Chapter 11
In a Cellar Beneath the City
MARCEL SLEPT ALL THE rest of the day and finally awoke at dusk to the most delicious smell in the world: bacon and eggs frying in a warm house. For days he had eaten nothing but turnips, carrots and dried meat. The aroma wafting down from above teased his nostrils in a form of delightful torture.
He realised he had been dreaming about Bea and Gadfly. He had thought of Bea many times during the journey, hoping she had arrived safely at the orphanage. Lord Alwyn and his beast must surely have been gone by the time she reached Fallside. Besides, Mrs Timmins would protect her. He didn’t need to worry about her, he said over and over again in his mind, but he fretted all the same.
Slowly he became aware of things around him. This was a cellar – he remembered that much – but the room was much gloomier than when he fell asleep. In the morning a chaos of tiny holes and cracks had admitted light through the floorboards above, but now he needed the candle’s light to see anything at all. Apart from the bed, the only other furniture was an ornately carved table and four matching chairs with green satin cushions on each seat. They seemed oddly out of place against the rough stone walls and floor.
Fergus was sitting in one of the chairs. “Do you think that food cooking up there is for us?” he asked when he saw Marcel staring at him.
“I hope so,” said a voice close by. Nicola was awake now and sitting up in the other half of the bed, the pillow supporting her back as she stroked determinedly at her hair. The long journey had turned her brassy tresses into a lank and wind-tossed mess of knots that she battled to untangle.
Then Marcel noticed the fine silver hairbrush she was using. “Where did you get that?” he asked.
“Mrs Farjeon brought it down while you two were still sleeping. She was very polite, and she curtsied when she gave it to me. Can you believe it?”
“She bowed to you!” Marcel laughed as he pictured it. “Why would she do that?”
Noises at the head of the narrow staircase distracted them.
“Someone’s coming,” said Fergus.
Their noses told them more than their eyes. The bacon and eggs were for them after all! Here they were, on a tray being carried by that same woman. They had the plates off the tray and began to attack the meal ravenously before they had even reached the table.
“I heard you stirring and thought you must be hungry,” Mrs Farjeon explained. She watched them with a smile until they were nearly finished. “Would you like some more, Marcel?”
He nodded without even looking up from his plate.
“And you, Edwin?”
The eating stopped instantly. It was obvious whom she was talking to. “My name! My real name!” exclaimed Fergus.
The woman put her hand to her mouth, but her eyes showed she was mortified by the mistake she had just made. “I shouldn’t have let that slip,” she said, turning hastily towards the stairs.
“Wait!” Fergus cried.
“I’m not to tell you anything. Only Sir Thomas,” she retorted, and before any of them could say more, she had scuttled through the trap door and disappeared.
“You know your real name at last,” said Marcel. “Do you want us to start calling you Edwin now?”
But the question seemed to unsettle Fergus, and he hadn’t managed an answer when the trap door was suddenly wrenched open and Starkey’s black boots appeared on the staircase. His muddy clothes from the journey were gone, replaced by a fine silk shirt and breeches, and he had shaved off the stubble that had given him a sinister look in recent days. His handsome face was once again revealed as he stood rubbing his forefinger along the line of his jaw.
“You’re wide awake at last, I see. Good. You won’t be sleeping here tonight.”
“Where are we going?”
“To meet your parents, of course. It is almost time.”
“Time you told us who we are, like you promised,” asserted Marcel, taking the lead.
“I already know my real name,” said Fergus. “That Mrs Farjeon let it slip by accident.”
“Yes, she told me of her mistake just now. My hand has been forced, I see,” Starkey conceded. “But no harm has been done. It’s time you knew, in any case. If Mrs Farjeon had dared use your full name, she should have addressed you as Prince Edwin.”
“Prince!” cried Fergus, scrambling to his feet so quickly his chair toppled backwards.
“The curtsy,” Marcel breathed, as he and Nicola jumped to their feet as well. He stared at the boy he had now come to know, even to like, in a cautious kind of way. But there was so much he wanted to know about himself as well.
“My name, Starkey,” he said, slowly, firmly, forcing Starkey to look him in the eye. “You came halfway across the Kingdom because you had heard it. Why am I so important?”
“And me, Starkey!” Nicola demanded.
Starkey smiled. “It seems you won’t be content until I’ve told you everything. You’d best sit down, all of you. This story will take some time to tell.”
They settled back into their chairs, though Marcel found it difficult to keep still.
Then Starkey began. “Before Pelham became King, this land was ruled by Queen Madeleine.” It was a name Marcel had already heard, but it was new to the other two. “Madeleine had no children of her own, so when she grew old and frail, the people urged her to announce who should succeed her to the throne. I have already told you the names of her rightful heirs. Do you remember them?”
“Damon and Eleanor,” said Marcel, surprised that the names came to him so easily.
“Yes,” replied Starkey, impressed, “they were niece and nephew to the old Queen. But she turned against them and named Pelham as her successor, even though he has no royal blood at all in his veins.”
“Who is he, then? Why did she choose him?” asked Marcel.
“It was the old wizard’s doing. Pelham is no more than a foundling from the streets of Elstenwyck. Alwyn brought him to the palace as a boy and convinced Queen Madeleine to take him in.”
“Are you saying Lord Alwyn used his magic on her?” Fergus asked.
“All three of you have felt his powers. You can decide such things for yourselves.” He paused briefly, as though he needed to steel himself before he could say what came next. “Surely you can guess what happened,” he continued. “Alwyn used his magic against you to make sure Pelham stays on the throne. In fact, it was Pelham himself who gave the order. You three were to be taken away and all memory of who you are was to be wiped from your minds.”
“But who are we, Starkey?” Nicola urged impatiently. She pushed back her chair petulantly and rose to her feet. “My name,” she insisted, slapping her hand to her chest. “What is my real name?”
“Young lady,” he replied, addressing her respectfully, “you are Princess Catherine.”
Nicola stared at him, dumbfounded for a moment. “A princess,” was all she managed to say.
Starkey turned. “And you, Marcel. I can see in your face how much you want to know more.” He leaned back in his chair, taking delight in the delay, it seemed. He swept his arm towards Nicola. “This girl is your sister.”
“Sister!” It was all too much. Marcel’s mind could pick out only one thing at a time, and the first was this: “Then… then I am a prince too.”
“Yes, you two are prince and princess – and your mother should be queen. It’s the gravest injustice that she is not,” he said solemnly. “Your mother is Princess Eleanor.”
“Eleanor,” Nicola whispered, letting the name roll over her lips and tongue as though she didn’t want to part with it.
The name lay on Marcel’s tongue as well. At last he knew. When he had woken up in Mrs Timmins’ house, with Robert for a name and little else, he thought he had lost his mother to a fever. Even after that false life was gone from his mind, the sense that his mother was dead had stayed with him, niggling, nagging, impossible to throw off with the rest of Alwyn’s thwarted magic.
&nbs
p; Now Starkey had told him the truth and he could believe it at last. “Eleanor,” he said proudly, and if Starkey and Fergus hadn’t been present he might even have gone over and hugged his newfound sister.
“And you, Prince Edwin,” said Starkey, turning to Fergus. “Have you guessed your place in this?”
Each of Starkey’s remarkable revelations had plunged Fergus deeper into his own thoughts. He was ready with his answer. “If I was Princess Eleanor’s son, then you would’ve told me so already. I’d be a brother to these two, but I’m not, am I?” Then, after a brief pause, he pronounced a single name, “Damon?”
Starkey smiled, offering a simple nod of the head. “Yes, Prince Damon is your father, and that means you are not a brother to these two, but a second cousin.”
Brother, sister, cousin… the meaning wouldn’t settle easily in any of the three. They were still too full of questions.
Nicola spoke up, careful not to catch Marcel’s eyes for the moment, and if he had to be honest, he was glad of it. “Tell us more,” she urged. “Marcel and I must have a father and Fergus must have a mother.”
Starkey’s features turned sombre. “I’m sorry, Marcel and Catherine, but your father died fighting for Queen Madeleine. And you, Edwin, I’m afraid your mother is dead also. A fever claimed her some years ago.”
Dead, Marcel murmured to himself. So the false life Alwyn had tried to force upon him was right in one way. His father was dead after all. Just as he had done that first morning with Mrs Timmins, he searched his heart for the sorrow he should feel. He wanted to feel it so desperately, and he was incensed all over again with Lord Alwyn, who had taken even the grief for a dead father from him.
He had to know more. “Where are they? When can we see our parents?”
“If it were a simple matter, I would have taken you to them this morning.”
“But you said you would reunite us with them. They must be in the city somewhere.”
“Oh, yes. They’re here.”
“Then why –”
Starkey held up his hand, as though this would turn back the tide of their pleas. He searched the face of each of them in turn. “It’s time you knew the worst of it, I suppose. Damon and Eleanor are prisoners.”
“Who would dare to keep a prince and a princess in prison?” breathed Nicola.
“A king,” Starkey answered bluntly.
“King Pelham?”
“The usurper,” he snapped. “Pelham had your parents arrested some time ago, because he fears them as the true and rightful heirs. You children were taken as well, though you can’t remember. This is what Lord Alwyn stole from you: not just the memory of who you are, but the memory of this injustice.”
“Why? What threat were we to such a powerful man? We’re only young.”
“You will not always be children. Pelham hopes that if you don’t know your birthright, then you will never rise up to claim it from him, or from his children after him.”
“The King has children of his own?” Marcel asked.
“Oh, yes. Youngsters still. But they’re of no account. When Pelham falls, his brood will fall with him. That’s why I have brought you here. Up until now, it has been impossible to release Damon and Eleanor from their prison.”
“You mean there are too many guards?” asked Fergus, as ever the one to think like a soldier.
“No, none at all.”
“Then how –”
Starkey put up his hand again. “This fiendish kind of prison doesn’t need guards or heavy locks. It’s magic that keeps it sealed.”
Marcel thought of the strange door into the tower above Mrs Timmins’ orphanage, a door with no handle and no lock. “Lord Alwyn,” he breathed.
Starkey nodded solemnly, then slowly a smile began to curl the corners of his mouth. “Don’t despair, Marcel. You above all should know how magic works. Was there not a way to rid yourself of that ring? Alwyn left a key to your parents” prison, though he never imagined it might be used to free them.”
“A key. Do you have it, Starkey?”
“Oh yes, I have it here in this room with me. Do you understand yet?” he asked, teasing them. “You three are the key that will free Damon and Eleanor from their prison.”
Chapter 12
The True and Rightful Heirs
THE HOUSE HAD GONE ghostly quiet and there was no one to be seen when the four figures stole up through the trap door. Starkey had told them his plan and they were stunned at how simple it seemed, but he had brought them this far without faltering and they would have trusted him with their lives.
“First we have to get you inside the palace grounds. Here, put these on,” Starkey ordered, handing each of them one of the dark cloaks he had ready in the hallway, while clutching a lighted candle in his other hand. “Pull the hoods over your heads as soon as we’re outside.”
“Where is the Book?” Marcel asked.
“It can’t help us tonight, but I have it safe, don’t you worry, and it will come into its own in the weeks ahead, I’m sure of it.”
They hurried into a large enclosed carriage that waited in the lane beside the house. Hector sat on the driver’s box with the reins in his hands. Even his battle-scarred face could not hide his apprehension. They were heading into the very heart of their enemy’s lair.
Starkey tapped lightly on the roof and the carriage lurched ahead. The children could see nothing, because heavy curtains shrouded them from any curious eyes that might look into the carriage along the way.
After ten minutes of slow progress they stopped and Starkey ordered them out. Marcel found himself staring beyond the rooftops at a forest of towers and turrets that rose up like spectres.
“The palace,” he breathed in awe.
“Yes, we are still two streets away from the walls. Follow me,” Starkey whispered, taking the lead.
They walked on unnoticed until the palace walls came into sight. There was a small gate silhouetted ahead, not the grand entrance to the palace grounds but a side opening. “For servants coming to and fro,” Starkey explained.
Beyond the crisscrossed bars they could see the gatekeeper, who was getting on in years, judging by the weary stoop of his shoulders inside his scarlet uniform.
“Now,” Starkey whispered. “And remember, say only what I’ve told you to say.”
It had come as a surprise, especially to Nicola, who was the oldest, that only Fergus was to speak to the guard. Starkey had been most insistent about this.
“Good evening, sir,” Fergus called through the bars.
The guard came out of his doze with a start. “Who’s there?”
“There are three of us. You must let us in.”
The old soldier held up his flaming torch but he still couldn’t see their faces. “Aren’t you a bit young to be out at this time of night? What business could three children like you possibly have in the palace?”
“You’ll know when you see our faces, Joseph.”
These were the words Starkey had told him to use, including the man’s name. “Pretend you know him,” he’d said, “for he will know you.”
This was the moment. Fergus raised his hands to his hood, turning briefly to see that the others had done the same, then he let it slip from his head so that the light of Joseph’s torch flooded his face.
The man stepped back as though he had been slapped. “Prince Edwin!” he breathed.
Looking behind Fergus, he gasped again. “Princess Catherine – and Prince Marcel too! But you three were banished into exile. Only the King knows where. What are you doing outside my gate?”
“We’ve come back to be with my father. Open the gate, Joseph,” Fergus ordered.
Distracted by his own astonishment, the old guard fumbled nervously with the key at his belt until he managed to fit it into the lock and the gate swung open.
Within moments, Starkey emerged silently behind him. With a savage blow to the old gatekeeper’s head he sent him crashing to the hard gravel.
; “What did you do that for?” Marcel demanded angrily.
“Quiet!” Starkey barked as he picked up the burning torch and unhooked the key from the guard’s belt.
“Is he dead?”
“No, he’ll recover, but you’d better pray he doesn’t wake up until we’re long gone from the palace grounds. Quickly, that way,” he commanded, pointing into the darkness. To their left, the palace with its looming towers rose up like a huge beast, overwhelming in its bulk, with some of its windows blinking and still alight.
“Are we going inside there?” Fergus asked.
“No – and keep your faces hidden,” Starkey reminded them harshly.
In the darkness, with the hoods drawn tightly around their heads, the three children could barely see a step in front of them. But their other senses were not as easily blunted, and when the heady scent of roses swam about them they knew they were in a garden of some kind.
“Stop here!” Starkey ordered suddenly. He had seen something up ahead.
“Is it another guard?” Nicola whispered.
Marcel dared a peek over the rose bushes and saw a woman illuminated by the torch she carried. Her head hung low, and from the tiny shudders that racked her shoulders, it was clear she was crying.
“Stay behind me and don’t say a word,” Starkey commanded them as he pulled his own hood over his head.
The woman turned as their footsteps crushed the gravel of the narrow path. They could see now that she was standing before a tablet of white marble with a single word carved in the centre.
ASHLERE
“Who’s there?” called the woman anxiously.
“Excuse me, my lady,” said Starkey, holding the hood in place as he bowed. “I’m escorting these scullery hands to the servants’ gate. If I may be so bold, it is very late to be wandering the palace gardens. A guard might mistake you for an intruder.”
“Perhaps you’re right. I should go. It’s just that the King ordered fresh flowers for…” She didn’t finish, nodding towards the white stone instead as she added in a melancholy voice, “As if there aren’t enough blooms here already.”
The Book of Lies Page 13
