Master of the Books Read online

  He removed the iron bar, crawled into the deep recess made by the window, and replaced the bar behind him. Then he edged slowly backwards until his legs dipped over the edge and began to search around with his feet for the first hold. There was no second chance now, no straw-covered floor to break his fall if he fell. Death waited on the rocks below if he made a single mistake.

  The moonlight helped him see the sheer face of the citadel. There were as many gaps between the stones here as inside. Inhaling a deep breath, he took his weight onto his hands and moved away from the window. He didn’t have to go far. The window into the gaoler’s room was only twenty feet away. But when he had worked his way cautiously for half of that distance, he found the stonework better finished. There were no more handholds on the route to his destination.

  His arms and legs were aching. If he dallied too long his muscles would begin to cramp. As doubt spread through him like a winter chill he couldn’t stop his eyes from glancing down. The rocks below were a monster’s teeth and the surge of the waves against the shore were the undulations of a gruesome tongue eager to drool over his corpse. Now he had a new danger to struggle against: his own fear. He looked back the way he’d come and considered returning to the safety of his cell.

  No, there must be a way. Perhaps if he climbed higher and then continued across, he would find the holds he needed.

  He reached up with his right hand and found a deep crack between two stones. Wedging his fingers as deeply into the space as he could force them, he took more of his weight onto the hand … and slipped. His feet came free from the stone. His left hand too. He would already be a broken corpse on the hungry rocks if the fingers of his right hand weren’t so deeply wedged between two stones. He couldn’t get them free even if he’d wanted to because the entire weight of his body had jammed them into place. The agony was worse than anything Fergus had ever known, as though a giant he’d imagined far below had claimed him after all and was now slowly grinding his fingers between its stony teeth.

  There was nothing else for it though. Those excruciating fingers were his only hope. He hauled himself up by them, increasing his agony until his head began to swim and stars burst behind his eyes. But the painful effort allowed his left hand to find a new hold and then one of his feet. But he couldn’t afford to spare his injured fingers. They had to hold part of his weight while his left hand searched around for a new crevice between the stones.

  He climbed higher, wincing each time he used his right hand. There were more gaps between the stones here, as he’d hoped. He crawled to the left, further, further, and then higher and some more to the left. He was above the window into the gaoler’s room now. Just as well, because the cramps he’d feared were beginning to trouble his legs. Could he crawl down to the window before they stole his strength altogether?

  There was only so much that a determined will could make a tired body do. As Fergus looked for places to slot the toes of his shoes, he realised his time was up. His body simply wouldn’t obey him any longer. He could defy the cramps until he fell, or he could try one last risk while he still had the strength to respond. Without waiting to think of what he was doing, Fergus let go of the wall.

  Instantly, he began to fall, but in that first frightened moment he came level with the window and thrust out with his arms. His hands caught the inside of the ledge, stopping the fall even though his legs still dangled dangerously over the edge.

  Inside the darkened room the gaoler stirred. Fergus could make out only an ink-black silhouette but it was enough to let him see that repulsive head roll drunkenly on the man’s shoulders until he seemed to be staring straight at the window. Would he haul Fergus to safety and throw him back into the cell? Or would he prise his aching hands free of the window ledge and let the rocks below have their victim?

  Neither, it seemed, because the gaoler went back to snoring and Fergus found one last surge of strength to pull himself through the opening. Moments later he was on his feet and tiptoeing silently past the sleeping body, into the passageway.

  ‘Where to now?’ he murmured after he’d climbed two stairwells and found a darkened corner to rest in. The fingers of his right hand throbbed relentlessly and no matter how he willed them to bend, they wouldn’t obey his command. ‘Broken,’ he whispered into the darkness, ‘and on my sword hand too.’

  Whether he could wield it or not, Fergus still wanted Tilwith’s sword and he had at least a small hope of retrieving it. He hadn’t told Marcel but an hour after he had been thrown into the cell, a man had come to see him. Dressed in a robe like Lord Alwyn’s, this man had questioned him about Gadfly’s wings. ‘And there’s magic in your sword too, I can sense it,’ he’d said.

  Fergus had refused to tell him anything and the wizard had gone off disappointed, but it seemed likely that he’d taken the sword with him to his room, hoping to unlock its secrets.

  ‘He was the king’s Master of the Books,’ Fergus told himself now. ‘An important man like that would have one of the best rooms in the keep, one with a grand view of the harbour.’

  He climbed two more stairwells and began his search, looking for a chamber on the northern side. The first he tried reeked of a woman’s perfume, and from the doorway of the second he could see a husband and wife side by side in their bed. When he opened the door of a third, however, a robe brushed against him. He jumped back in fright, thinking the wizard had ambushed him, but the robe was hanging from a peg on the back of the door. As his heartbeat slowed to a steadier speed, he saw that it was dark and embroidered with the stars and the moon.

  Closing the door behind him, he couldn’t believe his luck. There was his sword on the table, as though it had been laid out ready for him to claim. Lord Menidae slept still and silent in an alcove on the far side of the room. Fergus knew that luck favoured him tonight, but he didn’t press his fortune by going any closer to the man than he had to. He kissed the sword’s blade and weighed it gratefully in his hand as he stepped out into the corridor.

  ‘You there, what are you doing in the Master’s room!’

  Fergus cursed himself. In the excitement of finding the sword, he’d become careless. Worse still, a broken hand meant he couldn’t fend off the guard with a few deft strokes of sword play. There was only one alternative and Fergus took it instantly. He ran.

  With the guard shouting the alarm throughout the keep, there was no chance of finding Damon now. As Fergus scurried down a stairwell, his mind turned to escape. Gadfly! She was waiting in the stables, under no special guard, he hoped. He slipped his left hand into his pocket to retrieve the pouch. Where was it? The scene as he gave Marcel the pouch immediately raced into his mind.

  ‘I said I wouldn’t need it any more. What a fool!’ he hissed between heaving breaths.

  At the base of the stairwell he cannoned into a second guard who had been roused by the shouting, and if he hadn’t knocked the man from his feet, he would have been caught there before he’d taken another step.

  ‘Drop your weapon and surrender,’ demanded the first guard, who blocked any escape back where Fergus had come from.

  Fergus had to choose. The left would take him towards the courtyard, but Gadfly was no use to him without her wings and beyond the courtyard was a barracks full of soldiers. To the right then. He charged on, begging his luck to hold just a little longer.

  He could see a lighted torch in the hands of a third guard moving towards him, but the man hadn’t seen him, and darting into yet another stairwell he kept moving downwards, towards the prison cells where he’d started. Not that he wanted to end up there. He turned away from them, choosing his direction at random each time he reached a corner, and taking every set of stairs he came to until there was too little light to see by.

  There was enough to make out an opening in the floor though, and, exploring with one foot, he was relieved to discover steps leading down into total darkness. When the steps ended, he found himself among a system of passageways, narrow and roughly hewn out of
rock, some barely high enough to walk through. He continued on blindly, arms outstretched to feel his way, and growing more surprised as every minute passed by the extent of the tunnels he was moving through. Where did they lead? To more storage rooms perhaps? He didn’t find any. He didn’t find any doorways to the outside either, and without one he was trapped.

  Yet no one had seen him flee deeper and deeper beneath the keep, and if the guards didn’t know he was here, these tunnels weren’t so much a trap as a sanctuary.

  He stopped to listen for footsteps or the chink of weapons bouncing against the hard walls. No sounds echoed along the passageways. His ears were more valuable than his eyes in this refuge and he kept them alert while his breathing returned to normal. Only the dull pain of his hand remained to distract him.

  Then a pale light reflected along the passage walls, accompanied by the echoes of a voice. A man was shouting to others, his face turned away from Fergus by the sound of it. Distances were difficult to judge in the confines of the passageways but he couldn’t be more than thirty yards away.

  ‘No, Captain, not a sign of him. I’ve searched every passage I could find and he’s not down here.’

  So these tunnels hadn’t been forgotten. Men had been sent to search, and his luck that night had sent him one final gift — a lazy soldier. Searched every tunnel indeed! The man hadn’t come more than a quarter of the way into the maze of passageways. If he had, he’d have discovered the fugitive without much trouble, or at least heard him scurrying about like a rat as he avoided the light.

  The voice spoke again shortly afterwards, from further away this time and higher too, close to the inhabited part of the keep. The search was over and for now Fergus was safe.

  CHAPTER 17

  Condemned to Death

  MARCEL WOKE WITH A jump and tried to throw off the hand that grabbed roughly at his shoulder.

  ‘Let me go! What are you doing?’

  ‘Get dressed. The king wants to see you. And where’s Sir Finton?’

  Marcel pointed across the room only to discover what the surly messenger who’d woken him already knew. Finn’s bed was empty.

  He was escorted out into the corridor where Nicola was waiting for him with the stony-faced maid who’d been sent to rouse her.

  ‘Do you know where Finn is?’ he asked her.

  ‘He said something about a job he had to do. I don’t like it, Marcel, he seemed pretty nervous about something.’

  With the other servant leading and the maid behind, they were led along corridors where servants and soldiers seemed to be rushing about in panic.

  ‘What’s happening? Are the rebels attacking the city?’ Nicola asked.

  ‘Not yet, but it can’t be long now that we have no magic to protect us,’ said the servant.

  ‘But your Master of the Books —’ Marcel began.

  The servant broke in. ‘Lord Menidae is dead, murdered in his own bed during the night.’

  ‘Murdered!’

  Before Marcel could ask anything more, they entered the Gilded Hall. The dawn light competed with the blazing torches to illuminate the room, which was crowded with members of the court, all staring towards a cluster of figures at the far end. One thing hadn’t changed: Damon was still at the king’s side. Finn was there too and Marcel felt some relief, until he saw that the soldiers standing on either side of their friend had him under guard.

  Nicola saw this too. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

  The courtiers fell ominously silent as they were escorted to where the king sat. He was questioning a soldier who stood stiffly to attention.

  ‘You saw a figure in the corridor, is that right?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty. He had just come out of Lord Menidae’s room.’

  ‘Was he armed?’

  ‘He had a sword in his hand.’

  Shock reverberated around the room in a wave of gasps. There was no need to point out this must be Menidae’s murderer.

  ‘And did you see who it was?’

  ‘Not at first, Your Majesty. It was dark in the corridor. He fled from me, then tripped at the bottom of some stairs. His face caught the moonlight from a nearby window — it was enough for me to recognise him.’

  For a terrible moment, Marcel feared the soldier was going to point at Finn. Then he discovered that the accusation was even worse.

  ‘It was the boy who came to Cadell on the flying horse.’

  This sent the court into a frenzy of chattering until Marcel cried out, ‘It can’t be true. Fergus is locked in a prison cell.’

  ‘Not any more,’ said Damon in his familiar and chilling tones. ‘He escaped during the night and the one who set him free is standing here before us.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with Fergus’s escape,’ Finn insisted as all eyes turned towards him.

  ‘Then why did my men find you hiding near the dungeon?’ said Damon.

  Finn glared at the false general but, to Marcel’s dismay, he didn’t offer any explanation. Marcel worked every muscle in his face pleading with Finn to defend himself but the knight remained silent.

  ‘You have no answer to that, do you?’ said the king. ‘General Lorian is right then. You released the spy from his cell and now that spy has killed my Master of the Books. Find this rogue a cell of his own,’ he ordered and Finn was manhandled from the room.

  ‘Where is the assassin?’ Damon snapped at the soldier who’d seen Fergus in the moonlight.

  ‘I chased him along a dozen passageways and down two flights of stairs. Others joined me but he was too fast for us, General, and we lost track of him.’

  Damon’s face darkened and his skin developed a faint sheen of sweat. Marcel was surprised to see real fear in the man’s face, and when Damon spoke again his voice couldn’t entirely hide the tremor of a worried man.

  ‘So he could still be free in the citadel, waiting behind every corner for his next victim.’

  Damon turned to one of his officers and said, ‘Send word to all soldiers in the citadel and down in the town as well. Find this boy. Kill him on sight. If he tries to give himself up, cut him down where he stands. I’ll give a dozen gold coins to the man who brings me his body.’

  ‘But, General, if he’s been sent by Ismar, there might be vital news he can tell us,’ said one of his lieutenants. ‘For one thing we can find out whether the young knight from Elster is his accomplice.’

  ‘No need for that, we know already,’ said Damon as fear shone in his eyes and leaked from every pore. Marcel watched as others in the room took that fear in with each breath until some could hardly bear to stand still. King Osward was the worst affected.

  ‘Yes, er, yes, no doubt at all. Just as well I’ve sent him to the cells.’

  ‘That’s not enough, Your Majesty,’ said Damon. ‘Make an example of him. Show the people of Cadell what happens to traitors who try to win your confidence and then betray you with murder. Call for the executioner. The young knight should die before sundown.’

  ‘No, you can’t kill him,’ cried Nicola. She thrust herself in front of the king, her face distorted in horror. ‘Please, Your Majesty, Finn has no reason to betray you. This is all a mistake.’

  Marcel took longer to recover from the shock, but when he did he tried a more measured response than the raw emotion that Nicola showed. ‘What evidence do you have against him? Did the gaoler see him unlock the door? Did anyone see him helping Fergus at all?’

  ‘He was found near the cells and refuses to give a reason for being there. That proves his guilt,’ said Damon. ‘Don’t listen to these two, Osward. The young assassin is their brother or their cousin, depending on which story you believe. Doesn’t that make you suspicious? Pelham has sent his children here knowing you would welcome them, and working together they’ve managed to rob you of Menidae’s magic. Don’t you see? King Pelham is in league with Ismar, he wants to take your crown and divide the spoils with the rebels.

  ‘Take them,’ Damon ordered before the bewilder
ed king could make sense of what he’d said. ‘To the cells — lock them in with the young knight, and keep searching for the other one. I want him found by the time Sir Finton meets the executioner.’

  FOUR GUARDS MARCHED MARCEL and Nicola through the corridors and down three flights of increasingly dingy stairs.

  ‘They’re going to execute Finn. I can’t bear it,’ said Nicola. ‘He’s innocent. It’s not right, it’s not fair! We can’t let him die, Marcel.’

  She said ‘we’ but each of her pleas seemed hers alone. Marcel realised this was more than concern for a guardian, or even a friend. Nicola couldn’t have been more upset if Marcel was the one condemned to death.

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ he said stupidly.

  ‘Realise what?’

  ‘How much you … well … care for Finn.’

  ‘Oh Marcel!’ she said and her face crumpled before his eyes. She buried her head against his chest and gave way to the tears that wouldn’t wait any longer.

  The gaoler showed neither sympathy nor patience, pushing them both along the dark and narrow passageway as though they were a single person. Opening the door of the same cell Fergus had occupied only yesterday, he stood back and announced cruelly, ‘Won’t be a long stay for this one, not from what I hear. So there’ll be plenty of room for two more,’ and shoved them inside.

  Nicola rushed to Finn and fell against him. The young knight slipped one arm around her shoulder and held her tenderly, more tenderly than a brother or a guardian.

  ‘Why were you caught near these dungeons?’ Marcel asked once Nicola had broken away to stand on her own.

  ‘To protect Fergus. I was worried Damon would have him killed during the night.’

  ‘And now he’s going to kill you instead.’ These were harsh words and Marcel regretted them immediately when Nicola’s eyes welled with more despair. To distract her, he turned his attention to Fergus. ‘How could he get through the door?’