Page 61 of The Magpie Lord
There was a thing on the old stone pedestal. Crane squinted at it, unable to make it out, the shape making no sense, a mass of brown and yellow and clay colours and angular forms. As they approached, it began to resolve itself into something recognisable, and Crane said, “Jesus Christ.”
“He won’t help you now.” Baines shoved Stephen down, onto his knees. He gave a yelp of pain as he hit the ground. Forewarned, Crane was already bending at the knee as he was forced down next to the smaller man, so that he kept his balance, even with his eyes locked on the thing on the pedestal.
“Stephen. What the fuck is that?”
“The charnel posture,” said Stephen in a thin, painful voice. “I can see Ruth Baker. Your brother’s head. The baby.”
“But they’re posed like they’re—”
“I know,” said Stephen. “The degradation of the bodies makes it easier to tap the power, they say. Actually, I think they just like to do it.”
Mr. Haining, standing behind the pedestal, fixed him with a malevolent look and opened his mouth, but Lady Thwaite elbowedhim sharply. His bald head was reddened with burns and he had no eyebrows left. He glared resentfully at Stephen. Next to him, Helen Thwaite was staring sulkily at Crane.
“Miss Thwaite’s a warlock,” Crane observed, almost beyond surprise.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Stephen dismissively. “No—she’s a flit. The runt of the litter. Virtually powerless. Just about enough talent to know what she’s missing. It won’t work, you know,” he told Lady Thwaite.
“Of course it will.” She and Helen were both looking at Stephen with loathing.
“It really won’t. She’ll get a taste of true power while you run the charnel posture but it won’t unlock her potential, if that’s what it’s supposed to do, because she hasn’t got any. It’ll just drive her mad because for the rest of her life she’ll fully understand what she’ll never have.”
“Don’t listen, Muriel,” said Lady Bruton.
“She’ll be in the bedlam within three years, if she’s still breathing,” Stephen went on. “She’s here to make up the numbers, nothing more, and the taste of power it gives her will destroy her. If they told you otherwise, they lied.”
“Make him be quiet,” Lady Bruton snapped, and Baines lashed out, catching Stephen on his temple, knocking him sideways. He gave a cry of pain.
“Heroic,” Crane told Baines contemptuously. “Old women, idiot children, bound men, you’ll take on all comers. There’s a three-legged stray dog hangs around the lanes here. Perhaps some day you could work up to kicking that.”
Bruton walked over and backhanded him across the mouth, his ring splitting Crane’s lip open. “Shut up. Everyone, in position.”
Crane licked the blood off his lip, breathing deeply, and sat back on his heels as the six warlocks spaced themselves in a circle round thefoul display. He and Stephen were surrounded, bound, helpless, and even he could feel a subliminal throb in the air, a sense of brooding, intensifying power. The six looked vivid, as if more real than everything around them. Haining’s burns already appeared less angry, and Helen Thwaite’s wonderful hair glowed, so lovely to look on it almost hurt.
Bruton began to murmur. The obscene mess of death on the pedestal seemed to quiver, to move, and Crane looked at it with horror.
“They’re drawing down the power,” said Stephen softly.
Crane turned and saw him properly for the first time. Stephen’s face was swelling, one eye half closed, blood dried around his nose. He looked pale and shaky and sick, and very intent.
The warlocks shuffled forward, closing their circle round the filthy tangle of bones and skin. Bruton took out a long knife and tested the edge, turned slowly, and looked over at the two kneeling men with relish.
Hell and the devil, thought Crane. After all he’d seen and done, everywhere he’d been, this was the end, at last, and it had to be here, in bloody Piper. “Stephen...”
“Who are you going to kill first?” Stephen asked, with not quite enough bravado.
Sir Peter and Lady Bruton glanced at one another.
“Kill Crane,” said Helen pettishly. “He’s horrid.”
Baines gave her a look of contemptuous dislike. “We kill the justiciar first. Get rid of him now.”
“I want to make the pansy watch,” said Lady Bruton.
“Which one?” asked Haining with a smirk, and there was a ripple of laughter.
“Day.” She was talking to her husband. “Kill Crane and make Day watch. I want you to see his face when his boy friend screams for help, when he knows he’s failed before he dies. For you, and for Thomas.”
Bruton swept her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “My dear. Perfect.”
