Taste of Lightning (7 page)

‘And?' Skir was fascinated by this glimpse of life on the other side of the servants' doors, the hidden world to which even Beeman had hardly any access. He'd never realised that the servants had lives as complicated, as riddled with secrets and intrigue and strict rules of behaviour, as their masters and mistresses in the golden and ivory rooms of the Palace. And he was fascinated by this girl who spoke to him as frankly and easily as if – well, as if they were equals.

Tansy jumped. ‘What's that?'

A clink of armour and the muffled whine of dogs floated up from outside the window.

‘Just a patrol. Don't they go past your quarters?'

‘I guess I sleep through it,' said Tansy with a shiver. ‘I sleep pretty hard, most nights.'

‘Go on. Tell me what happened next.'

‘Lori – the person, well, she only asked for little things at first. Boot wax, a cake of special soap. She said it weren't stealing, because it weren't taking off a person. She said, don't I ever help myself to a bit of leftover meat from the platter? Don't I ever have a nice warm wash in the hot laundry water? Don't I ever take a rag out of the basket?'

‘And do you?'

‘Course I do. Everyone does. Can't get by in this place unless you do. Still, it's different taking stuff for someone else. She said she'd give me gold, but I didn't do it for that. It were so I could work with the horses.'

‘Never mind,' said Skir. ‘No one'll miss a cake of soap here and there, surely. They give me a fresh soap in my own bathroom every day. No one'd throw you in the Pit for that.'

Tansy stared at him. ‘Course they would,' she said flatly. ‘If I got caught. And that's nothing. I ain't told you the worst yet.' She took a breath. ‘She asked me to take something of yours.'

‘Oh.'

‘I waited for something to come by the laundries, but nothing did.'

Skir glanced down at his grey silk pyjamas, stained with hot chocolate and paint and jam. ‘Well, it's true, I'm not very good at putting things in the wash-hamper. And Beeman's told the maids not to do it for me. It's supposed to teach me self-discipline.'

‘I knew it. Just like my brothers.'

Skir jumped up and yanked open some drawers. ‘If it'll save you getting into trouble – here, help yourself. Take a necktie or a scarf or something. I've got thousands I never wear, look.'

‘You don't understand,' said Tansy. ‘It's worse than that now. She don't want clothes no more. She wants a piece of you. Hair, or fingernail trimmings.' She lowered her voice. ‘I reckon what she'd really like is blood or – something like that.'

Skir laughed. ‘That's
mad
. What's she want that for?'

‘You say you're a magician, and you don't know! It's for her, for the Witch-Woman to do magic with. Dark magic.' Her voice became lower still. ‘She cuts off people's fingers for her magic, too. Peels the skin off them like carrots. Then she can do what she wants with you.'

Skir sank back onto the bed. His skin prickled. Tansy was so distressed that for an instant he actually felt frightened too. But Beeman would say the only true magic was chantment; the Baltimaran superstitions of hair and bone and rhyme were powerless. Weren't they? Poor Tansy obviously believed it, though. The price of ignorance is fear, Beeman would say. Skir suddenly felt immensely old and wise.

He said, ‘There's a hairbrush in my bathroom, it's
full
of hair. Disgusting. I'll get it.'

Tansy straightened herself up. ‘No, don't! I don't want it no more.
Stop
. It's different now I met you. Call the guards if you want, I deserve it. But I'd rather die quick than rot in the Pit. And I'd rather rot in the Pit than go back to
her
.' Tansy shuddered.

Skir sat down again. ‘Well, it makes no difference to me. Give Lady Wanion handfuls of my hair if you like, I don't care, but if that's how you feel . . . Why don't you just say no?'

Mutely, Tansy fished under her cloak and held out the tiny, exquisite luckpiece on her hand. She whispered, ‘That come from the Witch-Woman. Now I'm bound to her. It's watching me all the time, see? And if I don't give her what she wants, she'll take a piece of
me
.'

The two of them stared at the little doll. Silent, malevolent, it stared back up at them from Tansy's palm.

Skir shook himself. ‘Rubbish,' he said briskly, and before Tansy could stop him, he plucked up the luckpiece between finger and thumb and held it over the candle-flame.

‘No! No!' Tansy shouted. The flame sizzled up the threads of white silk. Tansy made a frantic grab for the burning doll, but Skir held her off; in desperation she snatched up the crystal water jug by Skir's bed. Water fanned through the air, hissed onto the burning luckpiece, but it was too late; charred fragments of ivory and mother-of-pearl fell to the carpet.

‘Hey!' Skir ducked away, knocking over the candle and snuffing it out.

Tansy scrabbled on the floor. ‘Where is it?'

Skir caught up his other slipper and smashed the heel down as he'd seen other people squash spiders. As a priest, he was forbidden to kill any living thing, but grinding the burned, sodden fragments of the little doll into powder was extremely satisfying. He sat back on his heels, breathless and triumphant.

Tansy clapped her hands over her mouth; in the moonlight her eyes were like saucers. Then she took a deep, sobbing breath, and ran her hands up and down her arms. ‘I ain't burned,' she whispered. ‘I ain't hurt at all. You
are
a sorcerer.'

‘Of course I am,' said Skir, and for the briefest moment he almost believed he was a chanter after all, a master of magical power, holding life and death between his finger and thumb.

The doorknob of the outer room rattled.

Skir forgot he was a master magician, and panicked. ‘What do we do?'

‘The bed.' For a heartbeat they both stared at the shadowy, curtained expanse of Skir's bed, heaped with quilts and cushions. Three or four girls could have hidden in it quite easily. Tansy dived under the covers.

Breathless and dishevelled, Skir scrambled back into bed, acutely aware of Tansy's warm, breathing body close to his own beneath the quilts. ‘Come in!' he called, just as Beeman poked his head around the door.

‘I am coming in,' said Beeman mildly. ‘What's the matter? I heard shouting.'

‘I had a bad dream. I must have screamed.'

‘Odd. I could have sworn it was a woman's voice.'

‘I dreamt, yes, you know, I dreamt I was a woman. Yes. It was a very strange dream.'

‘Are you all right? Would you like some water?'

‘If I want water I can pour it myself, I'm not a child. Go away, Beeman. Wait. Beeman? Where were you?'

‘In my bed next door, of course.'

‘Were you? I thought you must have gone out.'

‘Gone
out
? Where?'

‘That's what I wondered.'

‘I didn't go anywhere. Are you delirious? Do you have a fever?'

‘No. I'm perfectly all right.'

‘Goodnight then.'

‘Goodnight.'

The door clicked closed as Beeman withdrew. At once, Tansy shook herself violently free of the covers.

‘I hate that, hate having stuff over my head,' she whispered. ‘I couldn't breathe . . . He did go out, your servant. I was watching. He sneaked off without a light. He must have a woman.'

‘Beeman's my tutor, not my servant. And he doesn't have women,' whispered Skir. ‘At least, he never has before.'

‘There's a first time for everything,' whispered Tansy, and for some reason this struck them both as supremely funny. They had to stifle their laughter with pillows.

Then Tansy sat up and gazed at him soberly in the moonlight. ‘I can't leave here now. Madam'll know I destroyed her luckpiece. You'll have to protect me, like you said.'

‘Well – yes, all right,' said Skir, taken aback. He felt cornered. ‘Fair enough. But you can't stay in my bed forever.'

At once his face grew hot. He hoped Tansy couldn't see.

‘No, not in your bed.' Tansy frowned, deep in thought. ‘Only for a few days.'

‘A few
days
! But Beeman is always here.' He paused. ‘I could tell Beeman. I think I should tell Beeman.'

‘No! You mustn't tell anyone! What about
under
the bed?'

‘No – wait. There's my bathroom. The maids don't clean in there, I'm supposed to clean it myself, to teach me responsibility and humility. Beeman won't use it because it's too filthy; he goes to the gentlemen's baths in the east wing.'

Tansy considered, then nodded her head. ‘The Witch-Woman's going away after tomorrow. While I'm with you, she can't hurt me. And in four days the wagon comes that goes up north. Once I get away from Arvestel, she won't find me, not now the luckbit's gone. You better give me some gold.'

‘Gold? I don't have any jewellery.'

‘Not jewels. I mean money. To buy my ticket home to Lotch.'

‘Oh. I don't have money either. They give me everything I need.' Skir stared gloomily around his luxurious bedroom. ‘Beeman could get some, I suppose. But he'd want to know what it was for.'

‘Never mind, I'll think of something. Pity I can't ask for my wages off the paymaster. I must have earned ten gold bits by now.' Tansy fell silent. ‘They'll be surprised to see me, back at Lotch. I said I weren't never coming back.'

Skir propped himself on one elbow to look at her. ‘Were you miserable there?'

‘Oh, no. I were happy at home. But when I left, I thought I were coming to Arvestel to work with the King's horses. My aunt sent word she had a place for me. I went off so proud. But when I got here, it were all a mistake. No girls in the stables, they said. Well, I didn't come all this way to scrub and sweat in the laundries. Might as well have stayed in Lotch and kept house for some old farmer. Or got married – same thing in the end. And then when I were riding, and helping out, I thought maybe old Ingle would sway something for me.' She looked down. ‘But he never did.'

Skir had been thinking. ‘I know how to get some money. There's a hunt tomorrow; I'll make bets – they're always trying to make me bet. It'll be easy.' He waved his hand around the room. ‘I'll swap something from here.'

Tansy widened her eyes. Skir said uncomfortably, ‘None of this is mine. I'm not rich. It's all – borrowed from the King, if you like.'

‘So if I take money you've swapped, then that's stealing from the King.'

‘No, no. Borrowing. Anyway, didn't you say you had wages owed? So the King owes you, really . . . Oh, what does it matter? It's only
stuff
. Let's talk about something else. What will you do, when you go home?'

‘I don't know.' Tansy lay back with her hands behind her head. ‘Marry Morr, I suppose. He asked my brother Cuff before I came south, but I said no.' She sighed deeply. ‘At least he's got horses. I'd get to ride sometimes. Before the babies come.' She looked gloomy.

‘But you don't
have
to get married.'

‘I'm sixteen. I can't live with Ma; she's with Cuff and his wife and there's no more room. My other brothers all got work, but there's nowhere to keep me. My Da died last summer, see. We lost the farm. It were a good big farm. We had the King's Herd graze there once. But it's all gone now.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Skir after a pause.

‘Anyway,' said Tansy briskly, ‘I'll be glad to see the back of this place. I thought it'd be an adventure, but it weren't. Just hard slog, every day. And the other servants are all mean as cats. Even Aunty Fender. Nicest person I've met here is
you
.'

‘Thank you very much.' Skir's heart thudded. He tried to keep his voice casual. ‘I think I've seen you before. Around the stables, when I had my riding lessons.'

‘I saw you, too. I saw you come off Thimble that day.' She began to giggle. ‘Sorry. But you ain't a born rider, are you?'

Skir rolled over with his back to her. ‘We should get some sleep. There's the quarter striking. It'll be morning soon.'

There was silence while the chimes died away, then Tansy whispered, ‘I'm sorry. You're no rider, but then, I ain't no sorcerer. Everyone's different. You can't help it. Like my brother Dory. He's no hand with a horse either. And he's sweet, like you.'

Skir did not reply.
Sweet!
Somehow he seemed to have agreed to hide a laundry-maid in his bathroom for four days, barter and bet a vase into coins so she could pay her way home, and contrive to keep the whole thing secret from Beeman. And all this for a girl who thought he was
sweet
.

Tansy waited a few breaths, then whispered into the darkness, ‘Thank you.'

But still Skir said nothing. He must have fallen asleep, thought Tansy, and a moment later she was asleep herself.

CHAPTER 5

Raid on Arvestel

‘EASY, lads.'

Tugger's order was barely breathed. The four rowers shipped oars so smoothly that not a drop of water splashed into the river. Perrin nosed the boat into the reeds until it bedded itself in the soft mud. The silence was broken only by the cry of a wading bird. The air was warm, with the breath of summer; Perrin smelled trumpet-flowers and blush-blossom. There was only one moon, and it was waning, but even that was too much moon for Tugger.

‘We'll lie up here tonight and tomorrow. Moondark tomorrow night. Perfect timing. Tonight's a recce. Wisp, you stay here.'

Perrin saw the flash of teeth as Doughty grinned. Tall, solemn Pigeon squeezed Perrin's shoulder with a bony hand.

‘Watch the weather, Tug,' murmured Wisp. ‘Smells like rain.'

‘Wispy always smells rain. Not a cloud in the sky, but Wispy smells rain.'