brows and soaked shirts. The men’s breath rasped with the exertion.
‘If the Unseelie Court find another cove to put into, how long before we encounter them, I wonder?’ Strangewayes thought aloud. Will noticed he kept one hand on the hilt of the dagger tucked into the waist of his breeches.
Ahead, one of the men whistled, and the torches swept through the trees in the direction of the call. The two spies found the other men gathered in a clearing looking up. On the side of the hill at the heart of the island, a tower stood silhouetted against the starry sky.
‘Curious,’ Will said, stroking his chin-hair. ‘Now who would call this dark place home?’
On the far side of the clearing, one of the men waved his torch. Cracked flagstones marked a path leading up through the trees, so worn and overgrown they suggested great age. Strangewayes flashed a questioning look.
‘If I had survived a shipwreck, a stone tower would have seemed a perfect shelter,’ Will replied. Holding his torch high, he stepped on to the path, happier now he had a destination in mind. Yet only a moment later, a blood- curdling howl echoed across the island. Uneasy, the men huddled together, eyes wide and darting around.
‘What was that?’ Strangewayes hissed. ‘Man? Or beast?’
Will drew his dagger. ‘Cold steel cuts either one.’ He continued along the path, more cautiously this time.
The path wound round the contours of the hill. Even with the torches Will found it impossible to see any distance ahead. When he paused to get his bearings beside a craggy-barked tree, the baying rolled out again, so close this time that several men cried out in shock. The sound stirred ancient fears in his head. Yet another yowl came a moment later, behind them this time.
‘Circling us,’ Will said.
‘Hunting.’ Strangewayes whirled, brandishing his dagger in front of him.
Behind them, along the path, the baying changed into a low growl, the sound of some beast preparing to attack. ‘Stand your ground,’ Will called, but the fearful seamen ran as one towards higher ground. Realizing they had no choice but to follow, the two spies raced after them.
The frightened men burst out of the trees into another clearing at the foot of a rocky outcrop. The torchlight glittered across the surface of a black pool fed by a spring trickling from the glistening cliff face. ‘Make a stand,’ Will shouted, putting away his dagger. ‘There will be no better place.’
Blades bristled out as the men formed a circle, their drawn faces stark in the flames. Will snatched out his rapier and turned to look back down the shadowy path.
A snapping and snarling rang out, but then a familiar woman’s voice called out, ‘Leave them, Mooncalf. They are not your prey.’ Silence fell across the woods. When Will’s pounding heart had slowed, he raised his torch and searched the dark beyond the pool. In the wavering light, a grey shape appeared, coalescing into Red Meg. She was barefoot, her dress smudged and worn. A grin sprang to the spy’s lips and he ran over to her.
‘It does me good to see you well, Meg,’ he said with relief. ‘I had feared the worst.’
Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to recall his face. ‘Will Swyfte?’ she enquired with a faint, baffled smile.
Had she taken a knock to the head in the shipwreck, he wondered? But then her eyes sparkled and her smile broadened and she almost hugged him in her joy. ‘Will Swyfte! After so long, I never dared hope I would see your cocky face again.’
‘Ten weeks since Liverpool is long indeed, Mistress Meg, but it could have been eternity—’
‘Ten weeks?’ She shook her head, puzzled once more. ‘Since the storm washed us up on this island, twelve years have passed.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE STIFLING DARK enveloped Carpenter. Coarse sackcloth scratched his face as he stumbled along blindly at the bidding of his captors. His breath rasped against the covering that had been thrust over his head aboard the galleon, but sounds came to him clearly: the whispering voices of the Unseelie Court speaking in their strange, bird- like language, the splash of the oars in the rowing boat, the crash of waves and the crunch of sand underfoot as he lurched up the strand. Blood dripped from his stinging wrists where the rope chafed him, but the pain only focused his mind. With an effort, he drove out the sickening sensation of the thing forcing its way down his throat and thought simply that he still lived.
When he came to a swaying halt, rough hands yanked the sack off his head. He stood on a small beach edged by steep cliffs facing a wall of dark, spiky-leaved trees. Torches hissed and spat in the hands of the dead pirates, their grey-green skin peeling away to reveal the bone beneath. The stink of rot floated on the breeze. Beyond the circle of light, he could just discern the spectral faces of the Fay in the gloom, their fierce, unblinking stares locked upon him.
Reeking of unfamiliar spices, Jean le Gris, the pirate captain, peered into the spy’s face with his one good eye. Scar tissue marred much of his skin above his wild black beard, but Carpenter saw that this man wore his wounds with pride. With a gap-toothed grin, the pirate tossed the sack away and said in heavily accented English, ‘Savour your few last breaths, dog. Your time in this world is done.’ He swept a hand across his throat and laughed.
Carpenter shrugged, refusing to give the other man any satisfaction. ‘How can you throw your lot in with these foul creatures?’ he said with contempt.
Le Gris’s grin faded. Leaning in closer, he hissed, ‘Do you think I had a choice? If I had resisted, I would have become like them.’ He nodded towards his dead crew.
‘So you sacrificed your men to save your neck. There is no honour among pirates, it seems.’
Le Gris snarled and Carpenter felt the prick of a knife-point at his neck. A bubble of blood rose up. ‘They came like wolves in the night as we sailed down the Channel. Ten men were dead before we even knew they had boarded us. A cur like you cannot judge me.’
The Unseelie Court never lost their ruthlessness, the spy understood. They needed a galleon that could survive an Atlantic crossing and took the first one they found that would not be missed. ‘You survived that encounter because they needed your skills,’ he said, ‘but soon you will have outlived your usefulness. What then, Frenchman?’
Le Gris’s blade moved back, ready to cut Carpenter’s throat, but the Englishman saw the other man’s eyes flicker towards something further down the beach and the foul-smelling pirate stepped back. Propelled by unseen hands, another hooded prisoner lurched beside the spy. Le Gris snatched off the sack to reveal Launceston, his deathly pallor aglow in the torchlight.
‘You live,’ Carpenter said, surprised by his rush of relief at his companion’s survival.
‘Little good it does us,’ the Earl breathed.
The Fay lord Lansing sauntered past the men, carrying a small, gleaming chest a hand larger than the one that had held the Caraprix. He nodded for the pirate to follow him. Glowering at the two spies, le Gris took the chest and followed the Fay like a servant. Carpenter imagined the Frenchman’s searing resentment at the humiliation, and smiled to himself.
‘Did they harm you?’ he asked Launceston.
‘They were poor company,’ the Earl replied with a shrug, ‘but I have endured worse. When I was a child, my father sealed me in a hole in the cellar with three rats for company, to teach me a lesson, he said.’ He looked round the beach, his voice unnervingly quiet. ‘I learned how to kill rats.’
A little way away, the silver box had been set on the sand. Lansing kneeled down and flicked open the lid, drawing out a glass ball like the ones Carpenter had seen in Dee’s chambers. He held it gently in the palm of his right hand.
‘Four times Lansing came to me. His words were sugared, but each one hid a demand for betrayal. What could he offer me? I have all I need now. Satisfying work, companionship.’ Launceston paused. ‘We all have a place in this world and I have finally found mine. I would not let him take that away from me.’
Carpenter hid his guilt, pretending to be engrossed by the Fay, who was dismissing le Gris with a lazy flick of his hand. Muttering under his breath, Lansing gestured as if drawing a silk kerchief off the glass ball. A flood of colour rushed out.
