The Master of Heathcrest Hall (71 page)

These words alarmed Ivy. While she knew the rebels had taken the West Country, she had not really considered what it meant until that moment. “So we are behind the line of the war,” she murmured.

“Or ahead of it, depending on your point of view,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“I did not come here with the intention of taking up sides in a war, Mr. Samonds,” she said. “Only to find a safe place for my
sister and myself. But what of your aunt? Is she one of those who remained in Low Sorrell?”

He nodded. “She refused to go when the fighting broke out.”

Ivy thought of Miss Samonds—of her crooked fingers and bent limbs, which had been affected by a childhood infirmity of the joints. “Is she so unwell as to not be able to travel?”

“No, she is well—stronger than many, despite what she has suffered in the past. She said she did not want to leave her cows, for fear they would be stolen. But in truth it was her intent to look after some of the other folk in the village who were too old or ill to leave.”

Ivy could not help smiling. “She is a very able woman.”

“So she is. All the same, I was concerned for her. So as soon as I was approved for a leave, I left my regiment and came directly here.”

Ivy was astonished anew. Then she regarded his brown coat, and thought of the pistol he had tucked in his belt, and she realized she should not have been. Why else would a man in his late twenties, without a wife and used to working with horses, remain in this part of the country?

“You have enlisted in Morden’s army,” she said.

“As has nearly every able-bodied young man in the West Country, or at least those that didn’t run for the east at the first sign of war.” He met her gaze. “I hope you are not too dismayed at this news, Lady Quent. I think you know that by nature I am not a violent man. But in the course of my trade, I’ve learned that to repair a broken horseshoe, you must put it to the fire before you can forge it anew. I think Altania is broken right now. And to be whole again, I believe it must be reforged with a rightful king at its head, rather than a self-proclaimed
guardian
.” He looked up at her. “Forgive me if I offend, your ladyship.”

Ivy gripped the arms of her chair. Then she leaned forward, taking up the glass he had set down, and drank the rest of the whiskey herself. Never before had she imbibed such liquor, save a splash or two mixed with tea. But at that moment, she welcomed the hot fire that descended within her.

“I have no allegiance to Lord Valhaine,” she said in a flat tone. And while Mr. Samonds’s expression was full of questions, she expounded no further upon the topic.

After that, they spoke of the situation in the county. Mr. Samonds explained how, in Low Sorrell, a boy who had been out on the moors, trying to gather up scattered sheep, spoke of seeing a light at dusk two days past, up on the ridge where Heathcrest Hall stood. Hearing this, Mr. Samonds had feared some enemy soldiers might have been hiding out there.

Though Valhaine’s forces had been driven eastward, there were some deserters from the royal army who had fled the fighting, and who had remained behind in the county. They were desperate and dangerous men and, being enemies of both sides now, they had turned to banditry to sustain themselves. Thinking such men might be using the abandoned manor as a refuge, Mr. Samonds had come to investigate.

“But you found us instead,” Rose said, looking up from the porcelain doll.

“For which I am exceedingly glad,” Mr. Samonds replied.

Ivy considered the signs of disturbance they had found in the pantry. “None of Valhaine’s soldiers are here now,” she said. “But I think such men may indeed have been in the house at some point.”

“That does not surprise me,” he said. “But I wonder why they should have left. This manor would have offered a fine hiding place for them.”

“Perhaps the fire drove them off,” she said, and offered her theory that it was lightning that had caused the fire in the south wing.

“You may be right,” Mr. Samonds replied. “If so, it was a lucky stroke, and luckier still that the fire did not take the whole house.”

“Perhaps it knew we were coming,” Rose said, smoothing the doll’s dress, “and wouldn’t let itself be burned.”

Ivy was used to Rose saying peculiar things, but if Mr. Samonds was disconcerted by this, he did not show it. Instead, crinkles
appeared by his eyes as he smiled. “Perhaps it did at that. This is an old house, and a wise one, I would say.”

Rose nodded solemnly. “Yes, it is.”

Ivy asked Mr. Samonds if he would like more whiskey, but he regretfully declined. His leave was brief, and he had only time to say good-bye to his aunt before he had to ride back to his regiment, which was readying to march east. He rose from his chair, and they both went with him to the front door.

“Good-bye, Miss Lockwell,” he said with a bow to Rose. Then he clasped Ivy’s hand in parting. As he did, he leaned close, speaking so only she could hear. “Be vigilant, Lady Quent. If some of Valhaine’s soldiers do remain in the county, they have no allegiance and nothing to lose, and so I fear are not above any action.”

Ivy did not know what to say that would not upset Rose, and so only nodded. He put on his hat and went out into the mist. Then Ivy closed the door, and the two sisters were alone in the old manor once more.

B
Y IVY’S BEST CALCULATIONS, Mr. Samonds’s visit had been more than a half month ago. Now, in the little parlor, Ivy and Rose finished their cups of tea, brewed from the box Rose had just discovered. The hot drink did much to bolster Ivy’s spirits, and she was tempted to brew another pot. Yet it was best to conserve the tea, for there was not a great amount of it.

And she still did not know how long they would have to remain here at Heathcrest.

With that thought in mind, Ivy retrieved the Wyrdwood box from the shelf in the parlor. She took out the black-covered journal, then began turning through the pages, hoping to find one that bore words she had not seen before.

Listen to your father
, the man in the mask had said to her.
He will tell you what to do
.

Only so far, he had not. Ivy had checked the journal with great
frequency since arriving at Heathcrest Hall, but not a single word had appeared on its pages. But some had to manifest themselves soon. After all, that was the real enchantment of the journal—that an entry would appear only when the heavens were arranged in the particular manner prescribed by her father when he wrote the words.

If my calculations are correct, even as you read this, the Grand Conjunction fast approaches
, he had written in his previous entry. And,
Look for another note from me when the alignment begins
.

But it was already beginning, wasn’t it? She had watched at night as the glowing sparks of the planets all began to converge upon one quadrant of the sky—the very same occupied by the red, unblinking eye of Cerephus.

Yet as she turned through the journal now, all of the pages were blank. If only there was a way to talk to her father, to ask him what she was supposed to do. But his spirit still resided in the house on Durrow Street. And as for his physical form, there was no telling where Mr. Bennick had taken him. Perhaps he had delivered her father to Mr. Gambrel—perhaps the two magicians had found some way to discover Mr. Lockwell’s piece of the keystone. In which case they would have no more need of him …

No, she could not consider that possibility, not now. Besides, while she might not be able to speak with her father, there was someone else who
had
spoken to him.

“Rose,” she said, shutting the journal.

Rose looked up from her sewing. She was cutting pieces from one of the dresses they had found in the wardrobe upstairs. The garment was of a size that it could not have been worn by a girl of more than five or six. Rose was using it to fashion a new dress for the porcelain doll—one made of silk, and of a blue so deep it was almost black.

“What is it, Ivy?”

“Just before we left the city, you said that you spoke to Father, and that he said we had to come to Heathcrest.”

Rose nodded. “Yes, that’s what he said. And now we’re here.”

“Yes, we are. But was there anything else that he said to you that day—anything at all?”

“I think so,” Rose said slowly. “I mean, yes, he did say some other things. Only I don’t always understand what he’s telling me. Sometimes he uses words that I don’t know.”

Ivy sat up straight in the chair. “What did he say to you?”

“I’m not sure. Everything was all in a hurry. Mr. Rafferdy and Mr. Garritt were there, and the soldiers were coming.”

“You must try to remember, Rose. It might be very important. Our father said we had to go to Heathcrest Hall. But did he say anything more? Did he say why?”

Rose shut her eyes, and a line appeared between her fine eyebrows. “He said something about the calculations, that they were off.”

“The calculations?”

Still Rose did not open her eyes. “He said one of the gears in the globe was the wrong size, but that Mr. Larken was able to fix it and then adjust the clock. Only then it was too late. The others were coming.”

“Too late?” Ivy said, a shiver creeping up her neck. “Too late for what?”

Rose shook her head. “It was hard to understand him. He was speaking so quickly. I think he was talking about a book—that it was too late to fix something in the book, and that words wouldn’t appear when they were supposed to anymore. But that doesn’t make any sense to me. How can words appear in a book?”

Ivy gripped the journal tightly and fear welled up in her. Rose could not understand her father’s statements, but Ivy thought that she did. Her father had used the celestial globe to calculate the future positions of the planets, so that he could cause entries to appear in the journal at a prescribed time—entries that would tell Ivy what to do. Only some flaw had been discovered in the workings of the globe. Mr. Larken had been able to correct it, as well as the old rosewood clock, but there had been no time to rework the journal. For by then, some of the magicians of his order were coming to seize the Eye of Ran-Yahgren.

Now Ivy knew why the last entry she had discovered had appeared so briefly, and why it had faded before it even became fully visible—the heavens had not moved as her father had predicted, and had only briefly approached the required alignment. That hadn’t been the case with the prior entry; that writing hadn’t been gray and dim, and hadn’t faded so quickly. Which meant that her father’s calculations were growing more discordant as time passed.

Look for another note from me when the alignment begins
, her father had written. But what if, due to the errors in the celestial globe, the heavens never aligned themselves as her father had assumed? What if the next entry in the journal never appeared at all? If it didn’t, everything would be for naught; she would lack the final clues she needed to solve the elaborate puzzle her father had designed for her all those years ago.

“Don’t worry, Ivy.”

Rose’s eyes were open now, gazing at her, and Ivy could only suppose the horror on her face had been apparent.

“I remember something else Father said,” Rose went on. “I didn’t know what it meant, but you’re very clever at such things, so maybe you do. He said, ‘Wait for the third occlusion, then open the book.’ Do you know what that means?”

Yes, Ivy did—or at least she thought so. Originally, she supposed, her father had intended for an entry to appear as the Grand Conjunction began. Instead, due to the error in his calculations, it would instead appear at the third occlusion—the moment when three planets fell in line behind Cerephus. But how would Ivy know when that moment came? What if the sky was cloudy, or the planets were too dim and distant to observe?

She would have to hope that wasn’t the case. But no matter what, she would need to find a good vantage from where she could view the heavens and watch their movements.

“I’m not entirely certain,” Ivy said, “but I think I have an idea what Father was saying. Thank you for remembering, dearest.”

Rose smiled and returned to her sewing, while Ivy put the journal back in the Wyrdwood box and set the box on the shelf.

“I think I will go upstairs to look for more candles,” she said. And while that was true—for they could always use more, and there were rooms Ivy had yet to search—it was not just candles Ivy wanted to find. She wanted to see which windows might afford the best view of the night sky.

Ivy departed the parlor and ascended the stairs, passing the portrait of Earl Rylend and his family, up to the third floor. There, she moved through chambers whose furniture was all shrouded in sheets, or others that were empty. As she did, a loneliness came over her. Since Mr. Samonds’s visit over a half month ago, they had seen no other living soul. More than once she had been tempted to leave the manor and to strike out for Low Sorrell. How she would have liked to pay a visit to Miss Samonds!

But it would take many hours of walking to reach the village of Low Sorrell, and she did not dare attempt it. There was no telling what—or who—she might encounter. She was no more aware of what was happening in the county than in the rest of Altania. For all she knew, the fighting had reached Invarel. Perhaps it was even over.

No, that could not be so. Surely people would have returned to Cairnbridge if that was the case, but she never saw any chimney smoke rising from that direction. Which meant the war must still be going on, and that it could not be safe beyond the walls of the manor. As a result, she and Rose only went outside for the briefest intervals, and then no farther than the well in the rear courtyard to draw water.

After some time, Ivy finished going through all the rooms on the third floor. She had collected a few more candles, but had not found a window that offered a good view of the southern sky. Unfortunately, it was the south wing that had been burned, and the windows in the rest of the manor faced in other directions. Still, she did not feel like returning to the parlor and sitting. Besides, were there not more rooms above these—rooms she had yet to explore since their return?