‘I dropped a scrap for it,’ said Makepeace. ‘It’s a cat. You can buy any cat’s love for an inch of bacon rind!’ She could not believe that her great joy, the company of animals, was now considered evidence against her.
‘Did you let it suck on your ear?’ he asked, in the same calm, severe tone.
‘What?’
‘A witch will suckle the devils and familiars that are sent to her. Sometimes their teats are strangely placed. One woman was visited by a pale mouse with a man’s face, who drank milk from a nipple in her ear lobe.’
There it was at last: the word ‘witch’. Makepeace could feel her skin tingling.
‘No,’ she said, with all the scorn she could muster. ‘No cat has been drinking milk out of my ear. You have let someone feed you a platter of lies.’
‘Have we?’ he asked coldly. ‘We heard you ourselves. We heard the Devil inside you, bellowing in the woods.’
So they had heard Makepeace roaring Bear’s roar, down in the foggy woodland. They were already convinced that she was an unnatural being. The interrogator had just been letting out rope so that she could tell lies and hang herself.
His eyes were severe, and a little reddened from lack of sleep, but Makepeace saw a spark of something in them. He was not handsome, tall or bold – not the sort of man to draw notice on an ordinary day. But these were uncommon times, and people had to pay attention to him. He was doing God’s work.
Bear was drowsy and drained, but awake, and he could smell the man in black. The man smelt of good soap and other people’s pain. He smelt a little like Young Crowe.
‘We know that you tried to kill Lord Fellmotte,’ the man in black said. ‘He has told us all about you. Now it is your turn to tell us about the Fellmottes.’
Symond was still calmly watching from the sidelines. He had a cat’s way of smiling without smiling. But even cats had limits to their cruelty, unlike people. The sight of him filled Makepeace with fury.
‘The Fellmottes are devils,’ Makepeace said with feeling. ‘I ran away from them. I ran to Lord Fellmotte, because I hoped he would keep me safe. But he’s worse than any of them! I cried out because I was afraid of him!’
‘I know that he tried to exorcise the demon in you,’ said the man in black.
‘Exorcise?’ It was not a word Makepeace knew.
‘To banish it back to Hell. The Lord has bestowed on him a great gift – the ability to drive out devils, and send unquiet spirits to their eternal rest—’
‘The Lord has bestowed . . .? ’ This was too much. ‘You gulls! He’s leading you all by the nose! He doesn’t send ghosts to their rest! He eats them. I saw him do it, and that was why I screamed.’
‘You should show him a little gratitude,’ the man in black said severely. ‘He thinks you can be saved.’ He jotted something in a notebook, then sighed and looked at Symond. ‘You were right, a most mischievous and vengeful tongue. Well, if a woman is a witch, she is usually a scold and a brawler as well. Are you sure you can win her back to God?’
‘Give me some time with her,’ said Symond solemnly. ‘I’ll see if I can drive the devils out.’
‘No!’ said Makepeace. ‘Don’t leave me with him! Listen to me! He eats ghosts! He eats souls!’
But they would not heed her, and she was carried back to her little room. Symond followed, and asked the guard to wait outside.
‘You need to be careful with these Fellmotte witches,’ Symond told him. ‘If she starts throwing curses around, I can protect myself, but I cannot shield you.’
Once Symond and Makepeace were alone, he smiled. ‘You should thank me,’ he said. ‘If I had not spoken up for you, these fellows would be trying harsh methods to win you back to righteousness.’ He laughed. ‘Here is the bargain. You will tell me where the charter is hidden, and I will tell our self-styled inquisitors that I have driven the demons out of you.
‘Then they will sit you down, and you can confess to everything. They already have some pretty fancies about the happenings at Grizehayes. Tell them that the Fellmottes are all witches, and fly around the countryside in eggshells and mortars. Tell them that the family forced you to frolic on the hillside with the Evil One. Tell them that Mistress Gotely taught you poisons and potions, and that the kitchen dogs walked on two legs and did your bidding.
‘I was in a quandary, you see. I had won these fellows’ interest and protection by telling them a little of the Fellmottes’ customs. But I could not prove anything unless I gave them the charter, which would leave me no threat to use against my family. But you, and your confession, will do very well as proof.’
‘I will not confess,’ said Makepeace. ‘And I will not tell you where the charter is. If I tell you, you will have no reason to keep me alive. So I think I shall hold my tongue, Master Symond.’
The demotion to ‘Master Symond’ seemed to sting him even more than the rejection of the bargain.
‘There’s a ghost inside you, isn’t there?’ Symond narrowed his eyes. ‘A mad one. I heard it roaring. And I suppose you didn’t have the skill to consume it or kick it out, did you? I might have helped you with that, if you’d passed my test.
‘Those fellows think you’re possessed, and they’re right. If they start to torment you, sooner or later they’ll prove it.’
These men want proof that the Fellmottes are witches, said Livewell, after Symond had left. Why not give it to them? Why not tell them where to find the charter? Why are we still lying to them? You said you wanted to be the Fellmottes’ undoing.
Yes, but I would like to live to see it, replied Makepeace, massaging her swollen jaw. And I need to live so that I can save James! If I give them the charter, they will work out soon enough that I am one of the Fellmotte gifted. And what would they make of me then? I never signed a pact with the Devil in my own blood, and I don’t have nipples in my ears . . . but I do consort with spirits, don’t I? You said so yourself. Bear does follow me everywhere like a familiar. And I am possessed.
And if I give up his precious charter, Symond will do his best to see
me found guilty. Do you think I’ll breathe free air again?
No, said the doctor grimly. We’ll be lucky if they don’t hang you, then congratulate themselves on saving your soul.
The charter’s the only bit of power I have right now, Makepeace said bitterly, and that’s looking feeble enough.
These are good men, persisted Livewell.
Are they? retorted Makepeace. Their leader looks like a man who enjoys a little righteous power over people. I’ve seen that look before. And Bear does not like the smell of him.
Do you trust your Bear’s judgement? Livewell asked, very seriously.
Yes, said Makepeace, after a moment’s thought. I’m learning to listen to him. He’s a wild brute – there are many things he lacks the wit to understand. But he knows when something’s wrong.
Then we shall not trust these men, said Livewell, with surprising firmness. What else can we do?
Could Bear fight our way out of here? the doctor asked hopefully.
It’s not that simple, answered Makepeace. I can’t set him on someone, like a dog. Sometimes when he and I are both angry . . . then it’s hard to stop us. But we couldn’t punch our way through the door to this room, and we can’t bat a bullet out of the air. There are a lot of soldiers in these woods, and they’ll know by now that I’ve been arrested for witchcraft.
Then your smuggler friend Helen will probably know as well, commented the doctor. Could she be an ally?
Perhaps, answered Makepeace. She suspected that the red-faced spy had been one of Helen’s secret Royalist contacts. If it had not been for Makepeace’s warning, Helen might have stepped aside to talk to him, and fallen under suspicion as well. The older woman might well be thankful. But we have no way of asking for her help.
Was that really true?
Oh, Makepeace said silently, I am wrong. There is a way of contacting Helen. A dangerous way.
I don�
�t much like the sound of this, said the doctor.
Neither do I, murmured Makepeace. But she could see no other way forward. I need to speak with Morgan.
How could that possibly help? exclaimed Dr Quick.
Lady Morgan! Makepeace thought as loudly as she could. I want to talk to you. I know I tried to chase you before, but I won’t this time. Please, I won’t harm you.
There was no response.
I do not think the lady trusts us, said the doctor. She prefers to appear and disappear at will, so that we cannot keep track of her, and right now I fancy she is hidden away in her lair.
Makepeace recalled the shocking deluge of emotions and mangled memories that had assaulted her mind when she tried to ‘follow’ Morgan.
You told me that she was hiding in a part of my mind that was shut off from the rest, she answered silently. I think I know what that is now. All these years, there’s been a chapter of my memories I couldn’t look at – wouldn’t look at.
If that’s her lair . . . then I know where to find her.
CHAPTER 34
Makepeace lay on her little bed with her eyes closed, hearing herself breathe. To comfort herself she imagined herself lying on the stomach of an enormous Bear, bigger than Whitehollow, bigger than Grizehayes, his fur deeper than summer grass, the rise and fall of his breathing like the swaying of a galleon.
But she could not stay there forever. There were mind-places to go, and things to remember. There was an abyss to brave, and an enemy to face.
You can wait here for me, Makepeace told Bear. I will come back soon. I need to face this alone.
But Bear did not really understand. He was coming with her, of course he was. And after a moment she realized that she was the one being foolish. There was no longer any such thing as ‘alone’.
So when Makepeace took a deep breath and started to remember Poplar, the younger self she pictured in her mind’s eye walked with a Bear at her side. She let herself sink into the image. It was memory, it was imagination, it had the power and vividness of a dream.
There was Poplar, after all this time, with its reek and roar. The clatter and thunder of the shipyards, the fluttering poplar trees, the lush green marshlands where brown-and-cream cattle grazed. It was so vivid that the smoke stung tears from her eyes. Like clothes tucked away in a chest from the light of day, the memories had not faded. Their dyes were still bright.
And . . . Poplar itself was small, she realized. Far smaller than Oxford or London. Just a few houses clustering around a road, like grass seeds about a stalk.
In her imagination she walked the road to London, as she had three years before. Nobody gave twelve-year-old Makepeace a second glance, or seemed to notice Bear at her side. The sunset was vast. The sky was darkening. With every step, the air became murkier and more oppressive. But there was somebody she needed to find.
Bear was still beside her. She could reach out and touch his fur, even as the roar of an angry crowd filled her ears. And when she ran, he ran beside her, on all fours.
Now they were in the crush of the apprentices’ riot, a mad, screaming darkness torn by gunshots. Looming adult bodies stampeded and shifted in panic, knocking Makepeace this way and that, crushing her and blocking her view. Makepeace looked all around, desperate to see one specific face.
Where was she? Where was she? Where was she?
There. Right there.
Mother.
Every line of her face clear. The witchiness of her hair escaping from under her cap. The deep-set eyes with stars and riddles in them. Margaret.
And a carelessly swung cudgel was heading towards her undefended brow . . .
But Makepeace and Bear could prevent it! They were here now; they could block it! A bat of the paw deflected the cudgel.
But now a bottle shattered nearby, shards heading for Margaret’s face . . .
Makepeace’s imagined self raised a hasty arm to shield Mother. But now a hoe was knocked out of somebody’s hands, so that its blade careered towards Margaret. A thrown stone ricocheted off a wall in her direction. A bullet fired blindly took its relentless course for her temple . . .
Mother screamed.
Then she was standing in front of Makepeace, her pale face half covered in dark rivulets of blood. She stared at Makepeace, her face deathly, and then her expression twisted.
‘Stay away from me!’ she screamed, striking Makepeace’s face with a blow that shuddered the world. ‘Go away! Go away!’ She shoved at her daughter with a giant’s strength.
Makepeace tumbled back into a different darkness. She landed among thistles, and stared up at stars. She was in a little overgrown clearing, flanked by reeds that whispered in the wind. She sat up, and saw not far away a lowly oblong of disturbed earth. It was Mother’s grave, on the edge of the Poplar marshes.
Bear was a little cub now, his soft muzzle opening to give a small bleat of dismay. He had died in these marshes, and he recognized them. Makepeace scooped him up in her arms, feeling herself shiver from cold and fear.
Beyond the edge of the clearing, among the reeds, stood the smoky silhouette of a woman. She was motionless but for her loose, wild hair, which stirred and wavered in the breeze.
‘Ma,’ gasped Makepeace.
You were the death of me, whispered the wind, the reeds, and the stealthy click and gurgle of the streams. You were the death of me.
‘I’m sorry, Ma!’ The words came out in a little sob. ‘I’m sorry we argued! I’m sorry I ran!’
The woman-shape did not move, but suddenly it seemed to be a lot closer, still faceless and implacable. The death of me, breathed the lonely marshes. The death of me.
‘I tried to save you!’ Makepeace felt her eyes sting with tears. ‘I tried! But you pushed me . . . and that man carried me away . . .’
The death of me. The wind rose, and the woman’s hair billowed. All of a sudden she was standing on the very edge of the clearing, silent and ominous, her face still lost in shadow.
Soon the shape would swoop at her, and Makepeace would see its terrible smoky face, and hear it slur in her ear as it clawed at her brain. And yet Makepeace was filled with an anguish and longing even greater than her fear.
‘Why couldn’t I save you?’ Makepeace shouted at the figure. She thought again of the scene she had just left, and all her hopeless attempts to shield Mother from a fatal blow. ‘Why does it have to happen? Why can’t I stop it?’
It turned out that, deep down, she already knew the answer.
‘It was just bad luck, wasn’t it?’ she whispered, and felt tears slide down her face. ‘There was nothing I could do about it.’
Bear was warm and heavy in her arms. She bowed her head over him protectively, and felt his rough fur against her cheek.
‘Why did you push me away, Ma?’ asked Makepeace in anguish. ‘I could have helped you! I could have taken you home!’ She was afraid that at the end Mother had hated her so much that even her help was unbearable.
And then, at last, Makepeace finally understood.
‘Oh, Ma,’ she said. ‘You were afraid. You were afraid for me.
‘You didn’t hate me. You guessed you were done for, and you were scared that your ghost might turn on me! You were trying to protect me. You were always, always trying to protect me.’
At last, Makepeace felt that she had begun to understand the wild, secretive mother who had brought her up. Margaret had been too inflexible, but how could she be otherwise? Nobody with a will less stubborn could have escaped the Fellmottes.
But she had loved Makepeace. She had defied the Fellmottes for Makepeace, fled house and hearth for Makepeace, worked her fingers to the bone for Makepeace. She had loved her with the cruel purity of the mother bird who forces the fledgling out of the nest to test its half-formed wings. She had done what she thought was best for her daughter. She had been right, she had been wrong, and she would never have apologized anyway.
‘You loved me,’ said Makepeace, hardly able to voice the wo
rds.
The night seemed to breathe out for a long, long time. Afterwards, there were no longer voices in the wind-blown reeds, and now the marshes were simply dark and cold, not seething with menace and pain. There was still a female figure at the clearing’s edge, but the outline looked different now. Makepeace’s eyes cleared, and she could see who the woman was, and who she was not.
‘Hello, Lady Morgan,’ she said, and slowly approached. Bear was larger and heavier now, and Makepeace had to put him down.
Morgan was indistinct, a woman-shape of smoke and silver pins, but as Makepeace drew closer, she could make out a clever, narrow face with heavy-lidded eyes, a high brow and a subtle, curling mouth. There was no visible sign of injury, but nonetheless she seemed subtly askew, like a picture on a slightly bent card. Evidently she had not fully recovered from her first fight with Bear.
‘This was a good hiding place,’ admitted Makepeace. ‘You knew I couldn’t face Mother’s death. Even though I am haunted by you, Bear and the others, I think perhaps I have been haunted by Mother most of all. And she was never even a ghost, was she?’
Morgan sighed.
‘Probably not,’ she said sounding incredibly bored. ‘I certainly do not think her ghost found its way back from Lambeth or the marshes to your house, in order to attack you. That really was a nightmare, you stupid girl.’
The Infiltrator shook her head wearily.
‘I will not miss this stronghold,’ she continued. ‘The problem with spending time in someone else’s memories, is that they start to feel like one’s own, and then one is a stone’s throw from starting to care about them.’
The clouds split to show a splinter of moon, and light winked on Morgan’s silver eyes, her pearl-studded ruff, the rings on her fingers.
‘Enough gossip,’ she said abruptly. ‘You may have found your way into one of my lairs, but this battle is far from over. There are several others I can use. Humans are always strangers to their own brains, and you have the usual supply of blind spots.’
A Skinful of Shadows Page 29
