The Threads of Magic

by Alison Croggon

  “A poppet. A witchknife. Magical unguents. These are all incontrovertible evidence that under the guise of being a housekeeper in the Old Palace you have practised the evil arts of witchery.” Lamir pointed to the doll with a theatrical shudder. “Which unfortunate did you curse with this poppet, eh? What devilish charms did you weave in your evil practices?”

  Amina looked completely bewildered. “But … I don’t understand, sir.”

  “Explain these evil items, witch!”

  Now she wanted to laugh. “If you wish, sir. They’re easily told. That doll belonged to my daughter, sir, when she was a baby, and I kept it. As a memory, if you like. The candles are for cleansing the air of unpleasant odours. That there’s a paring knife. And those I think are cooking spices, sir. For the flavours.” She craned her neck, trying to see. “Some of them are excellent for the digestion, too. Like the turmeric, that yellow spice there…”

  Amina was using her strongest arts of persuasion, concentrating on being eager to please, homely, honest. The two guards exchanged glances, and she saw that she was swaying them, although of course they wouldn’t dare to intervene. Perhaps sensing this, Lamir dismissed the guards. Amina watched the heavy door slam shut behind them.

  The torturer hadn’t responded in any visible way. Perhaps he was so used to seeing people pleading for their lives that he had no human responses left in him at all.

  “It’s well known, witch, that such as you disguise your black arts with plausible-sounding excuses that trip easily off your tongues,” Lamir said. “Don’t think you can deceive me.”

  “But, sir, there’s nothing more to tell.”

  Lamir nodded to the torturer, who had picked up a nasty pair of pliers and was turning it over in his hands, looking thoughtfully at Amina. It was a professional kind of look, like a carpenter trying to size up the best way to saw a knotty piece of wood.

  “I’m sure there’s much more to tell. Let us see how a little application – a tiny, tiny taste of what’s to come – will help to refresh your memory.”

  “But, sir, I explained…”

  Amina let panic bubble up in her voice. She wasn’t pretending now. It didn’t matter whether she was a witch or not; she was bound hand and foot, utterly vulnerable before two men who had every intention of doing her harm. She had seen human beings do violence to each other often, since her work with lost children meant she had spent many hours in the most desperate districts of Clarel. But this was different. The intention, in itself, was terrifying. She had never seen it so clearly in a human face before: it was cold, emotionless, devoid of anything except a conviction of its rightness.

  At the best of times, Amina didn’t deal well with pain. She put up with it when she had to, and avoided it when she could. She was fond of her body, and wanted it to remain the way it was.

  The torturer slowly walked up to Amina and, for the first time, met her eyes. This was his moment. He was enjoying it.

  Perhaps even now it wasn’t too late.

  “Please,” she said, turning her eyes to the Cardinal. “Don’t do this, I’m begging you. Why me? I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “I think we both know that isn’t true,” said Lamir. “You are come to the place where all lies will be burned out of you. Our only desire is to save your soul.”

  The torturer, who had paused while the Cardinal spoke, turned his attention back to Amina. She shut her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  PIP WAS JUST DRIFTING OFF TO SLEEP WHEN HE woke with a start, thinking that someone had called his name. Without knowing why, he was mortally afraid.

  He sat up. The storm had passed, and a stray beam of moonlight slanted through the skylight. El was fast asleep in the next pallet, breathing easily now, and Oni was curled up next to her, snoring.

  A safe house, Oni had called it. It did feel safe. The pallets smelt of lavender, and the attic was warm and clean, the walls whitewashed between dark oaken beams.

  It’s not safe. The voice again. It was inside his head, but it wasn’t him. Clovis.

  “Yes, it is,” said Pip crossly. The Heart was under his pillow, and he picked it up, whispering so he wouldn’t wake the others. “Did you wake me up?”

  Safe for witches, maybe. Not for us. You can’t trust witches.

  “Who says?”

  We have to leave.

  Pip was too tired to argue. “We’re staying here,” he said flatly, and turned over to go to sleep again.

  We have to leave.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I command you, as a Prince of the Realm.

  The icy arrogance in the child’s voice called up all Pip’s truculent defiance. “You can’t command me,” he said. “It’s not your realm. You have a better place to be, huh?”

  There was a pause of naked astonishment. You dare to defy me? said Clovis. You? A mere commoner like you?

  By now Pip had had enough. He told Clovis, in a few short, impolitely chosen words, that he was as good a person as any prince, and to leave him alone.

  Clovis’s rage struck Pip like a blow inside his skull. He reeled with a blinding headache, clutching his temples as a vicious howling drove out every thought in his head. A life of many blows meant that Pip was stoic about physical pain, but this hurt worse than anything he had experienced, as if his own brain was having a tantrum and kicking itself to bits. Tears of pain and rage forced themselves out between his closed eyelids and down his nose.

  “Stop it!” said Pip. “Don’t. Just stop it!”

  Clovis was yelling, his voice echoing around Pip’s skull. You do what I say. That’s the rule.

  “It’s not my rule.”

  Clovis’s anger was like a tempest inside Pip’s skull. It went on and on. Pip gritted his teeth, scarcely aware of where he was any more, conscious only of his fury and outrage that this … this thing was inside his head, his own head, which was private and nobody else’s business.

  A brief but horribly vivid vision flashed through his mind. A face spattered with blood. A woman holding a dripping knife in one hand, and a clump of meat in the other, speaking words he didn’t understand but which filled him with loathing and terror. Clovis’s voice, screaming, I hate you I hate you I hate you…

  The sickness of nightmare clutched Pip’s throat. He convulsed with nausea and threw up his dinner over the pristine coverlet. But still some small, stubborn part of him refused to give in.

  And then, blessed relief. A hand on his forehead, a voice that wasn’t him and wasn’t Clovis. Oni. She sounded as if she were a long way away.

  “Pip? Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

  The pain lessened, as if the Heart had grown tired, like a sulky toddler. Pip opened his eyes and saw that Oni and El, woken by his shouting, were crouched beside him. Oni’s hand cupped his brow, cool and soothing. He sat up, wiping his mouth with a trembling hand. Although Clovis had quietened down, Pip could still sense his anger, simmering dangerously.

  “It’s Clovis,” he said thickly.

  Oni’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement, but before she could ask him what he meant Pip saw, with a clutch of foreboding, that the light had changed, as if the moon had come out from behind a cloud. But it wasn’t moonlight, it was a greenish glow. It rapidly grew so bright that it threw harsh shadows around the room. El looked over her shoulder, her eyes widening, and half stood up, her mouth open in fear. Pip reached for her hand but she was pulled away by some invisible force, falling backwards towards the light. And in the next moment, she vanished before his eyes.

  Oni was being pulled away too. Screaming for El, Pip grabbed Oni’s hand, holding her fast against the awful gravity of the green light. He could see the Rupture now, an impossible hole in the middle of the room. He felt as if Oni’s hand was blurring, as if already she wasn’t quite there.

  Neither Oni nor he had heard the door open, but suddenly Missus Orphint was next to them. She held a branch of sweet-smelling candles that flamed straight up without
guttering, although she was moving swiftly. She thrust her hands into the centre of the uncanny green light, but even as she reached, the light snuffed out.

  Her head sagged for a moment in defeat, and then she turned to the other two. “What happened here?”

  “It’s El,” said Oni. “She’s … she…” She covered her face with her hands, unable to speak.

  Pip grabbed the Heart from where it lay beneath his pillow and threw it against the wall. It hit the plaster with a light thud and rebounded onto the floor.

  “Bring her back!” Pip was so angry that he scarcely knew what he was saying. “Where is she, you dead horrible worm! How dare you! How dare you take my sister?”

  “Hush,” said Missus Orphint, and she lightly touched his shoulder. “Hush, Pip. Anger is no use now.”

  “He took El.” Pip burst into tears. “He took El because I wouldn’t do what he said.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Her voice was very calm, and as she spoke Pip felt his fury die down, to be replaced by an awful grief. He knuckled his eyes and took a breath before answering.

  “He told me,” he said. “Clovis.”

  “The Heart? Clovis has been speaking to you?” Oni looked horrified. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  Pip didn’t answer. He shrugged and walked over to where the Heart lay on the floor, and picked it up. Missus Orphint watched him carefully but made no move to stop him. The Heart felt neither warm nor cold, and there was no responsive pulse when he touched it. Clovis was nowhere – not in Pip’s head, not in the Heart. Pip weighed the Heart in his hand, staring down at it.

  “I was too late, Pip,” Missus Orphint said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Can we get her back?”

  Missus Orphint didn’t answer. She was looking at Oni. “You all right, Oni?”

  Oni nodded. She was trembling now. “Is she … is El dead?”

  “I don’t believe so,” said Missus Orphint. “But it’s hard to know.”

  There was a heavy silence, broken by Oni.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “First,” said Missus Orphint, “Pip will tell me exactly what happened before that Rupture opened in this room. And then we will think about what is best to do next.”

  Pip looked at his feet. “He wanted to leave here. He ordered me; he said he was a prince and I had to do what he said.” The anger flared inside Pip again as he spoke. “He said he doesn’t trust witches.”

  “He might have some reason for that distrust.” There was a dryness in Missus Orphint’s voice that made Oni glance up at her.

  “He shouldn’t have took El.” Pip wiped his face with his sleeve. “She didn’t deserve that. She did nobody any harm, not ever. I wish I never picked this thing up. El was right. I should have thrown it in the river.”

  “Throwing it in the river wouldn’t have made any difference,” said Missus Orphint.

  “It might have stopped it from taking El.”

  “It might. It might not have. You had already touched it, remember.” She sighed. “The first human touch, after all those years…”

  She took Oni and Pip’s hands, as if they were very small children. Somehow Pip didn’t resent the gesture, although normally he would have prickled with insult. “Come downstairs, you two. I’ll make us a hot drink.” She glanced at the ruined coverlet, where Pip had thrown up his dinner. “And then I’ll clean up that mess.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  DESPITE AMIABLE’S REBUKE, GEORGETTE STILL wasn’t sure if she was awake. She was rarely ill, but laudanum draughts were routinely prescribed by the court physician for any kind of sickness. Over the years the taste of laudanum laced with sherry and honey had become inextricably bound with her memories of the sickroom. She was familiar with the dreams it brought: vivid, strange, absurd visions.

  Like the Undercroft.

  On the other hand, her recurring dream of her mother and the dragon and the crying little boy had never come with laudanum. And even though that was definitely a dream, it had also been real.

  Perhaps, she thought, I will soon wake up in the palace, still betrothed to King Oswald.

  The only thing that made her wonder if she wasn’t hallucinating after all was the cold. Her clothes were soaked through and clung to her skin: even in the warm fug of the Undercroft her teeth were chattering.

  The Undercroft was as large as a market square. In fact, it was very like a market, from what she remembered of following Amina on her shopping trips when she was small. Or maybe, she thought, it was more like some huge, chaotic party.

  She followed Amiable closely, afraid she would lose her in the crowd. The cat threaded purposefully through a miscellany of stalls where people were dancing, or arguing, or playing complicated games, or simply watching everyone else. She had never seen such a variety of forms and figures.

  There were many animals like cats and birds, who were, against everything she knew about their natural inclinations, not only tolerating each other but seemed to be, in one case at least, having tea together. She almost trod on a small terrier-like dog, who told her sharply to watch where she was putting her clumsy feet, and she was sure she saw two foxes playing dice. There were other creatures too: sprites, or people who looked like sprites; a shadowy figure she couldn’t quite see even when she looked at it directly, and which gave her a hollow feeling in her insides.

  At the far end of the Undercroft was a tent, a smaller version of the pavilions that were set in the palace grounds for special occasions like tournaments or fencing matches between the nobles. This one was made of bright green silk, with yellow stripes. Georgette followed Amiable inside, bending her head to enter, and stopped short, blinking with surprise. Inside, the tent was much bigger than it looked from the outside.

  A group of about half a dozen people, who were seated around a table deep in conversation, turned their heads and stared at her in surprise.

  “I brought the Princess early,” said Amiable, jumping onto a chair. “Plurabella Orphint thought we ought to do that first, to get it out of the way.”

  A tiny old woman, so old she was bent almost double, stood up slowly and shuffled down the middle of the tent towards Georgette. Her eyes were two different colours, blue and brown, and her long white hair was piled up into a bun on the back of her head. “A good idea,” she said to Amiable. “Plurabella always thinks ahead.”

  She turned to Georgette and studied her, as if she were some exotic specimen. Georgette felt a strange awe, a prickle a little like fear. She curtsied without even thinking, trying to think of the polite thing to say.

  “Welcome, child,” said the old woman.

  “I’ve never even heard of this place,” Georgette said. She bit her lip, because that wasn’t what she had meant to say at all. “I mean … thank you…”

  “You shouldn’t have heard of it,” said the old woman. “It isn’t always this crowded, mind. Tonight is the Solstice Carnival, to celebrate midsummer. Which perhaps is fortunate, since the Witches’ Council is here already.”

  She studied the Princess again with that clear, unsettling gaze, and despite herself Georgette blushed. She felt as if she had a smut on her nose.

  “My name is Missus Clay,” said the old woman. “We’re no friends of the kingdom, I can tell you now. But since one of our respected colleagues requested that we take you from the palace, we are happy to welcome you to the Undercroft.”

  Georgette was beginning to feel dizzy, but she tried to pull herself together. “It’s an honour to meet you,” she said.

  “We would not normally interfere in royal business,” said Missus Clay. “But it seems that the Spectres are moving, and Amina says that you are one of the major pawns. So it is better that we remove you from the board altogether.”

  Georgette didn’t know how to answer. She didn’t much like the idea that she was a pawn.

  “What a poor miserable scrap,” said a man at the table. “She’s wet through. Didn’t you give her
a rain charm, Amiable?”

  “Do you think I had the energy, after putting a whole palace to sleep?” said Amiable sulkily. “I would have thought a simple thank you would suffice.”

  She stretched and yawned. And then her form blurred, and before Georgette’s eyes Amiable transformed into a young, dark-haired woman. She was wearing no clothes, but this didn’t seem to embarrass Amiable or anyone else. She stretched again. “That’s better,” she said.

  Georgette’s dizziness was getting worse and there was a roaring in her ears, as if she might faint. It was true, she was cold and miserable. Her clothes clung damply around her body. She could see steam rising from them in the warmth of the tent. But she was a princess, and princesses don’t faint. She swayed and almost fell, clutching at the cloth wall of the tent.

  The old woman took her elbow and led her to a chair. For all her apparent frailty, her hand was very strong. “First a change of clothes, and a hot drink,” she said. “She’s freezing.”

  It was amazing how much better Georgette felt when she was dry and warm. She was given some different clothes, breeches and a shirt and a waistcoat as before, and had changed hurriedly at the back of the pavilion. Nobody was looking, but that didn’t make her feel any less self-conscious.

  By the time she returned to the others, Amiable had put on a crimson dress. She was disconcertingly pretty, with the same black hair and green eyes she had as a cat, except that now her pupils were round. Georgette felt more shy and uncertain than she ever had in her life.

  There was a silence as everyone there studied her with open curiosity, aside from a sprite who was seated on the table itself. It was deeply absorbed in a game of knuckles. The bones it was using were tiny. Georgette stared at it distractedly. Were they rat knuckles? Did rats have knuckles?

  The sprite felt her gaze and glanced up at her. She just had time to see that its eyes were bright yellow before it vanished. Georgette blinked. The knuckles kept bouncing up and down by themselves.