Death Magic, - [books for 20 year olds .txt] 📗

the wagon of kidnapped Kurds disguised as a slave.

I grip the dark-wood handle and pull the curved blade free. This is a Mangbetu knife, smooth black and deadly, awarded only to the deadliest fighters of the African Congo. I feel its reassuring weight in my hand and slide it into the back of my rags.

The traders are wildly freeing their captives, anxious to avoid arrest. Chains and manacles fall to the ground with a heavy clanking. Ropes are cut, fences kicked down. Unshackled slaves are staring around themselves, unable to comprehend what's happening.

Behind me the slave girls are watching the chaos.

'This is your chance,' I tell them, pointing to a building at the top of the hill. 'Go. Any slave who gets inside that church is promised sanctuary. Her Imperial Majesty decreed an end to servitude. By tomorrow night I'll get you on a fur-trade boat bound for Hamburg.'

There's a fraction of a pause. Then Gaspard remembers something of his revolutionary self. He grabs hold of two girls by either hand.

' Vite ! Vite !' he cries, dragging them forth. As soon as they exit the hut, something changes. Their faces become determined, their movements certain. They flee as a pack, heading for freedom. It's like a dam breaking. Every slave is running hard, like a tidal wave moving uphill in the direction of the church.

I hear a cry. One of the girls has fallen, her leg caught tight in a slave-snare. It's only a simple rope-trap, but she's panicking. Other slaves are stampeding near where she lies.

I run to her. Falling at her side, I begin slicing through the trap.

Suddenly strong fingers seize my upper arm. I stagger as I'm pulled around to see a familiar face: the outsized Cossack guard from the slave sorting. I twist, breaking from his grip, step back into a low fighting stance, my long black blade in my hand.

The Cossack grins, revealing large white teeth. He tilts his head appraisingly, closing in. 'I knew there was something different about you,' he says in Russian, moving forward. 'We heard tales about a girl spy. I didn't believe it until now. You're going to fetch a fine price in Moscow.'

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the girl pulling at the half-cut rope around her ankle. I bring the blade low, pointing upwards as the Cossack closes in.

He taps his thick studded armour.

'Blades don't pierce military leather,' he says, lunging to take a heavy hold of my arm again.

Suddenly his face twists in shock. He lets out a strange strangled cough.

'Mangbetu knives do,' I say, turning the blade to slice his lung as his eyes bulge.

The Cossack drops silently to the floor, blood filling his airways. I look back to the slave girl sprawled in the dirt, mouth open in silent horror.

I move back to her side, slash free the snare, pull her up and give her a hard shove.

Her ankle is twisted, and she gasps in pain.

'I can't do it.' The girl's starved and battered body is giving way. Her eyes are fixed on my bloody knife. 'I can't fight like you. They'll find me ...'

I take her face in my hands.

'Look at me,' I say, speaking in Kurdish. 'Do you believe me when I say I don't break my promises?'

She glances at my blood-soaked hands.

‘Yes.’ She swallows.

'You will survive this,' I tell her. 'I promise. I see it in you. Get to the top of the hill, and your freedom awaits.' I spin the gore-flecked knife. 'I will cut down anyone who tries to stop you.'

She runs, limping towards salvation.

I shield my eyes, and see Gaspard has reached the safety of the church door. He turns, sees me and shouts something. I can't hear the words but his expression is unmistakable.

Hope, that emotion he'd so carefully guarded against, was in full bloom. I live for that look. It's what keeps me going through all the hard business of spying for the English.

Little did I know, in under two weeks, his face would look very different.

Gaspard would be lying dead in the Bastille prison, a diamond between his lips.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine

London , two weeks later

It's good to be back in London. The trees surrounding King's Cross are in blossom. I can smell the sweet-grass meadows that lead to Camden Village. My family's town residence, a great red-brick hall awarded to my ancestors by Henry VIII, is resplendent in the sun.

Today I'm dressed for a wedding: a white silk dress embroidered with dainty violets. Beneath a little purple hat, secured at a tilt, my curled dark hair is elaborately styled with jewelled pins. My shoes are satin, pointed, with a small heal. Strings of pearls conceal yellow ghosts of manacle bruising to my wrists and neck.

I made the hour's walk here from the squalid Wapping docks, drinking in the lively industry of blacksmiths and papermakers, the press of girls with baskets of wares on their heads, a scent of fresh bread and pies in the air. So unlike the other wedding guests, I haven't arrived in a gilded carriage. As I ascend the grand steps to the house an unfamiliar servant in gold-frogged livery is in the hallway making space on the portrait wall.

He's straightening an oil painting of my stepmother, the first Lady Morgan - a rapacious socialite who died many years ago.

Next in line is the picture of my mother. A bright turban frames her dark-skinned face and she holds a narrow spear. Mamma never did get to England, but my father made sketches and had her commemorated in oils.

Hearing my approach, the servant looks down from his half-ladder.

'A sad story there, I'll be bound,' he says, noticing me looking at my mother's portrait. 'They say she's why Lord Morgan drinks the laudanum. You are here for one of Lord Morgan's wedding guests?' he adds.

Of course, he assumes me a courtesan. It's hard for the English to see an unaccompanied woman in finery and come to any other conclusion.

'I'm Attica Morgan,' I reply. 'Lord Morgan's daughter.'

The servant overbalances slightly then rights himself, pulling my mother's portrait askew. He looks from her to me. A wild blush creeps up his neck and across his face. He tries to bow, and the ladder jerks dangerously.

'Please,' I say, moving towards him, 'don't fall on my account.'

'My apologies,' he says. 'Miss Attica. I didn't know ...'

He pronounces it A-ttica, the way the English do, which could be correct for all I know. My name means 'of Africa' - perhaps an attempt to connect me with my heritage. I've never minded my mixed blood because I can look like many different people. I could be, say, a Jewess or a Spanish dancer or an Italian heiress or a coal-eyed beggar girl. This is a great advantage for a woman who travels in disguise.

'It's a common mistake.' I smile at the servant. 'No one can quite agree if I'm illegitimate and I never could sit still for portraits. That's the only one of me.' I point to a mischievous-looking girl sat on my father's lap.

This discomforts him worse than before. He begins leaning from foot to foot.

'Your shoes are the new Lady Morgan's choice?' I observe, taking in the little gold heels.

'Yes.' He smiles in relief, having found a better subject than my scandalous existence.

'I'll see if I can't put in a word,' I say, 'to get you something for standing about in.' I wink at him as I walk, past up the remaining steps and in.

The dark interior closes around me as if I'd never left. The smell of beeswax polish, the richly coloured walls and oil paintings, the feeling of never belonging.

Garlands of flowers are festooned all around today, and there's a hum of modernity. Servants are polishing glassware rather than tarnished old chalices. The wedding breakfast is fashionably understated. No huge sides of game or suckling pigs. The new Lady Morgan's influence is like a breath of fresh air.

I'm eyeing the small crowd, trying not to listen to the whispers about my father's new wife - an American slave-abolitionist, who has already scandalized London with her lack of English decorum.

'Attica!' I hear a high-pitched voice and realize the Spencer sisters have seen me. It's too late to beat a retreat. They close in, ribbons and bows flapping.

The older and younger siblings are almost identical, with fish-like blue eyes and mousy hair, sculpted upwards into precipitous waxy towers. As usual they are dressed for determined husband-hunting. Single men are giving them a wide birth.

'We have someone who is mad to meet you,' enthuses the older sister.

I scan the room for a way out. Likely one of their greasy cousins has come of age.

The younger Spencer sister makes some frantic beckoning into the crowd. A rather silly-looking blonde girl is the target of her wild gesticulating.

'This is her!' announces the elder, proudly, stepping back so her friend might get a full view of me. 'Attica Morgan, the escaped slave.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Thirty

London society can barely breathe in the fetid air of its own stale gossip, yet I'm perpetually surprised by how resistant everyone is to forgetting my origins.

If you believe the rumours, my brilliant father, Lord Morgan, sailed away from his acrimonious marriage into the arms of an African princess. She was captured by slavers whilst pregnant with me, and my father was tricked into thinking her dead. His laundanum haze followed. Some years later I docked at Bristol, a glowering little beast, so they tell it, who refused to speak a word of English and bit the first Lady Morgan's jewelled hand.

My recollection is rather less straightforward. Nevertheless, it's true I arrived in England as a small girl, to an estate of horrified relations and servants.

I have a similar sensation now, as a girl with solid blonde curls pasted to her forehead makes towards me, cooing as though I'm a monkey in a cage.

'Amelia is mad to meet you,' says the older Spencer sister, taking the blonde girl's arm. 'We've told her all about your daring getaway.'

'I thought she'd be darker,' says Amelia, sounding disappointed. 'She could pass for Spanish. Do you speak any English words?' she asks, speaking slow and loud.

'Attica is frightfully clever,' says the oldest Spencer quickly. 'You would hardly know her mother was a savage. She is a translator of languages, isn't that right? You were helping the Russian ambassador.'

She glances around the room. Several young men look away in panic.

'I don't know how you can stand such dry work,' she says. 'How do you find time to embroider?'

'It's not as dull as it sounds.' I keep my tone impassive. 'Though I must admit my needlework has suffered.'

'You must apply yourself,' cautions the younger Spencer, her blue eyes wide. 'You will never catch a husband if your sewing is poor.'

Her sister elbows her in the ribs, and the younger reddens, realizing her blunder.

'Are you very sad,' she ventures, in a strange babyish voice, 'that your wedding didn't go ahead?'

'No,' I say, 'I cannot say I am.' The relief, the sheer relief, of escaping the bonds of wedlock. I can still call it to mind now, like a waterfall of gold washing me clean. 'I thought England had no slavery,' I tell them, 'until I learned about marriage.'

They all laugh a little too loudly. The new Lady Morgan has, after all, just become my father's legal property.

'Very good,' says the blonde girl approvingly. 'Don't get glum about it.' She gestures to a table where the remains of hot buttered rolls, tongue, eggs and ham are being cleared away. A large bridal pie with cornice-like fluting is being brought forth.