Murkmere (5 page)

“Miss Cotter?” said a brisk voice, making me jump. “Mr. Tunstall’s been asking for you.” An elderly woman, gray hair scraped
beneath a starched white cap, was standing by the door to an antechamber and giving me a very inquisitive look.

Suddenly the Master’s eyes opened and gleamed at me. “You can’t escape so easily, Agnes Cotter. I’m infernally bored. Come
and talk to me. You may leave us, Mistress.”

The nurse gave a little bob and went into the other room, pulling the door behind her. I could see she hadn’t quite closed
it, though: there was a crack a finger’s width. I went to the bedside and stood nervously, looking not at the Master but at
the shining army of bottles. “I’m sorry you’re feeling poorly, Sir.”

“They fuss too much, all of them, forever pouring tinctures down my throat. Now tell me, how are you getting on with my ward?”

I hesitated, and saw a smile crinkle the corners of his tired mouth.

“Miss Leah wants me gone, Sir.”

“But I don’t wish you to go, Agnes. I believe you’ll be just the thing for her.”

“To protect her, Sir?”

His eyes narrowed. “I meant you would be good for her. Who’s told you she needs protection?”

“Mr. Silas, Sir.”

He relaxed back against the pillows. “Indeed, he’s right. You must be her shadow, Agnes. I could give her a body-guard, but
she’d hate that. It’s better that she has a young girl, a friend, her own age. You must counter her willfulness with good
sense.”

Aunt Jennet had never thought I had much of that. I nodded solemnly, nevertheless.

“She’s my ward and heir to Murkmere, and there are those who’d be pleased to have her in their power.”

I was startled. “What do you mean, Sir?”

He lowered his voice, glanced at the door. “I’m talking about kidnapping.”

“Kidnapping?” I whispered. I thought of the soldiers of the Militia, who took young girls for their pleasure. But the Master
hadn’t meant soldiers, surely, but those who plotted against the Ministration.

“What about her moral danger, Sir? You know she doesn’t wear an amulet?”

Something glinted in his eyes. “I’m concerned with her welfare here on Earth, Agnes. Morality is not much good to her if she’s
dead.”

He seemed angry, and I was confused. Beneath my eye-lashes I swiftly scanned the Master’s form and saw no protection at neck
or wrist, no amulet. What did that mean?

Perhaps he saw my distress, for he stretched up his arm and put his hand on mine as if to reassure me. I found it difficult
not to recoil. His fingers were as cold as the grave, as if the Birds of Night already sucked at his soul.

“The contract binds you to be Leah’s companion, Agnes, but friendship is a hundred times more valuable than the heavy words
of contracts. Above all, I’d like you to be a friend to Leah.”

“Yes, Sir,” I said doubtfully.

He took his hand away. Though I was relieved to be free of its clammy pressure, I thought I’d disappointed him.

“You must tell Mistress Crumplin if there’s anything you need,” he said, sounding weary. “She’ll explain everything, and provide
you with clothes. You’ll collect your wages weekly, like the servants, from the steward’s room. Is there anything else you
want to ask me before you go?”

The lines around his mouth were more marked this evening. But I had one urgent question.

“Can I return home for Devotion, Sir?”

“Devotion?” His eyes opened fully and stared at me. “My good steward is guardian of my servants’ souls and takes a prayer
meeting every evening. That will surely be enough devotion for you.”

The Almighty was the guardian of men’s souls, no other. But the Master’s lip was curling: he’d meant it as a joke.

A lump of disappointment came into my throat. Soon I was due to read aloud from the Divine Book in the village Devotion Hall
for the very first time. Now I would miss the honor and Aunt Jennet the reflected glory.

“But if I’m not to go to Devotion in the village, when may I see my aunt, Sir?”

“You must arrange that with Mr. Silas. He’ll arrange for a man to ride with you along the Wasteland road.”

At least I was not to be a prisoner as Leah had said. “But, Sir, I walk it alone always!”

“But now you work at Murkmere,” he said patiently “There are secrets, things men would like to know that they could learn
from a companion to the Master’s ward. We wouldn’t want you to disappear suddenly, and then to find your body in a bog days
later. I’m a Minister, Agnes, and have many enemies.”

I stared at him in dismay. I’d begun to be contaminated by a dark world of which I knew nothing.

The anteroom door inched open again. “You’ll have your free time when Leah takes her lessons,” the Master remarked louder,
watching it. “I hope you’ll find enough to do.”

For a moment I thought I’d not heard him correctly. “But won’t I stay with Miss Leah while she’s in the tower, Sir? Can’t
I sit with her in the bookroom?”

“So you’ve heard about the bookroom already, have you? But you’d be a distraction to her. Besides, I allow no one into the
tower but the two footmen whose help I need to reach it, and Mr. Silas, who sometimes brings me the accounts there.”

“You mean I won’t be able to read the books?”

He frowned. “The books wouldn’t interest you. They’re old, some of them ancient.”

“I’d take great care of them, Sir!”

A little color came into his face. “What is this? None of my staff has ever shown the slightest inclination to read them before.
They consider them blasphemous.”

“But books aren’t blasphemous, Sir!”

He laughed shortly. “Not the ones you’ve read, you poor goose.”

I was too upset to speak. Did he think me foolish?

His voice was stern. “I repeat: you’re not to go to the watchtower. It’s a forbidden place, you understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” I managed, dejectedly.

He wagged his head at me as if I were a young child with a whim. “Come now, be cheerful. You’ve the whole of Murkmere in which
to roam! Why should you want to go to the tower?”

I
f you’re staying,” Leah said, “you’d better make your-self useful.”

Scuff had found me as I came out of the Master’s room, to tell me that Leah wanted me in her parlor. I found her writing at
a little bureau, scratching furiously away at the parchment sheets and cursing every time a nib broke. There was an open book
beside her at which she sometimes glanced for reference.

“You can cut more quills for me; I’m running out. Sit over there.” Without looking at me, she nodded brusquely at a hard,
upright chair. Beside it was a table on which lay a silver tray piled with feathers.

No one would dare commit sacrilege by killing birds, but it was permitted to collect the precious feathers they dropped. You
were allowed to use the feathers in the making of quill
pens, and I’d heard that bunches of feathers sold by specialist vendors in the cities fetched high prices.

I knew how to make and cure pens; Aunt Jennet had showed me how to do it with the occasional feather she’d pick up from the
fields or common. But I’d always hated the stiff, lifeless feeling of feathers between my fingers. It made me uneasy, frightened
even, to touch them.

Without speaking, I went to sit down by the table. I wondered fearfully if a feather from a Bird of Night might not be among
the bunch lying on the tray, and I’d be damned without even knowing it. I felt for my amber on its leather strap and took
it up over my head, laying it carefully down close to the feathers on the tray. I should be safe enough now.

Leah looked up as amber clicked against silver. Quickly, and trying to control a shiver, I took up a long brown-dappled feather,
and in my right hand the small penknife, which had a blade sharp enough to slice through stone.

She means me to cut myself!
I thought. The candlelight shone on Leah’s silver-fair hair and fiercely pursed mouth as she went back to her work, and the
feather gleamed between my shrinking fingers.

I pulled myself together, and soon the concentration it took calmed me. I worked quietly and carefully, stripping some of
the lower barbs away, then making a sloping cut at one end of the shaft’s point. If a quill has a good hollow and is cut and
cleaned well, it holds the ink for longer.

“What is that jewel?” said Leah suddenly. I looked up with
a start to see her looking over at me again. How long she had been watching me I couldn’t tell.

By the tray, my amulet glowed golden in the candlelight. “It’s amber, Miss,” I said.

She rose and came over, gazing at it in fascination. “Fossil resin, but pretty, nonetheless. I’ve seen the same around the
neck of Silas Seed.” To my horror she picked it up to examine it closer. “Do you understand its properties? I believe that
if you rub it for long enough, it gives off sparks of light.”

“Oh, please, don’t do such a thing, Miss Leah,” I begged. “It’s my amulet, and you might rub it away!” I stood up, with my
hand outstretched, waiting for her to give it back.

Leah stood regarding me, with the strap dangling from her hand and the amber swinging to and fro like a golden heart. “I like
it,” she said slowly. “Perhaps I’ll keep it for myself.”

“Give it back, please, Miss,” I said desperately. “It keeps me safe. You should wear an amulet of your own.”

“A village girl lecturing me on religion!” she said. But she didn’t look angry, more amused. “What do you think will happen
to you without this, Aggie? Shall we wait and see?” She scissored the fingers of her free hand at me like a beak. “Will you
be pecked to death in the night?” Then she began to back away, dangling the amber on its strap, a smile still playing around
her lips.

Too frightened to be left by the tray of feathers without protection, I took a step after her, and then another. My heart
began to thud with distress and frustration. She was goading
me to make a grab for it, and then I would be dismissed for assaulting my mistress. Now she was standing on her chair so that
she was taller than ever. She spluttered with laughter as I reached up uselessly.

It was a game to her, I realized suddenly. She didn’t want the amber at all, but at the same time she was not going to give
it back easily. She wanted me to jump up and make a grab for it, and I was sorely tempted.

I stood still and looked up at her smirking face. “The amber was my mother’s. She wanted me to have it, none other. Please
give it back.”

Her hand paused. “It was your mother’s?”

“Yes, and it’s precious to me.”

The smile had left her face, I was pleased to see. “Where’s your mother now?”

“She is dead, Miss,” I said, in a choked voice.

We gazed at each other for a heartbeat, then Leah climbed off the chair. Somehow the amber was back in my hand. “Tell me about
your mother,” she said urgently. “Tell me everything about her, every little thing you can remember. I want to know about
mothers.”

She sat down, arranged her skirts, clasped her hands on her lap, and looked up at me expectantly, suddenly docile.

“I don’t remember my mother at all,” I said, bewildered and upset. “I was too young when she died.”

Leah stared at me in silence, as if testing the truth of what I’d said. I put the leather strap back over my head, slipping
the amber down safely beneath my bodice. Slowly I calmed myself.

I didn’t meet her gaze. I’d already seen the hunger and disappointment in her eyes.

I’d scarcely recovered from this episode and only cut a few quills when a bell sounded in the passage outside. Its doleful
clanging made me start; the blade of the knife almost slipped against the flesh of my fingertip. The bell tolled on, heavy
and gloomy, echoing back, then fading gradually.

“Is it suppertime, Miss?”

“Devotion,” Leah said, not looking up. “A gong sounds for meals, the bell summons souls. Our worthy steward thinks it’s more
appropriate that way.”

“May I go, then, Miss?”

She frowned, as if irritated at being interrupted again, and the quill paused. “You wish to go to Devotion?” she said, as
if it were the oddest request on earth.

“Oh, yes, Miss, I must.”
So should you
, I thought,
if you’ve any care for your own soul!

She stopped writing at last and looked at me scornfully, as if she had guessed what I was thinking. “The Master has employed
a prig for my companion,” she said. “And a pious prig to boot!”

Silently, I collected the feathers I’d worked on and laid them back on the tray. My hands were trembling. I didn’t want her
to see how much she’d hurt me.

But that night I hated her.

Devotion was held in the servants’ dining hall, close to the kitchen quarters: a long room with stone walls and small, bare
windows, darkened by the night outside.

All the long tables except one had been pushed back, and the candles in pewter holders set on them sent a flickering light
round the room. The remaining table was at the far end, the chairs placed in rows before it. When I went in everyone had taken
their seats, and some were already kneeling on the stone-flagged floor. A pair of kitchen maids peeked at me curiously between
their fingers.