THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2016 by Susan Hill Long
Cover art copyright © 2016 by Dinara Mirtalipova
Map copyright © 2016 by Kayley LeFaiver
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks
of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on request.
ISBN 978-0-553-51134-5 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-553-51135-2 (lib. bdg.) —
ISBN 978-0-553-51136-9 (ebook)
eBook ISBN 9780553511369
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Epigraph
Chapter 1: The Glass-Painter’s Gift
Chapter 2: Accidents of Birth
Chapter 3: The Miserable Coin of Life
Chapter 4: A Bit of Magic
Chapter 5: A Hideous Proposal
Chapter 6: A Stowaway
Chapter 7: Minka Leaves the House
Chapter 8: Oats and Beans and Barley, Oh!
Chapter 9: Minka Has a Heart
Chapter 10: In John Book’s Camp
Chapter 11: A Rescue
Chapter 12: An Addition to Our Party
Chapter 13: To Be Healed!
Chapter 14: Farther Along the Wrong Way
Chapter 15: The Very Rain That Falls
Chapter 16: Knightsbridge, We Greet You!
Chapter 17: The Castle
Chapter 18: The Comb
Chapter 19: The Princess Petronilla
Chapter 20: Another Addition to Our Party
Chapter 21: Ghosts and Folderol!
Chapter 22: A Pup for Petronilla
Chapter 23: Fortunes and Letters
Chapter 24: A Sad Goodbye
Chapter 25: Lord Geoffrey Returns
Chapter 26: An Oath
Chapter 27: Bertram at the Well
Chapter 28: A Dark Visit
Chapter 29: Accused
Chapter 30: No More Pickpocketry
Chapter 31: Get Her Get Her Get Her
Chapter 32: Sommat’s Amiss
Chapter 33: Another Rescue
Chapter 34: A Feeling
Chapter 35: John Book Meets His Match
Chapter 36: The Reunion in the Almonry
Chapter 37: What Happened at the Apothecary’s House
Chapter 38: What Happened on the Field
Chapter 39: Margaret the Crutch
Chapter 40: What They Found in the Wood
Chapter 41: The Wild-Eyed Man
Chapter 42: A Right Reflection
Acknowledgments
For Molly and Eliza
Detail left
Detail right
“Tell me, Nature,” said I, “the best craft to take up.”
“Learn loving,” said Nature. “Leave everything else.”
XX 206–207
PIERS PLOWMAN
William Langland
In Knightsbridge, in days gone by, there lived a glass-painter called William the glazier. Will had learned to make glass at the knee of his father, learned which metallic salts—cobalt and copper, gold and iron and manganese—to add to the molten sand and beechwood ash to create the most glorious colors.
But Will was born also of an alchemist, and at his mother’s side he learned the secrets of combining common things of nature to create a new thing, something not of nature, not quite, something close to magical. In those days, unless it hinted of heresy, magic was tolerated at its most innocuous levels: the soothsayer did brisk business at the fair, for example. Will’s mother reasoned that if she could learn the secret of turning something worthless into gold, the same method might be used to make more worthy the human soul. Alas, she expired—the result of an unfortunate experiment—before she could prove her theory, and Will let alchemy alone. Mostly.
But one day Will thought to combine his two interests—alchemy and glass—to make a gift for his wife. Something special, something rare. And it worked. Like magic.
“A mirror,” Catherine breathed.
It was near sunset, and the cathedral was empty, except for the glass-painter and his wife and a pair of jenny wrens who’d got in through the half-completed wall of stained glass. Will had been hired by the old king, Ranulph, to create the great rose window—years in the making—that would finish the cathedral’s west end.
“Not just any mirror,” said Will, coming round the long worktable with the object—a circle of pale glass, bound and backed with lead, and with a handle of carved bone. “I’ve made a pair, as we two are a pair.” Will glanced around, as if among the solder and snips and shadows there might be another ear to listen, then gave the mirror to Catherine. “Look! Look into it!”
Catherine ran a hand absently over her belly—the baby would be born before the month was out, by the midwife’s measure—and lifted the mirror. First her face clouded with confusion. Then her eyes lit up and her lips twitched.
“What do you see?” Will held his breath.
“I see you!” Catherine smiled and cupped Will’s cheek, then looked again into the mirror. “Your eyes, green as spring,” she said, gazing into the glass. “What is it about? How…?”
Will grinned wildly and raked his hands through his hair so that tufts stood alert in all directions. “Several attempts, many secret hours at the kiln. Cherrywood ash instead of beech. And to the ash I added this and that: chamomile for love, coltsfoot for visions, dandelion root for divination, fern leaf for clarity, and”—he rubbed his hands together—“primrose. I’m quite proud of the primrose. That’s where the truth comes from. Yes, that’s what I meant to say! The mirror reflects the beholder—inside and out!” He grabbed the glass from Catherine and ran his fingers over the words etched on the back. “I call the magic mirror Lux Vera.”
Catherine shook her head, uncomprehending.
“ ‘True Light.’ You see?” Again Will touched the words. “Because it shows the heart’s true light, just as my great rose window shows the true light of God. When I look into the mirror, I see you, my love. And this proves I’ve done the magic right, for you see me!”
Catherine’s delighted laughter was cut short by the scrape of the west porch door on the stone flooring.
“William Glazier!” came a shout. Lord Geoffrey, king consort, had been checking Will’s progress on the rose window with irritating frequency.
Will shoved the mirror on the shelf beneath the worktable. He didn’t trust Lord Geoffrey. Just last week he’d seen him toss a mouser from a parapet.
The king consort advanced along the aisle, the hem of his mantle swirling with the force of his stride. When he reached them, the cloak swelled and settled like a vulture’s wings.
“My lord!”
His Lordship acknowledged Will’s greeting with a curt nod and turned his attention to the worktable, on which a panel of stained glass was taking shape. There, three figures met between lines of
lead.
One was Queen Isobel, daughter and heir of Ranulph, hair flowing in saffron swirls and waves, while down her cheek trailed a widow’s tears.
The second, fair Armand, her late husband, dead in the wars not one year past.
The third, Armand’s closest comrade: Lord Geoffrey himself, husband now to Isobel and, as such, the new king consort. Will had painted his likeness—thin nose, hollow cheek, and pointed tuft of beard—with confident brushstrokes, as he had all the masterful detail in the great rose window under construction. Then he had fused paint to glass in the kiln at Knightsbridge Wood.
Geoffrey stroked his beard, then tugged at the tips of his leather gloves, removing them finger by finger. “We fought for God and kingdom, Armand and I,” he said, and tucked the gloves in his belt. “Thank the saints I could be of comfort to his widow.”
Catherine smiled fondly. “And how is Queen Isobel? Expecting any moment, the midwife tells us?” Catherine, a distant cousin of Armand, could afford this slight familiarity with the royal family.
“Our little heir,” Geoffrey crowed. “A son this night, I pray.”
“But…” Will glanced at the queen and Armand in the glass. “What of…”
“Poor Armand, never laid eyes upon his infant daughter.” Geoffrey sniffed. “I’m honor-bound to raise the girl as my own, of course. For I loved Armand like a brother.”
“Of course.” Will swallowed. There had been rumors….The midwife had said Geoffrey was clearly displeased that Armand’s child, and not his, would one day rule. As Will said a quick prayer for the continued health of Queen Isobel, Geoffrey all at once bent and swept up the mirror from the shelf.
“No! It’s—it’s a gift for Catherine,” Will stammered. He put his hand over the mirror.
But Lord Geoffrey pushed the glass-painter aside. Lips parted, he drew the mirror closer in the fading light, and suddenly his grip on the bone handle whitened his knuckles. He pressed the mirror to his chest, then looked again with open hunger at the glass. “God’s wounds,” he sputtered at last, “what magic is this?”
“Magic?” Will twisted the hem of his tunic in his hands.
Now Lord Geoffrey spoke slowly, distinctly. “The power to make such a mirror might be judged born of the Devil,” he said. “There are tests, Will Glazier.”
Catherine gasped, and Geoffrey glanced sharply in her direction.
“The hot iron, the sinking in the River Severn…,” Geoffrey went on. “A trial by ordeal can never end well. But,” he said, stroking his pointed beard, “I wonder if we might work…together.” Geoffrey smiled coldly at Will. “I’m a generous man. I will keep secret your talent. You have my word.” And he thrust out his hand.
Will hesitated only a moment before taking Lord Geoffrey’s right hand in his. At the same time, he reached to the mirror with his left, glanced at the glass, then stared, transfixed. “That’s…” Will’s eyes cut to Geoffrey’s face, and back to the glass.
For long moments the two men were locked in strange, silent battle; then the mirror dropped to the flagstone with a delicate, final, crack.
“Idiot!” Geoffrey’s cheeks reddened with angry spots.
“An accident, my lord. Apologies. So clumsy.” Will knelt to pick up the shards of glass with hands that shook.
“You saw something,” Geoffrey hissed, breathing with effort. “What was it?”
Rising, Will forced himself to look steadily into Lord Geoffrey’s eyes. “I—only you, of course. I can make another mirror. One fit for a…king.”
Geoffrey yanked the gloves from his belt and tugged them on, jaw clenched, his gaze never leaving Will’s face. “I will have another.” His voice dropped to a whisper, but it seemed to fill the cathedral. “Just like that one.”
Will and Catherine stood still as stone while the sound of Geoffrey’s boot steps faded to nothing. The west porch door scraped the floor once, twice. The brilliance of the rose window guttered with the setting sun and went dark.
Will’s knees buckled. What in God’s name had happened?
“The second mirror,” he said to Catherine. “It’s at the kiln in the wood. Go gather what you need for the baby and meet me there.” He put both hands on her belly and took in a juddering breath.
“Will, you’re shaking; you’re frightening me. Tell me what’s happened!”
Will gripped Catherine’s shoulders. “When I took Geoffrey’s hand and looked into the mirror, I saw a vision most…”
The vision—horrid vision!—played again in Will’s mind. “Geoffrey and Armand, sharing a laugh. Armand turns, smiling. All in one swift motion, Geoffrey unsheathes a knife and drives it deep in Armand’s back.”
Catherine gasped.
At the sound of fluttering wings, Will looked up. Two wrens perched in the unfinished rose window, balanced there only a moment, until one and then the other flew out into the dusk.
Will pulled Catherine to him. “Hurry,” he said, releasing her. “We must fly. I’ll meet you in the wood.”
Will heard the door swing shut behind Catherine as he collected his tools in a sack. Grozing iron, stippling wand, squirrel-hair brushes, paint.
“Lux Vera,” he whispered. He did not doubt the mirror’s true light.
He must warn the queen. And he must away.
Will dropped the shards of broken mirror into his sack and turned to go, then stopped cold. The west door scraped open once again. In the vast darkness of the cathedral, Will could not see how many men approached. But he could hear their heavy boots upon the stone.
Margaret set down her market basket, which was large for a child of five or six to bear, leaned upon her crutch, and looked at the beggar, who stuck out her hand and said, “Please.” Margaret shook her head; she’d nothing of her own to give. But she didn’t turn away as she’d been taught. The beggar looked to be about Margaret’s own age; who had put her out on the street? If the widow Minka thought to turn Margaret out, she’d be a beggar too, and bad luck, that. Minka had said so oft enough.
The beggar sat in the dirt scratching at her filthy tunic—Margaret could see the fleas from where she stood—and then she took up a thing from her sack, a brown, furry, dead-looking thing, and cradled it as if it were a baby, soft and sweet. “Dolly,” she murmured.
The stench was appalling. Still, the kind and tender way the beggar rocked the thing in the crook of her elbow made Margaret’s nose stuff up and her eyes sting, and not from the horrible smell.
“Oi, Maggot! The cripple and the beggar are friends—of course!” came a boy’s shout, followed shortly by a hurtling rock. The beggar covered her head with one arm and with the other clutched the doll to her chest. Margaret took a sharp breath and glared at their tormentor. It was Thomas the miller’s son. Her heart beat like a rabbit’s, but she squinted her eyes and bared her teeth the way she thought a lion or a dragon would. Thomas came running at them, and she drew up her crutch like a lance and held it steady. Crutch met bone, the boy fell back, and much wailing ensued.
“Ah, quit yer crying, Thomas, and leave a poor cripple alone,” said the boy’s mother, coming after him and giving him a whack. “Vex me much more and I’ll turn you out, boy. Then you’ll be on the street, same as that one,” she added, with a glance at the beggar. “Accident of birth,” she muttered as she hurried Thomas away, “the both of them.”
Margaret thought of the butcher’s sow, which bore a runt and ate it. She supposed that was an accident of birth, but she didn’t know what it had to do with her.
The beggar sniffed loudly and rose from the ground, giving off a pong and upsetting legions of fleas as she did. But for a moment Margaret caught sight of their reflection in the surface of the brook. Two girls, side by side, poor as piglets and marked by God’s displeasure. She heard the girl’s stomach growl. The beggar, she knew, was worse off than even her miserable self.
Margaret stared at her face in the water and decided something. She took the market silver from the belt at her waist and pres
sed a coin into the girl’s palm.
The beggar’s jaw dropped. “A penny entire? Why, I’ll dine with the duchess!” she said, and stuck out her heel for a curtsy. Then her mouth made an O as she had a thought. “You can have my dolly in trade,” she said, gently stroking the brown thing with the tip of her finger as if it had a downy cheek, and then thrusting it at Margaret.
Hair is what it was. A thick plait of matted hair that never was, nor ever would be, a dolly. “No.” Margaret shook her head. The beggar looked relieved and quickly tucked the thing into her belt and patted it.
“Sommat else, then, for stabbin’ that boy and givin’ me a whole penny.”
And while the beggar knelt and rootled around in her filthy sack for something else to offer, Margaret saw etched on the back of the girl’s bent neck a pale scar or mark of birth: two separate, slender stems curved outward and joined in a crotch at the top, resembling nothing so much in size and shape as…a wishbone!
Margaret rootled through a knot of wishes in her mind—I want not to be et by a sow; I want Thomas drowned in the river; I want two straight strong legs—but in the end she whispered the wish that beat a steady rhythm on her heart: I want not to be so alone.
“Don’t linger,” the widow Minka squawked from the window of a steep-roofed mud-and-timber house. “Don’t dawdle, don’t dally, don’t speak to strangers.” Minka paused to take a breath, and all went still in the unexpected silence: her linen headdress, her doughy cheeks and quivering jowls.
The Magic Mirror Page 1