The Midnight Charter

by David Whitley

  Instantly, Mark felt a sharp stab of guilt.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –’ he began, but Lily shook her head.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, taking the book from him. ‘Don’t stop.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Telling me what a real family would do,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I’d like to know.’

  Mark was thrown. He had never really thought about it before.

  ‘Um, the brothers and sisters would probably fight sometimes, but not really mean it… The mother would try to make peace and make everyone feel safe… She would love them all… and the father would…’ Mark faltered. ‘He would protect his family… and keep them close to him. Every one of them. That’s what a good father would do.’

  ‘He would,’ Lily said, with quiet fierceness. ‘That’s what he should have done.’

  They stared at each other, unsure of what to say next. Mark wanted to thank her, but he knew, just by looking in her eyes, that she understood.

  Then, as if nothing had happened, Lily opened the book again, a half-smile on her face.

  ‘Come on, enough distractions, back to your reading lessons,’ she said in a breezy tone. ‘Unless you want me to convince the doctor to sell your contract to a sewage worker…’

  Mark relaxed, all of the tension in the room fading away.

  ‘I’d like to see you try,’ he replied, peering down at the page.

  This, then, was his happiness – living in an ancient building with a strange girl, a master who talked of things he could not understand, and a fierce voice from above. It felt timeless, as if it would continue forever.

  But it didn’t. And it was his fault.

  It was also the day he discovered the other important use of reading. A little more attention and he would have noticed his name on the receipt delivered to their door by the receiver, the receipt for his title gift contract with Lily, finally processed by the Directory. A little more knowledge and he would have hidden it away, not left it in the pile of papers for the doctor to take up to his grandfather at their weekly conversation.

  The voice of the Count shook the tower; Mark felt the vibrations all the way down in his room. He shrank back, hiding from the sound of running feet. He heard the doctor call his name frantically, but he couldn’t move. He sat on his bed, his knees drawn up under his chin, shaking. He had been discovered and they were going to throw him out. Out there.

  His door burst open and he buried his head in his knees, clinging to the meagre sheets. He wouldn’t be taken. He felt a hand grab his shoulder and shake it.

  ‘Mark!’

  It was Lily’s voice. He looked up, grasping at her sleeve.

  ‘Don’t let them take me out there,’ he said, his stomach lurching. ‘I’ll live in the deepest cellar, I’ll work all night, just don’t let them take me…’

  ‘It’s not just you, Mark.’

  He stopped. Lily’s face was strangely intense.

  ‘It’s Dr Theophilus,’ she continued breathlessly. ‘The Count found out about you and they argued. The doctor explained that you weren’t infectious any more, but the Count said that it was about trust, about hiding people in his own home…’ Lily slowed down, gathering herself. ‘The Count owns the tower and he’s throwing him out, so as his servant you go where he goes…’

  Mark collapsed backwards on to the bed, groaning.

  ‘Don’t let them send me out there, Lily. I’ll die… I can’t…’

  ‘Then swap with me.’

  Lily’s voice cut through his thoughts, clear and firm. He sat up. She was holding out a contract, her seal already on it.

  ‘You don’t want to leave,’ she said, ‘but I do. This is the only chance I’ll get. I don’t want to leave you behind, but it’s either you or me who walks out into the streets.’

  Mark stared at the contract. It was so simple; even he could read it all. Trembling, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his signet ring, its brightness barely dulled. He hesitated.

  ‘Can we do this? Is it allowed?’

  ‘It’s legal, just about,’ Lily replied. ‘We’re nearly the same age and haven’t officially been working here long enough to have different skills. As far as the law’s concerned, we’re worth the same.’

  Mark thought about this, his brain racing.

  ‘The Count won’t keep me if he thinks I’m diseased.’

  Lily shook her head.

  ‘The doctor says he managed to convince him that you’re no longer dangerous. He told me this wasn’t just about you, that it’s been coming for a long time.’

  ‘I’ll be alone with the Count.’

  ‘True,’ Lily said. ‘He’s a hard master and you’ll work all day. But he’s rich, he’ll keep you fed, and you’ll never have to leave the tower.’

  Mark slipped on the ring and moved it towards the blob of still-soft wax. He looked up.

  ‘And you?’ he said quietly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, and Mark noticed that, despite her determination, the contract quivered as she held it. ‘I’ll write to you somehow. I’ll visit if I can. I’ll let you know. And you write back to me, all right?’

  For a moment, they stared at each other. Then he nodded.

  ‘I’ll miss you,’ he said softly.

  Lily pushed the contract forward.

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but that’s Agora. You take your chances when they come if you want to survive.’ She paused as Mark pressed his seal into the wax. She nodded and grabbed his hand. ‘Keep surviving, Mark.’

  And then she was gone.

  Some hours later, Mark was still sitting numbly on the bed. The flurry of activity, the shouts and bangs, had all long since faded away. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered vaguely what time it was.

  In the distance he heard the ringing of a bell. The Count was calling for his supper.

  Silently, Mark trudged up the grand staircase that got narrower and darker as it wound its way up the centre of the tower. Finally, at the top of the stairs, he stood before a door that he had never seen. Lily had described it well. It was a door of burnished bronze. A door to the stars.

  ‘Sir?’ he said at last. His voice squeaked as he spoke, but he managed to keep the trembling out of it.

  There was a pause, followed by the slow tread of heavy footsteps descending a flight of stairs. Mark held his breath, but the door did not open. Instead, he heard a low rumble from within the closed chamber.

  ‘Who is that?’ The voice was not loud, but it carried infinite menace, like distant thunder.

  ‘Uh…’ Mark felt his throat go dry. ‘Mark, sir. Your new servant.’ Silence from behind the door. ‘Lily… she went with Dr Theophilus. I stayed. I think… you know about me.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You are fortunate, boy, that I have no time to hire a new servant at present. I am told that you are now free of disease,’ the voice of the Count rumbled. ‘Nevertheless, if you infect me, I shall see that you are thrown from the top of my tower before I die. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I want no food tonight, I am working. Bring breakfast early tomorrow morning, boy. I am expecting visitors. Now be gone.’

  Mark’s legs obeyed the final instruction before his brain registered it. The Count’s commands carried a lifetime of authority.

  He wandered down to the kitchen. The fire had gone out and Lily’s sewing had been left on a chair. Mark sat down heavily. This was it, then, just the two of them in this vast old place.

  He still hadn’t decided how he felt about it all when he fell asleep.

  Chapter Four

  THE GLASS-MAKER

  The rain lashed against her face, but Lily didn’t care. She breathed in deeply. She was outside. The walls were no longer there.

  She looked up at Dr Theophilus, but he was once again swathed in coat, mask and goggles. She had not had long to read his expression when she told him about her and Mark’s a
rrangement, but she had seen that he wasn’t angry. Sad might have described it better.

  Then again, the doctor often looked sad. Lily did not see him very often, but she had noticed how his step grew slower every day, how his brown hair was already showing signs of grey, even though, according to an old diary of his that she had found in one of the disused bedrooms, he had seen little more than two grand cycles. It gave the date of his title day fifteen years ago. He had sounded so proud.

  Lily could have wished for a better day on which to see the city. When the cart had taken her to the tower she had tried to imagine what the outside world looked like. Lying stuffed among the bales of cloth like old linen, she had listened to the rain spatter on the tarpaulin covering her. Now she looked and felt that same oily, foul rain on her face as she stared up at dingy grey walls and a leaden sky. Still, the streets around the tower itself were broad and clean, a sign on the wall proudly proclaiming this as part of the prosperous Gemini District, the seat of learning.

  Shielding her eyes against the rain, Lily looked about her. Everywhere the people who pushed past were packed in so tightly that she could barely see the buildings around them. As they went on, the crowds grew louder and the shops grander. The cobbles below her feet were replaced with smooth, even flagstones. Ahead a huge ornamental arch, carved with two identical figures gazing at each other, loomed above the sea of heads.

  And then the streets opened out.

  Even in the driving winter rain, even when shoved and jostled from all sides by the hordes of cloaked people, the Central Plaza took Lily’s breath away. The River Ora, channelled by engineers many years before, flowed round the circular hub, while twelve arched marble bridges, one for each district, crossed over its greenish waters to the twelve vast arches that led to the rest of the city. And in the distance, visible always despite the gloom, the towers of the Directory of Receipts loomed out of the clouds. Lily had never been this close before, but she didn’t need anyone to tell her what the building was – it stamped its authority upon the plaza as if its mastery of the city was infused into every stone.

  She so wanted to linger by the hundreds of stalls set up on the plaza, covering it in a carpet of wares. She wished she could have shown Mark this. Shown him that the outside world was not always terrible.

  But there was no chance of that now. Perhaps not ever.

  She was jolted out of her reverie as she saw Dr Theophilus carrying on, crossing the bridge ahead of them to the Plaza and plunging through the crowd. She had to run to catch up with him. They continued together towards another of the arches on the far side, this one bearing the carving of a strange creature. Half-man, half-horse, it stretched back a bow and arrow, as if to send its shaft plunging into the heart of the Directory or maybe even soaring over the distant city walls.

  As they crossed another bridge and then passed beneath the arch, Lily read the inscription on the archway: Sagittarius District.

  Beyond the arch, the streets began to constrict, but the mass of bodies seemed only to increase, the roar of people hawking their wares even louder than before. But Dr Theophilus’s silent tread lay away from that, down the alleyways where huddled forms pushed past them, not wanting to linger.

  The stones grew grimier, the streets rougher, and sometimes Lily’s shoes swam up to the ankles in mud. Looking at one figure, Lily noticed that all she had to sell were pieces of brick and stone that she had scoured from the crumbling buildings around her. Soon, as they progressed deeper into the district, the makeshift stalls vanished altogether. Now those they passed had something quite different to sell, and it couldn’t be displayed.

  Looking at them, Lily heard again the words of the matron of the orphanage: There are no beggars in Agora, children. Everyone makes their way by bartering something, for there is always someone who will trade.

  Lily drew the collar of Mark’s coat round her face. It was too big for her, but it had been part of the contract, and now she used it to hide her face. Some of the shadows in doorways turned their heads as she walked past, holding out their hands, which were spotted with patches of grey. Lily shrank back. She suddenly had the urge to hold the doctor’s hand. It was ridiculous, she was a servant, but just then she felt so alone.

  She reached out and, to her surprise, he grasped her hand. He gave it a squeeze. Not much, but she concentrated her eyes on it, saw her dark hand clasped in his black gloves. He stopped then, and looked down at her. His face was hidden behind the mask, but there was something in the way he passed her a thick cloth to use as a headscarf that suggested concern. Her feet ached now and she was dizzy with new sights. The buildings seemed to stretch up into the sky, looming over her.

  ‘Sir,’ she said at last, ‘I don’t think I can go on…’

  ‘Nearly there, Lily,’ Dr Theophilus replied, breaking his silence. ‘Just a few more streets.’

  As Lily dragged her weary feet over the cobbles of the Sagittarius District, she realized with a start that she had no idea where they were going.

  There were shops here, proper buildings, but they pushed together like a mob, squeezed nearly on top of each other. And still they walked on, until, in one swift movement, the doctor dived down a side street and produced a set of keys.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said.

  The building looked very ordinary from the outside. Its stone was dark red and it had no coloured banners hanging from its windows to advertise its presence. It rested in the shadow of a shop whose walls were covered in pieces of sparkling glass. A small, thin woman appeared at the shop’s doorway, peering at the doctor as he tried to fit one key after another into the lock.

  ‘Theo?’ the woman said at last, as the doctor dropped the keys with a muffled exclamation. He turned and pulled the mask from his face.

  ‘Yes, indeed, Miss Devine,’ he said, with a brisk politeness. ‘I wonder, this lock…’

  ‘I had it changed,’ she said, sidling over to the door. ‘The locksmith was getting a little too interested… I was charged with caretaking by your parents, Theo.’

  ‘Quite.’ Dr Theophilus frowned, his eyes flicking to one side. ‘If we could have the key, Miss Devine, I intend to practise here. I believe the property still belongs to me.’

  ‘To an extent, Theo, to an extent.’ She raised a hand, stained with some kind of bluish smear, and ran a finger over the door. ‘Since your parents did not settle all of their debts before they left, much of the property now belongs to me.’

  ‘They died, Miss Devine.’

  ‘Quite. Still, I am not ungenerous. A regular contract with a doctor, for free, will go some way towards the new rent.’ The woman smiled.

  Lily shivered. There was nothing malicious in the smile. And that was what was so unnerving: it was as if she couldn’t see the pain crossing the doctor’s face.

  ‘I shall need some new glassware as well,’ he said at last, gesturing towards Miss Devine’s shop. ‘Let us decide on the rate. Lily, come with us.’

  Mutely, Lily followed the adults into Miss Devine’s shop. The entire front wall was covered in tiny multicoloured shards of glass that glinted in the dying light, their red pattern proclaiming her trade as a glass-maker. As Lily pushed her way through the heavy curtain that served for a door, the light dimmed dramatically. Inside the room, the shelves were full of glass phials. Inside each one was something that shimmered in the half-light of an old lantern. The doctor and Miss Devine slipped behind the long, low counter, and went on into a back room that was lit by the flickering glow of a glass-blower’s furnace. Left on her own, Lily began to sweep her eyes across the shelves. Each miniature bottle had something written upon it, but in the gloom she couldn’t quite make out the words. She squinted closer, focusing on one deep maroon liquid. There was something scratched into the glass – a name: Ambition.

  ‘It’s a fine one, that.’

  Lily jumped. A figure had emerged from the shadows. For a moment, she thought it was Miss Devine, but then she saw that this woman was younge
r and even thinner. Red curls, tangled and knotted, obscured much of her pale face, so all Lily could see were two large blue eyes, peering at her with a strange brightness. Lily noticed that she held one of the phials between her fingers – a pale yellow liquid that seemed to shake even though her hands held it steady.

  ‘Is it some kind of perfume?’ Lily asked, trying to be polite to cover her unease. She had seen something like this in the old dressing room of the tower, a relic from the Count’s mother.

  The woman laughed. ‘Nothing but the smell of success there, young miss. That’s pure ambition, bottled for sale. Expensive, too. One of Miss Devine’s finest. They say she milks it out of servants in the old houses, keeping them docile for their masters. Makes everyone happy.’

  Lily looked back at the bottle. This must be a joke, surely, but the woman spoke as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  ‘Gloria!’ The sharp voice of Miss Devine, who had reappeared from the next room, cut across their thoughts. The woman looked up, smiling. Miss Devine gave a businesslike nod.

  ‘Your usual, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Devine,’ Gloria said hurriedly, holding up the phial of yellow liquid for inspection. ‘I wouldn’t dream of going anywhere else.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  Lily watched as Miss Devine tore off a strip of paper from a long roll on the counter. She wrote with practised speed, dripping the wax and sealing it almost before Gloria had detached a small leather bag from her belt and placed it on the counter. Lily watched as Gloria fumbled with her signet ring, before plunging it into the wax, leaving her symbol, a pedestal within a wreath of leaves, next to Miss Devine’s stamp – a phial of liquid. The glass-maker took hold of the bag, opened it and gave a deep sniff.

  ‘I see the spice merchant on Aurora Road has been using your services again, Gloria. Fine wares, very useful.’

  ‘Is it enough?’ Gloria asked, twisting her long sleeves between her fingers.

  Lily noticed that she had begun to rub her wrists together nervously.

  Miss Devine smiled. ‘For today, Gloria. Since you are such a good customer.’