‘There were others like Arx Oriens. Casa de Descans, in Catalonia, which failed in 1428 and caused an earthquake. The failure of the Dutch Zeelicht Landhuis in 1570 was followed by a tidal wave. Great Houses die as they live – with immense power.’
My mind’s already racing through everything I know of Europe and England’s history.
‘Things are different here, though,’ I say. ‘Everywhere else Houses were bound one at a time, usually a century or more apart.’
‘Exactly,’ Espie says, slicing one of her leftover berries in half with a scowl. ‘Nowhere’s quite like England, where six Houses were bound in the span of a single year thanks to my ancestor, William the Deed-winner. Five of those Houses still remain and are heading for failure due to their bindings, but Burleigh’s going fastest. It’s by far the oldest of the five, and the House arrest did so much additional damage that Burleigh must be dealt with first.’
I press my lips together and hold my tongue. I’m inclined to believe these two, but that doesn’t mean I’ve set aside all my suspicion. Let them share what they know and what they’re planning – I’ll keep my own scheming to myself.
‘It would mean disaster on a national scale,’ Alfred says quietly. ‘Yorkshire’s still a wasteland after an attempt to free Ripley Castle went badly and the House failed. Imagine that happening across the country. At this point, it’s a matter of either freeing the Houses, or burning each of them and their mortar as they begin to fail. Espie’s father favours the latter plan because it’s less of a risk to the countryside, and means he can keep hold of the remaining Houses till the bitter end. He doesn’t want to give up the control they allow him, you see.’
There’s a window nearby, in front of which a rhododendron blooms. Its crepe-like petals are luminous and unblighted, and all of this seems like a dark story meant to frighten wayward children.
‘Don’t fret about England,’ Esperanza says at last. ‘That isn’t why we came to you, Vi. The thing is, I’ve got contacts and spies and money, and I’m optimistic we’ll find the deeds, but . . .’
‘But what?’
Esperanza looks down at her hands. ‘We want your help with unbinding Burleigh, obviously. No one knows the House better than you. But Burleigh’s bound to destroy anyone who tries to set it free. All the Great Houses are. My forebears were nothing if not very thorough in ensuring their power was protected. And then there’s the matter of getting to the heart of the House if you do find the deed. According to Alfred, only a Caretaker can find a House’s heart. Burleigh doesn’t have a Caretaker, though.’
‘Burleigh has me,’ I answer staunchly. ‘I’m its Caretaker. It doesn’t want anyone else. And if Burleigh will let anybody into its secret heart, it’ll be me. So if you want the House unbound, I’m the one to do it.’
‘Are you sure?’ Esperanza asks. ‘It’s very dangerous, Vi.’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ I say without a moment’s hesitation. ‘But why are you doing this? The Houses are your birthright, and your future power. Why would you want to give that up?’
The princess’s dark eyes soften. ‘I spent half of my childhood at Hampton Court, the royal family’s Great House. You know what they’re like, Vi – I loved that place with everything in me. But the king, my father – he would use the magic to keep the House in check. Would let its magic build, and build, until Hampton was beside itself, and only then would he do his duty as Caretaker. He said –’ her mouth twists – ‘that it was important for the Houses to know we rule them, and not the other way around.’
‘Sounds like Uncle Edgar,’ I mutter.
Esperanza shakes her head, curling a stray lock of hair around one finger absently. ‘My father likes to hold both the deeds and the crown over my head, saying he’ll disinherit me if I don’t do what he wishes. As for my birthright, I spent eight years in a Great House, and every day and every night I felt its sadness through the floors and the walls, until I could not find a way to be glad.’
I know the feeling. It is all too familiar, that burden of knowing your House is unhappy.
‘I’m afraid too,’ Esperanza admits. ‘There have been monarchs before, who intended to unbind the Houses. After taking the throne, they never made good on their promises. Power is a seductive thing, Violet.’
‘My father always said people don’t give it up lightly,’ I reply.
Esperanza leans forward, and there’s sincerity in her dark eyes and small, round face. ‘That’s my fear. That while I feel for the Great Houses now, if once they were bound to me, I might refuse to give them up. So I want to see this done before I take the throne. And it starts with Burleigh, because Burleigh is running out of time. What do you say, then, Violet Sterling? Shall we join forces? Will you help us in this, or let us help you?’
Mira would be livid if she saw me gnawing indecisively at a fingernail in front of the Princess of Wales. Perhaps I’m signing my death warrant by trusting Esperanza. But after all of Jed and Mira and Wyn’s reluctance to see me seek out the deed, it’s heartening to find someone who will give me her absolute support.
‘I don’t know . . .’ I say, because while I have every intention of unbinding Burleigh, I’m still not sure of this princess.
‘Espie,’ Alfred says quietly. ‘Tell her about your mother.’
The corners of Esperanza’s mouth turn in, and all the light leaves her eyes. ‘I don’t like to talk about Mama, you know that, Alfred.’
‘I do. But you’re sitting next to the one person in England who’ll understand about her. Who knows what you’re living with.’
Esperanza turns to me, and her face is drawn and unhappy. ‘Do you know why my father, the king, sent my mother back to Spain, Vi?’
I frown. ‘It was a political match, and didn’t go well, so she went home.’
The princess shakes her head. ‘No. Papa sent my mother away because . . . she’s dying. She couldn’t bear to watch Hampton Court suffer, and since my father held the key and would not do his duty as a Caretaker, she began to do it for him. Or rather, she did it for the House. Mama worked House magic ten, perhaps twelve times. She would have worked more if my father hadn’t sent her away. But she’s been sickening ever since she left England, day by day, year by year. It is slow and ugly and painful. I’m so afraid to open every letter that comes from Spain, because I know it might bring the news that she’s finally gone.’
Esperanza falls silent. She takes the handkerchief Alfred offers her, but there are no tears swimming in her dark eyes.
I know why. You can’t cry when you’re waiting, when you’re caught moving inevitably towards heart break. You can only watch it grow closer and steel yourself against the pain to come.
‘How did you bear it?’ Esperanza asks finally, and her voice is little more than a whisper. ‘How did you manage, Violet, while you were on the fens? Because sometimes I feel as if everything’s frozen around me, and other times as if each day’s gone in the blink of an eye.’
I reach across the table on an impulse and take the princess’s hand. ‘I got by the same way I’m sure you’re doing,’ I tell her. ‘I woke up each morning and just kept going. I found something to do. I knew it was what Papa would have wanted, more than anything else. For me to carry on. He never gave up, you see, not until the bitter end.’
Esperanza nods. I squeeze her hand, and decide to take a leap of faith.
‘We’re in this together, then?’ I ask.
The princess shuts her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, any trace of grief and fear has been carefully tucked away, replaced by a fierce determination. ‘We are indeed. Let’s finish your father’s treason. Confound the king. Unbind Burleigh House.’
11
Two in the morning has come and gone by the time I make it home from my first shift at the Shilling. Wyn’s asleep in the hall outside my bedroom, and there’s a faint smell of sawdust and plaster as I slip past him. I bite back a smile. It’s equal parts irritating and endearing that he’s so con
vinced I need looking after. He turns over without waking, and I remember that about him – he’s always been a restless sleeper.
Shutting myself up in my bedroom, I sink wearily into a chair next to the cold and empty hearth and pull Papa’s ledger on to my lap. A few sparks play among the waiting firewood and I shake my head.
‘Don’t, Burleigh. Save your strength – I want to talk to you.’
A handful of white petals fall from the air and settle softly on to the ledger’s open pages. I gather them up and hold them to my face, breathing in their honey-sweet fragrance.
And then I watch Burleigh’s memories. Half a dozen inconsequential scenes, of Papa writing at his desk, of he and I playing cricket on the lawn, and lastly, of Papa and Wyn building a model ship together. Every memory connects in some tenuous way to the ledger entries I scan, but none of them are of any use.
Darkness folds around me as the last memory fades. Only once it’s gone do I hear a faint knocking at the door.
‘Vi, are you all right in there?’ Wyn’s voice is rough with sleep. I get up at once, crossing the room and opening the door for him. He stands on the threshold in a nightshirt and loose linen trousers, blinking like a peevish owl. ‘I could hear voices. Is Burleigh behaving?’
‘It was remembering something,’ I confess. ‘I asked it to.’
Wyn shuts his mouth, swallowing a yawn. ‘You asked it to?’
I suppose it’s time to come clean. ‘Yes. That’s how I’m hoping to find the deed. Mira said both Burleigh and Papa knew where it was, so instead of asking about it outright, I’m looking through Papa’s ledger for hints as to where he’d gone looking for it, and then asking the House if it remembers anything coming up in conversation about those journeys. It’s easier on Burleigh.’
The floor rumbles under our feet, but no House magic nips at me. I watch as the last remnants of sleep-dullness vanish from Wyn’s eyes.
‘That’s very clever, Violet,’ he says. ‘And it’s working?’
I shrug. ‘So far. That’s what I’m doing now. I just wish I knew this isn’t a fool’s errand, though – who’s to say the king hasn’t moved Burleigh’s deed since Papa found where he’d hidden it?’
Three things happen at once as I ask the question. Everything goes dark. The crushing weight of the House’s full attention fixes on us. And mortar freezes my fingertips.
‘Oh, Burleigh, no,’ I beg. ‘I wasn’t asking you to show me anything, I was just wondering out loud.’
But the House, eager to please now it’s found a way to communicate with me, plunges us into a wavering version of Papa’s study. The only solid things in the world are Wyn and me.
‘Vi, give me your hands,’ Wyn says, sounding half panicked.
‘Not yet,’ I say, and step forward, because my father is sitting in one of the study’s wingback chairs, with shackles around his ankles. It must be the night before his House arrest began – the travelling court arrived at mid-morning, and Papa had been found guilty of treason by early afternoon. Now all that remains is for His Majesty to carry out the sentence.
A few days’ stubble shadows my father’s jaw and there’s a pale, haggard look about him. I cross this ghostly version of the study, barely noticing the silent guards standing by the door.
‘Papa,’ I whisper, kneeling at his side. ‘I’m here. Look at me.’
But he can’t hear a word I say. That is, perhaps, the cruellest cut of all – knowing my father can be remembered so perfectly by the House, yet never live again. I will never have a chance to tell him what I couldn’t the day I left – that I loved him. That he was, in spite of the distance between us, everything I’ve ever wanted to be.
‘A game, George?’ the king’s laconic voice asks, and it’s only then that I notice him sitting in the shadows behind Papa’s desk. ‘Something to while away the hours until dawn, and the beginning of your sentence?’
My father says nothing, only keeps his eyes fixed on the floor, and the spark of fear in his gaze puts a dreadful tightness in my throat, even as mortar creeps through my veins.
The king sits forward. Lamplight picks out the lean contours of his face. ‘Perhaps you need the right stakes to stir your enthusiasm. We could play for . . . your freedom?’
When Papa glances up, there’s vain hope written across every line of him.
‘Don’t let him bait you,’ I say, tears pricking at my eyes.
‘Vi, please.’ My present Wyn is two steps behind me, holding out his hands. ‘Don’t let Burleigh hurt you.’
‘You and Violet,’ the king offers my father, ‘safe together on a ship to anywhere you’d like to go, so long as you leave England behind. I can’t very well have a treasonous Caretaker running around the island, now can I? But you could make a new life for yourself and your daughter.’
Papa nods. ‘Deal the cards.’
They play Écarté, as there’s only two of them, and my heart sinks. It’s never been Papa’s best game. The Sterlings have always been stronger on sacrifice than strategy. But Papa’s attention is fixed on the game and he takes several tricks when the king’s focus drifts. I can’t look away, even as I feel Wyn take my hands in his own, and the mortar running into me turns towards him.
And then, though I can hardly credit it, my father has won. He looks down at the cards with the same disbelief I feel.
‘Well, there you have it.’ The king is genial, as if he’s just lost a sovereign or a meaningless trinket. ‘We’ll pack you up come morning light and get you to a port. Where will it be? Spain? Portugal? Or Sweden, perhaps. Hot or cold?’
Papa hesitates. The fire crackling in the grate flares blue, the way it always did for him. His shoulders droop. ‘Once more,’ he rasps. ‘For a pardon. So Violet and I can stay with Burleigh.’
His Majesty’s face remains carefully neutral, but I know him, the devil, and the way his attention suddenly fixes on my father when before it seemed to wander can mean only one thing.
He knew their game would come to this. He knew George Sterling could never resist grasping at any straw that might let us remain with our House.
‘Are you certain, George?’ the king asks, and the feigned kindness in his voice is like splinters inside me. I hate him worse than anyone else in all this world, I think. Most wicked men are at least straightforward – unwieldy clubs that bludgeon you with their ill will and brute strength. But His Majesty the king is a dagger in the night, wielded with a smile.
From that point on it’s like watching a cat toy with its prey, as the king languidly lets Papa take a few tricks before soundly beating him. My father just sits afterward. He’s very quiet, and when I look down, his hands are trembling.
I glance over at Wyn beside me too. He seems all right, but that vacant look I saw last time he did House magic has clouded his eyes. I gnaw at my lower lip, torn between wanting to end this memory for Wyn’s sake, and needing to see it through till the end.
‘Burleigh, are you sure about showing me this?’ I whisper. A wave of insistence hits me. ‘Very well, but hurry, please.’
‘I would have let you go, if you hadn’t wanted what isn’t yours,’ the king tells Papa. ‘I’m good for my word, and we both know it.’
‘Yet I am who I am, and we both know that as well,’ Papa answers. ‘I can never help but try for this House.’
His Majesty holds out his hand. ‘The key, if you will, George. They call me a game player, but you’re the one who staked what you most value on something larger, only to lose in the end. Pity about that. I thought you might actually get the best of me and unbind the old place.’
Papa pulls the Caretaker’s key from his pocket and looks down at it. The greyish-brown bowstone gleams dully in the firelight. At last he surrenders it to the king, and a great, muttering groan of stone and timber rises from the House.
I can feel Burleigh’s bereavement, even in memory, creeping through the soles of my feet and into my lungs with the air I breathe. Though my father still sits across f
rom the king, the House knows – this is the beginning of the end.
From our present time I sense Burleigh struggling to see the memory through to its conclusion. The force of its attention is oppressive, and Wyn’s eyes aren’t just blank now, they’re opaque and grey, marked by the mortar that doesn’t show beneath his skin. I can’t stand to see him so.
‘Burleigh, that’s enough!’ I snap, but the House pays me no mind, pushing through to the end of this memory.
‘I’m curious, George – how far did you get?’ His Majesty asks offhandedly. ‘How close did you actually come to laying hold of the deed?’
‘I stood exactly where Falmouth told me to,’ Papa says. His eyes never leave the key. ‘And I couldn’t find it. But I suppose, if Falmouth played me false, you sent me on a fool’s errand in the first place.’
‘No.’ The king toys with the key, passing it from hand to hand, and the bowstone glimmers as it moves. ‘Joss Falmouth may be loyal to the crown, but he told you the deed’s location. You were an arm’s length from your heart’s desire, George, and didn’t have the wit to find it.’
Papa says nothing. He tears his gaze away from the key and fixes it on the floor, as the king leans forward with an infuriating smile.
‘Do you know how little you’ve truly accomplished?’ His Majesty asks my father. ‘Nothing’s changed for the better because of you, George. I don’t even plan to move the deed – it’s safe enough where it is. And your House is worse off having had you as a Caretaker than it was when you took charge.’
Pitch-coloured brambles snake up the arms of the king’s chair, crumbling in places and weeping mortar. They’re not part of the memory, though – they’re a piece of my present time. The House trembles, an earth-deep sense of unease, of anguish, and darkness falls.
When it clears, I’m sitting on the rug in my room. Blighted vines tangle around my crossed legs, and around Wyn’s, but he has his hands to the floor and his eyes are still that unseeing grey. Sweat beads on his forehead and his mouth moves soundlessly. I wait, jittering with nerves and impatience, until I feel the House’s attention finally shift away from us. Even as the sickly vines loosen and burst into radiant flowers, and a rain of petals falls from the ceiling, I snatch Wyn’s hands and chafe them between both of my own.
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