The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,56
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.
For two days now they had drifted, watching for what might lie at their backs while tempers simmered. Courtenay had taken to wandering the deck with lash in hand, his gimlet eyes offering a warning of what lay ahead if any man dared cause trouble. No clouds marred the blue sky. Not even the faintest breeze wafted across the water. How much longer could they endure this cauldron of heat before something broke, Will wondered?
He sensed Carpenter shifting uncomfortably beside him and put down the tele-scope. ‘What is on your mind?’ he asked.
The other man ran a hand under his hair to rub the pink scar marring his face. ‘The woman is no business of mine,’ he began, ‘but we have had words, Launceston, Strangewayes and myself, about your delay in instructing her in the true nature of the threat we face.’
‘And they sent you to speak to me?’
‘I came of my own accord,’ Carpenter snapped. ‘We all know what happens to those unprepared for their first meeting with those pale-skinned bastards. Even foreknowledge is not always enough to offer protection for some, as you well know, but she deserves a chance to