Castle of Shadows (17 page)

He was playing with her. Cat and mouse. She had never felt hatred like it. It burned in her throat. She swallowed and found her voice at last. ‘I would do anything to help my father.’

He studied her without speaking, then nodded. ‘We understand each other, then. No lesson today, Charlie. I’m too busy.’ He picked up his pen, turned over a fresh piece of paper. He had dismissed her. Her punishment was over. She was invisible again.

‘I will leave, Prime Minister.’ She was amazed at how calm she sounded. ‘But don’t ever call me Charlie again. That was my mother’s name for me. Only my friends may
use it. I am Her Royal Highness, the Princess Charlotte Augusta Joanna Hortense of Quale.’

His pen stuttered, and a blot began to curl onto the paper.

Charlie could scarcely eat her dinner for excitement. She slurped her soup, gnawed her mutton and picked at her mashed swede, thinking constantly of the bundle hidden in the bottom of her wardrobe. And what it meant. She didn’t even mind when the footman splashed soup on her hand and dropped hot swede in her lap. ‘Don’t bother about it, Alfred,’ she replied to his aspidistra-like apologies. ‘You can’t help being clumsy, can you?’

She ran all the way to her bedroom after dinner, pulled open the wardrobe, yanked out the bundle and unwrapped it again, tearing away the layers of brown paper. It was all here, just as she had remembered – a set of Tobias’s old clothes: trousers of sturdy brown canvas, collarless shirt, waistcoat, boy’s flat cap, and a thick wool jacket.

She unfastened her boots, took off her dress and unpeeled the layers of petticoats, shifts and chemises. She re-dressed herself in the new clothes as quickly as she could and began leaping around the room, intoxicated by the freedom from heavy, hampering skirts.
When I am
Queen
, she promised herself,
I shall never wear anything
except trousers ever again!

When she had worn out her first frenzy of excitement,
and looked long and often enough at the unrecognisable person in the swivel mirror, she curled up in her armchair with a book and her eiderdown and began the wait for midnight.

A few minutes before Tobias was due, Charlie pulled on her boots and buttoned them with the buttonhook. Her shiny black boots looked odd with boy’s clothes, but it couldn’t be helped.

A faint tapping noise came from the door, and she shoved the buttonhook into her pocket and ran to open it. Tobias placed his unlit lantern on the table and turned to her. ‘Are you rea––’ His eyebrows flew skywards. He grinned.

‘Don’t you dare tease me, Tobias Petch. It was your idea, after all!’

‘I weren’t gonna tease you.’ His smile stretched. ‘Just thinking what a grand chap you make. Only trouble is your hair. You look like a boy right enough from the neck down, but what are we gonna do with those red curls?’

‘My hair isn’t red,’ she snapped. ‘It’s auburn. Like my father’s.’

‘If you say so. But it don’t look like a boy’s hair. It’s grown a deal since you started being civilised. Almost looks pretty. Can you shove it under that cap?’

‘I’ll do better than that,’ said Charlie, and she ran to her table. ‘Here they are!’ She brandished a pair of scissors. ‘You cut it off for me!’

He backed up, alarm replacing the grin. ‘I will not!
That ain’t right – cutting off a girl’s hair.’

‘Then I’ll do it myself. Hold the candle at least!’ She stood in front of the mirror, held her hair up in bunches and hacked it off.

‘Blisters!’ Tobias said in dismay, watching the feathers of hair swirl to the floor. ‘I guess it’ll grow back.’

Charlie grinned at her reflection. Cut short, her hair framed her eyebrows and ears with a tangle of soft curls. She pulled on the cap and turned to him.

‘Well?’

‘That’s done the trick. No one would know you wasn’t some snarky little lad.’

She gathered the cut hair and threw it onto the fire, where it frizzled up at once and gave off an appalling stink. ‘There,’ she said. ‘No clues! Even Windlass won’t think to look for a boy! Come on, then!’ She was nearly bouncing with excitement. In a few hours she would see her mother’s face again!

He caught her arm. ‘Calm down, Charlie. We’ve got to go careful getting out of here.’

She shrugged. ‘I know that! Mr Moleglass will be waiting in the freight room. We only have to get there, and we’ve dodged Watch before. You didn’t have any trouble getting up here from the cellars, did you?’

‘That’s just it.’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘There weren’t no sign of Watch about the place. I don’t like it.’

‘He’s probably snoring away in the library. No one
knows you’re here. Not Windlass or O’Dair. And they don’t know we’re going tonight. They can’t!’

‘I don’t see how they could, no. But we still need to go careful, and you’re larking about like this is some sorta game. It ain’t, Charlie. I don’t care to end up dead tonight, with Watch’s bullet in me back.’

The spark of excitement dimmed. He was right. Windlass might be waiting to catch them. Watch might be waiting to kill them. If she was careless, or unlucky, she might never see either of her parents again. And then there was Tobias. She felt something catch at her heart. He was risking death for her. He might have his own reasons, but that wouldn’t make her feel any better if anything happened to him.

‘Maybe…’ she said. And stopped.

‘What now?’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t go with me.’

‘
What?
’ His mouth dropped open. ‘Are you crazy?’

‘It’s too risky. I’ll go on my own.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Charlie. Forget it. I know the City. You don’t. We go together or not at all. Your choice.’ His mouth went thin and stubborn, and she knew there was no arguing with him.

She thought of her father, asleep in his cheerless bedroom, a new bottle of medicine on the bedside table. Was she doing the right thing, leaving him? She was all he had. The only one who could help him. If things went
wrong… She shuddered and shook her head. There was no turning back. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

Charlie led the way. She chose devious routes, circling back, waiting, listening. They crept down the staircase that led to the third floor. It was a sullen night. The wind chased ragged clouds across the sky, and moonlight shone fitfully through the windows. Tobias had brought his dark lantern. They kept its eye half shut and travelled in the light of the feeble beam it cast. Her heart thudded uncomfortably. She wondered if this was the last time she would do this: creep fearfully through the Castle at night, listening for Watch.

On the third floor she left the servants’ stairs behind and headed for the main staircase. They would travel to the cellars in the dumbwaiter; it was safer than using the servants’ lift.

She heard it before she saw it.
Wheeze…creak
. A massive black shadow detached itself from the wall in front of them. Moved forward. ‘Right on schedule,’ said Mrs O’Dair.

Lantern light flickered as Watch slouched around the corner. He stood, holding up his lantern and smirking at them, his other hand resting on the revolving pistol in its holster. Charlie stared at Mrs O’Dair. The housekeeper was smiling too. She looked happier than Charlie had ever seen her.

‘I have to thank both of you for making it so easy for
me,’ O’Dair said. ‘Did you really think, Petch, that I wouldn’t notice that someone had been using the freight railway? You should have replaced the coal! You’re a thief and an outlaw. The Prime Minister will doubtless give Watch an award for shooting you. And you…’ The look she threw Charlie gleamed with anticipation, ‘…so clever of you to dress yourself up as a boy. Now there will be no awkward questions when you’re found dead as well! Watch can hardly be blamed for not recognising you. Who would expect a princess of Quale to be running around the Castle at night dressed like a chimney sweep?’ O’Dair laughed: a rich treacly gurgle that turned Charlie’s skin to gooseflesh.

‘Watch!’ Tobias took a hesitant step towards the night watchman. ‘Watch, we’re mates. Don’t listen to her! You wouldn’t shoot a mate – not you! A-and Maria’ll never look at you again if you kill me!’

Watch shrugged. His hand never left the pistol. His watery eyes shifted in the lantern light. ‘Sorry, kid. Ain’t nothing personal. Times is hard. Hard as Maria’s heart. Just stand still, and it’ll be over quick.’

All the time he’d been talking, Tobias had been inching towards the housekeeper. Charlie saw his body tense, and she knew what was about to happen. He threw his lantern at Mrs O’Dair, straight at her face. Charlie didn’t wait to see if it hit her. She ran. Ran alongside Tobias, faster than she had ever run before.

A bellowing scream, then: ‘Get them!’ shrieked
Mrs O’Dair. ‘Shoot them, you fool!’

Charlie heard the sound of a banger exploding; at the same time, a giant mosquito whined past her head. She found she could run even faster. But as she ran, she realised there was no place to run to. Mrs O’Dair would not let her hide safely in her bedroom. Charlie was a witness to her own attempted murder. The O’Dair would not stop now until they were both dead. No place in the Castle was safe.

‘Follow me!’ she screamed to Tobias.

They ran, hearts hammering, lungs screaming, breath burning their throats. Watch pounded after them. Never much closer; never much further behind.

‘We’ve got to lose him,’ gasped Tobias. ‘You know this rats’ run. Come on, Charlie!’

She didn’t bother to answer. She was saving all her breath for running. There was no way down from here; they would have to go up.

She bolted up the first staircase. Then out on the fourth floor. Sprinting. Up another staircase to the fifth floor. She ran out into the corridor and along it, around a corner. A short flight of stairs. Another corridor. Another corner. She passed the door she wanted and was thirty feet further on before she realised. ‘Wait!’ Her brain switched back on. ‘This way!’ And she turned back the way they had come. She looked over her shoulder. Tobias was just standing there, his mouth open. ‘Come on!’ she insisted. ‘It’s the only way!’

With a groan, Tobias sprinted after her. Neck and neck they rounded the corner. Charlie saw the glimmer of a lantern hovering at the other the end of the corridor. She felt Tobias hesitate. She grabbed his arm and yanked him the last few steps and through a door into total darkness.

‘Careful!’ she whispered. ‘This stairwell is half rotten. No one uses it now. Find the handrail and follow me down. Don’t fall, or you’ll break both our necks!’

It was an ancient servants’ stair: windowless, narrow, winding. Charlie’s heart pounded in her ears. Would Watch be fooled? If not, the door behind them would swing open any second now, and they would be pinned in the light from Watch’s lantern. Would he shoot them in the back?

‘Hurry!’ Tobias’s voice bubbled with fear.

She groped; her fingers clutched the handrail. They began to climb down, feeling with their feet for each new step. It was pitch-black; the air stale. Each step seemed to take an age. Her old terror of the dark, of being shut in, skittered out of the corners of her brain. ‘Not now!’ she pleaded, but her heart skipped a beat, lurched, began to race.

The stairs were old, wooden, worn smooth by thousands of footsteps. They had warped into odd heights and angles. Some treads were completely missing. The stair beneath her foot creaked. So did the next. And now Tobias would step on it after her, and its wooden mouth
would scream again. She felt sick with fear: fear like death. Almost, she wished Watch would hurry and find them. Anything would be better than this.

Without noticing, she had stopped moving. Tobias stumbled against her. She felt herself falling and clutched the railing with both hands and lay against it, shaking. Tobias was half-sitting on her. He pulled himself off and grabbed her shoulder. His hand hurt: it felt angry.

‘Why did you stop?’ his voice hissed in her ear. ‘You damn near killed us!’

Light boiled down the stairwell. They froze, not moving – not daring to move in case the stairs screamed again. Tobias’s face floated above her, white and grim. The winding stair hid them from Watch, but they could hear his raspy breathing. Tobias’s eyes were locked on hers. They waited, wound tight as springs, ready to race for their lives.

Then the miracle happened. Somewhere above them Watch grunted. He shut the door and the sound of his feet running on down the corridor faded with the light. Charlie found she could move again. She pushed past Tobias, up and out. Time was short. Watch might return at any moment.

They climbed the rickety stairs, opened the door onto the corridor and turned back the way they had come. A piece of wall near Charlie’s head exploded. Watch lunged out from behind the corner. He had been lying in wait! Tobias cursed as they ran. Charlie thought:
two bullets.

Four left. Unless he has more on his holster
.

There was only one way now. And it was almost as deadly as Watch. She grabbed Tobias’s hand and tore up the twisting stairs to her attic. They had gained a fraction of time: Watch was slower on stairs.

Charlie ran to her bedroom, flung open the door and tore across it. Bashed open the window. ‘Out!’ she screamed at Tobias.

He stood frozen. His face white. ‘I can’t––’

‘Out!’ she shrieked. She pulled him to the window, pushed him through and scrambled after him. They stood on the parapet. The wind howled and shoved, making them stagger. Charlie grabbed Tobias’s hand and began to climb.

She had spent five years playing on these rooftops. She knew every inch of them. Every slope and slide, gully and drain. But she never went on the roofs in winter. In the dark. Over the ice.

The first part was easy. A low-pitched roof to scramble over, then a lead gutter. Tobias slipped and fell to one knee. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘You’re gonna kill us.’

Golden light spun out of the sky and pinned them against the roof. Another metal mosquito whined past, exploded into the slates behind them, shattering one, sending chips of slate flying. ‘Ow!’ Tobias clapped a hand to his cheek. Blood oozed between his fingers.

‘That’s what’ll kill us,’ Charlie screamed. ‘Now come on!’ She grabbed his hand and pulled. He followed.

Her mind was full of pictures. Pictures clear and sharp as crystal. She found a fragment of a second to be surprised by this and then concentrated on the image she needed. She knew the way they had to go. It was possible. Even with ice. There was only one place…
Think about it
when we get there. Concentrate
.

They slithered and slid out of the gutter, free falling down a slide of roof to a lower level.
Now climb
, thought Charlie. Watch surely couldn’t still be following them. But he was. She turned her head and saw the lantern dancing behind them, will o’ the wisp light, death in its eye.