‘Rooms?’
‘I think you are tired,’ said Justice, ‘and still bruised from your capture, and you have gone a long time without rest. Let us offer you the protections of the Hall.’ He gestured.
Two girls wearing robes of the same blue as the High Janissary’s were waiting. Like the Stewards, they had a noble, otherworldly look. One was pale and freckled with hair the colour of a dry wheat husk. Her name was Sarah. The other girl was taller, and her skin was a darker brown than Leda’s. She had the sort of profile that looked sculpted, and wore a blue pendant around her neck. It was she who spoke.
‘I am Grace,’ she said. ‘I am a janissary to the Elder Steward. She has ordered rooms prepared for both of you.’
Will looked back at Violet. Both of them were covered in mud, and he realised Justice was right: they were both exhausted. When Violet nodded, he also gave his assent.
Grace took them up steps worn from centuries of footsteps, a slow, spiralling journey upward through a section that felt oddly uninhabited. He saw only glimpses of strange courtyards, corridors and chambers, many of them fallen to ruin. Around him, the faded beauty of the Hall was like the long red of sunset, before the last of the light goes out of the world.
Grace had an assurance of belonging as she escorted them up. Noticing that the wall was curved, Will wondered if they were now inside one of the towers he had seen when they rode through the gate. He felt again that sense of entering a world that was bigger than he had imagined. Grace stopped at a landing, in front of a door.
‘They say that in ancient times guests used to stay in this part of the Hall,’ Grace said. ‘But Stewards do not take in outsiders, and this wing was left empty. The Elder Steward asked for it to be opened up again. This will be your room.’ She nodded to Violet as her counterpart stepped forward with a bristle of iron keys on a chain, producing one to fit into the lock.
Violet hesitated on the threshold, turning back to look at Will. He imagined that she’d be looking forward to sloughing off the mud of her trek over the marsh, even as the prospect of staying the night with the Stewards felt momentous. Instead, she was delaying. ‘Is Will’s room nearby?’
‘Right alongside yours,’ said Grace.
‘All right, then,’ Violet said, drawing in a breath and giving a thankyou nod.
Will said, ‘Until morning.’ And with a last look back at him, she disappeared into her room.
Will turned back to Grace, who gestured to the other janissary to proceed up the stairs. The three of them moved on, around the curving wall.
‘And this room is yours,’ Grace said.
They had come to an oak door silvered with age that swung open with the key. ‘The Elder Steward bids you to rest and recover,’ said Grace, and with that the two janissaries left him to step into his new room alone.
It couldn’t have been more different from his overcrowded lodgings in London, where boys slept on the floor with barely space to stretch out in. Despite the Elder Steward’s kind words, Will had half expected a prison cell, or a wintry, abandoned ruin. He walked in disbelieving as the door closed behind him.
Above his head, the stone ceiling arched in ribbed vaulting, each panel coloured with faded blues and silvers as though it had once been painted. The arches met at a carved stone star. There were large windows that looked out on the walls, and a huge stone fireplace with a high mantel.
Someone had lit the fire and left a lamp glowing on the small table beside an old-fashioned bed. The bed looked soft and warm, and there was a sleeping shirt for him to change into. A flannel, a basin and a silver ewer of warm water were laid out by the fire for him to wash if he wished, and when he went to pick up the lamp, he saw that there was a small stool on which lay a plate of supper: fresh brown bread, soft white cheese and a tumble of ripe grapes.
His mother must have yearned for a place like this, where she would be safe from the men who were chasing her. Where the Stewards were there to drive the dark back. She’s the one who should be here. But she had never made it inside these walls. She had chosen to take him and run instead, until she couldn’t run anymore. He lifted his hand to the medallion that he wore around his neck.
A glimmer from the window caught his eye.
Walking over to it, he saw again the gleam of that giant flame on the far-off walls, shining like a light in the window, promising home. It was the beacon, tended by Stewards even through the night. The Final Flame, the Elder Steward had called it. Kept lit for centuries, it had burned to the last, when it was the only light left.