Will felt an eddy that rocked the wherry.
‘’Twas the length of a seal at least,’ Strangewayes said with unease. ‘Perhaps larger still. I saw grey skin just break the surface.’
‘There too.’ Launceston pointed on the other side of the boat. ‘It swims fast, to circle us so quickly.’
‘No,’ Will said, looking around. ‘Not one. Many. See.’
In the circle of lantern-light round the prow, they saw repeated rapid movement at the surface. The wherry rocked more vigorously. All around, the sound of splashing echoed.
‘They are like salmon at spawn,’ Carpenter said. ‘Have we disturbed them in our passing?’
‘Not fish,’ Strangewayes whispered, leaning back.
Will moved to the prow and leaned over the edge. Grey shapes flashed past, arching their bodies and rolling near the surface before diving down. He fixed his gaze until one passed in front of him. He saw a face that was human in shape, though longer and thinner than most men’s, with hollow cheeks and huge, lidless eyes. Straggly hair, like seaweed, streamed down from the top of the skull-like head. Yet it was the mouth that burned in Will’s mind: lipless, with two rows of needle-sharp teeth forming a permanent grimace.
The skin was pale, merging into mottled grey. And as the unearthly creature darted from view, he caught a glimpse of an eel-like lower body ending in fins.
‘Neither man nor fish, but both,’ he said in a cheery tone that belied his unease. ‘Row a little harder, lads.’ He still could not guess what the Unseelie Court hoped to achieve with these creatures. Although they buffeted the wherry as they swam past, they made no attempt to overturn the boat.
‘In the taverns around Tilbury, seamen tell of such things swimming in northern waters. It is considered a bad omen to see one,’ Launceston informed the others.
‘It is a worse omen to see one if you are in the water,’ Carpenter muttered.
They fell silent, watching the churning river. Will began to count the number of times the creatures broke the surface, but soon gave up. And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the disturbance in the water ended and the Thames was quiet again. Carpenter and Launceston bent to the oars vigorously. The wherry forged on.
When the current grew stronger as they neared London Bridge, Strangewayes shivered and said, ‘Has winter come early?’
Will knew what the younger spy meant. The air had become distinctly colder. His breath misted. He peered out across the water, puzzled, and thought he glimpsed something that troubled him. Strangewayes passed him the lantern and he stood in the stern and held it high. The light glinted off the river. Now he understood the purpose of the swimming creatures and why the sailor and Cecil’s guard had seen their flesh turn to ice.
‘Row faster,’ he called with urgency. ‘Ride the fastest current under the bridge, never mind the danger. Our time is running out.’
The Thames was freezing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ice glittered around the stone pillars rising from the river. In the growing cold, the fog was thinning. The narrow arch of the bridge supporting its jumble of merchants’ houses and shops began to appear out of the grey. The night was filled with the thunderous rush of water between the supports as Launceston and Carpenter heaved on the oars to guide the wherry to the centre of the flow. Will watched their labours, shouting encouragement or guidance when they drifted too far to one side or the other. He had seen more than one vessel dashed to pieces on the bridge pillars. Most watermen would not risk the turbulent currents and dropped their passengers short of the bustling bridge to walk to where they could hail another boat on the other side. The spies did not have that luxury, and now the risk was even greater. The briefest dip in the water would see them torn to pieces by the creatures that swam there, just out of sight.
Despite the chill, sweat glistened on Carpenter’s forehead. His long hair flicked back with each jerk of his shoulders, revealing the pink scarring along the left side of his face.
‘Heave to the right!’ Will yelled as he watched the wherry swirl towards the nearest pillar.
His face impassive, Launceston pulled on his oar. The boat continued to swing in the violent current. As the vessel swept into the dark beneath the bridge, Will inhaled a blast of dank air. The lantern-light flared up the stone support, the high tide mark now glistening with hoar frost.
‘Tobias! To me!’ he called.
Throwing off his hood, Strangewayes lurched along the yawing wherry to Will’s side. As the boat skewed towards the bridge, the two men swung their legs out over the side of the boat and pushed them off the pillar. Carpenter jabbed his oar against the wall, and the three of them steadied the drift. Together they heaved the vessel away. Will and Strangewayes teetered over the churning river until Carpenter snatched two handfuls of damp cloak and yanked them to safety.
The current caught the wildly rocking wherry. When it hurled the vessel across the roiling water, Will crashed on to his back on the bottom. By the time he had managed to raise his head they had shot like an arrow out at the other side.
Here the mist hung in wisps. He could glimpse candlelight in the windows of the large merchant houses that lined the northern banks. A bitter blast of air struck him. Bony fingers of ice reached out from both edges of the river, clutching for the wherry.
‘’Sblood! How fast it freezes!’ Strangewayes exclaimed.
Glancing back, Will saw that a white sheet now covered most of the Thames. The ice appeared to be spreading from upstream where they had witnessed the frantic activity of the pale fish-creatures. He imagined their ritual dance through the dark depths, drawing up the cold power as they weaved together the final strands of their supernatural masters’ scheme.
Will began to grasp the true scale of the Unseelie Court’s plan. Dee’s tattered defences were still strung out invisibly across London, reinforced by the wards Cecil had put in place round the city’s boundaries and the quay at Greenwich. But the Thames — a silver lance piercing through to the heart of London — had always proved the most difficult to protect.
As they rounded the bend of the river along the narrowing black channel, Will’s worst fears were confirmed. The Charm Boat was locked in the ice not far from the north bank. The two watermen were futilely hammering their oars on the white glaze. It cracked like dry wood, but held firm. No longer able to maintain the ritual path, the frozen wherry had left the river route open to the Enemy.
Carpenter, Launceston and Strangewayes saw the ice-bound boat and looked back to Will with unease. He nodded. ‘They will soon be here.’
The other men’s heads fell, but only for a moment. Carpenter and Launceston threw themselves into their oar-strokes, driving the wherry forward.
‘The
‘We will do what we must.’ Will’s voice was grim. He pulled his cloak around him against the cold and rested one foot on the side as he searched the sky for the ruddy glow from Greenwich’s beacons.
A band of orange sky flared behind the silhouettes of trees, houses and the great bulk of the Palace of Placentia. Wrinkling his nose at the ash caught on the breeze, Will finally saw the stark outline of masts and felt a surge of hope. But only a thin black strand of water stretched out ahead. Their hair and eyebrows white with frost, Carpenter and Launceston shuddered as they struggled to get good strokes with their oars. The wherry bumped against the encroaching ice on either side time and again. Finally the boat came to a juddering halt. The keel groaned from the pressure of the rime forming around it.
‘Abandon ship, lads,’ Will called.
The shivering spies hauled themselves out of the wherry, each one gingerly testing the ice before putting his full weight on it. The frozen river crunched underfoot. Will scrubbed the white glaze off the surface with the sole of his shoe. Through the near-transparent newly formed ice, he glimpsed movement. The fish-creatures glided just beneath their feet. As if it could read his thoughts, one came to a halt in the space Will had created and peered up
