The Devil's Apprentice Page 12

  He thinks I’m still a child, she thought, smiling to herself as she squatted down in the dark. Funny how adults never notice when children grow up...

  There were voices approaching, irate voices, both deep and shrill. Indignant protests – cries – demands. ‘Where is he? Where’s he gone? A boy with a cat – somebody’s page – a servant boy. He was wearing a mask, for all the world like one of the ospiti! Impertinent brat – moccioso – where is he? We’ll flay all the skin from his back... Who’s there? Oh – su Altezza. Ci perdona – we are looking for a boy – the boy who ruined our dinner. I tell you, sire, he pulled the whole table over – the whole table! Everything – everything gone–’

  ‘Una catastrofia,’ said the prince, politely. His body screened Penella’s hiding place. ‘I have not seen any boy.’ The coldness of his tone suggested that they were disturbing his moonlit solitude with matters of little importance.

  The letter of the truth, thought Penella, automatically. I bet the prince is good at law.

  ‘Of course not, sire. Of course...’ Abashed, the intruders beat a retreat.

  And then one of the prince’s friends arrived – was it Lorenzo, or Vicente? ‘Cesare, news from the city – for your private ear.’

  The deprived banqueteers trickled away. Penella waited, wondering if it would be undiplomatic to emerge, yet certain the prince had not forgotten her. They were going to talk secrets, secrets not meant for a thirteen-year-old girl – the plots and counterplots of modern Italy. She knew the prince was ambitious and ruthless, she had heard her uncle say so, amongst his business associates, all of whom were wary of this young man with his chilly gaze and steely mind. They supported him, they feared him, behind his back they debated the wisdom of being drawn into his train. But none defied him, none challenged him. And he helped me, Penella thought. I’ll never betray him. She listened while they talked, in low tones not meant for overhearing – of an ambush, an assassination, the rapid movement of troops, the even more rapid conclusion of an alliance. Then Lorenzo (or Vicente) hurried away, and the prince was left alone.

  ‘You can come out now,’ he said.

  She emerged into the folly, still holding the cat, which she had muzzled with one hand in case he felt tempted to object. She had tugged off the mask now and it dangled round her neck.

  ‘You heard all that?’ he asked her.

  ‘Of course,’ she said.

  His face was in shadow, but she knew he smiled. ‘You seem to be a clever child.’

  ‘I’m hardly a child. I’m thirteen. Ignazia Giancola was married younger than me.’

  ‘Thirteen? You look less.’

  Why did men always say that? It was beginning to annoy her.

  ‘They say I’m too clever for a girl.’

  ‘I can believe it. A clever woman is a dangerous thing. Men control the world, but women control men. Who do you think is at the top of the heap?’

  ‘Is there a woman who controls you?’ Penella asked, daringly, thinking of the unseen tesoro.

  The prince laughed. ‘No indeed! I play the puppeteer, and pull the strings, and men and women, armies and governments, dance to my whim. That is what it means to be a prince.’

  Even princes have to obey the law, thought Penella. The law is above everyone. She was going to be a lawyer...

  What was she thinking of?

  ‘Will you tell my secrets, little one?’ the prince continued. ‘Will you tell your foolish cousin, in the sanctuary of your shared bedroom, whispering them into the pink hollow of her ear? Will you tell your aunt, when she threatens to punish you, thinking to deter her from her rancour? Will you tell your uncle, when you are tired of cast-off dresses, and want to purchase yourself some favours?’

  ‘I don’t wear cast-offs,’ Penella said, clearing up the most important point first. ‘My father left some money, so I have clothes of my own.’ If Berenice doesn’t hide them. ‘And you know I won’t tell your secrets. Otherwise you wouldn’t have let me listen.’

  ‘I could ensure your silence,’ he said, one slim hand closing on her throat. ‘I could kill you now. None would ever charge me with it.’

  Somehow, Penella wasn’t afraid. ‘You won’t,’ she said.

  He released her. Smiling. ‘No, I won’t. It would be a waste. I never waste anything useful.’

  He thinks I’m useful, thought Penella, and somehow she was more flattered than if he had called her tesoro, or said she shone like the ghost-roses in the velvet night. He was the most powerful, the most devious, the most ruthless of princes, and he thought her useful. She would never forget it.

  ‘You kept my secret,’ she said. ‘I will keep yours. That’s the deal. D’accordo?’

  ‘D’accordo,’ said the prince. ‘Very well. But you should change your clothes, and get rid of the cat, lest those who lost their dinner catch up with you.’

  Penella laughed and ran off, elated by her adventure, by the moment of confidence she had shared – the confidence of a prince – even, curiously, by the memory of his lean fingers round her throat. She felt so happy, she decided – generously – that she wouldn’t tell Berenice about Ricco and Catarinetta. She didn’t tell secrets. Secrets were to be kept, buried in the dark, growing unseen shoots and shadowy flowers. She was so full of secrets of a sudden it made her feel mysterious and powerful. She would take the cat to Gasparo – he was waiting by the orchestra – and then... and then...

  There he was, standing in the doorway of the villa, looking round for her. The expression of anxiety on his face appeared ludicrous, out of all proportion to the situation. ‘Here I am,’ she said. ‘Don’t look so worried. The greedy cat was under the banqueting table. I had to crawl in and fetch him, and his claws got caught on the cloth, pulling it off – he pulled all the food off the table – you should have seen it – it was so funny–’

  But Gasparo wasn’t laughing. He burst into speech, sounding both angry and frightened, only she couldn’t understand what he was saying – it was just a long stream of gibberish. She drew back from him, suddenly scared – perhaps he was possessed by a devil, like that boy in the village who had fits – but he seized her arm, dragging her through the door, her and the cat, and his face was angry, so angry, and she was angry too, because he was spoiling everything, destroying the happiness of her evening. She was cursing him and struggling, and he was spouting some nonsense-language, and the cat sprang free, running into the house, and they both tumbled through the door, hearing it close behind them with a soft final snick...

  ‘Ragazzaccio! Mi fai male... Gasparo – Gasparo...’

  London, twenty-first century

  SHE WAS IN a strange hall, in a strange house, with grey daylight and no smells. The sound of the orchestra was totally cut off and the quiet was absolute. It got into her head, numbing her thoughts, so that for a minute she stayed on her hands and knees, immobile, waiting for her brain to get back into action. Gasparo grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her, talking and talking, though she couldn’t understand a word – jumbling her thoughts like fragments in a kaleidoscope, until they fell back into a different pattern, with a different meaning. Suddenly, like tuning in a radio, his words began to make sense.

  She said: ‘Gavin.’

  ‘What happened to you?’ She could hear the relief, seeping gradually into his voice. ‘You were gone ages, and then when you got back you were spouting some foreign language – Italian I think – I couldn’t understand a word of it. Why wouldn’t you talk English? Why wouldn’t you–’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Pen spoke slowly, deliberately, cold terror oozing through her system as realisation kicked in. She pulled the mask over her head, staring at it. ‘I was... being absorbed. Into the Past. It made a space for me. I had a life... a family... My God. I thought... I felt...’

  ‘Tell me everything,’ Gavin ordered. They were still sitting on the floor. ‘Tell me now.’

  ‘I was an orphan,’ Pen said. ‘I lived with my uncle and aunt and my cousins Federico and
Berenice.’ She pronounced it Berra-nee-chay. ‘She was horrible to me. She took my dress for the party and hid it so I wouldn’t be able to go. But I got these breeches from the stable-boy...’

  ‘They’re jeans,’ Gavin said. ‘Jeans. Not breeches.’

  ‘Yes. Of course. Only... I had to find the cat. It was my aunt’s – fat and greedy – I knew it would be somewhere near the supper-table. I’d promised Gasparo I’d find it – I mean, I’d promised you. You were one of her servants. I liked you, and you were in such a state, thinking you’d get into a row if the cat was lost, so I went to get it... and then it pulled the cloth off the table, with all the food, and I had to run. The prince hid me in the folly, and told everyone to go away, and then his friend came, with news – secrets – and I listened, but he wasn’t angry with me, and I said he’d kept my secret, so I’d keep his. I was so happy, sort of high, because he’d trusted me, he said I was useful... And then I came back to you, and you made such a fuss – such a fuss – and now... I’m here.’

  She gazed at her surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. There was a smell, or a non-smell, which was elusively familiar, though she wasn’t sure what it reminded her of. For all her horror, the recollection of her happiness at that fleeting connection with the prince gave her a pang sharper than regret.

  Gavin slapped her face.

  ‘You’re Penelope Tudor,’ he said, ‘usually called Pen. You live in the twenty-first century, in Hampstead. This is the house you’re looking after. Snap out of it. Come on–’

  ‘I was Penella,’ she said. ‘The prince called me Penni.’

  ‘Stop going on about the prince!’

  Pen’s pulse, quickened by the chase, the secrets, the excitement, was slowing to normal. Her breathing, too, slowed, and slowed.

  Gavin said, after a pause: ‘Are you back?’

  ‘I... think so.’ A whole different world had been there, a world of cloaks and daggers, schemes and stratagems, where she had lived vividly and might have died swiftly, but it was slipping away from her, leaving her with only the glimpse of a single night and an unbearable sense of loss. As reaction set in, her longing for that world sharpened fear into panic. She was trembling visibly; Gavin put his arms round her rather awkwardly, patting her hair. It was something she would have appreciated more if she hadn’t been so shaken.

  ‘I could have stayed there,’ she said. ‘I could have lived my entire life...’ She would have died young, she knew. It was a world where people died young. Especially those who made themselves useful to the prince. ‘I’m not sure who he was.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘The prince. Cesare. His name was Cesare. I have to... look it up, find out... I don’t know what century I was in. I don’t know anything.’

  ‘You see?’ said Gavin. ‘You can’t make a diagram. There’s no pattern. There’s nothing to hold on to.’

  Pen was struggling to pull herself together. ‘There’s got to be,’ she insisted, clutching at her belief in logic like the proverbial drowning man with the straw. ‘I can Google the prince – Cesare – I know he was Italian, and the clothes looked mediaeval. Then I’ll have some idea... We’d better go back now.’

  Gavin drew away from her, his expression changing. ‘I thought we were going to open other doors.’

  ‘You saw what happened just now! I nearly got lost. I nearly didn’t come back ever... We need to... to talk about things, to work out some strategy, some kind of safeguard–’

  ‘Yeah, I know all that. But why is it you’re the one having all the fun?’

  ‘Fun!’

  ‘Well, it was fun, wasn’t it? When you got back you were all sort of lit up, going on about the prince, waving that mask around... Is that a real emerald?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pen brushed away side issues. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘It could be worth a fortune.’ Gavin had taken the mask from her and was studying it hopefully. ‘Anyway, it’s my turn to have an adventure. I’m going to try one of the doors too.’

  ‘Look, this is my house–’

  ‘No it isn’t. You’re just taking care of it.’

  ‘Well... well, it’s my business what happens here, not yours. You can’t –’

  ‘I thought we were in this together?’

  ‘I changed my mind,’ Pen snapped.

  ‘Who zapped the velociraptor?’

  This was unanswerable. Pen knew she wasn’t being reasonable, partly out of fear, partly from a curious resentment of the very charms that made her like Gavin.

  She said: ‘Okay. But–’

  ‘I’m going to look in the broom cupboard again,’ Gavin declared. ‘We didn’t get absorbed in the Jurassic, did we? After all, there’s no way we could belong there. Dinosaurs and people didn’t exist at the same time except in films. Let’s see if it’s still there. That way we’ll have some idea how fast things change. If you’re looking for a pattern, we need to know stuff like that.’

  ‘What if the velociraptor’s waiting?’ Pen said doubtfully.

  ‘I’ve still got the stun-gun. I charged it yesterday.’

  ‘I suppose it might be useful to verify...’ Useful was definitely the word of the day. Utile, the prince had said.

  They both got up and went over to the broom cupboard, Gavin in the lead with the stun-gun at the ready. As he opened the door, Pen braced herself, feeling her heart hiccup...

  Beyond the Door

  Sometime in the mythical past

  BUT THE JURASSIC jungle had gone. They were staring into a narrow gorge, only half a dozen yards across. Rock-faces rose almost sheer on either side; in between there was a gap of grey smoky sky. The ground was a rising slope of stones and scree, with here and there a few dry twigs thrusting upwards, or a tree-skeleton clinging to a boulder with twisted roots. A little way ahead the cliffs met, closing over the entrance to a cave. A tongue of daylight reached in until the ascending slope was swallowed in shadow, but there was nothing much to see. The tiny gorge was a dry, dead place and the cave appeared long unused.

  ‘This doesn’t look dangerous,’ Gavin said, on a faint note of disappointment. Danger is always at its most attractive when it isn’t happening.

  ‘It depends what’s in the cave,’ said Pen.

  ‘I’m going to have a look.’

  ‘Why? We don’t really need to know...’

  ‘Yes we do. You’re the one who wants to work out a pattern. This isn’t the Jurassic any more, so let’s find out when it is.’

  ‘I had to go after the cat last time,’ Pen reminded him. ‘You don’t have to–’

  ‘I’m going anyway. We had a deal, remember?’

  ‘No, we–’

  Gavin stepped through into the gorge. The door was obviously in the rock-face, though why there should be a door in the rock neither of them bothered to speculate. Pen felt the cat rub against her legs and glanced down hastily, but Felinacious showed no inclination to explore further. He bent briefly to sniff the ground and drew back at once, his fur bristling, mouth open in a hiss.

  Pen said: ‘Gavin, look! He’s scared, or angry. He smells something...’

  ‘Stupid moggy,’ said Gavin, with only a quick glance behind him. He was scrambling up the slope towards the cave. It was steeper than it looked and presently he too picked up the smell, emanating from the entrance, though his senses were far less acute than the cat’s. Afterwards, he said it was like the smell you would get when someone allows a casserole to boil dry on the hob, and then doesn’t open the kitchen windows for a week. It was disagreeable – particularly for an aspiring chef – but not frightening.

  Not yet.

  The entrance wasn’t large, perhaps seven feet high and five wide. Inside, the passage seemed to broaden and the stench intensified. Gavin found himself imagining a subterranean kitchen cluttered with the residue of incompetent cooking and stacks of dirty washing up, the home perhaps of giants, or cannibals, or –

  ‘You’re not going in?’ Pen calle
d from the doorway below.

  ‘Yes, I am. How else will we find out what’s there?’

  ‘It’s dark. You haven’t got a torch.’

  ‘Another time we must come better equipped. Don’t worry: I still know who I am. Whatever’s here, it isn’t absorbing me. Anyhow, I won’t go far...’

  Pen saw him move forward cautiously, one hand on the rock wall, and vanish into the dark. There was a yelp and an oath a few seconds later, and Gavin’s voice came floating out: ‘Stubbed my toe!’ Then silence.

  She thought: What if he doesn’t come back?

  Somehow, she knew that if the worst happened, it would be her fault.

  She waited for what seemed like a very long while. This is how Gavin felt, she realised, waiting for me. We can’t keep doing it like this – so random. If we’re going to explore further we must be more organised – get better equipment: he’s right about that – work out a system... Her responsibility (but she mustn’t be boring about it). Her fault. Why did Gavin have to poke his nose in, trying to take things over? Why were boys such a pain, with their football and their toilet jokes and their idiotic obsession with machismo? Why oh why didn’t he come back?

  She looked at her watch, which was no help, since she hadn’t looked at it when he first entered the cave.

  Should she go in after him?

  Felinacious had retreated into the hall, out of range of the smell, and fallen asleep.

  ‘You’re no use,’ Pen said.

  A shadow fell across the gorge. Pen glanced up – something was plummeting out of the sky, a winged shape, huge as a cloud, cutting off the daylight. It landed on a ledge above the cave-mouth, clutching the rock with taloned feet. At first she thought it was a pterodactyl – her mind had got stuck on dinosaurs – but then she saw it had feathers, shaggy brown feathers with a dull metallic sheen, and it was surely much bigger than a pterodactyl ought to be, at least by film and television standards. It looked rather like an eagle except that its head was crested and its curved beak over a yard long. Even as Pen watched, the beak parted and a sound emerged that was somewhere between a screech and a squawk, only far louder. Echoes carried across the unseen mountains above and bounced to and fro in the confines of the gorge. Instinctively, Pen covered her ears.