The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,78
his dagger. ‘There will be no better place.’
Blades bristled out as the men formed a circle, their drawn faces stark in the flames. Will snatched out his rapier and turned to look back down the shadowy path.
A snapping and snarling rang out, but then a familiar woman’s voice called out, ‘Leave them, Mooncalf. They are not your prey.’ Silence fell across the woods. When Will’s pounding heart had slowed, he raised his torch and searched the dark beyond the pool. In the wavering light, a grey shape appeared, coalescing into Red Meg. She was barefoot, her dress smudged and worn. A grin sprang to the spy’s lips and he ran over to her.
‘It does me good to see you well, Meg,’ he said with relief. ‘I had feared the worst.’
Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to recall his face. ‘Will Swyfte?’ she enquired with a faint, baffled smile.
Had she taken a knock to the head in the shipwreck, he wondered? But then her eyes sparkled and her smile broadened and she almost hugged him in her joy. ‘Will Swyfte! After so long, I never dared hope I would see your cocky face again.’
‘Ten weeks since Liverpool is long indeed, Mistress Meg, but it could have been eternity—’
‘Ten weeks?’ She shook her head, puzzled once more. ‘Since the storm washed us up on this island, twelve years have passed.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
THE STIFLING DARK enveloped Carpenter. Coarse sackcloth scratched his face as he stumbled along blindly at the bidding of his captors. His breath rasped against the covering that had been thrust over his head aboard the galleon, but sounds came to him clearly: the whispering voices of the Unseelie Court speaking in their strange, bird-like language, the splash of the oars in the rowing boat, the crash of waves and the crunch of sand underfoot as he lurched up the strand. Blood dripped from his stinging wrists where the rope chafed him, but the pain only focused his mind. With an effort, he drove out the sickening sensation of the thing forcing its way down his throat and thought simply that he still lived.
When he came to a swaying halt, rough hands yanked the sack off his head. He stood on a small beach edged by steep cliffs facing a wall of dark, spiky-leaved trees. Torches hissed and spat in the hands of the dead pirates, their grey-green skin peeling away to reveal the bone beneath. The stink of rot floated on the breeze. Beyond the circle of light, he could just discern the spectral faces of the Fay in the gloom, their fierce, unblinking stares locked upon him.
Reeking of unfamiliar spices, Jean le Gris, the pirate captain, peered into the spy’s face with his one good eye. Scar tissue marred much of his skin above his wild black beard, but Carpenter saw that this man wore his wounds with pride. With a gap-toothed grin, the pirate tossed the sack away and said in heavily accented English, ‘Savour your few last breaths, dog. Your time in this world is done.’ He swept a hand across his throat and laughed.
Carpenter shrugged, refusing to give the other man any satisfaction. ‘How can you throw your lot in with these foul creatures?’ he said with contempt.
Le Gris’s grin faded. Leaning in closer, he hissed, ‘Do you think I had a choice? If I had resisted, I would have become like them.’ He nodded towards his dead crew.
‘So you sacrificed your men to save your neck. There is no honour among pirates, it seems.’
Le Gris snarled and Carpenter felt the prick of a knife-point at his neck. A bubble of blood rose up. ‘They came like wolves in the night as we sailed down the Channel. Ten men were dead before we even knew they had boarded us. A cur like you cannot judge me.’
The Unseelie Court never lost their ruthlessness, the spy understood. They needed a galleon that could survive an Atlantic crossing and took the first one they found that would not be missed. ‘You survived that encounter because they needed your skills,’ he said, ‘but soon you will have outlived your usefulness. What then, Frenchman?’
Le Gris’s blade moved back, ready to cut Carpenter’s throat, but the Englishman saw the other man’s eyes flicker towards something further down the beach and the foul-smelling pirate stepped back. Propelled by unseen hands, another hooded prisoner lurched beside the spy. Le Gris snatched off the sack to reveal Launceston, his deathly pallor aglow in the