by Mez Blume
24
Close Calls and Bad News
As the hours ticked on, the sky grew dark. By five o’clock when it was nearly time to go, the wagon quivered in the whipping wind and a slanting rain drummed on its wooden sides.
We’d spent the last hour sitting all together in the wagon, eating Tom’s stew and working out the details of our plan. Supper was the best time to go unseen into the Billiard Gallery, but by far the worst time to trudge through the Great Hall or the kitchens to get there. Luckily, Frederick knew of a back entrance that would take me through an outer passage into the Water Court where I’d find a turret staircase that opened up right into the Billiard Gallery.
Frederick pointed to the gate on the map he’d sketched for me on a bit of spare fabric. “The guards change at six o’clock. The gate will open on the hour to let the new guards out and the old ones in for supper. That will be your chance to slip through and hide until the gates close again and the old guards are out of earshot.”
My palms became increasingly sweaty as he spoke. “Um … right. How exactly am I to sneak past four guards without getting caught again?”
Frederick sat back and sighed. Not the encouraging answer I’d have liked.
But Tom, who’d been listening, silently stroking his whiskers, leaned in to have a look at the map. “I think I can help you there. A little distraction is all you need to slip through undetected.”
“But Tom, you can’t! You mustn’t be seen. The Baron …”
He stopped me with his raised hand. “I won’t be seen.” He stood up and rummaged among the costumes a moment before snatching down a long, white beard from a hook on the wall. He turned his back to us as he fitted it over his face. When he turned back, he had transformed before our eyes into an old man twice his own age at least.
“Let me go, Tom. I can don a disguise as well as you can,” Frederick insisted.
But Tom shook his head. “My boy, you are the Earl of Otterly Manor. Much depends upon you. I on the other hand … disguise is what I do.”
Frederick looked flustered, but it was clear that Tom had made up his mind. He completed his costume with a broad-brimmed, floppy hat, a long cloak and a walking cane. I was sure I wouldn’t have known him if I’d passed him in the park.
It was still pouring, or chucking it down as my mum would say, so Tom rummaged around in a trunk and found a sealskin cloak with a hood that fit me perfectly. The last thing was for Tom to paint on my pox. He did only three — two on my forehead and one on my chin. “We do not want you to look like a ladybird,” he said, standing back to examine his artistry.
And then it was time to brave the rain and, more dangerously, to brave the many, watchful eyes in Otterly Manor. We heard the distant tower clock chime half past five, said goodbye to Frederick who wished us Godspeed, put up our cloaks and plunged into the downpour. We passed Vagabond, standing out of the rain beneath the wagon’s little awning. He whinnied, as if to ask where I was going. I patted his shoulder. “I’ll be back,” I promised.
We didn’t speak on the whole long trudge up the hill. The rain beat down too heavily and we both kept our hoods pulled low over our faces. We had to walk fast if we hoped to get to the gate at a minute before six.
At five minutes before the hour, we reached the house. Though Tom’s hood was drawn up, I saw him cast a longing look towards the prison.
I leaned over so he could hear me. “I’ll do my best in there,” I said. “For Bessy.”
We inched along the stone wall, listening out for any straggler servants returning late from the hay threshing. But the rain had driven everyone indoors. Everyone, that is, except the guards. We were just a pebble’s throw from the end of the wall, which meant that right around the corner, the two guards stood post.
Tom squinted against the rain to peer at the clock tower. “‘It is time,” he mouthed. “Get ready.” And just like that, he shuffled out into the open, all hunched over and dragging one leg behind him.
“Who goes there?” I heard a guard shout.
Tom spun around and shouted in a strange, wiry voice nothing like his normal soft one. “Greetings, young sire. I am the noble Francis Drake. I sailed the seas for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and am come here to receive my reward from her hand. Will you lead me to her?” He dipped down in a clumsy bow and rose up again with a whoosh of his cape.
“Alright. Move along. There’s no Queen Bess here, Sir Francis Drake. Either you’ve had a few too many pints of ale, or you’ve lost your wits somewhere on the road.”
“Ale, did he say?” Tom put a hand to his ear.
At the same time, the clock struck six and the bell began to toll. Just as Frederick had said, the gate screeched open. I inched a little closer to the corner and peeked around. Four men in breastplates and helmets who looked just like the three musketeers and d’Artagnan clustered together at the open gate.
“You’re free to sup, you two,” a deep voice said.
“Thank heavens! We shall leave you two to deal with this.” The guard thumbed over his shoulder towards Tom who was doing a funny little hobbling jig in the road. “Think his pot is a bit cracked, if you know what I mean.”
All four of them turned their attention to Tom, and I knew with a flutter of my heart that this was my one and only chance. I crouched low and ran, close to the wall, on my tiptoes, and I didn’t look around to see if the guards noticed until I was through the gate. There was the stone passage — a sort of corridor under an arched roof. I crouched behind a statue of a woman with a bow and arrows and waited, trying very hard to quiet the noisy duet between my breath and my heart.
In barely any time at all — it made me feel faint to think what a close call it had been — the voices of the two old guards echoed against the stone passage walls. “If he gives them any trouble, they’ll just lock him away with the witch and the little traitor, and we can have a triple execution on the morrow,” the first one said.
“I thought the young Earl was destined for the Tower? Devil worshiper or not, he is nobility.”
“I had it from the Baron’s chief guardsman this morning,” the second guard answered. “Both the Earl and the witch are to be hanged just as soon as the Baron returns from his wedding, around midday.”
“What, before the wedding feast?” asked the other. “Seems an odd way to commence a banquet …”
“Nah, the banquet guests won’t even know the execution’s taken place; it’s to happen quietly. The Baron’s ordered they do it as soon as they hear the church bells toll, signifying the wedding’s over.”
I strained my ears, but I couldn’t hear another word after that. Once the two guardsmen passed my hiding place, their voices were drowned by the burbling of the fountain in the middle of the Water Court, which was overflowing after the downpour. I let out the breath I’d been holding, but it came out as a shiver. I knew the Baron was evil, but I could not believe he had lied to Sophia to persuade her to marry him without a fuss. She would marry him, but all for nothing: it would not save Digby or Bessy from hanging.
For a moment, I just crouched in the shadow, paralysed. So much depended on me getting into that room and back out again without being caught. Lives depended on it. Messing up was not an option. I took a few deep breaths, then clenched my eyes shut and prayed just one word: “Help.”
Just then, the dark rain clouds broke up and evening sun rays spilled into the stone passage, making glistening mists of the puddles. The warm sunlight filled my veins with fresh courage. I pulled up my cloak and walked — running would have alerted suspicion — to the outer stairway.
It was right where Frederick’s map had said it would be. I wound my way up, balancing myself with one hand against the cold stone wall, until I came to a narrow wooden door at the top. I pulled the map out from my apron pocket and, using a candle from a wall sconce, I took stock of where I was. According to the map, this door would bring me out into the Billiard Room, which opened right up into the Billiard Gallery. I was
mere steps away from the secret chamber.
I pressed my ear against the door. Not a sound. All the waiting servants must be at dinner by now, I thought. So I turned the doorknob and pushed the door open just a crack. Still nothing stirred. I stepped into the Billiard Room and inched along the wall, trying with difficulty to walk silently on the wooden floorboards. I only needed to turn a sharp right and I would be in the Green Man’s corner, in the very spot where I’d been whisked away into the past … the very spot where the Baron, dressed as Van Hoebeek, had sneaked up on me and nearly scared me to death … Why was it things always happened in that spot?
I stretched out my neck and peered down the whole length of the Billiard Gallery. Nothing moved but dust motes drifting on evening sunbeams. I had the all clear. I turned the corner, came face to face with the old Green Man, reached up my hand, laid it on his leafy face and …
Creeeak. Like déjà vu, the panel crept open. I glanced around one last time and stepped inside.
25
Caught
Good thing I’d taken that candle. The room’s slit window faced east, away from the setting sun. But for my candle beam, dusky darkness filled the chamber and the few objects inside appeared like creepy black blobs.
I pulled the door closed all but a crack behind me — after all, I had never got out of the room before, and the last thing I wanted now was to get myself locked in. Holding the candle up above my eyes, the light fell on a pile of rectangular objects propped against the wall. I moved closer and recognised the Baron’s easel and a stack of blank canvases. Evidence all right, but not quite the evidence I needed. I straightened up and peered around the room looking for the trunk.
There was a chair, a chamber pot and, aha! There was the trunk. Best of all, when I knelt down to try the lock, it was open! The Baron clearly never expected anyone to discover his hiding place.
“Come on. Come on. Come on,” I whispered to the trunk as I lifted the lid and held my breath, hoping with all my might the Baron hadn’t removed the evidence since Tom had seen it.
“Yes!” I almost laughed with relief when I held up the candle and found the trunk full. Wrapped up in a painter’s smock, I found a skull cap with the stringy brown wig attached to it and none other than the black woolly beard that had given Baron Black Sheep’s false identity away. Beneath that was a corked bottle labelled Property of Baron Buckville in cursive script. At the bottom of everything I found a stack of letters tied together with a red ribbon.
With my one free hand, I managed to undo the bow and unfold the first letter. It was slow work. Whoever wrote these letters had the most spindly writing imaginable. But what I could make out was the Your Faithful at the end, and some sort of list of ingredients for a recipe called Inheritance Powder. But it must have been a very strange recipe from what I could make out of the ingredients, things like monk’s blood, nightshade berries and even frogs’ eyes! I winced at the thought of whatever concoction these items whipped up.
I folded the letter back up. I would take the stack to Tom and let him decipher the spindly words. There was no sense in struggling through the rest of them now; the sooner I got back to the wagon, the sooner Tom, Frederick and I could sort through the evidence and make our plan of attack on the Baron.
I packed away all the contents of the trunk in my backpack and zipped it up with a feeling of satisfaction. I could not wait to see the look on the Baron’s face when we proved before the King that he was a cold-blooded murderer. I blew out my candle, slung my bag onto my back and covered it with my cloak then crept to the door to listen. Still no sound of any living creature, but I did hear the bell toll for the half-hour, which meant the household had been served their supper and now the kitchen staff would be having theirs in the Great Hall. Now I’d be able to slip through the hidden door in the Portrait Gallery and take the servants’ passage to the kitchens to freedom and safety. Everything was working to plan.
But I still had the whole stretch of the Billiard Gallery to walk down first. It felt horribly exposed. With my heart in my throat, I speed-walked across the creaky floorboards, checked the little passage with the window, and made it undetected into the Portrait Gallery. A quick look up and down it told me I was safe to hop across the hall to the hidden door.
This time I knew which panel to push right away. I laid my hands on it and gave a gentle push. Just as it gave way, something wrenched me backwards by my cloak hood. Choking on what might have been my loudest scream ever, I looked up into the hateful eyes and triumphant sneer of Nurse Joan.
With one icy hand, she pulled back my head, and she pinched my ear with the other so that I winced in pain. The stench of her rotten breath in my face nearly gagged me.
“I knew you were a peck o’trouble from the moment you appeared in this house like an ill omen,” she snarled. “I see what you are. Strange ways, devil-kissed hair. You brought these misfortunes on us, witch!” She spat the word, spraying my face. “First the Earl drops dead. And my poor mistress would be cold in the grave beside him were it not for the Baron’s medicinal brews keeping her on the other side of death’s door.”
“It’s poison!” I screamed through teeth gritted in fear and pain.
“Quiet!” she spat again, giving my head another hard wrench. “I’ll not hear another word of your lies. I knew I should’ve warned my mistress of you that first day, before you had the chance to wreak your wicked ways on this noble house. I’ll not make that mistake this time. I’ll see the Baron deals with you just as soon as he returns from his wedding.” With that she pushed me forward into the stairwell with a jab of her knee. All the way down I struggled and screamed, “I’m not a witch! It’s the Baron! The Baron is poisoning the Countess! It’s a trick!” But every word only won me another shove or an even harder yank on my hair.
I had one last hope. “I have the pox!” I screamed. “Look!”
That made her stop and stare at my face with uncertain eyes. “I know what those are.” Her voice was low. Hushed. “Witch’s marks. You filthy, vile creature!” My hair got the hardest yank yet.
Tears blurred my eyes so that I couldn’t tell which way we walked at the bottom of the stair, but the ground felt like it was sloping downward, and then we were walking down more narrow stairs. At last she pulled me to a halt by my hair, jammed a key into a large wooden door, pushed it open and flung me inside so hard I fell, my knees smacking cold, hard stone.
“You’ll end up just like all your kind. Mark my words.” And with that the door slammed. The lock clicked. Nurse Joan’s clopping footsteps died away.
My whole body was shaking, either from shock or because the room was so cold, I don’t know which. I struggled to my feet and rubbed my sore knees. Whatever the place was, it had a very unpleasant, sour smell and it was as black as ink. There was not even a thread of light beneath the door. But I could tell from the echoing sound of my breath it was a big room. I held my hands out in front of me and scuffed my feet forward, groping for a piece of furniture or the wall. I just wanted to feel near something rather than stranded in the middle of dark, endless space. My hand brushed against something. I reached out and the thing moved away, then back. It brushed my hands again. I pulled them back, panting with fright, then swallowed and reached out again, this time grabbing the thing.
It was soft one way and rough the other, like a dog’s fur. A sickening idea came into my mind. I moved my hands along and felt what I’d feared: ears, a head, a leathery nose, long legs and hooves. It was a deer. And hanging beside it were others. Of all the ghastly places, Nurse Joan had locked me away in the meat cellar! No one would hear me if I screamed. No one would come looking for me. And by the time Nurse Joan let me out to face the Baron, it would be too late.
I crawled on my hands and knees across the straw-strewn floor until I found the wall. Wrapping my cloak tightly around me and hugging my knees close to my chest, I closed my eyes and tried to remember the family I might never see again. Nan and Pop, Mum, Dad, Charlie …
Like painting portraits in my mind, I pictured every detail of their faces, over and over and over again until the pictures faded away and my mind became blank.
26
An Audience with the Queen
My eyes opened but I saw nothing. My bones ached of long hours spent on a cold, hard surface. That ache brought the memory of where I was rushing over me like ice cold water. Hunger gnawed at my empty stomach, but at the same time, the smell of dead things made me want to be sick. I didn’t know how long I’d slept or what time of day it was. By now Sophia might already be married to the Baron, and Digby and Bessy might be hanging in the courtyard. That thought really did make me retch, but there was nothing inside me to throw up, so I heaved and coughed instead.
I clenched my stomach and groaned, letting my weight flop back against the wall. Then I froze. Something rattled in the direction of the door. Someone was opening it. But that meant … Nurse Joan had said she would come for me after the Baron’s wedding. So it was done. I had failed.
Sickness overcame me, and I doubled over heaving just before the door swung open. I picked myself up and scrambled to get my backpack on beneath my cloak. I wouldn’t give it up any sooner than I had to. I heard heavy, scuffling footsteps coming towards me — definitely not Nurse Joan’s clopping ones. But after an eternity in the pitch black, I couldn’t see. I had to shield my eyes from the candlelight that was growing closer with each footstep.
“She’s over there,” I heard Nurse Joan’s unmistakable, sharp voice snap from the doorway. Then large, gruff hands grabbed me under my arms and hoisted me up like I was a rag doll. “Make her walk,” Nurse Joan commanded. Before I could put one foot in front of the other, one of the big hands took hold of my forearm in a killer grip and yanked me forward.