The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,39
up the cold power as they weaved together the final strands of their supernatural masters’ scheme.
Will began to grasp the true scale of the Unseelie Court’s plan. Dee’s tattered defences were still strung out invisibly across London, reinforced by the wards Cecil had put in place round the city’s boundaries and the quay at Greenwich. But the Thames – a silver lance piercing through to the heart of London – had always proved the most difficult to protect.
As they rounded the bend of the river along the narrowing black channel, Will’s worst fears were confirmed. The Charm Boat was locked in the ice not far from the north bank. The two watermen were futilely hammering their oars on the white glaze. It cracked like dry wood, but held firm. No longer able to maintain the ritual path, the frozen wherry had left the river route open to the Enemy.
Carpenter, Launceston and Strangewayes saw the ice-bound boat and looked back to Will with unease. He nodded. ‘They will soon be here.’
The other men’s heads fell, but only for a moment. Carpenter and Launceston threw themselves into their oar-strokes, driving the wherry forward.
‘The Gauntlet will be trapped at the quay,’ Strangewayes called. ‘What chance have we of freeing it from the ice before the attack comes?’
‘We will do what we must.’ Will’s voice was grim. He pulled his cloak around him against the cold and rested one foot on the side as he searched the sky for the ruddy glow from Greenwich’s beacons.
A band of orange sky flared behind the silhouettes of trees, houses and the great bulk of the Palace of Placentia. Wrinkling his nose at the ash caught on the breeze, Will finally saw the stark outline of masts and felt a surge of hope. But only a thin black strand of water stretched out ahead. Their hair and eyebrows white with frost, Carpenter and Launceston shuddered as they struggled to get good strokes with their oars. The wherry bumped against the encroaching ice on either side time and again. Finally the boat came to a juddering halt. The keel groaned from the pressure of the rime forming around it.
‘Abandon ship, lads,’ Will called.
The shivering spies hauled themselves out of the wherry, each one gingerly testing the ice before putting his full weight on it. The frozen river crunched underfoot. Will scrubbed the white glaze off the surface with the sole of his shoe. Through the near-transparent newly formed ice, he glimpsed movement. The fish-creatures glided just beneath their feet. As if it could read his thoughts, one came to a halt in the space Will had created and peered up at him with those unblinking eyes. It gnashed its needle-teeth once and then swam away.
On the river they could have been in Muscovy in winter. Putting his head down into the chill wind, Will headed towards the silhouetted masts. The crunch of his footsteps echoed across the still waste. The other men followed, their breath clouding. After a few moments, the golden lights of the quayside inn glittered through the stark trees and Will could make out the shape of the Gauntlet leaning askew under the force of the ice that had formed around it.
Before he could take another step, Strangewayes called out, ‘The fog returns.’
Will turned to see a low wall of mist reaching from bank to bank at their backs. But this fog was a pearly white and seemed to glow with an inner luminescence. It rolled towards them as if a tailor were unfurling a bolt of cloth. Faint stars twinkled in its midst.
‘Make for the quay as fast as your legs will carry you,’ he urged.
The spies raced towards the inn’s lights, slipping and sliding with each step so that Will feared they would fall and break their necks. When he could smell the acrid stink of the pitch on the Gauntlet’s hull, he paused and looked back. Tall, grey figures were emerging from the mist, cloaks billowing behind them. They stalked towards Greenwich, grasping swords, spears and axes.
Will felt a chill sweep through him even deeper than the one brought by the frozen river. A droplet of blood fell from his nose and froze before it hit the ice. The Unseelie Court were in opposition to nature, and every sense rebelled whenever they were near. Their clothes had a timeless feel, bucklers and leather belts, breeches and boots, all of them silvery grey as if they considered colour too much of a celebration of