The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,46
with mildew as if they had been stored in dank cellars. On either side and behind the tight knot of the main group of ten or so, warriors waited. They appeared misty, their features hidden, as if glimpsed through a haze.
Cecil swallowed. Then he pushed up his chin and marched out. He prayed the Privy Council were following him. Resisting the urge to look back, he walked out along the jetty and climbed the short wooden ladder down to the ice. Through clear patches around his feet, he could see pale shapes swimming near the surface of the river beneath. He shivered, feeling himself moving into a world he no longer understood.
The spymaster came to a halt four sword-lengths from the Unseelie Court’s representatives. He turned a cold face towards them, but would not – could not – meet their gaze. At the centre of the group was a tall figure with long black hair, a sallow complexion and a beard and moustache waxed into points. Beneath a felt cap, shadows pooled in the eyes, but Cecil noted a cruel turn to the pursed lips. This one is the leader, the spymaster decided.
‘I am Lansing of the High Family,’ the Fay said in a whispery voice that somehow carried over the sighing of the wind. ‘All you hoped for has turned to ashes. These are the final days. Have you made your peace with your God?’
‘We are not afraid of you.’ Cecil hoped the defiance in his voice rang true.
‘Your last hope has died with the burning of your ship,’ the Fay continued as if he had not heard the spymaster’s comment. ‘This moment was inevitable, from the instant you betrayed us and stole our Queen. I find it laughable that you ever thought otherwise.’
‘We held you at bay for many years.’
‘The blink of an eye in the way we see time. We are eternal. We watch and we wait and we make our plans and when the time comes we strike, be it years or decades.’
‘How you must hate us,’ Cecil sneered.
Lansing knitted his brow. ‘Hate? Do you hate the beasts of the field? They are to be herded, and punished when disobedient, and slaughtered should we see fit. Is that not how it is in your fields?’ He looked across the troubled faces and then raised his gaze to the lights of the palace. ‘You lived in caves once. You hunted with stones and sticks. You whispered oaths to the moon and the trees and the wind. We watched you as you sat around your fires, praying the night would end. When you sowed your seeds, we were there. When you raised the stones and built your homes of timber and turf. When you tamed the horses and made weapons of iron. Always a whisper away.’ One corner of his mouth crinkled in a puzzled smile. ‘And then you challenged us.’ He looked directly in Cecil’s face. ‘I have peeled back your skin, and your flesh, and broken your bones and delved into the smallest part of you, and I have found you wanting. This judgement has been made. And now the time for talk is done, and silence must fall. Bring me our Queen and prepare for the harrowing.’
The spymaster sifted through Lansing’s words, seeing meaning hidden in the shadows behind them as only a spymaster could. He smiled, quick and fast. ‘No,’ he said. The Fay’s eyes narrowed. ‘If you want her, take her.’
In a single fluid movement the Earl of Essex drew his sword in readiness for a fight, as did a number of the younger Privy Councillors. Yet the Unseelie Court remained as still as the ice beneath their feet. The cold wind tugged at their hair, its whispers the only sounds across the desolate river.
As he searched those unreadable faces with their unblinking eyes, Cecil felt a moment of satisfaction. He spun on his heel, turning up his nose at the aged members of the Privy Council who had been cowering behind him. ‘Follow me,’ he said to them with only a hint of contempt, and strode back towards the jetty. Even at such a moment, he found himself smiling inwardly at the notion of the deformed little man he knew himself to be piping on the rats who had always secretly mocked him.
He felt the Fay leader’s cold gaze upon him, but he did not look back. Once he had passed the River Gate, he leaned against the stone wall, shaking, yet