‘I won’t. And you stay awake too,’ he said.
‘I will. See you soon,’ I said, my heart lighter than it should have been. I turned back to Olga.
‘He’s all right,’ I said, and explained what had happened.
She said, ‘That promise he asked you – why do that? It is strange.’
‘I just think it was the spell in the tea working on him,’ I said. ‘He said it smudged his mind and helped him forget the way he’d been betrayed. Perhaps he doesn’t realise I already know the truth – that, of course, it can only be the Prince, his lifelong friend, who has betrayed him and had him arrested and locked up.’
‘But why he think you hate him for this? You did not like the Prince.’
‘No, I certainly did not,’ I said, ‘but you know Max is from the Court and he is used to thinking of the royal family as the centre of the universe and, besides, I think he is still loyal to that creep of a Leopold and does not want to believe what has happened himself. He even thinks it might be his fault and – oh, it is all muddled in his head.’ It sounded muddled to me, too, but it was the only way I could explain what I was sure was going on in poor Maximilian von Gildenstein’s mind. I was sure because I had felt the same things myself. I knew what betrayal was. I knew how it felt when someone you trusted turned out not to be worthy of that trust. I knew how you could take nothing for granted and that overnight your life could change from sunshine to shadow. And I knew that at first you did not want to believe the worst and that it took time, bitter time, for the iron to really enter your soul.
We got rid of the rest of the tea and cake and settled down for a wait whose length we could not guess. At first we talked round and round the possibilities. If the Mancer boy decided to come back – and it was a big if – he’d have to wait till his parents were asleep, and that would likely be pretty late. Would a child of his age be able to keep his eyes open that long?
I wasn’t exactly feeling fresh as a field flower after a spring shower either and Olga did not look too much better. The exhaustion of the last few days was setting in with every slow, dragging minute as the cell grew darker and darker and the space between our words grew longer until finally silence fell. I had tried to stop myself from sleeping by sitting bolt upright against the hard stone wall but as time passed I could feel my limbs turning to melted rubber and my head bending further and further towards my chest. Though I pinched myself several times to stop the treacherous sleepiness from invading me completely, I could feel it was getting to be a losing battle. Never mind the spell-laced tea, nature was doing her stealthy work, and all I could think of was sleep, sleep, sleep . . .
It was Olga who saved us. The boy had opened the door so quietly that I would certainly not have heard it in my state if I’d been alone. Although she was so tired in her human shape, Olga’s buried wolf-instinct must have pricked up her ears at the tiny sound the boy made, waking her instantly from the light doze into which she’d fallen.
She told me later how she’d done it. He had come in, his footsteps as light as a feather, and stopped to see if we were asleep, then had headed straight to me. He had his back to where Olga lay and, as he reached stealthily for my pocket, she sprang, knocking him down and making the small bunch of keys he was carrying fly out of his hand. I woke with a start to see Olga with her knee on the child’s chest and her hand over his mouth as she said, ‘Your Mama tell you stories of werewolves, boy?’
A frightened nod.
‘She say they kill and eat little children?’
Another scared nod.
‘Well, boy, you better believe it. If you scream or you try to warn anyone or you don’t do what we say, I’ll . . .’ And she bared her sharp white teeth in a menacing snarl. I felt a little sorry for him then because I knew Olga would never carry out her threat. But it would keep him quiet – of that there was no doubt, seeing the terror on his face.
No time to lose now. We picked up the keys and slipped out with the boy still held in Olga’s grip. We made him lock the door of the cell again, with the key and the magic words which he murmured under his breath. If there was a delay in them finding out we’d gone, so much the better.
Our corridor was empty and unguarded; the prisoners on this floor were obviously considered low-risk and of low value. I would’ve liked to open every cell door but it was too risky. We had to get away quickly.
We reached a flight of stairs and went down, pausing in the shadows of the landing to spy out the territory. Two corridors: one leading right, one left. As Max’s cell was directly under ours, it would be in the corridor on the left. Alas, the way was barred by an enormous guard who sat at a table with his back to us facing the line of cells, reading a newspaper in the light of a lamp. Somehow, we had to get past him. Someone had to cause a distraction and allow the others to get past. But then that someone would be caught, and . . .
‘The top,’ Olga whispered in my ear. ‘The top, Selena.’
Of course! I pulled the top out of my pocket and hurled it down the corridor on the right as hard as I could, then pressed back in the shadows under the stairs with the others.
For such a small object, the top made an unholy noise, clattering on the flagstone floor with a metallic screech. The effect was spectacular. The guard jumped to his feet, knocking over his chair. It then fell into the table, which crashed and knocked the lamp over, shattering the glass and leaving the corridor in darkness. The guard swore loudly, and ran unseeingly past us down the right-hand corridor where the top had started spinning madly, whirling rapidly away.
It was our chance and we took it, hurrying to Max’s cell. The boy unlocked the door, it gently swung open and Max jumped out, having heard the noise.
Quickly, we had the boy relock the door and raced down the corridor, with Olga still hanging on to the child. We went through another door, down to the end of a short corridor where a grate led to a flight of steep stone steps. At the bottom was a swish and lick of water. The river!
I’d hoped there might be a boat tied up there. Indeed, there was a mooring spot but it was empty.
‘They’re probably out on patrol,’ Max said. ‘Hopefully they won’t come back too soon. We’ll have to swim. The Golden Bridge isn’t far, by my reckoning. I think we should head there and take the first coach or train out of the city.’ He pulled off his boots and stripped off his heavy coat. ‘That is, if you can both swim?’
Olga and I nodded. I could swim but not well and the trouble was that the thought of deep water frightened me. And the river could be treacherous in the dark. You don’t know how deep it is till you’re in it. But what choice did we have?
‘I don’t think we should go to the Golden Bridge,’ I said. ‘It’s the closest, yes, but for a start it’s likely the patrol’s gone that way – where the crowds are. We’ve gained a bit of time locking those doors and we should throw those keys into the river to delay them further.’ I threw them in without thinking twice. ‘But once the guards discover we’re gone, they’ll instantly get word to the patrol, who’ll start hunting for us around the Golden Bridge because it’s close and because they’ll think we’ll be heading to the main road or the railway station.’
‘What do you think we should do then?’ said Max.
‘Head in the opposite direction to the Cargo Bridge where the barges come in. It’s a fair bit further but we could hide amongst the barges and rest while we decide what to do.’
‘You’re the local,’ said Max. ‘We’ll do as you say, Selena.’
I looked at the dark, heaving water, my heart pounding. ‘All right then. Leave the boy behind, Olga, and let’s go.’ Without waiting for an answer, I threw off my shoes and stockings, rucked my skirts up to the waistband of my cotton drawers and, taking a deep breath, dived straight into the black water.
I supposed it was lucky that my clothes were so thin and worn because
at least they didn’t weigh me down and I was able to kick my legs freely enough. The water was cold and unpleasantly oily. I tried not to think of beasts that might be lurking in the depths or currents that would pluck one down to a watery grave . . . Oh, for pity’s sake, what a fool I am, I thought, worrying about imaginary dangers when the very real threat of the Mancer prison was still not far behind us!
Max swam up beside me with an assured stroke that spoke of long practice. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I am perfectly fine,’ I said, crossly treading water, ‘and you should . . .’ And then I stopped speaking, for Olga had come into view – and she wasn’t on her own. On her back, clinging desperately to her as if she were a lifebuoy, was the Mancer boy!
‘Olga, for God’s sake, you were supposed to leave him behind!’
‘No, no,’ said Olga scornfully. ‘He know too much. He tell them where we go. He tell them what we do. I think maybe I drown him like keys. Then I think, no, we take boy. Maybe they pay to get him back. Give us safe conduct, even.’
I looked at her and at the frightened boy. ‘He can’t swim,’ I said.
‘No, the little fool, he cannot. So Olga of the family Ironheart have to carry Mancer brat. And he have sharp claws – ow!’ she said fiercely, as the child clung to her ever harder.
‘I’ll take him, if you like,’ said Max.
She did, and in a trice the child was on the young man’s back and we swam on. The boy looked slightly less scared and I felt a surge of pity for him. Mancer or no Mancer, he was still just a child. How would I have felt at his age?
Stop it, Selena, I thought. Little Mancers grow into big Mancers, and big Mancers think people like you and Olga ought to be imprisoned if not outright exterminated. All his life the brat must have heard that sort of thing. And he had known what we’d been given for supper. He had only come to get the top because he thought we’d be unconscious. So it served him right if he was scared, the horrid little sneak. And bad luck to us, too, because now we had to drag him around with us, when he’d probably be looking out for a chance to run away and betray us. For an angry instant I almost wished Olga had flung him into the water, then immediately felt bad for thinking such a thing. Olga had said magic had chosen me because I had ‘a fine, strong heart’; little did she know my heart was filled with the darkest things.
Max had taken the lead now. Despite his burden, he was a much stronger swimmer than either of us. Olga was pretty good too, but my inexperience was beginning to tell. My legs felt like lead, my arms felt like they were going to drop off, my breath tore in my chest, but I grimly kept on from pride as much as anything else.
Fortunately, because it was so late, the river was quiet, with very little traffic. And we probably weren’t in the water for more than ten or fifteen minutes. But it felt so much longer and so much further. Ashberg is famous for its many bridges, and we had to go under what seemed like an endless parade of them before I finally recognised the great stone shape of the Cargo Bridge looming out of the darkness, with the moored barges clustered thickly under it like chicks around a mother hen.
There were dozens of barges, each with its name and what it carried painted on the side in large letters, like TOMASINA, Coal; or PRETTY LADY, Scrap; or SWALLOWTAIL, Groceries. We avoided the few barges that still had lights shining behind their cabin windows and swam in amongst the boats shrouded in darkness till we came to one which read, WANDERER, Old Clothes and Goods. These sorts of barges plied up and down the river and its tributaries, serving as travelling shops for far-flung towns and villages. They not only sold goods but bought them as well, so we had no idea if Wanderer had only just arrived in Ashberg with a cargo to unload, or was about to leave Ashberg with new cargo. It did not matter for the moment because it was clearly moored here overnight and, as Max said, if we had to spend time resting in a hold, it was better to be amongst old clothes than coal or metal. Olga held the boy while Max climbed on, then he helped us in; first the boy, then me, then Olga. Once on board, we kept well away from sight of the cabin while we looked for the hatch that would lead to the hold.
Finding it, we opened it and slipped down the ladder one after the other, leaving the hatch a little open so we could see more clearly. It was crowded with things – everything from clothes to clocks, saucepans to saddles, and books to blankets. The air was close and a bit smelly but at least it was warm and dry and, after the drenching we’d had in the river, we were all feeling cold. The child – he’d told Max his name was Tomi – was the only one who was mostly dry, but even he was shivering. I found an old blanket and put it around him as he sat huddled in a corner not looking at anyone while the rest of us quietly found clothes we might change into – not only because our clothes were soaking wet, but because they’d feature in the descriptions the Mancers and the police were sure to put out in their search for us.
Thinking I’d be best off disguised as a boy, I dressed myself in an old blue sailor’s jumper with canvas pants, oilskin jacket (I put the locket in the jacket pocket) and scuffed boots while Max appeared in a down-at-heel tweed suit and boots similar to mine. Olga, haughtily refusing to dress in male clothing, scrambled around till she found a faded woollen dress, a coat frayed at the sleeves and some clogs. We stuffed the wet clothes deep within the mountain of old clothes. Discovering a pocketknife, I chopped off my hair to the nape of my neck. Max also hacked at his, then shoved a thoroughly disreputable hat on top so that with the stubble beginning to grow on his chin and upper lip, the fine Court gentleman had quite disappeared and he looked like nothing so much as the kind of street tough one would cross the road to avoid. As to Olga, she refused to touch her hair, tying it up with a piece of string instead. She then made us bundle ours all up and give it to her to throw away or bury later. With a jerk of the head towards the now-sleeping Tomi, she explained, ‘In my country wizards use such things as hair and blood and nail parings to bind the most powerful of spells.’
‘He’s too young to know that kind of spell, surely,’ said Max. Olga shook her head grimly. ‘We cannot be sure, and better to not take risk.’
Olga was right, I thought. We Ashbergians had lived too long without the experience of magic and so we did not have the instincts born of long understanding. We would certainly need her knowledge if we were to stay free for any length of time.
Now that we were warm and dry and safe for the moment at least, we discussed our next move in low voices. The trouble was that though we all shared the same basic goal – staying alive and free – we each had our own concerns. Max’s was to join his father, who, we now gathered, had gone back to Faustina with the Prince, without knowing his son had been arrested; Olga’s was to regain safety in Ruvenya; and mine – well, mine was to get the hell out of Ashberg and never return if I could help it. I loved my city, but it didn’t love me.
There was nothing there for me any more, and only one person to mourn my going – Maria – but I would get word to her somehow once I was somewhere far, far away. I had lost her the wedding dress, and I could only hope that her innocent involvement in my ‘crimes’ would not come to light during a Mancer investigation. For investigation there would be, once they discovered we’d flown the coop. The top would have long turned back into a dead leaf, and perhaps might not even be found, so they’d get precious little from that, but they’d be bound to suspect something very unusual had been at work. Even if they weren’t sure it was magic, they’d be certain of one thing: a lowly street thief and a foreign werewolf had helped a valuable prisoner to escape and kidnapped one of their own young. They’d want to know why. They’d crosscheck with the police who the prisoner sharing the cell with the Ruvenyan werewolf had been – and sooner or later, they’d come knocking at my father’s door.
How furious – and scared – Grizelda and her daughters would be to discover they’d been harbouring a traitor within their very walls! Imagine the gossip in the servants’ quarter
s! Imagine the gossip in the neighbourhood! I couldn’t help a grim little smile at the thought that their reputations would be tarnished, and my stepsisters’ prospects of making a fine marriage diminished for at least a while, and Babette might as well forget any thoughts of setting her cap at the Prince. They might even be in such disgrace that they’d have to leave the city. It was of some consolation to know that they would suffer, albeit small, for I knew that in the end they’d likely be cleared of any wrongdoing, my father would definitely disown me and I would have no family left at all. I would have to live in exile for the rest of my life and never ever again breathe the air of my native land.
‘Are you all right, Selena?’ asked Max gently, interrupting Olga as she described the easiest way to get through the Ruvenyan border unseen.
I swallowed. ‘Yes, well, not really.’
‘Are you afraid?’
‘Of course. But right now it is more . . . sadness. Because, you see, I don’t think that I can ever be at home again in my own city.’
I thought he might ask me what I meant. Instead, he said quietly, his eyes on me, ‘I feel the same.’
I said, a little wildly, ‘But it’s different for you – once you get to Faustina and you see your father, you –’
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he cut in. ‘I won’t go to Faustina. I think, rather, I will head to – to Almain.’
‘Almain? But why?’
‘It is safer. They will expect me to go to Faustina and if it is thought that that is what I am doing, then my father will be in great danger. I fear he may even be killed. Better for him if I stay away and he thinks I’ve just . . . disappeared.’
Both Olga and I stared at him. It was Olga who said, ‘But Max, your father – no, he cannot accept this, he seek you high and low!’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. There will be a plausible story. He swallowed. ‘A secret mission I’m on, something like that. He will believe what is told to him. Because he can do no other. Please,’ he added, seeing the protests forming on our lips. ‘I cannot explain. Not yet. But trust me when I say it is so.’
Moonlight and Ashes Page 11