by Angie Sage
Marcia followed, carefully stepping over the mud, carrying the blue leather Apprentice Diary she had Made for Boy 412.
As the party emerged from the cottage, the last of the clouds cleared away and the moon rode high in the sky, casting a silver light over the procession as it made its way to the landing stage. Silas and Simon set the table down next to Alther’s boat, Molly, and put a large white cloth over it, then Marcia directed how everything should be set out. Nicko had to put the basket of cabbages in the middle of the table just where Marcia told him to.
Marcia clapped her hands for silence.
“This is,” she said, “an important evening for all of us, and I would like to welcome my Apprentice.”
Everyone clapped politely.
“I’m not one for long speeches,” Marcia continued.
“That’s not how I remember it,” Alther whispered to Aunt Zelda, who was sitting next to him in the boat so that he did not feel left out of the party. She nudged him companionably, forgetting for a moment that he was a ghost, and her arm went right through him and her elbow hit Molly’s mast.
“Ouch!” Aunt Zelda yelped. “Oh, sorry, Marcia. Do go on.”
“Thank you, Zelda, I will. I just want to say that I have spent ten years looking for an Apprentice, and although I have met many Hopefuls, I have never found what I was looking for, until now.”
Marcia turned to Boy 412 and smiled. “So, thank you for agreeing to be my Apprentice for the next seven years and a day. Thank you very much. It’s going to be a wonderful time for us both.”
Boy 412, who was sitting next to Marcia, blushed bright red as Marcia handed him his Apprentice Diary. He held the diary tightly with his clammy hands, leaving two slightly grubby handprints on the porous blue leather, which would never come off and would always remind him of the evening that changed his life forever.
“Nicko,” said Marcia, “hand the cabbages out, will you?”
Nicko looked at Marcia with the same expression he used for Maxie when he had done something particularly silly. But he said nothing. He picked up the basket of cabbages and walked around the table and started handing them out.
“Er, thank you, Nicko,” said Silas as he took the proffered cabbage and held it awkwardly in his hands, wondering quite what to do with it.
“No!” snapped Marcia. “Don’t give it to them. Put the cabbages on the plates.”
Nicko gave Marcia another Maxie look (this time it was the I-wish-you-hadn’t-pooed-there look), then quickly dumped a cabbage on each plate.
When everyone, including Maxie, had a cabbage, Marcia raised her hands for silence.
“This is a suit-yourself supper. Each cabbage is Primed to willingly Transform itself into whatever you would most like to eat. Just place your hand on the cabbage and decide what you would like.”
There was an excited buzz as everyone decided what they were going to have and Transformed their cabbages.
“It’s a criminal waste of good cabbages,” Aunt Zelda whispered to Alther. “I shall just have cabbage casserole.”
“Now that you have all decided,” said Marcia loudly over the hubbub, “there is one last thing to be said.”
“Get a move on, Marcia!” Silas called out. “My fish pie’s getting cold.”
Marcia gave Silas a withering look.
“It is traditional,” she continued, “that in return for the seven years and a day of his life that the Apprentice offers the Wizard, the Wizard offers something to the Apprentice.” Marcia turned to Boy 412, who was sitting almost hidden behind a huge plate of eel stew and dumplings just like Aunt Zelda always made.
“What would you like from me?” Marcia asked him. “Ask me anything you like. I will do my best to give it to you.”
Boy 412 gazed at his plate. Then he looked at all the people gathered around him and thought how different his life had become since he had met them. He felt so happy that there was really nothing else he wanted. Except for one thing. One big, impossible thing that he was almost too scared to think about.
“Anything you like,” Marcia said softly. “Anything you want at all.”
Boy 412 gulped.
“I want,” he said quietly, “to know who I am.”
49
SEPTIMUS HEAP
Unnoticed on the chimney pot of Keeper’s Cottage, a storm petrel perched. He had been blown in the night before and had been watching the Apprentice Supper with great interest. And now, he noted with a feeling of fondness, Aunt Zelda was about to do what the petrel had always considered she had a particular gift for.
“It’s the perfect night for it,” Aunt Zelda was saying as she stood on the bridge over the Mott. “There’s a beautiful full moon, and I’ve never known the Mott to be so still. Can everyone fit on the bridge? Shuffle up a bit, Marcia, and make room for Simon.”
Simon didn’t look as if he wanted to be made room for.
“Oh, don’t bother about me,” he mumbled. “Why break the habit of a lifetime?”
“What did you say, Simon?” asked Silas.
“Nothing.”
“Let him be, Silas,” said Sarah. “He’s had a tough time recently.”
“We’ve all had a tough time recently, Sarah. But we don’t go around moaning about it.”
Aunt Zelda tapped the handrail of the bridge irritably.
“If everybody has quite finished bickering, I would like to remind you that we are about to try to answer an important question. All right, everybody?”
Silence descended on the group. Along with Aunt Zelda, Boy 412, Sarah, Silas, Marcia, Jenna, Nicko and Simon were all squashed onto the small bridge that went over the Mott. Behind them was the Dragon Boat, her head raised high and arched over them, her deep green eyes staring intently at the reflection of the moon swimming in the still waters of the Mott.
In front of them, pushed back a little to allow the reflection of the moon to be seen, was Molly with Alther sitting in the prow, observing the scene with interest.
Simon hung back on the edge of the bridge. He didn’t see what the fuss was about. Who cared where some Young Army brat came from? Especially a Young Army brat who had stolen his lifelong dream from him. Boy 412’s parentage was the last thing Simon cared about, or was ever likely to as far as he could imagine. So, as Aunt Zelda started to call upon the moon, Simon deliberately turned his back.
“Sister Moon, Sister Moon,” said Aunt Zelda softly, “Show us, if you will, the family of Boy 412 of the Young Army.”
Exactly as before in the duck pond, the reflection of the moon began to grow bigger until a huge round white circle filled the Mott. At first, vague shadows began to appear in the circle; slowly they became more defined until everyone watching saw…their own reflections.
There was a murmur of disappointment from everyone except Marcia, who had noticed something no one else had, and from Boy 412, whose voice seemed to have stopped working. His heart was pounding somewhere high in his throat, and his legs felt as though they might turn into parsnip puree at any moment. He wished he had never asked to see who he was. He didn’t think he really wanted to know. Suppose his family was horrible? Suppose they were the Young Army, like he had been told? Suppose it was DomDaniel himself? Just as he was about to tell Aunt Zelda that he had changed his mind, that he didn’t care who he was anymore, thank you, Aunt Zelda spoke.
“Things,” Aunt Zelda reminded everyone on the bridge, “are not always as they seem. Remember, the moon always shows us the truth. How we see the truth is up to us, not the moon.”
She turned to Boy 412, who stood beside her. “Tell me,” she asked him, “what would you really like to see?”
The answer Boy 412 gave was not the one he had expected to give.
“I want to see my mother,” he whispered.
“Sister Moon, Sister Moon,” said Aunt Zelda softly, “show us, if you will, the mother of Boy 412 of the Young Army.”
The white disk of the moon filled the Mott. Once more, vague shadows b
egan to appear until they saw…their own reflections, again. There was a collective moan of protest, but it was quickly cut short. Something different was happening. One by one, people were disappearing from the reflection.
First Boy 412 himself disappeared. Then Simon, Jenna, Nicko and Silas went. Then Marcia’s reflection faded, followed by Aunt Zelda’s.
Suddenly Sarah Heap found herself looking at her own reflection in the moon, waiting for it to fade like all the others had done. But it did not fade. It grew stronger and more defined, until Sarah Heap was standing alone in the middle of the white disk of the moon. Everyone could see that it was no longer just a reflection. It was the answer.
Boy 412 gazed at the picture of Sarah, transfixed. How could Sarah Heap be his mother? How?
Sarah raised her eyes from the Mott and looked at Boy 412.
“Septimus?” she half whispered.
There was something Aunt Zelda wanted to show Sarah.
“Sister Moon, Sister Moon,” said Aunt Zelda, “show us, if you will, the seventh son of Sarah and Silas Heap. Show us Septimus Heap.”
Slowly the image of Sarah Heap faded away and was replaced by—
Boy 412.
There was a gasp, even from Marcia, who had guessed who Boy 412 was a few minutes earlier. Only she had noticed that her image had disappeared from the reflection of Boy 412’s family.
“Septimus?” Sarah knelt down beside Boy 412 and looked at him searchingly. Boy 412’s eyes stared into hers, and Sarah said, “You know, I do believe your eyes are beginning to turn green, just like your father’s. And mine. And your brothers’.”
“Are they?” asked Boy 412. “Really?”
Sarah reached out and placed her hand on Septimus’s red hat.
“Would you mind if I took this off?” she asked.
Boy 412 shook his head. That’s what mothers were for. To fiddle about with your hat.
Gently, Sarah lifted off Boy 412’s hat for the first time since Marcia had crammed it onto his head at Sally Mullin’s bunkhouse. Straw-colored tufts of curly hair sprang up as Septimus shook his head like a dog shaking off water and a boy shaking off his old life, his old fears and his old name.
He was becoming who he really was.
Septimus Heap.
WHAT AUNT ZELDA SAW IN THE DUCK POND
We are back in the Young Army nursery.
In the semidarkness of the nursery the Matron Midwife puts the baby Septimus in a cot and sits down wearily. She keeps glancing anxiously at the door as if waiting for someone to come in. No one appears.
A minute or two later she heaves herself up from her chair and goes over to the cot where her own baby is crying and picks the child up. At that moment the door is flung open, and the Matron Midwife wheels around, white-faced, frightened.
A tall woman in black stands in the doorway. Over her black, well-pressed robes she wears the starched white apron of a nurse, but around her waist is a bloodred belt showing the three black stars of DomDaniel.
She has come for Septimus Heap.
The Nurse is late. She got lost on her way to the nursery, and now she is flustered and afraid. DomDaniel does not tolerate lateness. She sees the Matron Midwife with a baby, just as she has been told she would. She does not know that the Matron Midwife is holding her own child in her arms and that Septimus Heap is asleep in a cot in the dim shadows of the nursery. The Nurse runs over to the Midwife and seizes the baby from her. The Midwife protests. She tries to wrest her baby back from the Nurse, but her desperation is more than matched by the Nurse’s determination to make it back to the boat in time for the tide.
The taller, younger Nurse wins. She bundles up the baby in a long red cloth emblazoned with three black stars and runs out, pursued by the screaming Midwife who now knows exactly how Sarah Heap felt only a few hours ago. The Midwife is forced to give up her chase at the barracks door where the Nurse, flaunting her three black stars, has the Matron Midwife arrested by the guard, and disappears into the night, triumphantly carrying off the Midwife’s own child to DomDaniel.
Back in the nursery the old woman who is meant to be babysitting wakes up. Coughing and wheezing, she gets up and makes up four nighttime bottles for her charges. One each for the triplets—Boys 409, 410 and 411—and one for the newest recruit to the Young Army, twelve-hours-old Septimus Heap, destined to be known for the next ten years as Boy 412.
Aunt Zelda sighed. This was as she had expected. Next she asked the moon to follow the Midwife’s child. There was something else she needed to know.
The Nurse just makes it back to the boat in time. A Thing stands at the stern of the boat and sculls her across the river using the old fishermen’s way with just one oar. On the other side she is met by a Darke horseman, riding a huge black horse. He pulls the Nurse and the child up behind him and canters off into the night. They have a long and uncomfortable ride ahead of them.
By the time they reach DomDaniel’s lair high up in the old slate quarries of the Badlands, the Midwife’s baby is screaming and the Nurse has a terrible headache. DomDaniel is waiting to see his prize, which he takes to be Septimus Heap, the seventh son of a seventh son. The Apprentice that every Wizard and every Necromancer dreams of. The Apprentice who will give him the power to return him to the Castle and take back what is rightfully his.
He looks at the screaming baby with distaste. The screams make his head ache and his ears ring. It is a big baby for a newborn, thinks DomDaniel, and an ugly one too. He doesn’t like it very much. The Necromancer has an air of disappointment about him as he tells the Nurse to take the baby away.
The Nurse puts the baby in the waiting cot and goes to bed. She feels too ill to get up the next day, and no one bothers to feed the Midwife’s son until well into the next night. There is no Apprentice Supper for this Apprentice.
Aunt Zelda sat by the duck pond and smiled. The Apprentice is free of his Darke Master. Septimus Heap is alive, and has found his family. The Princess is safe. She remembered something Marcia often said: things do have a habit of working out. Eventually.
AFTER…
Whatever happened to…
GRINGE, THE GATEKEEPER
Gringe remained the North Gate Gatekeeper throughout all the upheavals at the Castle. Although he would rather have jumped into a vat of boiling oil than admit it, Gringe loved his job, and it gave his family a secure home in the gatehouse after many years of living rough under the Castle walls. The day that Marcia had given him a half crown turned out to be an important day for Gringe. That day, for the first and only time ever, Gringe kept some of the bridge money—Marcia’s half crown, to be exact. There was something about the thick, solid silver disk lying warm and heavy in the palm of his hand that made Gringe reluctant to put it into the toll box. So he slipped it into his pocket, telling himself he would add it to the day’s takings that night. But Gringe could not bring himself to part with the half crown. And so the half crown sat in his pocket for many months until Gringe began to consider it his own.
And there the half crown would have stayed had it not been for a notice Gringe found nailed up on the North Gate one cold morning almost a year later:
YOUNG ARMY CONSCRIPTION EDICT
ALL BOYS AGED ELEVEN TO SIXTEEN
YEARS WHO ARE NOT APPRENTICED TO
A RECOGNIZED TRADE ARE TO REPORT
TO THE YOUNG ARMY BARRACKS
AT 0600 HOURS TOMORROW
Gringe felt sick. His son, Rupert, had celebrated his eleventh birthday the previous day. Mrs. Gringe was hysterical when she saw the notice. Gringe felt hysterical too, but when he saw Rupert, white-faced, reading the notice, he decided he had to stay calm. He shoved his hands in his pockets and thought. And when, out of habit, his hand closed around Marcia’s half crown, Gringe knew he had the answer.
As soon as the boatyard was open that morning, they had a new apprentice: Rupert Gringe, whose father had just secured a seven-year apprenticeship with Jannit Maarten, a herring-boat builder, for the substanti
al down payment of a half crown.
THE MATRON MIDWIFE
After the Matron Midwife was arrested, she was taken to the Castle Asylum for Deluded and Distressed Persons due to her distraught state of mind and preoccupation with baby-snatching, which was not considered to be a healthy preoccupation for a Midwife to have. After spending a few years there she was allowed to leave because the Asylum was becoming overcrowded. There had been a huge increase in deluded and distressed people since the Supreme Custodian had taken over the Castle, and the Matron Midwife was now neither deluded nor distressed enough to merit a place. And so Agnes Meredith, former Matron Midwife, now unemployed bag lady, packed her many bags and set off to search for her lost son, Merrin.
THE NIGHT SERVANT
The Supreme Custodian’s Night Servant was thrown into a dungeon after dropping the Crown and adding another dent to it. He was released a week later by mistake and went to work in the Palace kitchens as an undercook peeling potatoes, which he was good at, and soon progressed to be chief potato-peeler. He enjoyed his job. No one minded if he dropped a potato.
JUDGE ALICE NETTLES
Alice Nettles first met Alther Mella when she was a trainee advocate at the Castle Court. Alther had yet to become DomDaniel’s Apprentice, but Alice could tell that Alther was special. Even after Alther became the ExtraOrdinary Wizard and was much talked about as “that awful Apprentice who pushed his Master from the Tower,” Alice kept seeing him. She knew that Alther was incapable of killing anything, even an irritating ant. Shortly after Alther became ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Alice achieved her ambition of becoming a judge. Soon their separate careers began to keep Alther and Alice increasingly busy, and they never saw as much of each other as they would have liked to, something that Alice always regretted.