CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

It has been arranged to meet at the grandfather clock at the hour of two. They should, perhaps, have left it longer for there was no guarantee Julian would be abed, but when one is set upon a thing it is always best to act at the earliest opportunity.

And it must be tonight.

‘Why must it?’ Miss Carew had asked when they were taking a light supper of leftovers in the safety of Linette’s study. ‘Can it not wait until Lord Tresilian is away? To sneak about while he sleeps so close, the risk of being caught … I’m not sure I can bear it.’

It had been agreed she would stay at Plas Helyg again this night. An extra pair of eyes, Henry said, but as he took Miss Carew’s hand in his, Linette suspected he merely wished to keep her close.

‘If I am to remove to the gatehouse tomorrow then our options have been cut short; it would be better we discover as much as possible now while we still have the chance. Dr Evans’ murder, your mother’s mental state – both of these things are linked by the vials. It was Beddoe who roused my suspicions in the first place, but now we know he is a member of a Hellfire club led by your cousin, and that Julian ordered your mother’s sedation. These things, they are all connected, and the book is the answer, I’m sure of it. Besides, what does waiting achieve? We tried that, and nothing has come of it. No,’ said Henry firmly, ‘we’ve waited long enough.’

Linette started to reply – with what exactly she did not know – but then a knock came at the door and there was no need.

‘Come in.’

It was Cadoc who opened the door, Angharad hovering behind him in the passageway.

‘Are you finished here, Miss Linette?’

‘Yes, Cadoc,’ Linette said, pushing her half-eaten leftovers of oyster loaf away from her, ‘we are finished.’

‘Can we fetch you anything else?’ the butler asked as he and Angharad cleared the plates, and Linette managed a tight smile and a small shake of her head.

‘No, thank you. That will be all.’

Her hands full of plates, Angharad dipped her knees and departed, but the butler did not move. He watched them, dour face a careful blank, and Linette shifted uncomfortably in her seat. There was something suspicious about the way he watched them, for all that his face was devoid of expression, and she longed to know what he was thinking. Could he be trusted? Or was he, like Enaid, one of Julian’s pawns?

‘You may leave us now, Cadoc,’ Linette said softly, and the butler bowed his head.

‘Very good.’

But at the door he hesitated.

‘You will forgive me for saying so,’ he said quietly, ‘but I feel you should speak to Mrs Evans. She asks after you constantly. She is most distressed.’

It was the first time – the first time in twenty-six years – that Cadoc Powell had ever spoken out of turn, and the shock of it together with the mention of Enaid made Linette’s stomach clench.

‘That will be all, Cadoc,’ she told him tightly.

A beat. Then, a pointed bow. He shut the study door behind him with a click that felt harsh and dangerously final.

When Linette turned back it was to find Henry and Miss Carew looking at her across the table. The latter politely turned her face. The former cleared his throat.

‘Have you not spoken to Mrs Evans at all ?’

Linette sniffed, rose from her seat, crossed to the window where it was open a little in its casement. The smell of jasmine whispered through the gap, and Linette took a deep calming breath of it.

‘No, I have not.’

Behind her, Henry sighed.

‘Linette. While I feel she has acted terribly I do not, on reflection, think Mrs Evans meant to cause intentional harm. Don’t you think you are being, perhaps, a little cruel?’

Linette turned, stared at him aghast.

‘Cruel?’

‘She is upset,’ he said simply. ‘When I saw her this morning she looked—’

‘I don’t wish to hear it, Henry.’

‘Don’t you think she might explain more to you? I’m still a stranger to her, but you … If you asked her, I’m sure—’

‘No, Henry.’

‘But—’

‘Please!’ Linette snapped, raising her hand. ‘I’m not ready. Don’t force me to do something I do not wish to.’

He watched her, troubled. ‘All right,’ he said eventually. ‘But you cannot ignore her for ever.’

Linette turned away again, could not look at him, stared instead at her reflection in the windowpane. Her face was drawn, eyes like black holes, and she did not like what she saw.

From the moment Linette locked herself in her bedroom, sleep became an elusive dream. Instead she listened to the grandfather clock below strike its hour of eleven, then twelve. At half past, a wind outside picked up in a restless moan. At one o’clock Linette thought she heard the sound of vomiting come from her mother’s bedroom, but over the wild rustling of trees she could not be sure. Then, as soon as the grandfather clock struck its sonorous chimes to the appointed hour, Linette slipped from her bedroom, silent as a wraith.

She is the first to arrive on the landing below. While she waits Linette watches the clock’s galleon tip back and forth in time to the heavy clunk of turning cogs.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

It is mesmeric, calming. And she needs that calm now, needs something to stem the beat of nerves in her chest.

There comes a soft footfall above. Linette freezes, preparing to take flight lest it should be Cadoc or Enaid or, heaven forbid, Julian himself, but then Henry and Miss Carew turn the corner of the stairwell. Like her, both are fully dressed. Henry holds a green box – his surgical tools, Linette remembers – in one hand.

‘Are you ready?’ he asks, and Linette nods, though she is not. Together, their party of three descend the stairs to the vestibule, steal as quietly as they can across the flagstones, into the corridor leading to Julian’s study.

‘I shall wait here,’ Miss Carew says. ‘Keep watch.’

‘Are you sure?’ Henry asks, and visibly she swallows.

‘I’d be no use to you even if I did go in with you. I’d be watching the door the whole time anyway and could not concentrate. Please,’ she says, stronger now. ‘I would much rather do this.’

‘All right, if you’re sure. Linette?’

She nods, closes her hand over the study’s doorknob, and sighs with relief as the brass ball turns smoothly in her hand.

The study is dark – the light of the moon does not reach here – and smells of beeswax, the sickly hint of Julian’s London cologne. Outside, the trees bend in the wind, moaning on their trunks. The shadows of leaves skitter across the wallpaper, like hundreds of hands reaching for them as Henry and Linette cross the room to the bookshelves.

‘Here,’ Henry whispers, ‘take this.’ He passes her the instrument box, unclips its clasp, opens the lid, selects a long thin tool from its velvet casing. ‘I hope it isn’t hard to pick.’

On Julian’s desk sits a candle. Linette reaches into her pocket, removes a tinderbox. She strikes the spark, lowers it to the candle’s taper, and light blooms briefly before the flame dims and settles. Linette holds it out so Henry can see, and as he commits himself to the task she stares at the tomes behind their glass casings.

Again, the books send a shudder down her spine. In the darkness of the room they look even more distasteful. She reads their titles with a deep sense of foreboding:

Compendium Rarissimum Totius , Clavis Inferni , Histoire des Diables de Loudun , Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis , Epistolae Theosophicae …

The lock clicks. Henry removes the instrument, places the green case on the desk. Then, very carefully, he removes the tome from its stand. The edge knocks against the piece of stone, and it wobbles slightly before falling still, its gold flecks flashing in the candlelight.

‘Christ,’ he bites out, laying it down upon Julian’s desk, ‘it’s heavy,’ and for a long moment Linette and Henry simply stare at the book, transfixed. Before, it was merely a dusty antique to gaze upon from behind glass, but now it is within her grasp she is fearful of it. Hesitantly she puts her hand out to touch the symbol on its cover – hard, rough, reminiscent of leather but not, with odd raised edges that remind her of rope – and Linette brings her hand back as if burnt.

It feels like no book she has ever touched before.

Henry opens it. The spine creaks.

The first page is blank. Henry turns it, and there comes then a crinkling sound not unlike that of old parchment. Like the first, the next two pages are also blank but on the fourth are a set of ornatewords, written in Julian’s tight cursive. Together Henry and Linette lean to read them, and Linette sucks in her breath.

Property of The Order of Berith

And underneath that:

Clavis Umbrarum

Magus Goetia

‘Berith,’ Henry breathes.

Berith .

That word. The word her mother has said so many times over the years, a word which Linette has taken no heed of until she heard Lord Pennant say it that day at the mine.

‘ Clavis umbrarum ,’ she murmurs after a moment. ‘What do you suppose that means?’

Henry shakes his head. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Well, what of magus goetia ? Is it Latin?’

‘I think so, yes, but as I told you before, my Latin is rusty.’

Henry turns the pages. Many of them are filled with tightly packed writing but some are crammed with bizarre images. Circles containing strange symbols similar to the one on the book’s cover; lines made up of triangles and angular shapes, some projecting tiny crosses, some odd little swirls and dots. On one page there is drawn the diagram of a hand, its fingertips adorned by similar shapes, its palm a blazing sun. The wrist shows an eye set within a star, staring unnervingly up at her.

Linette glances back again at the occult books, their crumbling spines tightly packed on their shelves, then back down again, a suspicion starting to take shape at the back of her mind. She thinks of the stories Enaid used to tell her as a child, tales of the old traditions. But, Linette thinks, biting her lip, this cannot be what she thinks this book is. Surely such things do not exist? As if in answer the wind sighs against the windowpane, and she must suppress a shudder.

Henry turns another page. This one has more text but on the opposite page there is another image, far more disturbing than the rest. It shows another circle, but within it a skull is placed atop a small plinth, and lying in front of it a dagger coloured yellow to represent gold. Henry stares down at it with a frown.

‘Did your mother not mention a golden blade?’

‘Yes,’ she says faintly.

He turns another page. More text. He turns another. Line after line of it.

‘This book is completely handwritten,’ he says after a moment. ‘Nothing is printed.’

Henry is right, she acknowledges grimly as he turns the pages, again and again until, finally, he stops. The candle Linette holds flickers, casting Henry’s face into shadow as he looks at what nestles between the pages.

Linette stares, reaches for it with a shaking hand. She brings it up to the candle flame, twists the calamus between forefinger and thumb. It is an old feather, dull, with little of the rainbow sheen she knows should be there, but she knows it all the same, would recognise one of those feathers anywhere.

It is the feather of a black hen.

One of Plas Helyg’s hens.

‘Look,’ Henry says. He points then to the page beneath the feather.

It shows another circle, a circle filled with more symbols. Standing in the middle of it is a naked man, his body covered with those very same patterns. He holds in one hand a golden blade, and at his feet there lies a black hen, blood pooling from its neck.

Guiltily Linette thinks of Merlin. That poor dog. Blamed all these years for something he did not do!

‘This is more than a club for the rich,’ Henry whispers. ‘This is ritualistic.’ He presses her elbow. ‘Look at the writing.’

Henry points at the line of text at the top of the page and in shock Linette stares down at it, unable to fathom what she is seeing:

H OATH, R EDAR, G ANABEL, B ERITH

‘Mamma’s words,’ she whispers.

Henry nods. ‘These aren’t Latin, though.’

‘How do you know?’

‘They just don’t sound Latin. They don’t follow the same rhythm.’

‘What are they then?’

‘I don’t know. But have you not noticed?’

‘Noticed?

‘This isn’t ink.’

Swallowing, Linette brings the candle closer to the page. He is right. The writing is not black, but brown. A faded shade of—

‘Red,’ she breathes. ‘It’s red. You mean …’

‘Blood,’ Henry confirms grimly. ‘This book is written in blood. And there’s something else.’

Linette stares at him. ‘What more can there possibly be?’

‘The paper.’

Henry trails off, runs his hand across the page. Linette places her own hand on the parchment beside his, rubs the pads of her fingertips against the grain. It feels soft, leathery, almost like …

Revulsion turns itself in her stomach.

‘Skin. It feels like skin.’

‘Yes.’

They look at each other. Henry shakes his head in wonder.

‘What is this?’ he asks, and Linette shuts her eyes, suspicions now confirmed.

It can only be one thing, something she has only ever read about in her book of folklore, or heard from stories Enaid told her long ago.

‘A grimoire,’ Linette answers, opening her eyes once more. ‘A book of magic, compiled by whoever it belongs to. It includes methods of crafting talismans and amulets, instructions for casting spells.’ She licks her lips. ‘It tells how to invoke otherworldly beings such as angels, spirits, deities. And …’

‘And what?’

‘Demons.’

Henry says nothing. Fearfully Linette runs her fingers across the page.

‘Witches would make their grimoires from what they called virgin parchment. It is made from the skin of a young goat, stretched and dried out to make paper. Then the pages are blessed and sewn into a book.’

His face is hard in the candlelight as he looks down at the feather Linette had put down on the desk, the book, its strange symbols. Then he attempts a half-hearted smile.

‘You know,’ Henry says quietly, ‘that I do not believe in witches or grimoires or magic. It is clear, however, that Julian does.’ His fingers hover over the image, the bleeding hen. ‘The Order of Berith,’ he murmurs. ‘That, then, is what his Hellfire club is called. It sounds cultish, and there’s no denying this book is ritualistic in nature. But to what purpose?’

Tiredly he turns the page to reveal the symbol from the cover of the book drawn on the page beneath. Under that, English words. Together, she and Henry bend forward to read:

Whosoever breaks a covenant with Almighty Berith will be devoured by a beast of darkness, and that sinner’s soul shall belong completely unto Him.

‘Covenant,’ Henry murmurs. ‘An agreement. And look … the sigil is slightly different. Berith,’ he reads, tilting his head at the letters spaced out within the symbol’s disc. ‘Berith is a person, then?’

‘Or a demon.’

The words sits between them a moment. Outside, the tree branches sway, rustling their leaves.

‘Look,’ Linette whispers, ‘there’s more.’

To ensure salvation the bargain must be struck with the sacrifice of one’s own ancestral lifeblood, the bond of two united.

‘Bond of two united …’ Henry repeats under his breath, and with a frustrated sigh Linette moves the candle from one hand to the other.

‘It makes no sense, no sense at all!’

‘Not yet, perhaps,’ he murmurs. ‘But it obviously means something. What are these?’ Henry points to a series of strange symbols set below the last line of text:

Linette shakes her head. They look similar to all the other symbols scattered within the book. With a sigh Henry turns the next page but it is blank, as is the next and the next.

There is nothing else.

Henry rubs a tired hand across his face, goes back to the page of English handwriting.

‘Let’s find something to copy this down with,’ he says. ‘It’s all we can do.’

He opens the drawer, bends to search it. Stills.

‘What’s wrong?’

He does not answer, pulls something out, something long and thin, wrapped in black silk. Very slowly Henry begins to unwrap it, revealing the point of a gold dagger …

He lets the silk drop, holds it between them like a talisman. Linette raises the candle, and in the gutter of the flame the dagger almost appears to glow. The symbol, the symbol of Berith, is carved into the blade, and both she and Henry look at it, mesmerised.

‘It’s the dagger from the portrait,’ he murmurs.

Suddenly, Miss Carew’s head pokes around the door.

‘Hurry!’ she hisses, urgent. ‘Someone is coming!’

Henry swears, and Linette pushes the black feather back between those awful pages. Then she looks down at the one in front of her and makes a choice.

Linette takes the dagger from Henry’s grasp, slices the page from the book. He stares at her aghast.

‘Are you trying to get us caught?’

‘Do you have another idea?’

She pushes the page into her pocket and Henry swears again, rewraps the dagger with hurried movements, places it back in the drawer.

‘ Beth wyt ti’n ei wneud i lawr yma? ’

Linette and Henry freeze. That is Cadoc Powell’s voice.

That is Cadoc Powell’s hand pushing the study door open; that is Cadoc Powell holding a candelabrum aloft, standing there in his nightshirt, wig dangerously askew. His eyes go from Linette, to Henry, to the book on Julian’s desk, then back again.

‘You should not be here,’ the butler says finally. His voice is measured, carefully devoid of emotion. ‘It is best you all go back to bed.’

Behind him Miss Carew hovers in the hallway, eyes wide. Linette draws herself up, determined not to show her own fear that has clamped itself to her ribcage with sharp tenacious claws.

‘Exactly where we were going,’ Linette replies, trying to hide the wobble in her voice. Next to her, Henry very slowly closes the book, replaces it in the cabinet, shuts the door. ‘We’re finished here, aren’t we, Henry?’

She does not wait for him to answer. Linette sweeps around the desk as if she has every right to be there and crosses the study floor.

‘Step aside, Cadoc,’ she says.

But Cadoc does not step aside. Instead, he stares at her. His expression is impenetrable, and desperately Linette keeps her face the same, hopes he cannot hear the pounding of her heart. Then, finally, Cadoc lets her and Henry pass to join Miss Carew in the corridor.

They do not look behind them as they retreat, but Linette can feel the butler’s piercing gaze at their backs like knives, and outside, the wind in the trees cries a soulful warning.