Staked (Iron Druid Chronicles) (44 page)

“Father,” he said. “’Tis the Reverend Christensen. ’E wishes to thank you in person.”

There was a pause as if the carriage itself was alive and considering what had been said to it. Then it seemed to shrug as something large moved within, the weight shifting it on its springs, and then the door cracked open.

The reverend’s beard parted to reveal an open smile as the pastor leant into the carriage apologetically.

“So sorry to discommode you, Mr Templebane, but I could not let the opportunity of thanking you in person pass me by.”

“No matter, no matter at all,” said a deep voice from inside. “Think no more of it, my dear reverend sir. My pleasure indeed. Only sorry we had to deliver at so unholy an hour.”

“All hours are holy, Mr Templebane,” smiled the pastor, his English scarcely accented at all. “And any hour that contains such a welcome donation is all the more blessed.”

“Please!” said the voice, whose owner remained hidden except for the appearance in the carriage window of a fleshy hand carefully holding an open oyster with the smallest finger extended politely away from all the others. The shell was full of plump grey oyster meat that bobbled and spilled a little of the shellfish’s liquor as the hand airily waved the thanks away.

“You will embarrass me, sir, so you will. To be honest, the bit of business that resulted in me taking over the unwanted deadstock from the unfortunate, not to say imprudent, candle-maker left me with enough dips to gift all the churches in the parish.”

The fleshy hand retreated into the shadows and a distinct slurping noise was heard.

“But a lesser spirit might still have sold them,” said the pastor, working hard to make his thanks stick to their rightful target.

The fleshy hand reappeared as the carriage’s occupant leant further forward to drop the now-empty oyster shell daintily on to the pavement, revealing for just an instant the face of Issachar Templebane.

It was a paradox of a face, a face both gaunt and yet pillowy, the skin hanging slack over the bones of the skull with the unhealthy toad’s-belly pallor of a fat man who has lost weight too late in life for his skin to have retained the elasticity to shrink to fit the new, smaller version of himself.

He wiped a trickle of oyster juice from the edge of his mouth with the back of his thumb before reaching forward to grip the pastor’s hand in a brisk, hearty farewell.

“I could, I could, but my brother and I are lawyers not tradesmen, and I assure you our fees in the matter were more than adequate. Besides, money isn’t everything. Now, goodnight to you, sir, and safe home. Come, Coram, we must be going.”

And with that he released the hand and retreated back into the carriage as the wiry young man sprang up to the driver’s seat, gathered the reins and snapped the horses into motion with a farewell nod to the pastor, who was left standing among the debris of Templebane’s oyster supper feeling strangely dismissed, rather than actually wished well.

As the carriage turned the corner a panel slid back in the front of the vehicle, next to Coram, and Templebane’s face appeared.

“Did you draw the reverend gentleman’s attention to the man Ketch and his suspicious bundle?” he asked, all the cheeriness in his voice now replaced by a business-like flatness.

“Yes, Father. I done it just as ’ow you said, casual-like.”

If the fog had ears as well as eyes, it might by this time have noted a further paradox regarding Issachar Templebane, which was that the boy who called him Father did not have anything like the same deep, fluid – and above all cultured – voice as he. Coram’s voice had been shaped by the rough dockside alleys of the East End: it dropped “h’s” and played fast and loose with what had, with Victoria’s recent accession to the throne, only just become the Queen’s English. Issachar spoke with the smooth polished edges of the courtroom; Coram’s voice was sharp as a docker’s hook. If there seemed to be no familiar resemblance between them, this was because although Issachar Templebane had many children, he had no blood kin beyond his twin brother Zebulon, who was the other half of the house of Templebane & Templebane.

Issachar and Zebulon were prodigious adopters of unclaimed boys, all of whom grew up to work for them in the chambers and counting room that adjoined their house on Bishopsgate. It was their habit to name the boys for the London parishes from whose workhouses (or in Coram’s case, the foundling hospital) they had been procured. This led to unwieldy but undoubtedly unusual names: there was an Undershaft, a Vintry, a Sherehog, a Bassetshaw and a Garlickhythe Templebane. The only exception was the youngest, who had been taken from the parish of St Katherine Cree, and he, it being too outlandish to call the boy Katherine, was called Amos, a name chosen at random by letting the Bible fall open and choosing the title of the book it opened at. If Amos had anything to say about the matter he might well have remarked that he had as well been called Job since, as the youngest member of the artificially assembled family, with brothers who shared no love between them, he got more than his share of grief and toil. He didn’t remark on this because he spoke not at all, his particular affliction being that he was mute. Coram, by contrast, was garrulous and questioning, a characteristic that his adopted fathers encouraged and punished in equal measure depending on their whim and humour.

Coram cleared his throat by spitting onto the crupper of the horse in front of him and went on.

“And ’e remarked, the pastor did, that the ’ouse Ketch gone in was the Jew’s ’ouse, and that she was a good woman, though not of his faith.”

Templebane nodded approvingly, his hands busy with a short-bladed shucking knife as he opened another oyster.

“Quite, quite. He has no malice in him, none at all. As solid and upright and clean as a new mast of Baltic pine is the Danish reverend. Which will make his testimony all the more credible, should we require it.”

Here he paused and slurped another oyster, tossing the shell out into the road. He chewed the unlucky bivalve once, to burst it, then swallowed with a shiver of satisfaction.

“Mark it, Coram: there is no better instrument of destruction than an honest man who has no axe to grind.”

And with that the panel slapped shut and Coram Templebane was alone with the horses and the fog that thinned as he drove up towards the higher ground of Goodman’s Fields.

Sara Falk crouched in front of the trembling young woman and smiled encouragingly at her.

“Lucy,” she said.

Lucy Harker just stared at the door through which Mr Sharp had led Ketch, as if expecting them to walk back in at any moment.

“Lucy. May I?”

She reached for Lucy’s neck, pushed away the hair, and then lifted the collar of the pinafore as if looking for something like a necklace. Finding nothing she sucked her teeth with a snap of disappointment and shook her head.

The eyes stayed locked on the outer door. Sara Falk moved into her field of vision.

“Lucy. You must believe the next three things I tell you with all your heart, for they are the truest things in the world: firstly, that man will never walk back through that door unbidden and he shall never, ever hurt you or anyone ever again. Mr Sharp is making sure of that right now.”

Lucy’s eyes flickered and she looked at the slender woman, her eyes making a question that her mouth could not, her body still tense and quivering like a wild deer on the point of flight.

“Secondly, I know you have visions,” continued Sara Falk, reaching out to touch the pitch-plaster gently, as if stroking a hurt away. “It’s the visions that make you scream. Visions you have when you touch things. Visions that make you wonder if you are perhaps mad?”

The eyes stared at her. Sara smiled and raised her own hands, showing the gloves and the two rings that she wore on top of them, one an odd-shaped piece of sea-glass rimmed with a band of gold, the other set with a bloodstone into which a crest of some sort had been carved.

“You are not mad, and you are not alone. As you see, others have reason to cover their hands too. And if you come with me into my house, where there is a warm fire and pie and hot milk with honey, we shall sit with my glove box and find an old pair of mine and see if they fit you.”

She removed the rings, reached for the buttons at the wrist of one glove, quickly opened them and peeled the thin black leather off, revealing the bare hand beneath. She freed the other hand even faster, and then reached gently for Lucy’s bound hands.

“May I?”

Lucy’s eyes stayed locked on hers as she gently began to unwrap one of the hands.

“I have something that will calm you, Lucy, a simple piece of sea-glass for you to touch, and I promise it will not harm you but give you a strength until we can find you one of your own—”

Lucy pulled her hand sharply away but Sara held on to it firmly and smiled as she held out the sea-glass ring: the glass, worn smooth by constant tumbling back and forth on a beach, matched Sara Falk’s eyes perfectly.

“You need to touch this—”

Lucy goggled at it, then ripped her hand out of Sara Falk’s, shaking her head with sudden agitation, emphatically miming “No!”

“Lucy—” began Sara, and then stopped.

Lucy was tearing at her own bandages, moaning excitedly from behind the tar and hessian gag. It was Sara’s turn to watch with eyes that widened in surprise as the rags wound off and revealed their secret.

Lucy freed one hand and held out a fist, palm up, jabbing it insistently at the older woman.

Then she opened it.

Clenched in her hand was another piece of sea-glass, its light hazel colour like that of Lucy’s own eyes.

Sara Falk’s face split into a grin that matched and made even younger the youthful face she carried beneath the prematurely white hair. It was a proud and a mischievous grin.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, you clever girl. Clever,
clever
girl! You kept your own heart-stone.
That’s
how you survived that awful man unbroken! Oh, you shall be
fine
, Lucy Harker, for you have sense and spirit. The visions that assault you when you touch things are a gift, and though it is not an easy one to bear, believe me that it
is
a gift and no lasting blight on your life.”

A tear leaked out of one of Lucy’s eyes and Sara caught it and wiped it away before it hit the black plaster.

“And this heart-stone, I mean your piece of sea-glass, does it glow when there is danger near?”

Lucy again looked startled and on edge, as if she was on the point of breaking for the door. Sara put a hand on her shoulder, gently.

“Did you know that only a true Glint can see the fire that blazes out of it when peril approaches?” said Sara. “Ordinary folk see nothing but the same dull piece of sea-glass. Why, even the estimable Mr Sharp who has abilities of his own cannot see the fire that guards the unique power that you and I have. It is not glowing now, is it?”

Lucy looked at the dull glass in her hand; it was like a cloudy gobbet of marmalade.

“Then if you trust it, trust me,” said Sara. “And we shall find a way to soften that pitch and peel this wretched gag off without hurting you. Come to the kitchen and we shall see what we can do.”

She smiled encouragingly at the gagged face. Her grandfather had indeed once sought out oddities like Lucy Harker and other people with even stranger abilities. The Rabbi Falk had been one of the great minds of his time, and though not born with any powers of his own, he not only believed in what he termed the “supranatural” but also toiled endlessly to increase his knowledge of it and so harness it. He had been a Freemason, a Kabbalist, an alchemist and a natural scientist, obsessively studying the threads of secret power that wove themselves beneath the everyday surface of things and underpinned what he called “The Great and Hidden History of the World”.

It was perhaps proof that Fate had a sense of humour in that his granddaughter had been born with some of those very elusive powers which he had spent a lifetime searching for and trying to control.

Sara reached for Lucy’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“You are a Glint, Lucy, and you have fallen among friends,” she said. “You are out of danger here, for this is the Safe House, the most secure house in all London, safer than the Tower itself for it was made so to guard a grave secret, a key of great power, and because of that you can rest, secure that none may enter unless I let them, and so none shall harm you. Now come with me, for you are cold and the kitchen is warm and altogether more welcoming.”

With that Sara led Lucy from the room so that all that remained was the echo of their footsteps walking away down a stone-flagged passageway, and the sound of her voice saying, “The third thing you must believe, Lucy Harker, is that the world in general, and London in particular, is a far, far stranger place that most people ever know.”

And as if to prove that fact to the empty room, the hollow clay mannequin stood up, walked across the room and quietly closed the door behind them, before returning to his seat and sitting as motionlessly as before.