Castle of Shadows (21 page)

‘Charlie, start walking.’ The pistol dug into her neck, and she stepped forward.

‘Windlass!’ the King shouted. Something in his voice made her forget the Prime Minister and his gun. Made her whirl round and stare up at her father, hope and dread tumbling through her mind. He had taken the rope from around his neck and was holding the end in his hands. He stood straight and proud in his pyjamas, his long auburn hair flung back, his dressing gown draped around him like a ceremonial robe. He was gazing at the tallest and grandest of his towers, which speared upwards to scrape the ceiling twenty feet above them.

As she watched, the King bent his knees and leapt into space. The gaslight caught his shadow and cast it against the ceiling as he arced through the air. He reached the end of the rope and let go, spreading his arms, aiming himself like a human arrow. His feet punctured the tower. Cards exploded with the sound of a flock of birds taking flight. The tower crumpled and fell with reluctant grace.
Tower after tower shuddered, buckled and collapsed in an avalanche of cardboard.

Six hundredweight of playing cards fell out of the sky, burying the man and girl standing in their path. Charlie didn’t feel them hit her. She was already unconscious.

She opened her eyes and saw a ceiling she didn’t recognise. Fat plaster rectangles marched stolidly around its perimeter in what she realised was an attempt at decoration. She turned her head, only a little, because it hurt, and saw a window she didn’t know. Beyond the wavy glass, the sky floated, an uncertain blue. Soft, wispy clouds drifted across it, like legless sheep.

She heard a noise of someone moving, a door opening and closing. Whoever it was had left. She closed her eyes and slept.

When she woke, Mr Moleglass was sitting in a chair beside her bed. He looked up from the book he was reading and smiled at her. ‘So, Charlie,’ he said. ‘You’ve come back to us.’ He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the white queen. He reached down and tucked it into her hand. Her fingers curled round its cool, comforting weight. ‘I found this in your room,’ he said. ‘You forgot to take it with you.’

‘Sorry.’

‘I thought you might like to have it now.’ He smiled down at her. His seal’s eyes answered her question, and the hurt she had been straining to hold away swelled into a monstrous weight and fell.

Moleglass’s voice seeped through the layers of pain. ‘I don’t suppose it will be of any comfort, Charlie, but I would only hope, that in the same circumstances, I would have had his courage. He acted as a father, out of love.’

‘It was pointless!’ she cried. Tears burned her throat, but her fury kept them caged. She squeezed the white queen so fiercely it dug into her palm. ‘Windlass wouldn’t have killed me. I would have got away from him eventually. Why couldn’t he let me go?’

Moleglass looked towards the window. Sighed. ‘Parents are often bad at letting go of their children, Charlie. You may be right. It might all have worked out as you say. Or not. Neither you nor your mother would have been safe with Windlass free. Your father didn’t feel he could take that chance. And he had a duty beyond you, my dear. He chose not to let a dangerous criminal escape: a man who had done great damage to the Kingdom and might do more. Your father lived the part of victim for many years, Charlie. He preferred to die as a king and father. Would you deny him that right?’

She couldn’t hold on any more. Moleglass lifted her up and held her safe as the world tore into a million pieces and fluttered away in the wind like so many playing cards.

She sat in a chair by the window. A book lay on her lap. She wasn’t reading it. There was a knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ she said. Tobias stepped into the room,
paused. She hadn’t seen him for weeks. He looked taller than she remembered. The cut on his face had healed to a thin line. His eyes were a pale, pale blue. She shivered.

‘Will you see me?’ he asked.

‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘You might not want to know me. Things being what they are…’ He flushed and looked down.

‘Don’t be an idiot.’ She sighed. She was tired. ‘But you might have told me!’ The sense of betrayal had seeped deep these past weeks. ‘You knew everything about me, and you didn’t trust me with that. The most important thing of all.’

‘It’s not!’ He clenched his fists. ‘He’s nothing to do with me! Only…’

‘Only he’s your father.’

‘He may be my blood, but he’s
not
my father!’ He took a deep, shuddering breath.

She had upset him. She hadn’t wanted that. The tiredness grew.

‘May I sit down?’ It was stilted, formal. It didn’t sound like him at all.

She nodded.

He sat in the other chair. Stared at his feet. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie. Maybe I should have told you. But it’s over and done. And I got something else I need to say.’ He looked up and smiled at her, the ghost of his old, lopsided grin. ‘You won’t want to hear it. You can call me a cloth-head afterwards if you like. But I can’t rest till it’s said.’ The
grin faded. ‘He’s my blood, and he’s done you a terrible injury. I can’t change what happened. I can only say I’m sorry for what he’s done. He’ll pay for it, if it’s any comfort.’

‘He’s alive, then?’ She looked out the window.

‘Aye. Topplesham’s locked him in the dungeons till the trial. None of the prisons is safe. He’d be hauled out and lynched. Not that it matters. He’ll hang. He knows it. I… been to see him.’

‘I don’t want to know.’ Her voice was chilly.

‘No. I’ll go now then.’

She heard the chair scrape. In a moment he would be gone, and it would be too late. She had lost so much already.

Charlie reached out, caught both his hands in hers and squeezed with all her strength. He winced but didn’t pull away. She looked up, straight into his pale blue eyes, and found that she had been frightened for nothing. There was no trace of Alistair Windlass in them. There was only Tobias. Just like always. She smiled up at her friend. ‘Bless you, Toby Petch,’ she said. ‘You cloth-head.’

She refused to move back into the Castle. ‘Not while that man is kept there.’

‘Your Majesty,’ said Lord Topplesham, mopping his red face with an enormous handkerchief. ‘I’m pleased as Punch to have you for a guest in my house. You know that, lass. I’d love you to stay on. But you’re right as
a tick now, and the people need to see you. There’s rumours you’re dead as well. It won’t do, Charlie. You’re Queen now.’

‘I know I’m Queen! You don’t need to remind me!’

‘Forgive me, ma’am, but there’s things needing doing. There’s rumours that Esceania is preparing an armada. You must recall Parliament, and quickly! I’ve taken control of that dog’s dinner Windlass cooked up, but it’s a makeshift affair. We need the full Parliament reinstated and elections in due course. Then there’s your coronation. The military needs looking to. I’ve managed to persuade the generals to support me, but only because there’s no one else, and they’re scared stiff of a revolution!’ He puffed in dismay. ‘The Radicals and Republicans are brewing trouble, marching and pamphleting. No one’s much interested at present. Your father’s popularity, ironically, has never been greater. But that could change. The people need to be reassured that your father’s daughter sits on the throne of Quale. You represent their desire to return to the prosperity of the past and their hopes for a brighter future.

‘You can’t do any of that from here, ma’am.’ He glowed red as a tomato beneath his white wig. ‘I’m sorry to have to say this, Your Majesty, but you owe it to your father!’ He looked as though he might faint from anxiety at any moment.

Charlie turned and walked to the window. The garden of Topplesham’s house lay below her. Its neat paths and
rectangular beds wavered in the distorting glass. Beyond the garden wall, the tiled roofs of her city stretched downhill, tumbling into the distance further than she could see. For a moment it felt as though all the air in the room had been sucked away. She touched a finger to the glass, took a slow breath. ‘Order the Royal carriage, Topplesham,’ she said. ‘The landau, so that they can see me. I’m going back to the Castle.’

It was midday. The sun had climbed to its highest point in the southern sky. Each day it rose a fraction higher. The earth was tilting on its axis towards spring. The carriage clopped past the Castle gates and down the cobbled drive. The snowdrops were in full bloom, the narcissus and jonquils just beginning to poke green heads out of the earth. She saw Foss in the distance, stabbing the ground with a spade. He would have to find a new boy. She was sending Tobias to school, although he didn’t know it yet. Doubtless, he would be stubborn about it.

Her smile faded as the carriage rounded the last bend. The Castle didn’t change. It was ageless, its turrets sprouting from the ground as though they had taken root in a time when trees were made of stone. For a second, Charlie saw the image of the Prime Minister standing beside the entrance, waiting for her. She shuddered. Her fingers crept into her coat pocket and found the white queen.

The carriage pulled up beside the shallow stone steps,
and a footman ran to open the door and hand her down. It was not, she was pleased to see, Alfred. She jumped down and walked up the steps to the door. It swept open, and Mr Moleglass, elegant in black and grey, the folds of his handkerchief sharp enough to cut an unwary finger, bowed his deepest bow and ushered her into her castle.

As he helped her off with her coat, he murmured in her ear with consummate circumspection: ‘There is someone to see you in your office, Your Majesty.’

It was a relief to have something to do. Moleglass followed her at a discreet distance, yet somehow manoeuvred himself to open the door before she reached it. She would have to have a word with him about all this butlering. It was already getting on her nerves. He would just have to save it for grand occasions. It was on her lips to tell him so when she saw the people waiting for her.

One was Bettina. She turned towards Charlie with a smile. ‘I told you, Charlie, did I not? I told you that you would find your mother.’

The other person was a woman she had never seen before. The woman rose to her feet, took two steps forward. She was tall and too thin. Her face was careworn. She was dressed in a shabby coat and straw bonnet. Beneath her hat, mouse-brown tendrils escaped ribbon and hairpins and curled about her neck and ears. She smiled at Charlie with the smile she saved especially for her.

In a moment, Charlie was wrapped in her arms. The white queen slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor. It shattered with a sound like angels singing.

‘Welcome home, Charlie,’ said Mr Moleglass.

This book exists because of the support and assistance of many people. I would especially like to thank:

Helen Corner, for choosing this story as winner of the Cornerstones Wow Factor competition.

My wonderful agent, Rosemary Canter; and Jane Willis and Jodie Marsh, her colleagues at United Agents.

My editors, Sarah Lilly and Kirsty Skidmore; and the entire team at Orchard Books.

Lee Weatherly, for her generosity and guidance.

William and Kit, for their patience and encouragement.

My mother, for always being there.

Read on for an exciting extract!

A single light glimmered at the far end of the street. Tobias blinked rain from his eyes and saw that it was a pub lantern. A Flearside pub. He barely hesitated before making for it. Yesterday, he would have sooner climbed to the top of one of the Cathedral spires than gone into a Flearside pub alone at night. Now, it didn’t seem to matter.

He pushed through the door into a fug of tobacco smoke, kerosine fumes, stale beer, damp wool and sweat. He stood for several minutes, stunned by the heat and stench, deafened by the muttering roar, and dripped onto the sawdust floor. When his teeth had stopped clattering, he threaded between bodies to a narrow bench in a corner, squeezed into a gap and leant his head back against the wall. He was aware of his clothes beginning to steam gently in the heat as his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.

He woke to roars of laughter and a mouthful of sawdust. He was face down on the floor. Tobias tried to scramble up but got no further than his knees. A foot rammed into the small of his back and squashed him into the sawdust.

‘This ain’t no dosshouse, boy!’ The foot’s owner was a ratty looking man in a greasy apron. He was holding a tray of empty beer glasses. ‘Buy a drink or get out.’ The foot withdrew and Tobias sat up, coughing sawdust.

‘Which is it?’ asked the landlord. ‘Drink or door?’

‘Give ’im the boot!’ shouted someone behind him, to howls of approval. Tobias jumped up.

‘You want my money or not? It’s as good as any of theirs.’

The landlord’s smile was as thin as his hair. ‘Show me.’

Tobias dug in his trouser pocket, praying that he’d remembered correctly. His fingers closed around a coin. A shaky grin spread across his face as he flashed it at the landlord. The laughter and comments died away as he followed him to the bar. The man slammed the tray down. ‘What’ll it be?’

‘What’ve you got?’ Tobias asked without much hope. He hadn’t eaten for hours and had no desire to spend his only bit of money on strong drink.

‘We got beer,’ said the man, ‘or gin. What’ll it be?’

‘Beer,’ said Tobias. ‘Only a half,’ he added quickly.

The man grabbed a pint mug off the tray and began to fill it at a spigot. A dirty mug, Tobias noticed. ‘I wanted a half,’ he said.

‘Don’t do halves.’ The man slid the pint of greyish beer onto the counter in front of him. ‘That’ll be a tanner.’

‘Sixpence? A pint of beer ain’t half that!’

‘Not for men, no. It is for snotty brats like you.’ The ratty man smirked. ‘Pay up,’ he said. ‘Or it’ll be the boot.’

Tobias slapped his money on the bar, grabbed the beer and carried it into a different corner of the pub. His head was hurting. The sour smell of the beer made him nauseous, and he tucked it beneath his stool. His sixpence had bought him half an hour at most. Before then he would duck out the door and hope the rain had stopped.
Rain or no, he’d be a fool to stay longer.

He didn’t know where he’d go after that. Not home. Mum would be in a state, and he was sorry. It felt wrong to be causing worry when he’d always done his best to protect her from it. But he couldn’t face her. Not yet. If it wasn’t raining, he’d just walk the night out. If it was – well, there were always bridges to huddle under. It was only hours now. And then it’d be over. Finished and done. Despite the heat of the coal fire and the sweating men pressing round him, he shivered.

The crowd shifted as a massive figure shoved through and halted in front of him. Startled, he looked up into a broad hairy face and a pair of speckled eyes the colour of seaweed: green and brown and rusty red. ‘I know who you are,’ the man said, and his voice growled deep and rich.

Tobias gazed at him in shock, wondering how this man knew that he was the son of the most notorious criminal of the century. Wondering if they would kill him, or merely beat him senseless. But no one knew that he was Windlass’s son. No one but him, his mother, Charlie, and Mr Moleglass.

‘I said, I know who you are, boy.’ The hairy face parted to show a row of tobacco-stained teeth. ‘You’re Barty’s boy. You’re Toby Petch. Don’t look so frit, boy. I’m your uncle Zebediah. Don’t tell me you never heard of Zebediah Petch!’

    Look out for

   CITY OF THIEVES

to find out what happens next!