by ‘You know you don’t have to bargain, Ves,’ said Baron Alban in his lovely congenial way. ‘I am, as ever, happy to help.’
I beamed into the phone. ‘Well then, I’ll give you all the details over a pancake or something, but here’s the situation…’
Even the abbreviated version took me a couple of minutes to tell, time which Zareen spent roaming around inspecting the gathered coaches with some interest. They really were coaches, not the species of bus which is these days awarded that name: tall, bulky vehicles with huge wheels and big windows. The difference between these and the horse-drawn varieties of old was simply the lack of horse. There wasn’t a beast of burden in sight, and none of the coaches had traces to attach a horse to. They didn’t work that way.
Zareen was clearly intrigued.
‘Do you have any idea where the spire went?’ said the Baron as I finished my tale. He sounded rather urgent about it, too.
‘No, except that Melmidoc mentioned an “isle” a couple of times so I wonder if that’s where he was going. Before you ask, no, I don’t know anything more about it. He said nothing else of use.’
‘An isle,’ mused the Baron. ‘What does that book of yours say about it?’
‘I haven’t asked him yet. We’ve been busy with the business of getting out of here. But I was hoping to consult him on the coach-ride home.’
‘Ah,’ said the Baron, and I could almost see his eyes twinkling with amusement. ‘I perceive we come to the favour.’
‘If you could get us onto one of those coaches,’ I said, ‘we would be eternally grateful. Otherwise it’ll take us all day to get home, and that’s a monumental waste of time.’
‘Give me a moment.’ The Baron rang off.
I joined Zareen. ‘Never seen these before?’
She shook her head. ‘How do they move?’
‘Magick.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘I guessed that, but—’
My phone rang, and I grabbed it. ‘Yes?’
‘Someone’ll be there to help you in a few minutes,’ said the Baron.
‘You’re a hero. Thank you.’
‘Don’t forget about that pancake date. I won’t.’ He hung up.
I beamed upon Zareen and gave a contented sigh. ‘It’s good to have friends,’ I told her.
‘Especially important ones?’
‘There are times when that’s useful.’
‘This being one of them. That I will grant you.’
A woman came towards us at that moment — seven feet tall if she was an inch — and looked Zareen and I over appraisingly. She wore a long dress of indeterminate period, a practical periwinkle-blue garment devoid of fuss or flounces, with the sleeves rolled up over her elbow. She said something in the lilting Welsh tongue.
‘I’m afraid we aren’t Welsh-speakers,’ I apologised.
Her scowl deepened. ‘I asked how did you two come to have Baron Alban at your beck and call?’
She did not seem pleased at the idea. ‘I helped him with a couple of problems,’ I offered.
Her brows went up. ‘Oh? And what were they?’
Clearly his orders weren’t quite enough to win us this woman’s goodwill. ‘Some of the Enclaves were endangered,’ I said briefly. ‘We were able to save most of them.’
Her face cleared. ‘The Blight? That was you? Then, ladies, it shall be my pleasure to put a coach at your disposal.’ To my mild embarrassment, she made us something of a bow. ‘I have a cousin at Baile Monaidh,’ she explained.
‘It was our pleasure to help,’ I said.
Our suddenly congenial hostess had us ensconced inside a comfortable coach within minutes, which was lucky because Zareen was beginning to look wan and peaky. Her admonishment about fussing and clucking in mind, I did not say anything about it, but I was privately glad that she’d have chance to sit down for a while. The seats were unusually plush, upholstered in something velvety and blue, and wide enough for Zareen to recline in an almost fully recumbent posture. She did so with studied casualness; I suspect it would’ve killed her to admit that she felt weak.
We thanked the coach mistress fervently and settled in for a long, but not too long, ride as the coach began to roll. We were set to be taken all the way back to Yorkshire, as near to the Scarlet Courtyard as the Troll Roads could take us.
Not quite as good as Waymastery, all told, but pretty close.
I opened up my shoulder bag and withdrew Gallimaufry. ‘Right, Maufy,’ I said, extracting my new book and Zareen’s from his clutching embrace. ‘What do you have to tell us?’
‘Good afternoon, Miss Vesper,’ said Mauf. ‘Upon which topic am I requested to enlighten you?’
I passed the pamphlet on the Stranger Arts to Zareen, who took it with a notable lack of enthusiasm. ‘Let’s begin with the isle. You’ve got the Redclover brothers’ journals, yes? Was there anything in there about an isle, or an island, or anything like that?’
Mauf lay inert and silent for a moment, thinking. Or consulting his records, or whatever it was he did. ‘No,’ he said at last.
‘Damnit.’
‘That is…’ He paused. ‘There was an entry towards the end of the journal which I had difficulty in deciphering, for large parts of it have been inked over. I am almost certain that one of the words in that particular section is “isle”, but it is impossible to decipher the sentence as a whole. I am very sorry, Miss Vesper.’
‘It isn’t your fault,’ I assured him, though I was inwardly cursing those guards back at Dapplehaven. They had taken the original copies of those books from us. I had thought nothing of it at the time, being supremely confident in Mauf’s ability to absorb any text that came in his way. I had reckoned without the possibility that some of it might not have been legible.
‘Still,’ said Zareen sleepily. ‘Interesting enough. Melmidoc wrote about it, then changed his mind and crossed it out. Why? Supposedly these were his personal journals.’
‘I suppose nothing stays personal when you’re a legend,’ I said. ‘And here is the proof of it. Hundreds of years later, and the likes of us are poking around trying to figure out what he was up to. He probably excited plenty of similar curiosity at the time.’
‘Mm, and he did not want any of those busy-bodies finding out about this island.’
‘So it’s a secret island. Better and better. Mauf, did you get much else out of the Dapplehaven books that seemed to be of interest?’
Mauf thought again, and while he did that I sent a sneaky text to Valerie. Well, why not? We weren’t technically working together just now, but that meant exactly nothing. She sent us books; I sent her info. Business as usual.
‘Melmidoc was certainly a Waymaster,’ Mauf began. ‘And a very powerful one. Drystan, however, is something of a mystery. His particular arts are not explicitly discussed anywhere in the journals, though there are hints and references enough to suggest that he, too, possessed unusually potent powers.’
Zareen’s eyes snapped open at that, and her gaze met mine. I could see she was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Drystan was a mighty sorcerer but the brothers had some motive to keep the nature of his powers a secret?
‘Stranger Arts?’ I said.
‘Sounds like it,’ said Zareen. ‘And since this Waymastery business has been oddly bound up with the weird stuff all the way through, it figures.’
‘Mm.’ And an odd connection it was, too, for Waymastery and the Stranger Arts typically had little to do with one another — at least, these days. But I had to admit, the combination was proving to be a potent one. The two practices combined produced places like the Greyer Cottage and Millie Makepeace’s house, not to mention the Starstone Spire itself. Who wouldn’t want to run with that? Who could fail to be entranced by the possibilities?
Which put me in mind of something else. ‘Mauf, you’ve said before that the journals don’t specifically mention travelling through time. But is there anything to suggest that such an account might also be among those that were erased?’
‘I cannot say, Miss Vesper. The passages in question have been thoroughly excised.’
‘Whereabouts are they? The crossed-out parts.’
‘Clustered largely towards the end, with a few exceptions scattered throughout the latter half of the book.’
‘The last entries were in 1630?’
‘That is correct.’
And Melmidoc Redclover had vanished in 1630, for the final time, never to be seen again — as far as history has recorded, at any rate. What had prompted him to disappear? Why had he never come back?
Well — that wasn’t true. He had come back, because we had found him living (if his ghostly state could reasonably be termed such) in Nautilus Cove, still in his beloved home. So spire and Waymaster both had returned from wherever they’d gone to; but perhaps neither had ever returned to Dapplehaven.
Or had they? I remembered the spikes at the top of the hill, upon which the spire had once tended to rest. Jay and I had surmised that they were there to discourage the spire from settling there any longer; when had they been erected?
I shook my head, dissipating this string of thoughts. I had no answers as yet, and the spiralling questions were only confusing me. ‘What about Millie Makepeace’s diary?’ I asked Mauf.
‘Intriguing lady,’ Mauf answered, with a touch of amusement. ‘I am innocent of these disgraceful charges!’ he recited in a higher voice than his own, a woman’s voice. ‘To be sure, I attacked that foolish cook. Anyone would have done the same! She had put in far too much rind, and so bitter it was that I could not eat the pudding at all! It is not too much to expect of a cook, is it, that she should prepare a satisfactory orange-pudding? I threw the remainder, dish and all, at her foolish head, and she thoroughly deserved it! She screamed fit to bring the bricks tumbling around our ears, and made as though to come after me, but I was able to escape such vulgar treatment and retreated into the garden. Thus much is true. But I did not kill her! For though she is inept in the preparation of an orange-pudding, there is none to match her skill at bread-pudding, or carrot-pie. Was none, I should say, since the foolish woman is dead.’
‘Employer from hell,’ murmured Zareen.
‘The cook is said to have died from a wound to the head,’ said Mauf. ‘No further detail is given. Either, then, Miss Makepeace was assumed to have returned later to finish the deed with some other, suitably heavy object in hand as weapon; or perhaps the dish of orange-pudding did the job, and ‘twas confectionery that killed the cook.’
I suppressed an inappropriate desire to giggle. The poor cook. ‘I suppose it’s just possible that someone else bashed in the woman’s head?’ I suggested.
‘Quite possible,’ allowed Mauf. ‘But judging from the tone of her diaries I would conclude that Miss Makepeace was not of sound mind. She describes other violent episodes, and with a sublime lack of compunction.’
‘Wandering off the point, Ves,’ said Zareen. Her eyes had drifted shut again, but clearly she was still listening.
Right. Yes. It was a bit late to clear the name of Millie Makepeace, supposing she deserved it. She’d already been punished for the crime, and in a fashion that would normally prove awfully final. ‘The diaries end with her execution?’
‘The day before. You will be pleased to hear that she requested, and received, an orange-pudding as her final meal. One can only hope this one proved more satisfactory to her.’
‘Mauf. Please stop making me laugh. It is inappropriate, given the subject matter.’
‘Sorry, Miss Vesper,’ said the book, without a trace of discernible remorse.
I wondered why Val had sent the book down, in that case. Perhaps just on spec. She must’ve dug it up at some speed, to send it down with Miranda.
I sent her another note. Thanks for the books, by the way.
Her reply came back at once. What books? Working on the isle thing. Get back to you later.
What books? I blinked at the screen in confusion. The ones you sent with Mir?
Zero books sent with Miranda, came the reply.
I showed this to Zareen, whose face registered the same puzzlement. ‘I’m sure she said Val had given them to her.’
‘That’s what I thought, too.’
‘Maybe we just assumed that.’
‘Could be. Val is the usual source of books.’ But I felt a vague sense of disquiet.
I toyed with the idea of contacting Miranda. I’m not close to her in the same way as I am with Val, or Zareen. In either of the latter cases I’d whizz off a text without a second thought, but to pester Miranda like that felt more like some kind of encroachment. It wasn’t that Mir was unfriendly, but… she did not so much encourage hobnobbing.
I decided to try it anyway. I phrased a carefully-worded message idly enquiring where the books had come from, paired it with a bit of enthusiastic flattery as to their usefulness, and dispatched it. I was not surprised to find that no immediate reply came.
Something buzzed, but this time it wasn’t me. Zareen rolled her eyes and fished her phone out of some obscure pocket. ‘Tired,’ she said laconically. ‘Better be important.’
She listened, and as she did so her face clouded over. Then she became, suddenly, alert. ‘What? Where is he? You haven’t hurt him, have you?’ She listened a moment more, then said: ‘Fine, I’m sorry, but how do you know all this?’ After that, she was silent for so long, I could hardly bear it. Who did she mean by he, and who was she talking to? What had made her frown like that?
Finally, she said a curt, ‘Right. Thank you,’ and chucked her phone onto the coach seat. Her eyes were narrowed, and she still said nothing, nor looked at me at all.
‘Zar,’ I said at last, in what I hoped was a voice of cool composure but came out rather strained. ‘Do tell.’
‘George,’ she said. ‘Knows where Jay is, or so he claims. He knows about Millie Makepeace, somehow, too. He wants to exchange information.’
