Voices in the Dark (46 page)

‘Will he have another name?’ said Jasmine.

‘Yes,’ said my mother. ‘When we get to Holy Island, we’ll christen him again, and he’ll have another name.’

I got up and went to the window. We were all living in my mother’s small hospital room; we had been ever since the night the baby was born. They had found out about the house, in the end, my mother and my grandmother. Jasmine had told them in a fit of crying. We could not go back. Every last thing we owned had gone up in smoke. My grandmother was bearing it as well as she could, but every few hours, she would fall silent and a tear would slide down her cheek, for the lost furniture from Cliff House that she would never see again. But the hospital was full of people like us, sleeping on the floors of their relatives’ wards or in the corridors, because there was nowhere else to go.

‘Anselm,’ said my mother. ‘Do you want to hold the baby?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Later on.’

‘You have hardly looked at him yet,’ she said.

‘I have,’ I said. ‘He’s almost asleep. I don’t want to disturb him.’

But the truth was, I could not look at him. I had sold that prophecy to Jared Wright, and he had sold it to the
newspapers. The last descendant of Aldebaran on the wanted posters – that was the baby. And the Imperial Order was the government now. Their posters were the law. If the king was still in the country at all, he had gone into hiding so effectively that no one could tell us whether he was alive or dead.

The air bit sharply as we reached the coachyard. We had to go west by coach; the river had frozen solid, and no ships passed in or out of the harbour any more. There were already people waiting, but they let my mother go first because of the baby, with tired smiles that forbade our thanks. The coachman was impatient to leave. The people already inside shuffled up reluctantly on the seats.

‘All right,’ said the coachman. ‘All right, two more. Come along now. Women and children first. You two ladies – you with the baby and the woman with the scarf.’ He meant my mother and my grandmother. The other people waiting were all young men and did not protest.

‘We can’t go without my children,’ my mother said.

‘There’s no space,’ said the coachman. ‘The little girl can sit on the floor, but there’s no space for the lad.’

‘When is the next coach?’ I said.

‘First thing tomorrow.’

My mother glanced from me to the coachman. The baby started to wail; he had been out in the cold too long. ‘You go without me,’ I said. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

‘Anselm, no!’

‘Just do it. I will be all right. I’ll get that coach first thing tomorrow and meet you at Holy Island.’

‘No. Absolutely not.’

‘Mother, we can’t wait another night. The hospital won’t let us stay again – there will be no space.’

‘But where will you go tonight?’

‘Here.’ I took a hundred crowns out of my pocket, then gave her the envelope with the rest of the money folded in it. ‘I’ll take this and go to an inn,’ I said. ‘Have the rest.’

‘Anselm, I really don’t like this.’

‘Come on, let’s go now,’ said the coachman. He was preparing to leave, strapping someone’s case to the rack and checking the harnesses.

‘Go,’ I said. ‘I will be all right. The baby can’t come with us if we have to wander about in the cold here looking for an inn, but I’ll be fine. Just go.’

They agreed at last, though none of them wanted to, and got up into the coach. My mother reached out and gripped my hand. Jasmine called, ‘Anselm, promise you’ll come straight away!’ Then the coachman swung up onto the driver’s seat and shook the whip. The coach moved off, sliding on the icy road. They were all crying as they rode away, even my grandmother.

After they left me, I wandered about the city for a while. Most of the houses were locked and barred. Once or twice I passed soldiers in blue uniforms, but they did not trouble me. No one seemed to know what was going on. There were no flags flying on the castle, and the printers and the newspaper offices stood darkened. I went back to my grandmother’s old building, a skeleton now, but there was nothing there, so I went to the old shop instead. The windows were smashed again. I climbed in and slept on our old sofa, wrapped in Leo’s leather jacket. My only belongings were what I had with me – the clothes I stood up in,
Aldebaran’s medallion, the papers Leo wrote, and a hundred crowns. Sometime in the night, heavy snow fell and covered everything. When I woke, a strange hush lay over the city.

I got up long before dawn and went out into the street. Mr Pascal’s shop was locked up, and so was the pharmacist’s. Jared Wright’s was abandoned too. People had smashed the unbarred windows and looted all its contents. I climbed through the window and pushed aside a gold table with a missing leg. Glass and crystal were lying smashed all over the floor. I thought that the castle Ahira had once owned must be somewhere among the dust. I found a stub of candle and lit it and began searching for the prophecy. I knew it was a small hope that Jared had left the original copy here, but if he had, I wanted to find it. Jasmine had lost her letter from Aldebaran – it had gone up in flames with the wooden box – and I had sold the only other thing she had.

It was light outside by the time I found it. It was neatly folded, in the back of the broken safe on the wall, with a seal that must have come from one of Jared’s rings. At first I thought it must be something else, just a useless list or a page of calculations, but like a miracle it was still there – Aldebaran’s words, finger-marked at the edges but undamaged. I put it into my pocket with Leo’s papers. I took a few things from Jared’s shop. I knew he was gone now and would not need them, and they were worthless things anyway – a pencil, a stack of paper burned at the edges, a box of matches, and a candle. I think I did it more to pretend that I had a few belongings than anything else. When I closed his safe, I remembered our own. It was still there on the wall, and in our hurry to leave, we had never emptied it.

I went back into our shop for the last time and unlocked
the safe. The things inside were just as we had left them weeks ago. But I could not take them with me. Only the parcel from Aldebaran, marked
To the baby
. I put that carefully into my jacket pocket. The sun was coming up, and I glanced back as I left our old shop. If you looked closely at the window, you could still see
L
.
NORTH
&
SON
faintly in the glass.

We came to Holy Springs late on the night of the tenth of January, and across the water glittered Holy Island. It looked very close; I could make out its cliffs and a mountain and even the lights of the city. A strange coldness came over me and made my heart ache, and I wanted to go with Mr Hardy across the water and find my family again. They might even be with Leo now. Things might still be all right. But I had already decided, in the cold nights of the journey. I was going on alone.

The last ships left at midnight. The woman and the boy, Esther and Matthew, gripped our hands politely, then turned and walked away. I watched them, our companions on the road, already becoming strangers, until they were lost to us altogether.

Then Mr Hardy turned to me. ‘Are you sure you will not come with me?’ he said. ‘It may be your last chance for some time. They say the army are closing every state boundary.’

I hesitated. I had studied the notices with the listings of the ships, and still I did not know where else I would go. And then it had appeared clearly to me, out of the dark. A new sign, in green, pasted up over the rest. ‘Workers required for factory,’ it read. ‘Board and lodging paid. Arkavitz, Northern Passes.’

The first ship the next morning left at six for Arkavitz, according to the notice. And it was enough of a sign, so I decided. ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, go on without me. I will come as soon as I can, but I have other things to do first.’

‘Finding your father’s grave?’ he said. ‘And finding Michael?’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Can I take them some message?’ he said. ‘Can I bring them news at least? Perhaps it will make them gladder to see me, if I have news of you.’ He gave a dry laugh that became a cough. He had been twisting his hands together nervously all the way along this last stretch of the coast road, his eyes never leaving Holy Island. I wondered how it must be for him, to think of seeing Leo again after so many years without hope.

‘Tell them I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘And that I promise I’ll come back. And will you please write to me when you know their address?’

‘Where will you be?’

‘That factory on that board.’

‘Anselm, I don’t know if the post is still running.’

He lowered his voice as he said it. There were guards about the harbour, but we did not know which side they belonged to. The place seemed ominously subdued, and no one stood about for long if they could help it. ‘If it is,’ I said, ‘send me a letter.’

‘All right. Very well.’

‘I will come back soon,’ I said. ‘Tell them that. And give Leo these.’

‘Of course.’ He took the papers and gripped my hand very tightly. I kept the story I had been writing for my brother, but the parcel for the baby went with him. ‘Are you certain …’ said Mr Hardy.

‘Yes.’

‘Let me tell you something,’ he said. ‘It is one of the only things of worth I feel I wrote: “We see condemnation everywhere when condemnation is in our own hearts.”’

‘How do you mean?’ I said.

He was growing weary now, with the long journey or with
something more serious. He coughed for a long time before he answered. ‘I betrayed my family, a long time ago,’ he said. ‘No, don’t look at me like that – it’s true. I betrayed them. I left my two young sons and vanished, and they didn’t know where I had gone. Let me tell you, from that day forward, every street had only young boys in it. Every marketplace, every crowded theatre, was full of fathers and their sons. When I opened the Bible, it was Saul and Jonathan, David and Solomon, St Joseph and Jesus. Do you understand what I am saying?’

I nodded, because he wanted me to.

‘I don’t think you are a bad person, Anselm,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard your story, and I don’t think you have done half as much wrong as you think you have. Why condemn yourself to exile out of this misplaced sense of guilt?’

‘I’ve decided,’ I told him. ‘I want to go north.’

He gave up protesting then. The ship to Holy Island was not leaving for another hour, and we went to an inn and sat watching the lights of the harbour. ‘But that isn’t all,’ he said. ‘You never told me the last part. You never told me how you ended up on this journey.’

There was really nothing left to tell. By the time I got to the coachyard, that morning I left the shop behind for ever, it was too late to travel west. The Alcyrians had started to surround the city with roadblocks. The driver shook his head and talked about going south and along the coast and the bad state the roads would be in. We set out anyway. There were four of us – an old man, a woman, a boy, and me. On the first stretch of the journey, I took out the pencil and paper and began trying to write, and Mr Hardy asked me about my troubles. ‘That’s all,’ I said. ‘And now we’re here.’

Mr Hardy thought for a long time. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, stirring and taking out the papers I had given him. ‘And I might as well know how this story finishes too.’

He handed them to me, and I read to him. It was a familiar ritual with us now, and it made a kind of farewell.

Once, Richard and Juliette had crossed the Channel to Europe. Richard had imagined it would be something like his homeland. One night he dreamed about that journey again. But this time Aldebaran was with him, not Juliette. It was a rough ferry crossing, and when the stars came out and the wind finally died, they stood at the rail and watched the horizon rise and fall, the lights of the ship reflected in the smooth water beneath the waves. The deep driving roar of the engine held them captive. As far around as Richard could see, there was nothing else but the ferry and the dark. The stars looked strangely bright, as bright as the stars had been once in his homeland.

‘Before I go away,’ said Aldebaran, ‘I am going to record my life’s work. All that I know about magic. Or at least, all that is important.’

He sighed. Richard thought that it was a strange and terrible sound, like a prayer for help.

‘I am going to write a final prophecy,’ said Aldebaran. ‘To pass my work on to others. And it is only fair to give them some instruction.’

‘How do you mean, instruction?’

‘I want to set out my theory about what magic really is.’

‘That does not sound like you,’ said Richard. ‘Explaining things that do not have to be explained.’

‘I will not exactly explain. Only leave a few ideas, in case my successors find themselves without inspiration.’

‘Tell me,’ said Richard, ‘how bad is the situation going to become?’

‘It might be salvageable,’ said Aldebaran. ‘But there are so many things wrong. Even magic is dying.’

‘How can magic die out? It is a force of nature.’

‘Not exactly,’ said Aldebaran. ‘It is nothing mysterious at all. The generation that came after yours was so persecuted under the old regime that they nearly all refused to develop their powers. I have a nephew, a very talented boy, who let his skill fade and die away, because he did not have the heart for it. Surely you know what I am talking about.’

Richard realized faintly, from outside the dream, that this was a conversation he and Aldebaran had had years ago. His mind had reordered it somehow and put it onto the ship and dredged it up again in every detail. ‘I was the only one from my school who went on to be initiated as a great one,’ said Richard, just as he had said back then. ‘The others, the younger ones, all burned their books and left before their final year. Even I had doubts. Look.’ He rolled up his sleeve and showed Aldebaran the rusted metal band that had been there since his days in a secure unit for children with powers. ‘But I always assumed,’ said Richard, ‘that people had the talent but not the will to act.’