‘You are mistaken,’ Will heard Launceston’s hushed voice. ‘You are indeed England’s greatest spy.’
Her eyes sparkling, Meg beamed. ‘You might well have ended this war we all thought would last for ever.’
Will held up a bloodstained hand, hardly daring to believed it himself. He looked round. Jenny and Grace were both smiling in disbelief, tears of relief glistening in their eyes. Jenny mouthed, ‘Thank you.’ He refused to consider why she was thanking him. There would be time for that conversation later.
Fury finally ignited in Deortha’s face. ‘Lies and deceit. I should have expected no better from a man.’
‘True,’ Will replied with a shrug. ‘We are worse than beasts in the field.’
‘Have you no honour?’
Placing a finger on his chin, Will feigned a moment of reflection. ‘Honour? What is honour? Does it buy me good sack in the Mermaid? I have saved my love and ended a war. I leave honour for better men than I. I am happy to remain a bastard.’
Deortha’s snarl echoed across the chamber until it was drowned by Mandraxas’s laughter. He stood, pushing away the tip of Will’s rapier with a slender finger. ‘So you refuse to kill. And yet on that hot night soon after I took from you the thing you valued most, I saw you slay an innocent man.’
Will felt the eyes of all there fall upon him. His breath caught in his chest as years of self-loathing bubbled up. Finally he nodded. ‘’Tis true, though I have never spoken of it to anyone.’ He glanced at Grace, noting the lines of worry in her face, and sighed. Bowing his head, he confessed, ‘When Jenny disappeared that afternoon, I barely held on to my wits. I searched every byway around Arden and in the depths of night came across a man struggling with Jenny beside a hedgerow. Blinded by fury, I leapt from my horse and beat him to death with my fists.’ His head flooded with the sensations of bones breaking under his knuckles and blood flowing over his fingers. He felt the weight in his heart that he had carried since that night.
‘But when he lay lifeless at my feet and I turned to embrace Jenny, I saw it was not her,’ he continued. ‘It was one of the silly village girls, known for her easy ways. The man was a footpad, so not a good man, and the girl was grateful that I had saved her from the fate he had intended.’ He swallowed. ‘But in truth, yes, I had killed an innocent man.’ He looked to Grace, expecting accusation or disgust, but he saw only pity. ‘That night when you came to me at the well I was washing the blood from my hands, though I could never clean the stains from my mortal soul. That night . . . the course of my life changed. I learned that I am not a good man. And though I have tried to make amends for my crime, I know I never will.’
Grace ran to his side. ‘It is not true. You are a good man and you have proved it time and again.’
Mandraxas gave a cold laugh at the subtle blow he had struck. But as his amusement drained away, he pointed a threatening finger at Will. ‘You think yourself clever, but the schemes of mortals rarely turn out as planned. And I have nothing but time to take the prize.’ He glanced at Jenny, but turned away quickly so Will could not see his expression. Then he grasped the hilt of the knife in his thigh, and, with a grimace, slowly withdrew it. Tearing off a strip of cloth from the hem of his cloak, he began to bind the wound. Jenny hesitated, glancing at Will, and when he nodded she hurried to help the one who had been her consort for so long. The Fay King watched her as she tenderly tied the cloth round his thigh, but if he felt anything it did not show on his face. When she had finished, Mandraxas muttered something that Will could not hear, and then turned quickly and limped towards the stone steps leading out of the chamber of mirrors.
As if in a trance, Will watched him go, still barely believing that he had plucked some kind of victory from the direst of situations. Once the King moved into the penumbra beyond the circle of candlelight, he turned, beckoning the others to follow him. ‘Come, my friends, we must make haste,’ he said.
Yet barely had he taken a step when a sharp gasp brought him to a halt. He spun round to see Mandraxas staggering back down the steps, one hand clutched at his chest as blood fountained between his fingers. Will gaped in shock. The King half turned, his yearning gaze finding Jenny for one moment, and then he fell to the flagstones, dead. Jenny rushed to him with a cry of despair.
In his mirror, Deortha was smiling.
‘What is this treachery?’ Launceston said, menace curdling his voice.
A figure stepped out of the shadows from the foot of the stairs, holding a blade that dripped gore. It was Strangewayes. The red-headed spy looked across at his companions with a cold face and said, ‘The only treachery here is yours. And now there is an end to it.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
‘OH, TOBIAS, WHAT have you done?’ grace cried with a sob, running to where Jenny knelt by Mandraxas’s lifeless body.
Strangewayes stepped over the King and swaggered towards the guttering candles. He pointed his rapier towards Will. ‘You, sirrah, should not have ignored me when there was an opportunity to prevent this outcome,’ he said in an icy voice. ‘Too long have you placed Grace’s life at risk with your reckless behaviour. But no more.’ He beckoned to Grace to join him. ‘Come – I will take you away from here.’
Dismay spreading across her face, the young woman shook her head slowly, taking a step back.
‘Come to me,’ Strangewayes snapped. ‘I am here to make you safe.’
‘No, Tobias, not safe,’ she said in a small voice, ‘for you have doomed us all.’
Stung, Strangewayes glared at Will. ‘She is still under your spell, I see, but soon she will learn.’
‘You know not what you have done,’ Will began, his voice hushed. He shook his head, appalled, then let the words drain away. ‘We thought you dead.’
‘You wished me so.’
‘Never, Tobias—’
‘I have saved Grace. From you.’ The young man’s gaze skittered towards Deortha, and in the look that the two exchanged Will glimpsed the truth. It must have happened when Strangewayes was taken prisoner at the fortress gates. The scheming sorcerer had seen an opportunity to use the pitiful spy in case Will should fail to kill Mandraxas. He cursed himself for a fool. If only he had heeded the click of the door opening into that chamber before Carpenter’s attack.
‘Whatever the conjurer has promised you, it is a lie—’ he began.
‘Quiet,’ Strangewayes roared. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand. Will saw only a boy, reeling from events far beyond his ability to deal with them. ‘The King is dead,’ the red-headed spy said to Deortha. ‘I have done all you wished. Now let me take Grace away from here.’
In the strange mirror, they saw the sorcerer steeple his fingers, thin lips twitching. ‘Ah, but the terms of our agreement have been breached.’
Strangewayes gaped. ‘What is this trickery?’
‘Unless you reached another deal with this devil,’ Will said, ‘the agreement was free passage if I killed the King. I did not.’
‘You fool,’ Carpenter roared suddenly, turning his hopelessness into rage. Pushing Launceston to one side, he snatched out his rapier. ‘We were free. And now you . . . you . . . have doomed your girl as surely as if you wielded the dagger yourself.’
‘No,’ Strangewayes croaked, his face pale with disbelief. ‘I saved her.’ He looked to Grace for support, for her to confirm that what he said was true, but found only dismay and disillusion. He sagged, his rapier loose in his hand. A last drop of the King’s blood fell from the tip, colouring the stone slab.
‘The traitor has been deposed.’ In a triumphant tone, Deortha addressed the other Fay in their ethereal mirrors. ‘Though the passing of a brother is a time of sorrow for the High Family, now we may achieve what we have desired for so long, the return of our true Queen. Let our vengeance rain down on the world of men. Bring fire, and blood. Cleanse this world of the corruption of man, and bring our Queen home.’