stake. Too much invested in this expedition. You would not be able to raise the funds for another voyage for months, if at all.’

‘She is right,’ Carpenter whispered in Will’s ear, bracing himself against the movement of the deck beneath his feet. ‘If we turn back, we lose everything. You have no right to make that decision to save this woman, however much she means to you.’

‘Please,’ Strangewayes begged, arms outstretched. The word was almost lost beneath the creak of the rigging and the boom of the wind in the sails. ‘Grace has been foolish but she should not pay for that error with her life.’

Will hid his dismay and beckoned to Grace. Carpenter was correct; he had no choice. Holding her chin high, she followed him back on to the poop deck where the crew could not overhear their conversation. ‘What have you done, Grace?’

‘I can cope with any hardship. I have in me the heart of a lion, like our Queen.’ She turned away from his damning gaze and looked out over the heaving blue-grey swell.

‘You have led a sheltered life—’

She spun round, her cheeks colouring. ‘Sheltered? My life was destroyed when my sister was torn from the heart of my family, as was yours. If I can survive that misery, I can survive anything.’

Will saw her pain, still raw after all those years, and changed his approach. ‘I know there is steel in you. But even with all that you have endured, you have barely scraped the surface of the dangers that exist in the world. You must trust me on that.’

Seeing that he had only her well-being at heart, she softened. ‘I know you wish to protect me, as you have always done, but I have had my fill of being pushed aside like a girl and told only what is good for me. I believed Jenny dead, but your unwavering faith has given me hope and that, somehow, is more painful by far.’ Tears stung her eyes. ‘Over the years, I have grown to understand the secrets hidden in your words, and between your words and behind them.’ She laughed, brushing the teardrops aside. ‘Perhaps I would make a good spy.’

‘And what secrets have you learned?’

She lowered her eyes and whispered, ‘The ones in your heart, the ones in mine. I would rather be dead than suffer any longer in this twilight world filled only with ghosts and what-might-have-beens.’

Will understood, completely, and hated himself for it. ‘You vex me, Grace,’ he sighed.

She smiled, taking it as a compliment. ‘When Nat returned to the palace with your message, I made him tell me what you had planned.’ She saw his face harden and added hurriedly, ‘Do not blame Nat. He is a good soul and I can twist him round until he tells me anything. He thought he was doing me a kindness by telling me you had survived, but while his back was turned I took a carriage to Tilbury.’

‘And you crept on board and hid away.’

‘On the orlop deck, sneaking down to the bilge when anyone came.’

Despite himself, Will felt some admiration. ‘You are very determined,’ he said, showing a stern face. ‘But now you have created a great problem for me. I fear what you might see on this terrible journey. And whatever you may say, my men cannot help but try to protect you when danger arises, and by doing so they will put their own lives at greater risk.’

‘I would not see any of them hurt on my behalf.’

‘Nevertheless, that is the grave situation in which we now find ourselves. How to proceed?’ His brow knit, he glanced out to sea, but saw only that strange, troubling cloud on the far horizon. What had already seemed dire was now fraught with even greater dilemmas. ‘I must think on this awhile. Go to Tobias, but do not distract him from his duties. He will find you a berth in the captain’s cabin and curtain it with sailcloth. You must stay away from the men at all costs, do you understand?’

She nodded. In her brightening eyes, he thought he saw a glimmer of excitement. For all the danger, she was enjoying her great adventure. At the top of the steps, she glanced back. ‘Will, I am sorry if I have angered you, but to ease this pain in my heart, I would risk anything.’ He held her gaze for a long moment, and then she descended to find Strangewayes, ignoring the lingering stares of the crew.

‘Master Swyfte,’ Courtenay bellowed from the main deck, ‘I would have that course now. The Atlantic is not the pond at Baldock Green. We can sail around here till Doomsday without ever stumbling across our destination.’

‘Prepare your charts, captain,’ Will called back. ‘I will have your settings in no time.’ His hand fell to the leather pouch hanging at his side, feeling the weight of the secret he had concealed. All the risks he had taken, all the deceptions, and all the plans he had made, were coming to a head. This ship of fools had passed the point of no return and only darkness lay ahead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE NAKED WOMAN bucked and writhed above the old man. The rhythmic creak of the narrow bed echoed around the captain’s dusty cabin, accompaniment to a symphony of moans. The waves lapped. The hull groaned. Flushed from their ardour, Red Meg O’Shee wiped the sweat from her pale forehead with the back of her slender hand. Beneath her, Dr Dee grunted, his grey eyes glassy. Though she ground her hips and swung her breasts and used every love-making skill she had mastered in her hard life, the Irish spy felt that the magician was almost oblivious of her presence. She knew he was aroused; his hardness inside her was testament to that. Yet his gaze searched only an inner horizon and his lips moved in whispered conversation with things she could not see. Sometimes she thought she heard responses from the corners of the cramped cabin, and then her arms prickled into gooseflesh.

She hid her distaste for what she endured. This was business, no more, and she had long since grown inured to the demands of staying alive in a trade not known for the longevity of its practitioners. But she wondered how much longer she could continue this way. Since she had stolen Dee from under the noses of the English, she had kept him bewitched with her thighs and the stupor-inducing concoctions she had been taught to mix by the wise women in the green hills of her homeland. But after Liverpool, other devils rode him.

She had watched him weave his magics with mirrors, hunched over their glittering surfaces uttering a guttural language that sounded like pebbles dropped on wood. In response, she had seen the shadows seem to lengthen around the cabin, and move of their own accord. And as of that moment he had been like a man drifting through a dream, ignoring her honeyed whispers as he took command of the vessel. The crew had fallen further under his insidious influence, going about their work in silence with the same glassy-eyed distraction. Captain Duncombe had stood by her at every turn.

As the west coast of Ireland faded from view, she sensed other, unseen passengers aboard, voices whispering down in the bilge or on the gun deck or the orlop deck, although each proved empty whenever she investigated. Flickers of movement in shadowy corners, gone when she looked directly. The nights were worse, until she had become afraid to sleep. A haunted ship carried her away from all she knew, she could deny it no longer.

She felt Dee’s muscles grow taut and raised herself off him before he spilled his seed, finishing with her mouth in a manner that would have drawn admiration from the doxies along Bankside. Once done, she whispered in his ear, ‘You have made my head spin, as always, my sweet. I am caught in your spell.’

‘I have business on deck,’ he muttered, pushing her aside. Meg flashed a murderous glance, but hid it before the doctor saw, though she doubted he would have cared; he already appeared to have forgotten her.

‘Where do we sail, my love?’ she asked, as she had many times, in her gentlest voice.

‘West,’ he grumbled, distracted. ‘Where the dead live.’

She sighed at his usual reply, climbing off the bed to tie back her red hair with a green ribbon that matched her eyes. While she pulled on her white linen smock, Dee prowled around the cabin with the vitality of a man half his age. At ease with his nakedness, he tugged at his beard as he examined charts, then stood at the window and watched the white wake trailing from the carrack’s stern. ‘I know,’ he snapped to no one she could see. ‘We will be there when we are there.’

Mad, she thought, eyeing him as she slipped on her black and gold skirt and bodice. Mad and drunk with power. A lethal combination.

When he had pulled on his purple robe, he stepped out on to the deck, his silvery hair flying in the salty ocean breeze. Meg followed. No eyes flickered her way. She was unused to that, for she had worked hard to learn how to draw men’s attention, then steal their gold or their papers or their life while they were distracted. In dreamy silence the crew went about their tasks, mending sails, climbing the rigging to the yards, or drawing the lines to bring fresh fish aboard. No singing, no ribald laughter. Duncombe was caught up in his duties, not trusting these jolt-heads to keep them on a safe course.

Never had she felt more alone, though she had been a solitary soul since her chieftain had decided to utilize her natural talents for the good of Ireland. It felt as though she was condemned to purgatory aboard a ship of ghosts.

On the forecastle, Dee peered down at the magic circle he had inscribed in scarlet paint. She watched him take position in the centre of the strange symbols, untroubled by the rolling sea as if his legs were affixed to the deck. For long moments, he bowed his head, beginning one of his monotonous incantations, his words lost beneath the wind.

Red Meg’s chest tightened and she shivered, not with cold but with unease as the shadows thrown across the deck by the masts and the rigging shifted without explanation. Behind her, she thought she heard a sound like a giant snake coiling on the poop deck. As Dee threw his head back and raised his arms, the wind grew stronger. It lashed his hair and whipped the deep sleeves of his robes. Overhead, the sails boomed as they filled to their limit.

She watched the doctor as the carrack surged across the waves, and then, satisfied that he would be distracted for a while, returned to the cabin. Sliding the bolt across the door, she hurried to the chest under the window and searched through the jumble of contents until she found one of the gilt mirrors Dee carried with him for his divinings. In her time with him, she had learned some of his tricks.

When she had studied the charts scattered across the trestle, she set the looking glass in the centre and peered into its depths. The words seared through her mind with such force that she almost recoiled and was momentarily disorientated. Then the mirror clouded over, clearing to reveal a familiar face peering up at her.

‘Will Swyfte,’ she said with a seductive smile. ‘How I have missed those dark eyes.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

GOLDEN SPIKES OF morning sunlight glinted off glass. Across the low ceiling of the captain’s cabin, shimmering pools flickered as Will peered into the depths of the obsidian mirror set unsteadily on the trestle table. The pounding of the waves on the hull throbbed through the stifling stale air, loud enough to hide any conversation from prying ears.

In the looking glass, Meg’s lips and eyes teased him as always. Will felt relieved to see she was well. Yet if anyone could survive in that perilous atmosphere, it would be Red Meg O’Shee.

‘This merry ocean jaunt is to your taste?’ he enquired.

‘I see no reason to wallow in gloom, my sweet. There is always pleasure to be found in every situation.’ The smile was just one of many masks that prevented any man from knowing her true thoughts, he knew. She was a strange woman, the Irish spy. Duplicitous on so many levels, as lethal as any opponent he had ever encountered, yet at her core he had found some well-protected part of her in which he felt he could place some trust.

Will’s thoughts rushed back across the waves to Liverpool and to that tumultuous night when he had seized the opportunity presented to him and embarked on this desperate gamble. Driven mad by the rush of his new power, Dee had raged through the upper floors of the rooming house while Will and Meg fled down the wooden stairs to the front door. Meg was terrified by the inexplicable transformation she had witnessed and had been gabbling about the alchemist’s ordering her to accompany him on some mysterious journey to the New World. It seemed even her charms no longer had any effect on Dee, and she feared for her life and her sanity.

How Will’s mind had whirled with the opportunities that chance had suddenly presented to him. Snatching at a single straw, he had decided at that moment to risk everything. From that point on, he knew there could be no going back, though his very life, the Queen and all England, were forfeit.

When Meg had recovered her wits sufficiently, he had offered her a harsh choice: stay by Dee’s side and glean whatever information she could from him, or be taken back to London to face punishment for her crimes. If the dilemma troubled her, she didn’t show it; indeed, he thought she seemed almost relieved that she would not have to return to her homeland, and she had even suggested how they could make his plan work.

They hid while Dee thundered out into the night, raging about his missing looking glass, which Will had hidden in his pouch. In whispers, Meg quickly related the secrets of mirror-communication that the sorcerer had taught her; though half a world lay between them, they would be able to speak through Dee’s glass, she insisted. And then, her eyes bright, she had kissed him with surprising tenderness before darting out into the street to accompany the alchemist to the quayside.

Will smiled at the memory of that kiss. He could only presume she saw some advantage for herself in his plan, for Meg was not a woman spurred on by the kindness in her heart. She could not have returned to Ireland if she had failed in her task to kidnap Dee. And Cecil would have ensured there was no safe haven for her anywhere in England. Perhaps she felt the dangers of a sea journey with the doctor were preferable to a flight across Europe, where the malign influence of the Unseelie Court would still be felt.

Will had not told her that what lay ahead was far worse than she could ever imagine. It was but the first of many quiet betrayals that would no doubt see his soul damned. But it was a price he was willing to pay.

‘What news?’ he asked.

The Irish woman’s beautiful features darkened. She glanced over her shoulder towards the door, and then whispered, ‘I must speak quickly, for Dee will only be briefly distracted, and if he finds me here my punishment will be terrible indeed.’ She paused, biting her lip. ‘He is much changed.’

‘Have you learned what has possessed him?’

She shook her head. ‘All I know is that he uses his mirrors to speak with angels, as he did on the road to Liverpool, even when he was under my spell.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘Though now he rages against them like a madman. They must be the ones who ride him.’

Angels! Will was struck by the irony and grimaced. Devils, more like. He thought back along the years, to all the times when Dee had believed his magics had allowed him to commune with those higher beings. He claimed to have learned the Enochian language from them and had filled vast journals with their messages. All of it had been the manipulation of the Unseelie Court, there was no doubt now. Long had they played him, posing as angelic guardians whenever they appeared in his mirror, luring him into false security, subtly subverting his suspicions, until they could exert their control. Dee’s increasingly erratic behaviour, the voices that only he heard, his inability to find warmth even in a hot room: each a sign of the Unseelie Court’s influence which Will had witnessed before.

Yet why did they now pursue him, if they were close to having him in their thrall?

‘Whatever afflicts the old man has spread to the crew,’ she continued. ‘They drift through their chores as if they are in a dream. Only Captain Duncombe retains his wits, and though he is a good-hearted man, there is little he can do.’

‘Have they harmed you?’

‘It is as if they do not even know I am aboard,’ she replied, with a note of indignation. ‘Dee tolerates me, I think, as long as I offer him comfort, but I know my influence is waning.’

‘And your destination?’

She held out her hands. ‘As agreed, I have the course here, for you to follow. Perhaps your own captain can plot our eventual port of call.’ Glancing at the charts and captain’s journal on the sea chest beside her, she passed on the bearing. ‘Dee works his magics to try to speed us on,’ she added. Will saw unease flicker across her features. ‘Keep a steady course, my love. I would not have you lost to me.’

He smiled as reassuringly as he could. ‘There will be good sack and a merry jig waiting for you when we finish this business, Mistress Meg.’

‘Oh, I expect much more than that, Master Swyfte,’ she replied with a twinkle. Some noise off caught her attention and she leaned in and whispered, ‘I must go. Soon, my love.’

The mirror clouded over and Will’s own dark features loomed up in the glass. He bowed his head, hoping he had not doomed Meg as he had doomed so many others. With the passing of each day, he moved further away from the light, he realized. In the end, was he so different from the Unseelie Court?

For a moment he struggled with his conscience, listening to the roar of the sea and the bright singing of the Tempest’s crew. Putting aside his doubts, he strode out of the cabin in search of Captain Courtenay.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE TRADE WINDS had stilled. Becalmed, the Tempest simmered under a merciless sun. On deck, sailors squatted, sullen-faced, in what little shade they could find, their sodden shirts clinging to their skin. Captain Courtenay brooded in his cabin, loathing the inactivity that left his crew with too much time on their hands in a heat that always spawned arguments and blood. Strangewayes and Grace sat under a makeshift sailcloth shade on the forecastle, engaged in intense conversation. Launceston roamed around the hold, a ghost who could not face the sun. From the poop deck, Will watched the grey cloud on the horizon through Courtenay’s tele-scope in what had become an hourly ritual. He wore his white linen undershirt open to his breeches, but still felt no respite from the heat. Peering through the glass, he had started to believe he now saw something hiding within that swirling grey miasma.

‘If there is some ship within that fog, it is becalmed as we are. A small mercy,’ Carpenter muttered at his side. He was stripped to the waist, his lean form tanned by the tropical sun.

Will shrugged, unconvinced. ‘Then let us concentrate upon catching Dr Dee,’ he said.

He thought back to how the cold November of the English Channel had gradually given way to the December heat of the Canaries and how they had been forced to put into port to pick up fresh water and victuals. His cap pulled low against the hot, dry wind, Will had prowled the docks, questioning the dark-skinned men in their white tunics selling wooden cups of sweet wine and skewers of spiced lamb meat seared over charcoal. They had told of a carrack that had moored there two weeks gone, with a strange, devil-haunted crew who moved as if through a dream and spoke in slow, measured tones as they resupplied their vessel. The carrack had remained in port for near twelve days, and the dark-skinned men spoke of seeing strange lights around its mast at night and hearing disembodied voices echoing across the water. No one had been sorry to see it sail back to sea. Their tales had raised Will’s spirits. He was certain that they yet had a good chance of tracking down their prey, and much to the English crew’s annoyance he had encouraged Captain Courtenay to put back out to sea after barely two days.

They battled squalls along the tropics and sweltered in the relentless heat. Christmas came and went with Courtenay ladling cups of festive wine to a long queue of his men, and prayers at dawn and song at nightfall. And when the topmen spotted a Spanish treasure galleon they fought their natural instincts and veered off course for a day to avoid a confrontation. And then, just as the end of their journey was in sight, the winds had dropped one week out of the West Indies.

For two days now they had drifted, watching for what might lie at their backs while tempers simmered. Courtenay had taken to wandering the deck with lash in hand, his gimlet eyes offering a warning of what lay ahead if any man dared cause trouble. No clouds marred the blue sky. Not even the faintest breeze wafted across the water. How much longer could they endure this cauldron of heat before something broke, Will wondered?

He sensed Carpenter shifting uncomfortably beside him and put down the tele-scope. ‘What is on your mind?’ he asked.

The other man ran a hand under his hair to rub the pink scar marring his face. ‘The woman is no business of mine,’ he began, ‘but we have had words, Launceston, Strangewayes and myself, about your delay in instructing her in the true nature of the threat we face.’

‘And they sent you to speak to me?’

‘I came of my own accord,’ Carpenter snapped. ‘We all know what happens to those unprepared for their first meeting with those pale-skinned bastards. Even foreknowledge is not always enough to offer protection for some, as you well know, but she deserves a chance to steel herself, does she not?’

Will flinched inwardly. He knew he had been remiss in not revealing to Grace the secrets of the Unseelie Court the moment she had been found aboard. But she had shown such spirit in coping with the privations of the past weeks, never complaining, always bright, ever offering a kind word when she saw the other spies in a gloomy mood, that he hadn’t the heart to bring darkness into her world. He looked towards the main deck where she walked among the sweltering crew with a leather pail of seawater with which the sailors could mop their burning heads and necks. She reminded him still of Jenny, and the life she might have had if she had not been taken from him. He had no desire to see Grace’s innocence tainted, her hope and her future stolen as her sister’s had been, and he would protect her until the last possible moment.

‘The more you delay, the more danger you put her in,’ Carpenter pressed, as if he could read Will’s thoughts.

‘I will deal with her when I am good and ready,’ he said, ending the conversation.

Already irritable, the other man flushed with frustration. He gripped the rail and hissed, ‘Will you take no advice from anyone? The great Will Swyfte, England’s greatest spy! Who knows better than all others . . . until disaster strikes, and then he throws his friends to the wolves.’

‘What happened between us is long gone, John. Will you not let go of it?’

‘Easy words for you. You do not see the results of that betrayal every time you look in a mirror.’

Will grunted. What could he say to ease the other man’s pain that he had not said a thousand times? He thought back to frozen Muscovy and the flight through the stark woods where they were attacked by the nameless creature that had been summoned by their enemies. He had thought Carpenter slaughtered in the assault. If he had returned to search for his friend, he could well have lost not just his own life but all they had gained for the Queen during their expedition. For a while Carpenter seemed to have come to terms with what he saw as a grand betrayal. Clearly, resentment still simmered inside him, but Will had a greater fear.

‘John, when this business is done . . . should we survive . . . you must ask for time away from your duties,’ he said. ‘I sense the taint of the Unseelie Court in you, that creeping despair that afflicts all of us eventually when we have spent too long battling those things.’

Carpenter looked over the water, not meeting Will’s eyes. ‘Time away? I am sick of all this. Sick to the heart. I would leave the service of Sir Robert Cecil for ever and seek a new life for myself where there are no nightmares walking under the sun.’

‘You know Cecil will never sanction that,’ Will said gently. ‘You are too valuable in this long fight—’

‘This never-ending fight!’

‘Few others have your expert touch, John, your knowledge of the Enemy, your ability to look them in the eye and survive. The Queen needs you.’

‘Enough,’ the other man snarled. ‘I tell you now that I will be gone from here, sooner or later. I deserve a life of my own, and by God I will take it, if I have to cut my way through a hundred colleagues to get it.’ He rounded on Will, his eyes narrowing. ‘See to the girl. Do not let her days be blighted as mine have been.’ He stalked away from the rail, clattering down the steps to the main deck where he shoved aside any who crossed his path as he made his way to his berth.

Before Will could consider whether he truly was betraying Grace, a cry rang out from the topman. Looking up to the top of the mainmast, he saw the lookout pointing towards the north-east where lightning crackled from a looming black cloud. Captain Courtenay bounded up the steps to the poop deck.

‘Storm’s coming,’ he barked, clapping his large hands together. ‘In these waters, that could be good or ill. It’ll blow some much-needed wind in our sails and speed us on our way. But in the tropics, storms can come down like a hammer on an anvil, with us caught between the two.’

‘I will gladly take our chances, captain. I have had my fill of stewing here waiting for something to happen.’

‘Be careful what you wish for, Master Swyfte.’ Courtenay laughed, his eyes reflecting the crackles of lightning. Before he had even roared his orders, his men jumped to their posts, as eager to return to activity as Will. The spy watched them scramble up the lines, ready to react to any sudden change in the elements. He knew that if the storm struck hard, a full sail could tear off the mainmast and drag them all down to the bottom of the drink. Yet if they were not ready to take advantage of glancing winds, the weather could turn just as quickly and leave them becalmed once more.

He raised his head to the roiling clouds and felt the first hint of a breeze on his face. He closed his eyes, enjoying the relief.

‘Will?’

Grace waited at the top of the steps, her hands clasped in front of her. Her skirts flapped in the strengthening wind and her brown hair whipped around her face. He thought how much she had grown in confidence in recent months, no longer the young girl he had played with in Warwickshire. Yet he still saw only Jenny, in her eyes, her smile, her bearing. That had always been the problem.

‘Return to the cabin, Grace,’ he said, not without warmth. ‘It will be safer there.’

‘I shall, soon. But Tobias and John both insist that I speak to you, though neither will say why. Even Robert urged me to come, and normally he acts as if I am a dog yapping at his heels. They seem angry with you.’

Will set his jaw, wishing the others would leave well alone. ‘This is not the time, Grace, but, yes, we must have words about a matter of great importance.’

‘Is it about Jenny?’

He hesitated, watching the hope light in her dark eyes. ‘In part.’

She forced a wan smile. ‘Our friendship has been tempestuous since Jenny disappeared,’ she said. ‘We have fought and bickered, though I . . . I always looked on you fondly, Will, you know that.’

They both knew her feelings had been deeper than she implied. She was confused, he had always recognized that. In truth, she had seen him as the only pillar of stability in a world gone mad. He had felt proud to offer her the protection she needed, and he would never have abused that position. And he had always believed he could save Grace as he had been unable to save Jenny.

She seemed to sense some of the thoughts that passed through his head, for her brow furrowed. ‘I have never thanked you for all that you have done for me,’ she said, grabbing hold of the rail as the ship began to heave beneath them. ‘But more than anything, I would thank you for keeping the promise of Jenny alive when it would have been so much easier to let her go and return to your life.’

‘Jenny has always been my life,’ he replied, feeling all the pain wrapped in those few words.

‘We will talk soon,’ she said, ‘but tell me one thing before I go: do you truly believe we will ever find answers to any of the questions that have haunted us these past years?’

‘I believe we will find an ending, Grace, for good or ill. Whichever it may be, I hope there will be peace.’

That seemed to satisfy her. She gave a faint smile, then skipped down the steps and fought her way across the rolling deck. He watched her until she disappeared from sight into the captain’s cabin beneath him.

As the clouds marched overhead, the sky darkened until it felt like dusk aboard the rolling galleon. The sullen sea began to protest, low waves turning to a heaving swell the colour of old ivy. Sails boomed and the rigging cracked. The wind howled, tearing at hair grown too long and wrenching men from side to side with every step. When lightning flashed, the world turned white.

Will began to fight his way through the grim-faced sailors swirling across the deck, each one concentrating on his own well-rehearsed task. They danced to Courtenay’s tune, his orders booming like the thunder tearing through the half-light. Hands on hips, he threw his head back in insane laughter as he felt the first spatters of rain on his face.

‘This is a contest, Master Swyfte,’ he roared, ‘between men and the gods of the storm. Shall we see who wins?’ If any man could battle the elements and win, it would be Bloody Jack, Will agreed. It took a madman to face a tropical storm without a flicker of fear in his heart.

The spy gripped the slick rigging as the deck bucked beneath his feet like an unbroken Barbary steed. The rain was starting to come in harder on the gusts. Wiping his eyes clear, his gaze flickered out to sea as a bolt of lightning lanced down. In the flash, he glimpsed something that should not have been there. Wrapping one arm through the rigging to steady himself, he pulled out the tele-scope and attempted to place it to his eye. The view through the lens danced across the green ocean and darkening sky. Cursing under his breath, Will moved the tele-scope in incremental steps until a dark shape appeared before him. A galleon. The grey cloud bank that had followed them across the Atlantic was dissipating in the storm, and the ship sailed out of its billowing depths like a shark. A row of white diamonds had been painted along the castle. On a standard flapping from the mainmast was a black bird – a crow, Will thought. The galleon surged towards them, sails full.

Our Enemy are revealed, Will thought, and they have skilfully chosen this moment of confusion to attack.

Cupping his hand to his mouth, he yelled for Courtenay. The captain saw the spy’s urgency and bounded over. Snatching the tele-scope, he studied the ship for only a moment and then turned to Will, his features dark. ‘I know that flag. All sailors do, and they would sell their own mothers to avoid the misfortune of encountering it across the Spanish Main. The ship is the Corneille Noire, the cursed barque of that cut-throat Jean le Gris.’

Will knew well the bloody reputation of the French pirate who had plundered the trade routes for five years now.

‘And he is not alone,’ Bloody Jack added, answering the spy’s unspoken question. He handed the tele-scope back.

Will frowned, looking once more. This time he alighted on the galleon quickly as it bore down on them. When the crew swam into view, shock flooded him as he saw the haggard faces of the men, the hollow cheeks, the grey skin; each one looked dead apart from a tall, sinewy man with an eye-patch and a wild black beard whom he took to be the captain. Other, shadowy figures drifted in the half-light, pale spectres, like fish from the deep. Will held his breath as he watched Lansing and the Fay overseeing the ship like a court from Hell. A part of him had expected no less, but the evidence of his eyes still felt chilling.

‘The question now, Master Swyfte,’ Courtenay boomed, ‘in the middle of this godforsaken storm, is do we run like dogs and pray for the best, or stay and fight and risk a slow death in the deep?’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THE STORM ENGULFED the Tempest in a hell of fierce wind and driving rain and walls of black water. Cresting mountainous waves, the galleon plunged into deep, midnight valleys where the sailors feared they would never see the sun again. Barbs of lightning lanced down. Booming thunder throbbed into the roar of the sea. Will clung on to the rigging for dear life, barely able to keep his legs from the deluge sluicing across the deck. He glimpsed Carpenter, and Strangewayes with one hand gripping a stay, sodden and gasping, and Launceston, seemingly unmoved by the terror of the gale, one hand twirled around the rigging as he observed the fearful antics of the crew.

Courtenay, too, looked untroubled by the elements as he barked his orders. Though the ship was tossed this way and that, he strode through the ankle-deep brine on the deck as if on dry land. ‘Those that can, man the guns,’ he roared. ‘We have a fight on our hands, lads.’

Will craned his head to look over the crew with even greater respect. He knew the risks of opening the gun ports in a storm; the waves could flood in and take the ship to the bottom. But there was no choice. Putting aside their fear, seamen scrambled down to the gun deck, obeying their captain without question. Though it was hell above, he wondered how much worse it was below in the confined night-dark space, deafened by the hammers of the waves, thrown around by the pitching and yawing and fearful that every plunge would end on the seabed.

Peering into the face of the storm, he glimpsed the swinging lanterns of the Corneille Noire. The pirate vessel drew ever closer, despite the wild seas. He had seen before how the Unseelie Court’s ships defied the very elements, and he understood now why the Enemy had chosen this moment to attack. In the tumult, the Tempest’s guns would be nigh-on useless.

Carpenter clawed his way to Will’s side, both men’s hair and beards drenched. ‘This is why I turned my back on a life at sea,’ he raged. ‘Damn all this hell! Give me dry land and I would fight an army.’

‘It could be worse, John.’

‘How could it be worse?’

‘There could be two ships filled with those Fay bastards determined to send us to the bottom.’

Carpenter cursed loudly. ‘You find this sport? You are as mad as Bloody Jack. There are times I think you are seeking out ways to die.’

The Corneille Noire swept across the waves, a single-minded predator with the Tempest caught in its cold glare. Courtenay waited with one foot on the rail, one hand gripping a line, his grim gaze fixed on the other galleon’s progress. As it swept alongside, he raised one arm.

Will stared at the Enemy ship, frowning. In the light of its swinging lanterns, the grey-skinned, unblinking crew seemed like statues, oblivious of every sensation. Even from that distance, Will could tell they had the taint of rot about them. But if the captain Jean le Gris was troubled by what had happened to his men, he showed no sign of it, levelling his sword at Courtenay and shouting abuse into the roaring gale. Behind him, the pale sentinels of the Fay waited for the bloodletting. Will sensed their terrible gaze upon him.

‘Let us not wait for them!’ Courtenay bellowed. ‘Send them a greeting from Hell!’ He slashed down his arm.

The message darted from man to man until it reached the master gunner on the gun deck. A rolling wall of fire erupted into the watery world. From bow chasers to broadside cannon to stern chasers, the booming of the guns thundered out, louder even than the storm. Plumes of white smoke whipped away in the wind. Most of the shot plunged harmlessly into the towering walls of black water as the squall flung the two vessels around the high ridges and deep valleys of the swell. But one smashed a hole through the pirate ship’s castle to where the captain’s cabin would have been and another tore rigging from the mizzen top. Bloody Jack shook his fist and roared his jubilation, leaning so far over the rail that Will thought the waves would pluck him away.

‘No cannon will drive them off,’ Carpenter shouted, his brow furrowed. ‘They will not rest until we go down.’

‘If our only choice is to take them with us, that is what we shall do,’ Will yelled back. ‘Though in these turbulent waters, it will take an age to whittle each other to pieces.’

The Tempest rolled at an alarming angle as another wave crashed across the deck. Will swallowed a mouthful of brine. Only his grip on the rigging saved him as his legs flew out beneath him. When the galleon righted, he saw the Corneille Noire broadside on, its gun ports open. The captain was waiting for the swell to draw the two vessels in line before giving the order to fire.

‘Heads down,’ Will called. The fire spewed out of the pirate ship, and the cannon cracked. He flung himself on to the deck as red-hot shot screamed by. To his right, the rail disintegrated. A sailor slow in dropping low disappeared in a red mist. Another screamed, his leg gone. Deadly shards of timber flew around, and the cacophony of cries of men in agony echoed along the length of the galleon.

Courtenay hung over the rail to survey the damage inflicted on his vessel’s hull. ‘All above the waterline,’ he concluded with a pleased nod. ‘Then let us not stop there.’ As the swell lifted the Tempest high, he bellowed the order to fire again. Thunder rolled all around. The acrid stink of burnt powder whisked in the wind.

Sizzling shot tore through the Enemy vessel, more by good fortune than judgement. Seasoned oak as hard as iron burst into shards. Rigging tore free, lashing across the deck. The mainmast cracked and skewed at an angle. Bloody Jack made his own luck by throwing caution to the wind, Will knew: any other captain would have taken the decision to flee rather than fight in those seas.

At the pirate captain’s orders, his grey, dead men clambered up what remained of the rigging to cut loose the mainsail before it dragged the mast over the side and the ship to the bottom. Jubilation flooded Will. The gamble had worked and the pirate ship had been crippled. But the triumph was short-lived. Even without its mainmast and sails, the Enemy ship swept closer.

‘They are going to ram us,’ Carpenter yelled.

‘Board us, more like,’ Will corrected as he watched the frantic activity along the other ship’s deck. The rotting crew lined the rail with grapnels and rapiers in hand. Behind them, the Unseelie Court waited to seize their moment.

‘Prepare to repel boarders,’ Bloody Jack roared, striding along the deck. His men wrenched out their own rapiers and daggers and scrambled to the rail. Will hauled himself up, drawing his blade.

‘This is more like it.’ Carpenter grinned without humour. ‘Now I can put my idle hands to good use. A hogshead of sack to the man who carves the most.’

The Corneille Noire swung close. Will braced himself for the impact. Whatever magics were at play brought the galleon firm alongside, despite the heaving swell. It was as if they were locked in congress, rising and falling with perfect rhythm.

The grapnels flew out across the black gulf, catching in the Tempest’s rigging. The pirates gripped their ropes and kicked away from the rail. Some of Courtenay’s men attempted to cut the lines, pitching a few of the swinging figures into the roiling sea. They went down without a cry, sucked under the black water in an instant.

Will blinked away the driving rain. He glimpsed the bloom of decay on the grey, dispassionate face of the once-man swinging towards him. Yet another of the Unseelie Court’s crimes against the natural order, he thought, glowering. As the pirate’s feet crossed the rail, Will lunged. Cold steel plunged through the thing’s chest, yet still it came. He withdrew his rapier and slashed down. The face peeled open from temple to chin, but still the wide eyes stared. As the pirate dropped to the deck, he swung his knife high. Will threw himself forward so that his shoulder rammed into his dead foe. The dagger whisked a hair’s breadth from his cheek as he drove on and pitched the pirate over the side.

Along the rail blew a smaller storm of steel and curses and spattering blood. Blades clashed as Courtenay’s men wrestled with their dead counterparts. One sailor barely twenty summers old went down in a gout of crimson from a slashed throat. Without pause, his staring attacker plunged his gore-stained dagger into the chest of the seaman fighting beside him.

In the confusion of the battle whirling across the storm-lashed deck, Will lost sight of his colleagues. He thrust himself into the melee. When the fighting was too close to use his rapier, he lashed out with elbows and fists and knees and feet. He glimpsed Courtenay roaring with laughter as he plunged his dagger into a grey face. A moment later the mad captain lifted the corpse over his head and pitched it into the sea.

Beyond the frenzy, Will sensed movement as fluid as the brine washing across the deck. His nerves jangled. Shadows flitted, here, there. When a lightning flash froze white faces, he realized that some of the Unseelie Court had boarded the Tempest. They kept to the gloom on the fringes so that it was impossible to tell how many there were.

Will tore himself away from the fight and made his way, stabbing and hacking as he went, to where Launceston was tipping a pirate over the side. ‘Leave the men to fight these dead things,’ he ordered. ‘The Fay are aboard, and they are our business. We must find John and Tobias now.’

He darted to the other side of the deck. In the half-light, he glimpsed shapes creeping low like wolves at night, lips pulled back from sharp teeth. As a hand flicked towards the hilt of a rapier, Will sucked in a sharp breath and leapt for a rope dangling from a grapnel in the rigging. Bracing himself, he swung both feet into the nearest Fay’s chest, propelling it over the rail.

Another attacked the instant he dropped to the boards, slashing with fast, controlled strokes. When a dying seaman stumbled back into his grim opponent, Will seized his chance, thrusting through the heart with one fluid strike.

Somewhere nearby Strangewayes yelled an anguished warning. Will wrenched around. Tobias was pointing at the door to the captain’s cabin. It swung wildly in the lashing gale. The Fay lord Lansing, whom Will had seen drive a man mad on the Liverpool dockside, now had Grace pinned to his chest with his left arm as he eased her out on deck. The Fay lord turned his cold face towards Will, and called in a clear voice, ‘Lay down your weapons.’ As the other Fay circled, Lansing drew his slender fingers along the curve of Grace’s neck, pushing her head back.

‘Resist him,’ she called in a defiant voice. ‘My life means nothing when all of England is at stake.’

Will knew she was right, and so did Strangewayes.

‘Kill them,’ Lansing said to the other Fay. ‘Kill them all, and let us be done with this rabble and return to the Golden City victorious.’

Before the first of the Unseelie Court could attack, Grace hammered her heel on to Lansing’s foot. In the shock of her attack, he loosened his grip and she wrenched herself free, throwing herself among the battling sailors.

‘We play for high stakes here. Win all or lose everything.’ Courtenay’s gruff voice boomed through the storm. The captain stood at the end of the main deck with a powder barrel over his head. Beside him, a shaking crewman held a burning fuse, spitting in the rain. ‘There is no room for any middle ground,’ Bloody Jack continued, a light gleaming in his eyes. ‘Get off my ship, or I’ll blow us all to Hell.’

Will saw the Unseelie Court weighing up whether Courtenay would go through with his mad threat. He had no doubt. If they faced defeat, better to take a few Fay bastards along with them.

Bloody Jack roared, shaking the barrel with the fury of a goaded bear.

The Fay had seen enough. Will stifled his relief as they ghosted away into the shadows by the poop deck, moving towards the rail and the grapnels. Courtenay raised the barrel high in triumph and bellowed, ‘We must seize this moment, Master Swyfte. Once back on their ship, they will loose their guns again and blow us out of the water.’

Will fought to stay on his feet as the galleon spun like a leaf on a stream. Walls of black water smashed down, pitching the ship at such an angle that the hull groaned like a dying man. He fell, cursing, and skidded across the briny deck. He glimpsed Lansing by the rail, one hand on the rope that would swing him back to the Corneille Noire. The Fay had hold of Grace once more. He dragged her into a cold embrace, clearly intending to take her back to the pirate ship with him. Strangewayes lay dazed at his feet, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead.

The Fay lord stared at Will and yelled some threat, but the fury of the gale tore his words away. Lightning flashed white overhead, making stark the fear in Grace’s wide, dark eyes. Her mouth was a wide O, a cry of anguish perhaps, or a plea for Will to aid her.

Thrown around by the pitching deck, Will could only watch as Lansing pressed his mouth to the woman’s ear and began to whisper. Desperation rushed through him. Grace’s eyes widened for a moment, the terror in them plain to see. Her head fell slowly back on to Lansing’s shoulder, her lids flickered, and she collapsed limply into his arms. Gripping the rope, the Fay placed one foot on the rail of the Tempest as he prepared to swing himself and his captive across to the other ship. Devastated, Will knew he could not reach Lansing, or Grace, in time.

Yet as the dead pirates responded to some silent signal and turned back towards their vessel, Will sensed movement at the edge of his vision. Carpenter was perched on the poop deck. With a snarl, he leapt. He slammed into the Fay, wrenching Grace free of Lansing’s grasp. The two men careered over the side.

Will staggered his way to the rail and peered down into the roiling sea. Surely no man could survive in that cauldron? For a moment, he saw only slate-grey water, which rose up higher and higher still until it towered above him before crashing down with a sound like a thousand hammers. A moment later he spotted a figure in the water, but only for an instant before it disappeared beneath the surface.

Behind him, he heard Courtenay bark orders to the helmsman to try to move the galleon away. The storm was already starting to ebb, and if the captain caught the last of the strong winds he could put space between them and the Enemy.

Launceston appeared at his elbow, his ghastly face made starker by the gloom. ‘We must save him,’ he cried with an edge of emotion that Will had never heard in the aristocrat’s voice before. ‘Tell Courtenay to hold fast.’

Swyfte blinked rain out of his eyes as he looked into the other man’s face. ‘Robert, I would not leave a friend to die in such circumstances. But if we tarry here, we all die, and so too the hopes of England.’ He felt sickened to hear the words come out of his mouth.

Launceston nodded in acceptance, and without another word stepped on to the rail and dived into the boiling sea. Will’s cry rang out, but the man disappeared and however desperately Will searched the waves he saw no further sign of his friend. The spy cursed to himself: what had possessed Launceston to throw himself after Carpenter?

The rain eased and a glimmer of silver light broke through the thick clouds on the horizon. With a boom of filling sails, the Tempest pulled away from the crippled Enemy galleon.

Desolate, Will tore his gaze away from the angry sea and knelt down beside Grace. He took her in his arms. She was still breathing, but that was but a small mercy. He had seen the corruption of the Unseelie Court worm its way into even the strongest mind and consume it from within until only a shell was left.

‘Grace,’ he whispered in her ear, ‘speak to me.’

There was no response; she might have been sleeping, though he would not wish her dreams upon another living soul. Will bowed his head. So much had been lost, yet the worst still lay ahead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE STORM HAD blown itself out by sunset. Under heavy clouds, the Tempest sailed through a night as deep and dark as any the crew had ever experienced. With no stars to guide them, Courtenay stowed away his compass and charts and concentrated on putting distance between them and the pirate ship. On deck, the subdued singing of the seamen raised no spirits. They mourned the eight of their companions lost in the attack, as Will mourned Carpenter and Launceston. Sails hung ripped and yards broken. Two sailors hauled planks of wood, fresh rigging and sailcloth from the store below, while a gang of five cut and shaped to start the repairs. Even the sound of the mallets had a funereal beat. ‘We lick our wounds and we move on,’ Courtenay growled in passing, the closest he would come to words of commiseration.

By dawn, the skies had cleared to a perfect blue and the sea was calm. With his astrolabe, Bloody Jack shielded his eyes against the merciless sun and began to calculate the latitudes in order to discover how far they had been blown off course into dangerous, uncharted waters. His mood darkened by the hour.

Grace had not yet regained consciousness. Her breathing shallow, her eyes motionless beneath the lids, she lay on her berth in a sleep akin to death. Will sat over her through the long night, watching for any sign that she might recover, afraid what would be left of her wits if she did. Time and again he cursed himself for his failings, haunted by his vow to protect her at all costs.

Strangewayes would barely look at him, and when their eyes did meet, Will saw only simmering hatred. He felt angry at the young spy’s attitude, but held his tongue. As the stifling heat rose in the dusty cabin, he realized he was only making matters worse by being there; it was now Strangewayes’ responsibility to care for Grace. Will left him there, cooling her brow with a damp kerchief and muttering constant prayers.

Will asked the captain if he could be left alone on the poop deck for a few moments. Once he had assured himself he couldn’t be overseen by the other men, he squatted down at the far side of the castle and pulled the obsidian mirror from his pouch, laying it on the deck. As he hunched over the glass, he whispered the words Meg had taught him and waited.

Long moments passed. It was the agreed time, and Meg had not yet disappointed him. He uttered the incantation once more, and again. Yet the mirror remained clear, and he began to fear that the Unseelie Court had claimed another life. Wearily, he bowed his head and closed his eyes.

When he looked again, the black mirror had clouded over. Yet the face that was gradually appearing in the misty glass was not Meg’s. He felt his heart begin to beat faster, though he scarcely dared hope. Yet the familiar curve of the lips emerged, and the bright, clever eyes, and the tumble of brown hair, just as they had that night in the rooming house in Liverpool.

‘Jenny,’ he murmured, uncontrolled joy rushing through him. She still wore the blue dress she had on when she vanished from his life all those years ago.

Her eyes widened and he knew she could see him too. But then he saw the worry in her face. With apprehension she glanced nervously over her shoulder in the darkness, and then leaned closer to the glass.

‘Will. It is you.’

He recoiled at the shock of hearing her voice after so long. There was so much he wanted to say to her; he had played this moment through a thousand times or more in all the years of longing. How could he ever begin to express the emotion that had been stirred in that seeming eternity of time apart? ‘Jenny,’ he began, struggling to find the words, but she silenced him with an insistent shake of her head.

‘Will, there is very little time,’ she whispered. ‘When I saw you before, I barely dared believe you still lived . . . that you remembered me—’

‘I would never forget you.’ He could barely stop his voice from breaking. Her features softened, and he saw the affection in her smile. ‘Not a day has passed when I have not searched for you in some way.’

‘And you must abandon the quest,’ she sighed. ‘That is the very reason why I have reached out to you. You must put me out of your thoughts, and out of your heart.’

‘Never.’

‘You must.’ He saw the tears begin to run down her cheeks. ‘Will, please . . . do this for me, if you love me still—’

‘I do!’

‘Then forget me,’ she implored. ‘There is no time for explanations. You must trust me on this matter. To find me could cost you your own life, and I will never allow that to happen . . .’ She half turned as if she had heard someone approaching, and then added in a hasty tone, ‘I must go.’

‘Wait,’ he called out, too loud, but the looking glass had already misted over, and a moment later it showed only blue sky. Will slumped back against the rail and closed his eyes, turning her words over in his head, listening once again to the music of her voice. He felt afraid to stop in case he could no longer remember how she sounded. And yet Jenny lived, there could be no doubt about that now. His heart leapt, and it was all he could do not to shout to the heavens. Her warnings meant nothing to him. How could he accept her plea for him to stay away? Nothing would deter him from bringing her home.

He inhaled a draught of salty air and took a moment at the rail, looking out over the blue waters. Though his spirits now soared, he yet felt doubt. What of Meg? Did she still live? And without her to guide them, what chance did they have of reaching their destination?

He was in reflective mood as he descended on to the main deck, and barely noticed Courtenay beckoning him to enter his cabin. Strangewayes knelt beside the still-prone Grace, so intent on his prayers he seemed unaware that the two men had entered. Will followed Bloody Jack to his trestle where his dog-eared charts were scattered, the astrolabe weighting them down. Keeping an eye on Strangewayes, the captain whispered, ‘Do you have a new course for me?’

‘Not yet. Soon,’ Will replied. ‘You have identified our position?’

Courtenay jabbed a finger on the chart. ‘Right where we shouldn’t be, Master Swyfte. We’ve already had our fill of the horse latitudes, where the wind comes and goes like a woman’s affections, and you can drift becalmed for days under a sweltering sun. Aye, that’s bad enough, but that damnable storm has dumped us back in it, and worse. Here . . .’ he drew a filthy nail along the chart, ‘is a sea within the sea. Cursed, it is. Good ships disappear without a sign. Pirates, some say.’ He shrugged, not believing. ‘Other vessels are found deserted, with treasure still in their holds and food and water in their barrels. Every captain knows to steer well clear—’

‘You did this.’ The low growl of Strangewayes’ voice rustled across the cabin. Will turned to see the red-headed spy confronting him, rapier drawn, his face flushed with an anger that must, Will surmised, be born of despair. ‘If you had taken even a moment to prepare her for the horrors of the Unseelie Court, she might have survived the encounter. But no, the great Will Swyfte had better things to do with his time.’

‘Put your sword away, boy,’ Courtenay growled. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself.’

‘England is littered with dead and wounded men who have made your acquaintance, oft-times decent-hearted, God-fearing people you have used and discarded once they have served your purpose, so I have heard,’ Strangewayes continued, not taking his gaze off Will. ‘You care for no one but yourself. And yet you are tolerated because, in your cunning way, you offer a service to the Queen and her government. But you must be held to account sooner or later – if not by God, then by me.’

‘’Tis true that I am not a good man, but I am an effective one,’ Will replied in a calm voice. He could see the hurt burning in the other man’s face. ‘And you are mistaken on one count. There are people dear to me, and I would defend them even at the cost of my own life. I would never see Grace harmed—’

‘Lies.’ Strangewayes thrust with his rapier, missing Will by a hair’s breadth as the older man stepped aside at the last moment. Will could see there was no reasoning with him. His passion burned too strong for that. Snarling, Tobias thrust again, and this time Will’s sword was at the ready and he parried. The clash of steel rang through the cabin.

Red-faced and puffing, Courtenay looked fit to burst at the display of disrespect upon his ship. ‘Shed one drop of his blood and I’ll have ye keel-hauled,’ he roared.

Strangewayes thrust again. Will deflected the tip of the sword with a flick of his wrist. Though he had some skill with the rapier, the red-headed spy was too raw, too consumed with emotion in a way that no true swordsman would ever be, Will saw. His bravado and arrogance had always seemed a shield to protect his insecurities, traits Will had presumed he would eventually grow out of, given time and experience. Now he wondered if they would be the death of the other man before he had a chance to learn.

Driven by anger, Strangewayes prodded with his rapier as if he were poking a smith’s forge. Will parried, once, twice, and at the moment when he could have easily disarmed the other man, he let his rapier fall. Courtenay gasped. Strangewayes’ blade thrust true towards Will’s heart. At the last, the younger spy caught himself, the tip of his rapier piercing linen. A rose bloomed on Will’s shirt. Tobias’s hand shook as he tried to drive the blade on, but in the end he could not bring himself to kill. ‘Damn you, Swyfte,’ he muttered, blinking away tears of frustration.

‘I am already damned. Would I be here watching friends suffer and die were that not so?’ Will bit down, forcing himself to ignore the pain from the sword digging into his flesh. ‘There are few friends in this business, but we are all brothers. The bonds run deep. We would give our lives for each other, as John gave his life for the woman you love. No one would ever have called him a good man, but he was an honourable one, yes, even to the end. And honour has more value than gold, for it buys a man a clear conscience and a light heart.’

‘And you think you are honourable?’ Strangewayes spat.

‘We all try to do our best in hard times. And sometimes we fail. That is the nature of men, is it not? And our failures are greater than others’ because we play for high stakes, and we feel them more acutely. Know only that I would die for Grace, as would you.’

Strangewayes hesitated, torn between his impotent rage and his sense of honour. In the lull, Courtenay cursed, snatched up the cudgel he kept by his trestle and clouted the younger spy round the head. Strangewayes pitched to the floor in a daze, his sword clattering across the boards. ‘Let that knock some bloody sense in ye,’ the captain thundered.

‘Leave him. He is heartsick and worried for the woman he loves,’ Will said, aware of the irony in his words.

‘This is my ship, not a Bankside stew,’ Courtenay snapped. ‘My rules, Master Swyfte.’ He paused, eyeing the fallen spy. ‘Yet I will show a little kindness on this occasion, as he’s a friend of yours. But if he raises his blade in anger to one of us again, it’s over the side with him.’ He grabbed the scruff of Strangewayes’ undershirt in his meaty hand and dragged him across the cabin, flinging him out of the door with a boot up his arse. Will felt concerned that the humiliation might only make Strangewayes angrier, but he had more pressing matters to concern him.

‘Keep an eye on that one,’ Courtenay rumbled as if he could hear Will’s thoughts. ‘He’s still got too much of the spoiled child in him. If his temper gets the best of him again, you might find that steel going right through ye.’

Will shrugged, feeling the weight of his responsibility to Grace. ‘We will shape him to be a man, one way or another.’

Bloody Jack grunted dismissively.

A warning call rang out from the topman and Courtenay and Will stepped out on deck to find the men leaning over the starboard side, pointing, brows furrowed. The captain barged his way among them, making a space for Will. For a moment, shock lit Will’s features. The ocean had turned brown as far as the eye could see, and the air was thick with a stink like wet dogs. Peering closer, he saw that the Tempest now sailed through a dense bank of seaweed, the glistening tendrils tugging at the galleon’s hull.

‘Avast,’ Courtenay bawled to his men. Once the sailors had trudged away from the rail, the captain leaned in to Will and whispered, ‘I told ye: right where we shouldn’t be.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE SEA OF stinking brown weed seemed to stretch to the blue horizon. The Tempest sailed through the boiling heat as if she were ploughing a furrow in an autumn field. The seamen lined the rails, watching with uneasy eyes while they recalled all the fearful tales of that place they had heard in quayside inns across Europe.

Leaning out, Will glimpsed dark shapes weaving sinuously among the floating clumps of seaweed; eels, he thought. He glanced around for the land he presumed must be near.

Bloody Jack shook his head. ‘No land here,’ he said. ‘Not for days. This is the great Sargasso, a sea within a sea. All around, the currents are the strongest you will ever encounter, but here ships drift in this forest of weed, and grow becalmed. It is a strange place, sailors tell, haunted, and most give it a wide berth.’

‘The weed will not hold us fast?’

‘The wind, or lack of it, is the greater problem. The weed can snarl a rudder, at worst. It floats on the surface in vast mats. I have fathomed it meself here, and there is no bottom. A Spanish sea-dog told me how his vessel was becalmed for weeks in the middle of this stinking sea. To conserve their water, the crew were forced to throw the war horses o’erboard and feared they would not get out with their own lives. There is nowhere like it in all the oceans.’ His brow furrowed. ‘And yet . . . My mind plays tricks with me. The last time I skirted the Sargasso the weed looked different . . .’ His voice tailed off. ‘It remains a mystery to me how that storm blew us so far off course.’

Will heard a troubled note in the captain’s voice, but his attention was caught by the swimming shapes. One broke the surface, black skin glistening in the sun. As thick as a man’s arm, the eel seemed to have a face akin to a baby’s, with wide eyes and full lips that revealed a hint of sharp teeth. A strange mewling sound rose up, cut short as the thing darted back below the surface.

Courtenay recoiled. ‘God ha’ mercy,’ he hissed under his breath.

Will thought back to the white men-fish that swam beneath the surface of the frozen Thames and asked, ‘You have seen the like of that before?’

‘Never. Nor have I heard word of such.’ He crossed himself. ‘I do not believe this is the Sargasso at all. It is some devil-haunted place we have sailed into.’

The sun beat down; the breeze began to fail. An uneasy mood descended on the men as the Tempest drifted through the reeking seaweed. Eyes flickered up to the sagging sails, watching for the moment when the breeze finally died and the galleon would be stranded there. The sea-hardened crew pretended not to notice those mewling noises rolling across the gently lapping swell. And with each hour that passed the weight of apprehension grew until every man was suffused with a deep dread of what lay ahead.

When the sun was at its highest point, the lookout called. Three dark smudges emerged from the heat haze over the seaweed ahead. Shielding his eyes against the glare, Will saw that they were barques. As the Tempest neared, he realized that there was no movement aboard. Two were little more than rotting hulks, listing low in the water, the sails but tatters. He did not recognize their design, but the crudity of the build suggested great age. Courtenay tugged at his beard, his brow creased.

The third ship sported a Spanish flag, hanging limply from the mainmast. Brown weed swelled up its hull. ‘I would investigate that barque,’ Will said, pointing.

Bloody Jack sighed. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that, Master Swyfte.’

All eyes remained down when the captain asked for volunteers to board the Spanish vessel. Roaring in anger, he chose three men at random and they shuffled off to lower the rowing boat. As Will prepared to climb down the rope ladder to where the vessel bobbed, Strangewayes stepped up. A bruise bloomed on the side of his forehead. ‘I would accompany you,’ he muttered, his expression sullen. After a moment’s consideration, Will consented with a nod.

The seamen sculled away from the Tempest with hesitant strokes, their unsettled eyes darting around the waves of brown vegetation. Will sat at the prow, studying the path ahead. The weed bundled up ahead of the boat, the choking stink of it even thicker now they were surrounded by it. One of the sailors, a pockmarked, pink-faced man, cried out as one of the eel creatures leapt out of the water, disturbed by the oars. Its jaws snapped and its eyes swivelled towards them as if it knew what it was seeing. The men muttered prayers, rowing faster, but that only disturbed the creatures more. The sea on either side churned as they leapt up, mewling and crying in tones that were unsettlingly human.

‘Fish, nothing more,’ Will called out in a reassuring voice, keeping his eyes fixed on the Spanish ship ahead. ‘Only fish.’ The seamen continued to mutter. Strangewayes withdrew his hands from the sides of the boat and clasped them between his thighs.

In the sticky heat, they pulled alongside the larger vessel and one of the seamen hurled a grapnel over the rail. One after the other, they climbed. The ship was still, the only sounds the whispers of the hull. Will wrinkled his nose. An odd smell hung across the stained deck, like a butcher’s shop on a summer noon. ‘Search below,’ he said to the three men, who looked as if he had ordered them to leap into the sea. ‘Call out if you find anything of note.’ He beckoned to Strangewayes, and strode to the captain’s cabin, his hand resting on his rapier’s hilt.

The cabin was no cooler. He sucked in a mouthful of stale air, casting an eye over the berth and the chart-covered trestle. By the compass a half-eaten biscuit lay in its crumbs next to a cup of wine. Strangewayes prowled around the trestle, eyeing the food as if it would bite him. ‘The captain left in a hurry,’ he said.

‘Abandoned his own ship?’

‘Taken, then. By pirates.’

‘Perhaps.’ Will looked round, seeing no signs of a struggle. Dropping to his knees, he traced his fingers across the dusty boards, but found no bloodstains. He flicked open a chest under the broad window to reveal the gleam of gold plate, cups and coin.

‘I do not like it here,’ Strangewayes said, looking round the hot, gloomy cabin. ‘It feels haunted.’

At the trestle, Will pushed a quill and ink-pot aside and opened the captain’s leather-bound journal. He ran one finger under the florid scrawl, silently translating the Spanish entries. ‘He speaks here of an isle of devils, and hearing the tormented cries of lost souls in the night.’ He skimmed the pages and read on. ‘A city of gold. Manoa, he calls it. “No man may escape it, save that he traverses the labyrinth before the Moon-Tower.”’

‘If this city of gold exists, Philip of Spain will have sent a fleet of galleons to loot it,’ the younger spy said.

‘Perhaps.’ Will recalled the Faerie Queen’s words from her cell in London and her mention of a Tower of the Moon which kept open the way between their worlds. He continued reading the journal. ‘“Long hours were we caught in that maze, fearing what was at our backs. And yet the way became clear. Twice stare into the devil’s face, then bow all heads to God. Thrice more the unholy must call. Again, again, again until the end.”’ Will reflected on the message for a moment, then tore out the page, folded it neatly and slipped it into his leather pouch.

Strangewayes wandered to the window and peered out into the west. ‘God has abandoned us,’ he said in a low, desolate voice. ‘I fear what lies ahead.’

The pounding of running feet echoed across the deck, accompanied by the frightened cries of the seamen. Will stepped out to meet them. Eyes wide with fear, they gibbered and plucked at their clothes with anxious fingers. Will glanced towards the dark entrance to the lower decks, the door swinging slowly shut. ‘Survivors?’ he enquired in a calm voice, his fingers folding round his sword-hilt.

‘Voices,’ the pockmarked man said breathlessly, looking over his shoulder at the closing door. ‘We were on the orlop deck and we ’eard ’em.’

‘From the bilge?’ Strangewayes enquired.

‘From . . . from the other side of the hull.’

‘In the water?’ Will demanded.

The man nodded. ‘We heard their nails scratching on the keel, and their whispers—’

‘What did they say?’ Strangewayes snapped, grabbing the sailor by the shoulders.

‘“Join us”,’ one of the other sailors whispered. His hands were shaking. ‘“Join us.”’

Will pushed Strangewayes to one side and leaned in, tapping his head. ‘The mind plays strange tricks,’ he said.

But the seaman shook his head furiously, having none of it. ‘This is a ship of ghosts,’ he insisted. ‘We are doomed if we stay here. They will come for us—’

Will felt Strangewayes’ eyes on him, but he did not acknowledge the look. ‘Let the dead whisper to the fishes,’ he interjected. ‘We are done here.’

Sweating and red-faced, the seamen heaved the rowing boat back to the Tempest with furious strokes, their gaze never leaving the drifting seaweed. Will himself half expected to see hands rising from the surface or dead faces looking up from the pools of dark water among the vegetation.

Once they were back on board the galleon, Courtenay set the helmsman to steer a steady course west through the strange dead sea. The deserted Spanish ship fell behind them, but even then Will thought he could feel eyes on his back. For the rest of the day they creaked along under the unforgiving sun, and as twilight began to fall they broke out of the bank of vegetation and into open water. Will felt the mood lift, and not long after he heard Courtenay’s throaty laughter rumbling across the deck as the crew began to sing.

Yet he found himself haunted by what he had read in the Spanish captain’s journal. An isle of devils. Lost souls in the night.

With the red sun low on the horizon, he found his worst fears confirmed. Wreckage drifted on the swell ahead: a shattered hull, chests and barrels, masts tangled with rigging and ragged sailcloth. ‘Caught in the storm?’ Will asked as Courtenay joined him at the rail.

The captain tugged at his beard in his habitual manner as he studied the shattered remnants. ‘Mayhap.’

They watched in silence until Bloody Jack caught sight of a torn flag floating by: a red cross on a white background. ‘One of ours, then,’ he said. Neither of them needed to express what lay heavy on their minds. The captain sent two of his men out in the rowing boat and in the dying light they returned with a sodden remnant of the captain’s log bearing the ship’s name: the Eagle, the carrack which had carried Dee and Meg. Will felt a momentary pang of despair.

Strangewayes appeared at their side, fresh from ministering to Grace. He looked tired and drawn; Will had not seen him eat since the storm. There had still been no improvement in her condition and Will’s mood darkened further.

‘Can there be survivors from such a wreck?’ Strangewayes asked. ‘If Dee is lost—’

‘This is not the time to speculate,’ Will said, a little more curtly than he intended. For a moment, his thoughts turned to Meg, but he set them aside when the lookout cried, ‘Land ahoy!’

Courtenay’s brow furrowed. ‘There is no land in these waters.’ Yet when they rushed to the forecastle, they saw white-topped waves crashing against a jagged reef, and beyond it the hazy outline of an island in the dying ruddy light. ‘Hard a starboard,’ the captain bellowed to the helmsman, adding with a growl, ‘We’ll not end up on the rocks like those other poor bastards.’

Will gripped the rail, peering towards the island. He could make out a hilly, tree-covered central area, and grey cliffs to the south and north with a stretch of sandy strand directly ahead. ‘Dee could have washed up there,’ Strangewayes said in a hopeful tone.

‘Aye,’ Bloody Jack growled, raising the tele-scope to his eye. ‘He’s as tough as a tanner’s hide, that one. Wring his scrawny neck and he’d still keep on breathing. And I’ve wanted to do that a time or two. We’ll sail to the north and drop anchor. Only a madman would try to cross that reef with night coming in,’ he added without a hint of irony.

Will watched the darkening waves as the ship sailed astern. So much misfortune had afflicted them in recent days, he barely dared to hope for some small relief. Beside him, Courtenay cursed. ‘What afflicts that fool at the helm?’ Once more, the island lay directly ahead. He snatched the tele-scope from his eye and roared to the helmsman, ‘I said, hard a starboard!’

The Tempest turned a starboard again, but within moments Will blinked his eyes in the growing gloom and saw the island ahead of them once more. Courtenay’s face darkened. ‘Will we never be out of these cursed waters?’ he muttered.

Three more times they attempted to sail round the island’s northern edge, and three more times they failed. ‘It seems,’ Will said, ‘that this island is waiting for us.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

STREAMS OF TORCH-FIRE blazed through the dark of the London night. Alarmed cries rang off the high stone walls of the Palace of Whitehall as the guards raced across the courtyard, their boots clattering, weapons clanking as they ran. In the flickering light of the brands worried white faces were caught, eyes urgently trying to pierce the deep gloom around the Lantern Tower.

‘Find it!’ Sir Robert Cecil bellowed. A sheen of sweat glistened on the spymaster’s forehead despite the wintry chill that had reached long into spring. ‘Slay it without a moment’s thought.’

He whirled as a low snarl rumbled out from a corner of the courtyard, a sound that would not have been out of place in the Queen’s menagerie but which he knew came from something that walked like a man. A moment later the growl echoed from the other side of the square. So fast, he thought, quaking.

The torches whisked around in confusion. In the gloom, stars of ruddy light danced off burgonets and cuirasses. The spymaster glimpsed a pale face frozen in the wavering flames, mouth ragged with horror, but it was gone in an instant. Another man dashed past him, yelling in fear. Round and round he spun, caught up in the visions flashing before his eyes – a stabbing pike, a guard staggering back, clutching his head, a blood-spattered burgonet bouncing across the cobbles – until he grabbed at his chest where his heart was pounding fit to burst.

Those inhuman snarls seemed to be echoing all around, as if there were a host of the things and not just one.

Another face flashed by, torn and bloody. The guard stumbled in the dark and lay still.

Cecil cried out in a fury born of fear, demanding his men do something, anything, to end this slaughter.

And then, as the snapping and snarling reached a new pitch, the bestial cry was cut off with a strangled gurgle.

‘To me,’ the spymaster bellowed. As the surviving guards gathered around him, their combined torchlight lit a chaotic scene. Fallen bodies, gleaming pools of blood and scattered cordwood where the intruder had attempted to tear through the towering bonfire surrounding the Lantern Tower to free the Faerie Queen. ‘Is it dead?’ he barked. He needed to show that he was not afraid, but his hands would not stop shaking.

‘’Tis gone.’ The voice floated out of the dark. Cecil snatched a torch and stalked towards the sound. The flames lit a man dressed in a costly sapphire doublet and breeches, the face half turned away. He gripped a rapier dripping black blood and his cloak covered a still form on the cobbles. ‘Send your men away. They should not see this.’

The spymaster recognized the intruder and waved the unnerved guards away. Once they had gone, Sir Walter Raleigh stepped out of the shadows into the circle of light from Cecil’s torch.

‘If Her Majesty knew you were here . . .’ Cecil began.

‘And will you tell her, so that I can relate how I achieved what your impotent band could not?’ The adventurer stooped to wipe his blade on the already bloodied cloak. ‘A foul thing,’ he said, turning his nose up at the twisted shape beneath the folds. ‘There have been many of them?’

‘In recent times, too many.’ Cecil pressed the back of his quivering hand against his mouth, steadying himself. ‘The Unseelie Court may not be able to set foot upon this still protected part of England, but that does not prevent them from sending their agents in to engineer disaster.’

Raleigh sheathed his rapier. ‘But the Faerie Queen still resides in her tower-prison and the bonfire is still piled high to roast her like a suckling pig. All is well in the world.’

Cecil snorted, his laughter bitter. ‘How much longer can we go on? Those fiends whittle us down by degrees. And now you are here.’

Raleigh bowed, sweeping one arm out with ironic flamboyance.

‘Your secret society, your School of Night, seeks to use this calamity to your own ends,’ the spymaster continued with contempt. ‘While the Queen’s government is distracted and out of joint, you step in and seize power. Is that how it is?’

‘Sirrah, you wound me. We in the School of Night are all good Englishmen, loyal to the Crown.’

Cecil paced around the other man, looking him up and down. ‘Then why are you here, risking the wrath of the Queen? You have not yet earned your way back into her favour.’

‘In these darkest hours, the School of Night will stand shoulder to shoulder with you—’

The spymaster laughed again. ‘To worm your way into the heart of government. To learn our secrets, things that you can put to good use should we survive this catastrophe.’

Raleigh tapped the form under his cloak with the toe of his shoe. ‘And that matter of survival is still in doubt. For now, can you refuse our aid? We have knowledge, we have wealth, when the coffers of England are near empty. And we have some skills you may be able to use.’

Cecil’s eyes narrowed. ‘Go on.’

‘Dr Dee is one of our number—’

‘I knew it!’ The spymaster clenched his fist.

‘Some of his occult knowledge was passed to other members – not all of it, by far, but enough perhaps to be of use in keeping the Unseelie Court at bay. This will buy Her Majesty . . . and England . . . time for Swyfte to succeed in his quest.’

‘You know of that?’ Cecil turned away, pretending to examine the huge pile of kindling in the wavering torchlight. ‘Of course you do! Yet how can I ever trust the School of Night when you have been secretly working against us for so long?’

Raleigh gave a tight smile. ‘How can you trust us? We believe in the power of knowledge, sirrah, in natural science and the occult arts coming together for the good of all men. And a new way in this never-ending war with the Unseelie Court, one that will not tarnish our integrity and may yet save the lives that are so regularly sacrificed. And we believe in honour above all. Can you say the same?’

Cecil refused to meet his gaze.

‘I have heard tales,’ Raleigh continued, lowering his voice. ‘If they are true, you would do well to hope Master Swyfte does not discover what happened to his lady love. He is a man of some fame with a powerful voice . . . and a powerful temper. His rage would be a fine thing, if he were to learn the truth. I would not put money on any man standing in his way . . . or upon the survival of those responsible.’

This time Cecil whirled, a cold anger lighting his eyes. ‘You have the luxury of honour, sirrah. You hold no power. You are not faced with harsh decisions on a daily basis, where choices must be made in sacrificing one life to save two, or ten to save a hundred. Do you think my life peaceful? Do you think my soul remains untainted by those choices? Forget Master Swyfte. He will never be allowed to foment rebellion here. He will die on foreign soil once his quest has been accomplished, or he will die when he sets foot back in England. Either way, there will be an end of it.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

THE LANTERN GLIMMERED deep in the gloom at the far end of the orlop deck. Carpenter felt little comfort from the tiny speck of light in the stifling heat and stale air of the dark space. The cargo hold throbbed with the rhythm of the waves pounding against the creaking hull, and sometimes, when the din diminished a little, he could hear the scrabbling of rats in the bilge beneath him. He grimaced as he sucked in a breath heavy with the stink of rot and worked at the greasy ropes binding his aching wrists behind his back.

Here, on this ship of the dead, the spy fought back his fear. He had been in many tight spots in his life, but few as desperate as this. His plunge from the Tempest into the violent sea had smashed the breath from him. Brine had flooded his nose and mouth, the undercurrent sucking him into the black water below. Swept back up to the surface, he had seized a fleeting chance to gulp one last gasp of air, and as he did so he glimpsed the white face of the foul thing he had dragged into the seething cauldron. If Lansing of the High Family had been swept to an agonizing death at the bottom, his own passing would have been worth it. The last thing he remembered was feeling arms close around him as Launceston attempted to keep him afloat. He marvelled: Launceston, who had no feelings for any living thing, who slaughtered innocent and guilty alike with the dispassion of a butcher preparing meat for the table.

Carpenter screwed his eyes shut. For some reason, the hated Enemy had saved him and stowed him away here in the filthy, stinking hold. Why did they not kill him and be done with it? He was no use to them; he knew nothing. Perhaps his suffering was simple sport, or revenge against a man who had been a thorn in their side for years, however ineffective.

‘Do you miss your friends? Your family?’

He flinched at the voice and almost cried out. His senses had told him that the hold was empty, but he should have known better; the Unseelie Court were like ghosts. The voice was that of Lansing. He was disappointed that the hated Fay had survived too, but he should have expected it.

The Fay asked his question again, his voice measured.

‘I have no family,’ Carpenter spat, ‘and no friends either. I have nothing in my life except the work I do, so do not think you can torture me with false hopes.’

‘We are not the monsters here.’

The spy laughed long and hard.

Footsteps echoed as Lansing drew closer. Carpenter tensed, expecting to feel a blow or the prick of a dagger, but instead he heard the Fay’s passionless voice at a lower level as if he were crouching to look his prisoner in the eye. ‘There is great beauty in our world. Music that can move men to tears. Art. Philosophy. The joy that comes from being at the centre of life and all the wonders it offers. You think us demons, but we are not so different, our two people.’

‘And yet you have treated men like cattle, ready for the slaughter, since the beginning of time,’ Carpenter sneered. ‘Stolen our children for sport, or our youth or our lives. Turned women to stone, destroyed families and whole villages, blighted lives for amusement or because we did not bow and scrape before you.’

‘And men are so different? We do not hurt our own kind. Can the same be said of your privateers in Africa, or in the New World? Of your own Queen, in her own homeland? So much misery inflicted on those who worship by another creed – and yet pray to the same God!’ An incredulous laugh rolled out from the dark. ‘Since man walked tall, the world has been awash with blood. Not one race, not one country, has never raised a weapon in anger against another. Those who have suffered at your own hands far exceed the number we have tormented. And we are the monsters?’

‘You twist things to seduce me with words,’ Carpenter said. He let his shoulders sag.

‘Nothing is as simple as it is made out to be by men of power. They always twist things to achieve the outcome they require. But I do not have power. I am just a warrior, like you, in this ceaseless shadow-conflict those greater than us have carved out.’

‘Like me? I think not. For all my flaws, I have honour.’

‘Then you have not had your fill of this battle, as I have? You do not wish to see it end and return to your home and your life? If this war were over, I would go in an instant and hold no hatred in my heart for any man. That is my most fervent wish.’

The spy did not reply at once. The Fay’s words struck a note deep within him. He had been left for dead, scarred, betrayed, deceived; had seen the woman he loved murdered and been denied the opportunity to walk away from the business of spying. Cecil would never let him leave. All the secrets he knew were too valuable, he accepted with bitterness. ‘I have heard of your plans,’ he said at last, giving no sign of his true thoughts. He pushed his head up in defiance. ‘You would wash us all away in a tide of blood. You want to win this war by leaving no trace of men upon the earth—’

‘We want only one thing,’ Lansing interrupted in a soothing voice, ‘the return of our Queen, my sister, taken from us in an act of grand betrayal when all we wished to do was make peace.’

‘Do you think I can trust a word you say? Your very existence is based upon deceit and lies.’

Carpenter felt icy breath on his ear and recoiled in revulsion. He smelled strange spices. ‘One more time,’ Lansing whispered. ‘We are the same.’

The spy wanted to feel anger, but the Fay’s calm words seemed to have sapped his rage. He sagged back against the damp boards, dreaming of a home that had not existed for many years.

‘Do you ever feel lost?’ Lansing continued. His soles scraped on the boards as he began to circle his prisoner. ‘If that word chimes with you ever, then you know my people. We are lost, all of us. Wanderers who travelled from four distant cities, Gorias, Murias, Finias and Falias, four places of such wonder and enchantment they could bring any who laid eyes upon them to tears of joy. But our way was lost, and we could never find our way home, and for as long as we have known we have been yearning for those magical, fabled cities. No peace in our days, no contentment, only endless searching. Our sadness eats into our hearts and turns our thoughts grey. But one day, we believe, we will finally find our way back and then, and only then, will we find peace.’

Carpenter felt a dismal mood descend upon him. He closed his eyes, letting his thoughts float back through the years and across the miles, to his father, in his cups and laughing by the hearth, and to his mother, wearing her best mustard skirts and white apron as she trudged through the snow to church on Christmas Eve. What uncomplicated lives they led. If only he had recognized that before he had left in search of coin in the Queen’s employ. Other scenes marched through his thoughts: the fields around his home where he knew every bird’s nest, how every shadow fell in the autumn twilight; the sound of the men singing as they drank their apple-beer after a hard day bringing in the harvest. He bowed his head. Lost, he thought, with such poignant regret it made him wince. ‘Did Launceston survive?’ he croaked.

‘Your friend is safe.’ Lansing’s footsteps retreated a few paces. Carpenter wondered if the Fay was drawing his blade for the first of many cuts and realized he cared little. ‘You may see him again soon,’ the Fay continued. ‘If only there would come a time when this war no longer tore friends apart.’

The spy read what his opponent was saying. ‘I will never betray my Queen,’ he muttered.

‘Nor would I expect you to. You are an honourable man, as am I. But there are steps we foot soldiers can take which could free us all from daily suffering, steps perhaps unseen by our masters caught up in their grand visions.’

Carpenter allowed himself a moment to imagine what life would be like without that struggle. He did not hear Lansing approach again.

‘We need no grand betrayal to end this war,’ the Fay was saying. ‘Only one thing, one small thing. The sorcerer, Dee.’

The spy snorted. ‘Without Dee, England falls. You will be able to do whatever you want with us.’

‘As I said before, all we want is our Queen returned. When she is seated once again upon the Golden Throne, there will no longer be need for struggle. We are no different, you and I. We want the same things.’ Lansing repeated the sentiment in a honeyed voice, the words almost dreamlike as they wove among Carpenter’s thoughts. The spy felt himself falling under their spell. We are the same. We want the same things. Lost. ‘Dee’s hands are drenched in blood. You know as well as I that few would call him a good man. He has no honour. What a small sacrifice he would be to achieve such a great end.’

And on Lansing spoke, the steady beat of his quiet words an enchantment that swept Carpenter’s wits away. Little of what followed did the spy recall, only the great swell of his yearning as he thought of fleeing his blood-drenched work for a simpler life.

And then he heard Lansing say, ‘Will you help end this war?’

And he replied, ‘I will.’

Though it was dark, he was sure the Fay was smiling. ‘We would join you with us, so we can whisper our secrets. Guide you. Comfort you.’

‘Why do you need me?’ he murmured. ‘You can raise the dead to do your bidding. You have your Scar-Crow Men. I am but one man, and a lowly one at that.’

‘One man who gives himself freely can achieve greater things than an army of mere flesh devoid of thought.’ Lansing’s footsteps drew closer once again. ‘Do you give yourself freely?’

‘If it will bring an end to this war and this suffering. If we can have peace once more, and lives without strife.’

The Fay lord knelt beside him and struck a flint. Carpenter screwed up his eyes as the white light blazed in the gloom. Once a candle had been lit, he saw that Lansing held a silver casket in the palm of one hand. ‘This path must be chosen,’ the Fay said. ‘We can no more enforce it than we can turn back the wind.’

Carpenter shook his head, trying to dispel his hazy stupor. An insistent voice echoed deep inside him, but it was too faint to comprehend the words.

Lansing flicked open the casket lid to reveal a silver egg lying upon folds of purple velvet. ‘It is a Caraprix,’ he said with an odd hint of fondness. ‘So simple in appearance, yet containing such great power.’

‘It lives?’ the spy asked.

Lansing’s lips twitched. ‘Yes, it lives. It will be your most trusted companion, should you let it. Oh, the things it will whisper to you, the wonders it will unfold.’

‘And it will help me achieve the ends we both want so fervently?’

‘It will.’

‘Then free my hands, and let me hide it in my pouch. I would be away from here and bring an end to this madness sooner rather than later.’

‘You do not need your hands,’ the Fay said in a calm voice which Carpenter found inexplicably troubling. Before he could probe further, Lansing delicately lifted the silver egg out of the casket and balanced it on his palm in front of the spy’s eyes. The unblemished surface gleamed in the candlelight.

‘We will become one,’ Lansing said with a cold grin.

Legs sprang out of the Caraprix’s side. Like a beetle, it scurried across the Fay’s palm and leapt on to Carpenter’s face. He cried out in shock as the sharp tips of those legs bit into his flesh and held fast. It crawled down, and though he clamped his mouth shut the spindly shanks wormed their way in between his teeth and forced his jaw apart. As it wriggled past his lips, he felt its smooth surface as warm and yielding as flesh. Sickened, he tried to yell, but only a strangled cry came out.

The Caraprix forced itself further into his mouth, towards his throat, filling up every space until he choked. Darkness closed around his gaze. As Lansing’s emotionless face filled his vision, he could only think how weak he had been, and what terrible things were now to come.

CHAPTER THIRTY

NIGHT HAD FALLEN, and the sea bellowed its fury. Iron waves hammered the Tempest as it crashed towards the rocky fangs protruding from the swell. Wrenched back and forth in the grip of turbulent currents, the galleon seemed caught in a battle it was impossible to win. ‘Hold fast to the course,’ Courtenay bellowed, his gaze fixed on the flashes of white water ahead. Sparks of orange light glittered across the dark sea from the vessel’s blazing lanterns, yet the channel ahead remained pitch black.

‘God save our souls,’ Strangewayes called to the heavens. He clung on to the rigging for dear life, his shirt and breeches sodden from the surf gushing over the rail with every dip and crash.

‘Only Bloody Jack can do that now,’ Will shouted back. His fingers ached from gripping the greased rope.

The ship careered into the dark like a leaf caught in a flood. For one queasy moment, the prow pointed towards the glittering stars, then plummeted down into a sable valley. A deluge thundered over the prow. Before the brine had sluiced across the deck, the ship crested another wave. Seasoned crewmen flew from their feet. Had the island lured them in, only to dash them on the rocks, Will wondered?

His ears rang from the thunderous roar as they neared the long line of white-topped breakers crashing against the lethal rocks. It seemed there was no path through, but Courtenay stood like a sentinel on the forecastle, unmoved by the furious heaving.

‘This is madness. We will all die,’ Strangewayes cried. ‘I should be at Grace’s side—’

‘There is nothing you can do for her now. Hold fast or you will be thrown over the side,’ Will called back.

The galleon heaved as a loud grinding echoed through the hull from the rocks scraping along the side. Any moment Will expected the jagged reef to tear through the pitch-covered oak. In those violent currents, the ship would break up in no time.

He gritted his teeth as the grinding grew louder, until he feared the end had come. The Tempest lurched. Men crashed to the deck. Then, suddenly, the grating sound stopped and the galleon swept free of the clutching fingers of the black rocks. Relieved grins leapt to the harrowed faces of the seamen caught in the wildly swinging lanterns. The violent shaking faded, the seas grew calmer, and a cheer rang out from all on deck.

When the Tempest reached placid water, Courtenay gave the order to drop anchor. As he strode the deck, the men showed him their respect with broad grins or bowed heads. Bloody Jack only laughed louder, clapping his hands together in triumphant glee. ‘We have stared death in the face, and once again the bony bastard has backed down,’ he bellowed as he passed.

The night was cool and smelled sweetly of fresh vegetation. Now the danger had passed, Will wondered where his plans would take him next. He found his thoughts swinging wildly between hope that one day he might see Jenny again and dread that Grace had been lost because of his own failings.

Strangewayes cast one eye towards the island. ‘Is this the place mentioned in the captain’s journal ’pon the abandoned Spanish galleon?’

‘We will find out in good time, Tobias, but there have been tales of many a devil-haunted island in these parts. Perhaps the influence of the Unseelie Court grows stronger with each step closer to their home.’

‘Then let us pray we draw no nearer.’ He glanced up, past the men hooting and chattering as they scrambled up the rigging, and then strode towards the captain’s cabin to see how Grace fared.

Once the sails had been furled and calm had descended on the galleon, Will sought out Courtenay on the poop deck, where the captain was swigging from a cup of wine by the light of the moon. Aware of the dangers that might lie ahead, they agreed no landfall would be made until sunrise. Eager as he was to discover Dee and Meg’s fate, Will took the opportunity to snatch a few hours’ rest in a corner of the main deck while the men played cards and drank in the berth.

Sleep came quickly. Through the dark he sailed, deep into dreams.

Once again, he walked with Jenny through the garden of the cottage she shared with her father and mother and Grace in Warwickshire. In the sun, honey bees buzzed lazily past the marigolds on their way to the hives at the end of the garden. Purple-topped lavender swayed past their legs. His gaze flickered towards the dark band of woods ahead, like a storm cloud on the horizon, and he felt uneasy as he sensed that something watched him from their depths. Though he could not see it, for some reason he couldn’t fathom he believed it to be a raven. Those black glass eyes lay upon him, heavy with judgement, he was sure. And then he realized that Jenny was speaking to him, her voice insistent, and when he turned he saw worry in her features. She was telling him not to go on, to turn back, forget everything, live life, for the west was where the dead went. Turn back. Turn back.

The world skewed and shadows rushed out from those dark woods to swallow him. When his head had finished spinning, he somehow knew it was the night of Jenny’s disappearance. He had spent hours searching the lanes and fields around her home, desperation, then fear, then grief, burning a hole in his chest. No sign of her anywhere; no sign of her ever again in Arden. And he was washing his hands by the well, washing furiously to rid himself of the stain, but he knew that it would never go, that it lay deeper than flesh. He was changed for ever. No longer William Swyfte the poet, with a fine career ahead of him after he departed the debating halls of Cambridge University. No longer innocent. And then he turned, as he had, and Grace was there, little Grace, pleading for news of her missing sister. He tried to hide his hands so she would not see. He tried—

Rough hands were shaking him awake.

His eyes snapped open and he peered into Strangewayes’ face as the spy loomed over him in an excited state, his fists gripping Will’s shirt. ‘Come,’ he urged with passion. ‘Come.’ Shaking the last of the dark dream from his head, Will staggered after the other man. His heart beat faster when he saw Tobias dash into the captain’s cabin. Inside, Grace was sitting up in her berth, her head in her hands, her lank hair falling across her face. When she looked round as the two men entered she appeared baffled and Will feared the worst, her wits burned away by the searing touch of the Unseelie Court. His breath caught in his throat. Yet after a moment she forced a weak smile and said, ‘You both look so troubled! What is wrong?’

Relief flooded Will. ‘You gave us a scare, Grace,’ he said, beaming. ‘You have been a bundle of trouble as long as I have known you.’

She rolled her eyes and sniffed. ‘Men call a woman trouble when she does not dance to their tune. I am proud to be so described.’

The two men laughed, their moods lightening for the first time in days. Will knelt beside Grace and tested her memory and her wits with several questions. She answered every one clearly, her puzzlement moving to annoyance until finally she told him she had had enough of being mothered. Promising he would explain everything to her soon, he insisted she rest and build up her strength, for there were more tribulations ahead.

Outside the cabin door, he closed his eyes and put his head back, letting his relief show. ‘Never would I have hoped for such an outcome,’ he breathed.

‘It seems Grace is stronger than you think,’ Strangewayes said, his voice hard. ‘You see the little girl you first knew. But she has grown into a woman as courageous as any man.’

‘In that, you are correct. I have misjudged her. When she has regained her strength, I will reveal all she needs to know about the Unseelie Court and their foul ways.’

‘Do not expect forgiveness,’ Strangewayes said. ‘This time we were fortunate, but Grace should never have been placed in that danger.’ He stalked away before Will could respond.

The night drew on, and on. Will climbed up to the forecastle and watched the shore, feeling unease begin to replace his jubilation. When footsteps drew near, he turned. Men slept on the decks under the lit lamps. Courtenay strode past them, his brow furrowed, and the spy knew he was not alone in his worries. ‘The sun should have been up long ago,’ Bloody Jack said, eyeing the full moon and the milky sweep of stars as he neared, ‘yet this night stays and stays. How much longer are we to be tormented by strangeness?’

‘It is a strange world, captain, and an island where night outstays its welcome is not the worst thing in it.’

Courtenay shrugged. Vertiginous seas and blood-crazed pirates were as nothing to him, but Will could see that the unnatural dark troubled him deeply. ‘Well, we can’t sit here waiting till Doomsday,’ the captain muttered. ‘I’ll assemble the shore party. But you must watch yourself out there, Master Swyfte.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

THE ISLAND BROODED in the deep dark. No fires or lanterns glimmered, no voices carried, no sign of human habitation showed itself anywhere. There was only the creak of the Tempest at anchor and the wind across the waves.

Uncommonly subdued, Courtenay disappeared below deck and returned with ten of his fiercest men. Will watched the rowing boat pull away as it ferried the sailors to the shore. It disappeared into the dark, and after what seemed an age, lanterns flickered to life in a circle on the beach. He joined the last boat with Strangewayes, who would not meet his eye. ‘You must put aside your feelings until we are back aboard ship,’ Will said in a low voice. ‘Our survival could depend on us looking out for each other.’

Strangewayes did not reply.

Through the gloom they could make out white-topped waves lapping on to a small beach which led up to a dense line of trees silhouetted against the night sky. The dark beneath the canopy was impenetrable. The sweet scent of cooling vegetation drifted on the night breeze.

‘Make a fire here on the strand,’ Will ordered when he stood in the circle of lamplight. ‘It will be a beacon for us as we explore the island.’ While the men collected driftwood and dry brush from the treeline, Will clambered over the rock pools at the edge of the horseshoe-shaped cove. Though he gained a different perspective of the island, still he could see no sign of life.

Once he had glanced towards the beach to ensure he had not been followed, he crouched down and removed the obsidian mirror from his leather pouch. It felt cool and comforting in his hand. How much he had gambled, bringing such a powerful object so close to the redoubt of the Unseelie Court. And yet it had proved the source of such hope.

He laid the looking glass on a seaweed-covered rock and peered into its depths. It seemed to glow of its own accord. Long moments passed, but just as he began to lose hope the mirror clouded and Jenny appeared in the glass once more. She smiled but her eyes looked unaccountably sad.

‘You knew I was here, wishing to speak to you?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘The mirror is powerful. It calls out to . . . to this place. And . . .’ she lowered her eyes, trying to hide the depth of her feelings, ‘I look out for you, Will. To see you again . . . after so long . . .’ She shook her head, grimacing. ‘No. I am being weak. You must ignore my words. Stay away, Will. There is too much at stake here. I am worth nothing.’

He shook his head with vehemence. ‘You are everything to me. And I will risk everything to bring you home.’ Her tears welled and she screwed up her eyes to stifle them. Will felt overwhelmed by a rush of memories, sensations and emotions: crunching through crisp gold and orange leaves in the woods with Jenny beside him; their eyes meeting at the Christmas feast amid the scent of cloves and hot, sweet wine, and the world seeming to hang though the dancers whirled around them; a kiss, on the day he left for Cambridge, thinking that surely there could be no worse pain than this parting. If only he had known.

‘I have many questions,’ he continued, aware that time was short, ‘but first: tell me, have they harmed you in any way?’

‘I am well,’ she replied, so quickly that he knew she was lying and his blood boiled.

‘Who took you, Jenny, and why?’

‘Why? Who can fathom the minds of these creatures?’ she replied in a strained voice. ‘Who?’ She paused, swallowed. ‘I was taken on the orders of Mandraxas, the King of these people, and the first of the High Family.’

‘Then he is the one who must feel the bite of my blade,’ Will replied, his voice cold. ‘One day I will find my way to you, and then—’

‘You can never do that,’ she said, her voice breaking. ‘This fortress is impregnable. High, strong walls and many guards. And to enter this land of the Fay, you must first pass through one of the gates into the place where the two worlds overlap.’

‘How will I find them?’

She sighed. ‘Will—’

‘Tell me, Jenny,’ he pressed.

‘The Unseelie Court say you will find the gates if you ever need them, though it is much harder to leave. Twin pillars of stone, they are, in the sea around the New World. You will surely know them, for the rules of the natural world do not hold sway around them.’

While he reflected upon her words, a cry of alarm rang out. He looked round, and when he turned back the looking glass was clear. His heart sank, but only for a moment, for he knew now that Jenny was looking out for him too.

Another cry rolled across the strand. Will stood and saw Strangewayes lit up by the ruddy flames of the crew’s bonfire, beckoning him back. One of the men was pointing out to sea. Following the line of the man’s arm, Will discerned lights bobbing far out on the dark ocean beyond the reef. Another ship was sailing towards the island. When the Tempest’s gun cracked, Will could only imagine that the new arrival was Jean le Gris’s devil-haunted pirate galleon. The warning shot from Captain Courtenay would let their enemies know they had little hope of sailing through the rough waters beyond the reef in one piece.

At the bonfire, the men had made burning brands with pitch-soaked sailcloth wrapped around fallen branches to light their way through the thick woods. ‘We must use well what little time we have,’ Will told them. ‘Search for any paths leading away from the beach. But stay in sight of each other’s torches.’

‘And if we find nothing?’ Strangewayes muttered.

‘Pray that we do, Tobias.’

As they moved into the trees, the dancing torchlight glowed like fireflies through the branches. A symphony of subtle sounds surrounded them: the whisper of leaves, the groan of dry wood underfoot, and the distant call of some night bird. Soon the dark swallowed the beach and the bonfire. No one spoke.

Will imagined Dee and Meg and the other survivors clawing their way out of the surf and staggering up the beach and into the woods. It gave him hope where he knew there should not be any.

The ground sloped steadily upwards towards the centre of the island. In the sultry heat, sweat dripped from brows and soaked shirts. The men’s breath rasped with the exertion.

‘If the Unseelie Court find another cove to put into, how long before we encounter them, I wonder?’ Strangewayes thought aloud. Will noticed he kept one hand on the hilt of the dagger tucked into the waist of his breeches.

Ahead, one of the men whistled, and the torches swept through the trees in the direction of the call. The two spies found the other men gathered in a clearing looking up. On the side of the hill at the heart of the island, a tower stood silhouetted against the starry sky.

‘Curious,’ Will said, stroking his chin-hair. ‘Now who would call this dark place home?’

On the far side of the clearing, one of the men waved his torch. Cracked flagstones marked a path leading up through the trees, so worn and overgrown they suggested great age. Strangewayes flashed a questioning look.

‘If I had survived a shipwreck, a stone tower would have seemed a perfect shelter,’ Will replied. Holding his torch high, he stepped on to the path, happier now he had a destination in mind. Yet only a moment later, a blood-curdling howl echoed across the island. Uneasy, the men huddled together, eyes wide and darting around.

‘What was that?’ Strangewayes hissed. ‘Man? Or beast?’

Will drew his dagger. ‘Cold steel cuts either one.’ He continued along the path, more cautiously this time.

The path wound round the contours of the hill. Even with the torches Will found it impossible to see any distance ahead. When he paused to get his bearings beside a craggy-barked tree, the baying rolled out again, so close this time that several men cried out in shock. The sound stirred ancient fears in his head. Yet another yowl came a moment later, behind them this time.

‘Circling us,’ Will said.

‘Hunting.’ Strangewayes whirled, brandishing his dagger in front of him.

Behind them, along the path, the baying changed into a low growl, the sound of some beast preparing to attack. ‘Stand your ground,’ Will called, but the fearful seamen ran as one towards higher ground. Realizing they had no choice but to follow, the two spies raced after them.

The frightened men burst out of the trees into another clearing at the foot of a rocky outcrop. The torchlight glittered across the surface of a black pool fed by a spring trickling from the glistening cliff face. ‘Make a stand,’ Will shouted, putting away his dagger. ‘There will be no better place.’

Blades bristled out as the men formed a circle, their drawn faces stark in the flames. Will snatched out his rapier and turned to look back down the shadowy path.

A snapping and snarling rang out, but then a familiar woman’s voice called out, ‘Leave them, Mooncalf. They are not your prey.’ Silence fell across the woods. When Will’s pounding heart had slowed, he raised his torch and searched the dark beyond the pool. In the wavering light, a grey shape appeared, coalescing into Red Meg. She was barefoot, her dress smudged and worn. A grin sprang to the spy’s lips and he ran over to her.

‘It does me good to see you well, Meg,’ he said with relief. ‘I had feared the worst.’

Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to recall his face. ‘Will Swyfte?’ she enquired with a faint, baffled smile.

Had she taken a knock to the head in the shipwreck, he wondered? But then her eyes sparkled and her smile broadened and she almost hugged him in her joy. ‘Will Swyfte! After so long, I never dared hope I would see your cocky face again.’

‘Ten weeks since Liverpool is long indeed, Mistress Meg, but it could have been eternity—’

‘Ten weeks?’ She shook her head, puzzled once more. ‘Since the storm washed us up on this island, twelve years have passed.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

THE STIFLING DARK enveloped Carpenter. Coarse sackcloth scratched his face as he stumbled along blindly at the bidding of his captors. His breath rasped against the covering that had been thrust over his head aboard the galleon, but sounds came to him clearly: the whispering voices of the Unseelie Court speaking in their strange, bird-like language, the splash of the oars in the rowing boat, the crash of waves and the crunch of sand underfoot as he lurched up the strand. Blood dripped from his stinging wrists where the rope chafed him, but the pain only focused his mind. With an effort, he drove out the sickening sensation of the thing forcing its way down his throat and thought simply that he still lived.

When he came to a swaying halt, rough hands yanked the sack off his head. He stood on a small beach edged by steep cliffs facing a wall of dark, spiky-leaved trees. Torches hissed and spat in the hands of the dead pirates, their grey-green skin peeling away to reveal the bone beneath. The stink of rot floated on the breeze. Beyond the circle of light, he could just discern the spectral faces of the Fay in the gloom, their fierce, unblinking stares locked upon him.

Reeking of unfamiliar spices, Jean le Gris, the pirate captain, peered into the spy’s face with his one good eye. Scar tissue marred much of his skin above his wild black beard, but Carpenter saw that this man wore his wounds with pride. With a gap-toothed grin, the pirate tossed the sack away and said in heavily accented English, ‘Savour your few last breaths, dog. Your time in this world is done.’ He swept a hand across his throat and laughed.

Carpenter shrugged, refusing to give the other man any satisfaction. ‘How can you throw your lot in with these foul creatures?’ he said with contempt.

Le Gris’s grin faded. Leaning in closer, he hissed, ‘Do you think I had a choice? If I had resisted, I would have become like them.’ He nodded towards his dead crew.

‘So you sacrificed your men to save your neck. There is no honour among pirates, it seems.’

Le Gris snarled and Carpenter felt the prick of a knife-point at his neck. A bubble of blood rose up. ‘They came like wolves in the night as we sailed down the Channel. Ten men were dead before we even knew they had boarded us. A cur like you cannot judge me.’

The Unseelie Court never lost their ruthlessness, the spy understood. They needed a galleon that could survive an Atlantic crossing and took the first one they found that would not be missed. ‘You survived that encounter because they needed your skills,’ he said, ‘but soon you will have outlived your usefulness. What then, Frenchman?’

Le Gris’s blade moved back, ready to cut Carpenter’s throat, but the Englishman saw the other man’s eyes flicker towards something further down the beach and the foul-smelling pirate stepped back. Propelled by unseen hands, another hooded prisoner lurched beside the spy. Le Gris snatched off the sack to reveal Launceston, his deathly pallor aglow in the torchlight.

‘You live,’ Carpenter said, surprised by his rush of relief at his companion’s survival.

‘Little good it does us,’ the Earl breathed.

The Fay lord Lansing sauntered past the men, carrying a small, gleaming chest a hand larger than the one that had held the Caraprix. He nodded for the pirate to follow him. Glowering at the two spies, le Gris took the chest and followed the Fay like a servant. Carpenter imagined the Frenchman’s searing resentment at the humiliation, and smiled to himself.

‘Did they harm you?’ he asked Launceston.

‘They were poor company,’ the Earl replied with a shrug, ‘but I have endured worse. When I was a child, my father sealed me in a hole in the cellar with three rats for company, to teach me a lesson, he said.’ He looked round the beach, his voice unnervingly quiet. ‘I learned how to kill rats.’

A little way away, the silver box had been set on the sand. Lansing kneeled down and flicked open the lid, drawing out a glass ball like the ones Carpenter had seen in Dee’s chambers. He held it gently in the palm of his right hand.

‘Four times Lansing came to me. His words were sugared, but each one hid a demand for betrayal. What could he offer me? I have all I need now. Satisfying work, companionship.’ Launceston paused. ‘We all have a place in this world and I have finally found mine. I would not let him take that away from me.’

Carpenter hid his guilt, pretending to be engrossed by the Fay, who was dismissing le Gris with a lazy flick of his hand. Muttering under his breath, Lansing gestured as if drawing a silk kerchief off the glass ball. A flood of colour rushed out.

The two spies recoiled as one. ‘More magics,’ Carpenter spat.

The shifting colours coalesced into a plane on which formed a relief chart of the crescent-shaped island, with a stone tower standing on the hill at the centre. Carpenter gaped as he saw thick woods and paths running through them, valleys, pools and streams and grassy clearings. Lansing crooked a finger at the pirate and then pointed to the tower. ‘The magician hides away here. Find him and bring him back, and kill anyone who stands in your way.’

Le Gris nodded, his one eye wide with amazement.

‘Here,’ the Fay continued, moving his finger to a faint red glow following a path to the tower, ‘are the English spies.’ He traced a line along a deep valley. ‘If you follow this route, you will shave hours off your journey and, perhaps, reach the tower before our foes.’

‘And this?’ The pirate pointed to a single red spot keeping pace with Will and the others.

Carpenter saw Lansing’s brow furrow. The Fay shook his head and turned back to the silver chest, removing a gilt-edged mirror. Holding it up, he whispered a few words and the glass clouded over. Gripped now, Carpenter’s eyes narrowed as a hawk-like face appeared from the mist: one golden eye, one purple, wide and unblinking under arched brows, a long pointed nose ending at bow-shaped lips that added a feminine touch to the strong features.

‘Mandraxas, brother,’ Lansing said, with a curt bow of his head. ‘All strands come together, here on the edge of the great everlasting.’

‘You have the Ortelgan Mirror?’ The voice rolled out from the glass, high and sweet.

‘In time,’ the Fay lord responded. ‘First we will snare the magician, Dee. Once we have brought him home to endure the pleasures of Fortress Crepuscule, all things must follow.’

‘And so we make our plans, brother. And so we make our plans.’

Carpenter felt his stomach knot, queasy with fear. Yet with the Caraprix nestling deep inside him, he knew there was no going back. He set his doubts aside and wondered why that face in the mirror frightened him so. It was as if his senses understood the essence of the creature and rebelled at the contact.

Once the face had faded and the looking glass had clouded once more, Lansing returned it to the silver box with the glass ball and flipped the lid shut. He stood, saying to le Gris, ‘Organize your men, or what is left of them, while I see to the prisoners.’ With his chin raised, the Fay wandered behind Carpenter and Launceston. ‘Your time here is done,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘but your passing will not be painless, for what would be the point? We all have our skills, my brothers and sisters and I, our strengths, our joys. Mine is the taking of a human life. Sometimes I come like a ghost. Men fall in a court in a foreign land, their blood pooling around them, and those standing beside them know not how their companion came to be dead. Sometimes I linger, drawing out long-held secrets or cries or vows, for the benefit of my people or for pleasure. Sometimes I slaughter wantonly, allowing men to sink into the fierce beauty of my face, the mere sight of me adding another subtle layer to their pain, another delicate seasoning to my rapturous feast. The High Family knows my expertise and they use it well. I am their sword, enforcing their will in the world of men.’

Carpenter wondered, then, why Lansing had not tortured him, or Launceston, to achieve his ends. He had used only words. Perhaps he had spoken truly when he expressed his desire for the peaceful return of his sister.

‘Come to it, then,’ Launceston said as if he were calling for another cup of sack. ‘I have no fear of death. We are old friends.’

Carpenter heard Lansing pass by the Earl and step up to his back. He felt cold breath upon his neck. ‘Our agreement stands,’ the Fay whispered so Launceston could not hear. ‘Find the magician first and deliver him to me and no one will suffer. You will be free to return to your life and this long war will be over.’

The spy felt the kiss of cold steel against his skin as Lansing slid his dagger under his bonds and slit the rope. ‘Choose your moment well to flee,’ the Fay added before saying loudly, ‘I will leave the thoughts of your passing to settle deep into you and thereby make the experience all the richer. Soon, now. Soon.’ He strode across the dry sand to where le Gris directed his men. They appeared to understand his meaning.

‘Robert,’ Carpenter whispered from the side of his mouth, ‘I have worked my bonds free. When I make my move, follow my lead.’

The Earl inclined his head in assent, giving nothing away.

Carpenter watched Lansing guide the pirates until their backs were turned, and then he grabbed Launceston’s arm and drew him silently into the trees. When they were deep in the dark and running as fast as they could, he heard le Gris’s cry. ‘Too late to raise the alarm,’ Carpenter said. ‘Once we have put some space between us, I will free you from your bonds, Robert, and then we shall bring this matter to a close.’

His chest swelled with exuberance. Soon he would be going home.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

BLACK CLOUDS LOPED across the sky, devouring the stars and the moon. Branches thrashed in the claws of the wind raking through the trees on the hillside. The torches roared and spat as the frightened men of the Tempest’s shore party forced their way through the rising gale towards the tower where Dee and Meg had taken shelter. With the storm, they could sense something darker coming too, long fingers of shadow reaching across the tropical island to snuff out their lives as easily as the lights that guided their way. When the howl of the Mooncalf rolled out near at hand, they jumped and cursed. Death lay everywhere.

‘What is that thing?’ Will asked, his shirt damp against his hot skin.

‘Dee’s watchdog,’ Meg replied. She lifted the hem of her grey skirt as she climbed the overgrown stone steps of the narrow path. Occasionally she would flash glances at her companion that ended with a puzzled smile as if she still could not believe he was there. ‘The alchemist made it . . . made it out of . . .’ She paused, looking away into the dark under the trees. ‘No matter.’

Will still hadn’t decided whether her suffering on Dee’s haunted ship and in the wreck on the reef had driven her mad. Her ship had been at best only two weeks ahead of the Tempest. How then could she believe she had been upon that island for twelve years? He had not yet broached the subject for fear the questioning would unbalance her further, but he needed answers if he were to snatch a victory from the coming conflict.

Strangewayes strode up behind them from the rear of the column. ‘How long before the sun comes up?’ he snapped. ‘I have had my fill of this night.’

‘Put aside any hopes of feeling the sun on your face,’ the Irish spy responded. ‘That will not occur until Dee decrees it.’

‘The doctor holds the sun at bay?’ Will said with incredulity. He had seen the alchemist at play with charts of the stars and potions and incantations, but never had the old man displayed the kind of power that could shake the heavens.

‘Dee has gone quite mad,’ she said, ‘and in his madness he has found a way to tap into forces that should never be conjured by mortals. This island too is a special place, where strange and troubling things occur, and whatever qualities it possesses only seem to serve to add to the old man’s magics.’

‘But holding back the sun,’ Strangewayes gasped. ‘Why, that is the remit of God alone.’

‘Then god he is.’ Meg looked up as the first fat drops of rain began to fall. ‘When he senses threat, he brings the night to confound his enemies, or calls storms to dash ships upon the rocks. And,’ she added, ‘the Mooncalf hunts better at night.’

Will heard the unseen creature snuffling and snorting in the undergrowth, breaking branches as it kept pace with them. It terrified the men with every step. But whatever it was, it seemed to obey the woman’s every word, so they were safe for now. ‘Men are not as easy to control as the Unseelie Court believe,’ he said. ‘They think they can run us like rats, but Dee has confounded them.’

‘How so?’ Strangewayes asked. ‘In posing as the angels he believed he contacted, he was lured away from the path of light, and eventually, when they were ready, they sent him spinning off into the dark. He took with him our last hope to repair our defences against them. And in their hands—’

‘But he is not in their hands. In Liverpool, the Enemy thought they could spirit him away as easily as they steal babes from their cribs. But they have been forced to chase him across half a world, right to their very doorstep. ’Twould seem to me that Dee had long since prepared his own defences, anticipating that the Fay would one day attempt to take him. And when they did try to exert their control, he unleashed his moon-side, which still holds sway.’ Will wiped the raindrops from his eyes, enjoying the cooling touch on his skin. ‘In his madness, he is unpredictable and uncontrollable, and, he would hope, beyond their reach.’

‘Then why come so close to their home?’ the other man asked. ‘Surely he would flee away from them.’

‘Dee is cunning. If he is here, there is a reason for it.’

The path wound round the hillside as it rose towards the tower. Emerging from the thickest part of the woods, they saw lightning crackling along the horizon and bands of heavier rain marching across the treetops towards them. In one white flash, Will found Meg staring at him and asked what troubled her.

‘You still look as young as that last day I saw you, so long ago, in Liverpool,’ she replied. ‘How can this be?’

‘And you have not altered one whit.’ He watched her face, ready to change the subject if she became distressed.

‘No,’ she said with a shake of her head, rubbing her fingers over her smooth cheeks.

‘’Tis true. Can you not see it?’

‘Dee allows me sight of no mirrors ’pon this island. The windows of the Unseelie Court, he calls them.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘You say the years have not taken their toll ’pon me?’

‘There have been no years, Meg,’ Will said gently. ‘For us, only ten weeks have passed since Liverpool.’

The Irish woman bowed her head, struggling to comprehend what she had heard. ‘This cannot be. My memory is filled with so many things happening here . . . so much struggle and misery, such loneliness that at times I thought I could not bear it. Coping with the old man’s caresses while my stomach turned, and listening to his ramblings about magic and philosophy and history. And yet . . . He told me once that in the home of the Fay, time did not march as you and I know it. It hovered or folded back upon itself. Oft-times the sands did not run at all. That is why, he said, the Fay never aged, and why their schemes run over years, and centuries, even. Perhaps this island has similar qualities.’

‘Perhaps so. If not the home of the Fay, mayhap it sits upon the borderlands in the shadow of that place.’ Will felt his heart go out to her as he saw her troubles laid bare in her face. ‘The other members of your crew?’

‘Those who survived the wreck died over time. The Mooncalf has a taste for human flesh, and in those early days, soon after he was created, Dee struggled to control him. He kept one mirror in those first months on the island and taunted his enemies through it. One Fay of fierce beauty, a witch by any other name, attempted to seduce him with her charms. Her name was Malantha, one of the High Family, and she and Dee battled wits for long weeks while the Mooncalf stalked the island, killing men. Dee’s weakness was always the pleasures of the flesh, and the Unseelie Court see every man’s weakness clearly. Malantha spun a web around him with her seduction, and only when the old man appeared on the brink of revealing the location of this place did he break free of her spell and shatter the mirror.’

‘This island was hidden to the Unseelie Court? That is why Dee settled here?’ Will brooded for a moment. As he thought he played the Fay, had they in turn played him, pretending to try to stop him reaching Dee while in truth following him to the prize? He silently cursed himself for his overconfidence. Where the Unseelie Court were concerned, nothing could be taken for granted; he should have learned that long ago.

Thunder cracked overhead and rain sheeted down, forcing the sailors to move under the canopy of leaves to prevent the torches from being extinguished. Meg seemed oblivious of the downpour. ‘After these twelve long years, I am weary,’ she admitted. ‘I yearn to be free of this business, to walk once more across Ireland’s green meadows and hear the songs of my people.’

‘Twelve years on an island with only Dr Dee for company might have seemed like an eternity, Mistress Meg, but the world still waits for you, just as it always was. Nothing has been lost.’ Will understood well her doubts and sorrows – they were too much alike, the two of them. ‘That is a second chance few people get.’

For a moment longer, she kept her head down. But when she looked back at him with a seductive grin and the fire alight in her eyes once more, he saw the Meg he knew. ‘Then let us waste no more time on miserable thoughts. The sooner we can overpower the mad magician, the sooner we can return home. And then we can dance and make merry and . . . perhaps . . .’

He smiled at the promise in her eyes. Before he could reply, calls and the sound of running feet echoed from the path ahead. As the sailors drew their knives and rapiers, two men careered out of the gloom and the wall of rain. Will recoiled, fearing he was seeing ghosts. Hair plastered to their heads and clothes sodden, Carpenter and Launceston skidded to a halt. Will stared for a moment, stunned.

‘At last,’ Carpenter said, breathless. ‘I could not bear to run another mile.’

‘John!’ Will exclaimed, grasping the other man’s shoulders. He beamed, barely believing his own eyes. ‘Robert! You survived.’

‘The Unseelie Court took us aboard their ship,’ the Earl replied, his whispery voice almost lost beneath the pounding of the rain. ‘But we escaped them.’

Will laughed, relief flooding him. His conscience had been stained by many things, but here was one that would no longer haunt him. ‘Fortune indeed smiles on us. Grace has recovered, and Meg here and the two of you have wriggled out of death’s grasp. Only a day ago, I never would have believed it possible.’

‘Pfft. We have survived worse,’ Launceston sniffed, wiping the rain from his face.

‘Let us save our tales for another time,’ Carpenter insisted, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Lansing marches towards the tower to seize Dee, with the pirate le Gris and his dead crew alongside him. We have little time – they know a short cut.’

Will felt on fire. His spirits had been low, but now it seemed as if no obstacle was too great. ‘Come, then, lads. Now we are reunited, let nothing stand in our way. For England!’

Even as the other men gave full voice to his cheer, another oath seared through his mind: For Jenny. Soon now, he thought. Soon he would have answers, and then revenge.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

FROM OUT OF the driving rain, the dark finger of the tower appeared. Thunder boomed and lightning flashed, turning the world white. The column of sodden men raced up the final steps of the crumbling path into a forecourt of broken flagstones where yellowing grass pushed through the cracks. A low wall ran round the edge, overlooking a deep drop down the rocky hillside to the woods below. One by one the torches fizzled and went out in the deluge until they had to splash through pools to cross the final few feet to the foot of the soaring structure. Will looked up, but the summit was lost to the dark. No lights gleamed from the slit windows. Worn by the elements, the tower looked ancient, as old and rough as the stones standing in circles on England’s moors. Above his head, he could just glimpse carvings running round the periphery, their original shapes lost to the slow erosion of the years so that it appeared strange creatures were being birthed from the rock itself.

Carpenter returned from a circuit of the tower’s foot and yelled above the gale, ‘There is no doorway.’

‘Dee has hidden it since I departed,’ Meg shouted, ‘with his magics.’

‘The good doctor is greatly changed by his experiences,’ Will explained to the other men, his words barely audible above the blasting wind, ‘and he has powers now that allow him to walk with the gods. We must not underestimate him.’

‘All well and good,’ Strangewayes bawled, ‘but how do we get inside before the Enemy get here?’

Meg peered up the vertiginous walls of the tower, pointing. ‘Up there, at the height of five men, there is an arched window.’

‘Are we apes?’ Carpenter raged. ‘You expect us to climb that smooth wall, and in this storm? Even if we could find finger-holds, we would be dashed off by the gale in moments.’

The Irish spy narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Then it must be my second suggestion: ram your hard head against the wall enough times and you may batter your way through.’

When Carpenter bristled, Will rested a calming hand on his shoulder. ‘What choice do we have, John? Cup your hands for my shoe – I will try first.’

‘How high must one climb before bones break in the fall, I wonder?’ Launceston mused, stroking his chin. ‘Before organs burst?’

‘Curb your hunger, Robert,’ Will said. ‘You may find out for yourself once the rest of us have failed.’

‘Wait.’ Meg stepped forward, pressing the palms of her hand together as if in prayer. ‘There is another way. But it has many dangers—’

‘More dangers than climbing this tower in the storm?’ Strangewayes growled.

‘More suffering before you die,’ Meg said, arching one eyebrow. ‘The Mooncalf could climb this tower with ease. Indeed, I have seen him do it many a time. He could carry one of you on his back. But at any moment he might unleash the savagery in his breast, and rip you limb from limb and eat your heart before it has stopped beating.’

Will nodded to Meg. ‘Very well. We cannot be defeated at this stage. I will take that risk.’

‘Why not let him try?’ Meg said in a wry tone, pointing at Carpenter, who glowered back.

‘I have asked you all to put your lives in jeopardy in recent times. Now it is my turn,’ Will said. ‘Summon Dee’s beast.’

He instructed the Tempest’s crewmen to guard the perimeter of the courtyard, thus sparing them the sight of what might be to come. The sailors were only too ready to comply. The five spies stood shoulder to shoulder, peering into the dark as Meg called out to the creature. The howling wind dropped for an instant and the sound of snuffling and growling drew nearer. Will sensed the others grow tense. The reek of bloody offal whipped by on the wind. A low, hunched shape, darker than the clustering trees, appeared at the top of the steps leading to the courtyard. Loping forward with a rolling gait, it gathered speed, snarling as it bounded towards Will.

At the last, Meg stepped in front of him. She held her head up in a commanding stance. ‘Mooncalf, heed me,’ she called out into the night. ‘Do not harm these men. You will have other food soon enough.’

At the crack of her voice, the beast slowed and came to a stop two sword-lengths away. ‘She controls it like a prancing pony,’ Strangewayes hissed. ‘How so?’ The spies took a step back as they took in the horror before them.

Will studied the shadows pooling in Meg’s face and thought he glimpsed the softening of her features. As the Mooncalf raised itself up on powerful legs, he caught sight of the outline of a broad, flattened head that reminded him of the bulls baited in the bear garden on Bankside. The skin was blacker than the night and seemed to gleam as it moved, like pitch. White eyes burning cold moved across the spies. Strangewayes gasped as a lightning flash revealed a face like melted candle wax, the flesh running down to the broad shoulders. The mouth was a black gash showing a hint of sharp, stained teeth. The strong body looked twisted, as if the Mooncalf had been tortured on the rack, yet its muscular power was unmistakable. Despite its terrifying appearance, though, Will sensed something oddly human about it.

‘Do not harm them,’ Meg repeated as a threatening growl rumbled deep in its throat.

‘You are mad to risk your life with that thing,’ Carpenter whispered. ‘It is a wild animal, barely tamed at all.’

‘I would be mad to stand here and do nothing,’ Will replied.

Meg flashed him a look of concern, but then put on a confident face and spoke to the Mooncalf so quietly that none could hear what she said. The beast lurched forward, its breath reeking of meat. It flung its arms round Will and lifted him effortlessly. Pinning him in the crook of its right arm, it bounded at the tower wall. Taloned feet and the long fingers of its left hand found cracks and crevices barely visible to the naked eye in the dark. With a rolling movement, the Mooncalf began to climb.

Pressed tight against the leathery flesh, Will glanced sideways and saw those eyes flicker towards him. In them, he recognized some semblance of intelligence, and it troubled him. What was this thing, not beast, not man? With a snarl of warning, the Mooncalf’s lips curled back from its yellow fangs, forcing Will to look away.

The anxious voices of the other spies slipped beneath the howl of the wind and the rattle of the driving rain. The dark closed in around them, an endless chasm threatening to suck them down. Higher the Mooncalf climbed, seemingly up into the very heart of the storm. Just when Will feared he would be dashed on to the courtyard far below, the beast’s fingers closed on the crumbling lip of an arched window. Heaved inside, Will crashed on to dry flagstones, the rainwater pooling around him. The creature crouched by the window, watching the spy through slit eyes. Its low growl echoed through the still chamber.

‘If you can understand my words, I thank you.’ Though Will was hesitant to turn his back on the beast, he felt along the wall until he found an extinguished torch and lit it with the flint from his leather pouch. The darkness danced away from the flame, and he saw he was in a bare stone room with an empty hearth. Two arched doorways led out of it. Though the tower was silent, he felt that it was not empty, as if someone waited only a chamber away. He imagined Dee sitting in the dark somewhere above him; not the Dee he knew, the wildly inventive but mad scholar who had devoted his life to holding the line against the forces of the moon that threatened to usurp the sunlit world, but a brooding Dee, corrupted by a different kind of madness and consumed by the well of power into which he had tapped, who saw all as his enemy. He had built his fortress here on this island, with the only human who meant anything to him, and he would not easily be shifted.

Edging along the wall with one eye on the Mooncalf, Will ghosted through the nearest doorway on to a spiral stone staircase leading down into shadows.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

HARD RAIN LASHED the knot of spies huddled against the tower wall. Suspended in a sea of night, they could have been a thousand miles away from any other living soul as they searched the dark for the coming attack. But the wind-thrashed trees sounded like waves crashing against their small island of stone, drowning even the noisiest approach, and the gale snatched at their hair and clothes to distract them.

Strangewayes gripped his rapier, remembering his days learning the blade in the precinct of Chelmsford Cathedral, under the tutelage of the master Adam Abell. A good student but hotheaded; that had always been his teacher’s assessment. And over the years, as he had earned his reputation and joined the employ of the Earl of Essex’s newly minted band of spies, he had fought hard to control that simmering temper. But now it burned hotter than ever. When he had left Essex to join Cecil’s more seasoned group, he had hoped to learn more at the feet of the lauded Will Swyfte, England’s greatest spy, but Swyfte had proved a straw man. He was only concerned with his own needs, caring little about the harm he caused to others. Even Grace; especially Grace. Strangewayes would never have survived his first brush with the Unseelie Court if Grace had not been his rock, and for that alone he would give his last breath to save her. If Swyfte placed her in danger one more time, Strangewayes would kill him, with no qualms. He thought back to the accusations the spymaster, Sir Robert Cecil, had made in London and realized that this battle was no longer between human and Fay, but between himself and Swyfte, for the soul of the woman he loved.

For an instant, the wind dropped, and in the space a low, unearthly moan rolled out across the courtyard. Strangewayes felt the hairs on his neck prickle. ‘What devilry is that?’ he demanded.

Launceston ignored him, as graven and unreadable as ever, and Carpenter only swore at him to stay silent. ‘Conjure up no nightmares,’ Meg told him. ‘There will be time enough to face our fears.’ Though they all treated him like a child, it was the Irish spy he hated the most. She acted as brazen as a Bankside doxy, spinning men round with her wiles. Of all of the spies, the Irish woman was the least trustworthy, he had decided.

‘I am not scared of anything,’ he replied.

‘Then you are a fool,’ she came back as quick as a flash.

Strangewayes felt stung for only a moment before movement away in the dark caught his eye. A figure lurched towards them. It was one of the crewmen, and his gait was as rolling as if he stood on deck in a storm. The spy grew cold, though he did not know why. The staggering sailor seemed to glow in the dark, as pale as Launceston, his clothes as well as his skin. The sight reminded the spy of the fish he had once seen swimming in a cave pool. He swallowed, uneasy.

‘The Unseelie Court have arrived,’ Launceston intoned.

As the man stumbled nearer, a lightning flash lit him clearly. He was white from head to toe, as if encrusted in salt, his eyes staring in terror from his scabrous face. Mewling, he reached out to the spies with one clutching hand, which seemed to diminish with each passing moment.

The rain is washing him away, Strangewayes thought, horrified.

In the deluge, the sailor dissolved piece by piece, a part of his jaw gone here, an arm there, his body dissipating yet still alive, still calling out in that incomprehensible whine. The flood of white crystals frosted the rain pools in the courtyard. Barely able to believe what he was seeing, Strangewayes watched as the man sank to his knees, which melted away to leave the torso flailing from side to side, until finally only a crumbling face peered up from the wet stone, still crying.

When that too was gone, Strangewayes reeled out of his sickened trance. Shadows whirled in the rainswept night, the remnants of the shore party fighting with le Gris’s decaying crew. The spy watched one of the Tempest’s men hacking into pieces an unrecognizable but still quivering piece of dead flesh. Strangewayes would have run to the aid of the men, but a hand fell hard on his shoulder.

‘They need our aid,’ he protested.

‘Set aside feelings and be cold. We have work to do,’ Launceston replied.

Struggling to ignore the cries of the dying, Strangewayes reminded himself that returning Dee to London was all that mattered; all their lives meant nothing in the pursuit of that aim. Then le Gris emerged from the dark, and three other grey pirates followed, one missing an arm, another an eye.

‘Once your entrails hang from my sword, I can claim the treasure I have been promised,’ le Gris yelled above the cacophony of the storm. He levelled his rapier, daring one of the spies to confront him.

Carpenter broke away from the others and leapt to cross swords with the French pirate. ‘The Unseelie Court jangle shiny things in front of weak men, but they are as insubstantial as rainbows,’ the spy said with a vehemence that puzzled Strangewayes. ‘They can never be reached and men waste a lifetime trying.’

Le Gris only laughed. As the two men danced around each other, thrusting and parrying in the downpour, Strangewayes glimpsed a figure bearing down upon him. Spinning, he swung up his rapier just as a dead pirate hacked with its own blade. A dull ache burned in his shoulder from the force of the walking corpse’s blow. Choking on the stink of decaying flash, he easily sidestepped the next thrust. Yet what the thing lacked in expertise it made up for with untiring force. The unblinking face loomed closer, ragged lips hanging off clenched teeth, fat white maggots at play on exposed cheek flesh. When the spy pierced the heart for a second time, he grasped the futility of his strategy. Before he could find another approach, he saw Carpenter slip to one knee on the wet stone. Defenceless, the other man could only look up as a leering le Gris levelled his rapier for the killing stroke.

Without a second thought, Strangewayes dropped his own defence and parried le Gris’s thrust. He sensed the dead pirate swing for his neck, and screwed his eyes shut in the certain knowledge that his life was over. When the blow failed to strike, he looked round to see Meg whisking her dagger back as the pirate’s entrails splashed into the puddles. Sweeping an arm out, the Irish woman gave Strangewayes a theatrical bow.

Carpenter recovered and thrust his blade into le Gris’s thigh. The pirate howled in agony and staggered away, blood seeping between his fingers as he clutched his leg. Brushing back his wet hair from his pink scars, Carpenter turned to Strangewayes and gasped, ‘I owe you my life.’

‘And I owe mine to . . . her,’ Strangewayes replied, masking his irritation that the woman he loathed had saved him. ‘We keep no score here.’

‘Very well,’ Carpenter replied, looking round. Two other bodies lay writhing in black pools. Launceston loomed over them, his sword dripping gore and a hungry gleam in his eyes as he examined each man in turn.

‘You have done your work there, Robert,’ Carpenter called with a weary shake of his head. ‘Let it be.’

The four spies backed against the wet stone of the tower. One by one, the cries of the dying seamen ebbed away beneath the howl of the storm until no human voice remained. Strangewayes squinted, trying to pierce the night. He saw misshapen heaps that had once been human, innards turned to straw or faces twisted into twirls of blackthorn, all the monstrous work of the Fay. He felt sickened by the atrocities committed by their Enemy. Beyond the bodies, grey shapes flitted like moon-shadows. The Unseelie Court began to creep forward.

‘Stand firm, lads,’ Meg called, twirling her dagger. ‘We’ll show them some cold steel before we take our bows.’

Strangewayes gritted his teeth and thought of Grace, until the rattle of a bolt at his back distracted him. A door that he could have sworn was not there before swung open at the base of the tower. A torch flared in the dark interior.

‘Better late than never,’ Swyfte said with a grin. ‘Step lively now. This door will not hold them off for long.’

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

SHADOWS SWARMED AWAY from the hissing torch flame as Will bounded up the worn steps two at a time. At bay beyond the thick walls, the storm was barely more than a susurration. The other spies followed, their breath rasping. ‘They will keep coming,’ Strangewayes wheezed, his gaze downcast. ‘They always do. Always. Nothing can hold them back.’

‘Let us hear no signs of weakness.’ Launceston had an edge in his voice.

Will felt relieved to see they had all survived, though from their drawn faces he could tell they had all fought hard. He would have liked to know the fate of the sailors who had accompanied them, but decided that question could wait. Constantly glancing back in case Dee’s twisted creation, the Mooncalf, attacked, he had taken what seemed like an eternity to navigate the tower’s vertiginous and winding steps and he had feared the worst. ‘Yes, like the tides they come and they come, but they have not overwhelmed us,’ he said with determination. ‘We must use our wits and our guile to stay one step ahead, and soon the time will come when the tide will be turned.’ After travelling half the world, he could scarce believe they were so close to their goal. He would not allow the Fay to stop him laying claim to Dee at this late stage.

‘Such fine swordsmen have nothing to fear from any Enemy. Why, your prowess melts a woman’s heart,’ Meg teased, but her next words were edged with caution. ‘But the alchemist will have protected himself. If he hides in the highest room in the tower, he will be unreachable. In his madness and fear of attack, his mind has turned in these past years to fiendish traps which he has secreted on the approach to his chamber.’

‘Dee’s inventions were mad even when he professed to sanity,’ Carpenter muttered. ‘How can we outwit such a man?’ He paused, then added, ‘Strangewayes, you should lead the way.’

The younger spy glowered, but said nothing.

Will threw up his left arm to halt the others, cocking his head as he listened. Whispers floated all around, sounding like the voices of the dead piercing the thin veil between their world and his own. When he realized the eerie voices came and went with the strength of the draught whistling down the steps, he raised the torch to reveal carvings of grotesque faces following the curve of the wall just above their heads. Small holes had been fashioned in them. As they caught the air currents, they produced the unsettling whispers.

‘In our first years here, Dee spent some time attempting to discover who built this place.’ Meg’s deep, sing-song voice drowned out the ghosts. ‘Gods or Fay or men, he never found his answers, but they left many wonders behind.’

Will began to climb once more, torn between caution towards what lay ahead and haste from what was behind them. ‘Watch our backs, Robert,’ he said to Launceston. ‘If you have even the slightest suspicion the Enemy are coming up, sing out.’

As they climbed, the bare walls became covered with faded tapestries or shelves of mouldering tomes, muffling the echoes of their tread. They passed bolted doors hiding silent chambers. Strange scents drifted on the dry air, some sweet and spicy, others with a bitter tang, but Will could smell no hint of any man. Just as he was beginning to wonder if Dee had hidden himself away somewhere else, he was confronted by a flare of light and a dark figure. It was his own reflection in a gilt-edged mirror that filled the width of the passage.

‘The way is barred?’ Strangewayes asked. ‘Have we wasted our time?’ He turned his narrowing eyes on Meg.

Her brow creased. ‘No. Dee told me another chamber lay at the top of the tower.’

Will traced his fingertips across the smooth, cold surface of the glass and after a moment gently applied pressure. A click echoed and the mirror pivoted to reveal a space a sword’s length square bounded by three more mirrors. On the low, vaulted ceiling, more twisted faces whispered their unsettling entreaties. ‘It seems,’ he said with a hint of a smile, ‘we are now playing Dr Dee’s game.’

As the five spies pressed into the tight space, the mirror pivoted shut behind them. Launceston pressed his shoulder against it, but it held fast.

‘Trapped,’ Carpenter grumbled.

‘Or not,’ Will said. ‘That would be too simple for a man like Dee. Tricks and puzzles and games are what fire him, and in them he finds his own kind of torture.’ He peered into each of the three facing mirrors in turn, then said, ‘I would wager we are in a maze.’

Meg nodded, understanding. ‘Each mirror opens on to another space like this one. We lose hours, if not days . . . if not our wits or our lives . . . finding a way through.’

When Carpenter reached out to press one of the mirrors, Will caught his wrist. ‘We should choose carefully, John. If I know Dee’s cunning, he will have arranged it that once a choice has been made, neither of the other two ways can be opened. Otherwise, it would be a matter of simply searching all possible paths.’

‘And no going back,’ Launceston mused, studying his reflection. He smoothed one eyebrow with his index finger.

‘We have no time to dawdle. Let us make our choice and move on,’ Strangewayes snapped. ‘They are all the same. How can we know which way to go?’

The younger spy was correct, Will accepted. They could not afford to tarry. He selected the mirror to his left and swung it open. As he had expected, another square of mirrors confronted him. Once the others had squeezed in, he heard the mirror at their backs close with an echoing click.

‘This is madness,’ Carpenter exclaimed. ‘We will be lost in this hell until Judgement Day.’

For long moments, they passed through an endless procession of themselves, their faces seeming more haunted in each new space they entered. Will found his head swimming with flashes of reflected torchlight, sparkling eyes and the constant whispers from the carvings overhead. He shook his head, trying to dispel visions of other shadowy figures looking over their shoulders. He could see that the others also struggled with the assault upon their senses in the confined spaces.

‘There is more at play here than mirrors,’ he said as he stepped through another opening. The words had barely left his lips when the door jerked from his grip and slammed with surprising force, separating him from the rest. He hammered on the glass, but it seemed unbreakable. Through the barrier, he could hear Carpenter’s muffled curses, but after a moment they died away. Only silence remained. Perhaps this too was part of Dee’s trap. Divide, and conquer.

With grim determination, he turned to move forward alone.

Time seemed to stretch out in a constant parade of mirrors and doors. In every space, images of himself reached out for ever, an unending but insubstantial pageant of Will Swyftes ineffectually fighting a battle that would never end. He began to notice that the incomprehensible droning whispers were starting to make a kind of sense, urging him on towards despair. The mirrors themselves pricked his unease. The Unseelie Court communicated through them, lived within them, for all he knew. Were they now watching his every move? Laughing at his failures, luring him on to his doom?