Read The Bell at Sealey Head Online
Authors: Patricia McKillip
The Bell at Sealey Head (21 page)
“I’m sure they would tell me exactly that,” Miranda Beryl murmured. “So it seems we must wait.”
Emma eased out the door. There was little more life in the silent rooms around her; as yet no one had even sent a servant down for coffee. They would snore until noon, then all demand to be fed at once, like nestlings. She went down the hallway toward the stairs, then, on impulse, passed them. She turned a corner and then another, beyond the bedchambers, where a little peaked alcove held nothing but a dormer window and a linen closet.
She put the tray on the window seat and opened the door.
She had so little expectation of seeing anything but folded sheets and towels that she jumped at the sight of Ysabo. She stared, tongue-tied with relief. The princess, carrying the scrap bowl as usual at that time of the morning, had started as well, looking apprehensive, as though anything might have come at her out of the abruptly opening door.
Then she smiled tremulously and put her finger to the smile at the same time.
“I’m glad to see you,” she whispered.
“I’ve been trying so hard to find you! Is Mr. Dow—”
“He’s somewhere. He comes and goes; I never know—” She glanced behind her, then tried to speak even more softly than a whisper. “He shouldn’t have come, but he refuses to go. So far no one else has seen him.”
“What is he doing there? What is he looking for?”
“Mostly, the bell. And other things. Why we are all caught up in this strange life. Emma, I always thought it was odd, but no one else did, and now that someone has told me yes it is a spell, it is enchantment—now I’m terrified twice. Of it coming to an end. Or of it never ending.” She tried to smile again; her skin, always pale, seemed bluish, more whey than milk. “And above all, I am afraid for Ridley Dow. I wish he would go away. Then I think of him gone, no one to answer my questions, ever, and that is even more frightening.”
“Let him stay, then,” Emma said, more firmly than she felt. “Let him find his answers. This strange house has ruled your life long enough.”
“But it’s so dangerous for him,” the princess breathed.
“And for you?”
“So far, no. He is very careful around me. I think no one would notice him at other times; they’d think he belonged somewhere else in the house, or to some other part of the ritual.”
“Where is he now?”
Ysabo shook her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet today. He said he wanted to study all the pieces of the ritual. That’s a lot of lives.”
“How can he?”
“He vanishes. He becomes invisible and watches. He’s magical, Emma. That’s how he recognizes magic.”
“I hope he’s magical enough,” Emma sighed, “for a house full of it. I’m so glad I found you again. I was terrified when he closed that door behind him. I thought the roof would fall in, or Aislinn House would disappear or something.”
“I know. So did I.” She glanced worriedly up at the lofty stones, then added, “I had better go. Maeve and my mother are waiting for me to try the wedding dress on. Aveline is taller than I; the sleeves and hem must be shortened.” She paused, her thin red brows peaked; she asked suddenly, “Do you know when the moon will be full? We never pay it much attention. It’s outside of our lives.”
Emma tried to remember; she hadn’t been paying attention lately, either. A thin, cold, tilted smile in the sky outside her own bedroom window emerged from behind a cloud in her memories. She said, “I think—”
What she thought was overwhelmed by a great tangle of sounds—thick wood clouting stone, a man shouting, the fierce yammer of crows growing louder and closer. She clapped her hands over her mouth. The princess had pulled the scrap bowl against her, hugging it hard, her white face turned toward the clamor. In the hall below, the familiar, echoing din from the great hall ceased.
The silence was abrupt, eerie, and it didn’t last long. In the next moment came the roar of men’s voices, swelling in fury to meet the harsh cawing of the crows.
A figure ran through the open door at the top of the tower and down the steps, pursued by a black cloud of birds. They were swooping, slashing with beaks and claws at the nebulous figure, who seemed oddly faceless and mostly formed of a long black cloak. Ysabo gasped. Emma, guessing what it must be, pushed a scream back into her throat. The knights’ shouting spilled ahead of them; boots pounded on stone steps; swords scraped the walls as they clamored up to deal with whatever had set the crows going.
“Mr. Dow,” Emma wailed, then dropped her hands, hissed as loudly as she dared across the threshold, “This way! Come through the door!”
The empty hood turned away from the birds toward the princess and the housemaid standing there, one on each side of the world. The first knight appeared at the top of the inner stairs, baring his teeth and an unsheathed blade. He shouted at the sight of the drifting cloak attacked by crows. It shook its empty sleeves at the two young women as though, Emma thought, it were shooing away geese.
Someone cried behind Emma, startling all of them, “Ridley!”
The name seemed to shape him, pull him out of nowhere.
His face appeared, bloody and astonished; crows seized his visible arms, his hair, stabbing at him. Then a light flashed out of him and the crows leaped away from him, screeching. He vanished again. The cloak collapsed on the floor, instantly smothered in a furious rain of crows. Ysabo swayed back against the walkway wall, still clutching the scrap bowl, and closed her eyes. Emma stood frozen, watching the flowing tides of men and birds converge in front of the princess.
Then the door was wrenched out of Emma’s grip; it slammed with a bang, and someone careened into her, pushing her over on top of Miranda Beryl’s feet.
Miss Beryl joined her on the carpet a second later, kneeling beside the prone figure between them. He was facedown, his coat and shirt tattered and flecked red.
“Help me get him up, Emma,” Miss Beryl said. Her deep voice sounded crisp, unshaken. But one of her curls, which Emma had thought must be glazed into place by the frost in her maid’s eyes, sprang loose suddenly, went trailing down her back. “Is there an empty room?”
Emma’s eyes widened. “In this house?”
“Attic, servants’ quarters, anywhere—A closet?” Her green eyes, unblinking on Emma’s face, tried to compel the impossible out of her. Impossibly, they succeeded.
“Lady Eglantyne’s dressing room. Nobody uses it now. Sophie naps in her room after breakfast and Dr. Grantham’s morning visit; she won’t see us go in.”
“Yes.”
Somehow they wrestled Mr. Dow to his feet, not without further damage to Miss Beryl’s hair and the front of her lacy morning dress. Emma, wearing black, fared better. Ridley helped them toward the end, his eyes opening, his legs finding some balance.
“Is that truly you, fair Miranda?” he asked in wonder as they stumbled down the mercifully empty hallway. “How wonderful. And the faithful, lovely Emma. Just in time to rescue me. Ysabo was right about those crows.”
“Ridley, be quiet,” Miss Beryl commanded.
“Yes, my own,” he whispered. Emma closed her eyes tightly in disbelief, opened them again.
“If anyone looks out and sees us,” Miranda said softly, “you were wandering in the woods reading a book and fell into a bramble bush. You found your way upstairs after being delivered to the doorstep by—oh—”
“Dr. Grantham,” Emma suggested.
“Good. No. Why didn’t he stay—?”
“Because the doctor was in a hurry, and he found Mr. Dow stumbling around in the yard. You said we’d take care of him.”
“Good.”
But no one opened a chamber door, came out to wonder at the procession. “Emma,” Miss Beryl said, her voice very low.
“Yes, miss.”
“I know you keep your secrets.”
“So do you,” Emma commented with amazement. “How much of the other Aislinn House do you know?”
“What Ridley has told me.” She waited, balancing Ridley between her shoulder and the doorjamb while Emma opened Lady Eglantyne’s chamber door.
She was relieved at the absence of crows, as well as of Sophie. The faint breathing, the muted light and soft summery air, made the room seem safe, as far away as possible from the strange, violent, incomprehensible world within the walls around them. She looked into the dressing room, an airy chamber nearly as large as the bedchamber, full of dusty wardrobes and chests, a daybed, and a stand with a jug and basin, both harboring forgotten puddles.
Ridley collapsed with a sigh on the daybed. Miss Beryl sent Emma for water, linens, blankets. Emma, returning with blankets and a full water jug, saw her peeling away Mr. Dow’s torn clothes with breathtaking efficiency. On her way back from the linen closet, with her arms full of sheets and towels, she was startled by a voice in the quiet hallway.
“Emma, is it now?” Mr. Moren drew up beside her, idly spinning a monocle on its ribbon. “I have been looking for Miss Beryl. Is she still abed?”
“No, sir,” Emma said, before she thought, then stood groping for something plausible, while Mr. Moren flipped the monocle into his fingers and fitted it into his eye. It made one bright eye seem larger than the other, she saw, and twice as difficult to think.
“Ah, you’ve seen her, then. Where is she?”
“I think with Lady Eglantyne, sir.”
“I think not.” He raised a brow, dropped the glass circle from his eye socket, and spun it again. “I just looked in. She is not there.”
Emma blinked. She had closed the dressing room door, she remembered, lest Lady Eglantyne open her eyes and spy a half-naked man on her daybed. “Well, then,” she heard herself gabble, “perhaps she’s dressing. I heard her mention a ride on the beach this morning with Raven Sproule.”
He let the monocle fall, looking mildly amused at the idea of the squire’s son. “There’s a thought. Perhaps I’ll ride out and join them. You needn’t mention it. I’ll surprise her.”
“Yes, sir,” Emma said woodenly, her mouth as dry as day-old ashes. She didn’t move until he had turned down the stairway, and she heard his footsteps on the floorboards below. She returned to the dressing room to find Mr. Dow neatly bandaged, and beginning to breathe quietly. Miss Beryl helped her unfold sheets and a blanket, settle them over him. Emma glanced around the room, saw the streaked towels, the bloody water in the basin.
“I’ll clean these up, miss, as soon as I can. There’s a potion in the stillroom my mother made up for soothing pain. Shall I get that for him?”
Miss Beryl nodded. “That would be good.” She blinked at the dried stains on her dress, then brushed at them, her long fingers trembling slightly. But her voice was still cool. “I must hurry and change to go riding with Mr. Sproule.”
“Now?” Emma said incredulously.
“He’ll be here soon. I must still be seen as the rich Miss Beryl, idling away my time while my great-aunt fades.”
“Whatever will your maid think about your dress?”
“Who knows? We lead unsavory lives.”
For some reason that made Emma remember the monocle, the enlarged, peering, glittering eye. “Oh. Mr. Moren stopped me in the hallway, looking for you.”
Miss Beryl’s face took on its mask-like calm, as though she had turned herself into porcelain. “What did you tell him?”
“That I thought you were dressing to go riding with Mr. Sproule. So he went away, to surprise you on the beach.”
The porcelain blinked; Emma heard it breathe. “Emma, you are astonishing. I am so grateful.” She paused, her eyes no longer chilly, remote, but wide and shadowed with what they had seen. “I walk always, always on thin ice,” she said softly. “Emma, the best you could do for all of us now is to find that stranger whom I would not recognize as such in Sealey Head. You know him as Mr. Moren, in one of his guises.” Emma opened her mouth, closed it wordlessly. “He has been among my friends—” Miss Beryl checked, waved the word away with her hand. “My following—my disguise, I suppose you could call it. He has been close enough to watch me all of my life. And now that I’m here in Aislinn House, about to become its heir, he wants me even closer still. He wants what I cannot, would never give him. But, oddly enough, he is rarely with me now. He disappears; no one sees him outside of Aislinn House, and only then early in the morning, when I visit my great-aunt, or late at night. He told you that he would meet me on the beach. But he won’t be there.”
“He said—he asked me not to tell you.”
“So. You’ll think he is there, and I would never expect him to be there. But where will he really be? I think he disguises himself during the day from those of us who recognize him.”
“But why?” Emma’s voice barely cleared her throat. “Why would he hide himself? What does he want? Who is he?”
“The man who controls the secrets of Aislinn House.” The implacable voice shook finally. “He is Ridley Dow’s uncle far, far too many times great. He is Nemos Moore.”
Seventeen
That evening Gwyneth read to the twins:
So charming were the unexpected visitors to Sealey Head that in no time at all both Mr. Blair and Sir Magnus Sproule were possessed of the same idea: they—at least the highest-ranking among the strangers—should come ashore and be given a sumptuous dinner. Exactly where the necessary succulent viands were to be found in the desperate and impoverished town, neither of them knew. Somebody probably had a pig left. Or a sheep. Surely Lord Aislinn hadn’t drunk up his entire wine cellar. There must be cabbages around somewhere. And leeks. And—
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