‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I said quickly, ‘but I was much delayed on my journey –’ I dabbed at my eyes ‘– owing to my father’s untimely death, and I only arrived in Faustina yesterday. I have a letter, if you –’
‘No, no. Just show me your official documents,’ Officer Hedde said, impatiently.
I handed them to him. He read the letter from the Menglu merchants with an expressionless face, but the Court Adviser’s letter seemed to interest him more. He looked at the seal carefully and, I thought, suspiciously. In a panic, scared he would work out they were forged, I felt I had to do something.
I took out the casket from my handbag, put it on the desk in front of him and said, ‘This is the gift, sir, that my father was bringing. A gift from all the merchants of Menglu, in most respectful tribute to the imperial family.’
I glanced up at the portrait as I spoke, thinking that the painter must have been some fawning court toady, for the expression painted in Prince Leopold’s eyes was so much sweeter and warmer than the eyes of the real person. Imperial propaganda, of course, I thought.
The man’s eyes widened a little as he opened the casket and saw the pearls. ‘I have never seen such fine specimens,’ he said, picking one up between thumb and forefinger and examining it minutely. ‘They seem truly flawless.’
‘They are, sir,’ I said, eagerly, ‘of a quality that is rarely found even in Pandong and never here. They come from a new field discovered only a couple of years ago by –’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, waving an impatient hand. ‘Save that for the audience. Now I regret to inform you that the Emperor will not be there, for he is unwell, but you can present your gift to the Crown Prince.’
‘Yes, of course, sir,’ I said, inwardly rejoicing, for it seemed like fate had played into my hands and I should not have to kill Leopold in front of his father.
Officer Hedde took a sheet of paper out from a desk drawer. It looked like some kind of official form.
‘Your full name and address, please. Address here, too.’ He wrote down what I told him, then stamped, signed and dated the form. He handed it to me and said, ‘Down the hall, second door on your right, they will give you an official ticket in return for this.’
‘Thank you very much, sir,’ I gabbled, picking it up with my documents and the casket, pretending not to notice that Officer Hedde still held the pearl he’d examined. I’d seen the covetous expression in his eyes when he’d looked at it. Leaving it with him was a small price to pay for having my path smoothed. And hopefully the pearl would keep its magicked form long enough for my purposes.
‘Very well, very well,’ he said, officiously shuffling papers on his desk as if I was interrupting him in some important task. Smiling to myself, I said goodbye and went out.
The clerk in the ticket office scarcely glanced at the details on the form – Officer Hedde’s signature and stamp were clearly enough. Taking a card from a box on his desk, he filled in my name, then put the card in an envelope and handed it to me.
‘In here you will find the ticket in your name, and other details,’ he said, and went on to recite mechanically, ‘You are to arrive at the gates at least an hour before the stated time to be processed and instructed on the correct protocol for the audience. This ticket is valid only for the person named, for one entry only and only for this audience on the stated day.’
I thanked him and left. It had been much easier than I’d thought. But then everything had been since I arrived here, with it all falling into place in the most unexpectedly appropriate ways. My luck would last till the end, I thought, as I walked away from the office. Dremda would have ensured that.
‘Oof!’
I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed the girl coming towards me or she I, for she, too, had been walking along with her head bent. We both saw stars.
‘Sorry,’ we both said at once, and then looked at each other.
The shock of recognition was so great that for an instant I couldn’t speak. But if I was shocked, she seemed absolutely terrified, rooted to the spot as if turned to stone. Her eyes like dark holes in her chalk-pale face, the envelope she’d been clutching dropped unregarded to the ground as she stared dumbly at me.
I found my voice, and grabbed her by the arm. ‘What are you doing here?’
She swallowed and quavered, ‘Are you . . . are you a g– a ghost?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘They said you were dead,’ whispered Babette. ‘That you’d drowned in the river trying to escape from prison . . . that you’d escaped with a gang of hardened criminals who tried to kill a warder . . . And Mother . . . Mother said it was a mercy you died.’
‘She did, did she?’ My mind was whirring. I dug my fingers into her arm and she winced. ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ I growled. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Father’s been taken very ill. Mother brought him here – the doctors are better.’
‘What?’ My stomach lurched. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘He’s in a coma. And it’s your fault, because it was such a shock when he heard about you that he was struck down with apoplexy. Mother and Odette and I, we knew all along you were bad – evil – but he wouldn’t believe it, not till they told him. Thank God at least nobody else knows. They said it was not our fault, and that nobody need know.’ She shot me a scared glance and said, trying to sound defiant, ‘And if you don’t let go of my arm at once, I’ll scream for the police.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ I said calmly, and took a deep breath. Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the leaf. This was going to be a gamble but I had to take it, I had to trust my instinct. Her eyes followed my every movement. ‘They didn’t tell you the whole truth about me, you see. I’m not just a thief, Babette; not just an ordinary criminal. I’m a witch. And I’m very good at it. That’s how I escaped them.’
From white, she turned grey. Her hands shook. ‘I . . . I don’t believe you.’
‘Well, you’d better, dear sis. You’d better believe that I’m a very powerful witch indeed and if I want to I could turn you into a frog or a worm or’ – I remembered one of Babette’s pet hates – ‘a spider, or anything at all, just with one word. Watch!’ And I breathed on the leaf and said, ‘Be a spider,’ hoping that it would work.
Instantly, the leaf twisted in on itself and suddenly there, on my hand, sat a spider – a big, brown ugly spider with hairy legs and wicked little eyes.
‘How do you like my friend, then?’ I said, moving the spider closer to her.
She was transfixed by horror, her eyes bulging. She moaned, ‘No, please – don’t . . . don’t let it touch me. I’m sorry . . . I’m –’
‘You listen carefully, Babette, because I will say this only once. You will turn around and walk away and you will not breathe a word about having seen me to a living soul. If you do, I will know. And if I find out you have broken your word, I will hunt you down wherever you are. I will turn you into a spider for ever – a thing everyone will hate on sight and you will have to spend the rest of your miserable life in hiding.’ Deliberately, I dropped the spider on the ground and stamped on it. ‘Just like this one. Do you understand?’
She looked as if she’d be sick. But I had no pity for her. For years she, her sister and her mother had made my life a bleak misery and at last the tables were turned and I could now pay her back a little for what I’d suffered.
‘I asked you a question, Babette,’ I said, sharply.
She flinched. ‘I . . . I understand,’ she said in a very small voice. ‘I . . . I promise I will not say anything to anybody.’
‘Good.’ I released my grip on her arm. ‘Now go. And remember what I said.’
‘I will,’ she quavered and then backed away a couple of paces before quickly turning around and scuttling
off as if the Devil himself were after her.
Now it was all over, I began to feel a bit trembly. I was lucky it was silly, gullible Babette I’d run into, I thought, and not her sister or mother. They’d have been much harder nuts to crack. And though it had been a dark pleasure to see how terrified Babette was of me, it had been no pleasure at all to learn of my father’s condition. He had not been a real parent to me for years, but he was still my father. Babette had said it was my fault, and though I rejected her words, it still stung. I did not like to think of him so ill and I did not want him to die. But there was nothing I could do; nothing that would ever make it better between us.
In a way, meeting Babette had been a blessing in disguise as I had learned other things important to my mission. First, that either the Mancers had not found out about my involvement with magic, or that they were keeping it quiet for their own reasons. I thought it was probably the former reason, as otherwise, surely, they’d have questioned my family who would have been under suspicion too . . . and they clearly weren’t. So I had that card up my sleeve.
Second, they had said I’d drowned. Telling my father that would have ensured he wouldn’t go looking for me nor ask awkward questions, for the Ash River was notoriously deep and treacherous and full of the bodies of people who’d drowned, never to be found. Not that I thought it particularly likely he’d have stuck his neck out anyway – not for me, who he’d neglected for years. But Prince Leopold and his accomplices weren’t to know that, and they wouldn’t want to take any chances.
Clearly, they didn’t want anyone to know the truth about the man they were hunting. Olga and I didn’t matter, not really. They didn’t care about either of us except that we might learn the truth from Max. The Prince and his friends could have no idea that the thieving servant girl had any connection with the Champainian lady who had rejected the Prince at the ball. As to Olga, well, a foreign werewolf was just vermin. Even Tomi was of no importance to them, Mancer child or not. For Max had said that he believed the Mancers had been deceived too . . .
Deep in thought, I was about to walk away when I noticed the letter Babette had dropped still lying on the ground. I picked it up and saw to my astonishment that it was addressed, in the brown ink my stepmother favoured, to Count Otto von Gildenstein. What on earth was Grizelda doing, writing to Max’s father?
Then a stunning thought struck me – here was an undreamed-of opportunity. Max had been so worried about his father. And I remembered the sadness on the Count’s face in that scene in Thalia’s mirror. He might not know of his son’s true fate but he was uneasy, I knew that instinctively. I could set his mind at rest. What was more, he was on the Mancer Council. I could even plant a subtle suggestion about the way they’d been used and I could easily do that without jeopardising my task. Indeed, it could only help to protect Max and my friends.
I wouldn’t say who I really was, of course. He’d only met me once, as Mademoiselle Camille St Clair, but I could make sure I looked nothing like that. I could dress up in those clothes I’d bought from the pawnshop and say I was a maid in the employ of Lady Grizelda, tasked to deliver the letter personally and privately into his hands. And once I was in his presence, I could see how the land lay. If it felt right, I could tell him his son was safe for now and warn him of the situation. If it didn’t, I’d keep mum, and there’d be no harm done.
First, I had to know what the letter contained.
On the way back to the hotel, I passed one of those street stalls that sells gags and jokes and disguises, and on impulse stopped and bought a pair of plain glass spectacles. Back in the privacy of my hotel room, I locked the door and sat down to read the letter. It had my father’s seal with an address in the city.
Dear Count Otto,
I hope this letter will come as a pleasant surprise. I have recently arrived in Faustina with my daughters, for the sake of my husband’s health. Sir Claus is not well but I am confident he will be better soon, with the good care of Faustina doctors. However, I imagine we will be making our home in Faustina for quite some time to come. In a week from now, I will be hosting a small, informal dinner in our new home and it would be my fondest wish, and that of my daughters, that you and your son might see fit to attend. I dare to hope that the good memories you held of the last time we met, and the warm sympathy we shared, will induce you to grant this wish and honour us with your presence.
With sincere regards and salutations from,
Lady Grizelda dez Mestmor
I shook my head. It was so like Grizelda to be thinking of her social position and her daughters’ marriage prospects at a time like this, when her husband lay at death’s door. It was all so cold-blooded and calculating. And that bit about ‘the warm sympathy we shared’ – that was sheer flirtation. Did she think there could be something between her and Count Otto? In any case, though it disgusted me, it mattered little. Nothing would surprise me about my stepmother. What did matter was the fact that she mentioned Max. And I could use that, simply by adding a line to the letter.
I uncorked my bottle of brown ink, dipped the pen in it and, imitating Grizelda’s flowing script, wrote:
Postscript: If you would be so kind as to give the bearer of this letter an indication of you and your son’s intentions, I would be most grateful.
That would give me the perfect and natural opportunity to put the question I needed to ask. Well, dear stepmother, I thought, smiling to myself as I re-addressed a new envelope, for the first time in my life I feel grateful towards you, even if you won’t ever know it.
While I waited for the ink to dry, I changed into the grey woollen dress and the shawl from the pawnshop, powdered my face till it looked pasty, then put on the spectacles, and tied the bonnet unbecomingly close to my face. Looking at myself in the mirror, I was certain there was no question now of the Count recognising the fine lady from the ball in this mousy creature.
I took the twig out from the desk and found that another leaf had unfurled. I picked it and put it in my bag, replacing the twig in the desk along with the casket of pearls and the forged documents. Once the ink had thoroughly dried, I folded the letter, slipped it into the envelope, and sealed it with a blob of red sealing wax. I didn’t put it in my bag, for I did not want to run the risk that the magic might somehow interfere with it. Drawing on my gloves, I unlocked my door and looked out into the corridor. I thought that if anyone saw me, I’d just say I had come for an interview as a maid for Miss Tarneleit. But in the event there was nobody, so I set off down the back stairs the hotel staff used. Though I encountered a couple of staff members on the way, they barely glanced at me, and I reached the ground floor and slipped out of the service entrance with no problem at all.
I was back at the Palace Protocol Office in hardly any time. Nobody recognised me and, after I stated my business, the same policeman ushered me in, the same clerk took my new name – I called myself Tilda Smit, a suitably innocuous and common sort of name – and the same official I’d seen as the incarnation of a Menglu merchant’s daughter sat across the desk and looked at me with disfavour but not recognition.
‘Count Otto is an important man, and is very busy,’ snapped Officer Hedde. ‘Give me the letter, Miss Smit, and I will see it gets safely into his hands.’
I gave a nervous laugh, the kind that suited a Miss Tilda Smit. ‘I’m very sorry, honourable sir, but my mistress was very insistent.’ I made my accent thick and slow, and saw the impatience on his face.
‘Your mistress being this Lady Grizelda?’
‘Yes, sir, Lady Grizelda dez Mestmor, wife of one of the richest and most important Ashbergian nobles, Sir Claus dez Mestmor, and a personal friend of the Count’s, as I explained to your clerk.’
Officer Hedde frowned. ‘I have not heard of these people.’
‘I am sure, sir, that if you look in The Golden Dictionary, you will find the name “dez Mestmor” has gr
eat honour,’ I said, primly, having noticed it on his bookshelf. It was a book that listed all the noble families in the empire, and something of their ancestral history. My father had it in his own library.
He grunted and, as I’d hoped, reached over to his shelf and pulled out the book. He opened it and leafed through the pages.
‘Hmm . . . Arden . . . Ashberg – here we are . . .’ He ran his finger down the column of names. ‘Yes, I see, dez Mestmor. Let me see . . . “One of the oldest families of Ashberg with an unblemished record of service to the empire” . . . um, blah blah, “one of the biggest fortunes in Ashberg . . . present holder of the title: Sir Claus dez Mestmor”. Let me see, two marriages “first to Jana Lubosdera, one issue, a daughter; second to Grizelda Krasenstein, widow of the late Officer Sigmund Krasenstein of Faustina.” Why didn’t you tell me your mistress was Officer Krasenstein’s widow instead of gabbling about provincial nobility I’ve never heard of! Officer Krasenstein was a colleague of mine and much respected in this office.’
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, sir,’ I said, taken aback. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Officer Hedde, in a noticeably softened tone, ‘I suppose, coming from sleepy, little Ashberg, Miss Smit, you can’t be expected to know much of what happens in this great city. Is this your first time here?’
‘Yes, sir, this is my first time. And I can’t believe my eyes, sir! I’d seen pictures but it’s not the same! Oh, it’s like being in a dream, it’s all so amazing –’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, holding up a hand to stop my gabbling. ‘Quite overwhelming for a little provincial, I’m sure. After all, you are in the centre of things now, not stuck in some obscure little backwater. Quite a relief for your mistress, too, I imagine.’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ I said eagerly, while inwardly amused by his patronising stupidity, and at the thought that for all her airs and graces, my stepmother had just been the widow of some obscure little pen-pusher in this office. ‘My mistress is thrilled to be back in her native city.’
Moonlight and Ashes Page 21
