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  “Forgive me, good Sirs. We have so few travelers along this road…”

  Mather moved smoothly forward. “It is always best to be on your guard, Lawman—to keep careful watch. No doubt you have heard of the recent death of the rebel leader, Robert Fane?”

  The Lawman nodded quickly, his rheumy eyes widening.

  Mather came close, keeping his voice low yet heavy with menace, as he looked down on him. “The rebels may be quiet at the moment, but soon they will appoint a new leader and gather their forces. The Lord Protector will want his loyal subjects to be on their guard. His people look to their Lawmen for security—reassurance. It would be a shame if your retirement had to come early.”

  The Lawman wrung his hands together. “Forgive me…,” he began again, but Mather cut him short.

  “I trust that in other areas you fulfill your duties. You keep the records of persons in this village, alive or dead?”

  He looked up at the rolls of parchment stacked neatly along the shelves. “I see you do. I hope they are up to date.”

  “Indeed they are, Sir,” said the Lawman tremulously, clutching the withered herb amulet at his neck.

  “We need to go back five years. To the household of the Murkmere estate, as it was then—when the late Master of Murkmere was still alive, before his daughter ran off.”

  Caleb Grouted swaggered over to the shelves and stared up. “These arranged in date order, Lawman? They’d better be.”

  The Lawman’s hand was trembling as he pulled down the correct parchment. “There has been much coming and going at Murkmere since then, Sirs.”

  “And, no doubt, you have recorded all of it,” Mather said grimly. He had picked up the Register of Visitors from the Records table and was turning the heavy vellum pages to stare at the Lawman’s cramped writing. “We shall look at that roll first, then we shall investigate the more recent records to see if our quarry has escaped us or is still there to be ensnared.”

  Chance could see the glitter in Caleb’s eyes as they both crowded the Lawman, breathing hotly down his neck while he split the sealing wax and spread the roll open on the Records table.

  “What name should I look for, Sir?” The Lawman fumbled for his spectacles.

  “Not a name.” said Mather. “This girl has no name. You are to look for a number.”

  His business successfully completed, Mather strode to the door of the hut. Chance, about to follow Mather out, heard the Lawman let out a moan. He glanced back.

  Caleb was slapping his hand along the shelves. Carefully ordered rolls of records toppled down under the onslaught like a house of cards; old parchment curled and cracked as it hit the floor, wax seals split open. As a final gesture, Caleb wrenched a map from the wall. He glanced at it, then crushed it into his cape pocket as he trampled and kicked his way to the door.

  Tears ran down the Lawman’s face. It had only taken the young officer a moment to ruin the work of centuries.

  That’s Caleb Grouted, thought Chance. A quick worker. He almost admired him.

  3

  Miss Jennet doesn’t love me.

  To her, I am the little illiterate orphan girl from the Capital, someone to be saved by education. So she does what she considers her duty by me, as former schoolmistress to the village. For the past three years she has taught me to read and write and talk in proper grammar, and I’m truly grateful for it. She’s an excellent teacher. It’s strange that though she’s so impatient in other things—desires the house clean and tidy and well run, and often raps our knuckles if it is not—in her teaching she has infinite patience. She doesn’t teach Doggett: Doggett says she’ll stick with what she knows already; she’s fearful of the blasphemy in book-learning.

  I am a little frightened of Miss Jennet, but I long for her praise. Most of all I long for her love, but that is all for Aggie, her niece.

  All the same, by the evening of that spring day Miss Jennet was pleased to see the pots shining on the kitchen walls. “You’ve done well, Scuff,” she said.

  I smiled, and a little glow lit in my heart. A dog lying before the fire wagged his tail at the sound of her voice. They’ve grown fat and soft with Aggie’s spoiling, the guard dogs of Murkmere that were once so fierce and ready to eat any stranger.

  “I think that your job is done for today, Scuff,” Miss Jennet said. “You can rest now.”

  Rest! With vegetables to be picked from the kitchen garden before daylight faded, and water to be brought in from the pump in the stable yard and heated, and supper to be cooked. Pease pottage tonight, and all that shelling!

  Aunt Jennet was smiling, though: it was a little joke. She knew as well as I that there was no rest for anyone.

  But then her smiled faded. She said, “I think I will take a little rest also,” and sat down at the table. Her face sagged into little folds about her chin, so that she looked old. Miss Jennet is as thin as a whip and as brown as tanned hide, but I don’t believe she is an elderly woman. She always refuses to do any less work than we do.

  I brought her a cup of water. Her brown face was white. She raised the cup to her lips, then her hand drifted down, the cup tilting, the water spilling; and she was suddenly crumpled on the flags at my feet.

  I didn’t know what to do. I knelt down. I was trembling, for I remembered a dead woman in a cellar long ago. In the end I’d had to go up into the street by myself, and that was when they’d caught me and put me in the Orphans’ Home.

  But Miss Jennet opened her eyes, and I was safe in Murkmere again. “I’ve not eaten much today,” she murmured. “There hasn’t been time. I was sorting… carrying… Don’t tell Aggie.”

  “You must get to your bed,” I said in a fluster. “I’ll help you.”

  To my surprise, she did not protest. She leaned on me, surprisingly heavy, and I helped her from the kitchen, upstairs to her chamber, past all the closed doors of those rooms we no longer used. It was beginning to grow dark, and a wind was rising outside; I lit a candle and closed the window.

  “It’s chilly in here,” she said, shivering, as she climbed on her bed.

  “I’ll light a fire,” I said.

  “No, it’s too much bother. Bring me an extra coverlet from the linen cupboard. That will warm me.”

  The cupboard was vast, lined with shelves that were piled high with sheets, quilts, old pillows, and scented with crumbling sprays of dried lavender tied with wisps of silk. The linen was Doggett’s responsibility: she did the washing, ironing, and darning. Her stitches were exquisite: she’d been lady’s maid to Miss Leah until Miss Leah had disappeared three years ago. She was as eager for Miss Jennet’s good word as I was, and a jealous girl. I did not trust her, though Aggie did. Aggie still called her by Leah’s name for her—Dog—though with Aggie it was said with affection. She is indeed like a little dog that will nip you when you think you have made friends.

  “What are you doing?” Doggett’s voice. Always there when not needed.

  “Fetching a quilt for Miss Jennet.” I could feel my heart beating. It was so hard to stand up to Doggett. “She’s not well.”

  “Not well?” I was surprised to see that Doggett looked taken aback, shocked even, her little eyes darting here and there as if for reassurance. “I’ll go to her.”

  “There’s no need. She’s comfortable, and sleeping now.”

  “I’ll take her some supper later, then. Shouldn’t you be in the kitchen, preparin’ it?”

  “I will be soon,” I said meekly, and I went.

  When I delivered the quilt to Miss Jennet, she said, “You’re a good girl, Scuff.”

  “Not good,” I said in a low voice, thinking of my secret crime and suddenly longing to tell it to Miss Jennet this very moment.

  “Very good.” She smiled and stretched out her hand. I took it, the palm hard in mine but the fingers surprisingly, disconcertingly, frail. I thought she must be ill indeed to be so soft with me. I left her shortly afterward, once I’d seen her lie back beneath the warmth and close
her eyes; and I hurried back along the passage, through the growing shadows to the back stairs, for I didn’t want supper to be late.

  Even as I reached the top of the stairs, I heard the noise funneled upward from below: dogs barking, running feet.

  It was so strange in the usual quiet of Murkmere that I stood rooted to the spot. And then Aggie was running up the stairs toward me. She was breathing fast, her hair tumbling down.

  “Scuff! There are three men—soldiers, I think—riding down the drive!”

  I stared at her and caught her fear, and my hand went to my mouth. She pulled me over to the window, and we looked out into the fading light. We couldn’t see the men’s faces, but they were in uniform and they rode highstepping black horses. These men were important, and they looked set on important business.

  Aggie turned to me, her eyes frightened. “Whyever can they be coming to Murkmere?”

  4

  The light was waning when the three soldiers reached Murkmere Hall. The stable yard was deserted; a solitary pony whinnied from one of the dark stalls.

  They dismounted in the gathering shadows and tethered their horses to iron hoops in the wall. Mather kicked at the weedy cobbles. Chance watched his lip curl and knew what he was thinking. Mather liked control and order. He was used to immaculate stables, grooms standing to attention, lackeys with flaring torches.

  “We’ve surprised them,” said Caleb Grouted with satisfaction. “That’s how we want it, isn’t it, Chief?”

  Mather cocked his gray-stubbled head to the frenzied barking inside the house. “Not for long, I fear, Lieutenant.”

  He began to walk over to a back entrance, a plain but imposing wooden door set in the stone. “It seems the Mistress of Murkmere employs neither ostlers nor groundsmen. One wonders if she runs the whole place with four-legged servants.”

  Caleb sniggered, but then he looked up at the blank façade of the house with its shuttered windows, and some of the swagger left him. He touched the amulet of egg-sized amber beads around his neck. “We’ll demand supper and shelter before we start our questioning, eh, Mather? My father would expect hospitality from Miss Cotter. After all, she’s managing this estate for him.”

  “Yes, indeed, Sir,” said Mather drily. He nodded at his bodyguard. “Try some vigorous knocking, Corporal Chance.”

  Chance was strong, and his gauntleted hands sounded like hammer blows on the wood. The dogs’ barking grew muffled, as if they were being shut away. All the same, it took some time before the door was opened, and they saw a girl standing before them, holding a guttering candle in a pewter holder that quivered in her hand.

  She is frightened, Chance thought, and a pleasant feeling of power stole through him. She was a little younger than he was, short but stiff-backed and comely, with a startling mass of red-gold hair standing out around her shoulders. He’d never seen hair that color, not even in the Orphans’ Home where he’d been brought up, so he stood and stared while she stared back at the three of them, speechless and biting her lip.

  “Corporal!” Mather spoke harshly behind him. Hastily, Chance stepped to one side.

  “Forgive the intrusion, Miss Cotter,” said Mather.

  “You know my name?” said the girl in astonishment.

  “Special Officer Mather at your service.” He saluted her, and the girl flinched. “We didn’t mean to alarm you. It’s late, and we’re weary, and we’ve traveled from the Capital the past few days. May I introduce my junior officer, Lieutenant Grouted? You will know who he is, of course.”

  Chance was not introduced. The girl looked at Caleb, as if dazed. “You are the Lord Protector’s son, Sir?”

  Caleb bowed his head, his eyes bright with excitement and anticipation.

  Caleb is sure to be the one to question young Mistress Cotter, thought Chance. He would merely get the servants. If only I could discover the girl who is Number 102, he thought.

  Mistress Cotter was very pale. “Please, Sirs—forgive me. We’re so unused to visitors here now. We only keep a small household, but if you’d care for a simple supper and a bedchamber, then I can offer you both.” She hesitated, and her voice trembled. “I’m afraid my aunt won’t be able to greet you. She’s unwell and has taken to her bed.”

  “We need not disturb her,” said Mather.

  The girl looked beyond them, at the horses. “We’ve no ostlers. You’ll wish to rub down and feed your mounts, no doubt. There’s hay in the storeroom.” She gestured across the twilit yard.

  “Chance will tend them,” said Mather.

  When Chance had finally finished in the stables, it was almost dark. The lantern Miss Cotter had brought him flared in the wind as he made his way to the back entrance.

  He stepped into a passage and wondered which way to go.

  “Sir?” A girl, pudding-faced and wearing an apron, stared eagerly at him from a doorway. He recognized her accent at once. How could he not? The Capital was in his very blood. He tried to see if she had a brand mark, but a serge sleeve covered her wrist. “Let me show you to Miss Leah’s old parlor, Sir,” she said.

  In the small, dank room to which she brought him, he found Mather and Caleb alone, gulping wine and trying to warm themselves before a spitting fire—by the look of it, only recently laid and lit. The bare windows gave them a dismal view of the darkening mere.

  “I do not think interrogation is appropriate here,” said Mather in a low voice to his trainees when the girl had left them. His cool, intelligent eyes regarded them. “When I have the opportunity I shall ask Miss Cotter straight out if she has ever or indeed still employs a girl from the Capital bought from the Gravengate Home. Only then shall we know if we have our prey within our grasp.”

  “I believe I’ve spotted her already, Sir,” said Chance quickly. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Caleb glower. “Shall I fetch her, Sir?”

  “Wait, Chance,” Mather said. “You are too impetuous. It is best to tread softly through the forest when you are a hunter; then your quarry is all unaware.”

  After a long wait and several jugs of the wine, which was watered down and oversweet, they were ushered into a cold, dimly lit dining room by a lanky footman in a wig. The curtains had not been drawn against the black windows, and Miss Cotter, who was already waiting for them at the head of the table, made no move to do so. She had changed into a green silk skirt and her hair was piled on her head in a glowing mass that seemed to drain the color from her face.

  Chance was placed at one end of the table. At the other, Caleb Grouted sat on Miss Cotter’s right side and Mather on her left. The footman served them with soup and a cold ham joint accompanied by a mess of peas. “Thank you, Jukes, you may go now,” said Miss Cotter with quaint dignity.

  The maid, whom Miss Cotter called Doggett, cleared their dishes, and when she went out, Chance heard whispers in the passage: another female voice. His ears were sharp: for years as a child he had listened in fear for the whereabouts of his tormentors, the guardians of the Home in the area of the Capital known as Highgallow. He fingered the broad iron band that he’d had forged to hide the brand mark on his wrist, and waited.

  Miss Cotter scarcely touched her food. “It must be inconvenient for you to leave the Capital and come to such distant parts, Sir,” she said with an effort to Mather. “A contrast, indeed.”

  “You have visited the Capital, Miss Cotter?”

  She shook her head.

  Caleb leaned toward her over the table. He had downed too much wine and his eyes were glassy. “So you’ve not heard the news from the Capital? And it concerns Murkmere Hall!”

  “No, Sir.” A strange look crossed her face: eager, yet fearful.

  “You’ll be glad to hear that my cousin, Miss Leah Tunstall, heir to this very property, has been found. Three long years it took, but we’ve got her!”

  She gave a little gasp and seemed to grow paler still.

  “But you need not fear for your livelihood, Miss Cotter. I think it will be a long time before L
eah Tunstall comes home to her inheritance.”

  “Why?” she began, her eyes wide. “What…?”

  Caleb sniggered into his wine. “She’s not in her right mind. My father has her under his protection.”

  “So she has survived!” breathed the girl. Then she looked at Mather in supplication. “Surely she should come home?”

  “You can be assured that the Lord Protector will do his best for her,” said Mather stiffly. “He is her uncle by marriage, is he not? I hear he has the best doctors to treat her.”

  “She’s sick? What’s the matter with her, Sir?”

  Mather hesitated. His hand brushed the amber at his neck. “She has delusions, so I gather. Some sort of religious fervor has taken hold of her during her period of privation. She must have been homeless for almost three years. She believes she is one of the avia.”

  “The avia…,” The girl whispered it.

  Mather regarded her carefully. “The doctors think that she may have presented early symptoms at Murkmere. It would certainly explain her extraordinary disappearance from here the night of her father’s death.”

  A shiver ran through Chance. He’d always been frightened of the old legend of the avia. He’d never known whether it was true or not. In the story a group of men and women had desired to fly like the Gods. As punishment, the greatest of the Gods—the Eagle—made them half-human, half-bird, forever trapped between two forms.

  In the Home, Chance and the other orphan children had been told that what had happened to the avia would happen to them if they didn’t respect authority. For the children, authority meant the Guardians of the Home. All his years there, Chance lived in constant dread of the ultimate punishment.

  Caleb Grouted leaned forward and brushed Miss Cotter’s hand. She withdrew it at once. “We’ll look after Leah, never fear, Miss Cotter. We won’t let her go until she’s cured of such delusions.” He sniggered again and drained his glass.