Castle of Shadows (13 page)

Charlie crawled out the window of her attic bedroom onto the narrow balcony. She leant against the stone parapet and looked over the decaying garden towards the City. It was nearly December. The wind blew constantly up here now, and it was cold as death. She didn’t dare venture onto the roofs.

Tobias was trapped, somewhere, out there in the City. She was trapped in the Castle. She wished she could talk to him. She could face Tobias’s anger at what she had done, but she couldn’t bear the thought of telling Mr Moleglass that she had helped arrange the Prime Minister’s assassination.

Today was Thursday. Windlass’s first appointment in the City was next Tuesday. She had less than a week to decide whether he lived or died.

Had he been telling her the truth? Could she believe anything he said? Had Nell and Peter got it wrong? Was Windlass trying to save the Kingdom the only way he could?

Oh, why couldn’t her mother be here to tell her what to do? Why couldn’t her father… The drug Mrs O’Dair gave him. She had assumed it was on Windlass’s orders. But what if it wasn’t? What if he didn’t know?

Pain and confusion and fear were like stones grinding circles inside her head. Why should she have to decide whether a man lived or died? Why should she have to do all this on her own? It wasn’t fair! She didn’t know what to do, and the wind, whining over the slates and muttering through the gutters, told her nothing. Defeated, she turned and went inside.

Something clamped onto her mouth, holding her down, shocking her out of sleep. For a moment she was frozen with terror, then she convulsed, hands and feet whirling, tangling her bedclothes, hitting, trying to bite, trying to scream.

‘Shhhh! It’s me, Charlie! It’s all right. It’s Tobias! Be quiet! Watch is prowling on the floor below!’ Tobias’s voice was a harsh whisper in her ear. He was half sitting on her. She stopped struggling and lay quite still, her heart pounding, feeling the terror sink to a lower level, but not drain away completely. Why was he here? How had he got in the Castle? Why was Watch lurking on the fifth floor? There was nothing there but dust and empty rooms. What was going on?

‘I’m gonna take my hand away now,’ Tobias whispered. ‘Promise not to yell?’

She nodded, and the pressure lifted from her mouth, but he was still sitting on her. ‘Get off!’ she hissed at the dark shape hovering above her. The shape removed itself. Charlie sat up and pulled her eiderdown around her for
warmth. ‘What’s going on?’ she whispered. ‘Sit down! I can’t see you!’

The shape sat on the bed. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you so bad,’ said Tobias.

‘What did you expect?’ She was still rattled. ‘What are you doing here? Why is Watch downstairs? Is he after you?’

‘Reckon he might have heard something. The moon’s covered in cloud tonight, and I didn’t dare use the lantern or even a candle. Bumped into a table or something on the third floor. ’Spect he thinks it’s you wandering about. He wouldn’t dare shoot you in your bedroom, but if he found you on another floor… So he’s lying in wait.’

Charlie wondered if she might throw up.

‘All we gotta do is wait here for a while. It’s cold enough to freeze the feathers off a duck. He’ll make for his bolt hole and his beer soon enough.’

‘Fine.’ She shivered. ‘But what are you doing here? If Windlass finds you—’

‘Well, he won’t, will he? There’s news – and we got a job to do.’

‘What news?’

‘He’s got her.’ Tobias’s whisper hissed into the darkness. ‘Windlass has Bettina.’

Shock pierced her like cold steel. It was over, then.

‘Charlie?’

She swallowed away dryness so she could speak. ‘How do you know?’

‘Pigeon post.’

‘What?’

‘Carrier pigeons. Peter sent spies to Durchland, and they’ve been sending back information by pigeon. Numbering the messages so we know how many get through. I’ve been helping look after the birds. We’ve only lost two so far. They have these little metal containers attached to their legs and—’

‘Will you shut up about the blinking pigeons!’

‘Shhhh! Watch is—’

‘To heck with Watch! How do you know Windlass has Bettina?’

‘Peter’s spies found out that someone called Bettina Hoffman was an old school friend of your mum’s. When she was fifteen, your mum was sent to school in Durchland for two years, a sort of finishing school for posh girls. She met Bettina there and they got to be mates. Then your mum came back to Quale, and they never met up again until she ran away. I guess she chose her old school friend because nobody here was likely to know about her. Peter’s spies tracked Hoffman down in Durchland,’ Tobias continued. ‘She’d been a teacher, and now she’s headmistress of her own school. Or she was, till she was kidnapped.’

‘Windlass kidnapped her?’

‘All Peter knows is that the woman’s gone. She lives near the school. Peter’s men found her house ransacked. And Bettina Hoffman has disappeared. So it’s a fair bet
Windlass has her and is bringing her back here.’

‘And if my mother was with her?’

‘That ain’t likely. Folks remembered a pretty blonde lady living with Bettina a few years ago. That must have been your mum.’

‘But if Bettina knows where she is…’ Charlie groaned. ‘Windlass has won!’

‘Not yet, he ain’t.’

‘But if he’s got Bettina—’

‘Having ain’t keeping.

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s only been one ship flying the Qualian flag leave Hanver in the past week. It sailed two days ago and should come in tomorrow. Bettina’ll be offloaded and brought to the City under armed guard. Windlass will probably meet the ship. He’ll want to question Bettina himself as soon as possible.’

‘But if there’s an armed guard—’

‘I know. We can’t tackle them at the docks. And once he gets her back here it’s all over. We won’t be able to get at her, and he’ll have all the time in the world to torture everything she knows out of her.’

‘He wouldn’t—’

‘Don’t fool yourself, Charlie. That man would do anything to get what he wants.’

‘Then it’s hopeless!’

‘There’s one chance. He’s got to move her from the docks to the City. He could use a carriage and outriders,
but that’s slow and dangerous. Too many places for an ambush. No, he’ll have a special train ordered. He’ll use the atmospheric railway. We need to know when the special is running. If we know that, we can block the line and stop the train. Then it’ll come down to a fight. We got a chance, at least.’

Charlie sat, staring into darkness. A fight. People would get killed. And it would be her fault – all because she had given Windlass the letter. A strange, scratching sort of pain sharpened in her head, and she hunched her shoulders and glared into nothingness. If there was to be fighting, she would fight too. It was the only thing she could do to make things even a little bit right. Somehow it felt like, by risking her life, she might somehow save someone else’s.
Stupid nonsense
, her brain told her.
I don’t care
, she answered back.

‘I told you we’ve got a job,’ Tobias said. ‘We gotta tell Peter the moment Windlass leaves to go to the docks.’

‘How are we going to do that?’

‘Easy!’ She could almost hear him grinning in the darkness. ‘Pigeon post!’

When she woke the next morning, the sun was a reverse shadow just visible in the grey sky, and the winter birds were shrilling and screaming in an attempt to thaw out after a bitter night. Charlie stuck her nose outside her eiderdown and wished she’d thought to put her clothes under the covers to keep them warm. She jumped out of
bed and began to dress, shivering as she pulled on the first chilly layers. She would give washing a miss this morning. There was a layer of ice floating on top of the basin.

As she clattered down the freezing stairwell on her way to the lesser dining room and a bowl of hot porridge, it felt like she had imagined Tobias’s visit in the night. He’d waited in her room for another hour, then left as silently as he’d come. Remembering Watch, Charlie had locked her door behind him.

They had arranged to meet beneath the old yew tree after Charlie’s Statecraft lesson with Windlass. ‘I can keep an eye on the drive till then,’ Tobias had said. ‘See if he takes out a carriage. He might even ride out on horseback; depends how quick he wants to get to the docks.’

But when she had asked him how he’d got into the Castle grounds, he’d refused to tell her. ‘That’s my secret, Charlie, and I’ll keep it.’

‘Where are you going now?’

‘I got a place I camp out sometimes. The old pineapple pit. I already filled the trenches with fresh muck. I’ll be warm as toast.’

‘And a great deal smellier,’ Charlie said. ‘Just don’t get caught. Windlass meant it when he said he’d ship you off to the colonies!’ But Tobias had gone.

Time played tricks on her all through lessons. It leapt ahead, racing so that she couldn’t remember what
Professor Meadowsweet had said to her a minute before. Then it would balk, rear back on its haunches and refuse to move, so that each second was agony.

Fifteen minutes before the end of lessons, the pneumatic messenger whistled and a capsule plonked into the catch basket. The Professor managed to retrieve and open it, looking very pleased with himself. ‘Ah,’ he said with a smile. ‘You’re to have a half-holiday today, Your Highness. The Prime Minister sends his apologies. He is unable to give you a Statecraft lesson. So you have the afternoon to yourself. If I may suggest, you might enjoy spending the time revising Esceanian grammatical tenses, especially the pluperfect.’

‘Thank you, Professor,’ said Charlie. ‘That does sound fun.’

This was it! Windlass was going after Bettina this afternoon!

She was out the door a second after Meadowsweet dismissed her, racing down flight after flight of stairs. No one was expecting her. No lunch would be prepared and waiting in the lesser dining room. O’Dair and the other servants would be eating in the servants’ hall. Even Fossy would be tucking into his lunch in the greenhouse, then snoozing half the afternoon away.

She ran all the way to the library, opened one of the casements, and slid outside. Then she was off, loping across frozen grass, dodging corpse-like bushes, making for the ancient yew. It was still bitterly cold, but the wind
had dropped. Heavy, yellowish-grey clouds hung low in the sky and the air felt damp and sullen.
It will snow
tonight
, she thought, as she pushed beneath the yew’s branches, through the hanging fringe of green-black needles, and stood in semi-darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

‘Had any lunch?’ Tobias was sitting on a bed of russet brown needles, leaning against the massive tree trunk. A canvas knapsack lay on the ground beside him. He reached inside and pulled out a packet wrapped in greaseproof paper. He tossed it to her.

‘Thanks.’ Charlie squatted beside him and explored the packet. A slice of ham layered between buttered brown bread. Her stomach growled appreciatively. She’d been too excited to think about food, but she was starving. She took a big bite, leant back and closed her eyes as she chewed, relishing the taste of ham, bread and butter; relishing even more the odd sensation that had been buoying her up all morning.

Excitement, but more than that. Anticipation. And relief, if she was honest. Windlass might have Bettina, but they would rescue her. And at least now she didn’t have to decide whether Windlass lived or died. With any luck, Mr Moleglass and Tobias need never know what she had done. As for the coming fight – perhaps no one would be hurt. It all seemed so unlikely: a proper battle with guns. She couldn’t quite believe in it now, in daylight.

Bettina. The name had taken on a magical quality.
Soon she might meet her. Soon she might know where her mother was. Charlie shivered.

‘Cold, ain’t it?’

She’d almost forgotten Tobias. She sniffed. Yes, there was a definite odour of manure in the air. But, considering recent events, she decided not to say anything. ‘Windlass cancelled my Statecraft lesson,’ she mumbled through chunks of bread and ham. ‘That’s why I’m early. He must be going this afternoon. Shouldn’t one of us be on watch?’

‘He’s been in his office all morning. If he orders a horse or carriage from the stables, we’ll know. You’d hear either one clumping up the drive. We’ll know he’s about to leave before he even puts on his coat and hat to go out.’

‘So have you just been sitting here all morning?’ Charlie, forgetting her friendly resolution of a moment before, turned and glared at him. ‘How do you know he’s even in his office?’

‘Course I ain’t been under here all morning, you gurnless idiot.’ Tobias grinned at her and fished an apple out of his bag. He polished it on his jacket sleeve. ‘I been out since dawn. I got a good hidey place where I can see the main drive from the gates. I seen Windlass’s carriage arrive at seven-thirty this morning. I seen him get out and go in the ministerial wing. I seen his office light come on. I seen his carriage and horse wheeled off to the stables. That’s when I come under here, to stay out of Fossy’s
way. Happy now? There’s another apple in there if you fancy it.’

Charlie pulled the apple out of the bag. It was a bit old and withered, but it still tasted of something resembling apple. She enjoyed each mouthful. ‘Sorry, Tobias. Thanks for the food. And…’ She frowned in embarrassment, but the words had to be said. ‘I won’t forget what you did for me in the laboratory.’

‘It weren’t for you,’ he snapped. ‘I’m just…’ He broke off and glanced at her. Looked away. ‘I ain’t no hero, Charlie. I got my own reasons for what I’m doing.’

‘And you won’t tell me what they are.’

‘Nope.’ He grinned at her. She smiled back and relaxed against the tree, blotting all the worries from her mind, concentrating on enjoying this moment as much as possible. She was happy. It didn’t happen often.

Two hours later it began to snow. A sharp, spiteful sleet battered the yew’s canopy, but soon the mood of the storm changed, and enormous snowflakes drifted down out of the thickening sky. An hour later daylight was fading, and three inches of snow encircled the tree where Charlie and Tobias paced round and round, beating their arms to keep warm. ‘Why hasn’t he gone?’ Charlie asked for the twentieth time.