The Eyeball Collector Read online

  Lord Mandible hurried from their meeting, the sound of her harsh laughter still ringing in his ears. He’d show her and make his father proud. He was determined to catch a hog. The previous night he had enjoyed a marvellous dream of the Midwinter Feast. He sat at one end of the dining table in the great hall staring straight into the dead eyes of a roasted, glistening Hairy-Backed Hog, and its expression seemed to say, ‘You won, Your Lordship. You got me at last.’

  The fantasy culminated in a riotous toast and when Mandible awoke his ears were still ringing with the clashing of silver goblets and the cheering of nobles. And dreams can come true with a little forward planning! At the next opportunity he would speak to that butterfly boy, he decided. It was well known around the Hall that he was always available for extra work.

  Lady Mandible shooed her maids irritably from her room and went through to her bedchamber. She lay back on her bed and gazed fixedly at the silvery gauze canopy above her, her mouth turned up slightly at the corners, pondering the question of the Baron.

  It caused her to sigh deeply.

  Without a doubt he was a charming fellow with a ready wit and handsome face, if a rather angular profile, but could he be trusted? She had decided not. She did not regret engaging him – he had been very useful to her – and his funny eye-tricks and garish outfits amused her, but Bovrik was reaching the end of his useful life. His desire to please, his devotion and sedulous nature could no longer outweigh how intensely aggravating she now found him. Constantly at her side, always agreeing with her and stroking the velvet drapes, or running his hand over the rugs whilst exuding that ghastly lemon smell over everything. She was tired of it. And that look in his one good eye when she refused him something, like a puppy that had been kicked. Ugh! She couldn’t bear it. It made him weak. The thought made her shudder. She would never have got to where she was today if she had been so feeble. But even worse – he was stealing from her! Well, did he really think she wouldn’t notice? Gerulphus had noted everything he had taken.

  Yes, there was no question about it, Bovrik would have to go and he would pay for his treachery. But all in good time and not before the Feast. Nothing was to spoil that. Until then he might still be useful. He was so good at anticipating her . . . tastes. Thinking of the Feast made Lysandra smile. It was her first as mistress of Withypitts, and she was determined it would be one to remember. She couldn’t deny that Bovrik’s suggestion of a re-enactment of Trimalchio’s Feast was a stroke of genius. But the pièce de résistance, the butterflies, was her idea and hers alone. No one would know what it was until the day!

  Absentmindedly she reached out and picked up the latest edition of the Diurnal Journal, which had arrived that morning. A headline caught her eye: ‘Handsome Heir to Eastern Throne Arrives in Urbs Umida to Much Fanfare’. How interesting! She really must pop into town again soon and see what all the fuss was about. Just then, the tinkle of a bell told her that Gerulphus had arrived in the next room with her lunch tray.

  ‘Now, there’s someone I can truly trust, mostly anyway,’ she said aloud. Yes, mostly, because Lady Mandible judged everyone as harshly as she judged herself, and she trusted herself least of all.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  An Interesting Request

  It was early evening and Hector sat in his tower room, busy with his pestle and mortar. It was only a matter of days since he had followed the Baron and endured the incident with the leeches but, although he hadn’t forgotten it (or the dreadful journey back to his room), he was not going to allow it to deter him from his true purpose. He owed it to his father.

  With the Feast imminent there was an atmosphere of great excitement and anticipation in every room and corridor, which only heightened Hector’s own apprehension.

  A large moth flapped at his windowpane. Hector looked out at it, into the darkness, and was surprised to see a flickering light high up in the building opposite.

  ‘It must be in the other tower,’ he thought, ‘but that’s empty.’

  ‘Master Hector?’

  The voice came from directly outside the room but Hector knew immediately who it was. There was only one person in Withypitts Hall who could climb the stone staircase up to his room without making a sound: the inscrutable Gerulphus.

  ‘Come in,’ he called, and the next minute the skeletal manservant appeared around the door. The candlelight seemed to exaggerate the shadows under his eyes and his hollow cheeks. If Hector hadn’t known him, he might have thought him a ghoul.

  ‘Lady Mandible wishes to see you.’ Gerulphus looked towards the mortar. ‘Something for the butterflies?’

  ‘Er . . . yes,’ said Hector, and he covered it with a cloth.

  ‘Does it stain? I see you are wearing gloves.’

  ‘It does,’ said Hector, and he pulled off the gloves, leaving them inside out. He tied his cuffs, which he had loosened earlier, and ran his fingers through his hair to fatten it before leaving the room and locking the door.

  Gerulphus led the way briskly. When they crossed the entrance hall the manservant, as usual, made hardly a sound. But Hector was acutely aware of the tap-tap of his own leather-heeled boots on the black and white marbled floor. Finally, Gerulphus drew up at Lady Mandible’s suite, before a huge set of ebony double doors, and indicated to Hector that he should wait outside. As soon as the door shut fully Hector put his ear against the glossy wood, but he could not hear a thing and was caught off guard when Gerulphus suddenly opened the door again and ushered him in.

  Hector found himself standing in semi-darkness in a large, high-ceilinged room. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Around the room the walls were covered in bookshelves, and between them, in arched alcoves, stood black marble statues of everything from classical busts to fat, cross-legged imps. The only light came from a couple of polished girandoles on the far side of the room.

  ‘Hector?’

  Lady Mandible was standing at the fireplace. This evening she was dressed from head to toe in purple velvet and her black hair gleamed. Large jewels at her throat and wrists and rings on her fingers coruscated in the firelight. She beckoned to him with a painted talon.

  With each step Hector’s foot sank into the deep pile of the rug. He was near enough to feel the heat of the fire when he saw something that stopped him dead.

  ‘Oh!’ he breathed, the wind knocked out of him. For there on the wall above the mantelpiece was the entire collection of his father’s mounted butterflies.

  ‘How on earth . . . ?’ he whispered, and involuntarily his hand reached up to the cocoon he wore around his neck.

  ‘Magnificent, aren’t they?’ said Lady Mandible, her voice smooth as silk and twice as slippery. Hector felt her hand on his shoulder and fancied he could feel its chill even through his waistcoat and shirt.

  ‘I believe they belonged to a gentleman who had fallen on hard times,’ she went on. ‘Bovrik found them for me in the City. And as soon as he told me of them I had an idea of what I would do to make the Midwinter Feast special this year.’

  Hector remembered the crate Bovrik had taken from Badlesmire and Leavelund. What a twist of fate, he thought. He could hardly believe that it was not simply butterflies, his father’s beloved hobby, that had brought him here and enabled his chance at revenge, but his father’s very own butterfly collection itself. Surely it was meant to be.

  ‘Collecting like this, it is called lepidoptery,’ said Hector quietly. ‘From the Greek word lepidos, meaning fish scale, on account of the scales on butterfly wings. They reflect light to give them their colour.’

  Lady Mandible regarded him closely. ‘Once again you surprise me with your learning, young Hector.’ By means of a sharp fingernail in the small of his back, she guided him firmly to a chair and sat herself opposite. ‘And what of my butterflies? You know I am relying on you to make the Feast an evening to remember.’

  ‘They will be ready.’ Hector shuddered at the intensity of her mesmerizing gaze. He couldn’t shake the feeling that
she knew far more about him than he had ever told. But that was silly . . .

  ‘None of this is why I called you to me, however. I have heard via the servants that you are quite a riddler.’ She smiled graciously. ‘Well, I need you to write a riddle for me. It must be very clever, but that is no problem for you.’

  Despite himself, Hector felt momentarily flattered.

  ‘That’s easy, My Lady.’ He thought for a moment, then took the quill and thick cream-coloured paper she pushed across the small table between them. Quickly, he wrote one of his favourite riddles down, taking extra care with his letters. It could not fail to impress her, he was sure. He folded the paper and passed it back.

  Lysandra rose, an indication that it was time for Hector to go. As she turned from him she unfolded the piece of paper and began to read.

  As Hector went on his way he thought he heard a voice calling from outside. He went to the nearest window and looked out to see a figure in the dark and snowy courtyard below. Lord Mandible! It had to be. The way he dragged his bad leg was unmistakable. Hector strained to hear what he was saying and finally made out a forlorn word, being called over and over.

  ‘Posset! Posset!’

  He shook his head in disbelief for the hundredth time since his arrival. What a strange place this Hall was.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Betrayal

  Hector climbed the winding stone stairs that led to the top of one of the six towers that formed each corner of the hexagonal Withypitts Hall walls, more specifically the tower where he had seen the flickering light earlier that evening, a light he was determined to investigate. As he climbed he tried to put his strange meeting with the fascinating Lady Mandible from his mind.

  The stairs wound around the inside of the tower, leaving a huge darkened chasm in the middle. About halfway up, a three-tiered candelabrum was suspended on a long thick chain, exactly the same as in his own tower and in the more luxurious, less filthy turret that the fiendish Baron inhabited.

  The daily job of lighting the thick candles and lanterns about the Hall was supposed to be done by the small kitchen boy. It was a job he undertook with great reluctance because it involved leaning out over railings and banisters with a hooked stick and pulling the light fitting towards him with one hand while using the other to light the wicks. And as with most things in Withypitts, Lady Mandible had ordered the most expensive and elaborate light fixtures available. The complicated design of her chandeliers and candelabra only added to their weight as well as beauty. By the time he finished the boy’s arms would be shaking from the effort, and having no head for heights many a near fall had left him in a cold sweat, particularly in the weeks leading up to the Feast.

  What the boy couldn’t know was that almost since his arrival at the Hall Hector had been shortening the hooked stick, thus causing him to lean out further and further each time. And a few days previously, Hector had judged the time right and approached the boy to offer to do this job for him, in return for a small part of his wage. He agreed readily. Hector had felt bad about this deceit, but he told himself he had no choice – a greater cause was at stake. Being the lamplighter enabled him to walk all the corridors and towers of Withypitts without arousing suspicion. In this way he could keep an eye on things, in particular the Baron’s quarters. And the extra money was not to be sneezed at as the Feast and his departure immediately after approached.

  So now Hector climbed the empty tower, stick and taper in hand as a ready excuse if anyone should find him there. At the top of the steps was a stout door with a sliding panel, in it and a huge padlock hanging from the handle. Cautiously, he put his ear to the door but there wasn’t a sound within. Light came from the gaps around the panel, however, so Hector took a deep breath, slid it across carefully and peered in.

  A hatted figure lay on a small bed on the far side of the room which was otherwise almost bare. The fellow looked remarkably at ease under the circumstances, with his hands behind his head, and as Hector watched he began to whistle softly, a tune that Hector recognized, and tipped his hat backwards.

  Hector gave a gasp. He knew who this whistling youth was; he was the young man who had saved his life in the forest, the very same chap who, for some reason, was so familiar to him.

  ‘Ho there!’ the youth called out, sitting up as Hector’s gasp alerted him to his presence. ‘Welcome to my chamber.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Hector asked. ‘Why are you locked in?’

  ‘My own fault,’ the cheery fellow responded. He rose from the bed and came over to the door, his green eyes peering at Hector through the hole. ‘I should have known better than to loiter in the forest. Lord Mandible came upon me when he was hunting and was convinced I was poaching his hogs.’

  Hector found himself wanting to apologize. For some reason he felt responsible for the stranger’s misfortune, though he wasn’t sure why. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so cheerful,’ he said eventually instead. ‘Aren’t you at least scared or angry? Don’t you want to get out of here?’

  ‘I’m sure things will work themselves out for the best.’ The young man smiled enigmatically then gave Hector a significant look. ‘I find it is healthier to forgive and forget than to harbour darker thoughts. The sweetness of revenge soon turns sour, I have learned, and its aftertaste may never leave you.’ He paused. ‘By the look on your face, I would hazard a guess you have a secret of your own to share, and I have plenty of time to listen . . . ’

  Hector felt his jaw drop. What could this strange young man know about him or his past to make such insightful remarks? But before he could say another word the stranger continued. His tone was mournful, but there was a twinkle in his eye. ‘Who knows how long I shall be held up here? There’s no way out except by the padlocked door through which I came.’

  Hector chewed thoughtfully on his lip, mindful of the debt of life he owed this blithe prisoner. If there was only a way to liberate him from this dreadful prison, his debt would be repaid. He glanced down at the unyielding padlock. Even if he could open it, it would be such a risk. He could jeopardize his chance of revenge against Bovrik and he couldn’t let that happen. ‘Well, there’s not much I can do about that,’ he forced himself to say evenly.

  The young man grinned, seemingly unperturbed. ‘As I have said before, there is a time for everything and now is not the time.’

  But before Hector could ask what he meant by that the stranger put a finger to his lips. ‘Shh!’ he hissed. ‘Someone’s coming.’

  Sure enough there was the sound of voices from further down the tower stairs. Then Lady Mandible and Bovrik appeared around the turn, with a guardsman beside them.

  Hector forced himself to stand calmly by the door as the duo approached. Besides, it was not possible to descend the stairs with them before him. Today the Baron wore scarlet and yellow, with silver-buckled shoes. He preened his waxed moustache eagerly. His obvious, excessive attempts to ensure his appearance reinforced his faked titled identity greatly amused Hector. Does he really think a true baron would draw attention to himself in such a way? thought Hector. It was laughable.

  ‘Hector!’ Lady Mandible declared with apparent delight when she saw him, while the Baron frowned. ‘What do you here?’

  Hector held up his taper in answer.

  ‘Well, it is fortuitous indeed. Would you not like to see what use I have for the information you so kindly provided me with earlier this evening?’

  ‘Er . . .’ Hector was baffled.

  ‘I wonder what you are up to, My Lady. I wonder too that you should infolf this . . . this serfant boy before me.’ Bovrik smiled as if in jest, but the smile was not broad enough to cause his yellow eyepatch to move. Nonetheless he reached into his pocket, took out a large key and unlocked the padlocked door. Lady Mandible, her eyes sparkling in seeming anticipation, entered the cell with him and Hector slipped in behind them. The guard positioned himself by the open door.

  The young prisoner was sitting silently on
his bed. Hector admired his cool demeanour but he had a bad feeling about all this.

  ‘So this is the odious poacher your husband discofered,’ Bovrik stated in his heavy accent. ‘Shall I arrange for him to be transported to Urbs Umida and thrown in Irongate prison to rot?’

  ‘I am not a poacher,’ said the young man. ‘I was merely passing through.’

  Lady Mandible ignored them both.

  ‘Young fellow,’ she said instead, ‘I have a proposition for you. I would not wish it said that I do not give a man a fair chance so I have decided that if you can answer this riddle, you may go free. If you cannot . . . the punishment for your crimes will be dire.’

  Bovrik raised his eyebrows while Hector took a sharp intake of breath. Had he heard her right? Did she say riddle? Surely not his riddle! He watched in disbelief as she handed Bovrik a piece of paper, the very same paper Hector had given Her Ladyship not an hour since.

  ‘Baron, read it out for us to hear,’ she commanded.

  Bovrik sneered at the prisoner. ‘It is My Lady’s wish that you answer this riddle to ensure your freedom.’

  ‘Very well,’ he replied steadily, getting to his feet. ‘I enjoy a challenge.’

  Hector covered his face with his hands.

  ‘Consider this,’ began Bovrik. ‘A man is trafelling in a land where the people are either liars or truth-tellers. He comes to a fork in the road. He knows that one road leads to poisonous marshes where he will suffer a painful and prolonged death if he breathes in the marsh gases; the other leads to his destination, a beautiful city. There is no sign and he doesn’t know which way to go. He sits at the crossroads and efentually two men come down the road to meet him. One of them is a truth-teller, and one of them is a liar but the trafeller does not know which is which. He is allowed to ask only one question to find the way to go. The trafeller thinks for a moment and then he asks a simple question and soon afterwards he is on his way to the city.