Gilded Cage

by Vic James

  Lady Hypatia hadn’t been at Kyneston since the New Year. However, she’d be down soon with an advance party from her own dowager seat of Ide, and one from Appledurham, to get the wedding preliminaries underway. That meant the dog-man hadn’t left the kennels since Luke’s arrival from Millmoor. Did her brother even know he existed?

  Apparently not.

  ‘Please tell me what I’m seeing here,’ he said angrily, as Abi hesitated at the entrance to the kennels, wondering how to do exactly that. ‘Because it looks an awful lot like a naked man in a tiny cage.’

  Luke’s voice was tight with outrage. Abi could have hugged him. She knew she wasn’t going crazy. Knew it was unbelievable and just plain wrong that anyone should be living like this.

  ‘We’ve got to get him out,’ Luke said.

  ‘It’s not that simple.’

  Abi filled him in, speaking fast, ever mindful of the Master of Hounds in his quarters above. The kennel-keeper liked a drink, she’d discovered. So a couple of weeks ago she’d liberated several bottles of malt from the cellars and pretended they were a thank-you gift from the Jardines. He’d looked suspicious – plainly the Equals weren’t in the habit of showing appreciation to their slaves – but had taken them anyway. Thereafter Abi breathed a little more easily when making her night-time visits.

  ‘If I can get him speaking, walking,’ she told her brother, ‘then maybe they’ll let him do days normally like the rest of us.’

  ‘That won’t happen, Abi. You know it won’t. This isn’t just punishment. It’s too vindictive. You’re thinking too small. The only way you can end this is by getting him out of Kyneston. If you want to change something, you need to think big.’

  His tone was earnest in a way she’d never heard from him before. He really believed what he was saying.

  And the tiniest bit of fear for her brother crept into her heart. When did Luke become so . . . fearless?

  Maybe that was what the unrest in Millmoor had been about. Perhaps Luke had heard people spouting these sorts of idealistic catchphrases. Smart words. Nice ideas. All totally impossible.

  Luke plucked the key from her fingers.

  ‘We’ll take him out of these kennels for a few hours, at least. Standing up isn’t enough – he needs to be able to walk around, to run. Let’s head for the woods. No one will see us out there.’

  And before Abi could stop him, Luke was kneeling in front of the cage, lifting the door in exactly the right way. She heard him mutter in dismay as the dog-man crawled out. Was that because of the way the man looked and smelled? Or just due to the unbearable fact of him: a man twisted by Skill out of all semblance of humanity?

  ‘I’m Luke Hadley,’ she heard her brother say in that new, confident voice.

  ‘Hello – Luke Hadley,’ the Condemned man rasped.

  ‘I don’t know your name.’

  The captive’s shoulders shook. That awful, empty mirth. It still made Abi shudder.

  What if we’ve got it wrong? she suddenly wanted to call out to Luke. What if we’ve made a terrible mistake? What if the reason there’s no humanity in him isn’t because it was taken away, but because it was never there in the first place?

  ‘Neither – do I. Your sister asks me – the same. Why not – call me – “Dog”.’

  ‘“Dog”? Don’t you remember your name?’ Luke asked.

  ‘I only remember – what he let me – keep. That’s just – the bad things.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘No one – you know. Someone I hope – you never meet. My jailer.’

  ‘Lord Crovan,’ Abi said. Luke shook his head. The name meant nothing to him. ‘Some kind of state-sanctioned sadist,’ she clarified.

  ‘Plenty of those.’

  Dog reared up suddenly, like an animal pulling itself effortfully onto its hind legs. Now that she had another person to compare him against, she could see that Dog must have been tall once. And strong.

  Was still strong. You didn’t notice when he was on all fours, but the muscles were there, clearly etched in his lean thighs and powerfully bulky along his upper arms. How many press-ups did he do in here every day?

  ‘Clothes,’ said Luke. ‘Let’s find you something.’

  ‘He can tolerate the cold.’

  Abi didn’t want her brother hunting around disturbing the hounds or their masters.

  ‘I’m sure he can tolerate it. But three people out walking at night will be that bit more conspicuous if one of them is stark naked than if they’re all, you know, dressed.’

  When did Luke get so wise? And so smart-mouthed.

  No, wait. He’d always been that.

  It was so good to have him back. This was how it should have been from the start.

  Their night-time outing with the dog-man – Dog, as she supposed she should now call him, which somehow felt worse – was a success. They’d returned him to his pen without incident, and Luke was keen to make a repeat visit soon.

  But that was going to become harder, because the advance wedding party had arrived. Not only Lady Hypatia, but also her eldest son and his family – the Vernays of Ide, a cadet branch of the Jardine line. Abi didn’t know anything about them, beyond the fact that Ide had been the target of Black Billy’s infamous, doomed revolt more than two centuries ago. With them came the bride-to-be’s widowed father, Lord Lytchett Matravers, and his chum Lord Rix.

  These two were an ill-matched pair: one, a Christmas pudding of a man, sherry-scented and full of cheer. The other was rail-thin and suave, given to leaving pluming trails of fragrant cigar smoke in their wake. The other thing that seemed to follow them around was laughter, which made for a pleasant change.

  Her dealings with Jenner were still distant and formal. But in every other respect, Kyneston – or was it Abi herself? – seemed to be casting off the gloom of the midwinter months. Sloughing it off like a salamander in the fire. I burn, not shine, she thought.

  ‘You’re not from round here, are you?’

  Lord Rix was leaning against the panelled wall of the corridor. He was watching her, a slender cigarillo between his fingers and a smile on his lips.

  Abi had been instructing a pair of house-slaves about the decorations that would transform Kyneston’s East Wing from a debating chamber one day into a wedding venue the next. She tried to flatten her northern vowels. But they came out anyway when she was exasperated – as she had been, faced with two people apparently ignorant of the distinction between ‘bunting’ and ‘garlands’.

  ‘No, my lord. From Manchester.’

  ‘Manchester?’ Rix raised an eyebrow.

  Abi couldn’t remember the name of his seat, but thought it was in East Anglia somewhere. Kitchen intel had told her that Rix had lots of racehorses but no children, and was godfather to both Matravers girls.

  ‘Aha, I know – your brother must be that lad Gavar broke out of the slavetown. Quite the daring rescue. You’ll have to point him out to me one day so he can tell me all about it. Precious little else that passes for excitement round here, eh?’

  Abi doubted that Luke’s account of six hours in the back of a van would be as thrilling as the Equal hoped, but she nodded obediently.

  ‘I’ll tell him when I see him. But I’m afraid he’s hardly ever at the house. He’s a groundsman. If you’re outside and see a blond teenage boy with a large axe, that’ll be him.’

  ‘An axe, eh?’ The Equal put both hands up in mock terror. ‘I guess your masters trust him not to have picked up any naughty ideas from his time in Millmoor. Ha ha. Still, you look like a busy young lady. Don’t let me keep you.’

  And Rix sauntered off towards the Small Solar in search of his friend.

  Dismissed, Abi.

  The Equal was right: she was busy. Her to-do list was long and there was one thing on it she was desperate to get to. But first, she had to find yet another girl who could be spared from general duties. This one was needed to assist Lady Thalia’s maid in going through her mistress’s wardrobe and severa
l trunks of Euterpe Parva’s old clothes.

  That was because in a few weeks’ time, Kyneston’s sleeper would awake. And when she did, she apparently had a wedding to attend.

  Which was a medical impossibility, surely. People didn’t come out of comas on a schedule.

  ‘Medical possibility doesn’t come into it,’ Mum had replied. ‘The Young Master is going to do it. And Lady Parva is in extraordinarily good shape. No loss of muscle tone that I can detect. Lady Thalia sits with her every day, and apparently uses her Skill to keep her sister strong. From a mechanical point of view, there’s nothing to stop Lady Euterpe getting up from that bed and going on a five-mile walk.’

  Abi understood what Mum wasn’t saying. Silyen Jardine might be able to restore his aunt to consciousness, but would she be in any state to function mentally? People didn’t come out of twenty-five-year-long comas and just pick up where they left off.

  The first-year med student that Abi would have been by now desperately wanted to see Euterpe Parva tear up the textbooks on what was possible. Curiosity about how Skill worked, physiologically, was one of the reasons she’d dreamed of doing her days in a place like this. But until she saw it with her own eyes, she wouldn’t believe it.

  She had no trouble finding a volunteer to spend the day mooning over ballgowns. Another job ticked off. But still there were more, standing between her and the crate in the library.

  Lord Matravers was insisting on sampling all the dishes selected for the wedding banquet, so Abi negotiated a date with Cook. Housekeeping was in overdrive readying for the hundreds of guests attending the three-day debate-ball-wedding extravaganza. Delivery vans would be coming and going non-stop for the next few weeks.

  In the servants’ undercroft, Abi was startled to run into Luke heading out.

  ‘I’m being roped in for the festivities,’ he explained. ‘Everyone is, each year, apparently. Even Albert, that’s how desperate they are. I’ll be carrying bags and serving drinks, so someone needed to measure me for a uniform. Listen, it’s going to be absolutely crazy. A good opportunity for . . . you know.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, quellingly. The effect of her best big-sister glare was only slightly undermined by the fact that she now had to look up at Luke. ‘We’ll talk at home tonight.’

  And then, amazingly, her to-do list was an all-done list. So she hurried off to the library.

  The room was locked, given what was temporarily stored inside. But Abi had the Family Office master keys. She checked the passageway in both directions before letting herself in, although this was a perfectly legitimate part of her duties. Okay, no one had told her to do it, but that was what being a self-starter was all about, right?

  Someone had been in here before her, because it was out of its crate.

  There in the library, so close Abi could touch it, was the Chancellor’s Chair of the Equal Republic of Great Britain. It was brought to Kyneston each year for the Third Proposal Debate. It was both smaller and more beautiful than she had imagined.

  It was turned away, facing the fireplace. Made of oak, the wood had darkened to a colour and sheen resembling ebony during more than seven centuries of use.

  She crept nearer. The chair had a presence almost like that of a person. Commanding. Royal.

  The figures of beasts and men carved into the back had lost their sharp definition. But that didn’t diminish their allure. Abi bent to study the images. A dragon. A crowned man. A winged woman holding a sword. A sun surrounded by stars. Wavy lines that could have been water, or could have been something else entirely.

  She reached out a hand. Hesitated, as she had all those months ago when she’d touched the Kyneston wall, then brushed her fingertips across the lustrous wood. She smoothed her palm over the triangular top, and down to the armrest.

  When she stroked her fingertips around the side of it, she received a shock that made her squeak and nearly stumble backwards into the fireplace.

  The chair was occupied.

  ‘Do be careful, Abigail,’ chided the person sitting cross-legged and contemplative in the wooden seat. ‘It’d be such a nuisance to have to haul you from the flames and put you out.’

  Silyen Jardine was watching her mildly.

  ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack,’ she snapped, startled. ‘What are you doing sitting there – trying it for size?’

  And if there was a guide titled How Slaves Should Never Address Their Masters, then yes, a sentence like that would be written on page one. Abi began to blurt an apology, but the Young Master waved it away.

  ‘That’s a little far-fetched, surely. I’m no heir. I’m not even a spare, although I daresay my father would prefer me over Jenner if it came to it. No, I’ll never be Chancellor. But of course, this wasn’t always the Chancellor’s Chair.’

  To emphasize his point, Silyen unfolded his long legs and drummed the heels of his boots against the stone lodged beneath the seat. It was the former coronation stone of Britain’s monarchs, broken by his ancestor Lycus the Regicide.

  What was Silyen implying? Abi knew what it sounded like, but that would be bonkers, even for him.

  ‘I presume you’re not planning to restore the monarchy,’ she said. ‘I think the moment for that has passed, don’t you?’

  ‘Has my brother been giving you more history lessons?’ the Equal asked. ‘Oh no, silly me, he’s not allowed to fraternize with you any more, is he? Just boring talk about paperclips and invoices. Mummy’s orders. Well, allow me to offer a lesson of my own. I know you like history, Abigail. Remember: those who don’t learn from it are doomed to repeat it. Or should that be those who do learn from it are able to repeat it? Here.’

  He swung his boots and jumped lightly down from the chair.

  Abi’s gaze followed him, but her brain had registered only one part of what he’d said. Jenner’s distancing wasn’t what Jenner wanted. His mother had imposed it. A feeling fizzed in her heart that felt as magical as Skill.

  Was it hope?

  Silyen hadn’t noticed. Hands clasped behind his back, he was peering at the carvings she’d inspected a moment earlier.

  ‘Have you heard of the Wundorcyning – the Wonder King? I won’t scold you if you haven’t, because many of my kind don’t know about him either. He’s a folk legend. A dangerous one – his story was suppressed twice over. I believe he really existed. You don’t bother expunging the memory of made-up people.’

  Silyen stooped to trace the indistinct figure of the crowned man.

  ‘He lived during that dark gap between the Romans and when we started writing down history for ourselves. He was Skilled. The tales say he met strange and marvellous creatures, fought giants, and walked in other worlds.

  ‘After his death – or disappearance, because there aren’t any accounts of him actually dying – for some reason there was never another Skilled ruler. So legends of the Wonder King were banned by the monarchs who came after him. They had crowns, but no Skill, and I guess they didn’t want to look inadequate by comparison. Since the glorious Equal Revolution, of course, our rulers have had Skill, but no crowns. So the people in power still don’t want to hear about him: the one man who had both.’

  ‘But here he is,’ said Abi, wonderingly. ‘Hiding in plain sight.’

  ‘Just so.’ Silyen smiled. ‘The library at Orpen Mote had the only complete copy of the oldest book, Signs of Wonder: Tales of the King. But here he is, I’m sure of it. On the chair. Mocking everyone who’s ever sat in it – my father included.’

  Abi straightened. The story was fascinating. But not even talk of ancient books, lost knowledge and a magical king could displace the one thing her brain was clamouring to hear more about.

  Would the Young Master be angry if she asked? Unfortunately, she didn’t really have a choice, because no one else – especially not Jenner himself – seemed willing to talk about it.

  ‘Your brother,’ she began. ‘You said that your brother . . .’

  Ugh. She was makin
g Dog sound articulate.

  ‘Isn’t permitted to engage with you. Yes.’ The young Equal flapped his hand dismissively. ‘Mother and Father worry he’s half a commoner already, so they come down hard on anything that looks like sympathy for your sort. Is “sympathy” the best word in this case, Abigail?’

  His tone was sly and Abi flushed with embarrassment. But she had to persist.

  ‘And that’s all there is to it? General disapproval? Because there’s an evening I can’t remember. I was worried that maybe I did something, and that’s why.’

  ‘Can’t remember? Someone’s been doing housekeeping inside your head without your permission? How very impolite. I can take a look, if you like.’

  Abi hesitated. What had she got herself into? Those bright black eyes saw her uncertainty.

  ‘Breaking into someone’s memories is a dangerous and almost always damaging process, Abigail. But it’s much more straightforward – at least, I think so – to discover if an act of Skill has been worked upon a person. And if so, by whom. Each one of us is unique in the way we use our Skill. It’s like a fingerprint.

  ‘Because I am this family’s gatekeeper, I know the print of everyone who enters our estate. So I’ll be able to tell if anyone has used Skill upon you. Look, you can even sit comfortably while I find out.’

  Silyen casually indicated the Chancellor’s Chair. The throne of kings and queens. Her head spinning, Abi complied. She gripped the bone-smooth armrests, then screwed up her eyes until it was over.

  He hadn’t lied. It was nothing like as bad as what he’d done at the gate, but there was still that stomach-turning sensation of being handled. It was like Mum checking tomatoes for blemishes at the supermarket. Abi pictured Silyen looking for a spongy brown-black bit, where the sharp corner of someone’s Skill had dug in and done her some damage.

  ‘Bouda,’ he announced after a few minutes of this. ‘And my mother. Wasn’t difficult to deduce. They both lack finesse. I can tell you exactly what happened, too. Bouda and Gavar had a fight, a ferocious one, which you witnessed. Bouda hates being the subject of servants’ tattle, so she Silenced you. Rather brutally. I guess she was still furious with Gavar.