Second Night Read online

  ‘You’re a wonder in the day but it’s at night that you shine,’ he murmured. ‘You don’t need saddles and all that old paraphernalia, do you, pretty lady?’

  And that way our Mister Charles can’t tag her to go snooping after the boy on his tracking system and I think she knows it. ‘I suppose she’s itching to be off and running,’ he said.

  Caz grinned. ‘Not just yet.’

  ‘What does she say this time?’

  Caz shrugged off his cloak. ‘She says, since you won’t ride, old foot-soldier, will you fight?’

  ‘You’ve a hankering to try out that shirt, haven’t you?’

  ‘You bet!’ He walked around the circle, lighting the rest of the torches.

  Alan put down the gun and unzipped his jacket. ‘What’s it to be then?’

  ‘What’s up here?’

  ‘Swords, sticks, bare hands – unless you could do with a bit of knife work?’

  ‘Swords.’

  ‘Wood, or for real?’

  ‘For real. I fancy my chances tonight.’

  ‘We’ll see about that.’

  Early the following morning at the time of clear light before sunrise, Maddie Wylde went downstairs to prepare breakfast at the lodge. The kitchen range was cold. She went into the sitting room for kindling and matches, and found Caz stretched out asleep on the sofa. His face was flecked with specks of dried mud. His wet boots were stood on the hearth.

  She shook him awake. ‘Caz, you should be in bed.’

  He opened his eyes and greeted her with his most disarming smile.

  ‘Ma, I could really do with a coffee,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 6

  Sir Jonas read the letter carefully for the third time before he folded it and put it back in the envelope. He reached for his walking stick and strode purposefully through the library. Daisy had filled the vase on the table in the hall with roses but he didn’t notice.

  He crept down the long passageway towards the kitchen, dreading that he might be caught out. There was still time to invent some excuse before he was seen to be turning into the narrow corridor beside the morning room, where the door marked OFFICE would admit him into what had been the old butler’s pantry. But Daisy was safely engaged sorting pots of jam and preserved fruit in the cellars, Maddie was in the yard and Jemima was running errands in the village. He found himself faced with the reality of what now appeared to have been an overly hasty decision.

  ‘Oh, dear me,’ he muttered miserably, the fires of his enthusiasm already considerably quenched.

  He tapped nervously at the door and waited. There was no sound of approaching footsteps, no voice inviting him to come in. He bent down and peered through the keyhole. The room appeared to be empty. He took a deep breath, grasped the doorknob and entered the dungeon of a room where his father had smoked and drank himself to death more than sixty years before. Time had done little to improve the dingy interior. The same dreary yellow ceiling sucked up what modicum of light the narrow window shed over the drab green walls. Mercifully, the old couch where the servants had found his father’s cold corpse had been removed.

  The brief dark years of his stewardship were our winter, he thought. It was appropriate that he should die when the daffodils were budding in the copses, the lawns were studded with crocuses and the ice was melting on the lake. The door to the study was finally unbarred on a glorious morning of sunshine, and I was steward of the estate and Master of the Guardians. In that moment my destiny to receive the Runes of the Deathless from the hands of the Valkyrs shone before me like a great light. Thus we were all deceived.

  Sir Jonas put his hand on the old electric radiator that stood in front of the shallow grate in the black-leaded fireplace. It was still warm. He paced around the room, randomly opening drawers in the scratched wooden filing cabinets, and stopped in front of the laptop computer on the desk. While he refused to countenance such an object in the study, it was something he was no longer unfamiliar with, although the scope of its potential would remain beyond his imagining. Many things had changed at Meane Manor since the first of the great runes had been won.

  The old, black telephone was an entirely different matter. Despite the ever-increasing sophistication demanded of him as Master of the Guardians in a twenty-first century world, he had remained resolute in his denial of its undoubted usefulness. But the letter that had brought him into this horrible place could not remain unanswered.

  He sat down, sick with apprehension and put out a shaking hand for the receiver. This infernal contraption of casual intrusion into one’s private affairs is undoubtedly the most sophisticated instrument of torture ever to be introduced into the evolution of humankind, he reflected grimly. Then he remembered he would have to dial a number.

  ‘Oh, confounded nuisance and weary day,’ he sighed. ‘The best of all planning is already undone. I must bow to the inevitable and summon Madame Marguerite to assist me.’

  He picked up his stick and shuffled miserably down the passage to the kitchen, where Daisy found him sitting with both elbows on the table, his head in his hands.

  ‘Whatever’s happened, sir?’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you ill? Do you want me to call the doctor?’

  ‘I am not ill,’ he said testily. He stood up, holding the edge of the table for support until he was sure of his feet.

  Daisy put down her basket of preserves. ‘Have you been waiting long? It’s still bit a early for your tea but I can get it going soon enough.’

  Sir Jonas cleared his throat. ‘Madame Marguerite,’ he said faintly. He coughed and cleared his throat again. ‘Madame Marguerite, I have a request to make,’ he said, more determinedly, hoping he sounded casual. ‘Is, ah, Madame Madeleine about to return to work in the office this morning?’

  ‘She’s outside getting the foal cleaned up. The woman from the agency’s coming to have a look at him.’

  Sir Jonas was visibly relieved. ‘Of course, I had quite forgotten.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Then once more I must put myself in your hands and rely upon your complete discretion, Madame Marguerite, your complete discretion.’

  ‘What can I do for you, sir?’

  ‘I would be very much obliged if you would, ah, accompany me to the office where I would appreciate your assistance in the small matter of the preparation of the telephone, in order that I may pursue an immediate conversation with Mister Charles in London.’

  Daisy’s jaw dropped. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Sir Jonas cleared his throat again. ‘My dear Madame Marguerite, I am aware of the singularity of this particular request but really, there is no need to gape in quite such an overt fashion.’

  Daisy pulled herself together. ‘I’m sorry, Sir Jonas, but am I to understand that you’re wanting to use the telephone?’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he replied irritably. ‘I presume you are conversant with the appropriate number?’

  ‘Not much would get done around here if I wasn’t.’

  He followed her back down the passage to the office, noting that her limp was more pronounced than usual, as it always was when she was particularly anxious. She dialled the number, her eyes boring into his face over her spectacles as though she was trying to read into the very depths of his soul.

  Charles Fordham-Marshall replied at once. ‘My dear Daisy, how are you this morning?’

  ‘I’m very well, Mister Charles,’ she replied. ‘Sir Jonas would like to have a word with you.’

  There was a moment of shocked silence at the other end of the phone.

  ‘Well!’ said Charles Fordham-Marshall eventually. ‘I suppose there must be a first time for everything.’

  ‘Indeed there is.’

  She laid the receiver into the old man’s shaking hand.

  Sir Jonas waited for her to leave before he coughed and whispered hoarsely into the mouthpiece. ‘Good morning, Charles. Excuse me.’

  ‘Indeed this is a good morning, Jonas,’ replied Charles. ‘Or should I say a singularly extraordinary
morning?’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps.’ Sir Jonas cleared his throat and gripped the receiver. ‘Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and there is scant time available to allow for our customary formal exchange of correspondence.’

  ‘So you have received the letter?’

  ‘Indeed I have and your proposals come as no surprise to me, but I do question the overall effect of involving Caspar so directly in our work at this present juncture.’

  ‘I want him where we can keep better control over him,’ said Charles bluntly.

  ‘That is understandable, but I think you may find him rather more difficult to control than you imagine. More to the point, he cannot be relied upon to respect my leadership.’

  Charles sighed. ‘We should have put him to the oath two years ago.’

  ‘As I previously proposed, even urged upon Council, but you will recall that he was generally considered to be too young to embrace such a move at that time.’

  ‘You were younger.’

  ‘I was indeed, but my circumstances were radically different. I had been brought up in an atmosphere of learning where the oath was a natural progression in my personal experience. I must tell you directly that I foresee no small difficulty in persuading this young man to pledge himself as we would require.’

  ‘As we will insist,’ corrected Charles. ‘We have no choice, Jonas. He must join us in Council before the next vigil. Otherwise I see a very real danger of jeopardising all that has been achieved. We cannot risk any possibility of defeat due to carelessness.’

  Sir Jonas studied a photograph of Caz riding Bryn that Maddie had pinned on the wall behind the desk. Kyri had been only a few months old when it was taken. She ran free beside her mother, her coat a dark iron-grey, the white star on her forehead still clearly defined.

  So much has been gained and already lost, he thought. Charles is right, there is no other choice. For the present, by fault of circumstance or some greater plan, the boy is Valkyrjan’s accepted rider and allowances must be made.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at length. ‘However, I’m sure you will agree that our traditional practice of inheritance of artefacts should be ruled out in this case.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Then I will notify Guardian Armourer to prepare the articles for initiation. Guardian Archivist will be also instructed. The scroll and all related objects must be removed from the corridor as soon as possible. As for the procedure involving the extension of the invitation to the candidate, I will reflect upon it without delay. I look forward to our meeting at the end of the month, Charles. I bid you good morning.’

  ‘And a very,’ Charles Fordham-Marshall heard the line click, ‘good morning to you too, Jonas,’ he finished, wondering how many years had passed since they had last spoken together on the telephone and realising, surprisingly, that he had never kept a record of it.

  Greatly relieved, Sir Jonas wiped his brow with his pocket-handkerchief. He adjusted the eyepatch and straightened his cravat.

  I must make a note of Charles’s number and keep it to hand in the study should a future and equally important need arise. In the meantime this infernal room shall no longer play host to the dreadful infection of my father’s bitterness. That evil can, and will, be purged.

  The blue eye gleamed. He stood up brandishing his walking stick, fervent with decision. ‘The hour of bell, book and candle is upon us. The agent of exorcism must be summoned and no ghost can prevail against the coming of his particular wrath!’ he declared confidently, striding back to the kitchen where Daisy was preparing his morning tea.

  ‘I’m just doing the tray. I’ll be along directly,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Madame Marguerite.’ He cleared his throat and coughed. ‘Eh, to the best of your knowledge, has Mister Jasper ever expressed any particular affinity with the process of the successful application of paint?’

  ‘Paint!’ Daisy could not keep the incredulity out of her voice. ‘What sort of paint?’

  ‘House paint, Madame Marguerite!’ he replied firmly. ‘The office is long overdue for refurbishment.’

  Daisy dropped down into the nearest chair and put her hand to her forehead. ‘You want Jasper to redecorate the office?’

  ‘Indeed I do.’

  ‘Don’t you think this is a job for the professionals, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely not! We have no need for such extravagant intrusion! I am confident that Mister Jasper’s unique style of self-determination will more than compensate for any lack of experience. After all, Madame Marguerite, there is only so much even he can find to do with a paintbrush, other than to aim it at the wall.’

  Daisy looked doubtful. ‘You’re probably right, technically speaking.’

  He must be sickening for something, she decided. He does seem a bit flushed. Maybe he’s had a queer turn, like his mother did just before she died. She didn’t make any sense either. We’d better get the doctor in to have a look at him.

  Sir Jonas beamed. ‘Excellent! I knew you would agree with me. I would be obliged if you would inform both Mister John and Mister Alan that I wish them to start clearing out the furniture immediately after lunch this afternoon. Mister John must bring samples of the paint we have in stock to the study as soon as he comes in.’

  Daisy stared at him, totally bewildered. ‘But we don’t have any house paint in stock. The last of it was thirty years old and set solid as stone in the cans when we cleared it out of the shed.’

  ‘Then we must purchase some more without delay.’ The blue eye twinkled. ‘And perhaps Madame Madeleine could be prevailed upon to provide me with the appropriate catalogue so that I may be better informed as to what is considered suitable décor in an office these days.’

  CHAPTER 7

  Lauren peeped through the classroom door to make sure she had found the right place. The teacher came up behind her.

  ‘Are you the new girl?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  He checked his list. ‘Lauren?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘Have you been provided with books?’

  She indicated the bag on her shoulder. ‘Hundreds.’

  ‘Well, come along then and we’ll get you settled,’ he said briskly.

  She pointed to the bench beside the door. ‘Could I just sit out here for a couple more minutes, please? I’m a bit nauseous, still jetlagged I guess.’

  ‘You don’t need to go and lie down?’

  ‘No, I’ll be okay in a minute.’

  ‘Well, don’t come in until you’re sure.’

  She hadn’t totally lied. Jetlag had been a minor problem for the first few days while she and her parents were settling into the house they had rented until Christmas. She had thought she was over it, until her mother had had to shake her awake just before eight o’clock that morning. She got up dizzy and disoriented, but luckily no pale-faced wreck with bags under its eyes stared back at her from the bathroom mirror and she had arrived for her first day at the school looking none the worse for a bad night.

  Nevertheless, just for a moment her eyes misted and made her head swim as Caz came slowly down the corridor, his book bag slung over his shoulder and a large thermos flask under his arm. He was reading a paper.

  Lauren swallowed and stood up. ‘Hello, I’m Lauren. I just started here this morning.’

  He glanced down at her. ‘Okay.’

  ‘And you’re Caz.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you mind if I sit with you for class?’

  ‘Please yourself.’

  The teacher was writing rapidly on the board. ‘Late again, Mister Wylde,’ he remarked acidly, without turning round.

  Caz sat down in one of the two empty seats at the front of the class. Jen nudged Bryony. Shriek nudged Gin. Lauren flushed triumphantly, aware of Melanie’s eyes boring holes in her back as she sat beside Caz.

  The teacher stood over them. ‘I see you have recovered, Lauren.’

  She s
miled up at him. ‘Yes, sir.’

  He picked up the paper Caz had been reading and glanced at it briefly. ‘This has nothing to do with the subject of mathematics, Mister Wylde. I have come to appreciate that your willingness to apply your apparently superior mind to the pursuit of mathematics is limited but, in this case, if you will humour me, I will humour you. Is that understood?’

  Caz did not reply. He leaned back in the chair and held out his hand. Irritated, the teacher slapped the paper down on the desk. A general titter went around the room. He spun around and glared at the class. The phone on the front table rang once. He swallowed an upsurge of impotent rage.

  ‘Page thirty-two!’ he barked. ‘I will be back in exactly five minutes. Upon my return I will expect correct answers from all of you, beginning with Mister Wylde.’

  The titter broke out into laughter and a rush of conversation. Gin saw Melanie take out her phone. Lauren opened the book and scanned the required page, writing rapidly. She handed her notes to Caz.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s for when he comes back.’

  ‘He doesn’t expect me to have the answers.’

  ‘So surprise him for once.’

  Caz shrugged. ‘He’s been around too long to appreciate surprises.’

  ‘You really don’t like math, do you?’

  ‘I don’t need it.’

  He continued reading. She glanced at the impressively headed document: The Northern Pantheon Institute of Academic Research, The Skaldic Poets, Paper Twelve. As he turned the page, she noticed the peculiar white scar slashed across the palm of his left hand. It was deeply knotted at either end and completely smooth in the centre. His fingers were long and tapered, the tips slightly worn. Both hands were heavily calloused. His wrists looked abnormally strong and he had an unusual way of flexing his fingers when he was concentrating. She wondered what it would be like to be touched by hands like that.

  ‘I could help you,’ she said brightly.

  He did not look up. ‘Why?’

  ‘So you’d get better marks.’

  ‘Why would I want that?’