Ambergate (40 page)

And now I had.

“You have a family now, Clemency Scuff,” said Leah, as if she read my thoughts.

“A family?” I said in amazement.

She gave a tiny crooked smile. “Only a small one, I’m
afraid—only me. I am your cousin. Your mother—the Lady Sophia—her maiden name was Tunstall. She was my aunt. So we are cousins,
and I hope shall be friends.” And she held out her hand and I took it, and we shook hands on it. And she was my enemy no longer.

I looked from Leah, my new cousin, across to Nate. I saw the eagerness and warmth with which he gazed at me. I did have a
friend, of course I did, and he had been one to me since the day we met.

And I had had other friends since I left Murkmere: Becca, Shadow, even Dog.

“You have the blood of the bravest rebel of all in your veins,” Nate said. “The whole country knew the name of Robert Fane.”

I bowed my head. Most of my courage had come from him, my father, but perhaps a little bit of it I had made myself.

I had a half-brother, Caleb, but though I’d never love him, I had shown him clemency.

“I am sorry about your swanskin,” I said to Leah, and I truly meant it.

She touched the bag against her legs and smiled a sad, strange smile. “It’s in here,” she said. We all stared at her in astonishment,
for we had seen the ruined skin in the crypt, trodden over by the soldiers’ careless feet, kicked aside with the mahogany
box. “It’s true,” she said. “The other swanskin belonged to Erland’s grandmother. He swapped the two of
them over when mine was still in the Palace showcase. It was his swanskin hanging in the Cathedral. He gave my swanskin back
to me when we said goodbye, and it’s in here, unharmed, whole and beautiful.”

“Crafty blighter,” said Chance with a touch of admiration. “So he must have tricked his way into that room, unlocked the case
and all.” Then he sounded the same as always, a sneer in his voice. “But what does it matter, anyway? Isn’t one swanskin like
another?”

Leah picked up the bag and hugged it to her chest. She turned for the last time and stared at the darkness behind the boat;
I saw her pale, proud profile. She murmured to herself, or whoever was listening, “When I get back to Murkmere, I think I’ll
bury it again, at least for a while.”

Then she turned back, looked at us in the shifting lamplight and said in her most challenging voice, “First to Murkmere, but
then the rebels in the Eastern Edge will need a new leader. Which of us is it to be?”

After a while Nate lost all track of time. They had fallen silent in the boat, the two girls slumped against each other; Chance,
in the stern, hidden in darkness.

Nate felt as if he had been beneath the city a lifetime. His shoulders and arms ached; he felt bruised from the waist up.
Like a clockwork toy, he moved the oars automatically, dip and pull, dip and pull. Yet he dared not hand them over to Chance,
for he could not trust him yet.

We are a motley crew
, he thought.
A swan girl, a knave, a boy musician, and a girl singer—yet who knows what we may achieve
?

The air was growing fresher, warmer; his clothes were drying. His gaze lingered on Scuff. He was sure that her dear, sleeping
face was clearer to him now; he could trace the fall of her hair, her closed eyelids, the shape of her half-open mouth. He
saw the head of a swimming rat, its eyes shining red in the lamplight. Soon slats in the brickwork began to appear, lighter
squares, as if behind them there might be twilit sky. Through one gap he thought he saw a star.

And then there was a widening in the channel, an expanse of water on either side, a great space around them, sudden heat.
They were outside, and the curve above their heads was the curve of the evening sky. Behind the boat he could see the black
circle of the tunnel mouth below the grassy mound of an island.

Nate rested his oars and let the boat drift. He wanted to tell the girls, but they were asleep, their faces stilled of all
emotion. But in the bows Chance raised his head and gazed, silent, his face transfigured by wonder.

This was Paradise—Paradise Park—the old ruined cemetery to the west of the Capital. Nate had heard his father mention it,
but he had never been here. No bodies were brought here nowadays: the cemetery was forgotten. Around the wide black lake on
which they floated were sloping banks on which hundreds of pale gravestones toppled and leaned
among the weeds and overgrown grass. No birds sang their last evening trills here: it was an eerie, mysterious place, where
spirits moved without a sound.

Toward the east, the sky was a fiery red over the Capital, as if the whole city were ablaze. But it was only the last rays
of the dying sun. He could see a black plume of smoke rising and drifting against the red, as if the Cathedral scaffolding
still burned. But perhaps it was another fire altogether: in the summer, somewhere in the city was always burning. Far off
he heard a dog howl, but the tumult of the people had died away.

When he turned his head the sky behind him was a deep, rich blue, and there was the glimmer of the first star. The storm that
had lurked earlier had passed away.

A wind arose, rocking the boat gently. On the banks the grasses rustled among the gravestones. Nate licked his finger and
raised it in the air. The wind had changed direction, was blowing from the west. Soon the days of heat would be over.

He took up the oars again and began to row across the lake. He could see where a stream meandered away through a dip. If they
followed the stream on foot, they would come to Gravendyke, the great river, and find a boat to take them up the coast to
the Eastern Edge.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a white shape gliding on the black water. With a jump of his heart he thought for a moment
it had come out of the tunnel mouth. But that was not possible. Although it did not come close to the boat, he
could see now it was a swan. In the dusk, it seemed almost translucent, as if he could see through it, like a ghost or spirit.

But that was hardly surprising. This was the place of such things, after all.

I am the girl with no name. I have a number branded on my left arm, but no name…. I have a secret. A secret I must never tell….
I committed a crime. I did something so wicked I must never speak of it. If I did, they would come after me
.

T
hey call her Scuff. An orphan girl turned kitchen maid at Murkmere Hall, she is haunted by her dark past. Protected only by
a borrowed amulet from her friend Aggie, Scuff cannot run forever. With soldiers pursuing her and a branding on her arm capable
of betraying her true identity, she endangers any and all who shield her from the Lord Protector and his men. She sees what
happens to Erland, the boy she loves, when he tries to hide her and knows that she has no choice but to set out alone. As
she runs from those who seek her capture, there is one person who she hopes will want to find her again.

A compelling gothic mystery,

Ambergate
is rich with suspense and unforgettable characters.

P
atricia Elliott was born in London and grew up in Europe and the Far East. She has worked in publishing in London and in a
children’s bookshop in New York. She now teaches a course in children’s literature at an adult education college. She lives
in London with her husband, two sons, and a yellow Labrador named Fingal.

Don’t miss
Murkmere
, the companion
novel to
Ambergate
, now available in
paperback.

I cast around in my mind for a song to bring a change of mood. I fixed on a haunting ballad I’d heard as a child: “I Left
My Love by the Amber Gate.” It is said that somewhere in the Capital there is a fabulous ancient gate made from amber and
gold. Perhaps the woman in the cellar had sung the old song—or someone in the streets of the Capital—I don’t know. I was surprised
at myself, for I’d forgotten I knew it, but every word came out perfectly. It is a sad song, for the girl’s lover dies in
the magical place at the Gate, where the sky “rains with stars and crowns.”

I sang sweetly that night. I knew it, as you know when you do something your heart is in. I thought of Erland’s precious love
and sang for it; and as he and his father sat and listened by the fire, I captured both of them in the spell of my singing.

Afterward there was silence. I looked from one to another, my heart beating quick. They stared into the flames, each lost.

Gadd roused himself. He said huskily, “That was well done. Thank you for it. You sing like the nightingale.”

I knew it was a compliment, but I touched my amber quickly, for the nightingale can sometimes signify death to those who hear
it.