The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,69

when the lookout cried, ‘Land ahoy!’

Courtenay’s brow furrowed. ‘There is no land in these waters.’ Yet when they rushed to the forecastle, they saw white-topped waves crashing against a jagged reef, and beyond it the hazy outline of an island in the dying ruddy light. ‘Hard a starboard,’ the captain bellowed to the helmsman, adding with a growl, ‘We’ll not end up on the rocks like those other poor bastards.’

Will gripped the rail, peering towards the island. He could make out a hilly, tree-covered central area, and grey cliffs to the south and north with a stretch of sandy strand directly ahead. ‘Dee could have washed up there,’ Strangewayes said in a hopeful tone.

‘Aye,’ Bloody Jack growled, raising the tele-scope to his eye. ‘He’s as tough as a tanner’s hide, that one. Wring his scrawny neck and he’d still keep on breathing. And I’ve wanted to do that a time or two. We’ll sail to the north and drop anchor. Only a madman would try to cross that reef with night coming in,’ he added without a hint of irony.

Will watched the darkening waves as the ship sailed astern. So much misfortune had afflicted them in recent days, he barely dared to hope for some small relief. Beside him, Courtenay cursed. ‘What afflicts that fool at the helm?’ Once more, the island lay directly ahead. He snatched the tele-scope from his eye and roared to the helmsman, ‘I said, hard a starboard!’

The Tempest turned a starboard again, but within moments Will blinked his eyes in the growing gloom and saw the island ahead of them once more. Courtenay’s face darkened. ‘Will we never be out of these cursed waters?’ he muttered.

Three more times they attempted to sail round the island’s northern edge, and three more times they failed. ‘It seems,’ Will said, ‘that this island is waiting for us.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

STREAMS OF TORCH-FIRE blazed through the dark of the London night. Alarmed cries rang off the high stone walls of the Palace of Whitehall as the guards raced across the courtyard, their boots clattering, weapons clanking as they ran. In the flickering light of the brands worried white faces were caught, eyes urgently trying to pierce the deep gloom around the Lantern Tower.

‘Find it!’ Sir Robert Cecil bellowed. A sheen of sweat glistened on the spymaster’s forehead despite the wintry chill that had reached long into spring. ‘Slay it without a moment’s thought.’

He whirled as a low snarl rumbled out from a corner of the courtyard, a sound that would not have been out of place in the Queen’s menagerie but which he knew came from something that walked like a man. A moment later the growl echoed from the other side of the square. So fast, he thought, quaking.

The torches whisked around in confusion. In the gloom, stars of ruddy light danced off burgonets and cuirasses. The spymaster glimpsed a pale face frozen in the wavering flames, mouth ragged with horror, but it was gone in an instant. Another man dashed past him, yelling in fear. Round and round he spun, caught up in the visions flashing before his eyes – a stabbing pike, a guard staggering back, clutching his head, a blood-spattered burgonet bouncing across the cobbles – until he grabbed at his chest where his heart was pounding fit to burst.

Those inhuman snarls seemed to be echoing all around, as if there were a host of the things and not just one.

Another face flashed by, torn and bloody. The guard stumbled in the dark and lay still.

Cecil cried out in a fury born of fear, demanding his men do something, anything, to end this slaughter.

And then, as the snapping and snarling reached a new pitch, the bestial cry was cut off with a strangled gurgle.

‘To me,’ the spymaster bellowed. As the surviving guards gathered around him, their combined torchlight lit a chaotic scene. Fallen bodies, gleaming pools of blood and scattered cordwood where the intruder had attempted to tear through the towering bonfire surrounding the Lantern Tower to free the Faerie Queen. ‘Is it dead?’ he barked. He needed to show that he was not afraid, but his hands would not stop shaking.

‘’Tis gone.’ The voice floated out of the dark. Cecil snatched a torch and stalked towards the sound. The flames lit a man dressed in a costly sapphire doublet and breeches, the face half turned away. He gripped a rapier dripping black blood and his cloak covered a still form on the cobbles. ‘Send your men

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