FLAIN’S CORONET: THE BOOK OF THE CROW 3
AN RHCB DIGITAL EBOOK 9781448100712
Published in Great Britain by RHCB Digital,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This ebook edition published 2011
Copyright © Catherine Fisher 2000
First Published in Great Britain
Bodley Head 2000
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Frost Fair
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Mardoc’s Ring
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
The Vortex
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Cage of Stories
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
The Circling
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
The Great Hoard
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Also by Catherine Fisher
Copyright
Also by CATHERINE FISHER
THE SNOW-WALKER SEQUENCE
The Snow-Walker’s Son
The Empty Hand
The Soul Thieves
The Conjuror’s Game
Fintan’s Tower
The Candle Man
Belin’s Hill
BOOK OF THE CROW
The Relic Master
The Interrex
The Margrave
To Colin
Frost Fair
1
In rumour and strange sayings the truth will hide.
Snow will fall, the heart freeze over.
We will come when no one expects us.
Apocalypse of Tamar
TWO MEN SAT on a bench on the ice.
Between them a brazier glowed with hot coals, its metal feet sinking into a pool of meltwater.
They sat silent, in the heart of the Frost Fair; in its racket of bleating sheep, barking dogs, innumerable traders calling their wares and, above all, the ominous hammering. Meats sizzled on spits, babies screamed, jugglers threw jingling bells, fiddlers played for coins, and in cushioned booths sekoi of all colours told spellbinding stories, their voices unnaturally sharp and ringing in the bitter cold.
Finally the older man stirred. ‘Are you sure?’ he muttered.
‘I heard it in Tarkos. Then again last week in Larminier Market. It’s certain.’ The cobbler, still in his leather apron, stared bleakly out at the black Watchtower in the centre of the frozen lake, as if afraid its sentinels could hear him from there.
‘He’s been seen?’
‘So they say.’ The cobbler’s dirty heel scratched at a fish skeleton frozen in the ice; its wide eye stared up at him. ‘There’s been a lot of talk. Prophecies and odd rumours. What I heard was, that on Flainsnight last year there was an enormous explosion. The House of Trees split wide and out of it, on black wings, a vision rose up into the sky, huge over Tasceron.’ He glanced round, making the sign of honour furtively with his hand. ‘It was him. The Crow.’
The old man spat. ‘Incredible! What did it look like?’
‘Huge. Black. A bird and not a bird. You know, like it said in the old Book.’
‘I might. And it spoke?’
‘So the woman who told me said.’
A scar-bull clattered by pulled by two men, its hooves slipping on the glassy lake. When they had gone the old man shrugged. ‘Could be just rumour.’
The cobbler glanced round, worried. Behind them a pedlar was hawking ribbons and pins and fancy lace, a crowd was watching two men come to blows over the price of geese, and a boy was turning cart-wheels among the stalls, a few coppers in his cap on the ice. The cobbler drew up closer and dropped his voice. ‘No. Why do you think the Watch have doubled their patrols? They’ve heard; they have spies everywhere.’
‘So what did it say, this vision?’
‘It said “Listen Anara, your Makers are coming back to you; through the darkness and emptiness I call them. Flain and Tamar and Soren, even Kest will come. They will dispel the darkness. They will scatter the power of the Watch.”’
The words, barely whispered, seemed dangerous, charged with power, as if they sparked in the freezing air. In the silence that followed, the racket of the fair seemed louder; both men were glad of it. The pedlar had spilled his tray and was kneeling on the ice, picking up pins awkwardly with numb fingers. The wind scuttered a few closer to the brazier, like silver slithers.
The old man held gloved hands to the heat. ‘Well if it’s true …’
‘It is.’
‘… Then it will change the world. I pray I live to see it.’ He looked up ruefully over the tents and stalls to the Watchtower, glinting with frost. ‘But unless the Makers come tomorrow it’ll be too late for those poor souls.’
From here the hammering was louder. The half-constructed gallows were black, a ricketty structure of high timbers built directly on to the ice, one man up there now on a ladder, hauling up the deadly swinging nooses of rope. Above him the sky was iron-grey, full of unfallen sleet. Smoke from the fair’s fires rose into it; a hundred straight columns.
‘Another black frost tonight,’ the cobbler muttered.
The old man didn’t answer. Instead he said, ‘I hear one of the prisoners is a keeper.’
The cobbler almost sat upright. Then he relapsed on to the rough bench, biting his thumbnail. ‘Dear God,’ he whispered. ‘To hang?’
‘To hang. Tomorrow, like all the rest.’
Over the lake the hammering ended, abruptly. The nooses swung, empty, frost already glinting on them.
The pedlar picked up the last needle. He straightened with a groan, then limped over. ‘Goods, gentlemen?’ he whined. ‘Samples of ribbon. Beads. Bright scarves. Something for the wife?’
The cobbler shook his head sourly; the old man smiled. ‘Dead, my friend. Long dead.’
‘Ah, well.’ The pedlar was grey-haired; he eased the crutch wearily under his arm. ‘Not even a brooch to put on your coat?’
‘Nothing. Not today.’
Indifferently, as if he was used to it, the pedlar shrugged. It’s a raw day to walk down a long road,’ he said quietly.
They looked at him, bemused.
‘Fellow’s drunk’ the cobbler muttered.
The pedlar hobbled away between tents and round a pen of bleating sheep, their small hooves scratching the frozen lake, down to the stall of a pasty-seller where he bought a hot pie and ate half of it, crouched by the heat of an open oven. Grease scorched his fingers through the torn gloves. He bent forward, his long, grey hair swinging out of his hood, but as he pulled himself slightly upright on the crutch a close watcher might have glimpsed, just for an instant, that he was a tall man, and not as old or as crippled as he seemed.
Someone squeezed in beside him. ‘Is that for me?’
The pedlar handed over the remains of the pie without comment; the boy who had been cart-wheeling wolfed it down ravenously, barely stopping for breath.
The pedlar’s eyes watched the crowd intently.
‘Well?’
‘Nothing. I tried the password on a woman and she told me to get lost or she’d call the Watch.’ Raffi licked every flake of pastry from his fingers, still uneasy at the memory. ‘You?’
‘Not our contact, no. But I overheard an interesting conversation.’
‘What about?’
‘A certain black bird.’
Raffi stared up, alarmed. ‘Again?’ He rubbed his greasy hands nervously on his jerkin, then almost as a reflex unfurled a sense-line and sent it out, but the noisy crowd made him giddy with all their sensations and arguments and chatter; and under them was only the impenetrable glass-blue barrier of the ice, the vast lake frozen to its depths, the tiny creatures down there sluggish, only half-alive.
‘Rumours are getting about,’ Galen said grimly. ‘Perhaps we have Alberic to thank. His people could never keep secrets.’ He glanced round. ‘Though such stories may be useful. They’ll make people think. Stir their faith.’
Raffi rubbed his cold arms, frowning as the oven door was slammed shut. Then he smiled. ‘What would they say if they knew the Crow was right here?’
Galen’s rebuke struck him behind his eyes – a mindflare – so that he winced. The keeper stepped closer, his gaunt face hard. ‘Will you keep your mouth shut! Don’t talk to me unless you have to. And stay close!’
He turned, pushing through the crowd. Eyes wet, furious, Raffi glared after him.
They were both so tense they could barely talk any more. They had been at the fair since yesterday. Every hour they spent here was a sickening danger; there were Watchmen everywhere, and Raffi had been searched once already at a check-point. That still made his skin crawl. But Galen wouldn’t go until the contact came. And they had no idea who it would be.
All afternoon he tried to keep warm. The cold was numbing. The stalls and awnings were brittle with ice; long, jagged spikes of it that dripped for a few hours at midday and then hardened again in the terrible nights, so that the whole fair was encased in glassy splendour, like the Castle of Halen must once have been.
Despite himself, he thought of Sarres. The hall would be warm there; the Sekoi would be telling some story, with the little girl, Felnia, curled up on its lap and Tallis, the Guardian of the place, stoking the fire with logs. And Carys. What would she be doing? He wanted to be back there so much that it hurt.
Earlier, someone had thrown a few coppers to him; now to ease his depression he spent it on a small slab of sticky toffee, making sure Galen didn’t see. Twisting off a corner he sucked it with delight, trying not to chew, to make the incredible sweetness last. It had been years since he’d tasted anything like it. Five years. Since he’d left home. He saw Galen watching him darkly across a pen of sheep, but he didn’t care. Someone jogged his elbow, almost shoving him into the pen.
‘Sorry,’ the woman said.
‘It’s all right.’ Raffi pocketed the toffee before he dropped it.
She smiled at him. ‘Cold makes me clumsy. And it’s a raw day to walk down a long road.’
He froze, swallowing the whole lump without tasting it. He glanced at her sidelong; a big farm-woman, fair hair scraped back, a bold, red face. For a cold moment he had no idea what to do; then he sent a sense-line snaking over to Galen, saw the pedlar’s head turn instantly, his hasty limping through the crowd.
Raffi took a breath. ‘Not if there’s a warm welcome at the end of it,’ he managed.
Relief flickered in the woman’s eyes, brief but unmistakable. ‘Is he here?’ she muttered.
Raffi caught her arm. ‘Beads?’ he said in a normal voice. ‘Here’s your man.’
He dragged her over to Galen. Their eyes met; she picked up objects from the tray at random, examining them.
‘Thank God,’ she whispered. ‘I thought I’d never find you! We have to get home now, while the place is empty.’
Galen glanced round; Raffi knew he was wary of a trap.
‘How far?’
‘Three miles. Over the hill. I have a cart outside the West Check-point.’
‘Then we go separately. Different exits. Meet outside.’
The woman nodded. She looked resolute.
‘What’s your name?’ Galen asked quietly.
‘Caxton. Majella Caxton. You will come?’
‘Have faith woman. We won’t fail you.’
Dumping the lace, she strode away. Galen watched her, then said. ‘Go ahead of me. No contact, whatever happens.’
There was a queue at the check-point. All the entrances to the fair were thronged, because the Watch took a third of all profits, or more if they disliked your face, and everyone had to be checked in and out.
Raffi folded back his sleeve. This was the worst part. Despite the cold, he was sweating.
‘Next!’
He crossed to the table and showed the number painted on his wrist. The Watchman perched there flicked through his list. Glancing back, Raffi saw Galen among a group of men carrying wool-bales.
‘Canver. Michael?’
He nodded.
‘Performer. Ha, I know what that means. Pickpocket. Beggar.’
‘No!’ Terrified, Raffi looked up. ‘I tumble, juggle.’
‘With what?’
‘Apples.’
‘So where are they?’
He shrugged. ‘I ate them.’
‘You must think I was born yesterday.’ The Watchman was young, with a cruel, thin mouth. ‘Turn out your pockets,’ he said.
Raffi hadn’t expected this. After all, he had no profits. But if they even suspected he was a thief he would lose a hand, and the thought of that made him turn cold.
He dumped two small coins and the toffee.
‘Is that it?’ The Watchman grinned. ‘Come here.’
The search was quick, but thorough. It left him hot with fear and embarrassment, and it found nothing. The Watchman’s snort was derisory. ‘Hardly worth your coming, was it?’ He scooped up the toffee and shoved it in his own pocket. ‘Now get lost.’
Trembling with anger and relief, Raffi turned.
He had only taken two steps when the man said, ‘Wait.’
Raffi stopped. His heart thudded like a hammer-bird. Slowly he turned; the Watchman smiled coldly, arrogant on the slippery ice. He had a different list in his hand. Glancing down at it again he muttered, ‘Come back here.’
2
Fear is our greatest weapon. Always the agent should look for it. If it is not there, he should create it.
Rule of the Watch
EVERYTHING SEEMED TO go quiet.
Raffi barely breathed; his whole body was a rigidity of terror, so that for an instant there was nothing else in the world.
Then, as if from a long distance, he heard Galen at the other table, grumbling to the harrassed Watchman there about the cold, and even the sound of his voice brought Raffi a sliver of courage.
He walked back. ‘What?’ he muttered, his voice shaky.
The Watchman thrust the paper in his hands. ‘Look at that,’ he said in a bored voice. ‘Have you seen any of them?’
Raffi turned it round.
It was a list of outlaws. Each one was pictured – a brief sketch, and underneath their names, a sum of money for their capture, a list of crimes. He looked at it quickly, then gave it back.
‘I can’t read,’ he lied.
‘You can see, can’t you! Do you know any of them?’
‘No.’
The man leered, his breath smelling of sour beer. ‘Well keep your eyes open, bright boy. It’ll pay you more than juggling apples.’
Hurrying away, Raffi bit his lip.
Carys’s name had been on the list.
The drawing of her had been incredibly accurate; her sharp look, the short, straight brown hair. Underneath it had said:
CARYS ARRIN. FORMER WATCHSPY. INS. 547 Silver. Marn Mountain.
WANTED ALIVE FOR ABDUCTION, TREASON, COUNTERESPIONAGE.
A PRIORITY TARGET.
30,000 marks.
It was a fortune! But then it would be. She’d betrayed the Watch, kidnapped one of their children, walked out on Braylwin. They’d hunt her down till they found her.
He stumbled, barely noticing, thanking God and the Makers that she was safe back on Sarres. She’d wanted to come with them, but Galen had refused absolutely, ignoring her anger. She was like Galen. Though they both loved Sarres they grew restless there.
‘Boy!’
The big woman was waiting on the cart, her sacking sleeves rolled past her elbows. Brawny arms controlled the fidgeting marset in the harness.
Raffi climbed up beside her.
‘Where’s your master?’
‘Behind,’ he said wearily.
She looked at him shrewdly. ‘You got through, didn’t you? Must be a tough life though.’
He rubbed his hair with his hands, silent, annoyed she could see he was scared, annoyed with himself.
They watched the gate. When Galen came through it he hobbled away up the road ahead of them, ignoring them. The woman whipped up the reins and the marset stumbled off, Raffi grabbing tight. They soon passed the keeper. On the ice the cart ran smooth but when the wheels hit the rough track the lurching began, a giddy swaying up the treeless slopes, down splintering ruts. The road was bleak, all its vegetation seared to blackness by the relentless frosts, except that halfway up, a small, bent patch of bramble thicket clung on. The woman stopped the cart there, and they waited for Galen.
He walked easier now, the limp reduced to normal, and when he came up he dumped the pedlar’s tray and the pack with relief among the wool-bales, brushing ash-paste out of his hair in disgust.
Then he looked up at her.
‘You must be in sore need of a keeper, Majella Caxton.’
‘I am, Master. Believe me.’ She said it calmly, her shrewd grey eyes on his. ‘Or I’d never have run the risk. Yours or mine.’
For a moment he studied her. Then, as if a question had been answered, he nodded and climbed into the back, stretching his legs out among the wool-bales. ‘Is it a relic?’
‘God knows.’ She started the marset moving. ‘It terrifies the beasts, fills me with dark horrors I wouldn’t try to describe. We’re haunted by something, Master. We can’t even live in the house any more. And if you don’t get rid of it it will surely kill someone.’
Galen didn’t answer, though Raffi knew he was intrigued. But the woman was busy now with the driving; ice made the rough track treacherous. Twice the marset slipped, its hooves clattering, and she had to urge it on. ‘Come on, my darling,’ she crooned. ‘Up you go.’
Turning, Raffi saw the Frost Fair already far below them, a squalor of stalls and pens and smoke darkening the pure lake, and beyond it at the northern shore the Quenta forest, dark and ominous, its strange tangled trees forming impenetrable thickets.
He also saw the gallows.
Galen was looking at them, too. The keeper’s black eyes were angry and thoughtful; as Raffi watched he fished among the trinkets of the pedlar’s tray and brought out the awen-beads, jet and green, slipping them on over his head. He held out Raffi’s and Raffi took them, the two blue and purple strands of the scholar, wishing Galen would say something about the gallows. When he was silent he was planning, and Raffi feared that.
Slowly, the cart rocked to the top of the hill.
The way down was less steep; the woman took a breath and said, ‘Now. You want to hear all about it.’
‘It would help.’
She glanced over her shoulder at him, as he leaned among the soft bales.
‘Well, we moved here two months ago. We’re Watch-tenants. We had a farm up north, but then out of the blue they moved us. No explanations. When I saw this place I was amazed. It’s old, you’ll see that. Far too good for me and a dozen farm-men. Lots of the rooms are empty.’
‘What’s it called?’ Galen interrupted.
‘Halenden.’ She flicked the reins. ‘For a fortnight it was all right. Then the trouble started.’
‘Noises?’
She shrugged, uneasy. ‘Hideous sounds. First time it brought us all hurtling out of our beds. I thought some beggar-band were burning the place round our ears. Howling, echoing deep down. Max – the foreman – swears it’s some Kest-ghost, trapped under the place. He’s a loud-mouth, and I’d sack him, but I need him. Most of the others have left.’
The cart jolted; Raffi clung on, feeling sick.
‘What else?’ Galen murmured.
‘Things move. Round the place. They’re never where you left them. Doors won’t open; then they open on their own. Plates smash. Voices talk in rooms where no one is. But last week, that was the worst.’
She stopped the cart suddenly and turned to face him, her broad face red with the cold. ‘I’m not a woman who scares easily, Master.’
‘I can see that,’ he said.
‘Then you’ll know that I’m scared now.’ The wind gusted sleet in her eyes; she rubbed it away. ‘Last week, on Agramonsday, I was alone in the house. The men were in the fields. I was sure I heard something moving down below. There’s a cellar, a deep cellar. It sounded like …’ She shook her head, impatient with herself. ‘Flain knows what. I’m not good with words. A dragging sound. Cold. Heavy.’
The wind was icy. Raffi shivered, tugging his hands up into his sleeves. In all the bleak land around him nothing stirred, the hedges gnawed down to bare thorn.
‘You went down?’ Galen asked, his face intent.
‘I did.’
‘Not many would have.’
‘Keeper, I don’t like mysteries. I’m a plain woman; I trust what my senses tell me. I took a lamp and went down the cellar steps.’ She paused. Raffi felt a thread of terror break out in her, the shock of it stirring the small hairs on the backs of his hands.
Then she said, ‘I saw it. A shadow. Something evil. A terrible … venom seemed to come from it. I knew it was alive.’
The marset whinnied, impatient. Sleet was coming down heavily now, a white sheet of weather slanting out of the west.
Galen didn’t move.
The woman turned back to the harness. ‘That’s all I can tell you. It vanished. I was outside, shivering, when the men came back; can’t even remember how I got there. None of us will stay in the place now – we’ve fitted up a barn a few fields off and even the dogs creep in with us at night.’
The cart-wheels began to turn, crunching down into the ruts and up again. ‘Can you help us?’ she asked quietly.
Galen leaned back. ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’
‘No,’ she said, too quickly.
He gazed at her broad back. Then he said, ‘I can only do what the Makers wish.’
For the rest of the journey he was silent, and glancing back Raffi knew he was meditating, gathering strength, sending sense-lines out into the frozen land, waking stones and soil and the bare trees, searching for any Maker-life, any energies.
Raffi was quiet, too. After the strain and racket of the fair, weariness washed over him like a wave. Despite the cold he dozed, slumping against the woman. As the cart hit a stone he jolted awake, muttering, ‘Sorry.’ She grinned at him. ‘My lad was like you once. Eat and sleep. That’s all boys are good for.’
He smiled, wan.
The evening closed in. Above in the darkening sky the seven moons brightened, the crescent of Cyrax far off on the horizon, glinting through torn cloud above the black land. Stars were suddenly there too, vast scatterings of light, brilliant in the frost-cold.
The road ran down, into a hollow. Raffi felt trees, dark shapes on each side, old hollies and some yew, the faint turpy smell of their needles crushed under the wheels.
The track ran smoother. The trees closed in, became a dim avenue, their branches tangling overhead. Bats flitted in a narrow strip of sky.
And then he felt the house.
His eyes widened; the skin crawled on his neck. Behind him, he heard Galen scramble up.
Halenden was dark; a cluster of roofs and gables rising above the trees. He could see windows, most of them boarded up, and a great mass of ivy and spidervine that sprawled over half the façade, smothering walls and chimneys.
As they drove up to it, the house seemed to grow. Owls called in its leaves; a skeat answered in the woods, and then a whole pack of them was howling, the farm dogs barking furiously in return.
The cart creaked to a halt.
Galen climbed out, stiff, then stood tall in his dark coat, looking up at the building, noting the battered, rain-stained door, the high windows, some with broken glass, glittering with reflections of the climbing moons.
The dogs went quiet, with a yelp, as if he’d ordered them to.
Raffi stood behind him. The stillness of the place made him wary. The woods were infected by its gloom; the house had eyes inside, and for a second he looked through them, seeing himself and Galen and Majella from some high place.
‘Come round the back,’ the woman said, climbing down awkwardly.
But when Galen turned, her face went suddenly still, because there was something changed about him, some power that crackled in the air; his face was gaunt and his eyes dark in the shadows.
‘I know,’ he said.
Barely breathing she mumbled, ‘Keeper?’
He stepped towards her. Now he was the Crow, its dark energies moving in blue sparks through his fingers. ‘I know. The Makers have told me. The very trees have told me. Do you believe you could really hide this from me?’
The woman gasped. For a moment Raffi thought she would kneel down in the mud, her fingers making the half-forgotten signs of honour. But then she looked up boldly, her face set.
‘You’re right. I should have told you.’
‘Told us what?’ Raffi blurted out. He couldn’t bear it. ‘Is this a trap? Are the Watch here?’
Galen grinned, sourly. ‘In a manner of speaking. What she hasn’t told us is that this is the house of a Watchman. Her son’s house. Isn’t that so?’
She nodded, bleakly.
Raffi was aghast. ‘We’ve got to get out!’ he hissed.
To his horror Galen just laughed. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think he even knows.’
‘He doesn’t.’ She looked up at him, her small eyes measuring his anger. ‘He’d have us all killed if he found out.’
‘Your own son!’ Raffi couldn’t believe it.
‘My own son.’ Watching Galen she said, ‘The keeper knows. He knows we don’t stop loving our children, however they turn out. Yes, my son is a Watchman. He wasn’t taken as a child; he joined them of his own will. He enjoys power. He hates the Order. You’ve even seen him, lad. He was the one who searched you back at the check-point.’
Raffi’s chest was tight with fear. ‘We have to go. He’ll recognize me!’
But Galen was watching the woman, his face unreadable. Finally he asked, ‘Will he come here?’
‘Unlikely. Not while the fair is on. He’ll want to see the hangings.’
Galen nodded. ‘Then listen to me. Tonight, if I can, I will break your house of its spell. But in return, if I survive, I want your help. Your son has a spare uniform, insignia, papers. I want them.’
‘What!’ Raffi grasped the keeper’s arm. ‘Why?’
Galen shook him off ferociously. ‘Because if we do nothing there are ten people who’ll hang on those gallows. And one of them is a keeper. I intend to get him out.’
Chilled, Raffi stared at him in despair.
And instantly, from behind them in the house, an eerie, throaty cry rose up, as if it were his own fear given voice, an echoing howl from some creature trapped in unendurable darkness and pain, so terrifying that Raffi’s hands went cold and all his sense-lines stirred in a web of dizzying sickness.
It lasted long seconds. When it had ebbed, all three of them were still, shadows among shadows.
Then the woman nodded, white-faced.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Anything.’
3
One day Soren was walking in the Fields of Eldaman when she saw a tiny flower under her foot. ‘What are you called?’ she asked. The flower said it had no name. Soren picked it and wove it into a crown. She took it to Flain. ‘In our work,’ she said, ‘we have overlooked the least and smallest of lives.’
Flain ran his fingers over the flowers. ‘From now on,’ he said, ‘all men will know you. You will teach the highest how to be humble.’
Book of the Seven Moons
THE ROOM WAS very dark. Galen would have only one lamp, and that was standing in the middle of the floor. Its yellow glow threw a great shadow over the keeper’s shoulder, edging his face with slants of light. Around it he was arranging the awen-beads, seven circles of green and jet, a peculiar arrangement new to Raffi.
Squeezed into the corner, his back against the dusty panelling, Raffi sat hugging his knees, then laid his forehead on them, wearily.
The woman had fed them. A good meal – soup, mutton and cheese, the best he’d had since they left Sarres, and despite his worry he had been hungry for it. She’d cooked it in the old kitchen below, where broken spits hung askew under the vast sooty throats of the chimneys, and she’d waited while they’d eaten it. But even Raffi had sensed the stifled fear in her, heard the small, impatient creaks her chair had made. She was desperate to get out.
At last Galen had cut a slice of cheese with deliberate care and said, ‘When you go, lock the doors from the outside. Whatever sounds you hear, whatever strange sights you may see, you stay away. Neither you, nor anyone else, is to come back to this house until full daylight. Do you understand that?’
Relieved, she had nodded, but at the door had turned and said, hesitating, ‘I could take the boy with me. Is it right to put the boy in danger?’
Galen hadn’t even looked up. ‘The boy is a scholar of the Order. How else will he learn?’
When she’d gone, they’d come up here, to the highest rooms; Galen had taken his time choosing this one. Raffi broke mudclots off his boots nervously. He wished he was back on Sarres, or anywhere, even at the fair. At least that had been out in the open, he could breathe or run. Here he felt as if the ancient house was stifling him, all its shutters tight, the carpet of dust, the webs, the mildewed walls. It was quiet, all the sense-lines were still, but there was something wrong with them, bizzarely wrong – they were warped, as if something else was here inside them, bulging them out.
He wondered if Galen could feel it too.
Now the Relicmaster sat back on his heels, the hook of his nose shadowed. Without looking at Raffi he said, ‘You knew a keeper was among the prisoners, didn’t you?’
Raffi clenched his fists. He’d been waiting for this.
‘I heard something,’ he muttered.
‘And you didn’t tell me.’
‘I thought you’d have heard it too.’
Galen glared at him. ‘And if I hadn’t? You’d have waited till they were dead, would you, before you cared to mention it?’
Raffi looked away, hot.
‘For Flain’s sake, Raffi when will you learn to have faith!’ Galen’s fury was always sudden, an explosion of temper. ‘All the study you’ve done, all the things you’ve seen! Can’t you understand yet that the Makers are guiding us? We weren’t called to this place by accident! It’s not coincidence that one of the few keepers left alive is one of their prisoners. This is Flain’s will, as clearly as if he appeared and told us “Rescue them!”’
He tugged the dirty string out of his hair angrily. ‘And you try and ignore it!’
‘Because I never know what you’ll do,’ Raffi said despairingly.
Galen laughed, scornful. ‘Rubbish. You know very well. And that’s what scares you.’
He rubbed a dusty hand through his hair, scattering the remnants of ash. Raffi was silent. He knew it was true. Bitter shame broke out in him. ‘Perhaps I’m not fit to be a keeper,’ he snapped, his face hot.
Galen snorted. ‘That’s for me to say. I haven’t wasted all this time on you for nothing. You’ll be a keeper if I have to beat it into you. Now pick up that lamp. We need to look at this house.’
Raffi scrambled up and snatched the lamp. He wanted to march out with it boldly, down the stairs, into all the dark corridors, flinging open the doors, as fearless as Carys would have been. But he knew he’d falter at the first corner. In some ways learning the powers of the Order, sensing Maker-life in the land, the energy-fields of people’s dreams, of trees and stones and creatures, just made things worse. Carys couldn’t feel all that. Perhaps that was why it was easy for her not to be scared.
Though Galen never was either.