* * * *

 

Cecilia Dart-Thornton was ‘discovered’ on the Internet after she posted the first chapter of her unpublished trilogy to an Online Writing Workshop. Subsequently an editor contacted her, and within a few weeks Time Warner (New York) had bought her three-part Bitterbynde series. On publication the books were acclaimed in Amazon’s ‘Best of 2001’, Locus Magazine’s ‘Best First Novels of 2001’ and the Australian Publishers’ Association Award: ‘Australia’s Favourite Read of 2001’. In Australia they reached the top of the Sydney Morning Herald bestseller list. They have also received accolades in the Washington Post, The Times, Good Reading Magazine, Kirkus Reviews and more.

 

Cecilia’s books, including the four-part Crowthistle series, are available in more than seventy countries and have been translated into several languages.

 

* * * *

 

The Enchanted:

A Tale of Erith

 

Cecilia Dart-Thornton

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

 

Don’t you go down by the river, my darling,

Nor through bluebell woods to the old ruined mill.

Those are the haunts of the strangers, my darling,

As ancient as starlight, they linger there still.

 

 

As evening drew nigh, Mazarine stood in the bay window of the library, looking out across Kelmscott Park. Sweeping lawns rolled down to the lake, which lay like a shattered mirror fallen from the sunset sky, reflecting clouds as red as flame. Unseeing, the young woman gazed out through distorted panes, past the distant chimneys of Clover Cottage, towards wooded hills stitched with glimmering streams, where clandestine trees, long-shadowed, bowed darkly before the wind.

 

The oaken panelling of the chamber in which she stood had been polished, over the years, to the sombre glow of antique amber. Floor-to-ceiling shelves upheld vellum-bound volumes; chartreuse, tawny, sable, their spines embossed with gilt lettering. On the mantelpiece the inner cogs of the mahogany clock went click! as a ratchet alternately caught and released a gear that unwound the spring and moved the hands. Ticking clocks, the sombre glitter of old gold, the gleam of polished wood — these were the trademarks of Kelmscott Hall.

 

Mazarine had not lived long at the Hall — only since the demise of her parents last Uainemis, at the beginning of Summer. Having no siblings with whom to commiserate, she mused longingly on her lost family, clutching to her breast the tilhal-locket on its necklace chain which held their portraits in miniature: her mother, who had taught her the lore of eldritch creatures and, sitting by the fire on long Winter evenings, related thrilling legends of immortal Faêran knights sleeping for centuries beneath some long-forgotten hill; her father, who had often taken her riding through the woods near Reveswall, identifying every herb and flower, bird and beast they had encountered. Now both those dear ones lay beneath the green turf — sleeping the other sleep, that which is a gift belonging only to mortal beings. The tenet that had carried Mazarine unscathed through loss and catastrophe sprang from the conviction that somehow she and her loved ones would all meet again, never to be separated.

 

Until she came of age to inherit her vast fortune, she must perforce dwell here at Kelmscott, in this remote backwater of Erith far from her childhood home in northern Severnesse, under the guardianship of her mother’s distant cousin, the Earl of Rivenhall. Though the circumstance carried its own drawbacks, she was determined to make the best of it.

 

Beyond the library window two figures moved into view on the lawns, one small, one hulking — the under-gardener’s young apprentice, followed by the Chief Steward, Ripley. In Mazarine’s opinion, Ripley was nothing but a bullying ruffian, but her guardian held the fellow in high esteem, having given him leave to dwell, rent-free, in a small house on the grounds; an abode far superior to the cottages of the gamekeeper and the gatekeeper. The young woman watched in consternation as the man gesticulated threateningly, while the under-gardener’s boy quailed. Presently Ripley cuffed the lad over the side of the head, knocking him down. An involuntary cry escaped the watcher’s lips, but before she had time to throw open the casement and give voice to her indignation the lad had picked himself up and run off. Ripley turned on his heel and went swaggering away in the opposite direction.

 

If the Chief Steward was repulsive to Mazarine, she found his master, the Earl of Rivenhall, equally so. To compensate, there were five creatures hereabouts — other than the gentle horses and the enthusiastic hounds — that made life bearable and even enjoyable. These included the Wilton family who lived at neighbouring Clover Cottage, and two others. A door creaked on its hinges as one of those others now entered the library.

 

‘The master will be late, but someone nears the gate,’ said a high-pitched male voice. ‘Beneath the leaves so green, ‘oo rides to Mazarine?’

 

‘Oh, Thrimby,’ said Mazarine, turning toward the shadows from which the voice had emanated. ‘You are up early.’ Barely distinguishable in the twilight gloom cast by tall, carved bookshelves, the eccentric servant’s spare, shrunken form was clad in ragged breeches, a patched waistcoat and a threadbare jacket. Mazarine wondered how long it took him to compose the little rhymes of which he was so fond. Thrimby was never seen during the day — and rarely at night, either, for he was reclusive. It was his wont to rise after the rest of the household had retired to their bedchambers, and to steal away at cock-crow to wherever it was he made his own bed. Mazarine could only assume that her guardian tolerated Thrimby’s odd habits because of the exceptional service he provided. Every morning the entire mansion — and it comprised a veritable warren of rooms — would be shining spick and span from chimney pots to cellars, largely due to Thrimby’s unsurpassed exertions. Day in, day out, he accomplished the work of a whole bevy of chambermaids, scullerymaids and footmen; moreover he never complained and never seemed to tire. A gem indeed. Mazarine strongly suspected he was not human. At his announcement of a visitor, her heart had begun fluttering like a trapped butterfly. ‘Why will my guardian be late?’ she asked. ‘And who is coming here?’

 

A triumphant smile gleamed out of the dimness. ‘Wielder of the Kelmscott seal will be late for evening meal, for ‘is carriage lost a wheel. From the tower’s top we saw bird that ‘overs over moor, lame and weary and footsore.’

 

The heart of Mazarine jumped more wildly.

 

‘A wheel came off the earl’s coach?’ she said, endeavouring in vain to keep her voice steady. ‘I hope he remains hale,’ she added without conviction. ‘How do you know these things, Thrimby?’

 

She heard the servant sigh. Perhaps he found it an effort to keep composing jingles on the spot. Or perhaps not — it might come naturally to such an unusual fellow as Thrimby.

 

‘We spotted it just as ‘e drove away,’ he replied. ‘We knowed it would come off by end o’ day.’

 

‘I see. I daresay it was too late to tell the coachman by the time you noticed it.’

 

Silence, save for the faint moaning of the wind outside in the machicolations.

 

‘Thrimby, would you mind asking after the under-gardener’s boy on my behalf? I fear he has lately suffered at the hands of our Chief Steward.’

 

‘Aye.’

 

There was nothing more that Mazarine could do for the under-gardener’s boy. The earl never took heed of her pleas for better treatment of the servants. Privately the young woman decided that in the morning she would bring the buffeted lad a parcel of food from the kitchens. Presently she cleared her throat and broached the subject uppermost in her mind, which she had been saving until last.

 

‘And you indicate that Lord Fleetwood is coming home?’ Bird that hovers over moor could only mean one person. Hawkmoor, Lord Fleetwood, officially lived at Kelmscott but was often absent for two or three days, overseeing his estate almost three miles away on the other side of Somerhampton.

 

‘Aye.’

 

Thrimby’s conversation had dwindled. Possibly he was working on another few lines of doggerel.

 

‘Thank—’

 

The servant’s hands flew to his ears. ‘Don’t say it!’ he cried sharply.

 

‘Oh!’ Mazarine exclaimed. ‘Forgive me, I forgot. Habits are hard to break. I should say, I appreciate your bringing me these tidings, kind Thrimby.’

 

Thrimby’s status was unique among the staff in that his deference was neither expected nor demanded. An abhorrence of being thanked was another of the servant’s foibles. By this, Mazarine was almost certain he was no mortal creature, but a wight of eldritch, a beneficent domestic brownie. For some unknown reason no-one in the household ever acknowledged this possibility however, so to avoid causing conflict she never mentioned it either — not after the first time. Once, soon after she had arrived at Kelmscott, she had diffidently asked her guardian, ‘My lord, do you suppose perhaps Thrimby is a brownie?’

 

Instantly she was aware she had made a mistake. The look he had given her, of cold scorn, made her wither like a flower blasted by frost.

 

‘A what?’ he had barked, thrusting his face close to hers.

 

‘A brownie, sir,’ meekly she repeated, stepping backwards.

 

‘What nonsense! I have no idea what you are talking about. Get your mother’s tales out of your head, you silly girl.’

 

And that was the end of it. A second suspicion was growing on Mazarine — she had never seen her guardian actually speak to Thrimby, or even occupy the same room. She wondered whether he knew the servant existed. Perhaps he thought it more expedient to feign ignorance of the enigma dwelling right under his nose.

 

In the kennels the hounds were belling joyously. Their cacophony barely disguised the sound of hooves beating on the gravel of the wide terrace that ran along the front facade of the mansion. A rider was cantering up the drive to the marble portico. It would be him — the only one of Mazarine’s five favourites who dominated her thoughts almost every waking moment; the only one who could make her feel as though she were walking on air, or make her blush and become awkwardly self-conscious, although plainly he never intended to have such effects. Hastily she rang the bell for a footman and requested that he tell the housekeeper to ensure that supper would soon be ready. Then she brushed down her vespertine skirts of mourning silk, prodded ineffectually at her hair — a lavish mane of bronze curls, coiffed that morning by her personal lady’s-maid — and rushed out of the library toward the front drawing-room, glancing anxiously in the flashing multitude of wall-mirrors as she passed.

 

In the drawing-room a footman wearing Rivenhall livery was lighting the lamps against the drawing in of darkness, and an upper housemaid knelt on the hearthrug before the fireplace, coaxing life into a pile of kindling. She cupped her hands and blew on the reluctant flames, whose leapings were being combated by fitful gusts blasting down the chimney. Mazarine tried to compose herself to meet the newcomer, but could not bring herself to sit still on any of the velvet-upholstered armchairs or divans, and instead paced back and forth. The last roseate rays of the sinking sun slanted through the drawing-room’s recessed window, striking sparkles off the gold braid on the windowseat cushions, setting afire the brass lamps, the candlesticks and the fire-irons. She heard the uneven sound of Hawkmoor’s boots on the marble tiles as he crossed the portico and entered the vestibule, and could contain herself no longer, but glided out to meet him.

 

Stripping off riding gloves, a tall figure stood illumined in a shaft of late sunlight that raked through the open doors. A swirl of dead leaves had blown in when he entered, and now eddied at his feet. Beyond those doors a groom could be seen leading a black horse away toward the stables. Heat and cold raced through Mazarine’s person, swift on each others’ heels, and she could not take her eyes off the newcomer. Limned in that rose-gold light, he appeared to her like a painting of some marvellous Faêran lord. More than perfect was he; unbearably beautiful, lean and lithe. He was dressed in Dainnan uniform; leather leggings and a shirt of high quality wool with voluminous sleeves, beneath a sleeveless suede tunic reaching almost to his knees and slit down both sides along the length of his thighs. At each shoulder, the Royal Insignia was embroidered — a crown above the numeral fifteen, flanked by the runes J, the hook and R, the sail. At his side his hunting horn swung from a green baldric, and a sheathed dagger was attached to his belt. His hair was Feorhkind brown, like Mazarine’s, but much darker; so dark it was like a swatch of midnight. The long locks, gathered in a black ribbon behind the neck, fell to his waist. Handing his gloves to the head footman, he glanced up. His expression, which had been stern, softened.

 

‘Good evening, Mistress Blythe.’

 

‘Good evening, Lord Fleetwood.’

 

Lord Rivenhall, Hawkmoor’s sire, was also Viscount Fleetwood. As the eldest son of an earl, The Right Honourable Hawkmoor Canty was entitled to use his father’s highest lesser peerage dignity as his own, though he remained a commoner until such time as he inherited the title.

 

‘You were not expecting me, I understand,’ said Hawkmoor. ‘Perhaps there will be some supper in any case.’

 

‘Most certainly!’

 

‘Cottrell,’ the young man said to the head footman, ‘will you ask Goodwife Strood to have supper served in the conservatory this evening?’

 

‘Very good, m’ Lord.’

 

‘For it is a fair Autumn evening,’ Hawkmoor continued, directing this comment to Mazarine, ‘and I would fain enjoy it.’

 

This was true. During the last four weeks of Autumn, the Windmonth — Gaothmis — was unseasonably balmy, still tinged with the lingering warmth of Summer. In the conservatory, oranges and limes glowed like spherical lamps on the trees, and ginger plants thrust fragrant leaves from their pots. Ripe figs and grapes dangled from above, although the last of the peaches and cherries had been plucked and preserved for Winter use, and most of the strawberries were gone.

 

A table was set — according to instructions — for two. Generally the earl, Mazarine’s guardian, took his meals in the lower dining room, a formal and formidable chamber. Mazarine and Hawkmoor preferred the airy greenery of the conservatory, through whose glass walls one could look out, during the day, at the gardens. At nights the view dwindled to orbs of candlelight, but the servants would light the strings of tiny stained-glass lanterns that festooned many of the garden trees. In Mazarine’s opinion these resembled the faerie-lights, or possibly glow-worms, strung through hedges by the siofra when they held their miniature revels.

 

The siofra were tiny human-like beings dressed in snail-shells and spiderwebs and seedpods. As a child living in the village of Reveswall in the north of Severnesse, Mazarine had often beheld such woodland folk. By contrast, few such entities could be glimpsed in her new home. It seemed that here in the remote south-eastern shires of Severnesse, far from the trading and passenger routes of the flying Windships and the aerial pathways of Relayers on their sky-horses, eldritch wights — numerous everywhere in Erith — were more adroit and sly at hiding themselves. It made the wild and haunted places seem both emptier and more dangerous. Even the eerie shang-wind seldom blew in this backwater; people hardly bothered to wear protective taltry-hoods, though the law decreed they must carry them at all times.

 

Folk did, however, adorn their necks with amulets; and some planted rowan trees around their homes and hung bells upon the harnesses of their horses or employed other wards against malign forces. Children were taught the ancient chant cataloguing wight-repellents:

 

‘Hypericum, salt and bread,

Iron cold and berries red,

Self-bored stone and daisy bright,

Save me from unseelie wight.

Red verbena, amber, bell,

Turned-out raiment, ash as well,

Whistle-tunes and rowan-tree,

Running water, succour me ...’

 

Nonetheless these precautions were taken chiefly from force of habit and tradition rather than fear of imminent peril.

 

Together Mazarine and Hawkmoor seated themselves at the white-clothed table beneath the orange trees in the conservatory, and held converse as they dined. Delighted to be the subject of the undivided attention of her distant relative — if indeed they were related at all — yet somewhat nervous lest she say or do anything to mar the occasion, the young woman felt, at first, awkward. It was a rare chance, that they could be alone together. It seemed her guardian continually exerted himself to make certain it seldom happened. The earl would only take himself to town if Hawkmoor was away for several days on business. When his son was in the house he never went out, or if he did, he demanded that Mazarine accompany him.

 

Mazarine and Hawkmoor had never met during their childhood days, and in those old times she had only encountered his father on three or four occasions, for the Blythes and the Cantys had rarely mixed. She retained vague memories of a well-dressed, aristocratic visitor grabbing her by the chin and forcing to tilt her face up to his for his examination, and of a voice murmuring low, so that her parents could not overhear, ‘Gad, you are a plain little thing, aren’t you! What an Ugly Gosling. Cheer up girl, perhaps you will grow up to be a swan after all!’ At the time she had felt crushed, as if she had failed a test she’d had no idea she was undergoing. On subsequent occasions she’d tried to avoid him.

 

It was a sheltered life Mazarine had led in such a remote neighbourhood, with a governess to tutor her, and few friends. When she was orphaned, her parents’ executors contacted her last remaining relatives. Though consumed by grief, she had briefly wondered whether, when he encountered her once more, her new guardian would consider she had evolved into a swan or remained a gosling. He had, however, made no comment at all about her looks.

 

Since her arrival at Kelmscott Hall a few weeks earlier, the orphan had formed a friendship with Laurelia Wilton, an unwed damsel of her own age who dwelled in nearby Clover Cottage with her parents. Professor Wilton was a poor but respectable apothecary whose livelihood depended on selling his home-made galenicals, simples and other pharmacopeia to physicians and chirurgeons in nearby Somerhampton. He occasionally took in boarders to supplement his meagre income. The warmth of Laurelia’s family soon secured them a place in Mazarine’s affections and sometimes she felt as if she had known them for years. Though the earl never invited the Wiltons to Kelmscott Hall, his ward visited them as often as possible, learning more about them as time went on. She was also beginning to be further acquainted with the earl and his heir, and the more she discovered about the latter, the more she wished to know.

 

‘I trust your farming establishment is thriving, sir,’ Mazarine said shyly, before tasting a spoonful of kale soup.

 

‘In sooth, the harvest has been bountiful this year, Mistress Blythe,’ Hawkmoor replied, with a warm smile that had the effect on his companion of a draught of strong wine. ‘The corn was of the highest quality, and commanded an excellent price at market. I am fortunate that my land is rich and fertile. The King has been generous.’

 

The earl’s sole heir possessed an independent living, for he owned an estate of two thousand acres, presented to him by the King-Emperor of Erith as a reward for saving his life. Mazarine was aware that when she was thirteen years old Hawkmoor, then aged eighteen, had joined the famous brotherhood of the Dainnan. When they dwelled at the King-Emperor’s court these elite warriors were royal bodyguards; when they roamed the lands of Erith they were peacekeepers, and always they were ready to fight as soldiers in times of war. The Dainnan name bestowed on Hawkmoor was ‘Rowan’, and he had served with the brotherhood for six years. By the time he turned twenty-four he had risen to the rank of captain, commanding his own company of a hundred and eighty men. That was a year ago.

 

‘Pray tell me,’ said Mazarine, ‘how did it happen that the King’s life came into danger and you rescued him?’

 

‘He was travelling through the countryside with his retinue, and I was among them,’ said Hawkmoor, breaking bread onto a porcelain plate adorned with the Rivenhall coat of arms. ‘It was a Summer Progress.’

 

‘I am not familiar with such an event.’

 

‘Few natives of Severnesse would be acquainted with it, because His Majesty has never voyaged to these shores. As you know, he keeps mainly to the lands of Eldaraigne and Luindorn and Finvarna. It is his wont, in Summer, to travel from country estate to country estate, staying for a few weeks at each. The peers vie for his patronage — some even build magnificent new wings onto their mansions, purely to provide attractive accommodation. Anywhere the King-Emperor lays his head is afterwards titled the King’s Bedchamber, or the Royal Apartments, and only a select few are permitted to sleep therein, or no one at all ever again, and the hosts will boast of the royal visit for generations to come, as they boast of the King’s father, and his grandfather before him.’

 

‘It is a wonder there is any grand house left without a King’s Bedchamber, if the d’Armancourt dynasty is so keen on journeying!’

 

‘His Majesty Progresses only once a year, and stays long at each place. I believe there is no fear of a glut!’

 

They both laughed.

 

‘So you were on this Progress, sir?’ Mazarine prompted.

 

‘Indeed, and we had halted at twilight — it having being a warm day and the King-Emperor needing refreshment — to swim in a cool, clear pool in the shadow of a ferny cliff some twelve or fourteen feet high. It was a fair scene, framed by flowering sedges. Slender waterfalls were hanging down the cliff’s face like silver chains. Dragonflies darted amid water lilies. The Dainnan of course entered the water first.’

 

‘In the manner of the Tasters at the Assaying before a feast, I daresay,’ said Mazarine, ‘ —- those men who are employed to eat the food before the King is served, to provide a warning by their demise, should it be poisoned.’

 

‘Precisely! We tested the water in case of danger to His Majesty’s person — in case this fair pool was the haunt of a drowner or some other fell incarnation. We swam, we dived and we sought among the blue-flowering pickerel weeds that grew in the depths, looking for signs of any malicious being such as the Bocan or the dreadful waterhorses, or the emaciated drowners with weed-green hair, such as Peg Powler or Jenny Greenteeth or the Fideal, who can drag a man into the depths with terrible strength. But we found none. What’s more, our horses walked down fearlessly to the edge to drink and that was an encouraging sign, for beasts are generally the first to scent danger. Then we deemed it safe, and all of us left the water while His Majesty plunged in.’

 

Hawkmoor paused to drink from a chased silver-gilt cup.

 

‘Our King-Emperor carries with him always,’ he continued, ‘an artefact of special value — the Coirnéad, it is called — a silver-clasped hunting-horn, white as milk. Legend says it is of Faêran craftsmanship, and that if ever the sons of the House of D’Armancourt in dire need should sound the horn, help will come. Yet in preparation for bathing His Majesty left this treasure in the keeping of my second-in-command.

 

‘For myself, I donned my raiment, girded myself with my weapons-belt and climbed to the top of the cliff to watch over my liege-lord, though my warriors arrayed themselves about the brink. His Majesty was swimming among the lilies when all of a sudden there reared up from the black-shadowed water a monstrous figure, twice the height of a man and dripping wet. It was, in fact, one of the powerful fuathan; not merely a minor wight to be repelled with simple chants or handfuls of salt. The thing must have been lurking in a lair burrowed into the side of the cliff, underwater, else we would not have overlooked it.’

 

‘By the Powers! Was it Cuachag himself?’ cried Mazarine. ‘Cuachag, the most terrible of fuathan?’

 

‘I think not,’ said Hawkmoor, replacing the cup on the table, ‘for had it been he, I doubt whether I would have lived to tell the tale, for what can a mortal man do against one of the Nightmare Princes?’

 

Mazarine shuddered.

 

‘Yet if not Cuachag, then something close,’ said Hawkmoor. ‘Something potent.’

 

And he described the ensuing events so evocatively that Mazarine felt as if they were unfolding before her eyes.

 

Water sluiced from the fuath’s brawny shoulders and from the grassy mane that grew right down its back. The face was ghastly in appearance, for where the nose ought to have been there was only a punched-in hole, like a miry puddle. This manifestation was clad all in ragged green garments that looked to be fashioned of waterweeds. Waist deep, it raised its enormous arms, splaying webbed fingers, and thrashed the water with a spiked tail. Clearly it was intent on doing harm to the King-Emperor, who perceived his danger. He knew he had no chance, but faced the monster bravely, prepared to wrestle it with his bare hands undaunted; ready to die like a true monarch.

 

It all happened quickly. As soon as the wight appeared, the Dainnan guards had dived into the pool. In that space — an eye’s blink — Hawkmoor perceived that the rescuers could not swim to the King in time, so he sprang to his feet and made a great leap off the cliff onto the fuath’s shoulders. The water-giant began to bellow and sway like a forest tree in a storm, but the young warrior wrapped both his legs about its neck and one arm about its great slimy skull. He hung on, though being jerked hither and thither like a fish flapping on a hook, meanwhile trying to draw his dagger from its sheath, for the banes of the fuathan included cold steel, which would vanquish them instantly.

 

At the very least, Hawkmoor’s object was to purchase more time for his men to reach the King. But as he pulled the knife from its scabbard, the fuath swivelled its head and sank its toxic fangs into his calf. He did not know if he uttered any sound — they told him later that he shouted with rage as he plunged the dagger into the wight’s eye socket, but he had no recollection of it. The creature collapsed, generating huge waves that almost swamped the men, but some reached the King and bore him safely to land, and others swam to the Dainnan leader as the waters were closing over his head, for he was drowning, half-insensible, still hanging onto his foe as if clinging to his very life, and its inky, eldritch blood was swirling through the gleaming waters. They could hardly prise their leader away from the monster, though it was dying, or metamorphosing — for those immortals could not perish, only diminish. Presently the fuath shifted into the shape of an insignificant water-spider and scooted away, leaving its vanquisher at death’s threshold.

 

They dragged Hawkmoor from the water. The King’s Chirurgeon tended his wounds, but advised there was scant hope the patient would live beyond a day. He lived, nonetheless, to make the journey back to court on a litter, and there he lay on his sickbed for three months in fever and agony, and it was beyond the power of the best chirurgeons and carlins to say whether or no he would pull through.

 

Hawkmoor laughed without humour. ‘Be that as it may, you know the outcome, Mistress Blythe,’ he continued. ‘I did live, but only as three-quarters of a man, for when I healed I was,’ — he paused an instant — ‘as you see me now.’

 

‘Fie! I beg you, do not do yourself such discourtesy, my lord!’ cried Mazarine.

 

‘Afterwards, the heart went out of me,’ Hawkmoor said quietly, ‘for now that I can no longer leap over a stick the height of myself, and stoop under one the height of my knee, and take a thorn out from my foot with my nail while running my fastest, or barely even walk straight, being forced to limp askew, like some old gaffer, I no longer wished to be Sir Rowan of the Dainnan brotherhood. They asked me to stay as an instructor and tactician, but I refused to be relegated to that status. I want the life of active service or nothing.’

 

‘Yet you live,’ Mazarine said earnestly, ‘and that is sufficient.’

 

‘Do you think so?’

 

‘Indeed! Besides, your lameness is so slight it is hardly noticeable.’

 

‘Hardly noticeable to you, perhaps, but not so slight.’

 

She understood, then, that it was with great effort and pain that her companion forced himself to walk straight, so that none should perceive what he considered to be his weakness. At the same time she felt grateful and elated that he had allowed her to see past the bluff — it signified that he placed great trust in her; that he believed she would not betray his confidence by letting anyone else know what agonies it secretly cost him to play the part of a man who was fully hale.

 

‘As some compensation,’ she said, ‘you won Southdale Farm for your courage and quick thinking.’

 

‘Which allows me independence,’ he said. He did not need to add, from my father. Mazarine was well aware — for it was common knowledge — that there was no love lost between the earl and his heir.

 

The earl had, on occasion, declared he would cut off his son’s inheritance. This threat, however, had never exerted any effect on Hawkmoor, who desired only a roof over his head and food on the table. Jewels and gold held no allure for him. As for the titles, for which he cared scarcely a whit, they would always remain his by right as long as he was considered his father’s progeny, and who could prove otherwise?

 

Hawkmoor did not resemble the earl at all in appearance or manner. Mazarine had once overheard the servants whispering that the two were not, in fact, related by blood — a rumour which might have cast aspersions on Hawkmoor’s mother, had public sympathy not been largely on her side.

 

‘Little wonder she strayed, if stray she did,’ people murmured. ‘Such ill-treatment she received at his hands! Poor creature — no surprise she died so young.’

 

‘Some say the first Lady Rivenhall was forced to take a lover to fulfil her husband’s desire for an heir! He wanted to keep his title from going extinct!’

 

‘Really? What a scandal!’

 

‘For the master is barren, they say, barren as a mountain peak forever under snow. He could not get a child on any of his other wives, could he!’

 

‘Aye, and what happened to those wives, that’s what I’ve always wondered! It can’t be pure chance, to be made a widower three times.’

 

‘Hush! If Ripley should hear you — or worse, the master himself — your own husband will soon be widowed, I’d warrant!’

 

‘Well, who’s young Fleetwood’s real sire, d’ye think?’

 

‘I wouldn’t hazard a guess. Nobody knows. Nobody ever will, I s’pose.’

 

Mazarine banished the stale hearsay from her thoughts. A footman was stalking through the foliage of the conservatory, bringing another course on a silver-gilt salver, and the sour-faced butler was pouring more wine. Half-heartedly she wished he would not — she was unaccustomed to such quantities and it was going to her head, but it seemed to take the edge off her nervousness. Indeed, she felt flooded with delight to be in the company of this handsome young gentleman, whom she had quickly come to admire, trust and love as no other.

 

He was saying something about Thrimby, in response to which she said, ‘How I envy Thrimby his ability to make up rhymes on the spot! It is clever of him, to be sure!’

 

‘Do you have a desire to speak in rhyme, Mistress Blythe?’ her companion bantered.

 

‘Perhaps not to speak rhymes, but at least to write them. I used to compose poetry ...’ Mazarine broke off.

 

‘But no longer? Why not?’

 

‘I —’ The young woman wrestled with a sudden upwelling of sentiment. She could not trust herself to speak, being afraid that if she confessed the reason, she might burst into tears, and tried to mask her fragility by pushing a piece of glazed parsnip around her plate with her fork. Presently she regained control. ‘Forgive me.’

 

Her dinner companion gazed upon her with infinite tenderness. ‘Pray, let us speak of nothing that discomposes you, Mistress Blythe. Behold, I brought you a gift!’ From his pocket he took a small parcel, which he handed to her. ‘I purchased them from a passing pedlar on my way here. Is the colour permissible for those who wear mourning?’

 

Grateful to be distracted from her sorrow, Mazarine unwrapped the parcel. Out spilled a handful of shimmering silken hair-ribbons. Their colour was deep purple, like a stormy sky.

 

‘Indeed, I have often seen this lovely colour combined with mourning-dress,’ the young woman said with shy delight. ‘Gramercie, sir! I will wear them tomorrow! Now in return for your kindness I will answer your question, for I have regained my composure. Writing poetry was once one of my favourite occupations. On that fateful day when my parents set off to call on a friend whose company I found excessively tedious, I begged to be spared the outing so that I could stay home and work on my latest epic. My mother and father met their deaths on that drive.’ She need not explain the manner of their passing; Hawkmoor knew the details only too well. As their carriage was crossing a bridge, a wheel hit a large stone lying in the road. The equipage overturned, toppled over the parapet and fell into the fast-flowing river. ‘Now,’ Mazarine concluded, ‘guilt prevents me from writing any more.’

 

‘Guilt?’ interposed Hawkmoor with a puzzled frown.

 

‘I cannot help wondering — what if my presence in the carriage had somehow been able to prevent the accident? My weight — slight though it be — might have balanced the equipage and stopped it from tipping over, or perhaps I would have been more alert than they, and foreseen the collision that was about to happen and warned the driver to swerve in time.’

 

Her companion shook his head. ‘You are too harsh on yourself, Mistress Blythe.’

 

‘Be that as it may, sir, since that day I have locked my books of writings in a chest. I will no longer be a poet.’

 

Clearly Hawkmoor perceived her returning distress, for he embarked on a more light-hearted topic. Their discourse grew more animated and playful, until by the time dessert was served, Mazarine was so exhilarated by the fragrance of the spice plants, the wine and the enchanting proximity of Hawkmoor, that she abandoned herself to jocosity.

 

‘It is your turn to talk,’ she said. ‘I am eating raspberry pudding. No, pray do not make me laugh — I have a mouthful. No please, that’s so cruel while I am eating!’

 

‘It is your turn, I insist upon it!’ Hawkmoor said amusedly.

 

‘Not at all! You see, the reason why our friendship is so amicable is because it is based around me eating while you talk.’

 

‘Really?’

 

‘Really. And you see, I eat raspberry pudding every day. That is why you will just have to make certain we are together every day!’

 

Mazarine’s supper partner was just about to frame a reply when a commotion from the direction of the kennels heralded a new arrival at Kelmscott. Abruptly, all gaiety ceased.

 

‘Who is coming in, Cottrell?’ Hawkmoor demanded, throwing his serviette down on the table. His features had settled into their former stern expression.

 

The head footman bowed. ‘I cannot say, m’lord. Methinks it is likely to be Lord Rivenhall.’

 

The imminent approach of Mazarine’s guardian was like a dousing of icy water upon the young woman’s mood. For a short while, in the company of Hawkmoor, she had managed to divert herself from the sad mood that had attended her since her bereavement. It had not been so long ago, after all, that the loss of her parents had changed her life forever. She started up from her chair, but Hawkmoor said, ‘Pray do not be disturbed on my sire’s account, Mistress Blythe. Let us finish our meal.’

 

She thought he spoke angrily, and if any of her merriment had remained, it now fled. Hesitantly she resumed her seat, though she could not eat or drink, or even speak, and in silence they waited. At length the rumble of voices and the clatter of boots announced the earl’s advent, and the man himself approached, shouldering past the branches of the orange trees, his valet and two of his bodyguards in his train.

 

He doffed his travelling cloak and threw it aside for the valet to retrieve. A gentleman of middle age, he was elegantly attired in a long, pleated surcoat split at the sides, dark blue cross-gartered hose, and a heavy coat, sumptuously embroidered. His head was ornamented with a rondelle hat of blocked felt, brimmed by a stuffed ring of cloth, gold-netted, tied beneath his chin with thin black ribbons. From beneath the hat a profusion of glossy brown ringlets cascaded over his shoulders. The earl was quite the fashionable dandy. His person, however, failed to match the gorgeousness of his coiffure and garments, for his face was heavily jowled, the flesh blotchy and veined in the places where his cosmetic powder had rubbed off, and his belly, though corseted in a stomacher, was swollen, through over-indulgence, to a solid paunch.

 

His eyes squinted at Hawkmoor from between flabby folds of flesh. ‘What are you doing here?’ he snapped, without preamble or greeting. ‘I thought you were to be absent for three more days!’

 

‘Good evening to you too, sir,’ Hawkmoor said calmly. ‘I finished my tasks early. And you? You seem a trifle ill at ease — you are well, I trust? You come late.’

 

‘And you have dined without me,’ said the older man. ‘You could not wait.’

 

‘For that I must apologise,’ said Mazarine, repressing her resentment of the intruder’s rudeness for courtesy’s sake and starting up a second time. ‘The fault was mine —’ Her guardian turned his attention to her.

 

‘Ah, Mistress Blythe,’ he said, grasping her hand and favouring the back of it with a moist kiss before she knew what he was about. He bared his flawless teeth in a smile. ‘Come, let us to the drawing-room. This wilderness is not a fit place for a man to recover his powers after the excessively provoking string of events to which I have been subjected this evening.’ Without further ado he propelled his ward away, his plump fist pushing at the small of her back, so that she had no choice but to go where he directed. She heard Hawkmoor striding unevenly in their wake, cursing under his breath.

 

As soon as they reached the drawing-room the earl dismissed his bodyguards. He bade his valet pull off his coat for him, remove his shoes and loosen the laces of his stomacher, though he kept his hat on, as was his wont. ‘The cursed coach broke down on a lonely road through the forest!’ he fumed, slumping in a chair before the drawing-room fireplace and throwing one stout leg over the arm of it. To a hovering footman, ‘Where is the mulled wine, for Providence’s sake? I called for it hours ago. And bring me my evening robe!’ To the chamber at large, scowling: ‘How such a mischance could occur I know not. Something came loose. As head coachman, Ogden ought to have seen that all was in order before we departed. It was his responsibility. Since he was not worth his pay I dismissed him and sent him packing as soon as we arrived home. Fleetwood, I charge you to hire a better scrivener than this idle coachman you got for me.’

 

‘I never hired him in the first place, sir. That was Ripley’s achievement, if you recall.’

 

‘Do not mince words with me, pray. I am ill-used enough as it is. To top off my woes, while I was waiting half the night for the acorn-headed footmen to screw the wheel back into place and make some repairs, we were assailed by a troupe of gypsies!’ The earl stared about the room with an air of baffled contempt.

 

‘Gypsies, my lord?’ asked Mazarine, who felt she ought to make some sort of response to fill the ensuing void of silence.

 

‘That is what I said, is it not? A great gaggle of ‘em in the moonlight, hopping about like fools to the hideous squeakings of their fiddlers. Gypsies near the borders of my land! I shall have them run off the estate if they dare set foot within my bounds!’

 

A butler entered with a jug of mulled wine on a tray. He poured some into a goblet while his master snapped his fingers, ‘Hurry up! Hurry up!’ after which the peer proceeded to refresh himself with deep draughts.

 

‘What did they look like, these gypsies?’ Hawkmoor asked. Mazarine glanced sharply at him. It was unlike him to contribute to a conversation with his sire unless forced by necessity.

 

‘Why would you want to know?’ the earl retorted gratingly. ‘They looked like all the rest of their kind, of course — half-sized, ragged folk, their hair long and straggling and greasy, clinking with silver bracelets and hoop earrings, limping and hopping as if they were all lame as three-legged frogs, ha, ha!’

 

Mazarine saw Hawkmoor wince at this remark, but he merely said, ‘They drove no covered wagons?’

 

‘Did I say they had wagons?’

 

‘You did not, sir. Which makes me suspect they may not have been gypsies at all.’

 

‘What do you mean?’

 

‘By your description they were trows.’

 

‘Zounds! Sir, do you not have ears to hear? How many times do I have to repeat myself? Amershire is free from all sinister wights! Trifling oddities such as griggs and harmless types of waterhorses might hang around in certain places, but mere tricksy tom-fools, nothing perilous. Unseelie things simply do not come this far south-east. Any half-wit knows that.’

 

Mazarine wanted to interject, ‘You are deluded!’ She lacked the courage, however, to speak so forcefully, being a comparative newcomer in the earl’s household. Furthermore, she was alarmed to perceive that Hawkmoor was swiftly losing patience with his abrasive sire, and might at any moment cease to tolerate his uncouthness. If that should happen, bitter words would pass between the two, and she lived in dread of Rivenhall’s heir being banished from the house. Life at Kelmscott Hall would be far less bearable without him.

 

Fortunately, at that point her guardian’s valet hastened in carrying his master’s evening robe, a voluminous affair of carmine velvet edged with ermine, which he helped him put on. The earl slumped back into the chair, swallowing more wine.

 

‘Now I return to my own domicile,’ he said, ‘only to find my heir engaged in an intimate dinner with my ward. What am I to think, eh? Perhaps you have been sweet-talking her, eh Fleetwood? Trying to worm your way into her affections? Well, I shall have none of that nonsense, do you understand?’

 

To her horror, Mazarine saw Hawkmoor turn pale with wrath. He glanced briefly in her direction and his glance intimated silently, ‘For your sake, I will leash my anger — but only for your sake.’

 

‘Good night, Mistress Blythe,’ he said. Without another word he spun about and strode from the room, his gait studied, perfectly even and precise, regardless of the price in pain.

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

When those we love have ceased to tread the earth

And, winged, flown beyond our mortal ken,

Then wither poetry, music and mirth,

And only love can bring them back again.

 

 

Hawkmoor kept his distance from his sire whenever possible. He and Mazarine formed a tacit agreement to limit their meetings to times when the master of Kelmscott was elsewhere. Ever since he had discovered them dining together, the earl had made it clear that he strongly disapproved of their forming an attachment, and derisively voiced his scorn of such a possibility at every opportunity. When Hawkmoor was out of earshot he would disparage the young man to Mazarine. She began by defending him, but ceased as soon as she understood that this merely provoked her guardian to outbursts of greater vehemence.

 

Nevertheless, by dint of quick thinking and the earl’s intemperance, they did manage to steal moments together in the presence of none but Mazarine’s lady’s-maid. The earl had a habit of late-night carousing with such of the local land-owners as shared his fondness for inebriation. On mornings when he lay late abed, inconvenienced by over-indulgence on the previous night, Hawkmoor and Mazarine enjoyed hours to themselves. On one such morning they sauntered arm-in-arm through the walled herb garden.

 

‘Tell me of your home in the distant north.’ Hawkmoor suggested, idly toying with a plucked stem of tarragon.

 

‘Why, you yourself, sir, have travelled through lands as far-flung as any!’ the young woman replied, laughing.

 

‘Aye that is true, but I have never visited Reveswall, so tell me, pray!’

 

‘Well, it is a fair land, though anyone who travels along a country road at dusk might spy slanting eyes, emerald or topaz, watching furtively from the hedges and winking out as quickly as they appeared; or hear the sound of laughing and sobbing, or shrill voices talking gibberish, or high-pitched singing, or the faint strains of music played on bagpipes, thin reed whistles or fiddles.’

 

‘Ah, yes. Such phenomena are observed everywhere in Erith. Go on!’ Hawkmoor prompted, observing his dinner companion’s enthusiasm with evident pleasure. ‘What was one of the oddest things you ever saw?’

 

‘Once, when walking home along a familiar path through the meadows at evening, my father and I spied a thing like a donkey’s head with a smooth velvet hide, hanging on a gate. We knew not what to make of it. Cautiously my father approached this peculiar incarnation, but suddenly it turned around, snapped at his outstretched hand and disappeared! I cried out, startled, and asked my Papa what it was.

 

‘“I believe,” he said, clearly somewhat rattled though unhurt, “it was something called a Shock.”

 

‘“What do Shocks do?” I enquired.

 

‘“As far as I am aware, they merely hang on gates,” said Papa. “They are seldom seen. Little is known of them.’”

 

‘I have never heard of such a creature,’ said Hawkmoor, shaking his head. ‘There are strange things in Erith more numerous than can be catalogued by humankind.’ They talked on, drifting from subject to subject, and eventually he said, ‘Next week I must interview applicants for the position of scrivener and book-keeper to my father. He has demanded this of me, insisting that it is my duty to perform such tasks for him.’

 

‘Scrivener? Does he not already employ a scrivener?’

 

‘No. He has always looked after his own accounts — which is why his finances have fallen into a chaotic state.’

 

‘That is hardly imaginable!’

 

‘To all appearances my sire is wealthy, Mistress Blythe, but he is not as well off as in years past. He has a growing number of creditors, for he spends considerable amounts of money on a variety of pleasures whenever he goes to town.’ The young man twirled the sprig of tarragon in his fingers.

 

‘Forgive me if I sound presumptuous, my Lord, but why should you be the one to find him a scrivener?’

 

‘No forgiveness required, Mistress Blythe. My sire will not bother himself with sifting through the applicants. He has faith in my judgement of men, at least, for it was I who engaged the services of Tom Glover, the truest of men, the most honest and capable manager for my own estate. Southdale Farm thrives under his direction.’

 

‘How many have applied for the scrivener’s position?’

 

‘Six-and-twenty.’

 

‘Then you will indeed be kept busy! I daresay you have a hundred matters to attend to at Southdale, yet you will be forced to remain here, interviewing book-keepers. Perhaps you will find it tedious.’

 

Hawkmoor’s gaze met hers in the sunlight, and she saw her face reflected in his dark eyes. So handsome was he that it was thrilling to look upon him.

 

‘I can no longer find it tedious in this house, Mistress Blythe.’ And in case she had overlooked the message he added, ‘Not since you arrived.’

 

Stars were stabbing ice-white fractures into the dusky heavens beyond the glass roof. Mazarine found herself at a loss for words. Hawkmoor had quite unexpectedly bestowed on her a compliment, which was uncharacteristic of him — his manner was usually quite reserved. She tried to cover her delighted confusion by bending down to examine a patch of blue-flowered rosemary. What could he mean by it? Surely she was ascribing too much significance to his words — after all, she was no beauty, and he, achingly beautiful, was a kind of lodestone attracting all the eligible young ladies of the district.

 

Straightening up, she regained her composure and the two of them began to conjure ways to make tedious interviews with book-keepers interesting; inventing scenarios that became more and more farfetched, until at length each comment, no matter how trite, set off another peal of laughter.

 

* * * *

 

In the second week of Gaothmis, Hawkmoor kept his promise to his sire. Ensconcing himself in his book-lined study, he interviewed the two dozen applicants for the position of scrivener.

 

On another morning when the earl was still snoring abed, Mazarine and Hawkmoor were taking the air in the shrubbery, their elbows linked. As usual they were accompanied by Mazarine’s lady’s-maid Odalys, who trailed after them, deliberately shuffling her feet through the fallen Autumn leaves to make them rustle, for she liked the sound. Lost in some reverie, she was humming an ancient tune called ‘Bogles in the Hedges’.

 

‘I wish that your coming-of-age would befall tomorrow, Mistress Blythe,’ said Hawkmoor as they strolled. At unguarded moments like this, he allowed himself to limp; it eased the torment of wrenched and poisoned sinews that had healed awry.

 

‘I too!’ Mazarine replied. ‘The third of Sovrachmis is but six months away, yet it feels like six years. I am more than ready to assume responsibility for my life and my fortune on my twenty-first birthday.’

 

‘I can hardly wait for that day,’ said Hawkmoor

 

‘Why?’ Mazarine asked nonchalantly, feeling her pulse accelerate.

 

‘Oh the bogles in the hedges,’ tunelessly sang Odalys at their backs, ‘the drowners in the sedges, the warners in the mountains and the asrai in the fountains ...’

 

Mazarine could not help laughing at her maid’s rendition, and Hawkmoor joined in, both trying to smother their hilarity so as not to cause offence.

 

‘I do believe she learned that lamentable ditty from Thrimby,’ said Mazarine.

 

‘Ah, the matchless Thrimby!’ said Hawkmoor, with a smile of such marvellous comeliness that it thrilled his companion to her very fingertips. Amongst the brilliantly coloured foliage of the crimson glory vine that crept upon a stone wall, a blackbird began to sing. By then the companions had lost the thread of their conversation.

 

‘I must leave you soon,’ Hawkmoor went on, gazing thoughtfully down at Mazarine — for he was a good deal taller than her, being two inches more than six feet in height. ‘I can see the day’s first applicant approaching along the driveway.’

 

Mazarine had witnessed some of the comings and goings of the hopefuls. Unexpectedly she now beheld, walking around the side to the servants’ entrance, a young man with a scholarly air, whose face and form she knew well. ‘Wakefield!’ she cried. Releasing her escort’s arm she ran up to the newcomer, through the fading glory of the golden abelias whose cast-off leaves were strewn upon the footpaths like handfuls of shining coins. ‘Master Squires! What a wonderful surprise!’

 

The new arrival stopped in his tracks and regarded Mazarine with astonishment. ‘Mistress Blythe!’

 

A comely young man in the sober dress of a clerk — dyed in shades of dark blue and slate — and a soft grey cap with a rolled woollen brim, the applicant turned out to be an old friend of Mazarine’s, her companion of early years when she and her parents had lived in the north. Overjoyed to see him, the young woman took his arm with artless eagerness, enquiring as to the health of his parents who, he assured her, were quite well and still dwelling in their old abode.

 

‘Fleetwood, where are you?’ Mazarine cried, turning back with shining face. ‘This is a childhood friend of mine, Master Wakefield Squires! I have not seen him these six or seven Winters, since he left Reveswall to travel the world. Master Squires, pray allow me to introduce you to my cousin, Lord Fleetwood.’

 

Hawkmoor had caught up with them. He stood gravely regarding the newcomer, who bowed. ‘At your service, sir,’ he said, to which Hawkmoor responded with a murmured courtesy. Mazarine was about to launch into a happy exploration of the events in their lives since last they parted, when she recalled the object of her old friend’s visit.

 

‘I daresay I had better leave you to conduct your business,’ she said, ‘but afterwards, Master Squires, will you oblige me by taking refreshment in the front drawing-room?’

 

‘I would be honoured, Mistress Blythe.’

 

‘Splendid! I will have Odalys conduct you there at the conclusion of your interview. Fleetwood, will you join us?’

 

Hawkmoor shook his head. ‘Five other appointments await me this morning,’ he replied. ‘Besides, I am certain you two have many reminiscences to mull over, and my presence would only be an intrusion. Delighted to meet you, Master Squires — shall we proceed indoors?’

 

Wakefield stood aside to allow Mazarine and her cousin to enter at the side door, before bring up the rear with Odalys. Above their heads, unnoticed, a scowling face peered down at them from a second storey window.

 

* * * *

 

Over the next few days Mazarine was unable to secure more than a few brief moments alone with Hawkmoor, for as usual the earl created obstacles to their companionship at every turn, and besides, the young man was fully occupied with numerous tasks. After an intensive week of interlocution Hawkmoor narrowed, down the list of applicants to three young gentlemen, one of whom was Wakefield Squires.

 

Late one night at the end of the week Hawkmoor was leaning on his elbows at the desk in his study. The window in front of him gave onto a view of the ornamental lake. In its depths on nets of constellations hung the moon’s reflection, like a giant platter of polished pewter. The rest of the household was abed — all save one.

 

A pattering, as of mice’s feet, roused the young man from his brooding. ‘Thrimby, is that you?’

 

The servant moved into a shaft of starlight. Though he was a small fellow, and wizened as though ancient in years, he carried cleaning implements on his shoulder as if they weighed nothing, and moved nimbly, like a youth. Hawkmoor had no notion of his age. Thrimby had been at Kelmscott ever since he could remember, quietly busy at his nocturnal chores, always wearing his ragged clothing and his worn-out slippers. His old nursemaid had warned her charge never to offer the servant new garments. ‘For,’ she had cautioned, ‘if you do, he will go away and never come back.’

 

‘Why?’ the child Hawkmoor had wanted to know.

 

‘Because he is a brownie, though some refuse to acknowledge the fact. Brownies depart forever if you thank them or give them clothing. If Kelmscott Hall were to lose its brownie it would be much the worse for the family.’

 

His old nurse was always right, so he had heeded her advice.

 

‘What can I give him to show gratitude?’ he had asked.

 

‘A bowl of fresh, creamy milk each day, a hunch of soft bread. Sometimes a handful of herbs. That is all. Oh, and domestic wights such as brownies approve of mortal folk who are tidy and hardworking. They despise slovenliness and loathe being spied on. Therefore be diligent and allow him his privacy, I dread to think what would happen if we were to lose him!’

 

She had died of old age in her dreams, his nurse, and been buried in the local graveyard, having been the closest approximation to a mother he had ever known. His father’s next two wives had not been permitted to show interest in the lad; they had to put forth their charms exclusively for the earl.

 

‘Aye ‘tis Thrimby ‘ere, young master,’ said a voice like the swivelling of rusted hinges. ‘Ye be sleepless, eh?’

 

‘I am.’

 

‘Pinin’, no doubt.’

 

‘Pining? What makes you say so?’

 

‘Blind Freddy could see it.’

 

‘Well, and small wonder if I am.’

 

‘She returns your affections,’ said Thrimby, whisking a few token motes of dust off the top of a pile of books with a bouquet of plumy feathers.

 

Presently Hawkmoor replied, ‘Your comments are of a very personal nature, Thrimby.’

 

‘And why should they not be? I’ve knowed ye since ye was a little ‘un, young master. I know all that goes on in this ‘ouse, and I tell ye, she returns your affections, is owt wrong wiv that?’ Screwing up his odd little face the servant squinted at the young man.

 

‘Nothing is wrong with it,’ said Hawkmoor, shrugging.

 

‘Wot’s wrong wiv you then?’ Thrimby lifted a corner of the hearthrug and swept furiously under it with a straw besom.

 

“Tis true, I am heavy of heart. I flattered myself that she would accept my offer of marriage once she turned twenty-one,’ said Hawkmoor. ‘Now I am not so certain of the future.’

 

‘Don’t let the old master stand in yer way!’

 

“Tis not him.’Tis Squires.’

 

‘Wot, that bookish young gentleman? I can’t see it, meself.’

 

‘She dotes on him, Thrimby. She has invited him to take elevenses with her twice this week. That makes three meetings in the space of seven days.’

 

Vigorously rubbing a brass lamp with a polishing rag, Thrimby said, ‘In that case, send ‘im packin’ young sir. ‘Tis your call. A master never need explain to those who serve in ‘is domain, for he may ‘ire and fire at whim and nobody can gainsay ‘im. And if a servant fails to please by causing damage or unease, ‘e’ll find ‘imself outside the door among the starving and the poor.’

 

He subjoined, rhyme-less, ‘But you don’t ‘ave to ‘ire ‘im in the first place!’

 

‘Very good!’ said Hawkmoor in a brief flash of admiration for the spontaneous jingle. ‘It is indeed my “call”, as you put it,’ he continued. ‘I wish only for Miss Blythe’s happiness, and so I shall do what I believe is best.’

 

Thrimby stared at the young man for a long moment, sighed profoundly, scratched his head and resumed his housework.

 

* * * *

 

Hawkmoor recommended to his sire that Wakefield Squires be hired.

 

Whereupon that young scholar was grilled by Chief Steward Ripley, regarding his ability to keep his employer’s affairs to himself, and his willingness to sign an Agreement of Secrecy whose stipulations, Ripley assured him, would be pursued vigorously, were the signatory ever to break his word. This brawny thug gave the young man to understand that he meant ‘vigorously’ in a very physical sense, in consequence of which Master Squires had second thoughts about taking on the position, and said so, causing the earl to step in, saying he was satisfied that only a gentleman who took the contract seriously would consider throwing away such a lucrative and highly sought-after situation, and this was precisely the kind of employee he had been looking for, and Ripley must be excused for his exaggerations because we are all civilised creatures, and Lord Rivenhall would never countenance ruffianly behaviour from his staff.

 

Subsequently Master Squires reconsidered, for the earl could be both charming and persuasive when it suited him. The young scholar took lodgings at Clover Cottage with the Wiltons, thereafter commencing to appear at the earl’s side door early every morning and work all day in his study in the west wing. Assiduously he dedicated himself to writing letters and keeping the books or, to be more accurate, sorting them out, for he discovered the accounts to be in an almost inextricable state of chaos.

 

Mazarine was pleased to have her childhood friend so close at hand, although a niggling doubt prompted her to ask Hawkmoor whether he had hired Wakefield for her sake.

 

‘Not at all,’ said Hawkmoor. ‘I assure you, Miss Blythe, he was the best candidate.’

 

And instantly Mazarine regretted having asked such a question, for it would appear to cast doubts upon Hawkmoor’s integrity. He must have supposed she believed him capable of disloyalty to his father, a breaker of his promise to choose the featest man for the job. Yet it was too late and the thoughtless words could not be unsaid, though she apologised, which only seemed to make matters worse.

 

From the time of Master Squires’s engagement, Hawkmoor no longer appeared as warm towards Mazarine as before, but cold and formal. She wondered whether she had done anything else to upset him, and agonised over it, and felt, as when they had first met, uncertain in his company.

 

Fully cognizant of the reason for his heir’s reserve and revelling in it, Lord Rivenhall continually invited Master Squires to dine with the family. Mazarine was amazed that such an arrogant swank as her guardian would invite an employee to dine at his own table, but Hawkmoor grimly understood, and took his meals in subdued silence, leaving the chatter to Wakefield and Mazarine who, encouraged by the earl, indulged in recalling their childhood adventures.

 

Once or twice after dinner Mazarine quietly asked Hawkmoor if he were in good health.

 

‘I am indeed. Gramercie,’ he merely replied, and walked away with symmetrical poise.

 

If the young master kept himself aloof from Mazarine, he confided his inmost observations to industrious Thrimby, on the nocturnal occasions when that mysterious personage made himself apparent.

 

‘I find myself in constant turmoil, Thrimby,’ said he, sitting once again at his desk by the window, ‘restraining my sorrow and wrath. I can assure you, it goes hard with me. I would leave this house, if not that I crave to be near her, under the same roof. Yet it is torture knowing she is infatuated with another, and my father slyly adds to that torment with his teasing.’

 

‘I tell you, ‘tis you,’ insisted Thrimby, frenziedly scrubbing the hearth with an enormous brush of boar’s bristles. ‘You, she fancies.’

 

‘Why then does she spend so much time with him?’

 

‘They share memories of ‘appy child’oods, that is all!’

 

‘She is more often in his company than in mine.’

 

‘Because the master contrives to separate the two of you.’

 

‘I am not convinced!’

 

‘Suit yourself, young master.’ Dunking the brush zealously in a pail of rinsing-water, Thrimby continued,

 

‘When jealous thought uplifts its ‘ead, it crushes trust until it’s dead,

 

And tortures love’s reality. Then joy and satisfaction flee.’

 

He resumed scrubbing. Soap bubbles flew up like flocks of tiny birds.

 

‘To be honest I am not jealous, Thrimby,’ replied Hawkmoor. ‘I merely wish to make Mistress Blythe happy, and if she would be happier with him than with me, then that is how it must be.’

 

“Tis true enough that ye be not the jealous kind, young master. As blind, deaf and dumb as a mole wearing ear-muffs mayhap; as self effacin’ as a snowman jumping into a frying pan, maybe, but not the jealous kind. As sacrificial as a worm wot offers itself to a blackbird to save the other worms ... ‘

 

‘Yes, yes, Thrimby, much obliged; that’s enough. I do comprehend your rather insulting point. But I will not be persuaded otherwise.’

 

* * * *

 

When Wakefield was working on the accounts and Hawkmoor was away at Southdale, Mazarine occupied herself with her hobbies — watercolour painting, sketching, collecting foliage and flowers for pressing, and writing letters to the friends she had left behind in northern Severnesse.

 

Most often the earl was in his study in the west wing, arguing with Master Squires, or closeted in the library with his Chief Steward, plotting recondite strategies, or out shooting game with some of his louche companions — country gentlemen from around the district, or sleeping off the effects of a night’s carousing in his own halls or the halls of his hunting companions.

 

Unexpectedly one afternoon, the earl summoned Mazarine to his side.

 

‘It is my wish to conduct you on a progress through this house, my dear,’ he said, offering her his arm in its brocaded sleeve. ‘It occurs to me you have not yet viewed all its glories. I think you will be pleased with what you see!’

 

Bemused, she capitulated, passing her hand through the crook of his elbow. They strolled leisurely from chamber to chamber, along galleries, up and down staircases wide and narrow, through ‘secret’ passageways behind the walls and out along balconies and roof-walks. The house’s interior decor seemed to include an inordinate number of mirrors and, as they passed them, Mazarine’s guardian took every opportunity to glance at his image, whereupon he would adjust his latest millinery acquisition — all feathers and jewelled brooches — or rearrange his luxuriant shoulder-length ringlets or pick at his gleaming teeth with a silver toothpick he kept in a tiny ivory box in some inner pocket of his sleeve. Mazarine, in rustling black silk, walked calmly by his side. At length they arrived at the Long Gallery, whose row of tall windows provided extensive views of the grounds. The rear wall was decorated with paintings of the current earl from boyhood to manhood, captured in various magnificent attitudes; winged and graceful, flying in the clouds; sternly commanding, standing at the helm of a Windship; courageous and dauntless, galloping into battle on a white charger; sensitive and poetic, reclining beside a pool, trailing his unrealistically slender, pale fingers among the waterlilies.

 

In front of the latter work of art, the earl paused and, turning to face his ward, grasped both her hands in his.

 

‘May I speak to you candidly, my dear?’

 

Nonplussed, dumbfounded and suddenly anxious, Mazarine nodded. She tried not to meet his eyes, which resembled two pools of half-cooked albumen congealing in pink bowls.

 

‘You see, my dear,’ the earl said earnestly, ‘it is an unfortunate fact that, despite what blandishments your fond parents have no doubt lavished upon you, your physical attractions are, shall we say, limited. To be frank, your features are plain, your character is dull and you possess few accomplishments. One tries to be optimistic, however I am afraid that in the normal course of events you cannot hope to attract a husband of any worthwhile status. Due to our family connections I am, nevertheless, prepared to overlook your dearth of charms and, if you are careful to continue pleasing me, I might one day offer you — yes, you — the title of Lady Rivenhall!’ He paused to survey the effect of this good news, but when there was none — no doubt because the young lady was overcome with appreciativeness — he continued, ‘Being raised to such high estate would benefit you in numerous ways. You would be able to make the most of your ordinary looks with fine raiment, cosmetics and coiffure, because I, being widely acknowledged as a paragon of style, would condescend to teach you myself.’

 

Mazarine, who had kept her eyes cast down throughout the entire monologue lest her guardian detect that she had begun to feel unwell, was trying hard to mask her reaction. The preposterous old fool! she said to herself, How could he so much as dream I would accept him? I fear I must feign gratitude at this ludicrous proposal. I must keep the peace in this house for my own sake, until I am twenty-one — then I shall be free!

 

‘I know what you are thinking,’ said her guardian. At these words a cold wire threaded itself along Mazarine’s spine. He had it wrong, however. ‘You are thinking that Fleetwood, who has tried to flatter his way into your good graces, might undergo a fit of apoplexy if he does not get his way. Yet fret no more on the matter, my dear — the boy’s peevish tantrums can be taken care of. You understand of course that he feels no real attachment to you. It is merely that without your compliance a cripple such as he has small chance of snaring himself a wife. By rights he ought to be wheeled around in a bath chair. He feigns straightness of limb, but his tricks fool nobody. Everyone knows of his wry gait, and eligible young ladies of good breeding and fortune find such skewedness unacceptable, there is no doubt of it.’

 

Hold your tongue! Mazarine told herself desperately. Let him rant. They are only words ...do not let him provoke you!

 

‘Dear uncle,’ she forced herself to say at last, ‘how generous you are. Pray excuse me, I am so overwhelmed by your kind offer that I find myself indisposed.’ With that she hurried away, one hand plastered to her brow as if she were suffering some malaise of the head.

 

‘I shall send whatsername your maid to your chambers,’ her guardian shouted after her, turning away to glance in the closest mirror.

 

Instead of going directly to her suite, Mazarine detoured by way of her uncle’s study. She knocked at the carved oaken door, pushed it open cautiously and peered inside.

 

‘Do come in, Mistress Blythe!’ said Wakefield, replacing his quill in the pen holder and jumping to his feet. Piles of papers and ledgers towered around him, burdening the desk, the cabinets and the floor. ‘I have not yet taken a break for elevenses, so I may interrupt my work for a few minutes, at least. My word, you do look downcast! Pray take a seat on the divan. Shall I ring for your maid? Or some cordial?’

 

‘No, no! I would rather speak with you alone,’ cried Mazarine. Once she was seated beside her friend she said diffidently, ‘Wakefield, I know I can confide in you. The thing is, I am in love with Fleetwood.’

 

‘I know,’ the young clerk said cheerily. ‘I have known since the moment I first saw you together, and I am uncommonly happy for both of you, for I feel certain that that worthy gentleman returns your sentiments!’

 

‘Perhaps,’ Mazarine replied dubiously. ‘Perhaps not. For, you know, it might be difficult for anyone to love me in that way, because I am —’ she hesitated, embarrassed, and averted her face ‘— it must be admitted, I am not very pretty ...’

 

‘Not pretty!’ cried Wakefield, half rising from his chair, ‘Not pretty? Where in Aia did you get that idea?’

 

‘I have always believed...’

 

‘What nonsense!’ Wakefield plumped himself down again and leaned forwards. ‘If you will pardon my bluntness, Mistress Blythe — Mazarine, if I may presume on our friendship — in my humble opinion you are one of the most beautiful creatures in Erith!’

 

‘You are trying to reassure me, Master Squires. It is most kind, but —’

 

‘Say no more on the subject!’ Wakefield said with mock severity. ‘I can see you are deluded. One good stare into a looking-glass should tell you of your beauty, but clearly you are blind to it. Nevertheless accept my word, and believe in your mind if not your heart, that you are indeed extraordinarily comely! If you will not be convinced, try asking your house-brownie. Eldritch wights cannot tell lies, so perhaps you will place confidence in him!’

 

‘Oh, so you have glimpsed Thrimby?’

 

‘Yes, why not?’

 

‘I suspect my uncle never has.’

 

‘Perhaps Thrimby will not let him!’

 

They both laughed. It was a relief for Mazarine to converse mirthfully and freely with her friend after the unpleasant rhetoric to which her guardian had recently subjected her.

 

‘Now that you have entrusted your romantic secret to me, Mistress Blythe,’ Wakefield murmured, waggling his eyebrows, ‘I have a similar arcanum for your ears alone!’

 

‘In sooth? Tell on!’

 

The young man leaned closer and began to whisper in Mazarine’s ear. It was at that moment that Hawkmoor chanced to pass by the study door — which Mazarine had left ajar — his footsteps muffled by the thick carpeting of the hallway. He glanced inside. The two confidantes were positioned out of view, but one of the earl’s ubiquitous mirrors — a vast, shimmering expanse, like a frozen skating-pond in a heavy gilt frame, fastened to the wall above the mantelpiece — revealed their reflected images; the two heads bent together in a most intimate pose as they whispered together. That single glimpse was enough for the heir of Rivenhall. Despairing, he hastened away.

 

Meanwhile Wakefield was murmuring, ‘Mistress Wilton and I are troth-plighted!’

 

Mazarine’s chime of delighted laughter smote Hawkmoor like a blow as he retreated along the passageway. In the study, the next few minutes were given over to Mazarine’s congratulatory utterances and her showering of praises upon the person of Laurelia Wilton.

 

‘Keep the news to yourself, pray, dear Mistress Blythe,’ said Wakefield. ‘Laurelia and I cannot be wed until I have scraped together a little more capital to ensure our financial security.’

 

‘The matter is safe with me!’ Mazarine assured him. ‘But hush! I hear my uncle’s voice. He is coming. I would rather avoid him!’ Taking her leave of the clerk she flitted noiselessly out of the study through a secret passage that opened behind a hinged bookcase — a way she had discovered by herself, and which she was fairly certain the earl was unaware of.

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

Misunderstanding leads to jealousy

Or hate or anger — sometimes to all three.

Our motives, though of high integrity,

Are lost if not presented limpidly.

Through etiquette, reserve or courtesy,

We misconstrue good purpose constantly.

 

 

After the earl’s declaration Mazarine found it more difficult than ever to catch a moment alone with Hawkmoor. She wished only for an opportunity to ask him why he had become so distant, and whether she had inadvertently caused any offence, but it was as if Steward Ripley, the bodyguards and most of the other servants — including even the under-gardener — were spying on her. Any time she believed she was on the verge of being able to converse with Hawkmoor unobserved, whether indoors or out, some member of the household would appear casually around a corner, supposedly labouring at an important task — re-pointing the masonry, inspecting the beams for woodworm, hunting for truffles, searching for the earl’s lost snuff-box — always just within earshot.

 

‘Prithee, take yourself elsewhere!’ Mazarine would beg.

 

‘Alas, mistress, his lordship appointed me to this task. I cannot disobey!’

 

In exasperation Mazarine would suggest to Hawkmoor that they move to a more secluded spot. If he could be persuaded to do so, it was only to be surprised by yet another employee appearing at their elbows. There was no privacy to be had at Kelmscott Hall. Furthermore, the earl would not hear of his heir and his ward going off together on any jaunts outside the estate. He came up with a remarkably ingenious set of excuses to thwart such excursions and, since he was master, his word was law. Besides, to make matters worse it began to dawn on Mazarine that Hawkmoor, too, was avoiding situations likely to bring them together.

 

Away over the hills thunder grumbled. The wind was rising. As evening drew in, a storm was rapidly approaching from the distant coast. Mazarine, passing through the darkening galleries of Kelmscott in the west wing, heard the echoes of men’s voices. Drawing near to her guardian’s study she stopped outside the closed door. The utterances were muffled. Mazarine, however, had not paused to eavesdrop; she merely wished to ascertain who was within, for Hawkmoor was due to arrive home at any time, and if the earl was preoccupied she intended to seize the opportunity to speak in private with the object of her affections. At length she was satisfied that the room did indeed contain the earl, deep in conversation with Ripley. Doubtless the two connivers would be conducting their vigorous discussion for a good long while, for by the gravity of their tones it sounded as if they dwelled on serious matters, probably pertaining to the series of disasters Master Squires was uncovering in the earl’s ill-kept records of monies owed and monies due.

 

Hastening to a window overlooking the driveway, Mazarine gazed out. The evening skies hung heavy and sullen, bruised with rainclouds. A flash of white light briefly illumined the figure of a horseman on the avenue, between the outlines of tall cypress trees stencilled against the sky. Hawkmoor was here already! Picking up her skirts the damsel rushed along the gallery at speed. Down the stairs and out the door she flew, finally intercepting the new arrival as he let his horse walk to the stables beneath an arbour dripping with the magnificent amber, gold and ruby leaves of the climbing plant known as ‘crimson glory-vine’.

 

At Mazarine’s appearance the rider halted. He turned towards her with a look of sad enquiry, holding the reins of his steed loosely in his right hand. As so often, his masculine beauty struck the girl with force. Momentarily, she became tongue-tied. She who hesitates, loses, her mother used to say, and abruptly it was true, for a groom appeared from the stables, and the moment was lost. Hawkmoor dismounted — without betraying the slightest evidence of any twinge, so well had he schooled himself — but denied the reins to the servant and stood holding them, while his horse nodded its long head and chewed on the bit. The groom waited, eyes respectfully cast down.

 

‘Mistress Blythe,’ Hawkmoor said. With his other hand he swept off his hat. She noticed that his heavy hair was working loose from its band at the back of his head. The wind, stronger now, was whipping strands about his face. Her skirts billowed in the gusts, and coloured leaves came showering around them both, like a carnival.

 

‘I wish to speak with you,’ she stammered.

 

‘I am at your service.’

 

‘A little more privacy would be fitting ...’

 

‘Certainly.’ Hawkmoor dismissed the groom, who bowed and trotted away. Together Hawkmoor and Mazarine walked towards the stables. The horse was eager to get to his haybox, and tugged on the reins; Hawkmoor caressed the steaming arch of the animal’s neck and soothed him with gentle words.

 

Diffidently, Mazarine endeavoured to order in her mind the best way to broach the subject she dreaded. Presently she drew breath and opened her mouth, but once again she had left it too late. The keening of the wind and the low mutter of thunder running back and forth across the horizon had masked the sound of boots crunching on gravel.

 

‘What?’ bellowed the well-known voice of the earl, and in another few strides he was with them, Ripley close at his shoulder, and a couple of bodyguards loitering ominously in the background.

 

‘What passes here? Do my eyes deceive me, or do I see my own heir consorting with my ward, behind my very back? Do I deserve such thanklessness as this, that as soon as I look the other way the two of you are colluding secretly together? Mazarine, I hold you not responsible, for you are but a child, but you sir, have you no respect for your sire, no sense of filial devotion?’

 

The earl’s flabby face was empurpled with emotion. Mazarine felt the heat of shock and indignation burn her own cheeks. Her companion, however, remained cool.

 

‘I may converse with whomsoever I wish,’ Hawkmoor said icily. ‘Your view is unreasonable.’

 

‘Do you dare defy me, you halting ingrate?’ the earl’s voice rose in pitch until it became a squeak. ‘Insubordinate pup! You itch only to take my place and inherit my money and title. ‘Tis true is it not? Eh?’

 

Hawkmoor regarded his sire expressionlessly without deigning to reply, which attitude provoked the earl to greater wrath. He clenched his fists, quivering as if he longed to smite the calm and self-contained young gentleman who confronted him.

 

Placing her hand beseechingly on her guardian’s arm Mazarine said, ‘I beg you sir, do not be angry with Fleetwood! He has done nothing amiss. I only asked to speak with him, that is all.’

 

‘Oh, so that is how it stands between you two, eh?’ The earl rounded on her. ‘She tries to protect her favourite, while he hides behind her skirts like some cringing cur!’ Pushing his face close to Hawkmoor’s, the earl snarled, ‘Go, sir! Get out! From this hour forth you are banished from my house. I disinherit you, as I ought to have done at your birth, for your slut of a mother was faithless. All that is yours will be thrown out upon the sward — let your servants pick up the pieces if they will.’

 

Mazarine uttered a gasping cry.

 

‘Gladly will I go,’ said Hawkmoor. He bowed curtly to Mazarine, leaped upon his steed with extraordinary agility, and galloped away.

 

As if to emphasize the drama of the moment a clap of thunder split open the skies overhead, and rain came sluicing down in torrents.

 

Desolation enfolded Mazarine.

 

* * * *

 

The skies wept all night, as did the earl’s ward, alone in a deep armchair in the library. She was barely aware of the occasional noises of energetic housework emanating from different parts of the building, generated by Thrimby attending to his tasks. Before sunrise next morning the servant popped in and said without preamble, “E were somewhat envious o’ the bookish chap, were the young master.’

 

‘Fleetwood? Envious of Master Squires?’ Mazarine looked up and dabbed at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

 

Thrimby, obsessively whisking a bunch of feathers in a cloud of dust over by the bookshelves, said, ‘Aye.’

 

‘Surely not!’

 

‘Aye, but ‘e woz, mark ye. Thought ye liked Squires more’n ‘im.’

 

‘I had no idea! In that case I must send him a message assuring him of my truest affection!’

 

Immediately Mazarine fetched paper, ink and quill, and penned a note which she sealed with red wax and gave to her loyal lady’s-maid, with instructions to have it delivered swiftly and in utmost discretion to Southdale Farm. The reply came back that afternoon — Lord Fleetwood had not rested the previous night at the farmstead but had tarried there only for long enough to change horses. Declaring that he would catch the next post-chaise heading for the west coast, he had galloped away to town. Whither he had gone, no one could say — out of Amershire, certainly; possibly out of the country. The household at Southdale knew of no way to contact him and had no notion of when he would return.

 

After this precipitate departure the earl’s behaviour towards Mazarine became conciliatory in the extreme, as if he wished to curry favour with her, to make amends for his outburst.

 

‘Let us dine together more often, my dear,’ he would say, ‘without the intrusion of any of these young pups. Let us ride out together in my coach! Poor creature — you do look downcast. Allow me to cheer you up! Come to town with me and I shall buy you a new hat, or a lap dog!’

 

For Mazarine the only consolation for these trials was that the earl, aware that Lord Fleetwood had gone far away, allowed his ward to make daytime excursions without him at her side. It appeared, too, that he had got wind of Master Squires’s attachment to Laurelia Wilton, and felt reassured that there could be no intrigue between Mazarine and the clerk. Often, Mazarine and her maid, escorted by one of the Kelmscott equerries, would ride over to Clover Cottage. Filled with foreboding, she unburdened herself to her most trusted confidantes.

 

‘Soon, I am certain,’ she said to Laurelia Wilton on one such visit when they were alone together, ‘my guardian will ask me to be his wife. I shall refuse — but I fear what will happen next, for he is a ruthless man!’

 

‘Surely he would not use violence against you!’ Mazarine’s friend was horrified. Pinned loops of light brown hair, straight as corn silk, framed her heart-shaped face as she sat in the parlour working at her embroidery. Her gown was pale blue, her favourite colour.

 

‘I am not certain ...’ said Mazarine.

 

‘Thrimby bides in Kelmscott Hall. He will see that you come to no harm.’

 

‘Ah yes, the illustrious, industrious Thrimby. But I do not know the extent of his powers.’

 

‘He is an eldritch wight, is he not? A faerie-creature of the seelie kind?’

 

‘Perhaps. Who knows? Even if he is of that race, he is not of the powerful ones. Domestic wights may be lightning fast and expert at cleaning — also good at eavesdropping and spying — but I would not wager on their winning a battle with the master or any of his hired thugs.’

 

‘My dear Squires tells me your guardian’s finances are in disarray,’ said Laurelia. ‘He is close to ruin! If he can no longer pay these hirelings, he will have to let them go.’

 

‘I do not believe he is quite that desperate, yet.’ Mazarine sighed and added, ‘He professes affection for me, but I fear he is only after my inheritance.’

 

‘Nobody is in any doubt of that,’ Laurelia retorted tartly, ‘which is no insult to you. I only mean that the earl is incapable of love for any creature other than himself.’

 

‘He shall not lay his hands on any more of my parents’ money!’ cried Mazarine. ‘Already the executors pay him a sizeable pension for my upkeep. Oh, it has been odious beyond belief, this misunderstanding with Fleetwood. I only wish he would return swiftly! Where can he be? How I long to undeceive him! How I long for his support!’

 

Hawkmoor, nonetheless, did not return.

 

Weeks passed. During Nethilmis, the first month of Winter, itinerant strangers were glimpsed on several occasions, roaming in Kelmscott Park. On each occasion when Ripley and his henchmen got up a posse to throw the ‘gypsies’ off the property, they had already disappeared.

 

‘Not gypsies, I am certain of it,’ Wakefield said to Mazarine and Laurelia one evening as they took their ease by the parlour fire at Clover Cottage. ‘As sure as Thrimby is a brownie, they are trow-folk — or hilltings, or Grey Neighbours as they are sometimes called. Trows, roaming abroad from their hidden lands beneath the hills.’

 

‘People around here believe that trows seldom stray into these parts,’ said Laurelia.

 

‘Then they had best be careful,’ said Wakefield, ‘for he who remains ignorant of the ways of wights puts himself at risk.’

 

‘Why?’ Mazarine asked. ‘I do not know much about trow-folk myself. Though other kinds of wights aplenty haunt Reveswall, trows are rare. Are they so unseelie?’

 

‘Not unseelie in the way the fuathan are unseelie,’ Wakefield replied, ‘for they are not destroyers of humankind, but neither are they always seelie. For the most part they neither help nor hinder human beings. Sometimes the trow-wives enter people’s homes by night, in search of a basin of clean water in which to bathe their babies.’

 

‘I thought wights had to be invited to cross the thresholds of humankind,’ said Laurelia.

 

‘At some time in the past,’ Wakefield answered, ‘a householder must have given them permission to enter that particular abode, and being immortal, they may keep that permission for generations of men until someone revokes it. The trow-wives depart by cock-crow, without doing harm, and might even leave a silver sixpence behind if they are pleased with the cleanliness of the establishment. They must be gone to Trowland before sunrise, else they will become Erithbund and forced to roam aboveground until sunset. On occasion whole tribes dance by moonlight, and on other occasions they take it into their heads to steal.’

 

‘Steal what?’

 

‘Silver ornaments. They love silver. And milch-cows, sometimes, for the cream. Or people.’

 

‘People ?’

 

‘Indeed,’ said Wakefield, ‘and when they carry people off to live with them in Trowland, they leave a replica in their victim’s stead — a crudely carved post or log, which for a few hours remains wrapped in Glamour’s illusion. When the enchantment wears off, it can easily be seen that the replica is nothing more than a piece of wood.’

 

‘Do the trows hurt the stolen ones?’

 

‘No. They keep them as servants, bound by invisible, intangible chains. Those who are thus enchanted may never return to the lands of the sun.’ After a solemn hiatus he amended, ‘In almost all cases.’

 

‘What do you mean almost all cases?’ asked Mazarine, leaning her elbows on her knees. ‘Is there any chance people who are trow-bound can escape?’

 

“Tis not impossible,’ said Wakefield, ‘though ‘tis unlikely.’ And he told the story of Katherine Fordyce, a woman who had died at the birth of her first child. ‘At least, folk thought she had died,’ said the storyteller, ‘but she had, in fact, been taken by the trows, and an effigy left in her place. You see, her family and friends had forgotten to sain her when her child was born, which was how she fell into the power of the trows. She dwelled quite comfortably among the Grey Neighbours but the enchanted cannot escape Trowland unless some human creature chances to see them and has presence of mind enough to repeat the phrase, Glide be aboot wis. The only mortal man ever to spy Katherine again was a man named William Nisbet, who was walking up a slope near her old home when it seemed as if a hole opened in the side of the hill. He looked in and saw Katherine sitting in what he described as a queer-shaped armchair, and she was nursing a baby. There was a bar of metal stretched across in front to keep her a prisoner. She was dressed in a white gown which folk later knew, by William’s account of it, to be her wedding dress. Nisbet thought she said to him, “Oh, Willie! What’s sent you here?” and he answered, “And what keeps you here?” to which she replied, “Well, I am hale and happy, but I cannot get out, for I have eaten their food!” William Nisbet was so taken aback that, alas, he forgot to say “Glide be aboot wis”. Katherine, being enchanted, was unable to give him any hint, and in a moment the entire scene disappeared.’

 

‘And has no one glimpsed her since?’ enquired Mazarine.

 

‘No.’

 

‘How long ago was she stolen?’

 

‘About five hundred years.’

 

This sobering fact reduced the company to silence. They sat pondering the story’s significance while in the hearth, a log went up in sparks and collapsed in cinders.

 

* * * *

 

Nethilmis, the Cloudmonth, ushered in the Winter of 1038. Bands of ‘gypsies’ were seen more frequently in the district as the cold weather deepened. Across Severnesse, and indeed across the whole of Erith, the populace was preparing for the midwinter Imbrol Festival with traditional celebrations that would farewell the old year and welcome in the new. Plum puddings wrapped in calico were boiled in cauldrons. Choirs rehearsed the old songs that told of holly and ivy and sleigh rides, and huge logs burning in hearths.

 

Three months remained until Mazarine’s twenty-first birthday, and the earl dedicated the first weeks of Winter to paying court to his ward. She remained adamant in her rebuffs. Perceiving that she was not to be convinced he appeared to become increasingly desperate, particularly when the bailiffs came knocking on his door brandishing letters of demand. It was highly embarrassing for a gentleman in his position, he cried indignantly, not to mention insulting, to be subjected to petty demands from commoners. Nonetheless the bailiffs would not be dissuaded, and put him on notice to pay his dues or suffer the consequences.

 

Soon afterwards a liveried messenger rode out from Kelmscott Hall under escort by a heavily armed guard. He carried a sealed package containing a letter of utmost importance. No one save the earl and his chief steward knew to whom this significant missive was addressed, or what instructions it conveyed. Even Thrimby had not managed to discover anything about it.

 

Mazarine continued to avoid her guardian, desiring only that time would swiftly bring her the day of freedom. She bade her lady’s-maid tie Hawkmoor’s purple ribbons in her hair every morning, and every evening she laid them out carefully on her dressing table. At nights she lay awake for hours.

 

Two days later, her fragile equanimity was once again shattered.

 

* * * *

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

Let those who would their loved ones keep

Sain them, and be well-planned,

Lest they be taken while you sleep,

To that Enchanted Land.

 

 

Early one bleak morning when snow-clouds were gathering in the skies, a new messenger came cantering with brisk determination along the avenue of cypress trees flanking the driveway. The rider was arrayed in the livery of the District Court. He bore a notice, addressed to Mistress Mazarine Blythe of Kelmscott Hall, and insisted on being present in the front drawing-room when she unrolled the scroll, which had been tied with official red ribbon and imprinted with the waxen seal of the Judiciary of Severnesse. After deciphering the contents, Mazarine let fall the parchment, swaying as if she, too, were about to drop to the floor. Her face blanched like paper. Master Squires, hovering concernedly at her side, supported her, helping her onto a nearby stool.

 

‘May I presume to look at this dispatch, Mistress Blythe?’ he murmured.

 

Too faint to utter a word, Mazarine nodded weakly. Master Squires picked up the scroll and read it to himself.

 

‘Severnesse Shire Court, East Riding, Amershire.

 

21st Nethilmis 1038.

To Mistress Mazarine Blythe,

Kelmscott Hall,

Borough, of Breckmouth.

East Riding, Amershire.

 

Regarding Your Agreement with The Right Honourable The Earl of Rivenhall.

 

Madam,

 

The Purpose of this Letter is to give formal Notice of the Breach of your Verbal Promise of Marriage to The Right Honourable The Earl of Rivenhall, dated 1st Nethilmis 1038.

 

Please be advised that due to your Failure to honour this Agreement, the Plaintiff is entitled to claim Damages and asserts he is left with no choice but to refer this Matter to the Court of Severnesse. You are required to attend a Hearing at the Somerhampton Law Courts on 14th Dorchamis, 1031.

 

Signed: A. C. Sotheby,

Clerk, of Courts.’

 

‘By the Powers!’ Wakefield exclaimed, throwing down the scroll, ‘There must be some mistake!’

 

‘No mistake,’ said the earl peremptorily, bursting into the room with his usual entourage in tow. The court messenger bowed politely; the earl returned the salute with a nod. ‘Mistress Blythe made her vow of marriage to me before witnesses, and on that premise I based the planning of my finances. Now that she has gone back on her word I face ruin. I would forgive her, soft-hearted fool that I am, were she to honour her vow, but should she fail to return to her senses, I must demand recompense, as anyone in my position has a right to do.’

 

Mazarine, pallid and shocked, looked upon her guardian. ‘Never would I have believed that anyone could be so black-hearted,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘I have done nothing to harm you. How you could drum up these lies to wrong me is beyond comprehension.’ Rising to her feet she added, ‘I cannot stay a moment longer beneath your roof. This day, this very hour, I will depart, whether or not you give your leave. I have done with you.’

 

‘You may not depart!’ shouted the earl. ‘You are under my jurisdiction!’ and he stepped forward, lifting his hand as if to strike the girl.

 

Instantly Wakefield Squires blocked his path. ‘Recollect, if not your honour as a gentleman, then the presence of the agent of the Judiciary,’ he said, shielding Mazarine with his body, whereupon the earl backed away. His bodyguards glowered, glancing sideways at their master as if hoping for an order to lay rough hands upon this upstart. The earl, however, was too canny to display mob violence in the sight of the messenger.

 

‘You are discharged forthwith, Squires,’ he said, ‘and be careful I do not have you served with a claim for damages, for you have foully mismanaged my accounts.’

 

‘Threaten away,’ said the young man. ‘The law is greater than you, and justice will be done.’ He offered Mazarine his arm and together they left the room.

 

So it happened that Mazarine and her maid departed with haste from Kelmscott Hall, in the company of Master Squires. They took refuge at Clover Cottage, where Professor Wilton and his wife insisted that Mazarine dwell until she came into her inheritance.

 

That night, it began to snow.

 

* * * *

 

Dorchamis, the Darkmonth, brought with it Winter Solstice and the traditions of Imbrol. The first day of the month was New Year’s Day, also called Littlesun Day. Right across the lands of Erith uproarious celebrations ushered in the new year, 1039. Enormous bonfires like burning palaces blazed on snowy hilltops. Indoors, garlands of red berried holly adorned the rafters, green ivy festooned inglenooks, sprigs of mistletoe dangled above the doors and wreaths of fir and spruce needles encrusted with pine cones decorated the tables. The human populace exchanged presents, feasted on rich fare, danced, imbibed large quantities of various beverages, sometimes quarrelled and occasionally fell down.

 

Wakefield Squires was fortunate enough to be offered a position in the mayor’s office in town. The remuneration was better than that which he had received at Kelmscott Hall, and he accepted the job with delight, commuting daily on foot through the snow.

 

Midwinter was the season when some Erithan maidens, inquisitive about the possibilities that lay beyond the boundaries of mortal knowledge, deliberated on the alarming and intriguing feasibility of venturing into the wild places during the long nights of Dorchamis, to find out whether the Caillach Gairm, the eldritch blue crone as ancient and fierce as Winter, should decide to appear and present them with a coveted Staff of Power in exchange for whatever mortal asset she might wish to take for herself — the colour of their hair and eyes, their power of song, a finger or a toe, or more ... If the girl felt that the consequences were too onerous, she would refuse to strike the bargain, yet it was a terrible decision to make, knowing that never again would she be offered that opportunity.

 

Neither Mazarine nor Laurelia craved the power of a carlin’s Wand. Laurelia floated with her beau on joyous clouds of romance, but Mazarine’s heart ached. She had lost the one she loved, and now, to compound her misery, she had been wrongfully accused, and faced a trial. Her friends comforted her, and in return she tried her best to appear cheerful as she joined the Imbrol festivities.

 

‘Will you obtain the services of a lawyer?’ Laurelia asked Mazarine, as the entire family sat around the fire in the parlour of the cottage, sipping mulled wine. Professor Wilton, a doughty gentlemen with grizzled whiskers and a receding hairline, occupied a rocking chair. His wife, a small woman in a gown of brown kersey, sat near the fire toasting crumpets on a long-handled fork, while his daughter nestled close to her betrothed on the divan. Mazarine’s maid Odalys was mending petticoats while the Wiltons’ maid-of-all-work, Tansy, perched upon a hassock alternately sewing buttons on a shirt and caressing the ears of the two pet dogs that lay stretched out on the rug. It was unusual for employers to mix so familiarly with their servants, but both Odalys and Tansy were considered to be almost part of the family.

 

‘No,’ said Mazarine. ‘I am innocent — that is defence enough, surely? I will speak the truth and the truth will prevail.’

 

‘My dear girl!’ Professor Wilton exclaimed in dismay. ‘Pardon my presumption, but surely you cannot consider demeaning yourself by speaking in court! A gentlewoman of noble birth ...’

 

‘Nonetheless, sir, I will do it.’

 

The apothecary sighed. ‘Perhaps you will think better of it eventually.’

 

‘I thank you for your solicitude, Professor Wilton, but I see no reason to change my mind. Besides, I cannot afford such expenses until I come into my inheritance. Until I am twenty-one, there is only a meagre income supplied to me, for keeping Odalys.’

 

‘We could find some way of borrowing the money,’ suggested Laurelia. ‘It could be repaid as soon as you reach your majority.’

 

‘Gramercie, dear friend,’ said Mazarine, ‘but I am convinced that hiring a lawyer will not help me. Before Lord Fleetwood went away, our discussions used to range over many topics, including the judicial system of Amershire. Three magistrates preside at Somerhampton Law Courts, so he said, and it is generally held that verdicts are largely influenced not by one’s lawyer, but by which judge is allotted to one’s trial. The allotments are chosen by ballot, so the outcomes are partly dependent on the luck of the draw, and partly on the merits of the case.’

 

‘That does not seem fair!’ exclaimed Laurelia.

 

‘Nevertheless, Mistress Blythe is right. That is the way it works,’ her father said.

 

‘What of these three magistrates?’ Wakefield wanted to know.

 

‘The best of them all is Judge Innsworth,’ said Mazarine. ‘She is wise, strictly impartial, and fair in her sentencing. Most folk hope to go before her. I hope I shall.’

 

‘Most folk? Why not all?’ asked the young clerk.

 

‘Because she is strictly impartial!’ said Mazarine.

 

‘The worst judge, for Mistress Blythe in particular,’ said Professor Wilton, courteously inclining his head in Mazarine’s direction, ‘would be Hackington-Cluny, for he is a crony of her guardian’s; a hunting and gambling companion and an oft-times visitor at Kelmscott Hall. There is not a drop of impartiality in that fellow’s blood. I suspect he can be flattered, bought or cajoled into doing or saying anything at all. No doubt he owes the earl a few favours.’

 

‘I fervently pray that Mazarine will not have to be tried by such an immoral character!’ cried Laurelia, scandalised. ‘If this is common knowledge, why do the authorities not relieve the rogue of his post?’

 

‘He wields influence over many citizens in high places.’

 

‘What an outrage! And the third magistrate?

 

‘Judge Rotherkill falls into a class somewhere between the other two,’ her father replied, ‘for he is neither as perceptive or just as Innsworth, nor as corrupt as Hackington-Cluny. Indeed, as far as I know he is not at all corrupt. His judgements and sentencing, however, leave a lot to be desired, in my opinion.’

 

‘I have no fear of Rotherkill,’ said Mazarine. ‘As long as it is not Hackington-Cluny who holds my future in his hands, I will not be afraid.’

 

‘Yes, that gentleman is indeed a formidable threat,’ said Goodwife Wilton, breaking her silence and looking up from her stitching, ‘but to my mind there is one to be even more wary of, who has even fewer scruples and a greater propensity for violence, and that is the earl himself!’

 

Two weeks after the Imbrol Festival, Mazarine, in the company of Laurelia, Professor Wilton and Master Squires, boarded an enclosed sleigh borrowed from a wealthy neighbour of the Wiltons. The neighbours’ coachman, Tofts, rode postilion on the near horse of the pair. He blew the coachman’s signal for ‘start’ on his coach-horn, being rigorous in observing these formalities — whereupon the horses lunged forward, the tiny bells on their harness tinkling, and off they glided over the frozen road to the Somerhampton Law Courts.

 

It was just before sunrise. Peering through the thick glazing of the window, Mazarine observed the shadowy countryside through which they passed; woodlands and meadows whose snow-dusted shapes were just beginning to be picked out in glitter by the pre-dawn light. Largely uninhabited by mankind, save for the odd, courageous woodcutter or lime-burner, the vales and hills of Amershire were the secret haunts of countless unhuman, immortal incarnations, elusive and rarely seen. One had to be cautious of them, however, if one wished to arrive safely at one’s destination. There, for example, in that breeze-rattled, leafless hazel thicket, might dwell Churnmilk Peg, eldritch guardian of the ripe nuts in Autumn, who would burst out angrily at you if you tried to steal her harvest. Or that grove of wild apple trees, their black boughs now snow-laden — might be guarded by a colt-pixy who would chase away an apple-thief and curse him with ‘cramp and crooking and fault in his footing’. Winter, too, had its preternatural manifestations; in particular the sullen Brown Man of the Muirs and the blue-skinned crone, the Caillach Gairm, who roamed abroad at this, her season of greatest power.

 

A farmer’s sledge approached out of the gloom from the opposite direction and Tofts blew the call for ‘Near Side’, meaning that he would keep to the left and the sledge should pass on their right. The farmer looked mystified but tipped his hat convivially as he went by, and Tofts gave him a condescending nod.

 

Dimmed by a range of clouds along the distant hills, the sun’s glow was broadening when the sleigh came to the stone bridge that spanned Tybeck Stream and slid to a halt. No beast would cross this bridge without intervention, for it was under eldritch guardianship. The horses shivered, tossing their heads and prancing nervously between the shafts. The presence of wights always made animals excited or uneasy. As for any human pedestrians who set foot on the bridge — if they were not careful to observe formalities they would find themselves being flung over the parapet into the icy water. Standing up in the stirrups, Tofts called out authoritatively, ‘Riverside Dan! Riverside Dan! Let us cross the Tybeck Span!’

 

Bubbling water gurgled around the granite stanchions. A curlew whistled. After a protracted moment the sleigh lurched into motion again; the horses, sensing some kind of release beyond human ken, trotted briskly across the bridge.

 

Close to the town of Somerhampton some churls on the way to market had carelessly overturned a sled of winter root vegetables in the middle of the road. Imperiously, Tofts sounded ‘Clear the Road’ on his horn, as if he were the driver of the King’s Royal Coach. Rolling their eyes and shaking their heads, the peasants, well-muffled in coats and gloves, righted the sled and piled their worts back into it while Tofts waited impatiently.

 

At last they bowled away once more. Tofts signalled ‘Slacken Pace and Steady’, as they passed through the gates of the town, and finally ‘Pull Up’ outside the Law Courts. By this time the passengers’ ears were ringing with all the coachman’s blaring signals.

 

The building that housed the Somerhampton Law Courts was as majestic and solemn as befitted the proceedings that took place therein. Up and down the exterior colonnade milled an army of bespectacled scribes making copious notes on sheets of paper, and a bevy of stern guards keeping the peace. A few idlers and loafers had positioned themselves at the arched entrance portals, stamping their feet and huddling into their scarves, their breath condensing like smoke on the cold air. They ogled the new arrivals.

 

‘Ooh, who’s that?’

 

‘I believe ‘tis the earl of Rivenhall’s ward! What an enchanting young creature! I wonder what she is doing here.’

 

‘Perhaps she has been called as a witness in some trial.’

 

‘Look down the road — here comes a dashing turnout! Whose is the coat of arms blazoned on the doors?’

 

‘Why, ‘tis the earl himself!’

 

Mazarine and her companions were conducted inside to a cold, lofty chamber large enough to accommodate fifty persons but containing two sentries, a clerk, a junior clerk, a hunch-backed usher and a cluster of be-wigged gentlemen in black robes, solemnly clutching vellum-bound documents, who turned out to be the earl’s legal advisors.

 

‘Yours is the first case of the morning, m’lady,’ said the usher with a bow. The stench of stale beer drifted from his garments. ‘Where is m’lady’s defence counsel, if I may be so bold as to enquire?

 

‘I have none. I speak for myself.’

 

Giving a resigned shrug that expressed a certainty of doom, the usher guided the newcomers to their seats, where they waited in trepidation to discover which magistrate had been allotted to their chamber. A mild disturbance at the other end of the room accompanied the appearance of the earl and his steward.

 

Presently the bailiff announced the arrival of the magistrate.

 

‘All rise. The Honourable Judge Sir Lupton Rotherkill, presiding.’ A sigh of mingled relief and disappointment passed through the company as they stood up.

 

Judge Sir Lupton Rotherkill seated himself at a high bench behind a counter of polished walnut, and peered at the defendant from beneath a white wig. Weatherbeaten was his visage, the mouth turned downwards at the corners. A pair of gold-rimmed spectacles perched at the end of a pointy beak of a nose. As everyone resumed their seats Wakefield murmured, ‘I mislike the look of this character. He has the world-weary air of a man who believes he has seen all and knows all, and whose jadedness has worn away any genuine sentiments he might once have felt.’

 

‘Methinks you are too discouraged,’ said Professor Wilton.

 

‘The man seems an automaton!’ Wakefield insisted. ‘I’ll warrant he will not judge the case on its merits but merely apply the formula he uses for all lawsuits of this ilk!’

 

‘Let us hope the formula is wise and just,’ said Mazarine, who was tightly clutching the back of the bench in front of her.

 

‘Silence!’ warned the clerk of courts.

 

The session commenced with the allegations against Mazarine being read out by the clerk. The plaintiff’s chief counsel was given to opportunity to speak, which he did, employing his eloquence so cleverly that for one absurd moment Mazarine herself was on the point of wondering whether she was, in fact, in the wrong. ‘And furthermore,’ the lawyer appended, ‘Mistress Blythe has absconded from beneath my client’s roof without permission and, by law, ought to return home immediately!’

 

This was an unexpected sting in the tail of his oratory. Catching Laurelia’s indignant eye Mazarine mouthed the word, Never.

 

The defendant was then permitted the right of reply. She stood up, as graceful and dignified as a young willow tree, but a shudder passed through the court officials and the earl’s counsel, who considered it indelicate for a gentlewoman to thus make a spectacle of herself — not to mention unfair for depriving worthy legal gentlemen of their livelihood.

 

Summoning her courage, Mazarine spoke clearly and concisely, presenting her version of the facts and explaining her innocence of the charges. She answered all questions straightforwardly and with such an air of honesty that it seemed clear to her friends that there could only be one verdict — she must be exonerated. When she sat down and all the giving of evidence was over, quietude reigned, overlaid by the scratching of quill-pen nibs on paper.

 

‘Well done!’ said Laurelia, giving her friend’s hand a squeeze. Mazarine smiled, then glanced sideways at the earl’s coterie. They looked smug.

 

Judge Rotherkill, expressionless, appeared to be deliberating. The waiting seemed intolerable.

 

Some imperceptible signal must have passed between the magistrate and the clerk of courts, for presently the latter intoned, ‘All rise for the judge’s decision.’

 

Respectfully, the chamber’s occupants obeyed, though the earl’s coterie managed to make it look as if they were about to stand up in any case, and the order had simply happened to coincide with their own inclinations.

 

‘Humankind,’ pronounced Judge Sir Lupton Rotherkill, leaning forward and gazing at the court over the top of his spectacles, ‘unlike eldritch-kind, is capable of telling lies. Not only capable, but adept. In a disagreement such as this no man can be certain who is telling the truth, for it is one person’s word against another’s. The question of who is in the right must be decided by Providence. Therefore I bynde both the plaintiff and the defendant to this command: that to decide the issue they, or their representatives, must fight a duel with swords.’

 

Expressions of shock rippled through the audience. The earl looked angry and Mazarine felt stunned. A clamour of voices broke out in the courtroom.

 

‘Silence!’ roared the clerk, whereupon the hubbub subsided.

 

‘If the defendant or her representative wins,’ continued the magistrate, ‘Providence will have decreed that her version of events was the truth, whereby the plaintiff must pay her one thousand golden guineas as recompense for the inconvenience, in addition to court costs. If the plaintiff wins it proves he told no lie, and the defendant must honour her promise by marrying him. She will also pay costs.

 

‘According to common law,’ he added, ‘women, the elderly, the infirm of body, and minors may name champions to fight in their stead. On the allotted day the combat is to begin before noon and be concluded before sunset. The litigants must be present in person. Before fighting, each litigant must swear an oath disclaiming the use of gramarye for advantage in the combat.

 

‘Whoever wins the contest,’ Judge Rotherkill concluded, ‘wins the case. Until the matter is decided in this manner, the plaintiff and the defendant must neither see nor speak with each other. The duel must be fought before the end of this month — Dorchamis the Dark. If it fails to take place, both parties will be held to be in contempt of court and fined accordingly. If one party fails to appear and field a champion, they will lose the case.’

 

There was no time to collect one’s thoughts; the judge had spoken, and the usher hurried both groups out of the courtroom so that the next candidates might enter.

 

* * * *

 

In the overcast skies the clouds were pressing down as if more snow was threatening. Mazarine and her companions were keen to depart with all speed from the town, where knots of gawkers and loiterers stared at them inquisitively as they exited the building. They repaired to the sleigh without delay.

 

‘Swords!’ Professor Wilton exclaimed disgruntledly as he stepped into the vehicle. ‘Swords! Trials by combat at common law in Erith are generally carried on with quarterstaffs!’

 

Wakefield closed the door, Tofts blew his horn officiously and off they slithered once more. As Laurelia unwrapped parcels of bread and cheese and Professor Wilton handed around small bottles of cider, Mazarine said without hope, ‘I cannot afford to hire a skilled swordsman. My guardian will win.’

 

‘Not at all!’ said Professor Wilton. ‘We will find a champion for you, dear lady. Never fear!’

 

‘We have two weeks!’ said Wakefield. ‘We shall begin the search straight away!’

 

‘That Judge Rotherkill is an utter beast,’ said Laurelia feelingly. ‘Fancy leaving it to fate to decide, and so brutally!’

 

‘At least he did not order me to go back to Kelmscott,’ said Mazarine.

 

The journey home proceeded uninterrupted save for the obligatory halt before Tybeck Span, and they returned to Clover Cottage before noon.

 

* * * *