Murkmere (31 page)

“He went peacefully,” I said. I longed to comfort her, but knew she did not want it. “I believe he wanted to go. He wanted
to fly, and so he did.”

“I knew it was in his mind.” She rubbed at her face as if she wiped invisible tears away. “He was my father such a short time.
One little evening.”

“He loved you always,” I said.

She said, stiffly, “And I loved him. I saw him earlier, and we made everything all right between us.”

“He kept the truth about your birth secret for your protection, you know.”

“But I would have understood so much more if he’d told me,” she said sadly. She gestured at herself. “Why I’m like this, why
I’m not like you.”

“But you are like me!” I cried. “What are you saying?”

“I take after my mother, Aggie. Blanche Tunstall was one of the avia, I’ve heard Mistress Crumplin say so often enough. And
when he was a youth Silas used to tell me stories about the Master’s dead wife to frighten me. I’ve heard them since my childhood.”

“They’re only stories,” I said quickly. “You are Mistress of Murkmere now. Remember the plans you made? You’ve so much to
do, you’ll forget your fancies.”

She shook her head. “I can never be Mistress of Murkmere. I’ve known it a long time.”

She pulled back the shawl and stared down. The Master didn’t look frightening. He looked asleep, not dead at all, until the
sense came strongly that there was no one there. She bent her head so that her own face was close to his. Her hair had slipped
down, and it covered the dead face like a fine, shining web. I thought she whispered, “I’m sorry,” before she pulled the shawl
back up.

“I’ve nothing to stay for, now,” she said. “I would have waited, for his sake, but now he’s gone.”

“But they can never prove anything about your mother,” I said. “You can be Mistress of Murkmere, Leah. They won’t be able
to stop you. They can’t prove anything without the swanskin.”

She looked at me. I thought she pitied me; she spoke gently. “You don’t understand, Aggie, do you?”

There were steps on the stairs far below us.

“That will be the men,” I said, cursing them for coming at the wrong moment, before I’d reasoned with her.

“Men?” she said. She looked alarmed.

“I sent Jukes to bring men to help, Pegg too,” I said. “But they’d have told you first, Jukes would have done that. Didn’t
they come into the ballroom?”

“Jukes never told me,” she said. “I never saw him at all, nor Pegg. It was Gobchick’s dream that brought me here. He whispered
to me in secret. He said he’d seen the Master lying here, and a white bird waiting in the Wasteland. I knew then I’d be too
late. But I never saw Jukes.”

“Then what happened to Jukes?” I said.

The footsteps were rising closer, quick, hard, purposeful feet. Only one man. We looked at each other, then at the door.

It was Silas who came in.

We must both have looked shocked to see him, for he gave us a curt nod. “The footmen came to me. They told me what happened.”

“Jukes told you?” I said, in disbelief. My heart began to pound. I edged toward the laundry bag, still lying on the floor
a little way from the Master.

“You forget. The servants trust me.” He stared, expressionless, at the Master’s body, then at Leah crouched beside it. “I
see I am too late.”

“Where are the men?” she asked pathetically. “We should move my father to his room, to lie in state.”

“No one’s coming,” said Silas shortly. “Not until I summon them myself.”

“Then, I beg you, do so,” she cried, twisting her hands together. “Or one of us must. It’s not fitting that he stays here
any longer. Aggie, will you go?”

“Gladly,” I said, getting up eagerly from the floor and seizing my chance to pick up the laundry bag. Now I could take it
into the dark with me and hide it safely.

“You will not go anywhere, Agnes,” said Silas. “No one is leaving this room. I need to establish one or two things.”

“What things?” I said fiercely. I stood, gripping the bag, and looked at the open door behind him. “You’ve no right to
stop us leaving.” It was as if he already thought himself Master of Murkmere.

“No right,” he agreed smoothly. “But the means to prevent you.”

And he brought out a tiny, wicked-looking pistol from a pocket inside his silk frockcoat, and pointed it straight at me. “First,
you must answer some questions, Miss Agnes Cotter.”

M
y legs trembled so that I thought I’d fall, but I didn’t let go of the bag. I’d never seen such a beautiful, deadly object.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Leah had put her hand to her mouth.

“Where did you get that pistol?” she whispered.

Silas smiled. “Your father gave it me before the ball. It’s illegal — imported, of course — but your father always broke the
rules. He wanted me to carry it for your protection. I suppose he thought you might be in danger once the truth about your
birth was out. There’s sweet irony in that, don’t you think? I’m protecting you now. You wish to live, don’t you?”

From the floor by her father’s body, Leah nodded, speechlessly. I couldn’t think. I stared at Silas like a mouse stares at
a cat, and held the laundry bag against me.

“You were in the library, weren’t you?” he said to me. “It’s useless to deny it. Mistress Crumplin confirmed it.”

“I don’t deny it,” I said, with a dry mouth.

“And have you told anyone what you heard?”

“I haven’t had a chance,” I said bitterly.

“Say nothing,” said Silas. His hand holding the gun was steady, and steady too were his dark eyes staring at me with their
threat.

“What are you talking about?” cried Leah, half-rising. “Put your gun away! Your master lies dead and you flourish a weapon!
Where’s your respect?”

“I have none,” he said shortly. “Certainly none for you. I know what you are.”

“What?” she cried, white-lipped.

“Daughter of the cursed.” His mouth curled. “It’s not meet you inherit the estate and sit with the Ministration.”

Leah rose to her feet slowly. During the last few months she had grown almost to his height, and her eyes glittered sharp
as daggers as she stared across at him. “The Ministration? You believe its members are better than I?”

“You’ll never join them. It would be a desecration. There’s proof you’ve inherited your mother’s nature. You’re avian.” He
kicked the Master’s wig, and it slid away over the floor.

“You have to prove that,” I said furiously. “Murkmere is Leah’s by the law of inheritance. She’s rightful Mistress here now.
It’s all in the will. The Master leaves everything to his daughter.”

His eyes glinted dangerously “What do you know of the will, Agnes?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’ve never seen it. But I know it’s so. He told me.”

His eyes moved from me to the desk, but the pistol still held steady. “I believe you are a liar, Agnes,” he murmured. “If
I’m not mistaken, it looks as if he was working on it tonight. And you were here, Agnes. Did you sign anything, witness anything?
Did you?”

I shook my head, wondering how steady his trigger finger was. “He was writing, that’s all I saw.”

Silas moved sideways to the desk, pointing the pistol at me. The air coming through the black window lifted his sleek hair
a little, ruffled the papers as he bent over them. He had no spectacles with him. He thrust aside the older, yellower sheets
of parchment impatiently. It was what had been added tonight that he was interested in, and that sheet was still covered with
sand. He shook the sand off onto the floor and held it out closer to the candle, squinting at it. The pistol didn’t waver
as he read it.

“I see Jukes’s name here, and Pegg’s. They’ve both put their signature to this.” His eyes held the most intense and chilling
hatred as he looked at me. “You have no knowledge of this?”

“N-no,” I stammered, my heart thumping.

He put the pistol down carefully so that the muzzle was toward us, and sat down in one of the chairs pulled to the desk. “I
fear Mr. Tunstall wasn’t in his right mind when he wrote this tonight.”

Leah gasped. “That’s my father’s will, his wishes for the future. What are you going to do? You can’t alter it!”

“Indeed? Nothing’s simpler, I fear; merely a matter of writing in my own wishes. I’ve had to sign for him often enough when
he’s been sick. I know how his hand writes. My own could do so while I slept.” The look he gave Leah was venomous. “My left
hand is quite practiced now, thanks to you.”

He took up a quill and dipped it in the silver inkpot. Leah slumped back against the wall. “What is it you’ll write?”

“That I’m to inherit, not you,” he said, and his lips drew back in a smile. “I could wait for the Protector’s support in my
election, but I have the chance right here. I might as well take it. Then I’m blessed by both master and mentor. And I know
the Almighty wants me in a position where I can carry out His will.”

His anger had died away; he looked at her with revulsion and regret. “Murkmere would never prosper under you. All these years
I’ve sent reports on your behavior to the Lord Protector. I know you’re not suitable for such rank. I even know you’ve found
the swanskin that was your mother’s.”

Leah’s whole body tensed; there were goose bumps on her bare arms.

“So where is it?” he continued softly. “Where’s the swanskin? You’ve been keeping it in your linen chest, haven’t you? But
it’s gone tonight. Where is it?”

Leah had not known that. Startled, she turned to me, and I, like the guilty thing I was, put the bag swiftly behind my back,
and they both saw it.

“What’s in that bag, Agnes?” asked Silas slowly. His body
craned over the desk. The quill in his left hand shone with ink, but for the moment he had forgotten the will.

“Nothing for you,” I said defiantly.

“You’ve the swanskin!”

“Aggie?” whispered Leah. She looked as if she could scarcely breathe.

I said nothing. Silas gazed at me thoughtfully, brought the quill to the parchment as if to start scratching out the Master’s
words. I could see the pistol resting on the green leather cover of the desk, the exquisite mother-of-pearl handle, the ridged
black nose, so neat, so elegant.

“It is the swanskin,” I said at last.

“I thought so,” he said, with satisfaction. “Now give it to me, and you and your mistress can leave here.”

“Don’t, Aggie!” cried Leah.

There was a terrible silence. They were both waiting for me: Leah with bent head, as if she’d given up, as if she knew that
I could only surrender it now; Silas smiling grimly, quill poised.

The fire gave a dying crackle. The breeze blew in from the long black window, stirring the papers on the desk.

I thought of Leah’s life if she had the swanskin and gave up her girlhood: the coldness, the loneliness, the strangeness of
living in another nature. It was what I’d been battling to protect her from almost all the time I’d been at Murkmere. If I
gave the swanskin to Silas, she’d remain human; she’d find a new life away. I’d go with her, willingly.

She’d be my sister, my friend, forever. Together we could do anything.

“Come, girl,” said Silas roughly. “Or do you want me to take it for myself?” He looked meaningfully at the pistol.

I opened the neck of the bag and reached my hand in. I felt the feathers soft against my fingers. He watched me, his eyes
narrowed. He wasn’t absolutely sure that it was in there. I sensed his uncertainty and, though it was pointless now, felt
a bitter pleasure.

Then slowly I brought my hand out.

Silas couldn’t see what I held, and his impatience wouldn’t let him wait. He lunged over the desk, and the pistol fell to
the floor, rattling away against the brick wall.

I came close to the desk, dropped the bodice that had wrapped the scissors, and pointed them straight at him. He gave a grunt
of shock and jerked his chair back involuntarily, half-rising, hampered by the clutter of chairs at the desk. His own chair
fell over and skidded away a little behind him. I threw the laundry bag at Leah, and he tried to dodge past me to get at her.
Then he saw I was in earnest to stop him, that I was advancing on him with the scissors before me, the long blades glittering
silver, sharp as swords. He thought I meant to kill him, and he gasped and lurched back again. And I came closer still to
him with those murderous points, so that Leah could escape through the open door behind me.

I didn’t dare look at her. I pointed the blades so they touched his throat. And he gasped again and retreated still
farther, close to the window. His legs caught in the overturned chair.

And the next thing, he was falling backward, almost gracefully, a backward dive straight through the open window, and all
I could see was the black hole of his mouth open in astonishment as he fell into the night.

I stared at the empty window blankly. It had happened so quickly, I couldn’t take it in. I almost expected him to flip back
up and jump nimbly into the room.

But nothing happened. There was silence outside, then an owl hooted. Behind me in the room I could hear Leah’s quick, shocked
breathing. I began to shudder all over, and the scissors dropped from my hand and fell to the floor with a dreadful noise.
I put my hands to my eyes and I think I started to weep, though no tears came.

Leah came over to me. She put a hand on my back speechlessly. It was a gesture of comfort, I think, though she was never one
for showing affection.

I took my hands from my eyes at last. “Blow out the candles.”

She nodded, and seized up a candle-snuffer. We both went about the room extinguishing the light from candelabra and lamps.
It was eerie in the darkness, with the night blowing in on the Master’s still body and the knowledge that Silas lay directly
below us.

“I can’t look,” I whispered. “Is he dead, do you think?”

She hesitated a moment, then went to the window and peered out, clinging to the window frame to steady herself. There was
no sound from below.