Elfling (U.S. Edition) Read online

  Not that it was conclusive in the slightest. In my entire life, no one, not my mother, nor my own maid, nor any of the other servants, had ever mentioned my father to me or even in my hearing. There was an obvious conclusion to be drawn from this, even by a well-brought up girl, and I had eventually reached it. Astonishing as it might seem, considering my pious and impeccably behaved mother, I must be illegitimate.

  Which might have explained my uncle’s dislike for me, had it not been for the fact that he liked my mother. Though I’d sometimes wondered how genuine that liking really was, when all his visits seemed to end with my mother giving him money. But only after he had paid his deathbed visit had I, for the first and last time, heard of the Duke of Albany. My mother had been almost gone by then but had insisted upon seeing me again, probably, I now suspected darkly, because my uncle had divulged his intentions, leaving her in desperate straits regarding my future.

  Only then, in such dire necessity, had my mother spoken of this man. And only a few words. A few words—and a ring—pressed into my shaking hand.

  “Go to the Duke of Albany,” my mother had whispered, and with her last breath, “he will look after you...”

  Of course, going anywhere as an urchin was far from easy, let alone going to find a man one did not know and had not the slightest idea how to find. Initially, I had naively believed I could seek help from one of my mother’s few friends, sure they would have a carriage harnessed for my conveyance to this Duke’s residence. My already disheveled state and the common belief I was with my uncle on his country estates had denied me access even to the upper servants and brought threats of what would happen if I persisted in my ‘lies’. Before long, survival left me with no time to worry about the Duke of Albany.

  Thanks to Siridean, and later kind old Father Mahoney, I had slowly mastered my new life and eventually managed to take up my weekly pilgrimage to the one place where I thought I might hear of, or even find, this elusive Duke. The old gossips that hung around Courte Gate could be guaranteed to know all who had attended court in the past week, and all the scandals of my old world. But it had been over three years, and I had learned nothing...

  Another urchin, slightly bigger than me, but thinner, was coming along the backstreet, shoulders hunched and shaking with cold. As he came level, his eyes darted to me. His desperate eyes.

  I rose to flee just as he lunged. I raised my arm before my face and swung it sideways, feeling the jar as my wrist struck his, but his other hand reached my throat, or more specifically, the fastening of my precious cloak. I felt it come loose and hurled myself forward, knocking him to the ground.

  We struggled in a breathless silence. He landed several blows to my head and took advantage of my disorientation to break free and flee. With my cloak. I sat up, willing my head to stop spinning, and wound my fingers into my blanket. I’d tied it over my shoulder, like an ancient Roman’s toga, and it had not come free as easily as the cloak.

  Raven chattered a warning and I looked up quickly. A much older boy walked rapidly towards me, staring intently at something that lay in the mud. I struggled to focus on that tiny circle of gold.

  My ring!

  Raven shot forward, and the boy and I dived after her. My hand closed around the ring and I twisted halfway to my feet, turning to grab Raven and flee. But… Oh no!

  The boy held Raven. He had his hand wrapped around her long neck, and her body dangled. Her head twisted helplessly against the circle of his fingers, but she could not bite.

  “This’ll fetch a tidy penny,” said the boy. “I’d rather ‘ave the trinket, though.”

  I looked at the ring in my hand, anguished. It was my only hope.

  “The ‘pothecary won’t care if it’s alive, ‘long as it’s fresh,” the boy sneered. He took hold of Raven’s body and began to pull. Raven’s head tilted up and her legs flailed. He would break her neck!

  “Stop!” I gasped. “Stop, you can have the ring!”

  I held it out carefully, my other hand extended for Raven. With the utmost caution and mutual mistrust, we carried out the swap. I stumbled backwards several paces, out of immediate reach, Raven clutched to me.

  “You jus’ gotta be a girl,” sniggered the boy.

  “Am not!” I retorted, with suitably boyish indignation.

  The boy shrugged. “Ain’t short of coin now,” he said, grinning at me and twiddling the ring between finger and thumb. “I can do better than you, anyway. Master Simmons don’t bother with the likes of you.”

  He won’t bother with you for long, if you boast like that, I thought to myself. The boy had lifted one foot and turned the heel of his boot to reveal a secret compartment. He placed the ring inside, closed it, smirked at me and left. I sniffed in disgust. If I had a compartment like that I certainly wouldn’t show it off, even to a helpless urchin. I’d need boots first, of course. Now that I thought about it, he probably had the compartment to keep things from his Master Simmons. Lunatic. Even I had heard of Master Simmons. And stayed well away from him.

  Shivering twice as hard, I made my way to Fenchurch, to a small area of greenery tucked behind a triangle of houses. I sat down with my back to the high, encircling wall and stared despondently at the grass in front of me, with its great stone cross towering in the centre. The pauper’s graveyard was too recent to have been built over. On Sundays there might be poor folk there, placing some single flower on the communal grave. Some urchins would take these and sell them to the next person, and so on, until they wilted.

  Today it was quiet and I could sit there alone, shaking with the shock of my loss. What do I do now? A comforting warmth stirred in my nape in response to this desolate question, although no answer presented itself. Raven pressed her face to my neck, making soft cheeps of apology. I stroked her gently. It wasn’t Raven’s fault.

  Sometimes I came to this particular graveyard to escape the bustle. After Siridean had died they’d tossed him in there, with everyone else who couldn’t pay for better.

  I drew my dagger and held it in my hands, my thumb rubbing around the pommel, cleaning away the protective layer of mud. Hematite gleamed underneath. The shiny silver stone passed well enough for plain steel when strategically daubed with muck. I stared down into it. For a long time, until I found Raven, the dagger had been my only friend. The eyes were there today, looking up at me out of the stone. They looked like Siridean’s eyes. I hugged it close, remembering the last time I’d felt as bereft as I did now.

  ~+~

  Selling the dagger had been the rational thing to do. I couldn’t eat the stone, and a plain dagger would surely do just as well. So I’d reasoned. I’d felt miserable about it, though. Misery turned to pure panic the first time I tried to hunt something. I’d never missed so badly before!

  I fled to the quiet cemetery and threw the new dagger at a sapling over and over again. I hardly hit it once. What was the matter with me? I’d chosen a dagger that felt almost identical in my hand: the shape, the length, the balance.

  It didn’t make the back of my neck prickle, though, the way Siridean’s dagger did when I held it and concentrated on my target. The harder I’d concentrated, the better my success. Siridean had taught me the importance of concentration. But I concentrated until I thought my head would explode, and still the new dagger would not fly true. It was then I accepted that the eyes I’d often seen looking back at me probably weren’t just a trick of the light. Siridean’s dagger had been a very special gift. It had kept me alive this long, and now I had sold it. I felt near despair.

  I went back to the shop with the coins, though the shopkeeper would not have bought if he didn’t think he could sell it for more, so I held out little hope of being able to buy it back.

  But the man answered the door with dark-shadowed eyes and wild words. “Such a night! Such a night I have never had!” He thrust the dagger at me and snatched the coins. “Take the cursed thing and be gone with you!”

  ~+~

  I had appreciated the
dagger much more after that. It had forgiven my ignorance and come back to me. I doubted I would get the ring back so easily. Common sense whispered that I would never get the ring back at all, but I couldn’t accept that. To accept that would be to accept that I was an urchin and would never be anything else, other than an inhabitant of the latest pauper’s graveyard.

  If only he’d put the ring into a pocket, I might have been able to get it back. It was just barely possible, anyway: but only just. He’d surely know better than to let me get too close. But a boot compartment? How was I supposed to get into that without him noticing?

  A movement opposite drew me from my thoughts. I tensed, peering, my hand shifting its grip on the dagger. A dog was slinking from the undergrowth—a big dog, but thin-sided—and limping, which was probably why. One look at its hunting stance was enough to bring me to my feet in a crouch of my own. It sniffed my scent and showed its teeth in a silent snarl. I eyed it back, just as intently.

  If I let that thing get to me I’d be in trouble. I touched the hematite and my resolve strengthened. The dog still advanced, head low and teeth bared. There was definitely nothing wrong with its teeth.

  Wait, I cautioned myself as it came closer, wait... Its muscles bunched to rush me, and I threw the dagger with all the force and concentration I could muster.

  Staying safely where I crouched until it had stopped its demonic howling and thrashing, I then advanced carefully to reclaim my dagger. It was my stomach’s turn to growl, and I looked the animal over with rather more interest. Thin, but large, which meant there was still plenty of meat. It might keep me alive until the weather broke. But even this could not raise my spirits by much. I’d lost my mother’s ring. Why would the Duke of Albany listen to me now?

  I shifted the dog slightly with the point of my toe, considering how best to proceed. The entire dog would be quite heavy to carry, but I would keep the skin and bones and not lose a ha’penny of its value. It wasn’t like I wanted to leave any of it behind; even the offal was valuable sustenance. I would just have to carry it. Reluctantly, I reached for the knot on my blanket, to undo it and use it as a makeshift bag.

  Again a movement drew my eye. I looked over to the streets and saw the boy who’d stolen my ring. I stiffened, ready to leave the dog and run, assuming he’d followed me to try and get Raven after all. Then I realized he was turning and walking away. I hesitated, torn. A dead dog would go nowhere towards the price of the ring, but if I could ever hope to get it back, I needed to know where the boy was to be found.

  I dragged the dog quickly into the bushes and concealed it as well as I could, hesitating one last time. All that meat! Another stray dog might well find it in my absence, but I left it and hurried after the boy.

  He walked purposefully, and the streets through which he passed were familiar to me, making concealment easy. Trying to follow someone without it being obvious to everyone else around was rather less easy, but I’d had cause once or twice before and managed well enough.

  Eventually, I peeped around a corner to find that he’d stopped in a little back square behind Seethinge Lane and was speaking to a man. I eyed the man suspiciously. He had rather yellow hair and a youth with feral eyes much like the dog’s prowled nearby, watching everything. The square was deserted.

  “...Y’know Ralph Fletcher were taken for cutt’in that purse? ‘An the throat with it?” the boy was saying.

  “I know Ralph Fletcher’s got himself in jail to hang just after I paid him to do an extremely important task, aye,” the yellow haired man replied malevolently.

  “Aye, your honor, well, I know’d what Fletcher were good at,” the boy continued, “and if you were needing a one for such jobs I thought you might...” he dropped his voice and spoke rapidly for a few moments.

  He wasn’t just boasting. That was Master Simmons. Time to go.

  I made to ease back out of sight, but even as I did the boy turned and pointed directly at me. So much for my unobserved stalking.

  Master Simmons’ head rose. “Wait.” He hooked a finger at me.

  I bit my lip but did not dare to disobey. I advanced warily. The boy accepted something from Master Simmons, writhed fawningly and left. The feral youth was still there, out of earshot but close enough. Still...slightly better odds. Numerically, at least.

  “Well, boy,” said Master Simmons, when I stood before him. “How does this take your fancy?” He held out a fat gold piece.

  I stared at it, more enthralled by the sight of gold than I had ever been in my life. That tiny thing would buy back my ring.

  “Thomas tells me,” Master Simmons went on, when he saw he had my attention, “that you are uncommonly accurate with a dagger over a long range.”

  My insides began to curdle and I shrugged as non-communicatively as I could. I had a feeling that precious coin might as well have been on the moon.

  “Do you know a man,” asked Master Simmons, “called Sir Allen Malster?”

  I swallowed. Everyone knew Sir Allen Malster. He was one of the Queen’s special agents, and he’d seen an awful lot of men like Master Simmons tried and executed. I shrugged again.

  “I would be very happy...this happy, in fact,” Master Simmons twitched the gold coin, “if Sir Allen were to suffer a very accurate sort of accident from a very discreet sort of range.”

  I swallowed again. “I jus’ killed a dog, s’true, sir,” I replied. “But the dog were terrible fierce, I’d never even ha’ tried, else. I’m glad I hit it ‘cus I’m terrible hungry, but it were a surprise, sir.” I shrugged as though the implication of my words were obvious.

  Master Simmons’ hand closed around the gold piece. He might suspect the true reason for my modesty, but he would not risk a bumbled attempt.

  “What a shame,” he said, with one of the most insincere smiles I’d ever seen. “You’d best go eat your dog.” He turned away in brusque dismissal.

  I was only too happy to get back to my dog and away from him. I hurried off, resolutely trying to turn my mind to the matter of the dog’s preparation and consumption. But before I’d gone very far, my niggling conscience spawned an idea that was not easily ignored. An idea about how to acquire at least part of the ring’s value. An idea that made my mouth dry with fear.

  My conscience told me that I ought to warn Sir Allen Malster. And my head told me that he might be grateful enough to pay for details. I tried to shake the thoughts away. It was absurd. People were probably trying to kill the man all the time. And money would do me no good if Master Simmons found out.

  If I could manage it without being seen... What did I really have to lose? If I couldn’t find the Duke soon, I probably wouldn’t be alive to do it at all. And finding the Duke would be of doubtful use without the ring. I swallowed very hard.

  The dog would have to wait a little longer.

  ~+~

  CHAPTER 3

  THE PRICE OF A RING

  I lay on the roof of Sir Allen Malster’s modest Fleete Street town house, gutter sludge soaking through my breeches. Raven sat at the back of my neck, under my hair, still and quiet. I prayed the guttering was well attached as I leant out and pitched the first stone at the balcony window. It was pitch black, and the town house nestled in the midst of a terrace. This was the most secret method of contacting the man I’d been able to think of.

  I’d waited until it was good and late and a candle had been lit in the room, and I thought there now a very strong chance that it would be Sir Allen Malster in there, alone. I threw three more stones before I saw the window open silently on well-oiled hinges. My breath caught in my throat as a fully-cocked crossbow came first through the opening. But I held my tongue. I needed to be sure it was Sir Allen Malster, not a servant.

  I could just make out a pale-haired head in the window.

  “Who’s there?” asked a harsh voice.

  I thought it was him. I hoped it was him. “Friend,” I whispered.

  The crossbow rose to cover me as he stepped halfway onto
the balcony. “Put your hands on the guttering.”

  I shifted carefully until I could do so without falling. My open hands were dimly visible in the light coming from the window, and to my relief the crossbow was lowered slightly.

  “Sir Allen Malster, sir?” I checked.

  “Yes. What do you want?”

  “Someone seeks your life. But I suppose you already knew that.” I could not keep a trace of bitterness from my voice. I’d taken this terrible risk for nothing.

  The man glanced at the crossbow. “A normal precaution when answering mysterious taps on the window at this hour,” he said coldly. “Who is it?”

  Hope flared again. He had not known. “I forget,” I muttered.

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Too hungry,” I persisted. “I’ve forgotten.”

  With the light behind him I couldn’t see his face. Sir Allen Malster got results, but his methods could be rough. I prepared myself for being dragged from the roof, dangled off the balcony and threatened with dropping. The moment’s silence seemed very long. I could hear street noise coming faintly over the roof from the front of the house, but my heartbeat was the only other sound.

  He reached into his pocket and drew out something that gleamed silver. He held it up to me and I took it quickly.

  “Are you less hungry now?” There was a hard edge to his voice that warned me not to try my luck. Still, Master Simmons would probably have gutted me already. Not a reassuring thought.

  My voice shook as I said very quietly indeed, “Master Simmons.”

  The pale head jerked up. “You’re very hungry.”