A Skinful of Shadows

CHAPTER 26

After the lantern-light, the darkness was shocking. Makepeace could hear nothing but her own panting. One of her feet twisted on a tussock and she nearly fell, biting her tongue as the shock jolted her spine. The next false step might turn her ankle, but if she hesitated she would be caught. She raced onward, deafened by her own panting, and put her trust in Bear.

And Bear, who had been confused by the crowds, the streets, the medicine and the human stinks, realized that now they were running. This was something that he understood. He wanted to drop to all fours, but sensed that Makepeace could not run that way.

Seen through Bear’s eyes, the darkness was not complete. There were details just visible, storm-cloud grey against the black. Ruts and furrows. Hummocks of half-built earthworks. The outlines of trees far ahead flanking a path.

Makepeace zigzagged between the mounds, until she was running along the tree-lined path. Only when she was out of breath did she pause for a moment.

I think we have lost our pursuers, murmured the doctor.

Shut up, Dr Quick, Makepeace retorted in her head. Stealth was vital, so she did not dare answer out loud. Fortunately, the doctor seemed to hear her.

You have some right to be angry, he said. I acknowledge that I made an error of judgement.

I said, shut up. I need to concentrate. Makepeace swallowed her annoyance, and tried to focus on Bear’s sense of smell. Trust me, we’re not alone out here.

The guards would make no serious attempt to follow her, she suspected. A contagious girl was not their concern outside the city, and they had little chance of finding her in the dark. But James would not be deterred so easily. She was sure that he must have followed her and her escorts through the streets. Bribery, bullying or connections would see him through the gates. He would soon be hunting her.

If you want to make yourself useful, Doctor, Makepeace whispered grimly, keep an eye out for ‘my lady’. That was what both the doctor and James had called the unknown spirit who had briefly taken control of Makepeace’s powers of speech. Whoever she was, she was an enemy, and could strike at any time.

Tenderly Makepeace drew out of her pocket a little ivory object.

That is a diptych dial! The doctor sounded both scandalized and fascinated. How did you come by such a thing?

Makepeace did not bother to answer. The Fellmottes had been dismissive of Sir Thomas’s precious collection of navigational devices. Taking it had barely felt like theft.

She had long since worked out the meaning of its etched lines and numbers. It was a miniature sundial, designed to be carried around in the pocket, and the inside of the lid was a moondial. Right now, however, she was more interested in its tiny compass.

‘North-east to Brill,’ she mouthed to herself, then turned the little box around until the arrow pointed to the ‘N’ and set off in the ‘NE’ direction.

The wind changed direction, blowing from behind her, and Bear uttered a deep growl. There was a smell on the wind. It was almost human. It was almost James.

Ahead, across the charcoal-grey field, Makepeace glimpsed the jet-black seam of a narrow, twisting river, almost hidden by trees. She headed for its concealing shadow, and followed it until she came to a place where the bank was rutted. It was a ford, but even with Bear’s night sight she could not tell how deep the water was.

A solitary moorhen made her jump by bursting from cover and sputtering a line of white foam across the surface of the river. Somewhere far behind her, Makepeace heard a brisk snap of a twig, as if somebody had given a start.

There was no time for caution. Makepeace hitched her skirts to the knee, took off her shoes and stockings, and clambered down the bank, the cold mud giving perilously under her feet. Her first step into the icy river brought it up to her knees. As she waded across, the current threatened to knock her off balance, but she managed to scramble up the soft slippery bank on the other side.

She donned her shoes and socks again, then carefully she slipped through the undergrowth and carried on walking. She had doubtless left barefoot tracks in the mud. If her pursuer was James, he would have centuries’ experience of second-guessing enemies, and hunting all kinds of prey. However, unlike Makepeace, he probably could not see in the dark.

The hours of darkness were Makepeace’s friend, so she carried on walking. She stayed alert, trying to sense ‘my lady’, but the mysterious ghost seemed to have gone to ground again. However, she could feel the doctor hovering insistently inside her mind.

Mistress Lightfoot, he began at last, we must talk.

Must we? Makepeace was brimming with bile. What can you say that I will believe? She had trusted that calm, doctor’s voice.

She had obediently sipped his medicine as he tricked her into the Fellmottes’ hands.

I was deceived — I was betrayed.

You were betrayed? exclaimed Makepeace. I took you in! I scavenged you from death!

You did so for your own reasons, not for pity! snapped the doctor, and then were was a long silence as if he regretted his outburst. We have both acted in haste. Have we not?

His words had some truth in them, but Makepeace was still wary. Like medicine, truth could be used as a poison by someone cunning enough.

You despise me, she snarled quietly, just as you despise Bear. I am a kitchen girl. He was a dancing brute on the end of a chain. Why would you care what we think? We are nothing. When would our wrongs ever bother you?

Well, now you must care. We are your judges, Bear and I, lowly as we are. Make us trust you, Doctor. Give an account of yourself.

The Bear is hardly— began the doctor.

Do not say a word against him, warned Makepeace, with a growl in her thoughts. I can trust him as I can no other.

The beast is loyal, conceded the doctor quietly. That is certainly true. I think it would fight for you against the world.

I do not have its passionate devotion to you — I will not pretend that I do. I made an alliance against you, thinking that it was my best chance of self-preservation. I was mistaken. You only trusted me because you needed another ally. You still do. I no longer have a reason to betray you. We do not need to like one another to be useful to each other.

The choice is yours. You can have your Bear tear me apart, or we can talk, and try to form a useful alliance.

Everything the doctor said in his clear, precise voice frayed at Makepeace’s temper. Humans always betrayed you sooner or later. For a brief moment she wondered what it would be like if the great armies on the march destroyed each other and every human in the country, leaving only empty fields and forests where she might wander with Bear.

The idea made her feel serene for a moment, but next instant the cold sadness of it sank in like dew.

Talk, she told the doctor grudgingly.

You have an enemy in your skull, said Quick, as you know. A subtle foe, mistress of a thousand tricks. I thought her mad when I first glimpsed her, but she is not. She is merely mangled — wounded. And she is very dangerous.

Somewhere in Makepeace’s head, something gave a hiss of anger and warning. Silence, Doctor, not another word . . .

The doctor hesitated, but continued, his voice now a trifle fearful.

Her name is Morgan, he said. Lady Morgan Fellmotte.

The Other was not Mother. For a few seconds that was the only thought in Makepeace’s head. She had known it already, but the doctor’s words killed her last doubts. Makepeace was overwhelmed with relief, but at the same time a terrible feeling of emptiness and loss.

In her lifetime she was a spymistress and intelligencer, the doctor went on. For the last thirty years she has been part of the coterie of ghosts that inhabit each Lord Fellmotte. About a week ago, when the coterie was hoping to move into your body, she was sent ahead to—

‘Infiltrate,’ whispered Makepeace aloud.

The Other was the Infiltrator. At last Makepeace understood. The ghost that had slithered into Makepeace’s brain in the chapel had been wounded by Bear, but had not been destroyed after all. Of course it was so. Of course. She had been so obsessed by the idea of a vengeful Mother-ghost she had been unable to see past it.

It is one of her appointed tasks, said the doctor. Taking over a new mind is a dangerous business, so an Infiltrator is often sent first to scout out the domicile, subdue threats and make room for the coterie. However, the lady was not expecting your brain to be guarded by a large, angry ghost-bear. She was badly wounded, and so she hid in the corners of your mind.

Oh, Bear, thought Makepeace, struck by realization and remorse. You knew. You kept growling and I didn’t know why. You could smell her. In her mind she put out a hand to stroke Bear’s muzzle. He had not been snarling at Makepeace at all, but at an intruder she could not see.

Ever since, Quick explained, Lady Morgan has been trying to sabotage your escape and get word to the Fellmottes, but without you noticing her presence. She only dared act when your guard was fully down — when you were asleep.

My sleepwalking! Makepeace’s mouth was dry. It had been caused by Morgan all along, not Bear. I nodded off in the carriage escaping Grizehayes. She must have rapped on the roof so that the driver would stop and discover me.

No doubt, said Quick. She has also been leaving secret marks and messages at every stop to make it easier for the Fellmottes to track you. She even left a letter in a Fellmotte carriage telling them that you were heading to Oxford.

So that was why Makepeace had found herself standing outside the stables of the safe house in the dead of night. It took her a moment to work out why Morgan had pinched her arm to wake her. Morgan must have overheard their hosts sending word to the Parliamentarian soldiers, and woken Makepeace so that she would realize her danger. After all, the Fellmottes would hardly want Makepeace falling into the hands of the enemy.

It also made sense of the dream in which the mysterious lady had scratched an ‘M’ into the door jamb. Perhaps some part of Makepeace’s sleeping brain had realized that her body was getting up, sleepwalking to the door and leaving a mark for others to find. ‘M’ for Morgan, not Margaret.

The night after my death, Dr Quick went on, when I promised to guard your sleeping, I did so in good faith. Once you were asleep, however, Lady Morgan approached me with a proposition. She told me that you were a virtual lunatic who would almost certainly destroy me in a fit of temper, and . . . at that time I was in a mood to listen to her. She promised that if I helped the Fellmottes capture you, the family would allow my spirit to dwell alongside theirs as a reward.

We needed to prevent you leaving until the Fellmottes arrived, so we dosed you with an opiate. When you woke, I persuaded you that your torpor was a sign of illness, and that you needed to keep drinking your ‘medicine’ at regular intervals.

I take no pride in this. It was a low scheme, beneath me. All I can say is that I believed that I was fighting for my survival.

How had Makepeace missed all the clues? Even her new-found ease with reading should have told her that she was using someone else’s skill.

Instead, she had suspected Bear. Poor loyal, bewildered, angry Bear.

Everybody betrayed her, so why expect otherwise? But it turned out that distrust could fool you and endanger you, just as trust could.

Have you made a decision? asked the doctor quietly.

Makepeace trudged on for a little while without answering. Overhead a scattering of stars trembled in the hazy night, each of them pure, cruel and lonely.

You’ve been a total fool, Doctor, she answered silently. A dupe and a gull. So have I. We need to be cleverer from now on, or we’re both lost.

She heard him give an almost inaudible sigh of relief.

Do you still mean to push on to Brill, and then into enemy territory? asked the doctor after a while.

Yes, she replied. James is at our heels. I must do something he does not expect from me. We must go somewhere he cannot easily follow. We must find friends he cannot win round.

Gracious God — are you thinking of joining the enemy?

Makepeace hesitated. She was reluctant to discuss her plans with the doctor after his treachery, let alone within hearing of the elusive, ever-listening Morgan. However, there was no hope of a true alliance if she kept Quick completely in the dark.

My cousin Symond has turned to Parliament’s side, she explained. He is a treacherous, murderous snake, so the Fellmottes will probably expect us to stay away from him. But Symond might be our best chance of survival if we can make an ally of him.

Makepeace did not mention the rest of her plan.

The royal charter that Symond had stolen from the Fellmottes was his master card. If it really did reveal the terrible truth about the Elders, then it would be devastating if it was made public. The Fellmottes would probably be accused of witchcraft, and the King too for protecting them. It might even turn the tide of the war.

Symond had it. The Fellmottes wanted it back. The King had sent Helen to recover it. Parliament would probably give anything to acquire it if they found out it existed. Whoever had the charter in their possession had power in their grasp.

Makepeace felt that it would be no bad thing if she had it instead.

CHAPTER 27

The damp ground made for slithery walking. Makepeace kept her eye on the diptych dial’s compass, and tried to hold to her bearing, even when this meant scrambling through thickets, streams and hedges.

There was a cream-coloured moon aloft now, and the fuzzy shadow on her moondial told her that it was about two or three of the clock. A few birds were already scraping the night air with questioning notes. Night was her friend, but dawn was only a few hours away.

Most of the drug was out of her system now, she fancied, but she was finding herself groggy from fatigue. She realized that she had not enjoyed unbroken or undrugged sleep since leaving Grizehayes. At one point she entered an almost trance-like state, the rhythm of her feet heavy and automatic, and was only woken by an urgent whisper from the doctor.

Mistress Lightfoot! Your left hand!

Makepeace jerked awake, and became aware that the fingers of her left hand were just releasing something soft. She halted, and immediately spotted her crumpled handkerchief on the ground, its whiteness vivid against the dark earth. She stopped and picked it up.

Lady Morgan is still trying to leave our friends a trail, Makepeace remarked. Has she dropped anything else?

I believe not, said the doctor. I have been watching out for such things.

You must realize that this is hopeless, said another voice, as hard and level as a blade. It was the same voice Makepeace had heard forced out of her own throat back in Oxford, and she knew it must be Morgan. You cannot fight me forever.

Yes, I can, answered Makepeace fiercely. I was fighting you even before I knew you were there. Now I do know, and now I have allies.

You must sleep sometimes. Your attention will drift now and then. Even your accomplices cannot always watch for me. An absent-minded moment is all I need to seize mastery of your hands, or harm you, or make you whisper words you instantly forget.

I could even trip you and dash your brains out if I wanted.

Maybe, said Makepeace, but I do not think you will. Lord Fellmotte would not like it if you chipped his vessel, would he? And if I die, so do you.

If it were not for me, you would be in the hands of the rebels already, said Morgan. Her voice was cold but not old, and Makepeace wondered whether she had died before her time. You have no idea how much I have helped you already. What do you think would become of you if I stopped helping?

Who knows? Makepeace shrugged defiantly. Perhaps Parliament’s men will capture me, and torture the Fellmotte secrets out of me. How would you like that, my lady?

I could start pruning your mind like a tree, suggested Morgan. How would you like that?

Bear would never let you. Makepeace fought down her fear.

That disgusting animal is an infestation, not a friend.

He is worth a hundred of you! snapped Makepeace. When did you people decide that you were the only ones allowed second chances? You already had lives full of power, and riches! You had chances most people could only dream of!

You have no idea how hard I worked to earn my immortality! Morgan sounded genuinely angry, her voice razor-sharp. I spent every second of my life slaving for the family, to make myself too valuable to lose. I had no life of my own. I earned my after-life. That was the bargain I made.

Well, you never made a bargain with me, so it counts for nothing, said Makepeace curtly. I choose who lives in my head. And if you’re my enemy you have no place in it!

Makepeace closed her eyes, trying to sense Morgan in the dark space of her own mind. Where was she? There! For a second there was a flicker in her mind’s eye — a foggy image of a sharp-faced woman, eyes gleaming amid pits of shadow.

She tried to snatch at the ghost with her mind. Something slithered away into hiding, like a rat’s tail against her skin. Makepeace reached for the elusive tickle of otherness . . .

. . . and then felt a shock of the mind, as if something had slammed in her face.

There was a sudden feeling of anguished terror, and a searing, muddled blare of memories. She remembered darkness, screams, cobbles under her feet and blood like ink running down either side of an open eye.

The spasm ended, and Makepeace found that she was on her knees, gasping.

What happened? asked the doctor.

I tried to catch Morgan. Makepeace picked herself up, still reeling from the mental blow, and put away her handkerchief. How does she hide from me? Where does she go?

I am not completely sure, confessed Dr Quick, but there appears to be a part of your mind that is closed off from the rest. I think she is using it as her lair.

After a couple of hours, Makepeace realized that the ground was steadily ascending, the little thickets and copses becoming less frequent.

I think I know where we are, remarked the doctor. Unless I am mistaken, the town of Brill is at the very top of this hill.

Then we need to be careful, said Makepeace. We must skirt round the town, and find out a farmhouse to the north.

Take a new bearing, suggested the doctor, a touch more northerly, and I think we shall pass to the north of the town.

The sky was just beginning to pale in the east when Makepeace caught the smell of woodsmoke, courtesy of Bear’s sharp senses. She adjusted her course accordingly, and after a while glimpsed the farmhouse. There were a couple of low buildings, dank-thatched and grey-walled, backing on to a little paddock where a few skinny, threadbare chickens pecked at the dark rotting leaves in search of food. A rooster perched proudly at the summit of a large, overturned wheelbarrow.

It was early for callers, but Makepeace could not wait for dawn. She rapped at the door, and was surprised when it was quickly yanked open. An old man peered out, holding the door open only a few inches. Makepeace could just make out his foot braced against the door, as though he thought she might shove her way in.

‘What do you want?’ His eyes were bright and antagonistic, his hands and arms still strong from years of work.

‘I’m looking for the Axeworth farm—’

‘You won’t find them here,’ the old man snapped. ‘This was their place, but they left a few days ago. Too much trouble here.’

‘Do you know where I can find them?’ asked Makepeace.

‘Try Banbury.’ The door slammed in her face. She knocked, then knocked again, but there was no reply.

Hmm. The doctor’s voice was hesitant and wary. Lady Morgan . . . says that he is lying.

Makepeace remembered all too well the Elders’ eerie ability to tell when somebody was lying. Morgan was not, of course, a very trustworthy source. She might be laying a trap of some sort. Then again, it was also possible that Morgan had her own reasons for wanting Makepeace to track down Symond. The canny Elder might still be hoping to reveal his location to the other Fellmottes.

Makepeace took a few steps back, studying the house and garden.

I think she’s right, Makepeace admitted after a few moments. If the Axeworths ran off, they left their chickens, their tools and two bundles of firewood. There’s a barrow over there they could have used to carry their heavy goods. Why would they leave it behind?

The wind freshened for a moment, and it seemed to Makepeace that the grey sky became greyer, the damp of the air more insidious. There was a note in the wind. It was a little like the sound made by blowing across the neck of a glass bottle, except that Makepeace had the unpleasant feeling that she was the bottleneck. She flinched involuntarily, and put her hands over her ears.

What is it? asked the doctor.

There’s something . . . Makepeace was conflicted, trying to listen and trying not to listen. The faint, fluting note had a shape to it. As she listened, it wavered, wailed and became a repeated word.

Hell . . . Hell . . . Hell . . .

There’s a ghost here! said Makepeace urgently. We need to leave!

But as she turned away from the house and took a step back towards the path, an invisible something threw itself against her. She could feel it beating against her mind like damp, mad wings. In shock, she threw up her arms in a useless attempt to defend herself, and recoiled a few steps into the garden.

Chickens scattered. As she felt her heel thud against the wheelbarrow, Makepeace looked down, and froze.

Whoever had tried to hide the body had not done a particularly good job. They had curled it up like an unborn babe, covered the bulk of it with the overturned wheelbarrow, and tried to hide those parts that stuck out with leaf mulch and moss. Through the twigs and dank leaves, Makepeace could clearly see a hand, mushroom-pale. It was an adult hand, but not a particularly old one, though calloused with use.

The voice of the ghost was louder here, and Makepeace could hear the repeated word properly.

Help . . . Help . . . Help . . .

‘Oh, you poor, sorry wretch,’ she muttered, sadly. ‘Nobody can help you now.’

‘Hey!’ The old man was advancing, a gardening fork brandished in a threatening fashion. ‘What are you doing there? If you’re looking for something to steal you’re too late — we’re pared to the bone!’

‘No!’ Makepeace stared at the points of the fork, wondering if the corpse at her feet had holes in its chest to match those spikes. ‘I was just leaving!’

The old man glanced at the barrow at her feet, then back at Makepeace’s face, and his expression crumpled.

‘You’re going nowhere,’ he shouted. ‘Ann! Come out here!’

A woman in her thirties ran out into the yard, took in the situation at a glance, and snatched a hand-scythe from a hook on the wall. Like the old man, she wore a tragic expression, made up of desperation, fear, anger and despair.

There were vivid red smears on the woman’s left sleeve and across the front of her dress.

That is fresh blood, the doctor said suddenly.

I guessed, replied Makepeace, as she backed a few steps.

She was cornered. If she turned tail and fled through the garden, she would have to tear her way through the hedge at the back. If she darted for the path, she would have to dodge the weapons of the old man and the woman. Either way, she knew she was too exhausted to outrun them.

Listen to me, said the doctor. The corpse under the barrow is nearly blue. That blood is fresh. It did not come from our dead man.

Makepeace’s brow cleared, and she looked at the woman anew. ‘You’re injured,’ she said. ‘Or somebody in that house is, anyway.’ The old man and the woman exchanged glances.

Help . . . Help . . . Help . . .

‘Let me see them,’ Makepeace said impulsively. ‘I can help them. My last master was a chirurgeon, and he taught me a few things. I have tools! I can show you!’

There was a long pause, then the woman called Ann beckoned with her scythe.

‘Come on, then.’

Dr Quick, thought Makepeace, I really hope you’re as good as they say.

So . . . we are proposing to help these murderers? asked the doctor as they neared the door. We are not intending to run, then, once we are in front of the house?

No, answered Makepeace.

She knew that she was too tired to run, and she strongly suspected that Bear and the doctor were also drained by the efforts of the night. Besides, she had a presentiment that if she tried to flee, she would find herself with a faceful of ghost again. She had a new suspicion about its wishes.

The little cottage was sparse and dark inside. The smell of blood hit Makepeace immediately, and for a moment reminded her of cutting up fresh hares and partridges in the Grizehayes kitchen. Underlying it, though, was another aroma, a sickly smell of rot.

The source of the smell was obvious. A man the same age as Ann was huddled next to the embers of a fire, wrapped in blankets. He was pale and greasy-looking, and his left shoulder had been roughly bandaged with torn linen, which showed stains ranging from crimson to black.

Well, that bandage will need to be changed for a start, said the doctor. There is all manner of nastiness there, I can smell it. Send somebody to boil some fresh linen. God’s own truth, I would boil the whole house if I could.

‘When did you take this hurt?’ asked Makepeace.

‘Two days ago.’ The patient’s eyes were watchful and a little feverish.

Two days, and I’ll warrant the wound has not been properly cleaned, muttered the doctor. No wonder he has taken an infection. We’ll need to take a look at it.

Makepeace reached towards the bandage, but the patient pulled back, eyeing her with fierce suspicion.

‘I think I see how it was,’ Makepeace said, slowly and deliberately. ‘Royalist soldiers and Parliament men found each other out and started killing each other, using your cottage for cover. They left a corpse behind, and one of them hurt you by mistake in the dark. That’s what happened, isn’t it?’

Her three hosts glanced at each other.

‘That’s how it was,’ agreed the patient firmly, and some of the tension went out of the room. Makepeace peeled back the bandage, and struggled not to gag as a smell of rot filled the room. The wound was a long slit, the edges swollen and reddened.

‘His flesh is rotting,’ said Ann, who was hovering nearby.

Ah, said the doctor, that is a sword cut. That young fellow under the barrow must have been a soldier, and he gave some account of himself before he met his end. No maggots yet, but a touch of gangrene. We’ll have to cut that out, and scour out the wound . . .

Makepeace listened to his instructions, then turned to the patient’s family.

‘Boil some strips of fresh linen if you have them,’ she said, ‘and bring me some salt and vinegar.’

Of course, the doctor remarked thoughtfully, if we could taste the patient’s urine, I could learn a lot from that.

Not with my tongue, you don’t! Makepeace thought firmly. She had limits.

Carefully she took Dr Quick’s box of tools out of her bag, trying not to let her hands shake. Biting her lip, she attempted to let the doctor take control of her hands.

He had mastered her hands before, when he had spoonfed her during her stupor, but this time she was fully awake, and somehow that made things harder. Watching her own hands fumbling with the catch of the box without her controlling them sent a tingle of panic through her. The doctor seemed just as jittery.

Your hands are too small, he was muttering, and too clumsy. How can I make precise cuts with these . . . blundering meat gloves?

Makepeace’s hands took hold of a small bladed tool, dropped it, then picked it up again. Her fingers were shaking more than ever. The metal felt strange and cold in her grip.

She watched her own hand carefully extend the tool towards the wound, the very tip of the blade used to gently ease back the edge of the cut. It made her feel sick to watch it, and to be so close to the wound. The tool was too sharp, the angle wrong, the flesh too vulnerable. Despite herself she flinched, and snatched back control of her hand. The tool twitched and nicked the edge of the wound, and the patient gave a hiss of pain.

For God’s sake, do you want me to do this or not? If you fight me for control of your hands, we may kill this man! You need to trust me!

‘Sorry,’ Makepeace whispered aloud. Despite the cool room, she could feel the tickle of sweat running down her back.

She released three long, slow breaths, and then let the doctor take control of her hands.

As she watched, Makepeace tried to pretend that the hands belonged to somebody else. That helped a little. Somebody was demonstrating surgery to her, and she needed to watch every moment, even when her stomach curdled. Nonetheless, she had to grit her teeth as the discoloured flesh was carefully cut away, and tweezers used to remove tiny clotted rags from the wound, presumably fragments of the patient’s sleeve.

‘He’s bleeding again,’ Ann said nervously.

‘That is as it should be.’ Makepeace parroted the voice in her mind. ‘The blood will help wash out the wound.’ She braced herself as she prepared the swab of salt and vinegar. ‘I am very sorry . . . but this will probably hurt a good deal.’

The next two minutes involved a lot of screaming, and by the end of it Makepeace was wondering whether chirurgeons ever threw up. By the time the wound was bandaged again in fresh linen, Makepeace was feeling drained and shaky. The old man brought her a bowl of gruel, but a few minutes passed before her stomach was steady enough for her to eat it.

Afterwards, Ann offered her a bed, and Makepeace accepted it. She guessed that she would not be allowed to leave until it became clear whether her ministrations had done the patient any good. If she was going to be a prisoner, she decided she might as well get some sleep at the same time.

He may well die despite our efforts, the doctor said quietly. I think I should warn you of this now. I am very good at what I do, but my job is hard and a sword’s task is easy. Humans are fragile things, and breaking us is far easier than fixing us. Since the start of this war, most of my patients have died.

The army knows that often there is nothing to be done. I do not think these people will be so understanding. Mistress Lightfoot, you will need a plan for our escape should that man be carried off to the arms of the Almighty.

But Bear had other ideas. He was tired, and now was the time to sleep. There was a beautiful, brute simplicity to it. When sleep came for Makepeace, it felt a little like sinking into warm folds of dark fur.

Makepeace woke hours later, feeling more clear-headed than she had in a long while. A thin, milky sunlight filtered through the open door.

Ann brought her more gruel, a little bread and some good news. The patient was still weak, but his pulse less ‘wild’, and his fever fading.

‘Those tools,’ said Ann. ‘I suppose the chirurgeon died and left them to you.’ Her tone was cloudy with deliberately unasked questions.

‘Yes,’ said Makepeace, meeting her eye. ‘That’s exactly how it was.’

When she joined the rest of the family in the main room, the mood was less antagonistic. As she suspected, they were the Axeworth family, the very people she had been seeking.

‘I need your help,’ she explained. ‘I know messages are dropped here — letters for a Mistress Hannah Wise. Do you know where they’re taken, after they leave here?’

Again there was an indecisive exchange of looks, and this time it was the old man who answered.

‘We’ll tell you. After all, we won’t be handling those messages any more. We’ll be leaving here as soon as my son is well enough to travel. We’re not supposed to know where the letters go, but the messenger who picks them up is fond of a drop or two.’ He mimed downing a drink. ‘There’s a house by the name of Whitehollow. That’s where he drops them off.’

‘Do you know where it is?’ asked Makepeace eagerly.

The old man shook his head.

‘Never mind,’ Makepeace said quickly. ‘Thank you for the name. I’ll find it.’

‘I wish we could spare you provisions for your journey,’ said Ann, ‘but we have little enough for ourselves. The soldiers have stripped our cupboards bare.’

‘Soldiers from which side?’ asked Makepeace.

‘Who knows? Both, I warrant. There’s not much to tell them apart.’ Ann retrieved a cloth bundle from under a floorboard, and unwrapped it on the table. ‘You can take your pick of these, though, if there is anything you fancy.’

Makepeace could see at a glance that the huddle of items in the bundle must have belonged to the dead soldier. There was a much thumbed devotional book with a few letters between the leaves, a sturdy pair of boots and a recently cleaned sword.

‘We have a use for the boots,’ admitted the old man. ‘The rest we will probably bury. We dare not sell them in case questions are asked. Take whatever you please.’

Makepeace thumbed through the devotional book, which was apparently called The Practice of Piety. Parts had been underlined, and there was a fanciful little doodle of an angel in one margin. A flower had been pressed in the front cover, and Makepeace imagined the young soldier, out of his home county for the first time, plucking and preserving a bloom he had never seen before. Opposite the flower was written the name ‘Livewell Tyler’.

What sort of nonsense name is ‘Livewell’? demanded the doctor. It is every bit as bad as yours! And look at these prating prayers! I think our dead man is a Puritan.

For some reason, Makepeace could not bear the thought of the well-loved book rotting in the earth. She was about put it in her pocket when some of the letters fell out.

They were all scrawled in the same youthful, uncertain hand, and signed ‘Your loving sister, Charity’. To judge by the brief addresses at the top, young Livewell Tyler had been posted in a number of different places. The address on the last letter caught Makepeace’s eye: ‘Whyte Holow, Buckinghamshire.’

Back outside the house, Makepeace took a moment to pause on the path. She could still hear the faint voice in the wind.

‘The farmer will live,’ she whispered. ‘You can stop now.’

What are you doing? asked the doctor. If that is the soldier’s ghost, we have just saved his murderer!

If he wanted help for himself, he would have been trying to claw his way into my head, like most ghosts, Makepeace told the doctor silently. But he didn’t. He just flapped at me like a wounded bird. He was trying to stop me leaving the cottage. He wanted me to help them.

The wind settled, but the wispy, fluting note continued, tickling at Makepeace’s brain.

Will . . . live? I am not . . . a murderer?

‘No, you’re not,’ said Makepeace gently. ‘You were afraid you were going to Hell, weren’t you?’ She was surprised by how well the ghost had held its mind together, given its unhoused state.

The wind rose again, and subsided in ragged gusts.

I am . . . going to Hell. The fluting voice was filled with a grim certainty. Not one of the Saved . . . but the farmer will live . . . will live . . . that is . . . that is good . . .

‘What makes you think you’re going to Hell?’ demanded Makepeace.

. . . Deserted my post . . .

Makepeace could almost taste the bitterness of his shame on the wind.

. . . So hungry . . . tried to steal a chicken . . . farmer warned me off with a rake . . . drew my sword and struck him. Struck him with my sword. Mad . . . hated him . . . mad with hunger. I am a . . . coward. Thief. Sin of wrath . . .

I told you he was a Puritan, said Dr Quick.

Makepeace thought the doctor was probably right. There was something about the ghost’s way of talking that reminded her of the apprentices in Poplar. She wondered how many of those boys had signed up to fight, with their hearts full of fire, and worn-out bibles in their top pockets. This Livewell Tyler sounded young and fierce like them, but for now all his fierceness was turned on himself. She remembered his calloused hands, and wondered what hammer or scythe he had thrown aside for a sword.

He was a deserter, and apparently stupid enough to have died over a chicken, but somehow he had held together his hazy spirit for two days through his sheer determination to save the man who had killed him. He had done this even though he thought his own soul was irrevocably lost.

. . . A thief and a coward . . .

The voice was becoming more broken, blurred and anguished. Despite the wan daylight, Makepeace could just about see its smoky shape as it started to twist and writhe. It was turning upon itself, tearing shreds from its own spirit.

Fascinating, remarked the doctor, who was apparently observing the same phenomenon.

‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘Livewell Tyler . . . please, stop it!’ Left to itself, the ghost would drive itself mad, and torture itself to pieces.

Oh please, no, said the doctor, as if detecting the drift of her thoughts.

‘Listen, Livewell!’ Makepeace hissed, willing the tortured spirit to notice her. ‘How do you feel about second chances?’

I . . . have earned none . . .

‘But I have!’ Makepeace changed tack. ‘I am fleeing from wicked men who would endanger my very soul. I need to find a place called Whitehollow. Will you help me?’

CHAPTER 28

Makepeace trudged mile after mile after mile, trying to ignore the incandescent rantings of Dr Quick.

What were you thinking? he demanded. Why would you recruit a member of the enemy? Is our little cadre not divided enough?

Master Tyler knows the way to Whitehollow, Makepeace pointed out defensively. Besides, we might need somebody who understands soldiering.

For all we know, he may decide to cut our throat, muttered the doctor. Will he ever give up that infernal noise?

Back at the farm, Makepeace had explained her ‘gift’ to Livewell, and it had seemed that he understood what she was suggesting. His spirit had calmed, and stopped tearing itself apart. After she breathed in his ghost, however, he had fallen silent for an hour. Then he had started praying, fervently and relentlessly. He had been doing so ever since, despite all Makepeace’s attempts to talk to him.

Makepeace would not admit it, but she was starting to wonder if the doctor was right. Perhaps taking on Livewell’s spirit had been a stupid, rash thing to do. But watching his ghost unravel had been unbearable.

He probably needs some time to adjust, she told the doctor.

Well, he cannot have it! snapped Quick. Soon we will cross the border into Buckinghamshire, and then we will need some actual directions from him!

While walking, Makepeace had seen the sun reach its wan summit, then start to descend again as the afternoon wore on. Ever since leaving the Axeworth farm, she had been trudging non-stop, never daring to pause. Somewhere James would be hunting for her.

Makepeace knew that she was passing through no man’s land, and that there would probably be troops from either side roaming around. She hugged the hedgerows in the hope that she would not be seen from a distance. Soldiers meeting a lone traveller in such a place might be suspicious or arrest her. Worse, they might even be dangerous.

Soon she would be in lands held by Parliament. If she was caught and searched, Lady April’s ring or the King’s paper tickets would mark her as a Royalist. A little reluctantly, she halted in a little thicket, and buried them at the foot of an alder.

As she prepared to step out of the thicket into a meadow, she was brought up short by a sharp whisper in her head.

Get back!

She reflexively stepped backward into the shadow of the trees, and ducked down behind a high troop of nettles. Only then did she realize that the praying had stopped. The whisperer had been Livewell. Looking out across the meadow, she saw a tiny brilliant glint wink from behind a hedge.

Spyglass, whispered Livewell.

Makepeace held still. After what felt like a little age, two men with muskets slung over their shoulders climbed through the gap in the hedge, and walked away. She stayed where she was until she was sure they were gone.

Thank you, Master Tyler, she said as she carefully set out again.

’Twas a matter of habit. It was a rather surly response, but at least he had not resumed his prayers.

Master Tyler, Makepeace tried again gently.

What is it, witch? snapped the dead soldier. He sounded harrowed but defiant.

Makepeace flinched, startled. All the reassuring words she had prepared abandoned her.

I am not a witch! she protested. I told you what I am! I told you about the Fellmottes!

I know what you said, answered Livewell, his voice quivering but determined. You were very clever, and I was weak. You told me that the King is friendly with witches, and that I could help you against them. I told myself that this would be doing God’s work! But you use the Fellmotte witchcraft. You bind spirits to yourself. You are served by a great beast. I am the one making deals with a witch . . . and I have let you claim my soul!

If I was a witch, she answered, why would I bother claiming your soul? You’re so sure it’s hell-bound already. Why wouldn’t I just leave it where it was and pick it up on Judgement Day?

You want me to lead you to Whitehollow, Livewell answered promptly. Maybe you mean harm to our men there. For all I know, you plan to poison them or curse them. I betrayed my brothers-in-arms once, by abandoning them. I won’t betray them again.

He sounded frightened, but resolute. Perhaps he was braced and ready for Makepeace to hurl devilish curses on him and then swallow his soul with a gulp. She closed her eyes and sighed angrily.

If I’m a witch, she asked, why don’t I fly across the miles instead of walking my feet bloody? Why didn’t I turn into a hare to hide from those soldiers, instead of squatting in a nettle patch? Why don’t I send my imps to fetch a partridge pie and a big mug of ale right now? I wish I was a witch!

But I’m not. I don’t have magic, just a hand-me-down curse I never asked for. I’m flesh and bone — bruised flesh and weary bones right now. The only dark masters I ever had were the Fellmottes, and I’ve run myself sleepless fleeing from them.

I do want to believe you, the young soldier said, rather less fiercely. If the Fellmottes truly are witches, and if you really are their enemy . . . then let us warn everyone about them!

I have no proof! exclaimed Makepeace. They would call me madwoman — or witch, just as you did!

But if we could open everyone’s eyes, he exclaimed, it might change the course of the war!

Makepeace hesitated, knowing that she was about to make everything worse. However, dishonesty would be a poor beginning to their relationship.

I am sorry, Master Tyler, she told him, but I do not give two crushed peas who wins this war.

Instantly chaos broke out in her head.

That is too bold! declared the doctor. To weigh His Majesty as lightly as those rebels in the Parliament—

How can you say that? Livewell sounded equally incensed. How can you not care whether our people are safe and free?

Oh, stop your howling, Puritan! snapped Dr Quick. You and your kind would bring us to a joyless world with no merriment, no beauty, nothing high and mysterious to lift our souls!

And you would rather see the King rise up as a bloody tyrant, cutting the heads off anyone who argued with him! answered the soldier. Where’s the ‘joy’ and ‘beauty’ in that?

How dare you, you lousy, beggarly—

You’re very lucky we’re both dead, sir! Or I would—

‘Stop shouting in my head!’ erupted Makepeace aloud. Several nearby birds took off in fright. ‘No, I do not care. Why should I? Nobody has shown me why I must die for the King, or why I should love Parliament better than my own hide! I wish to live! And I have more than a dram of sympathy for everybody else who just wants to live!’

There was a long pause.

I cannot blame you for that, I suppose, Livewell said at last. I tried to save my own skin too. He gave a small, uncomfortable little laugh. Forgive me. I have no right to ask you to risk your life, just because I failed to live mine well. You’re a young maid. I should be trying to keep you from harm.

Remorseful Livewell was somehow harder to deal with than angry, suspicious Livewell. Makepeace had offered him a second chance. Maybe he had seen it as an opportunity to redeem himself. What redemption could she possibly offer him?

So what is your plan? he asked quietly. Why do you want to go to Whitehollow?

There is a man I need to find there, she explained. A treacherous man, but he might know a way to fight against the Fellmottes.

And then? he asked. What do you want to do after that? If the war doesn’t matter to you, what does?

The blunt, simple question knocked Makepeace back on her heels. What did she want? She realized that she scarcely knew. For so long, her mind had been filled with thoughts of what she did not want. She did not want to be chained up, or imprisoned, or filled with ancient ghosts. She did not want to live in fear of the Elders. But what did she actually want?

I want to save my brother, she said slowly. He’s full of Fellmotte ghosts. I want to chase them out and free him, so I can cuff him and tell him he’s an idiot. And . . .

Her mind crowded with memories. Jacob’s ghost screaming. Sir Thomas’s frightened face. James with dead things behind his eyes. And the icy, snake-eyed Elders, so sure of their rights to others’ lives . . .

There was a mountain of a wish in her heart. It was dark and looming, daunting and unscalable, but she looked directly at it at last.

‘And,’ she said aloud, ‘I want to be the Fellmottes’ undoing.’

Now that sounds like a cause worth the whistle. For the first time, Livewell sounded like he might be smiling.

The walk was easier with Livewell’s directions, and more pleasant without the incessant praying. Makepeace explained a little of her history, and Livewell gradually opened up about his own. He had been a cooper’s son in Norwich, brought up in his father’s trade. He had learned his letters in the local grammar school, and started teaching them to his younger sister.

Then the war had broken out, and he had enlisted at the first chance.

I had no doubts, he said. How could I stay at home, hammering barrels into shape, when this war was beating the world into a new shape? This is a fight for the country’s soul! I wanted to do my part! It was like a hunger and thirst in me . . .

He trailed off. Even his zeal had a touch of sadness.

By the time the shadows started to stretch, Makepeace had walked over fifteen miles, and Livewell was certain that they had crossed into Buckinghamshire. She was exhausted, her feet were blistered, and her legs and injuries ached. She was also very hungry. She had used up the provisions from Mistress Gotely over the last few days, and the gruel the Axeworths had given her had been thin and meagre.

Bear felt the hunger too, and that was something he understood very well. Makepeace could sense his rumbling unrest, and his sudden curiosity about every rustle in the hedges.

Makepeace found that she had had unexpectedly halted, and that she was looking up into a nearby tree. There was a dark spiky blot that looked a little like a bird’s nest. Makepeace could sense Bear thinking of the oozing innards of eggs, the crunch of fledglings. But peering up at a different angle she could see it was not a nest after all, just a tangle of twigs. Instead, she found her mouth opening, and her teeth fastening on the tender, spring leaves of the tree.

Bear! Makepeace told him, spitting out the mouthful of leaves. I can’t eat those!

But Bear was indomitable now. With Makepeace’s hands he reached down to grab an old piece of rotting log, and ripped it open to show its flaky inside. Makepeace found herself licking off the scurrying ants, their taste a peppery tingle against her tongue.

Livewell gave a squawk of alarm and shock. Going feral was probably not the best way to convince him that she was not secretly a demon in female form.

Makepeace sighed, and dropped herself down on the bank of a nearby stream, then pulled off her shoes and stockings.

No cloven hoofs, she pointed out drily, then lowered her feet into the water, and felt the cold water pleasantly numbing her blisters. And I don’t vanish at the touch of running water, either.

A thin, dark shape in the water caught Makepeace’s eye. The little fish was gone almost as soon as she noticed it, but it had clearly captured Bear’s attention too. Makepeace’s mouth was watering, and she did not know whether it was from her hunger or his.

She found herself lurching to her feet again, and had placed one foot in the water, damping her hem, before she was able to take back control again.

Stop! And yet, did she really want to stop Bear catching a fish if he could manage it? Wait just a little. She could not afford to get her clothes wet, for she would have no means to dry them if she was sleeping in barns, and they would chill her to death. She carefully hitched up her skirts and shift, tucking and tying them just below hip height.

Then she let Bear stride her into the stream, feeling the cold, rushing pressure of the water, and the slither of wet, weed-covered stones under her feet. At first the cold was pleasant, but after a while it started to bite. Her mind fidgeted as well, thinking of time lost and pursuers behind them. Bear, on the other hand, was patient as a mountain. After a while Makepeace was infected with his alert calm. The pain of the cold water became simply something that was, like the blue of the sky. Her mind-fidgets eased.

There! With reflexes not her own, Makepeace raked at the water with the spread fingers of one hand, and a fat, brown perch was scooped out of the stream. It flew through the air and landed on the bank, where it flapped and flexed, trying to flick itself back into the water.

Makepeace found herself lurching out of the water to land on all fours, slapping one palm down on the fish’s head, and sinking her teeth into the middle of the still-living fish.

‘Stay where you are!’ came a sudden shout. Looking up, Makepeace saw a man in worn clothes pointing a drawn sword at her. He had just stepped through a gap in the high hedgerow, and seemed as shocked to see her as she was to see him. There was a dingy sash over his coat, so she guessed that he must be a soldier, but it was too muddy for her to guess which side he belonged to.

Makepeace was aware of the picture she presented. The live fish between her teeth spasmed, its tail nearly hitting her in the eye. She took it carefully out of her mouth, even as its juices made her want to swallow it whole, and pulled her skirts down over her bare legs.

‘What have you found?’ An older soldier stepped through the hedge, a broad-nosed man with a healing cut above his right eyebrow.

‘There’s something amiss with her,’ the younger man said, never taking his frightened gaze off Makepeace. ‘She was half stripped, and leaping about like a wild thing! She had her teeth in a raw fish, champing it like an animal—’

‘And so would you if you were hungry enough!’ Makepeace retorted quickly.

The older man frowned slightly.

‘Where are you from?’ he asked. Both soldiers had the same accent, and Makepeace guessed that her own had given her away as a stranger.

‘Staffordshire,’ said Makepeace promptly. She hoped that the county was far away enough to explain her accent, but close enough that she might have walked the distance.

‘You’re a long way from that county,’ said the older soldier, his face darkening with suspicion. ‘What brings you from home?’

Makepeace had hoped that the conversation would not reach this point. She stared at the two men, trying to guess which army they served. A cover story that would please one side would enrage the other.

I know that man! Livewell said quietly. The younger one — that’s William Horne. He was in my regiment.

They were Parliament men. Makepeace chose her story accordingly.

‘My stepfather threw me out,’ she said. She rolled up her sleeve, and showed the fading bruises on her arm. ‘He is fierce for the King’s cause. I am not, so he beat me and told me that if I came back he would kill me.’

Sympathy briefly glimmered in the man’s eye, but then cooled again into distrust.

‘You must be very frightened of him to flee across three counties,’ he said.

‘I did not think to come so far!’ Makepeace let a little of her real weariness and desperation creep into her voice. ‘I was looking for work, and chasing rumours of it across the land—’

‘Work?’ The older soldier’s eyes were now steely and hostile. ‘Do you think we’re stupid? This valley’s seething with raiding parties! Who would come here to look for work?’

Tell them God sent a vision, telling you to come to Whitehollow! Livewell said urgently.

What? asked Makepeace silently, bewildered.

One of the generals collects prophets and astrologers! he told her hastily. He keeps them safe at Whitehollow — like prize hens.

‘I had been seeking work . . . but then the Almighty sent me a vision of a place that I must go,’ said Makepeace, trying not to flush bright red. ‘A house by the name of Whitehollow.’

Both men stiffened, and exchanged glances.

‘What did it look like in your vision?’ demanded the older man.

‘A great house of red brick,’ Makepeace said, repeating Livewell’s murmured words. ‘High on a hill, ringed about by woods.’

‘A spy could have that description,’ said the younger man in an undertone. As the two soldiers whispered, however, Makepeace was listening to Livewell’s urgent voice in her head.

‘I have seen you in a vision, William Horne,’ she said.

The young man nearly jumped out of his boots.

‘It was two months ago,’ she said. ‘You were in a village church with two other soldiers. It was a wicked church, full of gaudy, devilish ornaments . . . so you’d come there by night to smash everything you could. You splintered the altar rail, and broke the stained-glass windows. You hacked the carvings on the pews.

‘Then one of your friends took down the crucifix with its man-figure, and smashed it against the slabs.’

William Horne visibly flinched. The older soldier seemed untroubled, though, or if anything rather approving.

‘You all stopped to stare at the smashed pieces of the Christ face,’ Makepeace went on. ‘A terror came on you all . . . but none of you admitted it. You all grew fiercer, more eager to smash and tear. You tried to outdo each other, so you wouldn’t have to look at those broken eyes on the floor.’

William was staring at her now, with a hypnotized look of superstitious fear.

‘You were the one who brought in your horse to drink from the font — to show you weren’t frightened. You all watched its big, white mouth lapping at the water, and you laughed. But the echoes of the church made it sound like a host of devils were laughing along with you . . . and you all ran.’

The old man gave his companion a questioning glance. William Horne swallowed and nodded.

‘It was in Crandon,’ he said faintly. ‘It shook us all up. And one of the others — the fellow who smashed the cross — he was never the same after. It broke him inside. He . . . went missing a week later.’ He looked at Makepeace again, eyes wide with fear and doubt. ‘How did you know how the laughter sounded?’

‘Enough,’ said the older man firmly. ‘You were doing the Lord’s work. Put it out of your mind.’ With the back of his hand, he pushed aside his comrade’s sword hilt, so that the trembling blade was no longer pointing at Makepeace. ‘Put it away, William.’

He turned to Makepeace again.

‘Make yourself decent, mistress, and come with us.’

Makepeace rose and adjusted her skirt, then put on her stockings and shoes, her teeth belatedly chattering.

Thank you, she said in her head.

I hope I have not made all worse. Livewell sounded almost as shaky as William. It was the only plan I had.

Some of the dangerous tension seemed to have left the air, but Makepeace knew that she had just raised the stakes. She had intended to approach Whitehollow stealthily and perhaps observe it for a while, to see whether she could spot Symond. She had not planned to march straight in through the front door, and risk coming face to face with him.

On the one hand, it looked like she would be escorted to Whitehollow. On the other hand, her hopes of arriving discreetly had just died a painful death.