The Devil's Looking-Glass

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.’

Angels! Will was struck by the irony and grimaced. Devils, more like. He thought back along the years, to all the times when Dee had believed his magics had allowed him to commune with those higher beings. He claimed to have learned the Enochian language from them and had filled vast journals with their messages. All of it had been the manipulation of the Unseelie Court, there was no doubt now. Long had they played him, posing as angelic guardians whenever they appeared in his mirror, luring him into false security, subtly subverting his suspicions, until they could exert their control. Dee’s increasingly erratic behaviour, the voices that only he heard, his inability to find warmth even in a hot room: each a sign of the Unseelie Court’s influence which Will had witnessed before.

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.’

The mirror clouded over and Will’s own dark features loomed up in the glass. He bowed his head, hoping he had not doomed Meg as he had doomed so many others. With the passing of each day, he moved further away from the light, he realized. In the end, was he so different from the Unseelie Court?

For a moment he struggled with his conscience, listening to the roar of the sea and the bright singing of the Tempest’s crew. Putting aside his doubts, he strode out of the cabin in search of Captain Courtenay.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE TRADE WINDS had stilled. Becalmed, the Tempest simmered under a merciless sun. On deck, sailors squatted, sullen-faced, in what little shade they could find, their sodden shirts clinging to their skin. Captain Courtenay brooded in his cabin, loathing the inactivity that left his crew with too much time on their hands in a heat that always spawned arguments and blood. Strangewayes and Grace sat under a makeshift sailcloth shade on the forecastle, engaged in intense conversation. Launceston roamed around the hold, a ghost who could not face the sun. From the poop deck, Will watched the grey cloud on the horizon through Courtenay’s tele-scope in what had become an hourly ritual. He wore his white linen undershirt open to his breeches, but still felt no respite from the heat. Peering through the glass, he had started to believe he now saw something hiding within that swirling grey miasma.

‘If there is some ship within that fog, it is becalmed as we are. A small mercy,’ Carpenter muttered at his side. He was stripped to the waist, his lean form tanned by the tropical sun.

Will shrugged, unconvinced. ‘Then let us concentrate upon catching Dr Dee,’ he said.

He thought back to how the cold November of the English Channel had gradually given way to the December heat of the Canaries and how they had been forced to put into port to pick up fresh water and victuals. His cap pulled low against the hot, dry wind, Will had prowled the docks, questioning the dark-skinned men in their white tunics selling wooden cups of sweet wine and skewers of spiced lamb meat seared over charcoal. They had told of a carrack that had moored there two weeks gone, with a strange, devil-haunted crew who moved as if through a dream and spoke in slow, measured tones as they resupplied their vessel. The carrack had remained in port for near twelve days, and the dark-skinned men spoke of seeing strange lights around its mast at night and hearing disembodied voices echoing across the water. No one had been sorry to see it sail back to sea. Their tales had raised Will’s spirits. He was certain that they yet had a good chance of tracking down their prey, and much to the English crew’s annoyance he had encouraged Captain Courtenay to put back out to sea after barely two days.

They battled squalls along the tropics and sweltered in the relentless heat. Christmas came and went with Courtenay ladling cups of festive wine to a long queue of his men, and prayers at dawn and song at nightfall. And when the topmen spotted a Spanish treasure galleon they fought their natural instincts and veered off course for a day to avoid a confrontation. And then, just as the end of their journey was in sight, the winds had dropped one week out of the West Indies.