Читать книгу The Book of Lies - James Moloney - Страница 11

MARCEL’S BODY SHIVERED, HALF with exhaustion and half with fear. Beside him, Mrs Timmins looked ready to faint. “That beast would frighten the bravest knight. I don’t like having it live above us,” she declared, turning to the boy. “But listen to me, Marcel. Do as Lord Alwyn says. Stay within these walls and you’ll be safe. If you leave…” She hesitated, shocked by what she was about to say. “If you leave, you may well be killed.”

“Yes, by Lord Alwyn,” he snapped, suddenly infuriated. “And you’re helping him.”

“No!” she cried, hurt to the quick. “He won’t harm you, not while I draw breath.” Then she addressed both boys with all the sternness she could muster. “The pair of you need a good lesson. Fergus – Albert and Old Belch will be back with a new load of firewood shortly, and when it’s here you’ll spend the rest of the day with an axe in your hands. As for you, Marcel, you can get on to your hands and knees in the vegetable garden, and there’d better not be a single weed in sight by nightfall. But first you, Fergus, can go and find that stallion, and Marcel, you can put this poor mare back in her stall. Just look at the state she’s in!”

Marcel led Gadfly back to the stables where he rubbed down her flanks with a cloth to wipe off the sweat, as he somehow knew he should do. At first his hands trembled after his encounter with Lord Alwyn’s beast, but there was something about Gadfly that helped him overcome his fear, and by the time he had finished grooming her his nerves had steadied. She had taken him so close to victory. He could still feel the wind in his face and the power of her galloping body beneath him. Even the mad leap across the stream, with their lives hanging in the balance, had become a triumph now that the real danger had passed. “For a moment I thought you could fly,” he told her.

Even after the meal that evening the smaller children talked wide-eyed about the race. They gathered around the fireplace with the glow of the flames dancing on their cheeks.

“Marcel’s horse flew like a bird,” said Watkin, describing the fantastic jump.

But it was little Dot who turned their attention to the most frightening part of the story. “What about Lord Alwyn’s beast? Did you hear its name? Termagant,” she whispered, sending a fearful shiver through all who were listening.

Marcel wasn’t part of the excited circle, but he had crept close to catch a little of the fire’s warmth. When he heard those awed whispers, his mouth went dry. He looked for Fergus, who had given him a wide berth since the race, and found him in a corner picking gingerly at his palms, which were blistered from woodchopping. Did those swaggering shoulders droop a little? Fergus was doing his best to hide it. Without realising, both boys stood up together, making everyone in the dining hall notice, when in fact each had hoped to slip away to bed unseen.

Marcel fell into bed drained and desperate for sleep. It wouldn’t come at first. The race had been exhilarating and he was a victor of sorts, but in the things that mattered most he had fallen further behind. He fidgeted with the ring that Lord Alwyn had forced him to wear, a ring that tied him to the orphanage more powerfully than ever. When finally he drifted off, he slept fitfully, strange faces filling his dreams, though none showed themselves clearly. A voice began calling to him. “Marcel! Marcel!” He tried to ignore it but the voice continued, whispering so closely it seemed to echo inside his ear.

Gradually he realised it wasn’t a dream at all. He woke with a start to find a hand on his shoulder, and though he couldn’t see anyone the voice was one he knew.

“Bea!”

“Shh,” she cautioned. She motioned to him to follow her.

He slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb Hugh beside him, and went with her into the passageway. He could only guess what time it was, but the house was dark and surely Albert and Mrs Timmins would be fast asleep. The two of them crept soundlessly along the corridor, but on the stairs Marcel lost his footing and slipped heavily on to the step below.

“Watch your feet!” Bea hissed.

“How can I, when it’s pitch-black!” he protested, but he grasped the banister all the same. “Where are we going?” he whispered.

“The kitchen,” Bea replied. They reached the bottom of the stairs and she pushed the kitchen door gently ajar. As soon as they entered, she lit the candle Mrs Timmins kept on the table and led him into the pantry, a snug little alcove separate from the room itself.

“What’s going on?”

“I have something for you,” she told him at last.

“At this time of night!” He watched as she pushed aside some large earthenware jars. Even then he had to wait while she carefully drew back a folded tablecloth. But when finally he saw what lay revealed, he could barely breathe. “The Book of Lies!”

He reached in and took it down from the shelf, carrying it carefully to the kitchen table, where he stroked the cracked and flaking red leather of its cover. “What was it doing there, in the pantry?”

Bea sent him an exasperated glance. “I hid it there,” she said, in a tone that hinted he should have guessed that much for himself.

Marcel didn’t notice. He was still trying to grasp the fact that the Book was right here in front of him. “But how did you get hold of it?”

“I took it from the tower, of course.”

“You can’t have! The door is sealed by magic.”

“I told you, there’s another way up there.”

Another way. What was she talking about? Then it came to him. “The hidden tunnel! You mean you…”

“This morning, when you and Fergus were racing into the village, I sneaked away from my chores and saw Lord Alwyn watching you from the window.”

“You guessed he would send Termagant down through that passage to get me, didn’t you?”

Bea was excited now. She could barely manage to keep her voice down. “I hid myself near the bushes and saw where she came out. The opening, Marcel – I found it at last! Now I can go up there any time I like.”

Marcel stared at her. “Any time you like! Are you mad?”

“No, it’s all right. Tonight, I just had to wait until I heard that noise in the wall and then I knew Termagant had gone out hunting. It’s so narrow; no wonder Termagant makes such a noise when she squeezes through it. And even in daylight it’s impossible to see.”

“But what about Lord Alwyn? I suppose he said, ‘Hello, come on in, Bea. Let me hold the candle for you.’”

Bea made a face. “Even wizards sleep at night, you know – and besides, even if he had been awake, he wouldn’t have seen me,” she said confidently. She folded her arms to show she was growing tired of his lack of faith in her.

Marcel made himself calm down. If he had sounded a little harsh, it was only because he was worried about her. Terrified, really. This was the second time she had taken a dreadful risk to help him. “I’m sorry I questioned you,” he said softly, and to show it he touched her gently on the arm. “You went up there just to get this book for me. I can’t believe it. Bea, that’s braver than anything I did today.”

Bea blushed brightly, not easy for a girl who usually faded into the shadows. “Now we can work out whether your real life is written inside. Quickly, see what you can find,” she urged him. “Termagant won’t stay out all night, and I’ll have to return it before she comes back.”

Marcel opened the cover and leaned forward, impatient to read the words inside. There were so many. Every page was covered from top to bottom and edge to edge with a solemn, flowing black script. The pages were yellowed and furred at the corners, some torn a little in places. Marcel read the first page, but by the second his eyes were growing tired. He began skimming the text quickly, hoping to pick out his name. But even this took an age. Four, five, six pages. He couldn’t take them in any faster. “This is hopeless,” he moaned. “It would take me a year to read every word in this book.”

He was hardly ready to give up, though. “Old Belch told me how it works. A little bit, anyway,” he muttered. He had seen Lord Alwyn use it too, at their first meeting in this very room. Closing the Book again, he laid his hand on the rough texture of its cover and said, “My name is Marcel.”

Nothing happened at first, and he wondered whether the Book would teach him anything at all, but then it began to glow a comforting golden-red. With his hand still in place, Marcel spoke again. “I am an orphan.”

Instantly the glow ceased and his hand was flung aside. The Book unfurled its pages, fanning rapidly and fluttering the flame of the meagre candle until it reached the second-last page. Here, it wrote his words.

I am an orphan.

Marcel’s smile almost split his face in two. “See how it works?” he said excitedly. “Truth and lies. I’m not an orphan. The Book knows it somehow, even though I don’t.”

He didn’t bother with his hand this time but simply leaned over the open pages. “I want to know the true story of who I am.”

The Book closed without delay and sent out its golden glow. They watched expectantly but it did nothing more. Marcel’s fingers worked unconsciously at the ring Lord Alwyn had forced him to wear, waiting for a further sign.

“What’s wrong?” asked Bea after they had waited a full minute.

“Who am I?” Marcel asked stiffly, but this time the yellowish tinge ceased and the book simply lay there, making no response at all.

He thought back to what Old Belch had told him and slowly he began to understand. “It can’t tell me who I am. That’s not what it’s made to do. It might contain the most powerful magic in the world, but it can only do one thing: judge what is true and what is not.”

He discovered that he was right when the Book glowed in response.

“Why is it called the Book of Lies, then?”

“You’ve seen the way it works, Bea. Every word written in this book is untrue. No wonder they call it the Book of Lies! And look at it, almost full.”

Suddenly he realised what this meant, and his heart sank inside his chest. “It’s hopeless. This book doesn’t have my life on its pages. It can’t tell me who I am or where I come from. That would be the truth, and all of this is…” He flicked his hand disdainfully at the cover. “You risked your life to get it for me, but it’s nothing but lies.”

Bea had stopped listening, to stare intently at the doorway leading into the hall. Then she murmured, “Someone’s coming.”

“Hide the Book!” Marcel whispered urgently, passing it to her and shooing her into the pantry. The sound of slow footsteps grew louder. He expected to hear Albert or Mrs Timmins herself, but instead the silence was broken by a girl’s voice. “Who’s there?” she called curtly.

“It’s Marcel,” he replied.

The girl came closer until the candle’s pale light caught her face. It was Nicola. “What are you doing down here?” she asked suspiciously.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he answered quickly, but to his horror he heard the pages of the Book of Lies flap and unfurl somewhere in the pantry behind him. Nicola had heard the sound too and glanced over his shoulder, looking for the cause.

He distracted her by asking, “How did you know I was down here?”

“I was awake and I heard someone trip going down the stairs. I waited for a while but they never came back up. I’m surprised that strange old man in the tower hasn’t come down to check as well. He’s going to make sure you stay here, that’s for sure,” she said, rather unkindly. “Not like me,” she added with a bitter chuckle as she walked to the back door and looked out into the night. “They can’t wait to get rid of me. Already tried once.”

“I heard you were sent back.”

“Sent back!” she snapped indignantly. She spun round to face him again, making no effort to keep her voice down. “I ran away. They treated me like a slave, those people. I had to do everything, cook and clean and wash all their filthy clothes. And the boys in the family! Stank like pigs, all three of them, and they wouldn’t move out of the way unless I kicked them.”

Marcel didn’t doubt that she had done just that. The candle threw light playfully on to her long hair, which she had loosened for sleep. It didn’t look quite as brushed and perfect now. She looked better this way, he decided.

Nicola noticed him stare at her. “Is it right what the other children are saying?” she asked, in a more sympathetic tone this time. “Don’t you have any memory at all, not even of your parents?”

“Yes. I mean, no. What I mean is, my life before I arrived here has gone from my head. Vanished.”

She thought about this for a moment, running her eye over Marcel as though inspecting him for the first time. “That doesn’t seem fair,” she said, with an unexpected hint of concern for his plight. “At least I can remember my parents. Well, my father, anyway.”

Marcel was touched by the melancholy in her voice, and before he knew it he had whispered, “Not your mother, though?”

Nicola sighed, and her shoulders sagged a little as she told him, “She died when I was born, so I never knew her. I only have what others told me about her. I’ve even had to make up what she looked like. Long hair like mine, only the colour of straw and much more beautiful. I’ve always imagined her like that.”

She stopped suddenly. “Did you hear something?”

“No, nothing,” said Marcel quickly, though he had indeed heard a sound, not the rustling of pages this time but a muffled voice. It had come from the pantry where the Book was. “Go on, Nicola. You were talking about your mother,” he urged, hoping that if she kept speaking she wouldn’t take any notice.

Nicola seemed eager to tell her story, so she ignored the noise. As she started up again Marcel was surprised at how much her face changed. Her pretty features softened in the candlelight and her voice swapped its sharp-edged hostility for a gentleness that matched her memories. “My father talked about her all the time. He called her his angel and then he’d say that I reminded him of her. He wanted me to marry a rich landowner when I grew up. He didn’t expect me to help around the house, of course. That was for servant girls, he said. He made sure I had everything I wanted.”

“…everything I wanted,” said a voice.

“What was that?” she asked, more certain this time. “You spoke. You copied what I just said.”

“No, I…” Marcel didn’t know what to say, but he had to keep Nicola from discovering Bea and the Book of Lies.

If Nicola’s memories of her parents had opened a door to a different girl, now that door was slammed shut by a new anger. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you, just because I’ve told you something about myself. Well, if you’re going to be like that…”

Before she could unleash her fury, Bea’s little figure emerged from the darkness. She held the Book open in her arms.

“Bea, no!” Marcel whispered.

“It’s all right, Marcel,” she said calmly. “Nicola should see this and so should you.”

“What’s she doing hiding in the pantry?” Nicola demanded hotly. She would wake the whole house soon, if they weren’t careful. “Don’t tell me you couldn’t sleep either, Bea. What’s going on here, and what’s so special about that book?”

Bea did her best to ignore Nicola. With her eyes glued to Marcel’s, she said, “I think we have found a way to use the Book after all.”

“Show me,” he urged her.

As she laid the Book on the kitchen table again, she turned to Nicola. “Keep talking. Tell us about your father.”

Nicola stared at the Book suspiciously. “Is this some sort of trick? You haven’t got the rest of the orphanage in the pantry laughing at me, have you?”

When neither Marcel nor Bea would respond to her goading, she didn’t know quite what to do: stomp away to bed or stay and see what this creeping around was all about. “All right,” she said finally, and after taking a breath she started up again. “We had a large house. My father did well, selling fine cloth to rich ladies.”

The Book began to speak in unison with her, matching every word as she uttered it, but they waved her on, and despite a sceptical glare she kept speaking. “But gradually, the rich women stopped coming to his store. They didn’t like the colours and complained about his prices. Father himself became ill, and when he died there was nothing left, no money to support me, no one to care for me.”

The Book of Lies hadn’t missed a word. What was more, Marcel and Bea recognised the voice itself. “It’s Lord Alwyn. This was what happened on the night you arrived,” said Bea excitedly.

“What’s going on?” Nicola came closer, leaning over the Book, reaching down with one wary hand but pulling it away at the last moment. “What sort of book is it?”

“It’s the Book of Lies,” Marcel told her.

“I don’t understand. It said what I said, at the very moment I said it. How could it do that? There’s magic here, isn’t there? What does it mean?”

Marcel could barely believe it, but he had an answer for her. “It means this book has your life written in it, or at least what you think is your life. It’s all lies, you see. Not your real life at all. Your name probably isn’t even Nicola.”

“You’re mad, both of you,” but as she spoke she looked directly at Marcel. He had been named Robert, for a few hours at least. Then he had become Marcel, and suddenly that wizard and his beast in the tower had come out of hiding. It was enough to make her ask again, “What does it mean?”

“It means you’re like me. Your real life was wiped from your mind, just like mine was, except that Lord Alwyn gave you a new one in its place.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Nicola defiantly. “My mother. She was beautiful…”

“Your real mother might still be alive,” said Marcel.

At this, the Book of Lies started to flip and fan its pages, but Marcel wouldn’t be distracted. “Don’t you see, Nicola? You’re not an orphan after all. You don’t have to go to another family, like that one down in Fallside. You have your own family.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” said Nicola, putting her hands to her forehead. “The memory of my parents is all I have now that I’m stuck here, alone, with no one to love me.”

“But don’t you understand what I just told you?” Marcel urged in frustration. “Instead of dead parents you can only dream about, you might have a mother and a father alive somewhere, desperately looking for you.”

It was all too much for Nicola. She turned away abruptly and ran to the darkness of the staircase.

“This book is the key to everything” said Marcel when she was gone.

“Maybe it is, but I have to take it back to the tower tonight,” Bea insisted. “If I don’t, Lord Alwyn will know it’s gone and he’ll send Termagant to find it.”

Marcel tried to imagine Bea crawling back through that pitch-black tunnel alone. “I’ll come with you, then,” he told her, swallowing a hard lump in his throat.

“You can’t.”

“But Termagant…”

“You can’t come with me because you smell,” she told him bluntly.

“What do you mean I smell?”

“You’ll leave a scent and Termagant will pick it up.”

“What about you, then?”

She thrust her arm under his nose. “I have no scent.”

Marcel pulled his head back awkwardly. No scent! There were so many strange things about this little girl. “Bea,” he whispered uncertainly, “why is it, well… sometimes I can see you plain as day and other times it’s as if you’re invisible. Is it magic, like Lord Alwyn’s?”

She shook her head. “No, not magic. I’ve always been like this. I don’t know why.”

The hint of pain in her voice told him it was a touchy subject. But it had been a night of strange discoveries, and now Marcel’s mind was working fast. Didn’t Bea seem special, like Nicola and he did? What if Lord Alwyn had stolen away her life too?

“Where are you from?” he asked her. “How did you come to live here with Mrs Timmins?”

“I don’t know where I come from.”

“You mean you’re like me? Did you come here in the middle of the night as well?” he pressed hopefully.

“You think my life is hidden in the Book too,” Bea guessed.

“If you are, then we can soon prove it.” Marcel was excited now.

“No,” she said sharply. “I don’t want the Book to hear my story”

Marcel couldn’t work out her reluctance. Why wouldn’t she want to know the truth, just as he did? “Are you afraid of something?”

She nodded miserably, and suddenly he understood. “You’re not afraid that it will find you are like me and Nicola, you’re afraid that it won’t.”

Bea looked up, her eyes glistening in the candlelight and clearer than ever before. “If I’m not like you, then I’m truly a foundling after all.”

Marcel slipped her hand into his. “There’s only one way to know for sure, isn’t there? You have to tell your story.”

She shifted herself closer to the Book, and with a last glance at Marcel, she began.

“A baby girl…” Her mouth had become dry and her throat suddenly hoarse. “Abandoned,” she tried to say, but she needed a moment to calm herself.

“As a baby girl I was abandoned on the steps of a church. The priest found me there in the morning, blue with the cold and almost starved.”

The pages hadn’t moved, but she wouldn’t give up now. “He took me to a convent where the nuns fed me and kept me warm. They named me Beatrice after their patron saint. I could grow up and become one of them, they said, and they took good care of me. I liked it there.”

Still no response from the Book. Bea closed her eyes and Marcel guessed her story was about to change. “But after a year or two, when I could walk and talk, the nuns became afraid of me. If I stood perfectly still in the shade of a tree, it was like I’d vanished into thin air. They thought I was bewitched and complained to the priest about the child he had brought them. The priest had no answer for their questions, but it was clear the nuns didn’t want me among them, so he brought me to Mrs Timmins.”

Now that she was finished, she dared to open her eyes and look at the Book. It cast a golden glow into the kitchen’s dim light. Her story was not in Lord Alwyn’s Book of Lies. It hadn’t given her this life to replace her own. What she had just spoken aloud was the truth.

Bea sat before the silent, unmoving Book and the hope seemed slowly to leave her body. “I’m not like you,” she sighed.

They could not delay any longer. It would soon be light, and they had to return the Book. Bea shook herself free of her sadness and ventured out into the damp night air, making her way to the far side of the house. Marcel followed Bea as best he could, using his ears more than his eyes. Then she disappeared altogether into the overgrown shrubs beside the house.

He waited anxiously, scouring the darkness, expecting to see Termagant at any moment, until suddenly Bea was back beside him and he could breathe again. Then they crept noiselessly into the house once more, up the stairs and into their beds.