The Devil
( Swords of Albion - 3 )
Mark Chadbourn
Will Swyfte, Elizabethan England's answer to James Bond, returns in his third swashbuckling supernatural Swords of Albion adventure.
1593: The dreaded alchemist, black magician and spy Dr John Dee is missing.
Terror sweeps through the court of Queen Elizabeth, for in Dee's possession is an obsidian mirror, a mysterious object of great power which legend says could set the world afire. And so the call goes out to celebrated swordsman, adventurer and rake Will Swyfte — find Dee and his feared looking-glass and return them to London before disaster strikes. But when Will discovers the mirror may help him solve the mystery that has haunted him for years — the fate of his lost love, Jenny — the stakes become acutely personal.
With a frozen London under siege by supernatural powers, the sands of time are running out. Will is left with no choice but to pursue the alchemist to the devil-haunted lands of the New World — in the very shadow of the terrifying fortress home of England's hidden enemy, the Unseelie Court. Surrounded by an army of these unearthly fiends, with only his sword and a few brave friends at his back, the realm's greatest spy must be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice — or see all he loves destroyed.
Review
A plot that races like a flaming whippet on crack…darkly ingenious…hugely entertaining…streets ahead of most works in this genre SFSITE Smart, fun, at times surprisingly moving, and occasionally downright shocking…impossible to put down REALMS OF FANTASY
Mark Chadbourn
The Devil's Looking-Glass
Go, Soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Sir Walter Raleigh, The Lie
PROLOGUE
The merciless sun boiled in a silver sky. Waves of heat shimmered across the seething main deck of the becalmed galleon where the seven sailors knelt, heads bowed. As blood dripped from their noses on to their sweat-sodden undershirts, they muttered prayers in Spanish, their strained voices struggling to rise above the creaking of the hull timbers flexing against the green swell. Harsh light glinted off the long, curved blades pressed against each of their necks.
At the sailors’ backs, the grey men waited in silence. Ghosts, they seemed at times, not there but there, their bone-white faces wreathed in shadow despite the unremitting glare. Oblivious of the sweltering heat, they wore grey leather bucklers, thick woollen breeches and boots, all silver-mildewed and reeking of rot. As still as statues, they were, drawing out the agony of the whimpering men before the swords would sweep down.
Captain Juan Martinez de Serrano knelt on the forecastle, watching the row of seamen from under heavy brows. Even now he could not bring himself to look into the terrible faces of the ones who had boarded his vessel. Aft, the grey sails of the other galleon billowed and the rigging cracked, although there was no wind and had not been for three days. Serrano lowered his head in desolation. How foolish they had been. Though they knew the devils of the Unseelie Court were like wolves, the lure of gold was too great. The captain cast his mind back to that night ten days gone when his men had staggered out of the forest with their stolen hoard. Barely could they believe they had escaped with their lives, and their laughter had rung out across the waves as they filled the hold and dreamed of the glory that would be lavished upon them by King Philip in Madrid. They had set sail with a fair wind and all had seemed well, until the grey sails appeared on the horizon, drawing closer by the hour.
The steel bit into his neck and he winced. They should have known better. Now, save for the last eight of them, blood soaked into the boards of the quarterdeck where they lay, each one slaughtered within moments, though they were among the fiercest fighters upon the Spanish Main.
A rhythmic rattling stirred him. Raising his eyes once more, he watched a strange figure approach. The sound came from trinkets and the skulls of mice and birds braided into long gold and silver-streaked hair. Hollow cheeks and dark rings under his eyes transformed his features into a death’s-head. He wore grey-green robes covered with unrecognizable symbols outlined in a tracing of gold that glistered in the midday sun, like one of the gypsy conjurers who performed at the fair in Seville. Sweeping out his right arm, he addressed Serrano in a voice like cracking ice. ‘You are honoured. Our King.’
Serrano swallowed. He sensed the new arrival before he saw him, in a weight building behind his eyes and a queasy churn in his stomach. He closed his eyes. How long would this torment continue? A steady tread crossed the main deck and came to a halt in front of him. Silence followed.
When he had mouthed a prayer, the captain squinted. A pair of grey boots fell into view, and the fur-lined edge of a shimmering white cloak. He heaved his shaking head up, following that pristine cloth until he reached the head of the one who looked down on him. But the brutal sun hung behind the figure and the features were lost. Serrano was glad of that.
‘I am Mandraxas, of the High Family, and until my sister is brought back to the land of peace, I hold the Golden Throne.’ The voice sang like the wind in the high branches. Serrano could not believe it was the voice of a cruel man, until he remembered that this was not a man at all, but a creature with no understanding of compassion or gentleness or the kindnesses that tied mortals together. ‘Who are you?’
The captain muttered his response, his mouth so dry he could barely form words.
‘Your name means nothing,’ the King replied. ‘Who are you, who dares to trespass on our land and steal our gold? Who thinks you are our equal?’ When Serrano failed to reply, Mandraxas continued, ‘You were damned the moment you insulted us with your arrogance. Let Deortha show you what you truly are to us.’ He waved a languid hand towards the main deck where the robed intruder waited. The robed one nodded, the skulls clacking in his hair, and the nearest swordsman whipped his blade into the air and plunged it into the sailor who knelt in front of him.
Serrano cried out as the seaman pitched forward across the sandy boards. Deortha knelt beside the unmoving form, his lips and hands moving in harmony, and a moment later the slain sailor twitched, jerked and with a long shudder clawed his way upright. He swayed as if the ship rolled in a stormy sea, his dead eyes staring.
‘Por Dios,’ Serrano exclaimed, sickened.
‘Meat and bones,’ Mandraxas said. ‘No wits remain, and so these juddering things are of little use to us apart from performing the most mundane tasks.’ He waved a fluttering hand towards Deortha. ‘Over the side with it,’ he called. ‘Let it spend eternity beneath the waves.’
The captain screwed up his eyes at the splash, silently cursing the terrible judgement that had doomed them all. ‘Let this be done with,’ he growled in his own language.
Mandraxas appeared to understand. ‘There will be no ending for any of you here,’ he said in a voice laced with cold humour. ‘You, all of you, will join your companion with the fishes, never sleeping, never dreaming, seeing only endless blue but never understanding.’ His words rang out so that all the sailors heard him. ‘But, for the rest of your kind, their ending is almost upon them. Listen. Can you hear the beat of us marching to war? Listen.’
A sword plunged down; a body crashed upon the deck. And another, and another, the steady rhythm moving inexorably towards Serrano. He sobbed. It was too late for him, too late for all mankind if the cold fury of these fiends was finally unleashed.
‘In England now, the final act unfolds,’ Mandraxas said above the beat of falling bodies. ‘And so your world winds down to dust.’
Serrano looked up as the shado
w fell across him.
CHAPTER ONE
Bedlam ruled in the eight bells inn. Tranquillity was for landmen who sat by warm firesides in winter and took to their beds early, not for those who braved seas as high and as hard as the Tower’s stone walls. Here was life like the ocean, fierce and loud and dangerous. Delirious with drink, two wild-bearded sailors lurched across the rushes, thrashing mad music from fiddle and pipe. With shrieks of laughter, the pockmarked girls from the rooms upstairs whirled around in each other’s arms, their breasts bared above their threadbare dresses. The rolling sea-shanty crashed against the barks of the drunken men clustered in the shadowy room. In hazy candlelight, they hunched over wine-stained tables or squatted against whitewashed walls, swearing and fighting and gambling at cards. Ale sloshed from wooden cups on to the boards, and the air reeked of tallow and candle-smoke, sweat and sour beer. The raucous voices sounded lustful, but underneath the discourse odd, melancholic notes seemed to suggest men clinging on to life before they returned to the harsh seas.
When the door rattled open to admit a blast of salty night air, the din never stilled and no eyes turned towards the stranger. He was wrapped in a grey woollen cloak, his features partially hidden beneath the wide brim of a felt hat. Behind him, across the gleaming cobbles of the Liverpool quayside, a carrack strained at its moorings, ready for sail at dawn. The creak of rigging merged with the lapping of the tide.
The new arrival closed the door behind him and demanded a mug of ale from the innkeeper’s trestle. A seat in one of the shadowy corners called to him, away from the candlelight, where he could watch and listen unnoticed. If they had not been addled by drink, some of the seamen might have recognized the strong face from the pamphlets, the close-clipped beard and black hair curling to the nape of the neck, the dark eyes the colour of rapier steel.
Will Swyfte was a spy, England’s greatest spy, so those pamphlets called him, the bane of the Spanish dogs. Only the highest in the land knew his reputation was carefully constructed for a country in need of heroes to keep the sleep of goodly men and women free from nightmares of Spanish invaders and Catholic plotters, and other, darker things too. Swyfte cared little. He did his dark work for Queen and country without complaint, but kept his own machinations close.
He sipped his drink and waited. As the reel of the shanty ebbed and flowed, he caught snatches of slurred conversation. Tall tales of haunted galleons and the clutching hands of dead sailors. Of cities of gold hidden in the lush forests of the New World. Of a misty island that came and went as if it were alive. Of golden lights glimmering far out across the waves and far down in the black deeps. Through the eyes of the sailors, the world was a far stranger place than their land-locked fellows believed; and Will Swyfte knew the sea-dogs were correct. They had sailed to the dark shores of life, where the truth lived, and had paid a price for their wisdom. The spy noted the leather patches over missing eyes, the lost legs and hands, the scars that drew maps of the world across their skin. He felt a kinship. Like him, they were cut off from the peace and order that most experienced, although his own wounds were not so easily seen.
He thought back more than a week to Nonsuch Palace, a day’s ride to the south-west from London’s fetid streets. While the Queen recovered her strength in her bed, under the observance of the Royal Physician, turmoil reigned throughout the grand building. Servants scoured the chambers and searched the grounds. The Privy Council had been cloistered in the meeting room for more than an hour when the knock had come at Will’s chamber door.
His assistant, Nathaniel Colt, had been waiting on the threshold, flushed from running through corridors warmed by the late autumn sun. His dark green doublet was stained with sweat under the armpits and his brown hair lay slick against his head. ‘Sir Robert sent word from the Privy Council meeting to summon you to his chambers,’ he gasped. ‘There was fear in his eyes, and his voice wavered. Is this it, then, Will? Invasion? Our enemies are marching towards us?’
The spy hid his true thoughts with a grin. ‘Nat, you worry like an old maid. Do you see me rushing to arms?’ Enemies, yes, but not the ones Nat feared. Not the Spanish, nor their Popish agitators. No, he meant the true Enemy — those who lived by night, and treated men as men did cattle.
‘I do not see you rushing to a flask of sack, and that worries me more.’
Will rested a reassuring hand on the young man’s shoulder. ‘England lurches from crisis to crisis, as always, but we stand firm and we abide. This will pass.’
His words seemed to reassure Nat a little. Will left him resting by the open window and made his way through the noisy palace. Lucky Nat, who slept well at night. He saw only glimpses of the greater war. Will sheltered him from the worst horrors for the sake of his wits, and would continue to do so while there was breath left in him.
The spymaster’s door was hanging open when Will arrived. Fresh from the Privy Council meeting, Sir Robert Cecil was firing orders at a clutch of scribes and assistants as he marched around the chamber. The Queen called him her Little Elf because of his small stature and his hunched back, but his sharp wits and cunning were more than a match for any other man at court. He had a feel for the games of high office, and his ruthlessness made him both feared and powerful.
When the black-gowned secretary saw Will, he dismissed the bustling aides and closed the door. ‘Gather your men,’ he snapped, feigning calm with a lazy wave of his hand. ‘You ride north today in search of Dr Dee.’
‘You know his whereabouts?’
‘A carriage was seen travelling along the Great North Road. I received word back this morning that it has taken a turn towards Liverpool.’
‘You are sure?’
‘Yes.’ Unable to contain the apprehension he felt, the spymaster turned away to calm himself. ‘Dr Dee was seen in the company of that Irish whore, Red Meg O’Shee. They must be stopped before she spirits him away to her homeland. If they reach that land of bogs and mists, we will never see Dee again. And then. .’
England will fall, Will completed the unspoken thought. Dee was the architect of the country’s defences. He worked his magics to keep at bay the supernatural forces that had tormented England for as long as men had walked the green fields, and the Irish chieftains had long envied that protection; they had suffered long and hard under the torments of the Fair Folk. But whatever wall Dee had constructed around England with his ancient words of power and candles and circles had been crumbling. Dee was the only man who could repair those defences. Without him, the night would sweep in.
‘The threat is greater than you know.’ Cecil bowed his head for a moment, choosing his words carefully. ‘The mad alchemist has in his possession an object of great power. For years he denied all knowledge of it. But shortly before he was spirited away, he confided in me that he had used it to commune with angels.’
‘Angels?’ Will laughed. ‘I have heard those tales, but Dee is most definitely not on their side.’
‘This is a grave matter,’ the spymaster snapped, a twitching hand leaping to his flushed brow. ‘Should this object fall into the hands of our enemies, there will be no laughter.’
Will poured himself a cup of romney from a jug on a trestle table littered with charts and documents. ‘Then tell me the nature of this threat.’
‘It is a looking glass.’
The spy peered over the rim of his cup, saying nothing.
‘No ordinary glass, this. An obsidian mirror, supposedly shaped by sorcerers of an age-old race who once inhabited the impenetrable forests of the New World.’
Will furrowed his brow. He remembered Dee showing him this mundane-looking object at his chamber in Christ’s College in Manchester, where he had, no doubt, been tormenting the poor brothers. ‘Brought back to Europe in a Spanish hoard?’
Cecil’s eyes narrowed. ‘Legend says it could set the world afire, if one only knew how to unlock its secrets.’
The spy drained his cup. ‘Very well. I will take John Carpenter, the Earl of Launces
ton and our new recruit, young Tobias Strangewayes. We will ride hard, but Red Meg has a good start on us.’
The spymaster narrowed his eyes. ‘You allowed Mistress O’Shee into your circle. You trusted her, though you knew she was a spy-’
‘I would not use that word. Tolerated, perhaps. I understood her nature, sir, and I am no fool.’
‘Is that correct? I heard that you were more than associates. I need assurances that this woman has not bewitched your heart or your prick. If that were so, I would despatch another to bring her back.’
‘There is no one better.’
‘You have never been shy in trumpeting your own achievements, Master Swyfte,’ Sir Robert said with pursed lips. ‘Nevertheless, I would rather send a lesser man I can trust to succeed in this most important. . nay, utterly vital. . work than one who will be led by lust to a disaster that will damn us all to Hell.’
‘I am no fool,’ Will repeated, setting aside his own uncertainty regarding his feelings for the Irish spy. ‘There is too much at stake here for such distractions.’
‘I am pleased to hear you say it.’ The spymaster ran the gold-ringed fingers of his right hand across his furrowed brow. ‘If Dee leaves our protected shores, he will be prey for the Unseelie Court, and the repercussions of that are something I dare not countenance.’
Will left the cold chamber with fire in his heart. Within the hour, he and his men were riding north as hard as their steeds could bear. Red Meg would expect him to be on her trail — she was as sly a vixen as he had ever known — and she would not make it easy to recover Dee. He had seen her kill without conscience. Even the affection she felt for him would not stand in the way of her carrying such a great prize back to her homeland.
Braying laughter jolted Will back to the Eight Bells. The musicians had put away their instruments and were swigging malmsey wine in great gulps. The girls flopped into laps or draped themselves over shoulders in search of the night’s earnings. Arguments sparked. Punches were thrown.
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