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DAVID WHITLEY

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PUFFIN

Contents

Chapter   1:The Staircase
Chapter   2:The Signet Ring
Chapter   3:The Deal
Chapter   4:The Glass-maker
Chapter   5:The Manservant
Chapter   6:The Violinist
  
Interlude One 
  
Chapter   7:The Dumbwaiter
Chapter   8:The Past
Chapter   9:The Future
Chapter 10:The Song
Chapter 11:The Star
Chapter 12:The Idea
  
Interlude Two 
  
Chapter 13:The Dance
Chapter 14:The Secret
Chapter 15:The Daughter
Chapter 16:The Theft
Chapter 17:The Box
Chapter 18:The Night
Chapter 19:The Trial
Chapter 20:The Speech
  
Interlude Three 
  
Chapter 21:The Fall
Chapter 22:The Scroll
Chapter 23:The Cell
Chapter 24:The Director
Chapter 25:The Promise

PUFFIN BOOKS

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David Whitley was born in Chester in 1984. At the age of seventeen he was shortlisted for the Kathleen Fidler Award for a children’s novel and at twenty he won the Cheshire Prize for Literature for a children’s short story. TV quiz fans will have spotted David on BBC2’s University Challenge, when he was a member of Oxford’s Corpus Christi team who became Series Champions in 2005. This is his first book.

david-whitley.co.uk

 

This mournful Truth is ev’ry where confest,

Slow rises Worth, by Poverty deprest:

But here more slow, where all are Slaves to Gold,

Where Looks are Merchandise, and Smiles are sold,

Where won by Bribes, by Flatteries implor’d,

The Groom retails the Favours of his Lord.

Samuel Johnson

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Chapter One

THE STAIRCASE

Being dead was colder than Mark had expected.

When his mother had told them all tales of the afterlife, she had drawn him close into her woollen skirts and painted a picture of another city, one where it was always summer. A world where the river glowed clean and bright, a land where all debts were forgotten. Mark had trusted every word, until he awoke in a stone cell, shivering and wrapped in a shroud.

His mother had been the first to go. At least she would have found out before him how wrong she had been. She had turned as grey as the stone. He had held her hand right up until the end. Then the Reaper had come. It had looked like a man in a black coat until he had glimpsed its face – smooth and white, without mouth or nose, but with two huge black eyes. Mark had shrunk into a corner as it passed by. The other children had said to touch it was to turn to dust.

It came three times. The first time for his mother, then for his brother and sister. On each occasion he heard his father mumbling something, and the low answering tones of the Reaper, just out of earshot. Only once had his father’s words become loud enough to make out. He was shouting something about the water, that there was no other water to drink. The Reaper had left with a slower step that time, as if it knew it would be back.

After that came the tiredness, the lightness. Mark had watched the backs of his own hands turn grey. He knew it would be soon. Then there were only feelings. The sense of a burning mouth, and of noise. Of being half pushed, half lifted past whirling shapes and sounds. Of a final, blissful coolness filling him.

When he awoke, he was cold. It was obvious he was dead. Everything felt different. The grey was gone from his skin, the noise from the air. In life, the stench of the river had mingled with the tang of fish, clinging to his hair and clothes. The afterlife smelled of dust, with a whiff of vinegar. For a while he shut his eyes, drawing the sheets round him to ward off the draught that crept about his feet, but it was no good. He peered around the room. It was not large. The walls and floor were of grey stone. He could make out a fireplace where a few embers still glowed. And beside it, a door.

Mark waited, though for what he was not sure. An angel? Had he been good enough for that? He’d always helped his father to gut the fish. And he’d cared for his brother and sister as the plague claimed them. Was that enough? Stiffly, he slid his feet over the edge of the bed and got up. He shuffled towards the door. It was old, the wood warping around the hinges. It did not look like an angel’s door. With a shaking hand, he pushed it open.

An ancient stone staircase spiralled up before him.

In the back of his mind, something stirred. Something his mother had said about the legend of the man who was not good enough to get into heaven, who had climbed there himself. In the distance, up the stairs, he thought he saw a glimmer of light.

He raised a bare foot and placed it on the first step.

The staircase was uneven; the stone crumbled away in some places. When he looked down, he could see that it carried on, past the room he had come from, and disappeared into murky depths. After that, he tried not to look down again.

He passed doors. Thick doors of dark wood. No light came from behind them. What if they were where the damned went? Those who left their work unfinished, their debts unpaid. Mark had seen them dragged screaming out of their homes by the receivers, the men in blue. They were never seen again.

He carried on, twisting higher and higher. The staircase seemed to grow steeper. His legs were weaker than in life, and he leaned against one wall. His fingers felt something carved into the stone. It was too dark to see what was there, so he traced it with his fingertips. Six shapes in a circle. Pointed shapes. Stars. Should he know what that meant? He tried to remember more of his mother’s stories, but thinking about her was painful.

Then, below him, he heard the squeak of hinges.

He began to move faster. He scrambled up, pushing himself with hands and feet, his heart pounding. Behind him he heard another step, slow and firm. Nothing good would be coming from those musty depths, and he was so close to the light.

And then he saw it.

Above him one of the old doors stood open. Light streamed through from beyond – pink, orange and gold. Mark pressed forward, clambering higher still. As he moved, he glanced back. The Reaper was on the stairs behind him, his black shape blending into the deeper shadows. He willed himself upwards. Just a little further, just a few more steps. No Reaper could ascend into heaven. He reached the door, gasping, pulling himself round the frame, throwing himself into the room.

His eyes hurt from the brightness; he had to screw them up. Beyond the door was a landscape of pure white. And ahead of him, bathed in streaming light, stood a figure, a girl, staring into the heart of the burning radiance. She turned; Mark dropped to his knees, fixing his gaze on the floor. Mother had said to look upon a dweller in heaven was to feel your soul burn away. His eyes were already on fire.

From behind, he heard the approaching step of the Reaper. He flattened himself on the ground. The angel would save him.

‘Sir… who is this?’

The voice wasn’t that of an angel. It was wary, guarded and unmistakably young. It reminded Mark of his sister.

‘His name is Mark.’ Another voice, male, older and soft.

Mark felt his breath catch. The Reaper was behind him now; he heard the rustle of its coat as it bent over him.

‘He belongs to me now.’

‘Is he ill?’

‘Not any longer. Isolation from further infection was the only way to achieve a full recovery. Certainly seems more lively now, although I don’t see the reason for all this panic.’

Confused, Mark opened his eyes a crack, turning his head slightly. The angel stood before the Reaper – he tall, in black robes and with a ghastly, pale face; she in white, apart from the darkness of her face, hair and hands. He tried to raise himself, but the angel turned her head his way. He looked at her imploringly.

‘If you will permit me, sir,’ the angel said, her deep brown, almost black, eyes curiously meeting Mark’s gaze. Then she reached up and deftly removed the Reaper’s face.

For a moment, Mark felt dizzy, his head spun.

And then he came back to life.

The tower room grew darker as the setting sun, which had been streaming through the narrow window, sank beneath the ledge. The room, Mark now saw, was full of furniture covered in white dustsheets. The angel’s robes no longer burned with light. In fact, they were not much better than his own clothes – only a rough, cotton working dress and a cream-coloured apron. As she bent over him, a few strands of thick, black hair fell forward over her face, slipping loose from the white ribbon she had used to tie it back. And in her hands the dark-skinned girl now held a white, strangely shaped mask, together with a pair of thick, dark pieces of glass that Mark would soon learn were called goggles.

As for the Reaper, his true face was human. A young man, his short, straggly brown hair beginning to recede, a thin moustache perched upon his lip.

Mark sat up.

‘Am I alive?’ he said, his voice rattling painfully in his dry throat.

The girl nodded. ‘Thanks to Dr Theophilus,’ she said.

She stared at Mark, her dark eyes taking him in. Then she turned to the man.

‘Sir, the Count’s note said that he wanted to see you at the fifth hour. I have taken him his meal.’

The doctor nervously ran a finger over his moustache.

‘Don’t suppose you could tell what kind of mood he was in, Lily?’

The girl, Lily, frowned. ‘I would be… tactful, sir.’

She glanced down at Mark, who was still sitting between them, and said, ‘Are you hungry?’

It took Mark a few seconds to realize that she was talking to him. Then, at once, he found that he was ravenous. He nodded furiously. Lily smiled.

‘Can he have food now?’ she asked the doctor, who pursed his lips.

‘I believe so,’ he answered cautiously. ‘Yes… some food first, and then show him round. Grandfather and I have important business to discuss.’

Lily responded with a brisk bob of the head and turned back to Mark. She held out a hand.

‘First part of the tour – the kitchen is this way.’

Mark put his own hand in hers. It seemed paler than normal against her dark fingers, but maybe it was because the usual grime had been washed away. Shakily, he rose to his feet. He was taller than her. She let go and gestured down the stairwell. From up here, it looked less supernatural.

‘Five doors down,’ she said. ‘Go in and wait for me. If you touch the pots you’ll be sorry. I just need a moment with the doctor.’

Mark nodded again, trying to think of what to say even as he stepped back on to the stairs and began to descend. He was still puzzling it out when he reached the fifth door and turned the handle. Then all thoughts of words were driven from his mind by the overpowering smell flooding through the open doorway. The smell of food simmering in pots over a smoky fire. All at once, it was like being back by the river, before the grey plague had come, where in the evening the different scents of a hundred broths and stews would lead him through the alleys and home to huddle round the bowl with his brother and sister and pick clean the remains of his father’s last catch of the day. He was about to rush in, to pull the lid off the nearest one, when he heard a sound above him. Lily and the doctor were talking. He hovered by the door, curiosity fighting with hunger. Then, silently, he moved back up the stairs, straining his ears.

‘… not to let the old man know,’ the doctor was saying. ‘Not just yet. He doesn’t think we need to keep another servant. I’ve tried to explain that I cannot manage without assistance but… you know him.’

‘Very well, sir. I take it Mark will be helping you.’

‘As soon as he is well enough, Lily. He’s my first full recovery,’ the doctor said with a touch of pride in his voice. ‘I’d better be careful.’

Mark smiled. He didn’t know what was happening, but whoever these people were, they were going to keep him.

‘And…’ Lily’s voice drifted down, ‘does he know yet that his father sold him?’

There was a pause.

‘I thought you might break that particular piece of news, Lily,’ the doctor sighed, ‘as one who knows what it’s like to adjust…’

‘As you wish, sir.’

Numbly, imperceptibly, Mark’s appetite died.

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Chapter Two

THE SIGNET RING

‘Well, Lily?’

‘Sir?’

‘How is the boy doing?’

‘Much the same.’

It was their ritual for the first few days. Lily sat on the stone staircase just outside Mark’s room, stitching tablecloths or reading by the light of a candle. Every hour or so, Dr Theophilus would ascend from his cellar rooms, make his gentle enquiry, his eyes full of hope, and, receiving the same reply, would nod with concern and turn away. Mostly he would return to his studies. Lily never went down there. She knew he kept human corpses in the cellar, the bodies of plague victims, for dissection. It was necessary, of course – if he was to cure this plague he had to understand it – but Lily shivered to think of working all day surrounded by their fixed, ghostly stares.

This time, the doctor sat down beside her on the step. He stroked his thin moustache thoughtfully, a sure sign that something was worrying him. Not that this was unusual.

‘How long do you think he will be in there?’ he asked.

Lily considered for a moment, wondering whether she should tell him about the sobs she heard when Mark thought everyone was asleep, about the red-rimmed eyes that peered through the crack of the door as she slipped in his food.

She looked up into the doctor’s own eyes, seeing the heavy shadows underlining them from sleepless nights of work.

‘Not long, sir.’

Of course, the doctor was being soft. By law, Mark should have been working the second he arrived. She had, as soon as she knew where the dusters were kept in this ancient tower. But she didn’t bear a grudge; that wasn’t going to help.

The doctor sighed.

‘I wish I didn’t have to conceal him like this. Perhaps if he were free to wander the tower on his own he would adjust better, but…’

The doctor trailed off. He always did when he thought of his grandfather. Old he may have been, but Count Stelli had lost none of his presence or his power. Lily put down her book, trying to think of a practical solution.

‘Perhaps, sir, if you stressed how important he is to your research, as the first patient to recover from the plague –’

‘Mention plague to the old man and he’ll throw the boy into the street, and me with him,’ Theophilus interrupted with a shake of his head. ‘Perhaps it would be different if the plague ever touched the elite, but they think my research is worthless or, worse, dangerous. They see no profit in trying to cure a disease that lurks in the Piscean slums, and if Grandfather knew I had brought a carrier into his home, even a healthy one…’ The doctor turned his gaze on Lily, eyes too sad and weary for his age. ‘Why can no one see how much suffering it causes, Lily?’

Lily looked up at the doctor. There was an answer to that question and they both knew it. Lily knew that the blindest people were those who would not see. That was why she always kept her eyes open.

Their moment of reflection was interrupted as, in the distance, a bell jangled, accompanied by a low rumble like distant thunder.

The doctor frowned. ‘Looks like the old man has woken,’ he said with resignation.

Lily got up. ‘He’ll be wanting his breakfast.’

And like any other day, she left the doctor to drift back down to his work, his thin, tall shadow disappearing into the depths, as she climbed up the spiral staircase to the kitchen.

The Count had barely left his rooms for years, according to the doctor. As always, after waking she had read the note left for her the previous night on the bronze door at the top of the tower and obeyed the clipped instructions to the letter. Summoned by the bell, she loaded a tray with the Count’s breakfast of bacon and carried it carefully up to the bronze door. Seeing that, as most mornings, it was closed, Lily slid open the wooden hatch beside the door and placed the breakfast tray on the platform within. Then she closed the hatch with a click and rang the bell, listening for the rumble as the food was winched up the shaft to the Observatory. Only once had she tried to enter uninvited and sometimes she thought that her ears still rang with the roar that had told her she was not welcome.

She had never dared do that again. She knew what happened if a servant angered their master. She had seen it at the bookbinder’s, how the other girl had cried and clung to the legs of her master in vain. It was a rare master indeed who would take someone in who had been thrown away or publicly shamed. ‘Damaged goods’ they were called – the disgraced. Unable to work, or trade, or live. On the streets, with plague and thieves, she would be lucky to last a week. Lily’s master, the Count, held her fate in his hands and he was known for his temper. She never asked about the person who had worn her working dresses before her and tried not to notice that, although Lily was not large for her age, they were just the right size. One apron had been halfway through being patched, the needle and thread hanging loose, as if just put down for a moment.

When she returned to Mark’s room, the door was ajar. Cautiously, she opened it further.

He was sitting on the simple bed, facing away. His hair had been shaved during his treatment, to check for signs of infection the doctor said, but it was starting to grow back now, a dirty blond colour. He was already looking less thin than he had when he first arrived; he would be sturdily built when fully returned to health. As if he felt her gaze upon him, Mark turned, his face blotchy and pale, his mouth set in determination. He stared up at her defiantly.

Lily looked at him, tilting her head to one side. His grey eyes were dull still, but there was something new there, something she recognized. Curiosity.

‘Want to see the tower now?’ she asked.

He nodded.

After that, the next couple of days were easier. The tower had so many rooms to show, often all Lily had to do was to throw open the door. Mark’s eyes grew wide at the simplest thing – when she showed him the old, musty dining room he gaped for minutes before stepping gingerly in. One eyebrow raised, Lily followed him.

‘It’s only a table, Mark,’ she said, tapping it with her knuckles. ‘It doesn’t come to life.’

‘But… it’s real wood…’ Mark said, stroking it with his fingers. ‘Why would anyone make a table out of something this valuable? If my dad had this much wood, he’d have the best fishing boat on the Ora. He’d take me out with him and catch enough to feed all of us ten times over –’

‘If you think that’s impressive, you should see the silverware!’ Lily interrupted hastily and stooped to open the sideboard.

It felt stupid to be parading the Count’s possessions like this, but she had to distract him. Anything was better than thinking about his family. Especially since the doctor had told her that by the time he took Mark away, his father was the only one left.

Lily lifted a vast silver platter on to the table and pushed it towards Mark.

‘Care for a canapé, sir?’ she said playfully, gesturing to the empty platter.

Mark stared at her and Lily felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. She was making a fool of herself.

‘Sorry, sometimes I mess about with this stuff,’ she offered in explanation. ‘Passes the time when I’m on my own, after I finish my duties. Otherwise I think too much.’ Lily drew up a dining chair and sat down. ‘That isn’t always a good idea.’

‘I… suppose so,’ Mark said, looking at his reflection in the polished silver. ‘A place like this… it must make you think. It’s like a legend,’ he carried on, gesturing around him in the silent dining room. ‘An enchanted tower, full of old, forgotten rooms… huge staircases… magical windows into other worlds…’

‘If they were magical, they’d manage to dust themselves,’ Lily muttered.

Mark’s mouth twitched and inwardly Lily grinned. The beginnings of a laugh.

‘It’s just a tower,’ she continued quietly. ‘The Count needs it for his business.’

‘The Count?’ Mark asked.

‘Count Stelli. My master.’

‘I thought the doctor…’

‘Dr Theophilus is your master,’ Lily said, and instantly regretted it.

Mark cast down his eyes; she could see him lose his colour again. She knew how he must be feeling. She had been the same when the orphanage had sold her to the bookbinders when she was half Mark’s age. Suddenly no choice but to work, because they had the right to stop feeding you. No one listened to a tool that talked. You lived on borrowed time, waiting for the day when you were declared useless and thrown away.

Mark sat down on another of the chairs, his lips pushed together, bloodless. Lily reached out for him across the table, letting her hand rest near his.

‘He’s the Count’s grandson, but the Count lets him run his practice from the cellars of the tower. The doctor’s a good man,’ Lily said, as gently as she could manage, and stopped. What else could she say? I’m sure he gave a good price for you even though you were ill? It probably saved your life to be taken away? All true, of course, but would it help? Lily did not waste her words, especially when they could cause more harm. At least she had only been sold by the matron of her orphanage. She had never had a family to lose. Mark’s life had been signed over by his own father.

‘Lily…’

Lily steadied herself for a question she didn’t want to answer.

‘Is… is his name really Theophilus?’

Lily laughed, the knots in her stomach loosening.

‘It’s an old family name, apparently. It means “loved by God”.’

‘Mum used to tell me stories about gods,’ Mark said quietly.

Lily cursed herself. Just for a moment she’d managed to make him think about something else. Fleetingly, they had been almost cheerful.

‘Anyway…’ Lily continued, trying to sound as if she hadn’t noticed his change of mood, ‘how long is it until your title day?’

‘My what?’

‘Your title day.’

Mark still looked blank.

‘Twelve years since your birth,’ she prompted, ‘one grand cycle of the stars.’

Mark frowned. ‘Two weeks,’ he said. ‘I was born on the last day of the month of Scorpio. Is that important? Mum said that your twelfth birthday was special, but wouldn’t tell me why…’

Lily smiled.

‘Then he only owns you until then. That’s the day you own yourself.’ Lily shook her head in bemusement. ‘You can’t mean that no one has ever told you about –’

‘I’m free?’ Mark interrupted, his eyes shining. ‘I can go home?’

Lily’s smile faltered. Looking at his sudden excitement, she couldn’t bring herself to explain, to point out that she had not said that. Not quite.

‘That’s the day you can make a choice,’ she said.

In his eagerness, Mark didn’t notice the difference.

As the next two weeks passed, Lily saw less and less of Mark in the daylight hours. The doctor was instructing him in his duties, mostly cleaning a wicked-looking set of scalpels and brewing up foul-smelling drugs, and Lily had to get on with her tasks. As usual, she dusted the ancient, empty rooms, as usual she tried to get Dr Theophilus to eat something at least once a day and as usual she took the Count’s meals up and lingered by the Observatory door, willing it to open.

The Observatory. Lily had only been allowed up there once, to polish the huge brass telescope. Then it had been daytime, but the Count had drawn the thick velvet drapes across the tall windows that filled every wall. The only sky she had been able to see had been the painted ceiling, frozen into an eternal night. Lily could hear a rumbling snore from his bed on the far side of the room as she scrubbed away. She had seen the shafts of sunlight slipping through holes in the ancient fabric, sparkling off the metal before her. She had felt the back of her neck pricking, willing her to turn round, to fling aside the curtains and look down on the city. It was mad; the Count spent his days in a room full of windows, yet only ever looked up into the night sky.

It was Lily’s secret passion, to find windows. The tower was gloomy and most of the shutters were locked tight to keep in the warmth. But every time she had a moment she slipped away to the old bedroom, the room where she had first met Mark. There was a window there, though it was barely more than a slit in the wall, just enough to let a little breeze in. Peering out, there was almost nothing to be seen in the dense shadow of the tower other than a tangle of roofs and brickwork. But at sunset, when the sun angled itself just right, the light shone through, warming her face. At that instant, she could see the city, transformed from a threatening shadow to a glowing whirl of colour and spectacle. Then she could see other people hurrying past, see the distant sparkle of the River Ora and the far-off towers of the Directory of Receipts. There, in that moment, all Agora was laid out before her.

This wondrous sight was the only thing that thrilled her out of the daily routine. Apart from those rare occasions when the doctor had the time to talk to her, she had learned to keep herself quiet, to wrap herself up in practical detail, to choose her words, and even her outward emotions, with the greatest care. No one at the orphanage wondered about the city beyond the boundary wall. To them, the orphanage had been their home, but for Lily ‘home’ encompassed so much more. It was strange to think of Mark surrounded by a family but still so ignorant of the city, so sheltered. While she, who had never known any adult she could talk to without fear of punishment, had scrabbled for any piece of knowledge she could find. He still had no idea how important his title day would be, while she had spent as long as she could remember waiting for hers. For her chance to get out into the city and live.

Wearily, she contemplated the pile of dirty plates before her. Of course, that had been before her title day had arrived and she had learned that owning herself was not the same as being free.

On Mark’s title day, Lily slept late. She had been mending clothes all night and for once the Count’s irritable ringing did not rouse her. As she awoke, however, she could understand why – even in her windowless room she could hear the lashing of the rain outside. Last night would not have been a night for stargazing, so he was probably still asleep.

The doctor had taken Mark out with him on his rounds for the first time and Lily knew better than to disturb the Count if he had not summoned her. So she settled herself down in the kitchen, lit one of the thick wax candles and, squinting at her needle, began to stitch. The Count had a new formal cloak – perhaps he was expecting visitors – and his symbol, six golden stars in a circle, had to be sewn on. It would not do for the greatest astrologer in Agora to receive guests in an old robe. Lily frowned. All this for looking into the sky and predicting the future.

About lunchtime, the sound of knocking echoed through the tower. Lily rushed to the front door, the rain from outside spitting through the keyhole, but by the time she eased it open, only wind and water were visible. On the ground, wrapped in brown paper, a small box sat forlornly. Lily bent to pick it up, scanning the narrow streets for the deliverer. But, as her hand closed round it, she saw the name ‘Mark’ inked on its surface, already running in the onslaught of water, and she caught her breath. She knew what this was. This was an official delivery from the Directory of Receipts itself.

Wringing out her hair, Lily returned to the kitchen and put the box next to the fire to dry out. Then, going back to her work, she waited.

The candle had burned low before they returned, but Lily did not get up. She listened to the sound of their footsteps. She heard the doctor mutter something about being busy all evening, then his steps faded away, down the stairs into his workrooms, the deepest cellars.

Lily looked up as Mark came in and sat heavily on the wooden chair before the fire. Dr Theophilus had given him a long black coat like his own and he held it round him. His face, always wan, seemed paler than ever. He stared for a while into the fire and shivered. He did not speak.

‘It will get better,’ Lily murmured. She didn’t need to ask if it had been bad; that was etched into every fresh line on his face. Mark made a noise. It was too weak to be a scornful snort, but it carried the same idea.

‘So many of them, Lily… so many people…’ he said at last, his voice barely rising above the crackling fire. ‘Pressing against you, pushing past. Seas of people, and they all… all end up…’ Mark closed his eyes. ‘So many of them. Stacked in rows… I thought, if I looked hard enough, I’d find my sister… my mum…’

Lily cast down her eyes. So he had taken Mark to a plague hospital. That was where his work was, at the moment. Had the doctor even thought? Had he considered how fresh the memories were for his new assistant? From what Mark had told her, it had been less than two months since his family had first caught the same disease. When the doctor became wrapped up in his work, he never noticed the effect on the healthy.

‘And the worst part…’ Mark stood up suddenly, his eyes darting about. ‘They all had it. I could see it on the workers. They all had spots of grey on their hands. Dr Theophilus told them that if they touch others they will pass it on but they didn’t care! Like fish swimming for the hook… going out into the city, pushing through the crowds…’

Mark sat down again, suddenly exhausted. ‘If they knew what it was like, they’d never go out. Like you, Lily. Like us.’

Quietly, Lily put her stitching to one side. She felt as though she should do something – comfort him, hug him, tell him everything was going to be all right. She had read about it. But Lily had never known that kind of affection, so she didn’t have the words. Instead, she rose and reached up to the shelf where she kept the bowls. She filled one from the pot of stew she’d prepared and pushed it into his hands.

‘Have some food,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ll feel better.’

Lily watched him eat without speaking. For a long while, even after he had finished, they sat in silence. The only sound was the crackle of the fire, and every now and then an alarming rumble from beneath them as the doctor worked on his latest medicine. Eventually, still not quite sure of what she was doing, Lily drew her stool near to Mark and tentatively placed a hand on his arm.

‘Tell me about it,’ she said.

‘It…’ Mark began falteringly. ‘The medicine that cured me, it doesn’t work for everyone. It poisons some. He gave it to one man and he started screaming…’ Mark gripped the arm of the chair, his knuckles white. ‘After that, there were other things to do. Boils to lance, bandages… He cut off a man’s leg as well.’ Mark relaxed a little. ‘I didn’t mind that so much, the man couldn’t feel it, and we went into a little room. Not many people there. I got to clean the knife.’

Lily raised an eyebrow, involuntarily drawing back her hand.

‘You enjoyed that?’ she said.

‘More than the disease. You can’t catch someone else’s leg.’ Mark gave a tiny smile and stretched out his own legs, looking about the room. His eyes came to rest on the damp parcel sitting on the table. He picked it up thoughtfully. ‘Is this yours?’ he asked.

‘It’s for you,’ Lily replied, puzzled.

Mark squinted closer. ‘How can you tell?’

‘It has your name on it. See.’

Mark looked up sharply.

‘You can read?’ he said with a wary air. ‘Only receivers read where I come from.’

‘I taught myself when I worked at the bookbinder’s, before I came here,’ Lily said gently.

Mark gave her a look of bewilderment. Lily shook her head and reached down to one side of her chair. She lifted up a leather-bound volume.

‘Have you ever seen a book before?’

‘Only the ones the receivers had…’ Mark shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. ‘My father said that they used them to keep track of debtors.’

‘This one isn’t for business,’ Lily said, holding it out to him.

Tentatively, Mark touched the cover, his curiosity plain.

‘So… what is it for?’ he asked.

Lily looked down at the tome in her hands. How could she answer a question like that? This book had been her escape for over three years, ever since it was nearly sent to the furnaces for being badly bound. It had been the first one she had learned to read, the first book that had been more than another job to her. She knew every tale by heart.

She smiled wistfully. ‘It tells you stories,’ she said.

‘Really?’ Mark reached out, but Lily pulled it back.

‘Open your parcel first.’

Mark turned back to the box, his hands nervously reaching out. Slowly, he slit open the damp paper with a fingernail. The wooden box inside was soaked through.

‘So that’s how you write my name?’ he said, tracing the outline of ‘Mark’ carved into its lid.

‘Yes,’ Lily said quietly, remembering how she had felt, only a couple of months earlier, when a similar box had arrived for her.

Mark lifted the lid and gasped.

‘Is it… gold?’ he said, breathing reverently.

Lily laughed. ‘Some kind of brass, I think. You can get them in gold, but you need to be a little richer than we are.’ She got up, and looked over his shoulder. ‘Happy title day, Mark. You own yourself now.’

Mark reached into the box and plucked out its contents. Sitting there in his hand it was less impressive: a flat, round disc mounted on a cheap brass ring. But carved on that disc, solemnly floating, was something Mark later said he had seen only once, when his dad had brought it proudly home from a rare catch, saying that it was a good omen. It was stylized, but there was no mistaking the five points of a starfish. Mark sat and stared. A signet ring.

‘Have you never seen one before?’ Lily said softly.

‘Of course I have, but…’ Mark paused, tracing the outline of the seal. ‘I used to ask when I’d get one. My brother and sister were both younger, so I think I knew that I’d be first. My dad told me to wait until I was grown up, said it would be a surprise. Mum always looked sad when she thought about it. She never said anything about title days… All her stories were about witches, and ghosts, and cities made of gold… nothing to do with the real world, but they always felt more real than anything I’d ever known. After a few stories, I always forgot what I’d been asking her about… I think that was the point…’

Mark held it up to the firelight, then gingerly slipped it on to his ring finger. Lily couldn’t see his expression, but his voice was a whisper.

‘Dad kept his hidden in the blankets where he slept. Only brought it out when he was going to sell the catch. He was afraid the neighbours would steal it. “Steal your ring, steal your soul,” he used to say.’ Mark held out his hand. ‘Lily, how… how do you use it?’

Lily considered for a moment. Mark needed to make his first trade and receive his title gift – even the basest beggar received something on their title day. But what would the doctor give him? He owned nothing but tools that Mark would need years of training before he could use. And then, almost without realizing it, her eyes drifted down to the book in her hands. She held it tighter. It was important to her, one of the few things that she had ever been able to call her own.

But what was the point of a story you could not share?

She picked up the candle.

‘I’ll show you. Wait here.’

A few minutes of rummaging in a cupboard later, Lily returned with paper and a long, thin pen. It had once been a goose feather, but all remnants of fluff had been stripped from it and now it was a very simple means of moving ink from a copper pot to the paper. Carefully, she wrote, reading aloud as she did so:

I, Lily, give to Mark, one book.

In return, Mark gives nothing, for it is a title gift.

Then she reached for the candle and, tilting it, let hot wax run down on to the contract.

‘Press it in, like this.’

Fishing in her apron pocket, Lily pulled out her own signet ring, and pushed it down into the wax. As she pulled it back both saw the shape of a flower, a lily, growing out of an open book.

‘Now you.’

His hand shaking, Mark pushed his seal down beside hers. The starfish seemed to grin up at him.

‘What now?’ he said.

‘Nothing. You own the book.’ Lily felt a twinge of sadness, but covered it with a sly smile. ‘Do you want to know how to read it? That’s extra.’

‘Not fair,’ Mark grumbled. ‘I can’t even use the present.’

‘You can look at the woodcut pictures,’ Lily replied, handing him the book. ‘Anyway, be grateful. My title gift was a cart ride.’

‘Where to?’

Lily paused. Images of her few belongings being thrown into the mud rose up in her mind as she heard the doors of the bookbinder’s grinding shut. Inwardly, she shuddered.

‘Away,’ she said simply. ‘The bookbinders didn’t want to keep me once I had my signet ring. They didn’t own me any more, and they needed smaller fingers for the stitching. I was lucky. They let me stay on for a week, before I was –’ Lily gave a mirthless chuckle – ‘asked to leave. It feels like a lifetime ago.’

Mark picked at the cover of the book awkwardly.

‘I suppose you get used to it,’ he said hopefully, ‘after a couple of years…’

Lily gave a tight smile.

‘I probably will, but it still feels new to me.’ She folded her arms. ‘My title day was only two months ago, on Agora Day.’

Mark looked up sharply, his surprise visible.

‘Really?’ he said. ‘I mean… not that you look much older than me… It’s just… the way you act and talk… you remind me of my mother sometimes.’

Lily flinched.

‘Gosh, thanks,’ she said, a little more sharply than she had meant.

Mark shrank back into his chair. ‘She used to be the one who explained things,’ he said quietly. ‘She was the one who told me stories, who kept all this stuff away from me. She… she made me feel safe.’

Lily breathed out slowly, her annoyance fading away. Now she thought about it, it was strange to think how little time she had spent at the tower. It already felt as though she had been through its dull routines a thousand times. She pulled her chair closer to Mark’s.

‘I started work years ago, Mark. The orphanage sold me to the bookbinders when I had seen only six summers. I wasn’t even the youngest worker there.’ Lily bit her lip; she had never talked to anyone about this before. ‘I didn’t have a mother, or a father, just an orphanage matron who was so distant I never even knew her name.’ Lily shrugged. ‘I suppose that kind of life makes you grow up fast.’ She leaned forward. ‘I can tell you everything I’ve picked up, Mark, try to help as best I can. But I can’t be your mother and I wouldn’t want to be. She sounds special.’

Mark looked away. ‘She was,’ he said.

For a while they sat with their thoughts, Mark gazing at the signet ring and Lily at Mark. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

‘So,’ Mark said at last, ‘the doctor doesn’t own me any more?’

‘He won’t in a week. They give you time to find someone new.’

‘And then you sell yourself?’

‘You sell your service. It’s all we have.’ Lily rolled up the contract. ‘There are no more gifts, Mark. Not ever.’

There was a pause.

‘Lily…’ he said. ‘What do we do?’ When he looked up at her, he suddenly seemed so lost.

Lily took his hands in her own. ‘We survive, Mark. That’s the only thing we can do. We try to live, try to find somewhere we can call home.’ She saw her own dark eyes reflected in his grey ones. ‘We do what we can for ourselves.’ She squeezed his hands. ‘And for each other.’

For a long moment they both turned away to look into the fire, but if there was a glimpse of the future in the flames, Lily could not see it. Then Mark took the cover of his new book and flipped it open.

‘Clean the kitchen for you in exchange for a reading lesson?’ he said.

Lily smiled.

‘I’d say that’s worth a few hours.’

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Chapter Three

THE DEAL

It was a few months later that Mark discovered, to his astonishment, that he was happy. Or at least closer to happiness than he had expected to be.

It wasn’t as if he had much to be happy about. At night, when he lay curled up against the tower’s many draughts, dark thoughts would come back to him. The face of his father would swim into view, stamping down a brass seal into wax, selling his dying son to a doctor for a few weeks of treatment. Then the same doctor would rouse him, announcing that they were setting off again to walk the streets.

He was a different man out there. In the tower the doctor relaxed a little. He often apologized to Mark for the worst parts of their work – the dissection of corpses, the foul-smelling mixtures – but down in the basement, between the dry stones, it felt safe and secret. Mark could pretend to himself that it was nothing more than an intriguing game.

But when they were on the streets, it became all too real. The doctor donned the mask of the reaper, the smooth white face and goggles of black. He made Mark wear a mask too; it would protect them from other diseases in the slums, he said, and it acted as a badge of office. Outside, Dr Theophilus walked swiftly and spoke as little as possible. Mark could see the tension in his hands as he handed over the instruments and bottles. He concentrated a lot on the doctor’s hands – it meant he didn’t have to look at the gasping, desperate faces around them.

Mark couldn’t help it. He knew the doctor was right when he told him that it was impossible for him to catch the grey plague again. He didn’t understand, of course, something to do with ‘the vile humours’ having been purged, but there could be no reason for his master to lie to him. However, when he was out there, on the streets…

It was the smell. He was used to the smell of rot, of mouldering fish and foul river mud – the stench of the River Ora as it lapped against the banks of the Piscean slums – that had been with him his whole life. But by the river he could see the sky. Now, crushed into the alleyways in the depths of the Pisces District, far from the waterfront he had called home, it was as though the odours were being pushed into his nose and mouth, as though his head was swelling up in the rush of diseased air and clattering footsteps. He was shoved and jostled by a thousand rushing shadows. No one greeted each other as they rushed by.

Sometimes he thought of going back, of seeing whether his father was still alive, but something always stopped him. He told Lily that it was the thought of the city, huge and imposing, stretching out between the tower and his old home, and she said she believed him. He was grateful for that, particularly as both of them knew it was not the only reason. If he went back he would find one of two things: a dead father, or the man who had sold him. The trouble was, he didn’t know which would be worse.