The Devil

Will felt Strangewayes’ eyes on him, but he did not acknowledge the look. ‘Let the dead whisper to the fishes,’ he interjected. ‘We are done here.’

Sweating and red-faced, the seamen heaved the rowing boat back to the Tempest with furious strokes, their gaze never leaving the drifting seaweed. Will himself half expected to see hands rising from the surface or dead faces looking up from the pools of dark water among the vegetation.

Once they were back on board the galleon, Courtenay set the helmsman to steer a steady course west through the strange dead sea. The deserted Spanish ship fell behind them, but even then Will thought he could feel eyes on his back. For the rest of the day they creaked along under the unforgiving sun, and as twilight began to fall they broke out of the bank of vegetation and into open water. Will felt the mood lift, and not long after he heard Courtenay’s throaty laughter rumbling across the deck as the crew began to sing.

Yet he found himself haunted by what he had read in the Spanish captain’s journal. An isle of devils. Lost souls in the night.

With the red sun low on the horizon, he found his worst fears confirmed. Wreckage drifted on the swell ahead: a shattered hull, chests and barrels, masts tangled with rigging and ragged sailcloth. ‘Caught in the storm?’ Will asked as Courtenay joined him at the rail.

The captain tugged at his beard in his habitual manner as he studied the shattered remnants. ‘Mayhap.’

They watched in silence until Bloody Jack caught sight of a torn flag floating by: a red cross on a white background. ‘One of ours, then,’ he said. Neither of them needed to express what lay heavy on their minds. The captain sent two of his men out in the rowing boat and in the dying light they returned with a sodden remnant of the captain’s log bearing the ship’s name: the Eagle, the carrack which had carried Dee and Meg. Will felt a momentary pang of despair.

Strangewayes appeared at their side, fresh from ministering to Grace. He looked tired and drawn; Will had not seen him eat since the storm. There had still been no improvement in her condition and Will’s mood darkened further.

‘Can there be survivors from such a wreck?’ Strangewayes asked. ‘If Dee is lost-’

‘This is not the time to speculate,’ Will said, a little more curtly than he intended. For a moment, his thoughts turned to Meg, but he set them aside when the lookout cried, ‘Land ahoy!’

Courtenay’s brow furrowed. ‘There is no land in these waters.’ Yet when they rushed to the forecastle, they saw white-topped waves crashing against a jagged reef, and beyond it the hazy outline of an island in the dying ruddy light. ‘Hard a starboard,’ the captain bellowed to the helmsman, adding with a growl, ‘We’ll not end up on the rocks like those other poor bastards.’

Will gripped the rail, peering towards the island. He could make out a hilly, tree-covered central area, and grey cliffs to the south and north with a stretch of sandy strand directly ahead. ‘Dee could have washed up there,’ Strangewayes said in a hopeful tone.

‘Aye,’ Bloody Jack growled, raising the tele-scope to his eye. ‘He’s as tough as a tanner’s hide, that one. Wring his scrawny neck and he’d still keep on breathing. And I’ve wanted to do that a time or two. We’ll sail to the north and drop anchor. Only a madman would try to cross that reef with night coming in,’ he added without a hint of irony.

Will watched the darkening waves as the ship sailed astern. So much misfortune had afflicted them in recent days, he barely dared to hope for some small relief. Beside him, Courtenay cursed. ‘What afflicts that fool at the helm?’ Once more, the island lay directly ahead. He snatched the tele-scope from his eye and roared to the helmsman, ‘I said, hard a starboard!’

The Tempest turned a starboard again, but within moments Will blinked his eyes in the growing gloom and saw the island ahead of them once more. Courtenay’s face darkened. ‘Will we never be out of these cursed waters?’ he muttered.

Three more times they attempted to sail round the island’s northern edge, and three more times they failed. ‘It seems,’ Will said, ‘that this island is waiting for us.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Streams of torch-fire blazed through the dark of the London night. Alarmed cries rang off the high stone walls of the Palace of Whitehall as the guards raced across the courtyard, their boots clattering, weapons clanking as they ran. In the flickering light of the brands worried white faces were caught, eyes urgently trying to pierce the deep gloom around the Lantern Tower.

‘Find it!’ Sir Robert Cecil bellowed. A sheen of sweat glistened on the spymaster’s forehead despite the wintry chill that had reached long into spring. ‘Slay it without a moment’s thought.’

He whirled as a low snarl rumbled out from a corner of the courtyard, a sound that would not have been out of place in the Queen’s menagerie but which he knew came from something that walked like a man. A moment later the growl echoed from the other side of the square. So fast, he thought, quaking.

The torches whisked around in confusion. In the gloom, stars of ruddy light danced off burgonets and cuirasses. The spymaster glimpsed a pale face frozen in the wavering flames, mouth ragged with horror, but it was gone in an instant. Another man dashed past him, yelling in fear. Round and round he spun, caught up in the visions flashing before his eyes — a stabbing pike, a guard staggering back, clutching his head, a blood-spattered burgonet bouncing across the cobbles — until he grabbed at his chest where his heart was pounding fit to burst.

Those inhuman snarls seemed to be echoing all around, as if there were a host of the things and not just one.

Another face flashed by, torn and bloody. The guard stumbled in the dark and lay still.

Cecil cried out in a fury born of fear, demanding his men do something, anything, to end this slaughter.

And then, as the snapping and snarling reached a new pitch, the bestial cry was cut off with a strangled gurgle.

‘To me,’ the spymaster bellowed. As the surviving guards gathered around him, their combined torchlight lit a chaotic scene. Fallen bodies, gleaming pools of blood and scattered cordwood where the intruder had attempted to tear through the towering bonfire surrounding the Lantern Tower to free the Faerie Queen. ‘Is it dead?’ he barked. He needed to show that he was not afraid, but his hands would not stop shaking.

‘’Tis gone.’ The voice floated out of the dark. Cecil snatched a torch and stalked towards the sound. The flames lit a man dressed in a costly sapphire doublet and breeches, the face half turned away. He gripped a rapier dripping black blood and his cloak covered a still form on the cobbles. ‘Send your men away. They should not see this.’

The spymaster recognized the intruder and waved the unnerved guards away. Once they had gone, Sir Walter Raleigh stepped out of the shadows into the circle of light from Cecil’s torch.

‘If Her Majesty knew you were here. .’ Cecil began.

‘And will you tell her, so that I can relate how I achieved what your impotent band could not?’ The adventurer stooped to wipe his blade on the already bloodied cloak. ‘A foul thing,’ he said, turning his nose up at the twisted shape beneath the folds. ‘There have been many of them?’

‘In recent times, too many.’ Cecil pressed the back of his quivering hand against his mouth, steadying himself. ‘The Unseelie Court may not be able to set foot upon this still protected part of England, but that does not prevent them from sending their agents in to engineer disaster.’

Raleigh sheathed his rapier. ‘But the Faerie Queen still resides in her tower-prison and the bonfire is still piled high to roast her like a suckling pig. All is well in the world.’

Cecil snorted, his laughter bitter. ‘How much longer can we go on? Those fiends whittle us down by degrees. And now you are here.’

Raleigh bowed, sweeping one arm out with ironic flamboyance.

‘Your secret society, your School of Night, seeks to use this calamity to your own ends,’ the spymaster continued with contempt. ‘While the Queen’s government is distracted and out of joint, you step in and seize power. Is that how it is?’

‘Sirrah, you wound me. We in the School of Night are all good Englishmen, loyal to the Crown.’

Cecil paced around the other man, looking him up and down. ‘Then why are you here, risking the wrath of the