by Lucy Jago
“What do they mean?” asked Drax impatiently.
“Have you been crossed, my lord?” asked Paget, his eyebrows raised melodramatically.
“Somewhat,” replied his master. “Nicholas Joliffe, that drunken oaf who leases Abbey Farm, defies me.”
“He refused to relinquish the lease early?” asked Paget.
“Indeed, despite some quite forceful persuasion,” said Drax icily, kneading his hands together.
“The dice tell me you have met one who will become a great adversary, greater than you have yet known. It is someone with whom you have had a powerful connection, many summers old.”
Drax was surprised. He had expected resistance from his father but not from any other quarter. Joliffe was a stubborn, ignorant fool with a long-standing grudge against him, but a great adversary? “No matter. Continue,” he commanded, irritated by the prediction. “As well as implementing the curses, I need you to locate the papers my father has hidden.”
Paget hesitated. “My lord, you are sure you wish to proceed?” Drax’s frown deepened. “We use our darkest powers to make this magic, and now those two children have escaped and one boy is not dead. Perhaps we are not yet ready,” continued Paget. “I have seen this curse used just once before, and it had more strength than foreseen. Such malediction cannot always be controlled once it is unleashed.”
Drax stared unpleasantly at his page. “Your courage fails you, Paget?” he sneered. “Or is it more money you want, to recompense you for the loss of your soul?” Drax threw a heavy purse at Paget’s feet.
“It is not money I seek, sire,” said the page, picking up the purse nonetheless and calculating its weight in his hand. “It is to do my duty. To warn you of the strength of the malevolence we call upon.”
“Get to it, man, and stop bleating. There is nothing about your sorcery I fear. Proceed!” Paget bowed and opened the leather panniers he had brought with him. He removed two straw fith-faths and a glass bottle. He gave the dolls to Drax to inspect. Although made of rough straw, they were surprisingly detailed. One was of a woman with red-dish-gray hair. When Drax looked closer he could see that the hair was real.
“Whose hair is it?” he inquired, fascinated by the doll.
“Hers.”
“Hers?!” he exclaimed. “How is that possible? Your sauce bodes well for your sorcery!”
Paget bowed his head in recognition of the compliment. “The magic would not work without something of the living person embedded in the fith-fath.”
Drax took up the other doll, of a dark-haired man.
“And in this?”
“Nail clippings.”
Drax nodded slowly, impressed by Paget’s ingenuity.
“Once I have circled the flames six times, you must submit the dolls to the flames,” said Paget. He opened the small glass bottle and threw half the contents onto the flames. A terrific hiss and spitting was accompanied by a bitter smell of burning alcohol and perfume. The rest he poured carefully over the dolls as Drax held them. Once covered in the dark liquid, Paget took the dolls and placed them close to the blaze.
He started to sway, breathing deeply. Eyes closed, he mumbled incantations and quickly became intoxicated with his sorcery. Drax Mortain watched with wary curiosity this preened figure strutting and swaying like a drunken kingfisher. He seemed to struggle for a moment as if a great weight threatened to pull him over, but then he regained his balance and stood still. He twitched and jerked, then began his dance again. Paget intoned louder and louder, higher and higher. “Now!” he cried.
Drax threw the dolls into the fire. For a few moments they lay in the white heat, untouched. He looked at Paget, who was staring at the fith-faths with unbroken concentration. As he nodded, a single flame caught the red hair of the female doll. Soon both were burning whiter than the heart of the fire itself until they were gone. As the last piece of straw dissolved into ash, Drax glanced at Paget, seeking confirmation that the task was complete, but his page stood motionless. “What saw you?” barked Drax, impatient with Paget’s silence. “All you need and more,” breathed Paget, his face ashen. “Good. We can speak at the house” said Drax, pulling on his cloak and walking to the door. “Come, man. The fith-faths have burned. The sorcery was successful.”
“It is true,” said Paget in a whisper. “None can stop it now.”
C H A P T E R 14
Cess blinked. Again. Were her eyes open? It was black.
“Edith?” No reply. Panic tightened her chest. She had never been in such complete darkness before, or such silence. She clapped her hands to make sure she could hear, took a deep breath, and tried to calm her galloping heart.
Groping around, she felt the fire lid and lifted it. She blew toward the warmth, and a slight red glow showed her that her eyes were still working. She found Edith’s tinderbox and lit a torch. Edith was sleeping by the hearth, and Jasper on the thin straw pallet on the shelf.
It was impossible to tell the time of day. Quietly, she climbed the ladder and unbolted the hatch. As she lifted it, the smell of wet leaves and bluebells seeped in. The urge to throw wide the hatch and run around the clearing was great, but she peeped quickly at the sky and bolted herself inside again. Who knew who might be standing by the hatch.
The sun was up, its rays checkered by storm clouds. They had slept for a long time. Cess’s stomach growled and she drank a cup of small beer to slake her incredible thirst. Trying not to disturb the others, she picked up some rushlights from a pile on the shelf and put them in her apron, which she tucked up into her girdle. Wondering what to do with the coppers chinking in her purse, she looked around for a small herb pouch and eventually found one in a niche by the ladder. She put the coins in and hid it in a sack of lavender stalks.
“What are you doing?” asked Jasper, sullenly. Cess jumped. He had been watching her from the pallet.
“Those are my takings from the market.”
“Why are you hiding them?”
Cess shifted uncomfortably.
“As it’s only you, your friend, and me here, I can only assume you think I might take your coppers. Be assured, Maid Perryn, it is beneath my honor to steal from a pauper child.”
Cess sucked in her breath at Jasper’s rudeness. “Indeed? Although stealing tobacco from your own mother is not?” she retaliated.
Jasper snorted. “That’s different,” he said, stretching his arms above his head and sitting up.
“Some might say it was worse.”
Jasper was peering at Cess as she moved about the dark space. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going exploring,” she replied, heading into the tunnel that led downhill, toward the priory cellars and Montacute House.
“What! You really are soft in the head. They’ll catch you.”
“I don’t think they’ll be expecting me.” Cess ducked into the tunnel.
“Wait!” he called. “Is this your solution? To get yourself killed?”
Cess did not wait nor reply. She stumbled into the dark tunnel, stooping, for it was low. The ground was flat for a few paces but suddenly sloped downward so steeply that she found herself slipping and skidding out of control. All she could see was within the small pool of light cast by her smoking torch, not enough to prevent her banging her head painfully against the rocks, tree roots, and wooden props that protruded into the narrow tunnel. The oversize leather boots that Jasper had insisted she wear in Yeovil were useless on the mud.
“Wait!” Jasper cried as he crashed into view behind her, limbs and torch flailing.
“Jesu!” panted Cess as he caught up with her. “Just send a note to tell the monks we are coming!”
“If the monks are close enough to hear me, we’re in trouble,” he countered.
Cess was secretly pleased that Jasper had followed her. It was good to have some company in this underworld. “So, are you staying?” she asked, trying to control her descent.
“Until I can safely leave,” he muttered back grumpily.<
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They half fell, half clambered downward for some time beforethe tunnel flattened out. Still crouching low, they carried on in silence, keenly aware that the tunnel was connected to the priory. After a while, an opening appeared on their right.
“Which way?” asked Jasper.
“I think that must lead to the priory crypt,” Cess whispered.
“Let’s not go there yet,” whispered Jasper. “I do not wish to visit those fine gentlemen until we have at least some chance of escaping or killing them.” Cess nodded. She walked on, but Jasper pushed past her. Cess opened her mouth to protest but realized it was futile to argue with this boy who had come first his whole life.
Their progress was slow. The rotten wooden props that held up the roof and walls of the tunnel sagged dangerously under the weight of earth that pressed against them. In some places the props had rotted and the tunnel was partially blocked with fallen debris.
“One good shove and these props would collapse,” said Jasper quietly. Cess tried to stop herself thinking about being buried alive or trapped to die a slow and painful death from cold, thirst, and hunger. As they waded through black pools, she prayed that the black rats that infested the village did not breed in these tunnels. Jasper cursed the damp penetrating his expensive leather footwear and soaking his hose.
“Are we going up?” Cess whispered a few minutes later. The earth beneath her feet was dry again, and a few paces later they stood on ancient warped planks. They walked a few paces until their torches showed that the roof of the tunnel had collapsed. Besides earth and wooden props, however, there were flagstones among the debris, sharp and clean, newly cut.
“There’s a gap,” said Cess, noticing her torch flare in the slight breeze that came through. “Let’s clear it a bit and see if we can squeeze through.”
Jasper looked doubtful, but he wedged his torch between the tunnel walls and the pile of rubble and set to work beside Cess, widening the gap. It did not take long. The roof fall seemed quite recent and the debris was not firmly compacted.
This time, Cess handed Jasper her torch and scrabbled up in front of him. As she reached up she was surprised to find space above her head instead of solid earth. But no daylight. Puzzled, she stood upright on the fallen heap.
Jasper handed up her torch, and Cess held it over her head. In the wavering light she could just make out a small, bare room with a door in one corner and an unusually narrow staircase in another. There was a plain wooden candle box near the door but no other furniture at all. Part of the floor had collapsed into the ancient tunnel. The architect and builders of Montacute House had obviously not been aware of the tunnels’ existence.
Cess bent down to Jasper. “It’s a room. You’ll need to give me a leg up.”
Jasper scrambled up beside Cess, leaned his back against the tunnel wall, and intertwined his fingers to make a stirrup. Cess stepped into it and heaved herself up as Jasper pushed from below. Once up, she lay flat on her stomach, feet pointing away from the hole, and reached down. Jasper handed her his torch, which she lay flat, then let him pull on her arms like ropes until he could reach a foot over the lip of the floor and lever himself into the room. They picked up their torches and looked about. “There’s nothing here. It’s not a storage room,” noted Cess, opening the box and finding candles and prickets.
“This door has a lock, and it’s new. We can’t get out this way,” said Jasper, running his fingers over the wood.
“Let’s try the stairs, but we’ll use a candle,” said Cess.
“Beeswax? Does His Lordship have money to burn?” asked Jasper. Cess shrugged. It did seem strange. In the House they used best-quality tallow candles made of sheep and cow fat, the first skimming, so they were white and burned quite cleanly. She sometimes earned an extra halfpenny or penny by helping to polish and degrease the many candlesticks, and knew they used beeswax only when the finest visitors came to dinner.
They pushed a candle onto the little spike of the pricket and lit it, then carefully extinguished their torches against a wall. Jasper held the candle aloft. The stairs were narrow, and Cess steadied herself carefully as she climbed. They were halfway up when they heard a voice so clearly that both froze. It was the voice of a gentleman. Cess peered wildly into the gloom below to see if someone had entered the little room, but it was empty. Jasper looked back at Cess, anxiety puckering his forehead. They tiptoed to the top of the stairs.
They were in a long, narrow stone-and-timber passage, just wide enough for one slim person to move along. Here and there pinpoints of light streamed through holes in the wall. Cess looked through the nearest one, about the width of the tip of her little finger, and stared in amazement. Sir Nathaniel Davies was standing so close to her that she could see the hairs protruding from moles on his face. She had to resist the urge to curtsy and lower her head. After a few moments, Jasper pushed her aside. Cess put her lips right against his ear and breathed into it.
“Lord Montacute’s steward.”
Jasper stood back to let Cess have another look. When the steward spoke, they both jumped slightly, for his voice was as clear as if he were beside them.
“You left London on Monday?” he asked, beckoning someone to come closer. Into Cess’s narrow field of vision stepped a messenger boy whose plain riding clothes were thick with mud. A battered leather satchel was strung across his chest.
“Aye, sir.”
“You must have ridden through two nights to reach here so quickly.”
“Aye, sir.” Cess could see the boy was drooping on his feet, eyes barely open.
“Go to the kitchen for food. The stable boy will show you where to sleep.” The bedraggled boy nodded and moved off as if already dreaming. Sir Nathaniel remained seated and held the letter over the flame of a candle. Words appeared down one edge of the parchment that had been invisible before. He frowned deeply as he read the letter, rolled it up, and stood. Although he walked out of her view, Cess could hear his footsteps and the sound of the heavy wooden door opening and closing.
She edged carefully along the hidden passage to the next pinpoint of light and found herself looking into the great hall. As she watched, Nathaniel walked through it. Two blue-clothed servants, sweeping out rushes and spreading sweet fresh ones on the floor, stopped their work and bowed as he passed. Cess was unnerved at being so close to people without them knowing.
“These must be spy passages. Lord Montacute must have built them into the house to spy on his visitors and servants. I have heard of such things,” Jasper whispered.
Cess had never heard of such a thing and was glad she worked in the poultry yards. With a lurch in her stomach she remembered that she no longer did work there and was unlikely to ever again. There had always been rumors among the estate servants and the villagers that Lord Montacute was one of the Queen’s spymasters. Cess felt a little shocked to find such direct evidence that the hearsay was true.
At the end of the passage they came to another narrow staircase. They climbed it to the first floor and a similar hidden passage, only this time the passage was so low that they had to bend double to pass along it. When they looked through the first spyhole, they saw why. It ran along the top of the wall, above the level of the doors into the chambers. The spyholes were angled downward, and elaborate hinges had been fixed to some of the panels.
“Concealed hinges,” whispered Jasper to Cess when he saw them. “My mother has them for her safe box in the wall. The hinges are hidden so no one knows the panel can open. Our blacksmith could not do them. The goldsmith had to. Here is the catch.” A tiny brass hook and eye kept the panel shut.
Looking through the first hole, Cess saw a bedchamber of such richness she could not have imagined it even if a king had been living here. The room contained a large bed, lifted high off the floor by its wooden base and turned legs so that rats and mice could not make it their home. At each corner of the bed was a tall wooden post, carved with intricate patterns of leaves and flowers, hung with cur
tains of green and gold silk. How secret and cozy it must feel in a bed with curtains closed around it at night, to keep out drafts and prying eyes. Several plump pillows were encased in fine striped cotton, and the coverlet was of quilted green velvet edged with gold silk. The whole room was paneled with oak, over which hung richly colored tapestries of hunting scenes. In the window recess was a carved oak table on which were several parchment rolls, sealing wax, quills, and an elaborate silver inkpot. There was a large clothes’ chest and a strongbox strengthened with metal strips and a lock for valuables. Woven rushes covered the floor, and the summer fire in the hearth was laid but not lit. Around the fireplace was an impressive stone mantelpiece with the Montacute coat of arms carved into it.
She nearly missed them, but as she turned away, Cess spotted two eyes staring at her. She gasped, then nearly laughed aloud in relief. On a wooden post by the window sat the white hawk. She was looking at Cess as if there were no wall between them. The smile faded on Cess’s lips. The bird looked cruel. Here was no lapdog that would lick its master’s fingers. Its large black-and-gold eyes were as keen and cold as if it was soaring leagues up in the sky, watchful for the next kill.
“This is Drax Mortain’s chamber,” she whispered. “Sir Edward’s only son. That’s his bird. Could his father be spying on him?”
Jasper shrugged. “I don’t suppose it’s the first time a father has distrusted a son,” he whispered back. “The bird knows we are here,” said Cess. As if it had heard, the hawk leapt off its perch and flew straight at them. Cess jerked back in fright, leaving the hole free. Jasper looked through just as the bird thrust in its talon. It scratched him a fraction below his right eye. The bird’s massive wings beat loudly against the panels as it tried to hover, but within moments, the talon was retracted as the bird swooped back to its perch. It picked at its foot, looking at the wall with its head on one side, as if preparing for another attempt. Blood was smeared below Jasper’s eye, and Cess scrabbled in her purse for something to stem the flow. She pulled the scrap of blanket away from the pendant and faltered. It was hot.