‘No, but Paff did, on her way to you, I am sure of it,’ Lief said. ‘I think Josef scribbled on three pages of his little notebook. The second page contained the warnings that might have spared us much grief. Paff destroyed it, and tore off the right hand corners of the remaining pages, removing the page numbers, so we would not suspect.’
‘Ah, she was cunning,’ muttered Doom.
‘Why, you almost sound as if you admire her!’ growled Barda.
Doom grimaced. ‘If she had chosen to use her talents for good, she might have been a great asset to us,’ he said. ‘Lief and I found supplies of that yellow paper beneath her mattress, you know. She never stopped thinking and planning. I am sure that by the end she had convinced Josef that I was working secretly for the Enemy.’
‘I considered that myself, Doom,’ Jasmine said calmly.
‘Indeed?’ Doom said, raising an eyebrow. ‘And why was that?’
‘Lief said the guardian of the south was subtle, quick-thinking, and very clever,’ Jasmine answered, shrugging. ‘That sounded more like you than anyone else in the palace.’
‘Why, thank you,’ Doom said drily.
‘Also …’ Jasmine checked the points off on her fingers. ‘You have been in the Shadowlands. You are proud and ruthless. You mix with strange people. You are awake all hours of the night. You were one of the few to see Sharn the night she fell ill—’
‘Why, plainly Paff went to my room that first night and put poison in my lip balm while I was still downstairs!’ exclaimed Sharn, very shocked. ‘Doom was the one who realised the cream was poisoned, when he brought the royal emeralds and amethysts to my chamber. He was the one who saved me!’
‘And me,’ Zeean put in. ‘Jasmine, how could you think such a thing of your father?’
Jasmine shrugged again. ‘Doom is not an ordinary father,’ she said.
‘Very true,’ said Doom. ‘And you are no ordinary daughter, I am happy to say. If I had been in your place, I would have thought exactly as you did. We are more alike than we realised, it seems.’
He grinned broadly, and Jasmine’s tired face broke into an answering smile.
Zeean and Sharn both shook their heads, clearly bewildered by this strange example of family loyalty.
Gers slammed his fist upon the table. ‘Why do we sit here jabbering when there is a feast to be had?’ he shouted. ‘We are all here now, and my belly is growling!’
Ranesh grinned, and swung a large cloth bundle onto the table.
‘Hardly a feast,’ Marilen said, as the cloth was untied to reveal packets, jars and nets of glowing fruit. ‘More a taste of what is to come. I could only bring what I could carry.’
As Gers, Gla-Thon and Lindal began tearing open the nets and packets, Barda grinned at Lief and Doom’s startled faces. ‘A trading ship has come, it seems,’ he said.
‘Just the first of many, the sailors said,’ Marilen said happily. ‘They said that the Bone Point Light has been noticed by all who sail the sea to our west, which they call the silver sea. Soon there will be food in plenty—enough, I am sure, to see the whole land through the winter.’
‘Marilen was already on her way here when I left to fetch her,’ Ranesh said, meeting Lief’s eyes. ‘We met not far from Del. She had been missing me, it seems.’
He spoke lightly, but Lief’s heart warmed for him.
All is well, Lief told himself, as with shouts of delight everyone around him fell upon the delicious fruits, cheeses, dried fish, flat bread and little spiced cakes heaped upon the table. My feelings of foreboding were caused by exhaustion and fear, nothing more.
But still he could not relax. His nerves were tight as bow strings.
‘Father tried to persuade me to change my mind, but I knew my place was here,’ Marilen was chattering on. ‘So I put on a garment that Sharn had left in Tora, picked up what food I could carry, and came.’
‘If only you were Lindal’s size,’ bellowed Gers, with his mouth full. ‘You could have carried five times as much!’
Everyone laughed. Ebony and Kree looked up from the shred of fish they were sharing and screeched. Even Filli, happily nibbling fruit peel, added his tiny voice to the general din.
All is well, Lief repeated to himself fiercely. It is over.
But he knew it was not. And as he bent his head unwillingly, he saw that the Belt knew it, too. The topaz was still shining like a golden star. But the ruby and the emerald were as pale and dull as roadside stones.
There was another burst of laughter around the table. Dazedly, Lief raised his head. He saw that Barda was ruefully displaying his wooden puzzle box, still locked despite the little rods sticking out from three of its carved sides.
‘Plainly there is another lock on the fourth side!’ cried Manus, holding out his hand. ‘The trick is in the carving. Let me try it.’
‘No, let me!’ shrieked Zerry. ‘Bess of the Masked Ones had many such puzzles. I could do it!’
‘Oh, no,’ growled Barda. ‘This box will open for me, or not at all!’
Disdainfully he poked the box with his finger. His jaw dropped as with a tiny click, the fourth rod slid outward.
The lid of the box burst open. Out shot a laughing clown face, bouncing on a spring.
Barda yelled and dropped the box. Everyone shrieked in shock, then began to laugh helplessly.
The jack-in-the-box lay on its side on the table, its grinning head nodding foolishly, its tinny clockwork laughter running down.
Lief’s skin crawled.
‘Why, I spent hours on that foolish thing!’ cried Barda in disgust. ‘And for what? To have the life scared out of me.’
He tried to stuff the clown back into the box, but it would not go, and neither would the rods slide back in place. Clearly this was a puzzle that could be done one time only.
‘Barda! Throw it in the fire!’ Lief heard himself shouting harshly. His heart was beating like a drum.
‘With pleasure,’ Barda snorted, and tossed the box into the stove. It caught and burned merrily, quickly collapsing into ash.
What is wrong with me? Lief thought desperately. Why would a harmless toy terrify me so?
‘Oh, that was a fine trick indeed!’ gasped Manus, tears of mirth streaming down his cheeks. ‘The rods hold the lid in place, with the clown pressed down beneath it. One rod removed—nothing. Two rods, three rods removed—still nothing. But when the last rod is removed—bang! Ah, Barda, if you had seen your face!’
He collapsed in fresh gales of laughter, echoed by the whole company.
Lief felt as if he was suffocating. He stood up abruptly and went outside. He sat down on the bench beside the back door and took a few deep breaths of cold fresh air.
The door opened again and Ranesh came out.
‘I understand how you feel, Lief,’ Ranesh said soberly. ‘After all that has happened, it seems callous to be merry. But Josef would have rejoiced to hear us laugh.’
Lief’s mind was filled once again with the memory of the frail old man bent over his desk, muttering as he studied the plan of the chapel. And again he had the feeling that something about the memory was wrong, or that there was something about it he did not understand.
Why do I keep fretting over this? he asked himself angrily. What more is there to understand? Josef guessed that the Sister of the South was beneath the chapel. He was horrified, and tried to contact me, to tell me. The night he died, he was studying the plan of the chapel to make absolutely sure—
And suddenly Lief’s stomach seemed to turn over as he realised that what he had just thought simply could not be true.
Josef could not have been studying the chapel plan the night he died, because the very next day, the plan was in its proper place, in a heavy box high in the storeroom.