I felt cold. “But that’s what happened to the avia, Miss. They had dreams, then were imprisoned in them forever.”
“But wouldn’t you want to fly if you had the chance, to fly out of this little life? Who knows what currents of air might take you to other worlds, maybe better ones?”
“That’s blasphemy, indeed, Miss,” I whispered.
Leah slapped her skirts in disgust, and the sudden movement made dust rise like smoke from the linen wings of the flying machine.
“Blasphemy! Does everything always have to be sin and punishment? You sound like Silas. He said the Great Eagle would swoop down on my guardian one day for building this. He’d suffer the same punishment as the avia.” She let out a sudden wild laugh. “What sort of bird do you think my guardian would be?”
I shook my head, and her laughter died abruptly. We stood together in the shadow of the great wingspan.
Slowly my horror seeped away. It was hard to believe that the delicate contraption hanging above us was evil; it seemed to grow more strangely beautiful as I looked at it. But it was too frail, too inadequate for what it would encounter in the teeming sky. Even the padded body brace that hung from its wooden ribs was light as a puff of thistledown.
“How does it work?”
Leah roused herself. “I don’t know. It’s heavier than it looks. You can wheel the whole structure out into the other room in its frame, but it takes two men. It can be launched from the window once it’s released from its cords. Then the wings unfurl to their full breadth. There’s not room for that inside. My guardian could sail straight out into the clouds, only now that his health is bad he can’t try it out. It stays in here, getting dustier and dustier.”
I knew the contraption was made of wood, yet it seemed alive. I felt its melancholy overwhelm me as she spoke; I sensed how its bones longed for freedom while remaining motionless, impotent, earthbound. I looked at Leah, suddenly apprehensive that she who longed for freedom would be tempted to escape in it herself one day.
But as if she knew what was in my mind, she shook her head. “I haven’t the courage, Aggie. What would make it stay up? I don’t trust it not to crash into the treetops, let alone to reach the clouds. Its journeys are dreams inside the Master’s head. I’m thankful he’s too weak to try it out. When I leave Murkmere, I’ll go in my own way.”
We left it alone with its sorrow at last, in the close darkness of the inner room, swaying forlornly in the draft as we shut the doors: a dusty, silvery bird, with clipped wings.
The outer room was ominously dark. Outside the clouds had turned hard-edged as iron. “It’s going to snow again,” Leah said. “We must leave.”
I turned toward the doorway obediently, but she had rushed to a cabinet. “The book! I forgot the Master’s book!”
She unlocked the cabinet and took one out, looked at its spine, and tucked it beneath her cloak. Then she glanced at me and reached in again. Suddenly a book was thrust at me, leather-bound, smooth and soft, like a small animal. “You can borrow it. Hide it away safely”
The first flakes were falling as we left the tower.
“We’ll head for the boundary wall,” said Leah. “We can cut across when we see the icehouse. There’s a sheltered walkway that runs from it to the house.”
We stumbled across the snowy hollows behind the tower to a level area, broken by pine and silver birch. Snowflakes were already beginning to fly into my eyes and mouth, whirling in all directions like feathers at a cockfight, but it was easier to see among the trees, and the boughs gave us some shelter.
I noticed a set of dark footprints — man’s prints — in the snow in front of me, and beginning to fill with new flakes as I slithered along, clutching my precious burden — my book — under my cloak. The fresh snow was slippery, and my feet seemed too cold and clumsy to support me.
A keeper must have been this way earlier, I thought as I followed the two trails: the keeper’s prints and Leah’s long, narrow ones.
Her cloaked figure was still a little way ahead, almost at the wall, when suddenly I heard her give a cry. When I caught up with her she was speechless, white-faced, snow matting her hair where it trailed out under her bonnet and lying on the rabbit-fur collar of her cloak. My own hair was stiff with it and my cheeks felt pinched and bloodless.
We stared at each other like two wraiths; then she pointed.
There was a man sprawled facedown among a confused mess of footprints not far away. As soon as I approached him I knew instinctively and absolutely that he was dead, frozen to death as he lay in the cold. The outflung limbs were rigid, the heavy cape bunched up over the still body.
Death is commonplace in the village: folk die from sickness every winter; the women go in childbirth. I’d been familiar with death all my fifteen years; my own elder sister had gone when I was five. I wasn’t afraid. I approached the body with scarcely a qualm, except of pity.
“It must be a keeper, Miss Leah,” I called back.
When she saw me so bold, she too came closer, not to be outdone, her pale jaw set. “Is he dead?” she asked nervously.
“I think so, Miss Leah.”
“He’s murdered, then.”
I stared at her. It was as if she stated a fact. “Murdered?”
She gestured at the footprints all trodden together around the dead man’s body “There’s been a struggle. See?” She looked a little closer, putting her hand to her mouth. But there was no stench yet; the coldness of the air prevented it.
“We must get back quickly, Miss.” I looked through the snowy trees, half-expecting to see a dark figure emerge and threaten us. But nothing moved except the falling snow, and the sifting of the flakes was the only sound.
Leah was peering at the body, as if fascinated. “He’s not one of our men. Not one of the keepers here. None of them has a cape that color. He must be a trespasser. That’s why they’ve killed him.”
“Who’ve killed him?” I said, appalled.
“The keepers, of course. One with a knife, maybe another to bring him down first. There’ll be blood, but it hasn’t seeped through.” She spoke carelessly, squatting down and brushing snow from the man’s cape. It was dark with moisture and pitted with snow, but it would be green when dry, a forest green that might have hidden a trespasser in summer but was all too obvious in winter.
“Leave him, Miss!” I cried. Next she would be lifting the cape to examine the mark of death.
“I want to see what he looks like.”
She was struggling to turn the man over. There was nothing I could do but help her, though my gorge rose as I touched the cold, dead shoulders. He was heavy and it took both of us.
Then with a soft thump into the new snow the man was staring up at the sky. His jacket was caked with the frozen snow he’d lain on.
“A handsome man, not old,” said Leah.
I stared down at the untouched face.
“I know who he is,” I said.
IX
Matt Humble
You know him?” Leah whispered.
My face felt frozen into a mask; I could hardly move my lips to speak. “He’s a packman called Matt Humble.”
Spring, summer, autumn, Matt had come to our village with his wares. One morning you’d see his sturdy figure come tramping out of the early mist, all hung about with pots and pans, his pack full to bursting on his back. He’d stay a night, tell his stories, then next morning be on his way again. Only last autumn, when I’d turned fifteen, Jethro had bought me a blue-green ribbon from his pack to bind my hair. Matt had told us it was the color of the sea.
Snowflakes were falling into Matt’s open eyes. My own hand felt as cold as death, but with a clumsy finger I tried to close the lids, to shut away that dreadful stony stare and bring him peace. It was no use; by now his eyelids were as stiff as vellum.
Leah seemed transfixed by the body. I could hear her panting. Her mouth was open, and she trembled with cold and a febrile excitement that made her eyes burn in her
bloodless face. “He must have been trespassing.” she said. “We don’t allow packmen here.”
“That’s no reason to murder him!” I said, not caring that I spoke so sharply to my mistress.
She was surprised enough to drag her eyes away and look at me. “My guardian imagines danger for me everywhere. The keepers act on his orders. Anyone caught trespassing is questioned and then, if the keepers aren’t satisfied …”
She didn’t finish. Nor did she need to.
“If they’d questioned him, they’d have discovered he was only a packman going about his work,” I said, appalled. “They must have killed him in cold blood.”
She shrugged carelessly. “He’d no pack with him.”
It was true. I stared at Matt’s body in bewilderment, as if I could make it give up its secrets, my knees turning numb through my skirts as I knelt in the trampled snow. What had he been doing here? He must have known the danger that would face him if he dared climb the wall into the Murkmere estate. And it was early in the year for him to be traveling.
Leah put out the tip of her tongue and licked the crusted snow round her mouth, regarding the body with a hard, bright gaze that held no trace of pity “We must say nothing about this,” she said, as if she relished the thrill of such a secret. “It’s safest to keep silent at Murkmere.”
“What will happen to the body, though?” I said, my voice trembling. “Will the keepers come for it?”
She turned away as if suddenly bored, beating her mittened hands together like a dirge. “They’ll move it soon enough when the thaw comes — what hasn’t been eaten by the night dogs.”
I think a fit of the horrors seized me then.
I scrambled to my feet and forced my numb legs to move as quickly as they could from that forsaken spot. Leah was making for the gray dome of the icehouse between the trees, and I followed her into the covered walkway that led from it. There was a paved surface beneath our boots, thinly powdered with drifting snow. Beyond the stone arches that supported the roof, the flakes still whirled relentlessly, but under its shelter it seemed unnaturally calm, so that her voice, loud in my ear, made me start.
“I’m sure I recognized that packman’s face too. Strange, isn’t it?”
“You said no packmen came to Murkmere, Miss,” I said, in disbelief.
“But I think I saw him once, in the house. I remember his healthy, outdoor look. I thought he must be a new keeper.”
“One face looks like another in death,” I said shortly. “The flesh shrinks to the skull.”
“Certainly you couldn’t call him healthy now,” said Leah, with a grimace, and she fingered the bones of her cheeks thoughtfully.
I thought Leah would take her book straight to the Master when we returned. He’d be alone in his room waiting for her, his iron cage wheeled to the window so he could stare out at the falling snow.
But Leah didn’t turn down the passage to his room. Instead, she gathered her skirts together and dashed at her usual pace up the dark back stairs, the servants’ staircase, as if she wanted to talk more about the murder. I’d no choice but to follow her all the way to her bedchamber.
As we went in, Dog looked up, startled. She was at the table by Leah’s bed, setting down a silver tray on which stood a steaming goblet. The smirk that still hung round her lips began to fade as she saw us together: her mistress in high good humor with the disgraced companion.
“Oh, Miss Leah,” she gabbled, avoiding my eyes but all little smiles and bobs to Leah. “The Master told me you’d gone out in this dreadful weather! I ordered Scuff to make you a hot posset —“
She didn’t get any further, for Leah flew at her like a madwoman, knocking off her cap and sending the goblet bouncing onto the polished floor so that the posset spilled out in a rich golden froth. Dog began to squeal, clutching the silver tray to her bosom like a shield, while Leah danced around her in a frenzy, belaboring her with her mittens and yelling insults.
“Sneaktongue! Malicemonger! Crudspreader!”
“Not me, Miss!” shrieked Dog. She pointed at me with a shaking finger and the silver tray clattered to the floor to join the goblet. “It was her, Miss! Her who done wrong!”
“It was you who reported it, fool!” cried Leah, and she swooped on her again.
With her long arms beating around the unfortunate Dog’s head and the mittens flapping, she reminded me so much of a scrawny mother hen defending its chick that I felt bubbles of hysterical laughter burst from me. I ran forward and restrained my mistress as respectfully as I could, and Doggett staggered back still shielding her face. I received only a sullen glare for trying to rescue her.
“To tell Silas!” Leah hissed at Dog. “Silas of all people!”
Dog shook her greasy head wildly. “Mr. Silas asked me, Miss. I had to tell him.”
“Indeed?” said Leah, looming over the maid. “And what was Silas doing outside alone? I believe you both left the Hall together.”
“No, Miss!” Dog began to gabble as if the speed of her story might persuade her mistress of its truth. “Mistress Crumplin asked me to go after Aggie, to walk with her. Then I saw her was headin’ for the tower and I knew it was forbidden. I was goin’ to warn her, honest, but Mr. Silas and a keeper came out of the trees at the top of the tower rise. Mr. Silas questioned me. He said we’d go and find Aggie together. He took my arm so firm I couldn’t do nothin’ but go with him, Miss.”
There was a long silence only broken by the occasional aggrieved sniff from Dog, while her little beady eyes darted appraisingly from one to the other of us. But I couldn’t speak. I knew what Leah was thinking, for I was thinking it too.
Silas and the keeper together — had they both been responsible for Matt’s murder? How long had they been in that part of the grounds? Had Silas given orders, or done the deed himself?
I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t want to, for a piece of my heart held to him still. I remembered the way he had stared at his hands in the tower, those beautiful white hands, so very clean. There had been no bloodstain on them then.
But a fatal knife-thrust can go so deep that the wound bleeds little externally, especially in cold weather.
As the evening deepened, the snow stopped, and it seemed to become a little warmer. I didn’t attend Devotion: I couldn’t face Silas before I’d recovered myself, nor could I bear listening to him lead the servants’ prayers. But tomorrow was pay-day, and I’d have to face him then.
With evening, Leah’s mood changed again and she became withdrawn and restless. She said nothing more to me about Matt’s murder; she scarcely spoke.
At supper, the dining room, with the two of us sitting at opposite ends of the long table, seemed full of her fidgets. She scowled at the elderly footman as he crept with painful slowness from door to table, the plates in his trembling hands clattering together like two gossips in the marketplace.
“Where’s Jukes?”
The old man jumped as she snapped the question, and the plates of boiled mutton jumped with him. “He’s sick, Miss Leah.”
“Sick?” Leah said the word as if no one at Murkmere should have the temerity to be in such a state.
“He has the feverish ague. Many of the servants are afflicted, Miss.”
“Is that why the onion sauce is gray?” she demanded, staring at the sauceboat in disgust. “The cook’s sauce-maker is sick too, I suppose. Take it away!”
The footman took the offending sauceboat and shuffled off. Leah pushed the mutton away angrily and pecked at her vegetables, while I couldn’t help brooding. My throat closed on my food and my eyes watered. If Leah noticed she gave no sign.
She didn’t speak to me until we were in her parlor.
“Shall I get the cards out, Miss?” I asked, making an effort to carry out my duties.
She was slumped down among the cushions on the tapestry daybed. She didn’t answer but jumped up, went over to the window, and drew back the heavy silk curtains. “That’s better,” she said with a g
reat sigh, and stared out into the dark.
In the evenings Leah’s parlor was cozy, with its crackling fire beneath a pretty, painted mantel, its wall coverings of faded blue silk and curtains embroidered with forget-me-nots. It was only in the cold, gray daylight that you noticed the walls were speckled with damp. But now, with the curtains drawn back, the night outside seemed to threaten the little room.
“Come away to the fire, Miss,” I said uneasily. “It’s drafty by the window.”
Leah touched her neck in the restless movement I was beginning to know. “To be out there, free,” she whispered to herself. The moon had sailed clear of the clouds and was silvering the soft plains of snow beneath it.
“They’ll break the ice on the mere tomorrow,” she said, turning to me. “It’s made me anxious all evening. There’s a thaw in the air. Those clouds will bring rain, not snow. They’ll want to break the ice while it’s still hard.”
She saw my baffled expression and a sudden torrent of explanation poured from her. “For the icehouse. Every winter they must break new ice to be layered in straw and keep our food stores fresh. They take sled-loads of it. The grooms and ostlers help the keepers. They alarm the swans with their din.” Her lips twisted. “It’s foolish to bait a swan in its territory. Last time a youth had his arm broken.”
“Will you watch the ice breaking, Miss?”
“I’ll go there when they’ve all gone.” She looked at me with a half-smile, as if testing me. She knew about my fruitless searches for her by the mere. How I must have amused her, day after day, as I trailed after her in the mud and bitter cold.
But something had hardened inside me since the morning. I wouldn’t let her humiliate me any longer with her cruel games. I looked back at her steadily. “The mere’s a dangerous place alone, Miss. I’ll come with you tomorrow. It’s my duty as your companion.”
Murkmere Page 8