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.’
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.’
