“I’m coming with you,” he assured Starkey, and because he couldn’t give up the chance to taunt his old enemy he turned to Marcel, adding cruelly, “You stay here with the other little orphans. We’ll come back for you when the job is done.”
Marcel felt his heart twist and writhe inside his chest. On any other occasion he might have whacked Fergus on the nose, whatever the consequences. But tonight was too important.
Even in the darkness Starkey could sense the dejection that had all but consumed poor Marcel. He reached across the wall and took him gently by the elbow, whispering, “I wish I could take you as well, truly I do, but you know yourself what a risk that would be. I promise you, as soon as Pelham is dead, I will come back for you.”
“But it’s still so dangerous. Tomorrow, when Lord Alwyn finds out these two are gone, he’ll send Termagant along the road after you.”
“Don’t fret. Thanks to your warning earlier I have decided not to use the roads, nor even the horses. I sold them in the village this afternoon in exchange for these supplies.” He nodded towards the pack Hector now carried on his back, with a bundle of blankets protruding from the top. “I know of another way to get to where we are going.”
“And where is that?”
“Best you don’t know.”
He was not to know anything much, it seemed, because Starkey turned quickly on his heel and led the other three figures off into the night.
Marcel watched them go, conscious as never before of the crushing emptiness inside him. He still knew nothing of who he was, or of the father Starkey had mentioned. All he had gained were three names: Damon, Eleanor and the man Starkey had sworn to overthrow, King Pelham.
Chapter 7
Pandemonium
FOR WHAT REMAINED OF that long, long night, Marcel stayed awake listening for the sounds from inside the wall. If Termagant were on the move again, it would mean she knew of the escape and had set out after them.
No sounds came. His fevered mind churned with questions. Where were they going? What role were Nicola and Fergus to play, the vital part that had been his until Starkey learned of the ring and its curse? Damn this ring, he cursed for what seemed the hundredth time since sliding into bed.
Above him in the tower, Lord Alwyn doubtless lay sleeping, unaware of the daring escape. Somewhere in that forbidding room, a room Marcel was afraid even to picture in his mind, lay the Book of Lies. If he could get his hands on it again, he would have so many more questions for it now.
He wondered if it could answer the most important question of all – more important than any question about himself. Would Starkey succeed in forcing King Pelham from the throne, or would Nicola and Fergus die along with him in the attempt? Even if their fate was a heroic death, that fate was his too, by rights, and his soul ached to think it had been snatched away from him like this.
That sounded foolhardy, he realised, but he knew just as strongly that it was not false bravado. He wished the Book of Lies were before him now, because it would certainly glow brightly as he spoke into the darkness: “I would rather die with them than live here for the rest of my life and never know who I am.”
Dawn finally touched the windowpanes and Albert came to rouse them for another day. “Where’s Fergus?” he asked, bemused. At the same time, Nicola’s empty bed was the talk of the girls’ room.
Mrs Timmins was unruffled at first. They would be in the kitchen, hoping for an early bite of breakfast, she guessed. But they were not in the kitchen, nor were they to be found in the orchard or the stables. The house was soon in uproar.
“Albert! Into the village with you and ask if they’ve been seen. And Belch,” she called, seeing the stable hand’s anxious face appear at the kitchen door, “search the forest roads, even the forest itself if you have to.”
Old Belch rode off on the chestnut stallion soon afterwards. “Search the forest,” he repeated to himself grumpily. “She might as well ask me to sift the entire ocean through my fingers.”
As for everyone else, they ran through the house, in and out of rooms that had been searched five times already, calling, “Nicola, Fergus, where are you?” until Marcel was ready to scream.
He was the only one who knew that they would not be found, and aware of this, he checked under beds and behind doors harder than any of the others.
He couldn’t hide his secret from Bea, though.
“I’ve been watching you. You aren’t really looking for them at all. You know something, don’t you?” she challenged him.
Marcel glanced around nervously, in case someone else had heard her accusation, but they were alone in the boys’ room. “Shh,” he said, putting a finger to his lips.
“Only if you tell me what’s going on.”
What harm could it do? They were gone now, so he told her everything that had happened since the arrow landed in the orchard.
“Have you heard of this King Pelham?” he asked when he was finished.
“Mrs Timmins has mentioned his name. Or Albert, maybe. He lives in a place called Elstenwyck, the capital.”
“Elstenwyck,” Marcel murmured, memorising the name. “What about this Prince Damon and Princess Eleanor that Starkey spoke about?”
But this time, Bea shook her head.
“They’re just names to me as well,” he confessed dejectedly. “How can I be so important to them and to King Pelham? If only I’d been able to find out more from the Book of Lies.”
“I could steal it again, tonight maybe.”
“Don’t be silly, Bea. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about how you did it last time. No, it’s too much of a risk now that the others have escaped.”
They were disturbed by the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Marcel poked his head cautiously through the doorway. What he saw made him swallow hard. It was Mrs Timmins, climbing one slow step at a time. She did not see him because her eyes were fixed on the mysterious oaken door.
With a face as pale as milk, she knocked three times. “Your Lordship,” she called in a trembling voice. “There is something I must tell you.”
A full minute passed before the door drew back to reveal Lord Alwyn in his dark robes. Marcel and Bea could see him clearly from where they stood. “What is it, Mrs Timmins?” that weary voice sighed.
“T-two of the children are missing, Your Lordship,” she stammered.
“Not Marcel. I would know if he had disobeyed me again.”
“No, not Marcel. It’s the other two, the girl and the boy you named Fergus. Please forgive me, Your Lordship. They seem to have disappeared in the night. I have Albert and Old Belch –”
“Quiet!” the old wizard shouted imperiously. “Disappeared, you say? You’re easily fooled, Mrs Timmins.” His anger was growing with every word; his face blazed a bright red, and he raised his arms as though he were determined to punish Mrs Timmins there and then. “These children haven’t disappeared, they can only have been stolen away from under our very –”
But he never uttered the last word of this tirade. Instead the colour drained from his face as quickly as it had appeared. His arms dropped, one hand clutching at his forehead as the other groped blindly for the support of the doorpost. Moments later he collapsed, and if Mrs Timmins hadn’t stepped forward to catch him he would have slumped on to the hard stone of the steps behind him.
Marcel and Bea saw it all. Mrs Timmins was a sturdy woman, but even she struggled with the gangling figure, now as limp and helpless as a rag doll in her arms.
Without a second thought, Marcel rushed to help her. She didn’t stop to ask him where he had come from or how much he had heard. “We must get him upstairs, into his bed,” she gasped.
“Into the tower, you mean?” Marcel was terrified. He knew only too well what lived there with the old wizard.
If Mrs Timmins heard the dread in his voice, she chose to ignore it. “Take his legs,” she ordered, and slipping her own hands under Lord Alwyn’s armpits, she began to back up the narrow staircas
e. It turned in a tight spiral. If Termagant was waiting for her master at the top, they would not see her until the last moment.
Every nerve in Marcel’s body told him to drop the man’s legs and scurry back to the safety of the passageway below. Only his respect for Mrs Timmins kept him at his task.
“Get away!” she yelled suddenly, kicking at something beneath her feet. Marcel’s heart missed a beat, but it was no more than a half-grown kitten which scampered away with an offended miaow. Moments later, they stepped out of the dark, winding stairwell and into the room Lord Alwyn had made his home.
Motes of dust drifted languidly in the musty air, visible only when they strayed into the morning light that streamed in through the twin windows. Eyes, Marcel had called them in his mind. He had never expected to see them from the other side.
But a chilling fear could never be far away now that he was inside the wizard’s lair. Where was Termagant? What would she make of her master in their arms like this?
His eyes darted left and right. No sign of her. Was she hiding, waiting to spring out at them if she didn’t like what she saw? There was a darkened recess in the corner to Marcel’s right, and to his alarm he found they were moving steadily towards it.
“This is his bed,” Mrs Timmins said curtly when she read the terror in his face, and sure enough, once he was out of the two gleaming shafts of sunlight, his eyes let him see a narrow bed.
“Lift,” she ordered. “Now down, gently.”
Lord Alwyn stirred, suddenly aware of his surroundings. “What are you doing here?” he protested. But he was still too weak to stand, and despite his annoyance, he let them lay him on the bed.
Free of his burden, Marcel turned quickly and searched again for Termagant. On the far side of the chamber a low alcove was built into the wall. A rough metal grate closed it off from the rest of the room. Beyond that grate, bones lay scattered about the floor, animal bones gnawed to the marrow and cracked through in places by immensely powerful jaws. Termagant did not seem to be in residence, but this didn’t stop Marcel’s mouth from going dry in an instant.
The cat Mrs Timmins had brushed aside pressed itself playfully against his legs, as though it knew him. Hardly the beast he was looking for. His heart settled to a more regular beat now as he gazed round the rest of the room.
The tiny chamber was cluttered with a wizard’s paraphernalia: earthenware jars, tiny boxes, some with their lids removed and giving off a strange mixture of scents, both pleasant and disgusting. More than anything, though, the room was stuffed to bursting with books. Row upon row crowded on to the shelves that lined one wall. Still more were piled in stacks on the floor. Where he could, Marcel read the fading words on their covers. Magic lore, enchantments, necromancy – The Secrets of Thaumaturgy was the title of one. Old, cracked along the spines, the pages frayed and perishing, they could only remind him of the book he had recently held in his own hands.
Where was it? Could he pick it out among the rest? It was much bigger than these, and its red cover would surely stand out… But he did not need to search among the others. There, alone on a table by the windows, only a short distance away, lay the Book of Lies.
Mrs Timmins’ ample body was bent down over Lord Alwyn, who still kept his eyes closed. Did he dare? What a question! His feet were already on the move.
“Marcel,” called Mrs Timmins.
He spun round in alarm. “What… what is it?” he asked, trembling.
“You did well, coming to help me with Lord Alwyn, but you have no place here. Quickly now, down the stairs, and if Albert has returned from the village, tell him what’s happened.”
She had turned towards him as she spoke and she would stay watching him until he was gone. His brief opportunity had evaporated, he realised, though to be honest, part of him was relieved.
In three slow strides he was at the top of the narrow stairwell. He turned again for a final glimpse of this room he had feared so much, and he was already backing away on to the first step when he saw it, just the slightest movement. Termagant, he thought at first, but he quickly realised that it was not. He was meant to notice this. It was a sign just for him, a face removed from the shadows for the briefest instant then snatched away. It was Bea, already in place beneath the very table where the Book of Lies lay waiting. She must have crept in while their backs were turned.
Marcel hesitated. Should he stay to distract Mrs Timmins?
Bea herself answered this quandary. She risked another appearance, just her hand this time, but there was no doubt what it meant. She was waving him away, down the spiral staircase, where he would have to wait while she put her own peculiar magic to use.
That was how he hoped it would happen, but he was wrong. It wasn’t Bea who came down the spiral staircase a few minutes later. It was Mrs Timmins.
She saw him lingering near the magical door at the bottom. “Is Lord Alwyn still sleeping?” he asked hoarsely.
“He’s stretched out on his bed, yes, but he’s not asleep. That was quite a turn he took just now, but he’s made a rapid recovery, by the look of things. I offered to bring him some medicines – my own kind of magic, I call it – but he sent me packing with his usual good manners,” she said in a wry tone, crossing the hallway to start down the staircase opposite.
As if the wizard’s words needed confirming, the heavy door behind Mrs Timmins now groaned on its hinges, and without a human hand in sight, it slammed shut with a boom that could have woken the dead in their graves.
There was no way in, and just as certainly no way out. Bea was trapped!
Marcel didn’t hesitate for a moment. Although he hadn’t seen her, Termagant might still be up there. Perhaps she had been watching from the secret passage, and now that Mrs Timmins was gone, she would have come to her master’s side. He rushed down the staircase, almost knocking Mrs Timmins over in his haste.
“Mind yourself, you silly boy!” she shouted after him, but by then he was through the kitchen, scattering Dot and Sarah aside in the courtyard like chickens. He sprinted faster than he had ever thought possible, round past the vegetable garden and the duck pond, until he was on the far side of the house.
Where was the entrance to the tunnel? It must be directly below the tower. He dived into the thick tangle of shrubs and, after groping desperately with his hands for some time, found the opening. No time to think of claws and vicious teeth. He scuttled along on hands and knees and bumped his head twice, the second time drawing blood, until he was climbing a rough set of stairs in pitch-blackness. What he would do when he reached the tower room, he had no idea.
Then he stopped. It wasn’t the narrowness of the tunnel nor the jagged, brittle edges of the bones that he crawled over. (He wouldn’t let himself think about those.) He had been careful to remain as quiet as he could, and that was why he’d heard the sound up ahead in the tunnel, a scraping sound.
His muscles seemed frozen. Even if he could make himself flee, he couldn’t turn round and he’d never back out of the tunnel in time.
The scraping sounds were nearer now, hurrying towards him. With only moments remaining, sound didn’t matter any more. He waited for the touch.
Here it came. Every muscle was tensed, every pore in his skin gushing sweat, every corner of his mind alive to this final moment. Then impact! He was bowled over and lay in the tunnel waiting in terror for the first cruel slash of those claws. Two seconds, three. Why did the beast hesitate?
“Marcel? Is that you?”
Relief flowed through him, warmer than blood. It was Bea!
“Oh God, I thought you were Termagant!” he gasped.
“I didn’t see her up there. It doesn’t matter where she is, anyway. Marcel, I’ve got the Book!”
But it did matter where Termagant was at that moment. Suddenly, her name filled the tunnel. “Termagant! Termagant, come here to me!” came the thunderous cry. It was Lord Alwyn’s voice, bounding down the black and squalid tunnel, as frightening as the beast herself.
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“He knows the Book is gone! Quickly, back up!” Bea urged.
Marcel had barely begun crawling when those fearsome scraping sounds echoed along the passage, louder and more violent this time. She was coming, the real Termagant! In case there was any doubt about her mission, Lord Alwyn bellowed after her. “Find that little girl! She’s the one who’s taken the Book. Bring her to me!”
No one has ever crawled backwards faster than Marcel did that day. He emerged into the daylight, scratched and bleeding yet feeling none of his wounds. He dragged Bea to her feet before she was clear of the entry and hauled them both through the thickly matted shrubs.
“This way!” he yelled, pulling her towards the corner of the building.
They had rounded the back of the house and were in the courtyard now. They couldn’t go back inside. Where, where could they hide? What shelter could they find with only seconds to search for it?
The first building that caught their eye was the stable. With Bea clutching the Book of Lies and Marcel clutching Bea, they raced across the cobblestones. Marcel wrenched open the stout door and shoved Bea ahead of him into the darkness.
Termagant had already appeared round the corner of the house. She came racing towards the stable, eating up the gap between them with prodigious bounds. Marcel had just enough time to slam the stable door shut before she cannoned into it, shaking the entire building with such force that he worried it would collapse around them.
Termagant would not be defeated by a door – not for long, anyway. She was already scratching and tearing at the planks. The wood began to splinter under the relentless force of her claws. If this wasn’t enough to stop the hearts of the two fugitives, the terrible roars she emitted as she pounded and pummelled at the door certainly were.
“She’ll rip us to pieces, you most of all!” Marcel shouted amid the din. Then, seeing the effect of his words on poor Bea, he wished he could take them back.
The Book of Lies Page 8
