Fawkes

by Nadine Brandes

  “Ah, the Cyclops has emerged from its den.”

  I ripped myself from the search for the mystery color. Three older students hovered by the fire, pewter goblets of wine cradled in their hands. Their masked faces turned toward me.

  Henry Parker—the spokesman of the three and as pleasant to look at as a muddied swine—lifted his goblet. His Grey mask bore a set of painted black lips resting in a side-smirk. That simpering smirk would keep him from ever being taken seriously. Father would know better than to include something so immature as a smirk on my mask, wouldn’t he?

  Father.

  I scanned the room.

  Headmaster Canon chatted with some strangers near the entrance. My grandparents—Denis and Edith Bainbridge of Timble Hall—stepped into the room, leaving their cloaks with the entry servant. A few professors examined one of the school bookshelves holding tomes about color languages.

  Then I caught the curled dark hair. The oak-Brown mask. The painted silver eyelashes and a white rose over one eye. Emma Areben joined Henry’s crew. I once thought her beautiful despite having never seen her true face.

  She’d arrived at St. Peter’s a year ago, already masked.

  I envied her for never having to take St. Peter’s test. The Color Test was one “student honor” I wouldn’t have minded forgoing. She and Henry would graduate tonight after my maskless peers and I took the Color Test.

  She turned her head my way and I darted my gaze to the rest of the room.

  I’d expected Father to arrive with Grandmother and Grandfather. I glanced out the window. Rain. That explained his delay.

  “Have you decided which colors you’ll start with, Cyclops? I suppose you don’t care, as long as you have a mask to hide that fencing wound.” After years of Henry’s barbs, I should have been able to handle them better. At least his insult proved he knew nothing of my plague.

  Teeth gritted, I walked away, mainly so I wouldn’t hear Emma’s laugh.

  I heard it anyway.

  I crossed the room to greet my grandparents—the two who had raised me long enough to send me to St. Peter’s. Grandmother, her broad-brimmed hat like a crown atop her feathered hair, wore a dark petticoat with a modest neck ruff. Both she and Grandfather wore their masks on their belts, Grandfather’s a river Blue carved with the swirls and flow of rushing water. Grandmother’s a dull Brown.

  I embraced Grandmother, but when I shook Grandfather’s hand, I scanned the entryway again. It was empty save for the maskless servant, his eyes downcast. No father to carve his mask.

  Where was Father?

  “Thomas, let’s step outside.” Grandfather took my arm. “I would have a word.”

  My knees locked. Outside? For a word? Now? It had to be bad news. Now was not the time.

  Grandfather steered me toward the door, but Headmaster Canon called out, “Thomas, come here, boy.”

  Boy again. Fueled by nerves, my feet obeyed his singsong voice and I left—no, fled—Grandfather’s news.

  I passed the testing room. The door hung open, the interior lit by a lone candle. The six color spheres rested in a line on the surface of the table. Awaiting me.

  I walked on.

  Headmaster Canon led me to the strangers. One man wore a slate-Grey mask at his belt and the other a Brown one textured like tree bark. “This is Master Connor,”—the Grey inclined his head—“and this is Master Haberdasher.” The Brown held my one-eyed gaze, then the Headmaster went on. “They each seek an apprentice and will join us for supper and for your Color Testing.”

  The two masters bowed, but neither seemed impressed. Instead, their attention drifted to Henry—St. Peter’s most skilled.

  Within the hour, I’d have my mask and they’d give me the time of day. I would be like Emma—never taking my mask off. They’d see the power that flowed in my Fawkes blood. I shook off my nerves. Confident. Commanding. I must be a Grey. I gave a small bow. “You are both most welcome.”

  “Perhaps Fawkes’s mask will have only one eye,” Henry commented to his peers.

  Do. Not. Turn. Red. The possibility of a cyclops mask had crossed my mind. Father might fill in an eye hole when he saw my patch. I wouldn’t mind—

  Father.

  Why wasn’t he here yet? I avoided Grandfather’s scrutiny, though his posture leaned my way. If my suspicions about his bad news were right . . .

  No.

  Grandfather gestured to Headmaster Canon. My stomach lurched. They both spoke in low tones, then Grandfather withdrew an envelope, his gaze drifting to meet mine.

  I strode over.

  “Thomas.” Grandfather faced me.

  I shook my head. Please, no.

  “He’s not coming.”

  The room muted as though a giant pillow pressed upon it. Cloying. Suffocating. “Of course he is—”

  “We’ve only just had word from London.” Grandfather kept his voice low, but it still rang like a cathedral bell in the silent room.

  This discussion couldn’t be happening. Not in front of everyone. “He promised. In his last letter. I will not doubt him.” I didn’t mention that the letter came before Father knew I was plagued.

  Headmaster Canon handed me the new letter. It contained one sentence.

  There will be no mask for Thomas from me.

  Below that, Father’s signature.

  No explanation.

  I faced Grandfather, more to hide my shame from others than to meet his gaze. “But . . . everyone’s here.” My voice rose. “He has to come.” Everything rode on Father’s presence . . . on the mask he was to give me.

  I needed him on this day only. I would never ask for another favor.

  Norwood slid into the room from the hall. His appearance caused my good eye to burn.

  Henry’s whisper cut the silence from my blind spot on my left. “He really thinks the great Guy Fawkes will show up with a mask. Does he actually believe the man is his father?”

  No one responded. Emma didn’t laugh.

  “I’m sorry, son.” Grandfather sounded remorseful, but he had no idea what he’d done. He’d announced this shame publicly. Before my peers, my professors, the masters. Master Connor and Master Haberdasher inched toward the other students—the masked students.

  Giving up on me.

  Headmaster Canon cleared his throat. “I need to have a private word with Mr. Fawkes.” He took my arm and led me from the room. “Come along, boy.”

  I craned a look over my shoulder until I located the Green mask and gold laurels. The man I wished was my father. “Norwood?”

  He could fix this—explain this. He was our herbalist. Healer. My friend.

  Norwood strode after me. “I’m here.” His quiet words were for my ears alone. In one swift moment, the buildup of emotions that had filled me deflated, leaving me empty. But I did not stay hollow long. Anger trickled into the space.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Headmaster Canon opened the door to his private study, allowing me to enter first. Muted moonlight filtered through the rain-speckled windows across the room.

  “Give us a moment.” He closed the door on Norwood, then lit a candle. “Without a mask, there’s no reason for you to continue at St. Peter’s.” Canon’s usually singsong voice came out monotone. “We cannot apply color training when you have no color power.”

  “You want me to leave?” I croaked. I couldn’t leave with one year left—the final and most important year that resulted in an actual profession. The year I would hone my skill with the color of my choice—Grey—and maybe heal my eye. Despite the school and its dog-eat-dog students, I couldn’t be cast out now. I had a mere sixpence and shilling to live on.

  Headmaster Canon hung his head and I caught a muffled sigh. “Only your father can carve your mask and pass on the color powers. Unless you can track down Guy Fawkes for a mask, you cannot be bound with a color.”

  “Why cannot my grandfather pass on his color power? Or even Norwood?” My voice
sounded shrill.

  “It comes through blood, from father to son and mother to daughter. Denis Bainbridge is not your grandfather by blood.” He folded his arms as though steeling himself. “You no longer have a place in our society.”

  I could not harden my heart fast enough to block the sting. Not just in the school, but in society.

  I no longer had a purpose.

  The servant in the entrance hall came to mind. Me—the son of Guy Fawkes and the grandson of the master and mistress of Timble Hall—maskless? Viewed as an orphan? Treated as an orphan? Not just that, but . . .

  A plagued orphan.

  They were casting me upon the street. No Fawkes had ever been maskless before.

  I wouldn’t allow it. I would not be the first.

  “You are welcome to remain for the graduations—”

  “I will find him.” My voice emerged strong. Commanding. Like a Grey.

  “I wish you all the bes—”

  “Good eve, Headmaster.” I forced winter into my voice. I wasn’t in the mood to hear his well wishes when he was the one sending me from St. Peter’s.

  I strode from the room and nearly plowed into Norwood. He gripped my hand in a firm shake.

  A farewell.

  I nodded, clenching my jaw, and then continued through the halls of St. Peter’s Color School. I would find Father. I would get my mask from him . . .

  And then I would make him regret ever having a son.

  Two

  A mud clod struck my cheekbone, sending a spray of grit and slime into my open mouth and good eye. “Get out of our town, plague!”

  On my first day of travel, the rain had slipped into the cracks of Norwood’s paste and loosed the eye patch. On the second day, it fell off. It now rode in my pocket. Had I been wearing a mask, no one would see my eye. No one would see my plague. No one would dare throw mud.

  But my departure from St. Peter’s had not gone as imagined. I left that very night. Grandfather and Grandmother tried to convince me to come home, but that would be defeat. I wanted nothing to do with them—I had to be my own man now, mask or not.

  So I’d set out for London.

  Four days later I entered the city of Tuxford as a plagued—via the main road, as a gentleman would do. But I should have taken the alleys, where other maskless and plagued might have provided food or shelter. Or at the least withheld their mud clods.

  A second scoop of mud formed into a ball a few feet away from me, commanded by a Brown too cowardly to get his hands dirty. Stop, I sent to the mud, though my color speech had no power without a mask. I turned my face in time to avoid another mouthful of horse waste and sludge.

  I wanted to be a Yellow and burn these cowards.

  I wanted to be a Grey and send my plague into their skin.

  I wanted to be a Blue and drown them in the spring snowmelt.

  “Do ye not hear us, plagued scum?” Two burly men rolled up their sleeves as they came toward me.

  I forced my weak limbs to propel me in the opposite direction. Out of Tuxford and back to the postal road, without a warm meal or shelter for the fourth night in a row. Had it not been the end of May, I’d have perished from chill alone in my attempt to walk to London. I still might perish. Seventy-five miles got me to Tuxford with a torn cloak and a sixpence remaining in my pocket. Still one hundred thirty miles to go.

  My navel gnawed on my spine with each disheartened step.

  The clouds glared down on me, preparing to open their fists of rain as a welcome back into misery. With the post road as muddy as the streets of Tuxford, my thin boots were already soaked through. It was a day’s journey to Newark—my next hope of food and lodging.

  I stumbled on my fourth step down the road. I couldn’t do it.

  But I must. Father was in London—the man who caused this suffering and cared nothing for his son. The only person who could give me a mask. Bile rose in my throat at the thought of accepting help from such a man. But I couldn’t make my own mask. No color would respect it enough to bond.

  I urged my feet into action. As long as I moved, I could cling to hope. If I allowed myself to collapse in the poplars off the road—even for a moment—that would be the end. One step over the other. One more step.

  London.

  London.

  London.

  The clouds released their gale. I pulled my cloak around me, but the mud soaking it made me colder. With no one else to beseech—not that they’d answer my pleas—I reached out to the colors. Help me, I cried to the green broadleaves on the roadside. Send me a Green with a good heart.

  Was it even possible to send messages through colors? Without a mask?

  Help me. I sent the same to the brown of the dirt.

  I will help you.

  The mystery voice that had reached out to me four nights ago! The one I couldn’t place and had never mentioned to Norwood.

  I focused. Where are you?

  A clap of thunder drowned out any answer. I ducked my head and quickened my pace, the shivers keeping my muscles working. The rain persisted for hours. A neigh lifted my head and a rider passed by, hunched over the neck of his trotting horse.

  “Sir!” I jogged after him. “May I ride with you?”

  He reined his steed and waited for me. Water dribbled from the wide brim of his hat over his Red mask. As I drew near, a relieved smile broke my face. I could already picture the sigh my body would release upon taking weight off my feet.

  I caught the man’s eyes and tried to convey my gratitude through a grin. His gaze settled on my stone eye and he recoiled. I slowed, my face burning—the only heat in my body.

  Without a word, he turned his gelding.

  “No, wait!” I reached out. “Please!” He threw up a hand, palm-out, as if to ward me off. I flew backward as though yanked from behind.

  Color power.

  He kicked his gelding into motion. Mud flew up from the horse’s hooves and I shielded my face. Gone. Curse this plague!

  I reached Newark in Nottinghamshire at dusk the next day. By that point, my face held so much mud I prayed it would conceal my infection. I felt for the sixpence in my sodden pocket and crossed Trent Bridge. Then I turned down an alley lit by two flickering candles blurred behind oiled linen windows. The yellow glow kept the shadows from suffocating me.

  The dirt underfoot did not squelch so much beneath the overhangs of two wood-framed wattle-and-daub homes. The stench hit me in waves—horse manure and human waste tossed from windows.

  I exited the alley and caught a swinging sign out of the corner of my good eye: The Castle and Crown, Pub and Lodging. The roof was peaked and light shone from an upper lattice window. A cheer went up from the inside. Such a warm sound that I stepped up to the threshold, prepared to drop to my knees in want of a bed.

  The door flew open before I could reach for the latch and two men strode out, waving to some comrades inside. “Another Keeper hung in London. Good riddance.”

  I let them pass, then entered as the door closed. Warmth struck me and I gripped the frame to keep my knees from buckling. The brick walls bore dents and splashes from the rowdier tenants. Tables filled every nook and a group of men had drawn chairs to the hearth of the open fire—cards in one hand and tankards in the other. Aside from them, the pub seemed mostly empty. ’Twas not yet suppertime for the masses.

  A masked man in a white shirt with a russet doublet and jerkin refilled the men’s ale and stoked the fire . . . all with color speech. His mask was composed of plaited Brown cords, but I knew he was an Igniter because he controlled two colors at once. The ale pitcher hovered in the air, pouring its contents into the empty tankards, while his hands served chunks of bread. He turned toward me. I resisted the temptation to shrink against the wall, Norwood’s reprimand sounding in my mind. “Be commanding.”

  Right.

  I stepped toward the innkeeper. “I am in need of lodging and supper.” Only then did I realize I hadn’t spoken more than a few sentences in the past
five days. My voice came out hoarse and tired. Not at all commanding.

  The innkeeper came closer. “What was that, boy?”

  I cleared my throat, not having enough energy to be offended at the boy. “Have you a room?”

  “Have you coin?” He said nothing of my eye. The mud was doing its job.

  I pulled the sixpence from my muddied pocket.

  “It be another three farthing for board and ale, unless ye want fruit and cheese. That’ll be a farthing.”

  I pulled out another pence. I was so close. “Board, ale, and a bath, please, good sir.”

  “Ye might need two baths to rid ye of the grime.” He laughed and gave me a groat in change. I forced a laugh, too, and followed him up the creaking back stairs to a room half the size of my bedroom at St. Peter’s. A straw bed lay on the floor. “Will you be supping up here or below?”

  “Up here.” Despite my deep desire to sit near the fire, once I was bathed my infection would be evident. And that would forfeit my lodging.

  My muscles trembled, awaiting my food and bath. Four pence left in my pocket. When I finally sank into the steaming water, it was with a tankard of ale in one fist and a loaf of bread in the other.

  As my bones thawed, I felt less and less like a street beast and more like a human.

  After bathing, I washed my clothes as best I could in the bathwater. It muddied within seconds. Had I been a Brown, I could have commanded the mud out of the fabric.

  But I wasn’t a Brown.

  I wasn’t anything.

  At a knock, I jumped up, frantic for something to cover my nakedness. Snatching the blanket from the bed, I wrapped it around my body and cracked the door. A maid peered through and her eyes widened behind her sky-Blue mask.

  Then I recalled . . . I was clean. The mud was gone.

  My plague was exposed.

  She stumbled backward. Then she coughed out a timid sentence. “I’m here ta fetch yar dishes, sir.”

  I grabbed the empty board and tankard from the floor and shoved them at her. She backed away but managed to grip the items using the cloth of her apron as protection. With a bob, she avoided my gaze and disappeared down the stairs.