CHAPTER TEN
Emerald flames crackled around the tiled roof of the stone tower like marsh lights. Far below, a swaying lantern echoed that glow as a knot of six men processed across the courtyard. Beneath the gentle soughing of the night-wind, the click of their leather heels on the cobbles was the only sound in the still palace. At the oak door studded with black iron, the group came to a halt. The four armoured guards gripped their pikes, their stern faces revealing that they had no notion what was contained within the Lantern Tower. Sir Robert Cecil lowered his eyes, but Will gazed up to the spectral display, his brow knitted. His great gamble began here.
‘Do not let anyone else inside the tower,’ Cecil barked at the guards, looking each man in the face in turn. ‘Defend it with your lives.’ He removed a large iron key from a velvet pouch and unlocked the heavy door. The tumblers clanked into place. Taking the swaying lantern, he stepped inside and closed the door behind Will. The candlelight illuminated stone steps spiralling upwards into the dark. ‘Dee’s magical defences have been disarmed,’ he whispered. ‘We are safe to proceed.’
‘Safe. An odd choice of word.’ Will began to climb the steps. The air was dank and smelled of tallow and burnt iron.
‘Do not concern yourself. She cannot escape.’
‘None of us can escape, Sir Robert.’
The spymaster did not query his charge’s enigmatic response. Perhaps he understood, for he was no stranger to prisons and bars and duty and fear.
They climbed through floor after floor, with the Secretary of State growing more anxious with each step. ‘Who feeds her?’ Will asked.
‘She takes no sustenance as you and I know it,’ the spymaster muttered. ‘In the early days of her imprisonment, I am told attempts were made to bring her meals, but the food rotted in the bowls and was returned untouched.’
‘She has guests?’
‘Rarely. Though Dee has ensured his sigils and spells keep her trapped in place, still all who encounter her fear her power. Sometimes. .’ Cecil smacked his lips with distaste. ‘Sometimes you can feel her words deep inside your head, like a maggot burrowing. Only that fool Spenser has dallied here awhile, until my father sent him away for fear he had fallen to her wiles.’
Alone, in a cell, for so long.
The steps ended at another heavy oak door marked with mysterious whorls and symbols inscribed in red paint. Cecil hesitated, looking up at the portal with dread. Will thought his trembling master was about to fall to his knees and pray for their salvation. The silence was heavy, but it was not the silence of emptiness. Will sensed that the cell’s occupant waited on the other side of that door, listening, dangerous, poised, perhaps, for any opportunity that might arise.
‘Go, then. Ask what you will,’ Cecil whispered. He held up the lantern so that Will’s shadow swooped.
The spy leaned in, his nose almost brushing the wood. He couldn’t imagine the prisoner’s terrible beauty, though he had heard stories: a beauty that could drive a man mad or blind. But he imagined her lips parting in a dark smile.
‘Your Highness,’ he began.
Her laugh sounded like an echo in a deep well.
He dabbed the side of his right hand to his nose where a droplet of blood had formed. ‘My name is Will Swyfte,’ he continued. ‘I am in the employ of Queen Elizabeth of England, and I have dedicated the last ten years of my life to fighting your people for the tragedy you inflicted upon me.’
Another uncaring laugh punctuated by a low scraping. Will pictured her drawing her long nails over the rough oak, perhaps imagining, in her turn, his skin peeling, his eyes being drawn out.
‘I have killed your kind,’ he said.
Silence.
‘You think yourselves greater than mortals, but your lives still pass on the end of cold steel,’ he continued.
After another moment’s lull, her musical voice rolled out. Though muffled by the wood, her words were laced with humour but had a cold, cold core. ‘You speak boldly. Would you do the same if you stood beyond the protective sigils, deep within my cell?’
‘I would. For I speak truly.’
‘Very well.’ Her voice hardened. ‘Is the indignity of my imprisonment not enough, that you have come to taunt me further?’
Will reached his fingertips towards the surface of the door. Just as they were about to brush the wood, something crashed against the exact spot on the other side and he snatched his hand back involuntarily. ‘I have no interest in cruel sport,’ he replied. ‘That is the province of the Unseelie Court. I hold myself to higher standards.’
‘Indeed, you
‘I have seen some of those ways. One whisper in an ear that can turn thoughts in such a way that it drives a man mad.’
‘We see the weakness in all men’s hearts. That one flaw that we can prise apart with a few words until it becomes a yawning chasm. I see into your heart.’
Will glanced back down the steps to his master, assuring himself that Cecil could not overhear the conversation. ‘I know my own heart well enough.’
‘No, you do not. No man does. You only think that is the case, and that is why the truth drives you from the illusion you all hide behind to stay sane.’ Beyond her muted words, he heard a faint scraping as if she were stroking the door. He imagined a lover’s caress and shivered, despite himself.
‘You waste your breath-’
‘I see sadness, a deep, abiding sadness.’ The Queen rolled the words around her tongue with pleasure. ‘I see the pain of loss and separation, a life that has become corrupted by mystery to such a degree that it can no longer be lived. You would rather know the truth and be destroyed than live in this twilight world any longer.’
Will raised his head in defiance. ‘And I feel anger,’ he replied in a low voice, ‘for you stole from me the only thing I ever valued.’ He shook his head and his blood spattered across the door.
‘I hear the impotent cry of the wounded child.’ Her breathy words sounded low and closer still. He presumed she had pressed her cheek against the wood. Now they were barely separated, like two lovers teasing towards an embrace, her seductive voice luring him in. The hairs on his neck tingled as if she had brushed his skin. He should break the enchantment and leave that place without a backward glance, he knew, but the rage in his heart held him fast. He sensed her smiling. Yes, she knew his weaknesses well.
‘You see sadness,’ he whispered, ‘you see rage, I know, but you do not see fear.’
She laughed again. ‘Fear is the sane response to us.’
‘Then I am not sane, and proud of it. Tell me
‘The very definition of insanity. You presume I would bare my throat to you.’
Will glanced back at Cecil who had retreated further down the steps. The spymaster quivered in the wan light of the guttering lantern flame. ‘You will tell me.’ Will kept the confidence in his voice, luring her in as she had attempted to ensnare him. ‘For sport. A mere man is no threat, you have said so yourself. What have you to lose by indulging my desire to seek my own destruction?’
‘You think yourself clever. Perhaps you are, by the standards of man. Yet there is much you do not know — about the Unseelie Court, about yourself, and your place in this world. Nevertheless, I agree. Our weakness is something your kind would never understand — honour. Our word is unbreakable, even though it mean pain, or loss,
