The Devil's Looking-Glass - By Mark Chadbourn Page 0,3

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 Launceston 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.

Dee’s knowledge was dangerous and he needed to be returned to London at all costs, that was certain. But the alchemist revelled in misdirection and illusion, the spy knew. Was this mirror truly the threat Cecil feared? Or in this time of uncertainty had the spymaster simply given in to superstition and fear? Will shrugged. The world was filled with worries, and the truth would present itself sooner or later.

Once he had drained his ale, he selected his subject, a balding seaman with wind-chapped cheeks and a scrub of white hairs across his chin. Nursing a mug, the man leaned against the wall next to the stone hearth, eyeing the flames with the wistful look