The Silver Blade

  ‘We knew we would see you again.

  For you belong to us.’

  Yann didn’t move. Slowly they glided closer. He tried with all his willpower to take control of them, but he could not.

  ‘We are not yours any more,’ said one.

  Their flesh smelled of dead lilies.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Yann, as they began to whirl round him, their faces a blur, their skulls showing through their stitched, papery, translucent skin.

  They spoke with one eerie voice: ‘Your father is waiting, he has been waiting a long, long time.’

  In that moment, that last moment when Yann’s future still shone so full of promise, before fate turned his dreams to ashes, in those last seconds when loving Sido was still possible, Yann wished he had the power to stop the clocks.

  His words tasted of clay. ‘My father? He is dead.’

  ‘Count Kalliovski is waiting to embrace you. You, his one and only son.’

  No sooner were the words spoken than somewhere close by the monstrous dog howled.

  ‘Your father doesn’t like to be kept waiting,’ whispered the Sisters Macabre.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Count Kalliovski’s new toy, the head of the Marquis de Villeduval, sat on a small ebony table in its glass case. Kalliovski’s passion, if not obsession, was the making of automata. He was striving to create a being without the inconvenience of a soul, and with each one of his creations he believed himself to be nearing his ambition. The Marquis was manipulated, like the Count’s many other automata, by the dark threads. Today the head gazed at the long gallery, with its tall windows and the painted scenery of the gardens where the air was filled with bird-song, so like the vistas he had looked on in life. The Count sat in a wing-back chair, his legs stretched, his red kid gloves like a blazing spire before his mouth. Balthazar lay beside him, his huge head resting on his paws.

  ‘Shall I tell you my plans, my mad friend?’ said Kalliovski.

  ‘Have you woken me to bore me with information that holds little fascination for me?’

  ‘No, you cake stand of a head. I am here to tell you what designs I have on your daughter, remember her?’

  ‘I have no daughter,’ said the Marquis de Villeduval. ‘I never had any children. I don’t like them.’

  ‘Then I will tell you what I intend for your niece, Sido de Villeduval.’

  ‘I have no niece. I once knew a Sidonie, an exceptionally plain girl with a limp. Speak to yourself about her if you must. I am engaged in an altogether more amusing subject.’

  Controlling his creation’s speech afforded Kalliovski much pleasure. He sat back feeling all-powerful, delighted with this head of his. A thin smile crept across his face.

  ‘I see nothing to merit such mirth,’ said the Marquis de Villeduval. ‘And, as I said, you are interrupting an interesting train of thought about snuffboxes.’

  ‘Not shoe buckles, my dear Marquis?’

  ‘What use is a shoe buckle to a severed head?’

  Kalliovski’s laughter rang throughout the long gallery.

  ‘It matters little, I will tell you all the same. I have forged a deal with the devil, and Sido will ensure its success. She will be my pretty little caged dove. I shall use her to lure me a falcon. And when I have him, I shall steal his soul and the threads of light will be mine. I’ve had a key made for that very purpose. What do you say to that, surveyor of snuffboxes?’

  ‘My ears are stuffed with wax,’ said the Marquis de Villeduval. ‘I cannot hear you.’

  ‘My dear demented sir, there is no escape from me. I told you long ago, just as I told Sido. I have no mercy. I show no mercy. I never forget what is owing to me, what belongs to me.’

  The Marquis’s spirit, a moth imprisoned inside the head, was fluttering at broken memories.

  ‘You are like me,’ he said. ‘We are both quite mad.’

  Kalliovski stared incredulously at his creation, who dared to speak of his own free will. In quiet rage he sent out the dark threads. Slowly, as if squeezing juice from an orange they robbed the Marquis of all independent speech. Quiet now, his eyes snapped tight shut.

  ‘Oh, my dear foolish Marquis. What? Silent at last?’ said Kalliovski, closing the door on the waxwork head. And he thought he saw one unorchestrated tear roll down the Marquis’s puffy cheeks.

  He rang the bell and Milkeye entered.

  ‘Where is the keymaker?’

  ‘Citizen Quint is in the workroom, master.’

  ‘Then tonight it will begin. Send Anselm Loup to me.’

  How many day or weeks Anselm had been in Kalliovski’s wondrous domain he couldn’t rightly say, nor did he much care, for as long as he was never asked to leave, he didn’t mind. Every day he had been called to the long gallery to sit before his new master. And every day he found himself coming out of a trance and feeling different, as if the furniture of his mind had been shifted. His feelings, whatever they had been, for his adoptive father, the butcher Loup, were now replaced by a passionate devotion to Count Kalliovski.

  Soon after this transfer of affection an idea came to Anselm, independent, or so it seemed, of all that his master had planted in the fertile plains of his uneducated mind. Perhaps he was Kalliovski’s bastard son, for they had much in common, and hadn’t he been abandoned at birth? As his master said, everything has a design, everyone a destiny.

  The day Kalliovski put his long-awaited plan into action, Anselm arrived in his master’s presence brimming with enthusiasm. He was much changed from the day when Mr Tull had first taken him there. His hair was coiffured, his skin shiny clean and his clothes tailored especially for him. He looked every inch a hero: blond hair, amber eyes, a slayer of dragons, a breaker of hearts.

  The Count studied him and said, ‘If you fail me in this assignment, it will be the last you are given as a living man.’

  Anselm felt his throat tighten. He wouldn’t fail.

  ‘There is a small theatre company called the Circus of Follies. I want you to find out what goes on there,’ said Kalliovski.

  Anselm looked bewildered. The question ‘How?’ sat uncomfortable and unspoken on his lips.

  ‘I suggest you capitalise on your assets, your looks. There is a girl, her name is Colombine, she is the leading actress. Through her you will find out all I need to know about the dwarf Tetu and, more importantly, Yann Margoza. Succeed in this and you will be my day, as I am the night.’

  That afternoon Anselm found himself once more in the rue des Couteaux, with only the vaguest of memories of where he had been, and an overwhelming desire to meet an actress called Colombine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tetu had been working late and knew something was wrong even before he saw Yann standing on the landing, his face white, his clothes covered in limestone chalk.

  ‘What are you doing here? Where’s Didier?’ Tetu asked, darting a glance behind Yann. ‘Is he with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And Remon Quint?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Are they safe?’

  ‘Why did you never tell me the truth? All this time … all those lies.’

  Tetu was frightened by the look on Yann’s face. ‘What has happened, Yannick? Tell me now.’

  ‘No, first you owe me the truth. Is Kalliovski my father?’

  ‘Who did you hear that from?’ Tetu’s voice was less assured.

  ‘My friend,’ said Yann coldly, ‘time is running out. I’m a fool to have trusted you. How many times did I ask you who my father was? And all you did was lie.’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t lie. He was a gypsy. I just didn’t name him.’

  ‘If I remember rightly, you told me my father was dead.’

  ‘And again I didn’t lie.’

  ‘I suppose that depends on what you call the truth.’

  ‘Every truth is just one man’s story, Yannick. You can believe whatever story you want.’

  Yann was sha
king with rage. ‘I don’t want some fairy tale. I want the truth.’

  ‘Tell me what has happened to the keymaker. I need to know,’ said Tetu, with a rising sense of panic.

  ‘I don’t care. Does that surprise you? I don’t care. Lord knows how angry I am. I’ve a mind to kill you, you whom I trusted completely. You whom I believed to be my friend, you whom I love. How could you do this to me? Why hadn’t you the courage to say who my father was when I asked? It would have been better then, when there was nothing to lose—’

  He stopped. A lump in his throat made speaking difficult. ‘How do I live with this? How can I ever be with Sido, knowing what I know? Now my life hangs by this thread. The devil take you, I want the truth.’

  Tetu went towards him.

  ‘Don’t touch me! Leave me be.’

  ‘Listen, listen,’ shouted Tetu, turning red in the face. ‘Kalliovski originally came from Transylvania to France.

  When I first met him in St Petersburg he was a poor young gypsy with a pack of cards and a hatred for his own kind.’

  ‘You have told me before that Kalliovski was born a gypsy, but I don’t know if I believe a word of it. That could be another lie. After all, Kalliovski killed our people for sport. How can I trust a word you say?’

  ‘I have proof,’ said Tetu.

  ‘What proof?’

  ‘I met his people. I knew his family.’

  ‘When were you ever in Transylvania?’

  ‘Yann, stop this!’

  ‘No, I want to know. When were you ever in Transylvania?’

  ‘When I owned a dancing bear.’

  ‘A dancing bear? If I weren’t so angry, I would be laughing.’

  ‘“There are many earths on earth there be.” You, a gypsy, know this, you have evidence of it in the gifts you were given. Look at what you can do. How many men can work the threads of light? Some would say that none can. Is that the truth? Yes, in a way, because few have the ability to see such threads. Tell me, does that mean they don’t exist?’

  ‘And this,’ said Yann, feeling every nerve in his body on fire, ‘is supposed to comfort me? Well, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Your mother believed the spirit of her gypsy bridegroom was in you, even if Kalliovski is your father by blood. In her eyes you were never his child. She told me you were the ghost child of her one and only true love, a gypsy called Manouche. If you wish to think of Kalliovski as your father, you will be giving him a power he has no right to—’

  ‘I hate you for keeping the truth from me,’ cried Yann. ‘I despise you for it. When were you planning to tell me? Sometime? Never?’ He punched the wall.

  ‘You must try to calm down,’ said Tetu. ‘Go to London as planned. Tell Sido what has happened.’

  Yann laughed, a hollow, dead sound. ‘No wonder, Tetu, that you thought we should disband and I go back to England. Did you think this might all disappear, that I would never find out?’

  Tetu was silent.

  ‘How did my mother die? I think you told me … that’s right, my father murdered her.’

  ‘I understand how upset you are, but once you have thought about—’

  ‘You could never in a lifetime understand how I feel.’

  Yann slumped into a chair, his head in his hands.

  ‘I never told you because I was worried that it would destroy you. I have brought you up since you were an infant. I have never seen even a shadow of Kalliovski in you. The more you have grown, the more I believed Anis was right; you are indeed the child of her lost love Manouche. She made me swear never to tell you, so that Kalliovski wouldn’t have any power over you.’

  Yann took a deep breath. ‘By my father’s hand, I am cursed for life.’

  Tetu sighed. ‘Don’t go down that path, Yannick. You have all before you.’ He went over to the desk. ‘This letter arrived today.’

  Yann took the envelope and looked at Sido’s writing. He handed the letter back.

  ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘These letters are not safe. There will be no more.’ He was shaking with rage. ‘Do you think I don’t know that Juliette Laxton is terrified of her niece being in love with a gypsy? Let alone the son of the monster who tried to abduct her.’

  ‘Yann, please, I know I counselled you against this liaison but love is precious and it has given you so much strength. Think of what this will do to Sido.’

  ‘By my father’s hand, I am destroyed. What is left is nothing. Yes, it will break her heart. I now know how that feels - my heart is broken. But she will recover. Sooner or later, someone will tell her I am Kalliovski’s son. The Laxtons will sigh with relief that their niece was saved from such an ill-advised liaison. One day she will meet a good man, marry, be happy, and tell her children how once a gypsy boy saved her life in the days of the French Revolution.’

  ‘Yannick,’ said Tetu. ‘Go to London and see her.’

  ‘What could Sido possibly say? That it changes nothing? ‘ Yann got up and went towards the door. Tetu saw he was trembling. ‘What is the point? There is nothing left.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Here is another truth for you, Tetu. There are a lot of men out there who are the walking dead. Tonight I join them.’

  ‘Don’t let Kalliovski win,’ said Tetu. ‘He wants to destroy you as he destroyed your mother. Don’t let this ruin your future. You’re Manouche’s ghost child. Kalliovski was born with hatred and jealousy at the very root of him, like a rotten tree. You don’t have to be his poisoned fruit.’

  Yann looked back at Tetu. He seemed suddenly even aller, as if he had shrunk, and Yann felt himself to have grown too big for the room. He had become a giant in anger. He needed air.

  ‘Where are you going?’ asked Tetu again.

  ‘To get drunk.’

  Tetu watched him leave, tears streaming down his face. ‘Anis, what should I do? Tell me, what should I do?’

  Later that night Didier wearily made his way back into the theatre. He found Tetu sitting at Citizen Aulard’s desk, his face tear-stained, looking as old as Time itself.

  ‘Is Yann back?’ Didier asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Tetu poured them both a glass of cognac.

  ‘Where’s Remon Quint?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Didier, moving his shoulders back and rolling his head around his neck. He was stiff all over. He took the glass. ‘We lost him down there. I searched and searched, but I couldn’t find him. It’s not good, is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I could go down again.’

  ‘You will never find him. It’s too late.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘But it is,’ said Tetu, knowing the keymaker was already beyond help. He could only hope that Yann had the strength for the battle ahead.

  ‘I’m very sorry we failed Remon Quint,’ said Didier gravely.

  ‘So am I,’ said Tetu.

  ‘Where’s Yann now?’

  ‘Gone out.’

  ‘That’s unlike him.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the dwarf.

  In the Cafe du Coin the company of actors was celebrating its last performance. Colombine had just met a young man who seemed to be devoted to her. Tonight Anselm was capitalising on his newly discovered assets.

  ‘Come on,’ shouted Basco, ‘give us another song.’ And standing on a table Colombine sang, her voice not strong, but sweet with an innocence that she had never possessed.

  Yann knew he had chosen the wrong place the minute he opened the door.

  A stagehand rushed over.

  ‘Yann,’ he said, louder than he meant to. ‘What has happened? Why are you back?’

  Looking round the smoky room, Yann noticed Colombine’s latest conquest and instinctively sensed the darkness round him. Anselm glanced in Yann’s direction and recognised him immediately. This was the young man who’d killed Pa.