Ambergate (31 page)

He was exasperated. “But why, in the name of the Eagle? Why tomorrow? It’s so hot—the Miasma’s rising—the wedding’s the day
after…”

His voice trailed away. She wasn’t going to tell him, he could see that. She hesitated before she spoke, and her words were
odd.

“I have to go alone, Nate. I have to make—atonement.”

The evening of that same day, in the larger of the two upstairs rooms at the sign of the Saggy Bottle in Gravengate, the rebels
Titus Molde and Jed Flint were in secret discussion,
their chairs pulled close. Though he was sweating profusely, Molde’s tankard of stingoe was untouched on the floorboards.
He was passing on to Flint what the Messenger had told him mere minutes ago.

The room was in shadow; outside the sun was sinking over the great river in a fiery ball. Titus Molde rose and went to the
window again to check that no one suspicious loitered outside the tavern. Below, the river glowed like molten copper; the
boats on its surface looked as if they had been blackened by fire. There was less traffic than there had been two months ago:
even those that earned their livelihood on the water were beginning to keep away now that the Miasma was rising.

“So the wedding’s to be held the day after tomorrow,” said Molde. “That won’t cause us any problems. Security will be tight,
but I’ve planned for it for weeks.” He gazed out, unseeing. His stocky silhouette brooded on the far wall. “I’ll call a meeting
first thing tomorrow, go over the details with the others one last time. Remind them of their positions and what they’re to
do.”

Flint looked unhappy. “Have you been in touch with the Seacoal Lane lot?”

Molde’s lip curled. “They know our plans but they want no part in them They feel the rebel movement has more ‘groundwork’
to do before it acts. If we thought like them, we’d be sitting around until we were as gray-haired as they are.”

“What about the girl? Shouldn’t we try to get her out of the Palace?”

Molde ignored the question. “I know how I can speak to
her tomorrow.” He grinned. “Overheard two of the Palace kitchen staff complaining in the Dancing Bear at luncheon. Apparently
she’s asked for a basket of raw meat to be brought to her. I’ve put two and two together. There’s only one place she can be
going. I’ll intercept her, force her hand.”

Flint’s eyes widened. “You’re not still thinking of using her…?”

Molde looked across at his oldest ally with sudden contempt. He was weak, was Flint; weak men were dangerous. “She’s run out
of time. If the wedding’s to be held the day after tomorrow as the Messenger says, then that’s when she must kill Caleb.”

Flint frowned and his long jaw stuck out, unexpectedly mulish. “I don’t like it, Titus. It was a mad scheme in the first place,
but to force the girl to assassinate the Lord Protector’s son in a public place that’s to be guarded by armed Militia! She’s
the daughter of our late leader! What are you thinking of?”

Molde gave a short, furious laugh. The sun glowed redly on his face and corn-colored hair so that, for a moment, he looked
as if he had stepped from hell. The voices, nowadays a constant murmur in his head, increased in volume to a clamor. Even
when he hit his forehead several times, they didn’t quiet.

Flint stared at him. “Are you all right?”

“Shut up,” growled Molde, shaking his head. His voice rose. “Shut up! Shut up!”

Flint took a deep draft of stingoe from his tankard. “Look,” he said steadily. “You’re not well, Titus. I don’t think you’ve
been well for some time. We should reconsider, seek others’ views too. Why, the men don’t even know we’ve found her! We need
to talk to the Messenger, maybe even the Seacoal Lane rebels. Why don’t I go myself—now?”

“No! No!” The voices shouted in Molde’s head. It took all his control to ignore them, to stop his own voice shaking with rage
and say with a casual laugh as he advanced across the shadowy room, “Why not, indeed?”

Flint set his tankard down on the floor. As he was about to rise, a sound made him turn in his chair. Titus Molde had come
up behind him, was leaning over the chairback and slowly flexing his fingers as he looked down on him.

“Sacred flight!” said Jed Flint, in dawning horror. “You really
are
mad!”

I had to have permission from the security office in order to leave the Palace.

They stared at me, dressed in the old red wool dress, the stinking, cloth-covered basket on my arm. I gazed back at them from
under the veil of the black felt hat. “Devotion,” I repeated. “I wish to attend Devotion at the old Cathedral. They have a
service at eleven of the clock.”

I must have convinced them, for they let me through, after giving the raw meat in the basket an exceedingly hasty inspection.

It should not be so very difficult to find my way to the Cathedral.
I must remember it backward
, I thought. The long avenue from the Palace led almost there, before it lost itself in a fan of streets that ended at the
Cathedral square.

I set off, walking where Nate and I had walked weeks before; and as I left the Palace gates behind me, a huge weight seemed
to lift from my shoulders.

But I had forgotten I must walk alone between the great statues of the Eagles on their plinths all the way down the Parade.
Their marble eyes caught the sun and shone directly at me. I kept my head down; I took care not to step on their shadows in
case that made them angry. I put a hand to the amber stone at my neck.

Some of the way was shaded by the plane trees that bordered the parks. They were in heavy leaf, but their leaves were curling;
beyond them the grass was dry and brown. The fountains no longer played. Only the lakes glittered in the sun, fed by the secret
underground rivers of the Capital.

My feet grew sore and hot in the boots. Beneath the red wool my armpits were damp; sweat trickled down the small of my back.
The smell of the raw meat made me feel sick. Between the trees there were patches of burning sunlight; I tried to keep to
the shade, but the heavy leaves only seemed to trap the hot, dry air beneath them.

The statues watched without mercy: this was my penance.

Now and then a carriage would rattle along the high paved road in a cloud of dust. From inside, faces, topped by wigs, gazed
at me incuriously; the drivers, flicking their whips
over the horses’ backs, and the footmen, clinging to the carriage-backs, ignored me. I dragged myself along in the heat, a
beggar girl with a basket.

Then all at once I had entered the streets I remembered, with the decaying houses that once had been so fine: the long windows
with their broken shutters; the jagged ironwork; the weeds sprouting between cracked front steps where the sheen of marble
had dulled.

A gaunt child, playing with a hoop, sniveled and sneezed as I hurried on. It was oddly quiet, as if everyone had already died.

I held my handkerchief close to my face: it was not good to breathe here. I could almost feel the Miasma, the invisible mist
of death, rising from the sluggish water of the canal to my left, draining my healthy cheeks to corpse white. Passers-by pressed
nosegays of wilting flowers to their nostrils. They did not speak; they avoided looking at each other—at me—as if that might
somehow prevent them from catching the disease.

I could not have come at a safer time.

Even the market stalls were quiet, except for the stray dogs nosing around them. Beneath the tattered awnings the meat and
fish were beginning to smell. I was giving them a wide berth when I noticed a girl haggling with an oyster-seller. It was
the girl’s yellow stockings I noticed first, the rat-frighteners. I hesitated, but while I stood uncertain, she made her purchase
and turned, and immediately she saw me.

“Scuff!” Her plain, pasty face, shining in the heat, split in a huge grin.

My heart warmed. “Dog!”

“Well, now, fancy! How are you, girl?” She gave my old clothes a measuring look. “Neither up nor down in the world, I’d say.
Wot you been up to, then? I thought you was bein’ took off to prison!”

“I was, in a fashion,” I said. “There is so much to tell, Dog! But I cannot tell it now—I should hurry.”

“We’ll both tell our doin’s to each other, then,” she said, “at Murkmere!”

“You’re going back?”

She nodded, beaming, her greasy plait swinging up and down under the battered hat. “I thought over what you said, Scuff—about
this place takin’ my heart away—and I’m goin’ back on tonight’s plague-runner to Poorgrass Kayes.” She glanced at me slyly.
“And you’re goin’ back too, ain’t you, Scuff, so we shall be there together again, us two and Aggie and all.”

“Oh, Dog, I wish it were so. I’d give anything to return there. But I’ve something to do, and I don’t know I’ll survive it.”

“You’d better, girl,” she said, “for I’m wantin’ to hear about those doin’s of yours.”

“Goodbye, then, Dog.”

She shook her head. “I’ll not say goodbye.”

In the square, the blossoms had long gone from the trees, and the grass was parched. The icon-sellers had gone. People lay
huddled in the shade like bundles of rags. I thought they
might well all be dead, but as I passed, an old man opened a rheumy eye, a baby began to wail at its mother’s shriveled breast.

A couple of feral dogs had followed me stealthily ever since I’d stopped in the marketplace. If I slackened my pace now, they’d
attack me before I could throw them the basket of meat, before I even reached the Cathedral.

I hurried across the crisp grass and almost fell under the wooden scaffolding in my relief. One of the new oak doors stood
open. The dogs skittered away, yowling, as I heaved it to, banging it shut almost in their jaws. The great arch of the entrance
was over my head; cool air touched my face; I was inside at last.

The pews were crowded with people. I saw that first, as my eyes adjusted to the rainbow light from the great windows that
streamed over the nave until it was lost in the darkly shadowed aisles on either side. Then I saw that even in the aisles
they were sleeping, or sitting, or crouching—the refugees of the plague. The people of the Capital had come to their Cathedral,
as they had always done in time of trouble. They were begging the Eagle for help, for shelter and sustenance, for life itself.
The air vibrated with their pleas, their supplications: a murmur that rose and fell but never stopped.

It was heartrending; I could scarcely bear to listen. I edged forward, toward the chancel where the altar stood, so that I
could pray, leave my sacrifice there and go.

I slipped between the arches at the side, between the stone plinths with their sculptures of the Birds of Light, past
the individual chapels where candles glowed to the glory of the Lark, the Robin, the Wren, the Swallow, the House Martin.
Ravens flapped around my feet and flew high into the vaulted roof. The same timid Bird-Scarer I’d noticed weeks before waved
his arms pathetically, as if he mimicked them.

No one noticed me. I was only another supplicant, bearing a gift of meat to seek favor with the Almighty. I bowed my head
in contrition and put down my basket with the others that were laid in the chancel, to one side of the altar. Tomorrow, before
the wedding service, the offerings would all be removed. I hoped He’d have time to appreciate mine.

I went to sit in the nearest pew and raised my eyes to His chipped stone face. A battered stone bird, the sculpture was ancient;
no one knew how old it was. According to official history—one of the state-approved texts Miss Jennet had so reluctantly given
me—it had been discovered hundreds of years ago, when the Cathedral was first raised on the ruins of the one before. This
Cathedral had been laid out in the same way as the old, and the bird had been put on the altar, for that was where He must
surely belong. He was an Eagle.

I looked at Him now and saw He did not forgive me, would never do so; I had been mistaken. He condemned me for what I’d done
and was about to do the very next day. He would never save me. The child in the Gravengate Orphans’ Home had been right: there
was no love in His eyes.

A terrible panic gripped me; I covered my face with my hands. The sweat had dried on my body and I was cold.

“Little one.” It was the fool, Gobchick, whom Nate had
called mad. He was still here. His wrinkled fingers covered mine as I gripped the pew. “Come, little one.”

I don’t know why I went with him. I think it was the understanding in his eyes, shining at me out of the dimness: he had a
fool’s wisdom, and I trusted him.

He took me to the Chapel of the Wren, which was almost empty, the Wren being a small bird and not so powerful as the other
Birds of Light. We kept our voices low before the burning candles on the altar; a bitter tang of incense drifted from the
pierced burner hanging above our heads.

“You suffer,” he said, his old face creased in a reflection of my own misery.

“I’ve lost my love,” I whispered. It wasn’t at all what I’d meant to say.

“You must give love as well as receive it. ‘Tis a to-ing and a fro-ing.”

“But I did, Gobchick! I gave him all my love.”

“Is it your heart that hurts now, or your pride? Was it true love, little one?” he murmured, his head on one side.

I hung my head. “All I’ve ever wanted is to be loved.”

“Old Gobchick loves you.” He patted my hand. “You don’t remember Gobchick.” When I looked at him, his soft eyes smiled sadly
between folds of wrinkled skin.

“You came to Murkmere once, long ago.” He shook his head. “Why are you here? Not to see Gobchick.”

“I committed a sin,” I whispered, “many years ago, when I was a child. I ate His food. It belonged to Him, and I stole it!
I’ve come for forgiveness.”

“You needed the food. He has forgiven you.”

I shook my head; I couldn’t believe him. “He’ll punish me forever.”

“’Tis you who punish yourself. You think the Gods eat? That they have need of food like us mortals?” He waved his hand toward
the chancel. “Those be bribes, child, all those meats. The Almighty has no regard for them. He sees each man as he is.” He
leapt off into the shadows and beckoned to me, his eyes gleaming, the scruffy feathers scarce covering his scrawny limbs.
“Come with Gobchick, come.”