Moonlight and Ashes (21 page)

A few doors down, I saw an apothecary's shop and, remembering what the jeweller had said, went in. I bought an ounce of the expensive Green River pearl powder and, while the apothecary ladled it into a twist of paper, I asked him where he bought his pearls to make the powder.

‘They come in on the ships every so often,' he said, ‘but there isn't one due for a while. And I strongly recommend that you don't make your own powder. It's a real art, Miss.'

With a nervous little smile, I assured him I had no such intention, thanked him and went out with the pricey, useless powder in my bag. Oh well, I thought, I'd have to
do without the pearls. I'd have to think of some other gift to bring . . .

I spent the rest of the day forging the necessary papers with many flourishes of ink and quaint phrasing, deliberately making a vague reference to a gift I'd been entrusted with. Once the ink was dry, I put the ‘merchants' letter' and the ‘letter from my father' in the envelopes, finishing them off with the dragon-stamped seal. The fabricated letter of introduction from the Pandong Court Adviser, which I had drawn up on the art paper, I rolled like a scroll, tying it with the red and black silk ribbons, with the lotus flower looped into them. I was very pleased with my handiwork, for it all looked very impressive. Carefully, I wrapped them individually in tissue paper and slid them into the satin bonnet bag. I then put it into the locked desk along with the silver dagger, still in its presentation box. Just as I finished, the porter knocked on the door to deliver the rest of my purchases from the store. After he'd gone, I sat down with my new books and read them attentively, and more than once. By the time I'd finally decided that it was all stuck in my head, the gas lamps in the street outside had come on and the waiter was bringing up my dinner tray.

Dinner was simple but good: spinach soup, roast chicken and vegetables, followed by a lemon mousse. Yet, though I'd been hungry, it had little savour for me and I left most of it untouched. As I had started my meal, an image had suddenly come to me of the previous night's dinner around the campfire in the forest. The food had been poor and the accommodation worse but now it seemed like a lost piece of heaven for we'd all been together. Now alone, the enormity of what I was doing weighed on me.
The excitement brought on by my hectic activity, the sense of accomplishment for using my wits, and the feelings of rightness that had sustained me for so many hours, had finally ebbed away, leaving me drained, exhausted and utterly numb.

I was ready early the next morning for my mission to the Palace Protocol Office and was just about to go when I noticed that my handbag seemed heavier than before. And it was no wonder, for instead of the paper twist of powder I had left in it overnight, was a little ivory casket of the most delicate workmanship – and full of small, perfect pearls, more beautiful than the ones that hung from my ears, with a shimmering pale-green lustre that took one's breath away.

It was a wonderful surprise, but also puzzling. How had it happened? And then I noticed a hazel leaf on the bottom of the bag – a little curled and starting to brown, but still whole. Now I suddenly remembered I'd put two leaves in it yesterday when I'd left the boarding house. One of them must have locked onto the twist of pearl powder and transformed it. But I hadn't asked for it, had I? I thought back to yesterday, when I'd been planning my strategy, and remembered how I'd mused aloud how
useful it would be to have Green River pearls. But it hadn't been a direct wish . . . Perhaps, I thought, the presence of the pearl powder on top of the leaf had given it extra power.

I couldn't help smiling at the sheer elegance of it. Olga had said once that you didn't choose the best magic, it chose you. Now I understood what she meant. It wasn't one-size-fits-all magic; it was different for each person. It fit like a glove to a hand; no, better still, like skin on bones. It picked up little vibrations from one's being – subtle undercurrents, half-conscious thoughts and feelings – and expressed them in an unexpected, yet perfectly judged way. It was astonishing, exciting, and frightening, too. Accepting the way the magic worked was like starting to tell a story aloud when you didn't know the ending. You had to learn to trust it, to have faith and to understand that the story itself would find its own expression through you, that the shroud of darkness would clear as the words came out of your mouth. Or you'd be lost. And in my case, that was much more than mere metaphor. It was a matter of life and death.

The Palace Protocol Office was a short distance from the gates of the palace in a little colonnaded building guarded by policemen in shiny black caps and dark-green uniforms. I stated my assumed name and business, and was ushered into the waiting room. I didn't have to wait long before being called into an office where a man with a round bald head and wearing a smart suit and blue cravat sat at a big
black desk. A shelf full of books sat behind him, a large oil portrait of the imperial family prominent on the same wall. On his desk a small brass nameplate read:
Officer P.S. Hedde
.

‘Now then, Miss Tarneleit,' the man's stony grey eyes surveyed me expressionlessly, ‘I understand you are a merchant's daughter from Pandong and that you seek a place at the general audience in three days' time. You have cut it a little fine, haven't you?'

‘I'm sorry, sir,' I said quickly, ‘but I was much delayed on my journey –' I dabbed at my eyes ‘– owing to my father's untimely death, and I only arrived in Faustina yesterday. I have a letter, if you –'

‘No, no. Just show me your official documents,' Officer Hedde said, impatiently.

I handed them to him. He read the letter from the Menglu merchants with an expressionless face, but the Court Adviser's letter seemed to interest him more. He looked at the seal carefully and, I thought, suspiciously. In a panic, scared he would work out they were forged, I felt I had to do something.

I took out the casket from my handbag, put it on the desk in front of him and said, ‘This is the gift, sir, that my father was bringing. A gift from all the merchants of Menglu, in most respectful tribute to the imperial family.'

I glanced up at the portrait as I spoke, thinking that the painter must have been some fawning court toady, for the expression painted in Prince Leopold's eyes was so much sweeter and warmer than the eyes of the real person. Imperial propaganda, of course, I thought.

The man's eyes widened a little as he opened the casket and saw the pearls. ‘I have never seen such fine specimens,' he said, picking one up between thumb and forefinger and examining it minutely. ‘They seem truly flawless.'

‘They are, sir,' I said, eagerly, ‘of a quality that is rarely found even in Pandong and never here. They come from a new field discovered only a couple of years ago by –'

‘Yes, yes,' he said, waving an impatient hand. ‘Save that for the audience. Now I regret to inform you that the Emperor will not be there, for he is unwell, but you can present your gift to the Crown Prince.'

‘Yes, of course, sir,' I said, inwardly rejoicing, for it seemed like fate had played into my hands and I should not have to kill Leopold in front of his father.

Officer Hedde took a sheet of paper out from a desk drawer. It looked like some kind of official form.

‘Your full name and address, please. Address here, too.' He wrote down what I told him, then stamped, signed and dated the form. He handed it to me and said, ‘Down the hall, second door on your right, they will give you an official ticket in return for this.'

‘Thank you very much, sir,' I gabbled, picking it up with my documents and the casket, pretending not to notice that Officer Hedde still held the pearl he'd examined. I'd seen the covetous expression in his eyes when he'd looked at it. Leaving it with him was a small price to pay for having my path smoothed. And hopefully the pearl would keep its magicked form long enough for my purposes.

‘Very well, very well,' he said, officiously shuffling papers on his desk as if I was interrupting him in some important task. Smiling to myself, I said goodbye and went out.

The clerk in the ticket office scarcely glanced at the details on the form – Officer Hedde's signature and stamp were clearly enough. Taking a card from a box on his desk, he filled in my name, then put the card in an envelope and handed it to me.

‘In here you will find the ticket in your name, and other details,' he said, and went on to recite mechanically, ‘You are to arrive at the gates at least an hour before the stated time to be processed and instructed on the correct protocol for the audience. This ticket is valid only for the person named, for one entry only and only for this audience on the stated day.'

I thanked him and left. It had been much easier than I'd thought. But then everything had been since I arrived here, with it all falling into place in the most unexpectedly appropriate ways. My luck would last till the end, I thought, as I walked away from the office. Dremda would have ensured that.

‘Oof!'

I'd been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn't noticed the girl coming towards me or she I, for she, too, had been walking along with her head bent. We both saw stars.

‘Sorry,' we both said at once, and then looked at each other.

The shock of recognition was so great that for an instant I couldn't speak. But if I was shocked, she seemed absolutely terrified, rooted to the spot as if turned to stone. Her eyes like dark holes in her chalk-pale face, the envelope she'd been clutching dropped unregarded to the ground as she stared dumbly at me.

I found my voice, and grabbed her by the arm. ‘What are
you
doing here?'

She swallowed and quavered, ‘Are you . . . are you a g– a
ghost
?'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘They said you were dead,' whispered Babette. ‘That you'd drowned in the river trying to escape from prison . . . that you'd escaped with a gang of hardened criminals who tried to kill a warder . . . And Mother . . . Mother said it was a mercy you died.'

‘She did, did she?' My mind was whirring. I dug my fingers into her arm and she winced. ‘You haven't answered my question,' I growled. ‘Why are you here?'

‘Father's been taken very ill. Mother brought him here – the doctors are better.'

‘What?' My stomach lurched. ‘What are you talking about?'

‘He's in a coma. And it's
your
fault, because it was such a shock when he heard about you that he was struck down with apoplexy. Mother and Odette and I, we knew all along you were bad – evil – but he wouldn't believe it, not till
they
told him. Thank God at least nobody else knows. They said it was not our fault, and that nobody need know.' She shot me a scared glance and said, trying to sound defiant, ‘And if you don't let go of my arm at once, I'll scream for the police.'

‘I wouldn't do that if I were you,' I said calmly, and took a deep breath. Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the leaf. This was going to be a gamble but I had to take it, I had to trust my instinct. Her eyes followed my every movement. ‘They didn't tell you the whole truth about me, you see.
I'm not just a thief, Babette; not just an ordinary criminal. I'm a witch. And I'm very good at it.
That's
how I escaped them.'

From white, she turned grey. Her hands shook. ‘I . . . I don't believe you.'

‘Well, you'd better, dear sis. You'd better believe that I'm a very powerful witch indeed and if I want to I could turn you into a frog or a worm or' – I remembered one of Babette's pet hates – ‘a spider, or anything at all, just with one word. Watch!' And I breathed on the leaf and said, ‘Be a spider,' hoping that it would work.

Instantly, the leaf twisted in on itself and suddenly there, on my hand, sat a spider – a big, brown ugly spider with hairy legs and wicked little eyes.

‘How do you like my friend, then?' I said, moving the spider closer to her.

She was transfixed by horror, her eyes bulging. She moaned, ‘No, please – don't . . . don't let it touch me. I'm sorry . . . I'm –'

‘You listen carefully, Babette, because I will say this only once. You will turn around and walk away and you will not breathe a word about having seen me to a living soul. If you do, I will know. And if I find out you have broken your word, I will hunt you down wherever you are. I will turn you into a spider for ever – a thing everyone will hate on sight and you will have to spend the rest of your miserable life in hiding.' Deliberately, I dropped the spider on the ground and stamped on it. ‘Just like this one. Do you understand?'

She looked as if she'd be sick. But I had no pity for her. For years she, her sister and her mother had made my life a
bleak misery and at last the tables were turned and I could now pay her back a little for what I'd suffered.

‘I asked you a question, Babette,' I said, sharply.

She flinched. ‘I . . . I understand,' she said in a very small voice. ‘I . . . I promise I will not say anything to anybody.'

‘Good.' I released my grip on her arm. ‘Now go. And remember what I said.'

‘I will,' she quavered and then backed away a couple of paces before quickly turning around and scuttling off as if the Devil himself were after her.

Now it was all over, I began to feel a bit trembly. I was lucky it was silly, gullible Babette I'd run into, I thought, and not her sister or mother. They'd have been much harder nuts to crack. And though it had been a dark pleasure to see how terrified Babette was of me, it had been no pleasure at all to learn of my father's condition. He had not been a real parent to me for years, but he was still my father. Babette had said it was my fault, and though I rejected her words, it still stung. I did not like to think of him so ill and I did not want him to die. But there was nothing I could do; nothing that would ever make it better between us.

In a way, meeting Babette had been a blessing in disguise as I had learned other things important to my mission. First, that either the Mancers had not found out about my involvement with magic, or that they were keeping it quiet for their own reasons. I thought it was probably the former reason, as otherwise, surely, they'd have questioned my family who would have been under suspicion too . . . and they clearly weren't. So I had that card up my sleeve.

Second, they had said I'd
drowned
. Telling my father that would have ensured he wouldn't go looking for me nor ask awkward questions, for the Ash River was notoriously deep and treacherous and full of the bodies of people who'd drowned, never to be found. Not that I thought it particularly likely he'd have stuck his neck out anyway – not for me, who he'd neglected for years. But Prince Leopold and his accomplices weren't to know that, and they wouldn't want to take any chances.