Murkmere (32 page)

“He’s lying oddly, not moving.” I couldn’t see her face, but her voice was emotionless.

“Then I’ve killed him,” I said, my voice small and trembling.

“Greed killed him,” she said. “Besides, he would have killed us to get the estate, if we’d defied him. You did bravely. Murkmere’s
well rid of him.”

“But you don’t want Murkmere.”

“I have to leave, Aggie. I can’t stay here. I can’t remain as I am any longer.” She paused. “Was that why you gave me the
swanskin? Because you understood at last?”

“I don’t understand,” I said desperately. “I’ll never understand. All I understand is that you must make the choice for yourself.”

She came close to me and took my hands, pressing them earnestly. “All my life I’ve felt two people. It was as if I had a second
skin, a shadowskin, that was waiting for me to grow into it. When I found the swanskin I understood.”

I said nothing; I could do nothing more for her. A terrible inevitability settled on me like a weight.

“We must leave the tower now,” she said. “I know Jukes better than Silas did. He’s a good man, and will come here when he
doesn’t have word from Silas. He’ll make sure my father’s buried decently. Say nothing of what’s happened tonight, except
that Silas lost his footing and fell.”

I tried to pull myself together. “We must put the room to rights. There shouldn’t be any signs of a struggle.”

We did our best in the dark, hastily picking up the chairs.
I picked the pistol up by the barrel cautiously and shut it away in the desk drawer.

“Come on,” said Leah impatiently.

“Where are we going?” I said, but I knew.

“To the mere.”

I hung back but she pulled at me. “Come.”

And of course I followed her.

She didn’t bend to kiss her dead father as she left. The white lace shawl lifted a little in the draft as she hurried past
his body. I followed her with a heavy heart.

We left the candles burning on the stairwell; they couldn’t be seen from outside. Then we slipped out into the night. The
darkness was lifting a little; black clouds were blowing away like rags and exposing lighter sky. Soon it would be dawn.

We saw Silas’s body, spread-eagled and unmoving, on the ground to our right as soon as we came out through the door. His face
was a white blur on the black grass, his features indistinguishable. Leah put a restraining hand on my sleeve in case I wanted
to see the body closer; but I couldn’t touch that clammy flesh; I let her go over and feel for a pulse. When she shook her
head, we didn’t speak.

We ran across the open ground then, and into the copse. Leah’s dress glimmered in the shadows; she clutched the bag to her
breast. “Hurry!”

I sped after her, tripping over roots and nettles, my long skirts catching on brambles; but I was careless of them. My
mind was dwelling fearfully on what was to come, yet I was determined to be with her till the last.

And then what would I do? How could I bear to lose her?

Inside I was crying like a baby, yet I said nothing, and Leah said nothing to me, but continued sure-footed over the dewy
grass as if her life depended on it.

We came down to the mere. In the distance a white mist hid the island and the reedbeds, not the gray murk of winter but the
soft, dense haze of late summer. Closer to the shore the water was silver, reflecting the sky in which the first streaks of
dawn were beginning to appear.

Leah’s face was filled with the same pale glow. She was part of sky and water, and I was not.

Miserably, I followed her along the path to the boathouse. She’d been here with a knife recently and cut the nettles and brambles
back. Around us waterfowl woke sleepily, quacking and splashing into the water at our appearance.

She stopped at last when we had reached the boathouse and turned to face me, clasping the bag to her. We looked at each other.
Our skirts were ripped, our hair hanging down around our pale faces.

“You can’t come with me now, Aggie,” she said. “This last part I have to do by myself.”

I nodded dismally.

“I’ll take the boat to the island,” she said, strong and implacable.

“The rowing boat? Is it safe?”

“I’ve tried it out before now. It doesn’t leak.”

“Then what?” I said in a low, choked voice. “Where will you go?”

“To the Capital, of course,” she said. “I’ll live in the water-ways, the canals. I’ll be able to see for myself what’s happening
in the seat of power!” She was deliberately trying to cheer me. “People will never guess that outside their gilded water palace
lurks a spy! And then I’ll come back and tell you what I’ve discovered.”

“How can you do that?” I said, and felt my anger rise at her frivolity.

“I’ll come back, Aggie.” She gestured at herself. “Like this. My mother changed. So will I. All I have to do is want it enough,
to choose to change.”

“And will you?” I said, and I felt my eyes fill with tears.

“Yes, to see you. I promise.”

I began to weep. “Don’t go, don’t leave me behind!”

“You have something to do for me, Aggie. You must tell me if I ask too much.”

“What is it?” I said, hiccupping, hating her for her coldness.

“It’s not only for me, but for my father. It’s in his will. You don’t know he added a codicil tonight, the addition that Silas
was so anxious to obliterate. When I went to see him after dinner he told me what he was going to write.

“He’s left you the estate to run in my place, Aggie. ‘If anything should happen to my daughter, Agnes Cotter is to run Murkmere
in her stead, with the help of whomsoever she shall choose.’ That’s what he wrote in the will tonight. I think he knew he
had to do it urgently. He knew he was dying.

“I said I was agreeable to it, and I am, most fervently. There’s no one who could do it better.”

Her eyes held the silver of the water; she was shining all over in the silver dress as if an energy made of light coursed
through her. “He must have known I’d never take over here. He liked to convince himself otherwise, but he must have known.”
She turned to me impatiently, eager for my reaction. “What do you say, Aggie? Don’t say nothing!”

Amazement had dried the tears on my cheeks.

“You will do it for my sake, won’t you? For my father’s?”

“I’ll think about it,” I said slowly. “I can’t make the decision lightly. There’s my Aunt Jennet. I’ve left her too long.
And anyway, what about Lord Grouted? How will he react? And the members of the Ministration?”

“They can’t do anything. It’s legal, Aggie, it’s been witnessed. You won’t belong to the Ministration or sit in Council, of
course. Lord Grouted may well send spies to watch you, but he won’t see you as any danger to him. Murkmere’s a backwater.
He wanted Silas here so he could send him all around the Eastern Edge to put down rebellion. Now he’ll have to send someone
else.”

“I’ll think about it,” I repeated stubbornly. “How can I do it by myself?” I thought of the loneliness, and my heart shuddered.

“What about your sweetheart?”

“Jethro?” I said. “He was never a sweetheart, and he cares nothing for me.” My eyes filled again. I thought of Murkmere without
Leah, and knew it was not possible.

She pressed my hand. “I must go. Please, Aggie. I can’t stay while you think about it. Do what’s best for yourself. I wouldn’t
want it otherwise.”

I flung my arms around her. “I love you, Leah. Come back.”

Her arms came up and she held me briefly. I wondered if she truly loved me, or if she could. But a promise was a promise.

In the boathouse I helped her release the little rowing boat and climb into it. All the time I was choking back tears. When
I went back outside, down the wooden steps to the shore, the boat had slipped out into silver water that was as soft as silk.

She brought it around to where I stood. Holding the painter in her hand, she stepped out onto the shore to say goodbye. I
knew I would lose her as soon as she began rowing away.

I clung to her, but she disengaged herself gently, looking over my shoulder. “Wipe your tears, Aggie,” she said. “There’s
someone coming for you.”

I turned and saw the youth in the brimmed hat striding along the path toward us. The light shone on the brim and on the face
beneath, and I saw it was Jethro.

W
e stood on the little beach by the boathouse and looked at each other in silence. Jethro must have seen the tear stains on
my face, but he said nothing, nor made any move to comfort me. He was red and awkward, and I couldn’t dismiss the hurt of
so many empty fortnights.

“Why didn’t you come?” I said at last.

“My father was taken sick. I couldn’t leave him. It’s the truth, Aggie, I swear. Then I came immediately to Murkmere to ask
for a job, hoping for a glimpse of you. They offered me work in the stable yard, and I took it.”

“You followed me to the copse near the tower, didn’t you?”

“Aye.”

“You saw Silas Seed fall to his death?” I put my hands to my face, and then he did come closer.

“He was a bad man, but men are made so by their time. He’d twisted good and evil in his mind.” He took my hands
away and held them tenderly. “Tell me what’s been happening, Aggie.”

And so I did.

Behind us, the little boat was sliding slowly away across the water, toward the misty outline of the island. When I turned
to watch, it was as if I sat in it myself. I could feel it rock as I rowed, the tug of weeds on the hull, and in my nostrils
was the smell of soaked wood, and white mist like wet wool.

Leah’s figure was blurring; I could just see the light glint on the seed pearls she wore like a crown in her hair. I raised
my hand and let it drop, and as I did so the swans came gliding out from the reeds and encircled her, drawing her away with
them into the mist.

It was as if they were taking her home.

“We’ll tell no one, Jethro, no one must go after her.”

“If that’s what she wants.”

I hesitated. “Do you think she’ll truly change into a swan?”

He thought for a moment, then said in his slow, considering way, “Does it matter? She’s escaped. She’s free of Murkmere. It’s
her choice.”

In a choked voice I said, “But what about me? I’m bound. The Master’s will imprisons me here now.”

“Opportunity’s no prison, Aggie. You’ve the chance to change things.”

I thought a little, then looked up at him and smiled. “Since when did you grow so wise, Jethro Sim?”

He put his arm around me. I felt his strength, the steady beat of his heart against me, the muscles that would tend my land.
My robin, my Love.

“Will you change things with me, Jethro?”

The Lord Protector ordered that Gilbert Tunstall, Master of Murkmere, and Silas Seed, his faithful steward, both be given
the ceremonial burial rites due to them.

The guests, who had come for a ball, finished their visit by attending a double funeral. We stood in the rain under black
silk umbrellas, a gathering of ravens surrounding two freshly dug graves.

Later Dog told me that the members of the Ministration always packed mourning clothes, for wherever they went, someone was
always certain to die.

I was never questioned about Silas’s death.

A tragic accident, they said, though some cast dark looks at me when they learned I’d been alone with Silas before-hand. But
Jukes, and even Pegg, insisted that I’d known nothing of the Master’s codicil, so why should there have been any foul play?
Most agreed that Leah had somehow been involved. The girl had been unstable like her mother, and the fact that she was missing
so mysteriously surely proved her guilt.

Of course Lord Grouted demanded that the estate and the Wasteland be searched for her, and all the surrounding villages and
towns. But he didn’t bother to send men as far as
the Capital. A girl alone would never manage to travel so far safely, and then survive there.

When the search had continued for a week without success, the Lord Protector spoke to me. “We can’t accept you as a member
of the Ministration, but we must now acknowledge your caretakership of the estate. It’s a poor place, and you can only do
with it what you can.” Then he gave me his blessing before he rode away.

It was an ironic gesture. He took most of the servants with him.

But Scuff and Dog stayed with me.

Leah was the closest I’ve ever had to a sister. I loved her, for all that she was the most provoking, unpredictable girl on
this Earth. And now she’s gone.

Each year I wait for the first leaf to drift down at the end of summer. It’s usually the birches that turn first. I catch
a small, yellow leaf in my palm. Then I know it’s her birthday, as it was on the day she left; and I go down to the mere and
wait for her. I listen for a girl’s footfall on the dry path behind me. I imagine her hands over my eyes, her breath hot on
the back of my neck.

“Dearest Aggie! I’m back!”

Two birthdays have passed, and Jethro warns me that she may not return, but I don’t believe him. She was always curious —
like me, Aunt Jennet would say. Sisters, indeed. She’ll come back because she’ll want to know what’s happened to us all here
at Murkmere.

And I shall tell her, with my new dignity, “We’re managing well. We share the produce, from bad harvests and good, and the
village and the estate support each other, as they should. Aunt Jennet runs the household and Jethro’s my steward.”

At this her eyes will gleam and she’ll give me a poke. “You see, Aggie, you had a sweetheart all along and didn’t know it!”

Shall I tell her how hard life is here? How sometimes it’s too much to bear? Then, even Jethro and Aunt Jennet can’t comfort
me, and I long for my old carefree days back again, when I knew nothing and had no responsibility.

But love and responsibility go together. I said I’d do this for Leah and I will.

In the tower the books lie untouched, but one day I’ll have time to read them.

Leah said the swanskin was her shadowskin
.