Castle of Shadows (15 page)

Charlie heard the whine of the approaching train. She shivered with excitement as she watched it speed towards her. She had read about atmospheric trains, but she had never seen one before. She caught her breath at the sight. The two carriages flew towards the cutting, driven as though by magic, without engine or horse. She couldn’t see the pneumatic vacuum tube which powered them, only the snow catcher on the front carriage, peeling the snow from the track like skin off an apple. A driver stood on the observation platform, his hands on the braking wheel.

But Peter had chosen his place well. The rock fall was hidden in the shadow of the cutting itself. The driver wouldn’t see it until it was too late. She watched the figure on the platform, wondering if he would survive. It wasn’t possible to derail an atmospheric train, because each carriage was connected by an iron bar to the pneumatic tube between the rails. But the crash would be violent: the train was thundering down the track at nearly thirty miles an hour.

Nearer! Nearer! She could see lights in the windows. She had a glimpse of figures sitting inside the first carriage as it sped into the cutting. Charlie held her
breath. She saw the driver leap from the platform a second before the train slammed into the rubble. The carriages bucked and stopped with a
CRASH!
that echoed across the plain and jarred snow from the branches over her head.

She wiped snow from her eyes. Dark figures spewed out of the trees on either side of the wounded train, tumbling down the cutting like a human avalanche, shooting, screaming, yelling. The sound of gunfire was unreal, like the noise of so many fireworks. The smell of cordite drifted through the air towards her. The lights in the carriages had gone out. Flashes and puffs of smoke, showing dark against the snow, meant that the passengers were returning fire.

Charlie clenched her fists, searching among the running figures for Tobias. A few of the people sprinting towards the train were stumbling, falling over to lie in the snow. A horror colder than any winter storm swept over her. And then she saw him. She knew him at once. He had paused, the one still figure in a maelstrom of movement. Tobias was bent over his rifle, reloading it. He darted forward. And fell.

In a moment, she was down the tree and running. Not Tobias! Please, not Tobias! The fear was unlike anything she had known. And then it was burned away by a fury unlike anything she had felt. If they had hurt him she would kill them all!

Charlie was at the edge of the cutting in a flash. She
flung herself down the slope, bounding from rock to rock. Something spat a hole into the snow near her foot, and part of her mind realised it was a bullet, but she kept running. She raced towards the lead carriage.

The door onto the platform was open. In the moonlight, she saw Alistair Windlass, bareheaded, coatless, a pistol in his hand and a look of intense concentration on his face. She slid to a stop, watching in horror as Windlass raised his arm to aim at a man running towards his platform. Peter! He had taken his jacket off. He held his rifle in one hand and ran like a boy half his age, his hair streaming behind.

Windlass’s pistol clicked. Nothing happened. Charlie saw his frown of annoyance. He threw the pistol at Peter, who batted it away with his rifle and kept coming. Windlass reached down, and she saw a flash of steel in the moonlight. He had his swordstick!

Five feet from the platform, Peter stopped running and took aim. Charlie saw his rifle jerk and heard the shot, but in the same instant Windlass ducked through the iron railing, dropping to the ground. In one fluid movement his arm extended, his sword point flying towards its target, and he lunged until he was almost kneeling in the snow. As quickly, he stood again, drawing his sword back. The two men faced each other, motionless. The tip of Windlass’s blade no longer shone where the light struck it. He was watching the Resistance leader intently, as though waiting for his adversary to speak. The rifle slid
from Peter’s hands. He stepped forward, staggered, and fell face down in the snow.

There was a roar from the Resistance, a volley of gunfire. Bullets spattered the snow around Windlass. He stooped, snatched Peter’s rifle from where it had fallen and ran for the second carriage. The door opened, and he vanished inside.

Charlie’s knees gave way. First Tobias. Now Peter. She knelt in the snow, staring at his body lying less than twenty yards from her, a dark stain spreading from beneath him, blotting the snow like ink. She barely noticed the group of Resistance fighters swarm into the lead carriage, pull out a short, plump woman and drag her away up into the grove, towards the waiting horses and escape. A small circle of people gathered around Peter. She recognised Nell and Joseph, and then three things happened at once:

Tobias ran to the group standing over Peter, pushed in beside Nell.

Charlie leapt to her feet.

The door of the second carriage burst open, and Windlass jumped out, followed by his soldiers.

‘Run!’ shouted Joseph. He sprinted towards the side of the cutting. Tobias followed, pulling Nell. Charlie began to back away. No one had spotted her yet. Half a dozen soldiers lined up neatly, as if on parade. As one man, they raised their rifles, aiming at the fleeing Resistance members, at Tobias and Nell. Charlie
opened her mouth to scream.

‘Don’t fire!’ shouted the Prime Minister. ‘Lower your rifles.’

‘But they’re clear in our sights, sir!’

‘That was an order, Sergeant! Let them go. I’ve killed the one that matters.’

‘But they got the woman.’

‘And I shall get her back. But not tonight. Find any Resistance that are still alive. Keep them that way and get them on board. I’ll want to question them. Send your fastest runner to the City. Get dray horses and a work detail out here to unblock the line. And a saddle horse. Be quick, man!’

All the time Windlass had been speaking, Charlie had been backing away. Now she turned and ran. ‘There’s one!’ shouted a soldier. ‘It’s just a kid,’ another replied. ‘You heard the man. Leave ’em to rot.’

She bolted up the slope and scrabbled into the trees. Someone swooped out of their shelter and grabbed her by the wrist. It was Tobias. His face was white and grim. ‘You never
can
follow orders, can you?’

‘Same as you, I guess,’ she said. And then she reached out and hugged him fiercely. ‘I thought you were dead,’ she whispered, hiding her face in his shoulder. ‘Like Peter.’

‘You saw?’

She stepped back, wiping her eyes. She nodded. But she didn’t tell him the other things she’d seen. That
she’d seen him let go of Nell and turn, halfway up the slope of the cutting, to look back down at the soldiers. That she’d seen the shock of recognition on Windlass’s face the moment before he ordered them to hold their fire.

‘I can’t believe he’s dead.’ The elderly lady in black sat in a narrow, high-backed chair beside the fireplace, her hands clasped in her lap. She stared into the flames. ‘He had more life than all the rest of us combined.’

Charlie was sitting on the floor. She looked up at the old woman as she spoke, but saw instead the image of Peter’s body lying in the snow. It had haunted her during the panic-stricken retreat from the copse. It had trailed after her as they waded through the snowbound streets of the City, darkening her terror of being caught in those last moments before reaching sanctuary.

Charlie shivered and hunched nearer to the fire. She couldn’t seem to get warm. Then her eyes sought out Bettina Hoffman once more. Her mother’s old school friend sat in the only other chair, her round face white with exhaustion. Charlie swallowed a surge of frustration. How much longer would she have to wait before they could speak alone?

‘There’s seven others missing. Dead or wounded. Don’t forget them.’ Joseph prowled about the room, his powerful shoulders hunched beneath his jacket.

‘I forget no one, Joseph,’ the old woman replied, not
removing her gaze from the fire. ‘But Peter was our leader. We will not survive without him.’

‘Rubbish!’ Joseph whirled around. ‘I’ll have no such defeatist talk here, Winifred!’

This, at last, roused the old woman from her grief. ‘And who are you, to order me about in my own house?’ she snapped. ‘Be still, boy. You are not leader yet. Nor will be, if I have my way.’

‘Alistair Windlass would be pleased as punch to hear the two of you, yammering away at each other,’ Nell said. She moved forward into the firelight. Her eyes were swollen with crying, but she was calm. ‘Peter’s dead, but he didn’t die for nothing. We won! We beat Windlass, and we’re going to do it again. We took something he wanted, and now we need to make use of that! We ain’t got time for mourning now. Nor for bickering!’

Bettina Hoffman nodded. ‘You are quite correct, young lady.’ She spoke grammatically perfect Qualian with a slight Durch accent. ‘No, do not tell me your name. Names are best kept secret in the present circumstances.’

‘Please!’ Charlie climbed to her feet. She couldn’t wait any longer. ‘I need to talk to you! Now!’

Bettina looked over at her and smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Years you have waited, I think. It is long enough. You are the only person here whose name I wish to know.’

‘Charlotte Augusta Joan—’

‘So I thought. You are right. We must speak now. In private. If there is another chamber to this dwelling,
where the child and I might be alone for a few moments?’ She directed her question to Winifred.

‘Of course,’ said the old woman, getting to her feet. ‘Let me show you upstairs.’

‘Hang on!’ interrupted Joseph. ‘I think we ought to hear anything the two of you have to say to each other. It’s us who’s risked our lives. Some have died. And we didn’t do it for the sake of the monarchy!’

‘It is nothing to do with you, young man!’ snapped Bettina. ‘I wish to speak with the child in private, and then I wish to retire. I am exhausted.’ She pushed herself out of her chair, motioned to Charlie, and marched from the room and up the stairs.

Charlie leapt to her feet and followed. She cast a last look back. Joseph was pacing, Nell was staring into the fire, and Tobias was slumped in a corner, asleep. When she saw him again, she would have the answer to the most important question of her life.

‘Do you know where my mother is?’

The words burst out of her. Bettina finished closing the door and turned to her with a weary smile. ‘Patience, my child. I will answer all your questions, but in my own time. There is a story to tell, and I wish to tell it properly. Now, let me sit down. I am a bad traveller and was dreadfully seasick on the ship. And then that extraordinary man arrived, and I was in no condition to engage in a battle of wits, I can tell you. Quite terrifying, your Mr Windlass.’

‘He isn’t “my Mr Windlass”! I hate him!’

‘Yes.’ The Durch woman looked at her, the smile draining from her eyes. ‘I would think you do.’

They stood in a tiny bedroom. The room was freezing; the fire unlit, and the only light a single candle that Winifred had provided. There was a narrow iron bedstead, and a simple wooden chair. Bettina settled herself on the chair and motioned for Charlie to sit on the bed. Shivering with impatience, she did so.

‘Your mother, Charlie – may I call you Charlie? Thank you. Your mother is one of my dearest friends. We were girls together at school. She was beautiful and clever. I was moderately intelligent, but by no means beautiful, as you see. And yet, from the very start, we were inseparable. She taught me to speak Qualian. I taught her Durch. She tried, and failed, to teach me physics. Even then, the boys were mad on her. Whenever we walked in the town, a string of them would form, waddling after her like a row of daft ducklings. Poor Caroline.’

‘Why poor?’

‘Because she never enjoyed it. She was as unconscious of her appearance as it is possible to be. And she was far too intelligent to want any man who loved her for her looks alone. Which is why, I think, she married your father. Apparently, she overheard him talking about her at a party soon after they first met. Another young man was praising her beauty, and she heard your father say: “What? The tall, gangly girl with all that yellow hair? She
does well enough, I suppose, but I don’t rate her particularly.” I think she fell in love with him on the spot!’ Bettina sighed. For a moment, she looked sad. Then she smiled at Charlie again. ‘Yes, your mother ran away to me. I had the pleasure of her company for just over three years. They were very sad years for her. She missed you terribly, Charlie.’

She missed you terribly
… Strange how four simple words could cause such a jumble of pain and joy. She couldn’t bear it; the question burst out again: ‘Where is she? Is she still in Durchland? Please, tell me!’

Bettina shook her head. Her round blue eyes were grave. ‘Your mother returned to Quale nearly two years ago. She is here in the City somewhere.’

‘What?’ Charlie stared at her, shocked.

‘Yes. But I do not know where. She disguised herself and returned to Quale. Her intentions were to seek enough casual work to live while attempting to find out whether or not Mr Windlass had succeeded in duplicating her research. And also to try to find out more about you and your father. She had become increasingly worried for you, Charlie. The rumours coming out of Quale have been dreadful these last years. It is said…it is rumoured that your father is mad, and that Mr Windlass is ruler in all but name.’

Charlie nodded. ‘That’s true. But he says…he told me…’

‘Who?’

‘The Prime Minister. He says my mother didn’t leave because of him. He says they were working together. That she was doing the research at his request. He claims that he is double-crossing the Esceanians, promising them her research in order to delay their invasion until he can create this weapon for our country to use against them. He says he is trying to save Quale!’

‘And do you believe him?’

‘When he’s talking to me? Yes. Almost always. Later… I don’t know. I don’t know what to believe.’

‘Believe this, Charlie. Your mother is terrified of Alistair Windlass. She is a brave woman. It takes a great deal to scare her. I have not mentioned her nightmares…well.’ She shook her head. ‘That man haunts her every waking and sleeping moment. Now that I have met him I understand why.’ She paused; her blue eyes blinked twice.
She’s afraid of him too
, Charlie thought.