As I looked eagerly back at her, searching for motherliness, for kindness and welcome, all I saw was suspicion and the tiny red veins branching on her nose. “Eliza’s daughter?” she said sourly, stepping back. “You have no look of her.”
A pang went through me. I’d heard my mother had been a beauty. And from the housekeeper’s tone she hadn’t liked her. It seemed I’d hear no fond memories from Mistress Crumplin.
“I remember your mother too,” said Silas Seed unexpectedly.
I looked at him in astonishment. “You were here so long ago?”
He smiled at my expression. “My father was steward before me, so as a child I lived on the estate. Yes, I remember your mother a little.”
“Oh, Sir, what do you remember?”
He shook his head. “That she was kind to me, that’s all. And the Mistress loved her, so I heard.”
“Eliza married a thatcher afterwards, I believe,” said Mistress Crumplin. I saw disdain crinkle the corners of her mouth, and lifted my chin.
“My father was chief thatcher of the area before he died, Ma’am.”
“Both parents dead, then,” she said without sympathy. “You’re all alone.”
‘No, Ma’am, indeed not. My mother’s elder sister lives with me, my Aunt Jennet. The cottage belongs to her. She was schoolmistress in the village until recently.” My voice wobbled suddenly. Aunt Jennet had turned forty and her eye-sight was failing. She’d been forced to give up her beloved profession, and I knew it pained her.
Silas Seed had left the room — to find a servant to fetch Miss Leah inside, I supposed — and now I was alone, with the housekeeper staring at me again. I dropped my eyes meekly, but inside I was indignant. Why should she give herself airs when her bodice was stained with old food and the lace on her cap was frayed and gray? Then I reproached myself. I’d noticed her unhealthy color and heavy breathing. Perhaps she was ill. But I was glad when she waved me away to sit at a trestle table under one of the small, deep-set windows.
“Stop that now, and give the Miss some food, as Mr. Silas ordered,” she said roughly to the child at the spit, giving her a cuff for good measure. The poor little maid brought me some soup and bread and a cup of wine, as well as several slices of the meat on a pewter plate, as if she knew I was half-starved. She looked as if she didn’t get enough to eat herself: the grubby dress hung loose on her tiny frame; even her shoes were ill-fitting, and she had to shuffle to keep them on. She was too frightened to respond to my grateful smile as she set down the food.
I’d never had so much to eat: in the winter food was scarce in the village. I was almost sorry when Mr. Silas reappeared.
“If you’ve finished, Miss Agnes, we’ll go to the library now.”
I swallowed hastily and nodded.
“Have word sent to the Master that we’re waiting there for him, would you please, Mistress Crumplin?” he said to the housekeeper. Although I could sense that beneath his civility his displeasure with her still lurked, he beckoned me out with an encouraging smile.
The little maid scurried to clear the plates onto a tray, almost spilling my cup of unfinished wine. I looked back awkwardly as I left, wondering if I should thank the house-keeper for my food.
The words died on my lips. With sudden energy Mistress Crumplin had leaned toward the maid, snatched the cup of wine from the tray, and was downing the remainder in one hearty swig.
II
Wounded Eagle
I’d glimpsed the Master on his few visits to the village, but all I’d seen was a pale face peering out from a high, black coach.
His name was Gilbert Tunstall, but in the village he was known as the Master. As a member of the Ministration, the most powerful authority in the land, the Master was our landlord and ruler; but he was a kind one, and never fined us when we were late with our dues. I wasn’t nervous about meeting him. I knew he’d suffered the most terrible misfortunes years ago: widowed when young, then a crippling accident. Although his sister was married to the great Lord Protector in the Capital, I’d heard that nowadays he rarely traveled there to perform his duties as Minister, but shut himself away at Murkmere.
As we left the kitchen quarters and came to a grander part of the house, I saw dark stains on the silk wallpaper and on the rugs beneath my heavy boots. The drafts couldn’t blow away the sour, chill smell of damp that clung to the passages of Murkmere Hall, though they made the flames in the sconces flicker and rip. But I was used to the dankness of the Eastern Edge, the sea murk that drifted into the corners of the cottages, and thought little of it. Murkmere was vaster and more magnificent than anything I’d ever known; I did not question, then, its creeping decay.
I had clumped after Silas Seed for an age, it seemed to me, when at last he held open a door and nodded for me to enter.
I went in before him, holding my breath; I’d never been in a library before. The only books I’d read in all my fifteen years were the readers I’d had at school in the village and Aunt Jennet’s textbooks in the cottage, from which she’d sometimes taught us: dull, turgid tomes, dealing with politics, social welfare, and law. I was certain that at Murkmere I’d find thrilling stories about the past, vivid descriptions of seers’ dreams, or even narratives that were entirely invented.
Though the library was filled with the harsh light of winter, it was an elegant room, paneled in the stippled gold of walnut. At the long bay windows hung thick curtains of green velvet, drawn back by silken loops to show curving window seats padded in the same velvet. A coal fire burned brightly in the grate and there were candles in ornate candelabra on the marble mantel. I scarcely noticed that the silver candelabra were dull, the rugs under my boots faded and dirty. All I took in was that the shelves that lined the room from floor to ceiling were completely empty.
“But, Sir, where are the books?”
“Mr. Tunstall had all his books removed some while ago,” Silas Seed said absently. He traced a finger over the surface of a small bureau and looked at it, pursing his lips.
“But why, Sir?”
It must have burst out as a wail. He turned and considered me in silence for a moment, his dark head cocked, so that his hair fell forward in a gleaming curve. “You like books, Miss Agnes?”
“Oh, yes, Sir!” I couldn’t help adding, “I’m the best reader in the village.” Aunt Jennet had seen to that.
“Quite the scholar, then.” I feared he made fun of me, but his expression was serious. “You know the Divine Questions and the Responses?”
“Of course, Sir. We’re taught them in school.”
“Name for me the Birds of Light, Agnes.”
I flushed. Because I came from the village did he think me so ignorant that he had to ask the most fundamental of questions? “Robin, Wren, Swallow, Martin, Lark, Sir,” I said stiffly. “They are the sacred ones, the five protectors of men, the guardians of light.”
“I only ask because I like to be assured that my household is devout, Agnes,” he said gently. “And the Birds of Night?”
“Crow, Raven, Jackdaw, Magpie, Owl,” I whispered, and felt for my amber. “Don’t ask me what they do, Sir. I can’t speak it in this room. I’ve been well taught, you needn’t fear.”
His eyes watched my searching hand. “I’m sure of it, Agnes.” He turned away to warm himself at the fire. “That’s why I know you wouldn’t like the Master’s books.”
My head was full of questions, but I didn’t dare ask them. “Where are the books now, Sir?” I ventured at last.
“Mr. Tunstall has made a bookroom in the old watchtower outside. It suits him well enough. He tutors Miss Leah there each day now.” He crooked a long finger. “Come and warm yourself, Agnes. It will take time before the Master joins us. As you’ve seen, the passages are long in Murkmere Hall.”
I trod carefully to avoid snagging the rugs. “Could you tell me about Miss Leah, Sir?”
“You know she was a foundling, left here at the gates as a baby?”
I nodded.
“The Master took her in out of the kindness of his heart and made her his ward. A generous act, since he’s childless. It means she’ll have the good fortune to inherit his estate one day.” His tone was oblique, so that I couldn’t tell what he thought.
“I meant — what is she like, Sir?”
“A girl now, grown to much your age, I’d say.” He was teasing me, his voice amused. His dark gaze slipped over me as I stood by him at the fireside. “She’s taller than you but not so well formed.”
I lowered my eyes, shyly. I’d never had a compliment before, and was unsure whether this was one. He was standing so close to me that I could smell the flower water he must bathe in, the dark, sweet fragrance of flowers at dusk, intensified by the warmth of the fire. I’d never smelt a man so clean, so fastidiously clean, so exotically scented.
“You have hair the same color as your mother’s,” he said softly. “You shouldn’t be named Agnes at all, but for a bright little marigold, its petals opening with the sun.”
Curling tendrils had sprung loose from my braids and I touched them wonderingly.
“Do you think you could do something for me, Agnes?” he said after a moment. “I’d like you to watch Leah and tell me anything that’s strange in her behavior.”
“Strange, Sir?”
At once I thought that Jethro and the village gossips must be right. The birds had flown away with Miss Leah’s wits.
“I mean report anything odd that takes place. Stay with her. It will be your duty, anyway, as her companion.” Silas Seed smiled ruefully. “Perhaps you’ll be better at it than her maid, Doggett. If you have anything to tell me, you can find me in the steward’s room. It’s the Master’s order, you understand, that no harm should befall his ward. After all, she’ll inherit Murkmere one day.”
“I understand,” I said eagerly. “I’ll do my best to protect her, Sir.”
“Good girl.” He said nothing more but gazed into the fire, frowning slightly.
I drew back, and shifted my weight from right leg to left and back again. I didn’t like to ask more about Miss Leah. From his expression I thought he must be bored with having to wait about with a village girl, with only fifteen years to her, however bright her hair.
I was listening to the quiet crackle of logs in the grate and trying not to fidget, when I heard an extraordinary sound: a harsh, vibrant grinding as if every scythe on the estate were being sharpened at the same time. It was coming along the passage behind the closed door and growing louder. My hand flew to my mouth. For a moment I thought the floor, the very earth beneath it, was splitting apart.
Silas Seed went to the door and opened it, and something came rolling in.
I saw the great grinding iron wheels first, then the iron bars that caged the man inside, who stared between them like a creature confined. I saw the huge head, the massive shoulders. He’d been a big man before the accident, but now he had scarcely any legs at all. The powerful torso that sat so solidly on the seat of the wheelchair dwindled into little withered things that dangled above the floor. The shrunken feet were shod in boots a child might have worn.
In the village I’d seen bodies maimed by farming accidents and disease. I wasn’t frightened of the Master’s appearance. I stood quietly, caught in admiration of the way he maneuverd the chair across the room, using only the strength of his hands and arms. I heard Silas Seed say, “Miss Agnes Cotter, Mr. Tunstall,” and remembered just in time to bob a curtsy.
The Master beckoned me closer.
I saw, looking down at his face, that he wasn’t an old man as I’d expected, but of middle years, with a high color in his cheeks, and thick, dark hair, untouched by gray, tied back into a queue.
But there was something wounded about him that had nothing to do with his ravaged legs. His face was bitter, with a down-turned mouth, compressed and angry with the burden of pain. As I tried not to stare at the dreadful chair, I wondered why he’d allowed himself to be bound by straps of iron.
“Kneel,” whispered Silas Seed. “You’re at his level then.”
I knelt, and the Master and I regarded each other. I felt a flush rise to my cheeks: I was unkempt, untidy, my hair awry.
But there was a lift to the Master’s tight mouth. “You are as I expected, Agnes,” he said. “Am I as you expected, I wonder?”
I shook my head, unsure how to answer.
“Surely they tell of the monster of Murkmere in the village?”
“I think — I think if they saw you as I do, they would pity you, Sir!” I stammered.
At that he turned his head away from me sharply, his voice full of contempt. “I don’t deserve pity, Agnes Cotter.”
I was appalled to have offended him. He’d surely send me away now. But after a dreadful silence during which I stared miserably at the dust in the cracks of the floorboards, he said more calmly, “Your mother had a soft heart too, Agnes. She was a loyal, brave girl, as I’m sure you are. She was very special to us — my late wife and me.”
I nodded, heartily relieved but not trusting myself to speak again, though I longed to ask him more.
“It was another lifetime,” he said, and his expression was sad for a moment. Then he stirred himself.
“And now Eliza’s daughter is to be companion to my ward, Leah. You’ll have your meals with her, walk with her, converse with her. She’s your age or thereabouts, but a child still. She’s lived here at Murkmere all her life. I’ve no children, as you know, so she’s had a lonely upbringing.”
He sat forward a little, against the bars of the chair, and his powerful hands tightened on the arms.
“On my death she’ll inherit Murkmere and take my place in the Ministration, yet she knows nothing of ordinary life. It’s high time she met a girl her own age.” He studied me with a half-smile. “Daughter to Eliza and niece to a schoolmistress, eh?”
“My aunt’s Chief Elder of the village as well, Sir,” I said proudly, and I glanced over to see if Mr. Silas had heard.
The Master raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? Then I can’t think anyone could be more suitable as my ward’s companion.”
“I’m happy you sent for me, Sir,” I said politely, thinking I should respond.
Now the half-smile was a curl of the lip, no more. “Happy? I hope you remain so.” Then he nodded curtly at the steward, who went over to the bureau and opened it, beckoning me over.
I rose to my feet, puzzled. Silas Seed took out a new-looking roll of pale cream parchment, which he spread open. Inside it was covered with black handwriting and he pointed to the only clear space, at the bottom.
“Sign here, please, Agnes.”
Looking over and seeing my bewilderment, the Master said with a touch of impatience, “It’s the contract of your employment. It sets out the agreement between us both. Silas will sign on my behalf.” He wheeled his chair to the window and remained there, looking out at the gray afternoon, his back turned to us.
Silas Seed dipped a quill pen into the glass inkpot and offered it to me, his dark eyes steady on mine. I would show him the fine hand I wrote in, I thought, prove that I really was a scholar; and I quickly signed my name with a flourish.
Mr. Silas signed his own name, and wrote “for Gilbert Tunstall” beneath it, and then the date. He was left-handed and wrote surprisingly laboriously for a steward. He sprinkled sand over the wet signatures to blot them, and glanced quickly at the Master’s back as if to reassure him it was done before lighting the little wax-burner.
I watched the tiny flame glow, then the swift movement of his fingers as he rolled the contract up again and dripped hot sealing wax on the overlap. The silver seal came down on the shining, dark red globule and the sharp outline of the Eagle appeared suddenly, wings outstretched for flight.
The Eagle was the emblem of the Ministration. With a thrill of awe, I remembered that now I’d be working for one of its members.
There was a knock at the door, and the little maid who had served me in the kitchen shuffl
ed in hesitantly at Mr. Silas’s “Enter.” She dipped a bob to the Master’s back and twisted her apron. “Please, Sir, Mistress Crumplin has sent me to take Miss Agnes to her room, if your business with her is done, Sir.”
Silas Seed nodded; the Master of Murkmere appeared lost in his own thoughts. We left the men silent in the empty room and set off along the shadowy passages together.
“What’s your name?” I asked her cheerfully, relieved my interview was over so soon.
She looked astonished that I should want to know. I saw that her cheeks were smudged with soot and tear stains. “They call me Scuff here, Miss,” she whispered. “I don’t know my real name.”
“You don’t come from the Eastern Edge, do you?”
“Oh, no, Miss. From the Capital, like all of us at Murkmere.”
I’d hoped to meet a friendly face from the village some-where in the vastness of the house, and was disappointed. But I wouldn’t let my spirits sink.
“So, how did you come to work here, Scuff?” I asked curiously, for the Capital was several days’ journey south.
“He came to the Orphans’ Home a while back, Mr. Silas did.” I had to bend down to hear her. “He was lookin’ for likely maidservants. I was cheap, bein’ so small, so he bought me. We only had numbers there, no names.” With a sudden burst of confidence she pulled up her sleeve and showed me the number branded on her narrow forearm: 102, now a faded scar.
Pity stirred inside me. “So you’re an orphan like me,” I said. Scuff looked up at me, and a surprised smile brightened her pinched face.
When we found the bedchamber at last, she insisted on lighting the fire in the small grate for me. The room was even colder than the passages, and fusty, as if no one had slept in it for a long while. Then she offered to unpack my bundle, which had been put on the bed with my cloak.
I laughed, and she looked almost shocked at the sound. “It’s most kind of you, but I couldn’t possibly sit by while you did it. Tell me one thing instead, Scuff.”
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