I Shall Wear Midnight

10 The old cloth-makers used urine as a mordant for the dyes used in making woollen clothes, so that the colours would be fixed and not run; as a result, they can be a bit smelly for years. Not even Miss Tick could have explained it better and stayed so calm, although she would probably have used the term ‘evacuated bodily juices’.

Chapter 5: The Mother Of Tongues

Chapter 5

THE MOTHER OF TONGUES

THERE SHOULD HAVE been a moment of peace; in fact there was a moment of metal. Some of the castle guard were approaching, their armour making even more noise than armour usually does because none of it fitted properly. There hadn’t been any battles here for hundreds of years, but they still wore armour, because it seldom needed mending and didn’t wear out.

The door was pushed open by Brian, the sergeant. He wore a complicated expression. It was the expression of a man who has just been told that an evil witch, whom he has known since she was a kid, has killed the boss, and the boss’s son is away, and the witch is still in the room, and a nurse, whom he does not like very much, is prodding him in the bottom and shouting, ‘What are you waiting for, man? Do your duty!’

All this was getting on his nerves.

He gave Tiffany a sheepish look. ‘Morning, miss, is everything all right?’ Then he stared at the Baron in his chair. ‘He’s dead then, is he?’

Tiffany said, ‘Yes, Brian, he is. He died only a couple of minutes ago, and I have reason to believe that he was happy.’

‘Well, that’s good then, I suppose,’ said the sergeant, and then his face twisted into tears so that the next words were gulped and damp. ‘You know, he was really very good to us when my nan was ill; he had hot meals sent over to her every day, right up until the end.’

She held his unprotesting hand and looked over his shoulder. The other guards were crying too, and crying all the more because they knew they were big strong men, or so they hoped, and shouldn’t cry at all. But the Baron had always been there, part of life, like the sunrise. All right, maybe he’d give you a dressing-down if you were asleep on duty or had a blunt sword (despite the fact that no guard in living memory had needed to use his sword for anything more than levering the lid off a tin of jam), but when all was said and done, he was the Baron and they were his men and now he was gone.

‘Ask her about the poker!’ screamed the nurse behind Brian. ‘Go on, ask her about the money!’

The nurse could not see Brian’s face. Tiffany could. He had probably been prodded in the bottom again, and was suddenly livid.

‘Sorry, Tiff … I mean, miss, but this lady here says she thinks you done a murder and a robbery,’ he said, and his face added that its owner right now was not thinking the same thing and didn’t want to get into trouble with anyone, especially Tiffany.

Tiffany rewarded him with a little smile. Always remember you are a witch, she told herself. Don’t start shouting your innocence. You know you are innocent. You don’t have to shout anything. ‘The Baron was kind enough to give me some money for … looking after him,’ she said, ‘and I suppose Miss Spruce must have inadvertently heard him doing so and formed a wrong impression.’

‘It was a lot of money!’ Miss Spruce insisted, red in the face. ‘The big chest under the Baron’s bed was open!’

‘All that is true,’ said Tiffany, ‘and it would appear that Miss Spruce was accidentally hearing for quite some time.’

Some of the guards sniggered, which made Miss Spruce even more angry, if that were possible. She pushed her way forward.

‘Do you deny that you were standing there with a poker and your hand on fire?’ she demanded, her face as red as a turkey.

‘I would like to say something, please,’ said Tiffany. ‘It’s rather important.’ She could feel the impatient pain now, fighting to get free. Her hands felt clammy.

‘You were doing black magic, admit it!’

Tiffany took a deep breath. ‘I don’t know what that is,’ she said, ‘but I know I am holding just above my shoulder the last pain that the Baron will ever know, and I have to get rid of it soon, and I can’t get rid of it in here, what with all these people. Please? I need an open space right now!’ She pushed Miss Spruce out of the way and the guards swiftly stood aside for her, to the nurse’s extreme annoyance.

‘Don’t let her go! She will fly away! That’s what they do!’

Tiffany knew the layout of the castle very well; everybody did. There was a courtyard down some steps, and she headed there rapidly, feeling the pain stirring and unfolding. You had to think of it as a kind of animal that you could keep at bay, but that only worked for so long. About as long as … well, now, in fact.

The sergeant appeared beside her, and she grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t ask me why,’ she managed to say through gritted teeth, ‘but throw your helmet in the air!’