The Book of Lies (30 page)

The old sorcerer is my master. I obey his magic.

I am a sorcerer too. Perhaps you knew that even when I didn’t. You and I must have played together many times. Did I practise my magic on you?

Termagant’s thoughts hesitated and Marcel saw his chance. He held her eyes with his own, forcing his way into her mind until he heard her recall,
There was a mouse…

He had her now, he could feel it – so long as he kept his concentration. Termagant’s body, huge and frightening though it was, lost the tension that had rippled and danced along its flanks whenever Lord Alwyn commanded her. Marcel was holding her steady with his mind, drawing on the words he chanted over and over again.

Suddenly at the edge of his vision he sensed a shape move.
It was Bea. What was she doing?
Go back!
he urged frantically in his mind.

But Bea was not a partner in his thoughts. She kept coming, closer and closer towards Termagant. With a sickening leap of his heart, Marcel understood the terrible risk she was about to take.

“Bea, come back!” Nicola called.

The words broke through to Marcel, disturbing his concentration, and Termagant began to growl deeply. She turned her massive head towards Bea and bared her teeth.

There was no time for Bea to retreat. One well-aimed swipe of those vicious claws and not even Lord Alwyn’s magic would save her this time.

Concentrate. The magic lies in the power of my thoughts, Marcel reminded himself.
Lie down, Termagant
, he ordered.
Purr like the cat that you are.

Slowly, so slowly, Termagant began to settle at Marcel’s feet. Now Bea crept bravely towards her and reached out to the tiny pouch that hung from the leather strip around her neck. Bea’s nimble fingers worked at the knot that held it in place, prising the leather apart until at last the two ends came free. She backed away with the little pouch in her hands and slipped it into the pocket of her dress.

The transformation began at once. The huge beast, made docile by Marcel’s magic, shrank before their eyes. She shuddered, once, twice, and stretched herself out like a cat
waking from an afternoon nap, but by the time she stood upright and still on the carpet again, she was a little cat once more.

“How – how did you do it, Marcel?” Nicola blustered, barely able to believe what she had seen.

“I found a book,” he began weakly. He was stunned at how much the magic had taken out of him, but his elation at what he had done helped him recover. “My own book of magic. You won’t believe it. I was a sorcerer, like Alwyn himself.”

But there was no time to show it to them. Their guard was gone and they were free.

“Where do you think we should go, Marcel?” Nicola questioned.

Marcel had his answer ready. “To get the truth from anyone who can tell it to us. We have to know why our own father is treating us this way.”

“Marcel, do you remember the faces as we entered the palace?” Nicola asked him. “Some of the courtiers still seem to care about us, even if the King doesn’t. Perhaps one of them will tell us what happened. Bea, you scout the way ahead and warn us if anyone is coming.”

Bea crept into the corridor, and with a mischievous wink she vanished before their eyes. Luck travelled with them, and there were no guards about. Moments later Bea waved them on. By the time they reached the top of the sweeping staircase she was already at the bottom, taking refuge behind a suit of
armour as two soldiers marched towards them along the length of the antechamber and turned to go out the front entrance.

Down they went, but there were more footsteps coming. “Quickly, through those doors!” Nicola whispered frantically. She was already running across the intricate marble mosaics set into the floor, heading for the grand oak doors they had noticed yesterday.

They opened one of the doors cautiously, but again no one challenged them, so they bolted through and pushed the heavy door back into place. The echo of its creaking hinges rebounded from the far end of the room, but to their relief the footsteps continued without a pause.

They found themselves in a great hall of breathtaking grandeur. Termagant had come with them from the bedchamber, and she sauntered on ahead, her tail held high as she rounded an ornate throne raised on a low platform at one end of the long hall. There was a large and splendid desk covered with maps of the Kingdom and a pot of ink, and a few chairs were scattered about, but other than this the hall was unfurnished.

Panels on the ceiling were painted the colour of the sky and edged in silver. The banner bearing the royal coat of arms was suspended high above the throne, taking pride of place among rows of colourful pennants. Fastened to the right-hand wall were shields like the one that hung above Fergus’s bed, and all manner of weapons: swords, maces and long
pikes. They looked as though they had not been used for many years.

Great shafts of sunlight streamed in through a row of windows high up on this side, illuminating a magnificent tapestry that stretched the entire span of the opposite wall. It brushed the floor and rose as high as a man could reach, all but the last two yards crowded with scene after scene, embroidered in rich threads that must surely have been stolen from a rainbow.

Marcel immediately found himself mesmerised by it. One early scene in particular caught his eye. He stretched out his fingers, tracing the stitches. “Lord Alwyn’s robe,” he muttered.

“What is it? What have you found?” Nicola asked, and she hurried to see what had caught his eye. “The dragon,” she gasped.

“It’s Mortregis. Here he’s destroying a castle. And look at this,” he went on, touching a different scene. “A brave knight has challenged him but Mortregis is burning him with his breath.”

“Who’s this? Is it Lord Alwyn?” Nicola asked, pointing to a solitary figure in black and deep green. They pushed their faces closer and saw a book in the man’s hand.

“No, not Lord Alwyn,” Marcel told her confidently. He could see how long the tapestry was and he had already guessed that the Kingdom’s history would unfold as they walked its length. “These scenes are from long ago. This must
be the first Master of the Royal Books. Do you see what this is, Nicola? It’s the legend Starkey told us about.”

The story lay depicted in intricate detail before them. The dragon, huge and menacing, became smaller and smaller in the following pictures until it hovered above an open book.

“Do you recognise that symbol?” Marcel asked, excited now that he finally knew its meaning. “When I first saw it, I thought it was some sort of bat flying beneath the dragon.”

“You’ve seen it before?”

“Oh, yes, a dragon above an open book. It’s the symbol on Lord Alwyn’s robes.”

They began to move slowly along the tapestry, their feet finding their own way as their eyes took in each new scene. That same symbol, a rampant dragon caught above an open book, appeared many times, always on the robe of a great wizard, identifying him as Master of the Books in his own time.

At last Marcel pointed to one of the exquisitely embroidered figures whose stance looked familiar. “There’s Lord Alwyn. And this must be the old Queen dying. See her crown?”

Nicola moved impatiently to the next picture, where the crown was on a man’s head. She paused before saying his name. “Pelham.”

They both fell silent now, because beside the crowned figure of the King stood three children. Nicola moved her fingers to
touch the woman who completed the group. They traced back through the scenes to where the same woman stood beside their father at an altar, her beautiful name sewn beneath her feet. “Lady Ashlere. Oh, look how beautiful she was,” Nicola whispered in a voice that would break the hardest heart.

Marcel felt a tug at his sleeve. He and Nicola had almost forgotten Bea, but she had not forgotten their story. “You must see this,” she pressed gently, drawing them on to the very last events depicted on the tapestry. One scene showed King Pelham offering a cup to his Queen, Lady Ashlere, and in the picture beside it their mother lay dead, her lips overlaid with bright blue thread.

“The wine was poisoned, just as Eleanor said,” breathed Nicola, aghast.

“Wait! Look at this!” Marcel urged. Above this scene other figures were busy, figures they recognised instantly.

“That’s Eleanor. What’s she doing?”

“She’s grinding berries of some kind. And here,” Marcel continued, stabbing at the cloth, “Damon is tipping them into the King’s wine.”

Before they could say any more, one of the heavy doors began to groan on its hinges. The great shafts of sunlight made them easy to see, and Bea was the only one who had time to hide.

“Who’s there?” boomed the newcomer imperiously. “What are you doing in the Great Hall?”

It was the King!

Through all the twists and revelations that had been thrust upon the children the day before, one thing had not changed. The thought of King Pelham still made them quiver with dread.

When he recognised them, surprise turned to fury. “What are you doing out of your room?” he roared, as each angry stride brought him closer. Then an odd hint of panic raced briefly across his face. “How did you get past Alwyn’s beast? I saw her there myself.”

He was level with them now, his haggard features con torted with the same anger that tainted his words.

“Then it
was
you who came to our door last night,” said Marcel.

Pelham’s rage faltered. “Last night. Yes, I… I did come, but the beast…” He couldn’t quite answer in words, and instead he startled them by wiping at a tear that had begun to roll down his cheek.

Tears, from the man they had feared for so long?

He turned to the tapestry and saw the scene they had been inspecting so closely. He touched the image of the dead Ashlere with a tenderness that left brother and sister staring at each other in wide-eyed wonder.

Nicola found the courage to come closer. “It wasn’t you who poisoned our mother, was it? This tapestry tells the true story. It was Eleanor and Damon.”

Pelham dropped his arm suddenly and reeled back as though she had spat at him. “Yes, the Book found them out. They poisoned the wine, but I can never deny that I was the one who gave her my cup to drink from,” he cried in bitter anguish.

“It was you they were trying to murder,” muttered Marcel, as he felt the full weight of Eleanor’s lie settle into the pit of his stomach.

Pelham nodded painfully. “And every day since then I’ve wished that they had, if it meant that Ashlere were still alive. If only I hadn’t given her the wine, if only I’d taken the first sip myself…”

“Those two,” seethed Marcel through gritted teeth. He saw the face of Remora again, silent and horrible in her icy grave. “They’d kill anyone who stood in their way. They don’t care how many people die, as long as they can sit on that throne.”

But he was still bursting with questions. “You knew it was those two who poisoned your wine, yet you let them live in that beautiful chamber?”

Pelham turned to his son. “In any other kingdom they would have paid with their lives, it’s true. But I had made a promise. Look here,” he said, turning back to the tapestry. He reached high up to a woman dressed in the finest clothes, a crown proudly on her head, flanked by two others. “Queen Madeleine. She was the oldest of these three princesses, and
when their father lay on his deathbed, he chose her to rule after him. She had no children of her own and only her jealous sisters for company. See? Even the embroiderers have stitched them with sour faces.”

“One of the sisters was Damon’s mother and the other Eleanor’s,” said Nicola, realising that the story Starkey had told them in the cellar was right about this much at least.

“Yes. Madeleine’s sisters were greedy and selfish and so are their children,” Pelham declared with disdain. “The Queen went through terrible loneliness, until Lord Alwyn brought her a young boy, a foundling, and told her to raise him as her son.” He touched the tip of his finger to one scene where a small bundle was cradled in the wizard’s arms.

“You,” said Nicola straightaway.

He nodded with his eyes still on the story that unfolded on the tapestry.

“She loved you,” said Marcel.

“Like I was her own son. But as she grew older, she became afraid for her people. Who would follow her on the throne? Not her sisters, for they had died before her. Eleanor was the elder of the cousins, but Damon was a man, and there are those who prefer to serve a king, not a queen. My mother could foresee great strife between the two, perhaps even war, and more than anything she wanted to spare her people such misery.”

“So she chose you, Father.” Marcel had returned to the
picture he had found earlier of the newly crowned King Pelham.

“But what was the promise you made?”

“More than a promise. I took a solemn oath. Damon and Eleanor were afraid of me, or so they told their aunt. They begged her to protect them and finally Madeleine agreed. Lord Alwyn and I pledged before the court and a gathering of the common people that we would never harm either of them.”

“Even when they tried to kill you?”

“It was not something the Queen could have predicted. The best I could do was lock them away, with Alwyn’s magic as the key. Your own mother had asked me to build that chamber among the roses, and she would take you children there for your lessons.”