Midwinter Nightingale (12 page)

“Oh, consarn it!” said Dido angrily. She felt really hard done by.

She had come back to England after a well-earned holiday visit to old friends in Nantucket, anticipating, or at least hoping for, an affectionate greeting from her friends Simon and Sophie Battersea and some sort of 'welcome from her sisters Penny and Is. She certainly had not expected to be kidnapped, deprived of food for twelve hours and flung into a cold damp prison.

“Pigs!” she muttered. Then, because Dido would never let herself be overborne, even by the most dismally unpromising circumstances, she struggled to her feet and looked about her.

There was nothing much to look at.

It was just not dark indoors. Out the window she could see a huge courtyard, paved with gravel, enclosed by the four wings of the house, which must be as big as a palace. Surprisingly, the yard contained two football pitches, with goals. No one was playing football. Two or three windows had lights in them. Most were dark.

Is this place a prison? Dido wondered. It sure isn't anybody's happy home.

Turning to inspect the small room into which she had been thrown, Dido received a shock. There was very little furniture—a table, a chair, and a box. Under the table something moved. A dog? A cat? A person?

Dido was reluctant to feel under the table with her bound hands; she did not want them bitten as well as bound. Instead she shoved the table, which was quite small, with her hip, to expose whatever was lurking underneath.

A pitiful voice said, “Oh …don't hurt me!
Please!”

Astonished, Dido said, “Who the pize are you? Are you human?”

There was a long silence while the voice reflected. Then it said, “Once I was.”

“What do you mean?” Dido demanded. “What is this place?”

“It's a school. Fogrum Hall. Or,” the voice said doubtfully, “it
was
a school. I dunno quite what it is now.”

“Who runs it?”

The voice seemed doubtful about this too. After another long pause—“It was Dr. Pentecost. But he left after Lot burned his book.”

“Lot? Who's that?” The name Lot seemed faintly familiar.

“Lot Rudh. His mum was Queen Adelaide.”

“Oh, that feller, I know. But his dad wasn't the king— was he?”

“No. Hush, though! You better not speak about him too loud.”

“Why?”

“He owns this place now.”

“Lot Rudh does? But he's only a boy. He can't own a school.”

“He does. His dad came out of prison and bought it for him.”

“His dad?”

“Baron Magnus Rudh. Don't speak so
loud!”
the voice breathed.

“Oh, croopus,” said Dido. Again she remembered the archbishop saying, “… another most evil person, unfriend to our king …”

“How could a person come out of prison and buy a school?”

“He owned a gold mine in Midsylvania. Hush!”

“Blimey.”

If the baron owned a gold mine, thought Dido, why was he put in prison? Better not ask about that, perhaps. Instead she said, “What's your name?”

“They call me the Woodlouse.”

“Why? Who call you that?”

“Lot started it. Because I curl up in a ball when he hits me.”

“He hits you? Why?”

“See, I'm his servant. In the school, big boys had smaller boys for their servants. Lot has me. And when he doesn't like the way I make his toast or polish his boots, he hits me. Very hard sometimes. Once he slammed the door on my fingers. On purpose. Once he burned my face with a red-hot toasting fork. You can see the marks.”

“Why didn't you tell the boss? Doc Pentecost?”

“Then I'd only get it worse from Lot. Much worse.”

“Why don't you get your dad and mum to take you away?”

“How can I? My dad is the governor of New Galloway. That's south of New Cumbria. A letter takes three months to get there.”

“I'd run off,” Dido said.

“You can't. The moat is full of tiger pike. And alligators. They'd gnaw you to bones before you could swim to the other side. They pull up the bridge at night. Besides, where'd I run to?”

“Why are you in here now, locked up with me? Did you do something bad? Oh,
do
come out and stand up sos I can see you.”

The Woodlouse slowly uncurled himself and stood up. He was very small, much smaller than Dido, dusty and untidy, and his face was somewhat streaked with tears. He might be about twelve, she thought.

He said, “They put me in here to make you understand that you
have
to answer their questions. They can make you. They have all kinds of ways of making you answer. Thumbscrews and other things. A thing called the Boot that breaks the bones in your leg. Awful things. The Iron Duchess. And, of course, if you don't tell them what they want to know, they will do things to me too. Like where he burned me. You can see the marks.”

“Yes, I see,” said Dido. “What's your real name, Woodlouse?”

“Piers Ivanhoe le Guichet Crackenthorpe.”

“Well, Piers, for a start, I can't tell these people what
they want to know, cos I don't know it myself. So that puts you and me in a bit of a fix, doesn't it?”

“They'll probably kill us,” said the Woodlouse. He sounded almost resigned.

“How many boys are there in this school?”

“Used to be about three hundred. But all those left who could, when Dr. Pentecost quit and Lot and his dad took over. The only ones here now are those with parents overseas. Like me. About forty, I reckon.”

“Are they decent coves? Or wrong 'uns?”

“Mixed. You see those fingers on the windowsill?” Dido did see them. She had been wondering what they were—half a dozen of them, small and dusty, about the size of clothes-pegs.

“They belonged to a couple of fellers,” said the Woodlouse, shivering, “whose dads wouldn't pay the increased school fee. Lot planned to send the fingers to the parents. But the fellows ran away and jumped from the dormitory windows into the moat.”

“What happened?”

“The tiger pike got them. So Lot didn't send the fingers. There'd be no point. He told me to show them to you instead.”

“I see,” said Dido again.

Footsteps came to the door and stopped outside. The key turned in the lock.

manservant at Edge Place, had been sent on a pensioned-off hunter to the town of Clarion Wells to post off the chain letter. (Growing bored at the task of making twenty copies, Jorinda had reduced the number to six, which were respectively dispatched to her ex-headmistress, the duchess of Burgundy, the prime minister, the chancellor of the exchequer, the foreign secretary, the minister without portfolio and the archbishop of Wessex, whose envelope lacked a stamp.)

“And get some scarlet satin ribbon while you're in town, Grib,” added Jorinda, “and a bag of macaroons from the pastry cook's. Smidgey is no hand at those.”

“Ay, m'lady.”

“And while you're in town, Gribben, you might keep a lookout for the duke of Battersea.”

“Battersea, missie? Duke? What like of person would that be, then?”

“Dark hair. Very handsome. Wears a shabby old gray duffle coat, but you can easily see he's quality And he may have a hundred sheep with him.”

“The ones Old Sir was so mad about?”

“Yes; but Granda's not to know where they've got to. Those sheep were going to be butchered to feed the Burgundian army! Sheep have a right to a say in their own destiny.”

“Err,” said Gribben. “Old master'll be rate put-about if he don't get paid for em.”

“Oh, what do I care about that? Sheep are living, individual beings! Animals should not be our slaves!”

“Arr,” said Gribben. “And what should I say if I see the gentleman? The dook?”

“First, mind you find out where he's staying. Get his address. Second, tell him—tell him he's very welcome to come and call here.”

“Urr. But what'll Old Sir say to that?”

“Never you mind! And don't dillydally all day in the town,” said Jorinda, suddenly cross. “You tiresome old man!”

Gribben stuck out his lower lip so far that he could have balanced a walnut on it, mounted his aged horse and rode off. Jorinda went back to her attic bedroom under the roof, where she had cut up various articles of her wardrobe and bedclothes and was pinning together a
huge patchwork quilt, its colors mainly red and white, with the Battersea coat of arms and the name Simon Bakerloo across the middle.

“Laws, miss, that's handsome,” exclaimed Lucy the chambermaid, called in to sweep the snippets of material that lay ankle-deep all over the floor. “How many patches have ye sewn?”

“Two,” said Jorinda. “Would you do some for me, Lucy?”

“Love ye, no, miss, I haven't got the time! Mrs. Smidge'd be after me like a rattlesnake did I stop my work for such a fribble.”

“Fribble! It isn't a fribble!”

But Lucy had already left.

Half an hour later she came back, however, to say, “There's a kind of waygoing peddler woman at the back door, missie. Would ye care to see what she has in her pack?”

“Of course I would!”

Jorinda flew down to the undercroft, where the peddler woman had spread out her wares on a sheet draped over a bale of straw. She was a tall bony woman with copious white hair swept back and pinned behind her head under a scarf. Her clothes and skin were wrinkled and brown, her eyes a brilliant gray. She gave Jorinda a cordial reception.

“Now here's a lady as I can tell knows what's what! I'll be bound
you
can tell a hatchet from a herring gull, my dearie. See all these fardels I have—the very best quality you'll find this side of the River Tigris—needles, hair
dye, mouse-skin eyebrows, strings, lappets of lace, starch for powdering hair, strips of lead for curlers, hair ribbons, fans, face patches. None but the very best, as you'll see, lady dear.”

“What's that?” asked Jorinda, pointing to a bulging stoppered bottle of thick green glass seamed over with silvery scratches. It bore a kind of rainbow bloom. It was corked, sealed over the cork with red wax and had a cloth cap tied on over the wax.

“That? Oh, that is something you'll not be needing for a while's while, my lady love; 'tis only a witch bottle.”

“A witch bottle …what's that?” At once, Jorinda was filled with curiosity

“Why, dearie, if you believe some evil person has put a curse on you—or is like to—you make yourself one of these bottles. Or, you pay some person as has the power to make you one.”

“What's in it?”

The peddler woman glanced to the right and left and, seeing there was nobody at hand but themselves in the undercroft, whispered,
“Piss!
And hair from where the piss comes from! And an eyelash from that same person, and nine bent brass pins.”

“What in the world do you do with it?”

“Bury it under your enemy's house, dearie, and it'll make him sick to death. Or his house will burn down. Or both. But
you
surely don't need such a thing, bless your pretty face! You don't have no enemy, I'll be bound.”

“N-no,” said Jorinda thoughtfully. “Perhaps not, but
I'll lay my granda could use it. He's forever quarreling with Lord Scarswood. And he—” However, she thought better of what she had been about to say and picked up a peacock-feather fan.

“This is pretty”

“Ah, but ye don't want to go for to buy that, my dearie. Peacockses feathers is terrible misfortunate. That's another kickshaw to give to an
un
friend, not to buy for your own use. Now, this ivory fan, that's more suitable for a young lady such as yourself.”

It was also much more expensive. But Jorinda bought it and also a bunch of hair ribbons, a tortoiseshell comb and some beautiful flowered Spitalfields silk.

While paying for these purchases, she asked, casually, “Did you hear of the young duke of Battersea being seen in these parts? A handsome young gentleman riding on a piebald mare? With an owl on his shoulder?”

“A young gent riding a piebald with an owl on his shoulder?”

The peddler looked vague, as if there might possibly be some such recollection in her mind, but if so, it was from a long way in the past. At last she said, “I do seem to mind there was such a person seen, some months back. Maybe 'twas in Clarion Wells. Ay, Clarion Wells it was, and he was heading northward toward Wan Hope Heights.”