A Skinful of Shadows

CHAPTER 20

The carriage windows were curtained. Overhead, a shuttered lantern rocked on a ring set in the ceiling, narrow beams of candlelight dancing on the walls.

Makepeace felt cold and sick, and could not stop shaking. Everything hurt. Bear had saved her by striking out at her captors, but he had done so with her body. Now she started to feel the bruises and strains. She could only hope that she had not broken bones or lost teeth.

There was blood in her mouth, but also the moth-dust taste of the Infiltrator that Bear’s swipes had torn so easily. Who had that spirit been? Perhaps some veteran of a dozen lives? Had they tried to scream in their last moment of existence? She could not feel sadness for them, only a hollow horror when she remembered coughing up plumes of torn ghost.

Makepeace’s thoughts would not run straight. She could feel Bear’s exhaustion, but he also seemed restless and confused.

Bear? Bear — what’s wrong?

For the first time ever he did not seem to hear her. He seemed bee-stung, too blind with some discomfort to notice her. She breathed deeply, trying to calm him.

What was Sir Marmaduke doing now? She imagined him charging into the courtyard, and finding her gone. He would give orders, have horses saddled, set off in pursuit . . .

The carriage was travelling fast, but not as fast as riders at full gallop. The broad road towards London cut a bold stripe across the moor, with open land on either side. The carriage would be visible a mile away. If it stayed on the main road, it would be overtaken in no time.

Where was she? She tweaked aside the curtain, and peered out. Trees slid by, black embroidery against the dark silver sky. A milestone marker passed, then a great crag shaped like a man’s fist, its pale stone livid against the dark heather.

Makepeace had spent years weighing up escape routes, and noting which tracks were sheltered from view. If she was where she thought she was, then up ahead there should be . . . Yes! There! The spiked silhouette of a lightning-shattered oak. She took a deep breath.

‘Driver!’ she called, over the echo of hoofs and rattle of harness. ‘Turn left!’ Her voice was hoarse from roaring, but she tried to imitate Lady April’s rasping, imperious tones. ‘After the broken tree!’

The driver gave a nod and reined in the horses. If he noticed anything odd about her voice he gave no sign of it. Perhaps one yelling voice sounded a lot like another over the rattle of wheels.

He turned the carriage carefully just after the tree, and eased it on to a rugged old drover’s lane, flanked by high, quivering mounds of gorse. The carriage jolted, jerked and tilted, until Makepeace feared that they might throw a wheel.

And then, just as Makepeace was feeling a little safer, the carriage slowed and halted, the driver calming the horses with low whistles. Makepeace opened her mouth to call up a question, then caught the sound that her driver had already heard.

Somewhere behind them, probably on the broad, straight road to London, galloping hoofs were echoing into the night. One horse, maybe two.

Makepeace closed her eyes and prayed that the carriage was hidden by the high gorse, and that its broad roof was not gleaming in the moonlight like the back of a great beetle. Bear’s rampage had left her too drained and battered to leap out and run.

The galloping hoofs grew louder. Louder, until it seemed they must be a stone’s throw away. But they did not break rhythm. They passed, and faded.

The riders had not spotted the carriage. And the driver had not recognized them as men from Grizehayes. The carriage eased into motion once more, and Makepeace’s heart slowed to a less painful rhythm.

Devil take you, Sir Marmaduke. I hope you’re halfway to Belton Pike before you realize you’ve overshot us.

Evidently Lady April’s driver was used to travelling stealthily. For now, this was proving unexpectedly useful. When the path forked, she bade him take a rough hunting trail into the woods. The black trees closed in protectively. Bracken and dead sticks crackled between the spokes.

By lantern-light, she checked her injuries. Her teeth were intact, though she had to pick a few splinters out of her gums. Lady April’s bodkin had punctured the skin of her shoulder, but not deeply. There were a lot of bruises, however, and a sharp pain in her left elbow. Looking back, she thought she remembered a soundless, velvety, tearing sensation in the joint when she hurled Young Crowe across the room.

Her body wanted to sleep, so that it could start fixing itself, and her head grew treacherously heavy. She jerked herself awake, over and over, but at last exhaustion closed itself around her mind like the fingers of a soft, dark hand.

‘Hey!’

Makepeace lurched into wakefulness, the shock of it making her stomach swim. She blinked painfully into the light of a lantern. Beyond it she could just make out the pale, jowly face of a man, creased with confusion and suspicion. He was standing at the door of the carriage, staring in at her.

Then Makepeace remembered where she was, and why. The staring man must be the driver. What had Lady April called him? Cattmore?

‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded.

He must have been expecting Lady April, Makepeace realized. The cloak, the ring, the gloves. And now he had found a battered-looking girl of fifteen in his carriage.

What could she do? Make a break for it? Beg him not to betray her?

No.

‘Take that light out of our eyes, Cattmore,’ Makepeace said, with all the steely authority she could muster. Remembering Lady April’s rigid posture and thin, red lips, she straightened her back and narrowed her mouth to a line. ‘Our sleep must not be interrupted. We shall need to be well rested when we reach our destination.’

It was a gamble, a desperate and dangerous gamble. She was staking everything on the driver knowing enough about the Fellmotte Elders to know that they did not always look like Fellmotte Elders.

The lantern wobbled. Makepeace could sense Cattmore’s indecision and dismay.

‘My . . . lady? Is that you?’

‘Of course,’ Makepeace rapped sharply, her heartbeat thundering in her head. ‘Do you think we would trust anyone else with this?’ She held up one hand, letting the signet ring catch the light.

‘No, my lady — forgive me, my lady.’ He sounded cowed and remorse-filled, and Makepeace had to suppress a sigh of relief. ‘I . . . I was not aware that you had . . . moved residence. May I ask—’

‘You may not,’ Makepeace snapped quickly. ‘Suffice to say, we have had a very trying day.’ Thankfully her borrowed nobility allowed her to be rude and dodge questions. ‘Why have you stopped? Are we at our destination?’

‘No, my lady — I . . . I thought I heard you rap on the roof.’

‘You were mistaken,’ Makepeace said quickly. And yet her bruised right hand did feel newly sore, as if it had struck against something. ‘How long before we arrive?’

‘We will be at the safe house in another hour, I think. Er . . . when we arrive, how would you like to be introduced to the others, your ladyship?’

Others? Makepeace’s thoughts scattered in panic, and it took all her willpower to herd them together again. Did she dare impersonate Lady April in a meeting with these ‘others’? If they knew the lady well, they would soon see through her.

For a moment she considered asking the coachman to drive her somewhere else instead, but that would certainly revive his suspicions. Makepeace’s pretence was fragile as an eggshell. One good prod would crush it entirely.

‘Tell them that we are an agent of Lady April,’ she said. That seemed the safest option.

‘Yes, my lady. What name should I use?’

A picture from an old book of pious tales sprang to Makepeace’s mind. An angry woman with a sword in one hand and a severed head in the other.

‘Judith,’ she said on impulse. ‘Judith Grey.’

The coachman touched his forehead and withdrew.

Makepeace slowly let out a breath, then frowned at her stinging knuckles. Had her hand really knocked against something loudly enough for the driver to hear?

Could Bear have taken control of her body again while she slept? His unfamiliar restlessness unsettled her. For three years he had been her soulmate and second self, but now she did not know what was wrong with him, and could not ask.

He is still confused and frightened after the fight, she told herself. That is all.

In an hour, she would have to bluff her way through an encounter with the ‘others’. She did not have long to prepare. If she was to pass herself off as an agent on Lady April’s business, she needed to know what Lady April’s business was.

There was a chest on the floor of the carriage. It was locked, but she found the key for it in Lady April’s purse. It held so many coins that it made Makepeace feel a little dizzy. This could only be the money for the King.

Lady April’s bag contained a slim package of papers and a tiny bottle. Makepeace uncorked the bottle and sniffed cautiously, fearful of poison, but the contents smelt of garden artichokes.

Makepeace examined the papers by the light of the candle. Reading had always been a struggle but, curiously enough, this night of all nights it did not seem so hard. Whatever the reason, she was glad of it. Some of the papers seemed to be battle reports. Some tiny slips of paper bore only a strange cipher, in characters that Makepeace did not recognize.

Makepeace no longer had any doubt. Lady April was a spy.

One letter, written in a bold and elegant hand, caught her attention:

It was all Makepeace could do to resist crumpling the letter into a ball. So this was the jaunty message that had caused Lord Fellmotte’s heart to break, and shattered his health in a single blow! Symond had not simply deserted; he had defected to Parliament’s forces. He had planned his betrayal in advance and in cold blood.

I Pity the Regiment but my new Friends could not be expected to Take my Conversion on Trust without some Evidence of my Good Faith . . .

Makepeace read that line over and over. He had deliberately drawn James and the regiment into mortal peril, and left them there. He had been willing to sacrifice them all to win the approval of his new allies.

She did not blame him for wanting to escape his Inheritance. After all, she had been trying to run away for years. She could not even blame him for backstabbing the Elders. But she could blame him for betraying James and a whole regiment of his tenants and servants, men who had followed and trusted him.

So the golden boy Symond had not been happy after all, or at least not happy enough. He would have accepted the rich burdens of lordship, even played host to immortal spirits, had he been certain that in time his ghost would have been preserved like theirs. But he had not been certain. And apparently he had been laying plans and awaiting his moment, just like Makepeace.

No, not like me. He’s no better than the other Fellmottes. Another rich man bent on what he thinks the world owes him, and willing to pay any price, as long as it’s in the blood of others.

Makepeace let out a long breath, and tried to calm herself. At least now she knew that Lady April had planned to pass on letters, military information and evidence of Symond’s treachery to a messenger destined for Oxford. Makepeace was not much the wiser, but perhaps wise enough now to play a game of hints.

She had another pressing problem, though. Lady April knew where the carriage had been heading. Once the old woman had recovered enough to speak, the Fellmottes would be hot on Makepeace’s heels again. Furthermore, after the meeting the driver might expect to take ‘Lady April’ back to Grizehayes or her own estates.

As Makepeace wiped her face and tucked her braided hair back under her cap, she tried to form a plan.

The carriage arrived at the safe house during the early hours. It was strange to have the door held open for her, and a hand offered to help her alight. Bear’s keen sight pierced the darkness, and let Makepeace see a little of their surroundings. They were out of the woods, albeit just in a literal sense, and only a few straggling trees marred the dull, misty horizons.

The carriage was parked beside a lonely house backed up against a hillock, next to a greenish, dripping waterwheel. The millpond was heavily choked with weed, but here and there water gave a brief sabre-flash of reflected moonlight.

An elderly couple opened the door quickly to her driver’s knock, and quietly bowed her in. They showed every sign of expecting Makepeace, or somebody at least.

‘Is all well?’ asked the coachman as the couple led them through dark, cold passageways that smelt of mice and last year’s hay.

‘Quiet enough these last few months,’ answered their hostess. ‘But we have had our share of billets. Parliament’s troops settled on us like a plague of locusts and ate our pantry bare.’ Her eye fled quickly and fearfully to Makepeace, as if dreading her disapproval. ‘There was nothing we could do about it, I swear!’

Makepeace was shown into a narrow little parlour, with a fierce fire of spitting, wet logs. There she found the ‘others’ waiting for her. Both were women and, to judge by the hum of conversation as the door opened, women that knew each other. They hushed as Makepeace entered.

One was tall, and the hair that peeped out from under her high-crowned hat was an unabashed red. There were half a dozen tiny circles of black taffeta glued to her face. Makepeace knew that such patches were fashionable, but six was too many even for fashion. These probably hid pockmarks, and Makepeace guessed that this woman must have had an even worse brush with smallpox than her own.

The other woman was old and broad-faced, with tired, tightly braided hair the colour of weathered rope under her coif. Her eyes were blue, like little scraps of sky. Common as washday, Makepeace thought, and very far from stupid.

They gave Makepeace a dip of the head as she entered, but did not start talking again until their hostess had left the room. The red-haired woman took a careful look at Lady April’s ring and seemed satisfied. There were quick, oddly informal introductions. The redhead was ‘Helen Favender’ and the old woman was ‘Peg Corble’. Makepeace had the feeling that these names were about as real as ‘Judith Grey’.

‘We were expecting somebody else,’ said Helen. Her voice had a touch of a Scottish accent, and Makepeace wondered if hers was one of the families that had travelled from Scotland to England with the previous King. There was a silver ring on her finger, and Makepeace guessed that even her bluntness came from the confidence of gentry. She was a horse with a bit of wildness, but one that had been well-fed and allowed space to kick up its heels.

‘My mistress intended to come herself,’ Makepeace said quickly, and not entirely untruthfully. ‘Another emergency arose — she had to change her plans quickly.’

‘Nothing too grievous, I hope?’ asked Peg, her gaze sharp with concern and curiosity.

‘She would not tell me,’ Makepeace said quickly.

‘Did you bring the money for His Majesty?’ asked Helen, and seemed reassured when Makepeace passed across the chest and key.

‘Yes . . . but there has been a change of plan.’ This was the leap. ‘My mistress has ordered me to travel with you to Oxford.’

The two women exchanged a sharp look.

‘Travel with us?’ said Helen. ‘Why?’

‘There is a message for one there that she would have me pass on in person — it was not to be entrusted to paper.’ Makepeace hoped that this story was plausible and vague enough.

‘And yet she entrusted it to you,’ remarked Helen wryly. ‘Has she used you for this kind of business before?’

‘Some private matters for my ladyship—’

‘What sort of matters?’ interrupted Helen.

‘Ah, do not pluck the poor little hen!’ said Peg reprovingly. ‘She cannot reveal her lady’s private doings!’ But above her kindly smile her eyes were questioning.

‘This is a twist in the road, and I wish to know the reason for it!’ Helen retorted. ‘And . . . child, you are younger than I like for this business. We shall be bluffing our way past enemy troops! It is no game — if we are caught, then we shall have a holiday in the Tower if we are lucky—’

‘You might, perhaps,’ Peg remarked drily. ‘I’m more likely to have my neck stretched till it’s lovely and swan-like.’

‘And if one of us is unweaned to shadow-work, it is more likely that we will be caught!’ Helen continued.

‘I am not untried!’ Makepeace protested. ‘I will not let you down — I promise!’

‘Lady April always plays her own game,’ said Helen, and raised her hands in a gesture of exasperation. ‘So does everybody! If all who love the King could keep in tune with each other, we would have the rebels routed by now. But we are all fiddlers in the dark, sawing away at the same strings and poking each other in the eye.’

‘Please do not send me back!’ said Makepeace, changing tack.

‘My lady would never forgive me.’

‘This message you must pass on — it is really so important?’ asked Peg.

‘Important enough that I was followed on the road,’ declared Makepeace, in a moment of inspiration. ‘There were riders on the moors, chasing the coach.’

‘Are you sure you lost them?’ Peg asked sharply, immediately seeming less maternal.

Makepeace nodded. ‘Yes — but I did not like it. It was as if they knew I would be passing. Is this place safe? How many people know of it?’ Every moment she spent in this so-called safe house, she knew that she was at risk.

‘A good question.’ Peg met Helen’s eye, and raised one eyebrow. ‘We had planned to stay here a day . . .’

‘. . . but perhaps we should not wait that long,’ finished Helen. ‘The horses will need a few hours to rest, and so will we, but let us be gone tomorrow morning.’

Makepeace noticed that, however grudgingly, she had been included in the ‘we’. Helen was not happy to find an unknown girl accompanying her, but she had not yet refused to take her.

She knew that Helen was right. The mission to reach Oxford would be difficult and dangerous. But she could not forget the story about the doctor Benjamin Quick, who had rid a patient of his ‘haunting’. According to the news-sheet, he had done so in Oxford.

If she could find this mysterious ghost-defeating doctor, maybe he could show her some way of fighting the Fellmottes. She could not give up on James, or the hope that his true self still existed. With the help of the doctor, perhaps she could save him, before it was too late.

CHAPTER 21

Makepeace woke with a start, with the bleary impression that something had just nipped sharply at her forearm. She was very cold, the world was very dark, and there were cobbles under her bare feet.

Where am I? How did I get here?

Her fuzzy thoughts rallied. She had gone to bed in the little garret room put aside for her, with the flock bed and the extra blankets.

She was holding a large, metal ring. Before her the darkness yielded to deeper darkness, from which came soft snorts, and the sound of hoofs shifting on straw. She was standing in front of the stables, holding the door open. Above her the stars glittered.

What was I doing?

Surely Bear had not crept down to eat the horses! He had hungrily considered it during Makepeace’s first ever riding lesson, and it had been hard to persuade him otherwise. But that had been a long time ago.

Bear — why did you bring me out here?

There was a silence, then Makepeace seemed to hear a low rumble of a growl inside her head, so cold and deep that it might have been the coal-hearted earth answering her. It was not a friendly noise. She felt it as a warning, a noise of utter enmity.

‘Bear,’ she whispered, aghast, but there was no reply. Something about Bear had changed, and she did not know what. She was reminded of dogs raising their hackles when they caught the smell of a stranger. Or dogs snarling at a friend after going mad in the sun. Her blood ran cold.

Just then, she heard a faint murmur. It was not Bear, nor did it come from inside her head.

Makepeace edged towards the sound, and found herself peering around the side of the stables, towards the front of the house. The shutters at one of the windows were slightly open, the slit bright with candlelight. A male silhouette was leaning close to the window, whispering to someone within.

For a moment Makepeace felt utter, panicked certainty that the man must have been sent by the Fellmottes. They had found her, they had come for her. Then she recognized the voice of her hostess from inside the window.

‘Go quick!’ she whispered. ‘Head to Aldperry, and ask for Captain Maltsey. Tell him that the Royalist she-intelligencers are back — and that I kept my word.’

As the man obediently scurried away, lantern in hand, Makepeace understood. This was nothing to do with the Fellmottes. Her hosts were working for somebody else entirely.

Shivering with the cold, she felt her way along the front of the house until she found the door, then slipped inside as quickly as possible. She climbed the inky, narrow stairs, then rapped furtively on the door opposite her own, praying that she had picked the right room. She was relieved when Helen appeared at the door, hair wild, taper in hand. Makepeace stepped in through the door, and closed it before speaking.

‘We need to leave.’ Quickly she described what she had heard. ‘They’ve betrayed us. They’ve sent a man to tell Parliament’s troops that we’re here.’

‘I should have guessed!’ Helen exhaled through her teeth. ‘They’ve been so cowed this time, and they never were before.’ She glanced at Makepeace, and frowned. ‘So why were you down by the stables, anyway?’

‘I walk in my sleep sometimes,’ Makepeace said quickly, and received a sceptical look from Helen.

‘Hfft, maybe she does,’ said Peg, who was awake now, and gathering her possessions with calm practicality. ‘It’s hardly likely she was running away like that.’

Makepeace realized, to her great embarrassment, that she was only wearing her long-sleeved shift, which doubled as her undergarment and nightdress. She hugged her arms around herself defensively.

Helen frowned, brought the taper closer, and pulled one of Makepeace’s sleeves back. By the light of the flame, the yellowish-brown bruises on Makepeace’s arm were clearly visible.

‘You’ve been ill-used,’ said Helen quietly. ‘Hmm. I start to see why you do not want to face Lady April without having carried out her orders.’ She gave Makepeace an odd, cool glance with a hint of sympathy. ‘Come — get dressed before the night air makes you ill.’

As Makepeace pulled down her sleeve again, she noticed something else. Besides the bruises, a little patch of her forearm was pinkish, as though fingers had recently pinched the flesh hard.

The coachman was woken quietly, and told to prepare the carriage and the two horses belonging to Peg and Helen. Back in her room, Makepeace dug out her runaway pack, and retrieved her change of clothes. The old russet jacket she had secretly bought from the market. The faded, smoke-grey skirt was one she had put aside some six months before, and showed more petticoat than it once had, but there was nothing to be done about it. She tucked all her hair under a dingy linen cap.

When she returned, Helen and Peg gave her brief glances of approval, and did not seem surprised to see her transformed from lady to ill-dressed servant. They were spies, and perhaps used to such metamorphoses.

The coachman, however, looked at her aghast. He seemed even more concerned and surprised when he learned that Makepeace would not be returning with him.

‘Take a long route back,’ she told him, in her best imitation of Lady April’s manner. ‘And tell nobody where I have gone — not even members of my family.’ He would almost certainly crack under Fellmotte questioning, but this might buy her some time.

By the time Makepeace mounted up behind Peg, there were streaks of light in the sky. Their hostess appeared in the door as they were departing, confused and protesting. Makepeace felt a little pity for her, even as the mill house receded behind them and vanished among the trees.

The Fellmottes had taught Makepeace to ride, but this had not prepared her for many hours on horseback. Bear never made such things easier. He could smell horse, and was always confused at finding himself straddling another animal. Her horse was skittish, and she wondered whether it could smell Bear.

Bear was still restless, feverish and strange. He had always been a wild thing, of course, but Makepeace had grown used to his brute warmth and unruly, changeable moods. She had spent three years bargaining wordlessly with him — sharing his pain, soothing his fears, reining in his urge to lash out. But this was different. For the first time in years she was afraid of him.

Sometimes his mind would nestle against hers as normal, but then he would draw back and utter a long, low growl that chilled her. What if he had been injured in his battle with the Infiltrator, and it had changed him somehow? Was he starting to forget who she was? What could she possibly do if he turned on her? He was inside all her defences.

Over and over, she tried to make sense of the way she had woken at the stable door. It had felt exactly as though somebody had pinched her arm. Bear might bite, but he did not pinch. So who or what had woken her? Makepeace did not know what would have happened if she had not been nipped awake. She tried not to think of Bear going on a rampage. She hoped she would not have woken up covered in blood, among dead and screaming horses.

Groggy with her injuries and lack of sleep, Makepeace felt like one in a dream. She was not used to seeing green hills that sloped gently, without erupting in crags or stretching in stark, barren wilds. She was outside the Fellmottes’ sprawling estates at long last, and she could not believe it. It did not seem real.

For the last three years, Makepeace had lived in fear, trapped under the chilling gaze of the Elders. Now she was terrified of being caught again, but at least she felt alive. The Fellmottes might catch up with her at any moment, but for this breath, and this, and this, she was free.

Both Makepeace’s companions seemed comfortable in the saddle, and even chatted as they rode. The trio had decided upon their roles now. Helen was, of course, a gentlewoman travelling with her two servingwomen. Whenever they passed some travelling newsmonger, loaded down with printed sheets, Helen would slow her horse.

‘What news? What do you have for sale?’

She bought corantos, piping-hot tales of the latest happenings filled with hearsay and gore, and separates, reports of Parliament’s latest doings.

‘’Tis all rebel rot,’ Peg said a little reprovingly as Helen pored over her latest news-sheet. ‘We are in Parliament-held land now.’

‘Indeed,’ answered Helen. ‘But we must know the enemy’s tunes if we wish to sing along. And I believe our friend here will wish to read this.’ She leaned across to pass the paper to Makepeace.

Most of the pamphlet was sizzling with righteous fury. The King’s men were burning down churches with women and children inside! The wicked French Queen wanted poor, noble England under the evil sway of the Pope! Prince Rupert was in league with the Devil! His dog ‘Boy’ had survived every battle, and therefore was clearly a familiar bringing orders from his Infernal Master!

It was strange to bump into such beliefs again after so long. Catholic spies, the wicked Queen — it was like being back in Poplar! But since arriving in Grizehayes, Makepeace had grown used to hearing everything from the Royalist side, and now the news-sheet gave her a frightened, unsteady feeling in her stomach. For three years she had been breathing in other people’s certainties, and she now realized that her opinions had quietly shifted towards everyone else’s without her noticing.

‘Look at the bottom of the page,’ said Helen.

Scanning downwards, Makepeace spotted the name ‘Fellmotte’. It was a list of those who ‘have sided with the King and Papists against Parliament and our most ancient rights’ and whose estates were to be ‘sequestered’. All of the most eminent Fellmottes were on the list.

‘Sequestered — what does that mean?’ asked Makepeace.

‘It means forfeit,’ answered Helen. ‘It means that if Parliament has its will, they will seize the Fellmotte lands, plunder them of all they can, then hand them over to someone of their liking.’

‘Somebody like Master Symond,’ murmured Makepeace under her breath. She had imagined that he was only making a break for freedom. But perhaps his ambitions stretched further. Perhaps he was making a bid for the whole of the Fellmotte lands.

‘Your kinsmen will fight against it, I am sure,’ Helen said crisply. ‘They have friends in London, and money enough to buy a host of lawyers.’

Occasionally the trio passed bands of soldiers. Most did not wear uniforms, just sashes or pieces of paper in their hats to show their allegiance. They often made a show of stopping the three travellers, and sometimes asked for a ‘toll’, which Helen paid each time without a murmur.

Sometimes there were murmurs about confiscating the horses for the troops, but such suggestions wilted before Helen’s confident, genteel outrage. Class was her armour and weapon, and for now it was still serving her well. Makepeace wondered if it would work so well against a Parliamentarian officer or gentleman.

Helen had lent Makepeace a sun-mask, of the sort ladies wore to keep their complexions fair. She was glad of its concealment now, and glad of Helen’s confidence and willingness to handle conversations.

When they stopped for the night at an inn, she collapsed exhausted into bed, but her sleep was broken. Over and over she jerked awake, her nose filled with the smell of Bear.

Even when she slept, her anxieties did not.

Makepeace dreamed that she was back in the little upstairs bedroom at her old home in Poplar. She was very young, and sitting on a woman’s lap, trying to read a coranto with news of the war. It was very important that she understand it, but the letters kept moving and telling different stories.

The woman said nothing. Makepeace felt that she should know who the woman was, but something stopped her from turning to look at her face. Instead, she watched the woman’s hand reach out and slowly scratch an ‘M’ into the grime on the wood of the door jamb.

It was the key to everything, Makepeace was sure, but she could not make sense of it. All she could do was stare and stare at the letter, until her mind darkened into a deeper sleep.

On the afternoon of the second day, the trio left the main road and took a winding lane to an isolated house where a solitary man was waiting with a wagon full of barrels. He levered up the lid of one so that Helen could inspect the contents.

‘And the gold is inside?’ she asked.

‘Every penny we could gather,’ he answered. ‘The personal fortunes of three great men, who would languish in the Tower if it was ever known that they had done this. All our hopes rest with you — tell His Majesty that we have answered his call in his time of need! God bless you, and see you safely to the King!’

Makepeace’s mouth turned dry. She had thought that Helen and Peg were simply trying to slip into Oxford with messages for the King and Lady April’s gold. But no, apparently they were about to smuggle a king’s ransom past an entire Parliamentarian army. The barrels looked very obvious. Makepeace wanted to ask what else was in them, but was afraid to reveal how little she knew of the plan.

‘Will they not be searched?’ she whispered to Peg instead.

‘No, child,’ Peg answered. ‘God willing,’ she added in an undertone, and Makepeace felt less than reassured. ‘Anyway, necessity is our master. The King’s cause is desperate — if he cannot pay his troops, he has no army. He must have this gold . . . and we cannot carry all of it on our persons, not this time. You’ll see, there is only so much you can hide on yourself before your knees start to give. Last time I nearly swooned right into a sentry’s arms.’

Sure enough, Makepeace was soon being shown how to conceal some of Lady April’s coins inside the lining of her stays, in her shoes, in the rolled braid of her hair and in dropped pockets under her skirt.

Riding in the wagon with her two companions, Makepeace felt an odd excitement building inside her. She was in a fellowship of sorts, even though she was there under false pretences.

‘We are most likely to be searched when we are ten miles from Oxford,’ Helen told her. ‘For two months the rebels have been sending men to talk to the King, to see if there is a chance of peace. While they talk, they have agreed that for now the rebel troops will stay ten miles clear of the city, and the King’s troops will not venture outside that circle. Neither side measures it too carefully, though, so there are raids and clashes aplenty, but they make a show of honouring it.

‘But it means that just outside that ring, Parliament has camps and garrisons set, champing at the bit and keeping watch, to make sure no help comes to the King.’

As they drew closer to Oxford, Makepeace noted, to her surprise, that there seemed to be a lot of people on the road, and not all of them soldiers. Some were clearly carrying baskets of wares for sale — pans, flour, capons, herbs.

‘Market day,’ murmured Peg over her shoulder. ‘All the better for us if we are not the only ones travelling to the city.’

‘Are all these people going there?’ Makepeace asked. ‘What about the Parliament troops ahead? Won’t they all be stopped?’

‘Oh no, the army won’t stop people going to market!’ Peg winked. ‘How else would they find out what’s happening in Oxford? That’s how they get their spies in — a goodly number of them, anyway. And it puts the locals out of humour if they cannot do their business or find ways to fill up their pantries.’

‘Hush now, chickens,’ said Helen. ‘I see soldiers ahead.’

The village they were entering showed the marks of war. The fields were trampled, and the narrow road gouged to mud by more traffic than it had been designed to take. There were soldiers everywhere, standing in doorways, dragging unwilling horses, or leaning out of windows to smoke clay pipes. To Makepeace’s country eyes, they looked like a full army. Then she glanced past the drifting smoke from the smithies, and saw the real army.

In a field beyond was a forest of weather-stained tents. To her startled gaze it seemed to her that there must be thousands of men and horses — too many to take in.

‘You can stare,’ said Peg drily, who had noticed Makepeace watching the troops sideways. ‘It would look strange if you did not.’

Makepeace remembered the murals in the Map Room, with their vivid blues and reds, and the miniature army tents neatly arranged in rows, as if seen from a great height. This encampment of dull canvas, with its dusty horses and rutted ground, was shockingly real in comparison. It had a chorus of smells — damp wood ash, gunpowder, oil and horse dung. There were surprising numbers of women as well, scouring out cooking pots, carrying firewood, and in some cases suckling tiny infants. The whole scene was chaotic and brutally practical.

Those sentries standing to lacklustre attention in the middle of the road, with the dusty restlessness of stray dogs in the summer heat, had real blood that might be spilt. They had real shot in their muskets that might be fired. It might be fired at her. After all, what was she now? An adventuress. A she-intelligencer. A spy.

‘Have your papers ready,’ said Helen, ‘and take off your sun-mask. Courtesans wear masks too, remember — we will never get past the camp if they take us for those.’

Makepeace felt her stomach turn to acid as they rode slowly up to the waiting men, who were shielding their eyes from the sun and squinting at their approach. Two carried muskets, and the sun gleamed off the metal with lazy menace.

‘Where are you heading?’ called one of the sentries.

‘Oxford,’ said Helen, with startling confidence.

The sentries looked askance at the wagon, then back at Helen and her ‘servants’. They were unlikely to be mistaken for farmers taking goods to market.

‘Sorry, mistress, but we cannot allow anyone to provision the enemy army.’

‘Read this.’ Helen produced her paperwork. ‘I have permission from Parliament. See — the barrels are mentioned in this letter.’

The first sentry blinked at the papers, and Makepeace felt a sting of sympathy as he passed it to the next in line. The paper was promptly handed on again to the tallest sentry, apparently the only member of the group who could read.

‘So . . . you’re a washerwoman?’

‘A laundress,’ Helen corrected him with quiet gravitas. ‘One that has attended upon royalty and ladies of court.’

‘And those barrels are full of soap?’ The sentries gazed at her with a strange mixture of hostility, doubt and deference. Helen had all but declared herself a Royalist. And yet she was a lady of quality, and a lady bearing a letter from Parliament.

‘The finest Castille soap, made with the purest thistle ash,’ declared Helen. ‘You can see the assay-marks on the barrels.’

‘Spanish muck,’ muttered the sentry. ‘Has Oxford no soap or washerwomen?’

‘Of course,’ answered Helen promptly. ‘But none suitable for His Majesty’s clothes and person. Do you think he can get any old crone to scrub his silks with mutton fat and lye?’

We are going to die, thought Makepeace with a strange calm. Our cover story is completely mad. The letter from Parliament could only be a forgery. The sentries were bound to realize this, and call their superior officer, and everyone on the wagon would be arrested. She was very aware of the sun’s heat on her face, the weight of the gold hidden in her clothes, the scent of dry mud baking, a lone buzzard circling above in the summer blue. She wondered whether spies were shot or hanged.

The sentries were conferring under their breath, casting occasional glances at the women on the wagon. The word ‘search’ reached her ears.

‘Me? No!’ she heard one mutter in response. ‘I’m not groping a royal laundress!’

One of them cleared his throat.

‘We will need to look in the barrels, mistress,’ he said. ‘Of course,’ said Helen.

The youngest sentry came over and rolled down one of the barrels from the wagon, then carefully prised it open. Makepeace was sitting closer than the others, and caught the distinctive reek of smoke and olive oil. Sure enough, the barrel was filled with misshapen, greasy white oblongs of soap, glossy and slippery from the heat. The young sentry unwillingly leaned down and stirred them around with his hands, grimacing.

‘Well — get on with it!’ called one of his friends.

‘It looks like soap.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘It stinks like soap.’

‘I don’t think it will help your enemies much,’ suggested Peg. ‘Or do they fight better when they’re clean?’

The sentries glanced at the queue of people forming behind the wagon, then back at the large number of barrels.

‘All right, all right,’ muttered the taller sentry, the reader. ‘Let them through.’

Peg clicked and gave a flick of the reins, and the good-natured horses trundled into motion again.

Makepeace realized that her heart had been cantering, and took a deep breath. The sky was a burning blue, and there were fingernail crescents dug into her palms. She felt oddly exhilarated.

‘Where did you get the letter?’ she whispered once they were far out of earshot of the sentries.

‘Parliament,’ answered Helen. ‘Oh, it is quite real.’

‘They gave you special pass as a laundress?’

‘Of course. He is the King.’ Helen gave a lopsided smile. ‘God’s appointed. They cannot help but revere him, even as they fight him. Rebelling against him is only treason. Leaving him to wallow in common filth would be sacrilege.’

‘They want His Majesty defeated and brought to heel,’ Peg explained. ‘But they do not want him smelly.’

So this was the world in all its tomfoolery. Armies might clash, multitudes might die, but both sides agreed that the King must be able to wash his socks.

The world was turning cartwheels, Makepeace realized, and nobody was sure which way was up any more. Rules were breaking, but nobody was certain which ones. If you had enough confidence, you could walk in and act as if you knew what the new rules were, and other people would believe you.

CHAPTER 22

After passing the Parliamentarian soldiers, they followed the road down into a low broad valley with the village of Wheatley strung along it. Its ancient stone bridge had once spanned the gleaming curve of the river Thame, but now part of its length had been knocked down, and there was a makeshift drawbridge mounted at the far side of the gap.

The soldiers who held it were Royalist troops from Oxford, though, so they were easily persuaded to lower the drawbridge, and the wagon rolled on. The horses struggled up a steep hill. Then, as the road descended, Makepeace caught a few glimpses of the city in the valley below through gaps in the trees — hints of church towers and spires, toast-coloured stone and frayed blue strands of chimney smoke.

‘This was a fair-looking county not long ago,’ murmured Peg.

The countryside closer to Oxford looked as though the end of days had come upon it. The meadows and farmland were rutted and ravaged, hoof-marks gouging the earth as though the Four Horsemen had ridden by. Copses were clumps of newly shorn tree stumps. Most of it seemed to be flooded too, puddles gleaming amid the clods like crescents of sky.

Ahead, two freshly dug earth mounds flanked the road, offering crude protection to the bridge beyond. Far off to her right, Makepeace could just make out more new earthworks, a brown, slope-sided ridge hugging the city’s northern side. She supposed it was a protective wall, but it looked as though the wounded landscape had reared up like a great beast to defend itself. On the earthy slopes she could see figures toiling with spades and barrows. ‘They don’t look like soldiers,’ she murmured. There were men and women of all ages, and even a few children.

‘They’re Oxford civilians, doing their part to protect the city,’ said Helen.

‘Well, it’s that or pay a fine,’ muttered Peg. ‘If I was faced with the same choice, I’d probably be up there with a spade.’

Beyond the bridgehead earthworks, the road crossed a grand, many-arched stone bridge that spanned a tangle of river tributaries. They rode past a beautiful, sandy-gold building that Peg told her was Magdalen College, and approached the aged grey walls.

At the gates, a sentry glanced at Helen’s papers upside down, then waved their group on. They rolled carefully in through the gate . . . and into Oxford.

It was Makepeace’s first city since London. It was beautiful and horrible, and she knew straight away, without being told, that there was something wrong with it.

The street was fair and broad, the houses high and grand. But it was the stink that struck her first and hardest, turning over her stomach. Every lane she passed seemed to have its own reeking ditch, lumpy with rot and waste. In one alleyway she saw the remains of a dead horse, its eyes white and its hide jewelled with flies. Not far away, children were gathering puddle water in ewers.

Too many faces in the crowded streets were taut, gaunt and scabbed. There was a hungry edge in the air, a taste of desperation drawn out for too long. Everything felt flayed and skinless, like the land outside.

It was the beauty that made everything worse. Makepeace boggled at the great buildings, with their fair columns, stone flourishes as fine as lace, and towers that would grace a cathedral. They lifted their heads high, but their hems were drenched deep in stench and filth. It was like seeing a fading court beauty, still in her finery, but mad with age or the pox.

Helen stopped the wagon outside Merton College, and gave orders. As the barrels were unloaded, Makepeace stared up at the college’s golden stone and grand chimneys.

‘We have been assigned lodgings,’ declared Helen. The trio followed a young man who led them through a couple of streets and pushed open the shop door of a whitebaker, a man who made fine, white bread for the better class of person. The baker himself, a skinny but well-mannered man of forty, looked resigned when told that he had received more guests.

He even managed a hollow rictus of a smile when Helen handed him several pieces of paper.

‘What are those?’ Makepeace whispered to Peg.

‘Payment — or they will be once the war is won,’ Peg said stoutly. ‘Then all loyal servants of the King will be able to present those tickets and be paid what they are owed.’

Makepeace started to understand why the baker looked unhappy, and why the shelves of his shop were so bare. The paper tickets were nothing but promises from the King, and probably not much use for keeping the wolf from the door.

The three new arrivals were shown to a single tiny room with a poor flock bed and the smallest of windows.

‘I am sorry we have no better,’ said the baker wearily, ‘but we are jammed to the gills. We already have an officer, a candle-maker, a goldsmith’s wife and a playwright staying with us. So many flee to Oxford for safety — you know how it is.’

‘Did you ever hear of a doctor called Benjamin Quick?’ Makepeace asked.

‘No, I do not recall the name.’ The baker’s brow furrowed. ‘But if he knows his physick, he will be busy and much in demand. Did you know that we have the camp fever here now?’

‘Camp fever?’ Makepeace’s companions exchanged glances, looking surprised and alarmed.

‘The soldiers brought it back with them from the camps outside Reading,’ explained the baker, failing to keep the bitterness from his voice. ‘My wife has been brewing cures — but I fear that making it costs us dear because of the nutmeg, so we must ask coin for it.’ Nutmeg was a rare spice known for its healing virtues, and its nigh-magical ability to protect against plagues and other ills.

‘We’ll only stay until our business is done,’ said Helen briskly, ‘and we’ll gladly pay for some of your wife’s cure while we’re here. Judith — come with me when I go to the King’s court. If your doctor is of good standing, somebody will know of him.’

Makepeace had no choice but to agree. What excuse could she give for shunning the King’s court-in-exile? The idea made her nervous, however. She had no idea how to be courtly, and there was an outside chance that one of the Fellmottes might be there, or a friend of theirs who had visited Grizehayes. She would just have to hope that nobody would be expecting to see an erstwhile kitchen servant at court in silks and velvets.

Left alone in their room, Makepeace and Helen tried to make themselves passably ready for ‘court’. Makepeace changed back into her rich clothes, and hid her calloused hands under gloves. Peg borrowed curling tongs from their hostess, and spent an hour laboriously curling the hair of her companions. She then carefully powdered their faces because they both looked grey as death with tiredness.

Two nights of broken sleep had left Makepeace with a sickly, floating sensation. She was exhausted, but glaringly awake, and wondered whether she would ever sleep again. Bear, on the other hand, seemed to have worn himself out, and was slumbering.

Makepeace liked Helen and Peg, she realized with a little pang. If they ever found out that she had been lying to them, they would probably hand her over to be tried as an enemy spy, but she did not hold that against them. She liked the way they planned for danger with humour and good sense, and without boasting, toasting or waving rapiers at the rafters.

Peg declared that she herself would stay behind to keep an eye on the group’s possessions.

‘This is a hungry city,’ she said. ‘Even honest folk forget themselves sometimes. The Devil has no better friend than an empty belly.’

‘But we brought money for the King!’ said Makepeace, thinking of the fortune in gold. ‘Can he not pay people with coin now, instead of those paper tickets?’

Peg gave a small, sad laugh. ‘Oh no — that will all be spent straight away on the army’s overdue wages! If he had not found the gold . . . well, the whole garrison would have rioted and torn the city apart. Trust me, that would have been far worse for the townsfolk.’

‘Give a man a sword and pistol,’ said Helen, ‘and leave him hungry for a few weeks, and everybody will start to look like the enemy.’

‘Do not look so sad!’ Peg said phlegmatically. ‘Thanks to us, His Majesty’s forces will not crumble or go rogue just yet. For all we know, perhaps we have just turned the tide of the war!’

Makepeace felt her stomach lurch. For somebody who felt no great loyalty to either side, she seemed to have become surprisingly involved in the war. She had wondered about fleeing to Parliament to seek sanctuary from the Fellmottes, but perhaps she had burned that bridge now. If Parliament ever found out that she had smuggled bullion in His Majesty’s service, they might not be understanding.

‘Christ Church is where the King holds court now,’ said Helen, leading Makepeace through the streets. ‘If he is not out hunting he will be there at this time, I think.’

If he is not out hunting. Oxford sat in a ravaged wasteland, ringed about with Parliament’s troops. But of course the King left the city to go hunting. Of course he did.

Christ Church took Makepeace’s breath away. To her eyes, the college looked like a great palace, its carved stone golden-brown like the best pastry.

At the gatehouse, Helen’s papers were examined again, and the pair of them were allowed to enter. Stepping through that entrance was a moment of enchantment.

The smoke, stink and crowds were left behind in an instant. Beyond the dark covered entrance lay a wide, grassy courtyard where well-dressed gentlefolk walked, sat and played instruments. Glossy, well-fed dogs loped and lolled on the grass. A couple of the gentlemen seemed to be playing tennis. Over to one side, a few animals grazed. High, softly golden walls watched on every side, shielding the little paradise.

There was something uncanny about it, as though King Charles were a fairy king who had somehow magically transported his entire palace into the heart of the desperate city.

Helen greeted friends, exchanged pleasantries and archly turned compliments away with a flick of her fan. Then an earnest-looking bearded man drew her aside for a conversation, leaving Makepeace standing alone and acutely self-conscious. To make matters worse, she was almost certain that two men at the far side of the garden were watching her.

One of them looked slightly familiar, but it was only when she noticed his lavish lace cuffs that she recognized him. It was the handkerchief-thrower who had made such an abject apology to Lady April at Twelfth Night.

Perhaps he had recognized her too, in spite of her new clothes. Perhaps everybody had noticed the clumsiness of her gait, and could smell three years of mutton grease and hearth-ash marinated into her skin.

Then she saw him mutter something to his companion, and stroke his fingertip down the middle of his chin. Makepeace felt the sunlight grow cold. It was the cleft in her chin that had caught his eye, then. It was still possible that he had not recognized her, but he might well have guessed at her Fellmotte blood.

Her first instinct was to hide behind one of the laughing groups, and look for a way to sneak out of the college. But what good would hiding do now? She had been noticed. Even if she fled now, those young men would probably gossip about seeing a young girl with a Fellmotte chin.

Instead of hiding, she raised her head at a moment where the young men were looking at her. She met their eye and stiffened slightly, as if startled by their brazen staring. They both gave extravagant, apologetic bows, and Makepeace smiled at them in what she hoped was a charming and courtly way. Evidently her smile was welcoming enough for the pair to feel able to approach.

From a distance they had seemed like the same perfectly groomed peacocks as before. When they were closer she could see that war had scuffed them. Both looked tired under the powder. Their fine coats were less well-brushed, and their boots had seen more action than polish.

How strange, thought Makepeace, looking at their faces. Four months ago they looked so much older than me, but now they seem like boys. They look too young for a war.

‘We frightened you,’ said the handkerchief-thrower. ‘We are ogres, and should be punished by your cruellest rebuke. Forgive my rudeness, but I thought that we might have met.’

‘I am not sure,’ said Makepeace, trying to soften her accent a little. ‘I think I may have seen you with one of my cousins . . .’ They had not recognized her as a Grizehayes servant, she was almost certain of that now. She was at court, and must be someone of decent birth.

The handkerchief-thrower exchanged a knowing glance with his friend. ‘I fancy I know the cousin you mean. A close friend of ours. Is he well?’

‘I . . . have not seen him of late,’ Makepeace said cautiously. She was a little taken aback by their cheerful tone. Could they really be talking of Symond as a ‘close friend’? Maybe they had not heard about his defection.

‘Oh, no, of course not,’ he said affably. ‘Now I remember, Symond has turned into a double-dyed traitor, and is forsworn by his family for ever more, eh? No fatted calf for our boy.’ He winked at Makepeace as she stared at him surprise. ‘Do not worry. We are party to the joke, you see?’

‘Oh.’ Makepeace managed to smile, despite her bewilderment. ‘That is . . . good. How . . . did you find out?’

‘Symond told us by letter.’ The handkerchief-thrower leaned forward confidingly. ‘Yours is not the only family betting on both dogs in the fight. I know of a few younger sons who have “turned to Parliament” with their kin’s secret blessing. If the rebels win, and the Fellmotte estates are confiscated, Parliament will gratefully give them to Symond, so at least the lands stay in the family. That’s the Fellmotte plan, eh?’

It took Makepeace a second or two to understand what he meant. So some noble families were playing a dangerous game, to make sure that their ancestral lands were not lost to their bloodline even if the ‘wrong’ side won. It made sense for some noble families to take such drastic measures, but she was quite certain that Symond’s defection was real. The Fellmottes’ rage and shock had seemed perfectly genuine.

‘He has written to you?’ This was intriguing. ‘Have you written back to him?’

‘We let him know the gossip, to stop him perishing from boredom,’ said the handkerchief-thrower. ‘He says he is surrounded by wild-eyed Puritans — a grim-jawed pack who pray at him day and night, and won’t let him have any fun.’

Idiots, thought Makepeace. Sending the ‘gossip’ of court to an enemy officer. No wonder he wanted to stay in contact with these geese!

For a moment she considered shattering Symond’s lie and telling his friend the truth. But if she did, a chance might be lost.

‘Then you can help me!’ she said instead. ‘I need to contact my cousin urgently. Can you tell me where a letter will find him?’

‘Do your family not have your own ways of reaching him?’ He looked surprised.

‘We did, but that is all undone . . . The messenger he chose is dead —’ Makepeace thought that she had better leave the lie vague — ‘and now we must contact him urgently. There are many matters he was handling for the family and he is the only one that knows the details.’

‘If you give me a message, I can add a few lines to my next letter,’ he suggested, a slight frown of suspicion creasing his brow.

‘Forgive me — I cannot! They are delicate family matters . . .’ Makepeace hesitated, then decided to risk her trump card. Discreetly she pulled Lady April’s signet ring out of her pocket, and showed it so that only her two companions could see it. ‘I am here on behalf of my betters.’

The handkerchief-thrower instantly went grey with fear. Clearly he had lost none of his terror of Lady April. If she was the spymistress for the Fellmotte clan, this was hardly surprising. Makepeace felt an unexpected thrill at the reaction. It was a strange and heady thing, this borrowed power. It was giddying to cause fear instead of feeling it.

‘I do not know where he can be found,’ he said hastily, ‘but he has told me where to send letters. I address them to “Mistress Hannah Wise” and send them to a farm just north of Brill, belonging to a family called Axeworth. I think somebody else collects them from there.’

‘You are very kind,’ said Makepeace primly. ‘I know I can trust you to tell nobody.’ She was putting away the ring when she felt a tug at her sleeve. Helen had reappeared at her side.

‘Judith — His Majesty is ready for us.’

Makepeace jumped, and it took a moment for her to understand what Helen had just said. His Majesty is ready for us. Not ‘me’, but ‘us’. She had an audience with the King of England.

Panic overwhelmed her as Helen gripped her gloved hand and pulled her across the quad to an open door. They stepped into a cool darkness, scented with rose-water, past walls painted white, and wood panels the colour of dark honey. Courtiers stepped aside to let them through. As Makepeace passed them she could smell their perfumes, rich with cinnamon and musk.

The room beyond was richly appointed, with a high ceiling, tall windows, silk hangings and some crests mounted high on the walls. Several people stood around the room, but in the centre sat a man in a high-backed chair. King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland. Makepeace dropped her gaze quickly, too used to finding herself before the Fellmottes. If he looked into her eyes, would he not see right through all her lies? If the Fellmottes could do so, then surely God’s appointed could do the same?

‘Kneel,’ murmured Helen quietly. Makepeace followed her lead, and dropped to her knees.

It was only as Helen began to give an account of their journey, and pass over documents and reports to the royal attendants, that Makepeace dared to glance furtively at the King from under her lashes.

He was a little man, as Lord Fellmotte had told Sir Anthony. There was something stiff and careful about the way he moved. In fact, he was stiff altogether, as if ready to bristle at the world for noticing his littleness. His beard was elegant and pointed. There were bows on his shoes. His face was mournful, lined, and marked by a rigid uncertainty. There was something tense and waiting to happen in his manner — perhaps outrage, the baby sibling of dignity.

The King listened to Helen’s report, and nodded.

‘Inform our friends that all will be repaid once the rebellion is crushed. In striking at me, the rebels strike at God Himself — they cannot prosper. Their defeat is certain. And rest assured we shall remember who our friends have been, and who have proven treacherous or backward in offering help.’ Then, to Makepeace’s dismay, he turned to face her. ‘Mistress Grey, I believe you too carry reports for me?’

For a moment Makepeace’s mind went utterly blank. The King’s habit of describing himself as ‘we’ was all too like the Fellmottes. But her skin did not crawl as he looked at her, nor did she feel as if she were being peeled like a fruit. The King could not see into her soul.

She stumbled through an account of Symond’s defection, and produced his letter. The King read it, and the jaw behind his narrow beard tightened.

‘Please carry my respects back to Lord Fellmotte,’ he declared coolly, ‘but impress upon him that this charter must be recovered. Our good name is at stake, as well as that of the Fellmotte family. Is it known where the traitor Symond Fellmotte has gone?’

‘Not yet,’ answered Helen, ‘but we shall find out who his friends were at court. Then we may discover who is harbouring him.’

‘Go with my blessing, and bid others offer you what help they can,’ answered the King. ‘In the meanwhile, we are not insensible of the service you have both done our nation this day.’

He slightly extended a hand, allowing each of them in turn to move forward and touch his fingertips briefly. It was said the touch of a king’s hand could cure scrofula, but his fingers felt human, and slightly moist with the heat.

Makepeace felt a little dizzy, but not with awe at the man before her. It was as if History were walking at his heels like a vast, invisible hound. It followed him, but he did not command it. Perhaps he would tame it. Or perhaps it would eat him.

Helen wanted to stay at the college, to learn all the latest news from those recently arrived from other parts of the country. Apparently she was also keen to visit an astrologer she knew.

‘They say that a few months ago Prince Rupert saw fire fall from the sky near here,’ she explained, ‘and break apart with a great crack into balls of flame. Everyone agrees that is an omen of something, but nobody can decide what it means. I would like to have a learned man unravel it, in case it will affect the war.’ She gave a wry but rather forced smile. ‘What a time we live in — even the stars are falling.’

Helen had, however, found somebody who knew of Benjamin Quick.

‘They have not seen him lately,’ she said, ‘but they knew where he was staying a few weeks ago. If you are lucky you may find him there still. He is living with a chandler near Quater Voys, just opposite the penniless bench.’ Helen fumbled in her pockets, and pulled out a small, corked bottle. ‘Before you go, take a spoonful of our hostess’s cure! There is disease abroad, remember?’

Surprised, Makepeace obeyed. The ‘cure’ tasted of sweet, strong wine, nutmeg and other spices. The moment was bittersweet too. Helen had doubted Makepeace’s intentions and abilities at first, but now that they were safely arrived she seemed determined to mother her.

‘Carry this.’ A small muslin bag was placed in Makepeace’s hand. ‘Keep it close to your face, to purify the air you breathe and keep yourself safe.’ The bag rustled when Makepeace pinched it, and when she held it up to her nose, she could smell dried flowers. ‘This city is full of foul airs — no wonder everyone is falling sick!’

Quater Voys turned out to be a great, crowded crossroads, thronged with a lot of the market-day visitors. Makepeace found the chandler’s shop, with its hanging yellow-white candles, and entered. A little old woman with a bitter mouth was sweeping the floor.

‘I’m looking for Master Benjamin Quick, the doctor,’ Makepeace said quickly. ‘Is he still living here?’

‘Just about,’ said the old woman with a sour little grimace. ‘But not for long, I fancy. If you hurry, you might just catch him. Up in the attic room.’

Makepeace hurried up a creaking flight of stairs, and then scaled a ladder to the attic. Wide-eyed children watched her silently as she climbed.

The attic was dusty and dark, with a low, slanting roof, and one tiny window to let in the light. For a moment she thought it was unoccupied. She saw a travelling chest and a few books tied into a bundle with cord, next to a grimy, unkempt flock bed. Her first feeling was relief. The doctor could not have left yet. He would hardly depart without his belongings.

Then she realized that some of the rucks and rumples in the bed linen were not cloth. One beaky fold was actually a pale face, so bloodless that it was almost greyish. Long hands were just visible, gripping the blanket. There were faint, purplish blotches on his cheeks and hands.

At the same time the smell hit her. It was a stink of disease and fouled clothing. Was he dead? No, there was a slight tremor in his hands, an awkward bob of his Adam’s apple.

‘Master Benjamin Quick?’ whispered Makepeace.

‘Who is there?’ His voice was very faint, but slightly irritable. ‘Is my soup . . . ready yet? Will it reach me before I meet the Author of my Being?’

‘I am sorry,’ said Makepeace.

‘Sorry’ was a weak word for her emotions. It was all she could do to swallow down her pity and disappointment. Everything Makepeace had braved to reach Oxford had been in vain. The man before her was dying. His fingernails were blue as a drowned man’s, and the sockets around his eyes were hollowed and dark. She was sorry for him, sorry for herself, sorry for James.

‘You’re not the chandler’s girl,’ said Quick, frowning and turning his dim eyes to peer in her direction.

‘No,’ said Makepeace sadly. ‘My name is Makepeace Lightfoot.’

‘You have my sympathy,’ said the doctor faintly. He squinted. ‘Are you some sort of Puritan? What do you want with me?’

‘I came to ask you to help a patient.’

‘Patients . . . have proven bad for my health.’ The doctor coughed again.

‘Is there nothing that can be done for you?’ asked Makepeace, still scavenging for scraps of hope.

‘We should . . . call a doctor,’ mumbled Quick, deadpan, then gave a faint, breathless chuckle. ‘Ah, no, we have one. It is . . . camp fever. I have seen enough cases . . . I know . . . nothing to be done.’ His gaze slid off her blearily, and then he looked confused and frightened. ‘Where are you? Are you gone?’

Makepeace was still lurking near the hatchway. Her little bag of dried flowers suddenly seemed a pitiful defence against the foul airs of the attic. She did not know how easily the fever might jump from one person to another. Furthermore, she had been given a bath barely two nights before, so her pores might still be open to every disease.

Yet she could not bear to leave the doctor to die alone. She drew closer, until the doctor’s wandering gaze fixed upon her, and she saw a hint of relief in his hollowed face.

‘I am still here.’ Makepeace stooped to pick up a wooden box by the side of his bed. ‘Is this your medical box? Is there nothing I can give you?’

‘Tried . . . everything to stop the epidemic.’ It was not clear whether the doctor had even heard her. ‘Killed the cats and dogs, ordered the beer boiled longer, visited the sick . . .’ His eyes came to rest on a pile of pieces of paper, and he gave a small cough of a laugh. Even from a distance Makepeace could see that they were like the tickets given to the whitebaker: promissory notes from the King. ‘I was . . . paid well for it all. I die a rich man. Rich in promises, anyway.’

This long speech seemed to have unravelled him, and he coughed for a while, his entire frame shaking. His gaze settled on Makepeace again, and he blinked, as if he were having trouble seeing her.

‘Who are you?’ he asked dustily. ‘Why are you here?’

Makepeace swallowed. She did not want to torment a dying man with questions, but there were other lives in the balance.

‘You saved a man who said he was haunted. You took the ghost out of him. How did you do it?’

‘What? I . . .’ The doctor made slight gestures with his hands, as if turning a screw on something invisible. ‘A device . . . hard to explain.’

‘Doctor.’ Makepeace leaned forward, and willed her voice to pierce the fog of his fever. ‘I am trying to save my brother. He has five ghosts in his head, and if they are not taken out he will lose his mind. Please — where is the device? Is it here? Could someone else use it?’

‘No . . . it needs a skilled hand . . .’ Quick stretched out a hand towards a pile of his belongings near his bed. For a moment she thought he was pointing out the device, but then she realized that he was vainly reaching for a small, battered bible. She picked it up and placed it on his chest so that he could curl his hands around it. ‘Why do you ask me this now? I shall soon be . . . a ghost . . . myself.’ Every word clearly cost him effort. ‘My research . . . so many hopes and plans.’ He looked at the pile of tickets again. ‘At the end . . . nothing but empty promises.’ The hands gripping the bible shook, and she realized that he was terrified.

A ghost. An idea struck Makepeace, and it chilled her as if the sun had gone in.

‘Could you have saved my brother?’ she blurted out. ‘If you were well, could you have done it?’

‘What?’ Quick’s gaze fogged with confusion.

Makepeace swallowed, mustering her courage, and staring into the snake eyes of her own plan. The very idea of it made her feel sick, but James’s life was at stake, possibly even his soul.

‘I can save you if you promise to save him,’ she said.

Quick stared at her, and made a faint, wispy sound in his throat.

‘When you die, I can catch your spirit before it floats away,’ said Makepeace, her heart beating faster. ‘I can keep you in this world. You would haunt me. You would go where I go, and be my passenger, but you would still see and feel and think, through me. I could even let you use your skills through me sometimes.’

‘Monstrous . . . impossible . . .’ Quick looked alarmed by her now, but there was also a tiny, agonized gleam of hope.

‘It is possible!’ insisted Makepeace. ‘I have done it before!’

‘You are . . . already haunted?’ The doctor’s brow creased with suspicion, doubt and superstitious fear.

‘The other ghost is a brute, but an honest one,’ Makepeace explained hastily, wishing she had not mentioned her other lodger. ‘He is my friend.’ She felt miserable and cruel, but she persisted. ‘Could you save my brother? Will you save him?’ She was not even sure whether she wanted to hear a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.

‘Are you devil-sent?’ Quick’s voice was almost inaudible.

‘I am sent by desperation!’ Makepeace’s nerves were fraying at last, worn thin by fear and lost sleep. ‘Do you think I want you in my head for the rest of my life? Do you think I offer this lightly?’

There was a long pause. Now the doctor’s breathing and eyelid flickers were so slight that several times Makepeace thought that they had stopped altogether.

‘God help me,’ whispered the dying man. For a moment Makepeace thought this was a ‘no’, but then she met his eye and she realized that it was a ‘yes’. ‘God forgive me for this! Save me . . . and I will save your brother.’

And God help me too, thought Makepeace, as she took his hand. His breathing was growing fainter, and his eyes seemed to look through her.

‘When the time comes, do not be frightened,’ she said very softly. ‘Find me, move towards my face. I will let you in . . . but you must approach gently, like a guest. If you rage and rend, Bear will tear you to pieces.’

There was a long silence, during which second after second fell away into the unforgiving past. The moment where life became death was so quiet, so still, that most people would have missed it. Makepeace did not, though, because she was a Fellmotte. She saw the tiny, shadowy wisp of vapour seep from the doctor’s mouth into the air, and begin twitching in smoky distress.

It looked very much like the Infiltrator spirit that had crept out of Lord Fellmotte. Perhaps all souls looked the same when they were naked, stripped of flesh and blood, finery or buckskin.

Makepeace was suddenly terribly afraid. But she had come so far, so very far, and already dared so much. She leaned forward, fighting her urge to recoil from the foul airs of the sickbed, and brought her face close to the thrashing ghost.

She drew in a deep, shivering breath, and felt the doctor’s spirit slide coldly in through her nose and mouth, and into her throat.

CHAPTER 23

There was a terrible rushing cacophony inside Makepeace’s head, like clouds at war.

Something banged sharply against the back of her head. Makepace was staring up at the rafters, where spider-webs hung thick with dust. She had fallen backwards, she realized. There was a tightness across her chest that left her gasping for air.

God! she could hear the doctor yelling, his voice impossibly distant and yet tingling with closeness. God in Heaven! What Hell is this?

At the same time there came the bass rumble of Bear’s growl, confused and menacing.

‘Both of you!’ Makepeace whispered, struggling for breath. ‘Calm down! There is room for everyone!’ She sincerely hoped that this was true.

There is a Thing in here! screamed the doctor. It is not even human! A wild animal!

‘I told you as much!’

When you said ‘brute’, I thought you meant a brutish man! declared Quick. An uncouth oaf!

‘No — an animal! A bear!’

I can see that now!

Makepeace struggled to sit up. She did not look towards the doctor’s corpse. Things were quite confusing enough already with his thin voice echoing in her head. Her head reeled, and it was all she could do not to throw up.

She clutched at her head. At the same time she reached for Bear in her mind, and imagined running her fingers through thick, dark fur. He quietened a bit, but there was still a lurching, dangerous storminess to him. Bear did not trust the doctor, she could tell. Bear did not like his soul’s smell.

Makepeace was startled back into her senses by creaking footsteps down below.

‘Young woman, what are you yelling about?’ It was the old woman down in the chandler’s shop. ‘What is happening up there?’

Not a word about my death! hissed the doctor urgently. Or that old cat will kick you out and steal everything down to my shirt. She’d have done so already if she wasn’t afraid I’d cough on her. The doctor sounded a lot more coherent, now that he was free of his fever-ridden body.

‘Sorry!’ Makepeace called down. ‘I was upset . . . the doctor was talking about hellfire . . .’

Oh, thank you so much. That will do wonders for my enduring reputation. You could not come up with another story?

Well, never mind. You must go through my pockets, and take everything you find. My books too — and my tools and purse are hidden under the mattress.

‘If I walk out with my arms full, I’ll be hanged for theft!’ hissed Makepeace.

Ah, the cranial elevator. It is in a thin black pouch inside my box of surgical tools. I shall need my books, too, if I am to be of use to your brother. And there are some things that I would not wish to leave behind — my good gloves, my boots, my pipe . . .

‘I’ll take the tools, your purse and a few of the books,’ Makepeace said quickly, ‘but none of your clothes. If I die of your sickness, then both our ghosts will be left without a house. And forgive me, but I don’t smoke a pipe.’

Nauseous, she slid a hand under the mattress, trying not to notice the way the doctor’s arm lolled as she did so. Her fingers found hard corners, and she pulled out a slender wooden box and a leather-bound notebook, and hid them in her skirt pocket. His purse had only a few scant coins, but she took it anyway. The books she tucked under one arm, so that they were concealed by her cloak. As an afterthought she took the paper tickets as well. They might prove to be empty promises, but paper itself was valuable.

As Makepeace descended again, past the silent children and the chandler’s wife, she was sure she must look guilty. The sour-faced woman gave her a searching look.

‘Still alive, is he?’ she asked with slight disdain.

‘Sinking, I think,’ said Makepeace.

‘You don’t look too good yourself.’ The woman narrowed her eyes, suspicious, and withdrew a step. ‘Sodden with sweat, you are, and a feverish look too. You can keep your distance, and get yourself out of my house!’

Grateful for the chance, Makepeace obeyed and hurried out into the daylight.

I suppose there is no chance of hearty tot of rum? suggested the doctor as Makepeace hurried along through the streets. I think I could make use of one.

‘An innocent young maid like me?’ Makepeace whispered sarcastically.

I can recommend its fortifying virtues on medical grounds. O Almighty have mercy, this is intolerable! You walk without symmetry — this jolting — do you need to lollop so? I am seasick! And your posture is dreadful, I can feel every kink in your spine . . .

‘If you talk too much,’ Makepeace murmured, ‘you will wear yourself out.’ Bear certainly seemed to tire after too much exertion, and she found herself hoping that the doctor was the same.

She reached her lodgings, where Peg was happy to leave ‘Judith’ in charge of the belongings for a while. Makepeace was relieved to find herself alone, or as alone as she could be. She sank down on to the bed, her head full of clamour.

The doctor was shouting again, with a mixture of panic and imperiousness in his tone.

You there! What are you doing! Come back here — I’m talking to you!

‘There is no point shouting at him!’ Makepeace muttered through gritted teeth. ‘You’ll just anger and confuse him more! He cannot understand you. He’s a bear!’

I’m not a perfect simpleton! retorted the doctor. Of course I am not wasting words on the bear! I am talking to the other!

Makepeace wobbled, and put out a hand to support herself as the doctor’s words sank in.

‘What?’ she whispered. ‘What other?’

There is another spirit in here. A third human spirit, as well as you and I. Are you saying that you did not know?

‘Are you certain?’ hissed Makepeace.

As sure as I can be of anything in this maelstrom! Someone was there just now — fled from me — slithered away and hid — would not answer me. But she is still there somewhere.’

‘She? ’ croaked Makepeace.

Yes. It was a woman, I am sure of it. A smoky, maimed thing. Savage, frightened.

Makepeace covered her mouth with both her hands and heard herself make a small, lost noise. Her mind filled with a nightmare image that she had tried so hard to forget. A savage, swooping thing with an all too familiar face, that had clawed and clawed to get into her mind, even as she tore it apart . . .

Mother.

Makepeace had tried not to think about her for years. Now memory came for her, dragging a smoky train of shadow, sorrow, guilt and bewilderment.

Makepeace had hoped against hope that the whole episode had just been a nightmare. Deep down she had always feared that she really had shredded Mother’s ghost. But it had never occurred to her that the spirit might have succeeded in invading her mind.

Perhaps it had. Perhaps all this while Mother’s mauled spirit had been lurking in the dark corners of Makepeace’s head, and . . . doing what? Gnawing away at the soft parts of her mind like a worm in the wood? Hating her, and waiting for a chance for vengeance?

‘Where is she?’ asked Makepeace in panic. ‘What is she doing? What does she look like?’

I do not know! exclaimed the doctor. It was but a glimpse, and I saw her with my mind, not my eyes. She is gone now, I do not know where.

Makepeace was finding it hard to breathe. She pressed her hands against the side of her head and tried to concentrate. Her chest had tightened with fear, but also an agonizing yearning. A foolish, desolate part of her felt that a crazed and vengeful Mother was better than no Mother at all.

Perhaps Makepeace had been given a second chance to make her peace with Mother. Even if Mother was a thing of terror now, perhaps Makepeace could soothe and calm her, the way she had soothed and calmed Bear.

What is wrong with you? demanded the doctor.

‘I may know who she is,’ Makepeace admitted.

Who, then? he asked. A friend? An enemy?

‘I do not know which she is now.’ Makepeace’s words tumbled out. ‘She was my . . . my mother, but we parted badly and . . . death sometimes changes people.’

If the she-ghost really was Mother, however, she had lain quiet for three years. She did not seem to have set about eating Makepeace’s brain ‘like the meat of an egg’. Was it possible — just possible — that Mother’s ghost did not mean her harm, after all?

Makepeace recalled the sudden, well-timed pinch to her arm, which had woken her in the stable. It had allowed her to overhear her host’s treachery, and possibly stop Bear eating the horses. She remembered her most recent dream — sitting on the unseen woman’s lap, and watching her scratch out an ‘M’. It was the only letter Mother had ever learned to write. ‘M’ for ‘Margaret’.

Perhaps Mother was still on her side. Makepeace’s surge of hope was more painful than her fear.

What if she is an enemy? The doctor’s sharp tones cut through her reflections. What can you do about it?

The question shocked Makepeace back into her senses. She needed to plan for the worst, however sick the thought made her. What could be done about a foe already inside someone’s head? It crossed her mind that she had recruited the doctor to deal with just that kind of problem. If he could banish ghosts from James, then perhaps in extremis he could do the same for her.

Makepeace laid out the late doctor’s belongings on the bed, and examined them. With some trepidation, she opened the pouch containing the ‘cranial elevator’. It was an alarming-looking metal device, its long, thin drill attached to a metal crossbar with jointed extensions.

Be careful with that, said the doctor.

‘How does it work?’ she asked.

Do you really have the stomach for such matters? Well, it is rather ingenious. The drill is used to bore into the patient’s skull, and then the bridge section is braced against his head, so that when the screw is turned, the drill-part is slowly withdrawn, raising the dented part of the skull—

‘You need to make a hole in the patient’s head?’ exclaimed Makepeace. She was thinking of James again now, and was not sure what horrified her more: the thought of drilling holes in him, or the prospect of trying to do so while he was strengthened by angry, powerful ghosts.

Of course. How else would you relieve the pressure on the brain?

‘What if the patient does not . . . like the idea?’

Well, of course you would have a couple of stout fellows hold him down. You might want to put some lint in his ears as well. Some patients dislike the sound of drill grinding bone.

‘Is that the only way?’ Makepeace felt misgivings tingling in the pit of her stomach. She had no ‘stout fellows’ to back her up. ‘Can you not use the device . . . from a distance, somehow?’

From a distance? Of course not! This is a surgical device, not a wand!

‘What did you mean when you said the drill raised the dented part of the skull?’ Makepeace asked slowly. There was a pause, and when the doctor continued, Makepeace thought she detected a slight defensiveness.

I understood that you were acquainted with the details of my earlier case. A soldier was struck a glancing blow to the head by a bullet, at such a distance that it only dented his skull. The pressure on his brain, and build-up of blood inside the skull, caused him to become wild and fanciful, so that he was convinced that he was haunted. Once I raised the dent and dealt with the haemorrhage inside, he returned to his senses . . .

‘You lied to me!’ gasped Makepeace. ‘You promised to save my brother! He has five ghosts inside him! Real ghosts, not blood on the brain! How will your drill help with that?’

Well, how was I to know that you were being so literal?

‘I was offering to house your soul after your death!’ retorted Makepeace. ‘It might have crossed your mind!’

I was hardly at my best! The fever was heavy on me, and I was in the throes of mortal terror!

Remembering the hazy, unfocused face of the doctor before his demise, Makepeace could not deny that he had a point. It might have been a misunderstanding, and even if he had deliberately misled her, could she blame a desperate, dying man for clutching at a chance straw?

She still felt sickened and furious, but mostly with herself. She had fought so hard to avoid having more ghosts poured into her head. In a moment of folly she had taken one on willingly, and all for nothing.

I shall do everything I can, of course, the doctor continued, still sounding a little nervous. If there is a way to help your brother, you have a better chance of finding it with me than without me. I doubt any chirurgeon will ever have a better chance to study this spiritual phenomenon.

‘This changes everything,’ Makepeace said. ‘I need to think.’ Whatever happened, she needed to leave Oxford. If the Fellmottes sent agents to the King’s court, they would hear about the young girl with the cleft in her chin. So where should she go?

She could head west, deeper into Royalist territory and away from the front line, perhaps into the heart of Wales itself. She might escape notice there in some small village, but that would mean abandoning James. The longer he was left full of ghosts, the less likely it was that his own personality would survive. Even though the doctor was unable to banish spirits, she could not give up on saving James.

She could try to cross the lines and flee deep into Parliamentarian territory. The Fellmottes might be less willing to send agents after her there, but it would look bad for her if the rebels ever found out about her short career as a bullion-smuggler.

What kin did she have to call on? Her aunt and uncle presumably still lived in Poplar. But her aunt and uncle had given her away and, besides, London and Oxford were glaring at each other across the map, each one bristling in readiness for the other’s attack. The roads in between would be thick with armies, road-blocks, earthworks and spy-hunters.

Reluctantly Makepeace allowed herself to consider the option she had been trying to avoid. She had one kinsman who belonged to neither the Poplar parish nor the powerful Fellmotte cadre.

Symond.

He had murdered Sir Anthony, but then again Sir Anthony had been a shell full of ghosts. Makepeace despised Symond for abandoning his friends and his regiment, but the two of them had the same secrets and foes. The enemy of her enemy was not her friend, but he might prove a useful ally of convenience.

Most important of all, he had been brought up as a Fellmotte heir. He might well know more about the Fellmotte ghosts than she did. He might even have some idea whether it was possible to flush the ghosts out of James.

It would be a risk. The last Fellmottes to trust Symond had ended up dead or haunted. But not so long ago, Symond and James had been close as twins, and Makepeace could only hope that not all of that affection had been feigned. She would also need to give him some good, solid reasons not to betray her.

‘Doctor,’ she said at last. ‘Do you know a good way of leaving Oxford? I need to travel to Brill, and then onwards into land held by Parliament.’

Why in the world would you want to do that? That whole area is ragged from raids by both sides. And crossing the lines to enter land held by the enemy is an absurd idea! I died recently, and I am in no hurry to enjoy the experience again just yet.

‘There is a man I must find, Dr Quick.’ Makepeace took a deep breath. ‘And it is not safe for us in Oxford. Have you ever heard of the Fellmottes?’

The noble house, with fingers in every pie and gallants in every knightly order? Of course I have!

‘They are more than that! They are hollow, Doctor. They can hold ghosts inside them, just as I am housing you. I am of their blood — I have their gift — and the Fellmottes have plans for me, wicked plans. I have run from them, but they will come after me.’

You juggling little Jezebel! You never told me that! When you came to tempt my soul, you might have mentioned that I would be trapped inside a renegade and runaway, pursued by one of the most powerful families in England!

‘There was scarcely time!’

Well, I am sorry to have been precipitate in my demise! How thoughtless of me to have died so quickly! Why did you run from the Fellmottes, anyway? Did you steal from them? Tell me that you — we — are not with child and fleeing from disgrace?

‘No!’ hissed Makepeace. ‘I was running for my life! They would have filled me full of ghosts — Fellmotte ghosts — until there was no room for my soul. And that would have been the end of me.’

There was a pause.

I cannot tell whether you are telling the truth, the doctor said, sounding intrigued rather than offended. How interesting. I am inside your mind, but not quite inside your thoughts. Nor are you inside mine, I must suppose. We are still somewhat mysterious to each other.

It was true, Makepeace realized. Bear’s mind had no words, but she felt his emotions like vast wind-buffets. She could hear the doctor like a voice in her head, but his thoughts and feelings were fleet and difficult to read, like a glancing moth-flutter against her skin.

Maybe souls learned to read each other over time. The Fellmotte ghosts had had lifetimes to hone their cooperation, so that they could work together fluidly and rapidly. Perhaps they eventually saw each other’s thoughts daylight-plain. Or perhaps they each still had a nugget of secret self that they hid from each other.

The Fellmotte ghosts also seemed to be able to raid and rifle the memories of their living host. Clearly the doctor could not read Makepeace’s memories yet. Perhaps he would, though, in time.

We must forget this plan of travelling to Brill, the doctor muttered. Heading into enemy territory is out of the question. We must find a way to make terms with the Fellmottes. We cannot afford to have enemies that powerful.

‘No!’ hissed Makepeace. ‘There is no talking to them! And that is not your decision to make!’

This is ridiculous, murmured the doctor, and for a moment Makepeace was not sure whether he was addressing her or talking to himself. Listen, young woman. I cannot possibly leave all decisions to you. Like it or not, there are now four souls aboard this fleshly ship, and we are in sore need of a captain. As far as I can see . . . I am the only possible candidate.

‘What?’ exclaimed Makepeace. ‘No! This is my body!’

We are all its denizens now, persisted the doctor. Your age and sex make you unsuited to command, not to mention that you have made fugitives of us all! And our other travelling companions are a half-mad banshee of an intruder, and a bear! I am the only person fit to lead this circus!

‘How dare you!’ Anger rose in Makepeace like a storm. This time it was not Bear’s wrath but her own, and it frightened her. She could feel no limit to it.

That is scarcely a reasoned response — and we must settle this rationally! The doctor also seemed to be losing his temper. You have obviously been blundering at every turn! You did not even know how many ghosts you were hosting! You should be grateful that I am willing to step in!

‘One more word,’ breathed Makepeace, ‘and I will drive you out! I can! I will!’ She did not know for certain that she could, but the words felt true as she said them, with Bear’s growl throbbing in her blood. ‘I ran from the all-powerful Fellmottes — from hearth and home, from everything — because I would not be their puppet. And I have nothing, but I have my own self. And that is mine, Doctor. I shall not be the Fellmottes’ toy, and I will not be yours. Play tyrant with me, and I shall hurl you out of doors, and watch you melt away like smoke in the wind.’

There was another long pause. She could feel the doctor’s emotions shift, but she could not tell what they were, or what the movements meant.

You are very tired, he said slowly. You are worn to a rag, and I had not noticed. We . . . have both had a trying day, and I have chosen a bad time for this conversation.

You are right, I am lost without you. But if you take a moment to think calmly, you will realize that you need me, too. Your mother’s ghost is possibly dangerous, and certainly mad, and roaming around inside your walls. You cannot see her. So you need an ally, one who can do more than growl. An ally who can watch out for her, and tell you what she is doing.

Makepeace bit her lip. Little as she liked to admit it, the doctor had a point.

If you have your heart set upon this plan of yours, he went on, then let us see if we can find a way to survive it. Brill is north-east of here, and only ten miles away as the crow flies, but that distance matters.

Our troops hold a goodly number of garrisoned towns and fortified houses nearby, to guard the roads and bridges around Oxford — Islip, Woodstock, Godstowe, Abingdon and so forth — but if you head east as far as Brill, you are wandering outside the protective circle. There is a great house at Brill that is still in the hands of the King’s men, thank God, but a good deal of the countryside around them is pocked with Parliamentarians.

If you plan to walk there, you will not need to cross any bridges, so we may avoid being stopped and questioned. But it will be perilous travelling cross-country. It seems this is a war fought in paddocks and roadsides. Ambush may be crouched behind any hedgerow or cattle trough.

Makepeace had to concede that all of this was useful information. The doctor was arrogant, but very far from stupid.

‘I will need to plan,’ Makepeace agreed. ‘I will need directions before I leave . . .’ She was starting to realize just how much fatigue was wearing on her nerves.

What a leaden thing you are! murmured the doctor. I believe you are quite sick from weariness. When did you last sleep properly? He sounded rather medical and disapproving.

‘We have been dodging Parliament’s boys across several counties,’ Makepeace retorted. ‘I stole a wink or two when I could.’

Then for God’s sake sleep now, woman! the doctor rapped out, not unkindly. If you do not sleep, then you will sicken, whether you catch the camp fever or not! And then where will we all be? If you are determined to captain this vessel, don’t you at least have a duty to your passengers?

‘I . . .’ Makepeace hesitated.

She barely knew the doctor, and was halfway to deciding that she did not like him, but she could not go without sleep forever. Like it or not, Quick was right. She did need an ally. And she could not recruit his help without admitting her predicament.

‘I . . . have caught myself sleepwalking recently,’ she confessed. ‘I have been . . . afraid to sleep.’

Indeed? Quick seemed to digest the news. Another hand pulling your strings, perhaps? Or maybe a paw?

Makepeace did not answer. He did not press her, but after a few moments she thought she heard a sigh.

I shall stand sentry while you sleep, and wake you if you start to wander, or if either of the others try anything. Whatever I may think of your decision-making, you seem the lesser of three evils.

The thought of deep, uninterrupted sleep was so heady that Makepeace felt sick. As she lowered her heavy head on to the bed and closed her eyes, the darkness was almost unbearably sweet.

‘Do be careful, Doctor,’ she murmured, as she let herself relax. ‘Bear does not like you. If he thought you were trying to hurt me . . . I’m afraid he might tear you to shreds.’

CHAPTER 24

‘Judith?’

Makepeace opened her eyes with difficulty. They felt sticky. There was a sour taste in her mouth, and her throat was swollen. She wanted to close her eyes again.

A woman’s face hovered over hers, indistinct in the dim room. Was it evening or dawn? For a moment Makepeace could not remember where she was, or what time of day it was likely to be.

‘Judith, what ails you? You’re grey as clay!’

Helen put out a hand towards Makepeace’s forehead, but then pulled it back without touching her. She looked frightened and conflicted.

‘Your brow is slick,’ she murmured. ‘I told you to keep that posy close to your face!’

‘I am not ill!’ Makepeace insisted, and tried to sit up. Her stomach convulsed, and she fell back again. ‘I am just . . . tired.’ She could not have fallen ill so fast, could she? It had been but a few hours since she had sat by Quick’s deathbed.

Helen said nothing, but backed away and dropped into a chair, one hand over her mouth. Her eyes moved to and fro as she made calculations.

‘I am leaving Oxford tonight,’ she said at last. ‘Peg has already left. I must head north towards Banbury — Symond Fellmotte’s favourite tutor lives there, and might have news of him. Besides, there is talk of Parliament’s forces moving against the city. If they start firing their mortars at the walls, I will be trapped here. I had thought to take you with me.’

‘I need to leave as well!’ said Makepeace quickly.

Helen was shaking her head.

‘I cannot take you like this,’ she said. ‘It would be dangerous enough if we were both well. I cannot carry you, Judith. And it would be perilous to your health.’

Listen to me, said the doctor. She is right. You cannot move now.

You have the camp fever.

‘No!’ hissed Makepeace. ‘I cannot be ill now! I will not be ill!’

You have no choice.

Makepeace was gripped by a terrible fear. Her mind had been under assault before, but now it was her body being attacked from within. She remembered Benjamin Quick’s sickbed, and his soul steaming out of his husk.

‘I am sorry,’ said Helen, apparently with real regret. ‘I will leave you the rest of the medicine, and half my purse — but I cannot stay for you. His Majesty’s orders must come first.’

Do not panic, said the doctor. I am here, and I know the disease. You are younger and stronger than I was. We shall see you through this.

‘Nobody must know that you are ill,’ said Helen, as much to herself as to Makepeace. ‘They are setting up quarantine cabins outside the city in Port Meadow. If your fever is reported, you will be dragged out there, and then I would not give three pips for your chances. I will pay the landlord to hold his tongue and keep you fed. I bet he’d do more than that for a fistful of actual coins.’

She scooped up her belongings, and raised her hood over her head.

‘God protect you,’ she said.

For a moment Makepeace could only think of bitter things to say. But Helen was giving what she could, and owed ‘Judith’ nothing. Makepeace’s gaze fell on the little patches that hid Helen’s pockmarks. She had suffered a hearty tussle with the smallpox, then — a duel with Death. She could not blame Helen for fleeing from a sickroom and a sick city.

‘You too,’ she said.

Makepeace’s eyelids drooped again for what seemed only a moment, but when she raised them again, Helen was gone.

I will not die. It was all Makepeace could think, and she thought it over and over. I will not die. Not yet. I have not had my chance. I have not been all that I can be, or done all that I can do. Not yet. Not yet.

At one point she became aware of the doctor’s voice in her head, quietly and calmly insistent, as if talking to a small child.

That was a knock at the door, child. They have probably left food outside. You must get up now and go to the door. We need food, do we not?

And she rose, oh so groggily, and staggered to the door, her head pounding. There was a bowl of soup outside. Makepeace tried to stoop for it, but her knees gave way, and she sat down awkwardly. With great effort she dragged it into the room along the floor, then closed the door.

Eating was a marathon task. Her head was so heavy that she had to rest it against the wall, and kept nearly falling asleep.

Another spoonful, the doctor urged. Another. Come on, now. Here . . . let me use your hand. So Makepeace let him take control of her right hand, and guide a spoonful of soup to her mouth, then another, then another. She felt like a very young child, and for some reason this made her want to cry.

That is better, the doctor said. Now you need to take your medicine. Under his guidance, Makepeace crawled to his medical bag, and pulled out a little green glass bottle. Just a little sip for now. More later.

The medicine made her mouth stickier, and the reeling of the room grew worse. Bear didn’t like the smell.

‘I can’t stay here,’ Makepeace whispered, as her blood galloped in her ears and temples.

You have no choice, said the doctor. Rest is your only possible cure. You must sleep or you will die.

Makepeace was not willing to die.

Her sense of time melted. There was another knock on the door, and she did not know why, because she had already eaten the soup. But this was new soup, the doctor told her. She had to open the door and eat the new soup. Why had they come with more? The doctor told her it was suppertime. Hours had passed. She ate the new soup. A little later, she had to move again to use the chamber pot. Shifting herself around the room was like dragging a hill.

The grooves of the floor pressed against her face. Why had she chosen to sleep like that? Knock, knock. New soup. The doctor was getting better at manoeuvring her hand and the soup spoon now. Even though she knew who was moving it and why, it was uncanny to watch her own limb moving like that.

‘Why are you not dizzy too, Doctor?’ she croaked.

I am, a little, he answered, but you are tied to the body more strongly than I am. Its ills affect you more powerfully. Your strength is your weakness. My weakness is my strength.

The doctor was talking about medicine again. Yes, it was medicine time. Drag, drag, dragging herself to his bag, sipping from the bottle.

She had fever-dreams. She could swear that there were others in the room, talking in hushed voices. But when she blinked her tired eyes and peered around her, she was alone.

Seconds stretched out like sleeping lions. Hours passed in a blink. The sky beyond the window was grey. Then it ached with sun. Then it was bruise-coloured and the light was fading. Then it was a pit of deep and blessed darkness. Then the whole cycle began again.

This made Makepeace anxious, but she could not remember why. There was something she needed to remember, and somewhere she needed to be, but they were lost in the fever fog of her brain.

Murmur, murmur, murmur. It was happening again. Imaginary voices holding a conversation above Makepeace’s head. But this time they were not imaginary. Makepeace opened her eyes a little. The door was slightly ajar, and through the aperture she could see the face of her host and that of a thin woman, who Makepeace assumed was his wife.

‘We can’t keep hiding her and feeding her forever!’ whispered the woman, glancing at Makepeace with a mixture of pity and exasperation.

‘That red-haired lady paid us the first good coin we’ve seen in a month, and she asked us to tell nobody about the young lady until she is well again.’ The landlord’s words were staunch enough, but he wore a small, uncertain frown.

‘But what if this fellow asking after her really is her friend, as he says he is? Let him take her! If anyone finds out we haven’t reported a case of camp fever—’

‘I tell you, it’s no such thing! Look at her — no chills or rash.’

‘The rash comes later, and you know it!’ exclaimed his wife. ‘She’s barely been abed three days!’

‘And she’s been in town only four,’ her husband answered sharply. ‘Did you ever see camp fever take hold that fast?’

‘Perhaps she brought it with her!’ The wife sighed. ‘You should not have turned the gentleman away. We must send someone after him, and tell him the truth.’ The older woman stared down at Makepeace for a moment, her face tired, troubled and not unkind.

The door closed.

With a titanic effort, Makepeace managed to pull herself up to a sitting position, her back against the wall. Desperately she scrabbled for her slippery thoughts.

Three days. She had been sick for three days. That . . . was bad; she remembered that now. She was not supposed to be here still. There was danger. She had been noticed at court. If the Fellmottes came asking after her, somebody would remember seeing her with Helen. Somebody would remember where Helen had lodged.

A man had been asking after her. Perhaps the Fellmottes had already found her.

Steady, murmured the doctor.

‘I . . .’ She swallowed. ‘We . . . We need to go. Now.’

You know you cannot. You have no strength.

‘I must!’ Makepeace’s voice sounded croaky and husky, but talking made her feel more solid, more alive. ‘I need to go before that man comes back . . . the Fellmottes . . .’

Calm yourself, said the doctor, and think. Our hosts will not send for him now. It is getting dark. If you sleep now, the fever may break, and then we can . . .

Makepeace tried to stand, and fell to her knees again.

Listen to me! Listen! The doctor sounded frustrated and regretful. I understand your panic, but I am telling you as a doctor that you cannot — must not — exert yourself in your current state! You need to respect your limits. You do not know what is happening to your body right now, but I do.

‘Sorry, Dr Quick,’ whispered Makepeace. She crawled on hands and knees over to her cloak, and dragged it awkwardly around her shoulders.

Well . . . at least take some of the medicine first, to defend yourself from the night humours.

‘No. I . . . I always sleep after the medicine.’ Her feet were like lumps of lead, but she pulled her shoes on to them anyway.

For God’s sake, you can’t even stand!

Makepeace took deep breaths, grabbing hold of the bed’s footboard to steady herself, then hauled herself up . . .

. . . and stood.

Unsteadily she scooped up her bundle of belongings and the doctor’s bag, and took step after wobbly step towards the door. She had to concentrate on placing each foot, but she reached the door, opened it, and stepped out on to the darkened landing.

Stop this madness! hissed the doctor. Stop it! He abruptly took control of her hand and tightened it around the door jamb to stop her continuing.

Angrily she wrested control back again. But now she was aware of a dangerous rustle of whispers at the back of her head. This time she was sure she was not imagining it.

Do whatever you must, the doctor said, and this time Makepeace knew he was not talking to her.

As Makepeace started to descend the stairs, she suddenly felt her left foot rebel against her. It twisted under her, obeying a will that was not her own, and she fell. The edges of the steps bit into her legs and side as she bumped and slid down the full length of the stairs, with a deafening rumble.

There were confused voices from the floors above and below. Bare footsteps approached. Figures appeared in nightclothes, tapers in hand.

She struggled to her feet, assisted by a couple of helping hands.

‘Thank you . . . I . . . I need to leave . . .’ Makepeace’s voice sounded husky and thick.

‘At this time of night?’

Makepeace could make out hints of suspicion in the blurry faces around her.

‘Miss, are you well?’

She blundered past the hovering figures, and opened the front door. The cold of the night air made her gasp.

‘Why, there she is!’ came a call from the street. Too late, Makepeace noticed the whitebaker’s wife, hurrying back towards the house. There was another figure at her side, a male figure.

A great wave of panic rose up inside Makepeace. She knew that silhouette. She knew it as well as her own name, and her childhood nursery rhymes. He stepped forward into the light, smiling up at her with his arctic eyes.

It was James.

CHAPTER 25

For a moment Makepeace stared in horror, then her survival instincts took over. She threw herself sideways, hoping to dodge past James, but he moved with lightning speed to seize her shoulders and pull her back.

Uncanny speed. Elder speed.

‘There, now, Maud — what’s wrong?’ He was smiling again, with a smile that looked terribly wrong on his ugly-handsome face. ‘Don’t you recognize me?’

‘Let me go!’ In desperation she turned to the whitebaker’s wife. ‘He’s not my friend!’

‘You seemed to know him for a moment.’ The other woman frowned in confusion.

‘She did.’ James forcibly wound one of Makepeace’s arms through his, pinning it against his ribs. ‘Maud, it’s me — James! Your own brother!’

‘Oh . . . now I think I can see the likeness.’ The baker’s brow cleared, and Makepeace could see the other faces showing signs of comprehension and relief.

‘He’s not my brother!’ Makepeace tried to pull her arm free, then struck out at James’s face with her free hand. ‘For God’s sake, listen!’

Voices were raised in concern. Restraining hands settled on Makepeace’s arms and shoulders. Calming things were murmured to her. She was dragged into the parlour, and pushed down into a chair.

‘There, now, flower.’ The baker’s wife still looked a little uneasy. ‘Your brother has ordered a chair to carry you to his lodgings — you can stay here in the warm until it gets here.’ She glanced at James. ‘Do not take her words in ill part, sir,’ she added in a whisper. ‘It is just the fever talking. She will know you very well soon enough, I am sure.’

‘Oh, she will,’ said James. There was only one candle in the room, flickering on a little table by Makepeace’s chair, and by its light his features seemed to quiver and dance.

‘Listen! Listen to me!’ Makepeace was still groggy, but she managed to pull herself up to a sitting position in her chair. ‘He is not my brother. Look into his eyes. Look at him! He’s a devil. Don’t leave me alone with him!’

The baker’s wife’s eyes flitted to James’s face and rested there for a moment. Then her gaze dropped again, and she hurried from the room. Makepeace suddenly realized that even if she succeeded in convincing her landlady, it would achieve nothing. The strange man might be a devil, but he was taking a troublesome invalid out of the house.

The door clicked shut behind her. Brother and sister stared at one another.

‘James,’ said Makepeace, as quietly and steadily as she could. ‘We promised we would never abandon each other, do you remember?’

‘He did not abandon you,’ said the Elder. ‘He simply remembered his duty to the family at the last.’

‘Did he? How many of you had to hold him down to help him “remember his duty”?’

‘Is that what you imagined?’ Again, a small rictus tremor of amusement. ‘You thought that the boy tried to fight us? No. He submitted himself willingly. Despite all his flaws and follies, he redeemed himself at the end.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ whispered Makepeace.

‘You should,’ said the Elder. ‘I know him better than you do now.’

Makepeace remembered the bean in the Twelfth Night cake, and the way James had thrown aside their plans to become Lord of Misrule. The allure of lordship, power and a title had called to James in a way that it never had to her. She could even imagine him convincing himself that he was strong enough to hold his own against a gaggle of ghostly guests.

‘James, you idiot,’ she whispered.

‘You, on the other hand, abandoned your duty,’ continued the Elder. ‘Never mind your brother — what about us? What about your duty to us? And who helped you escape? Who placed that beast in you? Who gave you that rope?’

That was what was bothering the Elder most, Makepeace realized. Even now, the ghosts could still not believe that she might have managed her escape alone. She might have found it funny, if she had not been so angry.

‘Oh, to Hell with all of you!’ shouted Makepeace, reckless with rage. ‘Are you still planning to take me back and fill me with Lord Fellmotte’s ghosts? Are you all blind or stupid? I’m rotting with the camp fever. So go ahead, pour them in! We can all watch our skin blister and our brain melt together, till we’re ready for a winding sheet!’

A moment later, Makepeace’s throat contracted and trembled as another mind took control of it. With a horrible queasiness, she felt her own tongue squirm in her mouth without her permission.

‘The girl is mistaken.’ The voice came from her own throat, but it was not her own, and it rasped against her throat. ‘She is not infected.’

‘Ah,’ said James, with every sign of satisfaction. ‘There you are, my lady.’

Makepeace gagged, trying to regain control of her throat, and feeling panicky and breathless. Who was talking through her? Its voice was cold and controlled. It did not sound like Mother. Nor did it slur or rave, like the attacking Mother-ghost of Makepeace’s nightmare.

‘She is only drugged with opiates,’ continued the voice. ‘The beast is weakened by the drug as well — its spirit is so tangled with that of the girl. There is another spirit too, a doctor of middling merit whose drugs we have used.’

Traitor! thought Makepeace as she understood at last. She had never been ill. She had been tricked into drugging herself into semi-consciousness. Dr Quick, you liar! I should have let your sick old spirit soak into your deathbed like spittle. She could feel his sallow ghost weighing down her arms, ready to stop her if she tried to struggle or run. You snake, she thought. You idiot!

‘Hold her still, then,’ said the Elder. He opened Dr Quick’s bag, and drew out the little bottle of ‘medicine’. He pulled its cork and sniffed at it carefully. ‘This time we will take no chances.’

Bear! Makepeace called in her own head. Bear! But Bear was cloudy and confused. He was angry and could hear her, but he did not know where to swing his paws.

She tried to struggle as James came over and took hold of her chin, but the drugs and ghosts in her system weighed her down to the chair. She could feel the subtle malice of the doctor and the unknown other as they exerted all their willpower to stop her moving. The bottle was held to her lips, and a large dose poured into her mouth. She tried to spit it out, but she could feel her mouth and throat convulsing against her will, in an attempt to make her swallow.

‘Good,’ said James, his voice cold and distant. ‘Once she is unconscious, my lady, begin scouring her out. We will need those other spirits removed if there is to be room for Lord Fellmotte’s coterie.’

What? Dr Quick was shouting inside Makepeace’s head. That is not what we agreed, my lady! You promised that the Fellmottes would give me a place among them! Tell him! Tell him! Makepeace’s limbs suddenly felt slightly less leaden. The flustered doctor was no longer helping to pin her down.

With all the force she could muster, she kicked away the little table, toppling the candlestick.

She only meant to plunge the room into darkness, but the candle tipped back and fell against James’s cloak. The flame caught a tasselled fringe, and hungry tongues of gold licked up the cloth. James yelled a curse from another century, and tried to tug loose the cloak’s fastening at his throat. At the same time, Makepeace hurled herself out of the chair, and scrambled towards the door on hands and knees, spitting out the drug as she went.

The unknown Other was trying to claw at her mind, commandeer her limbs and sabotage her motions. However, now it had to contend with the doctor. Makepeace could sense the two of them wrestling with silent fury, as she grabbed her possessions and scrambled into the hall.

She dragged back the bolts of the front door, opened it and flung herself out on to the street. Behind her in the house she heard a cry of pain, and more swearing. Elders were ancient and terrible, but apparently still flammable.

Makepeace ran. The cold air stung some clarity into her groggy brain. Bear was with her now, staggering, grumbling but aware that she needed his strength. Her steps rang out on the cobbles, and soon another set of steps were echoing behind her, faster than hers and more deft.

She turned a corner, and found herself in an unexpected pool of light.

‘Stop!’ Half a dozen armed, scruffily dressed men stood in her way, each wearing a dingy sash, their leader holding a lantern aloft. It was a patrol of some sort. She made to duck round them, but one of them grabbed her by the arm. ‘What’s the hurry, mistress?’

Makepeace looked back, and saw James sprint forward into the candlelight, eyes alight with rage. He would sell them a story and talk them round in moments. Or he would if she gave him the chance.

‘You said you would hide me!’ she screamed at James, to his obvious astonishment. ‘You said it was safe to go out on the streets! But now they’ve caught us! I don’t want to go to the quarantine cabins!’

During the shocked silence that followed, Makepeace could see the patrol guards noticing her greasy pallor and shivers for the first time. The man who had grabbed her arm hastily released it, and the group moved to surround her, maintaining a slight distance.

‘You have the fever?’ the lantern-holder demanded.

‘It’s not my fault!’ wailed Makepeace, and had no difficulty in letting tears come to her eyes. ‘I don’t want to die!’

James’s face contorted with frustration. Within him, the ghosts were doubtless raging. Somehow the situation was slipping through their fingers.

‘She is not ill,’ he said quickly. ‘My sister imagines things sometimes—’

‘The girl’s as grey as ash!’ exclaimed the leader. ‘She can barely stand! Sorry, friend — I don’t blame you for trying to protect your sister, but we must follow orders.’ He hesitated, then frowned a little. ‘And you’ve been tending her, have you? Perhaps you’d better come with us as well.’

‘Do you have any idea who I am?’ snapped James. ‘I have powerful friends that you would not wish to cross—’

‘And we have orders,’ retorted the guard.

James’s ice-cold eyes flitted over the six guards with a calculating look. Perhaps the Elders inside him were weighing up whether to kill the whole patrol. They could do it, no doubt, but there would be consequences.

He turned, and fled into the darkness. One guard started to give chase, but soon gave up and returned.

‘Sorry, mistress,’ said the patrol leader, ‘but we must take you to the huts outside the city. They will look after you there.’ He sounded less certain than he wanted to be.

I really hope, murmured the doctor, that there is a second half to your plan.

Led through the darkened streets of Oxford, Makepeace felt as if she were walking through some cold underworld. At long last, Quick’s drug was loosening its hold on her, but the scenes around her were dreamlike in themselves.

Makepeace had grown so used to Grizehayes. She had silently seethed against the house, but its long pauses, the contemplative chill of its high walls, and the wind’s uninterrupted conversations with itself had become part of her bones. Even its sounds were familiar to her — she could identify every creak, clink or distant voice. Here, every distant laugh, bark, smash or hoof-clatter was unknown to her, and it made her feel unmoored.

The streets were darkening, but not yet dark enough for the link-boys to be out. Now and then a great college building loomed against the violet sky. A few candles flickered in windows.

Once, her escort led her to the side of the street, so that a strange procession could waltz past. There were gentlemen in fine clothes, with cobweb-fine lace at their collars, bows on their shoes, ostrich plumes on their hats and lustrous, curled hair down past their waists. They were making a show of dancing down the murky, slippery street. A gaggle of musicians swayed beside them, playing flutes and guitars, while behind them giggled a small horde of ladies, masked and hooded like courtesans.

Makepeace knew that these were living men and women, but there was something phantasmal about the parade, like the carvings of dancing skeletons she had sometimes seen in graveyards. Even knee-deep in disease and disaster, the court was determined to be the court. Silly, decadent, gorgeous and bold.

At the gates, the patrol exchanged muttered words with the sentries. The gates swung open, and the group emerged into a cold wind, the sky wide and unforgiving above them. The earthworks were even more vast in the fading light.

In spite of the sharp night air, and the sense of being exposed to the wide gaze of the sky, Makepeace felt slightly relieved. Oxford had made her feel trapped, she realized. She had already spent too much of her life imprisoned by ancient walls.

Ahead, the broad road continued towards the river, and Makepeace could see the soft glow of lanterns from guard posts on the bridge. She turned her head away from it, staring out across the lightless fields to her right. She blinked hard, welcoming her night sight.

Bear, I need your eyes. I need your nose. I need your night-wits and forest-wisdom.

‘I’ll walk you to the quarantine camp,’ the patrol leader was saying. ‘You’ll need a lantern to light your steps.’

‘Thank you,’ Makepeace said quietly. ‘But I will need no such thing.’

Before her escort could react, she sprinted from their little pool of lantern-light into the darkness, her feet pounding the soft, treacherous clods of the field. The guards called after her for a while, but did not pursue. In a lost city, how could they chase down every lost soul who became a little more lost?