The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,2
snatches of slurred conversation. Tall tales of haunted galleons and the clutching hands of dead sailors. Of cities of gold hidden in the lush forests of the New World. Of a misty island that came and went as if it were alive. Of golden lights glimmering far out across the waves and far down in the black deeps. Through the eyes of the sailors, the world was a far stranger place than their land-locked fellows believed; and Will Swyfte knew the sea-dogs were correct. They had sailed to the dark shores of life, where the truth lived, and had paid a price for their wisdom. The spy noted the leather patches over missing eyes, the lost legs and hands, the scars that drew maps of the world across their skin. He felt a kinship. Like him, they were cut off from the peace and order that most experienced, although his own wounds were not so easily seen.
He thought back more than a week to Nonsuch Palace, a day’s ride to the south-west from London’s fetid streets. While the Queen recovered her strength in her bed, under the observance of the Royal Physician, turmoil reigned throughout the grand building. Servants scoured the chambers and searched the grounds. The Privy Council had been cloistered in the meeting room for more than an hour when the knock had come at Will’s chamber door.
His assistant, Nathaniel Colt, had been waiting on the threshold, flushed from running through corridors warmed by the late autumn sun. His dark green doublet was stained with sweat under the armpits and his brown hair lay slick against his head. ‘Sir Robert sent word from the Privy Council meeting to summon you to his chambers,’ he gasped. ‘There was fear in his eyes, and his voice wavered. Is this it, then, Will? Invasion? Our enemies are marching towards us?’
The spy hid his true thoughts with a grin. ‘Nat, you worry like an old maid. Do you see me rushing to arms?’ Enemies, yes, but not the ones Nat feared. Not the Spanish, nor their Popish agitators. No, he meant the true Enemy – those who lived by night, and treated men as men did cattle.
‘I do not see you rushing to a flask of sack, and that worries me more.’
Will rested a reassuring hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘England lurches from crisis to crisis, as always, but we stand firm and we abide. This will pass.’
His words seemed to reassure Nat a little. Will left him resting by the open window and made his way through the noisy palace. Lucky Nat, who slept well at night. He saw only glimpses of the greater war. Will sheltered him from the worst horrors for the sake of his wits, and would continue to do so while there was breath left in him.
The spymaster’s door was hanging open when Will arrived. Fresh from the Privy Council meeting, Sir Robert Cecil was firing orders at a clutch of scribes and assistants as he marched around the chamber. The Queen called him her Little Elf because of his small stature and his hunched back, but his sharp wits and cunning were more than a match for any other man at court. He had a feel for the games of high office, and his ruthlessness made him both feared and powerful.
When the black-gowned secretary saw Will, he dismissed the bustling aides and closed the door. ‘Gather your men,’ he snapped, feigning calm with a lazy wave of his hand. ‘You ride north today in search of Dr Dee.’
‘You know his whereabouts?’
‘A carriage was seen travelling along the Great North Road. I received word back this morning that it has taken a turn towards Liverpool.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Yes.’ Unable to contain the apprehension he felt, the spymaster turned away to calm himself. ‘Dr Dee was seen in the company of that Irish whore, Red Meg O’Shee. They must be stopped before she spirits him away to her homeland. If they reach that land of bogs and mists, we will never see Dee again. And then . . .’
England will fall, Will completed the unspoken thought. Dee was the architect of the country’s defences. He worked his magics to keep at bay the supernatural forces that had tormented England for as long as men had walked the green fields, and the Irish chieftains had long envied that protection; they had suffered long and hard under the torments of the Fair Folk. But whatever wall Dee had constructed around