The Amaranth Enchantment (3 page)

The second thump was much too heavy for a rat. I sat up, half-asleep, half-terrified.

I went to the window, rubbing my eyes. A few lamps at street level gave a faint glimmer to the roof just below my dormer window. Its slate tiles were covered in frost.

My breath fogged up the window.

I jumped back as a dark face appeared, staring at me.

I clapped my hand over my mouth to stifle a scream. Never. Wake. Aunt. Ever.

The face came closer, and a ghostly looking hand rapped on the glass. "Let me in!"

I stared at the shadowy face. A boy. Older than me but not by much. His face was pinched with cold and panic.

Wait a minute. I knew that face. I'd seen him about town often enough. One of the city's many youths who loaf about with no apparent aim and no parents to tell them not to. Harmless, more or less, I'd have said, unlike some I knew of. Just the other day I'd seen him loitering around our shop. When I'd stuck my head out the door to ask him his business, he laughed and took off running in mismatched shoes.

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Now he saw me and gestured frantically for me to open the window. "Let me in!"

I put a finger over my mouth and signaled him to be quiet. He only pounded louder. The wavy glass rattled in its frame.

"Stop it!" I hissed. "Don't be stupid! You'll get us both into big trouble!"

He crouched on the thin lip of roof. Nothing between him and a three-story drop. He slid his fingers all around the casement, trying to pry it up. I grabbed the handle and pulled down with all my weight.

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I didn't weigh enough. In an instant he had the window open and tumbled inside. He pulled the window shut, then grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Don't touch me!" I yelped.

"Hide me!" he whispered.

I blinked. "Hide you?"

He shook me. "Are you deaf? I need a place to hide. Quick!" He let go and pawed around the garret.

Another noise sounded from the roof. Approaching footsteps. He flattened himself against the wall beside the window, and I did the same, craning my neck to see him. In the darkness I could just make out long, dark sheets of dirty hair, a dirty face, and a moth-eaten coat. What a contrast to the other young man I'd met today--and

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the odds of me meeting young men, most days, were zero.

He cocked his head, listening hard to the ceiling.

The footsteps stopped close by. We stared at each other. His eyes were wide, and his finger flew over his lips. I nodded. My heart pounded as if I were the one being chased.

The footsteps moved toward the window.

"Back! Back!" he mouthed. I pressed myself farther into the shadows under the eaves.

What was I doing? Why was I helping him hide? I ought to scream, I knew, but I didn't. His eyes pleaded with me. From one penniless youth to another... I couldn't toss him to the wolves, be they the constables, his pursuer, or Aunt.

A shadow passed across the pale glimmer of light that came in through the window. It moved back and forth, snakelike, as if someone was searching for something.

I willed my breath to be silent and slow. But each exhale, each heartbeat felt blaring. Surely whoever was on the roof would hear. The boy closed his eyes as if to pray, and waited.

The shadow departed, the footsteps retracted then went silent. The boy in the shadows crept forward, motioning to me to remain quiet.

We waited for an eternity. Then, "Well," he said, cracking his knuckles, "that went well, don't you think?"

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I jumped at the shattered silence, then shook myself. All my fear turned to indignation.

"Listen here!" I said, whispering as loud as I dared. "You can't just barge in here like this! I don't care what you're running from. If my aunt catches you, you'll be worse off than if... whoever that was did." I tiptoed to the stairs to see if Aunt and Uncle had slept through this ruckus.

"Good of you to keep quiet," he went on, as if he hadn't heard a word I said.

"That's hard for girls. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against girls, but if there's one thing about them, it's noise."

He should talk about noise!

No sounds came from below except snores. True, Aunt went to bed with two brandies, and Uncle slept like the dead, but the footsteps and window banging could have wakened a mummy.

I turned back to my room. In the dark I could make out no sign of the boy.

"Where are you?"

Nothing.

He couldn't have left--not without my noticing. I groped around in the darkness, under a broken table, behind the old armoire, under the eaves. No sign of him.

"I know you're in here somewhere," I said. "If you don't show yourself, I'll stick my head out that window and scream until your friend comes running."

Silence. Then, "There's room."

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I jumped. His voice came from close by, on my bed.

I recoiled in disgust. Thought he and I'd be cozy now, did he?

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"There's room here beside me," came his voice again, sounding impatient. "It's warmer that way. Why don't you lie down?"

"Next to you? No, thank you! You've gotten my help, but if you think you're going to get a kiss out of me, you've got another thing coming."

"I'm not going to touch you." He sounded amused. "I just need a place to sleep. So you can either lie down or sleep standing up. It makes no difference to me." My bed creaked as he shifted in it.

I feared him about as much as I feared a moth, but I felt I needed to remind him that I, at least, had a sense of propriety. "How do I know you're trustworthy?"

"Gentleman's honor," he drawled.

"Gentleman indeed!"

Sanctuary was one thing, lodgings quite another. To rescue a soul in distress, yes; to give up my bed for a cocky ruffian, not tonight. I reached for my bed and felt him in it, his shoulder damp with rank cold sweat, cozying up under my blanket. Those blankets might not have been much, but they were mine, and clean. I grabbed his ear and twisted it. He squawked.

"I don't know who you're hiding from or why. You've put me at risk of a smacking, and it's going to cost you,

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And you'll not have my bed, nor stink up my blankets, not for all your cheek, and I don't care who you are. You can sleep on the floor." I gave his ear another twist.

He swatted at my hand. "Git off! Not the floor. I won't!"

"Then hang from the ceiling with the bats," I said, "but get out of my bed, or I'll pluck out your eyes."

"I get this blanket, then," he said. "Some lady you are."

I snatched the blanket back. "There are some canvas bags in that corner. And I never claimed to be a lady." Though once I could have.

He gathered a handful of sacks and arranged them under a stream of curses.

"I suppose you're used to better?" I said, tucking myself back into bed.

"Missing our silk sheets tonight, are we?"

"For your information," he said, "I've slept in some of the finest beds in Saint Sebastien. Even slept in the king's bed, once, at his country house."

"You have not, you liar."

"Have so."

"Does the king snore?"

"He wasn't in it, idiot," he said. "He wasn't at home at the time."

"How'd you get in, then?"

He was silent for a moment. Then, "I'm handy with a lock."

"Shouldn't wonder."

I listened to his breathing. It was odd to have someone 30

else in the room with me. For an instant I remembered sleeping in my infant nursery, with my nurse nearby.

"Who was after you?" I asked. "Let me guess: the king's constables."

"Pah. Not at this hour. And not on the rooftops!"

"Well? Who was it?"

A long pause. "A thief."

This made sense: some alleyway fisticuffs, flight up a ladder to evade his assailant, a mad dash across slippery roof tiles. It could have come right out of a novel. Boys had all the fun.

"Why was a thief chasing you?"

Floorboards creaked as he shifted around, looking for a better position. "Do you always talk this much, or just at night?" he said.

I chose not to answer his rudeness. He lay still, except for his gurgling stomach.

"You're hungry," I said.

"No. I just ate a stuffed pheasant, and I'm here for tea." He paused. "You got any bread?"

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I smiled in the dark. "No. When did you eat last?" He said nothing.

I chewed on my lower lip. "I can get you some early in the morning, if you promise to clear out after that." I took his grunt as a yes.

Warmth began to tingle and spread over me once more. Even with tonight's commotion, I could feel sleep

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claiming me. But there was one more thing I needed to know.

"What's your name?"

He snorted like he'd just been startled awake. "What?"

"Your name."

He slapped something--his forehead, I presumed--and groaned.

"What's the matter, are you sick?" I asked.

"Peter," he said. "It's Peter. All right?"

"It'll do," I said. "As names go. I myself might have chosen Edmond, or Roderick, but Peter will do well enough."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Hmph," he said.

"I'm Lucinda. Thank you for asking."

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Chapter 5

I woke gradually, as always, fighting every inch of the way. There was never enough sleep. Especially when morning brought chores and chamber pots.

This morning I woke before Aunt's summons with a nagging thought I couldn't locate. Something I had to do today? Telling Uncle about the stone. Yes. That was it. I reached for my thigh and felt for the stone still in my dress pocket. All was well.

No, it wasn't just the stone. The boy! My wooden cot groaned as I bolted upright.

There he was, fast asleep on my floor, surrounded by canvas sacks. One arm was thrown over his face, and both great toes poked through large holes in his stocking feet. In the pale light of morning he looked much less the rogue hero of the streets that I'd imagined. In fact, he looked and smelled in desperate need of a bath.

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Still, he had dropped out of the sky, more or less, into the dreariness of my life, and for that, I could pilfer breakfast for him. And after I fed him, he'd disappear.

I glanced out the window. No snow. The clouds misled me.

I hurried downstairs before Aunt could come up to rouse me. Usually she only yelled from the foot of the ladder, but there were times when she came up, just to keep things lively.

Other than a terse remark about the oddity of my getting myself up, Aunt said nothing at breakfast--particularly, to my relief, nothing at all about hearing strange noises in the night. Thank goodness for brandy nightcaps.

Uncle slept through breakfast. Aunt was tight-lipped and moody, and her eyes were red. I feared she may have a headache, which was bound to mean triple misery for me. It would be a long day. She was so distracted she didn't notice me slip my two slices of dry bread into my apron pocket. I made the excuse of needing to return to my room to straighten it up, and left the table, climbed the ladder to the garret, and poked my head through the trapdoor.

"Oh!"

Peter sat on my bed, wrapped in my blankets, fingering the things on my bedside crate. Trunks of Aunt's had been opened, their contents strewn about.

"Hullo," he said. "I suppose you've brought breakfast?"

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I scrambled the rest of the way up and closed the trapdoor gingerly.

"What are you doing?" I hissed. "What's the meaning of all this mess?"

"Easy, easy," he said. "No need to fuss. How about that breakfast?"

"Hush! My aunt's awake now." I folded my arms across my chest in my best Aunt
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imitation. It didn't seem to bother him. In the light of day I saw that what I'd mistaken for dirt on his face was a jagged mark down one cheek.

He held his hands out, then patted my bed beside him as if inviting me to sit down, the pompous donkey. His greasy, disheveled hair was tangled just like my bedding, curse him.

"We didn't get off on the best foot last night," he began. "I suppose I was abrupt." He took a big bite of bread, and I gasped, realizing he'd reached into my apron pocket and pulled the bread out without my noticing.

"Necessity," he went on, chewing largely, "will do that to you. You go through life, well meaning as a cricket, but sometimes you need to borrow a bit, to make things smooth. Like how I needed to borrow a bed from you last night.

Which"--he pulled the other slice from my pocket; I slapped his wrist--"you lacked the Christian upbringing to share with me. But we'll overlook that. No, no ."

"Will you shut up?"

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He held up a hand. "We'll attribute it to my bursting in upon you. It caught you off guard. Ordinarily I would have written first, or left a card. By the way," he said, waving his last crust of bread in my direction before devouring it, "a bit of butter wouldn't hurt, in the future."

I saw spots. "In... the... future?"

"Tomorrow, for instance," he said between bites. "Or the day after that.

That's what we usually mean when we say 'future.' "

Insufferable peacock! "I know what it means! I took pity on you, and gave shelter to the poor, hungry, homeless boy, and you've gone and robbed me in return. 'Chased by a thief.' You're nothing but a thief yourself!"

"Stick with your first instincts, is a rule I live by," Peter said, nodding.

"Take, for example, me. When I first saw you, polishing the windows of your warm shop, I said to myself, 'Now there's a place I might stay in comfort, and a lass who looks like she'd help me do it.' I followed that instinct, and see how right I was?"