Castle of Shadows (16 page)

‘I do not know Mr Windlass’s ultimate motives,’ Bettina continued, ‘but I do know that he is the reason your mother ran away. She wanted to keep her research out of his hands. In order to do so, she destroyed over two years of work! She burnt her papers! Do you know what that means to a scientist – to destroy knowledge? Her research still exists, of course. It is in her head.

‘That is the reason I needed to speak with you in private, Charlie. I do not know where your mother is, but I know how you can find her. I have a name and an address. I will tell them to you and you must memorise
them. You must go to that address yourself! You and you alone will be told your mother’s whereabouts – no one else. Do you understand?’

Charlie nodded.

Bettina reached out and clasped Charlie’s hands in hers, holding them tight. ‘Caroline knows that you have suffered because of her. Her guilt is the burden she must bear. But if she were sitting here now, she would see that her actions have not destroyed you.

‘It took great strength for you to survive those dark years. Now you face a clever and ruthless adversary. You have shown courage and resourcefulness to get this far, Charlie. You must be strong a while longer. Bless you, child, and believe this: you will find her. I know you will.’

There was no beginning to her journey and no end. The
snow stretched as far as she could see. It scorched her bare
feet. Mile after mile, she trudged. She was alone. All the
others were dead. Their bodies were mileposts, staining
the snow black. The moon shone on their faces. She
wanted to stop, press closed their staring eyes. But she had
to continue. It was her journey. She walked past the dead,
counting them as she went.

‘Father? Father, I need to talk to you.’

The King floated above her. He soared over his greatest creation. He had completed forty-nine towers, each taller than the last. He was hard at work on the fiftieth. The dust of five years mounded at the edges of the room, tracked like sand through the castle, drifted over its crenellations.

He had not heard her. Charlie sighed and settled into the dust to wait. She had slept badly. Tobias and Nell had helped her return to the Castle through the pneumatic freight tunnel. When she had at last crawled into bed it was nearly four a.m. She had collapsed almost at once into sleep, but strange dreams and images had woken her time after time.

The memory of Peter, lying dead in the snow, would not leave her. She had made one mistake. She had trusted the wrong person. And now Peter was dead. She remembered what Nell had told her about his daughter. As soon as it was light, she dressed and ran to find her own father. Now she watched him float above her, playing with his cards, and she trembled with an almost savage fear.

When at last he spotted her, her father gave a cheery wiggle of the fingers. Twenty minutes later, he began his descent. ‘Hello, my child,’ he said, as he joined her in front of the castle. ‘Come to see how it’s going, have you? Ah, Charlotte, there has never been a castle like it. This will be my crowning achievement. I feel it. Nothing can go wrong.’

There was such joy in his face that she smiled in spite of herself. For the first time, she noticed a few grey hairs twined among the auburn. For some reason, they made her want to cry. ‘Father, I need you to do something for me. Something very important. Will you promise?’

‘Ah, child. Promises, now. Dangerous things, promises. I’ll try, of course. If I can. If it doesn’t interfere with the castle, you know.’

‘It won’t interfere, Father.’ Charlie reached out and caught hold of his hand. She grabbed it and held on tight. He stared at her in astonishment. ‘Don’t take your medicine, Father,’ she said slowly and carefully. ‘It isn’t good for you. It will stop you making any more castles.
Listen to me. Trick Mrs O’Dair. Pretend to take it but don’t…for Mother’s sake!’

Her father stared at her blankly. He closed his eyes in a frown of pain. ‘Go away now, Charlotte,’ he said, pulling his hand from hers. ‘Go now. I have work to do.’ He turned and began to climb the scaffolding. He climbed slowly, as though he were tired.

Charlie sank onto the floor, tears trickling down her cheeks. She turned her head and a cold fist squeezed her heart. Alistair Windlass stood in the door, haloed in sunlight, watching her with eyes like chips of ice. His hair gleamed as the light struck it, faded gold against his dark clothes. ‘Your Highness,’ he said. ‘I have something to discuss with your father. If you will excuse us?’

As she passed him in the door he took hold of her arm. Charlie gasped and tried to pull away, but Windlass gripped her shoulders and turned her to face him. His hands were gentle, but she could not break free. ‘Mrs O’Dair reports that you did not present yourself for dinner last night. You were not in your quarters when the maid was sent to find you. Where were you?’

She stared up at him, hating him, fearing him. He thought she was powerless, but she had succeeded where he had failed. She knew how to find her mother! ‘I wasn’t hungry.’ She wouldn’t let him stop her now. She made her voice sound soft, defeated. ‘So I visited Mr Moleglass.’

‘Ah.’ Windlass’s eyes never left her face. ‘I think Mr
Moleglass may need to find another situation quite soon. Perhaps you could pass that message on. And I think it would be best if you did not visit your father for a while.’ His voice was as gentle as his hands, but his eyes were pitiless. ‘For your own sake and his. He should not be upset. You need to dedicate any spare time to attending your studies. The day is nearly here when you will be invaluable to me and your country.’

He let her go, and she stumbled past him into the antechamber. She didn’t begin to run until she was in the corridor.

Charlie picked up the white queen and moved it diagonally across the board, taking Mr Moleglass’s last knight.

‘Excellent move!’ He bent over the board, a frown of concentration centred precisely in the middle of his brow. ‘You make it difficult for me, Charlie. You are playing with élan!’ He smoothed the fingers of his dove-grey gloves, then shifted his rook three places to the left. Charlie had anticipated the move. Instead of sending her queen to safety, she pushed a pawn forward. It now stood one square from Moleglass’s end of the board. He glanced up at her and smiled. ‘So,’ he said. ‘If I take your queen, the pawn becomes another, and my king is in check with no hope of escape. Well done.’ He reached out and toppled his king onto its side. ‘You have won, my child.’

Charlie nodded. Normally, she would be delighted to
have beaten Mr Moleglass at chess. He paid her the compliment of never letting her win. But today, the game was merely a way of putting off an unpleasant task. She had to tell him, and she didn’t want to. It was almost time for lessons.

Charlie glanced at Tobias, sitting slumped in Mr Moleglass’s armchair, staring at the floor. He had stayed the night here, too tired and too worried about being caught to risk another trip through the grounds or the freight tunnel. He looked as though he had not slept well either. She remembered seeing him pause to reload his rifle during the fight. Had he shot someone? Was that what he was thinking about?

She took a deep breath. ‘I’m leaving the Castle tonight, Mr Moleglass. That’s what I’ve come to tell you. I need your help so I can use the freight tunnel. Last night Bettina gave me an address and the name of a contact. I’m going to find my mother.’

Mr Moleglass looked up from the chess table, where he had been arranging the pieces on their squares. He rose to his feet, sat, then stood again and began to pace.

‘You have only just escaped death,’ he said at last, ‘and now you want to run into its jaws again?’ He shook his head. ‘There’s too much we don’t know. This information is over two years old. There is no guarantee that this contact will still be there or that they will still be in touch with your mother.’ He paced from sink to hob, from hob to door, from door to sink. Then he started all over again.
His dove-coloured gloves corrugated into wrinkles as he wrung his hands.

The last thing Charlie needed was an argument with Mr Moleglass. She looked at Tobias. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I have to find my mother. Windlass could recapture Bettina at any moment. The Resistance are hiding her, but some of the people we lost last night might be alive. They could be being tortured right now. They’ll tell names, addresses!’

Mr Moleglass stopped halfway to the sink. ‘Wait a little, Charlie. Give me a few days to make enquiries. Then we’ll decide what to do.’

‘I haven’t got a few days! Didn’t you hear me? Windlass knows I don’t trust him. He heard me tell my father not to take his medicine. And he knows I wasn’t in my room last night. I told him I was visiting you, but I’m not sure he believed me.’ She wasn’t going to pass on Windlass’s threat. It had been meant for her: a punishment. She would just have to make sure that the Prime Minister never got a chance to carry it out.

‘If that were the case, he would have questioned you. I think you must be mistaken.’

‘I’m not mistaken! For the moment, he thinks I’m trapped inside the Castle. I have to act now. I’m going tonight.’

‘Tobias! You of all people should know how dangerous this is for Charlie. Persuade her. Help me.’

Tobias shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. It’s no more dangerous than what she’s done already. And nobody’s safe any more, Mr M. Especially not Charlie. Not with Windlass this close to finding her mum. He’ll not stop now! Not till he’s tracked Bettina down and then the Queen. But don’t worry. She won’t be alone. I’m going with her.’

‘What?’ She stared at Tobias.

‘You don’t know your way around the City. And you got no more idea of what happens on the streets than a newborn babe. It’s not just Windlass. There’s people out there who aren’t nice. I know how to avoid them – you don’t. I’m coming.’

She opened her mouth and then shut it. He was right, and if she was honest, she wasn’t sure she could have managed the journey through the freight tunnel by herself.

Mr Moleglass approached the chess table and lowered himself into his chair. He sighed and looked across it at her. His eyes brimmed with pain, and the sight squeezed her heart. She was hurting him, and there was nothing she could do about it.

‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said. ‘For years I deluded myself with the hope that by staying here I could somehow keep you safe. I am an old fool: I never had any power to protect you. Still, old habits die hard.’ He picked up the white queen from the chess table. ‘Hold out your hand.’

It dropped into her palm, cool and heavy.

‘A talisman,’ Mr Moleglass said. ‘To bring you back to me.’

She was mildly surprised when Tobias accompanied her out the door; more surprised when he grabbed her arm as she started for the dumbwaiter. ‘Hang on, Charlie.’ Even in the half-light his face looked strained, and she realised how much she missed the smiling, joking Tobias of a few weeks ago. ‘You sure you don’t want to wait a day or two, and let me or Nell check this place out?’ His eyes searched her face. ‘Be sure. There’s no coming back this time. You won’t have gone missing for a few hours: it’ll be a day or more. They’ll know you’re getting out of the Castle. And then if he catches you, Windlass’ll lock you up tighter than a tick on a dog’s ear. If we go, we gotta finish it. If we don’t find your mum––’

‘I have to go. Not you. Not Nell. It has to be me. And I want to go tonight.’

He nodded. ‘This is for you, then.’ He picked a bundle up from beside the door and handed it to her. ‘I meant to give it to you days ago; it’s been in the pineapple pit but it don’t niff too bad. Me mum made this lot up for you. We reckoned you might have to scarper one day. I’ll come to your room at midnight.’ Despite the faint odour of manure, she clutched the bundle to her tightly as she watched him turn and disappear through Mr Moleglass’s door.

When the pneumatic messenger whistled and a message capsule dropped into the catch basket, Professor Meadowsweet rose from his chair to tackle the modern technology with all the aplomb of an old hand. ‘Ah, your recent half-holiday is to be paid back this afternoon, I fear, Your Highness.’ He smiled at her. ‘You are to report to the Prime Minister as soon as we have finished our lessons.’

Charlie stared at him and felt a sickness of dread settle in her stomach. Had Windlass found out that she was planning to run away? Had he caught Bettina?

The Prime Minister did not stand as she entered. He did not look up from his desk. Charlie paused in the middle of the room, waiting to be invited to sit down. Her stomach squirmed.

For several minutes she stood and watched Windlass’s pen travel across a sheet of snowy white paper, filling it with elegant loops of copperplate. He wrote quickly, his face as perfectly composed as his handwriting.

He lifted his pen and, taking a pen wipe, began to clean the nib. She was reminded of his sword, the tip dark with Peter’s blood, and shuddered. As though he were standing in front of her, she saw again Peter’s funny wide mouth, his eyes sparkling with humour and intelligence. He was dead. Because of her. Because of this man. She stared at Windlass. Why should this man be alive, when Peter was dead?

Only when he had replaced the pen on its stand and the lid on the inkwell did Alistair Windlass raise his eyes to hers. He did not smile. ‘Your Highness.’

‘Prime Minister,’ she replied. ‘I’ve come for my lesson.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Have you resolved to attend to your studies after all? I was beginning to think you had decided the effort to help your father was too strenuous.’

The worm of unease in her stomach grew into a writhing snake. How much did he suspect? How much did he know? ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘I’ve just had a report from Professor Meadowsweet. Your lack of application in Geography and Latin is abundantly evident. It makes me wonder how you have been spending the time when you should be revising.’ His pale eyes watched her coolly as she struggled to keep her face blank. ‘And now it seems that you have taken to wandering about the Castle in the middle of the night.’

‘I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

‘I think we must make sure it doesn’t. I confess to being disappointed in you, Your Highness. I had assumed that you were devoted to your father. It seems that I was mistaken.’

Her breath caught in her throat. She stood, choking the hatred down, swallowing the words she wanted to scream at him. Her fists clenched. She made them relax. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing how much his words hurt.

‘Do you think it helpful to interfere in your father’s care and advise him not to take his medication? Someone listening to you might think you believed Mrs O’Dair to be involved in a plot against the King’s wellbeing. Is that what you believe?’

‘No!’ She managed to spit the lie out.

‘I’m relieved to hear it. Otherwise, I would have to wonder if you doubted my intentions as well. I thought I had explained the danger facing this country. I thought I had gained your trust and cooperation. And it is vital that we trust one another if we are to work together to save the Kingdom for your father. Do you agree?’ He was watching her every expression. His eyes never left her face. Agree? He knew she had no power to do anything else. And he was making sure she knew it too.