Murkmere (19 page)

“I don’t want to. I believe she may be right.”

“Don’t talk of it here.” He glanced about him at the growing shadows. “She asks after you.”

“I wish I could see her!”

“How are things with you, Aggie? Has Silas Seed been pestering you with his attentions?”

“I see almost nothing of him,” I said, smiling, for he sounded almost jealous. “He’s busy supervising the lambing. Jukes the
footman has been dealing with our wages.”

It was true that Murkmere Hall had become an altogether easier place for me after my return. Between Doggett and me there
developed an uneasy truce. I let her see that I wouldn’t take over any of her duties as lady’s maid to Leah. I certainly didn’t
want to mend Leah’s endlessly torn clothing myself, or struggle to dress her slippery hair.

Each afternoon I’d go to the tower at the end of Leah’s lessons. I stopped being nervous of the long window; and the tower
showed no sign of collapsing around us. After the
Master had been let down in the lift by Jukes and Pegg, she and I would sit together in the bookroom and she would tell me
about what she had learned that day and unlock yet another case to show me the treasures inside.

The Master gave me a reading list, and slowly, laboriously, I began to read my way through it. I’d never be as quick and clever
as Leah, but I had great curiosity. As I read more, I began to realize that there once had been a different way of ordering
things, and that it had been a better way. Men had grumbled and complained even then, but at least they’d had the freedom
to do so.

Leah and I would sit together on the floor in a pool of late-winter sunlight, with the books between us. Her skirts of ivory
silk were spread around her; her vivid, fine-boned face turned toward me as she talked.

There were too many words in some of the books she showed me; I liked the mysterious illustrations best.

“Is this a man or an animal, Miss?” I cried, pointing at a creature that was covered with a thick pelt, yet stood on two legs
and had a human face. “Does he take his fur off when he washes?”

“Look, he’s got a tail as well,” she said, pointing to a second illustration and giggling at my horrified expression. “But
here’s a much grander tail!” And with a flourish she showed me an illustration of a beautiful girl who appeared to be half-fish.

But the illustrations that intrigued me most were a sequence of four. They showed a night forest. In the first
picture I glimpsed the pale form of a naked man slipping between the dark trees; then he began to change horribly, until in
the last he had become a wolf, howling at the moon.

“Do such creatures exist, Miss Leah?” I said, uneasily.

She shrugged. “There are places far away where people have seen them, or so they say. After all, there are people in this
country who believe in the avia. Who knows whether
they
ever existed, or if they’re a myth, like so much else in religion.”

It made me anxious for her soul when Leah talked like that. What exactly did she believe herself?

We were on our way out for our walk one afternoon, and for once we left through the Great Hall. This was a vast, dark room
used for dining on the rare occasions the Master had visitors. It smelt of old candlewax and peat ash, and was hung about
with ragged tapestries that illustrated the Battle of the Birds. The first time I’d seen them, I’d thought the birds were
alive: I’d fallen on the floor in fear, covering my eyes. Even now I thought the Hall a haunted place. In the drafts the tapestries
seemed to quiver with a secret life of their own, as if the story that they told were being played out still.

Leah slapped one of the tapestries as we passed, releasing puffs of dust. “We should take these down before the ball.” She
sneezed.

“But they’re sacred!” I exclaimed involuntarily, and realized at once I’d annoyed her.

She stopped immediately; we were both standing before the last tapestry. “What do you see in the picture, Aggie?” she demanded.

“I-I see the Eagle,” I stammered. I wanted to touch my amber, but under her censorious gaze thought better of it.

“Describe him.”

But I did not dare.

Leah did it for me. “He is two-faced, half-bird, half-man. One side of his face is feathered, the other has fleshy cheek and
bearded jaw. His eyes are tragic. Common to both sides of the face is a cruel beak that shows no softness, no forgiveness.”
She tilted her head in mock-thoughtfulness. “What does that mean for his creatures, I wonder? And what do his birds do in
the shadows of the forests beneath him?”

“They destroy each other,” I whispered, staring at the tapestry.

“In his name, Aggie.” She turned away. “Throughout my childhood the kinder servants worried for my soul, and led me to Devotion.”
She was walking over to the main doors. “It’s hard to believe in an unforgiving god, Aggie.”

“It’s not meant to be easy,” I protested.

She laughed suddenly, startling the footman standing at the door. He opened it at her nod, and light seeped in over our feet.
We stood at the top of the steps, the parkland spread before us in the damp afternoon, sheep grazing on the early shoots beneath
the scattered oaks. “There’s a power in everything,” said Leah softly, looking about her. “I feel it all the time — a power
in all creatures, all nature.”

“But only One made that power,” I said quickly, before she betrayed herself as a heretic, before He could hear.

“The Eagle, you believe?”

I nodded, and at her expression added even faster, “And you can’t stop me believing what I know is right — you who believe
in freedom, Miss!”

And I made her laugh a second time.

I didn’t break my word — I never said anything to Leah about her parents. My worries for her future drifted away, for as we
grew closer she seemed like any normal girl. She’d sometimes go to the mere, but now she’d take me with her. On the way back
to the Hall she’d link her arm through mine. In the evenings we’d play Commotion, and the parlor would shake with our laughter.
We’d talk about all manner of things: what I had read, what I thought of it; more important, what she thought of it.

One afternoon I found her at the desk in the tower, with pen and parchment. She seemed excited, and the parchment was covered
in scrawls and blots and crossings-out.

“We made a guest list for the ball this morning, Mr. Tunstall and I,” she said. “It’s to take place sixteen years to the day
that I was brought to Murkmere, the day he’s always called my birthday, the day the first leaf of autumn falls, he always
says. I’ve just been making a list of my own, Aggie, and you’re to help me. It’s all the things we’ve got to do to make the
Hall ready.”

I sat obediently on the floor and looked up at her. Her tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth as the quill scratched.

“First, we’ll open up the old ballroom; we’ll fling open the doors on to the terrace and air it thoroughly.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“We must check all the bedchambers to see they’re fit for guests and have them cleaned.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“We must check the supplies in the icehouse and make sure there’s the right quantity of livestock to be slaughtered, since
I don’t trust Mistress Crumplin to do it.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“And then …” She rested her sharp little chin on her hand and looked at me dreamily, her eyes shining. Leah’s eyes were gray,
but they always seemed strikingly dark in her pale face. “And then, there’s the ball itself. We’ll have flaming torches placed
on the terrace so guests can stroll there.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“We’ll have candles burning everywhere. There’ll be garlands of flowers in the rooms, delicacies to eat …”

“Yes, Miss Leah.”

She flung down her pen. “Is that all you can say? And you must stop calling me ‘Miss,’ now that we are sisters. Anyway, no
man or woman is superior by birth to another one.”

“Sisters?” I said, and a smile hung on my lips.

She got up and went restlessly to the long window, touching her neck. “Sisters, until you leave me for the village again.”

“I won’t leave you, not for a long time yet.”

“What about your sweetheart?” She faced me, and her eyes gleamed mischievously. “Won’t he want to ride away with you?”

“What sweetheart?” I said, puzzled.

“The young man you meet secretly.”

I stared at her in consternation. She looked thoroughly pleased with herself. “I followed you. I saw you at the gates together
yesterday evening.”

When I couldn’t speak for my confusion, she had the grace to look a little ashamed. “I shan’t do it again, Aggie. I’ll leave
you alone to kiss.”

“He is not my sweetheart, and we do not kiss,” I snapped. Sometimes she tried me sorely. “He’s a family friend, a neighbor.
He brings me news of my aunt. That’s why we meet.”

“Oh, shame. No kisses, then,” she said wistfully. “I long to know what it’s like.”

“What what’s like?” I said, wishing an end to the conversation.

“Being in love, of course.”

“You’ll know soon enough, I daresay,” I said briskly.

She sighed. “Not me, Aggie. I know it’s not for me, don’t ask me how.” Then, as I was about to protest, her mood changed abruptly.
“Why didn’t I think of it before? You must ask this boy of yours to send us some young people from the village. A dozen at
least! They can help prepare for the ball. Tell him to say it’s my wish and the Master’s, and that they’ll be well paid. They
can start once the harvest’s in.”

Jethro shook his head when I asked him. “They’ll never come, Aggie, not even for the money. Time was when they trusted
the Master, but now they think he’s on the side of the Ministration. He didn’t protect them when the Militia came.”

“It wasn’t his fault!” I hissed at him indignantly through the bars of the gate. “He wasn’t told in time. He saved my aunt,
didn’t he?”

“They don’t like what they hear about Murkmere, Aggie, and that’s a fact.”

“We can barely manage here, Jethro Sim, and that’s a fact too! We’ve a ball to prepare and important guests coming! It’s their
duty to come and work here.”

He put his hand through and took hold of one of my clenched fists. “Is it your duty too? What’s this ball to you, then, Miss
Agnes Cotter? Who are you hoping to meet, now you’ve grown so fancy?”

He was smiling. Unlike most youths, Jethro’s teeth were nice and white and even. Tonight I was suddenly unsettled by his smile,
but more so by his tone and the strength of his fingers on mine. Without saying goodbye I pretended to flounce away.

Leah wasn’t daunted by my news. “We’ll have to manage with the staff we’ve got, then,” she said firmly. “I’ll speak to the
house servants sometime soon. We’ve lots of time.”

“Of course we have,” I said. “The ball will be a fine occasion, I know it.”

She took my hands. “It will be the finest the Protector’s ever attended, Aggie! But I can’t do it without you. We’ll make
it so together!”

The days passed. The last rags of snow melted away in the pale new sun; the estate bloomed misty green; and blossom budded
white on blackthorn and hawthorn and crab apple, and on tangles of wild strawberry, so that it looked as if a new sprinkling
of snow had fallen in the night.

But the window of the bookroom, high above a foaming sea of cow parsley, showed us only the endless spaces of the sky, the
clouds passing by and passing by again as if drawn by strings: the same clouds, it seemed, going round and round, as if they
would do so forever.

We felt we had infinite time up there, but in truth it was sifting away like the sand in my old clock; and all the while,
though we didn’t know it, the clouds were changing over Murkmere Hall.

The Shadowskin

S
ome weeks later I walked up the rise to meet Leah in the bookroom.

The watchtower was hidden from my view by the tender green stenciling of spring. In the lush grass, cows were grazing, and
the path was fringed by young nettles and fragrant cow parsley chest-high, its flower heads white as new-washed lace before
it yellows. I could hear birdsong; a robin hopped away at my approach and I thought suddenly of my copy of the
Table of Significance
. But though I lingered to see if Love would cross my path, the robin eyed me brightly from last autumn’s leaf fall and ventured
no closer.

Down by the gates the rooks had built their nests weeks ago, but rooks scarcely worried me nowadays. I’d not touched my amber
for an age.

In the bookroom Leah was crouched in the wing chair. I was disturbed to see a despondent, defeated look about her.
“I’ve promised the servants extra wages if they work hard for the ball, but now I don’t know how we’ll pay them. Silas told
me today that we’re on the brink of bankruptcy. That’s even without the cost of the ball.”

“That can’t be true! Why, I’ve seen how his drawers are filled with gold coins!”

“I wish I could see the accounts book myself,” she said desperately. “I believe Silas deceives my guardian over the figures.
Sometimes men come to see him — strangers, who carry money bags. I’ve always thought they come to trade with us, to buy wool
or corn or some such, but now I wonder if the money doesn’t go into Silas’s personal coffers.”