Murkmere (7 page)

“I’ll look after the Master now,” she said to Silas. “You may leave us.” She put her smooth young cheek close to the Master’s
and said gently, “I shall take you to oversee your property, Sir.”

And then she began to wheel him from room to room.

I saw what an effort it was for her to push the heavy chair, how her arms bent like celery stalks; yet she persisted. I didn’t
know what to do with myself. I hovered miserably behind, jealous of their private jokes, of the affectionate way the Master
rumbled back at Leah’s whispers.

When he was well enough to tutor her again, I went after the little group as it started off on its expedition to the watch-tower.
The tower stuck up like a finger from a copse of silver birch on top of a grassy rise to one side of the Hall. From a distance
it looked similar to the one near our village: a plain square structure built of the local dark red stone. Once, watch-towers
had been built all over the Eastern Edge to guard against invasion from the sea; now they were mostly used in the summer months
to look out for bands of marauders.

When I’d asked Scuff how the Master managed to reach the top room to tutor Leah, her eyes grew wide. “He’s raised
up by a magical contraption, Aggie — a ‘lift,’ he calls it. I’ve seen them before in the Capital, but this is his own design.
You’ll see!”

And of course I was determined to do so, if I could.

A bitter wind was gusting from the north as Leah pushed the chair up a well-worn track, with the Master bundled up in rugs,
bumping from side to side. Jukes the footman followed behind with a basket of medicine bottles covered by a blowing white
cloth; I followed Jukes at a discreet distance.

Leah’s face was strained and pale, and her black-gloved fingers were clenched on the bar of the chair. “Let Jukes take over,
my dear,” said the Master as he struggled to keep his balance on the seat. “It will be easier for us both.”

Leah looked more determined than ever. “I don’t need help,” she said furiously. “It is only that the ground has become so
hard and cracked.” As she stopped pushing to catch her breath, she caught sight of me. “Why have you come? Go back!”

In dismay I came closer to explain. “I only wanted to see the lift, Miss.”

The Master, gray-faced with cold and convalescence, peered around at me. “And see it you shall, Agnes. I’m always happy to
show off its working.”

“Then let’s hope it does so,” muttered Leah, giving me a resentful look.

“Come and walk beside me, Agnes,” said the Master, thumping the arm of his chair with enthusiasm. “Let me explain the mechanics
of it.”

It went over my head, the Master’s description of pulleys
and weights and wheels; but he took unbounded pleasure in it. His cheeks took color and he waved his hands about, his voice
loud to emphasize the finer points of the lift’s workings. When I glanced over at Leah, I surprised a smile on her face before
she had time to hide it.

At last we came to a sizeable tussock, frozen solid in the middle of the track, and there was no going around it, for we were
into the birch copse now and surrounded by gorse and scrub. Leah struggled in vain for some moments, Jukes looking on in concern,
yet not daring to help her. At last, I said tentatively, “Perhaps if we do it together? If I press on the lower bar, it will
lever up the front of the chair so you and Mr. Jukes can lift it over.”

Leah knew she had no alternative but to agree. She nodded curtly at the footman to put down his basket, and then the three
of us managed the maneuver with little difficulty. As we started off again, my bare hands were still on the push bar. I could
see Leah looking down at them as she took hold of the bar again herself, but she did not protest at my help. Side by side
and in silence, she and I pushed the chair the remaining distance together.

To my delight the lift turned out to be a tiny house with a gilded roof and chimney. It sat beneath a pulley system that ran
to a window at the top of the watchtower. Supports ran up the side of the tower to keep the house steady on its journey through
the air, and I stared at these with incredulity as I rubbed my numb hands together.
I’d never dare trust my life
to machinery
, I thought, and wished I’d listened better to the Master’s explanations.

A footman was waiting for us by an enormous winch, his sleeves already rolled up for action in spite of the freezing wind.
He gave me a suspicious look as I peered through one of the arched windows of the little house. Inside I could see rich fabric
on the walls, even candelabra for night journeys; a small brazier was lit against the chill.

“Everything’s ready for the Master, just as it should be,” the footman growled to no one in particular.

“Miss Agnes is merely satisfying her curiosity, Pegg,” said the Master, with a smile. “She has never seen a lift before.”

“Well, if she is satisfied enough, Sir,” Pegg grunted, “we’ll be getting on pushing you inside it.”

Jukes secured the wheels of the chair by iron grips to the floor and closed the door. “Take it up, Mr. Pegg.”

As we watched, the squat but burly Pegg began to crank the handle of the winch, his muscles bulging beneath his jacket. I
thought he’d find it impossible, because of all the weights attached to the chains. To my astonishment, the little house began
to rise slowly up the side of the tower.

“Come, Jukes,” Leah said, moving away. “He’ll be at the top in a minute.”

Jukes followed her to a door in the base of the tower, which closed behind them. Soon I heard the window at the top opening,
and then the lift had reached it, hanging in space against its supports.

I looked in alarm at Pegg as he took his hands from the
winch, but the lift remained steady. “Be gone now, Miss Cotter,” he said roughly, “there’s nothing for you here.”

I took a last look up at the tower, at the window behind which must surely be the forbidden bookroom: even now I thought the
Master, who’d been so kind to me, might change his mind. Then defeated, watched by the disapproving Pegg, I left, winding
my way back disconsolately through the blown gorse.

Somehow I lived through my first week at Murkmere. I helped Leah wheel the Master to the tower each day, but was never invited
inside. Back in the house, I’d wander its dark, icy passages until I knew them by heart, or stay in my bed-chamber, staring
at the damp-patterned ceiling. I thought I might die from boredom.

So far I’d nothing to tell Mr. Silas, for every time I’d followed Leah, I’d lost her. On the whole she ignored me: she certainly
never told me where she was going.

One evening at Devotion, toward the end of that week, Mr. Silas favored me with a smile. Perhaps he was wondering why I hadn’t
been to see him. Perhaps I’d do so the very next day. At least I could ask him for permission to visit Aunt Jennet.

After luncheon, when Leah had returned to the tower for her afternoon tuition, I approached the steward’s door and knocked.
Now that the moment had come to see him alone, I felt slightly sick. If it hadn’t been for my longing to see my aunt, I might
have run away.

There was a rowdy noise coming from the kitchen quarters and it was hard to hear if Mr. Silas had said anything, so after
a minute I lifted the latch and went in.

He was sitting at a desk with papers spread in front of him and a quill pen in his left hand. There were gold coins neatly
arranged in glinting columns on the dark wood — more money than I’d ever seen in my life, a miser’s dream — and I stared at
these as I came in. I could feel my eyes widen. Then I looked at him.

He was wearing spectacles that changed him into someone I didn’t know. I thought I saw a frown between his smooth brows as
he looked up; his eyes were magnified and glaring. Then he removed the spectacles and was smiling after all, smiling as he
opened drawers in the desk and slid the money in deftly, as if he knew without looking where it should go.

He locked the drawers and put the keys in his breast pocket. “You surprised me, Agnes. I didn’t hear your knock.”

He motioned me to a chair in front of the desk and I sat down, feeling more nervous than ever. He was tidying away his papers
now with quick, neat movements, and I, not wanting to stare, fixed my gaze on the mahogany cupboard behind him where a huge
Eagle carved in black wood glared down at me, wings raised ready for the kill. It was intended to convey the Almighty’s sacred
form, but it was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.

At last he looked up. “You’ve come to talk about your mistress?” he said gently, leaning a little toward me, his dark eyes
on my face, his elbows in finest tweed resting on the cleared desk.

I nodded, clutching my hands together.

“How do you find her, Agnes? Is she very different from other girls her age?”

I began to talk, haltingly at first, but then faster, encouraged by his sympathetic questioning. I forgot I’d been anxious
about seeing him. It all poured out: Leah, her unfriendliness, the impossibility of tracking her to the mere. At the end he
stood up, came over to me, and laid a hand on my shoulder reassuringly

“You’ve done well, Agnes. I know how hard it must be for you to come from your home to a place like this, to such a demanding
position. I fear Miss Leah’s soul has been lost already, whatever you try to do for her.”

I stared up at him. “You don’t mean the Night Birds have taken it?”

His hand gripped my shoulder with a warm pressure through the gray serge of my dress. “Not yet. But she wears no amulet.”

“It’s not only her soul, Sir. What about the danger from kidnappers?”

To my astonishment I saw him smile slightly. “I don’t believe there’s any real risk. Murkmere’s not a rich estate. Mr. Tunstall
doesn’t even attend Council — he hasn’t done for years — he’s privy to no state secrets worth possessing. No, we must concern
ourselves with Leah’s spiritual welfare, you and I. Watch her behavior, see if your good influence
can save her, Agnes. I see you at Devotion. I know your soul is safe.”

His fingers touched the skin of my neck. He moved on to the leather thong that threaded my amber. He pulled the stone from
my bodice and held it in his palm, close to me, as if examining it. Beyond his head I could see the black Eagle on the cupboard,
with its cruel, curved beak.

“Your amber,” he whispered, “keeps you safe from harm, doesn’t it, little marigold? Yours is an unblemished soul — a sweet,
pure delicacy of a soul — and we must keep it that way, mustn’t we?”

“Yes, S-Sir,” I stammered. His eyes were intent, unblinking as he gazed down into mine. They were so dark, the pupil merged
with the iris. I couldn’t look away but had to stare back, my own eyes wide, my heart beating fast. I could smell the dusky
flower water he used; he must have dabbed it on his wrists, his fingers. Then he blinked suddenly and dropped the amber so
that it fell back against my skin.

“I should return to my work, alas,” he said. “But come again, Agnes. I want to know if anything worries you, any little change
in Leah’s behavior. All the souls in Murkmere concern me, but Leah’s particularly, of course. The estate will be hers one
day, and she must be fit to run it.”

He fell silent, and when I looked up at him again, he was gazing at nothing, almost as if he’d forgotten me, the little frown
back between his brows.

He worries for her
, I thought,
he truly worries
. I was hesitant
about interrupting such worthy thoughts, but I had to seize my chance, else it would be gone.

“Please, when may I see my aunt, Sir?”

He focused on me with a start. “Why, Agnes, you’ve arrived only recently! Don’t you have enough time off as it is?”

“I long to see her, Sir,” I said in a small voice. I clenched my hands together. “I worry for her all alone. If she should
fall sick, or if the Militia should come to question the village …”

He looked startled. “Who told you the Militia was coming?” His voice was strange and harsh, his eyes narrowed to cat’s slits
as he stared down at me.

I looked up in alarm, thinking that somehow I’d angered him. “No one, Sir. I don’t know why I said it.”

I seemed to convince him. He went back to his desk and relaxed into the chair, stretching out and saying idly, “The Militia
is quick enough to sniff out traitors, it’s true. I hear there are some pockets of unrest in the Eastern Edge, but I don’t
believe there’s any ill feeling here in the village.”

“Oh, no, Sir,” I said, since he’d made it sound like a question. “But we heard about the rebellion in the south last summer.
The packman told us. The Militia killed the rebels, every last man.” It still sickened me to think of it.

He studied my face. “What would you have felt if the rebels had been successful? Would you have thought it a good thing?”

I shook my head so energetically that my braided hair loosened. “Oh, no, Sir! To have the country ruled by a rabble,
no one to care for our welfare as the Lord Protector does. None of us in the village wanted that.”

“All loyal subjects, then,” he said. “That’s good to know.”

There was another silence. I cleared my throat. “Sir, my aunt?”

Then we both heard it, the soft rustling at the window, the brushing of feathers against the glass.

He waved a hand at it, his mood changed to lightness. “There’s your answer, Agnes,” he said. “You can’t see your aunt while
the snow lies, but neither will she be plagued by unwelcome visitors!”

His hand was ready to open the desk drawers as soon as I’d gone. “Come again soon, Agnes,” he said, and smiled. “But next
time knock a little louder. A steward’s work is not for all eyes.”

I smiled weakly back, and stood up, surprised to find that my legs felt wobbly, as if I’d escaped some danger. On my way out
I passed a chair by the door. He’d left his three-cornered hat hanging over the corner of the back, and on the brocade seat
lay a black-handled riding whip. It was both elegant and vicious.

For an instant I thought of Dog, of her desperation when we lost Leah my first afternoon — and, fleetingly, I wondered.