The Alchemist of Souls: Night's Masque, Volume 1

by Anne Lyle

  Coby stared at the empty room in dismay. This was the one Meg had described, was it not? And it looked bare enough to serve as a cell. Yet the door stood wide open, its occupants gone.

  She went back out into the passageway and put the plates and pitcher down on a chest that stood under a window. The captives could not have been gone long, and perhaps had been moved in haste since no one had thought to tell the servants yet. She ventured further into the north wing. The next two doors were unlocked, the rooms equally empty of people though properly furnished. The third was also unlocked, but its shutters were tightly closed so that she could see little in the gloom.

  "Meg? Is that you?"

  Coby jumped at the sound of the woman's voice, then recalled Meg's account of the cook, Mistress Sheldon, being unwell.

  "Sorry, m'm," Coby said softly, trying to mimic the maidservant's country accent. "I thought you might want some dinner."

  "I told yer to leave me be, clot-brained wench!" Mistress Sheldon shifted on her bed and fell back with a groan. "Now get out."

  "Yes, m'm." She backed out and gently closed the door.

  Master Catlyn and his brother surely could not be anywhere up here. Where else might they have been taken? She looked out of the window into the courtyard. Opposite was the stable-block, and at its left-hand end the upper storey of the older building jutted out on all sides, a modern timber-framed structure extending the lord's accommodation for greater comfort. Investigating the solar was out of the question unless she wanted another beating from Lord Grey. She sighed, aware that she had set herself an impossible task. How she had ever thought she could rescue Master Catlyn, she did not know.

  Her attention was drawn downwards to the courtyard by movement in the shadows of the entrance porch. Blaise Grey emerged from the house, leading a strange little procession towards a low door in the corner of the courtyard. The Duke of Suffolk had his arms around the shoulders of two retainers, doing his best to walk upright despite his evident pain. What were they doing, going down to the cellars? Unless…

  Heart pounding, Coby crept down the stairs and along the passageway past the great hall, then made her way outside and crossed quickly to the cellar door. She dared not go in, and yet she could not stay here. Any moment someone might spot her lurking in the courtyard where she had no right to be. The dilemma was solved for her when she heard booted footsteps approaching from within. No chance of crossing the courtyard without being seen. She darted towards the open stable door.

  Ned approached the house cautiously, keeping out of sight of the gatehouse. The outer wall on the right looked like his best bet, only a few narrow unglazed windows piercing the red brick surface. Not the gentry's quarters then; most likely a stable block. The brickwork was old enough to be weathered in places. And one thing this city boy knew was how to get in and out of buildings by unconventional routes. Often with another man's outraged wife in hot pursuit.

  The wall was not the easiest he'd climbed, and his ascent was not helped by the fear that any moment he would hear shouts, or worse still feel the sting of a musket ball. He reached his chosen window unchallenged, however, and a glance over the sill revealed no movement inside.

  Wriggling sideways through the narrow embrasure, he fell onto a pile of hay. The loft was dark and dusty, no sound but the occasional stamp of a hoof from the stalls below. He began to feel his way on hands and knees towards the trapdoor.

  A hand grabbed his wrist, and he stifled a yelp.

  "Is that you, Jacob?" a female voice murmured invitingly.

  Jacob? Was young Hendricks making trysts instead of rescuing his beloved Mal? It seemed very unlikely, and yet Jacob was scarcely a common name in England.

  The girl moved closer to get a better look at him.

  "Who are y–"

  Ned launched himself at her, clapping a hand over her mouth and pushing her down in the hay.

  "Not a word," he growled. "Scream, and I'll slit your throat. Understand?"

  The girl nodded, on the verge of tears. Then she closed her eyes and went limp beneath him. She thinks I'm going to rape her, poor little bitch. He sighed and relaxed his grip.

  "Stay here," he told her, "stay silent and thank Christ and all his apostles I have not the slightest interest in your… thing."

  The trapdoor rattled and Ned leapt up, the girl forgotten. As it opened, Ned took one moment to assure himself the emerging figure was not Hendricks, then lashed out with a foot. The man's head snapped back and hit the trapdoor with a dull thud, then he slithered down through the opening, limp as a sack of flour. The girl clapped her hand to her mouth, stifling a scream.

  Ned peered down into the stable. Horses stirred and stamped their feet at the disturbance, but no one had raised the alarm. The man – a groom by the looks of him – lay on the stable floor, his head and limbs at unnatural angles. Ned swallowed, the bile rising in the back of his throat. Another death on his hands. Had he turned killer so easily? With a last warning glance back at the girl, he slid down the ladder to the stable below, closing the hatch behind him.

  He started as the stable door swung open and a familiar figure slipped inside.

  "Hendricks! What are you doing here?" Ned hissed. Not that he needed to ask, after his encounter in the loft.

  The boy pressed a finger to his lips and motioned to the courtyard. Ned peered over his shoulder and saw two liveried servants crossing the courtyard.

  "Are you sure Mal is here?" Ned whispered in the boy's ear.

  Hendricks took a button from his pocket and showed it to Ned.

  "All right," he said. "What do we do now?"

  Shadows danced across the walls of the cellar and Mal was instantly alert, ears pricked to catch the voices of his tormentors. He saw them first, however: Blaise with a manic smile etched into his face by the brazier's infernal glow, and behind him Suffolk, grey-faced and sweating as he leant on his menservants' shoulders. Shaking the men off, the duke limped over to a barrel and perched on the edge, his wounded leg stuck out before him.

  Blaise took out a bunch of keys and removed the padlock holding the chain in place. He caught the chain as it slithered free, gathered it up and threw it to one of the men.

  "Leave us," he said.

  The servants made their obeisances and left, though not without a few backward glances. Were they afraid for their lord's safety, with only Blaise between him and two dangerous prisoners? Or did they have their own doubts, having thought on Mal's earlier words? If they did, it was not enough to sway them from their lord. The cellar door thudded shut behind them with dreadful finality.

  He struggled against his bonds, until the cords cut into both their wrists and Sandy cried out in pain. Blaise laughed softly.

  "This will all be over soon, and your souls will be free," he said, smiling down at Mal.

  His dark blond curls almost brushed the low ceiling. Mal longed for a sword in his hand; Blaise's greater height would be a disadvantage in a fight here, and the thought of wiping that sanctimonious smile off his enemy's face made Mal's heart sing. As if guessing Mal's thought, Blaise only smiled the more. The battle was already over, and Mal had lost.

  Mal swallowed against the soreness where the chain had pressed just below his Adam's apple.

  "You're going to kill us both."

  "If necessary, yes. But my father would prefer one of you to live. I can't imagine why."

  I can. He thinks Erishen knows about him, and he wants to know how much. Truth is, I'd like to know myself.

  He tried to marshal his thoughts into an argument that could convince Blaise of his father's perfidy, but could conjure nothing he had not already said.

  "Why this farce?" he asked Blaise at last. "Why not just slit our throats?"

  "You must have a chance to repent. And it would be such a messy death, don't you think?"

  Blaise produced a small linen pouch, and from it sprinkled powder onto the brazier. After a moment the acrid scent of the skraylings' dream-herb rose into th
e damp air. Hope bloomed in Mal's breast. If Suffolk – or rather Jathekkil – was invoking the same dream-magic as Kiiren had done, what was to stop Sandy from spiriting them both out of here?

  As the smoke drifted up around the captives, a delicious feeling of lassitude washed over Mal and he slumped back against the pillar, watching the delicate play of light on the curved brick wall opposite. His brother's fingertips were hot as coals against his own, pulsing in time with Mal's heartbeat. Their flesh melded together, like two steel bars beaten into a single sword blade.

  He shook his head, trying to clear it of the drug's befuddlement.

  "Dë itorro, pahi saca." It was Sandy's voice, but Mal knew it was Erishen speaking. The dream herb will not be enough.

  "Silence, demon!"

  A snap of flesh on flesh.

  "I told you not to touch him," Mal said.

  Blaise came round to the other side of the pillar.

  "I am the son of a duke," he purred. "I do not take orders from commoners."

  Blaise glanced at his father, and nodded. He produced a small bottle from his pocket and uncorked it, then seized Mal's chin with his free hand and forced his head back. His eyes were glittering shards of amethyst and topaz, filling Mal's vision.

  "Thou hast the devil," Blaise recited from the gospels. "Who goeth about to kill thee?"

  He dug his fingers into the corners of Mal's jaw, forcing his mouth open, and tipped the bottle so that a little of the liquid poured between Mal's lips. Mal tried to spit it out, but Blaise pressed his jaw shut again, tilting his head back as far as it would go until he had no choice but to swallow or breathe the stuff in. The bitterness of the potion left his mouth dry as paper, but at least it didn't burn like the healing tincture.

  The iron hand released him, and he sagged forwards, barely able to hear Sandy's cries of protest over the roaring in his ears. The walls of the cellar spun about him, as if he were blind drunk. He sucked in a deep breath, desperate to clear his head.

  Blaise stood in front of him once more, holding a dagger, if such it could be called. The blade was a sliver of obsidian, its edge so sharp as to be translucent. Blaise held it motionless a few inches from Mal's heart.

  "If you're going to kill me," Mal rasped, "for Christ's sake get on with it."

  "Not until it's time."

  "Time for what?"

  But Blaise was gone.

  Rain sluiced down the windows of the long gallery at Rushdale Hall. The house was empty but for the two boys, its many chambers cold and silently watchful. They were playing a favourite game, standing face to face, hands raised and fingertips touching. The aim was to mimic the other's movements so closely as to be a perfect mirror image.

  Sandy withdrew his left hand and Mal pulled back his right, a fraction of a second too slowly. Sandy smiled in triumph, and Mal remembered just in time to do the same. He fixed Sandy's eyes with his own, watching for any sign of his twin's next move. Something told him there was more at stake here than bragging rights. A trickle of sweat ran down his back.

  "Which of you is real?" a distant voice taunted them. "And which only the reflection in the mirror?"

  Mal tried to take control of the game, but Sandy was too quick for him, had always been too quick. Sandy was real, and Mal only the counterfeit, the shadow, his brother's needs always taking precedence over his own.

  "You are nothing without him," the voice went on. "A cipher, a nobody, dispossessed and friendless."

  No. He dared not even speak aloud lest he lose the game, but he knew the voice could hear his thoughts. I have friends. Ned and Hendricks and…

  "Kiiren? I think not. He is using you. He only wants to find Erishen."

  "We are both Erishen," Sandy said, his voice loud in Mal's ears.

  Too late, Mal opened his mouth to echo the words.

  "Yes, you are both Erishen," the voice whispered in Mal's ear. "In this crucible of dreams I shall distil your two souls into one body, remake you as you were."

  "No," they said in unison.

  "You have no choice. When the night-blade severs Erishen's spirit from your body, you must join with your brother once more. Or take your chances in the dark."

  As one the twins turned their heads. Jathekkil was circling them, a trail of light following him like a serpent's tail, wrapping them about. Mal looked down at himself: his ethereal body glowed a deep molten yellow, whilst Sandy was a brilliant violet, almost too bright to look at. Beyond the circle of light, coal-black shapes lurked in the corner of his vision. Whenever he turned his head, they slid away behind him. Not because they were afraid to be seen, but because they were toying with him, daring him to look and be sent mad by the sight.

  Something else tugged at Mal's attention, something more important than the dark lurkers. A faint current like the undertow of a river, an eddy circling a void that begged to be filled. And he could fill it, start again, free of this body and the responsibilities that went with it.

  "No!" Jathekkil screamed. "That one is mine. You shall not have him."

  Mal focused all his attention on the current, seeing it swirl towards that tiny void. An unborn child, not far away. Richmond Palace. Princess Juliana in her confinement. Now he knew why the duke wanted to die here.

  "Kill me," he told Jathekkil, "and I will end your scheme today. Traitor."

  CHAPTER XXXV

  "What have you done?" Coby said in horror, staring at the corpse at the foot of the loft ladder.

  "It was an accident, all right?" Ned muttered.

  "Is…?" She glanced up at the loft in horror. "You didn't kill the girl, did you?"

  "Of course I didn't. What do you take me for?" Ned followed her gaze. "Put the fear of God into her, maybe, but she's safe and sound up there. What were you thinking anyway, arranging trysts with wenches?"

  "I was trying to put her out of harm's way," Coby replied. "Come on, we'd better hide this body."

  They carried the groom's corpse into one of the empty stalls. She had seen plenty of dead bodies in her short life, but never touched one before. This one was still warm, like a living man. Somehow that didn't make it any better.

  When they were done, they hid in another empty stall where they had a good view of the courtyard through the open stable door. Coby told Ned everything she had seen: the empty room, the suspicious writings on the table, the duke and his son going down to the cellar.

  "The cellar? What are they doing down there?"

  Coby's throat tightened. "Where better to torture someone, if you don't want their screams to be heard?"

  A noise overhead alerted them – too late. Ned staggered as a bale of hay dropped on him from a great height, and he blundered into Coby, who fell back into the stall, narrowly avoiding smashing her skull on the back wall. Meg scurried down the ladder and out into the stable yard.

  "Help! Help! Murder!"

  Cursing, the two of them leapt to their feet, but Suffolk's retainers were already converging on the stable. The porter levelled his crossbow at them.

  "Come on out."

  Ned flashed Coby an accusatory glance, then stepped forward, hands raised to show he was unarmed. Within moments they were surrounded, Ned's satchel and the bundle of Mal's weapons confiscated, along with both of their belt knives.

  "What do we do with them, sir?" the porter asked another man, a sergeant-at-arms judging by his gilded Suffolk badge and heavy but muscular build.

  The sergeant examined the confiscated belongings, raising an eyebrow when he unwrapped the silver-hilted rapier.

  "Take them to His Grace," he said.

  "With respect, Master Goddard," a younger servant put in, "my lord Suffolk asked not to be interrupted in his work."

  "Did I ask your opinion, Ivett?"

  "No, sir."

  Goddard took hold of Ned, and another liveried retainer seized Coby. The porter kept his crossbow at the ready whilst the two captives were marched to the cellar steps. The young manservant Ivett fumbled with the door latch, trying
to juggle the unwieldy armful of weapons. At last the door swung open, and the men shoved Coby and Ned down the steps.

  "Better bring those along to show His Grace," Goddard told Ivett.

  Coby ducked under the lintel, focusing all her attention on not losing her footing. The stone steps down into the cellar were dished from long use and slick with damp. Ahead of them, a warm glow of lanterns beckoned. A peculiar smell hung in the air, a bitter herbal scent overlaying the earthy, dusty odour common to cellars.