Death Magic by - (smart ebook reader .txt) 📖

up with a gypsy camp, so we share a common language and have always been favourites to one another.

The other gamblers are welcoming me home now, delight on their faces. These are my friends, my comrades. Besides fencing champion Emile, there's a highwayman, an excommunicated young priest and a playwright-turned-forger. Like me - the tawny-skinned illegitimate daughter of an English Lord - they are all outcasts with extraordinary talents useful to England's underground secret service.

'I thought you were dead!' Emile admonishes. 'The last German ship docked on Thursday.'

'I knew you bloody Hellfires would run a bet,' I say, 'so I spent a night in Southwark instead of coming straight. Only narrowly made it to my own father's wedding.'

I eye the open book over his shoulder.

'Congratulations, Emile,' I grin, 'I knew you'd take the longest odds.' I wag my finger at the rest of them. 'And you all should have more faith,' I admonish, smiling. 'Since when did some cold water stop me getting home?'

The assembled spies laugh, enjoying the joke.

I look to a tapestry hanging at the back which everyone is pretending a little too hard isn't there. The way to Atherton's door.

'He's in there?' I ask, nodding to it. The mood instantly changes.

'Ye-es,' ventures Emile. 'But he's in a foul temper. Something's happening in France. Missing diamonds or some such. People are turning on the Queen. You'd think Atherton would be happy,' he adds with a confused shrug. 'We've spent a lot of manpower trying to bring King Louis down.'

I glance to the tapestry. The power of life and death lies beyond. No one goes through without good reason. Or, more likely, bad reason.

'Best I find out more,' I decide, breaking away from the group. 'You can buy me brandy from your winnings later,' I toss over to my shoulder to Emile.

I slip underneath the tapestry. A spiral staircase is on the other side, and I ascend to another part of Whitehall. Atherton's office is the clandestine bridge between secret spying and public politics.

His door is at the top of the stair, and I turn the handle without knocking.

As it opens, I'm greeted by the familiar sharp smell of sealing wax. This is the heart of it all, where it all happens.

The most illegal of legal things in England.

Forged pardons, authorizations, safe passage in every language are issued from here. Maps and city plans, stolen and duplicated from the four corners of the earth, are rolled and filed.

The room is filled with smoke and at first I can't see Atherton. My heart beats faster. It's been almost a year since I saw him last. We wrote to one another whenever we could, but I know there are things he wouldn't tell me by letter.

The haze clears and there he is.

Atherton. Sitting behind the same desk. Wearing the same blue and gold naval coat, his thick brown hair is just as unruly.

A rush of emotions hit me.

His shaggy head is lowered, deep in concentration, fiddling with a tiny brazier of burning coals. Floating before him, like dancing angels, are three paper lanterns, bobbing in the air. Each belches a trail of black smoke, rather ruining the celestial effect.

I watch him reach out a long finger and tap one of the hovering lanterns. It lifts gracefully, propelled by the heat of the brazier burning on his desk. Atherton's lanky frame is twisted awkwardly on his chair and twin walking canes rest against his withered legs.

'If you must play with fire, Atherton,' I say, 'you should find an office with higher ceilings.'

He looks up confused, then his face changes.

'Attica?' He stands with effort, his light green eyes lit with joy, a smile stretched across his narrow face. 'Those bloody French have mastered the hot air balloon,' he explains. 'King Louis tests them with convicts. They got one halfway across the English Channel before it mercifully combusted.'

Something like relief catches in my throat to find him so unchanged. I half run at him and we hug tightly and for too long because there's no one watching.

'I thought you were dead,' he says.

'How could I be?' I say. 'I promised you I would return.'

'You'll stay?' He slides his hands from my shoulders, takes my hands in his. 'Longer than a week this time?'

I feel my heart squeeze. My eyes settle on his wedding ring.

'I can't,' I say, shaking my head.

'For a few days, at least.' Atherton makes the disarming smile I love, his green eyes tilted up, straight mouth drawn wide.

We're staring into one another's eyes, my hands still on his shoulders and his on mine. If we were reunited lovers, we would kiss now, I think.

Could we? Just once? I picture Atherton drawing closer, see myself doing nothing to stop him.

A blaze of flame behind us shocks me into my senses. One of his lanterns has caught on fire.

'Your flying balloons need more work,' I tell him, moving to extinguish the flames. 'Shouldn't you use silk, instead of paper?'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty-Three

Once I've extinguished Atherton's air balloon experiment, I take in his office.

It's different to how I remember it. It was once full of fashionable furniture, Chinois style, all red and gold and looping shapes. But things have been cut down, altered, removed. His old desk is still here, though - heavy black, with a scattering of different-sized drawers at the front, painted with gold-lacquered flying birds, willow trees and rivers from a far-flung land he'll never see. But bolted solidly to the top are two wooden handles, rough-hewn things for a cripple to grip at.

On the wall is a portrait of him five years ago in the Navy, before his illness began, standing tall in his admiral's uniform and tricorn hat. I wonder how he can bear to have it here still.

'Your office looks awful.' I grin, knowing he'll appreciate my honesty. 'Couldn't you have kept your limbs working a little longer?'

He laughs. 'It's been a long time since you decorated,' he says, smiling back at me. 'I became bored of good taste.' The smile fades away. 'You've been gone a long time, Attica,' he says. I see in his face a little snatch of how it must feel to be stuck here with someone you care for far away.

'That doesn't change things,' I say, squeezing his fingers.

I drop my hands down to hold his, reluctant to move apart.

'How are you?' I ask.

'Good and bad,' he admits, shifting his twisted legs. 'The rubber stoppers you got me come in useful on Whitehall's waxed floors. Fortunate those Caribbean pirates never found you.'

He gives me a mischievous glance.

'How did you ...?'

'How did I know you risked your life to steal them? Let's just say it's my job to know things.' He taps his nose.

Atherton plants his palms on his walking sticks and shuffles with difficulty to his desk. When his condition first deteriorated he told me in no uncertain terms not to treat him like a cripple. I've always respected his wishes, but it's not always easy.

I wander around the office, taking in the changes. I reach up to a little cabinet, all little-gold-leafed drawers. It bears all the markings of one of Atherton's puzzle boxes.

'You've altered the pattern?' I guess, reaching up and pressing on a gold-leaf. It recedes into the wood.

'I've made a few improvements.'

I nod, pushing in a few other sections in sequence. I only just duck in time, as a drawer shoots free, sending a whirling blade winging across the room.

'Very good,' I enthuse, noting how far it has lodged in the wall.

'The spring is a great deal stronger,' agrees Atherton, pleased.

I move to the opposite side of the room, where the blade has embedded, twanging menacingly with the impact.

'Anything else?' I ask, prodding it.

'Oh yes!' Atherton's schoolboy energy always lights him up when speaking of his inventions. He one a drawer and then another, hidden inside.

After a moment's frowning search, he removes what look like some little pieces of wood. Their tips are coated in a yellow substance.

I look closer, then grin at him.

'They work?'

Atherton sits back proudly. He lifts one.

'Self-lighting fire-sticks,' he says. 'Drag them against any rough surface and they will fire on their own.' He picks one up carefully and drags it against the edge of his desk. It flares. 'Instant flame, and you can hide them in all kinds of places you couldn't fit a tinderbox.'

I stare at the fire, transfixed. 'I don't believe it.'

'They fail if you get them wet, mind,' says Atherton, blowing it out. 'I'm still working on how to fix that. Perhaps a different mix of chemicals at the tip.'

We share a smile; two strange people who love ciphers and mechanics.

I didn't realize quite how much I'd missed Atherton.

'You must at least stay long enough to drink with me,' he decides. He manoeuvres himself to his desk with impressive dexterity and using the wooden handles he opens the largest of his drawers.

'Sailor's finest,' he beams, lifting out a battered bottle. Atherton's vice is the filthiest of cheap naval rum, a throwback to his days warring at sea with common sailors.

I lift a chair and seat myself next to him. I lean forward and collect two glasses from inside his drawer and fill them both much too full. The sugary tang of strong alcohol fills the air.

Atherton takes one appreciatively and we sit side by side, our chairs touching. Through his large first-floor window I can see the pale stone of Whitehall streets and buildings and down below the wigged men hurrying to court.

He swigs deeply. 'Ah,' he says happily, 'the taste of the seven seas.'

I sip, shaking my head. The dark rum is as terrible as it ever was.

'This is why sailors die so young,' I say, my eyes burning from the fumes tunnelling up my nose.

'You'll appreciate it when you're older,' he adds, enjoying my wincing expression. His favourite thing is to joke about the age gap between us, which seemed very great when we first met. Atherton tutored me in code-breaking and lock-picking talents ten years ago when I was thirteen and he was twenty-two.

I feel suddenly choked with emotions and take a clumsy mouthful of rum to hide my expression. I want to tell him how I dreamed of the moment I'd see him again, almost daily, in Russia, gathering information for the Crown. That even though he was far away, I knew he was doing everything he could, helping me, keeping me safe, and that knowledge made me happy. But somehow the words don't come.

Instead, I say: 'I always liked this view,' in a cold little voice that doesn't sound like me.

Atherton eyes me sideways and I wonder if he knows what I'm thinking.

'So what brings you back to England? King and country?' he suggests.

'The usual reason. I've come to ask for your help,' I say, sipping rum. I feel the alcohol burn my stomach, a warm comfortable glow. 'I need papers. I uncovered a trail of slave trading leading to Madrid. I think there's a big market hidden there.'

He hesitates. 'You've already been assigned. It's not my decision. Lord Pole's office has higher authority.'

My eyes flick to his.

'Since when did Lord Pole involve himself in Sealed Knot business?'

'The man you rescued from Russia, Gaspard de Mayenne, we think he's in danger,' he says quietly. 'Lord Pole needs you to get him to Versailles.'

I'm looking hard at Atherton, wondering what it is he isn't telling me.

'What business could Gaspard de Mayenne have in Versailles?' I say. 'What did you bloody schemers do?'

I'd forgotten, in English intelligence there's no such thing as a simple rescue.

'Thanks to you, Gaspard owes us a favour,' says Atherton. 'His daughter has a position in the Palace, close enough to get to the Queen.'

'So you want this girl to smuggle something in?' I deduce, sipping the bad rum. 'What?'

Atherton hesitates.

'Have you heard about the lost diamonds