Page 55 of The Magpie Lord
“Spot on,” said Stephen. “I think this house, this location is a very powerful source, and I think someone is stripping it. That means a human conduit is involved—they have to strip itthroughsomeone. And I can only think of one way that would work, and that’s if Piper’s power is linked to Piper’s master. The Magpie Lord.”
“He’s been dead for centuries.”
“Lord Crane is dead, long live Lord Crane. There’s power in the Magpie Lord’s bloodline. It’s in the blood, bone and birdspit, as they say, and yes, birdspit is a euphemism. And someone is using yourfamily to tap that power in a way which is extremely dangerous and utterly wrong and very, very effective.”
“Using my family? They’re all dead too.”
“Yes. That’s one reason it’s wrong.”
“I don’t understand,” Crane said. “I’m not magical, I’m not a shaman. Mine was absolutely not a magical family.”
“Not actively, I’m sure, but look at the magpies.” Stephen gestured at the paintings as they passed. “All you Vaudreys are reaching out to them, with your tapestries and tattoos, but they belong to Lord Crane, whoever he may be. They followed your father from birth because he was posthumous, he was born Lord Crane. They began to follow you once you had the title. The fact that they’re still following you now is probably our only chance.”
“How?”
Stephen made a little helpless gesture. “All the power is being stripped out of Piper and out of the Vaudreys, but the magpies are still with you. I’m hoping I can call on that. God knows there’s nothing else for me to call on.”
Crane threw open a door to a small study-like room and went to an old chest. “All the jewellery is in here,” he said, opening it to reveal an assortment of boxes. “Now, tell me what the hell is going on.”
Stephen knelt by the chest but paused before delving into it. Crane squatted down by him.
“This is going to be unpleasant.” Stephen took a deep breath. “Right. Your brother impregnated his own daughter. Whether that was his idea or someone put her in his way...well, he did it. Someone told her, and she killed herself. So that’s a Vaudrey girl with a Vaudrey baby in her belly, both dead, killed by her own hand, buried with shame.” He pulled a box out at random and opened it to reveal a dull necklace of pale stones, which he stirred with a finger before discarding. “Ruth wasn’t just a Vaudrey. She was a witch’s granddaughter. And Gammer Parrott, of all the weapons she could have selected, chose a Judas jackfor her revenge. Did someone help her to that decision? Help her to make the jack? I think probably yes. She had a good reputation all her life, and that wasn’t a warlock’s home. No, I think someone steered Gammer to make a Judas jack. And now we have your father and brother, two more Vaudreys, dead at their own hands.”
He took out a couple more boxes, apparently at random, and opened them, blinking at tangles of dull gold chain.
“Perhaps the greatest source of power for a warlock is unused potential,” he went on. “Life that goes unspent, growth that never happens. The strongest human sources of power are suicides—the murder of one’s own potential—and unborn children, the closer to birth the better. ‘Finger of birth-strangled babe’, if you remember your Macbeth.” He emptied another box unceremoniously onto the floor and ran his hands through the treasures without even looking. “In the last two years, we have three Vaudrey suicides, and an unborn Vaudrey child. I’m afraid I don’t believe that’s coincidence.”
Crane tried to assimilate the litany of horrors. Stephen glanced up. “Do you recall what Hector’s ghost was doing with his hands?”
“Trying to pull his head off, it looked like.”
“I think he was trying to hold it on. Remember what happened when you hit him?”
“Vividly.”
“I think someone has taken his head,” Stephen said. “I don’t believe his ghost just happened to start walking. I think someone took his skull and he wants it back.”
He pulled out a couple more boxes. Crane was kneeling by the chest, totally still. He didn’t think he could move.
“Are you all right?”
“No. This is the stuff of nightmares. You think someone has gone into my brother’s tomb and cut the head off his corpse?”
“More than that,” Stephen said. “You told the vicar of your intention to have Ruth Baker reburied. I’m going to guess that herbody isn’t in any coffin. That someone has taken it apart and used it, her bones and organs, her child, to strip Piper. That’s probably why the vicar was unreceptive to the idea of her reburial, and actually, I bet it was he who tried to kill you. Nobody wanted you dead until then. But he couldn’t let you discover her coffin was empty.”
Crane gave up trying to sound calm. “You think Mr. Haining is a warlock? He’s a vicar!”
“He didn’t want Ruth dug up. And now I’m really guessing, but I think the reason there was no further attack last night, and the reason for trapping us here this morning, is that he, or his friends, learned I was a justiciar after the second attack. If they had killed you last night, I would have been straight over there, or straight down to London and back mob-handed. But if someone, maybe someone who had the word from Miss Bell, came and told them about me, their best bet would be to stop the attack and keep me here.”
“Baines?” said Crane. “We passed him on the way back.”
“Who?”
“Baines. The churchwarden—what is it?”
Stephen’s face was working. “Baines.Baines. That’s who he was! Oh, you stupid, self-indulgentfool!” He thumped a hand on the floor. “For God’s sake, I thought he was familiar—but I didn’t look at him properly—augh!”
“What is it? Who is he?”
