Mark Chadbourn - The Devil

Cecil fell silent, watching the flames dance. Will felt moved by the intensity of his master’s feelings. Cecil had always seemed cold and untouched by the suffering of others, but perhaps they had more in common than he had come to believe.

‘Jane’s body was never found,’ the spymaster continued. ‘No search was made of that pond for her drowned form. Three nights later, I woke from sleep and went to the window. Jane stood below, her dress sodden, her hair plastered to her head and filled with rotting pond leaves, and she reached up her arms and silently called to me. And I wanted to go, God help me, for I knew from that moment I would be alone in the world. But then I saw the shapes dancing in the night beyond her, and I was filled with such dread that I thought I would die. I ran back to my bed, but for nights after I sensed her out there, calling to me, and I thought how could one so kind become so cruel. And that notion told me all I needed to know about this world.’

He turned back to Will, his face drawn. ‘We have all had our lives blighted by the Unseelie Court in some way. You. . it was some village girl, was it not?’

‘A childhood friend,’ Will replied, feigning disinterest, but the vision of Jenny in that haunted cornfield blazed across his mind.

Cecil stalked forward, his hands raised and clutching in the grip of his passion. ‘Think, then, sirrah, what England will be like without Dee to offer a modicum of protection against those night-terrors. When the Unseelie Court have freedom to do as they wish, my nightly visits from Jane will be nothing compared to the horrors foisted upon every man, woman and child.’

The spectre still visited Cecil? Will reflected on the scars that must have been inflicted upon his master through that relentless haunting by the only one who had ever been kind to him. ‘Yes, for the Enemy will want even greater revenge for England’s betrayal,’ he snapped, surprised by his own rush of emotion. ‘For stealing their Queen and holding her prisoner when they thought we were offering the hand of peace.’

Cecil gulped like a codfish. ‘You are never to speak of that thing!’

‘Why? We are among friends, are we not?’ Will swigged back his sack and tossed the flask aside. Cecil squirmed under his cold gaze. ‘Despite the play you make to the world, there are no heroes here. We are all tainted.’

‘England had no choice, you know that. Our “betrayal”, as you define it, was a matter of survival-’

‘And that is justification?’

‘Yes!’ Cecil roared. ‘The survival of our Queen, of England, of us all, a life free from the shackles of fear. That is worth any action. And you know, too, that the Faerie Queen is the heart of Dee’s defences. The power that rages within her like a furnace burns the night away from this land.’

Will’s thoughts returned to the story as he had been told it, his own Queen Elizabeth meeting the Faerie Queen on windswept Dartmoor to seal a pact that might end the long years of conflict between the two races who lived side by side on England’s green land, though one in day and one in night. The meeting had been hard-won, the mistrust both sides felt barely overcome. But after that night the Unseelie Court would never trust the mortals again. England’s forces emerged from their hiding places among the gorse and granite, slaughtered the Fay cohort and took their Queen prisoner. And in her meagre cell she had resided for more than thirty years, her miserable incarceration keeping England safe. Will shrugged, fighting to contain his simmering anger. ‘Let us not squabble,’ he said, pretending he cared little when in truth he found it harder by the day to tell friend from foe.

Cecil rested both arms on the table and released a weary sigh. ‘Oh, for your simple world, Swyfte, where the only concerns are fresh wine, doxies and a bowl of the ordinary.’

The Secretary of State searched through the heap of yellowing charts until he found the one he wanted. Will recognized the outline of Europe stretching to the far Orient. ‘We now know the Unseelie Court have been planning for this moment for many a year. Word has reached me of the Enemy’s maintaining positions of influence in the great courts. One of those fiends advised the rebel leader Severyn Nalyvaiko as he led his Cossacks through Galicia, Volhynia and Belarus in his struggle against the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth. Another has the ear of the Doges in Venice and Genoa. Philip of Spain, I fear, is still troubled by Malantha of the High Family. The story is the same in Hungary, in the whispers that prompt the Serbs to rebel against the Ottomans, in Tuscany, Austria, Malta, even in Rome itself. All around us, they move their pieces.’

‘Their aim?’

‘To burn this world. After the indignities they have suffered — yes, at our hands — they have decided the time of man has passed.’

‘Then all of humanity will pay for England’s grand betrayal.’

‘Leave it be!’ Cecil’s spittle flew across the stained chart as he roared. ‘If I did not know better, I would think you revel in the suffering about to be inflicted ’pon us. That is treason.’ The spymaster sagged. The hopelessness he had tried to contain rose in his features and he flapped a feeble hand towards Will. ‘Enough. This tires me. I do not know why you wish to provoke me in this dreaded hour, but. . enough.’

Calming himself, Will walked round the table to the fire, remembering all the times he had seen Dee trying to warm himself but never being able to drive the cold from his bones. ‘I hear plenty about the monstrous acts of the Unseelie Court,’ he murmured, prodding a log with the toe of his Spanish leather shoe, ‘but never anything about what manner of beings they are.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What is their true nature? Their essence? What do we know of them?’ Will turned back to the spymaster, tugging at his chin hair in thought, but he kept one eye fixed on every subtle movement Cecil made. ‘Do they love? Do they care for their children? Do they have children? Or art and poetry and learning-’

‘They are monsters who wish us all dead,’ Cecil interrupted. ‘That is all we need to know.’

‘And you are aware of nothing more? They are what they seem, these pale creatures of the night?’ Will narrowed his eyes, watching the faint muscle-tremor around his master’s mouth.

‘I know nothing more.’ The spymaster looked away at the last, unable to hold Will’s unflinching gaze. He turned back to his charts and pretended to sift through them while he sought to change the subject. ‘For all your many flaws, you have a sharp wit, Swyfte, and you have played your public and private role well in service to the Queen. Tell me your thoughts, for at this moment I would clutch at even a thread to draw me out of the dark.’

Will felt the weight in his chest lighten. Everything was unfolding as planned. ‘We feared Dr Dee had been stolen by the Irish. We came close to losing the mad alchemist to the Unseelie Court, but his transformation saved us from that fate, while at the same time denying us the opportunity to reclaim him. But we must not lose sight of the fact that, at the moment, Dee is free-’

‘Yes, somewhere in the wide Atlantic!’

‘Nevertheless,’ Will replied, throwing his arms wide, ‘he is, for now, at large, and with a fair wind at our backs and the will to achieve it, we can bring him back.’

‘How so?’ Cecil snorted. ‘Do you know where in the New World he travels? Or why?’

Warming to his performance, Will smiled. ‘I know we are in a race, Sir Robert. The Unseelie Court will be in pursuit. Whoever finds Dr Dee first, wins.’

Cecil weighed the words, his furrowed brow revealing the hopelessness he felt.