Merrin savored his last sticky mouthful of licorice. He stared up at the windows that ran the length of the Palace—a long, low, mellow old building—and began to count them. It was then that the idea came to him. Why waste his money on renting a room? Just think how many licorice snakes he could buy with a whole week’s rent. Anyway, he belonged in the Castle—it was his right to live anywhere he wanted. So there. And where better than the Palace? Merrin swallowed the snake’s tail with a decisive gulp. Problem solved.
Merrin was good at finding ways into places—especially places he should not go. So it was easy for him to sneak unnoticed along the narrow high-walled alleyway that led around the outside of the Palace grounds to the small door in the wall of the Palace kitchen garden. The door was open as usual. Sarah Heap liked to leave it open so her friend Sally Mullin could drop by and have a midmorning chat before she got back to the lunchtime rush in her café.
Although Merrin planned to one day have the entire Palace at his disposal—just as DomDaniel’s deputy, the Supreme Custodian, once had—for now things were, regrettably, a little different. Closely followed by the Thing, he slipped in through the open door and found himself in the kitchen garden.
Merrin liked the kitchen garden; it appealed to his sense of order. It was the one place where Sarah Heap was tidy. The garden was bounded on all sides by a high redbrick wall. It was neatly laid out with close-mown grass paths running between well-tended beds where Sarah was in the process of planting early lettuce, peas, beans and all kinds of vegetables that Merrin did not even recognize, let alone dream of eating. The paths all led to a large well in the center of the garden, where Sarah drew the water for her plants. At the far end of the garden was a low brick arch, which Merrin could see led into a covered way.
Keeping close to the wall, Merrin carefully walked the grass paths, resisting the urge to count the newly sewn lettuce seedlings. As he got near the arch, he could not believe his luck. At the end of the covered way was a half open door that led straight into the Palace. His new home beckoned.
It was then that Merrin felt something
breathing down his neck. He had had the feeling of being followed for a while. He had felt it outside the Grateful Turbot, again when he had come out of the Manuscriptorium and particularly outside Ma Custard’s—something had been Waiting
for him, but every time he had turned around he had seen nothing. But now Merrin was sure. He spun around and caught the Thing unawares.
“Got you!” he yelled and then clapped his hand over his mouth in horror. Someone would hear. Merrin and the Thing froze, staring at each other, listening for footsteps. None came.
“You stupid Thing, I told you to look for my cloak,” hissed Merrin. “What are you doing here?”
“I am come to help you, Master,” the Thing replied in a low, mournful whisper.
“Just you?” asked Merrin suspiciously.
“Just me, Master,” replied the Thing dolefully.
Merrin felt relieved. “Well, you can wait outside. I’m not having you tiptoeing behind me in the Palace—ohcrumbswhydidyoubringthose?” Merrin had caught sight of the sack of bones.
“For yoooooou, Master,” said the Thing in its low, insinuating voice.
Merrin stared at the Thing. He hated the way he could not quite see the Thing’s expression; it made him think it was mocking him. But Merrin knew that, whatever the Thing
might think, it had to obey him. “I don’t want those disgusting bones,” he told the Thing. “You can…” Merrin cast around for somewhere to put them. His eyes lighted on the well. “You can chuck them down the well.”
The Thing looked horrified but all Merrin saw was a faint flash of red from the lizard eyes. Leaving the Thing staring at its precious sack of bones in disbelief, Merrin slipped through the arch and crept along the covered way. He flitted from pillar to pillar until he had reached the half open door. The door looked as if it could have a nasty squeak, so he squeezed through the gap into the cool, musty shade of the old building. And there he was—inside the Palace.
Not long after, Sarah Heap came into the garden through a small gate near the old kitchens. She still wore Jannit’s battered sailor’s boater. Sarah rather liked it, as it made her feel quite jaunty and carefree, which was something she had not felt for some time. But as she walked past the well on her way to her greenhouse to collect the seedlings for that day’s planting, a horrible feeling of gloom came over her. She stopped in her tracks—something Darke was by the well.
Sarah Heap had not been interested in Magyk for many years. She had trained as a healer and thought she had left Magyk far behind her. But she still had the telltale Magykal green eyes and knew quite enough to do a See. So when, to her horror, Sarah Saw the Thing perched on the edge of her
well—her beautiful clean, clear, pure well—with a sack of something Darke, all Sarah’s Magyk came flooding back to her. She looked the Thing
in the eye—as much as that was possible with its flickering, evasive eyes—and chanted very slowly:
“Pure and clean this well shall stay
Shielded from Darke for a year and a day.”
The Thing
glared angrily at Sarah, but there was nothing it could do. It heaved the sack of bones over its shoulder and sloped off.
Sarah waited until the Thing
had left the kitchen garden, then the awfulness of what she had seen suddenly overcame her and she ran, trembling, back inside to sit with Ethel.
The Thing
waited until Sarah had disappeared into the Palace, then returned to the kitchen garden. Unable now to put the bones where it had been instructed it chose instead the garden shed, where it carefully placed the sack among the piles of flowerpots and general garden clutter. Then the Thing
loped up to the half-open door that led into the Palace and folded itself deep into a leafy bush to wait for its Master’s eventual exit.
The Palace was not what Merrin had expected. It smelled funny—damp and old with musty cooking smells lurking in the corners. And as Merrin’s eyes got used to the dimness, he could see it didn’t look that great either. The plaster on the walls was cracked and crumbling and where he had brushed against it there was white dust all over his black cloak.
Ahead of him was a seemingly endless stone-flagged corridor, known as the Long Walk. It was as wide as a small road, with a threadbare red carpet running along the middle. Warily, Merrin set off. Every few yards a door opened off the corridor and at first he stopped at each one, half expecting someone to come out. But now the Palace was occupied only by Sarah, Silas and Jenna Heap—and Maxie, the wolfhound. Employing staff did not come naturally to Sarah; she preferred to do things herself. That morning the few Palace servants Sarah had taken on were elsewhere—the Cook was in the kitchens chatting to the Cleaner, the WashingUp Boy was dozing in the pantry and the HouseKeeper had a bad cold and had stayed home.
Soon Merrin realized that the place was deserted and he became braver. He wandered along, poking at the strange array of objects displayed along the Long Walk. There were statues of all shapes and sizes—of animals, people and the kind of weird creatures that Merrin often had bad dreams about. There were tall vases, stuffed tigers, an ancient chariot, petrified trees, shrunken heads, ships’ figureheads and all kinds of clutter. Hanging on the walls were ancient portraits of long-dead Queens and Princesses and as Merrin glanced up at them he was sure their eyes followed him. He half expected one of them to reach out, tap him on the shoulder and ask him what he was doing.
But they didn’t. No one did.
After a while Merrin came across a tattered and faded red velvet curtain that was looped back, beyond which he could see a steep and narrow flight of stairs twisting up into darkness. This was more like it. He wanted a room right at the top of the Palace—somewhere where he could hide away, make his plans and look down on all the comings and goings.
Quickly Merrin slipped past the curtain. Soon he was tiptoeing up the creaky stairs, past damp and peeling wallpaper, pushing through long, looping cobwebs and once—to his horror—having his foot disappear through a patch of rotten wood into the empty space below.
At the top of the stairs Merrin negotiated a landing piled high with old empty chests, then up two more flights of stairs, until at last he reached the tangle of tiny attic rooms that ran the length of the Palace. This was where, back when the Palace had been full of servants and courtiers, the more important servants had lived, but now the rooms lay empty and forlorn, inhabited by only a few of the less sociable ghosts of governesses, ladies’ maids and footmen. Most Palace ghosts preferred the lower floors, where there was a chance to meet old friends, talk about how things were so much better in the old days and maybe catch a glimpse of the Living Princess if they were lucky.