The Blackthorn Key

The Elephant’s hands found my master’s sash underneath my shirt. He tore it from my waist and threw it to Oswyn. “Just this.”


Oswyn examined it, curious. “You have practically the whole pharmacopoeia in here.” Suddenly, he looked down at me, surprised. “Oil of vitriol. On the lock. That’s how you escaped my office.”

Escape was exactly what I was thinking about, but there was nowhere left to crawl. “How did you know about Lord Ashcombe?” My voice was shaking. “How did you know he’d be waiting for you?”

“Oh, I’ve had a spy in his employ for months,” Oswyn said. “Not everyone who wears the king’s colors serves the man. Some support a higher ideal. Although a great deal of gold has its charms, too.”

Oswyn turned to Lord Ashcombe for a response, but the King’s Warden said nothing. Oswyn shrugged.

“As Richard here left the Tower with his men,” Oswyn said, “my spy sent a runner to tell me you’d delivered a letter to Lord Ashcombe, suggesting a plan to trap the leader of the Cult of the Archangel. By the time I received your message at the Hall, I already knew why you wanted me to come here, and I knew Lord Ashcombe’s men would be hiding in the maze. It was easy enough to set a counter to your trap, and turn the tables on you both.

“In fact, you’ve rather helped me. I’ve wanted to get rid of the King’s Warden for some time. You’ve given me the perfect opportunity to do it. Two birds with one stone, as they say.” Oswyn smiled. “You see what I mean, Christopher? Several steps ahead.”

Oswyn traced his fingers over the vials in the sash. “A better question is, how did you know? When you fled the Hall on Sunday morning, after I’d told you to wait, I thought you’d found me out. But you returned that afternoon, so you obviously didn’t realize I was behind the murders until some time after that. What gave me away?”

“Wat did,” I said. Oswyn looked sharply at the brutish boy, who spread his hands as if trying to deflect blame. “You told me you’d tested every apprentice in the Guild. You said you’d never heard of Wat. But then he showed up at the Hall.”

Inside, I kicked myself. I’d figured it out a day too late. “When I arrived that morning,” I said, “the doorman wasn’t going to let me in, even when he found out I was an apprentice. He would never have let Wat in on a Sunday, either, unless he had a right to be there. So Wat had to be part of the Guild. But you’d claimed he wasn’t. There was only one reason to lie about it.

“He wasn’t Stubb’s apprentice,” I said. “He was yours.”

I thought Oswyn would be angry. Instead, he looked delighted. “I’d planned to have you killed that morning,” he said to me, “just like I’d decided to get rid of Stubb. The man was working for me, as you’ve no doubt guessed by now, but he’d become too much of a liability. Stubb’s gold was useful to our cause—it paid off our spy, among other things—but he was starting to get too pushy with his demands, and him letting you overhear him in your master’s shop was unforgivable. He had to be eliminated.

“As for you,” Oswyn said, “when you ran away from the Hall, I was furious. Now I’m pleased.”

And although I’d known this moment was coming, although I’d tried to prepare for it, I started to shake. “Why?”

“Because, Christopher, I rather like you. More important, you have something I need.” He crouched beside me. “And this time, I intend to get it.”





CHAPTER


34


“I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING,” I stammered. “I just said I did to get you to come here.”

Oswyn looked disappointed. “I won’t insult you by pretending you’re stupid. Please extend me the same courtesy. Give me the recipe for the Archangel’s Fire.”

“Master Benedict never told me anything about it.”

“That, I believe. He wouldn’t have put you in danger unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“There was never any recipe in the puzzle cube.” I tried to stop my voice from shaking. “I just said that to get you to confess.”