~+~
With my uncle safely behind lock and key, I was free to throw myself into my search for a cure. I did not go to any particular trouble to hide what I was doing from my father, whom I wanted more than anything to decide to help me, but I didn’t flaunt it under his nose either. I took the carriage all over the city, Susie in attendance, visiting learned doctors, physicians, libraries and institutions, finding out all I could of wasting diseases.
What I found was not encouraging. They generally concurred that if the disease wasn’t caused by fretting, grief, or some mental oppression that could be relieved, and that if the patient did not respond to careful diet and cosseting, then it was almost sure to be one of the incurable wasting diseases. These were caused by many things, ranging from tumors somewhere in the body to incurable coughs to unknown causes. I already knew something about the latter category and since this was clearly one of those I had to admit that my findings were not such as to make me feel very optimistic.
How do you cure the sorcerous incurable? I wondered, as I sat in the library turning the pages of an old Latin text on anatomy. Without going to the Church, that was. No doubt the Bishop’s exorcist could deal with the sorcery—the gates of hell could not withstand the Church, after all—but why would an exorcist bother saving a man whom it was his duty to turn over to the civil authorities for punishment? And even if he did, my father would then be burnt at the stake. No. Because of the self-inflicted nature of the sorcery, the one place I was sure could help was also the one place I absolutely, totally and utterly could not turn to.
Unfortunately, the only other answer that came to mind was a miracle and so far my prayers did not seem to have produced one. In truth, I had not expected it. I was quite aware that such things were granted even less often than in former times, when they had hardly been common, and my father was scarcely going to be the most likely candidate, having, after all, brought it on himself.
I stared at the pages of the book without seeing the crude diagram of the heart that adorned the page. As far as I could see it, I had three options. Find a cure, check that there was indeed no sorcery to remove the sorcery causing the problem, or pray for a miracle. I was trying to do the first, but I doubted I would succeed. The second, I was not touching with the longest barge pole in history, and the third I was doing, but again, without hope of success. Could I be asking the wrong question? I wasn’t sure how; the question seemed simple enough, but...
“Serapia.”
I jumped as the Duke leant over my shoulder, his tone faintly accusatory.
“I shall have to lock up all these books,” he went on with a sigh, gathering the few that lay on the desk in front of me. “Must you be so determined to hurt yourself?” he added, leaning to place a kiss on the top of my head before bearing the books off to his study.
Undaunted, I scowled at the library shelves. Now where hadn’t I looked?
~+~
The Baron’s trial had proceeded as swiftly as I anticipated and the verdict was as sure. Since the Baron had confessed, there was scarcely, in fact, any trial needed. All the same, Her Majesty prided herself on the fairness of English law courts and several witnesses had been called. The Duke, primarily, to narrate the attack in the square, and several witnesses of the same event. The Baron’s confession was enough to place the affair at his door. And as my father remarked to me, the Queen was very angry about it. Attempted assassination reflected badly on the entire country, and thus on Her Majesty. The Baron was sentenced to death and the date of the execution appointed.
There would be no reprieve. Reprieves in such cases did not make good examples.
~+~
I dressed soberly and for all my strenuous argument to my father that I had seen plenty of executions, even of men I knew, my stomach felt slightly unsettled. With one last, delaying look around the room, I let Susie slip my cloak over my shoulders and I headed for the door, fastening the clasp as I went.
My father stood waiting in the hall, stroking the head of Arthur, his favorite deerhound. He made no mention of my tardiness. “I’d rather you stayed here,” he said quietly, without looking at me.
“I’m coming.”
He sighed and headed for the door. “I’m expected to be there, you are not.”
I’d heard that plenty of times. “I’m coming,” I repeated, and more quietly, “I’m going to see this to the end.”
“Very well,” he said, and handed me up into the coach.
Noble blood or not, the Queen had decreed that the Baron be hanged like a common murderer at Smithfield. A brand new scaffold had been erected for the occasion—though in the circumstances even my vain uncle would probably take little consolation from this small concession to his rank—along with a stand of tiered seating for the nobility, where my father and I took our places. The sweet smell of sap from the freshly sawn timber was still just about distinguishable above the smell of all the humanity packing eagerly into the area and it seemed incongruous.
In the circumstances I didn’t find it too difficult to pray for the condemned man as we waited, but the prison cart soon appeared. A drummer walked ahead, beating out a steady step. The Baron was led up the sweet-smelling steps. Prayers were said, and he was invited to speak his last words. He seemed to have no address ready, for he looked around wildly, until he caught sight of me and my father.
“You!” he cried, “you witch child! Witch child and your hell spawn father! You’ve no right to do this to me! A normal man like me! I’m just a normal man. What are you? Devil spawn!”
I flinched slightly from the vehemence of his attack and looked about me. But I could see that no one took the Baron seriously; a few were laughing. My father’s face remained smooth and unconcerned, but his eyes told another story. The references to hell and the devil clearly cut deep. I pressed his hand silently.
The executioner seemed to decide that this was not what last words were for and pushed the Baron towards the ladder. He stumbled, his abuse trailing off and his lip trembling as he saw the noose before him. He swung round again, looking back at the Duke. Now he realizes, I thought grimly, that in only one choice was there any hope, and it was not this one.
“I’ll fight you, Ravena!” the Baron cried, “I’ll fight you! Get me down from here!” His voice broke, and he wept and struggled as they pushed him up the ladder.
I almost couldn’t watch; it was too painful. A matter of moments. A matter of a few more moments to keep his composure and he could have died with dignity. But he sobbed, and he went fighting. They dragged him up the ladder, forced the noose over his head and turned him off, as efficient and disdainful as if he had been an animal for butchery. He kicked, and then he was still. People dispersed, grumbling, dissatisfied with the spectacle. They had expected a grand, penitent speech, and a dignified, admirable end. Or the commonalty had. The nobility had perhaps known better.
I turned to my father, and he turned to me. He looked a little sick. “Well, that’s that,” he said quietly. “Let’s go home.”
“Let’s go home,” I echoed and took his arm.
In the carriage, the Duke settled back in his seat as if he were more than emotionally tired.
I rested my head on his shoulder. “So that is that,” I murmured to myself.
“Aye. That is that. You are safe now.”
I glanced at him. “And you too.” I would not let him die.
“Ah, yes,” he said, with a slightly lop-sided smile, “and me too. As far as your uncle is concerned,” he added under his breath.
We drove on in silence.
~+~
CHAPTER 24
THE ANGEL IN THE GRAVEYARD
My birthday passed almost unnoticed—at least by me—as I kept a hawk-like eye on my father’s condition. The deterioration was not rapid, but it was steady, and perceptible. Whichever way I turned in my search, I met a brick wall. I fought to hold onto hope when everything seemed to point otherwise.
I sought my father in the church one evenin
g, directed thither by his chamberlain, and expecting to find him lost in prayer. Instead, I found him in one of the wings of the little church, among the fine marble tombs of the parish’s wealthy deceased.
His cheeks were damp, but when he caught sight of me he made a valiant attempt to speak as if all was normal. “I don’t know why people like these cold, hard things,” he told me, would-be-lightly. “Lay me in the churchyard under grass and sky with a simple stone seeking the prayers of those who pass by, and I shall be happy.”
“Pa...” I said, my own voice tight with pain, for I could not bear to hear him talk like that.
But he turned away from me, fingers gripping the ornate edging of a tomb and head bowed. “Leave me, child,” he whispered, “I shall be well soon.”
I wanted to stay and try to comfort him, but his tears frightened me more than anything else had done and I ran from the church. I didn’t stop until I reached a secluded corner of the graveyard, where I threw myself down in a tumble of skirts, arms folded on the top of an old tomb and face pressed to them to muffle my sobs. The possibility that there really was no cure loomed over me, filling me with terror. I wasn’t sure when I had last felt so small and helpless.
“Please,” I whispered desperately as I wept, “please, please, there must be a way, please let there be a way...”
~+~
There was a strange silence in the churchyard, total, not eerie but peaceful. I raised my head. It was midday. The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun warm on my back. And there was something behind me. I remained motionless, waiting in awe rather than fear. Though I’d only ever felt such a being before if it actually brushed me, I knew what was there.
It stepped up to me; leant close to my ear. I had a dizzying impression of hands resting on my shoulders, soft feathers curving around me.
“You carry the answer with you always.”
~+~
My head slipped from my arms and banged against hard stone. I sat up with a jolt, looking around in confusion. It was twilight and the sky was clouded. I rubbed my forehead and sat back on my heels.
That was such a strange dream. So strange I wasn’t sure I wanted to dismiss it out of hand. It sounded as though I ought to know the answer. No, not exactly. ‘You carry the answer with you always.’
I held out my palm to Raven, who had climbed out at my neck in response to my sudden movement, and lifted her to eye level. “Can you save my father?”
Raven’s tiny ears pricked in surprise, then drooped. She shook her head. I sighed. I hadn’t thought so. But what else did I carry with me enough to warrant an ‘always’? My ring was in a box in my room. I didn’t want to wear it; it was, after all, my mother’s wedding ring.
There was one more thing. I reached through the pocket slit of my dress and drew out my dagger. Siridean’s dagger. I clasped the hilt in my hands, running my thumb around the hematite from habit more than need. No mud daubed its shining surface now. I gazed into its comforting depths and the eyes looked back at me.
Siridean would have helped me, I thought sadly, and not without a flash of anger for my father, who would not even try. Then my breath caught in my throat, for I knew.
When in trouble, to whom do you turn, if not to your kin?
~+~
CHAPTER 25
THE CURE
“But Pa,” I objected, “why can’t we at least go and ask? They can do it, I’m sure of it, or this wouldn’t have been my answer! We can at least ask! The worst that can happen is that they say no!”
The Duke looked at least as exasperated as I felt, though for rather different reasons. “Child, you have no idea what you are speaking of! First, the elfin that are kin to us are somewhere around Elfindale, which is in the shire of York, hundreds of miles to the north. And secondly, the Elfin hate sorcerers above anything else. There is no way on God’s green earth they are going to cure a man of self-inflicted sorcery, distant relation or no. They’d probably execute me themselves and save a lot of time and bother!”
“Pa!” I cried, “don’t talk like that! Don’t you see, this is the only hope for you; I’m convinced of that now! We must go and find them.”
“We are going nowhere,” declared the Duke with grim determination. “My days of charging up and down the roads of this country are over. At least previously I’ve always sought something that can be found! Find the Elfin! Child! As well try and catch smoke in your bare fingers!” He saw me open my mouth again. “Enough. Let’s go to dinner, and no more of this foolishness.”
Slowly I closed my mouth, my jaw set in a mutinous line. I knew better than to push him too far all at once, but he had not heard the end of it.
~+~
I had just tallied up the days and realized with horror that it was over a week since I had received that unexpected answer to my prayer. I’d been as tenacious as a terrier with a rat, but with much less effect. We were still there, at Albany House, not a step closer to Elfindale and my father’s only hope. Now there was a cure within sight, I fretted almost more than before. This was my answer.
Everyone knew that the Elfin had powers. The ignorant termed it magic, but from what my father said it was something less sinister. A heightened influence over nature? An ability to touch the spiritual? A bit of both? But whatever the details, everyone knew that farmers with elfin forts on their land had livestock that never died of sickness and families where virtually every child born would live to adulthood. The healing powers of the Elfin were legendary. And my father and I were the Elfin’s direct kin. I was sure that was why Siridean had helped me.
But it might well take some time to persuade the Elfin to help, I thought, anguished, as I ran my father to earth in his study.
I was starting to get the impression that he was avoiding me. Perhaps not surprisingly. But he showed no signs of budging. I was in a particular panic today, because he hadn’t even ridden out with me for the last few mornings and although he claimed he was busy with his own affairs, I had a horrible suspicion that he was simply finding it too tiring. I just had to persuade him.
With that thought, I squared my shoulders, gritted my teeth like a knight sallying into battle and strode into the room. His book lay on his knee when I entered and he was staring rather bleakly into the fire, but he raised it quickly and fixed his attention on it. Frustrated before I had even said a word, I sat on the arm of the chair and took the book from him, ostensibly to look at the title. I shot a sidelong glance at him and put the book out of reach on a nearby table. He looked so thin, now.
“Pa...” I started, but he cut me off, an irritation approaching real anger warring with sadness in his eyes.
“Child, you seem dissatisfied with the speed at which the sorcery is dispatching me. You clearly intend to nag me to death.”
This unusually harsh remark told me I had already pushed him too far today, but what could I do, but push further? I wasn’t getting anywhere.
It wasn’t hard to pretend to be upset. “Pa,” I objected, “why can you not at least try? Can’t you think of me? Do you want to die?”
He looked at me sharply, at that. “I wish to be saved,” he said softly, “which is not the same thing. I have made my bed, child, and now I must die on it. It is only proper.” He touched my cheek with a rather bony finger. I drew breath, but he moved the finger to my lips. “Quiet, Serapia. One more word from you tonight and I shall probably say something I do not mean and hurt both of us. Would that you could understand that when I say nay, I mean it.”
I bit my lip and after a long moment, I withdrew quietly, leaving him again staring into the flames. I was getting desperate, but I had no wish to really draw his wrath. He did not get angry very easily, but when he did...
~+~
I went up to my bedroom and sat gazing into my own hearth. I just couldn’t understand why my father wasn’t prepared to at least try. He professed himself certain that the Elfin would not help, that at best they would turn him away with anger and contempt, and at worst,
do him harm themselves. But I was not convinced. I doubted the Elfin would do more than turn us away, in which case we had absolutely nothing to lose by asking. In either case, we had nothing to lose! So why wouldn’t he go?
And I realized that he had finally told me why, though I had not noticed at the time. He wished to be saved. He did not expect it, but he still wished it. And he felt, reasonably enough, that to accept without demur the consequences of his sin, as an earthly penance, might mitigate his eternal punishment. That was why he was not prepared to stir so much as a foot in search of bodily salvation, not even for me. The Duke had learned by now that one did not put one’s soul on the line for another’s worldly happiness or longevity.
I could not blame him for it. He was terribly afraid that he was damned, a fear I had not been able to talk him out of and perhaps that was only proper as well. But it still meant that my hopes of talking him around had just plummeted. When I say nay, I mean it, he had said, and I rather believed that he did.
Hearing the stairs creak a little later, I peeped out to watch him making his way to his own bedchamber. He walked as if weary, and his hand rested on banister and side tables as he went. He was growing weaker by the day, though he tried to hide it. I bit my lip. Very well. I would have one last try.
I waited a while, then went to his bedchamber and tapped on the door. I couldn’t tell if there was more wariness or weariness in his ‘Enter’ but I did so. He still had one candle lit, and I went over and sat on the bed. I looked at him, and he regarded me with cautious serenity. I am being selfish, I thought to myself. He thinks of his soul, but you think only of his body, trying to force him to what he knows he must not. He has the right of it. What he must do, and what you must do, they are not the same.
Elfling (U.S. Edition) Page 16
