The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,18

other was the Earl of Essex, a self-important braggart who swaggered through the palace in his white doublet and hose as if all eyes must ever fall upon him. She peered through the crack in the door as they neared.

‘Too many rumours swirl around this palace. Threat, danger, death, drawing closer by the hour,’ Essex was saying in a grim whisper.

‘You think we should speak true?’ Cecil exclaimed with contempt. ‘Better by far that they have their imagined fears.’

‘Though the spectre of the plague still haunts London, I will feel some comfort once we are behind the walls of Whitehall. The defences still hold there?’

‘For now.’

Plotting as ever, Grace thought. Never could a word be trusted that came out of either man’s mouth. And upon their shoulders rested the future of England. As they neared, she stepped back a pace, still watching. What an odd pair they made, the tall, muscular Essex looming over the shorter, hunchbacked Cecil. Yet power resided with the smaller man, she knew.

‘And have we news from Swyfte?’ the Earl asked.

Grace’s ears pricked and she leaned closer once more.

‘As yet, no word. It sickens me to have to put our faith in such a coxcomb.’

‘Elizabeth favours him.’

Clenching his fists, Cecil ground to a halt only a step away from Grace. She held her breath. ‘Will our Queen hold such a high opinion of that rake if he fails to return Dee and she is tossed into a burning pit with all of England?’

‘Swyfte—’

‘Speak to me of Swyfte no more,’ the spymaster snapped. ‘He has always been one step away from turning upon us, and only his effectiveness has kept his head upon his shoulders.’

‘If he learned the truth about the woman he lost—’

Cecil ground his teeth, his voice falling to a whisper. ‘He will not. If he fails to return Dee to us, his life is forfeit. If he succeeds . . . He has brushed close to the truth too many times and we can tolerate it no more. Too much is at stake.’

The spymaster grunted his distaste and set off along the gallery at a fast pace. Essex hurried to keep up. Once the two men had disappeared from view, Grace eased out of her hiding place, chilled. She heard herself hailed and turned to see Will’s young assistant Nathaniel Colt, red-faced and sweating, with a large sack thrown over his left shoulder and another gripped in his right hand.

‘Nat!’ she exclaimed, relieved to see a friendly face. Clutching the monarch’s dresses to her chest, she hurried up to him and whispered, ‘I fear Will’s life is in danger.’

‘Will’s life is always in danger,’ Nathaniel sighed. ‘Rogues, cuckolded husbands, poor card players, jealous rivals . . . and that is even before we discuss the Spanish.’ He saw her worried expression and softened. ‘Tell me what you know, Grace.’

She glanced over her shoulder, repeating in grim tones what she had overheard. ‘And what did Essex mean, the truth about the woman he lost – about my sister Jenny?’ she asked as she finished. She felt a tremor of unease run through her.

‘These spies would find a plot in the contents of their evening stew,’ Nathaniel replied with irritation. ‘They can as much trust their own as the foreign agents they presume to fight.’ He set his jaw, thinking, and then replied, ‘There is nothing we can do but wait until Will returns. He will be grateful for this information, I am sure, and will know the right course to take. Come, let us talk as we walk. I have a chamber full of chests and bales to empty and I would catch one wink of sleep this night.’

Together they carried their individual burdens along the gallery towards the stairs. ‘Will never lost faith that Jenny still lived, never wavered even once,’ Grace said, feeling the weight of this new mystery, ‘and that alone was a beacon of hope in those dark moments when I feared she could only have been taken by rogues and killed that summer’s day in Arden. Even after all these years, Will loves her very much.’

‘More than life itself,’ Nathaniel replied. ‘I have seen him reading through old letters that she wrote to him in the days of his youth. He keeps them locked away in a chest beside his bed.’

Grace paused at the top of the stairs, looking down into the dark. ‘I was but a girl when Jenny disappeared. That night I was woken by a sound at