by C. S. Quinn
‘Burning,’ he said, fingering his arm. ‘It’s always burning.’ He chewed his lip. ‘When I meet with the Lord and Lady,’ he said, ‘the terrors will stop. They will send me back to my own kind.’
Maria hesitated, sensing Tom was more vulnerable than usual. ‘I know we’re in a theatre,’ she said. ‘You worked in one, didn’t you? You must have.’
‘My family thought theatre a great sin,’ he said.
‘So did mine,’ said Maria.
Tom’s eyes widened. It was a curious gesture that made him appear suddenly childlike.
Maria took a chance. ‘Play it for me,’ said Maria. ‘Show me what happened to the Lord and Lady. It’s no sin to tell a story,’ she added.
He breathed out and she saw he was tempted. She’d judged it right. His compulsion to show his skill was getting the better of him.
There was a silence and Maria thought she’d over-baited the hook. But then a light flared in Tom’s eyes. He stood, stepped lightly back and straightened his shoulders.
‘The scene opens in the dread Tower of London,’ he said dramatically. ‘London’s most impenetrable prison. Deep in the depths are the cells where the most important prisoners are kept and tightly guarded.’ Tom took a step to the side, hunched his shoulders slightly, and his entire demeanour changed. He was a hulking man, with penetrating eyes. ‘Cromwell wants ’em burned,’ said Tom, affecting a gravelly voice. ‘No one is to know how they met their end. Throw the ashes in the Thames.’
‘You play a Tower guard?’ guessed Maria.
‘A great soldier named Barebones,’ said Tom, reverting to his usual voice. ‘But Cromwell didn’t trust him to guard the Lord and Lady.’
Maria noticed pride flare in his face. Tom played on.
‘I’ve never known Cromwell fear anyone,’ continued Tom in the deep voice of Barebones, ‘but he’s afraid a’ them. He came down here clad in his iron armour, and I heard him talking to them. Shaking his finger, calling them fairies and false gods, swearing to protect Christian men from their evil.’ Tom fingered his sword, continuing the acted part. ‘Cromwell said they weave their spell on men, whisper to them their greatest desire. Only Tom Black cannot be seduced by them.’ He rubbed his chin, and once again Maria noticed his scarred knuckles.
‘You were the only man Cromwell trusted?’ she asked, playing to his pride and trying not to stare at the ugly knotted wounds.
‘I was set to guard them,’ said Tom, pleased. ‘And when the time was right, burn them.’ He had a sudden uncomfortable memory of the last time he spoke with Cromwell.
‘They are what we truly fought against, are they not, Tom?’ Cromwell had said. ‘Love for these wicked creatures is the reason why so many good men died.’ But the Lord Commander hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away from the Lady’s beauty. ‘We must not forget what horrors they are responsible for,’ he said finally. ‘No matter how lovely they look to us.’
‘But the Lord and Lady were smuggled free.’ Tom hesitated. A troubling memory drifted back. Something he was too ashamed to play aloud. The Lady had spoken to him, her voice soft and musical.
‘We know what is in your heart, Tom Black. Free us and you shall be returned to your fairy kingdom.’
Tom’s eyes flicked to Maria. She was watching him. Did she know he’d wanted to disobey his orders? He’d told the Lady he couldn’t save her. But temptation had coiled around his soul and she’d known it.
The Lady’s tinkling musical laugh had echoed around like fairy bells.
‘You don’t need to save us, Tom Black, you need only make us disappear.’
Chapter 44
Charlie and Lily were hurtling through the rickety corridors of the Mint with Lady Castlemaine’s guard hot on their heels.
The labyrinthine warren spilled into a dizzying chaos of tiny rooms, meandering wooden corridors and ladders leading to unexpected mezzanines.
‘The foreman talked of an old forge,’ Charlie gasped as they fled. ‘I remember seeing a chimney on the outside. I think the room of seals must be this way.’ He caught Lily’s expression. ‘Lady Castlemaine’s guards are at all the exits,’ said Charlie. ‘The foreman mentioned a shaft in the room of broken presses. That sounds like a way out, doesn’t it?’
‘And if you’re wrong?’
‘Then we’re dead in any case.’
‘Lady Castlemaine doesn’t want me to get the key to Avalon,’ said Lily, breathing hard as they ran. ‘Which makes me think it’s worth finding.’
Her dark eyes had a determined quality Charlie had seen before. He felt sorry for Lady Castlemaine.
Charlie was desperately trying to apply his memory of the exterior, with its hundred tiny windows, to the crazed building inside. His eyes dropped to the floor ahead. Deep track grooves had been worn in the floor. As though something heavy had been dragged. He made a quick assessment. The marks led away from where the other new coin presses were being worked and wound off to a room ahead.
‘This way,’ said Charlie. ‘Follow those marks on the floor. I think they show where a coin press has been retired.’
The grooves led through a doorway into a larger room filled with bales of metal ready for working. Huge rolls of sheet bronze were arranged in rows, wedged in place with wooden blocks. Charlie ducked behind the nearest, kicked out the block and rolled the metal bale against the doorway. Then he replaced the wood-wedge at the base and gave it a solid kick.
He heard the guards stack up on the other side, slamming their hands against the outsized roll of metal.
‘We have a few minutes before they manage to move that roll of bronze,’ said Charlie. ‘The tracks from the coin press lead over there.’
They followed the tracks across the room, weaving in between the rolls of metal. A door at the back led to yet another room, smaller than the last.
‘There!’ said Lily, pointing. ‘An old forge.’
The large brick construction was like an outsized bread oven, with a thick waist-height slab where the fire was lit and an arching brick top. They both stopped, looking over the abandoned fire. A broad chimney stack led up through the ceiling.
‘They burned people here,’ said Lily, swallowing. ‘That’s what the foreman said.’ She was taking in the vast forge. ‘No wonder it’s been abandoned,’ she concluded. ‘It’s likely haunted.’
‘A hidden cupboard would have been built with newer wood,’ said Charlie, taking in the small room. ‘Even if they used old timbers, the new nails would stand out. Nothing here has been changed in decades.’
He sat on his haunches for a moment, absorbing the structure of the room. They could hear Lady Castlemaine’s guards hammering on the heavy roll of metal blocking their entrance.
‘You work in the Mint,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘You need to put something out of view, for political reasons.’ He was acutely aware that Lady Castlemaine’s guards would soon get to where they were. ‘Not stored in wood,’ he muttered, thinking aloud. ‘But the brick . . .’ Charlie’s eyes settled on the chimney. It was vast.
He stood, walking towards the huge chimney breast. It spanned almost the entire width of the room, with an enormous hearth and several other brick openings for coin forging. Charlie stepped closer to the forge and held a hand up inside the chimney.
‘No draught,’ he said. ‘It’s not clearing properly. And if it’s been used for horrors, it’s the kind of thing people keep away from.’ Charlie stood back. ‘If it were me,’ he decided, ‘I might just knock a hole in the side, where no one could see it. And put the bricks back quickly with whatever I had to hand.’ His eyes tracked to the side of the chimney, where a cluster of bricks were held by a lighter-coloured mortar than the rest. ‘Not real mortar at all,’ he observed, testing the bricks with his fingers. ‘Just a paste of bone-glue and sawdust.’ He slid a brick free.
They heard a shriek of metal on wood from the far room, shouts of effort.
‘I think the guards have found some way to move that roll of bron
ze,’ said Charlie. ‘We don’t have much time.’
Lily came to help him. The bricks came away easily, revealing a sizeable hole in the side of the vast chimney. It was stacked with old crates filled with seals.
Chapter 45
Tom stared at the mirror. A heavy curtain had been laid over the glass. He reached forward with long pale fingers and tugged it away.
Arching black brows, pale-green eyes and pointed chin. His own face.
Tom watched.
Then from deep within the mirror the changeling boy stepped forward. His face was youthful, with pixie features, his mouth contorted in a cruel smile. His clothes were from a different time, and the world behind the mirror was strange, upside down.
Tom felt himself bristle with fear.
‘Praise-God Barebones,’ said the boy. ‘Your old comrade does your bidding? His apprentices search the brothels as we planned?’
Tom’s fingers were tapping a dance on his hands. Of course the boy knew. He was baiting him. The boy’s eyes opened comically wide.
‘He betrayed you?’ he demanded, his voice frighteningly calm. ‘That is why you turned to the thief taker for help?’
‘I . . .’
‘Humans always do,’ said the boy. ‘You were a fool to trust him. I am the only one who cares for you. Remember it.’ Something else flashed in the boy’s face. Tom felt dread fill his stomach. ‘Does Barebones know of the dress?’ the boy whispered. ‘The dress that speaks of where the Lord and Lady are hiding?’
Tom closed his eyes and nodded.
‘You grow weak,’ said the boy. His eyes were dead, like a doll’s. ‘Barebones will find them and our chance will be gone.’
‘No.’ Tom shook his head. ‘I need more time . . .’
‘You ugly broken thing,’ said the boy, balling his fists. ‘I watch you, from behind the glass. In my place. My world. Yet you refuse to do the smallest thing to make amends.’
Deep in the mirror, a bell had begun to ring.
‘The thief taker,’ said Tom, wincing at the sound. ‘He searches.’
More bells rang now.
‘I had forgotten the girl,’ said the boy softly. ‘You think she will be enough persuasion?’
‘The thief taker will find them,’ promised Tom.
‘He must do it faster,’ said the boy. ‘It will soon be too late for me.’
Tom knew instantly what he was thinking and felt sick. ‘Better to kill her cleanly,’ said Tom.
‘You dull fool. Haven’t you understood it yet? We took the girl to force Charlie Tuesday to find them.’ The boy smiled coldly. ‘Their powers will restore us. I will finally be returned to my rightful place. You will go back to your own kind. It’s what we always talked of.’ He eyed Tom. ‘You think I don’t see you, acting a part with her? She is changing you.’
‘Perhaps she is,’ said Tom. ‘And perhaps your time in the fairy kingdom has changed you. You have fallen in love with their charm and cruelty. Their love of trickery and chaos.’
The boy’s cold, cruel smile grew. ‘Maundy Thursday is tomorrow. I have a feeling your thief taker won’t deliver in time. And your girl, Maria, will die very badly.’
Chapter 46
Charlie and Lily began pulling out crates of seals and coin-making equipment from the abandoned forge.
‘Where’s the escape route?’ asked Lily, peering inside the hole. ‘I thought you said they’d be a tunnel for us to get out.’
‘Maybe behind the crates,’ said Charlie.
He reached in and pulled one free with effort. It jangled with metal contents as he drew it clear of the chimney. The top of the crate hadn’t been sealed and the contents were covered in a thick layer of fine ash and dust.
‘Old press plates,’ said Lily, plunging a fist into the box and lifting a square of metal embossed with a plain set of shields. ‘These made hammered coins for the Republic.’
‘I remember these,’ said Charlie, turning the plain coins. ‘Money with no king’s head.’
He reached in and pulled out the furthest crate. There was nothing behind it. No escape hatch, no wink of daylight.
Lily opened the crate. ‘This is it!’ she said excitedly. ‘Royalist seals.’
They both began lifting them out of the crate. The top held older seals, from the beginning of the old king’s rule. But as they dove deeper there were newer seals, from when the war started.
‘There’s nothing that stands out,’ said Charlie, glancing over his shoulder. ‘No heraldic suns.’ He let a few seals fall through his fingers. ‘Avalon,’ he said. ‘The key to Avalon. It was a paradise island. Apple trees.’
‘I think there’s an apple,’ said Lily. She rifled through and seized on a small seal. It had a curving handle and the face showed a simple apple shape.
‘I’ve seen that apple before,’ said Charlie.
‘Look at the handle,’ said Lily. ‘It has writing on it, the same script as the ring.’
She read.
The key to Avalon.
‘The key to Avalon. Charlie!’ she said excitedly. ‘This is it!’ She turned the seal. ‘But where does it get us?’
Charlie sat back, trying to remember where he’d seen the sign before. ‘Avalon,’ he said suddenly. ‘Apple trees. But apples have another meaning in London. Apples of Venus. Brothels.’
‘Boys playing at spying,’ said Lily disdainfully. ‘I suppose they must have their little jokes. So the paradise island is a brothel?’ She tapped the seal. ‘But surely even a fine bawdy house wouldn’t have their own seal?’
‘When I was a boy,’ said Charlie, ‘some of the finer brothels held masques. Expensive parties for very fine people. Even royalty. Guests were disguised, but entry was ticketed. The best tickets were stamped with a seal.’
‘The key to Avalon,’ said Lily.
‘The Golden Apple in Covent Garden,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s where I’ve seen it before.’
Loud shouts came from behind them.
‘The guards are in,’ said Charlie. He looked at Lily. ‘I made a mistake,’ he admitted. ‘The shaft the foreman spoke of.’ He looked up at the forge. ‘Shaft is another word for chimney. I have a bad feeling that’s what he meant.’
‘There must be another way out,’ breathed Lily. ‘Lady Castlemaine won’t show us any mercy if her guards catch us here. She’s the very devil for spite,’ she added, scouring the room. ‘Took my privateer’s licence for nothing. Can I help the way the King looks at me?’
Charlie nodded in a way he hoped seemed sympathetic.
‘Can we climb up the chimney?’ suggested Lily, desperately, glancing back at the approaching guards.
Charlie shook his head. ‘It’s blocked,’ he said. ‘We’re trapped.’
Chapter 47
Barebones was eyeing the decorated front of the Golden Apple. The apprentices gathered behind him.
‘Where are the women?’ muttered one boy nervously. Unlike the Wapping brothels, there were no half-naked girls hanging out of the windows. No sign at all that it was anything other than a grand house.
‘They think themselves a theatre,’ said Barebones. But he had an uneasy look on his face, taking in the large windows, the solid brick. ‘We did not falter before,’ he decided, ‘when men in fine clothes told us they were our betters. Will we fail now, when painted jades try the same?’
The boys cheered, but it lacked the bloodthirsty edge of their Wapping cries. Most had never been west of Fleet Street in their lives. They were looking wide-eyed at the carved front of the house, the grand windows.
Barebones turned to Repent and nodded. A shudder of excitement passed through the boys. Repent drew his hand back and hefted the stone. It sailed high in the air, then smashed through a glass window. There was a moment of silence. The apprentices could hardly believe their own audacity. Then Barebones raised his sword and gave a barking military cry.
‘Charge!’ he bellowed, the force of his voice echoing off the close-set buildings. ‘Breach th
e door!’
The apprentices moved towards the house in a half charge, hefting iron bars, poleaxes and staves. A mason’s apprentice threw a hammer at the thick black door, splintering the wood.
‘Whores!’ he shouted. ‘Be afeared of your sins!’
Behind him the other boys attacked the door as a pack. The heavy entrance was smashed apart, and the boys poured through. The first room was filled with beautiful furniture, long silk curtains and a table laid out with a crystal decanter of red wine.
The apprentices fell on it, smashing, tearing. One picked up the decanter and threw it against the tastefully decorated wall. It exploded in a blood-red spray.
Barebones came in behind them and paused in the doorway. Repent moved to go past, but Barebones held his hand up.
‘Something’s not right,’ he muttered. ‘Where are the whores and punters? The Golden Apple is a den of sin, day and night.’
A bugle sounded from outside. Barebones strode quickly to the window. Moving towards the house was a pack of expensively uniformed guards. Barebones stepped back, incredulous.
‘It’s a false flag,’ he said. ‘That prick-sucking jade told us the wrong street. This isn’t the Golden Apple. It’s an ambush house.’ He allowed himself a slight smile, watching the private guard surround the house. ‘She has us in a pincer.’
Tramping footsteps resounded.
‘Why lure us into a house?’ asked Repent, his pockmarked face taking in the expensive interior.
‘She waited until we broke the law,’ said Barebones. ‘Burglary. A hanging crime.’ Barebones moved into the hallway, placing himself between the front door and the boys. ‘Get out, those who can!’ he shouted as the first men crashed through the open door. ‘Windows, cellars! Any port in a storm!’
He hefted his short iron sword and swung it in a wide circle. The first guards came at him as the boys ran in every direction. The uniformed guard struck boys to the floor, grabbed others by their collars.
Barebones fought, ducking and swinging. He’d brought down three guards when a high cry made him turn. A guard held Repent by his greasy hair. Barebones ran at them, bringing a punch under the captor’s ribcage. Repent fell free, gasping.