A Skinful of Shadows

CHAPTER 36

On the long ride, Makepeace felt exposed, the ropes around her wrists and ankles drawing every eye. Thin, nervous rain trickled down her neck and nestled in her eyelashes, and she could not wipe them away. Before her, Symond’s gloved hands gripped the reins, and the horse’s neck bobbed.

After time, however, the motion started to lull her. Bear wanted to sleep, so Makepeace let him have his way. There was nothing she could do now, and she would need to be awake later. She let her eyelids droop, leaving her enemy with the task of keeping her on the horse.

Makepeace woke again at a little riverside village stuffed to the gills with troops, horses and tents amid the sloping woods. Her interrogator was talking to some of the soldiers.

‘We can spare a few men, but no horses,’ said one of the officers. ‘We’ve trouble enough. That truce is fraying like a slut’s hem. The King talks a good peace, but wise heads say he’s keeping us dangling till his queen can raise more troops and smash us to splinters. His promises aren’t worth a fart.’

Four soldiers joined their group. Two carried muskets and wore bandoliers strung with little wooden gunpowder bottles. Makepeace was helped down from the horse, and her ankles untied. From here, she was told, the journey would be on foot.

The little group stayed close to the hedgerows, one man moving ahead of the rest. Makepeace guessed that they were trying to avoid being seen.

At last she glimpsed ahead the cottage where the Axeworths had lived. She was relieved to see that the chickens were gone, which probably meant that the little family had left. The barrow was missing too, along with the sorry relic that had lain beneath it.

‘That is my friend’s house,’ Makepeace said.

‘It seems very quiet.’ The interrogator peered at the cottage, and seemed to be weighing his options. ‘Come — let us go to the door. You can talk to your friend.’

‘Like this?’ Makepeace held up her bound wrists. ‘She’ll see I’m a captive!’

With evident reluctance, he untied her hands. The two of them walked to the door, and the interrogator knocked. As Makepeace expected, there was no reply.

After a few more knocks, he opened the door, and entered with two soldiers at his back. A couple of minutes later, he emerged again.

‘This house is empty,’ he said.

‘Then she must be out,’ Makepeace said quickly. ‘If we wait, she’ll come back.’

He took hold of her arm, and pulled her in through the front door.

‘Will she?’ he asked. ‘This place looks abandoned to me.’

The little cottage had been stripped bare. All the portable furniture was gone, along with the pewter, the rush-light stand, and all the firewood and kindling by the hearth. Even the chair in which Makepeace’s patient had sat was missing.

‘I don’t know what’s happened!’ She looked at the interrogator with a prepared expression of bewildered innocence. ‘My friend said she would wait for me here!’

‘Did she hide the charter in the house, or take it with her?’ he demanded.

‘How should I know?’ Makepeace retorted.

‘Search the house,’ the interrogator ordered the soldiers. ‘I’ll have a man at the window, and another in that tree out there, to look out for trouble.’ The soldiers began taking up floorboards, knocking holes in walls and poking sticks up inside the chimney flue. ‘Don’t forget to check the rafters and the thatch!’

Makepeace stayed near the door, gazing out across the fields, looking for some sign of movement. Behind her she could hear smashes, and even the occasional swear word. The interrogator’s snapped insistence that the soldiers ‘mind their Billingsgate tongues’ sounded just as ill-tempered. There was anger everywhere, she realized, just under the surface. Somehow she had grown used to tasting it in the air.

‘Soon they’ll realize that you’ve been selling them a tarradiddle,’ Symond said in Makepeace’s ear. ‘How do you think they’ll all react when they know you’ve been wasting their time? Give me one good reason to stop them from shooting you in the yard.’

He was right. Time was running out.

Out across the fields, a hovering kestrel caught her eye. It tilted and fluttered in the air above a hedgerow, and she could almost imagine some small, oblivious creature below it. Then, instead of a straight swoop, it sped off in a long, low slant, as if its little quarry had suddenly raced away. At the same moment, she saw two small birds flit from the same patch of hedge in the opposite direction.

‘There’s something out there,’ she said under her breath.

‘What?’ Symond sounded sceptical. ‘What are you talking about?’

There was an angry thunder of steps and Makepeace was swung round to face the interrogator.

‘Mistress, we have bared this cottage’s very bones—’

‘There’s something out there,’ Makepeace said again, louder this time. ‘Behind that far hedge, near the meadowsweet.’

‘Ignore the crafty little baggage,’ Symond said with contempt. ‘She’s lying again.’

‘What did you see?’ The interrogator frowned.

‘Nothing,’ said Makepeace. ‘But the birds did. Something scared them.’ She saw his caution wrestling with his doubt and annoyance.

‘Make sure your muskets are ready,’ he muttered to his comrades, ‘and let’s get those matches lit!’

One of the men busied himself with flint and steel. When the match cords were smouldering, they were handed out to the musketeers in readiness.

‘I see something!’ called the man in the tree outside. ‘There, by the elm—’

There was a thud, and a thump as he fell from the tree, a gash in the back of his head. A heavy rock tumbled down beside him.

‘That came from behind the house!’ shouted someone, and then somebody else yelled, ‘There!’

There was a loud crack as one of the musketeers fired, and the room filled with smoke. Just before the gunshot, however, Bear had smelt something else. A familiar scent, from above . . .

‘Roof!’ was all Makepeace had time to shout. Half her companions heard her and looked up. Half did not. The latter had no chance when the Elder in James’s body crashed through the ragged thatch and landed in the middle of the room, sword drawn.

He was snake-fast, kestrel-fast. He lunged to impale the musketeer that had not fired, slashed across the throat of another soldier, and carved into the face of one of the men in black. Three men fell. They leaked thin, shimmering ghosts that rippled and faded.

But Makepeace’s warning had marred James’s perfect attack. The interrogator tumbled backwards, and the cut that would have blinded him knocked his hat off instead. His other colleague managed a desperate parry. The surviving musketeer dropped his ramming rod mid-reload and leaped backwards, reversing his weapon to use it as a club. Meanwhile, Symond swiftly stepped behind Makepeace. Reaching an arm over her shoulder, he fired his pistol at James’s head from close range.

James was darting to one side even as the trigger pulled. The bullet missed him, cracking the brickwork behind him, but he gave a snarl, clutching at a red powder-burn on the skin around his right eye. The smoke from the pistol blinded him for a fatal instant. Makepeace flung herself forward and lunged for his sword hand, jolting the hilt from his grasp. The musketeer struck him in the face with the butt of his gun, knocking him to the floor.

‘Kill him!’ shouted Symond, taking a step back.

‘No!’ cried Makepeace. Now for a gamble of all gambles. She looked appealingly at the interrogator. ‘We need him alive, so his men will surrender! And . . . I know this man! He’s not a witch, just demon-cursed, like me! He needs Lord Fellmotte to exorcise him!’

‘Don’t listen to her!’ bellowed Symond.

‘Lord Fellmotte!’ erupted the interrogator, losing patience. ‘Exorcise the prisoner!’

Symond gave Makepeace a fleeting glance of pure hatred. He put away his sword, and drew his dirk instead. He ventured closer, making sure that at all times the blade was pointed firmly at the prisoner. Slowly and carefully, he dropped to a crouch, and laid a hand on the prisoner’s shoulder.

And then, to everyone’s surprise including his, his right hand gave an odd little spasm, and tossed his dirk away across the room.

Elder James promptly grabbed Symond by the shoulders to stop him pulling away, and let his jaw drop wide. He breathed out with a sound like a broken bellows, and only Makepeace saw the smoky forms of ghosts surge from his throat towards Symond’s face.

Symond gave a short gargle of shock as spirits seethed in through his eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth. Then his face, usually so mask-like, jittered helplessly between different paroxysms of terror.

Makepeace quietly backed against a wall, her skin crawling. Given the choice between a half-blinded, captured bastard, and a well-trained heir with a blade in his hand, the ghosts had seized a golden chance to trade up. She had hoped for this, but the sight of it still made her feel sick.

James released Symond and fell backwards, looking shocked and stunned. Symond stood shakily, then staggered across the room, his arms jerking and twitching.

‘My lord?’ The interrogator’s free hand was fumbling at his pocket, and Makepeace wondered if he was looking for his bible. ‘My lord . . . are you well?’

Symond stooped to pick up his dirk, then straightened. He wobbled on his feet for a moment, so that the interrogator reached out to steady him. Then Symond drove his dirk into the interrogator’s stomach with shocking force.

He drew his sword with unnatural speed, and hacked swiftly into the side of the remaining musketeer’s neck. The last soldier had just time to scream as he was run through.

There was a ragged sound of steps outside, and the front door was flung open. White Crowe burst in, with a young soldier in Fellmotte colours by his side. Both immediately pointed their weapons at Symond.

‘Oh, put those away!’ snapped the Elder in Symond’s body. ‘Can you not see who I—’

There was a crack, and he stiffened as if listening intently. A round, dark hole was suddenly visible in his forehead. Makepeace could smell smoke, that same metallic hellfire gunsmoke.

‘Oh, I know who you are,’ said the young Royalist soldier, ‘you toad-licking traitor.’ A wreath of smoke surrounded his pistol. Symond collapsed to the ground, still wearing an expression of intense concentration.

‘You fool!’ shouted White Crowe. ‘We were supposed to capture Master Symond alive!’

‘I’ll hang before I regret it,’ said the young soldier with feeling. ‘My brother died at that battle, thanks to him.’ Other soldiers piled in behind him, took in the scene at a glance, and pointed their weapons at Makepeace.

‘Are you badly hurt, my lord?’ White Crowe stooped beside James.

James gave Makepeace a dazed, haggard glance. And yes, it was James at last, the real James. When she saw his hand start to move towards hers, she gave him a tiny, urgent shake of the head, willing him to understand. To her relief, she saw realization dawn across his face.

Groggily James glanced at White Crowe instead, and shook his head.

‘A powder burn, nothing more,’ he rasped. ‘A minor inconvenience.’ It was not a perfect impression of the voice he had used as an Elder, but close enough. ‘One of them was lucky . . . briefly.’

‘My lord, let me help you to the carriage,’ said White Crowe, wrapping one of James’s arms over his shoulder. He helped James to his feet and guided him out through the door. ‘Bring the girl,’ he said over his shoulder.

Nobody but Makepeace paid any attention to Symond’s body. White Crowe’s men were not gifted. They heard no faint, spectral screams, like fingernails against the mind. And they saw nothing when ghosts swirled out of Symond like dirty water.

But Makepeace saw them as she was manhandled towards the door. They rose and mingled, writhing, thrashing and smokily bleeding into the air. These were the ‘wolves’ for which Mother had prepared her. Soon they would sense her, and the haven at her core. Then they would come for her.

But she could not leave without Morgan.

The two closest ghosts were locked in battle, tearing vaporous strands from each other. The larger was already badly tattered, perhaps savaged by Symond’s predatory mind. The smaller one looked different from the other ghosts, and moved more quickly and sinuously.

Morgan.

Makepeace feigned a stumble, and fell from her captors’ arms to the floor. Steeling her will, she threw out one arm, with her fingers almost touching the Infiltrator’s ghost. It broke from its fight, and spiralled swiftly up her arm. She breathed deeply to draw in air and one spymistress-ghost, repressing a shudder as she did so.

As the soldiers picked Makepeace up and dragged her out of the cottage, the other ghost streaked towards her head. She had a brief glimpse of a hazy, misshapen face. Then for a fearful moment everything was twilit, as the phantom tried to pour in through her eyes.

But this ghost was panicky and already fraying. It was not ready for her defences, battle-hardened by her graveyard vigils. It was not ready for her angels of the mind. And most of all, it was not ready for Bear. When Makepeace’s vision cleared again, the shreds of her attacker were floating on the air like dark gossamer.

Are you hurt? Makepeace asked quickly, trying to get a sense of Morgan’s presence in her head, while her captors hurried her down the path after White Crowe and James.

A minor inconvenience, came the wry response in Morgan’s familiar hard-edged voice. And that is not a question I have been asked in a very long time.

Makepeace cast an anxious glance back towards the cottage, looking for more spectral pursuers.

They will seek us, but they are wounded, murmured Morgan. And they have just lost their Infiltrator.

‘If we hurry,’ White Crowe was saying, ‘we can reach Grizehayes before the enemy’s reinforcements, and slip past the siege in darkness. With luck Lord Fellmotte is still alive — we still have a chance of getting the girl to him in time!’

James and Makepeace exchanged a fleeting, panicky glance, but what could they do?

‘Lead on,’ James said huskily.

After all Makepeace’s plans, struggles and escapes, it seemed that she was going back to Grizehayes after all. For a moment she felt as though it had been biding her time and watching her efforts, before putting out one long, lazy cat paw, and pinning her like a wounded bird.

CHAPTER 37

Only when she was tucked inside the Fellmotte carriage alongside James did Makepeace dare to speak.

‘Is anyone listening to us?’ she murmured.

‘I don’t think so,’ James whispered back. ‘The driver won’t hear us, and everybody else is on horses.’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ said Makepeace, meeting his eye and raising an eyebrow.

It took a moment for her meaning to sink in. James looked rueful and shook his head.

‘Just me in here now,’ he said.

‘Let’s look at your eye, then,’ Makepeace whispered. James showed his face, and she noticed the singed spatter pattern on the skin of his cheek, and the painful redness of his eyeball.

‘I can’t see properly out of it,’ murmured James, with commendable composure. ‘Everything is blurry . . .’

Makepeace spent a few moments in silent consultation with the doctor.

‘Your eye should mend,’ she said, ‘in a day or two. A friend of mine says he’s seen the like before. And he says that if we wash out that burn and dress it you’ll lose that leper-look in a few weeks.’

‘Friend?’ James’s brows rose in consternation. ‘Makepeace — what have you done?’

‘Me? What did you do?’ Makepeace could not resist giving him a small, fierce punch in the arm. ‘You used me to hide that charter! Then you ran away without me! I waited at those stocks for ages! I thought you’d been caught and hanged!’

‘I always meant to come back! But everything happened so fast. Symond had a plan — he said he’d use the charter to threaten the family, and get some of his estates ahead of time. Then he’d set up his own manor, with no Inheritance or ghosts, and he’d bring us there to join his household. And nobody would trouble us while we had that charter.’

‘You should have told me!’

‘He made me promise silence,’ James said simply. ‘A man who breaks his word is better dead.’

‘Well, you broke your word to me when you threw yourself face-first on a pile of Fellmotte ghosts!’ Makepeace gave him a sharp little pinch, as if they were much younger children. There was an angry joy in voicing her frustration.

‘I’m sorry!’ hissed James, and seemed to mean it. ‘If I could take it back I would! If you had been there that day, you would understand. When I found Sir Anthony bleeding on the ground, and he beckoned me over . . . it felt like Providence. As if some star of my birth had shaped me for that moment! That one chance to become something . . . great.

‘And it was greatness, Makepeace! You don’t know the things I could do when I’d Inherited. The languages that sprang into my head, the sword moves I suddenly knew, and all the dealings of the court laid out for me like a web on a loom! And to give orders and see things done, to watch doors open, to have everything possible—’

‘To chase your own kin across two and a half counties,’ Makepeace interjected sharply.

James put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her tightly for a few seconds, then kissed the top of her head.

‘I know,’ he muttered into her cap. ‘I was the Lord of Fools. I thought I would still be myself, and change everything. But I was just a puppet. The bean in the cake — that’s what you said, wasn’t it? Giving up my freedom for a game of lordship.’

He sighed.

‘I felt . . . sorry for him too,’ he admitted, sounding embarrassed. ‘Sir Anthony. He was still one of those devils, but when he was lying there in his own blood he looked frightened, like any dying man. It was hard to say no. I know, ’tis a stupid reason.’

‘Yes.’ Makepeace remembered her own helpless desire to save Livewell’s disintegrating ghost. ‘A stupid reason. But not the worst kind of stupid reason.’

She hugged him back, and sighed.

‘You’ll have another game of lordship to play when we reach Grizehayes,’ she said under her breath. ‘You must play Lord of Misrule in good earnest, and play it well, or we’re both for the pot.’

‘What about you?’ James studied her face with a concerned frown. ‘What have you done to yourself, Makepeace?’

‘Don’t worry.’ Makepeace squeezed his hand, and searched for the right words. ‘I’m not haunted against my will. I just made some new friends.’

‘So there are ghosts inside you?’ James seemed to be struggling with the idea.

‘James.’ It was Makepeace’s turn to admit to a betrayal. ‘I have always been haunted, for as long as you have known me. I brought a ghost with me to Grizehayes, and nobody guessed. I should have told you. I wanted to tell you. But you were right, I am a coward sometimes. Trust frightens me more than pain.

‘He is my friend, and my battle-brother. We are woven into each other. I want you to understand him, so you can understand me. Let me tell you about him.’

During the long and wearying ride, the carriage stopped now and then for a change of horses, but not to break the journey. Occasionally there would be sounds of challenges outside and muffled voices. Sometimes passwords were exchanged, sometimes coins or papers, sometimes gunshots.

With a sense of inevitability, Makepeace saw the countryside change and revert. Lush fields yielded to moorland. Damp lambs followed the black-faced sheep down the paths between the gorse mounds. Everything was so familiar it hurt. The sights and colours locked around Makepeace’s mind like a familiar shackle.

The convoy halted in a little copse, just after sunset. The driver and one soldier stayed to look after the carriage and horses. White Crowe, Makepeace and James continued on foot, accompanied by five other soldiers wearing Fellmotte colours. Makepeace recognized a few of them from the neighbouring villages, and was sure she had once bought ladles from one of them. But war had recast them all. They had new costumes, and new roles to play.

White Crowe had found an eye-patch of black cloth for James. Thankfully nobody expected James to lead the troop while he was injured and half blind. If he had, the others might soon have guessed that he no longer wielded the skills and knowledge of an Elder.

Grizehayes they saw from a distance, its distinctive towers silhouetted against the last violet glimmer of the fading day. However, it was no longer alone.

On the darkling expanse around it, where once there had been flat, unbroken ground, a straggling, ramshackle town seemed to have risen up from the very earth. Clusters of dun-coloured canvas tents had sprouted, and among them campfires glowed like scattered embers. The camp was a crescent shape, curling its tapering arms to embrace Grizehayes. However, it did not encircle the great house completely, and there was still a wide, wary distance between the nearest tents and the ancient grey walls.

It was true, then. Grizehayes was under siege.

One soldier vanished into the darkness to scout ahead, and soon returned.

‘Our guards on Widow’s Tower have seen our lantern signal and returned it,’ he said. ‘They know we’re here, so they’ll be ready to let us in through the sally gate.’

‘If the enemy saw the signal in the tower, they’ll know the household is signalling to someone in the dark,’ said White Crowe. ‘They’ll be watching for us. Quiet as death, everyone. They’ll have scouts of their own outside the camp, far away from the fires so that their eyes can adjust to the dark.’

Gingerly they crept through the darkness skirting the edge of the camp, following White Crowe’s lead. They nearly blundered into a clutch of enemy musketeers, but noticed them in time, thanks to the quiet rattle of their bandoliers, and the pinpoint glow of their slow matches.

Makepeace briefly wondered about grabbing James’s hand, running towards these strangers and surrendering. It would save her from Grizehayes, but seemed like an excellent recipe for getting shot.

At last the group cleared the tip of the camp’s crescent, and now there was only a dark expanse of uneven ground between them and the distant walls. Makepeace could make out the dark, arched outline of the small sally door at the top of its flight of steps.

‘Run,’ said White Crowe, ‘and stop for nothing.’

As they sprinted for the door, there were a few cries from the direction of the camp. A single optimistic shot rang out, but the bullet flew wild into the darkness. Only when Makepeace reached the portcullis with the others did she dare to glance back. A few dark figures were running from the direction of the tents, but faltered as rocks were hurled at them from the tower above.

The portcullis was hastily hauled up, and when it was half raised, Makepeace and the others quickly ducked beneath it, into the short, unlit tunnel beyond. The portcullis dropped behind them with a clang, and shortly after, the door at the far end of the tunnel opened, to reveal Young Crowe with a lantern.

‘Welcome back, my lord,’ he said. ‘Your arrival with Lady Maud is not a moment too soon.’

‘His lordship is sinking like a stone,’ said Young Crowe, as he hustled the new arrivals towards the chapel. ‘He will not last the night — I doubt he will see out the hour.’

Once again Makepeace was being hurried to Lord Fellmotte’s side, so that ghosts could be crammed into her shell.

I do not know what will happen, Makepeace silently told her invisible companions. I do not know if James has a plan. The Crowes may tie us down and flood us with Fellmotte ghosts. We might have to fight.

Well, at least our practice fighting each other will not have gone to waste, said Dr Quick.

If we leave our enemies sicker than we found them, Livewell said laconically, then today is a good day.

Bear made no sound, but Makepeace could feel him in her head, and it strengthened her.

Morgan was also silent. It occurred to Makepeace that such a battle would give the spymistress the chance to switch sides again, and rejoin her old coterie. If it happens, it happens, she told herself. Until then, I trust her.

En route, Young Crowe also gave a rapid report on the progress of the siege.

The army had been outside for about a week. The siege force had only three big guns — two mortars that flung larger stones and flaming grenadoes, and a demi-culverin with better range. The Old Tower had taken a few knocks, and some of the turrets now had a broken-toothed look. So far, however, Grizehayes’s thick walls had shrugged off the worst of the damage.

‘They have asked for our surrender repeatedly, of course,’ said Young Crowe. ‘The traditional offer — all the women, children and civilians allowed to leave, and then terms of surrender to be negotiated. Of course, Lady April has said no each time.’

Lady April was at Grizehayes. This was bad news. Makepeace had been hoping that no other Elders were in the great house.

‘How is Lady April now?’ James asked carefully. The same thought had clearly occurred to him.

‘Oh, still recovering from her injuries.’ Young Crowe gave Makepeace a brief, cold look. ‘She remains in her sickbed except when she is needed.’

‘And the rest of the family?’ asked James.

‘Sir Marmaduke is hoping to bring troops here to break the siege — though it’s God’s own guess whether they arrive before the enemy’s reinforcements,’ said Young Crowe. ‘The Bishop is in the north, winning hearts and minds to the cause. Sir Alan is still in London, fighting in the courts against the sequestration.’ Makepeace had heard of these powerful members of the Fellmotte family before. Thankfully, it sounded like they were busy elsewhere.

Makepeace listened to Young Crowe’s account with slight relief. If Lady April was still keeping to her quarters and the other Elders were away, perhaps James might yet avoid coming face to face with someone who could see that he was not possessed.

‘Our cellars are well stocked with gunpowder and two months’ supply of food, and we have all the water we need from our well.’ Young Crowe was thinner than usual and a bit less dapper. ‘The towers are manned with the local trained band, and some of the best shots amongst our fowlers and game keepers. Whenever the rebels get too close to the walls, we drop rocks and hot oil on them.

‘The rebels have set sappers to dig a trench running from their camp towards the west wall. They are probably hoping to set mines at the base, but they won’t reach it before Sir Marmaduke’s forces arrive to relieve us. Grizehayes has been besieged before. These walls never fall. You might as well hurl cherries at a mountain.’

Makepeace could feel the weight of the ancient house crushing in on her again, pressing her thoughts and will like flowers. Had she really imagined that this place might lose its power over her?

The door of the chapel swung open. In the great chair, as if he had not moved since her departure, Lord Fellmotte was waiting for Maud.

Makepeace could not help noticing that the chair next to that of Lord Fellmotte now had metal shackles attached to confine the sitter’s wrists and ankles. Clearly the household were no longer willing to put their trust in mere rope and wood.

‘Lady April asked to be notified as soon as we returned,’ declared White Crowe, then gave a hasty bow and strode away. James and Makepeace exchanged a panicky look, but there was no good excuse to stop him.

Old Crowe was in the chapel, fussing over Lord Fellmotte, who looked greyer and thinner than ever. Lord Fellmotte’s feet were bare, and rested on a pair of dead pigeons that lay in a pool of their own fresh blood. It was an old and desperate remedy, used when death was thought imminent, as a last-ditch attempt to draw out sickness.

The steward glanced up as they entered, and looked almost tearfully relieved to see both Makepeace and James.

‘My lord! Oh, my lord, you have her! I shall fetch the drug straight away!’

‘No!’ snapped James, in a harsh, Elder-like voice. The chapel echoed the word, adding its own gilded echoes. ‘The drug will not be needed. Fasten the girl into the chair.’

‘But . . .’ The steward faltered, and exchanged a glance with his son. ‘The girl has a monster inside her! Last time she—’

‘Did you hear me?’ James asked, his tone coldly menacing.

There was a flurry of obedience. Makepeace was dragged over to the chair, and shoved down into it. The cold of the shackles as they fastened around her ankles and wrists gave her a chill of panic, but she fought it down.

‘Now leave!’ commanded James, snatching the key from Young Crowe’s hand. ‘All of you!’

The two Crowes stared at him with astonishment and dismay. Makepeace thought she saw a glimmer of suspicion in Young Crowe’s eyes.

‘Now!’ bellowed James.

Still looking shocked and doubtful, the Crowes left the room, taking the soldiers with them. James quickly barred the chapel door, then ran over and unlocked Makepeace’s shackles, his hands shaking with haste.

‘The Crowes know something is wrong,’ he said under his breath. ‘They couldn’t say no to an Elder, but when Lady April gets here they’ll flock to her instead. That door will hold them out for a while, though.’

‘James,’ whispered Makepeace as the shackles loosened. ‘We can’t stay in here! Lord Fellmotte might die at any moment!’

She saw realization dawn across her brother’s face. If the lord died, seven ancient, desperate ghosts would be released . . . and would sense the two tempting vessels trapped in a room with them. Makepeace had ghostly friends to defend her, and could at least try to repel boarders. Her brother, however, did not.

James muttered a word unfit for chapel.

‘What in scarlet Hell do we do?’

CHAPTER 38

The siblings stared at the sick man’s slack face and seething, antagonistic gaze.

‘We need to get out of here,’ Makepeace said.

The stained-glass windows were too small. As she looked around frantically, inspiration struck.

‘James, there is another way out!’ Makepeace pointed to the raised gallery at the back of the chapel. ‘There’s a door at the back of it, and a corridor leading to the family’s chambers! Can you climb there, then lower something so you can help me up?’ She remembered him nimbly scaling the tower to visit her on their first meeting.

‘I can’t leave you down here with him!’ James pointed to the dying lord.

‘If you get possessed again,’ Makepeace said sharply, ‘you will turn on me. You need to keep away from him for my safety.’

‘You’re going to win every argument from now on by talking about “that time you were possessed”, aren’t you?’ James muttered, as he clambered on to a sarcophagus, then placed his foot cautiously on a marble head protruding from the wall. It promptly broke away under his weight, and fell to the floor with a loud smash.

There were sounds of confused voices outside the main chapel door. Evidently Inheritance did not usually involve property damage. Makepeace heard Old Crowe shout a question. This was followed by loud, insistent knocking.

James swore, still hanging off the wall.

Makepeace’s gaze crept back to the slumped shape in the great chair. It still hurt her to see the kindly features of Sir Thomas looking so pale and ill.

‘I’m sorry, Sir Thomas,’ she whispered, even though she knew he was just a shell. ‘I liked you. I’m sorry you never had a proper deathbed. I’m sorry to leave you like this. And I know you died for the sake of the family . . . but I have to stop them. Forever.’

Something had changed in his face, she realized. A light had gone out of it. She had already started backing away when the first ghost seeped out of the corner of his mouth like smoke.

‘James!’ she shouted. ‘They’re coming!’

Her brother was just scrambling over the rail into the gallery. He tugged down a hanging that decorated the back wall, knotted one end to the rail, and tossed the loose end down to dangle from the gallery.

‘Climb this!’

Makepeace ran over and grasped the cloth, and started to climb, using the few treacherous footholds in the wall. Behind her, the air was thickening with whispers.

She was precariously perched on a slender ledge when something shadowy swooped towards her head. She felt it tickle, moth-like, in her ear as it tried to tunnel its way in. Her left foot slipped off, and only her grip on the cloth rope stopped her falling.

Let me do the climbing! hissed Livewell urgently.

He was right. Makepeace could not fight and climb at once. She gave him her hands and feet, and braced for the fight.

She did not know who he was, the Elder-ghost clawing his way into her mind. As their minds bruised each other, she glimpsed memories — a thousand arrows darkening the sky like a thundercloud, ships on fire, bishops kneeling, a library the size of a cathedral. His certainty hit her like a battering ram, and for a moment it shook her will.

What was she doing, refusing to accept her destiny? How could she want so many centuries of memories to be lost? It was like sawing down a millennia-old tree.

But it was a tree with roots that strangled. She was killing the past in self-defence.

I am sorry, Makepeace told the Elder-ghost. Wherever your soul goes next, I hope you find mercy. But I cannot show you any.

Makepeace lashed out with her mind at the attacking ghost, and she could feel the doctor add his will to hers. Bear’s wrath was a furnace. But this ghost was no desperate wisp. It was powerful and cunning, and she could feel it sliding its claws into the weak parts of her defences.

Then Morgan chose her side. She suddenly surged from hiding, and appeared at the other Elder’s side, mingling her strength with his. Makepeace sensed the Elder’s recognition and exultatation — shortly followed by horror as the spymistress tore him in two.

That, remarked Morgan, as his screaming fragments melted away, is a trick that will only work once.

Makepeace reached the rail, and James pulled her on to the gallery. They hastily opened the door, and sprinted down the corridor. Behind them, the air quivered with a thin, musical sibilance as more spirits rose out of Lord Fellmotte and set off in pursuit. The siblings fled down corridor after darkened corridor, then dived into the Map Room to catch their breath.

‘We need to think!’ James pressed his knuckles against his temples and let out a breath. ‘We can’t get out of Grizehayes. Everything’s guarded and locked. But if we keep running long enough, the loose ghosts will melt away. Then, even if we do get captured, at least we can’t be possessed!’

‘We can still be killed!’ Makepeace pointed out. ‘We let Lord Fellmotte’s ghosts bleed into mist! Do you think the family will ever forgive that?’

‘We’re valuable spares, and you’re the only person who knows where their charter is hidden, remember?’ countered James. ‘At least we have a chance of bargaining! They need allies right now, and so do we. That army out there is a bigger threat to all of us. Like it or not . . . we’re all on the same side.’

‘No, James!’ hissed Makepeace with feeling. ‘We’re not!’

‘Then what’s your plan?’

Makepeace steeled herself.

‘We do what the enemy sappers wanted to do,’ she said. ‘We blow a hole in the outer wall. We force Grizehayes to surrender.’

For several seconds, James stared at her in disbelief and horror.

‘No!’ he hissed at last. ‘That’s treason! That’s not just betraying the Fellmottes, that’s betraying the King!’

‘I don’t care!’ Makepeace spat back. ‘I only care about the people who live in this county!’

She drew a ragged breath, and tried to force her thoughts into words.

‘Maybe Sir Marmaduke will turn up and break the siege,’ she said. ‘But Parliament needs this county. They’ll have to send another, bigger army.’

‘So what if they do?’ exclaimed James. ‘You’ve seen how strong our walls are!’ There was an unmistakable note of pride, and Makepeace noticed the ‘our’.

‘Then there’s another siege,’ she answered. ‘A long one. Food runs short in Grizehayes. People start eating dogs, rats and horses. The army outside takes food from all the villages around because otherwise they’ll starve. Winter comes and everybody goes hungry. The trees are cut down and there are fights over firewood. Then people start dying of camp fever.

‘Right now the enemy’s willing to let Grizehayes surrender, which means everybody here would get out alive. What happens to all the women and children and old people if we don’t surrender, and the walls fall later anyway?’

‘Then . . . it could get very ugly,’ James admitted, scowling. He did not go into details.

‘The Fellmottes won’t surrender,’ said Makepeace. ‘And they don’t even care about the King! They’d sacrifice everybody here to keep Grizehayes. Because Grizehayes is their heart, James! I want to strike at their heart.’

The siblings were relieved to find the nearest stairway unguarded, and descended as quickly and stealthily as they could. All was quiet in the darkened passageways around the kitchens. In the fuel store, next to the stacks of logs, they found a number of promising barrels.

‘Are you sure you can make this explode?’ James whispered, as he started carefully rolling a barrel out of the room.

I watched the sappers preparing them, Livewell told Makepeace. There’s no great trick to it. The hard part was always getting close enough to the wall without being shot by the enemy.

Makepeace nodded to herself.

‘That won’t be a problem,’ she told James.

‘Those little pauses,’ said James, ‘when you listen to voices I can’t hear, are not getting any less disturbing.’

They manoeuvred the barrel down into the wine cellar, laying it against the foundations of the western wall.

Following Livewell’s advice, Makepeace pulled the cork out of the side of the barrel, and inserted a short length of match cord.

‘We need to pile things on top of it,’ she said, relaying his words. ‘Earth, rocks or anything heavy.’ They clustered other full barrels around it, then crept to the kitchen to find other pileables.

It was strange to be back in the kitchen again, and to see everything that had filled her days and worn her hands rough. The dogs flocked to Makepeace as if she had never been absent. Bear was wary, feeling that the kitchen had started to smell different in his absence, and wanted to rub his shoulder against the table until it was his again.

Not now, Bear.

James and Makepeace carried down heavy pans, sacks of grain and pailfuls of salt from the meat safe. All of these were piled on top of the little barrel, until it was almost buried, but for the jutting match cord.

Her hand shaking, Makepeace lit the end of the fuse, so that it glowed red.

Grizehayes must fall. It was Makepeace’s only way of striking at the Fellmottes’ terrible certainty. Grizehayes was their arrogance made stone. It was proof of their centuries. It told them they were eternal.

‘Now let’s get out of here!’ whispered James. The pair of them hurried up the cellar stairs, then came to a halt as they noticed half a dozen figures standing at the top.

White Crowe and Young Crowe had their swords drawn. Around them stood three of the Grizehayes manservants, now armed. At the back, Lady April’s metallic white face gleamed like a poisonous moon.

How did they find us? wondered Makepeace. Too late she remembered Bear’s unease. The kitchen, and particularly the table, had smelt different — and slightly frightened.

Of course. With Makepeace gone, Grizehayes had recruited a new kitchen boy or girl to keep an eye on the fire at night. So some child had lain terrified as intruders lumbered around the kitchen talking of gunpowder, and had taken the first chance to slip away and report . . .

Sorry, Bear. I forgot to listen to you.

James did not even hesitate. He immediately straightened, raising his chin imperiously high.

‘What is this foolery?’ he demanded, in an impressively irritable impression of his voice as an Elder.

‘If you please . . . If you might be willing to come with us . . .’ said Young Crowe, in a tone that managed to sound grovelling and aggressive at the same time.

‘What mean these swords?’ James glared. ‘How dare you wave bare blades at Lord Fellmotte!’ He gestured towards Makepeace.

‘That is not Lord Fellmotte,’ said Lady April coldly.

Do you trust me to speak? asked Morgan.

Yes, answered Makepeace quickly.

It was not the first time she had felt Morgan take control of her throat and use her voice, but this time at least it was done with permission, and did not feel as if it might choke her.

‘Galamial Crowe,’ said Morgan’s hard-edged voice through Makepeace’s mouth. ‘If you lack the wit to know your own lord, then we wasted the money we gave your father for your schooling. Was the advice we gave you on your twentieth birthday also wasted?’

Makepeace could feel her own body language changing too. Her posture became more stooped, in Obadiah’s old fashion. There was an inexpressible strangeness in feeling her own expression change, her brow puckering, and her mouth moving in ways that it seldom did.

‘That is his lordship!’ exclaimed Young Crowe, lowering his sword.

‘And you, Myles Crowe.’ Morgan spoke again through Makepeace. ‘Have you forgotten the day we vouched for your character at Gladdon Beacon?’

White Crowe started to put up his sword, then paused, his eyes fixed on the little turnspit dog, which had trotted down the steps towards Makepeace’s feet. Without thinking about it, she had moved one foot to stroke under the dog’s chin with her toe. It was a gesture of habit, but not the habit of a lord. He stared at her, his gaze cloudy with indecision and doubt.

‘Seize them!’ commanded Lady April.

‘No!’ Young Crowe moved to stand in front of James and Makepeace. ‘Forgive me, Lady April,’ he said shakily, ‘I never did think to disobey you in anything. But my first loyalty is to Lord Fellmotte.’

‘Defend the head of the steps!’ shouted James, and two of the other men obediently moved to stand alongside Young Crowe. White Crowe still did not move. A man on Lady April’s side tried to bat Young Crowe’s sword aside, and immediately a cramped skirmish broke out, blades clashing and striking sparks off the walls.

Taking advantage of the confusion, James grabbed Makepeace’s hand and ran with her, back down the cellar stairs. It was their only line of retreat. They hid among the maze of barrels.

‘How long do we have?’ whispered James, and she knew he was thinking of the smouldering fuse.

‘I don’t know,’ answered Makepeace. ‘Minutes, perhaps.’ They had intended to be far from the cellar when the powder exploded. There might still be time to put out the match, of course. But what could await them after that, but defeat and capture?

I do not know how big the explosion will be, admitted Livewell. It might well blow us apart. But I say we do it anyway.

I have seen enough of this hellhole to agree, the doctor said, sounding surprised at himself.

Morgan laughed, very quietly and sombrely.

Let it burn, she said.

‘Let’s bring Grizehayes down,’ said Makepeace.

‘Ah, well.’ James snickered. ‘We might as well die spitting in their Evil Eye!’

The shouts and clashes of weapons at the top of the stairs had hushed, and Lady April’s voice could be heard giving commands. Evidently she had triumphed over Young Crowe and his allies, through force of will or arms.

‘They’ll be coming for us,’ whispered James.

‘Let them,’ hissed Makepeace. ‘The more the merrier when the powder blows.’ She put out her lantern and plunged them into darkness.

She could tell from James’s wide eyes that he could not see a thing.

‘Trust us,’ she whispered.

‘Can you hear us?’ Lady April called down the stairs. ‘Come up and surrender, or we shall send down the dogs!’

Both siblings tensed. Once again, the Grizehayes dogs would be loosed on them. But now they had no moors to flee across. They were cornered prey.

Nonetheless, neither of them spoke a word, or moved to surrender.

Seconds crawled by, and then Makepeace heard a faint clatter of claws from the direction of the steps. Panting rough as sawdust. The flap of soft jowls.

Makepeace knew all of them by their smell. The hulking mastiffs with their great jaws and terrible bite. The wolfhound, its long sinews aching for large prey to chase. The greyhounds, swift and deadly like hawks of the land. The bloodhounds, scenting her fear like wine.

She smelt their fast blood, their hunt-hunger. The claw-skitter neared their hiding place. One deep bark reverberated in the darkness, and a moment later a cacophony of barking echoed throughout the cellar.

‘Shh!’ Makepeace rose from her hiding place, even as her heart raced, and her skin tingled in readiness for a bite. ‘Nero — Star — Catcher — Caliban! You know me.’

She could see their pale forms tensed in the darkness. Then one large shape drew closer. A wet nose nudged her hand, and a tongue licked her palm.

They knew her smell. She was the gravy-giver. She was pack, perhaps. And she was a beast whose temper should not be tested too far.

‘You will need to come up eventually,’ called down Lady April.

‘Why?’ shouted James, his teeth chattering. ‘We have friends down here, and enough wine to make merry. We might sing a few songs.’

‘Or perhaps we’ll hold out until your enemies take Grizehayes tomorrow,’ suggested Makepeace.

‘Don’t be absurd,’ snapped Lady April. ‘We can hold out against a siege until the end of the war, if necessary! We have enough provisions and shot for two whole months.’

Makepeace laughed out loud. ‘Do you think the war will be over in two months?’

‘The Queen is back in the country with money, arms and troops for the King’s cause,’ declared Lady April. ‘London will soon lose heart. The rebels are already crumbling.’ Her certainty was cold and monumental, like marble.

‘No, they’re not!’ exclaimed Makepeace. ‘And London’s fierce, my lady. It’s a quarrelsome, stinking madhouse, but it has a will like the Juggernaut. I don’t care how ancient and clever you are. If you say the war’s ending, you’re blind.’

‘How dare you!’ Lady April sounded angry, but Makepeace thought she detected the tiniest hint of something else.

‘I watched two Elders die today,’ Makepeace declared loudly. A shocked silence pooled like blood. ‘Sir Anthony’s ghosts possessed Symond, and one of your soldiers killed him. And those ghosts — those wise, all-knowing ghosts — didn’t see it coming. They had never really noticed that soldier, you see. They didn’t care that he’d lost a brother at Hangerdon Hill. And then he shot them in the head.

‘You’ve been missing things, important things, because there are people you never notice. And now it’s too late for you all. This isn’t like the other wars you’ve fought. Your wits and centuries won’t help you this time. This is new. This is the world ending, Lady April.’

‘Enough!’ rapped Lady April. ‘You have exhausted our patience.’

Men were venturing carefully down the steps, two of them carrying candles that underlit their faces. At their rear descended Lady April, armed with a pair of wicked-looking knives.

Carefully James lifted one of the smaller barrels, hefted it to his shoulder, then flung it at one of the candle-carriers. The barrel struck his hand, and the candle flew against the wall and went out. The other turned too quickly to see what had happened, and the motion killed the candle flame. There was consternation and confusion.

‘Something leaped at me!’

‘I saw something before the candle went out! The red of the light reflected in a dozen eyes! I . . . do not think they were all dogs.’

‘There’s something in the dark! I can hear it growling!’

‘If you can hear it,’ Lady April rasped, ‘then you know where it is!’

But the growler was on the move. Makepeace relaxed into Bear. She dropped to all fours, and it felt easy and necessary. His nose was hers, her eyes were his. She let her throat vibrate with deep and ominous rumbles.

Bear’s not a child I have to humour. He’s not a Fury to keep on a chain. I don’t need to be ashamed or afraid of him. He’s me. Whatever we were, now we’re us.

The first man was knocked unconscious by one long side-swipe. A second aimed a slash of his sword in the direction of Makepeace’s growls, and was knocked over backwards by a mastiff and a greyhound. A third tried to run to the stairs for more light, and was flung bodily into a little stack of barrels.

‘I have the boy!’ shouted White Crowe suddenly. There were sounds of a scuffle.

Makepeace lurched towards the noise, but suddenly thin, strong fingers clasped the sides of her head and gripped fistfuls of her hair.

‘Mongrel!’ The hard voice of Lady April rasped in Makepeace’s ear. ‘Ingrate!’ And Makepeace screamed as a spirit lunged out, and bit into her mind’s defences like an axe. It caught her off guard and she had no time to brace for it.

Makepeace had been attacked by ghosts before, but they had always been trying to make a home in her. This was different. This was a bombardment, and Lady April did not care what she destroyed. Makepeace fought back and felt her secret allies do the same.

All of us. We learned to fight together in the end. Even as she felt painful cracks appear in her mind’s shell, there was a sad jubilation in that thought. At the same time, she could sense the Elder’s frustration. Makepeace was losing, but much more slowly than expected.

Then Makepeace smelt fear that was not her own, and sensed the hairline cracks of doubt now running through Lady April’s marble souls.

‘My lady,’ called White Crowe, his voice anxious. ‘There is something here. A glowing red star. It looks a bit like a lit match . . .’

The assault on Makepeace’s brain abruptly halted as she was physically thrown aside.

‘Fools!’ shouted Lady April. ‘That is gunpowder!’ Makepeace saw the old woman speed like a greyhound through the darkness, towards the glowing, crimson star of the lit match . . .

And that bright red dot was the epicentre when the world broke.

The explosion was deafening, and the force of it knocked Makepeace back, the way a careless hand might fell a house of cards. There was a brief rush of heat, and then a lot of things seemed to be raining around her. The air was full of smoke and flour. She sat up coughing, just in time to see a large, jagged chunk of the wall and ceiling buckle and crash down on to the slabs.

Ashen and astonished-looking sky gawped down through the gap. James stumbled over rubble to her side, and helped her up. A small distance away, White Crowe sat dazed and dust-covered. If there was anything left of Lady April it was under the great fallen pile of masonry.

James was mouthing something. Makepeace’s ears were ringing, and his voice was as faint as a ghost, but she thought she understood. She hurried up the cellar stairs with him, stepped carefully past Young Crowe’s unconscious body, and gaped at the beautiful crack that had appeared in the wall.

It was just wide enough for two young people to slip through, and let themselves fall on to the grass outside. It was even easier for the dogs as they followed.

CHAPTER 39

Many hours later, in the early afternoon, Makepeace and James stopped to rest near a spinney at the top of a hill. It had been an old hill fort in ancient times, but now there was just a strangely shaped mound with views across the surrounding countryside.

Both were feeling battered and exhausted inside and out, and it had caught up with them at last. James was still recovering from playing host to five arrogant Fellmotte ghosts, and being crushed into a corner of himself. Makepeace’s own battles with the Elder ghosts had left her battered and a little melancholy. They had left a dusting of their memories, like the ashes of singed moths, and for the moment it flavoured everything she saw.

Both siblings had a fine collection of bruises, which were showing through their skin in all colours of the rainbow. Furthermore, Makepeace’s arms ached from carrying the turnspit dog, whose short legs tired more quickly than those of the other dogs.

‘What’s that?’ said James.

In the far distance, the two of them could see a tall whisker of brownish-grey smoke. It was too large to come from a chimney or campfire, and the wrong colour for woodsmoke. It was the wrong time of year for stubble fires.

Makepeace got out the diptych dial, and looked at the compass. She tried to remember the maps that she had so carefully pieced together, but she already knew in her heart where the smoke was coming from.

‘Grizehayes,’ said James in a whisper. He looked numb and shocked, and Makepeace knew that her face wore the same expression.

Grizehayes the invulnerable. Grizehayes the eternal, with centuries encrusted upon it like barnacles. Grizehayes the unchanging rock in the world’s river. Their prison, their enemy, their shelter, their home.

Grizehayes was burning.

‘Is the world ending?’ James asked huskily.

Makepeace moved over, wrapped her bruised arms around him and hugged him tightly.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘What do we do?’

‘We walk,’ she said. ‘We find food, and a place to sleep. Tomorrow we do it again. We survive.’

Worlds ended sometimes. Makepeace had known that for a while. She had known it since the night of the riots and Mother’s death, when her own world had neatly and completely fallen to dust.

One of the dogs snarled at something in the spinney. Makepeace leaped to her feet, but then saw the small outline lumbering through the undergrowth, and the livid white streaks on its pointed face. It was a badger, going about its business as if there were no wars to be fought.

Makepeace watched it with fascination. She remembered all that she had learned about badgers in the bestiary book at Grizehayes. The badger, or brock, whose legs were longer on one side, to help it on sloping ground . . .

. . . but they weren’t. As it ambled through a patch of daylight, she could see it quite clearly, and all its short legs were the same humble, sturdy length.

Perhaps none of the old truths were true any more. This could be a new world entirely, with its own rules. A world where badgers were not lopsided, and pelicans did not feed their young with their own blood, and toads had no precious stones in their heads, and cubs were already bear-shaped at birth. A world where castles could burn, and kings could die, and no rule was unbreakable.

‘We survive,’ she said again, more firmly. ‘And we try to lick this new world into shape while it’s still soft. If we don’t, there’s others that will.’

It was only much later that a news-sheet told them the full story of the fall of Grizehayes.

The explosion in the dead of night was commonly blamed on powder stored too close to the walls. When dawn came, white cloths had hung from the battlements of Grizehayes, signalling a willingness to talk. A man called Crowe had emerged to negotiate the surrender.

The siege commander had let all the civilians leave, and even take some provisions and possessions with them. In peacetime he had not been an unkind man, and the siege had been relatively short. His fighting zeal had not had time to curdle into hatred.

The Parliamentarian force that had taken Grizehayes had barely had time to raid its stores before they received word that a large Royalist force, headed by Sir Marmaduke, was less than a day away.

The siege commander faced a hard decision, and made it quickly. Better to torch the house, so that it could never be used again, than risk the King’s forces using it as a stronghold, albeit a broken one.

The account said that when Sir Marmaduke saw his ancestral home in flames, it ‘killed his heart’. He refused to wear his protective buff coat, led the cavalry charge and fought like a madman. Afterwards both sides spoke highly of his bravery. But then again, the dead are often easier to praise than the living.

Not all battles were reported in the news-sheets, and not all of them involved full armies or neat battle lines under the gaze of eagle-eyed commanders. Months were passing, and there was still no peace. Sometimes there was a great battle that everyone said would decide things, one way or the other. But somehow it never did.

Humans are strange, adaptable animals, and eventually get used to anything, even the impossible or unbearable. In time, the unthinkable becomes normal.

The inhabitants of one forest hamlet were very glad to be visited by someone who could dress wounds. They had been attacked by an armed band wearing sashes. There had been shots fired and blows struck. In the end the villagers had hidden in the church, and dropped rocks on the strangers until they tired of trying to set fire to the building and left. Nobody was quite sure whether they had been paid troops, brigands or a group of marauding deserters.

The villagers could only pay Makepeace and James by offering shelter, meals, and bones for the dogs, but these were very welcome. James did most of the talking. He cut a good figure, even as a wanderer.

When I think of the fees my services might once have commanded, muttered Dr Quick, as Makepeace’s latest patient left through the door with a clean strip of linen around his head. Nonetheless, the doctor complained less about such things these days. Perhaps rich patrons were less grateful than struggling householders. You are sentimental, as ever.

It’s sense, not sentiment, Makepeace told him, as she cleaned her hands. We needed somewhere to stay for a few nights.

You had good solid reasons to help these people, said the doctor. You always do.

Did I ever tell you about another chirurgeon I knew before the war? He was a rising star, with better patrons than many physicians. But one day a child died under his knife — the little daughter of his closest friend. After that, he was hopeless. Suddenly he could deny nobody. He ran himself ragged, taking up every case, even where there was no hope of payment. And he could always give excellent, sensible reasons why it was in his interests to do so. He never admitted that he was trying to save everyone, to soothe the ache of failing to save that girl.

Did he ever find peace? asked Makepeace. She knew perfectly well what the doctor was suggesting.

Who can say? He still lives, as far as I know. Perhaps he will, some day. And in the meanwhile, the stupid man is saving a lot of lives.

Do you want to write some more today? asked Makepeace.

If we can spare the time and paper.

Whenever she had the chance, Makepeace bartered for paper. It was seldom cheap, and often used on one side, but it allowed the doctor to write up his discoveries and theories concerning battlefield surgery.

Makepeace had also written two letters, not long after the fall of Grizehayes. The first was sent to Charity Tyler in Norwich, sending back her brother’s prayer book, and breaking the news of his death. It told her that he had wished to be reconciled to his cousin, and for an end to bad blood between them, and that he had loved his sister with all his heart. The letter also told her that Livewell had helped breach the walls of a Royalist stronghold and end a siege that might have cost many lives. It did not mention that this had happened after his death.

Livewell would vanish soon, she was sure of it. There was something calmer about him now. Some day she would wake and find a hole in her mind like a missing tooth.

I have polished my soul as much as I can, he had said recently. If I stay much longer I will only scuff it again.

The second letter had been written with the help of Morgan. It was addressed to Helen, and was a very dull missive about children getting measles. On the back, however, a second encoded message was written invisibly in artichoke juice:

Makepeace remembered the gleam in the witch-hunter’s eyes when he had heard about the royal charter. It would be better if the King’s spies found it and quietly destroyed it. She could not rid the world of witch-hunters, but there was no need to feed them. From the little she had seen, they were a hungry breed.

Besides, it pleased her to imagine Helen exchanging cool, bland pleasantries with her unsuspecting Parliamentarian husband with Makepeace’s note hidden in her glove, and then sneaking out at night to adventures and espionage in the service of the King.

I would like to write up my studies of ghosts as well, remarked the doctor, if I thought we could do so without being burned as heretics.

I wonder sometimes whether your family had fallen into a colossal error. The more ghosts I see, the less sure I am that we are the same souls that once were living. For all we know, perhaps the real souls pass on happily to the Maker, leaving us behind. I think sometimes that we ghosts are . . . memories. Echoes. Impressions. Oh, we can think and feel. We can regret the past, and fear the future. But are we really the people we think we are?

How does that change anything? It was too late for Makepeace to think of her spectral allies as anything other than friends.

I do not know, said Dr Quick. It is a blow to my vanity to consider the possibility that I am nothing but a bundle of thoughts, feelings and memories, given life by somebody else’s mind. But then again, so is a book. Where is my pen?

Makepeace let him use her hand to write. Not for the first time, she wondered whether the doctor would leave some day too, after he felt he had lived his afterlife to some account.

Not Bear, though. Bear would never be parted from her.

She could find no join, no place where she ended and Bear started. In that first clumsy embrace of the spirit, they had tangled themselves hopelessly, she supposed. Whatever happened, wherever she went, there would always be Bear. Whoever knew her, or liked her, or loved her, would have to accept Bear.

She could even love herself a little now, knowing that she was Bear.

For a good few days after her death, Hannah was very confused.

She had been brought to the front line by love and desperation, in equal measure. It was all very well Tom saying that he must march with the Earl’s army, but if he left her all alone with a baby coming, then how would she pay for food, and where would she go? So she had packed her things and come along to war, even as she started to get thick about the waist.

Hannah was not the only one. The baggage train of the army was full of other women — wives, lovers and the other sort — all pitching in with the cooking, nursing and fetching. She liked them, or a lot of them, anyway. It was muddy trudging, but she was young, and sometimes the whole adventure had a mad, exciting holiday feel. Her singing voice, so often praised in church, sounded even better by the campfire.

But then a cart loaded with gunpowder had exploded, killing Tom. The shock of it caused her to fall down in a fit and lose the baby. Afterwards she had no stomach for returning to her own town without Tom. She had no home now. But where could she go? And without Tom’s wages as a soldier, how would she eat?

Another woman whispered to her that if she dressed as a man and was willing to take the worst watches, she might ‘enlist’ and get a soldier’s wages. There were a couple of others in the camp who did so, and an officer who turned a blind eye.

So Hannah became Harold. She was too slight to hold the line with the pikemen, so she was taught the tricks of the matchlock, and joined the lines of musketeers.

During the great battle, after the musketeer line had broken in disorder, she had heard yells that the enemy were attacking the baggage train. She had run to the rear of the camp, through a fog of gunsmoke and chaos, to see men on horseback chasing the camp womenfolk and hacking them down with swords. She put a bullet in one of them, and wounded another with her sword, before a slice from behind ended her efforts and her life.

No! she thought as she died. No! No! It is too soon. It is not fair. I was discovering a new life and I was good at this!

But that thought was all that kept her company for the next few days. She was in darkness. It was a warm, strange darkness, and she did not think she was alone.

Now and then, somebody tried to talk to her. It was a young man’s voice, and at first she thought it might be Tom trying to guide her to Heaven, but it didn’t sound like him and the accent was wrong.

At last her vision returned. She was so relieved to see blue sky above her that she wanted to sob. However, she found that she could not. She appeared to be walking, but had no control over her own body. When she looked down, she found it was not her own body at all. It was still in male clothing, but now it seemed to be male indeed.

‘Can you see?’ asked the same insistent voice, sounding a little wary. ‘Can you hear me? My name is James.’

What happened? she demanded. Where am I?

‘You’re safe,’ he answered. ‘Well . . . actually you’re dead, but also safe . . . in a sense. Makepeace — can you talk to her? I’m not used to this.’

The person whose eyes Hannah was using turned to look at his companion, a girl a couple of years younger than Hannah. She could have been any market-girl, in her faded wool clothes and linen cap, but there was a knowing, serious look in her eye as if she had already watched the whole of Hannah’s life unfold.

On her cheek, Hannah saw two faint smallpox scars, so small they might have been flecks of rain. They reminded her of the two large freckles that had sat on Tom’s cheek in almost exactly the same place, and Hannah took this as a good omen. Desperate as she was, she would make do with any omen she could find.

‘You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,’ said the girl called Makepeace. ‘But you’re welcome to travel with us as long as you like. We believe in second chances, for the people who don’t usually get them.

‘You’re among friends, Hannah. You’re home.’