So you and Master Tyler are talking to each other now?
Makepeace could not suppress a very small smile.
No more than we can help. The doctor’s tone was sullen. Tyler believes that he is going to Hell. I think so too. That appears to be the only thing we can agree upon. However, last night while you slept we reached a practical understanding of sorts.
Do you intend to tell Symond Fellmotte about us? In particular, are you planning to tell him that an angry Fellmotte spymistress was listening to your entire conversation with him?
No, Makepeace answered firmly. He might be useful as an ally, but I don’t trust him. I’d sooner thrust my hand in a bucket of vipers.
Then why are we here? asked the doctor.
Because I don’t have a bucket of vipers that can help me save James, answered Makepeace with a sigh.
Speaking of vipers, Lady Morgan still appears to be lying low, commented the doctor. It’s only a matter of time before she attempts something, however.
You’re right, Makepeace replied silently. We have one thing in our favour, though. Lady Spymistress Morgan is an idiot.
The lady may well be listening to us, remarked the doctor cautiously.
I hope she is! Makepeace answered. Only an idiot would be scrabbling to get back to serving a gaggle of evil old greybeards who don’t care whether she gets worn down to the nub! What if they had decided to recruit Symond’s ghost to their coterie? Who would they have pushed out to make room for him?
If Morgan was listening, she did not respond.
In any case, continued the doctor, with an air of suppressed excitement, I believe that your new ally is right about something very important. His theory would explain an oddity I have noticed.
We passenger-ghosts are plunged into darkness whenever you close your eyes. I thought at first that this was because we used your eyes to see the world. But if your Bear does see through your eyes — your human eyes — then why is he able to see in the dark like a beast?
So ghosts are mysterious and unnatural, and break God’s laws, Makepeace answered, confused and a little impatient. You can’t make sense of some things. You might as well ask how witches fly.
Oh, come now! snapped the doctor. Our existence may be the stuff of waking nightmares, but there will be rules to it. I believe Symond Fellmotte has unravelled the truth. The key is expectation. Belief.
I think ghosts can see without using their living host’s eyes. However, we are used to the bodies we once had. Your bear believes that he can only see through eyes that are open. However, he also expects to be able to see in the dark.
If I am right, then that explains why there are so few ghosts. Dead souls only become ghosts if they expect to do so.
Bear never expected it! Makepeace frowned in thought. But . . . he was very angry when he died. In fact, I’m not sure he noticed he had died.
So his spirit lingered, said the doctor, sounding pleased. Then there are those who die in desperation and doubt, thinking their souls lost, like your Puritan friend, and the favoured Fellmottes, who die knowing that their ghosts will have a new home . . .
And you, said Makepeace, feeling her spirits sink guiltily. You expected to become a ghost because I told you that you could.
Never mind that, said the doctor briskly but firmly. The Fellmotte ghosts survive from century to century, triumphing over the spirits of their hosts, because they utterly believe in their right and ability to do so. Their certainty and mad arrogance is their strength.
If you want to weaken their spirits, find a way to shatter that certainty. Break their faith. Make them doubt.
CHAPTER 32
The next morning, Symond completely ignored Makepeace, which was only sensible. It was best that nobody suspect a connection between them, lest they also notice that both had the same faint cleft in their chin.
It did, however, mean that she was left no closer to knowing what Symond had meant by a ‘hunt’. In fact, Whitehollow seemed to be preparing for a rather different sort of gathering.
The ballroom was cleaned, its windows polished, and tables and chairs set out as if for a party. On pewter plates a small spread was laid out — tongue, veal, partridge pie, bread and cheese. It was nothing compared to the magnificent banquets at Grizehayes, but fine enough to suggest that guests of quality were expected.
‘What’s going on?’ Makepeace asked a private who was putting candles back into candlesticks in the ballroom. Such extravagance suggested an important event.
‘It’s a wedding, Mistress Lott,’ he said politely. ‘The general’s nephew’s marrying the daughter of a member of Parliament. They’ll be turning up this afternoon — and some of their friends and family too.’
They might decorate the place a little, remarked the doctor morosely. The rafters were bare, and no flowers adorned the room.
Marriage belongs to God, said Livewell matter-of-factly enough, and He doesn’t care about frills and ribbons.
Makepeace was glad to hear Livewell’s voice. He had been quiet for a while. She could not guess what it must have been like to find himself surrounded by soldiers of the army he had abandoned. She worried that he might start tearing himself apart again.
The first visitors to arrive were three black-clad, severe-looking men. To Makepeace’s surprise they gave the sergeant and other officers only the briefest, coolest nod, before stepping aside with Symond, and holding a quiet, earnest conversation with him.
Afterwards Symond maintained his usual air of cool detachment, but Makepeace detected hints of excitement. At one point he caught at her sleeve.
‘Remember — once the hunt starts, stay close to me.’
‘When is the hunt?’ she asked. ‘Is it after the wedding? I can’t find a reason to join it if I don’t know when it is!’
He laughed under his breath.
‘This whole wedding is a hunt of sorts,’ he whispered. ‘The families were planning to hold it back on the general’s estates in a few months . . . but holding it here right now allows them to invite certain guests, who cannot really say no. This —’ he gestured through the door at the wide ballroom — ‘is an opening trap.’
‘A trap?’
‘One of the guests secretly spies for the King,’ Symond explained with visible relish. ‘We have proof of it now, but unfortunately the spy is a member of the gentry. If we knock on their door and ask to arrest them, their household will probably try to spirit them away to safety. That’s why we’ve lured the spy here, far from their servants and reinforcements.’
The conversation left a bad taste in Makepeace’s mouth. Allying with Symond meant nailing her colours to Parliament’s mast for now, but her little time on His Majesty’s secret service left her with a reluctant sympathy for the unsuspecting spy.
After lunch, the damp morning mist thickened into fog, robbing the lawns and outhouses of all detail. The sergeant sent more men down the drive to guide guests to the house, and in the mid-afternoon the wedding party and others arrived.
The general was a grim-jawed man with a well-trimmed beard, and his nephew a slimmer, younger, clean-shaven version of him. The quiet, nervously smiling bride was ushered in by her talkative mother. However, Makepeace barely noticed any of them.
Instead, her attention was drawn by a well-dressed couple who rode in on the same horse, the woman sitting behind the man. The gentleman dismounted and handed down his wife with a courtesy that seemed formal rather than affectionate.