The Spirit Well

CHAPTER 11

I agree it is something of a coincidence,” allowed Lady Fayth judiciously. “Then again, why should this bakery woman not go wherever she likes?”

“I find it highly suspicious,” declared Burleigh. “On the eve of receiving our dinner invitation, she picks up and flees the city. Coincidence? I think not.”

“She can hardly be said to have fled the city,” Haven countered smoothly. “The baker said she had business in Vienna. There is nothing odd about a woman of commerce travelling on business. Some would say that such an eventuality was an inevitable consequence of trade.”

Burleigh’s expression hardened. “Why are you always taking her part?” His tone was dark and insinuating.

“The way you talk.” Haven sighed lightly and rolled her lovely brown eyes. “I take no one’s part, my leery lord. I merely point out the folly of your insistence on viewing even the most perfectly innocent event as part of some vast conspiracy to overthrow your plans.”

“Watch your mouth, girl,” growled Burleigh. He glared at her. “I grow sick of bickering with you over every step I take.”

Haven knew she had pressed the matter far enough. It was time to make amends. “Oh dear, I have angered you,” she said, suddenly contrite. “I am sorry.” She lowered her head in a submissive gesture. “Offending you was the last thing I intended.”

“Get out!” he shouted. “I cannot think with you simpering on like that. Go to your room until I call for you. I will decide what to do.”

Without another word she turned and moved to the door, glad to escape the Black Earl’s foul mood.

“Do not imagine that I will forget your insolence,” he called after her.

“No, my lord,” she answered, shutting the door behind her. To herself she added, “I imagine you will soon have cause to long remember it.”

She stalked off down the corridor, seething with rage: against Burleigh, against wicked circumstance that forced her to behave like a debauched wanton, against the guilt she felt for abandoning her uncle and the others to die in the tomb-rage against the powerlessness and humiliation she felt every moment of her waking day. It was bad enough that she had been made into a plotter of plots and a schemer of schemes-it was the price paid for joining the quest, so be it-but that she must travel with the brute, be seen by one and all as his confidante, nay, his paramour. The sound of his voice, his supercilious manner, his handsome features-which might have been admired in a better man-turned her stomach.

The pretence of obedience was wearing on her. She detested the odious man and his bestial morality, and it was now almost impossible to hold her tongue in his presence. Burleigh himself sensed that all was not as it seemed with her; soon, if not already, he would decide to sever their partnership, and she would become another victim sacrificed to his insatiable ambition.

Aside from simple survival, she had hoped to learn from him-at the very least learn his methods, plans, his ultimate aims. But beyond Burleigh’s obsession with the Skin Map, she had learned very little. What he wanted, why he drove himself, what he hoped to gain from his ruthless exploitation of everyone who crossed his path she still did not know. But she sensed she had learned all he was willing to teach her. Now, as she stood in the darkened corridor staring at the door to her room of this fetid, bug-infested inn, she knew she had reached the end of her endurance.

The inn, the grandest Prague had to offer, was insufferable; the stink, the noise, the squalid surroundings did not befit a lady of her station. She refused to spend one more night listening to cats rummaging through garbage in the street beneath her window, listening to the drunk and snoring sleepers in the rooms on either side of hers, smelling the slops as they were sluiced into the gutters.

The moment she closed the door behind her, she changed into her travelling clothes and, taking only her coat, crept from her room. Once in the corridor, she slipped like a sprite down the stairs and tiptoed across the inn’s hall, risking a glance into the common room to see that Burleigh was still sitting where she had left him, brooding, a drink at his elbow. She moved to the entrance and, with a last look around to see that she was unobserved, departed.

She moved through the streets of Prague, descending the palace hill towards the old town and the city walls rising beyond the square. The sun was already down, but the sky held a glimmer of light. She hoped there would be no difficulty in departing the city; she did not care to leave behind any witnesses who might be interrogated later. This, as much as the fact that her German was nowhere good enough to concoct a plausible story for inquisitive guards, determined another, slightly less desirable course of action. Quite simply, she would linger in the shadow of the gates until a departing wagon or coach rumbled through. Using the vehicle to shield her from view, she would slip through and then disappear into the countryside.

Upon approaching the gatehouse, she slowed her pace, keeping to the far side of the street, watching the activity and trying to determine the whereabouts of the guards. She found a narrow alleyway within sight of the gate, crept in, and, perching herself on an upturned crate beside a rain barrel, settled back to wait for her chance. A short time later she heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the cobbles. She eased herself off her perch and moved to the mouth of the alley. The torches had been lit on either side of the big timber doors, and one of them was open. A wagon loaded with barrels was just then negotiating with the guards to open the other half to let the wagon through. Plucking up her courage, Haven darted from her hiding place, moving alongside the boxy vehicle just as the driver flicked the reins and called to the horses to walk on.

Both Haven and the wagon passed through the portal out onto the road at the same time. To the best of her knowledge, the gatekeepers had not seen her, nor had anyone else. Casting one last glance over her shoulder, she satisfied herself that she was indeed free, then turned and hurried to the jumping-off place-the site Burleigh used to reach Prague. She had memorised the location and had no difficulty finding it again.

A brisk walk through the chilly grey countryside brought her to a secluded spot in the hills north of the city. There, amidst farms of beets and turnips, was a preternaturally straight crease-a shallow ditch marking the boundary between two fields. These were ancient features, she knew; her uncle called them Hollow Ways, and they were older than the farms and fields they marked; as old as the hills themselves, Sir Henry said.

At the fleeting thought of her beloved uncle, Haven felt another stab of guilt for having failed him. “I am so sorry, Uncle,” she murmured, then shoved the feeling aside. Revenge, she decided, would drive her from now on. She would avenge her uncle’s death and punish the Black Earl for his needless cruelty and for the humiliation he had inflicted on her.

The stars were alight in the eastern sky when Haven reached the ley. Without a moment to spare she hurried across the high-furrowed field to the Hollow Way, stepped down into the ditch, and aligned herself with one of the stones that served for field corners. Then, putting her feet in the centre of the path, she started down the narrow trail. Within four determined paces, she felt the familiar tingle on her skin. A breeze gusted over the crest of the bank and swirled around her long skirt. Three more steps carried her to the next stone marker. The banks of the Hollow Way grew hazy. The twilight dimmed, and she felt the path fall away beneath her feet. For an instant her ears were filled with the howling screech of the void, and misty rain spattered her face and neck. By now a more experienced ley-leaper, she was ready for the awkward lurch as the trail came up beneath her once more, the ground level slightly higher this time. Taking the jolt in her knees, she managed to remain upright, took two more steps, and stopped to look around.

The world around her had changed. The gentle hills and ploughed fields of Bohemia were gone, and in their place was a chilly, mistcovered wilderness of wide valleys and treeless heights-somewhat like Yorkshire, she thought. But it was not Yorkshire-as least not the one she knew. Burleigh maintained that it was, like so many other worlds, only a connecting place, a waypoint between one dimension of the multidimensional universe and another. Two more leaps would bring her back to England.

Haven had no doubt she could reach London, but there was some uncertainty in judging the leap just right in order to achieve the desired time. Without the benefit of the Black Earl’s little device to aid her, she would have to rely on her native wits. Nevertheless, she was happy to have successfully made her escape and to be on her own at last.

The next ley line was some distance away-a peaty upland nearly half a day distant on foot, and, as this was a remote and deserted landscape, there was nothing for it but to walk. She started off at once, making what time she could. Likely she would have to wait for sundown once she got there, but she would rather wait than miss it and have to spend the night out on the desolate moor.

As she walked along she rehearsed in her mind what she would do when she got to London, and how she might proceed to further the quest. Clearly she could not conduct the search for the Skin Map alone. No doubt she should have made plans to meet Wilhelmina in London. Thinking of it now, that would have been the perfect solution-they could have evaded Burleigh and furthered their alliance. But in the urgency to get out of Prague, neither of them had thought of that.

It was late in the day by the time she reached the ley-a nameless trackway high on the crest of a broad headland where two valleys met above a grey river. She found a stone beside the trail and sat down to watch the low-riding sun sink farther below the line of barren hills to the west, shivering in the chilly, damp air as night came on. She comforted herself with the thought that she would soon be home again, dry and warm.

Then, as the evening shadows darkened the valleys, and wraith-like vapours snaked along the river below, she stood and, carefully pacing off the distance from the beginning of the ley, once again composed herself for the jump. This one, like the first, was accomplished without undue discomfort-which Haven took as a sign that she was perfecting her abilities. The thought pleased her and filled her with confidence as the battering rain shower announced her arrival in England on a lonely hilltop somewhere on the southern downs.

When her vision cleared she made out the line of the London Road-flanked by barley fields in neat rows, the thatched houses of farmers, the mail coach rumbling up the long chalk hills. Haven took in the sight, and her heart leapt. She had done it! She had successfully navigated the journey home all by herself.

It was early in the day yet; the sun was high in a cloud-flecked sky, the air soft and balmy. Haven paused to catch her breath and let the incipient nausea pass. She drew the sweet, fresh country air into her lungs and gazed down the smooth green slope of the hill; she could see wagons and some foot traffic on the road below. As soon as she felt stable once more, she hiked up her skirts and hurried down the hillside, secure in the knowledge that she would soon beg a ride with a passing merchant or farmer or, better still, a carriage heading for the city.

In any event she had to make do with a hay wain, an ox cart, and a brewer’s wagon pulled by a team of heavy horses-each slower than the last. As a result it was already nightfall by the time she reached London and made her way to Clarimond House, Sir Henry Fayth’s London home. Through streets intermittently lit by torchlight she flitted like a ghost, keeping to the shadows. A young woman alone on the streets of the city after dark was asking for trouble-Haven Fayth had not come this far only to end up at the end of a footpad’s knife.

Darting along the houses fronting the wide, cobbled boulevardsometimes so close she brushed the doors with her elbow-she heaved a sigh as she came in sight of the stately redbrick mansion. A few last running steps carried her through the iron gates, and she was safe within the grounds. Hurrying up the drive, she bounded up the front steps and rapped sharply on the door. At her second knock the door opened slowly. A servant dressed in black barely deigned to glance at her, a frown of disapproval on his face.

“His lordship is not receiving visitors,” he informed her in tones that left her in no doubt that she was not welcome. He made to close the door.

“Do you not know me, Villiers?” she said, putting her hand to the door.

“My lady?” The door opened again, more widely, and the servant produced a candle. “Lady Fayth,” he gasped, holding the candle high to see her. “You should have sent word of your arrival.”

“Am I to spend the night on the doorstep?”

“I am dreadfully sorry, my lady.” He stepped aside, bowed, and ushered her quickly into the vestibule, closing the door firmly behind her. “Pray forgive me. We were not expecting anyone. If I had known you were coming, I would have sent a carriage for you.”

“There was no time,” she told him. “I am starving. Is there dinner?”

“Cook is preparing it now,” Villiers replied. “I will have a place set in the dining room.” He gazed at her intently. “I can see your travel has fatigued you. I will have hot water and towels sent up to your room. If you care to freshen yourself, I will inform the household that you are in residence.”

“Thank you, Villiers. I leave it in your hands. But first I have to see Giles. Is he here?”

“Indeed, my lady. Mr. Standfast is convalescing. He has suffered a gunshot.”

“Yes, I know. Terrible accident. It should never have happened.” She turned to the staircase. “I must see him straightaway.”

“I believe the doctor has ordered bedrest and quiet.”

“I shan’t disturb him overmuch,” she replied, ascending quickly. “Which room is he in?”

“The Plum Room, my lady. Allow me to announce you.”

“No need. I would prefer that you see to dinner. I will announce myself.” Abandoning propriety, she took the candle and ascended the stairs quickly, reached the gallery, and hurried to the landing off the staircase used by Sir Henry’s staff and retainers. She paused at the third door along, composed herself, then knocked.

“Enter,” came a familiar voice from the other side.

She turned the brass handle and pushed open the door.

Giles lay in bed, the entire upper left side of his torso bound in white bandages. A lighted lamp glowed on the bedside table and, beside it, a jar and cup. On the floor was a chamber pot. At the first glimpse of his visitor standing in the corridor, the wounded man started upright.

“Miss Wilhelmina? Have you fo-” he began.

Haven stepped across the threshold and into the room, coming into the light. “Hello, Giles,” she said.

He slumped back against the pillows. “Lady Fayth. I never thought-” Then, realising the implications of her presence, he bolted upright once more, threw aside the blanket, and made to climb out of bed. “Is Burleigh here?” he asked. The effort made him wince with pain as he struggled to rise. “Is he-”

“Calm yourself, Giles,” Haven said gently. “All is well. I am alone. Like you, I have escaped him.”

With the slow, measured movement of an aching man, he lay back once more. “Then why are you here?” he said, his tone sullen and unwelcoming. “You must know that I have nothing to say to you.”

“Perhaps not,” she allowed. She picked up the edge of the blanket and pulled it back into place over him. “But you might care to listen, for I have something to say to you.”

He glared at her, his expression full of hurt and distrust at what he considered her former betrayal. “Go on, then,” he said at last, curiosity overcoming his suspicion.

“First,” she said, “I have to know-are you well enough to travel?”