And with that, he tossed the candle into the closest pile of papers.
The candle toppled and began to smoulder. The movement of the light, as much as the fear of fire in that high, closed-up, dry place, made Ravenscraigh hesitate, while Grainger leapt back and in the same motion drew out the dagger secreted in his boot-tops. The old man took two strides, swept the candle and the few papers it touched to the floor, and stamped out the wick. Grainger turned. The dagger in his hand was prisoner’s work, bound at the hilt with strips of linen rag, roughly ground to a point. The chamber was darkening. A few flecks of sullen red, stray beams of the descending sun, or reflections of fires set in the streets below, painted the shutters, cutting across the dark of the chamber.
When the candle was broken, Ravenscraigh did not pause. His shoes scuffed the bare wooden floor, as he advanced and lunged in the old style, the blade held high and slipping towards the throat and heart. Grainger scurried to give ground, but in a space no broader than a debtor’s cell, he soon found his heels hard up against a shelf laden with parchment and old ribbons. And as cool and composed as a man that goes to break the neck of a rat caught in a trap, Ravenscraigh closed on him.
Ravenscraigh was the elder of the two, but in robust health, steady rather than quick, practiced, and determined. He had the longer weapon, light enough for him to wield, supple, and sharpened to a piercing point, with the family crest of the Ravenscraighs stamped on the guard. Grainger, though the swifter and the stronger, was held at bay by the length of the smallsword and armed with an unfamiliar blade. His training at fencing had been but erratic in the prison, and he was weakened by his late fever and the exertions of forcing a way through the riot. He parried, using the dagger as foil, but could not reply and was forced to give way in disorder.
Ravenscraigh came on, driving with the blade. Grainger, harassed by the sword lashing at the face or chest, disadvantaged by the dimness of the strange room, stumbled as he strove to keep his distance and struck his back and shoulders against looming shelves and cabinets, dislodging the dust, so that he seemed to fight and dodge in a cloud of papers, a murk broken only by looming walls and the bitter flash of steel.
Yet Grainger could not consent to be worried and blooded and struck down like a baited bear. He drew aside again, but straightened and set himself to the guard. And now, as Ravenscraigh stabbed with the same courtier’s step, Grainger parried and riposted low, lunging deep and with a bounding step, as far as he could extend, beneath the blade that flicked above his shoulder. It was not enough; the dagger had not the length. But Ravenscraigh, with a low gasp of surprise, was forced to drop his wrist and parry to protect himself. Grainger straightened the knee to recover, and as he rose, Ravenscraigh countered. The tip of the smallsword scored Grainger’s head above and before the ear and opened an inch of scalp, but it was a small wound, and though he felt the blood trickling across his jaw, it was not in his eyes.
Resistance, a near touch, broke Ravenscraigh’s calm. His deliberation was gone; he flew at Grainger with swift, pressing flurries. Yet always there was a certain calculation, as he sought to wear his enemy down or force an error. Grainger stood. His opponent was indistinct, while steel rang against steel, and his arm shook with fatigue, as he battered again at the sword.
Still the dagger, though it could threaten and guard, could not reach far enough to bite. Grainger had been schooled by the Bellstrom; he had sat by the gossip of cutthroats and footpads, and knew how they plied their trade in the dark nooks of The Steps. He saw at last the smallsword tremble, as the wrist that wielded it tired, and he knew his chance. He struck the blade, caught it against his own, bound it, and turned it out. He stepped in, with all his strength and speed, forcing the hilt against the hilt. He bore in against Ravenscraigh, until there was no distance between them, and with his left hand he grasped the hilt and the sword hand. Ravenscraigh snarled, but Grainger, wielding the dagger in his fist and using the weight and not the edge of it, hammered at his enemy’s chest while he twisted the sword-arm out. While Ravenscraigh tried to pull away from him, Grainger dropped the dagger from his hand, and with that better grip, he took the other by his coat and shook him, breaking his balance, so that as Ravenscraigh scrambled for purchase, he reached down and wrenched the sword-hilt from his hand.
The old man fell. Grainger held the smallsword over him. Ravenscraigh reached for the dagger on the floor. Grainger kicked it aside.
“Does it please you to beat and overpower an old man?” said Ravenscraigh, gasping.
“Rise, sir,” said Grainger, weighing out words between breaths. “You know what I require.”
Slowly, with great weariness, Ravenscraigh rose, a dusty spectre in an old crypt. He shuffled to one of the leaning cases bearing a strongbox that Grainger had disturbed. For several moments, he rummaged in his pockets, until he drew out a little set of keys.
“You will unlock it only,” Grainger directed dryly.
With a small grimace, Ravenscraigh complied.
“Show me the contents.”
Ravenscraigh tilted the box. There were only papers within. Grainger nodded.
From the box, Mr. Ravenscraigh took several bound sheets. “This is all the correspondence that passed between Mr. Massingham and myself. It bears my seal, and is in my hand. You may find it instructive. If aught else, they will prove you blameless. But I suggest you do not linger, Mr. Grainger. If I place this in your possession, I put myself on the steps of the gallows, and a terrible storm of retribution will follow my fall.”
Grainger shook his head. “You mistake me. I said before: I will not be your judge or your executioner. I am sure that you have means to come and go from the Bellstrom at will. There stands the door. If you quit this place as I leave it, then all shall be concluded between us, and we will both be free.”
At this word, the old man halted. He held the papers loose before him. In his face there was the same cold pride and defiance, and yet, even in the gathering gloom, Grainger apprehended there a glimmer of fear, a deep, sharp thing that was the product of the prison only, engendered, nourished, and maintained by the enclosing walls, that many strove to conceal, the man before him better than all others, yet which haunted and bound them all. Still, the same smile, knowing and distant, played on the prisoner’s lips, and Grainger recoiled from it.
“Do not tarry,” said Grainger, wary. “Your position is not a happy one. You will have a space of a few hours in which to make good your departure.”
Ravenscraigh rustled the bundle in his hand. “Remarkable, that these papers here contain your complete vindication, and yet every last scrap in this chamber threatens my exposure.”
“Enough!” said Grainger. “You know my terms.”
With a shout of contempt, Ravenscraigh hurled the box at Grainger, turned, and ran, clutching the bundle to his chest. Grainger started for the door, but Ravenscraigh, sure of his way, made instead for the narrow stepladder that rose to the hatch in the ceiling. Returning, Grainger threw himself after, but his enemy had in a single leap mounted two or three steps, and delivered a kick that Grainger blundered into in his haste and dismay, and which sent him reeling backwards. When Grainger had gathered his breath and came on again, the older man had pushed open the little trap-door and scampered through into the higher room. There was no place beyond that but the tower roof. Cursing, Grainger climbed the steps, pausing only before he pushed through the trap-door, for fear of another blow inflicted from above.
A rush of cold air, stronger and cleaner than all the foul fumes of the prison, spilled down on him as he came out onto the boarded floor. The rusted iron bell of the old fortress hung in neglect from the broad oaken beams beneath the cap of the tower. On all four sides, open arches with a low parapet looked out to the city. The sky was a grey, roiling mass, torn here and there, with faint strokes of reflected light. Only in the west, where the sun was almost consumed in the ashes of the day, was there a dying red glimmer. The wind played about the tower and cut
across the chamber. There were no bars upon the arches: doubtless the gaolers had thought that any attempt by a prisoner to descend from here was madness.
Grainger hauled himself through the trapdoor and steadied himself above the opening. Here, in the clear heights above the prison, there were many distant sounds: shouts and roars in the streets about, the crackle of flames in the courtyard, the whinny and hoof beats of horses on the hill. The soldiers were making ready to break in at the prison gates. As the wind shifted, it brought with it the tang of fires and gunsmoke.
Grainger shifted, balancing low on tensed legs, striving to make out his opponent. Ravenscraigh moved on the other side of the chamber, in the shadow of the bell.
“What lunacy is this?” cried Grainger. “You gain nothing by coming here!”
The old man gestured at the heaped roofs of the city, at the maze of lanes and courts where flames now moved. “I say all this is mine, and I will not be cheated of it and dispossessed again by some meddling whelp, a dainty gent who spurns my power and presumes to offer me freedom. Better the ruin of both our names and all our honour than submit to that.”
“Hold,” urged Grainger. “Reconcile yourself. You have done much evil in the world, and that must end. But I will have only what you took from me!”
Grainger stepped lightly to the side, to make his way past the bell, but the old man started, shook the bunched papers in his hand, and made for the western arch. Grainger dropped his head and ran forward.
Before Ravenscraigh could reach the opening, something black and wild rose up before him, with a rattle of wings and a piercing cry. It was Roarke, who had taken refuge from the riot in this high, quiet, familiar place. The bird drove at the man with a rush of feathers and claws. Ravenscraigh raised his arms and bellowed, flailing at Roarke with his hands.
The raven circled the bell, and with another cry dove out to the north, but in the delay Grainger discarded the smallsword and fell upon Ravenscraigh from behind. He took Ravenscraigh by the shoulder, tearing his coat and bringing back his arm, so that he could catch at the wrist and begin to pry back the fingers. Ravenscraigh clenched his fist and strained against him. Their feet, locked together, slipped on the bare boards. But Grainger was the steadier; the first few sheets tore on the old man’s nails, but the papers were forced from his grasp, leaving only a few scraps behind.
Raging, Ravenscraigh clawed at Grainger’s face with his other hand, raking his skin and tearing the edge of his eye. Grainger released his arm, but the other man turned and went to fix his hands about his throat. Grainger caught his wrists, but the fingers dug against his neck, and the thumbs crushed up beneath his chin, as though Ravenscraigh thought to squeeze his head from his neck like the hangman’s knot. Locked together, they reeled and wheeled about, narrowly missing the bell as they spun. Grainger felt the breeze at his back; he was near the open arch. With an effort, twisting, he staggered aside and was driven into the corner of the tower. He struck the stones, and the impact drove the breath out of his body.
His head was twisted further back. The space beneath the roof was all a blackness. His breath halted, but his blood roared in his ears. Grainger dug his thumbs into the wrist beneath the hands at his throat, and felt the lean sinews grinding beneath them. The hands flexed and loosed their grip, and Grainger had a moment in which he could thrust forward and take Ravenscraigh by his collar. He braced against the stone. Ravenscraigh hissed and made to tighten his grip, but Grainger threw him right, then left, then right again, heaving out and turning with all his force, and with that one blind thrust, Ravenscraigh lost his hold, staggered against the parapet, and fell.
Fell down, straight as a stone, to strike once against the walls of the prison, break upon the cliff, and land shattered among the slates and tiles of the roofs far below.
Grainger knelt upon the floor, dazed and breathless, choking, and contending with all his resolve against the immeasurable black tide of faintness that clutched and smothered him. For many minutes he remained, almost motionless, only his back and shoulder rising, and the blood still oozing from his scalp and falling to the floor. Then did he raise his head, and crawl a little forward to gather the papers to him. He looked down on the neat, calm hand, at the stamp of the raven’s seal, and doing so recalled him to himself and his purpose, the wild tumult of the streets and Cassie, Cassie alone, who only waited his signal to come to him.
Epilogue.
THE GREAT HOUSES on Haught were shut up and quieted and disinclined to entertain. No carriages stood along the paved roads, while their masters, returning from business on Battens Hill, were thin-lipped and pensive, and snappish with the staff. Lady Stepney, quite fatigued, retired to languid gossip with a clutch of her nearest friends. Their topic was scandal and murder, and the disturbances that discomposed the quality of Airenchester. The honourable mayor had closed up his house and would not answer to callers. The venerable firm of Trounce and Babbage had dispersed, and their chambers in Stickerings Inn gone silent. Many other high ventures proved hollow—many fortunes were revealed as shams—and where the infection of the Bellstrom had been purged, there were few yet who dared speak of it.
Instead, the talk in council was of reform—inevitable and insistent, the first call and refuge of hampered minds, where to reform is to conform to narrower ideas than before. Reformists marched up to the Bellstrom (where Master Brock kept uneasy company among his former charges), made note of the abuses perpetrated there, and would presently distribute their reports. In the space of a few decades, they would make a cold new Hell of penitence and labour out of that old Hades of indolence and neglect. This much Lady Stepney and her circle could well remark and think upon, and yet one other scandal ruled their tongues, though the subject of their talk would not be much surprised by their opinions.
SIX DAYS AFTER the storming of the Bellstrom, the usual heedless mass of bodies and carts, dogs and horses, flowed over the Feer Bridge. A tall man in a coat, with a muffler high on his face and a low hat, pressed hesitantly through the crowd, halting often, and stopped at the peak of the bridge, gazing over the waters and disregarding the jostling crowd. Some who have journeyed or spent many years abroad return to the places they set out from and find them intact; others return to a scar or a ruin, but all feel that pang of wonder and bewilderment at everything that time transforms and dissolves. So Thaddeus Grainger stared at the smokestacks and piers and busy boats on the river in a kind of daze, cowed by the movement of humanity and the limitless sky, until his other purpose reasserted itself and his hands released the rail.
Two bailiffs lurked at his back, tasked by the Captain of the Watch with guarding him. Glancing at them, Grainger set off again, going warily, for he did not know the way, up the paths that burrowed into The Steps, stopping often to ask directions. At the end of all, he found Porlock Yard and the Redruths’ door. His knock raised the household and six or seven shouted replies. Small faces appeared at the window, gaped, and retreated; Grainger knocked again. Cassie Redruth opened the door.
He raised his hat, revealing the bandage across his brow. “Cassie. Miss Redruth, my dear.” His voice was dry and unusually harsh; when he lowered the muffler, the bruises about his throat were still marked.
A flash of joy and then alarm crossed her face. “Here?” she said, her gaze skipping to the bailiffs and the archway. “Why here? Has the Captain let you go?”
“Damn the Captain. He frets for my safety, has kept me in secret under his roof for days in fear of our enemies, but I am recovered, enough, and he shall detain me no longer.”
“Will you not come in?” she said. She wore one of her old dresses.
He glanced past her into the cramped room, seeing the looming corner of the table, the low, smoke-blackened beams, and shook his head with a start. “I would rather we speak out here. My purpose is with you alone.”
She nodded and stepped down with care. Porlock Yard seemed poorer still as she came out: tumbledown, cracked, and weary. Trash, broken gl
ass, and rubble marked the track of the riots.
“You are tolerable well, Cassie?” he asked.
“I am out of service, back where I started,” she said, with a shrug. “Mrs. Wenrender has left her great house and hides with her sister alone in that heap in Staverside. All the servants are gone. The Withnail brothers have fled. I have sold everything I had from her, some trinkets and dresses she gifted me. It is not much, but—” she turned one shoulder to indicate the poor room behind her—“it will hold us together.”
“I am sorry, for you have set much against my freedom. And I am a prisoner no more. This morning, the judgement against me was set aside. And consequently,” he added, with a ghost of a smile, “I am at liberty to call on you.”
“And why should you call on me now, a free man?”
“You are my rescuer, first among all others,” he said. “You know that. William has reported that they could not have braved the Bellstrom but for you. You were steady before the mob, in all the riot and bloodshed.”
“There were men in the yard before the tower. They would not let us pass at first. They were angry, but plain speech turned them.”
“For your true heart, for all you have done for me—” he started.
“Do not ask out of gratitude,” she said, colouring. “It was no reward I sought.”
“But you have your reward, regardless. Your honesty is proven,” he said.
“Aye, for as much as anyone remembers or cares in Porlock Yard.”
“I am grateful,” he said. “But I will not speak from gratitude.”
“Nor yet pity,” she continued, raising a warning hand. “I am back in The Steps again. What lady would take me as her maid now? You see, this is what I shall ever be.”
“No pity in it at all. Rather, I think always of your kindness to me, which never failed.”
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