The Book of Lies

He crawled under the archway of thick vines and out into the light. As he blinked and straightened up, he found himself facing the house. There was the tower, brooding and ominous, staring down at him. For an instant he thought he saw a hand and part of a face at one of the windows, but when he looked again, they had gone.

“A book,” he murmured to himself. “A sorcerer’s book.”

Chapter 2 Lord Alwyn (#ulink_ffce6c09-09d7-5c36-b852-c024e395b02d)

MARCEL WAS STILL THINKING about the strange little girl when he entered the kitchen with Dominic, and even after Mrs Timmins had given him his first job. “Robert, would you take those jugs of milk into the dining room?” she asked.

Hearing that false name made him hesitate, but he wasn’t sure what to do about it yet. Dominic was carrying a tray laden with freshly baked bread and the aroma reminded him of how hungry he was. He followed Dominic into the dining hall, where other children were already busy setting out plates and arranging a motley assortment of chairs around the long table. He looked for the girl among them but couldn’t see her. Had he imagined the whole thing?

The dining room was dark and cool after the sunny courtyard. A fireplace, freshly cleared of last night’s ash, was built into the far wall. Its homely scent of wood-smoke hung in the air. The high ceiling and bare stone floor made the room rather noisy, but it was the happy noise of children eager to fill their growling bellies.

All the children seemed to have their own place to sit around the table and Marcel was left out until Hugh and Dominic made room between them. Mrs Timmins took her place at one end of the table and Albert at the other. They all lowered their heads and recited a simple prayer, but as soon as the last word died on their lips, hands shot out to the plates of bread.

Marcel wasn’t the only one to hold back. The tall girl he had seen spilling the water watched the snatching hands all round her. There was something proud about her, as though she were waiting to be offered the plate. Finally she took a piece and bit into it delicately. No wonder she had been sent back by the family in the village, Marcel thought. He watched her for a moment and saw with a grin that hunger made her dainty bites come a little too rapidly for good manners.

She might be careless with a bucket, but not with her appearance, he noticed. Her long tresses, now loosened from their ponytail, stretched almost to her waist and she had stroked them to a brassy sheen. Pale freckles from working in the sun dotted her nose and cheeks, but they couldn’t hide what a pretty girl she was. How much prettier she would be if she didn’t spend so much time scowling.

Meanwhile, Mrs Timmins began listing names around the table. “I don’t think you met the girls before. That’s Sarah and beside her is Dorothy. We call her Dot because she’s small and round.”

“I am not,” the girl retorted, but the others only laughed. They seemed to do that a lot around this table.

More girls’ names followed, Kate and Lizzy. When it was her turn, Marcel was officially introduced to Nicola. She offered him a stiff smile, said, “How do you do,” and went back to her delicate eating.

He barely noticed her rudeness, because he was looking for a particular face, and so far he hadn’t found it.

“Oh, and I shouldn’t forget Beatrice, wherever you are, little one,” said Mrs Timmins.

“Here she is, next to me,” called the girl named Sarah, and at last Marcel spotted her. “We call her Bea,” Sarah explained to him.

“So now you’ve met us all, Robert,” said Mrs Timmins, taking charge again.

But his name wasn’t Robert. The little girl from the hideaway under the vines was real after all and so was the name she had given him. His head was spinning. He felt like he had been born only an hour before.

“No, my name is not Robert.”

The frantic eating slowed as every eye turned first towards him and then to Mrs Timmins.

“But only this morning you told me it was,” she said, alarmed.

“I was wrong.”

“You’re playing tricks with us,” said Mrs Timmins, forcing a smile. “That’s it, I’m sure. You’re playing a little game.”

“No, it’s not a game, and I think you know my real name already. It’s Marcel, isn’t it?”

If the eating hadn’t entirely stopped around the table, the low murmur of talking certainly had. The faintest blush of self-reproach touched Mrs Timmins’ cheeks. There was fear in her face too. “How did you come by this new name?”

“I can’t explain,” he said. It shouldn’t be Marcel who had to explain at all. How could she help this sorcerer to steal away his life with a sweep of his hand?

Mrs Timmins rose from the table. “Come with me,” she ordered. He followed her into the kitchen, where she sat him in a chair and drew another up close. “Now, tell me. How did you hear this name? Did you find it written somewhere?”

He shook his head.

“Did someone tell you?”

He didn’t want Bea to get into trouble. “No,” he assured her. “It just came to me, from inside, as though it had always been my name.”

The concern in her features deepened. She looked perplexed, but more than anything she seemed afraid for him. “What do you remember?” she demanded. “You must tell me how much you can recall of your life before you came here.”

“Nothing,” he answered honestly. “I can’t remember a thing.”

The sadness in his words seemed to convince her. “I believe you, and thank heavens for it.” She took his hand and squeezed. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s not my doing that this has happened. But there’s something I have to do now. Someone you have to meet. Stay here.” She swallowed hard and set off towards the stairs.

Some moments later Marcel heard a distant knocking and knew it was the woman’s hand on that forbidding door set so impregnably into the wall opposite the stairs above. Her knock was answered by a savage growl, muffled by the door but loud enough to fill the entire house and send a blood-chilling terror through everyone who heard it.

Albert appeared at the door of the kitchen with a large chunk of bread and a wedge of cheese for Marcel. He couldn’t swallow a bite. “That… noise,” he managed to say. “What kind of beast…?”

“Don’t be afraid. No harm comes to the children in this house.” Albert seemed to fight off his natural shyness and placed his hand gently on the boy’s shoulder. That touch alone eased the boy’s fear. “I’ll stay here with you until my mother comes back, if you like.”

Marcel looked up gratefully and nodded. He was glad to have a companion in the anxious minutes ahead. They stretched on unbearably, until at last he heard the creak of wooden boards on the staircase. He traced the slow approach of footsteps before Mrs Timmins appeared in the doorway. When she moved aside nervously, a second figure came into view.

Just as Bea had described him, this stooped old man was hidden in the many folds of a black robe edged with the deepest green. Around the hem, two odd shapes had been embroidered in gold thread, the same combination repeated many times. The folds made it difficult to see what they were, until the wizard moved slightly and Marcel realised that one of the outlines was certainly a dragon with vicious talons open and grasping. What was the second shape beneath each dragon? Were they bats, with wings outstretched, golden bats flying on the night sky of that black robe? Before he could decide the man came closer, and now Marcel saw what Bea had not been able to describe. His face was deeply lined with age, long and sorrowful as though it had never known laughter in all the years it had lived through. Bea had given him a name, too. Despite his terror, Marcel recalled it easily. Lord Alwyn.

Frail though the old man appeared, Marcel wasn’t fooled. This man had worked a cruel magic upon him that had swept away every memory he had. If it hadn’t been for Bea, even his name would be gone.

“You are the child who calls himself Marcel?” said the wizard in a deep and weary tone.

Marcel looked for Mrs Timmins, hoping she would answer for him. But, to his dismay, he found that both she and Albert had gone, and he had been left alone with the wizard. He wasn’t sure his voice would work, so he offered a weak nod instead.

“Come. I want to speak with you.” Lord Alwyn seated himself at the kitchen table, motioning for Marcel to sit close by where he could watch every muscle in the boy’s face. On the table beside him he placed an ancient book almost two feet long and as thick as a grown man’s arm. Its dusty red cover was cracked along thin jagged lines where the leather had dried, giving the book a rough and weathered surface. Marcel eyed it with rising dread. This book had already been used against him once.

“You fear the book? That might be a good thing, since –” The wizard stopped suddenly and turned his body stiffly to the left, peering hard into the gloom where light from the windows didn’t reach. “You there,” he called at last. “Come over here.”

Bea’s tiny figure appeared from nowhere and came to stand beside Marcel. She was shaking through every inch of her body. “Excuse me, sir. I was caught in here by mistake.”

As she spoke, the book opened of its own accord and riffled from page to page, until on one of its last leaves it found a space not covered by words. Marcel watched in amazement as new words began to appear, the very words Bea had just spoken.

I was caught in here by mistake.

The wizard stared harshly at her for some time. “Your lie has been recorded in my book. In fact, those who don’t know any better call it the Book of Lies. Now, tell me the truth. You hoped to hear what I said to this boy, isn’t that so?”

Bea hesitated, but she had no alternative now. “Yes, sir.”

This time the book closed quietly and lay motionless on the table. Watching it, Marcel thought he saw the faintest glow rise from the cover, until his attention was drawn again to the old man.

Lord Alwyn’s lips had curled into a brief smile. “What is your name?”

She told him.