Carpenter glanced towards the door, half expecting Dee to come out and cast some vile spell on them. ‘Why are you telling me these things?’ he asked in irritation.
‘I killed him. My father. He was my first. At the time I thought it would ease the ache that reached deep inside me.’ Launceston cocked his head, narrowing his eyes as he stared into the middle distance. ‘It only increased my appetite. When something has been taken away, we try to replenish the space left behind with other things, but that is like filling the sea with sand.’
‘You are a madman. Why speak like this, now, here?’
‘You have lost the woman you loved, seen your face scarred and the very foundations of your life shaken. You are trying to fill the sea with sand,’ the Earl said.
Carpenter furrowed his brow, trying to tease out the meaning in his companion’s words. He sensed a weight there and it puzzled him. Launceston rarely spoke, and never expressed his innermost thoughts or feelings. Indeed, Carpenter had come to believe the Earl had none.
‘I know not what Lansing offered you when you were his prisoner, but it was a deal with the devil,’ the aristocrat said, his voice now a whisper. And then Carpenter understood: no one saw into the Earl, but Launceston had seen into him. ‘Your belief that you can achieve your heart’s desire has blinded you to the truth.’
‘The bastard offered me nothing,’ Carpenter lied, with a derisive laugh. ‘I resisted all his attempts to torture me.’
‘The Unseelie Court rarely have need to torture. And I know you better than you know yourself,’ the other man replied, turning his gaze towards the candle flame. Carpenter thought he appeared to be trying to dredge up the remnants of whatever human emotion had survived from his earliest days; a monk trying to comprehend the ways of a Bankside doxy might have looked equally baffled. ‘The decision you make this day will define the course of the rest of your life,’ Launceston continued. ‘I will not stand in your way, whatever you choose. You have stood by me when most other men would have walked away in disgust – that is something I have never known in my life, and I value it more than you could understand. For the first time in my dismal existence, I have found a place where I am at ease, here among men who deal in false faces and deceit yet hold themselves to a higher standard than most honest men—’
‘I made no deal with Lansing,’ Carpenter interrupted, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.
Launceston continued as if the other man had not spoken. ‘—and I feel there is a place here for you too, if only you would open your eyes to it. In the midst of all this strife, we can find peace – yes, and Swyfte too – to replace the things that have been stolen from us. Seek out the morals that have always guided you—’
Carpenter laughed. ‘I am being lectured on morals by a man who has killed children.’ If he had expected the Earl to be stung by the gibe, Launceston did not show it.
‘We must not become the men the Unseelie Court believe us to be,’ the aristocrat ended. His searching gaze fixed upon the other man’s face.
Carpenter felt the guilt rise inside him. How weak he had been, and he had known it and tried to deny it. Yet here was a man without a heart refusing to judge him and wanting him to aspire to greater things. What a mad world they had entered when they had stepped within the tower.
‘I made no deal with Lansing,’ he repeated, adding in a gentler tone, ‘and I would never have given Dee up to them. Let us work together to capture the old man and deliver him to the
But as they crept back to the door, he felt his falsehoods lying heavily upon him. Amends would need to be made. He shook his head to dispel the bitter taste of failure and saw traces of candlelight stream through the air. ‘There is still magic at play here,’ he muttered.
Easing open the door, he peered through the crack. Dee still sat in the same position, bowed in front of the hearth. Carpenter wondered if the old man had died, so still was he, but he drew his dagger none the less. With a man like Dee he would take no chances. Holding his breath, he eased towards the hunched figure. His head throbbed and his mouth felt dry. When he crooked his arm to slip it round the alchemist’s neck, he suddenly felt a fist grab the back of his shirt and drag him backwards.
A breeze whisked past his face as an axe-blade swung from the shadows above and smashed into Dee’s side, throwing him to the flagstones. Carpenter gaped. One step further and it would have been his head rolling across the floor. Launceston knelt and picked up a thread that had been broken as Carpenter entered. Another of Dee’s traps, but with this one
Yet as Carpenter whirled back to the fallen figure, he saw the truth in the shapeless robes. Pulling them to one side, the spy revealed a frame of twisted saplings. ‘How could I ever have believed that was Dee?’ he muttered.
‘You were entranced by whatever spell the alchemist has woven here,’ Launceston said. His tone was flat, but he clearly did not want Carpenter to blame himself.
Carpenter sighed. ‘So the old man still hides away. We must resume our search.’ He turned towards the door so that the aristocrat would not see the worry in his face. Deep inside, he could feel the Caraprix wriggling, and whispering its seductive words. Deep inside, he could feel himself dying by the moment.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
THE TORCH GUTTERED and hissed. Will watched its endless reflections in the glittering mirrors, deep in thought. No shadows could exist in that blazing world of light, and for the first time the spy thought he could see clearly. Outside, the Unseelie Court still climbed the tower, drawing closer by the moment. He pushed his anxiety to one side and remained calm, focused.
When he had slammed the door and escaped back into the mirror maze, he realized the blast from the storm had cleared his head. The whispers from the carvings washed around him, but now he paid them attention. The dancing light of the torch flame was no more a mere distraction. He sucked in a deep breath, letting the sweet smell with its bitter undertones envelop him. All he needed had been there from the beginning, but as Dee had no doubt suspected, his attention had been elsewhere. The alchemist was a man of intellect, given to rigorous thought and reflection. He enjoyed his games of strategy, his chess, his nine men’s morris. Puzzles with solutions that could be extracted through reflection. Will nodded to himself, ignoring the call to urgency.
Kneeling, he waved the torch close to one of the mirrors. Around the area where a hand would push the door open, a faint, sticky residue smeared the surface. Will smiled. Cunning Dee, who loved his concoctions, his herbs and clays and bubbling pots of lamb fat. In times past, the wise man had demonstrated the mysterious but effective potions he had brewed in his chambers. Some had been poisons with rapid lethal effect. Others sent a man to sleep, or made them foam at the mouth in a wild rage. And some turned wits to quicksilver and conjured visions out of thin air.
The spy stripped off his sodden shirt and flicked it round his right hand. With his skin covered, the paste would not seep into him and he would have time to recover from earlier contact. He held the torch high and watched the flames whip away from the hollow mouths of the whispering carvings. The unsettling sound had been designed to add to the off-kilter effects of Dee’s paste, he realized, but they required a strong draught to work. The torch flame pointed away from the source. He lowered his eyes, refusing to look into the mirrors as he fought to overcome the subtle effects of the drug. Then, when he was ready, he pressed open the door with his covered hand and began to follow the trail back.
Watching the torch as he progressed through the mirror chambers, he saw the draught grow stronger. When the whispering became the chattering of madmen in Bedlam, the dancing light revealed the edges of a trapdoor in the vaulted ceiling. The breeze blew through small holes on each of the four sides. Will reached up to a shallow indentation in the centre of the trap and pressed. With a click, the door swung down followed by a coiled rope ladder. He squinted into that dark square and thought he could see a distant glimmer of faint light.
Determination burned through his foggy thoughts. The time of confusion had ended. Laying the torch on the cold flagstones, he set one foot on the ladder and began to climb into the dark.
He found himself at the foot of a flight of narrow stone steps, leading up to a small arched door standing slightly ajar. Candlelight gleamed through the crack. The sweet fragrance of incense drifted on the draught, and he could hear faint mutterings of incantations in Latin. Drawing his dagger, he crept closer. Through the slit of open door, he could just discern a small circular room. On the wall hung a purple tapestry covered with magical symbols of crescent moons, stars, runes, circles and squares in gold. Open volumes with stained pages were scattered
