Ambergate (32 page)

Without knowing why, I followed him, and found to my alarm that he had slipped sideways into the chancel, behind :he altar.
“Gobchick coming here all his life,” he whispered. “Knows this place. Nothing to fear. Knows two secrets.”

Gently, he took my hand and led me over to the statue of the Eagle; candles front-lit the rough-hewn head and breast, but
we were hidden in the darkness beneath.

Gobchick pointed to the outstretched wings above us. “See the words?”

I frowned, still fearful of being so close to Him. “What do they say?”

“Gobchick cannot read.”

The lettering was faint, carved into the stone like secret writing, a line of letters along the curve of each wing. To read
them I had to stand in the shadow cast by the great wingspan.

I strained my eyes. “One says ‘Judgment Tempered by Mercy,’” I whispered. “The other, ‘Love Will Redeem Thee.’” The words
seemed meant for me alone.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring up at them, but at last I heard Gobchick whisper, “See? No need to fear, little
one.” His eyes slanted up at me. “Now show you second wonder.”

He took a candle from the altar in the Chapel of the Wren, touching his forehead to the painting of the Wren that hung over
it. “She allows me this,” he muttered, waving the lighted candle in triumph. The few worshippers looked at him with blank
faces, wrapped in their own sorrows.

“I should go.”

“No.” He gripped my hand. “Important stuff. Come.”

“Where are we going?”

“Where you have been before.”

The workmen had finished, taking their tools with them. The apse was deserted, lit by a single lamp so that the arches were
in darkness.

“Where are the soldiers?”

Gobchick shook his head. “Gone, gone. Never come back.”

I wished I could believe him; I was sure they were somewhere about. My pulse quickened with apprehension. Outside, in the
streets, time would be moving onward to noon. It was a long walk back in the heat and dust to the Palace of the Protectorate,
and I had only a morning’s pass. I wanted to leave now.

Gobchick capered about, the candle in his hand flickering. Behind him stone steps wound down into darkness. I felt a
prick of fear: the crypt must be below, stone ledges filled with crumbling coffins. “Down there? Is that where you sleep?”

“Follow me.” He peered up, his grin mischievous. “You will see wonders.”

I let those little fingers close around mine again, a grip warm, yet surprisingly strong. I let him lead me down the first
step, then the second. His eyes shone crazily in the candlelight. Where was I going with this ancient fool?

The walls pressed close. It was colder suddenly, and damp, yet not musty, as if fresh air came from somewhere. I thought I
heard water. But there was something else.

For a moment I hung back, frightened. “I’ve been here before.” My whisper echoed breathily around the stairwell….
If I held a candle to it, it would glow: my amber gate…

I stepped out at the bottom and was in a great stone place, with stone underfoot and, beyond me, stone arches like trees that
disappeared into the darkness: a stone clearing in a stone forest.

The candle flame wavered in the mysterious currents of air. “Gobchick only carer now, Gobchick look after this place.” He
shook his head so that the tattered feathers flew, his voice mournful. “But Master comes now, so Gobchick hide. Days of laughter
over.”

I turned about, staring. “How did you know I’d been here before?”

I knew the place, but not well, as if I had once come across it in a dream, then dreamed the dream again.

By a pillar there was a dark tumble of rags, a pewter plate.
Gobchick’s den. This was where he must spend his nights—and many a day too.

“Let me hold your candle,” I whispered. My heart thudded; I was certain all of a sudden that there was a painted ceiling above
our heads.

I held the candle high, and there was the gleam of gold leaf, the flash of white against vivid green and blue. There were
twelve panels set into the vaulted stone, like the patches in a quilt. Each panel showed a swan—black-eyed, slender-necked,
proud—swimming on a background of sunlit blue or turquoise, or the deep green of reed-shadowed water. Around its neck each
swan wore a golden crown that glinted in the candlelight.

“Why ever did I come here? Why, Gobchick?”

Gobchick pursed his lips together, silent; his feathered costume made strange shadows on the stone.

There is a mystery in this place for me
, I thought,
and I must discover it
.

I began to walk around, venturing farther into the darkness with my single candle. I was frightened but determined. I tried
not to think of the bodies stored in the corpse houses beyond the arches.

Then, where the dark was thickest, the candle picked out a gleam of gold.

It was a double gate, formed of curving golden branches that were studded with amber. As I took the candle closer, the amber
stones caught the light. They were the color of sunlight,
from the pale straw of spring to richest autumn brown, and clasped in delicate frilled acorn cups of burnished gold. Exquisite
golden birds with feathered tails were eating the fruit of the sun.

I looked between the branches where the two gates met, into the darkness beyond. My cheek pressed against a lock garlanded
with golden ribbons. The amber glowed around me, tiny suns without heat. I could smell water.

“Gobchick!” I whispered, for he had appeared from nowhere beside me. “You knew all the time the Gate was here—in the crypt!”

The Amber Gate was tall, higher than my head; beyond it was a curved brick ceiling—the beginning of a tunnel—and beneath the
tunnel roof there was water. It was a river of cold, secret water, quiet, yet gently nudging at its narrow border of stone,
as if moved by the power of the moon and tides far above it. I could make out a brick platform, a rusting iron mooring ring.
A dark, damp breath came from the tunnel mouth.

“Where does the river go, Gobchick?”

“To Paradise.”

A little shiver ran over me. “What do you mean?”

But he shook his head and grasped my dress urgently. “You were little Clem then.”

What did you call me
?

He looked up into my face. “Are you the meaning of your name?”

He was mad, after all; he waved his head like a lunatic as I stared at him.

There was a sudden flare from the candle flame; in the stairwell, footsteps echoed, light moved. “Someone’s coming!” I hissed.

He danced about in front of me, gleeful. “’Tis safe. ‘Tis friend.”

And Erland stepped out into the crypt.

I could not bear to look at him. Different emotions fought inside me, and I did not know what to say.
He must have followed me. He couldn’t speak to me in the Palace, so he followed me today
. A tiny whisper of hope sounded in my head, but I knew it was false and I mustn’t listen.

He came straight across. He was holding a lantern.

“Scuff? I’ve been so anxious for your safety .…”

I tried to find words. I said stiffly, “You forget. I have lived in the Capital before. Have you forgotten so much of our
talk together on the Eastern Edge?” I looked at him in the eye, and thought he looked a trifle discomforted.

“There’s so little time,” he began quickly. “There are things I must tell you .…”

“Oh, I know already,” I said, casual. “I had word with Miss Leah myself, at the dance.”

He looked bewildered.

“I know you love her now,” I explained, very kindly. This was too beautiful a place for what I was feeling. A little while
ago I would not have been so bold, and I felt a faint satisfaction in myself.

“Scuff…” He seemed at a loss. Gobchick went to crouch by himself a little way away in the darkness. I looked bitterly at Erland
and thought that in the light he looked older than the youth I remembered on the Wasteland: he was a man, not a boy.

“Scuff,” he began again. “I’d bring you heartache. My life’s a lonely one; it’s always been so. Until I met Leah, I accepted
that that was the way it was for me and I’d never meet another like myself.”

“And now you have?” I said with pain.

“I’m not the right one for you,” he said gently, “but let me tell you I love you now as I did in the Wasteland—no less.”

The turmoil inside me eased a little.

“Gadd did what he thought was best when he took you to Poorgrass Kayes. He knows my nature and was concerned for you. He was
right, you know.” He sighed and followed one of the whorls of gold with his finger.

“I feared you’d be in danger, alone in a town like that. I’d let you down. I wanted to protect you. I tried…”

“I don’t need protecting, not any longer. It’s too late.”

“I was always with you in spirit, you know,” he said gently. “I traced you down to the Capital, but had to leave you when
I had the Protector’s summons. There was too much at risk. Then I found you in the Palace. I knew you as soon as you began
to sing.” He reached a hand out to me. “Why are you in such a dangerous place, Scuff? Are there secrets you’ve never told
me?”

I thought it outrageous that he should accuse me of keeping secrets, while hiding so much himself. “They are not
worth the telling,’ I said angrily. I longed to tell him of my deadly bargain with the soldier Titus Molde, but I was sworn
to secrecy. “Why are you there? I thought you a boy from the Wasteland, unschooled in courtiership. You are so sophisticated,
so mannerly—and so very friendly with the Protector! I thought you hated him and all he stood for.”

He looked around at the darkness surrounding us.

“Oh, there is no one down here but us,” I said. “What are you so afraid of?” When he didn’t reply, I made to move past him,
though my heart yearned for him. “I must return to the Palace.”

He gripped my arm. “Don’t go—don’t sing tomorrow!”

I thrust his arm away and tried to sound cold and grand. “Why not, pray?”

“I’ve heard the rebels plan to attack. The Cathedral will be a death trap!”

“I am sure the Protector has security organized.” I looked at him, at his strong cheekbones, his secret, shadowed eyes, and
my heart broke. I pulled myself together. “How is it you know of the attack?”

“I know many things, Scuff.” He spoke fast, urgent. “In the time you were at Murkmere, did you ever hear tell of a packman
named Matt Humble? He went to the house on many an occasion to meet with the steward.”

I was taken aback that he should talk of meaningless things while I felt such pain. “I believe he took ale in the kitchens
once or twice. What is he to do with anything?”

“Before he was murdered some three years ago, Matt
Humble was a spy on the rebels’ side. He would report to them what took place in the Palace of the Protectorate. He was able
to move freely there because Porter Grouted thought he brought information from the rebels.

“After his death, another took his place, though young in scheming, then. But he also came from the Eastern Edge and he knew
all Matt’s secrets. How could he not? Matt had been the dearest friend of his father—whose name is Gadd.”

I stared up at him. “You are a spy?”

He nodded. “They call me the Messenger. I shouldn’t tell you this. But I want you to know—to understand. I can’t bear you
to think I have betrayed the Cause. But now that you know the truth about me, let me tell you to escape the Capital now, before
the wedding.”

I shook my head. “I can’t leave, Erland. There’s something I must do and I’m bound to it.”

He stared at me. “Tell me what it is.”

“I can’t.” I shook my head and saw incomprehension in his eyes. I knew that if I stayed longer, I would not be able to stop
myself from telling him everything, it weighed so heavily upon me. “If all goes well tomorrow, I shall leave.”

“I’ll do my utmost to help you.” He hesitated. “I have to think of Miss Leah as well.”

Sudden furious jealousy knotted inside me. “You think it is a spy’s duty to rescue Miss Leah? What’s she to do with any Cause?”

He spread his hands, with the long fingers I remembered so well. “She is a girl in despair at her fate.”

“And what of me? Leah has brought it on herself, while I never desired adventure. She should never have left Murkmere in the
first place—leaving that huge house for Aggie to run and too few of us to help her. She thought only of herself!”

“That is not true,” said Erland quietly. “There were many reasons why she had to leave. Her life was in clanger.”

“Oh, to be sure,” I said, trying sarcasm. “She merely had to put on the guise of a swan and she could fly away! Others, earthbound,
had to do all the work at Murkmere while she floated on the pleasure lakes and along the city’s canals.”

He took a step back, as if buffeted by my anger.

“Leah is avian—cursed!” I cried. “She has put herself in this pretty pickle with Caleb because she wants the swanskin back.
She will not leave without it, even with you. She’d rather marry Caleb!”

There was a terrible silence between us. At last he said grimly, “Then I shall get the swanskin for her.”

I lifted my chin. “It does not matter to me what you do.”

“Tell me you will leave now, Scuff. I need to know you are safe. It’s important. You mustn’t stay in the Capital.”

“You do not want me!” I turned my back on him and began to walk quickly away. “You have chosen her now. Escape with her and
go!”

I heard him take a step after me. “Wait, you don’t understand…”

“I understand well enough,” I said, over my shoulder. His figure was hidden in the darkness behind me. “Don’t bother
about me. I’m not your true love. I’m only a kitchen maid, a girl with a number but no name.”

Gobchick gibbered frantically, but I took no notice. I ran from them both, still clutching the candle.

I was at the stairwell and beginning to climb when I heard Erland coming after me. I tried to hold the candle steady but the
light jagged on the stone walls. There was a movement above me, and at once I blew it out.