Golden shards of moonlight flickered across the black water of the River Thames. Oars dipped and splashed, hauling the tilt-boat past the glinting lamps of London along the north bank. The night was clear and still and cool. In the back of the long, low vessel, Launceston and Carpenter nestled on crimson cushions, woollen blankets pulled over their legs. Will listened to them bickering as they continued to debate what could have transformed Dee into the horrifying vision they had witnessed in the rooming house near two weeks ago.
‘Faster, lads,’ Will called to the oarsmen, his voice taut. ‘Time is short.’
Strangewayes brooded on the bench in front of them, his thoughts no doubt dwelling on the threat that now loomed over all England. Whenever he glanced back, Will saw the red-headed man’s eyes searching the shadow- shrouded banks for what they all knew waited in the night, only a whisper away. How long before the Unseelie Court broke the last of Dee’s defences? How long before they never saw another dawn?
Will turned away from his companions. His plan, so insubstantial only days ago, was growing stronger. And he would see it through to its end though he brought down the Crown, the country, even all of this world, into damnation’s flame.
When the black bulk of the Palace of Whitehall loomed up out of the night, the call of the guards along the river wall echoed over the water. The master oarsman responded with a piercing three-blast whistle and guided his vessel in to the short jetty. Candles glowed in the palace windows. The Queen and her court had returned from Nonsuch in search of shelter from the approaching storm. Grasping at straws.
Strangewayes caught Will’s arm as he climbed out of the tilt-boat. ‘Tell me you can see a way out of this predicament. Or are prayers my only hope?’ Fear flickered behind the younger spy’s eyes. The new recruit had come far in the short time since he had discovered that the world was not the way he had been told since he was a child. Few coped easily with such a dark revelation, and with each passing day Strangewayes clung more tightly to God to guide him out of the horrors. Will hoped madness was not a few steps away.
‘When life appears at its darkest and most desperate, Tobias, then it is time to gamble everything.’ Will flashed a reassuring grin. ‘Caution is our enemy, coz. We will shake this matter up, one way or another.’
He beckoned for Launceston and Carpenter to follow. He felt a responsibility to his men. Though they did not yet know it, their lives were the stake in his gamble. Was he, then, any better than the Unseelie Court?
The four men passed through the River Gate, across the echoing cobbled courtyard in front of the silent palace and into the maze of narrow passages among the towering brick and stone halls. Entering another gloomy courtyard, they came to an iron-studded oak door behind which lay many secrets. Torches burned on either side of the entrance so there would always be light even in the darkest night. Will hammered on the door with the hilt of his dagger. While the other men went in search of beef and ale after their long journey from Liverpool, a guard in a burnished cuirass led him inside and up a spiral staircase to the Black Gallery. The walnut-panelled room echoed to the rhythm of his leather heels. Shadows danced away from the light of the logs burning in the stone hearth.
At a long, heavy table in the centre of the hall, Sir Robert Cecil looked up with a startled expression as if he feared he was about to be attacked. His features were drawn, the result of long nights without sleep, Will suspected. The Queen’s Little Elf took his work as spymaster seriously, but not as seriously as his personal advancement. He was a humourless man, who spent his days weaving webs and his nights dreaming of what life would be like if his hunched back were straight and true.
When the spymaster recognized his guest, he scowled and covered the charts before him with a book.
‘It is. I am adored by all.’
Cecil bared his teeth. ‘Swyfte, what others think charm, I think callow. So, you have failed? Dee has been spirited away under your very nose?’
Will perched on the edge of the creaking table and pushed the heavy tome to one side so he could eye the charts. With an incensed snort, the spymaster snatched the stained and creased maps and rolled them up.
‘Dee is gone, yes, but not to Ireland,’ the spy said with a bored shrug. Cecil had a temper much larger than his stature, and Will knew how to play him to achieve the best advantage.
‘Then he
‘It seems that Red Meg O’Shee bit off more than she could chew when she stole Dee from under our noses. This detour was not planned by the Irish.’
‘And the mirror?’
‘Gone too,’ Will lied. Before any further questions came, he moved on to describing the alchemist’s dreadful transformation in the rooming house, and watched the blood drain from the spymaster’s face.
Cecil prowled to the fire and watched the flames for a long moment. ‘Is this the work of the Unseelie Court or of some other agency? Or has Dee himself finally gone mad?’ he uttered in a low, strained voice.
‘The doctor always skirted the edge of sanity. Whatever the cause, this matter is not yet over.’
The spymaster spun round, his eyes narrowing. ‘Have you lost your wits?’ His hands flew to his head. ‘We stand on a precipice. Without Dee, what hope do we have of fending off the bloody revenge of the Unseelie Court?’
‘You and I are not alike.’ Will sauntered from the table to pour himself a flask of sack. ‘You surround yourself with shadows and see only the dark. But the more I move into this night-shrouded world we have created for ourselves, the more I look towards the light.’
Cecil snorted. ‘Then you are a fool. Or you are ignorant of the true state of England in those days before our Queen encouraged Dee to build his defences, when our Enemy had full, brutal rule over all corners of this land.’ He perched on a stool, a hand across his eyes, looking like a child at prayer. ‘When I was a boy of no more than seven years, I travelled with my father and three servants to Child’s Ercall in Shropshire, where we had family.’ His hoarse voice rustled out in the still room. ‘While my father was at business, the woman who cared for me, a kindly soul, Jane. . Jane. . I cannot recall her full name! Oh, how poor are my wits! How broken am I.’
As his troubled memories rose, Cecil seemed to have forgotten Will was there. The spy thought how sad and small his master now looked, all the hardness of the court manipulator stripped away to reveal the infant that lurked at the heart of everyone.
‘Jane, goodly Jane, she never once mocked my misshapen back, never raised a hand to me or called me fool or jester or. . or Little Elf. She would tuck me up at night and brush the hair from my brow and whisper “Sweet angel”. .’ The words choked in his throat for a moment, but then he gathered himself and rose, turning back to the fire in the hope that Will would not see him blinking away tears. ‘There is a pond on the edge of Child’s Ercall, surrounded by willows and reeds, the water black as night. The local people say there is no bottom to it. Indeed, that it reaches down to Hell.’ He gave a hollow laugh. ‘Despite the warnings of the villagers, I played along the edge of that foul place, chasing dragonflies in the sun. Jane, who was wiser and more fearful than I, came to fetch me back to the house. At once there was music in the air, pipes and fiddle, a reel that tugged at the heart and spun the head. I saw Jane stop and stare and her face freeze in terror, and I followed her wavering gaze to a beautiful woman with hair like the sun and skin like milk, rising from the water. A part of me knew, even then, that it was not a woman, and that that face was not the one Jane saw. A dreamy state came upon me, all sun on water and lazy, buzzing flies, but I recall as clear as day Jane’s visage as she walked towards that woman. She looked as though she made her way to the executioner’s block. The one in the water spoke with a voice that rang through my mind like a bell, though I understood not a word. And Jane continued to walk, into the pond, sinking deeper with each step until the black waters closed over her head. The woman who had summoned her turned to me and nodded slowly, her face growing paler by the moment, her eyes darker, her cheeks hollow, and she reached out her arms to me. I ran crying back to my father, and told him all that had occurred. But there was no comfort for me. He chastised me and sent me to bed, because he believed every word I said and was afraid of it.’
Cecil fell silent, watching the flames dance. Will felt moved by the intensity of his master’s feelings. Cecil had always seemed cold and untouched by the suffering of others, but perhaps they had more in common than he had come to believe.
‘Jane’s body was never found,’ the spymaster continued. ‘No search was made of that pond for her drowned form. Three nights later, I woke from sleep and went to the window. Jane stood below, her dress sodden, her hair plastered to her head and filled with rotting pond leaves, and she reached up her arms and silently called to me. And I wanted to go, God help me, for I knew from that moment I would be alone in the world. But then I saw the
