The Versatiles Read online

  THE

  VERSATILES

  ALEX DUNCAN

  The Verstailes.

  Alex Duncan ©2018

  All right reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  The right of Alex Duncan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 9781980750918

  For Annabelle and Tabitha. For everything.

  Also by Alex Duncan

  Fynoderee

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THE VERSATILES

  ‘Imagination lies beyond a great divide

  And every door can lead to this other side

  Where through the wooden frame a little wonder spies

  And nightmare looks back with her jealous eyes.’

  (Anonymous approx.1787)

  CHAPTER ONE

  It began in a room underground, and it began with a spark.

  It burst out of the darkness as a piece of tinder ignited from inside its box and the white flame quickly smoothed into an orange tear of light. A man lifted the fleck of wood out of the box and let the flame kiss the wick of a candle until it too alighted and sent out a straight, needle thin line of smoke up towards the roof.

  The tinder died out and the man stared down at a pile of paper in front of him. Every page was blank.

  He carefully put the candle down to one side and picked up a feathered quill, licking the nib. A pot of ink lay by his hand; he dipped in the quill and quietly began to write. After that the only sound was the scratching of the nib as it left its trail of words on the paper.

  And the man was smiling.

  ◆◆◆

  Not so far away a young lady called Rosie Versatile was in the middle of a dream she would never remember when she realized she couldn’t breathe.

  She pried her eyes open to see the glare of a candle flame close to her face and, reaching up, felt a hard callused hand across her mouth. Through the light came the wrinkled, papery face of her grandfather, Henry Versatile, his hazel eyes shining so brightly she could see her own reflection in them. He lifted one bony finger to his lips and gestured for her to keep her peace, before removing his hand from over her mouth.

  ‘Our wait is over girl,’ he whispered. ‘Pack your things and be quick about it. It’s time to leave this wretched town.’ His voice was low but full of excitement in the small room and as he spoke he lifted up a letter with a broken red wax seal and waved it in front of Rosie’s face.

  ‘We have our next job.’

  Rosie sat up in bed, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Oh thank heavens,’ she said, snatching the letter from out of the old man’s hand. ‘I’m out of all patience with this place. We’ve been here for weeks and seen not so much as a glimmer of gratitude from anyone. Not to mention…’

  ‘Keep your peace girl,’ said the old man, the candlelight shaking next to his breath. ‘We don’t seek gratitude for our work. Remember that. If anything we seek the very reverse. To arrive and leave unnoticed is the best we could hope for if you ask me.’

  Rosie shrugged her shoulders and opened the letter, spreading it out in her lap and pulling her grandfather’s candle closer to the paper. In the flickering light the swirl of a familiar signature and seal at the bottom of the page was what first caught her attention.

  ‘The King?’ she asked, moving a finger over the fine penmanship and failing to stifle her excitement. ‘An assignment from the King himself?’

  Her grandfather nodded his head, the smallest smile creasing the corners of his lips.

  ‘We’ve not had an order from the King in at least twelve months,’ said Rosie. ‘I was beginning to wonder whether the rumours about his health had some truth to them.’

  ‘You know better than to listen to such idle gossip,’ said her grandfather. ‘The King’s still as sharp a blade, I warrant you.’ He stood up, taking the light and the letter with him.

  ‘We’ve only a short time until our carriage arrives. Be packed and ready by then. Nothing of yours is to remain here, not so much as a hair from your head…’

  ‘I know how to leave a room untouched grandpa. We’ve done this a hundred times, more I’ll wager. Now quit your belly-aching and leave me to get ready.’

  The old man smiled at her. The face that looked back, the face he knew so well, was slim and pretty with pale blue eyes and thick curly black hair hanging down just past her shoulders, a small, down turned mouth and a fixed expression of uncommon seriousness. Henry lifted a hand as if to say something before thinking better of it, turning on his bare heels, and shuffling across the wooden floor towards the door.

  ‘Oh grandpa,’ Rosie called back to him. The old man stopped halfway to the door and slowly turned back with a sour expression.

  ‘I didn’t see where we are going,’ she went on. ‘Please tell me it’s somewhere decent, Bath perhaps or Edmundsbury, somewhere with shops and well-dressed society. I don’t think I could bear more muddy fields and foggy graveyards.’

  ‘It is a town called Hope,’ said her grandfather. ‘I pray that’s decent enough for you.’ He turned to go but was stopped once more and frowned down at his granddaughter.

  ‘Hope?’ she squealed. ‘But that place is complete Bedlam! We’ve heard nothing of Hope that didn’t have the words riot and rebellion in the same breath. Oh, why can we never go anywhere where they might serve a pleasant cup of coffee in a pleasant coffee shop?’

  The old man sighed.

  ‘I wonder girl, would you take such a tone if the King himself were here to give us our charge?’

  Rosie huffed and climbed out of bed.

  ‘Well, would you?’

  ‘No, grandpa,’ she quietly conceded, throwing a heap of petticoats into an open trunk by the window.

  ‘Right, now make haste. There’ll be a post-chaise and four outside in thirty minutes and it wont wait. We’ll be travelling under darkness.’

  ‘No change there then,’ Rosie grumbled under her breath as her grandfather pulled the door shut behind him and left her alone in the dark.

  By the milky light of the half moon Rosie changed out of her nightdress into her simple travelling clothes and threw her belongings into several trunks, paying little care to fold or place anything with any neatness unless it was a particularly fine dress that she hadn’t had a chance to wear in months. She knocked the remains of a cup full of milk and honey resting on the windowsill onto the ground below and pulled a cross of embroidered red berries and a bunch of tied dill and rue from off the door frame and put them on top of her clothes before fastening the clasps shut.

  Once everything had been packed away and she had rubbed down the room with a white-gloved hand, brushing away lines of salt from around the frames of the door and the windows, she pulled on her dark, hooded cloak and looked at her dim reflection in the grimy mirror. She quickly realized that something was missing from her reflection. She ran over to the bed and reached under her pillow, pulling out a thin, silver chain
ed necklace. Hanging from the chain was nothing more than a smooth grey stone, not much bigger than her thumbnail, carved into a perfect ring. She clasped the chain behind her neck and looked around the room for the last time until she was satisfied that it was clean and that there was no trace of her stay then walked out of the door and past a yawning stable boy waiting to take her luggage downstairs.

  Spring was well underway but the night was clear and cool and the breath of the horses steamed as Rosie stepped out into the darkness and up into the carriage, pulling herself tighter into the warmth of her cloak. Her grandfather was already there, waiting next to her, and as soon as she had sat down he knocked on the roof of their cab with the head of his cane.

  ‘Carry on Norberry,’ he called out. ‘Teach these horses the meaning of speed. Hope before sunrise!’

  ‘Aye Mr Versatile, ye needn’t worry about them, they’re the fastest horses the King’s money can buy,’ he shouted over the crack of his whip. ‘You sit yerselves back and enjoy the ride.’

  They jolted back hard into their seat as they pulled away on the rough dirt track and were off. Rosie felt a familiar excitement as they gathered pace and the muted colours of the landscape began to speed past them.

  ‘Stop fidgeting and get some sleep girl,’ said her grandfather, ‘you’ll need your energy. There’ll be much to do come tomorrow.’

  ‘I wish you’d stop calling me girl grandpa, I grew out of my ponytails years ago. I’m a young lady now and, besides, I can’t sleep. I can never sleep when we’re on the move, you know that.’

  ‘Hardly very grown up of you if I might say…’

  ‘Oh do stop it,’ she said, threading her own arm through her grandfather’s and laying her head on his shoulder, looking up and out of the window to the clear, starry sky. ‘I don’t wish to spend the journey bickering. Tell me of our charge. Are we to free a manor house from an interminable boggart, or have we been ordered to cull a particularly pestilent outbreak of pixies?’

  ‘No, no, it’s much more serious than that I’m afraid,’ he said, squeezing her arm gently.

  ‘Not more graveyards, please tell me it’s not more graveyards.’

  ‘Not more graveyards, though I daresay such places will be like summer picnics in comparison to our charge, as would old manor houses and murky, cliff side follies.’

  ‘What is it? What have we been asked to do?’

  The horses’ hooves clattered against the hard path and Norberry’s whip cracked in the air as they gained yet more speed through the night towards Hope.

  ‘We girl,’ he said in a voice as low as a rumble, ‘have been invited to the theatre.’

  The carriage hit an upturned rock and they were briefly lifted from their seats before bumping back down to earth and speeding on their way. Rosie sat quite still staring at her grandfather.

  ‘Invited to the what?’

  ◆◆◆

  The next morning, in the town of Hope, a young man was getting a right talking to.

  ‘If you’d just stop and listen for a second Master Steadfast, you quarrelsome dolt!’ said Mrs Armstrong, the grocer’s wife, cracking poor Samuel Steadfast about the side of the head with a raw carrot. ‘We don’t have any of that strange stuff here; we’re a grocers shop. You should go and see Mr Pangloss the apothecary down Archer Street right by the theatre, like I told you.’

  ‘But Mrs Armstrong…?’

  She knocked him across the head again, harder this time and broke the carrot.

  ‘Now look what you’ve made me go and do, I should make you pay for that. Out of my shop or I’ll use the shovel on you!’

  Sam grabbed his list from on top of the counter and ran out of the shop, managing to knock over a basket of cabbages, a tray of apples and a bucket of onions before tripping on the lip of the door frame and landing face first in the dust of the street.

  ‘You’re as bad as your father!’ the woman yelled behind him. ‘You can barely put one foot in front of the other.’

  Sam stood up, brushing himself down and made a quick exit down the lane and back onto Corin Street, the High Street of Hope.

  It was mid-morning and every one was out and about. Stalls opened out from the terraces, showing their wares to the well dressed gentry and the air was perfumed with the scents of baked bread, crushed pears, roses, lavender, coffee, wig powder, beer, grouse, mutton pies, strawberries, chocolate, sweat, manure and wet dog.

  Sam kept his eyes down and headed straight along the wide street, not lifting his gaze once to glance at a single person, his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his worn frock coat. He was fuming in a proper temper. How dare that woman talk to him like that, the shrew!

  He walked on, passing the opening to a back alley where a tall soldier in his striking red and black uniform stood in the shadows with a hand resting on the glistening hilt of his sword. Sam casually turned his back on the guard and whistled away to himself until he was clear of him.

  In the centre of town the Crossroads tavern was just opening its doors for early custom. Sam dodged a gentleman on horseback leering over a flower girl and hurried on by, grumbling quietly to himself.

  Can’t see why they all stay around here if you ask me, he thought. It was better when the riots were going on I tell you. At least then there was none of this spying on your every move as if you were some petty thief on the look out for an easy purse.

  Archer Street was narrow and busy. Sam pushed his way through the throng of people who insisted on filling the whole the place, gossiping and merry making, until he came to a door with a squeaking sign above it with the word’s Pangloss’ Apothecary on it and a small picture of a cauldron.

  Once inside, the sounds of the street ceased. Every other shop in town may have been bursting at the seams but it looked like Pangloss’ Apothecary hadn’t had a single customer for an age.

  ‘Er…hello?’ Sam called out into the dusty, cold air. ‘Mr Pangloss are you there? Mr Pangloss it’s…’

  ‘Samuel Steadfast the younger,’ said a hoarse voice from behind a case full of glass bottles of many colours, all shrouded in cobwebs. ‘Son of Samuel Steadfast the elder, owner of the Hope and Charity tavern up Hope Hill.’

  ‘Erm…that’s right,’ said Sam.

  ‘And what is it I can do for you today Samuel Steadfast the younger? Oh no, don’t tell me. You wish to purchase a small quantity of arbutus leaf, some feverfew, a little root of valerian and some vervain. A curious herb, but you know what they say, “rue, vervain and dill, hinder witches from their will.” Is that all quite correct Master Steadfast?’

  ‘Well…yes…but how did you...?’

  ‘An ancient trick don’t you know,’ said the voice and a hand came out from behind the case holding a scrap of paper. ‘I took the liberty of reading your shopping list when you came through the door. Ha ha!’

  A skinny gentleman, as stooped as a sunflower in the wind, came out from behind the case and placed a small wooden pallet on the counter containing everything that Sam required.

  ‘That’s quite a recipe you’ve got there Master Steadfast. Your father up to something?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort. If the truth’s to be told, I was requested to get these…items…by a pair of our guests when they arrived at daybreak. I’ve not the faintest idea what they’re for and I know it’s not my place to ask.’

  ‘A pair of guests staying all the way up there you say. Every bed in town must be taken then. There’s a great fuss over this grand event at the theatre tomorrow night. I expect they’ll be here for that. You didn’t happen to catch the name of these folk that want such stuff? Just so I know who my true customers are you understand.’

  ‘I understand perfectly well Mr Pangloss, but they asked me not to say and I’ll never suffer my lips to break a vow. I’ll only say that one was an elderly gentleman who may have walked with a stick but looked as strong as an ox, and with him his ward, a young lady who was nothing but pride and rudeness. She looked so full of herself I had a r
ight mind to kick her up the backside…if you’ll excuse me.’

  ‘Pretty was she?’

  ‘I…er…I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Likely story.’

  Sam, a little red faced, put his payment on the counter, picked up his box of goods and, bidding Mr Pangloss a good day, left the shop.

  Pushing his way out of Archer Street he came back onto Corin Street right by the theatre. Even he couldn’t help but be impressed by its towering elegance, all tall pillars and fine, white stonework. It was the grandest building in the town.

  On the main door a large billboard read:

  A CASE OF HOPE

  Learn of our town’s success

  And our plans for all our futures

  Be diverted and amazed

  (Limited seats available)

  (Followed by a ball courtesy of Justice Brash)

  (No commoners)

  Sam gave a low whistle and muttered under his breath, ‘That I need to see.’

  ‘No chance of that I’m afraid,’ said a large lady coming out of a side entrance holding another bill and pot of glue in her arms.

  ‘Can’t you read? “No commoners” and besides…’

  She lifted up the other bill, plastered it across the main door and meaningfully tapped it with an outstretched finger. It read:

  SOLD OUT

  ‘Every seat’s gone. Such shows are not for the likes of errand boys.’

  Sam stood up as tall as he could and pushed his chest out as far as it would go.

  ‘I’m…er…no errand boy I’ll have you know.’

  ‘No? What are you then? For I’m certain you are no gentlemen.’

  ‘I happen to be a famous and notorious highwayman going about my daily routine under the disguise of an errand boy.’

  The woman laughed so hard she began to cough.

  ‘You’re a jester is what you are.’

  Sam puffed his cheeks out and slouched.