Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre (24 page)

750 years, the earliest recorded notice being in the Shropshire Sergeantries in 1211, during the time of King John.

The Quit Rent in respect of the tenement called The Forge consists of six horseshoes and sixtyone nails, which the Comptroller and the City Solicitor count to demonstrate that the numbers are correct before rendering them to the Queen's Remembrancer on behalf of Her Majesty.

    "Why would they still be doing this after seven hundred and fifty years? Surely the rent for Australia House can't still be some horseshoes and nails, can it?" If it was, then I was paying far too much for a flat in the suburbs. "Maybe it can. Maybe they've been doing this for so long, they no longer wonder why. It's strange, though. I mean, here we have a ritual going back hundreds of years that involves the splitting of a hazel rod and an exchange of iron. Hazel has always been symbolic for the Feyre and iron – well you already know about iron. Maybe it means something?"

    "Do you think the ceremony is what we came here for?"

    "The anvil is what you saw in the vision, but the forge may be the connection between Australia House and the anvil."

    "In the vision, there was a door, like a hatch, high up on the wall across from where the anvil stands." The image of it floated in my memory like a fragment from a bad dream.

    "Then if we find the anvil, we find the door. Wait a moment, there was something else here." She flicked through the pages of the leaflet searching for something. "Here it is, on the back.

    I read over her shoulder. "'There are in excess of a hundred and fifty Judges, Registrars and Masters in the Royal Courts of Justice.'"
    "Not there. Here."

    "'The River Fleet runs under the buildings.' Do you think that could be the underground river I saw in the vision?"

    "It must be. It can't be a coincidence, surely? We just need to find a way down to it."

    "OK, but you've seen the security in there. They're not going to let us wander around in the basement looking for a lost river."

    "There will be external manholes, I expect, but they will be covered by cast iron. I think you've had enough iron for one day, don't you?"

    "In the vision, I followed the flow back up from the outflow into the Thames, but it had a huge grating in the way. From the brief look I got at it, the grating looked pretty solid."

    "Come on." She walked down the steps into the sunlight.
    "Where are we going?"

    "We're going to see if there's someone who knows how we get down to the underground river." She turned and walked out into the daylight, tucking the leaflet inside her coat and leaving me to follow on behind. I trotted after her then slowed as I caught up to walk along beside her into Fleet Street. Reaching the entrance to a narrow alley between buildings, she caught my arm. "Down here."

    She ducked into the passage, which opened out into a side-street with Georgian doorways facing along one side. She approached a black door and lifted the brass knocker, letting it fall with a clatter.

    I heard a faint voice from within. "Come."

    Blackbird pushed open the door and we entered a dim hallway. The bare brickwork along its length was sootstained, the mortar crumbling from the joints. The door swung shut behind us, leaving us in semi-darkness. There was a doorway to the side that shed an uncertain light on the wall opposite and Blackbird moved forward to stand in it, her shadow shifting and dancing on the wall behind.

    "Greetings, Marshdock," she said. "I give you good day."

    "And a good day to you too, Blackbird," came a deep voice. It had an oily tone to it, though, as if the welcome were not entirely heartfelt. "What have you brought for me today?"

    Blackbird stepped inside and I moved to stand in the doorway behind her. A wide stone fireplace in the back wall held a bronze basket with a great log laid across the heap of ash beneath. Flames licked up the side of the log, casting a fitful light into the room and across the ceiling. The window to the street was barred by heavy shutters, the only light coming from the fire. The room was dominated by an enormous desk, its surface inlaid with dark leather scattered with oddments like paper knives and inkwells. The figure behind the desk had pale brown skin with a worn creased texture to it. He looked rumpled, shrunken. He wore an oldfashioned coat that looked two sizes too big for him and I wondered if he had indeed once been larger. His eyes and nose were too big for the rest of his face and it gave him a childlike quality that was immediately dispelled by the hardness in his eyes.

    "I have a question for you. Something I'm trying to locate," she told him.

    He leaned back in his stud-backed chair, an expression of light distaste curling his thick lips, as he considered us both.

    "You've come to the well too often to be dipping again without something to give, Blackbird."

    "This is only a small thing. I need to tap into your formidable local knowledge."

    "Even small things have value, girl, and once again you bring me nothing. Who's this?" He nodded towards me.

    "He's the one who wants the answer to the question. I wouldn't ask for myself."

    "Ask for whom you wish. It wouldn't matter to me if he were the High King of Auld Albion. The answer would be the same: you're wasting your time. You could be out there finding some useful snippets of information, something of value. Instead you're dawdling here, eating up the warmth from my fire."

    "I want to know if there's an easy way down to the Fleet River where it runs under the Royal Courts of Justice. There must be a way down. I just want to know where it is. I'll owe you a small favour. "
    "You owe me a small favour already. "
    "I'll owe you another. "
    "I don't need another."

    "Come on, Marshdock. This is a tuppenny question. "
    "It is until you don't know the answer," he smiled. "Are you going to tell me?"

    "Are you going to give me something in return?"

    Blackbird paused. "Fenlock's dead," she announced. "Half the market knows that, Blackbird. Carris is running around like mad cat, pulling her hair and shrieking about her lost love. I'm surprised you can't hear it from here."

    "Is she swearing revenge?" Blackbird asked. "Who wants to know?" he countered.

    "I do." My voice interrupted their haggling. "I would like to know." If Carris wanted revenge for her partner's death then I thought I should be informed. "And what's it to you?" he asked me. "He killed him," Blackbird announced.

    I glanced at Blackbird and she shrugged her shoulders. "You might as well show him the whole thing. I'll wait outside."
    "What?" I asked her.

    "Show me what?" asked Marshdock, leaning forward in the chair and putting his hands on the desk. "Show him," she instructed. "Or you'll have Carris and half the market on your trail. Make it good." She caught my arm and pulled me from the doorway further into the room, leaning momentarily close, whispering, "Show him some strength now and it'll save a lot of trouble later."

    She slipped past me into the doorway. "Oh, and don't forget to ask him about the way down to the river." There was a short pause and I heard the door to the street thump shut.

    "What is it you're going to show me?" asked Marshdock, suspicion entering his voice.

    I wondered how to play this. Show some strength, she'd said. As I hesitated, Marshdock snatched the paper knife and vaulted spryly up onto the desk, holding the knife low, ready to strike.

    I raised my hand to ward him off and there was a pulse of power as the darkness within me reacted. Fire whooshed out of the grate, scattering ashes across the floor and for a second it went pitch black. Then pale light rippled out across the walls, making the room swim in moonlight. Marshdock was caught, hand still raised ready to strike, balanced on the edge of the desk. We stood, momentarily frozen, my own uncertainty mirrored by the sudden halt in his assault.

    "F'shit, you're Untainted. I'm dead." His voice had lost all its arrogance.

    Caught between launching at me with the knife and retreating back behind the desk, he wavered, the blade in his hand glinting in the milky light. I lifted my hand, meaning to warn him back. The action brought a pulse of brightness that rippled away from my fingers. He turned away, wincing in expectation.

    His reaction helped me realise I had the upper hand. He thought I would kill him the same way I had killed Fenlock. I had no intention of killing anyone if I could help it, but it would give me the opening I needed. "I did kill Fenlock, but he attacked me first," I told him. "I defended myself."

    Marshdock backed slowly across onto the far side of the desk and climbed down, warily retreating and making a show of placing the knife back down where I could see it. "It was self-defence," he agreed, rather too readily.

    "If he had not attacked me, I would not have harmed him."

    "So you say. I'll be sure to mention that to Carris." He climbed down, moving around the back of the chair, putting its high back between him and me. "Is she swearing revenge against me?"

    "She's not dumb enough to ask a blood-price until she knows who killed him. I would imagine her desire for revenge will be dampened somewhat when I tell her what became of him. You'll let me explain that to her, will you?"

    "Tell her she should not make the same mistake he did."

    "I'll tell her, I will." The relief in his voice was tempered by the white knuckle hold he had on the back of the chair.

    "And now I have given you something you didn't know before, perhaps you would tell me where the way down to the river is, the one that runs below the Royal Courts of Justice. "
    "Do you know where the Devereux is? "
    "The what? "
    "I'll draw you a map."

    He edged forward until he could reach a scrap of paper and a pencil.

    "Here look, this is the Strand, and these are the Inns of Court. Past the Devereux Inn, see?" He quickly scribbled a map onto a scrap of paper and slid it across the desk towards me.

    I reached forward to collect the scrap and he snatched his hand back, retreating behind the chair again. The lines on the paper were unreadable in the wavering light. "Will Blackbird know where this is?"

    "Sure, sure. Near that pool, look. It's a black door. You'll find it."

    "Then I thank you for your help, Marshdock. You'll explain things to Carris?"
    "I will, truly. Just as you said."

    "Then I will take my leave."

    I backed out into the passage, letting the gallowfyre dwindle and fade, turning to leave by the door to the street. Blackbird was waiting in the half-light of the corridor, her fingers pressed to her lips in an expression of secrecy. She opened the street door and we exited. The door swung shut behind me with a heavy sound. "You did very well," she told me.

    Her comment was accompanied by the sound of bolts thudding home in the door behind me.

    "He was much more cooperative once I'd summoned the gallowfyre."

    "You'll have less trouble now they know what you are, and believe me, by sunset most of the country will know. That information will buy Marshdock favours from now until year's-end. You've done him a favour. "
    "Then he owes, me, doesn't he?"

    She smiled up at me. "Yes," she said, "he owes you." She took the scrap of paper from me and studied it. "This shouldn't be too hard to find. It's not far." She led the way back through the passage and waited for me so we could walk back towards the Strand together. "And what kind of Fey is Marshdock?" I asked her. "He is of the luchorpán."

    I stopped. "Did you just say leprechaun?"

    She stopped and turned to face me. "No, I didn't. I said luchorpán, but that's where your word comes from. The luchorpán are makers. They have clever hands and a way of getting into the nature of a thing, giving them properties beyond the norm."

    "I've just met a real leprechaun in the middle of London. Aren't they supposed to live in Ireland? "
    "Don't get confused, Rabbit. Leprechauns are what you get in stories. The luchorpán are as dangerous as any of the Feyre and you should treat them with respect."

    She stopped outside a hardware store. "Wait here a moment."

    She went into the shop and emerged a few minutes later with two small metal torches and some batteries. She had me hold onto one torch while she put batteries in the other and then we swapped. Then she set off again at a pace, torch in hand.

    I set my pace by hers and walked along beside her. "Why are you always so touchy when I ask what the Feyre are like?"

    She didn't slow down at all, but I could tell she'd heard me. After a while she sighed as if letting go of a weight and drew to a halt.
    "I am of the Fey'ree."
    "You are?"

    "That's the question you really want the answer to, isn't it? What am I? What do I look like? Am I an ogre with four-inch tusks or a nymph with green hair and suckers on the ends of my fingers? Are you happy now?"

    "Alex had faeries, lots of them. Little figures dressed in gauze with flowers for hats and–"
    "I said Fey'ree, not fairy."

    "You have to admit it's pretty close. At one point Alex wouldn't leave the house without wearing her wings. This is bizarre. "
    "So you say." I was detecting a measure of hostility.

    "Blackbird, why is this such an issue for you? I'm just telling you what she did. She was in love with fairies, they were everywhere, in the posters on her wall, on her windowsill. You even said you had a fairy mirror yourself."

    She crossed her arms. "I'm sorry I told you that now. "
    "Oh, Blackbird, please don't be offended. You know I don't know what a Fey'ree or a luchorpán looks like, so I'm not in a position to make the sort of judgements you seem to think I'm making. I just want to learn more about the people that I am newly part of. Is that so wrong?"

    She sighed again. "It's just that the Feyre used to inspire humanity with feelings of wonder, or dread, or panic. Not cutesy images of mushroom houses, fishing rods and flower petal hats."