friends climbed the ladder to the first floor. The shuddering slam of another door.
Mosca blinked hard, willing her eyes to make something of the darkness. It was not absolute, for even on this level there were arrow-slit windows, showing frayed ribbons of dull night sky.
Footsteps above, the scrape of a shifted chair. A wordless drone of voices. And then, at the far end of the vaulted tunnel, part of the ceiling opened with a clack, spilling candlelight on to the rutted floor. As Mosca watched a soft plume of grey ash puffed its way downwards, accompanied by a pattering of charcoal chips. Someone on the floor above had opened a hatch to sweep the debris from the fireplace into it.
Unbidden, there came into Mosca’s mind a long-forgotten image of her aunt peeling potatoes, the long spiral curling down and down from the tuber and then dropping into the waiting bucket of throwings and leavings. The thought that she had been casually cast down like a piece of rubbish filled Mosca with a wild surge of un-potato-like rage.
Now that the hatch was open, the voices above were much clearer.
‘Do you think maybe one of us should go down with some bread for that girl?’ It sounded like the man named ‘Ben’.
‘What’s the point?’ Skellow’s voice.
The distant amber aperture vanished with a slam, leaving Mosca in darkness once more.
What’s the point? Those three words had told Mosca everything she needed to know. There was no point in feeding her because they did not need to keep her alive – did not mean to keep her alive. In Skellow’s head she was dead already, and wasting bread on her would be like pushing food into the mouth of a stuffed deer head mounted on a wall.
Mosca could guess what had passed through Skellow’s mind. How much had she seen and heard of his business? Too much for Skellow’s liking and too little for her own. Perhaps he had never intended to let her walk away. He had, after all, asked her carefully chosen questions before concluding that she would never be missed, and that no hue and cry would come after him if one night the moors swallowed her like a grape pip.
Worst of all, Mosca reflected, he was probably right.
Mosca had heard old stories of captives who were kept in oubliettes, cellars designed for prisoners that one intended to forget. These had no doors, and the prisoner was thrown down through a hatch in the high ceiling. There was no stairway or ladder leading back to the hatch, because it would never be needed.
Even though she had seen her prison, Mosca’s imagination started to crowd the darkness with the relics of such a dungeon. Perhaps she was not the first prisoner to be murdered there. Perhaps she had silent company, lying unseen in the shadows of the arches. Skulls yellow as piecrust under limp bonnets, stick-shins jutting into slack boots, tattered tunics over dulcimer ribcages . . .
Nah. I’d be able to smell ’em.
In the room above her, voices droned for a time, fire crackled, wood scraped on pewter and someone even scratched out a few ditties on a fiddle. Later there was the hiss of a doused fire, the shuffle of feet on flagstones, and then quiet.
Quiet, and more quiet. The rain slackened and stilled. Silence, but for the chill quavering of owls, and guttering drips hitting earth outside.
Mosca let out a slow breath. Stealthily her long, quick fingers and recently threatened thumbs twisted to pick at the
cords around her wrist. A painful process, for there seemed to be countless knots to bite into her every time she strained against the bonds. Only after five minutes of silently mouthed swear words did she realize that a particularly vicious knot caught between her wrists was in fact the small wooden head of one of the little skeletons attached to her bracelet.
Perhaps the Little Goodkin could be of some service to Mosca after all.
With painful care she managed to squirm the little wooden figure out from between her wrists. Now there was a tiny
Mosca blinked hard, willing her eyes to make something of the darkness. It was not absolute, for even on this level there were arrow-slit windows, showing frayed ribbons of dull night sky.
Footsteps above, the scrape of a shifted chair. A wordless drone of voices. And then, at the far end of the vaulted tunnel, part of the ceiling opened with a clack, spilling candlelight on to the rutted floor. As Mosca watched a soft plume of grey ash puffed its way downwards, accompanied by a pattering of charcoal chips. Someone on the floor above had opened a hatch to sweep the debris from the fireplace into it.
Unbidden, there came into Mosca’s mind a long-forgotten image of her aunt peeling potatoes, the long spiral curling down and down from the tuber and then dropping into the waiting bucket of throwings and leavings. The thought that she had been casually cast down like a piece of rubbish filled Mosca with a wild surge of un-potato-like rage.
Now that the hatch was open, the voices above were much clearer.
‘Do you think maybe one of us should go down with some bread for that girl?’ It sounded like the man named ‘Ben’.
‘What’s the point?’ Skellow’s voice.
The distant amber aperture vanished with a slam, leaving Mosca in darkness once more.
What’s the point? Those three words had told Mosca everything she needed to know. There was no point in feeding her because they did not need to keep her alive – did not mean to keep her alive. In Skellow’s head she was dead already, and wasting bread on her would be like pushing food into the mouth of a stuffed deer head mounted on a wall.
Mosca could guess what had passed through Skellow’s mind. How much had she seen and heard of his business? Too much for Skellow’s liking and too little for her own. Perhaps he had never intended to let her walk away. He had, after all, asked her carefully chosen questions before concluding that she would never be missed, and that no hue and cry would come after him if one night the moors swallowed her like a grape pip.
Worst of all, Mosca reflected, he was probably right.
Mosca had heard old stories of captives who were kept in oubliettes, cellars designed for prisoners that one intended to forget. These had no doors, and the prisoner was thrown down through a hatch in the high ceiling. There was no stairway or ladder leading back to the hatch, because it would never be needed.
Even though she had seen her prison, Mosca’s imagination started to crowd the darkness with the relics of such a dungeon. Perhaps she was not the first prisoner to be murdered there. Perhaps she had silent company, lying unseen in the shadows of the arches. Skulls yellow as piecrust under limp bonnets, stick-shins jutting into slack boots, tattered tunics over dulcimer ribcages . . .
Nah. I’d be able to smell ’em.
In the room above her, voices droned for a time, fire crackled, wood scraped on pewter and someone even scratched out a few ditties on a fiddle. Later there was the hiss of a doused fire, the shuffle of feet on flagstones, and then quiet.
Quiet, and more quiet. The rain slackened and stilled. Silence, but for the chill quavering of owls, and guttering drips hitting earth outside.
Mosca let out a slow breath. Stealthily her long, quick fingers and recently threatened thumbs twisted to pick at the
cords around her wrist. A painful process, for there seemed to be countless knots to bite into her every time she strained against the bonds. Only after five minutes of silently mouthed swear words did she realize that a particularly vicious knot caught between her wrists was in fact the small wooden head of one of the little skeletons attached to her bracelet.
Perhaps the Little Goodkin could be of some service to Mosca after all.
With painful care she managed to squirm the little wooden figure out from between her wrists. Now there was a tiny
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