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‘Emmett?’ Seredith said. ‘What are you doing in here?’
I turned to the bench. In this light my tools looked like pewter, and a silver smear of glue glinted on the wood like a snail’s trail. The pile of finished endpapers was all shades of grey: ashes-of-roses, ashes-of-peacock, ashes-of-sky.
‘I thought I asked you to sort out the stores.’
A draught flicked a fine sand of ice against the window and set a wire swinging above my head. There were more papers hanging there; more dim wings, more pages than we could ever use.
‘I finished. I made more endpapers.’
‘What? Why? We don’t need—’
‘I don’t know. Because it’s something I know how to do, I suppose.’ I looked round. There were rolls and rolls of book-cloth, piled like logs on the shelf, all sombre and shadowy in this silvery half-dusk. The cupboard below held goatskins, a box of leather scraps, bottles of dye … And next to it – the door was swinging open, the catch needed seeing to – the boxes of tools glinted dully, their tiny elaborate feet poking up into the light. Reels of gold foil gleamed. In front there were presses, another long bench, the board-cutter, the plough … ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘All this – to decorate books that you don’t even sell.’
‘Books should be beautiful,’ Seredith said. ‘No one sees, that’s not the point. It’s a way to honour people – like grave-goods, in olden times.’
‘But whatever happens in your locked room … that’s the real binding, isn’t it? You make books for people, in there. How?’
She made a sudden movement, but when I looked at her she was still again. ‘Emmett …’
‘I’ve never even seen—’
‘Soon.’
‘You keep saying—’
‘Not now!’ She staggered, caught herself and dropped into the chair by the stove. ‘Please, not now, Emmett. I’m tired. I’m so tired.’
I walked past her, to the locked door. I ran my hand down over the three locks. It took an effort. My shoulder prickled with the impulse to pull away. Behind me Seredith’s chair scraped on the floor as she turned to look at me.
I stayed where I was. If I waited long enough, this fear would pass: and then I would be ready. But it didn’t. And underneath it, like a sickness I hadn’t known I had, was a black misery, a sense of loss so strong I could have wept.
‘Emmett.’
I turned on my heel and left.
In the next few days we didn’t speak of it again; we only talked about the chores and the weather, treading carefully, like people edging across new ice.
IV (#ulink_c5ac94db-6309-5157-8f78-82f56e43a677)
I woke out of a dream of fire. I opened my eyes and blinked away the flickering red light. I’d been in a palace, a maze made of flames, so high and hot they sucked the air out of my lungs, and for a moment I thought I caught the bitter scratch of smoke in my throat; but the room was dark and when I breathed all I could smell was the subtle metallic scent of snow. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.
Knocking. That was what had woken me: a hard pounding at the front door that hardly paused. And someone shouting. There was a bell jangling too, a continuous clanging like an alarum.
I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on my trousers. The boards were cold under my bare feet, but I didn’t bother about shoes. I stumbled out into the passageway and stood there for a second, listening. A man’s voice, breathless. ‘I know you’re there!’ The door juddered in its frame. ‘Come out or I’ll smash your fucking windows. Out!’
I clenched my fists. At home Pa would have reached for his rifle, and when he swung the door open whoever was there would have stammered and fallen silent. But this wasn’t my house, and I didn’t have a rifle. I crossed the passageway to knock at Seredith’s door. ‘Seredith?’ I didn’t have time to wait for an answer. I pushed it open and peered round, trying to make out where her bed was. I’d never been in this room. ‘Seredith, there’s someone outside. Are you awake?’
Nothing. I could just see the pale crumple of her pillows and rucked sheets, next to the window. She wasn’t there. ‘Seredith?’
Something muttered in the darkness. I whirled round. She was curled in a chair in the corner of the room, shielding her head as if the sky was about to fall. Her eyes were open, gleaming at me. Her face was so pale it seemed to hover in the air. ‘Seredith. There’s someone knocking at the door. Should I answer? What’s going on?’
‘Come for us,’ she muttered, ‘they’ve come, I knew they would, the Crusade, the Crusade …’
‘I don’t understand.’ My voice wavered and I clenched my fists. ‘Should I open the door? Do you want to talk to him?’
‘The Crusaders, come to burn us all, come to kill us – nowhere to run now, hide, hide in the cellar, don’t give up the books, die with the books if you must—’
‘Seredith, please!’ I dropped to my haunches in front of her, so that my eyes were at the same level as hers. I pulled gently at one of her wrists, trying to uncover her ear. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you want me to—’
She recoiled. ‘Who – get away from me – who who who—’
I rocked backwards, off balance. ‘It’s me! Seredith, it’s Emmett.’
Silence. The pounding stopped. We stared at each other through the dense grainy dark. I could hear her hoarse breathing, and my own. There was the smash of glass from downstairs. ‘Hey!’ the man yelled. ‘Come out here, you old bitch!’
Seredith shuddered. I tried to take her hand but she scrabbled backwards into the corner of the room, scraping frantically at the plaster. Her face was gleaming with moisture and her mouth was half-open. For a second she’d known who I was, but now she was staring past me, her lips trembling, and I didn’t dare touch her again.
I stood up. She caught at my shirt and tugged. I nearly fell. ‘Seredith.’ I peeled her fingers away one by one. They were brittle and clammy, and I was afraid that I’d break the bones. ‘Let go of me. I have to—’
I pulled too hard, and she cried out. But as she shook the pain from her wrist, her eyes seemed to clear. ‘Emmett,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘I was dreaming. Help me back to—’
‘It’s all right. I’ll go. You stay here.’ I walked into the passage on shaking legs.
The man’s voice rose, clearer now that the window had gone. ‘I’ll smoke you out! You come out here and talk to me, witch!’
I don’t know how I got to the bottom of the stairs, or slid the bolts on the front door, but suddenly I was in the open doorway. The man in front of me startled and stepped back. He was smaller than I’d expected, and his face had a pointed, ratty look. Behind him more dark figures turned their heads. One of them had a torch. So I had smelt smoke.
He squared up to me as if he thought he was as tall as I was, though he had to tilt his head back to look me in the eye. ‘Who the hell are you?’
‘I’m the witch’s apprentice. Who the hell are you?’
‘Get her down here.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want my daughter back.’
‘Your daughter? She’s not here. No one’s here but—’ I stopped.
‘Don’t try to be smart. You know what I’m talking about. You bring her book out here, right now, and give it to me. Or—’
‘Or what?’
‘Or we burn this house to the ground. And everything in it.’
‘Look around you. It’s been snowing. These walls are three feet thick. You really believe you can just set light to the house? With one torch? Why don’t you and your makeshift army—’
‘You think we’re that stupid?’ The man gestured to his friend, who hefted a covered bucket and grinned. A slosh of liquid dribbled over the side and I smelt oil. ‘You think we’d come all this way to make empty threats? You want to take me seriously, son. I mean it. Now bring me that book.’
I swallowed. The house had thick walls, and there was snow on the thatch; but I’d seen the barn at Greats Farm on fire one winter, and I knew that if the flames took hold … ‘I don’t know where it is,’ I said. ‘I—’
Seredith’s voice said, from behind me, ‘Go home.’
‘That’s her,’ one of the dark figures said. ‘The old woman. That’s her.’
The man glared over my shoulder. ‘Don’t you order me, you old hag. You heard what I said to your – whatever he is … I want my daughter’s book. She had no right coming here to you.’
‘She had every right.’
‘You mad old bitch! She sneaked out without my permission, and then she comes home half-empty – looks at me like she doesn’t even know who I am—’
‘It was her choice. All of it was her choice. If you hadn’t—’
‘Shut up!’ He jerked forwards; if I hadn’t been there maybe he would have hit her. I caught a whiff of sour beer on his breath, mixed with something stronger. ‘I know your lot. I’m not having you sell my daughter’s book to some—’
‘I don’t sell books. I keep them safe. Now leave.’
There was a silence. The torchlight danced on the man’s face. He glanced backwards, licking his lips, and his friends stared at him. His hands opened and closed like claws.
A breeze ruffled the grass and set the torch-flame fluttering. For a moment I felt a damp breath on my cheek, blowing away the scent of smoke; then it died, and the flames leapt upwards again.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right, we’ll do it your way.’ He grabbed the bucket of oil from the other man, and lumbered heavily back to the door. ‘I want that book burnt. If you won’t bring it to me, I’ll burn the house down with the book in it.’
I tried to laugh. ‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘I’m warning you. You’d better come out here.’
‘Look at us – an old woman and an apprentice, you can’t really—’
‘Watch me.’
My grip tightened on the door frame. The blood was thrumming in my fingers so hard that it felt like the wood might leap out of my grasp. I looked at Seredith. She was staring at the man, white-faced, her hair straggling over her shoulders. If I’d never seen her before I could have believed she was a witch. She said something too low to catch.
‘Please,’ I said, ‘she’s old, she hasn’t done anything wrong, whatever happened to your daughter—’
‘Whatever happened? She was bound, that’s what happened! Now, you move out of the way, or I swear I’ll burn you along with everything else—’ He lunged at me and dragged me forwards. I stumbled away from the door, surprised by the strength of his grip; then I flung my arm up to break his hold. I staggered to the side but by the time I got my balance someone had grabbed me from behind. The other man swung his torch in front of me as if I was an animal. The heat prickled on my cheeks and I blinked away stinging tears. ‘And you,’ he shouted, through the doorway, ‘you come out too. You come out and we won’t hurt you.’
I tried to pull away from whoever was holding me. ‘You mean you’ll just leave us out here in the snow? Miles from anywhere? She’s an old woman.’
‘Shut up!’ He turned on me. ‘I’m being kind, warning you at all.’
I wanted to throttle him. I forced myself to take a deep breath. ‘Look – you can’t do this. You could be deported – you don’t want to risk that.’
‘For burning a binder’s house to the ground? I’ve got ten friends’ll swear I was in the tavern the whole night. Now, get the old bitch out here or she’ll get smoked into a kipper with the rest.’
The front door slammed. A bolt shot home.
Melted snow ran off the roof in a sudden dribble, as if a pool had formed and overflowed. The breeze lifted and died again. I thought I heard it whine in the broken window. I swallowed. ‘Seredith?’
She didn’t answer. I pulled away from the man who’d been holding me. He let me go without a struggle.
‘Seredith. Open the door. Please.’ I leant sideways to peer through the jagged space where the window had been. She was sitting on the stairs like a child, her legs crossed neatly at the ankles. She didn’t look up. ‘What are you doing? Seredith?’
She murmured something.
‘What? Please, let me in—’
‘That’s it. The bitch wants to burn.’ There was a strident note in his voice, like bravado; but when I looked back at him he gave me a wide rotten-toothed grin. ‘She’s made her choice. Now get out of the way.’ He lurched forwards and sloshed oil on the wall by my feet. The smell rose like a fog, thick and real.
‘Don’t – you can’t – please!’ He went on grinning at me, unblinking. I turned and hammered at the last shards of glass in the window, smashing them away with the side of my fist; but the window was too narrow to get through. ‘Seredith, come out! They’re going to set the house on fire, please.’
She didn’t move. I would have thought she couldn’t hear me, except that her shoulders rose a little when I said please.
‘You can’t set fire to the house while she’s in it. That’s murder.’ My voice was high and hoarse.
‘Get out of the way.’ But he didn’t wait for me to move. Oil splashed on to my trousers as he went past. He poured the last dregs against the side wall and stood back. The man with the torch was watching, his expression open and interested, like a schoolboy’s.
Maybe it wouldn’t be enough. Maybe the snow on the roof would quench it, or the walls would be too thick and too damp. But Seredith was old, and the smoke would be enough to kill her, if she was inside.
‘Hey, Baldwin. Get the other bucket. Round the side.’ He pointed.
‘Please. Please don’t do this.’ But I knew it was no good. I spun round and threw myself against the door. I pounded on the wood with my fists. ‘Seredith! Open the door. Damn you, open the door.’
Someone caught my collar and pulled me back. I choked and nearly fell.
‘Good. Keep him back. Now.’
The man with the torch grunted and stepped forwards. I scrabbled desperately to break free. The seam of my shirt ripped and I almost fell into the space between the torch-flames and the door. The smell of oil was so strong I could taste it. It was on me, on my trousers and hands; the smallest leap of a spark and I’d be on fire. The burning torch hovered in front of my eyes, a spitting mass of talons and tongues.
Something thudded into my back. I’d walked backwards into the door. I leant against it. Nowhere to go now.
The man raised the torch like a staff and tilted it until it was right in front of my face. Then he lowered it. I watched it flicker, almost touching the base of the wall, almost close enough to catch.
‘No.’
My own voice; but not my own. My blood rose and sang in my ears like a flood, so loud I couldn’t hear myself think.
‘Do this and you will be cursed,’ I said, and in the sudden quiet it was as though another voice spoke underneath mine. ‘Kill with fire and you will perish in fire. Burn in hatred and you will burn.’
No one answered. No one moved.
‘If you do this, your souls will be stained with blood and ash. Everything you touch will go grey and wither. Everyone you touch will fall ill or run mad or die.’
A sound: faint, faraway, like something drawing closer. But the voice coming from inside me wouldn’t let me pause to listen. ‘You will end hated and alone,’ it said. ‘There will be no forgiveness, ever.’
