Dark Stars (The Thief Taker Book 3)

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Dark Stars (The Thief Taker Book 3) Page 12

by C. S. Quinn


  ‘Why did you borrow from the Oracle?’ demanded Charlie.

  ‘I sold false gunpowder to the wrong man,’ admitted Rowan. ‘Made and spent a pretty penny. Turns out he was a trader for the Oracle. How could I have known?’

  Charlie groaned. ‘I told you,’ he said, ‘black powder was a bad business.’

  Rowan nodded. ‘You did,’ he conceded. ‘But you have to admit I was good at it. No one knew my gunpowder to be false. I told you about that highwayman’s face when he tried to shoot me down.’

  ‘How much do you owe?’ Charlie wasn’t smiling.

  ‘Too much.’ Rowan gave a rakish grin.

  ‘Why did you come back to London?’ asked Charlie. ‘The Oracle will find you.’

  Rowan’s eyes locked on his brother’s. ‘To warn you,’ said Rowan. ‘The Dutch plan to invade London. They have a fireship pilot named Janus. He is . . . unstoppable I think. He has no fear of death or consequences.’

  Charlie tried to hide his reaction to the name, holding his tankard close to his face.

  ‘Same as you then,’ he replied casually.

  Rowan wasn’t fooled.

  ‘Maybe worse,’ admitted his brother with a smile. ‘You’ve heard something of Janus?’

  ‘Only a rumour,’ said Charlie, eyeing Rowan’s face. ‘Janus is said to resent our family. Or perhaps me in particular.’

  Rowan absorbed this slowly, drinking beer.

  ‘There were stories Janus was English,’ he said. ‘Some even said a royal. I thought it part of his myth.’ He sipped more beer thoughtfully. ‘Some thief you found out?’ he suggested. ‘Some villain?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You hear things at sea,’ continued Rowan. ‘Stories mostly, but sometimes . . .’ He stopped with a strange laugh. ‘Do you ever wonder,’ continued Rowan, ‘why our mother gave you that key instead of me?’ He pointed to the key bound at Charlie’s neck.

  Charlie didn’t answer.

  Rowan shook his head. He drew out a charm. ‘Some of us sailors carry protectorates.’

  It was a grubby copper coin showing Neptune holding a trident, with St Peter on the reverse.

  ‘It got me to thinking,’ continued Rowan, ‘the key is the same for you. She gave it to keep you safe.’

  Charlie was silent, uncertain as to how to reply. The implication was their mother had cared for him and not for Rowan.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Rowan into his beer. ‘I’m not used to the strong ale here. I’ve drunk too fast. Our mother is gone.’

  His face had closed down in the expression Charlie was well used to. In the orphan home Rowan had barely spoken for two years. It had taken all Charlie’s efforts to get enough food to keep him alive.

  Rowan put a hand on Charlie’s arm. ‘The Dutch plan to sail up the Thames and take the capital. You have to get out of London.’

  ‘How did you come by this intelligence?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘I went to sea to escape the Oracle,’ said Rowan shiftily. ‘Joined with the navy under a false name. But men came looking. So I defected to the Dutch.’

  ‘You turned traitor?’

  Charlie’s stomach turned. This was getting worse and worse. He realised why Rowan couldn’t risk being seen.

  ‘It’s hardly treachery,’ said Rowan breezily. ‘Half the King’s navy are doing it. My Dutch has finally come in useful.’

  This at least was true. Charlie and Rowan had both been orphaned speaking fluent Dutch. While they were growing up, it was their secret language between one another.

  ‘Life at sea is not so bad,’ added Rowan, seeing his expression. ‘The Dutch are fair masters, and they pay us. I learned the skills of sailing in the navy. I can tie knots and tar a deck with the best of ’em.’

  ‘If only you’d learned them in service of your own country,’ sighed Charlie, whose lifelong dream had been for Rowan to learn a trade and cease his illegal schemes, sponging off women and accrual of debts.

  ‘What if I came by some money?’ suggested Charlie. ‘Could I pay off the Oracle? Bring you back?’

  ‘You wouldn’t have enough,’ said Rowan easily. ‘I owe five hundred pounds.’

  Charlie absorbed this. It was more than most men earned in a lifetime.

  ‘I’m on to something,’ said Charlie. ‘It might bring money.’

  Rowan laughed. ‘I thought it was I who had the foolish schemes.’

  ‘Before our mother died, I think she left clues,’ continued Charlie. ‘Clues that could unearth something valuable. If there was enough money,’ said Charlie, looking intently at his brother, ‘would the Oracle let you live?’

  Rowan put out a hand calloused by rigging and saltwater. He patted Charlie on the shoulder.

  ‘I didn’t come here for you to rescue me like when we were boys,’ he said. ‘I came because I don’t want you to die at the hands of a Dutch soldier.’

  ‘What about your absence?’ said Charlie, suddenly fearing for Rowan. ‘Is that not mutiny?’

  ‘I’m not crew on De Ryker’s ship,’ said Rowan. ‘My part of the fleet is docked in Holland for a few days’ whoring. But I must go quickly. If any of the Oracle’s men find me here, they’ll have my guts.’

  ‘What if I could raise the money?’ said Charlie.

  Rowan shook his head. He stood and hugged his brother.

  ‘It’s too late for me, Charlie. Save yourself.’

  Chapter 32

  De Ryker’s good eye was scouring the rolling sea. Below deck, men were still working on the fireship, hanging sailcloth soaked in tar and rehanging the cannon holes to fall down, coursing fresh air over the flames.

  ‘There she is.’ De Ryker pointed. ‘England. Once we are on the Thames, Janus will sail out and meet us. With the Eye of Heaven we shall easily overcome England’s tricksy waters.’ The admiral looked out to sea.

  ‘You’re certain it’s real? The Eye?’ Cornelius was relieved to be back above deck. Next to De Ryker, his skinny frame was almost comically puppet-like.

  De Ryker looked out to sea. ‘Perhaps the Eye has the power Janus thinks. Perhaps it doesn’t. Thorne twisted Janus. I’ve heard things. Children’s bones were recovered after the astrologer was executed.’

  Cornelius shuddered.

  ‘Thorne was a mathematician,’ said De Ryker. ‘Legend has made him a sorcerer, but I think him a more practical man. Janus was only a boy when he was in Thorne’s thrall. Likely he remembers with the imagination of a child. But if the Eye doesn’t have the power of true Sight,’ concluded De Ryker, ‘I know for certain it can lead us up the Thames and lead us safely through the shoals.’

  ‘You think the Eye is a map?’ asked Cornelius.

  ‘Most likely a map or a compass of uncommon power,’ said De Ryker. ‘How else could Thorne have found that enemy ship?’

  ‘And you trust Janus to return with it?’

  ‘I know Janus better than he knows himself,’ said De Ryker. ‘I don’t need to rely on his loyalty. He cannot stand the mundane or the ordinary. Janus’s sense of adventure will ensure his return.’

  De Ryker nodded out towards England. ‘We shall take London by force,’ he promised. ‘The rest of the country will quickly follow. Think of the opportunity. She has steel, lumber, brass. The Dutch will rule the waves.’

  De Ryker threw a log overboard and watched its path. ‘Dead reckoning,’ he said. ‘That’s what the English call it.’

  The log picked up speed, and De Ryker frowned at it.

  ‘Four knots,’ he decided. He swung his attention to the compass. Then to the North Star. ‘By my account,’ De Ryker decided, ‘we’re seven miles from English waters. The King has not yet sued for peace,’ he added. ‘I imagine Amesbury tries for it, but he will be too late.’

  ‘Do you think Amesbury suspects,’ asked Cornelius, ‘who Janus really is?’

  ‘No,’ said De Ryker. ‘If he did, he would already be looking for the Eye himself.’

  A rolling wave of acrid vapours r
olled across the deck. Cornelius tried to hold down his nausea. His head ached. De Ryker thought for a moment.

  ‘Our latest fireship needs a new name,’ he decided. ‘We shall call her the Lucifer,’ he said. ‘That is a fitting name, is it not? Lucifer can be either a flaming torch or the Devil himself.’

  ‘Shall I arrange a ceremony?’ suggested Cornelius uncertainly. ‘Wine?’

  De Ryker thought for a moment. ‘Do you know why new ships are splashed with wine?’ he asked.

  Cornelius shook his head.

  ‘It’s from a tradition of blood,’ said De Ryker. ‘The old ships were launched with a sacrifice. Now we use red wine to represent human blood.’ He looked at the prow. ‘The Lucifer,’ he said, ‘is a ship of death. I think the old ways would be more fitting. Have we any prisoners of war?’

  Cornelius swallowed, then nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said De Ryker. ‘Bring me a prisoner.’

  Chapter 33

  ‘What is it?’ asked Lily. ‘The Maze of Lost Souls?’

  They were back in Charlie’s lodgings, planning where to go next. He’d filled Lily in on Rowan’s warning, but she’d expressed suspicion at his brother’s motives.

  ‘It’s a tangle of buildings and passages,’ explained Charlie. ‘The Maze is part of the Palace of Whitehall’s lesser-known outbuildings. It’s a winding set of streets that were once shops and homes. Over the years they’ve become part of the palace.’

  ‘The old streets have become a maze?’

  ‘They were always difficult to navigate,’ said Charlie, ‘but now the fronts have been made to look the same, to better hide people. They’re dark, close – a warren of tiny alleys with nothing to differentiate one part from the other.’

  ‘Who hides inside?’ asked Lily.

  ‘Unpopular folk,’ explained Charlie. ‘People who would be in danger to be publicly known. Executioners, informants,’ he added, calling to mind the hotchpotch of strange people who dwelled in the meandering passages of the Maze.

  ‘Guarded?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sounds perilous.’

  ‘It is,’ said Charlie. He looked at the darkening sky. ‘You think the Eye could be worth money?’ he said.

  Lily looked surprised. ‘I thought you only wanted to find your family.’

  The sliver of scar on Charlie’s upper lip twitched. ‘I’ve found all the family I need.’

  Lily raised her dark eyebrows. ‘You think your debtor brother will return?’

  ‘You must be the only woman in London who doesn’t want to rescue him,’ smiled Charlie.

  ‘I know his type,’ replied Lily darkly. ‘I’ve done with it long ago.’

  ‘You’d be a good partnership,’ teased Charlie, who secretly feared Lily might fall for Rowan’s charms. ‘You’re the only woman I know who’s a match for him.’

  Lily turned her dark eyes on him, and for a long moment he couldn’t read her at all.

  ‘What of your Maria?’ she asked finally. ‘Were you a good partnership?’

  Charlie hesitated. The question had taken him by surprise.

  ‘In some ways,’ he said, ‘we were.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Lily after a moment. Her voice had gone strangely quiet. Then she frowned, sliding the ruby ring up and down her finger. ‘If you want to pay your brother’s debt, I think the Eye could be worth a great deal of money,’ she said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘The old King took a lot of pains to find it. And even if it has no actual worth as treasure, the Queen Mother pays huge prices for any memorabilia of her dead husband.’

  Charlie nodded. ‘I need five hundred pounds,’ he said, ‘to bring Rowan back. Do you think it could raise so much?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Lily. ‘It would have to be worth a thousand then. Five hundred each.’

  They both considered this. It was a huge sum of money.

  ‘It’s too dark to reach the Maze now,’ Charlie said. ‘We need sunlight to stand a chance of navigating.’

  He suddenly felt bone-tired.

  ‘We should get some sleep,’ said Lily.

  Charlie moved to his bed, wondering if she might huddle in next to him. But Lily was sat turning the ring in her hand. And before he knew it, he’d fallen into a deep sleep.

  On some level, Charlie knew he was only dreaming. His mother’s tapestry swung in his thoughts, the angels with their cross. In his mind the rings moved, fitting together over the tapestry. Something was loosening. An old memory. And Charlie had a feeling it was a memory best left in the past.

  Charlie was walking. He felt afraid, as though he’d been here before. There was something beneath his feet, and he stumbled. Charlie looked down to see the ground was strewn with broken weapons. There were swords and spears, twisted over and bent, shields split in two, blunted sickles. They were ancient and muddy, as though they’d been dragged from the depths of a river.

  Then he was in a huge dark room. Fear rose in his throat. He thought something very bad had happened here. There were enormous black cogs, interconnected, but Charlie couldn’t see what they controlled.

  Partly visible behind them was a man in Royalist dress, his hair long to his shoulders. He sat in shadow, his hands moving fast over something Charlie couldn’t see. He continued working steadily, tapping, turning, fitting small pieces.

  Then he saw a woman. His mother, Sally Oakley.

  ‘Husband.’

  Sally stepped from the shadows and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. The man didn’t look at her.

  ‘Tobias Oakley is your husband.’

  A sacrifice needs blood . . .

  It was a whisper on the air. Charlie felt a shudder go through him.

  A light flared and a demonic face showed in the gloom. A bearded head with curling hair. Clutched in his arm was an upended boy, terror freezing his stricken features. Ranged around his feet were the remains of dead children.

  ‘It’s only a statue,’ said a familiar voice.

  He was aware of a warm presence at his side. Rowan. Relief washed through him.

  ‘Don’t fear, Charlie,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll let no harm come to you.’

  The horrors of the room seemed to fade at his older brother’s reassurance.

  Then there was a loud rumble and the great cogs began turning. A shaft of light pierced the dark.

  Charlie had the sudden sense that a dangerous presence had entered the room. Someone he had great reason to fear.

  Janus.

  Rowan vanished away, leaving a void of cold terror in his place. Charlie tried to turn, fear rising.

  ‘Charlie!’ his mother’s voice came high and loud. ‘He is coming for you!’

  ‘Charlie!’ a female voice sounded in his ear.

  He felt rough hands shake him. Charlie awoke to find Lily’s large brown eyes staring down at him.

  ‘What is it?’ he groaned, trying not to be disconcerted by her proximity.

  ‘You were shouting in your sleep,’ she explained. ‘Something about a prophecy.’

  Charlie sat up, attempting to remember. ‘A bad dream,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps a memory.’ He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to think. ‘It must have been from a long time ago,’ he decided. ‘My mother was still alive. And Rowan was . . .’ He struggled for the words. ‘Rowan was like he was before we were orphaned. He hadn’t given up.’

  This part of the memory pained him more than anything else. Charlie had forgotten there’d been a time when Rowan had been his hero and protector. He suddenly burned to free his brother from the Dutch ship.

  Lily’s face set in sympathy. She knew about Charlie and Rowan’s upbringing in the orphan house.

  ‘Perhaps I underestimated my mother,’ said Charlie. ‘I thought of her as a servant in a household, stitching for her work. Perhaps she was more.’

  Charlie got to his feet. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to the Maze of Lost Souls. We need to find Ishmael Boney.’

  Chapter 34

&nbs
p; Amesbury was walking along Whitehall’s luxurious corridors. De Ryker’s ship had been sighted dangerously close to the English coast and he feared the worst. Was the admiral going to try to invade London whilst England was weak from fire and plague?

  The treacherous waters of the Thames’s shoals and mudflats should have made this unthinkable.

  What does De Ryker have? wondered Amesbury. What advantage does he have to make him so bold?

  It all hinged on the mysterious Janus. The fireship pilot believed he could find the Eye. And Amesbury had seen first-hand how powerful it was in battle, though he had never been able to puzzle out how the Eye had allowed Thorne to know his location. The astrologer had no experience of sailing and no understanding of navigation. How had he gained the information necessary to find Amesbury’s ship?

  As he drew close to the great doors, he could hear that the King was already speaking to someone. The familiar voice brought him up short.

  The King was talking with his brother, the Duke of York.

  ‘The Judge served with me aboard the Swiftsure,’ the Duke was saying. ‘Pirates murdered his brother. It warped his mind.’

  Amesbury slowed his step deliberately to listen to the loud voices filtering through the door.

  ‘At least three of the bodies were convicts from the Marshalsea,’ continued the Duke. ‘His prison.’

  The footmen either side of the large door moved to open it. Amesbury’s monkey caught sight of a piece of fruit in the pocket of one of the footmen and gave a high chatter of excitement. The voices on the other side of the door stopped.

  ‘Amesbury,’ he heard the King say. ‘I must hear him.’

  The door was opened, and Amesbury entered with a low bow. He righted and nearly took a step back in surprise. The room had been lined with star maps, charts of astrological movements and images of the planets and stars. Reclined in the centre were the King and his brother, surrounded by naked women. The Duke of York was dressed as Neptune and the King as Mars. A Roman-style meal of grapes, towering cakes and flagons of wine had been assembled.

  The women lounged enticingly on red cushions. They held out fruit seductively or proffered glasses, their soft, bare limbs draped around the King and the Duke of York.

 

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