The Midnight Charter

by David Whitley

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  David Whitley was born in Chester in 1984. At the age of seventeen he was shortlisted for the Kathleen Fidler Award for a children’s novel and at twenty he won the Cheshire Prize for Literature for a children’s short story. TV quiz fans will have spotted David on BBC2’s University Challenge, when he was a member of Oxford’s Corpus Christi team who became Series Champions in 2005. This is his first book.

  david-whitley.co.uk

  DAVID WHITLEY

  PUFFIN

  For Mum and Dad

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published 2009

  Text copyright © David Whitley, 2009

  Illustrations copyright © Tomislav Tomic, 2009

  Illustration of the Midnight Charter fragment © Tom Sanderson, 2009

  The moral right of the author and illustrators has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192836-4

  This mournful Truth is ev’ry where confest,

  Slow rises Worth, by Poverty deprest:

  But here more slow, where all are Slaves to Gold,

  Where Looks are Merchandise, and Smiles are sold,

  Where won by Bribes, by Flatteries implor’d,

  The Groom retails the Favours of his Lord.

  Samuel Johnson

  Contents

  Chapter 1: The Staircase

  Chapter 2: The Signet Ring

  Chapter 3: The Deal

  Chapter 4: The Glass-maker

  Chapter 5: The Manservant

  Chapter 6: The Violinist

  Interlude One

  Chapter 7: The Dumbwaiter

  Chapter 8: The Past

  Chapter 9: The Future

  Chapter 10: The Song

  Chapter 11: The Star

  Chapter 12: The Idea

  Interlude Two

  Chapter 13: The Dance

  Chapter 14: The Secret

  Chapter 15: The Daughter

  Chapter 16: The Theft

  Chapter 17: The Box

  Chapter 18: The Night

  Chapter 19: The Trial

  Chapter 20: The Speech

  Interlude Three

  Chapter 21: The Fall

  Chapter 22: The Scroll

  Chapter 23: The Cell

  Chapter 24: The Director

  Chapter 25: The Promise

  Chapter One

  THE STAIRCASE

  Being dead was colder than Mark had expected.

  When his mother had told them all tales of the afterlife, she had drawn him close into her woollen skirts and painted a picture of another city, one where it was always summer. A world where the river glowed clean and bright, a land where all debts were forgotten. Mark had trusted every word, until he awoke in a stone cell, shivering and wrapped in a shroud.

  His mother had been the first to go. At least she would have found out before him how wrong she had been. She had turned as grey as the stone. He had held her hand right up until the end. Then the Reaper had come. It had looked like a man in a black coat until he had glimpsed its face – smooth and white, without mouth or nose, but with two huge black eyes. Mark had shrunk into a corner as it passed by. The other children had said to touch it was to turn to dust.

  It came three times. The first time for his mother, then for his brother and sister. On each occasion he heard his father mumbling something, and the low answering tones of the Reaper, just out of earshot. Only once had his father’s words become loud enough to make out. He was shouting something about the water, that there was no other water to drink. The Reaper had left with a slower step that time, as if it knew it would be back.

  After that came the tiredness, the lightness. Mark had watched the backs of his own hands turn grey. He knew it would be soon. Then there were only feelings. The sense of a burning mouth, and of noise. Of being half pushed, half lifted past whirling shapes and sounds. Of a final, blissful coolness filling him.

  When he awoke, he was cold. It was obvious he was dead. Everything felt different. The grey was gone from his skin, the noise from the air. In life, the stench of the river had mingled with the tang of fish, clinging to his hair and clothes. The afterlife smelled of dust, with a whiff of vinegar. For a while he shut his eyes, drawing the sheets round him to ward off the draught that crept about his feet, but it was no good. He peered around the room. It was not large. The walls and floor were of grey stone. He could make out a fireplace where a few embers still glowed. And beside it, a door.

  Mark waited, though for what he was not sure. An angel? Had he been good enough for that? He’d always helped his father to gut the fish. And he’d cared for his brother and sister as the plague claimed them. Was that enough? Stiffly, he slid his feet over the edge of the bed and got up. He shuffled towards the door. It was old, the wood warping around the hinges. It did not look like an angel’s door. With a shaking hand, he pushed it open.

  An ancient stone staircase spiralled up before him.

  In the back of his mind, something stirred. Something his mother had said about the legend of the man who was not good enough to get into heaven, who had climbed there himself. In the distance, up the stairs, he thought he saw a glimmer of light.

  He raised a bare foot and placed it on the first step.

  The staircase was uneven; the stone crumbled away in some places. When he looked down, he could see that it carried on, past the room he had come from, and disappeared into murky depths. After that, he tried not to look down again.

  He passed doors. Thick doors of dark wood. No light came from behind them. What if they were where the damned went? Those who left their work unfinished, their debts unpaid. Mark had seen them dragged screaming out of their homes by the receivers, the men in blue. They were never seen again.

  He carried on, twisting higher and higher. The staircase seemed to grow steeper. His legs were weaker than in life, and he leaned against one wall. His fingers felt something carved into the stone. It was too dark to see what was there, so he traced it with his fingertips. Six shapes in a circle. Pointed shapes. Stars. Should he know what that meant? He tried to remember more of his mother’s stories, but thinking about her was painful.

  Then, below him, he heard the squeak of hinges.

  He began to move faster. He scrambled up, p
ushing himself with hands and feet, his heart pounding. Behind him he heard another step, slow and firm. Nothing good would be coming from those musty depths, and he was so close to the light.

  And then he saw it.

  Above him one of the old doors stood open. Light streamed through from beyond – pink, orange and gold. Mark pressed forward, clambering higher still. As he moved, he glanced back. The Reaper was on the stairs behind him, his black shape blending into the deeper shadows. He willed himself upwards. Just a little further, just a few more steps. No Reaper could ascend into heaven. He reached the door, gasping, pulling himself round the frame, throwing himself into the room.

  His eyes hurt from the brightness; he had to screw them up. Beyond the door was a landscape of pure white. And ahead of him, bathed in streaming light, stood a figure, a girl, staring into the heart of the burning radiance. She turned; Mark dropped to his knees, fixing his gaze on the floor. Mother had said to look upon a dweller in heaven was to feel your soul burn away. His eyes were already on fire.

  From behind, he heard the approaching step of the Reaper. He flattened himself on the ground. The angel would save him.

  ‘Sir… who is this?’

  The voice wasn’t that of an angel. It was wary, guarded and unmistakably young. It reminded Mark of his sister.

  ‘His name is Mark.’ Another voice, male, older and soft.

  Mark felt his breath catch. The Reaper was behind him now; he heard the rustle of its coat as it bent over him.

  ‘He belongs to me now.’

  ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘Not any longer. Isolation from further infection was the only way to achieve a full recovery. Certainly seems more lively now, although I don’t see the reason for all this panic.’

  Confused, Mark opened his eyes a crack, turning his head slightly. The angel stood before the Reaper – he tall, in black robes and with a ghastly, pale face; she in white, apart from the darkness of her face, hair and hands. He tried to raise himself, but the angel turned her head his way. He looked at her imploringly.

  ‘If you will permit me, sir,’ the angel said, her deep brown, almost black, eyes curiously meeting Mark’s gaze. Then she reached up and deftly removed the Reaper’s face.

  For a moment, Mark felt dizzy, his head spun.

  And then he came back to life.

  The tower room grew darker as the setting sun, which had been streaming through the narrow window, sank beneath the ledge. The room, Mark now saw, was full of furniture covered in white dustsheets. The angel’s robes no longer burned with light. In fact, they were not much better than his own clothes – only a rough, cotton working dress and a cream-coloured apron. As she bent over him, a few strands of thick, black hair fell forward over her face, slipping loose from the white ribbon she had used to tie it back. And in her hands the dark-skinned girl now held a white, strangely shaped mask, together with a pair of thick, dark pieces of glass that Mark would soon learn were called goggles.

  As for the Reaper, his true face was human. A young man, his short, straggly brown hair beginning to recede, a thin moustache perched upon his lip.

  Mark sat up.

  ‘Am I alive?’ he said, his voice rattling painfully in his dry throat.

  The girl nodded. ‘Thanks to Dr Theophilus,’ she said.

  She stared at Mark, her dark eyes taking him in. Then she turned to the man.

  ‘Sir, the Count’s note said that he wanted to see you at the fifth hour. I have taken him his meal.’

  The doctor nervously ran a finger over his moustache.

  ‘Don’t suppose you could tell what kind of mood he was in, Lily?’

  The girl, Lily, frowned. ‘I would be… tactful, sir.’

  She glanced down at Mark, who was still sitting between them, and said, ‘Are you hungry?’

  It took Mark a few seconds to realize that she was talking to him. Then, at once, he found that he was ravenous. He nodded furiously. Lily smiled.

  ‘Can he have food now?’ she asked the doctor, who pursed his lips.

  ‘I believe so,’ he answered cautiously. ‘Yes… some food first, and then show him round. Grandfather and I have important business to discuss.’

  Lily responded with a brisk bob of the head and turned back to Mark. She held out a hand.

  ‘First part of the tour – the kitchen is this way.’

  Mark put his own hand in hers. It seemed paler than normal against her dark fingers, but maybe it was because the usual grime had been washed away. Shakily, he rose to his feet. He was taller than her. She let go and gestured down the stairwell. From up here, it looked less supernatural.

  ‘Five doors down,’ she said. ‘Go in and wait for me. If you touch the pots you’ll be sorry. I just need a moment with the doctor.’

  Mark nodded again, trying to think of what to say even as he stepped back on to the stairs and began to descend. He was still puzzling it out when he reached the fifth door and turned the handle. Then all thoughts of words were driven from his mind by the overpowering smell flooding through the open doorway. The smell of food simmering in pots over a smoky fire. All at once, it was like being back by the river, before the grey plague had come, where in the evening the different scents of a hundred broths and stews would lead him through the alleys and home to huddle round the bowl with his brother and sister and pick clean the remains of his father’s last catch of the day. He was about to rush in, to pull the lid off the nearest one, when he heard a sound above him. Lily and the doctor were talking. He hovered by the door, curiosity fighting with hunger. Then, silently, he moved back up the stairs, straining his ears.

  ‘… not to let the old man know,’ the doctor was saying. ‘Not just yet. He doesn’t think we need to keep another servant. I’ve tried to explain that I cannot manage without assistance but… you know him.’

  ‘Very well, sir. I take it Mark will be helping you.’

  ‘As soon as he is well enough, Lily. He’s my first full recovery,’ the doctor said with a touch of pride in his voice. ‘I’d better be careful.’

  Mark smiled. He didn’t know what was happening, but whoever these people were, they were going to keep him.

  ‘And…’ Lily’s voice drifted down, ‘does he know yet that his father sold him?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘I thought you might break that particular piece of news, Lily,’ the doctor sighed, ‘as one who knows what it’s like to adjust…’

  ‘As you wish, sir.’

  Numbly, imperceptibly, Mark’s appetite died.

  Chapter Two

  THE SIGNET RING

  ‘Well, Lily?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How is the boy doing?’

  ‘Much the same.’

  It was their ritual for the first few days. Lily sat on the stone staircase just outside Mark’s room, stitching tablecloths or reading by the light of a candle. Every hour or so, Dr Theophilus would ascend from his cellar rooms, make his gentle enquiry, his eyes full of hope, and, receiving the same reply, would nod with concern and turn away. Mostly he would return to his studies. Lily never went down there. She knew he kept human corpses in the cellar, the bodies of plague victims, for dissection. It was necessary, of course – if he was to cure this plague he had to understand it – but Lily shivered to think of working all day surrounded by their fixed, ghostly stares.

  This time, the doctor sat down beside her on the step. He stroked his thin moustache thoughtfully, a sure sign that something was worrying him. Not that this was unusual.

  ‘How long do you think he will be in there?’ he asked.

  Lily considered for a moment, wondering whether she should tell him about the sobs she heard when Mark thought everyone was asleep, about the red-rimmed eyes that peered through the crack of the door as she slipped in his food.

  She looked up into the doctor’s own eyes, seeing the heavy shadows underlining them from sleepless nights of work.

  ‘Not long, sir.’

  Of
course, the doctor was being soft. By law, Mark should have been working the second he arrived. She had, as soon as she knew where the dusters were kept in this ancient tower. But she didn’t bear a grudge; that wasn’t going to help.

  The doctor sighed.

  ‘I wish I didn’t have to conceal him like this. Perhaps if he were free to wander the tower on his own he would adjust better, but…’

  The doctor trailed off. He always did when he thought of his grandfather. Old he may have been, but Count Stelli had lost none of his presence or his power. Lily put down her book, trying to think of a practical solution.

  ‘Perhaps, sir, if you stressed how important he is to your research, as the first patient to recover from the plague –’

  ‘Mention plague to the old man and he’ll throw the boy into the street, and me with him,’ Theophilus interrupted with a shake of his head. ‘Perhaps it would be different if the plague ever touched the elite, but they think my research is worthless or, worse, dangerous. They see no profit in trying to cure a disease that lurks in the Piscean slums, and if Grandfather knew I had brought a carrier into his home, even a healthy one…’ The doctor turned his gaze on Lily, eyes too sad and weary for his age. ‘Why can no one see how much suffering it causes, Lily?’

  Lily looked up at the doctor. There was an answer to that question and they both knew it. Lily knew that the blindest people were those who would not see. That was why she always kept her eyes open.

  Their moment of reflection was interrupted as, in the distance, a bell jangled, accompanied by a low rumble like distant thunder.

  The doctor frowned. ‘Looks like the old man has woken,’ he said with resignation.

  Lily got up. ‘He’ll be wanting his breakfast.’

  And like any other day, she left the doctor to drift back down to his work, his thin, tall shadow disappearing into the depths, as she climbed up the spiral staircase to the kitchen.