The Thief on the Winged Horse

by Kate Mascarenhas

  A murmur rippled through the group. Persephone caught the eye of Rieko, Alastair’s wife, a dark-bobbed Japanese woman with her hands in her dungaree pockets. She was twice Persephone’s relative, because she was a distant cousin of Persephone’s mother. Rieko ran the Interior Design department, and presumably discussed work matters with Alastair at home. But she shrugged her slight shoulders and shook her head at Persephone, as if to signal: this is all news to me.

  Alastair coughed for attention. “Conrad Kendrick has been persuaded that our information on Jemima Ramsay was incomplete. It seems there’s evidence that she lived, as did her offspring, giving rise to a line we weren’t aware of. Larkin’s keen to start a reconciliation.”

  Persephone thought of her own long-held desire to be a Sorcerer; no one in the workshop ever entertained her ambitions. This Larkin had arrived with a preposterous tale and less than a week later was given a job.

  She walked to the front of the group.

  “Does he have any skills?” she asked Alastair.

  “We take apprentices with promise—” Alastair began, but Larkin raised a hand to halt him.

  “I’ve brought a sample of my work,” Larkin said, lifting his doctor’s bag onto the nearest table. He opened it, and took out an intricate toy. The workers craned forward to look.

  The toy comprised two figures: a young man in the tricorn hat of a highwayman, and at his side, a bonneted woman with a choker. Larkin twisted a key in the toy’s base. The dolls shifted into motion. Swooping, the young man kissed the woman, and with his free arm, stole an even smaller doll – no bigger than an inch – from the woman’s pocket.

  The crowd sighed with pleasure. Persephone fell in love alongside them. The Kendricks did not make wind-up dolls as a rule; the mechanics distracted from the magic. But this had a fluidity of motion that was charming and, more importantly, showed Larkin’s talent was genuine. With this proof of his ability, Persephone wished still more intensely that she were in his place. No, more than that; she wanted to be him. To have a vision, and to be permitted to realise it, was so enviable – and unimaginable to Persephone in her own form.

  She reached out, to brush her fingertips against the thief. She felt nothing but cold tin.

  “There’s no enchantment,” she whispered.

  “No,” Alastair said. “And until further notice, you mustn’t discuss how enchantments are laid in his presence. Larkin’s familial tie, along with his obvious craft, make him more than eligible for the job. But by Conrad’s orders he must serve a probationary period. If we’re satisfied with his attitude and progress in post then he’ll learn all the enchantments in due course. In the meantime, I’ll work sorcery on Larkin’s dolls.”

  That was interesting. Larkin hadn’t wholly got his own way yet, then. Still he was smiling as he returned the highwayman to the doctor’s bag. Why shouldn’t he smile? When Persephone first met him, she thought his confidence was misplaced; he had no justification to state so boldly that Conrad would believe him. But he had been believed. Now he would be taught by the best crafts people in the world, and would be further rewarded in time. He would be one of the men on the top floor, like Alastair and Dennis, who decided how other people should feel.

  The workers drifted back to their benches, and Persephone returned to her till. Dennis took some paint and a brush to the foyer, where he would add Larkin’s name to the lists on the wall. Persephone kept thinking of Larkin’s smile. In the solitude of the shop, she tried to smile that way at the dolls. It hurt almost immediately, and for once she was glad to hear the ring of the bell as a customer entered.

  4

  On the morning Larkin started his apprenticeship, Hedwig was fulfilling routine duties, which included checks on their supplies for autumn, starting with a visit to the cellar. But she paused at the open doorway. A light had been left on below. As Conrad rarely ventured into this part of the house, and she’d not been below ground either, the glow aroused suspicion.

  She looked down from the highest stair, which let her see a narrow sliver of the cellar, and it seemed empty. But she heard the shuffle of feet.

  “Who’s there?” demanded Hedwig.

  A dishevelled figure shambled from an alcove. Briar; Conrad’s twin.

  “Good heavens, Briar!” Hedwig took the steps two at a time. “Whenever did you get here? And how did you get in?”

  “I let myself through the back last night.” Briar paused to clear the rattle from his throat. “I didn’t mean to stay this long, or fall asleep… Just thought I’d borrow a few things we ran out of at home.”

  A door connected the cellar to the lower garden; Hedwig glanced at it, concerned he’d forced an entry, but there wasn’t any broken glass or splintered wood. Perhaps the house painter had left it unlocked. She’d have stern words with him for that.

  “Briar, you only have to ask us if you need essentials.” Hedwig knew he didn’t need essentials. Conrad’s stocks of alcohol were in the cellar, and Briar reeked of whisky fumes.

  He scoffed. “Ask you! By rights the house and everything in it ought to be mine.”

  This was an established grievance: Briar was the oldest son, which should have given him the strongest claim to the house, however his father’s will excluded him. For years he’d harped on it, exhausting everybody.

  “Briar, if you’ve been here hours then Sephy must be terribly worried.”

  “Serves her right.” He sucked his teeth. “The little madam poured my scotch down the sink. She’s disrespectful.”

  “Good for her. Now come on, out with you. I’m busy.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  She nudged him closer to the door. He placed a hand on the jamb, and searched his pocket, which produced a key. He shoved it in the lock.

  “Is that key ours?!” exclaimed Hedwig.

  Briar must have had it since his father’s death. How many times had they been raided without knowing?

  “I own this key,” he said thickly.

  “Be a pet and hand it over? I don’t want to change the locks.”

  He swore, but passed the key to her.

  “And the front door, too?” she prompted.

  He relinquished a second key with equal grace before departure. Possibly he’d cut duplicates; on reflection, changing locks would still be prudent. Briar was quite out of control. Seph should keep him on a tighter rein.

  *

  Hedwig was at her desk by half past ten. She telephoned Saint Martins and enquired if a reference was available for Larkin. The administrator confirmed that Larkin graduated with a first, in Fine Art, two years previously. They connected her to his old tutor – an avuncular academic by the name of Emlyn Madoc.

  “How delightful that Larkin should be working for you,” he said. “I’m a Kendricks enthusiast myself. I own several of your magic dolls.”

  “Is that how Larkin heard of us originally? Through you?”

  “I don’t believe so. We talked of dollcraft often but he was already well informed. He said something of being a distant relation to the Kendricks dynasty.”

  In which case Larkin’s lie about Jemima Ramsay’s child – if lie it was – had been maintained since Larkin’s student days.

  “If I may say,” Madoc continued, “you’re lucky to have him. He specialised in sculpture and installation, where he excelled. His focus was remarkable.”

  “We feel very fortunate. So lucky to have snagged him from his last employers—” Hedwig rustled her notebook for effect. “Oh, what was their name again?”

  “I’m sure he’d tell you himself of any relevant positions; to my knowledge he wasn’t working at all. It was always his intention to travel for a while after his degree – in Europe if not further.”

  “Satisfy my curiosity; not many people get to travel for two years without employment. Does he have an independent income?”

  “I believe he’s financially supported by a family member, yes, but I’d rather not be drawn on that if you don’t mind. We’
re straying far afield of his academic record.”

  As Madoc would supply no further information, Hedwig gave her thanks and said goodbye. Soon it would be time for elevenses. She fetched the tea and biscuits from the kitchen then called on Conrad in the drawing room to update him.

  He occupied, as usual, the mustard velvet chair by the hearth. His shoeless feet were on the pouffe and his mouth was twisted with discomfort.

  “Put aside those fripperies,” he said of her refreshments. “I couldn’t touch a morsel. I arose with throbbing pains between my shoulder blades, and they are yet to abate.”

  Hedwig placed the tea upon the table, sure he’d want some soon. Without waiting to be asked she stood behind him and massaged his neck and back. She took his grunt as thanks.

  “I spoke to Larkin’s college earlier. They said we’re fortunate to have him.”

  “That remains to be seen. By his own account he left there two years ago – and wouldn’t a promising student have been snapped up, somewhere, in the meantime? We don’t know his allegiance.”

  “You’re right; we don’t.” She didn’t say that Conrad was mistaken in his understanding of allegiances. He thought they were the product of enduring hierarchies, which depended on a natural longing for order. In his view, disloyal acts occurred when somebody misapprehended their place; the punishment must teach them their correct rank, and reassure everybody else in the tribe that order had been maintained. Whereas Hedwig knew that any person’s allegiances could change, if you understood a person’s motivations, and manipulated them accordingly. It was the only method by which she ever got her way.

  Beneath her fingers, Conrad’s shoulders gradually relaxed. She ventured a question. “Have you heard of Emlyn Madoc?”

  “Gosh yes. Madoc’s a collector, and a committed one. He even wrote a book about us recently.” Conrad gestured at the bookcase by the window. “What brought him to mind?”

  “He’s the lecturer who gave me Larkin’s reference.”

  “Hm. I expect Madoc would salivate at learning our secrets. He’s spent enough money with us over the years. Maybe we were mistaken to think Larkin was tied to another firm. Perhaps he’s working for an individual – an obsessive hobbyist.”

  “It might be nothing,” Hedwig mused.

  “My dear,” Conrad said. “Would you pass me one of those shortbread fingers now?”

  She served his tea in a china cup with biscuits balanced on the saucer. While he sipped she scrutinised the bookcase, scanning spines until she spotted Madoc’s hardback near the top. Authenticity and Appropriation in Doll Making was the name.

  She thumbed the pages, pausing when she saw the Kendricks mentioned, which was often, though Conrad had exaggerated when he said the book was about them. She lingered on one particular paragraph:

  How do Kendricks lay enchantments? It’s the best-kept corporate secret in the world, and has been for two centuries. I find it quite extraordinary that, in a whole two hundred years, no employee has ever broken ranks by leaking the secret or setting up a rival firm. Theories abound as to why. The most popular concern Harold Kendrick, Lucy’s eldest son, who managed the firm from the age of twenty-one and was known to be a cut-throat businessman. His correspondence contains veiled references to securing, through sorcery, the loyalty of his relatives by blood and marriage, for generations to come. But there are signs Harold’s spell is wearing off. Recent years have seen the first divorces granted on the eyot, and a number of young people seeking employment outside Kendricks, reflecting a weakening of familial ties that would have been unthinkable even a generation earlier. How much longer can Kendricks keep their methods a secret? It is surely only a matter of time before a disgruntled ex-wife or a prodigal son spills the beans.

  Hedwig tutted. Clearly Madoc was salivating at their secrets. She turned to the front matter to check which other books Madoc had written.

  And her eye was caught by the dedication.

  For Larkin.

  Surely that couldn’t be typical? Did lecturers often dedicate books to their students? Hedwig hadn’t been to university, but it seemed inappropriate. Even in the kindest light it suggested favouritism, which lent credence to Conrad’s theory Madoc and Larkin were collaborators.

  “Hedwig, I feel abandoned,” Conrad said. “As a companion you make a fine bookworm, I must say!”

  “Just coming.” Hedwig replaced the book on the shelf. She would keep watching Larkin.

  5

  Persephone sat alone in her bedroom, at the small dressing table that made do for a workbench. She dipped her slenderest paintbrush in a cup of chocolate acrylic. The buttons she’d cut from Larkin’s coat lay before her in a row. Selecting one, she held the brush above it, poised, yet lacking the nerve to make a mark.

  Focus, she scolded herself. Her attention was divided. She didn’t worry, precisely, when Briar failed to return home for the night. She imagined him lying in a gutter, his head caved in by a mugger, or passed out on a bench as he succumbed to hypothermia. The images were persistent, but failed to raise her pulse or sicken her, because she had been picturing them since she was old enough to know he could come to harm. They were simply there in her mind, as an unfolding reel which she experienced passively.

  She concentrated on circling the eyelet with her chosen paint, in a single, fluid line. That doesn’t look too bad, she conceded.

  Downstairs the front door banged. It could only be her father, because they lived by themselves in the little house; her mother had moved to Berwick nine years ago. Persephone felt commingled relief and irritation at her father’s safe return. She listened to the familiar thwack against the wall as he discarded first one boot, then a second. The white noise of the pipes told her he had turned on a kitchen tap. Finally she heard the wheeze of the stairs as he ascended.

  When he opened the door, he was odorous, but hale, as far as she could tell. He was holding a chipped mug of tea, and a roll of Jammy Dodgers was wedged between his side and his elbow. This must be his peace offering for his petulance over the scotch in the sink. Neither of them would mention that dispute now; nor would they discuss where he had been in the meantime. This was how they proceeded after any explosion of temper. A veil would be drawn down, and though they might refer to it in gestures, Persephone knew speaking out loud of prior arguments risked reignition.

  “Just put the tea there,” she said, nodding at the corner of her dresser.

  He obliged. She attempted to circle the remaining eyelet. This time the line wobbled like a child on training wheels.

  “Shit.” She put down the brush in frustration. No; not only frustration, but temper. Why? Why would she get angry, at so small a thing as a crooked line of paint, but not at her father letting her think he lay injured on the streets of Oxford?

  “You’re very flushed,” her father said, hesitantly.

  “It’s just warm in here.”

  He picked up the button. “What’s this? Is it a little face you’re making?”

  “Kind of. The ridge in the button is the nose, the holes are the eyes. I saw them and thought they’d be a good shape for a doll’s face, if I could paint them well enough.”

  Briar returned the button to her, and looked at his daughter fully.

  “You’re very flushed,” he repeated.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You know, Seph,” he said, “sorcery’s no job for a woman.”

  “So everyone says.”

  “It’s just – all the energy you put into improving your craft – you’re chasing something that’s not meant for you.”

  “But serving in the shop is for me?”

  “You have a point there,” he said. “If you were like Cosima Botham, or Hedwig Mayhew – or if you were like… your mother… serving in the shop would be a better fit. They have the gift of persuasion. And they like it, talking people into things. But you’re not like them. You’re like me.”

  Jesus, she thought, don’t make me even crosser.

&nb
sp; He must have thought he’d said too much, because he beat a retreat to the hall. The added distance allowed him to finish, as if indulging an afterthought. “There has to be another option,” he said. “Not just sorcery, or working in the shop. You’re a bright girl. Don’t waste your time over either of them.”

  Persephone swirled her paintbrush in the water jar. She heard her father walk to his own room, where she suspected he’d sleep till it was time for dinner.

  *

  Persephone spent most of her childhood trying to understand why there were no women Sorcerers. When she was around ten, an incident by the riverside increased her suspicion that her father, Alastair, and Dennis were in the wrong by saying it wasn’t possible.

  Her mother had bought her rollerskates, and she was experimenting with which areas near home provided the smoothest surface. So far, Jackdaw Lane – which was the closest tarmacked street – was the best for gliding cleanly. The lane was the very furthest Persephone was willing to stray; it was nearly at the main road, and well past the psychological barrier represented by the eyot’s footbridge. When she felt she had skated enough, she returned to the grassy path that bordered the river. She traipsed through cornflowers, lifting her feet because the wheels wouldn’t turn in the mud. The skates added unaccustomed weight and she grew breathless.

  Before she reached the cottages she paused to rest by a wooden bench. An old woman was sitting on it. She was a stranger to Persephone, which was remarkable enough on the eyot, where everyone knew everyone.

  “Hello,” Persephone ventured.

  The woman shot Persephone a look of indignation, and said nothing. She had the short chin of a person with no teeth in, but she was otherwise neat, with her white hair bobbed and combed, and a brightly coloured shawl about her shoulders. In her hand she held a paring knife.

  The woman searched within the folds of her shawl. She took out a cube of pale brown soap, which was about two inches long.

  “Are you lost?” Persephone asked. She noticed the woman was wearing socks without shoes, and the mud was seeping into the white cotton. The old woman ignored Persephone’s question. She took the knife to two corners of the soap, cutting a pair of tiny facets, top and bottom. The soap fragments dusted her lap.