Second Night (5 page)

It's about time there was more honesty around here too. The Master will be getting that letter any day now – and long overdue in my reckoning. The boy's turning out too much of the wild card and we'll be losing him if we don't watch out. He should have a better idea about what's going on. He needs to know he's being looked after. We should have sorted it out a long time ago.

Silver-tipped mosses hung over the crack between the rocks where Brynhilde's Spring gushed out of the earth. The water always seemed to have a glow about it, as though a star had fallen from the bright heavens and lay hidden at the bottom of the clear pool, to light the foam spilling down over the rock fall and bubbling away into the inner ditch.

Alan knelt and refreshed himself with handfuls of the sweet water, lingering until the mirrored surface became still, half expecting to see some kind of reflection that had nothing to do with the world that he knew. A feeling of disquiet prickled the hair on the back of his neck.

Everything's gone too quiet again,
he thought,
like the calm before the storm. And if it's to be a storm, it will be nothing to do with the weather this time.

Blue lifted his ears and stood alert, wagging his tail and looking towards the gap in the trees, where the path ended from the tunnel. A moment later the filly appeared, followed by Freyja and Rúna. Alan felt the rush of air and the shuddering impact as a spear plunged into the ground at his feet. The heavy black shaft quivered upright, six inches from his face.

Kyri reared over him, calling her greeting. Her dark-cloaked rider threw back his hood and laughed. ‘You're out late, Al.'

‘No more than you are, boy.' Alan gestured at the spear. ‘That hit target, I presume?'

‘Right on.' Caz slid down from Kyri's back. She led the mares to the spring to drink. Blue followed, making little excited yelping noises in the back of his throat.

‘I was beginning to wonder if you'd be dropping by tonight,' said Alan.

‘I did a couple of extra hours in the armoury. Have you got a light?'

Alan flicked an old Zippo lighter against the head of one of the torches edging a wide circle where the grass was worn down to the bare earth. The red light flared, outlining the upper branches of the old tree against the black night.

Caz pulled open the cloak. ‘What do you think?' he asked proudly, knowing that only Alan could have any idea of the gruelling reality of countless hours spent patiently cutting, beating and linking the tiny rings, pinned one into another to fashion the heavy mail tunic.

Alan nodded his appreciation. ‘Not bad for an apprentice.'

‘Pretty good for a first effort, I'd say,' said Caz.

‘There's none that would disagree. Is it finished then?'

‘No, it's got to have sleeves.'

‘That's a lot of extra work. Time's getting short.'

‘It'll be done.'

Rúna came up behind them and shoved her damp nose into Alan's back.

'All right, all right,' he said, turning round to her. ‘I know what you're after.' She lowered her head, closing her eyes while he stroked her ears. ‘She's a good lass.'

Caz laughed. ‘She's really got a thing about you, Al.'

Alan scratched between her ears and worked his fingers down her neck. She laid her head on his shoulder, whickering contentedly.

‘Don't you ever fancy a ride?' asked Caz. ‘She looks like she'd go to the ends of the earth for you.'

Alan shook his head. ‘So she might, but she and all of her bloodline are too far above ham-fisted old foot soldiers like me.'

‘But Ma rides her, even Jem sometimes, in the arena.'

‘They don't ride her mother though, do they?'

‘No, they don't ride Freyja, not any more.'

The mare stood apart from the other horses, waiting until the filly had drunk her fill and moved away, before she approached the spring.

‘The way she carries on now must be pretty upsetting for your mother,' said Alan, ‘considering all the hours she put in on bringing her up to scratch when she first started working here.'

Caz nodded. ‘She thinks it's some weird thing to do with Bryn dying.'

‘Which is right, although she doesn't know the details of it.'

‘The problem is that the old man's going to make her go through it all again, Al, and she shouldn't have to. She's done enough.'

‘I'm surprised she's still willing to let him ride her.' Alan looked hard at Caz. ‘Or is she?'

Caz looked away. ‘It's only because I tell her she has to,' he admitted.

‘That's tough on her.'

‘Yes, it is.'

‘Would he consider taking one of the others instead?'

‘No, they're not up to it. Kyri could easily carry us both. Either that, or I go on foot. After all, I'm not exactly weaponless, am I?' He pulled the spear out of the earth and tossed it over his shoulder.

He throws that thing about like a matchstick,
Alan thought soberly,
while I need both hands just to hold it straight.

He had handled the heavy weapon just once and been shocked at the weight. It had taken all his strength just to lift it onto the bench. It didn't do to ponder on what the coming of the spear into their lives could mean, or what might happen because of it.

Kyri stood between them, whickering, her eyes gleaming in the torchlight. Alan stroked her nose. Everything about her fascinated him.

‘You're a wonder in the day but it's at night that you shine,' he murmured. ‘You don't need saddles and all that old paraphernalia, do you, pretty lady?'

And that way our Mister Charles can't tag her to go snooping after the boy on his tracking system and I think she knows it.
‘I suppose she's itching to be off and running,' he said.

Caz grinned. ‘Not just yet.'

‘What does she say this time?'

Caz shrugged off his cloak. ‘She says, since you won't ride, old foot-soldier, will you fight?'

‘You've a hankering to try out that shirt, haven't you?'

‘You bet!' He walked around the circle, lighting the rest of the torches.

Alan put down the gun and unzipped his jacket. ‘What's it to be then?'

‘What's up here?'

‘Swords, sticks, bare hands – unless you could do with a bit of knife work?'

‘Swords.'

‘Wood, or for real?'

‘For real. I fancy my chances tonight.'

‘We'll see about that.'

Early the following morning at the time of clear light before sunrise, Maddie Wylde went downstairs to prepare breakfast at the lodge. The kitchen range was cold. She went into the sitting room for kindling and matches, and found Caz stretched out asleep on the sofa. His face was flecked with specks of dried mud. His wet boots were stood on the hearth.

She shook him awake. ‘Caz, you should be in bed.'

He opened his eyes and greeted her with his most disarming smile.

‘Ma, I could really do with a coffee,' he said.

CHAPTER 6

Sir Jonas read the letter carefully for the third time before he folded it and put it back in the envelope. He reached for his walking stick and strode purposefully through the library. Daisy had filled the vase on the table in the hall with roses but he didn't notice.

He crept down the long passageway towards the kitchen, dreading that he might be caught out. There was still time to invent some excuse before he was seen to be turning into the narrow corridor beside the morning room, where the door marked
OFFICE
would admit him into what had been the old butler's pantry. But Daisy was safely engaged sorting pots of jam and preserved fruit in the cellars, Maddie was in the yard and Jemima was running errands in the village. He found himself faced with the reality of what now appeared to have been an overly hasty decision.

‘Oh, dear me,' he muttered miserably, the fires of his enthusiasm already considerably quenched.

He tapped nervously at the door and waited. There was no sound of approaching footsteps, no voice inviting him to come in. He bent down and peered through the keyhole. The room appeared to be empty. He took a deep breath, grasped the doorknob and entered the dungeon of a room where his father had smoked and drank himself to death more than sixty years before. Time had done little to improve the dingy interior. The same dreary yellow ceiling sucked up what modicum of light the narrow window shed over the drab green walls. Mercifully, the old couch where the servants had found his father's cold corpse had been removed.

The brief dark years of his stewardship were our winter,
he thought.
It was appropriate that he should die when the daffodils were budding in the copses, the lawns were studded with crocuses and the ice was melting on the lake. The door to the study was finally unbarred on a glorious morning of sunshine, and I was steward of the estate and Master of the Guardians. In that moment my destiny to receive the Runes of the Deathless from the hands of the Valkyrs shone before me like a great light. Thus we were all deceived.

Sir Jonas put his hand on the old electric radiator that stood in front of the shallow grate in the black-leaded fireplace. It was still warm. He paced around the room, randomly opening drawers in the scratched wooden filing cabinets, and stopped in front of the laptop computer on the desk. While he refused to countenance such an object in the study, it was something he was no longer unfamiliar with, although the scope of its potential would remain beyond his imagining. Many things had changed at Meane Manor since the first of the great runes had been won.

The old, black telephone was an entirely different matter. Despite the ever-increasing sophistication demanded of him as Master of the Guardians in a twenty-first century world, he had remained resolute in his denial of its undoubted usefulness. But the letter that had brought him into this horrible place could not remain unanswered.

He sat down, sick with apprehension and put out a shaking hand for the receiver.
This infernal contraption of casual intrusion into one's private affairs is undoubtedly the most sophisticated instrument of torture ever to be introduced into the evolution of humankind,
he reflected grimly. Then he remembered he would have to dial a number.

‘Oh, confounded nuisance and weary day,' he sighed. ‘The best of all planning is already undone. I must bow to the inevitable and summon Madame Marguerite to assist me.'

He picked up his stick and shuffled miserably down the passage to the kitchen, where Daisy found him sitting with both elbows on the table, his head in his hands.

‘Whatever's happened, sir?' she exclaimed. ‘Are you ill? Do you want me to call the doctor?'

‘I am not ill,' he said testily. He stood up, holding the edge of the table for support until he was sure of his feet.

Daisy put down her basket of preserves. ‘Have you been waiting long? It's still bit a early for your tea but I can get it going soon enough.'

Sir Jonas cleared his throat. ‘Madame Marguerite,' he said faintly. He coughed and cleared his throat again. ‘Madame Marguerite, I have a request to make,' he said, more determinedly, hoping he sounded casual. ‘Is, ah, Madame Madeleine about to return to work in the office this morning?'

‘She's outside getting the foal cleaned up. The woman from the agency's coming to have a look at him.'

Sir Jonas was visibly relieved. ‘Of course, I had quite forgotten.' He lowered his voice. ‘Then once more I must put myself in your hands and rely upon your complete discretion, Madame Marguerite, your complete discretion.'

‘What can I do for you, sir?'

‘I would be very much obliged if you would, ah, accompany me to the office where I would appreciate your assistance in the small matter of the preparation of the telephone, in order that I may pursue an immediate conversation with Mister Charles in London.'

Daisy's jaw dropped. ‘I beg your pardon?'

Sir Jonas cleared his throat again. ‘My dear Madame Marguerite, I am aware of the singularity of this particular request but really, there is no need to gape in quite such an overt fashion.'

Daisy pulled herself together. ‘I'm sorry, Sir Jonas, but am I to understand that you're wanting to use the telephone?'

‘Of course, of course,' he replied irritably. ‘I presume you are conversant with the appropriate number?'

‘Not much would get done around here if I wasn't.'

He followed her back down the passage to the office, noting that her limp was more pronounced than usual, as it always was when she was particularly anxious. She dialled the number, her eyes boring into his face over her spectacles as though she was trying to read into the very depths of his soul.

Charles Fordham-Marshall replied at once. ‘My dear Daisy, how are you this morning?'

‘I'm very well, Mister Charles,' she replied. ‘Sir Jonas would like to have a word with you.'

There was a moment of shocked silence at the other end of the phone.

‘Well!' said Charles Fordham-Marshall eventually. ‘I suppose there must be a first time for everything.'

‘Indeed there is.'

She laid the receiver into the old man's shaking hand.

Sir Jonas waited for her to leave before he coughed and whispered hoarsely into the mouthpiece. ‘Good morning, Charles. Excuse me.'

‘Indeed this is a good morning, Jonas,' replied Charles. ‘Or should I say a singularly extraordinary morning?'

‘Perhaps, perhaps.' Sir Jonas cleared his throat and gripped the receiver. ‘Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and there is scant time available to allow for our customary formal exchange of correspondence.'

‘So you have received the letter?'

‘Indeed I have and your proposals come as no surprise to me, but I do question the overall effect of involving Caspar so directly in our work at this present juncture.'