Five bodies lay scattered across Queen Elizabeth’s antechamber in the Palace of Whitehall, all good men and true, all despatched in an instant by the thing that had swooped through the open window on leathery wings. Cecil hauled himself on to shaking legs from the corner where he had cowered like a frightened child. His white ruff was now stained, and more blood speckled his right cheek, but he had survived, by little more than the grace of God. As he wiped his face clean with his kerchief, he looked around the scene of slaughter and tried to compose himself. How close they had come to disaster this time. The door to Her Majesty’s bedchamber flew open and a rush of bodies swept out: the Queen herself, wrapped in a cloak of midnight blue, her frail body hunched over, her face hidden in the depths of a cowl; Essex at her elbow, aglow in his white doublet and hose as he guided her towards safety; and three pikemen with faces like Kentish ragstone. Essex flashed an anxious glance at the spymaster as he went.
What do You think about The Devil's Looking-Glass?
