Sixty-One Nails: Courts of the Feyre (29 page)

    "It's dangerous, Blackbird. That's not a ceremonial blade. It's intended for something much darker. "
    "That's the point, though, isn't it? We're looking for something much darker."

    The door pushed open and we both lapsed into silence as Claire entered with a tray loaded with a teapot, milk, sugar and even a plate of biscuits.

    "Would you mind moving the journal, please? I must apologise for my thoughtlessness earlier. It never occurred to me that you were, well, like that. "
    "Like what?" Blackbird moved the journal across the desk away from the tea and the dark wooden box. "From the other courts. I think 'Fey' is the proper term, is it not?" She put down the hot teapot and set about arranging cups and saucers, not meeting Blackbird's intense scrutiny.

    "It is," I answered, winning a sharp look from Blackbird, but my curiosity at her use of that particular word was too strong to let it go. Besides, I wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know.

    She gestured to Blackbird to take a seat, and we both looked at the box containing the knife.

    "I could move it to the sideboard if you would be more comfortable?" she offered.

    "It would make things easier," Blackbird responded. She picked up the box and was then caught as she made to move towards me and I backed away. Just the thought of what was in the box was enough to make me stay clear of it. She smiled an apology and turned the other way to discover a worried look on Blackbird's face. She was made of sterner stuff, however, because she smiled a nervous acknowledgement and moved around towards the door, allowing Claire to get past and place the box on a small table near the leaded window where the dark wood of the box was set against the warmer tones of polished chestnut beneath it. "There, that might be better. Shall we have tea now?" Her version of a disarming smile had a fragile quality to it and I wondered just how confident about this she really was.

    "That would be kind," Blackbird agreed and we moved to sit around the desk, Claire at one end of the desk and Blackbird and I at the other. She poured out three measured cups and added milk in precise quantities, making me wonder how often she performed this small ritual. "It would be helpful if you could show me some credentials?" she suggested, handing each of us a cup and placing the plate of rich tea biscuits near to us, so she could move the tray out of the way.

    "What sort of credentials?" Blackbird countered.

    "I am sure you understand that I need to make sure you are who I think you are, if you see what I mean?"
    The brittle smile returned.
    "A demonstration?"
    "If you wouldn't mind?"
    "Give me your hand, then."

    She demurred. "I'd rather not, if you'll forgive me. I was warned against direct contact. A simple change of appearance would suffice." She appeared ruffled by this exchange.

    "Very well." Blackbird shifted slightly in her seat and then her form melted, reforming into the red-haired girl from the coffee shop in the square, except she wasn't dressed in quite the same style. This was simpler, with none of the polish or gloss that had been part of that persona, but a simple fresh beauty that left me wondering, yet again, who I was dealing with. She held it for a moment and then melted back into the Blackbird I knew. It was impressive, and disconcerting, and it was pure Fey. Claire had acquired the look of a deer caught in the headlights, but she dissembled well. "That's, well, that's fine, and your colleague?"

    Claire turned to me. I glanced at Blackbird and she shook her head slightly. "I'll vouch for my colleague. "
    "I'm afraid my instructions are quite specific. All parties are to identify themselves. I'm sure you understand the reasons."

    "Something small then, please, Niall?" she suggested. I guessed that she was trying to steer me away from summoning gallowfyre, as I had with Marshdock. I was somewhat at a loss to come up with an alternative, though. I didn't want to change my whole appearance as Blackbird had done as I was only just getting used to the face I was wearing. If I reverted to my real appearance then Claire might recognise me as the person the police were seeking, so that wouldn't do either. I looked around and my gaze caught the reflection from an ornate mirror on the back wall. "Something small?" I nodded towards the mirror.

    Blackbird glanced at the mirror and raised an eyebrow at me. There was a sense of challenge here.

    I calmed myself for a moment and then reached out to the mirror, not with my hand, but with my will. I pulled at the surface of the mirror, reaching for what I knew was there. The mirror, though, felt like a dead thing with nothing that would give me any purchase. Blackbird had said the other wraithkin had used the mirror, and I had drawn lines in the mirror's surface only last night. I knew it could be done. Last night had been different, though. It had been like drawing in a thick viscous liquid. Maybe I was mistaken to call to the reflective surface of the mirror. Maybe what I needed was within.

    I focused again, clearing my mind, and reached out with my will, pulling at the silvery depth of it. I reached within and formed a connection. This time I could feel the tension there, the inertia of it. Power pulsed within me and the ambient light in the room dimmed as the mirror went milky white.

    "Gently, Rabbit, gently," Blackbird encouraged.

    I relaxed my hold on it a little and the light in the room returned, the mirror clearing, but I could feel the connection with the undercurrent in the mirror. A sound grew gently in the room. It had the ambience of a large busy space. The sound of people milling around gently entered the quiet room. Then an announcement reverberated through, confirming that the British Airways flight to Hamburg was now boarding at gate 14. The sound included little shuffles and scrapes, layered over the ambience and I knew that this was where Alex was. My unconscious mind, worried about her, had somehow located her though the mirror and brought me the sounds from where she was. In a way, it was comforting though it felt a little like eaves-dropping on someone else's conversation. Hadn't the announcement said Hamburg? Is that where they were going? Suddenly conscious of my audience, I released the mirror before the sounds gave away who it was we were listening to. There was a slight ripple as I let go, radiating out slowly across its surface like a stone dropped into a pool of slow silvery syrup.

    Blackbird was smiling at me. "Is that sufficient?" she asked Claire.

    Claire hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath, and asked the question that was bothering her. "How do I know you're not from the wrong court? "
    "That's simple. They are only interested in wrecking the ceremony and making sure it doesn't happen. If we were from that court then you would be dead by now." Blackbird smiled, and it was not a comfortable smile. "Your turn," she prompted.

    "What do you mean? I certainly can't do anything like that."

    "No, but you said all parties must be identified. How do we know you are who you are supposed to be? "
    "I'm the clerk to the Queen's Remembrancer."

    "Suppose you tell us a little more, some background, just to reassure us."

    "Very well. I already said that I am the clerk to the Queen's Remembrancer and you know I am the caretaker of both the current journal and of the knives. Perhaps I should say that I am the latest in a long line of clerks to this office, since the time of King James I, when certain very particular duties of the role were passed to the clerk when the king decreed that he would have no truck with witchcraft and neither would any of his officers.

    "Actually, things became easier when the duties were passed to the clerks. Each clerk chooses their successor and so is able to instruct them in the duties to be performed, rather than being appointed by the monarch, which is the case with the Remembrancer. Being able to choose who will be clerk after us gives us a continuity that perhaps would otherwise have been lost. Of course, there's always the chance of accidents, so each clerk makes a bequest in their will of a journal, a little like this one, containing instructions on how to conduct the ceremony. It has references to certain texts, now mostly in the private archives of the Public Record Office, showing the line of succession from each clerk to the next, together with the original royal decree instructing the ceremony to be conducted for as long as there is a throne in England."

    "Does the current Queen know you do this?" I asked. "I've never met the monarch, as it was the Remembrancer that was presented to her, so I have no way of knowing, but on balance I think not. After James I, the kings and queens took a deliberate disinterest in these matters, making it easier for them to deny all knowledge. I know from my predecessors that the Church was very determined to stamp out anything heretical or pagan. The ceremony survived, though. It was a matter of law, not faith, and therefore outside the Church's jurisdiction. I am the latest in a long line of clerks going back to the time of King James. I serve the Remembrancer and it is part of my duties to see that the ceremony is carried out annually and that the Remembrancer plays his part."

    "And you know about the Feyre?" Blackbird gently steered her.

    "There are notes in the journals. They make fascinating reading if you can decipher them. They're much less straightforward than the official journal you have there, though. There are entries concerning certain meetings; it isn't until fifteen hundred and something that the word 'Feyre' is actually mentioned. Before that they are referred to as 'The Others' or 'The Visitors'. "
    "Go on."

    "Remember, a clerk can go through their entire term and not meet anyone from the other courts. It's quite a privilege, in a way, though there have been incidents. "
    "What sort of incidents. "
    "I'm not sure I should say."

    "Claire, I promise no harm shall come to you by our hands this day. You have nothing to fear from either of us."

    She deliberated for a moment. She must have known something about the Feyre and their inability to lie convincingly because she continued, "When I said we were warned against direct contact? That was after my predecessors demanded proof from one of your kind. From what she told me later, she was quite direct, shall we say."

    "They took it the wrong way?" Blackbird suggested. "I was called to a hospital out in the country in the Thames Valley, an asylum I suppose you might call it. She was screaming my name, crying that she needed me. When the doctors phoned me, I explained that I barely knew her. I had been interviewed by her on a civil service panel while at university and then she invited me to spend a week at the Royal Courts of Justice as work experience. I liked her, but you couldn't say we were friends. She was insistent that she needed to see me, though, and the doctors thought it might calm her. "When I arrived, she was screaming about spiders crawling all over her, in her hair, her ears, her eyes. She was scratching herself with her nails and they had to sedate her. I sat with her and held her hand for a while, hoping it would be enough to calm her down. Quite suddenly she was lucid and recognised me. She told me I had been chosen for an extremely important job, a secret vocation. I thought she was raving, of course, but then she told me about the safe containing the knives and her journal. She told me to go to the Queen's Remembrancer for the key – that's Jerry. She said he would be expecting me and that it was more important than I could possibly realise. I was still half convinced it was some sort of delusion, but she was different, focused.

    "I left her that afternoon only half convinced as to whether to follow it up. I was waiting on some interesting job offers and I wasn't sure I wanted to work in the Royal Courts. I waited a week before curiosity got the better of me and I rang the office and asked to speak to the Remembrancer. He invited me down to read the journal, and afterwards we talked. I've been with him ever since. "
    "Did your colleague ever recover?"

    "I used to visit her regularly. Once, on one of her better days, she was able to explain some of what had happened. But she never really recovered, no. "
    "I'm sorry, Claire. Some of our kind can be touchy. "
    "She was warned, as was I. The journals are quite clear on some things."

    Listening to Claire, I realised the Seventh Court had made a mistake. It looked like they had eliminated the Queen's Remembrancer, hoping to further undermine the ceremony. They had it wrong, though. It was the clerk that was important, not the Remembrancer. "Tell us about the knife," Blackbird suggested.

    "The Quick Knife? It was one of the two knives used for the Quit Rents Ceremony. The other is the Dead Knife, which is the other knife in the box. In 1933 the Quick Knife was dropped and it snapped in two. I can show you the entry in the journal. Everyone was very surprised when it broke and at the time it was taken as a bad omen. It was due to be used for the ceremony the next day and there was no time to make another. Luckily my predecessor had a friend with connections in the Tower of London and they arranged for another set of blades to be sent over. They're on permanent loan from the Royal Armouries and of a rather different style, but the ceremony carried on as before and the bad luck was averted. "
    "Can we see them?" Blackbird asked.

    "I don't see why not. Just a moment and I'll fetch them. They're in the safe." She rose again and stepped out, leaving the door ajar.

    "Is it wise to get more knives? What if they're like that one?" I nodded towards the dark-wood box. Blackbird glanced at the knife box and shook her head. "Wait and see."

    Claire returned with another bundle wrapped in black cloth. There was no sense of anything about it when she placed it on the table and unfolded it. Wrapped inside the cloth were two blades, or rather tools. One was a small neat hatchet and the other a kind of bill-hook with a broad flat blade. The blades were polished as if they were made of silver, or perhaps they were plated. They were clearly ceremonial. She looked at us. "May I?" I indicated the bill-hook. "Of course."