The Book of Lies Read online

  She might be careless with a bucket, but not with her appearance, he noticed. Her long tresses, now loosened from their ponytail, stretched almost to her waist and she had stroked them to a brassy sheen. Pale freckles from working in the sun dotted her nose and cheeks, but they couldn’t hide what a pretty girl she was. How much prettier she would be if she didn’t spend so much time scowling.

  Meanwhile, Mrs Timmins began listing names around the table. “I don’t think you met the girls before. That’s Sarah and beside her is Dorothy. We call her Dot because she’s small and round.”

  “I am not,” the girl retorted, but the others only laughed. They seemed to do that a lot around this table.

  More girls’ names followed, Kate and Lizzy. When it was her turn, Marcel was officially introduced to Nicola. She offered him a stiff smile, said, “How do you do,” and went back to her delicate eating.

  He barely noticed her rudeness, because he was looking for a particular face, and so far he hadn’t found it.

  “Oh, and I shouldn’t forget Beatrice, wherever you are, little one,” said Mrs Timmins.

  “Here she is, next to me,” called the girl named Sarah, and at last Marcel spotted her. “We call her Bea,” Sarah explained to him.

  “So now you’ve met us all, Robert,” said Mrs Timmins, taking charge again.

  But his name wasn’t Robert. The little girl from the hideaway under the vines was real after all and so was the name she had given him. His head was spinning. He felt like he had been born only an hour before.

  “No, my name is not Robert.”

  The frantic eating slowed as every eye turned first towards him and then to Mrs Timmins.

  “But only this morning you told me it was,” she said, alarmed.

  “I was wrong.”

  “You’re playing tricks with us,” said Mrs Timmins, forcing a smile. “That’s it, I’m sure. You’re playing a little game.”

  “No, it’s not a game, and I think you know my real name already. It’s Marcel, isn’t it?”

  If the eating hadn’t entirely stopped around the table, the low murmur of talking certainly had. The faintest blush of self-reproach touched Mrs Timmins’ cheeks. There was fear in her face too. “How did you come by this new name?”

  “I can’t explain,” he said. It shouldn’t be Marcel who had to explain at all. How could she help this sorcerer to steal away his life with a sweep of his hand?

  Mrs Timmins rose from the table. “Come with me,” she ordered. He followed her into the kitchen, where she sat him in a chair and drew another up close. “Now, tell me. How did you hear this name? Did you find it written somewhere?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did someone tell you?”

  He didn’t want Bea to get into trouble. “No,” he assured her. “It just came to me, from inside, as though it had always been my name.”

  The concern in her features deepened. She looked perplexed, but more than anything she seemed afraid for him. “What do you remember?” she demanded. “You must tell me how much you can recall of your life before you came here.”

  “Nothing,” he answered honestly. “I can’t remember a thing.”

  The sadness in his words seemed to convince her. “I believe you, and thank heavens for it.” She took his hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s not my doing that this has happened. But there’s something I have to do now. Someone you have to meet. Stay here.” She swallowed hard and set off towards the stairs.

  Some moments later Marcel heard a distant knocking and knew it was the woman’s hand on that forbidding door set so impregnably into the wall opposite the stairs above. Her knock was answered by a savage growl, muffled by the door but loud enough to fill the entire house and send a blood-chilling terror through everyone who heard it.

  Albert appeared at the door of the kitchen with a large chunk of bread and a wedge of cheese for Marcel. He couldn’t swallow a bite. “That… noise,” he managed to say. “What kind of beast…?”

  “Don’t be afraid. No harm comes to the children in this house.” Albert seemed to fight off his natural shyness and placed his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. That touch alone eased the boy’s fear. “I’ll stay here with you until my mother comes back, if you like.”

  Marcel looked up gratefully and nodded. He was glad to have a companion in the anxious minutes ahead. They stretched on unbearably, until at last he heard the creak of wooden boards on the staircase. He traced the slow approach of footsteps before Mrs Timmins appeared in the doorway. When she moved aside nervously, a second figure came into view.

  Just as Bea had described him, this stooped old man was hidden in the many folds of a black robe edged with the deepest green. Around the hem, two odd shapes had been embroidered in gold thread, the same combination repeated many times. The folds made it difficult to see what they were, until the wizard moved slightly and Marcel realised that one of the outlines was certainly a dragon with vicious talons open and grasping. What was the second shape beneath each dragon? Were they bats, with wings outstretched, golden bats flying on the night sky of that black robe? Before he could decide the man came closer, and now Marcel saw what Bea had not been able to describe. His face was deeply lined with age, long and sorrowful as though it had never known laughter in all the years it had lived through. Bea had given him a name, too. Despite his terror, Marcel recalled it easily. Lord Alwyn.

  Frail though the old man appeared, Marcel wasn’t fooled. This man had worked a cruel magic upon him that had swept away every memory he had. If it hadn’t been for Bea, even his name would be gone.

  “You are the child who calls himself Marcel?” said the wizard in a deep and weary tone.

  Marcel looked for Mrs Timmins, hoping she would answer for him. But, to his dismay, he found that both she and Albert had gone, and he had been left alone with the wizard. He wasn’t sure his voice would work, so he offered a weak nod instead.

  “Come. I want to speak with you.” Lord Alwyn seated himself at the kitchen table, motioning for Marcel to sit close by where he could watch every muscle in the boy’s face. On the table beside him he placed an ancient book almost two feet long and as thick as a grown man’s arm. Its dusty red cover was cracked along thin jagged lines where the leather had dried, giving the book a rough and weathered surface. Marcel eyed it with rising dread. This book had already been used against him once.

  “You fear the book? That might be a good thing, since –” The wizard stopped suddenly and turned his body stiffly to the left, peering hard into the gloom where light from the windows didn’t reach. “You there,” he called at last. “Come over here.”

  Bea’s tiny figure appeared from nowhere and came to stand beside Marcel. She was shaking through every inch of her body. “Excuse me, sir. I was caught in here by mistake.”

  As she spoke, the book opened of its own accord and riffled from page to page, until on one of its last leaves it found a space not covered by words. Marcel watched in amazement as new words began to appear, the very words Bea had just spoken.

  I was caught in here by mistake.

  The wizard stared harshly at her for some time. “Your lie has been recorded in my book. In fact, those who don’t know any better call it the Book of Lies. Now, tell me the truth. You hoped to hear what I said to this boy, isn’t that so?”

  Bea hesitated, but she had no alternative now. “Yes, sir.”

  This time the book closed quietly and lay motionless on the table. Watching it, Marcel thought he saw the faintest glow rise from the cover, until his attention was drawn again to the old man.

  Lord Alwyn’s lips had curled into a brief smile. “What is your name?”

  She told him.

  “Well now, Bea,” he said, “you are braver than your friends but you will have no gossip for them. Go,” he commanded, “and tell the others in the dining room to stay away.”

  He turned to Marcel. “Tell me about yourself,” he said, with less threat
in his voice.

  “I can’t remember anything, sir.” As Marcel spoke, Lord Alwyn stared at the book, which remained still and silent on the table, though this time there was no doubt that it glowed a rich reddish-gold to match the sunlight outside in the courtyard.

  “I believe you,” he said at last. “But tell me: how did you come by your name?”

  “I don’t know. The name simply came to me, as though it had always been there, in my –” He stopped talking and turned in horror towards the book. It had opened again, hurrying to that same page, where it began to write everything he had just said.

  “Now I don’t believe you. Someone told you.”

  “No, sir!” Marcel insisted. “It’s true. I would never forget my real name.”

  There was no quill, no pot of ink, but the book recorded his words again. Lord Alwyn eyed him impassively as the book worked its telling magic. What could he do? The book knew he was lying, yet to tell the truth would betray Bea. He stayed silent and closed his eyes, waiting for a harsher magic to strike at him. The next few moments seemed like hours.

  Then he dared open his eyes and found the old man staring at him thoughtfully. “You need not be afraid of me,” he said, though that voice remained as hard as steel. “Not as long as you do what I say.”

  He turned slightly and called out to Mrs Timmins and Albert, who came scuttling through the doorway. “Listen to me, all three of you,” he said. “What I intended has somehow been foiled. All of the other children have heard his name now, and to alter the minds of so many would be too much for me. There is nothing else for it. You, Marcel, are to live here in this foundling home until I say otherwise. When people come looking for children to adopt they will not choose you. They will not even see you. No one must know there is a child here by that name. Do you understand?”

  He paused, considering whether words were enough to ensure obedience. Then his face became even harder. “If you take one step beyond the boundaries of this orphanage,” he told him ominously, “I will know and I will send my companion in the tower to fetch you.”

  He thrust his arm upwards, and at that moment a terrible growling erupted above them, building relentlessly until it exploded in a furious roar that turned their blood to ice.

  The old sorcerer did not wait for their promises. He rose from his chair and shuffled to the stairs, leaving Marcel to ponder what was so special about his name that it needed a savage beast to keep it secret.

  Chapter 3

  Old Belch

  ALL THE BOYS SLEPT in one room, and since there were seven of them, it was crammed with two large beds that could fit three boys in each, and a narrow cot for the seventh. The room at the end of the hall, Marcel learned, was reserved for sick children or for new arrivals who came in the middle of the night. Marcel found he was to share a bed with Hugh and Dominic, and though it was a squeeze he was too exhausted to care.

  In the morning, he was just another of the orphans who had to dress quickly when Albert called them and hurry down to breakfast before it was all gone.

  “I want you to help Old Belch today,” Albert told him. “Hugh and Dominic can take you along to the stables.”

  When the three boys reached the well in the middle of the courtyard, Marcel looked up again at the tower that brooded over them. The sight of those two small windows set in the stone put him on edge. Though he tried to shut it out, he heard that vicious roar again in his head and it sent a shudder through his entire body.

  “Have you ever seen it?” he asked.

  “Seen what?” responded Dominic.

  “The creature he keeps up there. The one that made that terrible noise.”

  “Never. We’ve heard a few strange things but nothing like yesterday.”

  In the silence that followed, each boy conjured a picture of the beast in his mind. They were about to walk on when Hugh let out a rasping cough, then asked, “What do you think he feeds that thing?”

  The other two stared at him. What kind of a question was that? They didn’t even want to think about it. But Hugh had a point to make. “It sounded pretty big, don’t you think? It’d need quite a bit to eat, but all Mrs Timmins ever leaves outside that strange door is a small tray for the old man.”

  “Maybe he lets it out at night, to go hunting in the forest,” suggested Dominic.

  “How does it get out, then? We’ve never heard it going though the house.”

  “There’s a tunnel,” said a voice.

  They spun around, all three of them trying to find who had spoken. Marcel was the first to see her. “Bea,” he breathed in relief when the girl appeared from the shadow of the well where she had just filled a bucket. “How do you know there’s a tunnel?”

  “Because I’ve heard strange noises in the wall beside my bed. They started soon after that man came to live in the tower.”

  “But where does it come out then? I’ve never seen a hole in the wall,” said Dominic sceptically.

  “It’s on the other side of the house, where we don’t go very much, near the orchard. There are bushes up against the wall, that’s why you haven’t noticed it. I’ve seen some tracks there – giant paw prints, they looked like – but the opening is hidden somehow. I need to take another look.”

  “No!” blurted Marcel, horrified. “Don’t go near those bushes. Whatever’s up in that tower, well… I don’t think any of us wants to meet it face to face.”

  Before they could say another word, little Dot called from the kitchen door. “Bea, Mrs Timmins is waiting for that water.”

  Bea hurried off, easily visible to them all now in the sunlight. Very strange, Marcel thought to himself yet again.

  Though they were meant to be on their way to the stables, the boys couldn’t resist detouring to the far side of the house, where they stayed well back from the overgrown bushes that hugged the walls. “In there somewhere, eh?” said Hugh.

  None of them went in for a closer look. They could still see that tower from here, though. There was only one window on this side. Marcel scoured the glass for a glimpse of Lord Alwyn. “Why does a sorcerer live here?” he wondered aloud. “A man like him would have a house of his own, don’t you think?”

  “Or a whole castle.”

  “If you ask me, he’s here because of you,” said Dominic. “You heard Mrs Timmins at dinner last night. We’re not even supposed to mention your name over in the village.”

  “And if I go there myself, he’ll send that beast after me.” I don’t think I’ll ever find out who I really am, Marcel added to himself.

  Hugh broke into his thoughts with another loud cough. “Come on,” he said to Dominic, “Albert’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.”

  They walked silently back into the courtyard and to the stables, where they parted company. Marcel pushed aside the groaning door and called tentatively, “Hello, anyone here?”

  When there was no answer, he sank down on a saddle in the darkness to wait for Old Belch. He hadn’t laid eyes on the man yet and didn’t know quite what to expect.

  Soon he heard heavy footsteps on the cobblestones of the courtyard, then the stable door was swept aside to reveal the silhouette of a man as wide as he was tall. “Now then, where’s this lad who’ll be helping me with my horses?” he called.

  Marcel scrambled to his feet, but no sooner had the man shouted into the narrow confines of the stables than a loud gurgle exploded from his throat. He slapped a hand over his mouth. “Er, sorry, my boy,” he muttered, but it did him no good, as his stomach immediately erupted again.

  No need to ask how he acquired his name then, thought Marcel. “Albert said I’m to work with you today, sir,” he said, as he reluctantly moved closer. Despite the gloom of the stables, Marcel could see the man better now, his little pig eyes squeezed above hearty cheeks. His beard was nothing much to speak of, just a few gingery wisps that had no chance of hiding that series of bulging chins. Lower down, he just got rounder, his stomach most of all. It rumbled as Marcel’s eye
s rested on it, but this time the man managed to suppress his burp.

  “They tell me I shouldn’t eat so many onions,” he said apologetically. Then his face broke into a wide grin. “But I like ’em too much,” and to show it, he fished an onion out of his pocket and munched on it like an apple. “I’ve got an empty stall that needs cleaning out. Come on, put a shovel in that wheelbarrow and follow me.”

  After doing as he was asked Marcel was led to the last stall along the row. “I had a horse in here until last week. You see all this straw and what the horse added to it? Take it all to the vegetable patch, then fill the stall with clean straw. And mind you do it properly, not like that Fergus. He disappeared before the job was half done,” Old Belch explained, doing his best to look serious, though the face he made was more comical than gruff. Then he burped. “Oh, excuse me,” he said, and promptly burped again. The pungent odour of half-digested onions wafted heavily through the stables.

  Marcel started in with the shovel. It was easier work than he had expected and he was finished long before Old Belch came back and told him he could leave.

  “Could I stay and have a look at your horses?” he asked.

  Old Belch looked surprised. “No harm in that, I suppose. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  There were seven stalls, counting the one Marcel had cleaned out. The first contained no horse but a thick bed of straw, a blanket and a book. Marcel remembered what Hugh had told him about Old Belch’s sleeping habits, but the book was a puzzle. How did someone like Old Belch learn to read? Then he realised that he could ask the same question about himself.

  A fine chestnut horse poked its head out of the second stall, hoping they had brought it a treat. “He cut himself badly jumping a fence,” Old Belch explained. “All better now though, so he’ll be heading home soon.”