by Leyland, L J
‘Want? Need, more like. Gin. Large. Thanks,’ I replied.
‘Two gin and tonics please, Nora, and hold the tonic.’
He winked at her and the old crone blushed crimson like a schoolgirl. It was slightly creepy. I raised a sceptical eyebrow at Matthias and he mouthed ‘What?!’ back. ‘Might be worth a free drink later …’
Taking the two cracked glasses of vinegary liquor, we weaved through the throngs, working our way to a vantage spot – a quiet table, set back in a slightly raised alcove which was always free as it was farthest from the bar. Inconspicuous but elevated so we had a view of the tavern and of the entrance. I cast my eyes around. He wasn’t there. I grabbed Matthias’s wrist and peered at his cracked watch face. Ten past midnight. Had he already left when we didn’t appear dead on midnight? Or had he not arrived yet? Matthias gently took my hand that was cutting off the circulation to his wrist and prised my fingers from him. ‘He’ll be here. Stop worrying.’
‘Lateness is a pet hate of mine,’ said a soft voice just to the right of me.
Matthias and I both jumped, surprised by the closeness of the voice. Our time spent in the marshes had made us very aware of all sounds, no matter how small, so it was a rare thing for us both to be caught off-guard. It was him. Standing there. Unharmed. Smiling.
‘I was prepared to wait though. I didn’t think you’d want to miss this.’
‘Well, that depends what information you’ve got, then we’ll be the judge of whether it was worth turning up for or not,’ replied Matthias.
Squaring up and butting heads already. I rolled my eyes and gave Matthias a hard pinch under the table.
‘Fair enough.’ Noah shrugged, not rising to the bait. ‘May I?’ He indicated towards the table and I nodded. He quietly slipped onto a bar stool facing us both.
His accent was unlike ours. Ours was homely, rounded and thick, with letters that were dropped as unnecessary, whereas his was clear, sharp and clipped. Every letter was pronounced, which made me feel lazy about dispensing with my ‘h’s’ and ‘g’s’. I wondered where on earth he got that accent from. Everyone I knew spoke like me or Matthias. When I was younger, I used to spy on the school in town, curious about the other children who had parents and didn’t live on a houseboat, who went to school and led a normal life. For quite a long time, I wished I was one of them. But even all of them spoke like me. Perhaps Blueblood children didn’t go to the same school as town children. But then again, there were so few Blueblood families left that I doubted they had their own school. Perhaps he had been educated at home, in his mansion. Perhaps the Metropole provided private education for Blueblood children, where they had developed their own accent, isolated from the coarse drawl of the townsfolk. How nice for them.
It had gone very silent with Matthias scowling at Noah and Noah politely looking the other way. I needed to fill the void. So I said the first thing that came into my head.
‘You’re not dead,’ I blurted out suddenly.
Idiot .
Noah stared at me.
‘No, I’m not,’ he said slowly, as though he was speaking to someone who was not fully competent.
‘Great use of detective work there, Maida,’ sniggered Matthias. God, I wanted to punch him.
‘I just meant … I thought you wouldn’t survive the night, what with the Mayor being a madman and all.’
‘I told you he couldn’t touch me. You didn’t believe me though, did you?’ His eyes penetrated into mine and I had to look away.
‘Not really. I’m sorry. I’ve just never heard of anyone coming out better off against the Mayor. So tell me then, how did you and Flora get off the hook last night?’
His eyes cast downwards suddenly and when he looked up at me, they were shining and sad. He shook his head. I understood immediately.
‘No,’ I breathed. ‘She can’t be. How? His own daughter?! How could he?’
I realised Noah was shaking with suppressed rage. He said, in a very measured voice, as though struggling to contain his anger, ‘He’s evil.’
I saw Matthias eyebrows shoot up mockingly, obviously thinking Noah’s statement dramatic. We both hated the gossipy way that the townsfolk talked, exaggerating every detail so that peoples’ lives started sounding like melodramas. But something within me made me think that Noah wasn’t the melodramatic type. He seemed to use words sparingly and intellectually; he didn’t seem the type to exaggerate in order to win gasps.
‘Evil?’ asked Matthias. ‘Isn’t that a bit strong?’
‘Wouldn’t you class carrying out your own daughter’s execution evil?’ Noah retorted.
I choked. ‘He did it himself?’
‘A shotgun. After he realised you had escaped. I’ve seen him angry before but this was indescribable. I think he was barely human.’
‘Bloody hell.’
I was too shocked to cry. Just numb. Just empty and hollow. I hardly knew the girl but in the short time that we were acquainted, I could tell there was an air of tragedy that pursued her, hunted her, eventually found her, took her. It didn’t surprise me that she had been killed. She didn’t seem like one of life’s survivors. But I still couldn’t help feeling sad about her death. And perhaps there was a twinge of guilt in there, too. Maybe I could have done more to help her.
‘Why did he kill Flora and spare you?’
Noah gave his head a small shake, as though waking himself up from a dream. His eyes refocused and he came back into the present. ‘She was too much of a liability. Her mind broke a while back, if it was ever there at all after her mother was banished. She couldn’t act sane, he knew she couldn’t keep his secrets anymore. Whereas I can. I’m a brilliant actor,’ he said.
I exchanged a look with Matthias. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. ‘Actor’ isn’t too far a leap from ‘liar’.
I just couldn’t figure him out. Everything I assumed I knew about Bluebloods and assistants had been blown to pieces by him, by his kindness. I’d never heard of them defying the Mayor or helping townsfolk. Surely that meant he was essentially on our side? Or at least, that he was essentially a good person? But somehow, I still wasn’t quite sure of him. Although he sat there quietly, controlled, exuding a calmness and a trustworthiness that was reassuring, there was a frisson of dangerous intellect about him.
I couldn’t place my finger on it but it was slightly unsettling. His knowing eyes had a false depth, sparkly blue, like the surface of a calm lake but one that plunges fathoms into a dark, mysterious waterworld. He was as unreadable as an ancient, forgotten language seen on tombs – cryptic, mystic, and slightly unnerving, as though the strange symbols, if spoken out loud, would summon spirits from the underworld. He was completely unfamiliar. Unlike Matthias who was as comfy as an old boot and as predictable as the sunrise.
‘What secrets did she know? What secrets do you know?’ asked Matthias, beginning to get intrigued.
Noah smiled ruefully. ‘I wonder …’ he mused. ‘Are you ready to know the truth? Are you ready to know everything? I warn you now, you might not believe me. You might even end up hating me and my family. But I think you deserve to know. Besides, I need your help.’
So mysterious yet so compelling. All I could do was nod. Matthias’s hands were gripped on the table in tight, white knuckled fists, ‘I’m ready to know,’ he said.
‘There’s madness in my family,’ Noah began. His voice was soft yet there was an ominous edge to it. ‘Always has been. Sometimes it manifests itself as eccentricity, harmless but strange. It’s generally considered the charming oddities of an ancient family. All of us ancient families have a streak of madness. What is it you townsfolk call us? Bluebloods? I think the madness stems from the fact that we all share the same blood. Noble blood but blood that has concentrated certain qualities over time. Pride. Stubbornness. And madness. Eccentricity is usually the extent of it. But sometimes, just sometimes, one of us is born with their mind not quite connected to their body, so to speak. You hear of them in o
ld fairy stories. Demented woman, dressed in dusty lace rags, hidden in attics, creeping about the manors at night, committing murders and other sins. Families trying to pretend they don’t exist for the sake of their pride.’
This was horribly close to the bone – it was so reminiscent of Flora, hidden away in the meat-hanging room, erased from history by her only family member. I wondered where Noah could be going with this.
‘In my family, it was my aunt. My mother’s sister. This was before the Flood, when there was no Metropole; just us nobles who ruled Britannia, while we were still joined as one country.
‘My family couldn’t understand how someone so beautiful could be so deranged. Her name was Iris. By the age of sixteen, Iris had the body of a woman but the mind of a child. A very, very strange child. She claimed she could see into the future, see destruction, the fall of civilisation, demise, death. It occupied all her waking thoughts and all her night time terrors.’
Matthias gasped. ‘She saw the Flood?’
‘No. Of course not,’ replied Noah. ‘It was just nonsense; ramblings of a desperately unstable young woman. Iris was very unwell, mentally, but she couldn’t tell the future, not really. Her illness made her very agitated in normal circumstances but occasionally, it made her extremely violent. My grandfather lost an eye. She said she didn’t want him to see what was coming. She was imprisoned in their manor’s cellar for her own safety and that of her family, especially her younger sister, my mother, who she had taken a particular interest in.
‘Of course, there was no way my parents could marry her off to another noble. If word got out that there was madness in our family, my mother’s chances of marriage would be forever quashed and she would die alone and childless. My mother was beginning to look like a promising young woman with good prospects. It wouldn’t be fair to taint her with the suspicion of illness that haunted her sister. Therefore, they had to get rid of my aunt, and quickly, before she ruined the prospects for the family.’
I couldn’t stop myself from butting in at this point. ‘Of course, we couldn’t have the mad sister ruining the fun for the rest of the family, could we? I mean, that just wouldn’t be fair at all, how selfish of her.’
‘Maida,’ Matthias warned, ‘let him finish.’
Noah looked at me, somewhat abashed. ‘I know you think us cruel, but those are the rules we must abide by in our world. Appearances, pride, keeping face. You’ve no idea how free you are. You’ve no idea how constrained I … we are. Don’t judge us too harshly.’
I cast my eyes down and fiddled with my nails petulantly. I remembered Matthias’s advice about learning to understand others and being sympathetic to those who don’t always share my views. Perhaps I was being too harsh; I didn’t know the rules of their world or what sort of unspoken laws they were bound by. I reminded myself that Noah had nothing to do with Iris’s imprisonment – he wasn’t even born then. That thought soothed me a little.
‘My grandfather decided that Iris couldn’t stay in the house but neither could she marry a noble. She would have to be married off to a poor man, a commoner.’
‘But why?’ I asked. ‘Why couldn’t she live by herself? Or stay at home?’
‘It’s not our way,’ replied Noah. ‘Our women are not like you. They don’t live alone. It would bring disgrace on my family if she were unmarried. She’d already been introduced into noble society at the age of sixteen. The nobles knew she was of marriageable age. My grandmother could never live with the shame if she was unmarried. So they had to find someone for her. Someone who would relish the thought of marrying into an ancient family, but someone who carried no sway with the nobles. Someone who would keep her madness a secret in return for money from our family. Someone greedy, hungry for promotion, a social climber but also deceitful – willing to lie for us. My grandfather watched the local political scene with a wary eye. He was always on the lookout for jumped-up commoners who were getting too big for their boots, so he could slap them down or strip them of their position. He particularly enjoyed that.’
Noah grimaced at this point, obviously ashamed of his family’s abuse. ‘However, there was one man that caught his eye. This man was very deferential towards my grandfather, which, of course, he loved. He loved it when the commoners knew their rightful place, under the boots of their superiors. He loved it when the commoners were willing to lick those boots and then say thank you. That was what this man did. My grandfather decided he was the perfect jailor for my aunt. Deferential enough to keep her madness a secret, ambitious enough to feel grateful for attention from us nobles, and greedy enough to want to reap the rewards for jailing my aunt. I’ll give you one guess as to who this man was,’ said Noah.
‘The Mayor,’ Matthias and I said in unison, not even pausing to think. Why did it always come back to that man? Puppeteer. Manipulator.
‘Correct,’ Noah said ruefully. ‘But back then, before the Flood, he didn’t have half the powers he has now. Before the Flood, the Town Mayor of Brigadus was a ceremonial position. The Council of Nobles had ultimate say over how everything was run, but they allowed the Town Mayor to put forward motions; little things, of course, nothing important. A little bill about fishing rights here, another about housing standards there. A concession to the commoners, the nobles thought: give them a Mayor and it will keep them quiet. Richard Harpick was therefore the go-between for the townsfolk and the Council of Nobles. ’
‘Then that makes Flora your cousin,’ I said. ‘Your aunt Iris was Flora’s mum. Iris became the Mayor’s wife and they had Flora.’ It suddenly made sense why he was helping her in the Complex. Noah nodded and closed his eyes briefly. ‘Noah, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were related.’
He nodded again.
‘So, Iris, your aunt, was married off to the Mayor in return for money from your family?’ clarified Matthias. ‘And that’s why the marriage was kept secret? Because she was mad and they didn’t want the scandal when everyone found out that your family had basically sold one of their daughters to a madman to save face?’ asked Matthias, with a hint of malice.
Noah flinched at this. ‘My grandfather didn’t know what Harpick was like then. No-one did. It was the worst mistake my family ever made, but ironically it is one that could change everything. It is one that could save us and put an end to his rule.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘It has given us an advantage.’
There must have been a look of puzzlement on my face because Noah looked me directly in the eye and said, ‘Let me explain. Soon after they were married, Harpick used the money he had gained from my family to buy favours, bribe nobles, and, rumour has it, buy the deaths of those who stood in his way. After they had been married two years, the Mayor was the most powerful commoner in the north west of Britannia, let alone Brigadus. He owned as much land as we did. No-one had ever seen a commoner rise to such heights. The only thing that stopped him from gaining ultimate control was the Council of Nobles and, oh, how he hated us for it. But being the snake that he is, he managed to disguise this long enough for my grandparents to trust him. Long enough for his plan to form.
‘Harpick was a very efficient jailor. He wasted no time in hiring guards to watch my aunt day and night. She ate alone, slept alone, read alone. Always alone. No contact with anyone. It would have been enough to drive a sane person mad but for a woman whose mind was already broken, it only accelerated her decline. My grandparents, hearing of her deterioration, insisted he let her out of her room to see them for an hour or so three times a week. He refused at first. My grandparents were suspicious as to why she was being kept from them.
‘They confronted him. There was a huge argument. He almost had them thrown from his house, until he quickly realised who he was talking to and had to backtrack. He may have been important but not as important as us nobles. Not yet anyway. He eventually agreed that they could see her but he warned that her ramblings were just delusions and that they should not pay any attention to them.
It seemed a strange thing to say, as they never paid attention to her ramblings anyway, but my grandparents agreed.
‘As she was to be hidden from the world, Harpick stated that she would not be allowed out of the grounds but could sit in the garden with her parents and my mother watching her. She was not allowed to talk to anyone apart from her immediate family. She would pick the flowers or make daisy chains with my mother. But as the months continued, her condition worsened. My family tried to think of new ways to help her regain her senses.
‘So, my mother gave Iris a present of a video recorder. She thought that it would help her remember who she was when she saw herself on screen, doing normal things like talking to her family, or sitting in the garden. Give her a reference point as to what was real, so she could tell what was a delusion and what was really happening in her life. Iris loved it. And the more she recorded, the saner she started to become. My mother was allowed to watch the tapes back with her every week, sort of a therapy session where they would talk about things that had happened that week.
‘After a few weeks with the camera, my mother noticed that Iris had shifted focus in her filming. She was no longer filming herself, but had turned the camera on other people. She was secretly filming the goings-on in Harpick’s house; the chef who spat in Harpick’s gravy, the young servers who were having an affair, the butler who tried on Harpick’s top hat and paraded around in it. Harmless stuff initially that finally allowed Iris to laugh again. It gave her something to focus her mind on – sort of like she was a detective, finding things out and analysing them.
‘But after a while, my mother noticed that Harpick himself was increasingly the star of the show. Iris had begun sneaking after him around the house and gardens; the camera became her weapon. She filmed meetings between the Mayor and strange men in suits with even stranger accents. Her surveillance increased and she recorded snatches of overheard conversations through closed doors – talks of plans and money. She sneaked into Harpick’s office and videoed some papers in his filing cabinet – ones that talked of “the right time” and other things written in a strange language. She played back his telephone messages on camera, which included messages from the foreign-accented men asking if Harpick had kept his end of the bargain.