The Devil's Looking-Glass

Chapter THREE





LIVERPOOL TUMBLED AWAY down the hillside towards the River Merse where the thick fog bank held its breath, waiting. Yet above the town the night was clear, the Everton Beacon stark against the starry sky. Moonlight limned the blue-tiled rooftops. Candle flames glowed in diamond-pane windows. Here was life, grubby and bloody and loud. Down on James Street, not far from the black bulk of the Old Castle, packs of sailors roamed like dogs from stew to tavern, lured by the fresh meat calls of the competing whores displaying their breasts in the lamplit doorways. Snarls and snapping punctuated the drunken laughter. Bruised knuckles crashed against jaws as rivals brawled, rolling among the contents of emptied chamberpots to the baying of their yellow-toothed fellows.

Liverpool stank of brine and cesspits and smoke.

One desperate doxy keen to earn her bed for the night ventured into the shadowed alley where she had glimpsed three men lurking. From the gloom, John Carpenter watched her approach. Pulling down the front of her dirty emerald dress, the rouge-smeared woman put on a seductive smile. ‘Come hither, lads,’ she called, hands on hips. ‘The comfort of these thighs will give you sweet dreams when you’re tossing away on the waves.’

When she saw one of the men step from the enveloping dark, she breathed a relieved sigh. Carpenter knew her thoughts: a few moments of grunting was a small price to pay for a good night’s rest. And the well-cut grey doublet and grey woollen cloak, free of stains and wear, suggested a gentleman, no less. Then a shaft of light from the lantern over the door of the White Hart struck his companion’s face and she all but cried out. His skin was bloodless, and his dark eyes held a hellish glow.

‘Away, you pox-ridden whore,’ Robert, Earl of Launceston, ordered in a voice like autumn leaves. ‘Trouble us no more or feel the prick of my dagger – and not the kind you are used to.’

Realizing it was a man after all and no grim spectre, the doxy cursed at the shock she had been given. She turned to summon the sailors to teach this elf-skinned scut a lesson. Before she could cry out, Carpenter leapt from the shadows and placed one hand on her mouth to stop her. His hazelnut doublet was of a rougher cut than his fellow’s, but still clean, and though his long, dark hair fell oddly across the left side of his face, he eased a charming smile on to his lips to soothe her. He pressed a silver coin into her grimy palm and released his hand from her mouth.

‘My friend has poor manners, mistress. He knows not what it is like to work hard for a living,’ he said, with a bow. ‘Take this and buy yourself a night off your back.’

The woman giggled and curtsied, flashing one fleeting murderous glare at the Earl as she darted towards the inn to spend her earnings on drink. Once she had gone, Carpenter turned on the noble and hissed, ‘Sometimes I think you are more of a threat than our enemies.’

‘I am heartened to learn that you think. ’Twas my assumption that you had the wits of a hound, running round in circles yapping and baring your teeth before hunting for food and sleep.’ The Earl peered past his fellow spy with studied disinterest, searching the passing faces for the missing Dee. He was a gaunt man, slim but powerful, yet even those who did not know him recognized that there was something askew, something strange about the way his cold gaze penetrated as though he were peering through skin and muscle to see the sticky organs within, or the manner in which his hand twitched towards his hidden dagger with unsettling regularity.

‘I should give thanks that you did not slit her throat there and then,’ Carpenter sneered. He pulled his black cap low over his eyes. ‘One full day without you trying to skewer an innocent. Let us celebrate!’ He felt weary from the effort of restraining his companion’s murderous instincts and exhausted by the lonely, unceasing work of the spy. He wanted to be free of that world; even the mundane life of a book-keeper held its attractions, or that of a tailor. Anything. Unconsciously, he scratched the scars that marred his face beneath the fall of his hair, the mark of the thing that had attacked him in Muscovy and a constant reminder of the price this business exacted from him.

‘You bicker like old women,’ the third man in the alley whispered. Tobias Strangewayes was new to their band, as raw as a country apprentice. Red-headed and wiry, the younger man had fancied himself as good a spy and swordsman as Will Swyfte. But when he discovered the true nature of the threat they faced, his arrogance was blunted. Strangewayes still thought highly of himself; he proudly showed off the blue silk lining of his cloak, like some fop parading in Paul’s Walk, but Carpenter knew he could be relied upon in a fight.

‘And you keep a civil tongue in your head or else I will cut it out,’ Launceston breathed. Strangewayes scowled in response.

The strain was taking its toll on all of them, Carpenter could see, those wearying hours in the saddle riding north from Nonsuch Palace, and then the futile search for Dee through Liverpool’s dingy streets. They were starting to tear at each other like caged curs. Blades needed to be drawn and traitors carved, blood stirred and thoughts that fed upon themselves driven out.

‘We are all defined by our nature,’ he muttered to himself.

‘Since dawn we have watched these streets without any reward,’ Strangewayes complained. ‘That Irish slut has taken to her rooms, wherever they might be, and she will stay there until she can board the ship with her prize and gain the protection of a crew of cock-led apple-johns.’

‘And then it will be too late,’ Carpenter snapped. ‘We will never see Dee again, and this land will be overrun by the things that walk with printless feet and cast no shadows on this earth. And then you, you red-headed puttock, will know what it is like to thrash in the throes of a nightmare from which you can never wake.’

‘I am a good Christian man, and I have the shield of God above to protect me,’ the younger spy announced, his chin raised in defiance of his seasoned companions.

Launceston and Carpenter exchanged a glance and each gave a dismissive shrug.

‘You have no faith in anything,’ Strangewayes continued, his cheeks growing red. ‘You drink to excess, you gamble, you dally with whores . . .’

‘The world is harsh and you must take comfort wherever you find it,’ Carpenter said, secretly wishing he had the other man’s spirit.

‘My heart is only for Grace. I need no other woman.’ The red-headed spy pushed past the two other men and strode to the edge of the reeking alley. ‘I believe there is more to this life than the filth and the misery we see around us. A higher purpose, hidden yet in plain sight, if we only had eyes to see it.’

‘You are a true spy,’ Launceston mocked in a dry tone, ‘always seeing a face behind the one presented to the world.’

‘The plan has not yet been revealed to us, but that does not mean it is not there. And, yes, we are spies and we should be used to peering beneath the surface for deeper truths. But you two have been worn down by the meagre diet of deceit and death. You turn your eyes away from the light and see only shadows.’

Carpenter could not disagree.

‘Hrrrm.’ The familiar breathy sound, like a death rattle, rolled along the alleyway; Launceston had seen something that had struck him as curious.

‘What is it?’ Carpenter asked.

The Earl was looking up at the thin sliver of night sky between the eaves where a few stars sparkled. ‘Someone passed overhead,’ he said.

‘On the rooftops?’

Launceston nodded.

Carpenter joined Strangewayes and the Earl at the edge of the alley and craned his neck up. The rooftops were a jumble of thatch and tile and plain wood, a silhouetted confusion of angular shapes against the lighter sky. Conditioned by years of strife, the spy feared the worst. The three men spun in a slow gyre, searching the eaves. ‘Nothing,’ Carpenter said after a moment. ‘You were mistaken.’

‘I am never mistaken.’ Launceston stepped out into the muddy street to get a better look. ‘There,’ he said, pointing.

Carpenter gazed along the line of his companion’s arm and glimpsed fleeting movement along the pitch of a tavern roof in the buttery glow of the moon.

‘There, too,’ Strangewayes asserted, waving a hand towards the roofs on the other side of the street.

Carpenter could see them clearly now. To the casual eye they could have been moon-shadows. What those flitting shapes truly were, he was in no doubt. ‘The Unseelie Court are abroad in force,’ he said. The cold of that long-gone Muscovy night reached deep into his bones once more.

‘Here?’ Strangewayes whispered. ‘Though England’s defences have weakened in recent times, they risk too much by being out in such a populous place.’

‘Like any man, they will risk anything if the stakes are high enough,’ Launceston murmured.

His words disappeared into a clamour exploding along the street at the three men’s backs. Men and women rushed towards a swelling crowd near the entrance to one of the rat-runs cutting through the jumble of houses.

‘What now?’ Carpenter growled, his skin prickling with suspicion. As he edged towards the churning crowd, he heard the curious queries from the front turn to fearful cries, then yells of alarm. Shadows crossed faces caught in the flickering pale light from the iron lanterns over the stew doors. Eyes widened. Lips drew back from stained teeth. At the front of the crowd, heads spun away from whatever had been discovered. The ripple of concern broke into a wave of horror, the men and women in the first ranks driving the others away from the black entrance to the alley. Crying to God, they sheltered in doorways where they watched with frightened eyes.

Carpenter and Launceston thrust the last stragglers aside and drew their rapiers. Strangewayes unhooked the rusty chain of a lantern from the wall beside the White Hart door and raised the wavering light aloft. The night swept away, but the black mouth of the rat-run remained impenetrable. The three men stood for a moment at its edge. Silence fell across the street.

Carpenter advanced with a measured step, his blade held for a quick thrust. Launceston was at his shoulder, and the younger spy loomed behind, the lantern swaying from side to side.

From the dark echoed a strangled sound that a man might make with a hand clamped across his mouth.

‘Step into the light,’ Carpenter called.

The snuffling grew more intense, but no man ventured out where he could be seen.

‘It tries to draw us in,’ Strangewayes whispered.

Carpenter wavered. A trap, perchance? Steeling himself, he stepped into the dark.

Rats scampered away from the tread of his leather shoes. He smelled urine and rotting food scraps. Deep in the dark, a pale shape shifted. The animal noises grew louder still, almost drowning out Strangewayes’ ragged breathing.

‘Raise the lantern,’ he ordered.

He flinched as the light danced over two forms pressed against the wattle wall. They were locked in an embrace, a seaman, his wiry hair flecked with grey, his breeches round his ankles, and a whore, her skirts pulled up, her pale legs wrapped around her partner’s waist. In the midst of their coitus, their lips were forced together in an open-mouthed kiss. Creeping horror turned Carpenter’s skin to gooseflesh. The man and the woman were fused together, their flesh melting into each other where he thrust into her, and where his hands gripped her white arms. And their mouths, Carpenter thought, realizing the source of the snuffling noise. Two heads, joined as one; their kiss would now never end. Wide eyes ranged in wild panic, pleading for help. Their combined grunts sounded more beast than mortal, but he heard their desperation clearly.

There was no helping them, he knew. The Unseelie Court left no hope in their wake, only suffering.

‘Put them out of their misery,’ Launceston breathed.

Carpenter raised his rapier, but could not bring himself to strike.

‘I have no qualms.’ The Earl pushed the other man aside. With two thrusts of his dagger, he completed his task, then stood over the fallen shape. ‘The beast with two backs,’ he breathed. ‘They like their sport, our Enemy.’

‘We will be wanted for murder now,’ Strangewayes protested.

Launceston looked at him through slit eyes. ‘You would have left them to their agonies? We are honourable men, despite all appearances.’

‘You saw the onlookers,’ Carpenter muttered. ‘The beadle will not be informed. They will burn the bodies and pretend this atrocity never happened, though it haunt their sleep for evermore. Now, come.’ Sheathing his rapier, he prowled out of the rat-run and along the street. He felt the eyes of the silent seamen and doxies upon his back, all of them at once despising him yet relieved too.

‘I see no movement now,’ Strangewayes said, looking around the rooftops.

Carpenter grimaced. ‘Our Enemy wished to divert prying eyes from their true intentions. We have already fallen behind.’