The Eighth Court

by Mike Shevdon

  Returning to the place she’d reached, she tried again, but she wasn’t sure how far she’d gone. Now that she looked, there seemed to be many paths, though none looked especially used or recently travelled. Nor could she find the path she’d walked. She hugged herself against the night-time chill, wishing that she’d brought warmer clothes. The wood suddenly seemed huge and random, with vague pathways going off in all directions only to end in impassable banks of shrubs or muddy hollows where her trainers sank into the leaves with sucking sounds. Childhood stories echoed in her head and she started at noises in the bushes and imagined large creatures shadowing her movements just beyond her field of view.

  She stopped. This was ridiculous. She frowned at her shoes and in a moment they were dry. Likewise, the damp left her clothes, leaving her drier if not especially warmer. She calmed herself down and turned slowly around in a circle, looking for things she recognised. There was a gnarled tree trunk that she was sure she’d passed before. She made her way to that and surveyed her position again. There was nothing she recognised. She had no idea which direction she’d come from or where she was. Somewhere among the wretched trees was a clearing with a trunk laid half across it, and if she could find that, she could at least get home.

  Walking in ever-widening circles, she looked for something she’d recognise. The trouble was, the paths she followed weren’t circular and they kept leading her in directions she didn’t want to go. Within a few minutes she’d lost sight of the gnarled trunk and she couldn’t find that again either. Right, she thought, a wood can only be so big, so if she kept walking in one direction she would reach the edge of it, and then she could find civilisation and go home. It might take her longer, but at least she wouldn’t be scratched to death, cold and standing in a wet wood.

  She picked a direction where the trees appeared to be lighter and set off. She tramped through the brush, her clothes picking up the damp as fast as she could dry them again. She missed her footing jumping over a small stream and ended up half-kneeling in the stream bed. Her temper got worse and the wood went on and on. Was there no end to the trees? After what seemed like half the night, she staggered into a clearing. Her hopes lifted as she thought she recognised something, and then sank when it was the same gnarled trunk she’d left hours ago. There was even the bit of root that she’d scraped the mud off her trainers with, the mud still damp and fresh. All this time she’d been walking in a huge circle. She could have cried. She was tired, frustrated and fed up with sodding trees. Her hands and face were covered in scratches, her knees were bruised and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anything to eat or drink.

  She knew what she’d have to do. There was one person who could get her back to where she needed to be, and it would mean ’fessing up, but she was too exhausted to care. She would wear the consequences and damn the rest. She walked into the clearest space she could find and listed up her chin, ready to shout for help. Tate would be cross at being followed, but anything was better than this.

  She emptied her lungs of air and then took a huge breath, lifting her chin to call out far into the woodland.

  “Mmmp!” A hand clamped over her mouth and nose, pulling her back against a solid form that dragged her backwards through the undergrowth, clamping her hands to her sides. She squeaked, and kicked, her lungs full to bursting but unable to make more than the tiniest of sounds. They suddenly stopped, backed up to an old tree stump.

  There was a whisper, close to her ear. “Not a sound, understand?”

  EIGHT

  “How do you know where all the Way-nodes are?” asked Angela.

  Blackbird walked slightly ahead of her, eager to reach their destination. “Most of the time you find them by trial and error,” she said, “but as time goes by you accumulate the knowledge of how to find things, where the nodes are, and how they all relate to each other.”

  “Like taxi drivers?” said Angela.

  “Sorry?” said Blackbird.

  “Taxi drivers; they do that thing called the Knowledge, where they ride around London with a clipboard attached to a moped and learn where all the little alleys and shortcuts are. You must have seen them,” said Angela.

  “Of course,” said Blackbird. “I suppose it’s similar, though we don’t tend to carry passengers.”

  Angela wasn’t sure what to say to that. “It’s a strange name, Seething Lane,” she said.

  “It used to be a threshing ground, where they separated the wheat from the chaff,” said Blackbird. “Hence the name. It would have been a noisy, dusty place in those times.”

  “You didn’t see it yourself, then?” asked Angela.

  “That was long before my time.” said Blackbird.

  They reached the bottom of the lane. The Church of All Hallows by the Tower was across the main road and they used the crossing rather than brave the already heavy traffic.

  “Have you been in the church before?” asked Angela.

  “You ask a lot of questions,” said Blackbird, walking towards the church entrance.

  Angela stopped until Blackbird had to stop too. “You know many things,” said Angela. “You’re familiar with codes, and laws, and all manner of lore. You know the correct way to address the Lords and Ladies, and where trolls live, and where the Ways go, but you don’t know everything. If you knew what I know, you’d be more scared than you are.”

  “Would you like to elaborate on that?” asked Blackbird.

  “If I could, I would,” said Angela. “I can’t make sense of it. It scares me just to think about it.”

  Blackbird regarded her with cold eyes. “I’ve been scared most of my life – scared of death, scared of life, scared of being noticed. I’m past that. My head is above the parapet and if I get shot at, so be it.”

  “I don’t think it matters whether your head is above the parapet any more.”

  “It matters to me,” said Blackbird. She turned to walk briskly into the Church of All Hallows by the Tower, and Angela had to jog to keep up.

  Outside the church, the traffic rumbled and horns sounded. Inside the church it was a distant irritation. Inside was an island of peace in a sea of turmoil. They stepped though a short arcade into the church proper. Fluted stone pillars rose on either side of the aisle forming peaked arches that spanned the dark ranks of wooden pews. Beyond them, light streamed through the plain glass of five vertical panes, which together formed the east window over the altar. A cross was suspended in the space before the window, silhouetted against the fading winter daylight.

  As Blackbird approached the altar, a man in a dark suit emerged from the Lady Chapel to the side, intercepting her. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “That depends,” said Blackbird, glancing towards the altar and noticing the fresco over the altar depicting a last supper with some seriously anachronous forms of dress.

  “We’re looking for a rose rent,” said Angela. Blackbird gave her a stare that said that she wouldn’t be invited on any more of these ventures if she didn’t shut up.

  The priest smiled ingratiatingly. “You’ve made a mistake,” he said.

  “That may be true,” said Blackbird, glancing at Angela.

  “Annually there is a fine presented here. The land in Seething Lane was once owned by the Knollys family and the lady of the house, Letticia, got fed up with the dust and the smells in Seething Lane so she had it made over into a garden. To prevent her boots becoming muddy in the lane when she crossed to her garden, she built a bridged walkway between them, but unfortunately she did not have permission. A red rose from the garden on midsummer’s eve was her fine for the bridge. That’s presented here at midsummer.”

  “So there is no rose rent?” asked Blackbird.

  “Oh, but there is,” said the man. “Henry VIII granted her and Robert Knollys property in Oxfordshire for which the rent is a rose, but that’s paid to the crown at the summer solstice, and not the winter solstice. Do you see?” said the priest.

  “I understand,
” said Blackbird. “Will there be anyone here on the eve of the winter solstice – just in case?” she asked. “You never know when others are going to make the same mistake we did.”

  “The church welcomes visitors at all times of the year, not just for historical events.”

  “You’ve got flowers in the church,” said Blackbird, “though Advent is traditionally a time of fasting. There are burger bars and sandwich shops all around. Where is the fast? How can there be a feast when no one hungers beforehand?”

  He clapped his hand together. “You are right! It is a pleasure to welcome someone who understands Christian doctrine. Will you join me in prayer?”

  “I’m not a Christian,” said Blackbird.

  “We welcome those of all faiths,” said the priest, suspiciously.

  “I’m a historian. Just because I know what people did, it doesn’t mean I think it was right. Is there another ceremony? Another rent paid at the winter solstice?”

  “Is this some kind of research?” asked the priest.

  “Yes,” said Blackbird. “That’s exactly what it is – research.”

  The priest considered her for a moment, glancing at Angela. “I’m sorry. You’ve come at the wrong time. There is no ceremony at the winter solstice, unless you mean Christmas, which is a little later. We’re a Christian church – always have been.”

  “Thank you, said Blackbird. “Angela?” She turned and walked to the exit.

  “I’m sorry if we…” said Angela.

  “Angela!” The call was insistent, and Angela shrugged and followed Blackbird to the exit. They walked in silence across the road and back down Seething Lane towards the Way-node.

  “Well, that was a waste of time,” said Angela.

  “What makes you think that?” asked Blackbird.

  “The priest said there wasn’t another ceremony,” said Angela. “You heard him.”

  “I did indeed hear him,” said Blackbird. “But I also heard what he didn’t say.” To Angela’s blank look, Blackbird said, “He didn’t say there wasn’t another rent, paid at the winter solstice. There are secrets here, I can smell them,” she said.

  Angela trailed after her. “Let’s hope you can tell the difference between secrets and lies,” she said.

  Driving down to Kew wasn’t the quickest way to travel, but I would not be able to use the Ways once I’d collected the horseshoes. I’d had one bad experience, when I’d tried to use my power to take a hammer across the underground River Fleet. I’d almost drowned proving that magic and iron didn’t mix, and I had no wish to repeat the experiment. I was using Blackbird’s authority to commandeer the car, and this way I’d been able to wait until we were clear of the courts before expanding on our destination and purpose. Even so, I had simply told Big Dave that I was collecting something for Blackbird and that we needed the car to carry it back. He knew better than to enquire further.

  As the daylight faded, I used the time in the back seat of the limo to think things through. I ran my fingers up the side of my cheek, feeling the wheals raised in my skin. Had it been Raffmir I’d seen through the reflection of the glass in the van? He’d made me doubt myself, which was perhaps his intent. Despite everything, I felt sure that he would abide by the letter of the law which bound us both not to harm the other, if not the spirit. Even when Blackbird killed Raffmir’s sister, Solandre, he had not broken the oath we all swore before the trial by ordeal that had almost ended my life. That law was enforced by the courts, and even though the Seventh Court was in exile, its members were still bound by it. They were supposed to be held back by the barrier, the construct of fey magic and human ritual that prevented the Seventh Court from crossing from our world whenever they pleased, so how did they get here?

  The barrier would stop them crossing between the worlds other than at the equinox and the solstice – the times when the world was in balance; this much Blackbird had told me. Those were the times when the world of exiled Seventh Court and the human world were closest and the barrier was at its weakest and they could cross, either in person, or by taking the thread of power from a newly dead corpse – someone who inherited the thread of dormant power that they could take and use to animate the corpse, using it like a puppet across the barrier. That was what they had tried to do with me when I’d had a heart attack on the London Underground.

  Looking back, it was like another life. I’d gone to work, paid my bills, and met my commitments to my ex-wife and the child we shared. I’d done all that was expected of me, and yet it had left me empty, distant and numb. It hadn’t been a life, it had been an existence. I’d buried myself in my work because it was too painful to think about anything else. I’d done my duty by my family without ever connecting with who they were. Instead I had walled myself up and felt nothing.

  For a moment, I wondered what would have happened if I’d never had the heart attack, had gone to work as normal, had a career, maybe even met someone else. But then Alex’s accident would have happened anyway, and I would never have found her without my abilities and Raffmir’s help and she would have been drugged up to her eyeballs in a cell at Porton Down for the rest of her unnaturally long life. Perhaps I should thank Raffmir after all, when next I saw him.

  Dave eased his way through the traffic, adopting the relaxed approach of the professional driver. We came off the motorway and navigated through West London while I watched the planes climbing out of Heathrow. We made good time through the back streets, but we never appeared to hurry. When we reached the entrance to the National Archive car park, he didn’t stop, but rolled past.

  “Did we miss the turn?” I asked him.

  “There’s CCTV on the car park,” he said. “If you’re not worried about being tracked I can turn around and park, but they’ll pick up the registration plate. Otherwise I can drop you in a side street and cruise around the neighbourhood until you’re ready. That OK?”

  “That would be better, Dave. Thanks. I’m not expecting problems, but it’s better if no one knows we were here.”

  I exited the car on the corner of a network of streets in a permit-only parking zone, taking the black holdall I’d brought to carry the horseshoe, and watched him pull away in the long black car. It was a nice area, so the biggest risk was that he would get stopped on suspicion of casing properties for burglary, not that he would be found cruising for company.

  I headed back towards the gates of the National Archive. The entrance was through a large glass atrium and staff were still coming and going. I waited for a few moments and then, cloaking myself in glamour, I tailed one of them inside. The man at the large circular reception desk barely registered my presence. I took a diversion off to the left, heading to where the public lockers were in search of the locker that Claire had used to leave her belongings. The doors to the lockers were transparent, allowing the contents to be viewed while the contents remained securely locked inside. Most of them were empty with the keys hanging from the locks ready to use the next day. I scanned them, looking for one without a key.

  It should have been obvious. I should be able to feel the presence of the horseshoe when I got close to it, and the absence of any such sensation was a bad sign. In the end I found the locker – not because of the contents, but because although it was empty it had no key and there was a notice on the inside of the door. This locker is out of service. Please use another.

  Someone had been there before me.

  I checked the rest of the lockers just in case. It could have been for some other reason – a broken lock or a lost key – but although there were lockers that were empty and locked, only one of them had a notice on it. I went back to the locker with the sign, resting my hand over the lock. It gave a satisfying click and I pulled the door open. There was no sign or anything left there, though there were traces of fine dust on the side and base walls. I wiped my finger across it and it came away coated with glossy powder that left a grey sheen across my finger. It was the sort of powder they used to dust for fingerprin
ts. Of course, there had been a murder and they wanted to know who else had used the locker. I searched my memory as to whether I had touched Claire’s belongings, whether I had held her bag for a moment, but I could not recall. After all, it hadn’t seemed important at the time – I’d not been expecting her to have her throat cut.

  Whether they would be able to identify me from my fingerprints, or from the descriptions given by the people who’d seen me with Claire before she was killed was a moot point, in that if I was caught I was unlikely to see trial. Fortunately I was unlikely to be caught and in any case, as a Warder, I had a degree of diplomatic immunity. Like all immunities, though, it had its boundaries, and I suspected that killing people in public places was beyond them.

  I crossed the reception and pressed my hand against the keypad, gaining entrance to the staff area. I had a quick walk around the ground floor and then up to each floor in succession, just in case the horseshoe had been collected as an item of curiosity on someone’s desk, waiting to be handed over. There was no hint of the iron taint that would have led me to it, though I went through each floor carefully, trying to sense the disruption it would cause.

  I retraced my steps and left by the main entrance without anyone knowing I’d been there. The horseshoe had likely been taken as evidence. Perhaps it would appear on someone’s inventory: Horseshoe x 1 – Medieval. Without access to the investigation, it was impossible to know. I waited for Big Dave to circle round and caught his attention, climbing into the back and driving quietly away.

  “Get what you wanted?” he asked.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “I think someone got there before me.”

  “Back to the courts, then?”

  “Not yet. I have another place to try.” I gave him the address.

  It was predictable that there would be an investigation into Claire’s death with the murder being so public. They would examine the crime scene and follow the evidence. I didn’t know enough about police-work to know whether that investigation would extend to her flat, but if there was a chance that the horseshoe would still be there, I had to check. I wasn’t looking forward to returning there. The experience last time had been enough to turn my stomach, even though I knew now that she hadn’t died there, but somehow I didn’t think it would be any easier with the knowledge that she’d had her throat cut.