“Like I was her own son. But as she grew older, she became afraid for her people. Who would follow her on the throne? Not her sisters, for they had died before her. Eleanor was the elder of the cousins, but Damon was a man, and there are those who prefer to serve a king, not a queen. My mother could foresee great strife between the two, perhaps even war, and more than anything she wanted to spare her people such misery.”
“So she chose you, Father.” Marcel had returned to the picture he had found earlier of the newly crowned King Pelham.
“But what was the promise you made?”
“More than a promise. I took a solemn oath. Damon and Eleanor were afraid of me, or so they told their aunt. They begged her to protect them and finally Madeleine agreed. Lord Alwyn and I pledged before the court and a gathering of the common people that we would never harm either of them.”
“Even when they tried to kill you?”
“It was not something the Queen could have predicted. The best I could do was lock them away, with Alwyn’s magic as the key. Your own mother had asked me to build that chamber among the roses, and she would take you children there for your lessons.”
Pelham lapsed into silence, remembering the wife he had lost, while Marcel wished desperately that he could recall anything about her at all – the glimpse of her face, a mother’s touch.
He forced his eyes back to the tapestry, to the figure of the woman lying dead at the King’s feet. Three more scenes had been stitched into the fabric after it. The first showed Eleanor and Damon being accused by the Book; the second depicted the chamber where they were imprisoned for their crime. But the third! He examined it more closely. Noble men and women stood around, their skilfully rendered faces as grim as they would have appeared in real life, all staring at three smaller figures who were set apart, and whose shoulders were slumped in shame and misery.
“This scene, Father,” he called out, making the others turn towards the tapestry. “The three of us are being banished. Tell us. What had we done?”
“Done? You hadn’t done anything then,” the King replied, nodding towards the scene Marcel had found. “It was what you were going to do.”
Brother and sister looked at one another. “We let Damon and Eleanor out of the chamber, but how could you know we were going to do that?”
The King wrestled with his indecision, his eyes brimming with the affection he longed to lavish on his children. But something was holding him back.
Marcel saw it clearly and felt his father’s anguish like a pain in his own heart. “Tell us, Father.”
Pelham’s lips parted to answer them, but before he could speak a deep voice rang through the palace.
“Close the gates! Raise the alarm! The King’s children have escaped!”
Moments later the great doors broke open to reveal the stooped figure of Lord Alwyn silhouetted in the entrance, nursing in his arms the familiar shape of the Book of Lies.
Chapter 20
A Waning Magic
“PELHAM!” LORD ALWYN CRIED from the doorway. “Your children…”
If he was about to say more, the words died on his lips when he found those same children with their father.
He hobbled into the hall, looking frailer than ever, fury and amazement plain to see in each feeble stride. The doors boomed shut behind him. “Be careful, Your Majesty. They cannot be trusted.”
The Book was awkward in his arms, so as he passed the table strewn with maps he laid it down to free his hands. As soon as he reached them, he turned savagely on Nicola and Marcel. “How did you escape? And where is Termagant?”
Marcel saw Nicola staring across at him, waiting for him to explain, but she was met only by reluctance.
Before he could stop her, she proclaimed proudly, “It was Marcel. He tamed Termagant and turned her back into the cat who sleeps on our beds.”
“Tamed her! Nonsense! Your magic was for show and nothing else, Marcel. A game you played to amuse yourself.”
“What are you talking about, Alwyn? What magic?” the King demanded, suddenly suspicious.
“Before you sent Marcel from the palace I’d let him have some of my books so that he could play at being a magician. I never told you, because I knew he was destined to succeed you as King some day, and could never become a wizard like me.”
At that instant, Bea appeared from the shadows with a black cat nestled in her arms. She did not say anything, but the sight of Termagant purring happily was enough.
“It appears you are wrong, Alwyn,” said the King, his eyes following Termagant as she leaped on to the floor and rubbed herself against Marcel’s leg. “Marcel’s magic is far from a childish game, it seems.”
Lord Alwyn’s mouth fell open and he staggered backwards a step before steadying himself.
Marcel could not stay silent any longer. “It’s true, Father. I found a book of magic hidden in my room. My own book. It contains more than simple tricks. It’s full of things that frighten even me. And the power to do them has come back into my hands just by reading the words. Before you sent us away, I was a sorcerer, practising in secret and learning all that I could.”
“But Alwyn made you forget who you were.”
“Yes, he wiped away our memories, but his magic could not take what was inside of us. Look at Nicola. She still behaves like a princess. And Fergus, our brother, whom you call Edwin. There’s a shield above his bed upstairs, and he is still searching for battles to fight.”
“Don’t trust them, Your Majesty!” Alwyn exclaimed. “They set Damon and Eleanor free from the chamber. What more proof do you need? They have betrayed you, just as it was foretold.”
“Foretold! What is he talking about?” demanded Nicola. “What happened to make you send us away and have Lord Alwyn work his magic on us? What does that scene on the tapestry mean? Tell us, Father, please.”
The King could bear it no longer. He began to speak. They could see his lips moving, and even his tongue working behind his teeth. But somehow no words came out, at least none that Marcel could hear.
“What is it? What’s happening?” Marcel asked.
Nicola’s face showed she was just as confused.
“Didn’t you hear him?” asked Bea in surprise.
“No, not a word,” said Marcel.
“I couldn’t hear anything either,” added Nicola.
“But I could hear,” Bea insisted. “He told you what the Book of Lies predicted. It’s awful, Marcel.” She began to repeat what she had heard, but her voice was silenced, just as the King’s had been.
Marcel and Nicola turned bewildered faces towards their father.
“I sent you away,” he explained, “So you would never know what you were accused of… or of your mother’s death. It was too much for children like you to bear, and Alwyn’s magic would make sure you never knew.”
“You made us foundlings, just like you were,” said Nicola miserably. “But we’re not, Father. We’re your children. We were born to play our part.”
Marcel’s mind had leaped ahead. “If it was Lord Alwyn’s spell, then he must have the power to break it,” said Marcel.
“They’re right, Alwyn. I can’t keep it from them any longer. Lift your spell so that I can tell them everything.”
“But you ordered that they should never know.”
“That time is gone. They are stronger now. Perhaps they were always stronger than I realised.”
The old wizard dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “They cannot know. It is beyond even my own power to retrieve that magic. You remember that night here in this hall, and so do I. We have it here in our minds,” he said, tapping the side of his head, “but it will never be in theirs.”
They were thwarted again, and the frustration was too much for Marcel. Only last night he had probed the mind of a creature he had once feared as much as he feared Lord Alwyn. Why could he not use that same magic on a far more powerful subject? What was to stop him from plunging his sorcery, childish and unprac
tised though it was, into the mind of the great wizard? Then he could take what he so desperately needed: Lord Alwyn’s own memory of the night when the entire Kingdom turned against the King’s children.
It began before he was even aware he was doing it.
“What’s this, Marcel? You dare to challenge me?” said Lord Alwyn contemptuously. He raised a hand and languidly passed it before his face.
Marcel reeled backwards as though he had been struck, but it was no worse than being slapped on the cheek. His own words of sorcery remained firmly in his mind. He straightened, sweeping his own hand in front of his nose. The old wizard’s face turned from amusement to concentration. “What are you doing? You cannot know,” he hissed between gritted teeth.
Words came to Marcel’s lips, charms, spells, each one fresh and powerful. The strength he felt throughout every part of his body frightened him, but he had known great terror in these last weeks and it had prepared him for this moment. He wouldn’t give way before the guile of the old Master.
Their powers were balanced on a knife edge: Marcel, unsure of himself but determined in a way he never imagined he could be; and Lord Alwyn, armed with every trick, every spell he had ever cast, every irresistible chant he had created during year upon year of sorcery.
For an instant Marcel saw all that the great wizard had done as Master of the Books; it formed a mountain as large and imposing as the elves’ domain, towering over the Kingdom. The weight of it would surely send his unskilled magic spinning into oblivion, but as the struggle continued that same weight became a burden pressing down on Lord Alwyn himself.
Marcel felt the memory coming. Now, he whispered urgently to himself. Take it now. And passing his hand before his face again he began to draw out that part of the old wizard’s mind and take it into his own.
His eyes were closed yet he could still see. His father, Nicola, even little Bea called to him, wanting to know what was happening, but he was deaf to their demands.
He could hear other voices in the Great Hall now, creating a low rumble of solemn misery. Everyone wore black, and there was the King, sitting on the throne, his robes more sombre than the rest. Off to one side, two women were already stitching the figure of a dead queen on to the tapestry, the thread in their needles the only colour permitted within a palace shrouded in mourning.
Marcel was transfixed by what he saw near the throne: three figures, dressed in black like their father, and among them his own face, that of the boy he had been before he became one of Mrs Timmins’ orphans.
Where was Lord Alwyn? Wouldn’t he be near the King he served? The eyes Marcel watched through looked down and he saw a flash of darkest green and long, pointed shoes that could not possibly be his. He understood now whose eyes these were, whose robe, whose feet.
“Alwyn,” the king’s voice said despondently. “You’ve brought the Book, I see. Bring it to me.”
When it lay in his hands, he went on. “Must I do this, Alwyn? Isn’t it enough that the Book of Lies has found out Damon and Eleanor? Do I need to know the loyalty of my courtiers too?”
Watching through the old wizard’s eyes, Marcel looked down at a face gaunt with grief, and saw the feeble movements of a man too weak in spirit to care about the grace of his gestures.
Then words resonated within Marcel’s head as Lord Alwyn answered, “You have to trust the Book, Your Majesty. This is why I created it.”
A bearded adviser, who must be the King’s Chancellor, leaned forward from behind the throne, interrupting in an urgent whisper. “You need to know whether there are other traitors in league with the royal cousins, Sire.”
“Are all my courtiers here?” the King asked.
“All except Sir Thomas. He disappeared as soon as the Book of Lies was called for.”
“He’s afraid to speak before it. Was he part of the plot against me, then?”
“It seems so, Your Majesty – and there may be others. That is why you must make all of us account for ourselves, even me.” To show his good faith, the Chancellor took the Book and placed it on a table before the King, speaking boldly in a voice that could be heard throughout the Great Hall. “I am a loyal subject of King Pelham. I have never done anything to harm him and I never shall.”
The Book of Lies glowed brightly to show it was true, and after that every man and woman of the court clamoured to show their loyalty, many of them copying the Chancellor’s very words. Each time the Book of Lies remained silent and still as a gravestone.
“It’s done, then,” said the King, relieved. “Everyone in this room has been tested before the Book.”
For the first time since its arrival in the hall, the Book erupted in a flutter of pages, settling at last with only one leaf left to turn, and here it wrote his words.
“What’s this? Has someone held back? Who is it?”
But the Chancellor had kept a record. “No, Your Majesty. Every member of the court has spoken… Wait, I see why the Book wrote down your words. Your children are here but they have not been tested.”
This sent a ripple of stunned and disapproving murmurs echoing through the hall. “Not the children… no need… love their father…” were some of the fragments that rose above the din.
“Your children don’t need to show their loyalty,” said the Chancellor firmly.
“Wait!” cried Nicola. “We should do it just as everyone else has.” Stepping forward, she placed her hand gently upon the Book. “I love my father deeply and hope he lives a long life as ruler of this kingdom.”
The Book closed and glowed for all to see. Marcel followed, copying her words, because there was no better way to say what he felt.
But when it was their brother’s turn, he chose his own words. “I swear to protect the Kingdom from its enemies and carry on the work of the King. I will never do my father any harm.”
To the horror of all gathered in the Great Hall, the Book of Lies jumped suddenly and flung open its cover. None was more alarmed than Fergus himself as his words were recorded on the second-last page.
“No!” he shouted, staring at the Book in disbelief. “I would never do anything like Damon and Eleanor have done! I would never want to kill my own father!”
Again his words were written on the page and all around him grim faces hardened against him.
In a final desperate appeal, he tried again. “They are in prison, a magical prison, with Lord Alwyn’s sorcery as the lock and key. They can’t do anything unless they are freed, and I would never do it. I will never set them free.”
This time the Book closed with a thud and began to glow.
“That much is true, at least,” Pelham muttered. The hall had become so quiet that his words were easily heard. “And how can those two challenge me unless they are released from their prison?”
The dark and hooded eyes of the more suspicious moved to the Princess and Marcel beside her. Nicola again took the lead and said clearly, “I would never set Damon or Eleanor free from that chamber.”
Watching through Lord Alwyn’s eyes, Marcel wanted to shout at her, to stop her. “Don’t say the words! You don’t know what tragedy they will bring!” But he realised that even for magic some things are impossible.
The Book began to buck and unfurl its pages, and when they settled her words appeared on the open page. There seemed no doubt this time.
“Traitor!” a voice called from behind the King.
“No!” she yelled. “It can’t be true!”
But even her own father had to believe it this time.
Marcel was made to swear that he, too, would never release the murderous cousins from their chamber, and when the Book reacted in the same way he stood accused just like his sister.
“All three of you!” wailed the King.
“It can’t be true, Father. The Book is lying!” Nicola pleaded. But they had all witnessed its damning response.
“That’s enough!” her father wailed, tears soaking his eyes. “Take them up to their rooms!”
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br /> Before they had gone, he cried out again. “All of you, leave me! Get out and take this accursed book with you.”
There was a brief hesitation, but when the King’s face darkened even more, the courtiers began to drift through the oaken doors, the Chancellor pausing reluctantly to lift the Book from the table before the throne.
“Not you, Alwyn,” came Pelham’s voice. “Stay with me.”
When they were all gone and the doors hastily closed, he turned a stricken face towards the wizard. “What do you make of this? Could the Book itself be lying?”
“Impossible, Pelham. It was created to identify truth and it will always do so.”
“But you saw what happened. My own children will betray me. One of my own sons will try to kill me.”
Although he was confined within Lord Alwyn’s mind, Marcel yelled out, “No, Father! Don’t believe it! The Book of Lies must be wrong! Fergus will never harm you, not once he knows who he really is!”
He couldn’t be heard, of course, and instead his father’s voice began again.
“Is there any way to avoid such a fate, Alwyn? I have heard it from their own mouths, but they are only children still.”
The King stood up suddenly and roamed down the hall, searching the tapestry for some clue, some way out. “I will send them away, to the high country, where no one knows their faces. Let them lead a simple life, as farmers and a farmer’s wife. Let them be orphans, as I was, but in the home of a woman with a loving heart to care for them, as Madeleine cared for me.”
“But the high country is not so far away. They could still return to betray you.”
“Use your magic, then. What can it do?”
“I can make them forget their lives here in this palace and the prophecy of my book.”
“Yes, it’s the only choice, Alwyn. See that they never know of this day, and make sure no one can ever tell them of the betrayal the Book promises. Send them separately and unnamed, so that none will suspect who they are.”
Lord Alwyn turned away, leaving Marcel without a view of his father, but halfway to the huge doors the King called him back. The harshness of his ordeal fell away and he was not a king but a father. “I can’t bear to think of them let loose up there to fend for themselves. Go with them, Alwyn. Watch over them until they are settled into their new lives, away from treachery and murder, where they won’t have to grieve for their mother as they do now.”
The Book of Lies Page 23