‘What is this place?’ Gas jets had been installed along the passage walls, but they were the only concession to modernity; the rest of the place was unrelentingly gothic in appearance. It was, thought Stephen, like something out of a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, a writer favoured by his uncle, whose books he had read with guilty pleasure on the nights when cipher telegrams or the diplomatic bag had kept the elder Melhuish working late at the legation. The darkest vaults of the Inquisitors must have looked something akin to this, and there seemed little doubt that, whatever their function in the present, the original use of so many cells had been as a prison.
‘It looks like a gaol,’ whispered Estée. ‘What a hateful place.’
‘It’s the Undercroft.’ As the name came back to him, Stephen remembered what Anna van Homrigh had said about it. Before Napoleon’s armies had devastated Starberg, it had been the headquarters of the Queen’s Guard. Now the descendents of that terrifying body had been reduced to skulking in its cellars, their powers reduced, their occult knowledge diminished. Thinking of it in these terms made Stephen feel a little better. But, in his heart, he knew it did not diminish their danger. He prayed. Please, God. Help me out of this. Please, let me get away, and Estée, too; it was a mistake to let her come here; I can feel it. As he walked along the passage, deeper into the heart of the complex, a great sense of oppression began to close in on him. It was hard to credit that Estée was not aware of it, yet she showed no sign of fear, and if she felt the change in the atmosphere, it did not slow her step.
‘What’s in here?’ said Estée suddenly. Her voice, though a whisper, sounded unnaturally loud and matter-of-fact in the dim light. She had found a door with a handle, and no visible lock. Before Stephen had a chance to speak, she turned the knob and pushed the door inward. The room, in itself, was not particularly interesting, for it was merely a storeroom, filled with what appeared to be shelves of uniforms, wrapped in waxen paper against the damp. But Stephen’s sense of discernment was no longer fixed on what he could see or touch, and it was with the utmost reluctance that he followed her into the room.
‘Look at the floor,’ said Estée, but Stephen could feel the moisture striking up even through the soles of his boots, and had no need to look to see how damp it was. ‘We must be below the level of the river. Imagine being imprisoned down here.’
‘I don’t imagine the prisoners lasted very long.’ Words rose like bubbles out of the blackness and surfaced, one after another, in Stephen’s head. Torture. Torment. Murder. Terror. Despair. He thought, suddenly: this place needs to be exorcised; and then all at once Estée, who had moved onto the next set of shelves, gave a cry of horror and revulsion.
‘What is it?’
‘I—I think it’s hair.’ A horrible, mouldering blackened mass had dropped on the floor at her feet. She pulled back her skirts distastefully. Stephen steeled himself to prod it with his foot. The mass broke apart and he glimpsed netting, a bizarre, disintegrating ringlet.
‘It’s a wig.’ He looked at the stuff at his feet. ‘Nobody’s worn wigs for ninety years or more. What’s this stuff doing here?’
‘It’s not all wigs.’ Estée was staring at the piles on the shelf. Cardboard labels poked out from it here and there, each labelled lock a testament to some forgotten tragedy. It had clearly been kept for a reason, but what reason that might be defied normal logic or sensibilities. Estée covered her face with her hands and Stephen heard her teeth start to chatter. He grabbed her arm and pulled her away.
‘Come on. Let’s get out of here.’
‘Not that way, Stephen, it’s full of clothes.’ Estée pointed at the shelves ahead of them. They were standing at the very back of the room now. The shelves here were filled with pile upon pile of mouldering garments: rotting brocades, dresses, coats, with only the occasional hint of colour or the gleam of a gold button. There were shoes too, of old-fashioned, sometimes antique cut, grotesquely deformed to the shape of longdead feet. Stephen pushed determinedly onwards, only stopping when the shelves of clothes gave out. The last one was full of newer garments, in better condition and of more modern cut. And there, rolled up and casually tossed on the very bottom shelf, was a grey morning suit of English wool.
Stephen bent unsteadily and picked up the coat. It was made for a man of around his own height, though larger around the girth and chest, and bore the unmistakeable cut of a Savile Row tailor. Oh, Uncle George, thought Stephen miserably. I can no longer deny it, for I know this suit as well as I know my own. I saw you wear it when you left the flat on Sunday morning. And this was where it ended for you, here in the darkness, in fear and anguish, and nothing I can say or do will bring you back. A hand brushed gently against his coat sleeve as he stared down at the material, and then a voice hissed in his ear.
‘Stephen.’
He looked up, and Estée put her finger to her lips. Her other hand pressed once more against his sleeve; not, as he had first thought, in sympathy, but in warning. Someone had come into the storeroom.
A voice called out sharply in Ostermarkan, and there was a flare of light as a match was struck and a gas jet lit and adjusted. In the semi-darkness of the racks, Stephen clutched at his dead uncle’s clothes. He could smell the Macassar oil on the collar, the faint odour of sweat, the acrid scent of the magic that had killed him. For three or four seconds his thoughts were muddled and he could not move. Then Estée’s insistent hand on his arm was forcing him backwards and his muscles unlocked. Back they went, into the darker recesses of the storeroom, and again a voice called out. Stephen’s foot caught on something: the pile of hair and wigs they had pulled off the shelves. The noise as he tripped was slight enough, but sufficiently loud to be heard.
‘He knows we’re here,’ Estée whispered. The intruder was speaking at some length now, and Stephen felt Estée’s hand tremble on his arm. Suddenly, she fumbled at the back of her neck, and thrust something into his gloved hand.
‘Take care of it for me.’ Her lips brushed briefly against his cheek, and she called out, walking briskly away from him, so that her footsteps could be heard against the flagged floor. Stephen heard her speaking, and the sound of a man’s deeper reply. For two or three minutes he listened to them talking, unable to understand a single word, for of course, they were speaking in Ostermarkan. Then he heard their retreating footsteps, and as they left the storeroom, the light went out, leaving him in the darkness, alone amid a pile of stinking hair.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Do you know what this place is called?’ asked Estée’s escort as he walked with her down the long passage. They were headed in a different direction to that which she and Stephen had entered by, but the dull flare of gas, and the rough hewn walls, were exactly the same, and it was impossible to distinguish where they were going. Deeming it best to play ignorant, Estée shook her head. The young man went on, in beautifully accented Ostermarkan, which made her ashamed of her own, more middle-class tones. ‘This is the Undercroft, the old headquarters of the Queen’s Guard. Or rather, what’s left of it. They say it’s been a prison for over two hundred years.’
‘Oh.’ His casual use of the present tense made Estée swallow. She allowed herself an upward glance at her companion. He was tall and very good-looking, dressed in a red-flashed uniform that made her feel drab and insignificant. There seemed nothing else to say, not least because she suspected he was trying to frighten her, and she did not want him to know how he had succeeded. So she changed the subject.
‘Is my father down here somewhere?’
‘Somewhere,’ the young man agreed blandly, and it seemed then to Estée he was not perhaps so young after all: he might, she thought, be aged anywhere in his late twenties, and his light brown hair was already receding at the temples. ‘I cannot take you to him at the moment. He is occupied, and cannot be interrupted. I am sure he will be with you as soon as he is free.’ He opened a door and Estée saw a set of cast-iron steps, winding upwards. Somehow, her spirits lifted in a way t
hey would not have done if the stairs had spiralled down. She had no particular reason, Estée knew, to be glad, for her circumstances were as dangerous as her location, but there was something smothering and awful about the dim light and stone walls underground, and she was glad to set her foot on the metal stair and follow it upwards.
After seventeen or eighteen steps, they reached a landing and the metal stairs ended. The guardsman had been walking close behind Estée, cutting off any chance of retreat or flight. Now he moved to the fore, opening a wooden door with a key attached to his watchchain and revealing yet another spiral flight within, this time, made of wood. If anything, this second set of steps was even narrower than the first, giving the impression of climbing up a shaft or chimney. Strange smells seemed to permeate the plasterwork, and the air was curiously heavy, an impression which grew the further up Estée climbed. The scents were sweet, but not necessarily pleasant, and their cloying jumble soon formed what amounted to an aftertaste in Estée’s mouth. The smell of magic, which had been so strong in the passages below, was also present. After a few minutes it began to fade, until at length it formed no more than an unpleasant undernote to the perfume.
‘Not that door,’ said her companion as she paused at a door in the wall, and they continued to climb in silence, passing a second door and finally stopping at a third. The young man’s body pressed against Estée’s in the confined space and she felt his breath on her cheek as he reached over and rapped on the panelling.
‘Is that you, Sebastian?’ a female voice called sharply in Ostermarkan, and there was a click and a creak as Estée’s companion grasped an invisible handle and opened the door. The daylight in the room dazzled her eyes as she stumbled forward; then she took in her surroundings, saw the woman standing in front of her, and gasped.
There was a sharp intake of breath across the room as well. Estée was not sure whether it had come from Sally Taverner, who she now saw was standing on the further side of the room by an elaborate bedstead, or from the woman herself. Her first instinct was to cry out, her second to feel so faint she would have gone down on her knees if the man had not been standing so close behind her. As it was, he caught her elbow, and she merely stumbled. Her hand flew to her mouth and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes.
‘Mama?’
With a cry of joy, the woman rushed forward and enfolded her in her arms. Against her will, Estée automatically stiffened. The face had seemed familiar, but the embrace, with its silken rustle and scent of attar of roses was not. Sophia Merton had never been particularly demonstrative, and her caresses had meant so much more for their being rare. This woman, who so much resembled her, was soft and clinging, and her embrace was somehow like the grip of quicksand that enveloped and would not let go. All at once, the grief Estée had suppressed since Sophia’s death came pouring out of her. Feeling doubly cheated, she burst into tears.
‘Don’t cry, my darling, don’t cry.’ That she had been momentarily mistaken for her dead sister seemed to not even occur to Esther Trier, and instinctively, Estée realised she must not disabuse her of the mistake. She let Esther draw her over to a chair and sit her down on it, where she plied her with handkerchiefs, all the while murmuring inanities of the type used to pacify crying children. Sally Taverner, meanwhile, moved out from behind the bed and came to stand beside them. She looked faintly shocked, as well she might, for Estée was sure this was a development she had not expected. What have they told her? she wondered. Through her handkerchief, she saw the glint of gold around Sally’s neck and realised with a sense of shock that Sally was wearing her half of the locket.
Sebastian had apparently noticed this, too. He had followed Estée into the room and was standing, with an intent expression, on the threshold of the hidden stairwell. His voice now cut across the babble of Esther’s conversation.
‘Madame Trier, what are you doing?’
‘Doing? What does it matter to you, what I’m doing?’ Esther snapped. She took away Estée’s sodden handkerchief and stood up angrily, but Sebastian would not be deflected.
‘I merely wondered what you were doing up here. At this time of the morning, I would have expected you to be in your office.’
‘As you can see, this is not a normal morning. Thank you, Sebastian, you are excused.’ Esther’s tone was distinctly frosty. Sebastian appeared to hesitate, then inclined his head and withdrew. Esther waited until the stairwell door clicked shut, then ran to the window and threw up the blind. For a moment she stood peering down at the embankment as if she expected to see something. Estée brushed aside the last of her tears and stood up.
‘You’re wearing my necklace.’
‘Why—yes.’ Taken aback, Sally’s hand reached up to the pendant. Her fingers wrapped around the star’s points, a familiar gesture by a familiar hand that seemed to Estée about as wrong as it could possibly be. ‘Mama gave it to me.’
‘She is not my mother.’ Safe in the knowledge that Esther was unlikely to speak English, Estée let a note of belligerence creep into her voice. She had no loyalty to the Casimirites, no bonds to Anna van Homrigh, but she knew that this woman, who looked so much like and yet was not Sophia, had given tacit approval to the murder of her father, and was directly responsible for the attack on Stephen. Whatever their true relationship, she could not forget this, and while Anna would no doubt tell her forgiveness was in order, she was not, at present, in a forgiving mood. ‘And she is not your mother, either. Your mother is sitting back in her apartment in the New City. I don’t imagine she even knows where you are. What do you think she would make of this—’
‘Don’t talk to me about her,’ shrieked Sally. Her voice was so loud that Esther turned in fright from the window. ‘I won’t listen to you, do you hear me? I won’t listen!’
Estée stared at her. Sally’s hands were clenched into fists and her cheeks were pink; there were tears on her eyelashes. A numb feeling started to seep through Estée’s body, into her legs and fingertips, and suddenly she wanted to sit back down. She forced herself to stay standing.
‘What have they told you?’
She spoke, as before, in English. Sally looked at her, then crossed the room to Esther’s side. She took the woman’s hand in hers and Estée saw their fingers interlace in a gesture of solidarity that left her in no doubt as to what was happening. Then Sally spoke, not in English, not in Ostermarkan, but in some other language that Estée sensed bore no resemblance to any modern European tongue, an artificial language that perhaps could not even be learned, but only acquired through some outside intervention.
‘Oh,’ she said, in Ostermarkan. ‘I see.’
‘How awkward,’ observed Esther, lapsing back into her native tongue. ‘Richard’s magic does not seem to work on you.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Estée, ‘that’s because I’ve done my best to make sure it cannot.’ Though Anna van Homrigh had warned her what to expect, she felt unaccountably angry with Sally for having succumbed to Greitz’s trickery so easily. She had hoped to reason with her, but she knew enough about magic now to realise she could not argue with someone so plainly under magical control. Whatever she said now, Sally was bound to Esther Trier and would not believe anyone else. It had been a mistake to come, and an even greater mistake to bring Stephen.
‘Our father wants us to rejoin the star locket,’ said Sally. ‘Do you know what that means, Estée?’
‘Better than you do, I imagine,’ retorted Estée. ‘Whatever they’ve told you, don’t believe it for a moment. In any case, Greitz has only got half the locket. My half, as it happens. I see it’s hanging around your neck.’
‘He’s gone to look for the other half.’ Sally fingered the pendant. ‘He’s going to find it, Estée. There are only a limited number of places it can be. I understand why he wants to do it, of course, but—’
‘I don’t see why you should be so concerned,’ said Estée. ‘What am I to you, anyway? Why not let me just blink out of existence—’
‘
Who told you that?’ Sally demanded. There was a strange tone in her voice, almost of hope. ‘Do you know—’
‘No,’ said Estée. ‘I don’t. Nobody knows for sure which one of us it is. If they’ve told you otherwise, they’re lying. Stephen Melhuish says the only hope we’ve got is to get one or both of us away from here.’
Sally smiled. She looked at Esther and spoke again in that strange language Estée could not understand. Esther smiled too and gestured to the bed. For the first time, Estée became aware of what was lying there. A selection of women’s undergarments, some dark dresses and a pair of stout boots. It was a basic wardrobe, such as one might pack for a short journey, or a longer one, taken in a hurry.
‘Come along. We don’t have time.’ Impatiently, Esther dragged a leather bag out of the wardrobe. ‘You are both here now: you must leave together. I will give you money to get everything else you need, only for God’s sake, hurry!’ As Estée watched in amazement, Esther began thrusting the clothes into the bag. Sally reached her hands up behind her neck and awkwardly unhooked the chain.
‘I think you’d better have this back,’ she said, as she dropped the golden pendant into Estée’s palm. ‘It doesn’t belong to me. I’ve been wanting to give it back to you from the moment I put it on.’
‘Now that,’ said Richard Greitz to himself, ‘is a very interesting thing.’
He looked again at the piece of paper which lay on the desk in front of him. It was square and covered in small dark squiggles. An ordinary person would have found it extremely difficult to read, for the room, though lit by a hissing gas jet on the wall, was as dim as a photographic darkroom. But Greitz, who knew that certain activities were more fittingly performed in the dark, had eyes like a cat. He put his hands on the table on either side of the paper, not touching its edges, and read through his work again to make sure everything balanced out. It did, of course. He was far too meticulous for it to do anything else. Nevertheless, he was extremely surprised by the result. More than that: he did not understand it.
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