‘Esiah, what have you done? What’s going on here?’
The man looked down at her, a perplexed expression on his face.
‘Lady de Grazon? Is that you?’ He patted her hands absently. ‘It looks like you, but I told everyone to leave. Quite sure of it.’
‘Master Godwort, why did you ask everyone to leave? Is there danger here?’
For a moment the man just stared at Tormalin, his mouth working silently within his black beard. Then he shook his head. ‘They told me you had an Eboran manservant, Vincenza, but I didn’t believe them. Not even you, I said, could be so eccentric.’
Vintage opened her mouth to speak, but he waved her off, taking a step backwards into his circle of lamps and papers. He gestured at the ground. ‘It’s quieter when the house is empty, which is better. I can think. I still have so much to figure out.’
Noon had sidled further into the room, her eyes on the parchments pinned over the windows. They all featured elaborate pencil-and-ink drawings of the various forms of Jure’lia; close-ups of the burrowers, their sharp legs like blades, the bulbous bodies of the maggots, the mothers in a group, cresting a hill.
‘Esiah, you don’t even have guards on your front gate.’ Vintage was frowning deeply now. ‘Are you telling me the compound is unguarded too? What has happened here?’
‘It’s better when it’s quiet,’ said Esiah again. He was staring down at the papers on the floor. ‘I need to think. There’s so much to think about.’
Silence filled the room. Vintage seemed to be at a complete loss, taken aback by the scattered thoughts of her old colleague. Tormalin stepped from foot to foot. This was useless. They should leave and pretend this entire journey never happened.
‘You need food.’
Tor looked up. Noon had approached Esiah Godwort, trying to catch his eye. ‘Master Godwort? You need food, and so do we. Where are your kitchens?’
The man blinked at her for a moment, as if wondering why there was a young woman in his study, or perhaps he was trying to remember what the word kitchens meant.
‘In the basement, under the central wing. Go back to the foyer, and go down the stairs behind the ones that led you up here.’ Briefly he looked steadier, as though giving directions had cleared some of the fog from his mind, but then he looked away, staring at the corner of the room.
‘Tormalin, let’s have a look. See what food we can find for Master Godwort.’
Tor left the room just behind Noon, not troubling to lower his voice.
‘Did Vintage give you permission to order me about? That would be just like her.’
‘I’m hungry. Aren’t you hungry?’
They passed a room with an open door, and Tor found his eyes caught by a flash of shiny metal. He paused and peered into the room. A moment later, Noon joined him.
It was a bedroom, dominated by a huge four-poster bed, the covers thrown back haphazardly and then left that way. There were pools of discarded shirts, trousers and underclothes all around, and a wardrobe standing open revealing an extensive collection of expensive clothes. To one side, by a window burning with daylight, was a partial suit of armour on a wooden stand – the metal had a greenish tinge, and the plates were joined with dark brown leather.
‘That’s winnow-forged metal,’ said Tor softly. The armour was a thing of beauty – shining epaulets, greaves, a shirt of delicate-looking mail – and it appeared to be only half finished. A helmet stood atop it, an elaborate, fanned creation with a crosspiece to protect the nose and flared wings for the cheeks. ‘Such a thing would cost a fortune. His guards have an impressive collection of winnow-forged swords, which they keep for venturing into the compound – I saw them the last time I was here – but an entire suit is an investment.’
‘Godwort doesn’t seem to be short on funds. Especially now he doesn’t have to pay any servants.’
‘This is his son’s room.’ Tor poked his boot into a pile of clothes on the floor. ‘I recognise the smell of young, untidy man anywhere.’
Noon raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’ She pressed her fingers to a dresser, and then stepped back towards the door. ‘Everything in here is covered in dust. Thick dust.’
They exchanged a look, and then left without speaking. The kitchens were where Godwort had said they would be – his mind wasn’t that addled, at least – and there they gathered a quick dinner of cheese and cured meats. All the bread was mouldy, but there were jars of preserves and several smoked fish hanging in a larder. When they took their finds back upstairs, they found Vintage and Esiah sitting on the floor together. Vintage still looked deeply concerned, but she was nodding encouragingly as Esiah spoke.
‘Yes, Esiah, I agree that it would be a useful thing to know, but so few of these things survived.’
Godwort tapped a finger to a sheet of paper. It contained a drawing of what could only be a Behemoth, its shadowy form divided with notes and lines in a bright green ink.
‘The heart of it. I need to solve the heart of it. What is it that lies in the heart of a Behemoth? How does it work?’
Vintage looked up at the two of them and gave the tiniest shrug.
‘We have food,’ said Noon. She put it down on the floor next to them, and began to peel one of the cheeses.
‘But Esiah, my dear, surely the way to solve that problem would be to go and look at the thing. You do have one on your doorstep, after all.’ Vintage laughed, a touch nervously, but Esiah lifted his hands to his head and grasped at his hair.
‘No,’ he said, very quietly. ‘No no no. No no no.’
Tor found that he couldn’t bring himself to sit with them. The sense of something wrong here was very strong. Where was everyone else? It reminded him of Noon’s dream; the overpowering weight of doom, hovering just out of sight. He caught Vintage’s eye; she looked stricken.
‘Well, perhaps we could help you with that, my dear, if you do not wish to re-enter the compound yourself.’ Vintage cleared her throat. ‘You know, of course, that I have longed to observe your extraordinary Behemoth specimen up close. Perhaps we could go and look at it for you, the heart of this beast. Bring back anything we find useful, make sketches, observations. You know I have a talent for this.’
Esiah Godwort made a strangled noise, and when he lifted his head his eyes were wet. Vintage continued.
‘I know, Esiah, that you are very fond of your secrets, and that we have negotiated before and I have never got the better of you. Well, I have something new to offer. You see this girl I’ve brought with me?’
She gestured at Noon, who was busily munching her way through a slab of cheese liberally spread with jam. The fell-witch swallowed hard.
‘What?’
‘She’s a fell-witch, Esiah,’ said Vintage, pretending not to see Noon’s raised eyebrows. ‘She works for me now too, and she is quite capable of producing winnowfire. As soon as I saw it, I thought of you and Tyron’s suit of armour. He is still collecting pieces for it, I assume?’