The three children turned quickly to claim their meagre rations.
Marcel wolfed down his share then turned back to Starkey, whose portion lay forgotten beside him on the log where he sat with the Book of Lies across his lap.
“What do you think it means?” Marcel asked.
“A Beast with wings… mighty flames… and this line here,” he said, pointing reverently as he repeated it. “Destroying rogues and making Kings. What else can it be but a great dragon ready to drive usurpers from the throne?”
He raised his voice so that the others could hear. “It seems I have misjudged the Book. You were right to stop me when I wanted to destroy it, Marcel. It may well hold the key to this kingdom’s future.”
“But a dragon – are there such things?” Fergus called from nearby, where he sat listening to every word.
“Not for many centuries, but the old legends speak of them, one in particular. Its name was Mortregis. It ravaged this land for many years, slaughtering all who dared to stand against it, even the bravest knights.”
“Who killed it, then?” Marcel asked, fighting a growing sense of dread.
“No one. Dragons don’t die like other beings.”
“Then why isn’t it still roaming the Kingdom today?” asked Nicola.
“It was driven away, or so the ancient legends claim. Driven away by the Master of the Books.”
“Lord Alwyn!” Marcel couldn’t believe that a man so frail could ever have defeated a dragon, even if he had once been as powerful as Old Belch had claimed.
“No, not Alwyn.”
“But there are dragons sewn on to his robe.”
“Yes, to recall the first great Master, the one who banished Mortregis. He brought peace to the land by uniting it under one king. Every Master since has worn the dragon’s image to remind us of the old stories.”
“So where did this dragon go?”
Starkey fingered his bristly chin, a faraway look in his eyes. “Nobody knows,” he answered softly.
“Then how could it be called back again?”
“I don’t know that either. Not yet,” he said ominously, looking down at the Book.
A harsh wind began to sweep down from the mountain up ahead, until their breath frosted in the firelight. The three children wrapped themselves in their blankets and scrambled for the best position by the fire.
“If you lie tightly together, you will preserve more of your body heat,” Hector suggested.
The idea would have brought a laugh only yesterday. But they were cold, and it was going to be a long and bitter night.
“I’ll lie in the middle, then,” Nicola volunteered without hesitation.
The boys quickly saw why. “You’ll be warm on both sides,” Marcel complained.
“You could have thought of it first,” she taunted, then relented a little. “Your turn tomorrow night.”
Marcel didn’t remember drifting off to sleep that night, but he did remember the commotion when Nicola rolled over in her sleep and whacked Fergus across the nose. After some angry words, the pair quickly settled again, and before Marcel slipped back into sleep he saw that Starkey was still crouched by the dwindling fire. The last of the flames flickered feverishly on his face as he leaned over the Book of Lies, still open on his lap. He was mumbling quietly to himself as he read those three mysterious verses over and over again.
Chapter 10
Journey’s End
MARCEL WOKE THE NEXT morning within a forest shrouded in the silver robes of a fine mist. Others might have said it was beautiful the way the wisps of fog clung to the trees. Their eyes might have picked out the moss and lichen that spotted the beech trees so delicately and the thick mats of ferns, their fronds perfectly still and dripping with dew. But the beauty of the forest left Marcel and his companions unmoved. All they could think of was the gruelling day ahead.
“Where is the Book, Starkey?” Marcel asked.
“Don’t worry. I have it safe. It’s heavy, and you’ve brought it a long way. I’ll carry it today.”
Marcel frowned at this, but he saw the look on Starkey’s face and knew that it was not an offer but a command.
They began the new day’s trek by crossing the stream, its surface like a mirror until Starkey broke its gentle perfection with his first step. “If you march hard today,” he told them, “this will be our last in the high country.” Then it was on into the foothills of the mountain, walking and climbing, for hour after long hour.
The group made slow progress, and when they stopped in a rare patch of open ground to eat a late breakfast of apples stolen from the orphanage orchard and more leathery venison, Nicola groaned and asked, “Can’t we stay here until tomorrow?”
It was just what Marcel would have asked if he’d dared, and Fergus looked as if he agreed too.
Perhaps Starkey noticed this in their faces, because he was more sympathetic than usual in his reply. “I know you are weary, all of you. But we cannot stop. Lord Alwyn will probably be in Elstenwyck by now, and Pelham will know you are missing. My face is well-known to his soldiers and so are yours. When they don’t find us on the high roads, they will scour the forest for the smallest sign. We must stay well ahead of them at all costs.”
“But why are we going this way, Starkey?” Hector asked, equally frustrated. “Avoiding the roads is one thing, but we’ve gone past two trails down to the valley already, by my count. If we keep going in this direction, we’ll –” He stopped, aware that his complaints were starting to sound like fear. There was no doubting what held his eye, though. It was the mountain that loomed directly ahead.
Starkey had heard the hint of dread and took a moment to consider his reply. “The route we need is the one Pelham’s men won’t think to guard. There’s a way down into the valley a small distance short of that mountain. Very few know about it and even fewer dare to use it.”
He glanced back in the direction they had come from, and Marcel knew it wasn’t just Pelham’s soldiers who worried him. Termagant might still be after them too.
At that moment, a danger greater even than Termagant swept down on them. The dappled gloom of the forest had been growing darker as they rested, even though it was still mid-morning. They were all aware of the ebbing sunlight. Suddenly, the darkness could not be ignored. Black and broiling, it was slipping stealthily over the ridge away to their left, blocking the sun and plunging the forest more deeply into shadow as each second passed.
Exposed in the clearing, the travellers soon found themselves peppered by monstrous raindrops. A scything wind drove the drops almost parallel to the ground, their impact stinging like bees. Marcel put his hand up to shield his face and found to his alarm that he had caught one, cold and solid, in his palm.
“Hail!” Starkey shouted. “Use the trees! Quickly, all of you, pin yourselves against the widest trunk you can find!”
Marcel obeyed without question, pressing himself into the rough bark of a stout pine tree. He saw that only a few steps away Fergus had done the same. Nicola was on his other side, hiding her head beneath her arms but thankfully safe as well. They were just in time, for out in the open spaces where the wind raged freely, hailstones now whistled by like arrows.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, the hail stopped and the cloud scudded away furiously in the direction they had come from. After a few watchful minutes they stepped tentatively from the trees, and were astonished to discover that none of them had suffered more damage than a handful of dampened spots on their clothing.
“What was it?” Nicola breathed, still recovering from shock and fear.
“Magic, most likely,” said Hector.
“No, not magic,” returned Starkey. “Not Alwyn’s, at least. He would have to know where we are to send such a tempest against us. That cloud seemed much too random for his work.”
“Like those wolves yesterday,” agreed Hector. “Wolves don’t attack humans, not a party of us together like this.”
“Yes, these are st
range times, right enough,” said Starkey. Reminded of the wolves, he lifted the bandage a little from his hand and winced at what he saw. “I’ve heard tell recently of sea monsters fighting fishermen and frogs raining from the sky.”
“I’ve heard stories like that as well,” Hector murmured, eyeing the mountain, which came closer with every step they took. He shifted the longbow on his shoulder.
Fergus spoke up. “Starkey, back at the orphanage a whole sky full of bats appeared out of nowhere. Lord Alwyn turned them back using his magic.”
Yes, Marcel thought. It was the old wizard who had confronted the bats and the magic he had conjured to do it had taken all of his strength. Starkey was right, he decided. Lord Alwyn had not created that rogue cloud and sent it spitting an icy breath over the land. But if not Lord Alwyn, then where had it come from?
They travelled on until it was all they could do to place one blistered foot in front of the other. They barely stopped at midday to stuff more of their meagre rations into their mouths. The climbing began in earnest now, as the ground on the mountain’s lower slopes became steep and rocky.
As their weary walking continued, Marcel felt a new uneasiness. He couldn’t quite throw off the sense that they were being watched.
“Do you feel it?” he asked Fergus, who was walking just ahead of him. “It’s like the forest itself has decided it doesn’t want us here any more.”
An anxious glance from Nicola told him she had felt it too. Surely they had lost Termagant by now. Could it be Pelham’s soldiers? Maybe they had tracked them down after all.
Finally Marcel noticed Hector staring into the surrounding trees.
“Have you seen something?” Fergus asked uneasily.
“No, but my bones tell me we have company among these trees,” came Hector’s foreboding reply. He put an arrow to his bow and looked about warily for a target. Nothing moved, nothing gave out a sound, but it seemed his nerves were screwed tight, for he suddenly wrenched back the string and shot the arrow towards a shadow beneath the trees.
It had barely flown half its course when it was struck down. A second arrow, shorter but much faster, had intercepted it in midair!
Instinctively they all crouched low.
“Who’s out there? Is it Pelham’s men?” Fergus whispered in dread.
“No ordinary soldier can shoot an arrow like that,” muttered Hector. He was looking back the way they had come, as if he intended fleeing.
“Hold fast, man, or I’ll fix your cowardice with this!” his master threatened, brandishing his sword.
Hector stopped his thoughts of retreat but he could not stop his own fear. “Starkey, you know the stories about that mountain ahead. No human ever goes near.”
“That arrow was fired by one of Pelham’s men, I tell you,” Starkey hissed fiercely. “But he’s given himself away now. He’s followed us on his own and now he’s afraid to take all of us by himself. If he were going to kill us he’d have done it by now. Move, all of you, as quickly as you can. Stay close behind me,” he warned, and then he set off swiftly.
Every footstep was an agony of terror now. If one of Pelham’s soldiers had been close enough to shoot at them, there might be others nearby.
An icy wind blew down from the mountain and snow began to fall, obscuring the path Starkey was trying to follow. Their teeth chattered with the cold and they had to wrap their blankets around themselves as they walked.
Late in the afternoon, Starkey announced what they had been longing to hear. “It’s there, just beyond those trees, the pass down from this mountain country. Come on, there’s just enough light left if we hurry.”
Soon they had reached the rim of the escarpment, and the huge valley lay stretched out before them, shimmering in the fading light of day. Marcel remembered when he had last seen this view, from the top of the waterfall near Mrs Timmins’, and later on Gadfly’s back. At last he was about to descend into the valley itself.
“You can’t see it yet, but just over the horizon is where our journey ends, in Elstenwyck,” Starkey informed them.
The children soon realised why this path was little used. Starkey and Hector were forced to hack a way through the undergrowth with their swords, but at least the stout bushes offered something to hang on to. In places the edge of the path dropped away into a heart-stopping abyss. When Fergus slipped on the treacherous rocks, he had to dig his fingers into the dirt and grab frantically on to the roots of a gnarled shrub to stop himself from sliding over the precipice. From time to time a loose stone would catapult into their path from above before plunging down the face of the cliff. To avoid another fall, the three children linked hands, forming a human chain. It seemed second nature to them now.
They reached the level ground of the valley just as the sky darkened into evening, sore and exhausted yet relieved.
“I was beginning to think I’d never be warm again,” gasped Marcel, dropping to his haunches to feel the day’s heat still lingering in the soil.
Nicola lay full-length on an inviting stretch of grass. “I’m just glad to stop walking,” she groaned dramatically.
For once Starkey did not turn a deaf ear to their complaints. “We’ll stop here for a little while,” he declared.
Marcel fell into a doze, but he was awoken some time later by the stamping of a horse. He sat up, confused and thinking for a moment that it was Gadfly and Bea. This horse, though, was not dappled but dark brown from head to toe, with sturdy legs and wide, heavy hooves. This much he could see by the light of a torch Starkey was carrying. Then he noticed she was hitched to a hay wagon.
The questions flew.
“Where did it come from?”
“What do we need so much hay for?”
Starkey laughed at the last one especially. “Do you see that farmhouse in the distance?” he asked, pointing. “The farmer there now has more gold coins than he ever hoped to see in his life. As for the hay, you’ll see soon enough.”
Yes, they saw that hay at very close range, for the best part of the night. Starkey ordered them into it and under it, checking that not a single part of them was visible, then buried himself beneath the pile as well. “Hector is the only one who will not be recognised in an instant. He will have to drive the horse. As for the rest of us, we must stay completely out of sight.”
The hay was rough against their skin, and found its way inside their clothes, where it itched and prickled. After the freezing high country, they were now stiflingly hot under the hay. But at least there was no more walking.
They slept fitfully as the night wore on. Every so often they woke as Hector cajoled the horse to keep going, sometimes cursing or even whipping it harshly with a switch he had cut from a tree.
Roosters were beginning to stir when Hector whispered back to Starkey, “I can see the gates ahead, but they’re closed.”
“They’ll open at dawn, but wait until others are crowding through on their way to market and the soldiers have no time to search.”
This was how they entered the city, under the very noses of Pelham’s soldiers, who were scouring the streets. Marcel couldn’t resist stealing a glimpse at the bustling place that had swallowed them up. The activity of the day was already under way, and the streets were alive with shouts and the clattering of cartwheels. Even the air seemed crowded, as houses jostled for space, their upper storeys leaning in over the narrow cobbled lanes. Sheets hung like ghosts from the washing lines strung between them. To a boy who knew only the treacherous forest and the sleepy village of Fallside, these sights and sounds were both frightening and exhilarating.
The cart lumbered on, seeking out the darkest and most deserted streets, until finally Hector turned down a dingy lane in one of the poorer districts and knocked at a nondescript double gate.
An eye appeared at a knothole soon afterwards. “Who’s there?”
The mention of Starkey’s name was enough. The gates were opened by a woman who kept herself well hidden from any passers-by. The cart rumbl
ed into a small courtyard and the gates were bolted shut again. At last Starkey and the children could escape from beneath the hated straw.
“This is Mrs Farjeon,” said Starkey, introducing the woman. “She’s a friend of our cause who will help us while we stay in the city.”
Marcel caught a glimpse of a worried face as she led them across the courtyard. She moved with more grace than Mrs Timmins and her dark blue dress was unpatched and finer than anything that kindly woman would ever wear.
In the light of the doorway, Mrs Farjeon turned again to speak, but before she could say a word her mouth fell open at the sight of the children’s faces.
“Yes, they are who you think they are, but they don’t know it themselves, thanks to Alwyn’s magic,” Starkey informed her. “Now, is the cellar ready?”
“The cellar, yes, of course, Sir Thomas. Just as you ordered.”
Mrs Farjeon guided them from the courtyard into a modest two-storey house. They found themselves in a gloomy passage, and after only a dozen strides she stopped and bent low to pull up a heavy trap door. She slowly lifted a lighted candle from a bracket on the wall. “Be careful of the steps,” she warned them, as she began to disappear through the hatchway. The children followed, descending quickly into a cellar much the same size as Mrs Timmins’ dining hall, though without any windows. In the sparse light of a single candle, all they could make out was a large, comfortable-looking bed in the corner. It was the most wonderful thing they had seen for days.
“Here you are, children,” Mrs Farjeon said kindly. “I was only expecting one of you, so you’ll have to share a bed, I’m afraid.” She glanced apologetically at Starkey.
They didn’t need any more encouragement than that. By the time Marcel had slipped his tortured feet out of his shoes, Nicola had already climbed under the covers. He was luxuriating in the warmth of the bed and falling rapidly towards sleep when Fergus took his place on the other side of Nicola.
Starkey and Mrs Farjeon backed away to the stairs without another word. By the time the trap door was eased into place, Marcel and his two companions were fast asleep.
The Book of Lies Page 12
