He heard Lick scream, then shout out four words: ‘He’s used a lure!’
It didn’t make any sense until Crafty was through the gate too.
Then, all at once, he realized that it wasn’t Ginger Bob’s gate. It was Viper’s! He’d used a lure to deceive them into thinking they were being rescued.
Crafty took in the scene before him with horror. Viper, still in his blood-stained shirt, was holding a big wooden club in both hands; he swung it at Lick.
Crafty had no time to get between them; no time to try and save her.
The club came down on Lick’s temple with a terrible blow. Blood splattered out in all directions. She gave a little cry, and fell forward on to her face.
Crafty leaped towards her, his heart in his mouth. He knew that a blow like that could have killed her. He saw that she wasn’t moving – but was she dead?
Meanwhile Viper had immediately turned his attention from the stricken girl to Crafty.
‘You’re next!’ he said, shoving him backwards and waving the club in his face. ‘I’ll say one thing for you, Benson, you’re a survivor. Which is exactly why I thought it was worth putting in a bit of observation time just in case. There are fixed locations all along that road, and I knew that, if you survived, you’d pass this way. Can’t have you telling tales again, Benson, so we’re off to another location – one I believe you’ve visited before. The one where you made your first snatch.’
Keeping one eye on Crafty, and still brandishing the club, Viper reached forward and adjusted the gate’s ratchet-dial.
Click! Click! Click!
The dark clouds swirled briefly, and then, through the gate, Crafty saw once again the grim stone building of the orphanage, its front door still hanging off its hinges.
‘I’m using another lure now,’ Viper said. ‘This time it’ll be raw meat dripping with blood. That’ll bring those sharp-toothed monsters running! And this time they won’t be disappointed. They’ll have plenty of real flesh and blood to satisfy them – yours and the girl’s! There’ll be no trace of you remaining.’
‘You’re mad,’ gasped Crafty. ‘What on earth have we ever done to hurt you?’
Viper shook his head as if in pity. ‘You really don’t know, do you? You haven’t a clue what this is all about …’
‘No, I don’t understand. What do you mean?’ Crafty asked, keeping one wary eye on the club in Viper’s hands.
‘You’re just like the rest of the fools in this castle – running around like idiots, attempting to fight a battle you’ll never win. Eventually the Shole will take over the whole world and, once it’s done that, things will be far better. People will come back from the dead. We’ll be immortal.’
‘You think we’re idiotic? Step through that gate and you’ll be dead or changed. That’s what the Shole will do to you!’
‘Not true! We chosen ones don’t die. We’re changed, yes, but for the better. We will rule the world, but first we have to eliminate those who oppose us – particularly the Fey. You are the biggest threat to our aims.’
Crafty suddenly realized who the ‘chosen ones’ were. ‘You’re a member of the cult? One of the Grey Hoods?’
‘Of course I am – and I’m not the only one working in the castle. Where better to fight those who threaten the Shole? And today I’m truly fortunate. I get to kill one of the last remaining grubs and the brightest castle boffin – two little birds with one stone!’
Viper advanced towards him, and Crafty retreated a couple of steps, keeping his back to the gate. The mancer was holding the club in his right hand, tapping it rhythmically into the palm of his left. Crafty readied himself to spring out of the way the minute Viper attacked.
Then he saw a sly expression come over the mancer’s face.
Viper pointed at the gate behind Crafty. ‘Here they come, Benson – lots of the horrible little aberrations – and they’re right behind you, waiting to tear you limb from limb.’
But Crafty wasn’t called Crafty for nothing. He’d been fooled by Viper once before; he wouldn’t fall for that trick again.
He made to look over his shoulder to where Viper was pointing – and then he ducked.
As predicted, Viper swung at him with the club. But, thanks to Crafty’s dive, he missed and overbalanced, his momentum carrying him tumbling towards the gate. All he needed was a little push. But Crafty pushed him really hard, just to make sure.
Viper screamed as he fell through, but the scream was abruptly cut off as Crafty closed the gate on him. Once more it was filled only with swirling clouds.
He stood there panting for a moment, coming to terms with what he’d just done. He’d killed someone – a madman, yes, and in self-defence, but a person all the same.
For what felt like the millionth time since he’d arrived at the castle, Crafty wished beyond anything that his father was there.
But there was no time to waste. He ran over to check on Lick.
She was alive, but her breathing was shallow. Blood was beginning to form a puddle under her head. She urgently needed help, so Crafty sprinted out of the door and along the corridor to the Chief Mancer’s office. Lucky was outside the door, probably waiting to be admitted, but Crafty didn’t even have time to nod to him.
He burst through the door and, before Ginger Bob could say anything, told him what had happened. The Chief Mancer leaped to his feet, but as they raced back to Viper’s office, Crafty noticed that the Chief Mancer kept glancing at the blood on Crafty’s hands and the red footprints left by his boots.
Surely he can’t be worrying about the mess I’m making at a time like this! thought Crafty.
After the alarm had been raised, and Lick had been taken away by the doctor, the Chief Mancer questioned Crafty at length.
Finally he delivered his verdict.
‘You’re a liar, Benson! You’re a liar and a murderer!’
Crafty had expected to be given a proper trial – perhaps in a courtroom with a judge seated behind a high desk. The Chief Mancer would be a witness, and someone would prosecute him and someone else would defend him. Maybe there’d also be an audience who’d come to see justice being done.
But when – several days after he’d pushed Viper through the gate – the guard brought Crafty up from his deep, dark, dank cell and marched him into a small wood-panelled room, there was just one person waiting there: a black-gowned judge seated behind a small desk.
Crafty’s eye was immediately drawn to the black cap just to the left of the judge’s notepad. A judge only put that on when he was pronouncing the death sentence. The sight of it made Crafty’s mouth become very dry.
The judge was a big man with white hair and a deeply lined face, who must surely have been a judge for many years. Crafty suddenly wondered how many prisoners he’d sentenced to death.
The man spoke. ‘You are Colin Benson, son of Brian Benson?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You are charged with the murder of the gate mancer Mr S.W. Vipton. You have confessed that you pushed him through a gate and into the Shole, deliberately leaving him there. Whether consequently changed or dead, the result is the same: he is now dead to this world. How do you plead?’
Crafty’s heart hammered in his chest. ‘Not guilty, sir. I acted in self-defence. What happened was –’
‘Silence!’ cried the judge, interrupting him. He was staring at a point just above Crafty’s head. He never once looked into his eyes. ‘Your plea is duly noted, but there is no arguing against the evidence. You confessed to the crime, for goodness’ sake.’ He tutted, as if annoyed that Crafty should be wasting his time.
Crafty tried to speak again, desperate to argue his case, but the guard gave him a hard shove to silence him. The judge picked up the black cap and placed it on his head. Then, although Crafty could scarcely believe it, he began to pronounce his sentence, speaking low and sonorously.
‘The judgment of this court is that you are guilty as charged. You will be taken from here to the
death cell, where you may gaze upon the Daylight World for the last time. You will be kept in confinement until you are taken to Execution Square, and there you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead. Afterwards your body will be cast into a lime pit. May God have mercy upon your soul.’
And that was it. Crafty hadn’t been able to say a word in his defence, and now he was sentenced to death.
The guard didn’t take him back to his previous cell. Instead, after climbing several flights of stone steps, he was shoved into a cell with a barred window. A shaft of sunlight came through it and lit up the opposite wall. It was a huge improvement on the stinking underground dungeon where he’d spent the previous week. But it was still the ‘death cell’.
‘That wasn’t a fair trial,’ he complained to the guard as he unfastened the iron manacles from around his wrists. ‘I never got a chance to speak, and there was nobody there to defend me.’
‘That’s the way things are now, boy,’ the man replied – not unsympathetically, Crafty thought. ‘The Shole threatens our very existence and it’s more difficult for everyone – even the innocent. There’s neither the time nor the resources to keep the old ways going. At least you won’t have to listen to them building your scaffold,’ he said with a grin, gesturing towards the window, ‘seeing as it’s already been built.’
Crafty suddenly recognized this man – he was the same red-faced guard who’d tried to scare him, Lucky and Donna when they went to see Old Nell. The guard clearly had a black sense of humour.
‘Enjoy the view from the window! What you can see is Execution Square!’
When he’d gone, Crafty looked out on to the small flagged courtyard below. At its centre, and taking up most of the space, was a platform and a gibbet very similar to the one where Old Nell had met her end. A vivid image came into his mind of her swinging at the end of the rope, her body spinning, her legs jerking in that final painful dance of death. That was going to happen to him.
But when? he wondered. The judge hadn’t named the day when he’d be hanged. It could be weeks from now; it could be tomorrow. Tonight might be his last on earth.
Crafty spent the night tossing and turning. He had been hoping that his father might somehow have survived in the Shole but, with his own impending death, he realized that he might never see him again. He kept going over and over what had happened in the courtroom, and the injustice of it all – including Ginger Bob’s refusal to believe him. The Chief Mancer hadn’t even listened to his explanations.
Lucky had been kept waiting outside and must have overheard their dispute. He’d suddenly rapped on the door of Ginger Bob’s office and walked in without an invitation. Then he’d pointed out that Viper’s claim that Lick had been dragged away by Bertha didn’t make any sense – after all, here she was, having clearly been hurt on this side of the gate.
But the Chief Mancer had just looked at the blood on Crafty’s hands and boots, shaken his head and then suggested that he had hurt Lick after Viper had rescued her.
When Crafty protested that he had no reason to hurt Lick, Ginger Bob had simply shaken his head. So then Crafty told him that Viper had admitted to being a member of the Grey Hoods – and that had unleashed a torrent of angry words.
‘How dare you make such allegations! You are beyond belief, and will clearly say anything, no matter how preposterous, in an attempt to save your own skin. You are maligning a valued member of our guild. Do you not realize that any new recruits are carefully vetted? It is unthinkable that Mr Vipton should have been a member of that evil cult.’
In the end he could focus on nothing but the fact that Crafty had pushed Viper out into the Shole; that he’d dared to lay hands on a gate mancer, and had brought about the end of Viper’s life.
Crafty’s only hope was that Lick would recover in time to explain what had really happened. He was hoping that this was still possible, even though her injury had been serious and there was a danger that she would die. Crafty had repeatedly asked for news of her, but each time had received an angry glare and stony silence.
Wake up, Lick, he willed in the darkness of the night.
The following morning the guard came in and handed him breakfast – a bowl of cold porridge. ‘You’ve got three more days to live,’ he announced cheerfully. ‘You’ll hang on Monday at three in the afternoon. Any last requests?’
The news was like a punch in the stomach.
There was nobody Crafty could ask for help – except Lick, and for all he knew she was already dead. But there was one person he desperately wanted to see. Somebody who would still care about him, in spite of what he’d done.
‘My father is Brian Benson – he’s a courier. He’s missing in the Shole. Has there been any news about him? He’s been missing for over two weeks, but the Chief Mancer promised me that he was looking for him. I’d also like to find out how Miss Leticia Crompton-Smythe is doing. She has a head injury. She’s my friend,’ Crafty said, realizing that it was true.
The guard huffed in disbelief. ‘Word has it, boy, that her head injury was your doing. Some friend.’
Crafty tried to protest, to tell him what had really happened, but, like the Chief Mancer and the judge, the guard refused to listen, and silenced Crafty with a gesture.
‘I’ll see what can be done,’ he muttered, locking the door and leaving him alone with too much time to think.
Later, just as it was getting dark, his cell door was unlocked and opened a crack. The guard didn’t bother to come in; he just put Crafty’s supper on the floor and told him the bad news.
‘Miss Crompton-Smythe is still unconscious. It’s not looking good. And your father is still missing in the Shole. No courier has ever returned after being missing for so long.’
With that, he clanged the cell door shut again.
Crafty’s heart plummeted. He was heartbroken about his father, and the news about Lick was terrible too. If only she could wake up and tell the truth about Viper!
But maybe she’d never wake up …
Crafty was running out of time.
The days and nights passed all too quickly as the hour of his execution drew nearer. Of course he was afraid of being hanged – of choking and being unable to breathe. But he was even more terrified of what awaited him beyond death. Would he be punished for what he’d done to Viper? The Church said that murderers went to Hell for all eternity, and were tortured there by devils and demons. Was that to be his fate?
Was this what you meant by me ‘getting what I deserved’, Old Nell? he wondered.
Then, early in the morning of the day Crafty was to be hanged, the guard brought him what he evidently considered to be good news.
‘Cheer up, boy!’ he said, handing him his usual unappetizing breakfast of cold porridge. ‘It seems you won’t die for another week. The Duke fell off his horse while out hunting yesterday and broke his neck. He’s as dead as a doornail, so there’ll be several days of mourning. Folks have too much fun at hangings, so there won’t be any until the mourning’s over!’
It hardly seemed like good news to Crafty. A week would soon pass, and now the torture of anticipation would be stretched out, after which they’d stretch his neck.
Then he realized that the longer the hanging was delayed, the more time Lick had to recover and speak up for him.
Crafty suddenly remembered all those mysterious rooms on the ground floor of the castle – the ones with strange names like the Pessimists’ and the Optimists’ Rooms – and gave a bitter laugh. It seemed that he suddenly found himself belonging in the latter.
The final week was dragging on torturously. Crafty’s thoughts churned constantly – he switched between worrying about his father to worrying about Lick dying. He often pondered on Old Nell’s curse too – was this really what he deserved? Maybe it was. After all, he had killed a man. But he’d wanted to rescue Lick, and it didn’t seem fair that he should be punished for that.
Finally, the morning before he was due to be hanged, the guard
arrived without bringing him any breakfast.
‘Come with me, boy!’ he ordered, and marched Crafty out of the cell with a heavy hand on his shoulder.
Crafty’s heart began hammering. Was he being taken to be hanged now, before the designated day? He was too scared to ask.
They went down a flight of steps, and the guard opened another door before pushing him through.
‘You’ve got ten minutes,’ he said. ‘Get yourself cleaned up.’
The room was small, and empty but for a pail of water and a wooden chair. Crafty gazed at the chair in amazement – or rather, at what was on it. A towel was draped over the back, and folded upon the seat was a clean gate-grub uniform. On top of the shirt there was a bar of soap.
He eagerly stripped off his dirty clothes and started to wash himself. The water was freezing and made Crafty gasp, but he gave himself a thorough wash, glad to be free of the grime and stink. Once he’d towelled himself dry, he got dressed in the clean uniform.
Surely they wouldn’t hang me in my uniform? he thought, and a sliver of hope began to creep into his heart.
He was only just ready when the guard opened the door and beckoned to him.
‘Come along, lad!’ he bellowed. ‘It doesn’t do to keep the Duke waiting.’
Astonished, Crafty followed him down the corridor. Had he really said ‘the Duke’? But the Duke was dead … Then he realized that he must be talking about the new Duke of Lancaster, one of the dead Duke’s sons. He had two, didn’t he? Or was it three? Crafty wondered absently if the one they’d rescued was still alive, or had been totally changed into wood.
Instead of climbing the stairs which Crafty knew led to the Duke’s rooms, right at the top of the castle – the fancy quarters where he stayed when in residence – he was taken to the ground floor – the Pessimists’ Room … although there was a new brass plaque on the door. It read:
THE DUCAL CHAMBERS
Two armed guards dressed in full ceremonial uniform stood outside. As Crafty and his escort approached, they crossed their long spears to bar them from entering, but now his own guard called out in a loud voice: ‘Master Colin Benson to see the Duke!’