The Master of Heathcrest Hall (84 page)

“No, you cannot have come for that,” Ivy said after a moment, forcing herself to think it through. “If you had come here for the purpose of murdering me, you could have let the … the gray man do it. Nor could you have wanted to save the deed for yourself, since it could not possibly have granted you any personal satisfaction to do it. If your duty was to see that I was killed, any way it was done would be as good as the next.”

“Yes, that is so. Go on.”

Ivy gripped the arms of the chair as if to anchor herself. “It might be your purpose to bring me back to Invarel. After all, Valhaine had dispatched soldiers to arrest me under suspicion of being a witch. He must have done that once he learned my husband was beyond him, thinking perhaps he could have some other public victory to display that day. Only that can’t be it either. For you could simply have allowed the soldiers to capture me in Invarel. Instead, you misdirected them so that I might flee.”

“Again, Lady Quent, your logic is sound.”

Yes, it was sound. Indeed, there was only one conclusion Ivy could infer from everything that had happened. Yet it was so absurd as to be impossible. All the same, Ivy could only admit it must be the case, for no other conclusion could be reached from what she knew and what she had seen.

“You’ve come to help me,” she said, astonished by her own words.

“Yes, I have,” Lady Shayde replied. “But do you know why?”

Here the path of Ivy’s reasoning ended. “No, I don’t,” she murmured.

Lady Shayde rested a hand upon the coarse gray fur of the wolf’s back. “For twenty years, I served Lord Valhaine without question. No matter his command, I performed it without hesitation—without any deliberation upon the matter of whether it was right or wrong. A wolf does not ask if its prey deserves to be hunted, and neither did I.”

“But why Valhaine?” Ivy asked, for she could only be fascinated by these words. “Why did you not serve Mr. Bennick when it was he who made you into a White Thorn?”

“Yes, it was Mr. Bennick who, taking advantage of Earl Rylend’s interest in magick, convinced the earl to arrange for the old elf circle to be rebuilt. It was Mr. Bennick who researched the ancient spells and runes, and who convinced me to go there. But for all his preparations, something went awry in the working of the enchantment.

“What it was, I do not know—some flaw in the reconstruction
of the circle, perhaps, or an error in his research. Whatever the reason, the arcane powers surged beyond his ability to control them, and the stones cracked and toppled down around us. Only by terrible effort did he complete the ritual and prevent us both from perishing. When all was done, the spell was complete, and I had been remade as you see me. But the stone circle was in ruins, as was Mr. Bennick. His body was shattered, and his capacity for magick was utterly removed from him, never to return.”

Ivy sat up straight in the chair, surprised by this revelation. She had always believed it was her father’s old magickal society, the Vigilant Order of the Silver Eye, that had taken Mr. Bennick’s magickal powers from him, as a punishment for betraying the order and attempting to steal the Eye of Ran-Yahgren. But Gambrel had said that was not the case, and it seemed he had been speaking the truth.

“In any struggle, a knife will inevitably find its way from the hand of the weaker to that of the stronger,” Lady Shayde said, stroking the wolf’s pelt. “Even as he slowly began to rebuild his health, Mr. Bennick remained but a shadow of the powerful magician he once was. A blacksmith might forge a marvelous sword, but that does not mean he is a knight worthy of swinging it in battle. So it was with Mr. Bennick and I. He might have fashioned me, but I required a stronger hand to wield me. So it was, in little time, I found my way to Invarel, and into the service of Lord Valhaine.”

“But no more,” Ivy said, rising up from the chair. “You cannot be here upon his order. Which means you serve him no longer.”

“As I said, Lady Quent, a weapon will inevitably find its way to the stronger party. And over the course of this last year Lord Valhaine has …” Lady Shayde withdrew her hand and turned her back to the wolf. “He has grown weak and confused. Previously, it was his own vision for Altania that drove his actions. But month after month, I have watched the High Order of the Golden Door—the magicians who were purportedly his servants—turn him into their slave. How they have done this, through words or spells or some other occult influence, I do not know. But he is their plaything
now, hardly more than a babbling simpleton, and is completely in their thrall. All that he does now, he does because it is
their
will, not his.”

Ivy could only shudder at this. Not only had Mr. Gambrel escaped from the way station upon Tyberion, as the magus of the High Order of the Golden Door he now had complete influence over the most powerful man in Altania aside from Huntley Morden.

Carefully, she considered her next words. “If these magicians of the Golden Door have become so strong as to hold sway over your master, why did you not simply serve them instead?”

Lady Shayde nodded. “Yes, of course, I considered this. But then I rejected it. For even as Lord Valhaine had become their slave, they in turn are slaves of another, far greater power—one that, I have learned in my investigations, hails from beyond the very boundaries of this world.”

“The Ashen,” Ivy said, unable to prevent herself.

“Yes, the Ashen. They who are stronger than any in the realms of mankind.”

“If they are so powerful as this,” Ivy said, whispering now, “why do you not serve them? Is that not what you seek—to be wielded by the strongest hand, and so have the greatest force?”

Lady Shayde took a step toward her. “I told you before that I cannot suffer feelings, Lady Quent. But that is not entirely true. In general, it is in fact the case. Yet there is one sensation which I can experience, though only in certain instances. It occurs only when I am directly confronted by some power of the Ashen, or a daemon of their making. I felt it even as the gray man attacked you.”

“And what did you feel?” Ivy breathed.

“I felt a fury,” Lady Shayde replied, her dark eyes catching the dying firelight.

Ivy gasped. In that moment an image came to her—an image from the dream about the people in the cave. She recalled the pale woman clad in dark leathers, and how her arms had been like scythes, reaping the snarling shadows all around, and casting them down.

“What is it?” Lady Shayde took another step closer. “You know something about this, Lady Quent. I can see it upon your face.”

Ivy shook her head. “I’m not sure.… ”

“But you are sure,” Lady Shayde said, moving another step. “You have great powers of reasoning, Lady Quent. And you have great power of will—I saw that for myself when I offered you a chance to free your husband, if only you would betray Lord Rafferdy. But you would not.”

Another step.

“But there is more to you yet, Lady Quent. You have a mastery over the Wyrdwood—a thing which the Ashen and those magicians who serve them loathe and fear. Indeed, from the magicians of the Golden Door, we know you are a witch of especial ability. That makes you very powerful indeed. Only there is one more power that you possess, one above all others. It is knowledge. You know about things—things such as the nature of that magickal door in your house on Durrow Street, and about the Ashen themselves. How you know so much about these matters, I have not yet determined. But all the same, from your actions, it is clear that you do.”

With one more step, Lady Shayde came to a halt before Ivy.

“Tell me, Lady Quent, what is it you know about me?”

Ivy shook her head again. “I’m not sure … it’s only from a dream I’ve had, but …”

“But what?”

“I think I know what purpose the White Thorns were made for. At least in the very beginning.”

A cold, white hand fell upon Ivy’s arm, gripping it so hard Ivy let out a gasp of pain. The other had only to squeeze but a little more, and Ivy’s bones would surely have been broken.

“Tell me,” Lady Shayde said softly.

Ivy opened her mouth to speak.

“Hello?” spoke a quavering voice. “Hello, are you in here?”

As one, Ivy and Lady Shayde turned to look at the door of the little parlor. Rose had emerged from it. Her brown eyes were large in her face, and she clutched the porcelain doll in her arms.

Ivy realized the fire had died down, and the front hall was filled with a gloom. “Here, Rose,” she said, stepping into the shrinking circle of firelight. “We are over here.”

Rose’s shoulders heaved in a visible sigh, and she hurried toward the fire. Ivy was greatly relieved to see her moving and speaking again after the shock she had suffered.

Another pale figure stepped into the circle of light, and Rose abruptly stopped, a breath escaping her parted lips.

“Good day, Miss Lockwell,” Lady Shayde said and nodded.

Ivy feared that Rose would turn and flee back into the parlor. Instead, after a moment, she took several small steps, closing the last of the distance between them.

“Thank you,” Rose said. “For saving us from the soldier. The one with the dark lines all around him.” Then, slowly, she uncurled her arms from the porcelain doll. “I think this belongs to you.”

Lady Shayde’s eyes were like dark stones. “Where … where did you find that?”

“In a room upstairs, in a closet full of small dresses,” Rose said. “I think they belonged to the girl who lived here—the girl in the picture. But you’re her, aren’t you?”

Lady Shayde said nothing, and Rose smoothed the doll’s dress and ribbons.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I touched up the paints on her face, and I sewed her a new gown from one we found in the closet upstairs. She’s very beautiful, don’t you think? She’s been a friend to me since we came here. Only …” She sighed, then held the doll out before her. “I think you should have her back now.”

For a long moment, Lady Shayde did not move. The last of the coals hissed and died upon the hearth. Then, slowly, Ashaydea reached out a pale hand toward the porcelain doll.

A groaning of metal hinges came into the front hall, followed by a gust of rainy air.

Lady Shayde withdrew her hand and looked up. “Someone has opened the front door of the manor.”

Rose gasped, her arms going around the doll once more, and
Ivy looked toward the archway that led to the entrance of the house. Through it she could see the dull gray light of the stormy day. The door of the house had indeed been opened. But perhaps it was only the wind.…

The echo of boots against the slate floor came into the front hall.

What do we do?
Ivy started to ask, turning to look at Lady Shayde. Only the air between Ivy and Rose was empty. Ivy looked wildly about, but she saw no one else in the gloom.

Lady Shayde was gone.

The footsteps grew louder. A moment later, a man emerged from the archway and stepped into the front hall. He carried a pistol in his hand, but he was not a soldier. Instead, he was an older man, his tall, spare frame draped with a gray suit and cape, both wet from the rain. His face was sallow, his features sharp and angular, and his eyes dark and deeply set.

These latter now turned in the direction of Ivy and Rose, even as did the barrel of the pistol. Then a smile curved the thin line of his mouth, and Ivy felt her blood congeal in her veins.

“Good day, Lady Quent,” Mr. Bennick said.

N
O CROWD had gathered for the hanging that day.

In the past, a throng of people would always turn out for the displays of justice before Barrowgate. Jugglers and carts selling treacle tarts would lend a carnival atmosphere. Since boyhood, Eldyn had always been astonished at how the young and old, men and women and children alike, would howl gleefully for the death of someone they did not know.

Yet in time he had come to understand. If government was the mind of Altania, arriving at verdicts and dispensing out justice based upon the cool calculations of law, then the crowds in Barrowgate represented the nation’s heart. It was their fear, their hope, and their continual hunger for retribution—their desire to see someone punished for the ills that afflicted their lives—that propelled the gears of government to turn. The nation needed them, just as a brain needed hot blood to be pumped through it.

Only today, there were no throngs, and no vendors selling tarts. The people had lost their appetite for hangings, it seemed. After all, even a glutton can eat only so much, and there had been a bountiful harvest of executions of late. On some days, a score of men swung from the ropes. But today’s was to be a less plenteous display. There were but four men on the gallows that morning, and none of them of any great interest—no witches or famous lords convicted of high treason by the Gray Conclave.

Given the small number of the condemned, and their low station and obscurity, the square before Barrowgate was empty of all but a few stragglers clad in dirty, ragged clothes. With so few onlookers, the number of soldiers in attendance was few as well. It was but a trio of them who marched the heavily shackled prisoners up the steps of the gibbet, where the lone hangman waited to do his work and then go home for breakfast.