Page 8 of Salt Magic, Skin Magic
Thornby imagined himself approaching Mr Blake and asking for help, and could barely suppress a shudder. If only he had something to offer the fellow. In the past, he’d generally bought his way out of trouble; it was amazing what a judicious sovereign could do. But these days he hadn’t a penny to his name. He’d had nothing since London. Father had stopped his allowance, and he’d never been able to bring himself to beg. He hardly liked the idea of playing the supplicant now, but then he liked the idea of approaching Mr Blake empty-handed even less.
So, who to accost for a loan? The staff were no good, and Aunt Amelia had nothing. Mr Derwent likewise. Thornby would rather die than approach Lady Dalton, and the village people thought sixpence a princely sum; they were out of the question. What a vile equation this was, weighing up the easiest mark! He sighed. Perhaps the rector could be prevailed upon? Thornby began to change his clothes.
***
John spent the morningroaming around Raskelf, talking to the servants and looking for recent spells or traces of demons in the more public parts of the house. He kept turning corners and finding yet another long corridor with doors letting onto dust-sheeted rooms, another gloomy gallery, another cold marble staircase, another infestation of black beetles.
His fingertips were dry and grey from touching dusty surfaces. Cobwebs trailed over his cuffs. He was tired of the sound of his own footsteps and the murmurs of the house, and he could not shake the feeling of being watched. But he found no traces of recent magic.
He’d started the morning with two aims: to interview Lord Dalton and to avoid Lord Thornby.
Speaking to Lord Dalton would help him to assess the truth of Thornby’s claim that his father was keeping him at Raskelf, possibly by magical means. It would also let John get a better look at the curse that was following Dalton around like a swarm of flies on a night-soil cart. John felt sure the two things must be connected. But Lord Dalton had left early to visit his neighbours, the Howarths, and was not expected back for lunch. John learned this from Warren, Lord Dalton’s valet, who was fussing endlessly in his lordship’s rooms.
At least John had been successful in avoiding Lord Thornby. Possibly this had been made easier by the fact that Thornby seemed to be avoiding him too. Thornby did not appear all morning. If he had breakfasted at all, he had done so in his room, and he had certainly not joined his step-mother and aunt at church. Apparently, he never went, much to the scullery maid’s horror. But then, if he couldn’t leave the estate, of course he couldn’t go.
Thornby seemed like an innocent man. Ever since John had watched his face tear open on Howarth’s land, a horrible suspicion had been growing in him that he had behaved like a bully and a boor. The thought that he might have to apologise was enough to make him curse under his breath. He could almostseethe supercilious triumph, almosthearthe condescending tone. Being wrong was bad enough, but being wrong in front of a superior little prick like Thornby—damnation!
But. If Thornby was innocent, why did good charms not work on him? What on earthhadgone on yesterday on Howarth’s land? John had detected no magic even while Thornby’s face tore open in front of his eyes. So, to be absolutely sure that Thornby was as innocent of witchcraft as he claimed, John had to get into his rooms.
Magicians couldn’t help leaving traces of their art in the places they lived. Raskelf Hall taken as a residence was far too big, but Thornby’s own rooms would leave John in no doubt. No one could talk to inanimate things as well as John; he was the best the Institute had seen. Even the theurgists admitted it, much as it galled them to be beaten at anything by a materials man.
Of course, he felt a natural disinclination to go nosing around in another man’s rooms, but if he hoped to escape the factories and mills one day, this was probably the kind of thing he’d have to get used to.
Eventually, just before lunch, John looked for the hundredth time out of one of the warped and bubbly old windows on the first floor, and this time caught a glimpse of Thornby heading towards the village on an old black horse. He had a purposeful air, and John would have given much to know where he was going. But now was the perfect chance. One of the housemaids had pointed out the door to Lord Thornby’s room. John went there and tapped on it, heart beating rather fast. There was no answer, but the door came off the latch and opened an inch.
Thornby’s bed-chamber was as shabby as the rest of Raskelf. Faded red silk damask adorned the walls, and faded red brocade hung from an old four-poster. A shaft of sunlight lay across the bed, and the room had the same sense of potential, of energy only momentarily absent, as an empty stage. An ancient-looking clothes press, as big as a small cottage, contained a few of Thornby’s old-fashioned clothes. There was a small room off to one side—perhaps an old powder room, to judge from the collection of empty wig stands—and on the other side, a small study.
John put a hand on the door-frame between study and bed-chamber and closed his eyes. As his mind cleared, the magical susurration that filled Raskelf and disturbed his sleep came into focus. He was beginning to get used to it and to feel that this was nothing out of the usual for the old place. He was used to more modern buildings—mills, factories, foundries, or his own rooms in London—but Raskelf had a long history. Traces of magic from past centuries were held here.
He let the old wood tell its secrets. It had seen a werelight; white spangles conjured from a posy of flowers, but that was a hundred years ago. It remembered blood and screaming, and the carrion-sweet stink of a demon, but that was older still. And, in the distant past, some fertility magic to do with corn, so faint it was barely a whisper.
There was nothing else.
He went into the study. An easel displayed a half-finished water-colour of Raskelf Hall at dawn. It was rather fine, not that he was any judge. Thornby seemed to have only one brush and one very small, nearly-empty box of paints. John looked through the books: Ovid, Virgil, Herodotus, Shakespeare—all old and bound in blue leather, probably from Raskelf’s cavernous library. No books of magic.
A floorboard creaked in the bedroom and his heart leapt into his mouth. But it was just the old house, talking to itself in an ordinary way.
He opened the drawers in the desk and rifled through the papers. There were a lot of ink and pencil sketches of plants and woodland animals. Also, a few drawings of Lady Amelia, a sketch of Stewart, the drunken estate manager, looking surprisingly noble, and a couple of self portraits. Thornby had a lively and expressive style, but no magic emanated from the drawings.
John put everything back, reserving one of the self-portraits, which he put in his pocketbook. A good likeness of a person, drawn by that same person, could be a useful ingredient for a charm if he needed it later on. Not that magic had seemed to work on Thornby yet, but it would certainly be better than an old stocking.
He had been half avoiding the bed, with all its associations, but the place a person slept was a powerful touch-point. He went back into the bedroom and put his hand on the once-rich red brocade hangings. They had faded on the side closest to the window to a dirty beige. The brocade remembered a love charm from fifty years ago, and a slightly older spell to get a woman pregnant with a boy. But neither of these were related to Thornby. John breathed deeper and stroked the brocade, beguiling it, his magic running up and down its threads. It wanted to please him, but had nothing more to tell.
As he drew his fingers away, it offered him a flash of Thornby; head flung back, long throat exposed, nightshirt bunched around his chest, one hand wrapped around his erect cock, his slender body gilded by firelight.
The image went straight to John’s groin and he cursed under his breath. As if he needed any more distractions of that kind. But he could hardly blame the brocade. Sex wasn’t magic, of course, but inanimate objects would sometimes mistake it for such, and offer it up to a magician. His entire body was quivering with tension and he took a deep breath, trying to relax.
So, there was no recent magic, not one tiny thing.
Which meant he had indeed accused an innocent man and bullied him into a course of action that had left him injured. His heart sank. So, now he would have to do it. He would have to face up to Thornby and apologise. And try not to think of Thornby frigging himself as he did it. Marvellous. That would make it awholelot easier. His head throbbed, in tandem with his groin.Damnation. Where was all this leading? What was he doing here? Why wasn’t he in Manchester checking the spells on the looms? Or in London making sure no-one had another go at the Crystal Palace?
The gong for luncheon made him jump again. Truly, this sneaking around in another man’s rooms was repellent. And yet, even at the Institute they’d never counselled against intelligence gathering, if the cause was just or for the good of the Empire.Discretion. Restraint. Independence. Sometimes the ends justify the means.True, those lectures had been aimed at the theurgists who were going into politics, the military or the church, but he supposed the theory held true in more personal situations.
Lord Thornby, thank goodness, was not present in the dining room.
John and Lady Dalton made polite conversation while they ate watery pea soup and over-cooked trout. John tried several times to engage Lady Amelia and the elderly cousin, Mr Derwent, in the conversation, but his sallies went nowhere. Mr Derwent had a Ming seal in his pocket; John could hear it hissing affrontedly.
On his first night here, dining by candlelight, he’d thought Lady Dalton had looked nervous, and thinner than he remembered her. Now, by daylight, he was shocked at the change in her. He had met her once at Catterall’s place in London before her marriage. She had not been beautiful even then, but her kindness, vivacity, and youth had lent her considerable charm. He remembered that evening in London he had been tired and silent, absorbed in some trouble from the foundry. And although she had been an heiress engaged to marry a marquess, she had taken a great deal of trouble to draw him out and introduce him to her friends.
