A Little Knowledge (24 page)

She beamed at him. “Oh, yes, I see why she’s so taken with you. Aren’t you simply the most handsome boy? What does Sir Iris make of you?”

Will was still uncertain about how to react to her open compliment. It seemed the Truth Charm was still very much in place, despite her residency with Lord Iron. “He thinks I’m too lenient with my wife, but he’s pleased with what I’ve achieved.”

“Yes, all very impressive, so soon after your Grand Tour. This tea is very disappointing. Is that supposed to be a macaroon? Heavens, what in the worlds has happened to Mundanus?” She cast her disapproval over the selection and chose a scone. “Are you too lenient with your wife?”

Will paused, choosing to spread butter on his toasted tea cake as he considered his response. He felt he was being evaluated, but he wasn’t sure which standards he was being measured against. “I find myself walking a difficult line between accommodating Cathy’s desire for change and keeping my Patroon satisfied. I fear it is impossible to satisfy both of them.”

Eleanor tested the scone she’d spread with jam and clotted cream, seemed to find it agreeable enough, and then fixed a keen eye on him. “Who do you feel is more important to keep happy? And tell the truth, now. I can’t abide falseness over elevenses. It wreaks havoc with my digestion.”

“Sir Iris,” Will said. “Without his support, it doesn’t matter how happy I’ve made Cathy. We’d be exiled or worse.”

“Been threatening you, has he?” She nodded in response to his acknowledgement. “He does that with all the young bloods, my dear. He has to lick you into shape, just like the Dame does with all the new chicks in the henhouse. I remember when he dressed down your father for something far too inconsequential for me to recall. I could hear him two rooms away.” She sighed wistfully.

Will tried to imagine his father in front of that desk and found himself smirking. “Are you satisfied with the arrangements that have been made for you, Lady Eleanor? Cathy seems to think you are safe with Lord Iron, but it’s hardly ideal.”

“‘Satisfied’ implies contentment, and I am not content. But these are strange times and one must do one’s best. Now, William.” She dabbed at the corners of her mouth with her napkin and poured the tea again after seeing a deeper colour emerge from the spout. “Tell me why you asked me to tea.”

“To ensure your well-being, Lady Eleanor. I feel as responsible for you as Cathy does.”

“And?” Her intense stare reminded him of Sir Iris. “Come now. It’s clear you want something else, and I’d wager it’s a little titbit of information about my husband, something to help you through these difficult early days when you’ve come to his attention. It’s always a shock, having to go there and answer to him directly instead of having your father take the brunt of the storm and pass on a little rain to you.”

Will didn’t want to admit to his hope, even though she’d laid it bare before them. “Your well-being is my first priority, Lady Eleanor.”

“Of course it is, dear boy. I’m your wild card. You have no idea what to do with me, but you’re certain I’ll come in useful at some point, much like those lovely boxes that gifts arrive in. Oh, don’t look so embarrassed. It may soothe you to know that I knew all this the moment I read your letter. I simply came to meet you to see what you’re like. I only saw you so briefly before. I wanted to see if you’re as handsome as I recalled. How lucky Cathy is, to have someone as delightful as you to look at for the foreseeable future.”

Will suppressed the irritation that he’d wasted an entire morning. Was there nothing he could winkle from her?

“And now you’re wondering how to salvage a wasted morning.” She reached across the table and patted his hand. “Don’t worry, you’re not that transparent to everyone. I simply see a lot of myself in you. Now, it may come as a revelation to you, but I still love my husband and I’m unwilling to give you the upper hand over him. I could be a great help to you, William, but I am not in the habit of inconveniencing myself for no return.”

“I understand.”

“So, in light of that, should you still wish to gain my assistance, you should turn your attention to how you might be able to offer me something I cannot refuse.”

“If only all conversations could be so straightforward,” Will said, aiming his most disarming smile at her.

“I find it quite refreshing. Now, you’re an intelligent boy, and I’ve told you everything you need to know to deduce the rest. If the tea were better, I’d enjoy another cup with you, as you’re far more pleasing to the eye than Lord Iron. But as it’s not, I’ll bid you good day.”

Will stood as she did, allowing himself to puff his chest a little after her last comment. He watched her leave, mentally placing her at the edge of the board. A queen to bring into play, if he could find a way to do so. Until he did, he’d have to content himself with the moves he’d planned on the drive up. It was time to solve some problems, and he knew which pieces to move to do so.

• • •

By the end of the day, most of the cob wall had been wheelbarrowed out of the house and dumped in a huge pile outside the back. The waifs and strays, as Cathy called them, came and chatted at points, entertained by the industry unfolding in front of them, but Sam shooed them away as soon as he saw that there was something on the iron slab that wasn’t just a roughened surface. From that point, only he and Jim were allowed in the small hallway, and he got the estate manager to put locks on the doors that gave access to it. He was happy to keep the victims of the Fae and their minions safe, but there was always the possibility that some of them might go back to that world, and the less they saw of anything important, the better.

He had a couple of portable floodlights brought in and elected to finish the demolition once Jim’s working day was over. Even though he’d only paused for lunch and comfort breaks, he seemed to have a boundless amount of energy that was constantly replenished every time a few more inches were exposed.

It was about two metres high above floor level, one and a half metres wide, and a metre thick. It was an absurdity in the centre of a house, serving no discernible purpose; it wasn’t holding up any of the floor above it nor supporting any other structure. He went down into the cellar and found that it probably went down as far as the foundations of the entire house, as the wall of the cellar ended about a metre from the slab he’d uncovered on the floor above. It felt as if it had always been there, with the house built around it. For all he knew about the first Lord Iron, that might well have been true.

Once he’d brushed it all off, clearing ancient cobwebs and newly created dust from the surface, he sat on one of the stools that had been brought in and stared at the iron.

At first the bumps and grooves didn’t make much sense at all. There was no writing or any symbols per se, just seven large bumps and a series of lines that weren’t joined to each other, seeming random in the way they curved and wobbled across the iron.

Then he noticed a curve that looked like the Thames, recalled from a time when Leanne had gone through a phase of watching
Eastenders
that he’d endured for the sake of getting half an hour of cuddling on the sofa. Of course, he’d got quite hooked on the stories too, but he’d never admitted it. In the credits, it panned across a map of London and the particular bow in the river around the Isle of Dogs.

He fetched an atlas from Amir’s library and soon discovered that most of the lines related to rivers. There were discrepancies, but he knew that the slab was so old, some of the rivers were bound to have been altered by people at some point or other.

One of the seven lumps was near a line he suspected was the river Dee in just the right position to suggest that it was his house. It was only a couple of miles away from a recognisable bend in the river before it curved away to head east into Wales. The other six dots were located all over England, one clearly in North London, and one in a place near enough to the river Avon for him to suspect it was near Bath. Were these Lord Iron’s houses? Places of some other significance? Whatever the lumps referred to, he knew this was precious knowledge, something he felt he should know, or perhaps already did but couldn’t quite recall. It was like trying to remember all the kids in his class in the first year of primary school, something he once knew but had been lost long ago.

He heard the house phone ring and ignored it, staring at the slab and trying to work out the possible locations of the other lumps. There was a knock on the door between his corridor and the rest of the house.

“Mr Ferran,” Des called through the wood, “there’s a ‘Petra’ on the phone for you. She says you told her to call any time.”

Sam put the atlas on the floor and hurried through the door to take the phone.

“Petra! Hi! How are you feeling? Is the hotel okay? Do you have everything you need?”

“I’m very comfortable, thank you, and feeling better. I have a question for you, something relating to your being Lord Iron. If you don’t mind?”

Sam went back into the corridor to stare at the slab as he talked. “Go ahead.”

“You also go by the name of Mr Ferran—the hotel room you arranged for me, for example—and I was wondering if that has something to do with your new role.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Max is investigating something relating to the Fae-touched kidnapping people from Bath, and he’s come across a man living in a shack on some land that belongs to a Mr Ferran. I thought the coincidence was so strong, I’d ask if you know anything about the property.”

Sam didn’t like the thought of Max knowing where Petra was, but she must have told him—how else could he have known? He supposed they were friends, though having seen how utterly heartless Max was when it came to helping victims of the Fae, Sam felt that friendship was misplaced. He couldn’t deny that Max had uncovered a potential lead for more information regarding his inheritance, though, so he swallowed down his initial urge to hang up and replied instead.

“Mr Ferran is a name I inherited, along with Lord Iron.” Sam’s eyes drifted towards the line he’d pegged as the river Avon. “So if the land belongs to Mr Ferran, it belongs to me now. Tell me, do you know if this property’s north or south of the river?”

He listened as Petra asked the same question of another person who was with her, presumably Max. “It’s south. Right on the edge of the city. Max thinks it might be an old forge. It has a waist-high hearth and a set of bellows next to it.”

Sam’s heart quickened in his chest. The seven lumps on the map represented forges. “Give me the address,” he said. “I’ll look into it.”

The ache that had settled into Max’s leg was growing painful by the time he reached the shack on Mr Ferran’s land late that evening. He’d spent too much time on his feet and needed to rest, but with the prospect of new information on its way from the unlikely Lord Iron, he couldn’t yet.

As he hobbled towards the gate by the light of his torch, Max considered how different Petra had seemed at the hotel. She had called him on his mobile phone, asking him to go over and talk to her. Thinking it was about the way Rupert had treated her, or the possibility of her joining the Chapter, he’d agreed. He hadn’t expected the story about what had happened with Lord Iron freeing her from a curse.

Max couldn’t understand how Ekstrand could have either not known about the Fae magic or had ignored it. Neither seemed possible. Max wondered if he should have noticed something, whether he’d lost his edge since the injury, but he couldn’t recall any reason to suspect that Petra was a victim of Fae trickery. Granted, a female professional working so closely with a Sorcerer was unusual, seeing as all of their apprentices were only ever allowed to be male, but she was such a superlative and knowledgeable librarian he thought it was simply a matter of Ekstrand overlooking her sex to benefit from her work.

Petra had said she felt lost. That she didn’t belong and that until she understood what had happened to her and where she came from, she couldn’t work for Rupert. Max suspected her traumatic experience had also made her distrustful of Sorcerers in general. It was a loss to their budding Chapter, but no one could force her. She promised to keep in touch after she facilitated the fact-finding exercise in relation to Lord Iron, and he’d left her at the hotel.

Max opened the gate, felt the cold mud seep into his shoes as he misjudged where the worst of the puddle was, and closed the gate behind him. He saw a light in the sky before he heard the drone of the engine and paused, wondering if that was Lord Iron on his way.

As he waited, Max saw an image of his old Chapter House through the gargoyle’s eyes as it approached the building hesitantly. He’d decided to send the gargoyle on a fact-finding mission whilst he headed for Mr Amesbury’s shack, for efficiency’s sake. Max didn’t want the sculpture housing his soul to linger too long, no matter how unlikely it was that the Sorceress was still watching that building. It wasn’t just the risk, it was also the fact that the sooner Max got the information he was hoping the gargoyle would find there, the sooner he could move toward a prosecution and potentially find the people abducted. Perhaps even his father.

Max knew that the Chapter would have a record of his statement when he was first brought in. He couldn’t remember giving it, nor what exactly had happened the night the Arbiter took him, but he knew the procedure and had to assume the same was done for his case. Hoping it would contain some details about what happened to his father, he decided to take the risk of sending the gargoyle into the Chapter whilst he progressed with the investigation in Mundanus. It was more efficient than leaving it to pine for Kay in the empty office.

The engine he’d heard was getting louder, so he decided to stay near the gate as the helicopter crested the hill. It circled a couple of times, shining a large light on the ramshackle building, before heading off. It was too steep for it to land; Max decided to carry on and let Lord Iron catch up.

Lord Iron had been true to his word; he’d looked into the land and the building on it, confirming that it was an old forge owned by his predecessors and passed on to him. Max had taken the opportunity to ask about the foundry on Walcot Street where his father used to work. Lord Iron had come across it in the search for information on the old forge and when Max explained that it was all connected to innocents disappearing from Mundanus, Lord Iron had offered to come down to Bath to pass the information on. Max suspected he also wanted to see the old forge.