The Threads of Magic

by Alison Croggon

  “Put it away,” she said at last. “That is a terrible thing. I wish I had never had cause to see such a thing as that.”

  “I told you it was evil,” said El.

  “It’s not evil in itself. Maybe it might do evil things. What caused it to be made is evil.”

  “So what is it?” said Pip, wrapping it up and putting it back in his pocket.

  “I’m not sure that you should know.”

  Pip opened his mouth to argue, but was interrupted by the ringing of a bell several rooms away.

  “Oh no,” said Oni. “That’s Georgie.”

  Chapter Twelve

  THE OLD PALACE HAD BEEN CRUMBLING INTO GRAND decay for almost a century, ever since King Axel I built his new, showier palace in the centre of Clarel. Much of it was a maze of panelled corridors and rooms constructed inside faded ballrooms and reception rooms, where dusty scribes and officials scurried from office to office on their inscrutable duties. Even Amina, the Old Palace’s housekeeper, wasn’t quite sure what most of them did, although she thought it was something to do with tax.

  Georgette breathed in the familiar smells of damp and stale cooking with relief. For the first time that day her feeling of panic subsided. She knew every corner of this place. It was the closest thing to a home she had ever known.

  In the Old Palace, where the king put unimportant affairs like princesses he didn’t want and obscure government departments, things ran on their own, mostly overlooked by the royal gaze.

  Amina’s door was always locked to keep out bewildered scribes, who sometimes got lost. It was a long time before she answered the bell this evening, long enough for Georgette to start wondering if she was out. How could Amina not be there?

  She was just about to tug the bell-rope again when the door opened. Amina met her eyes unsmilingly, hurriedly let her in and turned the key behind her, and only then kissed her cheeks. Georgette wanted to hug her, but something made her hold back.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  It was unlike Georgette, who was a princess after all, to notice the feelings of others, and Amina gave her a narrow look. “Nothing, my dear,” she said. “I’ve just got Oni here, with some friends who wanted advice.”

  Georgette’s face brightened. “Oni!” she said. “I haven’t seen her since, oh, for years…”

  “No, that you haven’t.”

  “It’s not like I’m allowed,” Georgette said, with sudden defensiveness.

  Amina’s face relaxed. “Yes, my dear, I know that. Anyway, it can’t be helped. You might as well come to the kitchen.”

  Georgette wrinkled her nose as Amina showed her in. There were candles burning although it wasn’t yet completely dark, and a strong smell of cassia and myrrh. Three people looked up as she entered. Georgette recognized Oni, but the others were strangers: a sharp-faced boy and a girl who looked a little younger than her. To her annoyance, she felt herself blushing under their gaze.

  The fair girl was staring at Georgette in awe. “Is that real gold?” she said.

  “Ssshhh,” said the boy next to her, in a perfectly audible whisper. “That’s not how you talk to nobles.”

  “Hello, Georgie,” said Oni. “You’ve changed.”

  Georgette heard a note of hostility in Oni’s voice. For once she didn’t know what to say. She hesitated by the doorway, feeling like an interloper.

  “It’s been a long time,” she said to Oni. “I’m not allowed to see any…” She had been going to say “commoners”, but caught herself. It was the condition on which she had been allowed to visit Amina, that she kept no other low company, and especially not the children who had been her friends when she ran wild in the Old Palace.

  Amina was watching with a glint of amusement in her eyes. “These two here are Pip and El. And this is Georgie.”

  “Princess Georgette,” said Oni. El gasped.

  “We have an agreement that while she’s in this house, she’s not a princess,” said Amina.

  El was still staring at Georgette’s outfit. It was richly dyed blue silk, with delicate lace beaded with tiny seed pearls at the cuffs and throat. Georgette’s shawl, thrown over her bare shoulders, was embroidered with butterflies stitched with golden thread. Georgette had grown accustomed to such finery over the years, and her current dress, a costume for everyday occasions, was by no means the most impressive she owned. A large part of being a princess, after all, was looking like one.

  Pip turned accusingly to Oni. “You never said you knew a princess.”

  “I said you don’t know everything about me,” said Oni. Now she looked as if she wanted to laugh. “Oh, do sit down, Georgie. Unless you’ve grown too fine for us. We promise not to make you dirty.”

  Georgette snapped out of her embarrassment and walked to the table, her skirts swishing. “I have to dress like this,” she said. “And it might look nice, but it’s tight and there are always bits sticking into me. And it’s complicated to sit down.” She drew out a chair and arranged herself into it. She had to sit two feet away from the table to accommodate her stiff skirts.

  “Do you eat off golden plates?” asked El. Her eyes were like saucers. “With jewels and everything?”

  “Sometimes,” said Georgette. “When I have to eat with my father.”

  “And do you really have someone to help you wipe your arse?” asked Pip.

  “Now, you two, that’s enough,” said Amina.

  “But Olibrandis said—”

  “I said, be quiet.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll brew some tea,” said Amina. “And meanwhile, you two, remember that you are to tell no one that you saw Georgie today. No one.”

  “I’m no snitch,” said Pip indignantly.

  “It’s important.”

  Amina put a kettle on the hob and busied herself with crockery, while Oni studied Georgette with open curiosity.

  “How is it, being royal?”

  Georgette looked around the table, feeling that it was now or never. Why, this day of all days, were there strangers here? But this was her only chance. She took a deep breath.

  “It’s bad,” she said. “You don’t know how bad. I have to leave. I’m hoping that Amina can help me escape. Today. I have to run away today.” As she spoke, her self-control wavered, and tears started in her eyes. Saying it out loud was different to thinking it in her head. It suddenly seemed real.

  “You want to run away?” said El. She couldn’t imagine why anyone who wore beautiful clothes and who never had to worry about meals would want to escape such a fine life.

  “I have to,” said Georgette fiercely. “Or I’ll die.” She turned towards Amina, who was standing by the fire, perfectly still, a cup forgotten in her hand. “You’ll help me? You’re the only one I can turn to…”

  Amina slowly shook her head. “My dear, how could I possibly help you?”

  Georgette’s lip wobbled, but she forced herself not to cry. She didn’t want to burst into tears, not in front of Oni and the others. Even if she didn’t want to be a princess, she had her pride.

  “Please,” she said. “Please, Amina. My mother told me. I have to run.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  JACK RANCIERE, APOTHECARIST TO GENTLEFOLK, HAD stern views about money. In particular, his view was that when money arrived in his pocket, it should stay there. He believed that Pip had swiped his purse several years before when he had been too drunk to really notice what was going on. He had never been able to prove it, but he had seen Pip eating a roast goose at the Crosseyes the day after his purse went missing and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together.

  Pip had denied all knowledge and then appeared to forget all about it, but Ranciere never did. He nursed his resentment, biding his time. So when he heard that silver was going begging for any recent news of a young pickpocket called Pipistrel Wastan, he asked around until he found the right person to talk to.

  Yes, he knew this mongrel well. Yes, he had his address. He l
ived with his sister, a straw-headed bit called Eleanor. He saw them often at the Crosseyes, plotting together, probably. “You reckon he murdered the old man? And him so young and all! Some is born with hearts as black as pitch. They was probably plotting with Oni, what works there. Thick as thieves, they are, Oni and that Eleanor. Well, they’re all thieves, aren’t they? Not respectable citizens, like us.”

  Ranciere sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve. The chief assassin, Ariosto, who was dealing with this informant himself, didn’t bother to hide his expression of distaste. Bumping up rewards for information was a mistake, he reflected: it usually only resulted in a lot of wasted time chasing false trails. Jack Ranciere, who was smirking up at him from a chair he had not been invited to sit down in, seemed to offer as hopeless a lead as the last.

  Ariosto studied his hands and noticed with irritation that his nails needed trimming. “So, who is this Oni?”

  “She’s a barmaid. Heard her mother is housekeeper up at the Old Palace, but who knows – that’s hard to believe. Lives in the Cresy building, up at Ink Street.”

  The daughter of the Old Palace’s housekeeper? Well, that was interesting, if it was true. “I thank you for your time,” said Ariosto. He stood up.

  “Well, where’s my pay?”

  “If it turns out that your information is useful, you will be paid.”

  In his indignation, Ranciere temporarily forgot that he was talking to an assassin. “No, hang on. I know your type. Winkle out valuable information and then go cheapskate. I was all upfront, told you what I know. I should be paid.”

  “If what you have told me is useful, you will be paid,” Ariosto repeated coldly. “If it turns out that you have wasted my time, there will be another kind of payment.”

  The implied threat penetrated even the alcoholic fog of Ranciere’s brain. He smiled obsequiously, bobbing his bald head up and down in a parody of a bow. “Of course, your honour,” he said. “Of course.”

  Ariosto didn’t deign to answer. He stared at Ranciere until the man shuffled out of his office, and then clapped his hands. A subordinate appeared instantly, as if he had materialized out of the murky air. Ariosto gave him Pip’s address, and told him to search the apartment and to keep a watch.

  “And also check the Crosseyes,” he said. “Find out if a certain young person called Oni is there. If our information is correct, she lives in the Cresy building in Ink Street. Find her, arrest her and search her domicile.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “ALL OF YOU, TURNING UP AT THE SAME TIME…” Amina said. “You came to me tonight, as if you were called. That means something. Everything is connected.”

  “You’re wise, Mama,” said Oni, in a low voice. “That’s why people come to you.”

  “Maybe. I have to be wise now. But it’s hard to be wise when you’re looking in corners and at shadows and the right thing isn’t clear. And I have to be wise for me and for you. If Georgie disappeared while she was visiting me, do you think the palace wouldn’t think that I did it? Do you think that the King wouldn’t have me thrown into his torture dungeons? And he wouldn’t stop at me. They’d arrest you too, Oni.”

  Georgette flushed and bit her lip. She hadn’t thought about that, although she knew how vengeful her father could be. He was known for punishing whole families. Once he had ordered an entire village to be burned down. It had been unfair to ask Amina to help her. But there was no one else…

  “And then there’s you two” – Amina looked at Pip and El – “running from assassins, which means that the Cardinal himself wants what you have.”

  “Lamir?” Georgette looked at Pip and El with surprise. “Why would the Cardinal be after them?”

  Pip bridled. “Just because we don’t have fancy clothes with fancy lace, it doesn’t mean we’re unimportant,” he said. “I suppose you think—”

  “Pip, stop it,” said Oni. “The last thing we need is to squabble.”

  “But she said—”

  “I know what she said. She can’t help being a princess, any more than you can help being a pea-brain.”

  “I was only saying,” muttered Pip.

  “Cardinal Lamir hates people like me with a mortal hatred,” said Amina. “And that makes helping Georgie dangerous.”

  There was a short silence, and then El, who had been gnawing her fingernails, looked up shyly. “People like you?” she repeated. “Does that mean you’re a witch, Amina?”

  “I craft magic, yes. I have the knowledge, yes. ‘Witch’ is not my word. And I was taught other things than the witches in Clarel.”

  “So what should we do?” El’s voice was pitched high and breathless. “I thought maybe you could take that … horrible thing and make it go away.”

  “I can’t do that. It’s something that can’t be undone.”

  “But what is it?” said Pip. “I found it, and maybe some assassin is going to slit my throat because of it, like poor old Ollie, and I’d kind of like to know why.”

  “If any of you will be quiet long enough for me to speak, I’ll tell you.” Amina paused, a shadow of sadness crossing her face. “El is right: it is a terrible thing. You call it ‘the Heart’, Pip, and you’re right, it is a heart. Maybe you guessed, maybe it told you so itself. The heart of a little boy. A boy who died in such mortal terror that his soul has never found rest, beneath this green earth or above it.”

  El shuddered. “I knew it. I knew it was an evil thing.”

  “No child is evil,” said Amina. “But evil was done to him.” She paused, frowning. “There are many tales about this Heart. A lot of people think it’s just a story. I never did, because my grandmother told me how it was made, and what for, and she knew the person who made it. But we all thought it had been lost.”

  “So it really is magic?” said Pip. “I was sure it was. The nobles called it a treasure. I thought maybe it was a spell for making money.”

  Amina laughed out loud at that. “If only it was that simple! But yes, I suppose you could call it a spell. Or maybe a spell-breaker. It was made many years ago, when things in Clarel started turning from bad to worse. But the woman who made it never had the chance to use it.”

  Georgette was frowning. “I don’t understand. What’s this Heart, whatever it is, got to do with me?”

  “Not everything is about you, Georgie,” said Oni.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Georgette said, flushing again. “It’s just that Amina said before that everything is connected. And I don’t see how…”

  “Patience, Georgie,” said Amina. She looked at Pip. “Show her the Heart, Pip.”

  Once again, Pip took out the Heart. For some reason he felt less reluctant this time. Maybe it was the candles, which seemed to hold them in a globe of light, keeping the shadows at bay… As he held it out, it pulsed under his hand and he almost dropped it. Georgette stared at it with fascination and then, like Oni, reached out and stroked it with a finger.

  “Don’t touch it,” Amina said sharply, too late. “The fewer who touch it, the better.”

  Georgette drew back her hand, but she kept staring at it. The colour had ebbed from her cheeks. “It’s the boy in my dreams, isn’t it, Amina?” she whispered. “Remember, there’s always that little boy, crying… He’s so, so afraid…”

  “What dreams?” said Pip, closing his hand possessively over the Heart and putting it back in his breeches. It didn’t seem right that Georgette knew more about his Heart than he did.

  Georgette looked up and Pip saw with surprise that her eyes were soft. “Dreams about my mother. There’s always a child crying in the dark somewhere, and I can’t help him…”

  “So you dreamed that dream again?”

  Pip thought that Amina was suddenly alert, like a mouse that had caught the scent of a cat and was trying to decide which way to run. He didn’t like thinking that.

  “Last night. Only this time it was different. This time my mother told me to run. She held my arm so hard she bruised it,
and when I woke up…” She pulled back her sleeve to show the yellowing fingerprints on her forearm.

  “Your mother is dead,” Amina said quietly. “Or should be.”

  “She’s dead in my dream,” said Georgie, feeling defensive, although she didn’t know why. “She shrivelled up into a pile of bones on the floor. It was horrible. That’s never happened before either.”

  Amina held Georgie’s gaze for a few moments, as if she were testing whether what she said were true, and then gave a tiny nod. “That’s a good sign,” she said cryptically. “We must hope for the best.”

  “I’m sure that she meant to warn me about King Oswald.” Georgette stared at the bruises and then pulled her sleeve back down quickly, as if they shamed her.

  “Who’s King Oswald?” asked Oni.

  “King Oswald of Awemt. I am to marry him. I can’t talk my father out of it this time. He threatened to have my head cut off if I disobeyed him.”

  “Would he really do that?” said El, shocked.

  “Probably not,” said Georgette gloomily. “But he doesn’t like having me as his heir, so if he can’t marry me off, he might.”

  “Oh.” El sat back in her chair. “I thought princesses didn’t have to do anything they didn’t want.”

  Georgette opened her mouth to explain that she spent her whole day doing things that she didn’t want, but thought better of it.

  “I met King Oswald last night,” she said. “I knew then that I had to run. He frightened me more than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “Why?” said Amina.

  “I don’t know,” said Georgette. “That’s the thing. I don’t know.”

  “Does he frighten you more than Cardinal Lamir?”

  Georgette was surprised by the question, and thought it over before she answered. “I suppose I’m used to the Cardinal,” she said slowly. “I mean, I meet him every week. But when I saw them last night, him and King Oswald. They did seem … alike somehow…” She trailed into silence, frowning.