The Master of Heathcrest Hall

by Galen Beckett

  “Yet what?”

  She thought of how to explain it. “A bird is a wonderful creature. I might look up at it, and long to fly away with it.” She shrugged. “But I am not a bird myself. Rather, I am a thing quite firmly fastened to the ground. Regarding it all now, I know that my affections for Mr. Rafferdy, though strongly felt at the time, were based upon fancy and whim. It was only when I met you that I realized what I really wanted for myself, and the traits that I truly admired: bravery, strength of character, and a selfless and unwavering resolve to always do what is right and good. Charm and wit can be delightful, but in the end they are too easily paired with vanity and callowness.”

  “And you believe Mr. Rafferdy possesses these latter traits?”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but her thoughts, so clear a moment ago, were suddenly confused. Was Mr. Rafferdy vain and callow? Perhaps he had been once. But now? She could hardly call him such things, not after his actions at the Evengrove, or in Assembly. Yet he still tended to indulge himself with fine clothes and fancy canes, and he continued to make a habit of speaking in a silly fashion about serious things.

  “No,” she said slowly. “He is not those things, at least not anymore.”

  “Then you hold him in high esteem?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, only realizing how true it was as she spoke the words. She thought of how brave Mr. Rafferdy had been to face the magicians of the Silver Eye with her, how strong he had been to resist the dreadful magicks at the tomb of the Broken God, and how he was presently risking his life to safeguard the Wyrdwood from the machinations of politicians. “In the very highest esteem.”

  Ivy realized Mr. Quent was studying her, his eyes intent upon her face. At last he gave a slow nod, and she wondered what it was he had seen. She could feel her cheeks glowing, and the beating of her heart seemed fluttery and uneven. But this agitation was useless. It was not simply that the past could not be altered; it was that, even if she could do so, she would not.

  Her thoughts grew calm, and she tangled her ten fingers among his eight. “What has gone before this moment does not matter,” she said. “All that matters is what comes after it. Let us go to Heathcrest Hall. We will be happy there, I know it.”

  He was silent for a moment, and it seemed he gazed past her, into the distance. “Maybe it will be so,” he said softly, as one might speak a prayer. “Maybe it will be allowed, for us to go back.”

  Ivy did not understand—who was to allow it but themselves? But before she could say more, his gaze returned to her, and crinkles appeared beside his eyes as he smiled.

  “No matter what is to come after, the first thing I must do following this moment is to write a bit more. I should return to my study for a while, if that’s well with you.”

  Ivy felt a brief disappointment that their peaceful afternoon in the garden was at an end. But it was no matter. After all, they would have countless more such days together in the country.

  “As the master pleases,” she said, giving him an impish smile.

  Though she had meant it as a jest, his own smile receded into his beard. “My Ivy,” he said at last, his voice a low thrum.

  He caught her in an embrace, bringing her to him and encircling her with his strong arms as he kissed her, and Ivy returned these affections with all of her own strength. Then he rose and went back into the house, leaving her alone beneath the swaying trees.

  A SHORT WHILE LATER, Ivy returned to the house as well, for the lovely weather had at last been marred by a cloud that came through, and which then proceeded to rain upon the city. It was no more than a halting drizzle—just enough to make the air sticky and uncomfortable.

  Ivy walked past the door to Mr. Quent’s study, but it was shut. He must still be at his work, so she proceeded to the library to see to a task herself. She took out the Wyrdwood box and her father’s journal, then turned through the pages to see if any more words had manifested. None had.

  She took out the sheet on which she had transcribed the last entry that had appeared in the journal. As for Fintaur, she read the words again, you will find him residing under the aegis of the princes of the city of Ardaunto.

  Ivy still had not returned to Mr. Fintaur’s bookshop. The events following Mr. Quent’s testimony before Assembly had precluded doing so, for she had not wanted to be far from her husband in his time of need. Yet he had seemed well today, even happy, and now he was engaged in his study. If not now, then when? If they would indeed be leaving the city soon, she would not have many more opportunities.

  Ivy glanced at the clock. The gold disk was turning slowly on the right-hand face; the afternoon was clearly going to be a long one. Which meant she had time. She could go to Greenly Circle now, and tell Mr. Fintaur of what she had learned in her father’s journal. He could speak to the others. No doubt he knew Mr. Mundy, given the close proximity of their shops. And she imagined he knew how to find Mr. Larken as well.

  Ivy returned the sheet of paper to the Wyrdwood box—then drew it back out as a thought occurred to her. She understood the riddle her father had written in the journal about Mr. Fintaur. And the line about Mr. Mundy was easy enough to comprehend.

  If you follow the gaze of the Silver Eye, you will surely come to him.

  There was a silver eye painted on the sign above Mr. Mundy’s magick shop, of course. But what about Mr. Larken’s whereabouts? Again Ivy read the words her father had written.

  Larken you will find in good time. Of us all, he ever wore the crown of punctuality. I can think of at least a dozen and a half occasions when he scolded us for being late.

  It had to be another riddle, like the others in the journal, and like so many that Mr. Lockwell had posed to her when Ivy was a girl. As she read the words they seemed to tease her, tempting her with a secret truth even as they remained just beyond understanding. She set her fingers against her temples and leaned over the paper, concentrating on the words, trying to see through them to the real meaning beyond.

  “I know you can solve it, Ivoleyn.” She heard the familiar sound of her father’s voice.

  “But I don’t see the answer,” she murmured in reply, as she had so many times as a girl.

  “It’s right there before you,” Mr. Lockwell said. “Remember, the most obvious meaning is not the only one. You must search for other meanings, ones that lie beneath the surface. Look deeper, and you will see them.… ”

  And Ivy’s eyes grew wide. Yes, she did see the deeper meaning. And she realized that, just like Mr. Fintaur, she had been close to Mr. Larken on a prior occasion without even realizing it.

  “Well done, Ivoleyn,” her father said, as he had so many times before.

  And the clock on the mantel let out a chime.

  With a gasp, Ivy turned to look at the old rosewood clock. She half-expected to see her father standing behind her, encouraging her to solve the cipher as he had so many times when she was young. Only he was not there.

  But of course he wasn’t. He was still at Madstone’s. Nor had he spoken to her like that since she was twelve years old, before he lost his mind while binding the protections around the Eye of Ran-Yahgren. She had simply recalled the sound of his voice, and the things he used to say while she was solving a puzzle, that was all.

  Except it hadn’t seemed like her father’s voice had been a memory in her mind. It was as if she had really heard his voice, here in the room, just like the chiming of the clock.

  No, that was impossible. Just as it was impossible the clock had chimed. It was not the top of the hour, and it was past the start of the third farthing of the day. All the same, Ivy went to the fireplace, looking at the old clock on the mantel. She could hear the soft whir of its inner workings, and a steady ticktock as it kept time.

  Carefully, Ivy turned the clock around, then she opened the door in the back. There was a small brass plaque on the inside of the door, but it was too tarnished to read what was etched upon it. She breathed on the plaque, and polished it with the edge of he
r sleeve. Then she turned the clock so that the brass plate caught the light coming through the window.

  D. F. Larken, Clockmaker, read the fine words engraved on the plaque. No. 18 Coronet St., Invarel.

  Ivy stared, dumbfounded. Now that she understood the riddle, it was obvious. She had indeed found Larken in good time—inside the beautiful old clock. And the references to the crown, and the number of scoldings he had given, were obvious as well. A coronet was a type of crown, and a dozen and a half was the same number as eighteen.

  A shroud of riddle obscured by magick and shut in a locked Wyrdwood box—why had her father gone to such lengths to conceal the knowledge in the journal? What was this keystone?

  She didn’t know, but she was going to find out.

  Carefully, Ivy shut the door on the back of the clock. There was at least one thing she understood now, and that was how the rosewood clock was able to keep time even when the almanacs no longer could. After all, the mechanics of Mr. Lockwell’s celestial sphere had been able to accommodate the addition of the twelfth planet. Why shouldn’t a clock made by Mr. Larken be able to do the same?

  A thrill came over Ivy. Perhaps she would go see not only Mr. Fintaur that afternoon, but Mr. Larken as well. After all, she knew where he was. She had been to No. 18 Coronet Street once before, when she brought in the old rosewood clock, thinking it broken. Only this time, she would not settle for speaking with an apprentice. She would speak to the master clockmaker himself.

  An excitement rose within Ivy at the idea of speaking with her father’s old compatriots. They would know why the keystone was important; they would understand what it was her father wanted them to do. And with her duty in the matter discharged, she could have no reservations about leaving the city. Her heart quickening, Ivy turned from the fireplace.

  And halted.

  The tall silhouette of a man stood outside one of the library windows. Despite the warmth of the day, he was dressed as always in heavy, frilled garb of black.

  It is too late, he said, and this time the words indeed sounded in Ivy’s mind. You have delayed too long. He has returned.

  She could not move, could not breathe.

  “What do you mean?” she said, or at least, she tried to. “Who has returned?”

  Look.

  As if compelled by a will not her own, her head bent and her gaze went to the low table by the sofa. Despite the fact that she had banished them from the house—and the fact that she was certain there had not been one there a short while ago—a broadsheet lay open on the table. Like a puppet, impelled to movement by another’s thoughts and actions, she moved toward the table, then looked downward.

  BOOKSHOP PROPRIETOR FOUND MURDERED, read the headline on the open page. Perpetrator Unknown in Violent Slaying Near Greenly Circle.

  A coldness came over Ivy, and at last she was able to make a sound: a low moan. Suddenly freed of the force that bound her, she took a lurching step forward, nearly falling onto the table before catching herself. She drew in a shuddering breath, then looked up.

  There was nothing outside the window save the little chestnut and hawthorn trees in the garden.

  A QUARTER HOUR LATER, Ivy sat inside a hack cab as it jostled through the streets of the Old City. She had not asked Mrs. Seenly to have Lawden ready the cabriolet; there had been no time. Instead she had dashed through the front gate onto Durrow Street, and had waved down the first available carriage for hire.

  It was only as the hack cab started into motion that she realized she had rushed out of the house without telling anyone what had happened or where she was going. Not her sisters or Mrs. Seenly. Not even Mr. Quent, who had still been shut in his study. After seeing the man in the black mask, her mind had been consumed by a singular thought: she must warn Mr. Larken that he was in dire peril.

  That was, if he had not already met the same fate as Mr. Fintaur.

  For a moment she considered returning to the house to tell Mr. Quent what had happened. But by then the hack cab was already proceeding down the street at a full clip. Ivy had waited too long to return to Mr. Fintaur’s shop, and now she would never have an opportunity to talk to him. She could not risk the same occurring with Mr. Larken.

  As the carriage continued along, Ivy looked down at the broadsheet on her lap, for she had brought it with her. According to the story, the incident at the bookshop off Greenly Circle had occurred the prior lumenal, and several gruesome details were given.

  great quantity of blood … the proprietor was discovered on the floor of … but with no sign that the lock on the door had been forced … and a report, unconfirmed, that the flesh of his chest had been flayed apart and dressed in the most careful fashion, like the carcass of a deer after it is shot.…

  Ivy folded up the broadsheet, unable to read anymore.

  “Poor Mr. Fintaur,” she whispered, and her eyes stung with tears. How she would have liked to talk to him, to come to know him, and to ask him about his memories of her father. Now she never would. Someone had made certain of that. But who had done this thing?

  Except she already knew the answer to that.

  He has returned, the man in black had said. But the magician Mr. Gambrel had been locked beyond the door Tyberion, forever trapped inside the way station on a moon circling the planet Dalatair. There was only one other man Ivy knew of who would resort to such awful means to gain Mr. Fintaur’s fragment of the keystone.

  And Torland was not nearly so far away as Dalatair’s moons.

  The hack cab came to a sudden halt with a clatter of hooves. A moment later the driver was at the door.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but there’s some commotion blocking the street. Would you like me to go around by another way?”

  A fear gripped Ivy. She fumbled with the door, thrusting it open, and was out and down to the street before the driver could so much as move to help her.

  “Are you well, ma’am?”

  With numb fingers, she found a few coins in the pocket of her gown and pushed them into the man’s hand. Then, without waiting for a reply, she hurried past him down Coronet Street. The driver was right; there was indeed some sort of disturbance. Carriages and wagons were all at a standstill, and people were pressing forward between them, as if trying to get a view of something.

  Ivy wormed her way among the people, relying on her diminutive size when her strength was not enough to force her way through a gap. Abruptly she burst through the front edge of the crowd—and she could not clamp a hand to her mouth quickly enough to stifle a choking cry.

  Three soldiers in blue coats stood in front of the open door of a shop. With their stern looks, as well as the rifles fitted with bayonets which they gripped, the redcrests had managed to keep a large half circle before the shop free of onlookers. Behind them, dozens of clocks kept time in the shop’s window, pendulums swinging and hands turning. The number 18 was chiseled into the stone above the door.

  The soldiers made an effort to stand close to one another, blocking the crowd’s view of the doorway. But they could not conceal the stream of crimson that had flooded over the threshold to cascade down the front steps. Then another soldier emerged from the shop, his face gray. As the other men parted to let him pass, Ivy caught a fleeting glimpse through the doorway. A form lay upon the floor, limbs splayed out at unnatural angles like the legs of an insect pinned inside a naturalist’s shadow box.

  “Good God!” someone shouted. “They opened him up and gutted him like a pig!”

  Gasps and cries rose from the crowd. The soldiers returned to their positions, closing off the view through the doorway. It didn’t matter; Ivy had seen more than enough.

  A sickness rose up in her, and a dizziness swam inside her head. People were continuing to push their way forward to gain a look at the scene, and she ceased resisting their pressure. Ivy fell back, and in moments found herself on the ragged edge of the throng. She turned around, wondering if the driver of the hack cab had waited for her. As she did, a man in a dark coa
t caught her eye.

  It was not the driver.

  He was walking down Coronet Street, away from the clockmaker’s shop: a tall, gaunt man dressed in a charcoal-colored suit, a broad-brimmed hat on his head. As he walked, he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, back in the direction of the shop, and suddenly Ivy felt as if it were her own blood draining into the street. For in that moment she saw the man’s face beneath the brim of the hat. It was long and sallow, with narrow eyes set deep above a sharp blade of a nose. Then he turned and hastened away down the street, passing around a corner.

  With that, Mr. Bennick was lost from view.

  For a moment, Ivy was gripped by a paralysis. She felt she should run after him in pursuit, or shout out for the soldiers. Only it was no use; he was gone. Nor could it have done any good. It was not as if Mr. Bennick would have kept a bloodied knife about him or any such obvious evidence of his crime. He was far too clever for that. Calling for the redcrests was more likely to hinder her than it was him.

  Besides, she was too late; he had gotten what he had come for, and now he was gone.

  Only he had not gotten everything he wanted yet, had he? There were two more fragments of the keystone in the city—presuming Mr. Mundy had not already met a similar fate as Mr. Fintaur and Mr. Larken. The man in the mask had been right; she had indeed delayed too long. Only she had never imagined Mr. Bennick would dare to show himself again, not after the way he had been defeated in his attempt to gain the Eye of Ran-Yahgren.

  But she should have known the temptation of power would be too great, that it would eventually induce him to return. Mr. Bennick had been deprived of his magick. How this had been done, she did not know. She had thought it was his own order of magicians that had taken his power from him, though Mr. Gambrel had claimed that was not the case.