A Skinful of Shadows

by Frances Hardinge

  I trust you, she had often told him. But was that true?

  No, she realized, with a feeling like grief. All these years, even while she plotted with James, in her heart of hearts she had been waiting for him to betray her. When at last she had looked into his eyes and seen a host of dead enemies staring back, her mind had filled with a storm. But there had been an eye to that storm, a quiet core where a calm, relieved voice was saying: Ah, there it is at last. No more waiting for the sword to fall.

  She had always loved James. But she had never truly trusted him. Somehow, this was the saddest realization of all.

  A news-sheet on the dressing table caught her attention. As usual, reading it was a slow and painful process, but she was keen to see whether there was any news of Symond, and to learn the progress of the war.

  The sheet had clearly been printed by someone staunchly loyal to the royal cause. Half the stories depicted the King’s troops surviving through courage and divine intervention. The other half ranted about rebel troops committing terrible crimes, cutting down women and children, hacking off the heads of stone saints, and burning hayricks. There were plenty of tales of miracles. He described the bitterly cold night after the Battle of Edgehill, and the way that wounded men had seen their injuries glowing with a soft uncanny light, only to find them partially healed when morning came.

  One story caught her attention.

  There was a soldier coming out of Derbyshire who barely survived a battle where many were lost and was after sadly transformed in manner and countenance. He said that he was afflicted with a ghost of one of his dead comrades who let him neither sleep or rest but whispered in his head and caused him to move and speak strangely. In Oxford one chirurgeon called Benjamin Quick operated on the soldier by boring a small hole into his skull with a device of his own invention, and afterwards the patient was quite returned to himself and never more complained of ghosts.

  Makepeace read the storyn and reread it. Once again, a tiny candle of hope was flickering into life. It was possible that the doctor had simply cured a man of fever or delusion, but what if the soldier really had been haunted? Could you drive out a ghost using some new trick of science and medicine? That possibility had never crossed her mind before.

  If there was still some trace of James inside his body . . . perhaps this doctor could save him.

  CHAPTER 18

  On Sunday, when the time came for the service, Makepeace took her new place in the raised gallery with the family.

  After the Amens, the servants were allowed to trail out of the chapel, but the Elders remained seated. Makepeace had no choice but to stay with them. At last the living footfalls faded, and a crypt-like silence settled.

  The priest spoke again.

  ‘In the late Battle at Hangerdon Hill, Almighty God in His infinite mercy took many of His servants from this world, and gathered them at His side where they shall stand in glory forever.’ And he spoke of the two long-dead Fellmottes that had been lost to the world when Symond’s knife ended his uncle’s life. Robyn Brookesmere Fellmotte, Knight Commander under Henry III, and victor at the battles of Crake and Barnsover. Jeremiah Fellmotte of Tithesbury, Privy Council member under four kings.

  Now and then Makepeace thought she heard a faint, reptilian exhalation from the Elders behind her. Perhaps that dry hiss was all they had to offer instead of tears. They had lost comrades and relatives that they had known and counted upon for centuries.

  Perhaps, also, this loss had cruelly reminded them of their own fragility. One quick stab and some mischance could rob them of eternity. They might find themselves smokily screaming like the commoner ghosts they despised, and melting into air.

  The names of Sir Robert and Sir Anthony were only mentioned briefly. Their tragedy was secondary. They were bottles that had broken, spilling a vintage of great worth. Makepeace knew that the Elders saw her the same way. She herself was meaningless. She was only a fleshly container, waiting to be given meaning.

  After chapel, a dressmaker measured Makepeace, and a cobbler examined her feet. More new clothes would be needed for her, now that she was ‘Maud’. She was not consulted on the colour or style, of course.

  And then, in the early afternoon, Lady April came to inspect her.

  ‘Open your mouth,’ she said, and when Makepeace did so unwillingly, she peered closely at Makepeace’s teeth. She insisted that Makepeace take down her hair, and then raked a fine-toothed comb through it, and stared at the slender prongs for signs of lice.

  Then there were questions, all asked in the same cold dispassionate tone. Did Makepeace have fleas? Any itches or pains? Did she still have her maidenhead? Did she get any headaches? Backaches? Moments of dizziness? Did she ever drink strong spirits? Were there any types of food that made her sick?

  After this, Makepeace was told that she was to have a bath.

  Makepeace received the news with trepidation. She had never had a real bath before, and she had heard people say that they were dangerous. The water could seep in through the holes in your skin, bringing all manner of sickness with it. Like most people, she usually just rubbed herself clean with a rag, and even then didn’t strip herself bare, but took off a few garments at a time so that she would not get cold. Nakedness would be a fine way to catch a chill.

  In spite of her protests, the family’s big wooden bath was hauled out and placed in her new chamber in front of a blazing fire. Feet thundered on the steps as Makepeace’s fellow servants carried buckets of hot water up from the kitchen.

  ‘Can I have a screen around the bath, to keep away the draughts?’ Makepeace felt her face redden. She was in no hurry to remove her clothes in front of Lady April. Lady April had a woman’s body, but Makepeace knew that the hidden gallery of ghosts inside her would probably be male. If the Fellmottes preserved the ghosts of those they considered ‘important’, this was unlikely to include many women.

  ‘How quickly you learn to be delicate!’ It was hard to tell whether Lady April’s tone was contemptuous or approving. Her smile was too thin to read.

  But a sheet was duly hung up around the bath to make a little tent, holding in the steam and keeping out prying eyes. Once it was in place, Lady April left the room.

  We are about to wade into a warm river, Bear. Do not be frightened.

  Keeping her shift on, Makepeace carefully stepped into the water, which was already starting to cool, and sat on the edge of the bath. Bear was nervous, but calmed when the water did not bite. Makepeace tried not to think of her pores opening, to create thousands of tiny holes in her defences. However, there was something luxurious and groggily soothing about the warmth and steam. She gingerly splashed water on to herself, and watched her blisters pale and soften.

  A faint rattle at the far side of the room told her that the door had opened again, and then the sheet-screen parted to show Beth-around-the-house, one of the maids. She was holding a brush and a washball of grated white soap mixed with dried petals. Bear caught its scents of ash, oil and lavender, and was confused by them. He was uncertain whether soap was dangerous or food.

  ‘Beth!’ It was Makepeace’s first chance to talk to one of the other servant women unobserved since her ‘promotion’. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Beth . . . I need your help!’

  Beth flushed, but did not raise her gaze. She knelt by the side of the bath as if she had heard nothing, and she began dutifully making a lather.

  ‘I’m a prisoner, Beth! It’s a pretty cage, but it has a lock on the door, and someone guarding it day and night. I am in danger here, and I do not have much time. I need to get away from Grizehayes!’

  But Beth would not look at her. It was too late to claim a friendship. Makepeace had always been careful not to care too much about the other servants, sensing the invisible divide waiting to gape between them. Now she could see that Beth must have regarded her the same way. Who could blame her? Why grow too fond of a piglet being fattened for the feast table?

  Then, just for a
moment, Beth did meet her eye. Please, said her frightened gaze. Please don’t.

  ‘They ordered you not to talk to me, didn’t they?’ whispered Makepeace. ‘But they can’t hear us now. And I won’t tell them.’

  Beth gave her another quick glance, and this time Makepeace could not mistake the look of fear and distrust. Yes, you will, said the look.

  And Makepeace understood. Makepeace herself would not report Beth to the Fellmottes, but soon Makepeace would not be Makepeace. She would be a vessel, and her new occupants would rifle through her memories at their leisure and discover Beth’s little disobedience.

  ‘Give me the brush,’ said Makepeace, her spirits sinking. ‘I can scrub my own back.’

  Beth’s lip trembled, and she cast a desperate glance over her shoulder.

  ‘No!’ she whispered, face twisted with panic. ‘Please don’t send me away! I . . . They told me to wash you . . . to look for pimples or sores or scars . . . signs of sickness . . .’

  So that was why the bath had been ordered. She was still being assessed for her desirability as a residence. Nonetheless, she could not fight the suspicion that she was also being laundered like linen, so that she was ready to be worn.

  ‘Then tell them about every wart!’ snapped Makepeace. ‘Every scar, and corn, and blister. Why stop there? Tell them I’m still mad, and I fall down in fits. Tell them I’m pox-ridden and pregnant.’

  They’ll take me anyway, but I want them to feel sick when they do. If I can make them feel one grain as sick as I do, that is a victory.

  Bear, Bear, forgive me, Bear. I promised you we would be free some day, but now we never will.

  I wanted to protect you. That’s why I kept telling you to hush and hold back, so nobody would know about you. I kept you quiet. I made you meek. I never meant to tame you, Bear, but I did.

  Sorry, Bear.

  As night fell, she saw a carriage pull into the courtyard, and halt. There was to-ing and fro-ing around it, and for a while she dared to hope that one of the other heirs or spares had returned, or that Symond had been found. But nobody got in, and nobody got out, and the carriage just waited there, the twilight plating its wood in dull silver.

  Not an hour later, they came for her.

  The little table was heavy enough to use as a weapon, but light enough for her to lift. When the door opened she was standing behind it, and swung her table at the first person to enter with all her might. She had hoped that it would be one of the Crowes, who were at least ordinary mortals.

  But it was not. It was Sir Marmaduke, with many lifetimes’ memories of feints and deflected blows. He reached out and tweaked the table from her grasp, fast as an adder’s strike. She barely saw his motion as the wooden weight was ripped from her hands.

  She fought them as they tied her wrists and ankles. She tried to kick out at them, and thump them with her head, even as they carried her downstairs. She fought them all the way to the chapel.

  CHAPTER 19

  The chapel had become a haunted place. Only half a dozen candles burned, lonely lights amid the darkness. They illuminated marble plaques, an alabaster knight, a wooden effigy of a noble at rest, flanked by stumpy wooden mourners. Makepeace could guess whose memorials they were. It seemed that the eternal dead were the only bright things, the only real things, glowing in the well of darkness.

  But Makepeace was real. The bite of rope into her wrists was real. The bruising grip from Sir Marmaduke and Young Crowe was real.

  ‘Mistress Gotely!’ she shouted, her voice echoing blasphemously throughout the chapel. ‘Beth! Alys! Help me!’ They would not come to her aid, she knew that. She was alone. But the other servants might hear her, and it would mean something to be remembered. She wanted them to know that she had not gone willingly or quietly. If they remembered that, she would still be something, if only a scar on their memories, a pang of guilt they tried to ignore.

  One candle stood on the altar, which was spread with a crimson cloth. Deep red, mourning red. The embroidered silver cross spilt over the edge of the altar like the cleft in a tongue.

  Before the altar stood two chairs, just as they had on Twelfth Night. One was an invalid chair, in which reclined Lord Fellmotte. His head lolled to one side, and his eyes glistened in the candlelight, moving, moving, like insects trapped under glass.

  The second was the throne-like chair in which she had seen Sir Thomas convulse on the night of his Inheritance. Makepeace was forced into it, her bound wrists digging into her back. Young Crowe wound a rope around her middle and tied her to the chair-back.

  ‘Stop making an exhibition of yourself!’ hissed Lady April, emerging from the shadows. ‘You are in a house of God – show some respect!’

  ‘Then let God hear me!’ It was the only threat Makepeace could think of, the only power she could call on more dreadful than the Fellmottes. ‘God is watching – He sees what you are doing! He will see you killing me! He will see your devilry—’

  ‘How dare you!’ retorted Lady April. For a moment it seemed that she would strike Makepeace, but then her raised hand lowered again. Of course she would not bruise a cheek that very soon would belong to Lord Fellmotte.

  ‘Our traditions have the blessing of both Churches,’ the old woman hissed, ‘and six different popes. It is God that has blessed us with the ability to live on, gathering wisdom over centuries. And in our turn we have served Him well – many Fellmottes have joined the Church, and risen to become bishops, even archbishops! God is on our side. How dare you preach to us?’

  ‘Then tell everyone!’ snapped Makepeace. ‘Tell the world how your ghosts steal the bodies of the living! Tell them you have God’s permission, and see what they say!’

  Lady April drew closer. She pushed stray strands of Makepeace’s hair out of her face, and slipped a band of cloth around Makepeace’s neck, just under the chin. Makepeace could feel it being tied to the chair behind her.

  ‘I will tell you,’ Lady April said icily, ‘what is ungodly and unnatural. Disobedience. Ingratitude. Impudence.’

  Makepeace knew that the old woman meant it. Lady April’s ghosts believed there was a natural order to the world, bright and shining. Just as flames rose and water ran downhill, so everything found its ordained level. It was a great pyramid, with the lowly multitudes at the bottom, then the middling sort, then the nobility, and finally Almighty God as the shining pinnacle – each rank gazing at the levels above with submission and gratitude.

  For Lady April, disobedience was more than rudeness, more than a crime. It defied God’s natural order. It was water flowing uphill, mice eating cats, the moon weeping blood.

  ‘You’re the Devil’s own pups,’ snapped Makepeace. ‘There’s no goodness in obeying you!’

  ‘Crowe,’ Lady April said coldly, ‘hold her head.’

  Young Crowe grabbed Makepeace’s head, and held it still while she tried to jerk free. Lady April seized her jaw and forced it wide open.

  ‘Help!’ was the last thing Makepeace was able to shout, before a broad wooden tube was forced into her mouth, holding it so far open that her jaw ached. It was a stupid thing to shout, a waste of her last word. No friends would rush to her aid.

  A nervous voice creaked from the entrance to the chapel.

  ‘My lord, my lady . . .’ Old Crowe was standing in the doorway.

  ‘Does this look like a good time?’ snapped Lady April, still gripping the tube wedged in Makepeace’s mouth.

  ‘Forgive me – a campfire has been sighted, out on the moors. You gave orders that if there were any sightings . . .’

  ‘We will look into it,’ Sir Marmaduke murmured quickly to Lady April. He started towards the door, then hesitated, his face performing the shifting Elder frown. ‘Do you still mean to travel tonight?’ he continued under his breath. ‘If enemy troops are close, the roads will be dangerous.’

  ‘We are quite aware of that,’ Lady April told him curtly, ‘which is why this must be done quickly so that we can leave. We have urgent
dispatches and money for the King – we must travel tonight if we are to meet with our messenger. We cannot afford to find ourselves trapped here.’

  ‘Then give your signet ring to somebody you trust, and send them instead!’ insisted Sir Marmaduke.

  ‘If we trusted anybody, we might.’ Lady April’s lean mouth thinned and puckered for a moment. It seemed that her face muscles had long since forgotten how to smile. ‘Go! We will handle this. Tell Cattmore to have the carriage ready – we will be down shortly.’

  Sir Marmaduke strode from the chapel, followed by Old Crowe, and the door closed behind them.

  ‘We need her mouth and eyes open,’ said Lady April.

  Young Crowe, still gripping either side of Makepeace’s head, moved his thumbs to peel up her eyelids and force her eyes open. Her eyes watered, and the world became blurry.

  She was being opened up, so that it was easier for the ghosts to get in. Makepeace writhed and screamed wordlessly, and tried to twist her hands free.

  ‘It is far too late to complain now, Maud,’ Lady April went on. ‘You agreed to this. You agreed with every night that you slept under our roof, and with every meal at our expense. Your flesh and bone is made from our meat and drink – it is ours. It is too late to cry over the reckoning. This is your chance to show your gratitude.’

  Makepeace could feel dampness flowing down her cheeks. Her eyes were watering with the pain of being held open, and she felt stupidly angry that Lady April would think she was crying. The others’ faces were smudges now, peach-tinted with the candlelight.

  ‘My lords,’ said Lady April, in a far more deferential tone, ‘the path is made ready.’ And Makepeace knew that she must be addressing the ghosts waiting inside Lord Fellmotte. ‘The girl is troublesome – it might be best for your Infiltrator to come first, to subdue her, and make all ready for your coterie.’

  Infiltrator? Makepeace had never heard the term before, but it sent a chill down her back.