Queste

by Angie Sage

Chapter 15 IN THE ATTIC

  T hey followed Marcellus up to a small room right at the top of the house - a dark space, tucked in under sloping eaves and lined with wooden paneling. The room was sparsely furnished with an old trestle table with two benches, and a few chairs lined up along the walls - all left by the previous owner, Weasal Van Klampff. In the center of the table was a cluster of candles, lit earlier that morning by the housekeeper and already half burned down.

  As Marcellus showed them in, a pang of recognition shot through Septimus - this had been his room not so long ago. Yet he knew it was so long ago that it seemed impossible. This was the room where, for the first few nights he had been in Marcellus's Time, an Alchemie Scribe had slept across the doorway to stop him from trying to escape. This was the room where he had desperately thought up all kinds of crazy plans to return to his own Time; the room where he had sat for hours looking out of the window longing to see a familiar face pass by in the street far below. It was not, all things considered, his most favorite place in the world - but now here he was, back again with Beetle and Jenna. That was something he had never dared to imagine. Suddenly Septimus felt very peculiar. He sat down with a bump on one of the benches at the trestle table.

  Beetle and Jenna sat beside him, and soon three expectant faces were looking up at Marcellus Pye.

  Marcellus returned their gaze with a puzzled expression. "Now. . . why did we come up here?" he asked.

  "It's to do with Nicko. You remember," said Septimus hopefully, although he had no idea why Marcellus had taken them all the way up to this particular room.

  "Nicko?" asked Marcellus blankly.

  "Nicko. My brother. He was trapped in your Time. You must remember," said Septimus, a trace of desperation surfacing in his voice. It had taken months for him to arrange this meeting and now, as Marcellus's memory did its familiar disappearing act, he felt it all slipping away again.

  "Ah, I remember," said Marcellus. Septimus's spirits lifted. "It was my spectacles. I still need them; it is most annoying. Now, where are they?"

  "They are on the top of your head," said Septimus wearily.

  "Indeed, so they are. " Marcellus reached for his spectacles and settled them on his nose. "Good," he said. "I shall need them for Nicko's papers. "

  Septimus felt excited - now they were getting somewhere. He smiled at Jenna, whose eyes looked suspiciously bright, as they always did when Nicko's name was mentioned.

  Lapsing into his old man's shuffling gait - which Beetle blamed on the weird shoes - Marcellus went over to the chimney and pressed on a small panel high up on the side. The panel swung open with an apologetic creak. Everyone watched as he took out a ragged collection of brittle, yellowing papers.

  Carefully, he brought them over to the table and gently laid them down.

  Jenna gasped - they were covered in Nicko's distinctive scrawl.

  "Nicko and Snorri left these behind," Marcellus said. "I put them in the chimney for safekeeping as I was afraid that someone might throw them away, for they appear to be but notes and jottings in an untutored hand. But, as the years went by - and there were many, many years - I forgot about the hiding place. Indeed, Apprentice, I did not remember again until some months after you asked me about your brother. "

  "When you said you didn't remember," said Septimus.

  "'Tis true, I did not. But then things about my old life began to come back to me. And one day when I came up to this room I did remember. Briefly. After that I spent many weeks coming all the way up here only to wonder what it was I wanted. But when you last spoke to me about Nicko, I wrote it down. I carried the note everywhere and then, when I came up here again, I remembered. I even remembered the hiding place - which, to my amazement, I found undisturbed. Which is why I sent you the message to come here today. "

  "Thank you, Marcellus," said Septimus.

  "I owe it to you, Apprentice. I confess I cannot read much of what is in Nicko's hand, but perhaps you can understand your brother's writing better than I. It may be that the notes will tell their own story.

  But I will fill in the gaps as much as I can. "

  Jenna cautiously looked at the papers. The ink was faded to a pale sepia color, and the paper was thin and almost as brown as the ink. Even so, Jenna knew it was Nicko's work. There were doodles of boats, sketches of various sail rigs, numerous games of noughts and crosses, battleships, hangman, plus some she did not recognize and a lot of lists. But somehow instead of making her feel closer to Nicko, seeing his scribbles on such ancient, fragile things made him feel even farther away. Jenna found herself staring at a long, thin piece of paper with tears pricking the backs of her eyelids.

  "What does it say, Jen?" asked Septimus.

  "He. . . he's made a list. "

  "Typical Nicko," said Septimus. "Go on, Jen. Read it out. "

  "Oh. Okay. It says:

  2 backpacks

  2 bedrolls (if can find) or wolfskins from market

  Food for two weeks at least. Ask at market for salted stuff.

  Dried biscuits & fruit

  Tinderbox

  Candles

  2 water bottles or flagon things

  Permit to travel? Ask M.

  2 warm cloaks

  Boots with fur if possible

  Aunt Ells's lucky socks - remember

  2 gold trinkets. For Toll-Man.

  Case for Snorri's compass. "

  As Jenna finished reading the list, the paper began to crumble in her fingers. She quickly laid it down on the table. "I. . . I wonder where he was going," she said.

  "Somewhere cold. You can tell a lot from a list," said Beetle, who was a big fan of lists himself.

  Jenna hated to think of Nicko - five hundred years ago - setting off for somewhere cold. It made her feel terribly bleak and empty. She sat slowly stroking Ullr for comfort. The cat was curled up on her lap, apparently asleep, but Jenna knew better. She could feel a watchfulness in the way Ullr lay very still and slightly tensed, as if ready to pounce.

  Septimus looked at Marcellus Pye. He knew his old master well enough to know that Marcellus had something to tell - something important. "You know something, don't you?" Septimus said. "Tell us.

  Please, Marcellus. "

  Marcellus nodded but said nothing. He sat at the end of the table as if in a daydream, staring at the cluster of candles, watching their flames dance in the eddies that blew through the gaps of the ill-fitting windows. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he looked up. "First," he said, "some warmth. "

  Marcellus got up and, striking a flint in the old-fashioned way, he lit the fire that was laid in the grate.

  As the flames leaped up around the logs, the Alchemist leaned across the table and began to speak slowly - a habit Septimus remembered from his Alchemie Apprentice days, when Marcellus had wanted his full attention. But that afternoon Marcellus did not lack attention from his audience - all eyes were on him. Accompanied by a distant rumble of thunder - and embarrassingly for Beetle, a much nearer rumble from his stomach - Marcellus Pye began to speak.