Read The Devil and His Boy Online

Authors: Anthony Horowitz

The Devil and His Boy (2 page)

“You’re prepared to lose it?”

There was a flicker of anger in the Queen’s eyes. “Do what you have to,” she said.

Dr Dee picked up the hair and laid it on the stone. His hands were still cupped round it but now he moved them away a little, his eyes fixed on the stone as if he were trying to look through it. The Queen leaned forward and as she did so, the lock of hair moved. She thought that it had been caught in a draught but then she realized that the stone had become hot and that it was the heat that was causing the effect. The air above the stone was shimmering. The colour of the stone was changing: from grey to white and then to metallic silver.

“No…!” The word escaped the Queen’s lips as a whisper. The lock of hair had burst into flame. Now the flickering pieces rose into the air, twisted and disappeared. The surface of the stone was no longer rough or remotely stony. It had become a mirror but as Dr Dee looked into it, it did not show his reflection.

“His name was Robert.” The magician’s eyes were focused far away and the Queen knew that he was seeing things outside the room, outside and far away.

“Yes. Robert…” Even uttering his name was a knife-wound. She had never done it before. “Tell me, Wizard. Is he alive?”

A long silence. And then…

“No, Queen. He is dead.”

The Queen fell back in her chair, covering her eyes with her hands. Somehow she had always expected it but like all bad news it had lost none of its power to hurt. But Dr Dee was still gazing into the mirror that had been a stone and there was a look of puzzlement on his face.

“What is it?” the Queen demanded.

“I don’t know…” And then, as if a cloud had parted and the sun had broken through, the magician looked up. “He had a son,” he said.

“What?”

“Robert is dead but his son is still alive.”

The Queen gripped the sides of her chair. “Where is he? What is he called? What do you know about him?”

“He’s far from here. I can’t see his name.” The stone was getting hotter and hotter. The very air inside the chamber was beginning to burn.

“Try! You must try!”

“No. All I can see is a castle and a pig. It’s very difficult…” Dr Dee waved a hand over the stone, clearing the smoke. “The pig is outside the castle and over the boy.”

“He’s still a boy? How old is he?”

“Thirteen. The castle…” Dr Dee frowned. “They’re building chimneys on the castle. Strange-looking chimneys. I can see the boy limping past the castle and he’s looking at the chimneys and…”

“Why is he limping?”

“Because of the pig…”

“Why must your answers be so mysterious, Wizard? Where is the boy? If you can’t tell me his name, at least tell me where he is!”

But before Dr Dee could reply, there was a sudden crackle as if something were short-circuiting. At the same time, the mirror shattered, a thousand cracks exploding across its surface. Then the cracks faded and a second later the stone was exactly as it had been, lying flat and ordinary on the table.

“That’s all I can tell you, Queen.” Dr Dee picked up the stone. It was quite cool to touch. “But you have spies and men of intelligence. It should be enough.”

“A castle, strange chimneys and a pig. It’s another of your wretched riddles, Wizard. Where do I even start?”

“Framlingham!” The cat – which had been quite forgotten during all this – leapt on to Dr Dee’s lap. “They’re building chimneys on Framlingham Castle.”

“How do you know?” the Queen asked.

The cat shrugged. “A little bird told me,” it remarked. “And then I ate the little bird.”

“Framlingham … in Suffolk.” The Queen got to her feet. “Only four or five days from here. You’ve done well, Wizard. You have my thanks and will have much more!”

The Queen left, climbing back up the secret staircase to her bedroom. She was still awake when the sun rose above the thatched roofs and wooden houses of London and the first horses stumbled along the rough, pitted tracks that were the city’s roads. The year was 1593. The Queen, of course, was Elizabeth I. And she was already planning the course of events that would change one boy’s life for ever and with it the entire history of the country she ruled.

the pig’s head

It
was raining in Framlingham; a cold, grey, December rain that dripped and trickled into every corner and wiped away the colour of everything it touched. The streets were so full of puddles that there were more puddles than street, with only a few patches of brown mud here and there to remind you that the place had once been built on dry land. The two moats surrounding Framlingham Castle were full to overflowing. The town gardens and bowling green had disappeared.

The inn stood just outside the town, next to a large swamp. It was a squat, dark, evil-smelling place with rotting timbers and mouldy walls. It had few windows – glass was too expensive – but the noise of singing and the smell of roasting meat seeped through the thatched roof and chimney. An inn sign swung in the wind. The sign showed the head of a pig, severed from its body, for that was the inn’s name.

T
HE
P
IG

S
H
EAD
, F
RAMLINGHAM
P
ROPRIETORS:
S
EBASTIAN
& H
ENRIETTA
S
LOPE

At about five o’clock in the afternoon a young boy came out of the inn carrying a bucket. Despite the weather, he was wearing only the lightest of clothes: a shirt open at the neck, a waistcoat that was too short for him, a pair of trousers that flapped around his ankles. He had neither shoes nor socks. His bare feet splashed in the mud as he went to draw water from the well.

The boy was about twelve or thirteen years old. Nobody knew or cared when exactly he had been born. He had long, reddish-brown hair, pale skin and bright, intelligent blue eyes. He was painfully thin – his rags seemed to hang off his shoulders without actually touching his body and there was a bruise on the side of his cheek, the size of a man’s fist. He lowered the bucket into the well, gripping the handle that groaned rustily as it turned; his fingers were unusually long and slender. The boy’s name was Thomas Falconer. That, at least, would be the name they’d carve on his gravestone when starvation or the plague carried him away. For now they simply called him Tom.

He was about to lift the bucket out of the well when a sound made him turn. A man had appeared, a traveller on horseback, his body lost in the folds of a dark cloak and his face hidden by his hat. The horse was a great black stallion with a white blaze on its chest. Steam snorted from its nostrils as it jerked forward, its hooves striking angrily in the mud. It came to a halt and the rider swung himself effortlessly down. Mud had splattered his leather boots and the bottom of his cloak. He had evidently been riding for some time.

“Boy!” The man called out.

Forgetting the bucket, Tom ran to obey. “Yes, sir?”

“Take the horse to the stable. See that he’s watered and fed. If any harm comes to him, you’ll answer for it.”

The man dragged his luggage from behind his saddle and handed the reins to Tom. He was about to turn away but suddenly he stopped and for a moment Tom found himself being examined by two narrow, grey eyes in a dark, weathered face.

“What’s your name, boy?” the man demanded.

“Tom, sir.” Tom was surprised. People seldom took any notice of him.

“How long have you worked here, Tom?”

“All my life, sir. Ever since I was able to work.”

The rider stared at Tom as if trying to read something in his face. “Your parents own this place?” he asked.

Tom shook his head. “My parents are dead,” he said.

“Who were they? Do you know?”

It was one question too many. Travellers often passed through Framlingham on their way to the ports at Harwich and Ipswich, but they came as strangers and that was how they left. It was the unwritten law. In an uncertain world, it could be dangerous to give too much information about yourself.

Tom’s lips clamped shut. The man seemed to understand. “Look after the horse, Tom,” he said and walked into the inn.

The inn was crowded, the fire a distant red glimmer behind so many huddled bodies. Thick smoke coiled upwards from the hearth, from the tallow candles on the mantle and from pipes clenched in the teeth of men, and women too. Two more boys – older and better fed than Tom – were bustling in and out of the kitchen carrying wooden trenchers of meat and bread, somehow forcing their way through the great tangle to find the tables beyond. Someone somewhere was playing a fiddle but the sound was almost drowned out by the shouting, arguing, laughing and drunken singing of the guests.

The landlord noticed the new arrival the moment the door opened but then he had the sort of eyes that noticed everything. This was Sebastian Slope. He was a small, nervous man who had never quite recovered from the pox which had ravaged his skin and eaten away part of his nose. He had tried to grow a beard and moustache to hide the damage but unfortunately the hair – as well as being bright orange – was thin and uneven, sprouting in one part of his face but not in another with the result that he looked as if he had been horribly injured – perhaps by a musket at close range.

Rubbing his pale, white hands together he approached the new arrival who was standing there waiting, water dripping from his cloak.

“Good evening, my lord. Welcome. Welcome to The Pig’s Head.” Slope’s teeth had long ago rotted away – all but a couple of them – and he now found it easier to speak through what was left of his nose. His voice was thin and high-pitched. If a rat could talk it would probably sound much the same. “What can I do for you, my lord? A pint of the finest ale? A delicious supper? A nice leg of mutton? Or perhaps the speciality of the house. A potato! Have you ever tried a potato, my lord? It is quite new and the most remarkable thing…”

“I need a room for the night,” the traveller interrupted.

“Of course. Of course. We can provide you with the best linen sheets. And only six of our guests have slept on them since they were last washed…”

“I’ll have a bed with clean sheets. And I’ll eat some lamb. Yes. And a rabbit too. Mushrooms. Some cheese. And beer not ale.”

“Beer. Yes. Yes. Will you eat in your chamber, my lord, or at the common table? It’ll be sixpence downstairs and eightpence up, but if you have it up perhaps we could arrange for one of our kitchen maids to keep you company…?”

“I’ll eat down here.”

“You do us all a privilege, my lord.” Slope twisted a smile on to his lips but at the same time a strange gleam had come into his eyes so that he looked both servile and sinister at the same time. “Have you come far, my lord?”

“From London,” the stranger replied.

“And returning soon?”

“Tomorrow.”

This was the information that the innkeeper had been angling for. He swallowed once, his adam’s apple performing a somersault in his scrawny throat. “Henrietta!” he called out. “Henny!”

A moment later a tiny woman with grey, straggly hair hurried out of the smoke. This was Henrietta Slope and although to look at she could have been Sebastian’s grandmother, she was in fact his wife. She too had caught the pox – in seventeen years’ marriage it was the only thing her husband had given her. The disease had attacked her lips which had shrivelled away so that when she smiled she was forced to use her teeth.

“We have a guest,” Sebastian said.

“A guest! How lovely! And a gentleman!” Henrietta curtsied twice. “Have you ordered food, my lord? The food here is a delight. We’ve only had nine cases of food poisoning since our new cook started!”

“I’ve ordered,” the traveller muttered.

“He has indeed,” Sebastian agreed. “Lamb. Mushrooms. Cheese. And rabbit…”

“Rabbit?” Henrietta grinned liplessly. “Fresh today. It couldn’t be fresher. In fact, I strangled it myself.”

“Thank you.” The traveller seemed to be in a hurry to get away from this odd couple but suddenly he leaned across the bar and drew them closer to him. “I was talking just now to that boy outside…” he began.

“Tom?” Sebastian’s face darkened. “If he offended your lordship, I’ll throw him down the well.”

“That boy’s useless!” Henrietta shrieked. “He’s worse than useless. He’s a drip. He’s a damp patch. A dead worm!”

“He hasn’t offended me,” the traveller interrupted. “I’m merely interested in him. Where did you find him?”

Sebastian glanced at his wife then leered at the new guest. “Are you interested in buying him?” he asked.

“We might sell him,” Henrietta simpered. “Although of course we’d miss him. He works very well for us. A very hard worker. Very fit…” She seemed to have completely forgotten what she had been saying only a few moments before.

“Where did you find him?”

“He was an orphan.” Henrietta’s eyes filled with tears. “I have two sons of my own, sir. I took him in out of the goodness of my heart.” She tapped her chest which seemed too thin and hollow to contain any heart at all. “We look after him in return for a few light tasks about the house…”

“What of his parents?” the traveller asked, becoming more interested by the second.

“They worked up at the castle,” Sebastian replied. “The father fell off a horse and broke his neck. The mother died giving birth to him. He came into the world with nothing and if it weren’t for Mrs S and me, nothing is all he’d have now.”

The traveller’s eyes narrowed and for a moment he said nothing. He was obviously deep in thought. But then he shook his head and straightened up. “Send me my food as soon as possible,” he said and went and sat at the nearest table.

Sebastian Slope watched the man as he took his place, then slipped through a door and into the kitchen. Here there was a second, huge fire with a rather angry-looking pig on a spit being turned by a fat, sweating cook with dirty hands and a runny nose. Henrietta had followed her husband in and now he drew her to one side, standing over a huge cauldron of soup that was slowly congealing.

“What do you think, my precious?” he asked.

“Rich,” Henrietta murmured. “Definitely rich.”

“That’s what I thought.” Sebastian tried to pick his nose, remembered it wasn’t there and bit his nail absent-mindedly instead. “Did you notice the cloak – lined with velvet, my jewel? And the boots…”

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