But sometimes girls and women were bought for prostitution, or taken north to the coal mines and never saw daylight again. Others were bought to work in the chalk pits and lime kilns, where their lungs drowned in dust; or in the blubber factories, where I’d heard they made soap from human fat.
All this ran frantic through my mind as I was pulled along. The courtyards and alleyways reeked of urine and rotting vegetables. Packs of wild dogs nosed the rubbish, snarling at each other, fighting over old bones. Ravens, pecking at the cobbles, shuffled out of our way with raucous croaks, so that I longed to touch the amber beneath my bodice.
I was desperate for help, but the streets were deserted. The hour of Curfew was coming; even in the open places the light was beginning to fade. Only a beggar huddled in a doorway peered at me dully as I was dragged along.
Then suddenly I saw my salvation: a lamplighter, coming down his ladder from the lighted oil lamp.
“Help!” I cried out. His grease-smeared face turned toward me. “Please—help me!”
But in the pool of yellow light he saw the two muscular bargemen. He grabbed up his trimming scissors and pitchy rope and vanished into the dusk, without even waiting to collect his ladder.
“You shut your mouth, you hear?” growled one of my captors, his face brutish. He shoved his fist under my nose, and I was dragged on.
The slave market was being held on a scurfy patch of open ground surrounded by ruined buildings, their staircases open to the wind. The auction was almost over and the crowd beginning to leave. As we arrived, two rough-voiced assistants came up and took details from the boatmen. Then they led us toward the center of the ground. The bargees held me fast; there was no chance of escape.
On the makeshift platform three tiny children were roped together, their faces gaunt in the light from the flaming brands. They looked scarce old enough to work, but their parents had brought them here to sell. I could see a ragged couple hovering below, waiting for the auctioneer’s speech. The mother was wringing her hands and weeping; the father didn’t look at his children but at a sprouting weed by his feet.
“We have here a girl and two boys, in good health, meek, easy to train. One lot, or separate. What am I bid?”
The two boys were sold immediately to a prosperous-looking businessman, accompanied by a bodyguard and a link-boy bearing a lamp—a factory owner, perhaps—but the little girl was rejected.
She ran in joy back to her mother, but the father prised her away and forced her back to the platform. Her sobs were terrible. Eventually she was sold to a hard-faced madam in a stiff black hat for a single scathing. The mother wept as the father took the paltry coin, his face bitter.
“And now we have a pretty young maiden, ripe for work, an experienced housekeeper and cook, sound of limb. Also, one amber amulet, of very fine quality. Items to be sold together or separate.”
The two bargemen and the auctioneer’s assistants thrust me up onto the platform; the bag with the box was flung after me. Almost blinded by the flaring brands, I could see nothing, only hear a ripple of interest from the people that had remained in the ground. The assistants kept firm hold of me.
“Turn around, Miss, lift your skirts—show us your shapely ankles—now roll back your sleeves,” ordered the auctioneer, breathing roast onions in my face, and to my horror, his own repulsive, pudgy hand came at my breast to pull out my amber. I closed my eyes and did as he told me; I had no alternative.
I felt I could not sink any lower than to be sold as if I were an object and had no soul. How could I face Aggie again, if her mother’s amulet were separated from me and sold to a stranger?
In my shame, I tried to cast myself far away in my mind—to Murkmere. And immediately I thought of Miss Jennet: of what she would say in such a situation. It does not matter what these people think of you, but what you think of yourself.
So I held my head proudly and looked, clear-eyed, into the dusk beyond the flames and the ring of gawking, orange-lit faces below me.
And suddenly I saw out of the corner of my eye, against a ruined wall, the pale glimmer of a shirt—surely the calico shirt I had mended for Erland and that I’d seen him wear so often? But when I looked back I saw it was a trick of the light. The moon was rising above the broken buildings, a full moon that shone in the puddles of the open ground.
At that moment the Curfew bells began to toll warningly through the Capital, a tuneless clamor of many different pitches. The auctioneer was in a hurry to have the business of the evening over and be safe inside his walls. He prodded me farther forward, to the very edge of the platform.
“So, ladies and gentlemen,” he shouted. “What am I bid for this willing young creature? See her straight limbs, her strong back? She is an excellent hand in the kitchen; I have the strongest recommendation from her former employer. It would be a veritable crime, ladies and gentlemen, to start with a bid less than a double revere. Come and have a closer inspection if you wish.”
To my horror, dark figures stirred in the crowd. Several people were moving forward to climb onto the platform: to poke me all over, inspect my teeth, finger the amber. I tried to struggle, but the auctioneer’s assistants held me more tightly still, and down below the bargemen, eager for their money, were ready to help.
Two women were the first to climb the steps: one, panting with the exertion and bulky—I could make out her shape but little more in the torchlight; the other, younger, agile, reached the platform first. She stepped out of the darkness, seized up my bare forearm, and peered at it.
“I thought so!” the girl exclaimed in tones of triumph. “She is an orphan.” She held my arm out to the auctioneer. “Look at that brand mark, Sir. See the square after the number? She was one of ours at the Gravengate Home. We’ve the right to claim her for Recompense. She’s our property!”
I stared at the girl. I saw the flames gleam in her little currant eyes. I knew that smirk. It was the same expression she’d had on her face when she used to taunt me at Murkmere.
I’d never expected to see Doggett in the Capital.
26
The same evening, Mather and Chance were back at the Palace of the Protectorate. For what would be the final time, Mather was to interrogate the Protector’s special prisoner: his niece, Miss Leah Tunstall, formerly of Murkmere. Chance himself had never before seen the girl whom everyone in the Palace whispered about, the girl who might be one of the despised and blasphemous avia.
Full of curiosity, he followed Mather into a courtyard, past the armed guards that stood to attention at the entrance to one of its corner towers. He noted that the prisoner had been confined as far away as possible from the main Palace building with the Protector’s reception rooms. He could hear her yells blasting down the shadowy stone stairwell as they climbed.
“Get out, you doltheads, out of my sight!”
There was a crash above them.
A man came hurrying down, almost falling over his feet. It was the doctor from the day before, redder in the face than ever. He glared at Chance, then at Mather. “I don’t advise seeing her just now. Ill-tempered little…” He floundered as he registered Mather’s uniform, spat out “Pah!” and blundered past them.
“There will be no more medical checks on Miss Leah from today, Doctor,” Mather called down after him. “They will not be necessary.”
The doctor stopped short and looked up. Hope suddenly lightened his heavy jowls. “Really, Officer? On whose authority?”
“There is only one who could give such a command,” said Mather with a touch of reproof. “The Lord Protector himself will inform the medical team shortly.”
It seemed to Chance that the doctor went on his way with a positive spring in his step.
Two more physicians in long black tailcoats came out through a chamber door as they reached the top. They were shielding their heads, wisely it seemed, since a shoe came flying out after them and almost hit Mather in the face. The guards either side of the door stepped aside with the alacri
ty of long practice.
Chance bent and picked the shoe up. It was a blue silk shoe, elegant but uncommonly large for a female. He followed Mather in and, as the door was locked behind them, presented it to the girl crouching on the floor. “Your shoe, Miss.”
“Who on earth are you?” She glared up at him from the middle of a ring of assorted objects—more shoes, books, belts, bottles—her ammunition, he thought. The room was bordered with broken plates, though he noticed she’d sensibly eaten her luncheon off them before she began throwing. “Are they sending boys to interrogate me now?”
Mather looked with disapproval at the disorder on the floor and sidestepped it fastidiously. “This is my bodyguard, Corporal Chance, Miss Leah. I’ve not brought him before.”
Leah gave a hollow laugh. “An excellent precaution to bring him today, then, Mather. I’ve a feeling you’re going to need him.”
Mather did not look in the least disconcerted. “I think not. I have some good news for you, Miss Leah. Your doctors are being dismissed. You’ll suffer daily examinations no longer.”
Leah listened, then gave a suspicious frown. The frown, daunting though it was, made no difference to her beauty, Chance thought. She was, in fact, the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, with pearly translucent skin and long fair hair that gleamed silver in the candlelight. Her bare feet were large, it was true, but delicate-boned and somehow of a piece with the rest of her, for when she stood up she was exceedingly tall in her blue silk dress, as tall, almost, as Mather.
“Sit by the fire, Mather, and tell me more about this change of heart” she said drily, pulling a fringed shawl around her shoulders.
“If you will sit also, Miss.”
They both sat down, Leah curling herself gracefully into an armchair of quilted silk, Mather stiff-backed and stiff-faced in another.
The chamber was sparely but luxuriously furnished, as was fitting for the Protector’s niece. It did not resemble a prison cell, but that was what it was. Chance, hovering awkwardly around the perimeter of their conversation, noticed bars on the window between the heavy velvet drapes. Outside the locked door of the chamber he could hear the guards stamp and shuffle in the cold.
“So, what’s brought this about?” said Leah. “Dismissing the medical team! What’s my uncle scheming now?”
“Really, Miss Leah. I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Oh, I am.” She shot out her words like bullets. “I’m fed to the teeth with those fools, forever pestering me with their idiot questions.” She put on a high, persnickety voice: “’If you put the swanskin around your shoulders now, what do you think would happen?’… ‘What did you eat during your time as a swan—weeds, or insects, or little fish?’… ‘Did you make a nest somewhere in the pleasure parks?’” She glared at Mather, but he didn’t flinch.
“They needed a lesson in the art of interrogation from you, those fine physicians. First they’d asked their damn fool questions, then they’d examine me each day to see if I were sprouting wings yet. It would take three of them—two to hold me down, one to look.” She shuddered, then laughed again: a hysterical sound that echoed around the stone walls. Her dark eyes, ringed by the delicate mauve shadows of recent illness, were desperate. “Wings! If I’d grown wings I’d fly away! I long for wings!”
“That is all over, Miss Leah. The Protector will be sending the physicians away tomorrow, after their final report. The reason for their dismissal is…” Mather paused. His expressionless eyes were on hers. “The reason is that the Lord Protector believes you.”
Leah let out a shriek. “What?” She threw herself back in the chair, hands clasped together. Chance could see that this was an act; that she was not amazed at all, but wary and suspicious. He wondered if Mather could see it too.
“The Lord Protector believes you are indeed one of the avia,” said Mather gravely.
A look of genuine fear crossed her face before she could hide it. “What’s he going to do about it, then? Kill me?”
“Why should he kill you?” said Mather carefully.
“People kill things they don’t understand; they feel threatened.” She looked sideways at Mather. “You should know that, you of all people, Mather. People are frightened of the avia—superstitious. The avia is a cursed race, so they believe.”
“The Protector will not kill you. Indeed, he wants you to put it in writing.” Mather leaned forward, his eyes on hers.
She licked her lips as if her mouth were dry. “What do you mean?”
He pulled a small roll of new cream vellum from his pocket and unrolled it. “Write a short statement to say you are one of the avia, and sign it. Swear it on your life.”
She looked taken aback for a moment, then she laughed scornfully. “You really must think I’m mad. This statement will be an excuse to murder me. If the Protector says he believes me now, it’s because it suits his purpose. What I want you to tell me, Mather, is what that purpose is.”
“The Protector, your uncle, will tell you himself once you have written your declaration and signed it. He needs to know you have not changed your story.”
“It’s no story!” she said furiously.
“Write it down, then.” He held the vellum out and added with a chilly smile, “He has no plans to kill you, I can assure you of that. How do you think it would look to the people if he had his own niece murdered?”
“Come, Mather. You know as well as I that he could arrange to get rid of me quietly, without anyone knowing.”
“Write this statement,” said Mather softly, still holding out the vellum. “It will open the way to your freedom.”
“Then I have no alternative, do I?” she spat out. “If I’m imprisoned up here much longer, I think I’ll die!”
She snatched the roll of vellum and stalked over to a little desk in the corner, making the candles flicker. She paused, as if in thought, then Chance heard the scratching of a quill, the patter of the sand-sifter on the paper to blot the ink. She shook the sand off into a silver bowl. Then she came back and waved the vellum under Mather’s nose.
“There! I’ve written your declaration.”
Mather took it. In his dry, clipped voice he read out: “I, Leah Tunstall, do swear on my life that during my wanderings in the Capital I was not myself, but inhabited two bodies, half-girl, half-bird.”
“Satisfied?”
“It will do.”
“Now give me back the swanskin!”
“The swanskin?” said Mather in feigned surprise. “I have no authority for that, Miss Leah. You must ask your uncle yourself.”
She went paler still, if that were possible. “But if I am to be freed?”
He rose to his feet, the vellum in his hand. “Be patient. Your uncle will come to you shortly. He has something to tell you that will change everything.”
27
Following his visit to Leah, Mather went straight to the Lord Protector’s private apartment in the Palace. Chance, following close behind Mather as always, marveled at the number of guards it took to protect one man: they were standing outside the main anteroom of the apartment, their hands hovering about the leather holsters of their pistols, and looked simultaneously bored and nervous.
Grouted was having an informal supper with Caleb, who, by his father’s order, had been given special leave from his military duties. They were seated at a small table in the paneled library, surrounded by shelves of gold-tooled, leather-bound books that reached to the ceiling. Apart from some tomes on taxation and foreign investment, the books were beautiful fakes: from the early years of the Protectorate, books had been banned for containing heretical ideas. From the alcoves set into the shelves, a set of bronze statuettes of the Eagle glared a warning.
Grouted had called for entertainment from the Boy Musician while they ate, and the room was filled with the sweet, haunting music of the ratha, played very softly. This wasn’t an occasion for family chat: the Protector had just presented Caleb with a new and highly significant propo
sition, and Caleb was having some difficulty in taking it in at the same time as his roast pork.
He swallowed a large mouthful and frowned. “Say again, Pa. What’s the link between this cousin of mine and your discovery of the Amber Gate?”
“Coincidence, my son—the Gods have sent us Grouteds a divine coincidence.” The Protector leaned forward over the snowy tablecloth. “It so happens that on top-secret orders from me, my agents have been—let’s call it—‘takin’ an inventory’ of one or two minor churches in the Capital, with a view to appropriatin’ their treasure—to finance some recent buildin’ work here in the Palace, you understand, let alone all my other expenses. The priests don’t need it, I do.” He mopped his fleshy lips with a napkin. “Well, what happens next is I suggest my men take a look at the old Cathedral. And what do you know? They find that a recent fall of masonry has opened up an old stairwell no one ever knew existed. And guess where it goes?”
“The crypt, Pa, you said,” Caleb said, bored.
“The crypt! And down there they find the fabled Amber Gate in all its glory. Gold, Caleb, gold like you’ve never seen. My men have searched for the Gate for years, all over the Capital. Never guessed it would turn up underground, along with a lot of corpses. Anyway, once that gold’s melted down…”
“And the coincidence?” said Caleb.
The Protector smacked the palm of his hand down on the table. “Why, that we’d captured Leah Tunstall at the same time. It ain’t so much the Amber Gate that’s significant, my boy—though that’s a nice little extra, you might say—as the ceiling of the crypt. It seems to be some kind of prophecy.” His bald head glistened in the candlelight as he nodded emphatically. “If you marry your cousin Leah, our line will be secure—that’s what those paintings down there are tellin’ me, and the Palace seer confirms my interpretation.”
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