The Lady Astronomer (18 page)

Her reflection grew longer as the moon reached
its zenith and then receded as dawn neared and she felt sure that the fleas
would encroach.

“Mraow.”

Lucretia looked around her, sure that she
was starting to fantasise.

“Mraow!”

She felt her way, arms outstretched to the
source of the noise.

“Purrrrr.”

She came to the door and felt with her
fingers. Nothing.

Backtracking, wincing at the noise of
crunching under her feet, and horribly, evilly glad every time she thought she
was taking the life of a flea before its mechanism wound down, she made her way
around the walls and came to the window again.

Her hand encountered a warm, furry body,
and she snatched it back again.

“Purrrrr.”

Lucretia felt again, and yes, it was a cat
on the window ledge outside her cell. She felt its ears and tickled it, the
feline helpfully put its chin out further for her to stroke for added bliss.

A cat! She stood, dumbfounded, as her
exhausted brain finally made the connection. She felt for the size of the cat,
wondering whether it would fit between the bars to catch the rat and free her
of at least that terror.

Lucretia pulled, but the cat refused to
budge. Her plate had not been taken away that evening, and if the rat had not
had it, there may be some hard, old cheese left on it. A crumb or two, anything
would do.

Working her way around the room again, her
foot came into contact with the iron plate and it clattered noisily, making her
jump. She bent down to pick it up and felt a tiny flea land on her hand.
Lucretia brushed it off, angrily, and brought the plate back to the window.

The cat was gone.

“Puss puss, puss,” she whispered
as loudly as she could. “Puss puss, puss.”

She waited and called again, waited and
called again, but there was no sign of her would-be rescuer.

It was too much, far too much, and the
overwhelming injustice of her situation overtook her. Lucretia clenched her
fists, her fingernails leaving crescent shaped bruises in her flesh. She hurled
the plate across the room, where it skittered noisily, shattering the quiet of
the night. The snores of the other prisoners stopped.

“Keep it down in there! We’ll none of
us get any food tomorrow if there are night disturbances.”

But Lucretia didn’t care. She kicked at
anything she could find, the bucket, the walls, the door, until she really hurt
her foot on the hard, unyielding bars and fell to the ground, hitting her head.

“Serves you right, noisy madam!” Her
nearest neighbour cackled.

A strange kind of slurping woke her. She
wiped her sleep-gummed eyes and tried to raise her sore body from the ground.

Slowly, slowly she stood, leaning on the
wall for support.

The pre-dawn morning brightened her cell,
and she looked around to find the source of the noise. There was a dark shape
in the corner, and she hobbled over to it, boots crunching over the clockwork
fleas which had run down over the course of the long night. Still, better to
destroy them than to have them taken and wound up again. Lucretia scratched her
arms absentmindedly.

Walking over the straw, she finally saw what
the dark shape in the corner was and fell to her knees, whimpering.

The cat looked at her and hissed, fangs
dripping blood, blackly, before returning to its feast.

Lucretia sat back on her heels and rocked,
laughter bubbling up, getting louder and louder until she felt like she could
pick the cat up and dance around the room with it.

The body of the rat lay on its side, eyes
glazed, whiskers spattered with gore. She delighted in its death.

She stopped laughing as she realised that
she had no idea for how much longer she would be kept captive, surely the king
could not keep her indefinitely. There would be more rats, given that the cat
made it to her window, she must be near enough to ground level. With the moat,
there would be more of the rodents.

Lucretia would have to ensure that the cat
came back, and she determined to keep her food for it.

Lucretia’s plan looked like it might be
thwarted before she got to carry it out as one of her captors arrived with her
next meal. He handed over the food and then scratched himself mightily, breaking
open a large spot on his face. She watched the pus dribble whitely down his
face and shuddered.

“Orders are that I have to stand guard
while you eat. No more full plates.”

“Why?” Lucretia was still very hoarse.

“We can’t have you starving to death,
now can we?”

“How long have I been in here?”

“Three nights.”

“Is that all?” Her already pale
face blanched. She felt like she had been in the cell for an eternity.

“Bet you didn’t think of that when you
were stealing and allowing your bird to hurt the Most Important Personage in
the castle, did you?”

“Orion, how is he?”

“Standing trial soon.”

“I have to come and speak for him!”

“No.”

“Please!”

“Don’t get all weepy and waily on me,
miss. Just doing my job.”

“But how can it be fair if he has
nobody to speak for him?”

“He’s only a bird, quit your fussing.”

“He’s not only a bird!”

“Be quiet and eat. I want to see it
all gone.”

Lucretia ate, or rather she pretended to. When
the bored guard tired of watching her quite so closely, she stuffed bread and
cheese, the menu never varied, though she had been told that she got better
food than most, into her skirt pocket.

“All done. Happy?”

“Happy to be out of here, boring, ain’t
it?”

The guard turned to go, and Lucretia caught
his sleeve. He pulled away from her.

“Wait,” she implored.

“I have to get on.”

“Please, just one thing, please.”

“Out with it.”

“How is Empress? Is she well, does she
live?”

“She is being cosseted and cared for,
and won’t have scars for her troubles.” He locked the door behind him,
leaving her alone once more.

“They must free Orion now, they must.”
She beamed as she thought of her imminent release and being reunited with her
owl. He would need her love having been so ill-treated.

*

That night was dark, the tiny sliver of the
moon gone, and Lucretia was glad that for once there wasn’t a rodent sharing
her living space.

She was cold, uncomfortable, and hungry,
but the thought of getting out kept her going. Surely Freddie would be missing
his letters. She had said she would be writing every day. Surely the king would
have let them know what was going on. Why did they not come, then? Maybe the king
was more gravely ill than they had thought. Maybe he was just busy with Matters
of State. Although when she had last seen him, he did not look well.

Lucretia continued her musings, wondering
when her feline friend would return. When it had eaten every scrap of the rat,
she had picked it up and tickled it, hugged it to her and stroked it, not minding
that it was still covered in the rat’s blood. It had jumped onto the window
sill and was preening itself when the guard had barged in with her food.

She really hoped that the cat would come
back. She was starting to feel very lonely.

The light of a merrily burning torch broke
her thoughts, the smells of perfumed, washed people, and their gay chatter
coming toward her. Ah, at last, release. She stood and smoothed her filthy
skirts.

“Ah, Ms. H, gosh it is a bit whiffy in
here, isn’t it? What, no smile to see your friends?” Mr. E strode into her
cell, beaming.

“What do you want?”

“Ah yes, your owl was tried.”

“And?” Her smile returned despite
herself, heart thumping to hear of Orion’s freedom.

“Let me see, how can I put this best?
Rapier?”

The Fencing Master walked in behind Mr. E,
hiding behind him.

“We have a little something for you,”
Mr. E smiled, and Rapier stepped forward with Orion in his arms.

“Orion!” Lucretia ran to him. “Oh,
come here boy. It is so good to see you and we’ll get out of this dreadful place
and go home. Orion?”

Rapier opened his arms and the owl fell to
the floor with a sickening thud.

“We’ll be going now, enjoy your time
together. The owl was tried and found wanting…such a shame since he didn’t
actually do anything. He was in my rooms when Empress was attacked by someone
rather more human, isn’t that so, Rapier. Oh, and don’t think you’ll be getting
out any time soon, thief!”

Lucretia sank to her knees, eyes blinded by
tears at the hurts Orion had suffered, and only vaguely heard the cell door
close.

“Orion, there’s my boy.” She sat
on the floor and cradled the dying owl, cuddled him, told him how very good he
was and that nobody would hurt him again.

He opened his beautiful amber eyes while
she stroked his feathers. Lucretia smiled. “I love you, sweet big thing.”

His eyes glazed and even though she knew he
was gone she kept rocking and talking and loving him. When her piteous tears
had run dry, Orion’s feathers soaked with them, and his body had grown too heavy
for her, she gently laid him to one side. Lucretia unfastened her shoulder cape
and put it over her owl. He looked so sweet and serene, as if he were sleeping.
She walked to the window.

Her face was frozen and she felt that she
did not inhabit her own body, though the skin that stretched tight over her
cheekbones and twitched swollen under her eyes from the many tears she had shed
told otherwise.

She was amazed that there was so much water
in her body, and more amazed when she touched her face that there were no
runnels there as evidence of grief.

Lucretia rested her head on the cool wall
for comfort, and poked her aching emotions with thoughts of Orion as an owlet. She
could still see his cute little self, toddling over the grass to her, snowy
white with tiny little blotches of brown on his fluffy down. Lucretia smiled
through her heartache. Leibniz would be distraught. Her smiled quickly slipped
and she wondered how the lemur was doing. They had grown up together those two,
and though they bickered like an old married couple, she knew that it was they
who loved each other almost exclusively.

Ah poor Leibniz. And poor her. Just when
she truly thought there was no more liquid left in her to give the tears
started again and she wailed, looking to the night sky, defeated.

Through the blur, she was sure she could
see something, high, high up. Something brightly lit with trailing trail behind
it. What on earth was it?

Lucretia rubbed her eyes and looked again,
even shaking her head in an attempt to clear her vision.

Were the Misters M ballooning again? Had
there been an accident? No, she knew they had gone home shortly after their
excursion. They had spoken of it at the time.

Lucretia blinked. She stood awe-bound by
such a sight, on such a dreadful night.

It passed swiftly, curling and curving, a
hot, flaming red, yellow and white thing, with a tail behind it. She couldn’t
quite believe what she was seeing.

She steadied herself and willed the crick
in her neck to go away for just a few seconds so she could see the comet until
it disappeared from sight.

*

“
Leibniz?”

The banging at her door grew louder as the
lemur hung from the bars, kicking at it.

“Leibniz,” Lucretia ran to him
and cradled his head in her hands, relishing the furry warmth.

He chattered at her excitedly and Wodehouse’s
head came into view.

“Oh, Wodehouse, I am so very pleased
to see you. You have to help me. I don’t need to get out. I don’t want to make
my situation any worse than it is, but. I need you to do something for me,”
she pleaded. He nodded his head.

She could not see what he was doing, but
Leibniz was very excited about something.

He stood in front of the door again and she
saw that he had opened the tip of the first finger on his right hand, and
within it was displayed an array of tiny tools.

Wodehouse selected the one best for the
task, and fumbled with the heavy, intricate padlock that kept her incarcerated.

She paced the cell as he worked, knowing
that time was of the essence now that she had been lucky enough that Leibniz and
Wodehouse had arrived when they did.

Yes, it could work!

“Hurry Wodehouse, hurry.”
Lucretia tried to work out how long it was since she had seen the comet and
when Orion had taken his last breath. With a deep click, the padlock was open,
and the butler pulled the door open.