The Devil

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.’