Laud looked as if he was about to raise another objection, until he caught Benedicta’s eye. Something passed between them, a kind of understanding that Lily couldn’t catch. Then he nodded cautiously.
‘All right, perhaps we should investigate…’
‘We?’ Theo queried, alarmed. ‘Surely this is a matter for the receivers.’
‘They won’t do anything, Theo,’ Lily said. ‘They think they have their man.’ She stood back, joining Laud and Ben. ‘We won’t ask you to come with us, but we have to find out the truth.’ Lily drew a little closer and whispered so that only Theo could hear. ‘If we can’t find the truth, we’ll never be able to let her go.’
Theo looked back at them, then glanced over to where Count Stelli slept fitfully in a cot against the wall. He frowned.
‘Just let me check on Grandfather, and then I’ll get my lantern. We’ll be safer in greater numbers.’
In the end they kept the lantern shuttered. It was far better to slip along the moonlit streets without attracting attention. Even past midnight the alleyways of Agora were far from deserted. As they ventured further towards the Pisces District, Laud and Theo drew their tricorne hats down over their faces, while Lily and Benedicta, who had insisted on coming, pulled black cloaks round their shoulders. All four walked close together. It was not for warmth, as the late summer’s night was almost sultry, but for protection – from the shadows around them, a thousand eyes watched their progress.
It was almost a relief to near their goal. When they came to the corner of Lock Street, though, Lily couldn’t suppress a shudder. It looked just like the rest of the slums. They could tell where Gloria had been found only from the small patch of cobblestones that had been swept clean. A bright spot among the filth-blackened streets.
Benedicta swallowed, her face paler than usual.
‘Please… let’s get this over with,’ she said.
Soon after that, they arrived. It was as unremarkable a square as Lily remembered, although now, in the small hours, its only occupants were curled in corners and doorways, sleeping. In the silvery light, the ancient building seemed out of proportion, looming up before them larger than it should be, both falling into the square and leaning back to rest on the vast city walls behind.
Without conscious thought, they moved as one, Lily leading the way while the others kept watch.
Lily reached out her hand. She tried the door.
Without a creak, without any sound, it swung open.
Theo opened one shutter on his lantern. A beam of light extended into the darkness beyond, but illuminated nothing. Lily looked around at her companions. They didn’t need to say anything.
They stepped inside.
The silence within hung heavy on the air. Lily could hear her own breathing, quick and high, more nervous than she would admit to feeling. Something was wrong. The door had been left unlocked. Any other house would have been crowded with squatters sheltering from the eyes of receiver patrols. Lily followed the beam of Theo’s lantern. It swept over a dusty stone floor, over old oak beams, and stopped. In the darkness, the light gleamed off something metallic. And sharp.
Lily caught her breath as Laud fumbled with the shutter of his own lantern, inwardly cursing that she had not brought one herself. She felt Benedicta take her hand in the dark.
Laud’s shutter opened. Another beam. For a moment, relief flooded into Lily’s mind. It was not a weapon. Then she looked again.
‘Well,’ Theo whispered in awe, ‘that’s why he called it the Clockwork House.’
Dominating the room, stretching back into the house, was a vast tangle of machinery. Cogs, crankshafts and wheels rose up to the ceiling and plunged down to the flagstones beneath them. Aside from the shiny and sharp-toothed cog that had caught the light, the whole edifice bore the rusty marks of time. Fascinated, Lily touched the nearest part. Its surface was rough and cool. No one had used this machine for years. Standing there, she felt dwarfed by this vast, incomprehensible secret. Turning, she could see Benedicta and Laud examining the walls of the house, perplexed, while Theo stared up at the works with foreboding.
‘Just a damp old house,’ Theo muttered, a tremble in his voice. ‘Nothing particularly strange about it,’ he added, as if trying to convince himself. ‘Probably some inventor down on his luck, years ago…’
‘Which of the Lord Chief Justice’s duties requires him to inspect ancient machinery?’ Lily replied, raising an eyebrow.
‘Who would bother making something that size for no reason?’ Laud added, straightening up from his investigation. ‘I can’t find any controls. If only there were another door, or perhaps…’
‘A staircase?’ Benedicta said softly.
The other three turned to see her moving aside a loose floor slab made of much thinner stone than the others. Beneath it, a set of wooden stairs descended into darkness. Hurriedly, Lily knelt down beside the hole in the floor and peered in. Something on the stairs below sparkled in the lantern light. The tiniest piece of gold leaf – fallen, Lily was sure, from an ornate mask of an eclipsed sun. The events of the night of Mark’s ball flashed before her again.
‘Lord Ruthven must have come this way,’ she murmured, looking up at the others.
Laud shone his lantern further down the stairwell, to the bottom. A solid oak door stood at the end of the steps, an elaborate design of a set of scales carved into its surface.
‘Libra, the scales…’ Theo said quietly. ‘Grandfather did manage to teach me something… Wait… Libra…’ Then, suddenly, he seized Lily’s arm. ‘You never told me this had anything to do with the Libran Society!’
‘Libran Society?’ Lily replied, confused, pulling her arm out of his grasp. ‘Who are they?’
Theo shook his head.
‘I don’t know. That’s just it – no one does. No one outside the highest in the city. Grandfather hated them. He said they were dangerous, that they had too many secrets…’
‘And this is one of them,’ Lily replied. ‘We won’t find the truth by running away from secrets.’
Theo thought for a moment, then bowed his head in submission.
‘I’ll stand guard. But please, be as quick as possible.’
Leaving the doctor at the top, Lily, Laud and Benedicta crept down the stairs. The handle of the oak door moved easily in Ben’s hand and Laud held his lantern out into the darkness. Lily half expected shouts of surprise, or running footsteps, but there was nothing. Nothing except Benedicta’s gasp at the room beyond the door.
The house above may have been decrepit, but the secret chamber was furnished for comfort and grandeur. Elegant tapestries of stern men and women hung on the walls. A few embers glowed in the grate of an elaborate fireplace. On the low ceiling, a design of interlocking arcane symbols stretched from corner to corner. The room was dominated by an ebony table, with padded chairs spaced round it. Laud put down his lantern, all of its shutters open, in the centre of the table and its light cast flickering shadows on the walls.
Lily peered around the room, searching for some kind of record or log-book, anything to hint at what was discussed in this hidden meeting house. At the head of the table, a sheaf of papers lay next to an inkwell and pen, but as she riffled through them she found that they were all blank. As she put them back, however, her gaze fell on something that had been underneath them – a pile of flat discs, glittering gold in the lamplight, inscribed with strange designs.
‘Do you think they deal in jewellery?’ Laud asked, holding up something between his thumb and finger. ‘I found some of these at the other end of the table.’
It resembled a piece of smoky crystal, intricately cut and faceted. As Lily looked at it, the lamplight seemed to be drawn in, a tiny flame forming in its heart. She blinked, telling herself not to be distracted. This was just a trick of the light.
Lily held out her hands and Laud dropped the gemstone into them. Staring at it, something stirred in her memory, something distant and dreamlike. Just as she reached for it, ho
wever, a more recent memory forced itself to the surface. An image of her record at the orphanage, and the payment for her care, left in strange gemstones that shone with an inner light…
‘Laud! Lily!’ Benedicta called over from the fireplace, interrupting Lily’s thoughts.
Lily hurried over in time to see Benedicta pull something from the ashes beneath the grate with a set of fire tongs. She held it up for Lily to see. It was a piece of parchment, scorched and nearly illegible, but some words were still clear.
‘The Midnight Charter…’ Lily read aloud, squinting at the lettering. ‘… hereby agreed that… until the time when the Antagonist… preserve the structure… the Protagonist must, with full support… lead to dissolution… as stated below…’
She pulled the charred paper towards her, trying to read it better, and the bottom part crumbled away, leaving her with only the title, unburnt, grasped in her hands.
Benedicta brushed the fragments from her dress.
‘It doesn’t seem to make much sense,’ she mused. ‘What’s a charter anyway?’
Lily frowned, trying to remember.
‘I think I saw a couple at the bookbinder’s, in the record books,’ she said. ‘It’s a foundation contract, a kind of list of rights and aims when you start something new, like a guild or –’ Lily paused, struck by a thought – ‘or maybe a society. But it didn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.’
Laud came over to join them, scowling.
‘It must be important,’ he mused, before adding irritably, ‘They had to make it so complicated, didn’t they? Would it kill them to write something simple?’
‘Simplicity is so rare nowadays, isn’t it, Mr Laudate?’
The voice came from the doorway.
All three spun round. Framed in the entrance, one foot still on the stairs, stood a figure in an all too familiar midnight-blue coat.
‘Sergeant!’ Lily said nervously. ‘We were just –’
‘I think the term is breaking and entering,’ Sergeant Pauldron continued smoothly, stepping into the room. His eyes caught the lamplight and gleamed as he surveyed them. ‘An unusual method of mourning, Miss Benedicta, Miss Lilith. Anyone would think that you knew more than you had admitted about the unfortunate incident.’
‘Not at all, sir,’ Lily said, hastily dropping the charred fragments into the pocket of her apron. ‘We thought, perhaps…’ Lily’s brain raced wildly, trying to think of an explanation that did not involve reading an unconscious receiver’s report. ‘A fresh pair of eyes… and some debtors told us that they thought this place was strange…’
Lily’s voice died away under Pauldron’s gaze. He was utterly still, but there was some kind of suppressed energy about him. He took another step forward.
‘Miss Lilith, I thought you realized that the case is solved. There is no question of who took Miss Gloria’s life…’
Benedicta bounded forward, seizing Pauldron’s arm beseechingly.
‘But that can’t be true! Pete wouldn’t do that, not in a thousand years…’
Pauldron put a hand gently on Benedicta’s shoulder.
‘Child, you must know that everyone has their secrets.’
Lily frowned. Something nagged away at the back of her mind. Something important. Something wrong. If only she could…
‘Sergeant,’ she said slowly and deliberately, ‘where is Dr Theophilus? We left him standing guard.’
Almost imperceptibly, she saw Pauldron’s fingers tighten on Benedicta’s shoulder. Lily looked for his other hand, but it was out of sight.
‘Ben,’ Lily continued, ‘I think you should come over here.’
‘I… don’t think I can,’ Benedicta said, her voice high and strained.
‘It might not be a wise idea,’ Pauldron agreed, ‘but you can turn, a little.’
Slowly, stiffly, Benedicta turned. But it was not her pale face or trembling hands that caught Lily’s attention. It was the long, slim-bladed knife that the sergeant was pressing against her stomach, just hard enough to cut the fabric of her shawl. It glittered in the lamplight, as cold and hard as his eyes.
Laud started and Pauldron turned his attention to him with a flick of his head.
‘Be still, boy. This doesn’t concern you. If you are fortunate this sister will not go the same way as the last one.’
There was a horrible silence. Laud’s eyes seemed riveted to the knife, but Lily’s were looking into Pauldron’s oddly impassive face.
‘The knife is clean,’ Lily said quietly, keeping her voice level.
Pauldron gave the tiniest of nods.
‘A truncheon saw to the doctor. Quieter. I think he may only be unconscious, for the moment.’
Lily swallowed. Her throat was suddenly dry and her heartbeat pounded in her ears so loud she could barely hear herself speak, but she continued, not daring to crack.
‘Why Pete?’
‘What makes you think I wish to answer your questions?’ Pauldron asked, his mouth cracking into a sneer.
Lily held his gaze.
‘Why else keep us alive?’ she said.
She could see Pauldron weighing the question. His tone was light, the most casual he had ever sounded. If he had not had Benedicta at knifepoint it could almost have been a normal conversation.
‘At first, I think, little more than an old-fashioned scapegoat. But now I know his family secret –’ he smiled, but his eyes did not – ‘I think that the execution of the father he thought was already dead will be a good distraction to put Mr Mark off his guard. And after Peter is executed… the son will soon be reunited with the father.’
‘I see,’ Lily said.
Her tone was the height of calm but internally her mind was screaming, trying desperately to think of a way out. Then she heard Laud speak in a voice of barely suppressed rage.
‘First Gloria, then Mark! What possible reason…’
Pauldron shook his head, slowly and deliberately.
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Mr Laudate, but Miss Gloria is not relevant. She never was. Not that it really matters to her now.’
He moved the knife up Benedicta’s dress, cutting the merest wisp of fabric as he went. Benedicta grew paler, but said nothing.
‘You know,’ Pauldron continued, ‘I doubt she felt a thing. She was so very –’ he gave a hollow smile – ‘emotional that night. Then again, those slum dealers are very reasonable. It only cost me a week’s rations to get hold of enough. Even so, she took some persuading before she would follow me here. But it had to be here, you see. I had to lead you here. To the place of my epiphany.’
Lily’s heart sank, even as Pauldron went on.
‘The Clockwork House is a very special building. The original purpose of the machinery is lost, but the society continues to meet here because it is such a wondrous symbol. A symbol of Agora and of the harmony that they – that we – wish to achieve. Every cog interlinking, every part working together to the glory of the whole, no one piece trying to set itself up as higher or worthier than the others.’ He fixed Lily with a stare and touched the tip of the knife to Benedicta’s throat. ‘Do you believe in fate, Miss Lilith?’
Lily looked back at him, inwardly berating herself for not seeing that finding that report had been all too convenient. She sized Pauldron up, trying to decide what answer he wanted, but those cold, dead eyes were inscrutable. Eventually, she chose the truth.
‘No,’ she said.
Pauldron nodded.
‘Neither do I. I believe that we can choose our future. And I will not have the one that you will bring.’ He looked over at Laud, who was trying to sidle towards him. ‘Attempt that again, boy, and you alone will be responsible for the consequences.’
He didn’t raise his voice or show any sign of anger, yet as they watched a spot of blood welled up on the tip of the knife. Laud stepped back, shaken.
Lily’s mind began to whirr, slotting together things he had said.
‘My future?’ she said tentatively
. ‘You mean the Almshouse?’
Pauldron’s lip curled.
‘A festering sore in Agora’s heart. But no, not the Almshouse. That’s nothing more than a symptom.’ His voice sank to a deadly whisper. ‘The Almshouse is not the source of the poison.’
He looked straight at her then and the cold, impassive eyes gave way to an expression of utter hatred.
‘We take an oath, Miss Lilith, when we join the receivers. To serve Agora and her virtues for all our life. We seal a contract with the city. A contract I saw my fellow receivers breaking every day, looking the other way, ignoring the law. Some of them said that I didn’t live in the real world. I began to falter in my belief, to compromise.’
Pauldron started to shake. Benedicta shrank back, but he kept a firm grip on her shoulder. ‘But higher wisdoms prevailed. They saw my devotion, my purity. They inducted me into their deepest secrets. They led me here to this house, to this room, to the centre of this wonderful, glorious dream.’ He stared into the distance, an ecstatic smile on his face. ‘They led me to the Midnight Charter.’
Pauldron moved suddenly. For one horrible moment, Lily saw Benedicta stagger, but the sergeant had only pushed her to the floor, unharmed. Benedicta tried to struggle away from him, but he placed his foot on her back.
‘Not just yet, little one,’ he cooed. ‘Soon, but not yet.’
‘It’s not her you want, is it?’ Lily said, the last of her thoughts aligning. ‘It’s me.’
Pauldron gave the tiniest of nods.
‘You and that impostor Mark. Strange, I often wondered why so many patrols were sent to observe you. No one would ever tell me why. My superiors always said it was too complex to understand. But actually, you see, it is very simple. The Midnight Charter is not long. It nearly made me wake up from this beautiful dream.’
At the edge of her vision, Lily noticed Benedicta slowly twisting under Pauldron’s foot, shifting her arms out from under her. Lily looked away, focusing on the sergeant. She had to keep him talking.
‘Dream?’ she said, almost casually.
‘Agora itself, Miss Lilith. Nothing but a dream. None of us real, all locked away in our perfect, pure city. Until you two, Miss Lilith. Until both of you destroy us.’ His face twisted with anger. ‘You, whose fire will consume everything I swore to uphold. I found my own fire. I burned away its dreadful words, but still they remained. Still they were not destroyed.’ He leaned closer. ‘But it can be stopped. Two years to go, but I will save everything. I will take his place and defeat you. So you see, Miss Lilith, in the end it isn’t complicated at all. It is simple. And Agora lasts forever and ever, thanks to the simplest thing of all.’ Pauldron raised his knife. ‘Come then, Antagonist. Come and die.’
The Midnight Charter Page 22