CHAPTER XXXIV
Footsteps and voices sounded at the far end of the cellar, and warm lantern-light sent shadows lurching across the walls. The rats scattered in panic. Craning his neck around the pillar, Mal could see Blaise and at least three of Suffolk's retainers. Two of them were carrying a heavy iron brazier and another, whom Mal recognised as the man Ivett, had a small sack. Mal gave Sandy's hands a reassuring squeeze. Their palms were damp from long contact, but now fresh sweat pricked in his armpits. He didn't like to think what uses Blaise might find for hot irons.
The brazier was placed next to the pillar, about a yard from Mal's bound right hand. Ivett half-filled it with charcoal from the sack and struck flame with flint and steel. Whilst the man worked, Blaise walked round the pillar, scanning each captive's face in turn.
"To think I once called you friend," Blaise said, when he had completed his circuit and stood in front of Mal again.
"I was just thinking the same," Mal replied. "You are not the man I thought you were."
"That is ironic, coming from a man possessed."
Ivett carefully placed more pieces of charcoal over his burning tinder. The scent of smoke reminded Mal of the burning theatre. Of a fragment of iron embedded in the duke's leg, the magic-dampening metal intimately mingled with blood. That was the moment Suffolk's plans had unravelled, blown apart by those who hated the skraylings, aptly enough.
"Your father is a monster," he said, looking to Suffolk's retainers for a reaction. "A skrayling in a man's body, just like me."
Blaise snorted a laugh. "And they say your brother is mad."
The men joined in his laughter, though Mal thought he saw doubt in Ivett's eyes. No doubt the young servant had seen too little of the world to be hardened to the brutality of his so-called betters. Still, it might be enough to drive a wedge between man and master. Mal recalled a brief moment of clarity on his ignominious march down to the cellar, when he had stumbled against the table on the dais and landed face down amid Blaise's notes. Peculiar script, like no code he had ever seen.
"That was skrayling writing I saw on those papers, was it not?" he said to Blaise.
A wild guess, but it struck home.
"How else does your father know so much about the skraylings?" Mal continued. "Unless he is one of them."
"Why should I believe you over my own father? You are the monster, you and your brother. I will purge the demons from your flesh, and your immortal souls will thank me for it when we meet in Heaven."
Mal realised Blaise was telling the truth as he saw it, as the Church taught its flock. Once Mal might have agreed, but there was too much human cruelty in Blaise's countenance. Surely a merciful God would not act through such a man.
Blaise bent and blew gently on the coals, the red glow turning his features into a demonic mask. With a last smile at Mal he departed, taking his father's silent, grim-eyed men with him. Mal and Sandy were left alone with the hellish glow of the brazier, and the returning rats.
Coby stared at the empty room in dismay. This was the one Meg had described, was it not? And it looked bare enough to serve as a cell. Yet the door stood wide open, its occupants gone.
She went back out into the passageway and put the plates and pitcher down on a chest that stood under a window. The captives could not have been gone long, and perhaps had been moved in haste since no one had thought to tell the servants yet. She ventured further into the north wing. The next two doors were unlocked, the rooms equally empty of people though properly furnished. The third was also unlocked, but its shutters were tightly closed so that she could see little in the gloom.
"Meg? Is that you?"
Coby jumped at the sound of the woman's voice, then recalled Meg's account of the cook, Mistress Sheldon, being unwell.
"Sorry, m'm," Coby said softly, trying to mimic the maidservant's country accent. "I thought you might want some dinner."
"I told yer to leave me be, clot-brained wench!" Mistress Sheldon shifted on her bed and fell back with a groan. "Now get out."
"Yes, m'm." She backed out and gently closed the door.
Master Catlyn and his brother surely could not be anywhere up here. Where else might they have been taken? She looked out of the window into the courtyard. Opposite was the stable-block, and at its left-hand end the upper storey of the older building jutted out on all sides, a modern timber-framed structure extending the lord's accommodation for greater comfort. Investigating the solar was out of the question unless she wanted another beating from Lord Grey. She sighed, aware that she had set herself an impossible task. How she had ever thought she could rescue Master Catlyn, she did not know.
Her attention was drawn downwards to the courtyard by movement in the shadows of the entrance porch. Blaise Grey emerged from the house, leading a strange little procession towards a low door in the corner of the courtyard. The Duke of Suffolk had his arms around the shoulders of two retainers, doing his best to walk upright despite his evident pain. What were they doing, going down to the cellars? Unless…
Heart pounding, Coby crept down the stairs and along the passageway past the great hall, then made her way outside and crossed quickly to the cellar door. She dared not go in, and yet she could not stay here. Any moment someone might spot her lurking in the courtyard where she had no right to be. The dilemma was solved for her when she heard booted footsteps approaching from within. No chance of crossing the courtyard without being seen. She darted towards the open stable door.
Ned approached the house cautiously, keeping out of sight of the gatehouse. The outer wall on the right looked like his best bet, only a few narrow unglazed windows piercing the red brick surface. Not the gentry's quarters then; most likely a stable block. The brickwork was old enough to be weathered in places. And one thing this city boy knew was how to get in and out of buildings by unconventional routes. Often with another man's outraged wife in hot pursuit.
The wall was not the easiest he'd climbed, and his ascent was not helped by the fear that any moment he would hear shouts, or worse still feel the sting of a musket ball. He reached his chosen window unchallenged, however, and a glance over the sill revealed no movement inside.
Wriggling sideways through the narrow embrasure, he fell onto a pile of hay. The loft was dark and dusty, no sound but the occasional stamp of a hoof from the stalls below. He began to feel his way on hands and knees towards the trapdoor.
A hand grabbed his wrist, and he stifled a yelp.
"Is that you, Jacob?" a female voice murmured invitingly.
Jacob? Was young Hendricks making trysts instead of rescuing his beloved Mal? It seemed very unlikely, and yet Jacob was scarcely a common name in England.
The girl moved closer to get a better look at him.
"Who are y–"
Ned launched himself at her, clapping a hand over her mouth and pushing her down in the hay.
"Not a word," he growled. "Scream, and I'll slit your throat. Understand?"
The girl nodded, on the verge of tears. Then she closed her eyes and went limp beneath him. She thinks I'm going to rape her, poor little bitch. He sighed and relaxed his grip.
"Stay here," he told her, "stay silent and thank Christ and all his apostles I have not the slightest interest in your… thing."
The trapdoor rattled and Ned leapt up, the girl forgotten. As it opened, Ned took one moment to assure himself the emerging figure was not Hendricks, then lashed out with a foot. The man's head snapped back and hit the trapdoor with a dull thud, then he slithered down through the opening, limp as a sack of flour. The girl clapped her hand to her mouth, stifling a scream.
Ned peered down into the stable. Horses stirred and stamped their feet at the disturbance, but no one had raised the alarm. The man – a groom by the looks of him – lay on the stable floor, his head and limbs at unnatural angles. Ned swallowed, the bile rising in the back of his throat. Another death on his hands. Had he turned killer so easily? With a last warning glance back at the girl, he slid down the ladder to the stable below, closing the hatch behind him.
He started as the stable door swung open and a familiar figure slipped inside.
"Hendricks! What are you doing here?" Ned hissed. Not that he needed to ask, after his encounter in the loft.
The boy pressed a finger to his lips and motioned to the courtyard. Ned peered over his shoulder and saw two liveried servants crossing the courtyard.
"Are you sure Mal is here?" Ned whispered in the boy's ear.
Hendricks took a button from his pocket and showed it to Ned.
"All right," he said. "What do we do now?"
Shadows danced across the walls of the cellar and Mal was instantly alert, ears pricked to catch the voices of his tormentors. He saw them first, however: Blaise with a manic smile etched into his face by the brazier's infernal glow, and behind him Suffolk, grey-faced and sweating as he leant on his menservants' shoulders. Shaking the men off, the duke limped over to a barrel and perched on the edge, his wounded leg stuck out before him.
Blaise took out a bunch of keys and removed the padlock holding the chain in place. He caught the chain as it slithered free, gathered it up and threw it to one of the men.
"Leave us," he said.
The servants made their obeisances and left, though not without a few backward glances. Were they afraid for their lord's safety, with only Blaise between him and two dangerous prisoners? Or did they have their own doubts, having thought on Mal's earlier words? If they did, it was not enough to sway them from their lord. The cellar door thudded shut behind them with dreadful finality.
He struggled against his bonds, until the cords cut into both their wrists and Sandy cried out in pain. Blaise laughed softly.
"This will all be over soon, and your souls will be free," he said, smiling down at Mal.
His dark blond curls almost brushed the low ceiling. Mal longed for a sword in his hand; Blaise's greater height would be a disadvantage in a fight here, and the thought of wiping that sanctimonious smile off his enemy's face made Mal's heart sing. As if guessing Mal's thought, Blaise only smiled the more. The battle was already over, and Mal had lost.
Mal swallowed against the soreness where the chain had pressed just below his Adam's apple.
"You're going to kill us both."
"If necessary, yes. But my father would prefer one of you to live. I can't imagine why."
I can. He thinks Erishen knows about him, and he wants to know how much. Truth is, I'd like to know myself.
He tried to marshal his thoughts into an argument that could convince Blaise of his father's perfidy, but could conjure nothing he had not already said.
"Why this farce?" he asked Blaise at last. "Why not just slit our throats?"
"You must have a chance to repent. And it would be such a messy death, don't you think?"
Blaise produced a small linen pouch, and from it sprinkled powder onto the brazier. After a moment the acrid scent of the skraylings' dream-herb rose into the damp air. Hope bloomed in Mal's breast. If Suffolk – or rather Jathekkil – was invoking the same dream-magic as Kiiren had done, what was to stop Sandy from spiriting them both out of here?
As the smoke drifted up around the captives, a delicious feeling of lassitude washed over Mal and he slumped back against the pillar, watching the delicate play of light on the curved brick wall opposite. His brother's fingertips were hot as coals against his own, pulsing in time with Mal's heartbeat. Their flesh melded together, like two steel bars beaten into a single sword blade.
He shook his head, trying to clear it of the drug's befuddlement.
"D? itorro, pahi saca." It was Sandy's voice, but Mal knew it was Erishen speaking. The dream herb will not be enough.
"Silence, demon!"
A snap of flesh on flesh.
"I told you not to touch him," Mal said.
Blaise came round to the other side of the pillar.
"I am the son of a duke," he purred. "I do not take orders from commoners."
Blaise glanced at his father, and nodded. He produced a small bottle from his pocket and uncorked it, then seized Mal's chin with his free hand and forced his head back. His eyes were glittering shards of amethyst and topaz, filling Mal's vision.
"Thou hast the devil," Blaise recited from the gospels. "Who goeth about to kill thee?"
He dug his fingers into the corners of Mal's jaw, forcing his mouth open, and tipped the bottle so that a little of the liquid poured between Mal's lips. Mal tried to spit it out, but Blaise pressed his jaw shut again, tilting his head back as far as it would go until he had no choice but to swallow or breathe the stuff in. The bitterness of the potion left his mouth dry as paper, but at least it didn't burn like the healing tincture.
The iron hand released him, and he sagged forwards, barely able to hear Sandy's cries of protest over the roaring in his ears. The walls of the cellar spun about him, as if he were blind drunk. He sucked in a deep breath, desperate to clear his head.
Blaise stood in front of him once more, holding a dagger, if such it could be called. The blade was a sliver of obsidian, its edge so sharp as to be translucent. Blaise held it motionless a few inches from Mal's heart.
"If you're going to kill me," Mal rasped, "for Christ's sake get on with it."
"Not until it's time."
"Time for what?"
But Blaise was gone.
Rain sluiced down the windows of the long gallery at Rushdale Hall. The house was empty but for the two boys, its many chambers cold and silently watchful. They were playing a favourite game, standing face to face, hands raised and fingertips touching. The aim was to mimic the other's movements so closely as to be a perfect mirror image.
Sandy withdrew his left hand and Mal pulled back his right, a fraction of a second too slowly. Sandy smiled in triumph, and Mal remembered just in time to do the same. He fixed Sandy's eyes with his own, watching for any sign of his twin's next move. Something told him there was more at stake here than bragging rights. A trickle of sweat ran down his back.
"Which of you is real?" a distant voice taunted them. "And which only the reflection in the mirror?"
Mal tried to take control of the game, but Sandy was too quick for him, had always been too quick. Sandy was real, and Mal only the counterfeit, the shadow, his brother's needs always taking precedence over his own.
"You are nothing without him," the voice went on. "A cipher, a nobody, dispossessed and friendless."
No. He dared not even speak aloud lest he lose the game, but he knew the voice could hear his thoughts. I have friends. Ned and Hendricks and…