Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (10 page)

What answer was I likely to give? I was thirty-two, and in the normal way of things I might have been thinking of returning home, establishing myself, settling into family life and a contented middle age. Rossinière turned past and future on their heads, and as I learned what he had to teach, I began to feel that thirty-two was just the very beginning of my life
.

As to what he taught me, well at the time they might have been judged a sorcerer’s arts, not least amongst them that secret of holding back the progress of time. To some even now this may seem to be magic; to scientists it might arouse the suspicion of fakery. To me though, both then and now, it is science, but a science that understands the full and mysterious complexity of the world in which we live
.

We were not supernatural beings, Rossinière and I, but rather, as he had said, just men who were curious and who wanted more time. And as if I needed a reminder that our “sorcery” was not all-powerful, I received it when we returned to Cairo a month or so later
.

I was met there by a letter which informed me of the death of my father. My mother, who despite her early breakdown was to outlive him by many years, sent word that I shouldn’t return home, that my studies were more important
.

It was easy to obey, of course, because my father would have been in the family crypt long before the news of his death had found me. But I’m ashamed to say that at that moment my mother’s fixation on the demon which had haunted her seemed a childish pursuit, an act of ridiculous selfishness on her part
.

Thanks to Rossinière, I was already making amazing breakthroughs in my mastery over the natural world,
and yet I still had so much to learn from him. I wept for my father whom I had not seen for over a decade, and despaired at my mother’s foolish whims, but I was engaged in something so much greater than the concerns of their little and limited lives
.

I didn’t share these thoughts with Rossinière – if I had, he might well have disagreed with me. He knew then what I had still to learn, that we would always be scholars, that the unknown would always be greater than the known. As it was, I dismissed the grieving Lady Bowcastle as a foolish woman who had never grown up, and another twenty-five years would pass before I truly understood the terrifying wisdom she’d possessed
.

A
s they walked away from the school, Will said, “Won’t you need a torch?”

Eloise shook her head. “I can’t believe how light it is tonight anyway, but the paths in the maze are all lit with these cute little solar lamps.”

“Solar? Like the sun?”

She smiled. “I’m sure they were around in the 1980s, at least, I think they were. They absorb the sunlight all day and then light up at night, not so bright that you’ll need your sunglasses, but bright enough that I’ll be able to see where I’m going.”

“Good,” he said, and looked up at the dazzling sphere of the moon, not wanting to tell her that he felt like putting on his sunglasses even now.

The entrance to the maze, it soon became apparent, corresponded to the point where the tunnel from the new house met the labyrinth. And as Henry had planted this maze centuries before the new house had been built, it suggested Thomas Heston-Dangrave had used
a pre-existing entrance in his plans.

There was nothing here to suggest the grotesques and inscriptions that covered the labyrinth’s tunnels, just walls of yew. Will and Eloise walked the paths quickly, their footsteps illuminated by the low-level lamps she’d told him about.

They reached the small pentagonal courtyard in the middle, and there, as Eloise had suggested, was the bronze relief planted into the gravel floor. The four swords were almost identical, but if there had ever been a boar’s head on the round disc, it had been long worn smooth.

A small bench had been added to one side where it would provide shelter from the afternoon sun, but nothing else was visible here. Will pointed at one of the narrow avenues leading off the pentagon, the memory of that previously darkened tunnel causing a slight shiver to run through him.

“If the map is accurate, that should lead to a round clearing.”

Eloise nodded and headed towards it, but with the previous evening still fresh in his mind, Will said, “Let me go first, just in case.”

It was a maze though, nothing more, and after a few steps, they emerged into the circular clearing he’d expected to find there.

“This is where I saw the ghosts last night, in the chamber that matched this one.”

“Beyond the darkened tunnel?” He nodded. Eloise pointed to the middle and said, “There’s a bronze relief in here too.”

Will wondered how she’d seen it when he hadn’t noticed it himself, but then realised she was talking from memory, having long grown familiar with this maze. He followed her to the centre of the circle and looked down.

Eloise said, “It’s a portcullis, but then I guess you know that. Is it the same as the one in the labyrinth?”

“In the labyrinth, this chamber has no bronze relief.” Will looked around the circular clearing, seeing another bench, but nothing else, and thankfully nothing that hinted at the painting which represented him. “But Henry must have placed this here very deliberately. It must signify something.”

Eloise crouched down, tracing her fingers across the relief as a blind person might do, and said, “A portcullis is a gateway. Whether you saw it or not, maybe there’s some kind of gateway in that room.”

It would make sense of his foreboding, of the fact that he had explored all the tunnels and found nothing else to bring him closer to Lorcan Labraid. And Will couldn’t help but remember the way his mother’s spirit, rather than passing through the walls as the others had done,
had descended into the centre of the chamber as if by way of a spiral stairway. Had that been part of what she’d been trying to tell him, and if so, as guidance or warning?

“It can be the only meaning.”

“Well, you don’t sound particularly enthusiastic – I’d call this a breakthrough, wouldn’t you?”

“Not all breakthroughs are equally welcome.” Eloise looked confused and he said, “Think on this – a portcullis isn’t merely a gateway, it’s also a defence. If we find this gateway, if I can open it, we have no idea what we might unleash in the opening of it.”

She stared at him for a second, apparently in disbelief. Finally she counted on her fingers as she said, “Your dead brother, in many guises, seven dead witches, a dead vicar, all your previous victims, your mother, an attack by demonic crows, some kind of poltergeist trying to throw me out of a window in my sleep, oh, and not forgetting the friendly neighbourhood Viking vampire. I mean seriously, Will, as the back door to the underworld seems well and truly off its hinges, do we really need to worry about who might come in the front?”

Eloise laughed and he laughed too and said, “Well, put like that, perhaps you have a point. But you need to sleep – no more tonight.”

She became suspicious and said, “Promise me you won’t look alone.”

“I promise. We’ll look tomorrow, if you’re free.”

She smiled and they turned to walk out of the maze. As they did so, Will glanced up at the roof of the school and saw a figure standing there. The figure did not try to hide himself, and though the distance was considerable, he seemed to engage Will’s stare and return it, an active gaze, not that of a sleepwalker. There was no mistaking that it was Marcus Jenkins, that he’d watched them and would report their movements back to Wyndham.

Eloise didn’t see him. But as they walked back, Will wondered if the time had come to silence Marcus Jenkins. Only one thing made him hesitate – the way the boy had behaved that night by the river, collecting Eloise’s possessions, handing them back, apologising, the way he’d stared back from the bridge and waved. Besides, it probably wouldn’t serve much purpose to kill Marcus Jenkins when the school seemed overrun with Wyndham’s spies.

When they reached the school, Will stayed with Eloise as far as the staircase, but left her there.

“Tomorrow then?”

“Tomorrow, and remember to check under your bed when you go back in.”

She smiled and said, “I used to do that when I was a little girl, checking for monsters.”

“Don’t tempt fate.” He smiled as she turned and headed up the stairs.

Instead of leaving, he went from there into the entrance hall and up the main staircase. But he’d only taken a few steps before he got the scent of someone, then spotted Marcus himself on the first half-landing between floors, looking through a high window at the moonlit gardens. Will continued up the stairs cautiously, and stopped only when he had reached the same landing.

Without turning away from the window, and sounding quite calm, Marcus said, “Heading to my room? I’m not there.”

“So I see.”

“I knew it would be you. I just knew.” He turned to face Will. It was clear he had no memory of Will being in his room. “He told me never to look into your eyes.”

“So why do you?” Marcus shrugged, as if to say that he’d looked Will in the eye before so what did he have to lose. “How will you tell him, about seeing us tonight?”

“In the maze? I’ve already told him. I write in a book he gave me, and somehow, when I write in that book, he says it’s like he can hear what I’m thinking.”

So that was it, but why was he telling Will so readily about Wyndham’s magic, why being so open in general? Will compared Marcus’s behaviour now with the way he’d acted back in November and could only conclude
that the boy sensed some connection with him. In turn, Will suspected Wyndham had underestimated the confidence and independence of this recruit.

Marcus gently rubbed the faint scar on his cheek as he thought things over. “You could kill me, I suppose. I’ve seen what you can do, but he’d only send someone else.”

There it was again, that remarkable lack of fear Will had first witnessed down by the river. But it also seemed that Marcus didn’t know there were other people in the school working for Wyndham – he imagined himself a sole spy who’d have to be replaced if he was killed.

“I could kill you, it’s true … or you could just stop spying for him.”

Marcus looked out of the window for a moment, then turned back to Will. “It’s an amazing place this. I’ve only been here a couple of weeks and it’s like my old life never happened. Books!” He laughed. “Who knew I liked books? And chess. All of it. See, I stop working for Mr Wyndham and I’ll be right back where I came from, and I don’t ever wanna go back to that.”

Will nodded, accepting his logic, and it was odd because this boy was his adversary, but he couldn’t quite treat him as an enemy. He had a strange respect for Marcus Jenkins, no less than if he was a friend playing at being an opponent, at chess, or fencing, or some other amiable pursuit.

“What do you know about the crows?”

“The dead crows?” Marcus grinned and said, “Was that you?”

Will smiled, but didn’t answer and said, “Were you in Eloise’s room?” Marcus shook his head, looking confused. “Promise me you won’t do anything to hurt her. Spy on me all you like – just promise me that and I’ll leave you alone.”

Marcus looked offended that Will would even think him capable of such a thing, and said, “I’d never do anything to hurt Eloise. We’re both in Dangrave House.”

Will smiled again, touched by the boy’s loyalty to a school house he’d belonged to for just a few weeks.

“I’m leaving now.”

Marcus nodded and took that as his cue to leave too, but he stopped after climbing a few stairs and said, “Were you an Earl?”

“I still am.”

Marcus smiled, bemused by this in some way, and said, “I won’t tell him we spoke. It’ll only make him suspicious.”

He turned a second time and disappeared silently up the stairs. Will watched him go, then headed to the school office and phoned for a taxi to take him back into the city.

W
ill walked out to meet the taxi at the gates. It was after midnight and the roads were empty so he heard the car approaching from some distance, saw its lights cutting between the trees, growing in intensity.

When the driver saw Will near the gate he looked nervous, pulling to a stop and lowering his window just enough to be heard.

“You order a taxi? What name is it?”

“Wyndham, heading for the city.”

The driver looked nonplussed, but gestured for Will to get in and closed his window again. “You should have waited up at the school instead of coming out in this – it’s minus seven now, getting colder all the time. Reckon it could reach twelve below tonight.”

“I prefer not to talk, if you don’t mind.”

“Suit yourself. Where are we heading?”

“Just drop me by the cathedral – it’s easier for me to walk from there.”

The driver shrugged, looking snubbed, and remained
silent for the rest of the journey, only occasionally giving Will a glance in the rear-view mirror. When they reached the city, Will paid him, spoke to him, left him like a person trying to remember his night’s dreams.

No one was on the streets. When Will did hear voices, he turned into a street and found a church hall serving as a shelter for the night. Two people in padded jackets and woollen hats and scarves stood near the doors and smiled at Will as he passed.

One of them, a woman, gave him a little wave and said, “You’re out late.”

Will didn’t look homeless, he supposed, but even in his overcoat he probably looked underdressed for such a cold night. It was a speculative comment from the woman, not wanting to upset him, but trying to find out if he needed a place.

“I’m fine, thank you. I’m on my way somewhere.”

She smiled and said, “Take care.”

Will knew this wasn’t good though. The city’s homeless, its runaways and vagrants, would be taking shelter for the night in this and other places. He walked street after street, finding the doorways empty.

He walked down to the old warehouse district then, where he’d found Jex and so many previous victims, knowing that there at least fires could be started and kept, and that some homeless would prefer their own
fire to taking shelter in the kind of place he’d just seen.