Dark Stars (The Thief Taker Book 3)

by C. S. Quinn

  ‘Leo,’ Lily continued reading aloud, ‘the royal blood.’ She twisted her own ring on her finger.

  ‘Royal blood,’ she said, wondering, ‘but no name. My ring was lost at sea.’

  They were both thinking of the King and his dangerous escape to Holland as a young man.

  ‘Those are the two rings we have,’ said Charlie. ‘What’s left?’

  Lily’s gaze travelled back to the wall. ‘The Cipher,’ she said. ‘Scorpio, the shape-shifter.’

  ‘One of the missing rings belonged to the Cipher?’ said Charlie.

  ‘It looks that way,’ agreed Lily.

  ‘But the Cipher isn’t down in the catacombs,’ said Charlie, trying to stem his mounting frustration. ‘We searched them all. There’s no part habitable.’

  He was looking around the dank little camera obscura. The tiny chamber had barely space for both of them to stand.

  ‘But if Thorne was here,’ Lily pointed out, ‘the Cipher might be somewhere else in the woods.’

  They reflected on the huge dark forest.

  ‘If the catacombs aren’t the Temple of Death,’ said Charlie, ‘I don’t know where else we should look.’

  Lily nodded her agreement, turning back to the wall. ‘The last ring is named for Thorne,’ she said. ‘He is marked as Taurus, the Temple of Venus.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘The Temple of Venus,’ said Lily. ‘A clue to where Thorne’s ring might be found?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of any temples in London,’ said Charlie, searching his expansive knowledge of the city.

  ‘What about Temple Bar?’ suggested Lily.

  ‘That comes from the Knights Templar,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s nothing to do with old Roman gods.’ He thought carefully. ‘Some of the brothels call themselves Temples of Venus,’ he said doubtfully.

  Then Charlie noticed something about the dark room.

  ‘If this was Thorne’s camera obscura,’ he said, ‘he changed its purpose.’ Charlie pointed at the walls. ‘The camera no longer shows the sky,’ he pointed out. ‘Now it shows the city.’

  ‘So Thorne was watching something in the city?’

  They both looked at the reflected image.

  ‘The fire,’ said Lily sadly, looking at the flattened prospect. ‘Whatever Thorne was looking at burned down.’

  Charlie tried to imagine the relative heights of the old buildings and what Thorne might have been able to see. He could make out the blackened stumpy walls of St Paul’s, tiny in the reflected portion of the picture, and the grey remains of Baynard’s Castle.

  There was something here, Charlie was sure of it, but for the moment at least the facts weren’t coming together.

  Then another thought occurred to him.

  ‘If Thorne used the camera to look on the city,’ he said, ‘we could use it too.’

  ‘To look on the city?’ asked Lily.

  ‘To look on Hyde Woods.’ Charlie stepped up on to the block. ‘If we turn it,’ he said, ‘it can give us an overview. Something we can’t see on foot. Perhaps we’ll see some clue to the Cipher that way.’

  Charlie began twisting the mirror, checking the reflection at his feet as he did so. Slowly a panorama of Hyde Woods came into view. Now the stone block showed a vista of treetops.

  ‘That’s the lake,’ said Lily, pointing to a patch of open water. ‘That’s the barracks.’

  ‘What about that?’ asked Charlie, pointing to a small building on the periphery.

  ‘An old church?’ suggested Lily.

  They looked at the small building set deep in the woods, far removed from the barracks. The roof seemed to be tiled, but in a way that Charlie was unfamiliar with. And there was no spire to identify the steeple of a church or chapel.

  There was a sudden flickering of light at the entrance to the room. Bitey was waving the torch in desperate warning.

  Chapter 51

  Buckingham poured Frances a glass of wine.

  ‘You’ve never been inside a tavern before,’ he guessed.

  He’d had a cosy fire lit in his comfortable rooms and had the table set with several fine wines. No harm in charming her, he’d reasoned.

  Nervously she shook her head. Buckingham smiled. He hadn’t expected to like Frances. But something about her innocence delighted him. Too many port-side whores, he supposed, had left him jaded.

  She was dressed in an unassuming navy dress that did the exact opposite of what he supposed she hoped. Instead of making her plain, it highlighted her youth and beauty. She could make dark wool look expensive, where other women cheapened enormous silks.

  In contrast, Buckingham had dressed deliberately to seduce. He wore his shirt slightly open and his long dark hair tied loosely with a black ribbon.

  ‘You’re sure you won’t take meat?’ he suggested.

  She shook her head shyly.

  ‘Some bread then,’ he decided, cutting a slice. ‘I cannot eat alone.’ A sailor’s quirk. He smiled at her.

  Frances tried to stop her gaze flicking to the door. She’d bribed a stable boy to distract Buckingham. Where was he?

  ‘Is it very awful,’ she asked, taking a slice of bread, ‘out at sea?’

  ‘It can be very terrible,’ he agreed. ‘Cold hammocks at night, with only rum to warm you. Fear of your life from pirates.’

  Frances’s dark eyes softened in pity.

  ‘But glory too,’ he said. ‘Many sailors speak of lost treasure. Buried Aztec gold. A lost Eye to show a man the world as God sees it.’

  He didn’t know why he was telling her this. Only that she seemed to listen so intently.

  There was a knock at the door. Frances tried not to let her relief show.

  Buckingham frowned, rose and opened it. The stable boy Frances had bribed earlier was standing on the other side. She looked away, ashamed at her subterfuge.

  ‘Your horse,’ said the stable boy. ‘She seems lame in one leg. We can find you another mount for tomorrow,’ he added.

  ‘She’s a favourite of mine,’ said Buckingham, concerned. ‘I’ll see to her myself. I shouldn’t be a moment,’ he added to Frances as he stood to leave. On his way to the door, Buckingham was unable to resist a final glance at her, sitting so prettily by the fireside.

  The moment he was out of the room, Frances stood. She slipped a hand in her pocket and drew free a small key.

  This key will open any lock.

  So Lady Castlemaine had told her.

  She stepped quietly across the room and seized on the first of the two drawers. To her surprise it opened. Inside were letters. All, so far as she could see, from women. Curious despite herself, Frances picked one up. It was from a woman named Sally Oakley.

  For some reason she found her eyes following the writing down the page. And hardly realising she was doing it, Frances began skimming the contents.

  Sally Oakley had been a sixteen-year-old Royalist girl when the Civil War began. Her family policed her every move. She’d been married in arrangement to a man named Thorne.

  Frances identified with the young Sally, controlled and instructed, with no rights of her own. She knew she should be searching Buckingham’s desk, but something about Sally’s story intrigued her.

  Frances frowned at the next part. There was no suggestion of consummation or children. It seemed to be a marriage of minds. Sally went on to describe how she’d worked for the Royalist cause, attempting to reinstate the King. She and Thorne lived separate lives. Then she’d fallen in love with a commoner named Tobias Oakley and they’d made their own wedding. The letter finished saying she was pregnant and happy.

  Realising she’d wasted time, Frances bundled the letters back. She pulled at the second drawer. It was locked. Her heart skipped. She fingered the key, her palms sweating. So far she’d only been sneaking where she shouldn’t. This was actual burglary. Frances heard a noise on the stairs and turned a quick glance to the door. She waited a tense moment. Nothing. Her ears must have deceived her. />
  Frances thought of the King in his court. The growing daily pressure to retain her virtue. Trembling, she turned the key in the lock and slid open the drawer.

  Frances drew back with a gasp, her hands covering her mouth. A copper-handled knife caked in old blood rolled to the front of the drawer. Beneath it were papers drawn with grotesque bloody pentagrams.

  Frances stared in horror.

  Buckingham was a killer. And a worshipper of Satan.

  There was a noise behind her, and she started. Buckingham was standing in the doorway, his face grim.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said slowly. ‘Have you heard the story of little girls who look where they shouldn’t?’

  Chapter 52

  Charlie and Lily emerged from the camera obscura to a stricken-looking Bitey.

  Back in the tunnel there was a distinct sound of footsteps somewhere deeper in the catacombs. Charlie’s heart lurched.

  ‘Perhaps gamekeepers,’ said Bitey, his face pale. ‘Though I don’t know how they heard us. Best make a run for it.’

  Bitey hesitated, then dipped his hand in the flow to choose the direction.

  ‘This way,’ he decided.

  They dashed down the tunnel, their feet splashing in the water. They could hear voices now, along with the ominous sound of heavy boots.

  As they rounded a dark corner, the air was filled with a sudden terrible smell.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Lily, covering her mouth.

  ‘It’s the badger,’ said Bitey apologetically. ‘They’re sympathetic creatures. He must know we’re afraid and has let off a little bad air.’

  ‘A little?’ Lily was covering her face with her sleeve.

  Bitey’s torch suddenly died, plunging them into darkness.

  ‘Do not fear!’ came Bitey’s voice. ‘I see moonlight.’

  They heard the old man stop and give a sudden grunt of surprise.

  ‘Strange,’ he muttered. ‘I can see the Upside-down Tree and the lake clear by the moonlight.’ His hand banged against something metallic sounding.

  ‘Someone’s sealed this place,’ said Bitey uneasily, ‘since last I was here.’

  Charlie found his way in the dark to Bitey’s side. The exit from the tunnel led, as expected, to the muddy side of a little lake. But it was no longer open. Someone had sealed the exit with a thick metal grid.

  His stomach pitched. They were trapped. Charlie felt an unexpected contact in the dark. Lily had grabbed his hand.

  Footsteps were splashing closer through the tunnel.

  ‘The gamekeepers,’ breathed Lily, gripping his hand tighter. ‘They’ll hang us.’

  ‘They’ll do worse than that,’ said Bitey grimly.

  Charlie forced his mind to calm and considered their options. The tunnel was wide, brick-lined, with nowhere to hide. The first flash of a torch would expose them all.

  They could hear muffled voices now. At least two men, Charlie calculated.

  He let his hands wander across the metal grille. It was half a foot thick in places, bolted securely into the tunnel exit. His fingers felt the joins, searching for somewhere the brick might be loose, but all was firm. He found what he thought could be hinges, but they were too thick to work free.

  In desperation Lily grasped the thick bars and pulled as hard as she could.

  ‘Even if we could loosen it,’ said Charlie, ‘we’d have to work free every post. It would take all night.’

  They could hear their pursuers nearing. In a moment, Charlie judged, they would turn the corner and catch them here.

  They had twenty seconds at most. Charlie closed his eyes.

  Think. He wouldn’t accept there wasn’t a way out of this. Rowan was still trapped at sea, and Charlie refused to die at the hands of Hyde Woods gamekeepers.

  A possible answer came to him suddenly.

  ‘There are hinges,’ he said, feeling in the dark. ‘Perhaps there’s a door built in to allow people to open and shut the grate.’ His fingertips found out an edge on the lines of metal. ‘There’s a gate built into it,’ he confirmed. ‘Maybe it has a lock.’

  ‘What good will that do us?’ demanded Lily, panic-stricken.

  ‘I can pick locks,’ said Charlie, feeling methodically in the dark for the keyhole.

  His fingers worked systematically, feeling along the hinges to where a lock might be.

  There. A depression in the metal alerted him to a keyhole.

  ‘I’ve found it,’ he said. He tugged his lock-picking earring free from his coat and fitted it into the lock.

  A glimmer of torchlight shone from the direction they’d come in. For a moment the exact shape of the keyhole was revealed. It was larger than he’d thought. Charlie lifted the earring, feeling for tumblers.

  There . . .

  The curved earring caught the first tumbler. For a long moment it held, then gave a shriek as the keyhole partially yielded. There would be three tumblers, Charlie thought, for this size of lock. His earring found the second tumbler, and it thudded free.

  Footsteps splashed loudly behind them, and an unfamiliar man’s voice rang out in the tunnel.

  ‘Well, well,’ it said. ‘What have we here? Three little thieves for Judge Walters’s prison.’

  Charlie swivelled the earring, but the third tumbler held. Carefully he leaned back, trying to exert pressure without unbending the earring. For a moment he looked to lose his grip. Then with a heavy clang the third tumbler shot and the bolt turned. The grille swung open, and Charlie pulled his earring free.

  ‘Quickly.’ Charlie grabbed Lily and Bitey, flinging them through the open gate into the wet mud of the lake shore beyond.

  He heard shouts and running feet behind and dived through after them. Charlie’s feet slid on the mudbank, but he managed to right himself. Using all his strength, he began heaving the grille back shut.

  He felt two large bodies fling themselves against it from the other side. The gamekeepers were trying to follow them through the door.

  ‘Quickly!’ gasped Charlie as Bitey and Lily scrabbled to help. ‘Push it shut!’

  They heaved, sliding on the mud shore. The strong gamekeepers had the advantage of firmer ground. Inch by inch they began opening the grille. Lily slipped in the mud and lost a handhold.

  Charlie grabbed the bow on Bitey’s back and jabbed blindly through the gaps in the grating. He heard a grunt of pain as a gamekeeper fell back.

  ‘Now!’ Charlie shouted, putting his shoulder against the gate.

  Lily managed to regain her hold. They heaved, and with a loud clank the door closed and the lock shot home.

  From inside the tunnel the gamekeepers began shouting.

  ‘We must hide, and quickly,’ said Charlie, seeing a torch flare in the near distance. ‘There are others nearby.’

  Then they saw it. The magnificent weeping beech.

  ‘Over there,’ decided Charlie. ‘We’ll hide under the Upside-down Tree.’

  Chapter 53

  Frances’s hand was on the drawer where the bloody knife and papers daubed with pentagrams lay. Buckingham looked so furious that she found herself mute with terror.

  ‘I assume,’ said he, staring at the terrified Frances, ‘that the King put you up to this.’

  She managed to shake her head. Buckingham hesitated.

  ‘Who then?’ he demanded.

  ‘It was Lady Castlemaine.’

  Buckingham strode towards her and grabbed her slim wrists. ‘You had no right,’ he hissed.

  Frances looked up into his dark eyes and, for some reason she couldn’t explain, was not afraid.

  ‘I know,’ she said calmly, ‘and I’m sorry for it. My situation with the King is intolerable, and Lady Castlemaine promised to help me escape.’ Her wrists were still held tightly in his hands. Frances eyed the bloody knife and pictures. ‘What are these?’ she asked. ‘Why do you have them?’

  ‘What do you think they are?’

  ‘Some Devil worship,’ she suggested.

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nbsp; ‘You’re not afraid? You must have heard the stories about me.’

  She looked into his face. ‘Should I be?’

  Buckingham released her wrists and sighed. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘You need not be afraid.’ He raised a hand and brushed a strand of curling hair from her face. ‘There is something about you,’ he said, ‘that makes me want to be honest. Perhaps because you’re so young.’

  Frances said nothing.

  ‘Come sit,’ said Buckingham, leading her to his small bed.

  Frances felt her legs move beneath her. They both sat down. He passed her a cup of wine and poured one for himself. She took it in shaking hands but didn’t drink.

  ‘It’s a sacrificial knife,’ said Buckingham, ‘used in Roman times. To make offerings to the gods.’

  ‘Animal sacrifice?’ asked Frances, horrified.

  Buckingham smiled grimly. ‘The knife is not for animals.’

  Frances’s limbs felt liquid and weak. ‘You kill people?’ she whispered.

  Buckingham shook his head. ‘That knife belonged to a man named Thorne. He was a very clever man. Many said wicked. He was banished from the Church for some heinous crime his family concealed.’

  ‘What crime is great enough to forfeit heaven?’ Frances’s young face was stricken.

  Buckingham smiled slightly. ‘You’re too young to know.’ He drank some wine. ‘Thorne’s wealthy family couldn’t spare him from excommunication, but they paid bribes to prevent justice. His conspirator wasn’t so fortunate. They burned him. A young man of eighteen.’

  Frances had a sudden image of the burnings that took place at Tyburn. The hideous screams and stink of rendered flesh.

  ‘Afterwards Thorne became greatly interested in Roman gods,’ continued Buckingham. ‘By his own twisted morality they were more merciful and broad-minded than the Christians who had refused him.’ Buckingham’s gaze dropped to the knife. ‘Thorne began conducting experiments. I don’t fully understand the practice. But they involved sacrifice to the Thames. Convicts were used. I believe this was how Thorne justified killing. A Roman afterlife was preferable to a Christian hell.’ Buckingham’s eyes had a faraway look now. ‘But Thorne’s first victim was not a convict,’ he said. ‘She was a girl I loved deeply. We were engaged when they recovered her corpse at Dead Man’s Curve.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘She’d been marked . . .’ His voice shook a little. ‘Her body was cut with symbols.’