The Witch of Glenaster

by Jonathan Mills

  Thomas had left us here, with a promise that he would return later, but that might be much later, and we weren’t to wait up for him. We could trust Stefano, he was an old friend, and Thomas had done him a good turn or two, once, in the past, and we would be safe here, et cetera, et cetera… Certainly the house he had deposited us in was not short on grandeur, though, like its proprietor, its glories seemed more in the past than the present. Still, it had once been a great lady, revelling, in her prime, in the flatteries and attentions of her suitors, when she had been the venue for state balls and lavish masques, and the scene of political scheming and Court intrigue; but as the city had grown, and the courtiers and their retainers moved further up the hill, they had deserted her, and now her rouge was a little too thick, her elaborate wig a little awry, but she still made the casual visitor, like Magnus and I, gape open-mouthed at her opulence.

  “This was the seat of the D’Lisle family, for sixteen generations,” said Stefano, his voice as dry as his skin, as he led us across an obscenely vast hallway of obsidian marble. “That is the Grand Duke Mortimer, there.” And he gestured with a meanly-fleshed hand. “He founded the line, back in the days of the Emperor Richard, the Wise.” We turned up a broad staircase, which swept like a wave up to the house’s first floor. “And there,” he said, indicating another portrait, “is the Duchess Petra D’Lisle. Such an evil woman. I hope she doesn’t give you nightmares.” The picture was rather dark, and it was difficult to make out its subject’s features in the gloom. But what I could see did have a striking aspect, and what some might call a cruel shape to the chin; and I grasped Magnus’s hand, to pull him away. Stefano had already moved on down the landing, and we had to hurry to catch him.

  “I have tried to make it cosy here, after my fashion,” he said, and indeed the upper floors of the building seemed more welcoming than those below: thick carpets and rugs muted the muttering of our feet as we walked, and there were long drapes along the walls and windows, to keep out the cold. We climbed two sets of narrow stairs, near the back of the house, and at their top Stefano came to a halt, and turned towards us.

  “These were the old servants’ quarters, when the D’Lisles lived here,” he explained, rattling a thick key in the lock of the door ahead of him. “I’ve given the Captain the room next to yours: you may hear him come in later. I myself live mostly downstairs. Owing to an unfortunate weakness of the humours I find it difficult to sleep, and am often awake at all hours. But I will do my best not to disturb you.” And he smiled, showing a fair flash of gold filling, and ushered us into the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It is said that, during the reign of the Emperor Samuel I, his consort, Queen Charlotte, famed as the most beautiful woman of her age, and an enthusiastic partaker of male company as long as it wasn’t her husband’s, only ever failed once in all her many attempts at seduction. A pedlar came to the Court selling some trinkets – trivial items mostly, but enough to catch the queen’s eye - and she called for him to come to her personal apartments and present his wares. Apparently the man, who was young and handsome, was very nervous, never having met royalty before, and had to be persuaded. But, eventually, come he did, and was brought before the queen, who sent her courtiers away while she chatted to him in private. Now when she addressed the pedlar, she was sat on the edge of her copious double-bed, her hair tied up loosely and her breasts and legs barely concealed beneath a shift. And when she asked him to come and sit next to her, while she threaded and kneaded the delicate little pieces of jewellery between her fingers, and then placed her hand warmly on the man’s thigh, well it was more than he could stand, and he blurted out: “But I am a celibate, mistress! I have taken an oath not to give away my virginity, not to anyone, until I am married…” She tried to persuade him, entreating him with kisses and delicate caresses; but he would not yield, even when she offered him one of the royal breasts to suck upon. The man became more and more desperate, and did not seem to see the peril he was in, even tearing one of the delicate lace curlicues on the front of her nightdress in his struggle to get free. At this the queen snapped the pedlar’s box shut, and left the room in a rage; and, within moments, guards appeared, seized the young man, and dragged him to the dungeons, where he spent the little time that was left to him bewailing his miserable fate. And, it is said, before his execution, his genitals were carefully removed, and preserved by the Imperial Taxidermist, for the queen to keep in a drawer; and she liked to take them out and stroke them every now and again, to remind herself of what she had lost: the only man to ever reject her advances.

  Looking out over the rooftops and spires of Ampar, the Imperial City, I suppose I felt the way the pedlar had - though I was too young at the time to be familiar with the story, and I don’t suppose I would have understood it if I had been – for I was all too aware of how vulnerable Magnus and I were, in this large, strange place.

  The small attic room was cosy and warm, and I felt no sense of threat from Stefano, who seemed a harmless old man for the most part, though he had some strange and somewhat fearsome tattoos on his forearms, and the skin beneath them still looked blotched and angry, as if it had not yet forgiven him for its disfigurement.

  Nevertheless, I did not know what awaited us here, and, as Magnus sat on the windowsill, swinging his legs and looking vacantly at me, I leaned against the wall, wondering. Why had Stefano referred to Thomas as “the Captain”? And why were we stuck up here, in the old servants’ quarters, when there was a whole house below, empty save for its one ageing occupant? Was Stefano embarrassed by us? Somehow this did not seem likely. I could not understand it.

  Stefano had left a plate of fresh tomatoes on the table by the door, and I threw one to Magnus before biting into one myself, the flesh chewy and bitter, my tongue smarting from the sour juice as it slid between my teeth. And as the sun sank wearily down, beneath the earth, I saw through the window its rays clinging lazily to a great structure of glass and brick, away to the north; and I recognized from pictures I had once seen the proud and steely outline of the Imperial Compendium.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “How do I get in there?”

  We were sat in a wide-windowed room, the light smiling off the cream-coloured walls, and the drapes pulled back to invite in the day.

  Magnus had slept well the night before, lying in his bed in the small attic room, like a marble effigy of a dead child. I had passed a less quiet night, and after Stefano had brought us a supper of cold chicken and ham - with a little lettuce, and apples to follow, and we were grateful and refreshed for it – I sat up and listened to the city below, and was still awake when I heard Thomas return, long after midnight.

  His tread was heavy on the stairs, though I noticed he walked like someone trying not to be too noisy, and I smiled as I thought of his concern for us. He trudged along the corridor to the room just down from ours, and, after closing the door behind him, was silent for a while. But not long after, as I was climbing into bed, there was another set of footsteps outside our room, and these I did not recognize; somehow, I did not think they belonged to Stefano, and I was anxious as I heard them pass, and pause for a moment, at the door to our room. But then they made their way to Thomas’s door, and I was half-minded to rise and warn him, lest he be in danger of some kind; but I heard him answer when a voice, thin and in a stiff whisper, called his name, and he opened his door and let the stranger in.

  Half-asleep before, I was quite awake again now, and pressed my head awkwardly against the wall to listen. I could hear nothing more than the merest rumour of a conversation, and it was clear the speakers were keeping their voices low. But I could not rest until the other man – I was sure it was a man, and not a woman – had left, and was therefore relieved when they did, after twenty minutes or so, and my earwigging was rewarded when I caught a clutch of parting words:

  “Fyn has returned from High Meadow, and is travelling north with Will and Lukas to scout the Broken Road. They hope to re-join th
e others before the week is out. We only await your word, Captain. With God’s help, it will not be long now…” The voice was small and indistinct, and I heard Thomas make a brief reply, which I could not hear, before the door was closed, and the other man returned down the stairs. I was asleep soon after.

  “Get in where?” asked Thomas, midway through munching on an apple. He made a face at Magnus, who was scooping spoonfuls of hot porridge into his mouth. He spluttered some out onto the tablecloth, and they both laughed.

  “The Imperial Compendium,” I said, casually, and pointed with my spoon through the window. The Compendium could be glimpsed from where we sat, hazy in the morning mist.

  Thomas leaned back a little, and his chair creaked.

  “The Imperial Compendium…” He stroked his chin. “What do you want to go there for?”

  I shrugged.

  “No reason. Just thought it looked interesting, that’s all…” And I addressed myself to my porridge. But I could feel Thomas’s eyes on me. I tried to make light of it with a joke, but it fell flat; and soon afterwards Magnus asked when we were going to see the emperor, and when would we meet Mum and Dad again; and he cried, and there was no comforting him. He fled upstairs to our room, and there was silence for a long while after that, and we ate like monks.

  Stefano served us, though he did not seem to eat himself, and when I asked Thomas about this he said that that was just his way, that he had been a servant most of his life, and was used to waiting on people.

  “That cannot be right,” I said. “He is an old man.”

  “Surely,” replied Thomas. “But he owns this place, you know: every brick and curtain. He was the servant of the old dowager who lived here, and, having no family, when she died she left everything to him. Still he is not rich: his only real asset is this house. But he would never sell it. He will die here, I suppose…” And he turned to the window, and lit a cigar, and that was the end of the conversation.

  After breakfast, Stefano took us on a brief tour of the house. It felt cosy and comfortable for the most part, and I wondered at how he kept it all so clean. In one particular hallway, hung with drapes of crimson velveteen, and lit by the steady flicker of oil lamps that stood sentry in neatly spaced recesses in the wall, I gasped to see what at first looked like an old stuffed bird - a bright-green parrot - and gasped a second time when it flapped a wing bad-temperedly within its cage, and fixed on me a disdainful eye.

  “Dozy bastard,” it squawked, and Thomas, who was stood behind me, laughed loudly. Stefano, I saw, looked somewhat embarrassed, and his parch-dry face even turned a little pink.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “His name is Colonel Fredericks. I’m afraid that’s all he can say: I didn’t teach him it…” And we moved on, Thomas wagging a disapproving finger at Colonel Fredericks, who responded with a grasping claw and another oath.

  “You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish,” said Stefano, as we followed him down a winding stairwell whose narrowness was exacerbated by the piles of old books placed on nearly every step. “It is good to have company again after so long.” At the bottom of the stairwell was a small drawing room, with more books lining the walls, and a large portrait of a rather severe-looking elderly woman above the fireplace. Stefano seated himself in an armchair so threadbare its pattern and colour could barely be discerned, and gestured for us to do likewise. I perched on a low chaise longue, and fiddled with my shoes, the ones the woman had given me, that first day in Calm. They were worn and dirty now.

  Thomas placed himself in a large leather armchair opposite Stefano, and we sat silently for a moment, the only sound that of the grandfather clock upstairs in the hall, as its pendulum swung back and forth, spelling out the seconds in tocks and creaks.

  “I do not wish to impose on you for any longer than is necessary,” said Thomas at last.

  Stefano, who had looked half-asleep, opened his eyes calmly, and replied:

  “It is no imposition, Captain. And it is as safe here as anywhere.”

  Thomas shifted slightly in his chair, and, I thought, shot a glance in my direction, perhaps unsure of how much he should say in my presence.

  “I have no doubt of that. But Esther and her brother have suffered great hardship these past few weeks, and for good or ill they are now in my charge.” He nodded at me. “Their welfare is my chief concern: I cannot leave the city until I know they are safe.”

  Stefano put up a hand, as if the answer were obvious.

  “Then they can stay with me! Until you return from…” - and here he checked himself, as if he was about to say something else – “your journey…”

  I looked at Thomas, and he seemed uneasy.

  “Esther,” he said, “would you mind staying here for a while, you and your brother? Perhaps for a couple of months or so? As I have said before, there is important business for me to attend to, beyond the City, and…”

  At this point Magnus appeared, rubbing his eyes. He had followed the sound of voices, and was reproachful.

  “Why did you leave me alone?” he demanded, climbing into my lap, and sobbing softly. “You left me…”

  Thomas and Stefano were clearly embarrassed. I lifted Magnus gently from my lap, and placed him beside me on the chaise longue, and he would not speak to me for the rest of the morning.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  We agreed to remain with Stefano for the time being, and were happy there after a fashion; though for the first week or so Thomas would not let us beyond the house and its tidy, high-walled garden: “Until I know it is safe.” We chased each other along the passageways, and up and down the stairs, getting hopelessly lost; and we soaked up the sunshine in the garden, and slept as soundly as we could in our small room, though our dreams were often punctured by nightmares. But slowly we relaxed, and felt more like children again. And Stefano cooked us fine meals, and Thomas, though often out, would always take time to be with us when he returned, and sometimes join in our games, and give us piggybacks round the house. But I could not help but feel that, lucky as we were to have such kind protectors, we were ultimately prisoners here, for in the end we had little choice but to do as we were ordered.

  There was also the question of who, or what, Thomas was: Stefano continued to call him “Captain”, though less so after a while, and I wondered if Thomas had warned him about doing so when we were around. And I was eager to know what his business was, that would take him away from us for so long: what was he planning? And always there was the pendant, the one that he wore around his neck; once I saw him sitting quietly, when he thought he was alone, cradling it in his hands, and weeping softly.

  Finally, about ten days after arriving in Ampar, Thomas decided it was safe enough for us to take a trip into town, and asked me where I might like to go. The enquiries he had made on our behalf about our parents, and Cousin Beatrice, had come to naught; and though this did not come as a surprise to me, still the lack of news felt bitter. But I tried to remain strong, for myself and for my brother, whom I assured I would not rest until I knew for certain what had become of our mother and father.

  Thomas had some important business that day in Viol, the thickly bustling religious quarter, near the Street of Dancers. He would not countenance Magnus or I accompanying him, but after some cajoling and pestering he agreed we could have a look inside the atrium of the Imperial Compendium while we waited for him. “You’ll be safe there – the entrance hall is open to the public, and there is plenty to see. After a couple of hours I will come back and fetch you; maybe there will be time to have a look at some of the Dancers later. But on no account stray far from the Compendium. The streets are like a maze in that part of the city.”

  “What if I want to get in?” I asked him. He was impatient with my question.

  “Get in where? They will not allow you into the Compendium itself: only the librarians are allowed in there, and those with special permission, and that is rarely granted. The books are not to be seen or read by ordinary p
eople: they are only there to be admired, and studied by those most versed in their lore. The whole building is a monument to the Emperor Justin, who had it built: and he did not want grubby mites like you getting their fingers on his prize collection.” And he laughed, and tapped me round the back of the head.

  “That just seems ridiculous,” I said, rubbing my head. “Books are for reading, or nothing at all.”

  “Much in life is ridiculous,” said Thomas, quietly. “And yet people put up with it just the same.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  We set off across the courtyard beside Stefano’s house, our shoes leaving a light trail in the orange dust that coated the ground. The day was warm for October, and I was grateful for the bath I had had that morning, and for the new clothes Stefano had given us: boys’ clothes, which were too big for Magnus, and too severe for me, but were the only suitable garments the old man could find, and were at least clean and comfortable.

  We hailed a cab at the top of Duke Street, which ran close by, and the driver seemed in no great hurry to reach our destination; indeed he seemed to want to give us a full guided tour, pointing out Execution Square (“Everybody loves a good execution, I’m sure you’ll agree”) and, as we rose up through the city, the various bridges that connected the uppermost reaches of the capital, including the famous Bridge of Socus, arcing gracefully across the sky, held in place, it seemed, by sheer will alone.

  The driver steered the cab gingerly through the Aisles, the narrow lanes of shops and houses that abutted Mansion Street, where many of the Court’s more senior retainers – wealthy, though not as much as those from the great aristocratic families – lived, in large, anonymous houses which turned their noses up at the people below. Magnus and I gazed at them as we made our way along the street’s half-mile stretch, the driver pointing out which house belonged to whom, and who currently had the emperor’s favour, and who did not. Thomas, his felt hat tilted over his eyes, slept off his boredom, and I had to nudge him awake when we finally arrived at Retribution Square, and the Imperial Compendium.