Murkmere (6 page)

There was no spare chair. I’d have to stand at the back.

Dog’s greasy head turned toward me, and she prodded her neighbor and whispered something. The other girl turned to stare,
and whispered back. I saw them both cover their sniggers with their hands.

Heat rose in my cheeks. I was conscious that I looked different. I wasn’t wearing a cap and apron, my hair had come loose
from its bindings and sprung around my shoulders, and my much-patched best dress was too tight around the waist. But I stared
grimly back and the girl’s gaze fell.

The low murmuring in the hall died abruptly. Everyone rose as Mr. Silas swept in, a great leather book under his arm. He went
to stand behind the top table, putting the book down before him. In the silence I could hear the quick breathing of the maid
in front of me.

He looked up. “Sit down, please.”

There was a shuffling of feet and scraping of chairs. I had no choice but to remain standing, with a table digging into my
back. I couldn’t even shrink into the shadows against the wall. But they had forgotten me, those squint-eyed, sniggering girls.
Their whole attention was on Mr. Silas. Everyone in the hall waited.

Mr. Silas paused, opened the book slowly, and then his beautiful voice began.

“In the distant beginning of the world man walked in the rain and shared the greening land with cat and cow, donkey and rat.
Bird was god, for he flew in the air and could see all there was to be seen. The greatest bird of all was Eagle. He had laid
the egg that was the world.”

The familiar words of the Preliminary had been read. Now the Responses began. My lips repeated them automatically, but my
eyes admired the soft glow on the steward’s face from the candles on the table.

A thick golden haze quivered in the hall. From time to time he looked up and his dark eyes swept us like a flame.

“The Great Eagle lays the egg of the world
…”

“But the Crow tries to steal it from him,”
we answered together.

“The Great Eagle tells the Robin and Wren it is their inheritance …”

“But they heed Him not.”

“While they play and dally, Crow seizes his chance and summons the Birds of Night.”

“They fight for possession of the egg that is the world; they fight the Birds of Light.”

I thought of the Birds of Night. It’s written in the Divine Book how in the skies they fought the Birds of Light, tearing
out their throats for possession of the world, while far above them the Great Eagle watched in solitary majesty.

Mr. Silas held out both hands to us, and the ruffles at his wrists dissolved like foam into the sleeves of his velvet jacket.
His voice was earnest and passionate.
“Then let us remember that that Battle is not yet done. Let us remember that the Battle will be won by the Light, in righteousness
and truth. For what can the Birds of Night do if we so allow them?”

“They can steal our souls,”
we muttered together, and a shudder ran through us.

“What must we do to protect ourselves?”

“We must follow the path of righteousness and humility.”

And we must wear our amulets
, I thought to myself,
as double insurance
.

The Responses were at an end; it was the time for the evening sermon. Mr. Silas closed the book and looked up with a smile.
I thought he’d caught my eye, was smiling at me, and I smiled back.

“We all know the old story of the avia, those men, back in the greening time, who dared desire wings so they might fly like
the Gods. We all know their punishment. They were trapped between two forms for eternity, forever half-bird, half-human. That
must be a warning to us, a reminder. We must be content with our humanity and accept our frailty.”

Like everyone else, I knew the story of the avia. At the beginning of the world a group of men and women weren’t content with
the skills they’d been given, but wanted to fly like the Birds. They had grumbled together, and Crow over-heard them and told
Eagle.

When I was small, it had frightened me to think of the Great God plummeting like a thunderbolt to Earth to deal with the small
band of humans who’d dared rebel against their lot, who’d wanted the freedom of flight. I imagined their guilt and fear as
they looked on the vast feathered wings that could touch distant galaxies. I could hear their moans as He turned the cruel,
unforgiving side of His Eagle face toward them. Like them, I could see His bill sharp as death, His eyes empty. In my mind’s
eye, I saw the men, women, and children draw closer together, like nestlings in the great shadow of the Eagle’s wing, their
wails like the cheeping of birds.

“You were not happy with what you were given,” He said. “You were created men, to labor on Earth, yet you envied the wings
of the gods. For this each of you must be punished — you and your children, and your children’s children — through all eternity.
Your human soul will be trapped within the shape of a bird, but you will be neither the one thing nor the other. You will
never be content.”

The story of the avia had always sent a chill through me. It was the last thing I wanted to hear my first night at Murkmere.

Mr. Silas had finished speaking. The girls in front of me gave a little sigh together and looked at each other with dazzled
eyes. The rows of servants stood as he took one of the candlesticks from the table and passed down between them. The men —
footmen and stablehands, keepers and estate farmers — stood with bowed heads as he greeted them. He came to the female staff
standing together and patted a maid’s head, made a soft remark to another girl, smiled at yet another, seeming to share out
his favors equally among them. If he was aware of their simpers and blushes, he didn’t show it.

I longed for him to pick me out, smile at me, say something. But he didn’t speak to me, stuck on my own at the back. He left
without noticing me at all.

The Master didn’t join us for supper. Leah and I sat alone in the small dining room next to her parlor. Though I was hungry
again, I’ve no idea what we ate that night: the food stuck like warm wool in my mouth. Leah didn’t bother to make conversation,
but I’d catch her staring at me, with unblinking gray eyes that looked black as night.

Afterward she went into her parlor to read; she didn’t bid me goodnight. I was standing hesitantly in the dining room, watching
the footman clear our dishes and wondering if it was part of my job to help, when Scuff shuffled through in her big shoes.
“Please, Miss Aggie, you’re to follow me. Mistress Crumplin has some clothes for you.”

She took me to the laundry rooms by the kitchen, where Mistress Crumplin, a tipping tankard of ale clasped in one hand and
grumbling all the while, managed to find me two
nightgowns and some dresses and shawls in the depths of a vast airing cupboard.

“They’re not much, but a deal better than what you’re wearing,” she remarked thickly, eyeing my dress.

I clutched my skirt, worried she’d wrest it from me: one of my few reminders of home. “But shouldn’t I wear a cap and apron?”
I asked, wanting to be like the other girls.

“Gracious, no! You’re the mistress’s companion, not a maid.” She gave me an odd look. “Your mother Eliza was only a maid,
you know, for all the airs she gave herself.”

“Please, Mistress, what do you remember about my mother?” I said, thinking she was in her cups and might open up to me.

At once she looked shifty. “Nothing, girl. Too long ago.” She paused. “One thing, though.”

“Yes?” I said eagerly.

She breathed damply into my face and her lips shone with the ale I could smell on her breath. “Greatly favored by Master and
My Lady, was Eliza. Mystery why she ran away.”

“Ran away?”

“Aye, didn’t give notice, just upped and was off.” She leaned closer still, so that I drew back involuntarily. “She was frightened,
that’s my opinion. Something at Murkmere got her running.”

It was strange and lonely in my bedchamber when at last I found it. Before I climbed into bed I opened the window
wide for a moment to let the frosty air blow away the staleness. The fire, which I’d poked back into life, spluttered and
died in the bitter draft.

I lay in the darkness like a corpse in the long nightgown, between linen sheets that smelled of damp. I wondered what my mother’s
first night had been like. She would have slept with the other maids. What had her work been, her daily routine? Why had she
run away?

Aunt Jennet had said little about my mother’s time at Murkmere, but she’d looked troubled when I received the Master’s summons.
“I never rested easy while Eliza was at Murkmere,” she’d said. “And shan’t do so with you there.” I hadn’t asked her for any
explanation. I was too set on escaping the monotonous drudgery of spinning, and thought she fussed needlessly.

But now I felt again the fear in her grip as she’d put her thin arms around me and hugged me as if she didn’t want to let
me go.

A tear slipped down my cheek, then another. I longed for her arms again. I wept for my aunt; and I wept for my mother, who
was lost to me.

Then a sound came to me in the silence of the night, outside somewhere, far away. At first I thought it was moaning on the
wind, but there was no wind over the frost-gripped land outside.

The moaning came closer. It wasn’t far from the house. As the unearthly sound came closer it rose to a bloodcurdling pitch.

My tears froze on my cheeks. My eyes stared wide into the dark. I knew what it was now. It was the baying of dogs, a great
pack of hunting dogs. I could hear them panting and gasping, their paws pounding the hard ground.

They were coming closer. Soon they’d be beneath my window; they would scent me. Then they would leap into my bedchamber, jaws
wide, teeth white in the moonlight, saliva dripping on the floorboards.

Beneath their howling, I could hear my own whimpering, faint with terror, hopeless. I was trembling like a rabbit. My amber
was under my pillow. I must touch it, hold it in my palm. That was all it would take to keep me safe: one little movement
of my arm and hand.

But I couldn’t move.

I heard the hounds prepare themselves to leap. They were ready for the kill. I saw their black lips roll back.

But the sounds were fading. The dogs had gone; the monstrous pack had moved on. The baying died away. I lay numb with shock,
and around me the night folded into a deathly silence.

E
ach night I heard the midnight baying beyond my window. In time I learned from Scuff that what I heard were the guard dogs
of Murkmere, let loose from their kennels at night to roam the grounds, but during that first week I was most horribly frightened.
Morning and night I gazed down from my window, longing to see my aunt materialize miraculously in the stable yard, to take
me home.

At least I saw little of Leah during the day. She had lessons with the Master all morning and after luncheon at noon, for
a further hour before he rested. Then she’d wander the grounds in the bitter weather until dusk fell, Dog and I trailing along
silently behind her, until, invariably, she managed to slip from us and flee to the mere.

“She’s your responsibility now,” said Dog, with hateful satisfaction. “Go, find her yourself—if you can!”

And she’d retreat to the warmth of the kitchen quarters
while I traipsed off in pursuit of Leah, scouring the edges of the muddy wastes and frozen reeds for a sight of that flying
silvery hair and lanky frame.

I didn’t see the heron again. Nor did I ever glimpse the swans as I stared out over the ice to the dark little island. Sometimes
I wondered if it were only Leah herself who could see those mysterious birds.

She never spoke to me at mealtimes, but pointedly brought in a book to read, as if I weren’t there at all. Usually we were
waited on by the taciturn footman, Jukes, whom I’d seen outside the Master’s rooms, but one time Scuff came to serve us, her
face intent and anxious as she waded over with the dishes.

Leah looked up from her book. “Your apron is disgustingly stained, Scuff! You should be ashamed.”

“She’s only young, Miss Leah,” I dared protest as the poor child crept out with our dirty plates, her head hanging.

“That’s why she’ll take notice of me,” snapped Leah. “The other servants care nothing for my wishes. Haven’t you noticed how
ill-kept the house is, how disordered? My guardian doesn’t notice, he’s too much in his rooms, he doesn’t see his housekeeper’s
a sot. Outside we’re short of keepers and the estate runs to weed.” She stared somberly at her fingers for a moment, then
glared across at me. “Wait until I’m Mistress here, I’ll change things! I’ll get rid of the lot of them!”

I was so amazed that she’d actually spoken to me, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

The Master spent a couple of days in his bed, but in the middle of the week he was pushed into the dining room by Silas as
we were finishing luncheon. He looked pale, his great hands twisted together in his lap, their strength sapped. Leah leaped
to her feet, leaving her stewed apple uneaten; her face was transformed with joy. She knelt next to the chair and stroked
the Master’s grooved cheeks.