Moonlight and Ashes Read online

  I looked into her pretty face, into those nice dark eyes that were bright with malice and cruelty, and said quietly, ‘Being dead would be better than ever seeing you again. But listen well, both of you – the day will come when you will pay for what you have done. You will beg for mercy. But it will be too late.’

  Though the words were quiet, they came from the darkest part of me, from the boiling heart of the rage and hatred I’d held down for so long, and they had an unexpected effect on the girls. Babette gasped, stepping back, and Odette’s eyes widened in shock, even fear. But before either of them could say anything, the coachman came back with three policemen. It seemed like overkill for one scrawny little street thief. Two of them grabbed me, while the third policeman picked up the parcel and took a statement from my stepsisters.

  As I was dragged away, I could feel the girls’ eyes on me. Now they and their mother had exactly what they’d always wanted – to be rid of me – and I was the fool who’d made the noose for her own neck. Odette was right, my father would certainly disown me when he heard what I was alleged to have done. The last shred of his protection would be gone.

  I tried to tell myself that things could have been worse; that they could know the actual truth, that I could have been dragged off not by the police but by the Mancers – that it was better to be thought of as a thief than a witch. But it was cold comfort because I knew that my desperate story had only bought me a little time. I’d have to answer the policeman’s questions, and even if I made things up – which I had to – sooner or later they would come to realise I was lying. And then what was to happen to me?

  The police station was crowded and noisy, and stank of old cabbage soup and old socks. My captors handed me over to a sergeant who wrote down my name – or at least the name my stepsisters had given, Ashes – which I did not challenge, not wanting to attract any more attention to myself, and the charge: stealing. Then I was marched down to the women’s holding cell, which was full of women of every age. Most seemed unfussed at being there: a big group played cards, one or two paced around, a couple of inmates huddled in corners, their heads in their hands, while the rest chatted or dozed.

  I was nervous at first. Many of these women looked pretty tough – the sort whose eye you really wouldn’t want to catch – but I soon realised that no-one was interested in me. They all had their own problems and many seemed to know each other. As I sat quietly listening to their conversations, I learned that most of them were pickpockets, card sharps or brawlers who had been picked up during the night-fair. Even though this was clearly only the minor league of the underworld, it felt strange to have suddenly been thrust into the company of those who thought nothing of the law. Servant I might have been, disregarded and oppressed, but though the work was backbreaking, it was still respectable. Now I had fallen far beyond even the humblest servant. I was a common thief, like so many of the others here, and I could never claw my way back up, no matter what happened. My throat thickened with the bitterness of it and I could feel foolish tears starting. But I blinked them fiercely away and tried to concentrate on working out what I must say when it came time for my interview before the magistrate.

  But it was hard for I was quite out of ideas and after a time I gave up, listening instead to the others’ conversation, pricking up my ears when I heard mention of the Prince. But it was just gossip about the ‘mysterious girl’, nothing more illuminating than what the servants had been saying.

  By and by dinner came – tin bowls filled with thin, greasy cabbage soup and hunks of dry, dusty black bread. It looked disgusting but I was hungry. I was just starting on the bread, having gobbled down the soup, when suddenly there was a yell and one of the card players, a big woman with a face like a cracked old boot, launched herself at a figure in the corner, punching and kicking her. Someone told me that she had tried to sneak the big woman’s bread when she wasn’t looking. The whole cell was in uproar, enjoying the fight.

  I don’t know why I did it – everything should have warned me not to. And the big woman was in the right, after all. But the sound of that baying crowd – and the sight of that woman’s huge fists and feet smashing into the helpless thief, who was about half her size, and who had rolled into a ball to try to escape the blows – aroused a volcanic reaction in me, so that I screamed, ‘Stop that! Stop it at once!’

  The big woman paused, looked over her shoulder at me and smiled unpleasantly. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Let her be,’ I said, swallowing.

  The big woman dropped the thief, who stared at me with wild green eyes from under a tangled mass of dark hair. The big woman lumbered towards me and the crowd in front of her parted, everyone staring at me.

  Trembling, I held out my hunk of bread. ‘Take this. She shouldn’t have done it but, please, let her be.’

  The big woman stopped and stared for a long moment, then snatched the bread from me and said, ‘You’re a fool,’ just as a couple of policemen, alerted by the noise, came running to see what was going on.

  Nobody told them what had happened, only the big woman, who said that there had been a bit of ‘high spirits and larking about – nothing to worry about, officers’. The policemen were easily satisfied – it was clear they had no stomach for trying to find out what had really happened. Once they were gone, the big woman turned to the thief and said, ‘If you try anything like that again, I’ll rip your guts out.’ Then she looked at me, raised her eyebrows, shrugged, and went back to her friends and her card game – devouring my hunk of bread. The others whispered about it for a little while but soon lost interest and returned to their own concerns, though from time to time I would catch someone glancing at me and at the thief.

  The thief didn’t try to come near me, and I let her be. She’d given me one wild glance of uncomprehending gratitude, then had huddled down again, putting her head in her arms. She was thin, her filthy feet bare, her nails ragged and bitten to the quick. Her clothes were dirty rags much worse than my own patched dress – she looked altogether a most miserable creature. She was young, too – probably only a year or two older than me. And I hadn’t heard her speak once. Even when the big woman was bashing her, she hadn’t made a sound.

  Time passed and as darkness began to fall the card players put away their games. It grew quiet in the cell, warm because of the many bodies. People fell asleep on the straw strewn over the stone floor. Some snored – the big woman the loudest of them all. But I couldn’t sleep. I had no space to lie down so I sat with my arms around my knees, thinking and thinking and not getting anywhere.

  Still, I must have dozed off, for when the barred door was flung open and the lantern light fell upon us, I came to with a start and saw that four large policemen had come into the cell. But they weren’t alone. With them was a tall dark-haired man wearing elegant evening dress, a cloak and a black eye mask, carrying a smart silver-topped walking stick. In the wavering light of the lantern, the part of his face that could be seen was pale as death, and the silver top of his stick, with its sinuous serpentine curves, glowed with an odd light.

  Though everyone had been woken by the entrance of the five men, no-one said a word. It wasn’t the sight of the police that stilled the tongues of even the toughest of the prisoners. It was the sight of the other man. Nobody needed to be told who he was or, rather, what he was. A Mancer!

  I was sure my last hour had come. They had found out and were after me. I was so scared that I was beyond fear. I sat as still as a frog hypnotised by a snake, but I knew it would do me no good.

  The Mancer did not speak. He walked amongst us, swinging his lantern, examining every frozen, frightened face. Each time, he passed on. Now, the moment had come – the lantern swung towards me – and my heart nearly stopped. He looked at me and I felt the cold fire of his pale eyes burn into me, even though I kept my own eyes down. And then . . . he passed on to the next person, the next face, until he reache
d the thief.

  I could see what he was doing out of the corner of my eye. He swung the lantern over her, made a clicking sound in the back of his throat – audible to everyone in the deathly silence – and bent down to her. He forced her face up and looked into her eyes. He sniffed. He straightened and called to the policemen. ‘This one,’ he said sharply.

  The thief shrieked and tried to twist away but he was too quick for her, grabbing her by her long tangled hair. In an instant two of the policemen were on her. One held her down while the other tied her wrists and ankles with rope. She had gone quiet and limp, her head on her chest. Nobody said anything. I felt nauseous, my palms were prickling and my heart was thumping so much I was sure it could be heard.

  The Mancer held the lantern up and looked at us. ‘Do any of you know anything about this girl?’ His voice was soft, pleasant and educated, yet there was a tone in it that sent shivers down my spine. Nobody said anything so he repeated the question, adding, ‘If I find out that any of you have withheld information, it will be so much worse for all of you.’

  The big woman said, in a voice that was a mere shadow of her former booming tones, ‘She . . . she’s a thief, sir.’

  The Mancer smiled thinly. ‘So are you all.’

  ‘No – you see, sir,’ stammered the big woman, ‘she’s the worst – she steals from her own fellow prisoners – took my bread.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And . . .’ Her panicked gaze swung over to me. ‘That one over there came to her aid, heaven knows why.’

  ‘Really?’ said the Mancer, his pale gaze was on me again. I was overcome with horror and terror. I called out cowardly words that, though true enough, resounded shamefully in my head afterwards. ‘No! She’s nothing to me! I’ve never met her before in my life! You must believe me!’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said the Mancer and he signalled to the other two policemen, who pinioned my arms behind my back, tied them with rope and stuffed a gag in my mouth as I was trying to protest my innocence. The Mancer turned to the other prisoners. ‘Not a word about any of this, or I’ll be back for more of you,’ he said quietly. ‘Is that understood?’ Every head nodded, fearfully; every mouth was shut, every head was bent as I and the other girl were picked up and carried out of the cell in utter silence.

  He had a carriage waiting and we were flung inside it, into a hinged compartment at the back of the seat. It was dark and suffocating, like being in a coffin, though at least they’d ripped off my gag. Each bump of the carriage over the cobblestones made our teeth rattle in our heads, but neither of us spoke a word. I could hear the other girl’s breathing, regular and soft, not sharp and ragged like mine. She wasn’t afraid, I thought, suddenly. Or maybe she was beyond fear – scared into a numbed acceptance. But I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t ready to disappear. And yet that was what would happen if the Mancers found out my secret. There were never any reports of the arrests of illegal witches and magicians, and no public trials; one simply knew that if they were ever caught, they would vanish never to be seen again. Whether they rotted in prison for ever or were executed or experimented on (as rumour had it), no-one was quite sure. And no-one wanted to find out. Unless I was very, very careful, I was going to find out in the worst possible way. But I had one thing going for me: I had been picked up by chance – the Mancer had not come looking for me.

  But he had for the other girl. Why? If she was an illegal witch, she surely wouldn’t have been in the ordinary holding cell. She’d clearly been arrested along with the others at the night-fair and, remembering how she’d stolen the big woman’s bread and the starving look of her, I thought it most likely that her arrest had been for stealing food. But ordinary thieves are of no interest whatsoever to Mancers, so somehow they must have learned she was more than what she seemed to be. I remembered how the Mancer had gone amongst the prisoners, checking each one of us, and then when he reached the girl, how he had looked at her for quite a while before saying, ‘This is the one.’ So he must have had some description of her but hadn’t been sure which one he was looking for. What did that mean? Was she a witch, or something else? The Mancers looked after the royal family’s security, after all, which included all threats, magical or not. And the last time a member of the royal family had come to Ashberg, the Emperor had been shot at. Maybe the Mancers had information of some plot against the Prince. Maybe that explained their unusual activity in the days leading up to the visit. Maybe this girl was some kind of assassin.

  But whatever the truth, whether she was a witch or a would-be assassin or simply a person of suspicion, it didn’t bode well for her. Or for me, as I was now associated with her by mere chance. The only way for me to get out of this would be to convince the Mancers that it really was chance, that I really had nothing to do with her and that my only crime had been to take pity on her in the cell. There would be no escape for her, but there might be for me, perhaps, if I was very lucky.

  The carriage came to an abrupt halt. Rough hands pulled us blinking out of the dark and untied our legs so we could walk. We found ourselves in a large courtyard, enclosed on three sides by blank, windowless walls. On the fourth was a big barred door guarded by large men who wore the black and white livery of Mancer servants and who carried guns. I was disoriented by the trip, but knew we must be somewhere in the Mancers’ quarter of the city, though I had never been inside it.

  The policemen marched us to the barred door and left us with two burly Mancer guards, who held us in an iron grip while the Mancer who’d brought us from the prison rapped three times on the door with his walking stick. It opened, and we stepped through . . .

  Into Hell, I thought at once. Behind the door was a long, dark corridor, fitfully lit by a red glow from down the end, from which I could hear clanking noises as well. We were marched down this corridor, the main Mancer leading the way, the guards behind us. Nobody spoke. The girl stumbled along beside me but she made no move towards me, she didn’t even look at me. I was desperately racking my brains trying to remember every last thing I’d heard about the Mancers. Theirs was a closed world. You couldn’t become a Mancer just like that, you had to be either born into an old Mancer family, or on rare occasions, be chosen by the General Secretary of the Mancer Council or one of his talent scouts. It was said the Mancers held every spellbook and volume on magic that had ever been written (all such literature was banned for everyone else). Yet they did not rely solely on old magic, it was said, but also experimented to find new forms. Their methods were shrouded in absolute secrecy, however, for their magic was built around one objective: the protection of the Empire and the elimination of its enemies. Mancers were forbidden from using their magical knowledge for any other purpose. They could not sell spells or go into business as public wizards, and they were banned from practising magic for personal gain such as for fun or relaxation, or for love or hate. They were kept away from normal society and lived in special quarters, they went to special schools and could not travel or marry without the approval of the Mancer Council. At the age of nine, a Mancer swears an unbreakable oath of secrecy – the betrayal of which was punishable by death. They were anonymous – only the General Secretary of the Mancer Council ever appeared at public occasions. But even he made no public statements on Mancer matters; only the Emperor could do that and he hadn’t done so for many years.

  What use were any of those scraps of information, when I knew nothing whatsoever about how Mancer magic worked – not even a hint of something that might help me to armour myself against it? They must be able to read minds, I thought, at least at some level. They couldn’t be infallible, or there would not have been such incidents as the attempted assassination of the Emperor years ago, or any possibility of illegal witchcraft. But that didn’t comfort me much. I was just a sixteen-year-old girl with a guilty secret. I’d played with fire like the idiot I was and, under interrogation, they’d know that in seconds. I was no ene
my of the State but I was certain they’d see me as such. Unless . . .

  The finch. The hazel tree. My mother. If only . . . I did not even dare to put my desperate wish into thought. Not in this place, not in the dark heart of the most powerful magic, beside which the magic of the hazel tree seemed like a frivolous fancy. A frivolous fancy that could soon see me swinging on the end of a rope – or worse.

  We reached the end of the corridor and found ourselves in a round, echoing stone room, with a metal door down one end. It was garishly lit by red lanterns hung around its walls and in the very middle of it, perched on a stool, sat a Mancer scribbling at a tall desk, his fingers stained with ink, with a pile of ledgers beside him. Behind him, near the door, was another table with what looked like a goldfish bowl. However, instead of fish, it contained a confused mass of objects that made no sense to me. It must be some sort of magical item, I thought.

  The Mancer at the desk was small, wizened and grey. He didn’t wear a mask but steel-framed pince-nez on his nose. He didn’t have a cloak but was dressed in an ordinary dark suit like that of a clerk. But from the respectful way the elegant Mancer addressed him as ‘Sir’, the wizened one must have been of higher rank. They conferred briefly in low voices and I strained to hear what they said. But I could not.

  Shortly afterwards, the little man pressed a lever under his desk and the door at the end of the room opened with a grinding of cogs. We were hustled towards it by the guards and the elegant Mancer followed. Just before we got to the door, he pointed to the bowl and said, ‘Empty out your pockets and put the contents in there.’ Now I knew why it contained such a confused mass of objects, everything from coins and buttons to handkerchiefs and pocketknives and sweets and . . . my heart nearly stopped as I caught sight of something familiar.