She stood for hours, finding no answers and only more questions. At last she gave up, conjuring warm brandy, and taking some to Marten. Then she returned to her nest on the floor of the cabin and slept again.
Marten shook her awake a couple of hours after dawn. “We’re ten leagues out. I have to ease the wave or we’ll swamp the harbor.”
She returned to her vigil at the prow. Far ahead the headlands thrust steep and stark out of the sea. Mer-stone Island lumped blackly on the left side, marking the entrance to the strait and the harbor. What was missing was the glowing lights of the Pale. They would be blue by now, the wards shifting color as the storms built and the danger increased.
The cutter slowed, the wave subsiding beneath them. The wind remained steady and following.
“Where do you want to make landing?” Marten called from the stern.
“Straight up the mouth of the harbor. There’s a private landing south of customs and north of the Weverton docks.”
“They are going to want to stop us. Ask questions.”
“They’ll never know we’re there.”
It was harder to shield the cutter than Lucy expected. It moved swiftly and its speed resisted her efforts. Nor was majick easily accomplished on the water. But she turned her stubborn will on it. Soon she felt the spell take hold. But it would last only as long as she maintained her unwavering concentration.
Marten piloted them expertly through the strait and into the harbor. It was trickier maneuvering through the ships lying at anchor and between the wet docks. There was little space to pass through.
“Fools,” Marten muttered. “The ships will be bouncing off one another when the storms hit. And the bumpers won’t do a piss of good.”
“They were supposed to be sent to Tilman,” Lucy said. She felt her majick slipping and admonished herself for losing focus. She closed her eyes, reaffirming her hold. When Marten reefed the sails, she let the majick melt away and helped him. They bumped gently against the dock and she leaped out to secure the lines. Marten joined her.
“Up the ladder,” she said, leading the way.
At the top, she paused, stretching her arm out, feeling in the crack for the oilskin-wrapped packet containing the remaining Jutras contracts. It was gone. She finished climbing up and crawled down to the exit, hoisting herself up with Marten close behind. There was an odd feel to the air. It was majick. She frowned. But it wasn’t quite right. Like meat that had sat too long before cooking. A noise snagged her attention. It was both shrill and grumbling, like a distant roll of thunder.
“Do you hear that?”
He nodded.
“What is it?”
“Undoubtedly trouble.”
“Undoubtedly. We’d better go.”
Marten put his hand on her arm when she would have risen. “I’d feel better with my cutlass on my hip.”
She lifted her brows. “Majick not enough for you?” But she conjured it and handed it to him.
“I could get spoiled.”
Errol Cipher’s voice echoed in her mind. Serve the crown, of course. That’s what majicars do…. I have noneed of money.
“Whatever your heart desires,” she said.
He leered, grasping her hand. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Marten was too tired to use the winds to carry them across Sylmont, and Lucy was afraid to waste her majick and tire herself out. Hiding the cutter as they’d come into the harbor had been difficult. What would it take to rebuild the Pale? So they set out on foot.
They took as direct a route as possible, going across Tideswell and up through Salford Terrace. But they soon ran into an obstacle they had not expected. People crammed the streets. They spilled from the city center shouting and screaming, breaking windows, looting, and fighting. And they were headed for the castle.
Lucy and Marten watched from a doorway as the flow of people ran past. They carried torches, staves, pallet hooks, pitchforks, and whatever other manner of weapon they could scrounge. The one word that Lucy and Marten could pick out of the din was “Pale.” Smoke billowed up several streets over as a building caught fire. Or was set on fire. The sounds of shattering glass and splintering wood whirled in the cacophony as shops were broken into.
“We have to get ahead of them,” Marten said.
“The burn. They’ll be too afraid to go there. It’ll be the fastest for us anyhow.”
They turned north in a perpendicular course to the mob. They ran, but soon a stitch in Lucy’s side forced her to walk. When it released, they ran again.
The burn had crossed the Maida Vale, destroying a quarter-of-a-league stretch of the road up to the top of Harbottle Hill. The fire had burned everything. Sherborn Park had been completely obliterated. The flames had carved out a shallow hollow in the dirt that stretched easily four leagues east to west, and a half league north to south. It was filled with ash, made hard by recent rains. Lucy paused to look out along the horizon. Mare’s tails and mackerels began to form, the first outriders of a storm. There was little time left.
The burn ended at Glamley Street not far from the castle. They crossed it, angling through the posh neighborhoods to rejoin the Maida Vale. The mansions here were surrounded by high walls and gates. All manner of hired police stood guard, from Hornets to Howlers, Eyes to Corbies. There were even a few of the Blackwatch interspersed among them.
Several people challenged their presence, but didn’t follow when Lucy and Marten neither answered nor stopped.
The castle sat on top of a lazy hill. It was surrounded by a stubby curtain wall, anchored in place by regularly spaced square towers. Inside, the castle was a sprawling confusion. Each king and queen had added a bit here and there. Some more tastefully than others. Few people knew how to navigate it all, and the constant construction meant that anybody claiming to know his way around was questionable at best.
The castle was surrounded by lawns and formal gardens, and circled by a bridle path. There were several ponds dotting the park on the north side. The grandest feature was the Wall. It was the first thing one saw upon entering the massive gates. It wasn’t just a single wall, but a triangular tower made of sparkling black granite. It sat fifty feet back from the entrance, rising high above the height of the curtain wall. The Rampling family tree was carefully inscribed around its three sides. Every living legitimate member of the family was recorded on the Wall. Hundreds of clerks worked assiduously to collect the information and reinscribed the tree on the Wall each year with the most current information.
Lucy eyed it as they approached, remembering Errol Cipher’s admonition: Anchor it to the Wall tree. But how was the tower going to serve as a majickal anchor? She needed blood oak. Even witless children knew that much. The Pale had been created using blood oak in the first place, and she needed the same to re-create it.
The castle gates were closed. Marten pounded the hilt of his cutlass against the inset door. It was several minutes before it opened. Two Crown Shields stood inside, swords drawn. Lucy stepped forward, pulling her necklace out of her collar, holding the pendant out.
“I want to see the king,” she demanded.
Her strange eyes unnerved them. They exchanged a glance.
“I said now.”
The authority in her voice decided them. Grudgingly they opened the door.
“Ye’ll have t’have an escort, miss. And he has t’wait outside.”
“He’s coming with me.”
They objected loudly. Finally one went running for his sergeant of the guard. Lucy fumed while she waited. Every moment the storm drew closer and the mob grew more frenzied. The remaining guard watched them both, his gaze flicking from her red-ringed silver eyes to Marten’s black orbs.
“Did I grow a third head?” he asked Lucy conversationally.
“A third one? Did you have two?”
“Not that I was aware of, but this lad’s gape face has made me think perhaps I am mistaken.”
The sergeant strode up, his pockmarked cheeks flushed. He ex
amined the two visitors with a scathing eye.
“I don’t have time for nattering. Explain your business.”
“I want to see the king,” Lucy said, once again showing her pendant. “And I want this gentleman to accompany me.”
At the word gentleman, Marten snorted.
“No, miss. Necklace says you can come in. He stays out. Now, if that’s all, I have work.”
“It isn’t all,” Lucy said softly. She centered herself, focusing her majick. A sudden throb from close by made her start. She turned, ignoring the guards, staring at the Wall. She walked toward it. The sergeant shouted at her and she vaguely heard the scuffle of feet on the cobbles. There was a breath of wind on her neck, and then silence.
She felt a low hum vibrating in her lungs. She pressed her hands flat against the Wall. Majick sent questing tendrils over her fingers and up her arms. She sighed, leaning her forehead against the stone. The Wall tree. There was a living blood oak tree inside the monolith.
“Lucy?”
She straightened, turning around. The three Crown Shields were fixed in place, wrapped by tethers of wind. She met Marten’s black gaze. “I can fix the Pale.”
Marten stood guard over her as she settled down with her back against the Wall. She wanted to touch the wood of the tree, but there was no entrance in the trisided tower. She closed her eyes, centering herself. She breathed slowly, feeling the pulse of the tree’s majick. She let her breathing match its rhythm. She extended her mind to it. It was alive in a way that was not entirely sentient. But something in it recognized her. Through it, Lucy could feel the mother tree, far away on the Bramble.
She began her conjuring. First the tidal wards to keep out the sylveth tides. But hard as she concentrated, she could not bring them into being. She gathered herself, reaching for whatever power she could tap. It was not enough. Her head aching, she slumped, clenching her fists. The hand she’d cut twinged against the pressure. She looked down at it. The bandage was ragged and dirty and blood had seeped through, making a black smudge against her palm.
Blood.
Remember, it’s blood oak. Errol Cipher’s last words to her.
Blood oak. She closed her eyes, smiling as she remembered the burst of majick when her blood had dripped onto the mother tree.
“Help me dig down to a root,” she told Marten elatedly, conjuring a spade. “Be careful. Don’t damage it.”
She ran her fingers lightly over the ground, trying to sense the tree beneath the dirt. At last she found a place where the vibrations seemed to pulse more strongly. Marten began to dig. He scooped the dirt away carefully, making shallow scrapes. Several minutes passed before Lucy heard the telltale thunk of metal on wood. Hastily she pulled off the bandage, conjured a kitchen knife, and reopened the wound. She lay down on her stomach, stretching her hand into the hole and setting her wound against the root.
The surge of power was instantaneous. It filled her, threading through her bones, stitching through her flesh. She felt the tree’s eager hunger. It had not tasted blood for seasons past remembering. It drew deeply from her well and returned the gift with a flood of singing majick. Far away, Lucy felt the mother tree, and then the entire grove. It was a symphony in her blood and bones. She clutched her hand around the exposed root, feeling like she might fly away.
Concentrating enough to conjure the Pale seemed ludicrous. Her teeth clacked together and her skull felt as if it were going to explode. She pressed her forehead against the ground, breathing deeply. She smelled the dirt, the rising storm, the sea, and the metallic green scent of the blood oak grove. Gathering herself, she thought about the tidal wards. This time there was enough majick to do what she wanted. She reached out, seeking the wards that Errol Cipher had set. Inside each was a fragment of the mother tree. Lucy called to them. One by one they answered, joining their tiny voices to the song.
She didn’t have the slightest idea what Errol Cipher had done, nor how to re-create it. She didn’t even try. Instead she trusted the instinct that had guided her since she’d emerged from the sylveth tide.
She wove her will into the song, adding a harmony of purpose. Of ownership. The blood oak responded eagerly. With triumphant satisfaction she felt the ring of tide wards snap to brilliant life. She repeated the process with the storm wards. When the Pale was complete, the song had increased in intensity. Instead of wilting with exhaustion, Lucy felt like dancing. Tears of uncontainable happiness seeped down her cheeks. She hated to pull her hand back and end the union. But she couldn’t stay here forever.
Slowly she withdrew her hand. But the song didn’t end. It merely muted. She could still feel it running through her blood. She rolled on her back laughing, clapping her hands together.
Marten watched her, extending his hand to help her up. “You’re drunk,” he said drily.
“I think I am,” she said, hugging him.
He filled the hole back in, tamping it down. “What about them?” He jerked his head toward the three immobilized guards.
“Free them.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” he said with a mocking salute.
The wind holding the three men immobile unwound and drifted away. They goggled at Lucy and Marten, caught between anger and fear. Shouts on the walls distracted them. A ragged cheer went up and someone rang the alarm bell.
“What’s happening?” the sergeant demanded, turning so that he could see the curtain wall and still keep an eye on the two intruders.
A guard pelted along the parapet at breakneck speed, ducking into the tower stairs. He emerged a few grains later, out of breath and flushed with excitement.
“Sergeant Digby, sir!” He plowed to a halt in front of the older man, throwing a salute. “The Pale, sir, it’s back up!”
Digby stared in disbelief. “You stay here,” he said to Lucy and Marten, then hurried up onto the ramparts. He stood and stared out at the harbor for a long minute, then thumped back down the stairs. He came to stand in front of Lucy and Marten, his arms crossed over his broad chest, the corner of his right eye twitching.
“Who are you?”
Lucy smiled wickedly. “I am Lucy Trenton. And this is Marten Thorpe. We’re just back from the Bramble, and we want to see the king. Now.”
The sergeant blanched at their names. He quickly gathered his composure.
“There gonna be trouble?”
Lucy wasn’t entirely sure what he meant. Was he asking if she was going to cause trouble? Attack the king, maybe? Or…? “There already is trouble. The Jutras are here. It may be we can stop them.”
He scratched his chin, then nodded. He turned to the two men standing nervously behind him. “Fetch the cap’n. Tell him there’s knucklebones in the throne room. Be quick.”
The two men nodded and dashed away at a hard run. The sergeant turned back to Lucy and Marten.
“I’ll take you to the king myself.”
Lucy nodded; then foreboding struck her, turning her stomach to lead. “Tell me, Sergeant Digby, is there a secret way in?”
Chapter 32
Digby did not know a secret way into the throne room. But he was acquainted with the seneschal, who might, and so he took them to him. They entered through a servants’ entrance in the north wing. The mishmash of decor as they passed through various parts of the sprawl revealed the various tastes of the previous kings and queens. One room was done up in brilliant orange, eye-scarring yellow, and puce. Another contained so much gold leaf that Lucy was nearly blinded.
At last they arrived at the seneschal’s. The outer office contained rows of tables at which clerks scratched on parchments with careful pens. The master clerk overseeing them approached with a faintly disapproving crease between her brows.
“May I help you?”
“Need to see Master Whittier,” Sergeant Digby declared.
“May I inquire as to your business?” she asked blandly.
“No,” Digby said.
The clerk was taken aback. Her brows winged up in surpri
se.
“I’m afraid I must insist. Master Whittier is tremendously busy.”
“I have to insist too,” Digby said, and shouldered past her.
Lucy and Marten followed, unsuccessfully hiding their grins. Once the sergeant had decided he was going to help them, he’d become as determined as a dog gnawing a meaty bone. He thrust through the far door, the clerk running to catch up, protesting vociferously. On the other side of the doors lay a library and the master clerk’s office, and beyond was the seneschal’s lair. Digby marched to the doors and thrust them open without knocking. Master Whittier looked up at the commotion.
“What is the meaning of this interruption, Mistress Harbine?” he asked severely.
“They refused to tell me their business, sir, and tromped on through like a herd of cattle!”
“Explain yourself, Sergeant Digby, is it?”
“Yessir.” The sergeant looked pointedly at the clerk. “Be better in private, sir.”
The seneschal sat back in his chair, his fingers steepling together. He was portly, with a fringe of brown hair around the dome of his skull. His face was doughy with rectangular spectacles perched on the end of his broad nose. He nodded finally.
“You may go, Mistress Harbine.”
She sniffed and withdrew, pulling the doors closed.
“All right, then. Explain yourselves. I am quite busy. I’ve already squandered three hours waiting for my morning audience with the king, only to be dismissed without an explanation. Quite upsetting. There are signatures required. Today of all days he decides to break his schedule. Not since I’ve been in this chair has he neglected me in this way. It’s put me quite behind the day and likely the entire sennight. Work doesn’t stop because the Pale snaps. So be concise if you will.”
Lucy exchanged a look with Marten. She didn’t like the sound of the king’s missing his regular appointment. It could be explained by a need to reestablish the Pale…. Knucklebones in the throne room…had Sharpel and his Jutras really made it that far?
“Pale’s restored. Got reason to believe there’s some trouble with the king,” Digby announced baldly. “Need to get inside unannounced. Unseen, too.”
The Cipher Page 37