The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,28

of caution, Nathaniel said, ‘Perhaps Grace misheard. And it is often hard to divine the truth from eavesdropping.’

‘Perhaps.’ Will continued to watch Cecil, now in deep conversation with the commander of the pikemen. He knew the nature of the man, and all the things of which he was capable.

Grace leaned in and whispered, ‘This business you are involved in in Liverpool, and here in London, does it concern Jenny?’

‘I cannot say,’ Will replied truthfully, for anything involving the Unseelie Court was linked to his love’s disappearance.

‘Do not treat me like a child.’ Grace raised her chin in defiance. ‘She is my sister, and I would know what you know.’

Will could barely draw his gaze from Cecil. He felt the anger starting to burn through him. ‘You know you must not ask me these things,’ he said, more sharply than he intended. ‘We will talk later.’ Unable to contain himself any longer, he strode over to the spymaster. ‘I would have words,’ he said curtly.

Cecil began to dismiss him, until he saw the cold look in Will’s eyes. The spymaster edged to the lee of a cart where they could not be overheard, and nodded.

‘I am told that you have information about my Jenny’s disappearance,’ Will said, as calmly as he could.

Practised at revealing nothing of his innermost thoughts, Cecil only pursed his lips in thought.

‘Last night you feigned ignorance of her,’ the spy snapped. ‘You know more than you are saying.’

‘I know nothing.’

‘Do not lie to me!’

‘Or what, pray tell?’ Cecil blazed. ‘Are you doubting my word?’

Will steadied himself. This was not the time. ‘If you know anything of what happened to Jenny, tell me now.’

Cecil snorted. ‘What has come over you? You conjure these suspicions out of thin air. Why should I know anything about your woman? Walsingham was spymaster when she disappeared, was he not?’

Will searched his master’s face for a long moment. Grace had been adamant in her assertion of what she had overheard, and Cecil was a man enveloped in secrets. There was a mystery here, for sure, but Will could see he would get no joy from the other man. He frowned, weighing his options, his suspicion of the spymaster grown a hundredfold.

‘I know no more than you,’ Cecil pressed through gritted teeth. ‘Why would I?’

Will felt queasy at the thought that his masters might have known something about Jenny’s disappearance for all these years and told him nothing. What reason could they have? Unsure of his ground, he stalked away, though a part of him wanted to drag Cecil to one side and beat the truth out of him.

Beside the pile of cordwood, he glanced back. The spymaster was watching him intently. Will knew that look and realized he should be on his guard from now on. He pressed on into the crowd, his shoulders heavy, and didn’t stop until he rested in an alley beside a grocer’s shop. Leaning against the damp wall, he closed his eyes, trying to calm his churning thoughts. If Cecil kept many secrets, he had a few of his own. Dipping into the leather pouch at his hip, he pulled out Dee’s obsidian mirror, which he had wrapped in a thick velvet cloth to keep safe. He studied the glass for a long moment. He would find the answers he needed whatever the cost.

CHAPTER TWELVE

AN ARC OF fire blazed across the night-dark fields surrounding London. Spirals of gold sparks, whipped up in the breeze, rose from the beacons enclosing the city from the marshy western reaches by the grey Thames to the riverside woods beside the eastern city wall. Carpenter leaned on the battlements at the top of the White Tower and felt the acrid smoke sting the back of his throat.

It had been four days since the Faerie Queen had issued her hate-filled warning, four long, wearying days of organizing the militia, spinning a web of deceit to sustain the rumour that the suspected attack came from Spanish agents, surreptitiously spreading a long line of salt and protective herbs among the beacons to bolster Dee’s failing defences. Four days of hope and worry.

‘Will our preparations be enough?’ he asked, rubbing at the scar tissue under his hair. It was an unconscious tic in moments of anxiety, harking back to that bitter night in Muscovy when the bear-thing had left him for dead.

‘Hrrrm,’ Launceston murmured, acknowledging the question without answering it. He looked across the slow-moving river towards an orange glow in the east. Another ring of beacons