The Blackthorn Key (9 page)

Master Benedict wiped his forehead. “Yes. Yes, of course. It will be ready Monday.”

He really didn't look well. I tried to catch his eye, but he barely glanced at me. He turned away, scanning the shelves, then went to the ledger on the counter.

“Christopher!” he barked.

I jumped.

“Come here,” he said.

I went around the counter. My master no longer looked ill. He looked furious.

He stabbed a bony finger at the ledger. “Did you serve Baron Cobley this morning?”

“Yes, Master,” I stammered. “His maidservant.”

“And did I not ask you—twice—to collect his account the next time she came?”

Had he? “I . . . I'm sorry, Master, I don't remember—”

He hit me.

He smacked me on the side of my jaw, an open-handed blow that cracked like a thunderclap. I stumbled into the shelf hard enough to make the jars rattle.

“You are
useless
,” he said.

I stayed there, hunched against the wood. My cheek burned. It hurt worse inside. I felt all the customers' eyes on me, Lady Brent watching curiously, the boy by the door freshly entertained by the show behind the counter.

“Do something right,” Master Benedict said. “For once.” He snatched a handful of pennies and a few worn shillings from the strongbox. “Go to the Exchange and purchase all the natron they carry. And don't return until you have.”

“But—” His narrowing eyes stopped me. I bowed my head. “Yes, Master.”

“And get Lady Brent her electuary. And the lemon juice.”

I brought him the jars. He huffed. “I apologize for my apprentice, Lady Brent,” he said.

“Not necessary, Mr. Blackthorn,” she said. “Servants need firm correction. My husband purchased a bamboo whip from the Orient for just this purpose.”

“Did he buy an elephant as well? It would take a kick from one to fix this boy.”

She laughed. So did he.

I fled.

•  •  •

I barely saw where I was going. I was so blind, I almost walked straight into an older boy twice Tom's size throwing dice with a long-haired friend in the alley behind our house. I mumbled an apology and went around them, each step echoing the pounding in my head.

He'd hit me.

My cheek still stung. My hand hurt, too. It wasn't until I looked down that I realized it was because I was clenching the coins he'd given me so tightly, they'd cut into my skin.

I didn't understand. I'd swear on my life he hadn't asked me to collect Baron Cobley's account. And sending me for natron . . . natron came to market on Wednesdays. They'd be out of stock by now.

Something had to be wrong. I'd seen Master Benedict angry before, made him angry before, but never like this. I wanted to go back, talk to him, plead with him to tell me what I'd done. But he'd ordered me not to return.

And he'd hit me.

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

•  •  •

The Royal Exchange was packed. Traders, jammed shoulder to shoulder, hawked their wares, shouting, haggling, arguing. I went to every stall and each time got the same answer.

“Nothing today, lad. Try next Wednesday.”

I hunted for hours. I even considered going to another apothecary, but they'd mark the cost high, and Master Benedict wouldn't be pleased. In the end, I gave up and went home while it was still light. I was afraid of what my
master would say. But I needed to know what was wrong. And I wanted to speak to him, say I was sorry, go back to the way things were.

•  •  •

I came in through the workshop, too scared to show up in the store empty handed. Strangely, the back door wasn't locked, and the shutters on the back windows were closed. In the furnace, dying embers gave off just enough light to see. I frowned when I saw the tongs left in the ashes. I moved to pull them out, then jerked my hand away with a curse.

I sucked my fingers. The tongs burned. They must have been sitting in the fire for ages.

A small glass jar sat open next to the oven, its lid on the floor. Scattered nearby were a handful of tiny, black, kidney-shaped seeds. I picked one up, rolled it between my fingers. It smelled faintly of rotten tomatoes.

Madapple. The first remedy Master Benedict had ever taught me. In small doses, it helped asthma patients breathe. Any more than that, it became a deadly poison. What was the jar doing left open?

I couldn't hear any conversation from the shop. The light in the open doorway was as dim as in here. I frowned again. Sunset was still a few hours away. The shop shouldn't be quiet.

I moved toward the door. My shoes squelched. I lifted a foot and saw a pool of liquid underneath. Streaks led away from it, long dark tracks, as if something heavy had been dragged, leaking.

I followed them. The shop's shutters were closed, the fire dead in here, too. The front door was locked, the bolt thrown. The sodden trail smeared across the floorboards, turning crimson. A smell, hot, metallic, filled the room. And there, in the middle of it all, was my master.

They'd left him slumped against the front of the counter, his wrists and ankles bound with rope. His shirt was ripped apart. His stomach, too. His eyes were open, and he stared back at me, but he couldn't see me, and he wouldn't, never, ever again.

THEY ALL CAME. SINCLAIR THE
confectioner, and Grobham the tailor, and Francis the publican and his servers. Others came too, neighbors and strangers. Crammed in. Gawking.

By the time they'd arrived, I'd already cut the ropes that had bound my master and laid him out on the floor. The scraps of rope lay beside him, next to the woolen blanket I'd used to cover his body, now stained red. I was stained, too, from when I'd held him.

Now I sat beside him, my hand over the blanket, resting on top of his chest. Everyone else stood around, useless. Just like me.

Sinclair leaned over. “Come, lad,” he said gently. “Let's get you out of here.”

I swatted him away. I didn't want them here. This was our home.

So many, staring. I wanted to lie down, to sink into the floorboards, to go to sleep. To never wake up.

Someone else cleared the room for me. Bad news travels on wings.

It was the King's Men, the two soldiers I saw yesterday. They pushed through the crowd, the same man following them. Everyone went silent.

Lord Ashcombe stepped forward, stood beside me. Up close, his scarred cheek twisted like a map of hell.

He tilted his head toward the mob. “Get out,” he said.

For a moment, no one moved. Lord Ashcombe turned, barely a glance over his shoulder. He didn't have to ask again.

I stayed with my master while the others shuffled out. One of the King's Men put a hand on my collar. I smelled oiled leather and sweat.

“Leave him,” Lord Ashcombe said.

The soldier took his place beside his partner, guarding the door. Lord Ashcombe crouched and pulled the woolen
blanket away. His eyes flicked over my master's body, his face, his blood. I traced a thumbnail in the grain of the wood.

“You found him?” Lord Ashcombe said.

I nodded.

“You are?”

“Christopher Rowe,” I said. “He was my master.”

The King's Warden looked at the ropes I'd sliced from Master Benedict's body. The ends, frayed and feathery, had already begun to soak up his blood. “Why did you cut these away?”

I looked up at Lord Ashcombe. “What was I supposed to do?”

For a moment, he didn't respond. Then: “Say what you know.”

I told him. Most of it, anyway. Opening the shop. Master Benedict's return. Being sent for natron. Coming back. I didn't say he'd hit me. I didn't tell him the last words he'd said.

Kneeling next to me, Lord Ashcombe scanned the room. I could feel his heat. “Did your master often stay out all night?”

“Never,” I said. “He went out most evenings, but he always came back around midnight.”

“Why not yesterday?”

“I don't know.”

“Was he in a dispute with anyone?”

“Nathaniel Stubb,” I said. “The apothecary. He wants our shop. He threatened my master.” I told him about Stubb's visit on Thursday night. “And someone attacked him that evening.” I pulled the dressing from my master's shoulder to show the burn underneath. His flesh was so cold.

“Was your master especially devout?” Lord Ashcombe said.

The question threw me. “I . . . yes. He took me to services on Sunday, and he honored the festivals.”

“Church of England?”

“Of course.”

“And how did he feel about His Majesty?”

That made me angry. “He was loyal. Always. Like every true Englishman.”

Lord Ashcombe stood. He stepped over to the shelves. Slowly, he traced a finger across the spines of the books. Then he stopped.

“I thought you said your master was Church of England.”

“He was.”

Lord Ashcombe pulled a tome from the shelves. It was large, and bound in light brown leather. He held it out so I could see the cover:
The Saints of Roman Catholic Virtue
.

Master Benedict had given me that to read, three months earlier. “It's just a book,” I said. “Part of my studies. We're Church of England. Ask Reverend Wright.”

Lord Ashcombe flipped through the pages, studying the illustrations. “Do you have any more works on religion?” he said. “Or the worlds beyond? On heaven, or hell?”

“Master Benedict has books on everything.”
Had
, I thought. Not
has
. Not anymore.

“Did he talk to you about what he was reading?”

“Every day.”

Lord Ashcombe looked up from the book. “And did he ever talk about the Cult of the Archangel?”

The words of the madman echoed in my skull.
The Cult of the Archangel hunts
. I wrapped my arms around myself. My bloodstained shirt stuck wetly to my chest.

Bitterness swelled inside. Lord Ashcombe was His Majesty's protector. Where was
our
protector? Where was the King's Warden when we needed him? Why had they come after us? Why did they have to hurt my master?

And where had
I
been, while he was dying? When Master Benedict needed me?

I bowed my head.

“Well?” Lord Ashcombe said.

“Master Benedict didn't believe there was a cult,” I said.

Lord Ashcombe grunted, as if I'd just said something incredibly stupid. Sitting beside the Cult's obvious handiwork, I guess I had.

“So,” he said. “Lady Brent was the last customer he saw before he sent you out?”

“No,” I said. “William Fitz was here, and Samuel Waltham. There were two more. I don't know who they were.”

“Describe them.”

I tried to picture them. “There was an apprentice, about sixteen years old. A little taller than me. Big. Muscles, not fat. Reddish hair. The other was a man, maybe thirty or so. I didn't really look at him. He was wealthy, I think. His coat was nice. He had a long black wig, the kind with the curls over the ears. His nose was crooked, like it had been broken.”

“Anyone else waiting around outside? Casing the shop?”

I didn't remember seeing anyone casing the shop.
Then again, I hadn't been paying attention to anything when I'd left. I'd been too busy feeling sorry for myself. Now I felt so ashamed.

“You were gone for the afternoon,” Lord Ashcombe said, and I nodded. “So others could have come in.”

Suddenly, I stiffened. “The ledger.” Lord Ashcombe looked blank. “We keep track of everything we sell,” I said. “If there were other customers—” I broke off.

“What's wrong?”

“The ledger,” I said. “It's gone.”

It wasn't on the counter anymore. The inkwell was still there, unstoppered. There was blood, too, already drying a crusty brown, smeared on the side of the wood. Otherwise, the counter was empty. I walked around it to see if the ledger had fallen behind it, but the book wasn't there, either. Just my straw mattress and pillow, my puzzle cube and knife resting on top, and the empty strongbox. I turned it over.

“They took our money,” I said.

Lord Ashcombe pointed. “What's that?”

There it was. The ledger was on a shelf, under the jar of lemon juice, the one Master Benedict had ordered me to bring him before I left. The quill was on top of the leather cover, or at least the pieces of it were. Someone had snapped it in two.

Lord Ashcombe got there first. He tugged the ledger from under the jar, leaving the ceramic rattling on the wood. He laid the book on the counter and opened it, flipping pages until he got to the end. I could still smell the citrus tang of the lemon.

He studied it for a moment. “I can't read this,” he said.

I hadn't expected him to. In the ledger, Master Benedict wrote names and remedies in shorthand, and often in Latin. He'd taught me the same code. We did it partly because it was faster, and partly because it was another way to keep our business secret.

Most of the day's entries were mine. The last three were in my master's hand.

†
Δ
esid. A: rapf. O set. age Htsn. oil eh. two leb. Ht4: shg. Uh.
←

↓
M08
→

end.swords

neminidixeris

I stared.

Lord Ashcombe watched me. “Something wrong?” he said.

“I . . . no.” I felt my face grow hot. “These are . . . notes. Reminders to buy more ingredients we're out of. Oil
of vitriol, and . . . others. The numbers say how much.” I left my hand on the page. “He didn't write down Lady Brent's sale. Or anyone after.”

The black wells of Lord Ashcombe's eyes seemed to bore right through me.
He knows
, I thought.
He knows you're lying
.