The Unknown Spy (28 page)

Vandra got up. There were tears in her eyes. “I must go help Master Devoy with his wounds.”

“Sit down!” Brunholm told her harshly.

There was chaos in Ravensdale. The cadets spilled out into the streets of the ancient village. There were several fights; factions formed and re-formed while the ravens cawed overhead. The cadets only calmed down when McGuinness appeared in their midst, fired a shot over their heads and threatened to arrest them all for violent assembly. Even so, there were scuffles on the way back to the Roosts as rumors spread that the Messengers were backing Devoy and had taken over the top two floors of the main building.

Worse was to come the following morning. A clearly
unwell Blackpitt announced that the Treaty Stone had indeed been shattered, and that peace overtures with the Ring had begun. To that end, Rufus Ness had been accepted as envoy and joint head of Wilsons until a new treaty could be put in place.

Les and Vandra met Toxique on the landing outside the Roosts.

“What are we going to do?” Vandra said. “Rufus Ness joint head? The Stone broken? Something terrible must have happened to Danny and Dixie!”

“Who can we trust?” Toxique said. “Seems all the teachers are on Brunholm’s side.”

“What about Blackpitt?” Les said. “He owes us one. At least we’ll find out a little bit about what’s going on around here.”

But when they got to the main building, they found another obstacle. While they had been talking, Exshaw had been waiting at the entrance to Ravensdale handing out prefect badges. Smyck had been appointed head prefect, while Exspectre was close surveillance monitor. A mean girl named Frieda had been appointed monitor of junior Messengers, physicks and assassins.

“I think that means us,” Les said.

“I think you’re right,” Vandra said as Frieda appeared and announced in a self-important voice, “I am going to escort you three everywhere, and you must tell me your movements in advance.”

The rest of the morning was passed in trying to evade her. Les and Toxique spent half an hour in the boys’ toilets discussing how to lose her, but it was Vandra who
came up with the solution. When the boys came out of the toilet, she was waiting, Frieda hovering in the background.

“Quick,” Vandra whispered. “Les, fall down as if you’re poisoned.”

Les threw himself to the floor, gurgling and clutching his throat. Frieda darted forward.

“He’s been poisoned!” Vandra cried, and threw herself on him. She bent over his throat for a minute, and when she came up her fangs were dripping with a green liquid that smelled so vile the two boys almost gagged. Frieda stared at Vandra, turned green herself, then dashed for the door of the girls’ room.

“Hurry!” Vandra said, spraying gobbets of the foul green substance. “Let’s go!”

“Entrails and pus, what is that stuff?” Toxique said as they ran.

“Kind of a physick party trick I used to do when I was small,” Vandra said, wiping her chin with a handkerchief. “It’s a mixture of bile and small intestinal—”

“Stop,” Les gasped, “or I really will throw up.”

They ran up the stairs to the apothecary. Blackpitt was sitting up in bed. He was thin and ill but he had made an effort with his appearance. He wore a floral dressing gown, and he had slicked his hair over to the side with some kind of oil.

“My dear young friends!” he exclaimed. “I am so grateful for your part in my rescue. That fiend came to me posing as a salesman of colognes and tinctures for the fashion-aware mature gent. Caught me completely unaware.”

“No time for that now,” Vandra said urgently. “We need to know what’s going on and how we get organized.”

But Blackpitt merely gave them a resigned look.

“You must understand,” he said, “everything has changed now. You may not like Rufus Ness’s being part of Wilsons, but there’s nothing we can do. With the treaty ended, we must do what we can to come to terms with the Ring and the Cherbs.”

“But what about Devoy?” Les said. Blackpitt held out his hands palms-up.

“Again. He has breached the law and he must answer for it.”

The cadets looked at each other in despair. They heard footsteps behind them and turned to see Frieda.

“There you are,” she said. “That’ll be a Fourth Regulation offense. Evading the lawful attentions of a monitor.”

Jamshid came in and glanced at Frieda in dislike.

“You have to leave the patient alone,” he said, “and the infirmary must be cleared, except for you, Vandra. I might need a physick.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Trouble among the Messengers. It seems that one of them has been an agent of the Ring all along. He revealed himself and demanded to be made chief Messenger. A fight broke out and several Messengers were badly injured.”

Just as he finished speaking, the doors crashed open and two makeshift gurneys were wheeled in by Gabriel and several other Messengers. Each gurney carried a pitiful body, bloodstained wings crumpled under it. Vandra
gasped when she recognized Daisy. And gasped again when she saw the figure that walked in after the gurneys—the head Cherb, Rufus Ness.

“Take a good look,” Ness growled, “and learn the price of rebellion.”

The cadets stared, shocked. Ness turned on his heel and strode out.

“I can’t believe that one of our own would do this,” Gabriel said despairingly as Jamshid examined the wounded Messengers.

“Don’t forget how many of the Messengers became Seraphim,” Jamshid said. “It is in all of you, I think.” He pointed to Daisy. “Vandra, I’ll take this one first; she is in the most danger. You work with the other. I think some toxin has got into his bloodstream.”

Vandra turned instantly to the injured Messenger. For a long wearisome afternoon, Les and Toxique waited outside with Frieda, her eyes flickering from one to the other. In the end Vandra emerged exhausted. Her Messenger was out of danger, she said, but Daisy’s life hung in the balance.

Blackpitt announced teatime from his infirmary bed and they walked slowly down to Ravensdale. In contrast to the previous evening, the mood among the cadets was somber, and they took their places without much talk, save for smirks from Smyck and his gang. As they ate a poor tea of boiled potatoes and cabbage, the mood worsened.

The platform from where the teachers spoke was illuminated. Four figures stepped out: first Rufus Ness, then
Brunholm, then a tall aristocratic Messenger with a seemingly permanent sneer. Finally, to the cadets’ dismay, Exshaw stepped out.

Brunholm was elbowed to the back of the platform. Ness did the talking.

“You are all now subjects and pupils of this newly renamed institution, Longford Academy. I have appointed a provisional ruling council of loyal servants of the Ring who have proved their worth over the years: Messenger Hotspur, Master Brunholm and Master Exshaw.”

The cadets stared. They did not know Hotspur, but they couldn’t believe that Brunholm and Exshaw had been traitors all along. Brunholm looked a little abashed, but Exshaw could not hide his triumph.

“The Ring will assemble here in the coming days to decide what is to be done with all of you.” Brunholm seemed startled. He looked as if he was about to protest, but Ness spoke first.

“The trial of Master Devoy will take place when the Ring assembles. The judges will be the members of the Ring.”

The cadets looked at each other. In a matter of a few days, the Ring had taken over. They were under constant surveillance, and their teachers were helpless. Vandra touched the ring Danny had given her.

“Where is he?” she whispered.

A TRIAL

S
tone had wakened Danny and Dixie in the predawn darkness. They were exhausted but were partly revived by a breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast, washed down with hot tea. Dixie helped Pearl with the cooking and they chatted softly at the end of the kitchen. Stone looked at Danny with worry in his eyes.

“Keep in touch if you can, Danny,” he said. “Send messages through Fairman. The more we learn about the Lower World, the easier it will be to protect this one. I will keep searching and trying to find your real parents. I owe you that.”

Danny wanted to believe Stone, but he remembered the day he’d spent walking with Lily in the snow. He’d wanted to trust her too, but she had been laughing at him the whole time. He got to his feet abruptly.

“I’m going outside to wait for Fairman,” he said. Stone watched him leave.

“He’s had a hard time,” Dixie said.

“I know,” Stone said, “and we are part of it. I worry about him.”

From outside they heard the clatter of a diesel engine.

“Time to go and face the music,” Dixie said.

“Face the music?” Pearl said.

“Well, we were supposed to bring back the Treaty Stone.”

“I was reluctant to bring it up—what did happen to the Stone?” Pearl asked.

“I don’t know,” Dixie said simply. “I wasn’t there and I didn’t ask what exactly had happened.”

D
ixie hugged Pearl before she and Danny got in the black cab. Danny shook Stone’s and Pearl’s hands stiffly, and there was an uncomfortable silence.

“If you ever …,” Pearl began, but something in Danny’s eyes told her not to continue. Pearl and Stone watched in silence as the taxi drove off into the snowy landscape.

“Will we see him again?” Pearl asked. Stone took her hand.

“We will, and we must be ready for that day. I cannot tell if he will come back as an avenger, worse than anything this world has ever seen, or if the other part of him will win out, the good part.”

They raised their arms in farewell, but no answering arm was raised from the taxi.

D
anny thought that because it was day he would get to see the landscape between the Two Worlds as they drove through it, but a strange dusk fell once they turned off the motorway, and as the cab built up speed and started to shake and judder he could see nothing, though it felt as if the journey to Wilsons was taking longer than the other times he had made it. There were many changes of direction, and at times Fairman appeared to be confused.

“If I get my hands on whoever broke that Treaty Stone,” Fairman said, “I’ll break his neck. I’ll break his neck and then I’ll rip his throat out.”

At one point Fairman peered upward through the windshield as though something was flying through the sky in front of them.

“Is it the Seraphim?” Dixie asked, but Fairman didn’t reply. Danny and Dixie wedged themselves into opposite corners against the incessant bone-jolting shaking of the cab as it sped on through the everlasting dusk.

Finally it grew light and they could see trees on either side of the road. The cab slowed a little and the juddering eased. They were on the outskirts of Tarnstone, the nearest town to Wilsons. Although it was now broad daylight, there was no one on the streets.

“What’s going on?” Danny asked.

“They’re afraid of attack from above by the Seraphim,” Fairman said, turning onto the road that led to Wilsons. “Where do you want to be dropped off?”

“Wilsons,” Danny said, “of course.”

“Not the best idea,” Fairman said. “You might get more of a reception than you bargained for.”

“Why?” Danny demanded, but the more they asked, the less Fairman would say.

“I’m supposed to be neutral,” he growled. “It’s more than my job’s worth to tell you any more.”

In the end Danny told him to drop them at the wall of the school. They could approach through the grounds and get some idea of what was going on without being seen.

The cab screeched to a halt at the wall. Danny and Dixie were relieved to get out, and Danny was surprised to feel a sense of homecoming when his feet touched the ground. The cab sped off, and he and Dixie were left standing by the side of the road.

“I’m getting worried,” Dixie said, shivering. “Let’s go.”

Dixie was able to disappear over the wall and reappear on the other side. Danny had to clamber over. They found one of the Paths of Infinite Return, which would only lead to its destination if you walked on it backward. This made it difficult to move quickly. It took them twenty minutes to get through the overgrown grounds to a place where they could get a view of the school.

Everything looked fairly normal. It was quiet, but it was still class time. They waited for five minutes, but nothing changed.

“I think we should just walk right in,” Dixie said. “There’s Brunholm. He doesn’t look as if anything’s wrong.”

Brunholm had come around the corner of the building, deep in conversation with another man. Danny was about to stand up when Dixie grabbed his sleeve.

“Look, Danny—look who he’s with! Rufus Ness!”

Their hearts beating faster, they backed into the undergrowth. Ness stopped and turned in their direction. For a second Danny could feel Ness’s mind, a virile, cunning presence, searching for his. He closed his mind off. Ness looked almost to be sniffing the air, as if he could smell Danny; then he turned back to Brunholm, who stood like a dog waiting for its master.

Once the men were out of sight, Dixie and Danny made for the summerhouse, their minds racing as they tried to absorb the implications of seeing Ness and Brunholm in cahoots. Had Wilsons been captured by force or overthrown from within?