“Indeed,” a voice said.
Two people were standing by the stairs, watching me. I cringed inwardly, suddenly aware of just how terrible I looked. My clothes damp, my hair a mess … I felt my braid slowly start to come undone under their stares. I somehow managed to drop a curtsy, despite my wet dress, then put up my hands to fix the braid. I’d probably made a bad impression already.
I forced myself to make a show of lowering my eyes, while keeping an eye on them. One, an older man, looked frankly disinterested; the other, a woman who looked around ten to fifteen years older than me, looked as if she’d smelt something disgusting. She was tall and blonde, her hair bound up in a style that suggested she was married; she wore a brown dress that looked as though it was handmade. She would have been pretty, I thought, if she’d worn something more suitable and, perhaps, put a nicer expression on her lips. There was something oddly familiar about her patrician face, something that nagged at my mind until I placed it. She looked a lot like me.
She’s family, I thought. Almost everyone in my family has the same blonde hair. And she might be quite closely related to me.
“Ira Rubén and Morag Rubén,” the armsman said. He was enjoying himself a bit too much, I thought. “Please meet your new companion.”
Ira leaned forward. He was taller than I’d thought - there was something about him that made him look short - and he was old. His movements were slow and deliberate, his blond hair slowly turning grey … I’d automatically assumed that he and Morag were married, but it was starting to look as though there was a large age gap between them. The suit he wore was years out of date. And yet, his eyes were sharp, if disinterested. His face was dignified, with a neat little goatee; his hands were scarred, suggesting a series of accidents in a potions lab or a forge. He held a letter in one hand. I guessed it was the official orders from Shallot.
“Thank you,” Ira said. He took the wad of papers the armsman offered him without comment. “You may go now.”
The armsman blinked. “Senior, I …”
“You are not welcome here,” Ira told him, shortly. “Drive down to the town. They’ll have a place for you in the inn.”
I felt a flicker of amusement at the armsman’s agitation. No doubt he’d expected to be put up for the night. But Ira was chasing him out. It was a breach of etiquette, but not one the armsman could openly protest. I wondered if the townspeople really would have a place for him or if he’d have to sleep in the carriage. It was what he’d made me do. The bench had been bad enough for sitting, but worse for sleeping. I suspected I had bruises all over my body.
“Morag, take Isabella’s trunks to … I think the Blue Room,” Ira ordered, once the armsman had departed. “Put them in there, then come back to my office.”
“Yes, Senior,” Morag said. Her voice was hard, tinged with an accent I didn’t quite recognize. I didn’t think she was pleased to see me. But it was also clear that Ira was in charge. “I’ll make the bed up for her too.”
Ira nodded, then looked at me. “Welcome to Kirkhaven Hall,” he said. He turned away, heading to the nearest door. “Come with me.”
“Yes, Senior,” I said.
Chapter Two
KIRKHAVEN HALL SMELT … MUSTY.
It reminded me, in so many ways, of Rubén Hall. The walls were lined with wood panelling and illuminated by glowing crystals, a handful of portraits hung from the walls … I felt a pang of homesickness as I followed Ira down the long corridor. And yet, there were plenty of signs that I was a long way from home. The corridor was in disrepair, patches on the walls showed where paintings and portraits had once hung before being removed, the crystals were dimming and half the rooms we passed were empty. There should have been a small army of servants tending to the building, but I saw no one. It felt as though the hall was deserted. I found it more than a little creepy.
Ira led me into a small office and motioned for me to sit in a chair while he lit a fire in the grate. I sat, silently glad to be out of the damp. My skin felt patchy and dry; I wanted - needed - a hot bath. Ira sat at his desk and started to go through the papers, reading them one by one. I forced myself to wait, despite increasingly loud grumbles from my stomach. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I’d last been allowed to eat, but it felt like hours. The armsman hadn’t wanted to stop for food.
It was hard, so hard, to wait. I concentrated on looking around the office, noting the bookshelves - groaning under the weight of hundreds of books - and the handful of drawings someone had stuck to the walls. It looked as if someone had been drawing detailed sketches of human anatomy, ranging from an outline of a human skeleton to the innermost workings of the brain. I was a pretty fair sketcher myself - it was a skill we were encouraged to learn - but whoever had drawn the sketches was a real artist. I’d never seen anything like them outside a handful of textbooks and even they hadn’t been quite so detailed.
My stomach rumbled, loudly. Too loudly. I found myself flushing with embarrassment as Ira looked up from one of the documents and lifted his eyebrows.
“I’m hungry,” I said. It sounded more like a whine than I wanted. “I … it’s been hours.”
Ira looked annoyed, as if I’d asked for something unreasonable, but plucked a bell off his belt and waved it in the air. There was no sound, as far as I could tell, yet the door opened two minutes later and Morag stepped into the room. Her eyes flickered over me, then came to rest on Ira. I had the feeling she definitely didn’t like me, even though I hadn’t seen her before. I hadn’t seen either of them before, let alone heard of them. Ira was old enough to be my grandfather, if not my great-grandfather. He might have stayed at Kirkhaven longer than I’d been alive.
“Fetch Isabella something to eat and drink,” Ira ordered. “And bring me a mug of tea.”
“Yes, Senior,” Morag said.
She shot me another look, then turned and hurried away. I watched her go, wondering what bee had got into her bonnet, then sat back and forced myself to wait. It felt like hours crawled past before Morag returned, carrying a tray of sandwiches, a glass of milk and a steaming mug of tea. Ira took his tea, dismissed Morag with a wave of his hand and motioned for me to eat. Normally, I would have turned my nose up at plain ham and cheese sandwiches, but right now I was ravenous. I ate so quickly that Mother would probably have reprimanded me for forgetting my table manners. And when I was done, I looked up to see Ira watching me with open amusement.
I felt myself flush, again. “Senior?”
“No matter,” Ira said. His voice sobered as he held up the first letter. “Do you know what this says?”
“No, Senior,” I said. A couple of the documents looked like school reports, although I hadn’t been at Jude’s long enough for an official report. They were normally handed out the week before the end of term, giving the parents a couple of months to hire tutors to bring the children up to spec. “I wasn’t told.”
“I suppose not,” Ira said. “You appear to be an exile. Like me.”
I blinked. “Like you?”
“Indeed,” Ira said.
I could have kicked myself. Of course Ira was an exile too. No one would stay here, hundreds of miles from civilization, if they had any choice. Ira was an exile and Morag was his sole servant. I hadn’t seen anything to suggest that there were any other servants in the hall - or anyone else at all. My mother would have thrown a fit if there was a speck of dust on the windowsill, let alone the layers of dust and grime I’d seen as we’d walked to the office. Ira had been sent away from Shallot to keep him out of sight and mind. I couldn’t help feeling a flicker of kinship for the older man.
“Basically, you are to stay here until your banishment is rescinded,” Ira said. He sounded annoyed, although it didn’t seem to be directed at me. “That may be quite some time.”