The Silver Blade (18 page)
The sound of the dog’s barking was loud and close.
‘We should split up. You go that way, I’ll go this, and I’ll meet you back here. We have to find him.’
Yann drew his knife and made a cross on the wall. As he set off down the long hall, a rush of wind blew out all the candles, even extinguishing his oil lamp. Powerless in the dark, he was trying to relight his lantern when he heard a rustle of silk.
‘Calico and corpses.’
An icy hand touched his.
‘Sisters Macabre, is it you?’ he asked the pitch-black, endless darkness.
Something snowflake soft stroked his face. Holding his nerve, he tried once more to relight his lantern. Every time, the flame would flicker and die.
‘Damask and death.’
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘Where we should be.
Where you belong.’
Finally the flame took and light spilled out, and to his great relief he could see.
‘Tulle and truth.’
Before him stood the Seven Sisters Macabre, lined up against the wall of the chamber, as hideous to behold as they always had been, their faces powdered, their cheeks rouged, their skin patched, their lips sewn closed. At their throats the infamous red necklaces. Their voices came from inner ghosts. They moved towards him, their feet not touching the ground. They glided. Yet Yann could see no threads of light. How were they being worked?
‘We knew we would see you again.
For you belong to us.’
Yann didn’t move. Slowly they glided closer. He tried with all his willpower to take control of them, but he could not.
‘We are not yours any more,’ said one.
Their flesh smelled of dead lilies.
‘What do you want?’ asked Yann, as they began to whirl round him, their faces a blur, their skulls showing through their stitched, papery, translucent skin.
They spoke with one eerie voice: ‘Your father is waiting, he has been waiting a long, long time.’
In that moment, that last moment when Yann’s future still shone so full of promise, before fate turned his dreams to ashes, in those last seconds when loving Sido was still possible, Yann wished he had the power to stop the clocks.
His words tasted of clay. ‘My father? He is dead.’
‘Count Kalliovski is waiting to embrace you. You, his one and only son.’
No sooner were the words spoken than somewhere close by the monstrous dog howled.
‘Your father doesn’t like to be kept waiting,’ whispered the Sisters Macabre.
Chapter Fifteen
C
ount Kalliovski’s new toy, the head of the Marquis de Villeduval, sat on a small ebony table in its glass case. Kalliovski’s passion, if not obsession, was the making of automata. He was striving to create a being without the inconvenience of a soul, and with each one of his creations he believed himself to be nearing his ambition. The Marquis was manipulated, like the Count’s many other automata, by the dark threads. Today the head gazed at the long gallery, with its tall windows and the painted scenery of the gardens where the air was filled with bird-song, so like the vistas he had looked on in life. The Count sat in a wing-back chair, his legs stretched, his red kid gloves like a blazing spire before his mouth. Balthazar lay beside him, his huge head resting on his paws.
ount Kalliovski’s new toy, the head of the Marquis de Villeduval, sat on a small ebony table in its glass case. Kalliovski’s passion, if not obsession, was the making of automata. He was striving to create a being without the inconvenience of a soul, and with each one of his creations he believed himself to be nearing his ambition. The Marquis was manipulated, like the Count’s many other automata, by the dark threads. Today the head gazed at the long gallery, with its tall windows and the painted scenery of the gardens where the air was filled with bird-song, so like the vistas he had looked on in life. The Count sat in a wing-back chair, his legs stretched, his red kid gloves like a blazing spire before his mouth. Balthazar lay beside him, his huge head resting on his paws.
‘Shall I tell you my plans, my mad friend?’ said Kalliovski.
‘Have you woken me to bore me with information that holds little fascination for me?’
‘No, you cake stand of a head. I am here to tell you what designs I have on your daughter, remember her?’
‘I have no daughter,’ said the Marquis de Villeduval. ‘I never had any children. I don’t like them.’
‘Then I will tell you what I intend for your niece, Sido de Villeduval.’
‘I have no niece. I once knew a Sidonie, an exceptionally plain girl with a limp. Speak to yourself about her if you must. I am engaged in an altogether more amusing subject.’
Controlling his creation’s speech afforded Kalliovski much pleasure. He sat back feeling all-powerful, delighted with this head of his. A thin smile crept across his face.
‘I see nothing to merit such mirth,’ said the Marquis de Villeduval. ‘And, as I said, you are interrupting an interesting train of thought about snuffboxes.’
‘Not shoe buckles, my dear Marquis?’
‘What use is a shoe buckle to a severed head?’
Kalliovski’s laughter rang throughout the long gallery.
‘It matters little, I will tell you all the same. I have forged a deal with the devil, and Sido will ensure its success. She will be my pretty little caged dove. I shall use her to lure me a falcon. And when I have him, I shall steal his soul and the threads of light will be mine. I’ve had a key made for that very purpose. What do you say to that, surveyor of snuffboxes?’
‘My ears are stuffed with wax,’ said the Marquis de Villeduval. ‘I cannot hear you.’
‘My dear demented sir, there is no escape from me. I told you long ago, just as I told Sido. I have no mercy. I show no mercy. I never forget what is owing to me, what belongs to me.’
The Marquis’s spirit, a moth imprisoned inside the head, was fluttering at broken memories.
‘You are like me,’ he said. ‘We are both quite mad.’
Kalliovski stared incredulously at his creation, who dared to speak of his own free will. In quiet rage he sent out the dark threads. Slowly, as if squeezing juice from an orange they robbed the Marquis of all independent speech. Quiet now, his eyes snapped tight shut.
‘Oh, my dear foolish Marquis. What? Silent at last?’ said Kalliovski, closing the door on the waxwork head. And he thought he saw one unorchestrated tear roll down the Marquis’s puffy cheeks.
He rang the bell and Milkeye entered.
‘Where is the keymaker?’
‘Citizen Quint is in the workroom, master.’
‘Then tonight it will begin. Send Anselm Loup to me.’
H
ow many day or weeks Anselm had been in Kalliovski’s wondrous domain he couldn’t rightly say, nor did he much care, for as long as he was never asked to leave, he didn’t mind. Every day he had been called to the long gallery to sit before his new master. And every day he found himself coming out of a trance and feeling different, as if the furniture of his mind had been shifted. His feelings, whatever they had been, for his adoptive father, the butcher Loup, were now replaced by a passionate devotion to Count Kalliovski.
ow many day or weeks Anselm had been in Kalliovski’s wondrous domain he couldn’t rightly say, nor did he much care, for as long as he was never asked to leave, he didn’t mind. Every day he had been called to the long gallery to sit before his new master. And every day he found himself coming out of a trance and feeling different, as if the furniture of his mind had been shifted. His feelings, whatever they had been, for his adoptive father, the butcher Loup, were now replaced by a passionate devotion to Count Kalliovski.
Soon after this transfer of affection an idea came to Anselm, independent, or so it seemed, of all that his master had planted in the fertile plains of his uneducated mind. Perhaps he was Kalliovski’s bastard son, for they had much in common, and hadn’t he been abandoned at birth? As his master said, everything has a design, everyone a destiny.
The day Kalliovski put his long-awaited plan into action, Anselm arrived in his master’s presence brimming with enthusiasm. He was much changed from the day when Mr Tull had first taken him there. His hair was coiffured, his skin shiny clean and his clothes tailored especially for him. He looked every inch a hero: blond hair, amber eyes, a slayer of dragons, a breaker of hearts.
The Count studied him and said, ‘If you fail me in this assignment, it will be the last you are given as a living man.’
Anselm felt his throat tighten. He wouldn’t fail.
‘There is a small theatre company called the Circus of Follies. I want you to find out what goes on there,’ said Kalliovski.
Anselm looked bewildered. The question ‘How?’ sat uncomfortable and unspoken on his lips.
‘I suggest you capitalise on your assets, your looks. There is a girl, her name is Colombine, she is the leading actress. Through her you will find out all I need to know about the dwarf Tetu and, more importantly, Yann Margoza. Succeed in this and you will be my day, as I am the night.’
T
hat afternoon Anselm found himself once more in the rue des Couteaux, with only the vaguest of memories of where he had been, and an overwhelming desire to meet an actress called Colombine.
hat afternoon Anselm found himself once more in the rue des Couteaux, with only the vaguest of memories of where he had been, and an overwhelming desire to meet an actress called Colombine.
Chapter Sixteen
T
etu had been working late and knew something was wrong even before he saw Yann standing on the landing, his face white, his clothes covered in limestone chalk.
etu had been working late and knew something was wrong even before he saw Yann standing on the landing, his face white, his clothes covered in limestone chalk.
‘What are you doing here? Where’s Didier?’ Tetu asked, darting a glance behind Yann. ‘Is he with you?’
‘No.’
‘And Remon Quint?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Are they safe?’
‘Why did you never tell me the truth? All this time … all those lies.’
Tetu was frightened by the look on Yann’s face. ‘What has happened, Yannick? Tell me now.’
‘No, first you owe me the truth. Is Kalliovski my father?’
‘Who did you hear that from?’ Tetu’s voice was less assured.
‘My friend,’ said Yann coldly, ‘time is running out. I’m a fool to have trusted you. How many times did I ask you who my father was? And all you did was lie.’
‘No, no, I didn’t lie. He was a gypsy. I just didn’t name him.’
‘If I remember rightly, you told me my father was dead.’
‘And again I didn’t lie.’
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