Murkmere (14 page)

I’d retreated, defeated, to my place, when Scuff came back with a kitchen boy even smaller than herself. Between them they
lugged a steaming tureen.

“Is there no one else to help?” asked the Master. “That looks too heavy for two children.”

“No, Sir,” gulped Scuff, looking frightened.

“Very well. So what is this soup we’re to feast on?”

“Eel and onion, Sir,” said Scuff, and she lifted the lid of the tureen with an effort.

The recipes of Gossop the cook were his own and always good, in spite of the state of the kitchens. But tonight, when Scuff
ladled out the soup, it looked as if our bowls had been filled with muddy puddles. I wasn’t hungry, anyway, but Leah stared
at her soup as if it were a personal affront.

“What’s this foul mess?”

“Eel and —,” began poor Scuff again.

“Take it away before I throw it at you! Where’s Gossop? Go and fetch him. The Master can’t eat this!”

The Master shook his head mildly and raised a spoonful to his lips. “I daresay it’s not as bad as it looks.”

Leah knocked the spoon from his hand so that soup spilled on the table. “Don’t drink, Sir! You’ll poison yourself! Perhaps
that’s what they’re trying to do — poison us!”

She looked wild-eyed at Scuff, who cowered back and gasped out, “Please, Miss, Mr. Gossop is took to his bed. No one else
can cook like him.”

“But if the Master doesn’t eat, he will die!” Leah hissed at her, then suddenly turned to the Master aghast, as if in her
mind’s eye this event had already happened.

He laid a hand on hers. “Hush, my dear. Let Agnes go and sort this out. There’s sickness among the servants, I know. I’ve
sent my own doctor to do what he can. Now stay and keep me company.”

Leah subsided back into her chair, glowering at me as I stood up and took one of the candlesticks from the side-board. I was
flattered by the Master’s confidence in me, but apprehensive: I’d avoided the kitchens since my first day at Murkmere, for
I knew Mistress Crumplin disliked me.

But there were no servants in the main kitchen. An elderly mastiff, too gentle-natured for the night’s running and now too
stiff, was stretched out on the hearth, while Mistress Crumplin herself was snoring gently in front of the smoking
fire, her chin in folds and an empty tankard in her hand. There weren’t any candles lit and the firelight was weak.

It wasn’t until I came closer with my own candle that I saw the grate was thickly furred with soot. There was a shriveled
joint of beef sitting in charred grease on a plate on the table, and a dish of gritty cabbage.

I went over to the housekeeper and bellowed loud enough to make a cat spit, “Mistress Crumplin! Wake up!”

The dog opened an eye, looked at me in reproach, then shut it again. The old woman smiled foolishly in her sleep and held
out her tankard as if I’d just offered her more ale. I put my hand on the stained shoulder frill of her apron and shook her,
so that she dropped the tankard and opened her eyes with a start.

“Mistress Crumplin,” I said loudly. “Our food’s black! The Master’s sent me. We can’t eat it.”

She tried to straighten herself, smoothing down her rumpled clothes and raising herself with an effort; but she no longer
had the power to disconcert me, for all that her eyes had their old sly gleam.

“Black food?” she said slurrily, all mock-offended, her bosom swelling like a pouter pigeon’s. “Why, Gossop’s sick. We’re
miserable short-handed, ‘deed we are.”

I hesitated, but stood my ground. If she’d not been in her cups, I’d never have dared do so. “It might help if the chimney
was swept, Mistress.”

She stood there swaying for a moment, trying to stare me
down, but I returned her look, and suddenly she started wringing her hands and wailing.

I couldn’t make out any words but I noticed a strange thing. She was frightened. She’d lost the flush of drink and her flabby
cheeks were gray and damp as clay.

Eventually I persuaded her to sit down again in the chair, whereupon she threw the apron over her head and made little moaning
sounds. The dog woke up again, rolled his eyes at us, and made for the door.

“Whatever’s the matter, Mistress?” I said.

“The birds!” she cried in a voice of doom, muffled by the apron. “The birds!”

“What birds?” I said.

After a fit of coughing she took the apron away at last and fixed me with watering eyes. “There’s an old nest fallen in the
chumney,” she spluttered. “Gossop sent a boy on the roof to see. We daren’t get it out, for all it brings the soot.”

“Can’t you send for the sweep?” I asked. Chimney sweeps had the Protector’s official pardon to remove bird nests, though our
village sweep, Gammy the Soot, was a blasphemous man, who cared more for money than forgiveness. I’d never seen him pray in
the Meeting Hall.

“Mr. Gammy only comes from the village three times a year,” moaned the woman. “Now’s not his time.”

“But can’t someone be sent for him?”

“The servants are too sick, and those that aren’t say there’s a curse on this house and the nest confirms it.” Raising
herself again, she hissed wetly into my face, “’Tis a
rook’s
nest, Agnes Cotter!”

A chill went through me before I pulled myself together. “Rooks don’t nest in chimney stacks, Mistress Crumplin.” It was more
likely to be a daw’s nest, though that was as bad. “I know Gammy the Soot and his chimney boy. They’ll come if you pay them.”

She shook her head adamantly and her chins quivered above the bedraggled lace collar. “There’s not a fit body here who dares
go into the village. They’re a dangerous lot, the folk there.”

I opened my mouth to protest, then suddenly a wonderful idea came to me. “Well, Mistress Crumplin, I’ll convey this to the
Master,” I said grandly. “We’ll see what he has to say.”

With that, I swept up the roast and the cabbage and left her alone with her fears and the smoking fire. And if I hadn’t been
laden with food, I would have run all the way back to the dining room, I was so eager to tell the Master my idea.

When I broke the news that a bird’s nest blocked the chimney, Leah looked dumbfounded. “No one will remove it?” She threw
her arms out, and Scuff and the kitchen boy melted back into a corner. “Do we have nitwits for servants?”

“They think it will bring disaster if they touch it,” I said, not looking at her, but putting the dishes of food on the table.

“What greater disaster than to die from starvation?” retorted Leah. “You believe such stories too, don’t you? Admit it!”

I was uneasy about admitting anything of the sort in front of the Master, for I’d a feeling he despised such beliefs even
more than she did, though I didn’t know what kind of god all his book learning had brought him. I went back to my place and
sat down, watching him from under my eyelashes, waiting for the right moment to mention my idea; and slowly my hopes faded.

His expression had grown dark and withdrawn. He’d said nothing while I described the scene in the kitchen, but tapped the
end of a fork on the table as if in imagination he beat it on someone’s head.

Now he laid it down and put his hands on his shrunken legs, kneading them viciously. “Look at me,” he growled, “grown so weak
I can’t even supervise affairs in my house any longer, but must trust others to do so instead.”

Leah ran to his side and knelt down by the iron chair, angrily waving Scuff away when she tried to serve the Master. “Let
me do what you’d do, Sir,” she said urgently. “Let me rid the place of these useless servants. Why should we be surrounded
by strangers from the Capital?”

“If they go, who’d come?” he said. “You’ll find no villager willing to work here now. Silas told me that when he last looked
for a kitchen boy he had to find one from another estate.”

“Silas!” Leah burst out. “He brings in those who’ve worked for the Ministration! He’s overrun the Hall with people from the
Capital, and you let him! No wonder no villager will work here!”

“You go too far! I am a Minister myself, remember.”

They glared at each other, then she hung her head. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Silas has worked for me since he was a boy,” he said wearily, his anger gone. “I trust him. He does his best for Murkmere
in difficult times. I can’t give his duties to you, you’re still too young.” He took her hand and stroked it. “The time will
come, I promise.”

“So you’ll ask Silas to ride to the village for the sweep, I suppose?” she said, not looking at him. “There’s no one else
who’ll go.”

“Yes, there is,” I said quickly, louder than I meant. “I could go.”

They both stared up at me as if they had entirely forgotten I was there. Then suddenly the Master smiled, and the melancholy
lifted from his face. “Why, I’d forgotten. We’ve someone village born and bred, after all. Our very own Agnes Cotter!”

I didn’t think he was mocking me, so I smiled back at him, in relief. “I know where Gammy and his chimney boy live, Sir. Their
cottage is nearest the water pumps, before you reach the lawman’s dwelling. They’ll come if I ask them, even if it’s not their
time. They’ll come for emergency pay.”

“I’m sure they will,” said the Master dryly. “Well, yes, indeed, you may go tomorrow, and with our heartfelt thanks. I’ll
ask Silas to make sure a stable hand rides with you on the Wasteland road.”

This wasn’t part of my plan at all. How could I escape Murkmere if I was accompanied?

“But I —,” I began, and then Leah interrupted me. She was still kneeling by the Master’s chair, and now she gripped his arms.
Her face was intense, imploring. “If Aggie goes to the village, may I go with her, Sir? I long to see it!”

My heart sank further. Now there’d be no chance of escape.

The Master’s face went strangely blank and closed. “No, Leah. I can’t allow that.”

Her voice rose. “But why?”

He said patiently, as if he talked to a young child — perhaps, I thought, they were words he often had to repeat — “You know
I can never let you beyond the boundary of the estate. You may come to harm. It wouldn’t be fair on the stable hand to guard
you both tomorrow.”

“Send two men, then, one for each of us!”

But she knew she couldn’t win the battle. The Master’s lips closed in a thin line.

Leah began to fling herself about the room. Her pale hair fell down in fine strands around her face; her hands slapped at
her silk skirts as if they bound her legs. “It’s not fair!” she ranted. “Why should Aggie go? She’s my companion and should
be imprisoned here, like me! She should suffer too! It’s not fair!”

Scuff and the little kitchen boy cowered against the wainscot while I, thinking to restrain Leah for her own safety, tried
to hold her arm. At once she threw me off, snarling like a wild creature.

“Leah,” said the Master helplessly, “Leah.” He bowed his head in his hands as if he couldn’t bear to watch.

Then something — the two frightened children, my own expression, the Master’s despair — halted her.

She looked at me with great wounded eyes that had turned dark with emotion. A sob tore through her, then another. As the tears
streamed down her face, she went on gazing at me from those drenched, dark eyes as if she implored my help. I stood uselessly,
not knowing what I could do, and a lump rose in my throat. I felt my own mouth quiver.

At last, weeping noisily, she ran from the room.

In the bleak silence she left behind, I motioned the two white-faced children to leave. “Say nothing, Scuff,” I said in a
low voice. “The mistress isn’t well tonight. I can trust you, can’t I?”

She nodded, her lips pressed tightly together to show me. When we were alone, I turned back to the Master. “Shall I go after
Miss Leah, Sir?”

He took his hands from his face. I saw with a shock that his eyes were full of unshed tears. “No,” he said quietly. “Leave
her. Nothing can be done.” Then he gave a sigh that seemed dredged up from his soul. “What kind of tyrant do you think me,
Agnes? My ward accuses me of imprisoning her, and it’s true.”

I didn’t know how to answer; my heart was wrung at the sight of his tormented eyes. “You love Leah, Sir,” I managed to say.
“She knows that.”

But I wondered if it weren’t the wrong sort of love, when the desire to protect the beloved could cause so much pain to them
both.

At last I persuaded him to eat a little.

Later, when I carried the used plates through to the kitchen, I found a gaggle of maids sluicing dishes from their own meal
in the servants’ dining room. Mistress Crumplin would still be lolling befuddled at the head of the table in there, a full
tankard in front of her. Silas Seed’s presence might have controlled her, but I knew he ate in his own room.

The maids were too busy with their chatter to pay me much attention. I put the remains of our food in the larder and slipped
quickly away from the kitchen quarters. I was concerned about Leah, and feeling guilty too. I’d be escaping Murkmere while
she remained. A silly softness made me want to see her one last time.

I expected to find her sobbing still, but there was no sound from her chamber. I lifted the latch quietly and looked in. A
single candle burned by her bed and showed me her motionless figure beneath the covers, her sleeping face on the pillow, marked
with tears. Even in sleep she wore her frown.