by Rod Duncan
A vertiginous expanse opened below her: dressed stone from the window all the way down to rough stone and the natural rock, then far below, a steep slope towards the first green, which were such scrawny trees as could find root in the loose scree. And then at last to the valley floor.
But there was something else. Away to the right-hand side, above the cliff: a line of weather-worn slats projecting from the castle wall. For a moment she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Then it resolved into a precarious walkway. Below it, five structures clung improbably to the stones: shacks roofed with shingles. The scale was hard to figure in the midst of that vertical landscape, but they were small, she thought.
A cruel jail, exposed to the wind, with the freedom of a death-leap to tempt the prisoners. She pulled her head back in, feeling revulsion for the king who had built it. Edwin had told her where to look, but only after she had been fully honest with him. They had reached an impasse in their argument, as their parents must have done. How much more it hurt as the barriers between them dropped away.
She’d wanted to keep her idea hidden from him. That’s what enemies do. But even though they were on different sides, each turn of their argument revealed more truths. And at last it had been impossible to hold in the bitterness of secrecy. She’d spat it from her mouth, hating what she was doing, only wanting the distance to disappear between them.
From the writing desk, he’d taken a fine pen and a leaf of paper so thin it was translucent, then written out the fake message in block capitals, disguising his hand. She’d watched him roll the paper tight, slip it into a glass tube and seal it. He’d then heated a pin in the lamp flame and pressed a design into the sealing wax.
Then he was on his way, eager to put her plan into action, to fool his king and buy a few more days. All to the end of destroying the very world Elizabeth wished to protect. She could not stop him heading off to the pigeon loft with the fake message, but she might find some other way to act.
Her mind kept returning to Mary Brackenstow. If the woman’s ideas were so dangerous that she had to be kept prisoner, might they not be worth learning? In that moment, Elizabeth resolved. When night fell, she would find her way down to those precarious cells.
CHAPTER 24
Edwin slipped the glass message tube between the stitches of the hem of his loose sleeve. It was barely an inch in length, thin and hollow as the leg bone of a bird. If he were searched, if it were found, all his plans would unravel. He wouldn’t survive the aftermath. Nor would his sister.
“Good morning, magician.”
“Good morning,” he replied to the ladies of the court, as they passed in the passageway.
He could hear them giggling behind him. Perhaps he looked guilty. But it wouldn’t be found. He stifled the intrusive thought, repeating the obvious truth: it wouldn’t be found, it wouldn’t be found.
“Good morning.”
It was a cook this time. He nodded to acknowledge the man. Being magician put Edwin outside the normal class structures of the castle. Or perhaps it was their assumptions about his gender. Though he was the king’s closest counsellor, no one saw him as above them in rank. Nor below. Strangeness had put him off to the side, unclassifiable.
He was passing the royal apartments now. Other than the kitchens it was the busiest part of the castle at breakfast time. He received more greetings and nods as he went. His clothing would not be unsettling them today. He’d been dressing fully male since Elizabeth arrived. Somehow it felt easier to face her that way. But people still stared.
The pigeon loft had been built above the royal apartments, in its own tower, with its own spiral staircase. He was glad to step into the quiet of it, away from the smells of cooked meats. Even the dank air felt comforting. It offered a spiral climb all the way to the loft, with no doors or side passages. No ambiguity. A half dozen people must have seen him leaving the passageway. Reports of his movements would be passed on. Soon enough someone would find an excuse to follow. But for now, the master of the loft was away at breakfast.
Round and round he climbed. Clear of the keep, the windows were no longer glazed. The wind moaned softly in the throat of each narrow slit, so it wasn’t until the final turn that he caught the cooing of the pigeons. The loft was a circular room, though the floor-to-ceiling cages around the walls made the central space into an octagon. At the crude table in the middle sat Pentecost, who his sister had spoken to on her night-time excursion. The big ledger lay open in front of him, as if he’d been reading, though he was illiterate. Dark sand trickled through the hourglass.
“I need your help,” Edwin said.
Pentecost got to his feet. “You’ve brought my payment?”
Edwin held out a coin. The man looked but made no move to take it.
“And the rest? I told you I needed it. All my silver.”
“You want it brought here? What if you were found with it?”
“Nothing’s safe,” the man said. “Nothing’s safe these days.”
Edwin pocketed the coin again, wondering what such a man could have to fear. “Tell me when and where. I’ll bring your silver.”
Pentecost’s face crinkled with thought. “Next week. Wednesday midnight. At the East Cairn.”
“And then you’ll be leaving us?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“But for now you’re here.” Edwin worked the message tube out between the stitches of his sleeve and placed it on the table.
Pentecost bent to examine the marks on the wax seal then straightened again.
“I want you to give it to the master and say it’s just come in.”
Pentecost shook his head. “I’ve never cheated. Least, not like that. If it were found out…” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “How many saw you coming here?”
“Give it to him later, then,” Edwin said. “In the evening. Then no one’ll think to connect it to me. You’ll be safe.”
The wind gusted, making the flaps of the pigeon doors clatter. The birds fluttered and shifted, seeming unsettled by the sound. Edwin caught a whiff of ammonia from the soiled straw at the bottom of the cages.
“I can’t lie to him,” Pentecost said. “He sees through me. I can’t tell him it came in like that when it didn’t.”
“Then put it on a pigeon. I’ll release it later. You won’t need to say anything.”
Pentecost scratched his arm, his eyes flicking from bird to bird in the cages, as if searching for one in particular. “And I can have my silver? All of it?”
“Next week. By the cairn. Just like you said.”
Pentecost unclipped a hatch in one of the cages. None of the birds tried to get away as he reached inside. Their heads bobbed as if his hand were merely another pigeon, even when he gathered one from its perch.
“There you go, my beauty,” he whispered. Then, to Edwin: “She flew in two nights back. Got a leg ring, so she’s owned. But not one of ours. They do that sometimes – strangers. Been mostly roosting in one of the boxes since. Only come out this morning. Master won’t have seen her. He won’t know her. You’re lucky.”
Edwin watched him closing up the cage again. Lucky wasn’t what he felt. But he handed over the message tube and watched Pentecost work one-handed, deftly clipping it into the carrier ring. Edwin took the bird from him. Her tiny body seemed warmer than the room. He’d handled white doves before, in the magic show. They’d been a shade smaller, but the pigeon sat in his hands just the same.
“If it’s a stranger to the loft, won’t it just fly away?”
“She’s been fed here,” Pentecost said. “Chance is, she’ll come back.”
“Chance? Then it could take the message somewhere else entirely?”
Pentecost shrugged.
“Can’t we just leave it in the cage?”
“Best it flies in. Best the master hears the bell himself. That way I don’t get to tell no lies.”
As if conjured by its mention, a tiny bell did then chime, and a hatchway clat
tered. Pentecost turned his attention to the cages, where a bird was fluttering in.
“There are so many of them,” Edwin said. “Surely he’d not notice if we just left it there.”
“He’d notice.” Pentecost opened the cage door a crack and extracted the newcomer. It took only a second for him to remove the glass message tube from the ring on its leg and put the bird back inside. He glanced at the wax seal and then placed the tube on the open ledger, resting in the centre crease.
“Who’s that one for?”
“Not you.”
The hourglass was spent. Pentecost flicked it to clear the final grains, then turned it and scored a pen mark in the ledger. “You’d better go,” he said, and seemed about to say something more, but instead put a finger to his lips and cocked his head, like one of his birds, listening.
Then Edwin heard it too: the faint padding of slippers, the laboured breath of a fat man climbing the stairs. The master was returning. Pentecost’s eyes opened wide with panic. He jabbed his finger towards the bird in Edwin’s hand. Edwin’s first instinct was to lunge for one of the cage doors. But there wouldn’t be time. So he tucked it into his loose sleeve, wishing immediately after that he had chosen a pocket.
The master heaved himself up the final steps and into the room. He wore a red garment, which could have been a dressing gown. His face and neck were red to match. He stood for a moment, catching his breath, his eyes swivelling from Edwin to Pentecost and back.
“Good morning, magician,” he said, suspicious.
“Good morning, Pigeon Master.”
“You were missed at breakfast.”
Edwin bowed. “It is a day of fasting,” he said, making up an excuse on the spot.
“Ah yes. The duties of a magician. To what do I owe the honour of your visit?”
He cast this question towards Pentecost. But Edwin managed to speak first.
“As ever, I watch for omens.”
“Omens of what?”
It should all have been so simple. But lies have a way of multiplying. “I saw this morning a dark bird circling the East Tower,” Edwin said. “Three times it passed, flying counter-clockwise.”
“What does it signify?”
“It… wouldn’t be right for me to say.”
The pigeon in his sleeve shifted, as if trying to push its way back into the light. Edwin folded his arms, bringing it next to his body, hoping its movement hadn’t been seen.
“What has the omen to do with us?”
The bird in the sleeve was struggling. He eased his arms closer to his body, trying to stifle the movement. To press any harder might kill it.
“Have you seen any strange signs?” Edwin asked.
The Pigeon Master and his assistant both shook their heads. It was enough. He could leave with that. One turn down the stairs and he’d be beyond their view. He could release the pressure on the bird.
Then the bell chimed again, a clear small sound, and the birds in the cage fluttered with the arrival of a newcomer. Perhaps he was lucky after all. Before anyone else could move, he stepped to the cage door, opened it and reached inside, just as Pentecost had done. But the pigeons reacted differently, flapping their wings to get away from him. The bird in his sleeve struggled free.
The fat hand of the master pushed him aside. “Stop!” he said. “It’s not your place, magician.”
“I’m sorry. I thought I could help.”
“Look at the state you put them in!”
Over the master’s shoulder, Pentecost’s face showed panic.
The master clicked his tongue and made a cooing noise. The fluttering subsided. In a slow movement that seemed too graceful for his size, he reached into the cage and scooped a bird from one of the perches. Edwin couldn’t see if it was the one he’d just released or the one whose arrival had rung the bell. The master’s rounded back was towards him. Then, with a click of the cage door, it was over. A tiny glass tube lay in a fold of the fat hand. The hand closed and the Pigeon Master set off, back down the stairs.
“Why did you do that?” Pentecost hissed.
Edwin grabbed him by the shoulders. “Which bird was it he took?”
“I didn’t see! You were both in the way.”
“Then which still remains with a message on its leg?”
Neither pigeon was in sight.
“You’ve scared it into one of the boxes,” Pentecost grumbled. “I’ll just–”
Edwin cut in: “Get it out, whichever it is!” Then he set off down the steps, treading lightly, slowing when he heard the Pigeon Master’s laboured breathing below, keeping just out of sight. Five steps before the passageway entrance, he stopped, counted to twenty, giving the man a chance to get clear. But also getting his breathing and panic back under control.
Stepping out into the light, he almost collided with a line of kitchen boys, carrying away the empty breakfast platters. They jumped aside on seeing him.
“Sorry, magician,” said the front one, then they all ran, laughing.
The morning room was empty. Edwin followed the sound of voices through to the Great Hall, where the king was standing facing the fire, hands clasped behind him. The Master at Arms was by his side, and two captains, with swords at their belts. Janus saw him, approached.
“The snow is here,” he said.
Edwin yearned for words that would shake the man. He could think of none. Or to strike him across the face. Anything to take that bland smile from his lips.
Instead he waited, keeping his gaze towards the king.
The Pigeon Master seemed lost in such a formal setting, still wearing his red dressing gown and slippers, easing his weight from foot to foot, his palm outstretched, waiting for the tiny glass tube to be taken from him. He made a polite cough.
“A message, sire.”
The king turned, then, and saw them. Janus bowed first, damn his eyes. Edwin found himself following. Again. The king beckoned. This time Edwin was a step ahead and took his place at the royal right hand.
The king took the message tube.
Edwin angled his head, trying to read the seal, willing it to be the mark he had forged with a heated pin.
“It’s from the Yakima garrison, sire,” the Pigeon Master said, simpering.
Edwin felt sick. It had been the wrong bird: the new arrival rather than the one with the fake message. The risk had been for nothing. He would need to do it all again. Or trust the bird to fly to the loft that wasn’t its true home. The captains and the Master at Arms had stood more stiffly to attention as the king broke the seal and cast the wax into the fire.
“We’re mustering,” the king said to him. “I’m sorry, Edwin. You tried your best. But now you must make room.”
Edwin’s mind felt numb. One of the captains had to ease him away by the arm so that Janus could step in next to the royal shoulder: the position of the First Counsellor. From there, the man would work to bring about his downfall. It surely wouldn’t take long.
A roll of grey paper slipped from the message tube, flattening out to a rectangle smaller than the king’s palm. The writing was fine and regular but Edwin, standing now away to the side, couldn’t bring it to focus.
The king read silently, frowning, then passed the paper to the Master at Arms, whose grey eyebrows arched.
“It seems I’ve been too hasty,” the king rumbled. “The embassy from Newfoundland arrived in Yakima late last night. The garrison gave them beds. They’ll be here in six days.”
“The snow came first!” Janus said, his voice just too shrill.
“And yet now we have word…”
“Talk costs nothing, sire,” Edwin said.
Only when the king started to nod did he begin to breathe again.
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 25
Everyone who knew the significance of the embassy had been on edge for days. Those who didn’t know, seemed to pick up the tension. A practice fight in the marshalling yard turned vicious. A blow with a blunted sword shatte
red a soldier’s thumb. Healing would take months and in the meantime he’d be no use as a fighter. The Master at Arms lost his temper and had the other man beaten. Then Timon berated the Master at Arms in a voice so loud that all the castle garrison must have heard.
The king had slipped into a sullen mood. Logic must have told him that Edwin’s plan was the better. But he had an army ready to fight. And Janus’s plan would have allowed him to do just that: a quick strike at Lewiston, the swift pleasure of the conqueror, the adoration of the men. The weather had turned squally, making a hunt impractical, so he paced in his apartments drinking too much wine.
The one bright note for Edwin was the new workload, which suddenly fell on the garrison. Riders were sent out to check the road for bandits. Wagons of fresh food needed escort on their journey up from the south. Everything had to be made immaculate for the visitors. There were simply no men left free and Janus’s search of the castle had to be postponed for a few days.
The embassy was making good time along the road from Yakima. The day of their expected arrival dawned and the kitchens set to work preparing a feast. Edwin suspected hot baths might be more to their liking, after months in the saddle. By noon, the entire court were dressed in their finery. Timon wore armour, which he loved to do, but which was too heavy to be carried around all day. Janus chose a black suit and boots. The consort was the lucky one, her pregnancy gave the perfect excuse to stay out of the way.
The hours of the afternoon wore on. Timon pretended to not be bothered by the weight of steel pushing down on his shoulders. His sharpness with the servants gave him away. Janus seemed the least troubled. He stood or sat to the side of every conversation, seldom noticed except by Edwin, speaking only when questioned, answering briefly, listening to everything, his face a mask of patience.
By late afternoon, Timon was sweating. He’d drunk too much of the red wine. And eaten too many of the small cakes the kitchen staff kept putting in front of him. One of the captains helped him away. When he returned half an hour later, all knew better than to ask where the armour had gone.