The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,123

he smiled to himself. ‘Mandraxas does not want to free the Queen for he would lose what he cares for most,’ he mused. ‘And so the plots of Elizabeth’s court are reflected here. You are more like us than you realize.’

‘The King plays his games.’ Deortha nodded. ‘He shows the face of a determined ruler who will do all within his power to free our Queen. And yet he undermines every attempt, and obfuscates, and delays. Some would even say,’ the sorcerer said with studied disinterest, ‘that he plots to have the Queen, his sister, killed while she is in your hands.’

‘And to blame us for the murder. And thereby unleash an even greater fury among your people, a greater desire to commit atrocities against us.’

Deortha shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I would not pretend to know the King’s mind.’

‘You speak of love between Fay and man.’ Walsingham, the long-dead spymaster, and Cecil, the present one, and the grey faces of the Privy Council, paraded across Will’s thoughts, and his anger burned hotter still. He felt that at last he was beginning to understand. ‘Your King reached some agreement with my masters,’ he said finally.

The sorcerer steepled his fingers in front of him. ‘Mandraxas was allowed to wander your land with impunity to find a woman who met his desires. And then he was permitted to spirit her away, with no questions asked and no effort made to recover her.’

Will clenched his fist in anguish.

‘And she was not alone,’ Deortha continued. ‘We have been granted the right to take whom we wished from your people. Not many, not near as many as we stole before you built your defences. A child here, a wife or husband there. For the sake of love, in the main.’

The spy seethed. All those years of lies and deceit, all the pain he had suffered with the connivance of those he served. ‘And in return?’

‘The King agreed to contain those of the High Family who demanded slaughter on a grand scale to regain our Queen. His work has become more difficult in recent times. His brothers and sister have grown impatient with his failures and so his attempts to undermine their best endeavours have grown more determined.’

Will bowed his head. He felt devastated. Hearing the truth in the sorcerer’s words, he now understood so much. Deortha had been right. The epoch-shaking clash of high power between England and the Unseelie Court that had been rolling across the world with increasing brutality was little more than an illusion. In truth, the high drama of vast sweeping schemes and strategies came down to nothing more than raw emotions: passion, and yearning, and two suitors aspiring to the hand of one woman. He laughed bitterly at the irony of it.

‘Though you keep your teeth hidden, I suspect you have venom enough,’ he said, eyeing the sorcerer. ‘I would have thought if such an obstacle existed to the great plans of the Unseelie Court, it could be solved with a dagger in the night.’

‘And risk the terrible wrath of the King? Only a fool would follow such a course.’

While the Fay and Jenny glared at each other, Will slipped his fingers into his boot and withdrew his dagger. He hid it behind his back as he circled towards Deortha. Yet he felt the sorcerer’s words lying heavily on him. ‘If I take Jenny away from here, the King will be forced to act to reclaim her. You will find whatever it takes to win this war and bring about the destruction of humankind.’

‘If you leave her, you destroy yourself. Can you bring yourself to do that?’

‘You cannot take me away,’ Jenny said, her tone dismissive. ‘My King would never allow it.’ She clasped her hands behind her back, showing her face to each male in turn.

Will studied her features, seeing the fire he had admired so long ago. ‘You love this King?’ he asked.

‘I am his consort,’ Jenny replied, as if that explained everything.

Will stepped in front of Deortha, the unseen dagger cold in his hand. ‘And there is the difference between our people. Your King steals Jenny from her life because he sees something he must have, with no more thought for her than a beast in the field. And you expect me to take her back in the same way – because I want her more than the world itself. But she is no rag doll to be torn between warring children. She commands her own life and she must