The Moon Child Read online

  For my father, John Cain, who loves ships.

  And for my godsons, Henry Wells and Jasper Parsons.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  January 1667

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  January 1667

  The mirror was tall and very old. The pitted surface was crazed with a network of blackened spider-leg lines that looked like veins running through the glass.

  “I cannot see you.” There was a rustling sound as the woman took a step closer. The gilded fruits and vines of the mirror frame seemed to quiver and reach out to her as she leaned forward.

  “Do not touch the glass!” The distorted voice came f rom somewhere far away – as if f rom the bottom of the ocean.

  “But I cannot … Ah, I have you now.” The woman in the gold silk dress cocked her head to one side as she stared at the smoke-grey shadow behind her own reflection in the mirror.

  She adjusted the jewelled patch over her left eye and peered into the depths of the glass. “I have prepared, my lord. Everything is ready, as you commanded. Your house is … much changed. But the journey is so …’

  “Good. I am pleased with you.” The distant, bubbling voice cut across her words.

  The woman smoothed her skirts and pulled at the frothy lace cuff so that her left hand was completely hidden. She bit her lip as she looked up and into the glass again.

  “You will keep your promise as we discussed?”

  “Of course, Madame. I always ensure those loyal to me get exactly what they deserve, do I not?”

  The woman nodded, more to herself than to the shadow in the mirror. “Soon then, my lord.” She took a step back, and gently closed and locked the wooden doors of the great armoire so that the hideous mirror was shut away once again. Then she pushed the key into the high, ruffled collar of her bodice and left the room.

  “Soon.” In the darkness the crooning voice repeated the word, but it sounded more like the hissing of a snake. And then the laughter began …

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Never drop your guard!”

  A sharp pain shot from Jem’s wrist right up to his shoulder as the blunt-tipped practice sword flew from his hand, arcing gracefully into the air before clattering to the cobbles of the courtyard.

  Jalbert brought his own weapon down to his side and shook his head. “You are good. One day you may even be a great swordsman, but right now you are always too hasty. Remember what I told you. This is like a game of chess. Speed and strength are important, but the battle is won here.” The tall, lean-faced man tapped his head. “Now, again. Please retrieve your weapon and this time fight with your brain as well as your heart.”

  Jem rubbed his aching wrist and scowled. He was angry – not at Master Jalbert, but at himself. He knew the fencing teacher was right: he had momentarily lost focus, lashing out blindly, and Jalbert had found his weak spot.

  For the last two months, Jem’s regular fencing lessons with William Jalbert had been the highlight of his week. The fact that this quiet, watchful and undeniably brilliant man had been specially selected to teach him the art of swordplay by Jem’s father, King Charles II, made the sessions even more important. Even though they shared the same dark curling hair, brown eyes and tall lanky frame, the King had never publically acknowledged Jem to be his son. At first Jem was disappointed, but at least the weekly lessons made him feel that his father thought about him, occasionally.

  Jalbert looked up at the flat, grey January sky. “We have another hour at most before dark. Take up your sword and we will begin again.”

  Jem nodded enthusiastically. “Can we try the heavy sword, please, William – before you go?”

  The man raised an eyebrow. “Always so eager. We’ll see. If you can knock the short sword from my hand, as I have just done from yours, we might think about it.” He paused and his brown eyes twinkled. “But if you can’t, then next week we will have to go back to wooden sticks and start all over again.”

  “That is not going to happen!” Jem grinned and loped across the cobbles to collect his sword.

  His mother’s voice rang out across the yard. “Jem! You must come in now. It’s getting late.” Sarah appeared at an arched doorway at the top of a small flight of stone steps. Two serving girls stood behind her, one of them carrying a steaming jug.

  Five miles outside the city of London, Goldings House had once belonged to Sarah’s father, Lord Verrers. Surrounded by a fine park, the rambling old mansion was topped by an extravagant array of twisted chimneys. There were so many Jem could never count them properly. He thought there were probably twenty-seven, but each time he tried to number them, he’d discover another one, tucked away on a slanting roof or behind a tottering red-brick stack.

  It saddened him to think that he had never met his grandfather. When he and his mother had first returned together to Goldings on a sunny day four months ago now, in the autumn of 1666, she had taken him to a long wood-panelled gallery that ran the whole width of the second floor. Above a massive stone fireplace, halfway down the gallery, hung a huge painting covered in grey cloth.

  Sarah had pulled at the cloth, dust filling the air as it slumped down into the empty hearth, making them both cough.

  The man in the painting over the fireplace had a grimly handsome face with piercing blue eyes. He wasn’t wearing a hat and his thick straight hair was very fair, almost white. The man was standing next to a table full of papers, his right hand resting on a globe. Jem thought he seemed dressed for a battle – he could see the edge of a breastplate glinting beneath the man’s cloak.

  Sarah was quiet for a moment as she stared at the portrait, then she spoke. “That is my father – your grandfather, Jem. Lord Edward Verrers was a good man, but …” she bit her lip and looked down at the hearth, “… he supported Parliament during the long war and he disowned both me and my brother Jamie when we … chose another path.”

  Jem darted a look at his mother. She had a brother? So he had an uncle?

  She turned her face away as she continued. “Jamie died fighting for the old king and I think that broke my father’s heart.”

  She moved across the gallery and stood stiffly with her back to Jem as she looked out of the tall window. “Now you and I are the only Verrers left. One day, this house and this estate will be yours.”

  She made a noise that sounded like a choked sob. Jem walked over to stand beside her. He watched through the milky glass for a moment as a small tabby cat padded round the corner of a brick gatepost on the far
side of the circular gravel drive. The cat seemed very much at home.

  He caught his mother’s hand and squeezed it. She turned to look at him. “It must be the dust. It catches in my throat. The house has been shut up and abandoned for so long that we’ll have to clean it from top to bottom to make it habitable.” She smiled, but Jem had seen tears glittering in her eyes.

  Now, four months later, Goldings was full of life again. Sarah had tracked down the sons and daughters of the servants she had known as a child and offered them employment. The ancient house had been thoroughly aired and cleaned, dusty cloths had been removed from the heavy old-fashioned furniture, herb-strewn fires burned in the great chambers and the sound of chatter and laughter could be heard as people went about their business.

  Despite tedious lessons with his new tutor, Dr Speight, which made him long to be outside on even the bitterest of days, Jem felt at home for the first time in his life. There was just one thing – or more precisely, two people and a small black-and-white monkey – missing.

  Master Jalbert bowed low as Sarah bustled down the steps and picked her way across the yard. She skirted carefully past a couple of ice-crusted puddles and tapped Jem lightly on the shoulder.

  “Inside – now.” Her breath misted the air. She nodded to the fencing teacher and smiled. “I am sorry, Master Jalbert, I meant to send word to postpone the lesson today. Jem is needed indoors. Eliza has prepared hot chocolate for you. I hope you will take some before you leave us.”

  “But that’s not fair! William’s come all the way from Whitehall and there’s still at least an hour of daylight left. I suppose you want me to spend the rest of the afternoon in the schoolroom working on more of Dr Speight’s pointless ‘mathematical conundrums’?” Jem mimicked the weedy voice of his tutor. Dr Speight always referred to lessons as his “puzzles”, “quizzes”, “teasers” or “conundrums”. As far as Jem was concerned it didn’t matter what the little man called them, they were all a form of torture.

  “Well, I won’t,” he continued angrily, waving the sword at the sky. “It’s not late at all. There’s plenty of light left to practise in. That’s right, isn’t it, William?”

  Master Jalbert reached across and took the sword gently from Jem’s hand. “I think your mother is right, hothead. It is time for me to go.”

  “But what about the sticks?” Jem was indignant. “I’m not going back to them next time, am I?”

  William laughed. “Of course not. You are doing very well. In fact, you’ll soon get the better of me, I fear!” He turned to Sarah and made a small bow again. “Your son is a natural – like his father.”

  Sarah’s cheeks flushed pink for a moment and Jem couldn’t tell if she was pleased or embarrassed. He felt his own face redden too, but that was because he still wasn’t used to praise.

  Master Jalbert gathered up his cloak and swords from the cobbles, and ruffled Jem’s dark hair. “You might want to think about getting this trimmed, lad. An expert swordsman needs to be able to see where he’s aiming.” He swapped a small smile with Sarah, adding, “That chocolate sounds good, my lady.”

  “Eliza has it ready. Take it in the hall before you leave us. Thank you, Master Jalbert. I know how much your lessons mean to my son.”

  Jem scowled as his fencing master crumped back across the frosted cobbles and climbed the steps. Then he folded his arms and kicked at a loose pebble.

  “So why, exactly, I am needed inside? I’m not going to the schoolroom. It’s Twelfth Night tomorrow and you promised I wouldn’t have to look at Dr Speight or his stinking, mouldy books until Christmas was over. There’s still one more day.”

  “Precisely.” Sarah grinned. “But we have a lot of things to do before we hold our Twelfth Night feast to celebrate our return to Goldings … and before your friends Tolly and Ann arrive with Mr Jericho and all his players.”

  “They’re coming here?”

  Sarah nodded. “Tomorrow. Eliza and the others are making ready for them.”

  Jem was rooted to the spot for a second. Then he beamed, spun about and skidded across the courtyard to the steps.

  “What can I do to help?” he shouted as Eliza bustled into the house after Master Jalbert.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Jem kneeled on the window seat in the highest room of the north turret and scanned the road for the hundredth time. His breath fogged up the square pane and the glass squeaked as he cleared the view with his palm. It was late afternoon. Although it had been a bright, crisp day, the sun was low in the sky, and the turrets and chimneys of the west wing of Goldings cast long fingers of shadow across the meadow beyond the house.

  Surely they should be here by now?

  Jem had thrown himself into the preparations for the Twelfth Night celebrations with such enthusiasm that, when he was helping the servants knot together garlands of holly to drape over the rafters of the great hall, Sarah had remarked tartly that it was a pity he didn’t apply himself with such industry to his lessons.

  He had ignored her.

  Every time he thought about seeing his friends again he felt a warm glow in the pit of his stomach. He had last seen them at the end of September after the terrible fire that had burned old London to a city of skeletal, blackened carcasses and gaping voids.

  He wondered where they had been since then and what they had been up to. While he was stuck in a gloomy schoolroom stumbling over Latin and Greek, Tolly, Ann and Cleo (the little monkey) had been touring the Eastern counties with Gabriel Jericho and his extraordinary, colourful, easy-going players.

  After all that they had been through together, Jem had desperately wanted his friends to come and live at Goldings. It would be a new start for them all, a real home where they could forget about Count Cazalon. Even now, months after that terrifying confrontation in the catacombs beneath the old burning cathedral, Jem could still hear the ancient sorcerer’s cracked voice and smell his rotting flesh. Every day he struggled to keep Cazalon out of his thoughts and he wondered if Ann and Tolly felt the same. If they had been living here at Goldings he could have asked them.

  But when he’d made the suggestion as the players were about to leave London, Ann gently explained that she didn’t think she and Tolly could ever live in an old house again, not after what had happened at Malfurneaux Place.

  “Besides, you are not a scullery boy any more. You are a gentleman now, Jem.” Ann had scrambled up next to Tolly on the slatted seat at the front of one of Gabriel Jericho’s huge wagons, before adding, “And I’m afraid that probably means you are going to have to learn how to be one.”

  “She’s right, as usual!” Tolly had grinned down at him, Cleo on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll come and see you soon. And who knows, you might even be allowed to come travelling with us occasionally – if your mother agrees.” The dark boy had looked anxiously at Sarah who was standing in the street next to Jem.

  She’d nodded and laughed. “Of course. I know he will always be among friends if he is with you and Mr Jericho, but he … we have responsibilities now.”

  A shout had come from somewhere ahead. The horses had jerked their heads and the wagon lurched forward. “But remember,” Sarah had called, as the giant wheels rumbled and clattered on the uneven stones, “you will always be welcome in our home. Always.”

  Tolly had waved and flicked the reins, while Cleo chirruped and leaped deftly from his shoulder to the curved canvas roof of the wagon. Ann had leaned out and reached down for Jem’s hand. She didn’t look at him, but she gripped tightly. He’d run alongside for a little way, feeling the delicate bones of her fingers curled in his. Then, eventually, he’d dropped her hand and stood watching as Gabriel Jericho’s Theatrical Circus rumbled away in a cloud of dust.

  He’d raised his hand and waved, but found he couldn’t make a sound.

  Jem banished the memory from his mind and concentrated on the view from the window. Was that a shadow on the road?

  Boom!

  A giant crack of som
ething like thunder sounded overhead and the tiles on the turret roof rattled. Then the sky was suddenly filled with the most brilliant and extraordinary array of colours – a rippling, rainbowlike curtain that danced and shimmered in the air above the meadow. Amazed, Jem watched the lights flicker and saw that little flecks of gold and silver were coming to rest on the stone windowsill in front of him.

  Down in the yard, several servants were gathered, gazing upward, open-mouthed, at the dazzling display. Eliza the chambermaid put out her hand and tried to catch the falling, fluttering glitter.

  Jem looked up again and back at the road. He narrowed his eyes – now there was a definite shape in the distance. Another huge blast sounded overhead and more vivid colours whirled about in the sky. He loosened the catch and pushed the window open, leaning out a little way for a better view. He made sure his knees were tucked firmly against the back of the window seat and gripped the frame tightly. His fear of heights had not improved.

  The freezing air made him gasp, but now he was grinning from ear to ear as the shadow on the road sharpened into a familiar sight.

  “I know that’s you, Gabriel!” he thought to himself as the air popped and crackled and thousands of golden lights fizzled above the wagons that approached Goldings House. “You always know how to make an entrance.”

  Jem took in a deep gulp of sharp, smoky air laced with bonfire and gunpowder and thought he had never tasted anything so good. Before he had the chance to pull the window shut, he heard excited voices from below and the clatter of feet on the stairs.

  “They are here. Make ready – the players have arrived!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “… and in Norwich we performed in the Market Square and some of the women mistook Cleo for a very hairy child. Do you remember what they said?”

  Tolly grinned at Ann and nodded. “That if she belonged to them they’d shave her face at least, ‘the poor little mite’.” Tolly mimicked the soft country burr of the Eastern folk and leaned across to tickle Cleo’s head. The small monkey was curled neatly in Jem’s lap. “Can you imagine doing that to her, or getting her to sit still to try!”