‘Ash-brown. The ashes of Granada. Your hair is the colour of burned cities …’
Hester stood, mesmerized, as the whisper turned into silken threads that bound her. She didn’t dare to move; she scarcely dared to breathe. She was afraid to unwittingly commit some error that would cause the marble-smooth, marble-cold fingers on her face to withdraw.
‘It is only a legend in the end,’ she murmured, too wary to speak louder. ‘The ashes of Granada.’
‘But it is not.’ Lucy shook her head slowly, a dreamy movement under water. ‘I believe it, and so should you. Your forebears did live in that city, the last stronghold of the fallen empire. They saw the legendary warriors marching out of the gates. They conversed with the wisest scholars from all over the Continent. Your ancestors wore silk, and gauze, and the tunics of the Arabs …’
Lucy was now standing precariously close to her; so close that Hester could feel the fleeting warmth of her breath. Then she leaned closer still, and the last words were whispered in Hester’s ear, and their heat almost scorched her.
Unwittingly, Hester leaned to her in turn, eager to be closer still, to feel it again, the warmth and the whisper and the touch.
***
Lady Lucy, however, said no more. She looked at the dark girl with strange, glazed eyes, which gleamed as if with an early fever. They stood in precarious silence, gazing into each other’s faces, each eager to read something in the other, but each unable to interpret it.
‘A Moorish girl,’ Lucy said at last, softly and quietly, never letting her gaze wander from Hester’s eyes. ‘Isn’t that what you are? My Moorish girl?’
‘I suppose I am,’ Hester replied, smiling faintly.
The spell was broken, the silken threads torn apart. Almost unwillingly, Lady Lucy took a step back.
‘I’m glad you liked my writing,’ she said, her voice back to normal. ‘Would you care to read anything else?’
‘Is there anything else?’ Hester asked, breathing slowly as if to calm herself down.
‘Oh, there’re some drafts left. Some are unfinished, I’m afraid.’
Not that many of her drafts had survived to this moment. Lucy remembered rereading some of her early stories, some of her childish attempts at grand novels, and dying of embarrassment. She remembered then feeding them to the golden flame and watching them burn – a pang of sadness in her heart mixed with a dose of relief. Now, at least, they were safely buried, and no one would know about their silliness. About her silliness.
***
‘Will you write anything more about Amina?’
‘The Moorish lady? Well, to be honest, I’m not sure. I’ve more or less finished the story I wanted to write. She survives the Spanish invasion and goes into exile …’
‘But there must be something more,’ Hester persisted. ‘Some later story. She couldn’t have reached the English shores without any adventures at all!’
‘You are right.’ Lucy’s fingers drummed briefly against the vanity table. The same nervous melody. ‘What did we have in England? The Wars of the Roses was definitely over by then …’
‘Maybe she didn’t go straight to England at all! Maybe she stayed in France for several years.’
‘Why would she cross the Channel in the end, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Hester confessed. ‘I’d just like to read about France.’
‘I know!’ Lucy all but jumped. ‘She was recruited to spy for the French. They needed to know more about the situation as the new dynasty stepped onto the throne. The Tudors, I mean,’ she explained clumsily.
‘But that’s grand! I mean, excellent! And she was an alchemist, wasn’t she? That means, she knew a lot about poisons and … and … other things!’
‘Yes!’ Lucy gripped her hands, her face glowing with excitement. ‘Yes, that would be splendid! But she would have to cross to our side in the end. By the end of the second book, at least.’
‘She can meet a lad, some fine young Welsh archer. He will have blue eyes …’ Hester said somewhat wistfully.
Lady Lucy waved the suggestion aside.
‘No, defecting for love won’t do. I mean, there are thousand stories like that written already, and almost none of them managed to convince me. I am not saying that such foolish women don’t exist, of course. It’s just that I am still yet to meet any. No, we’ll invent something more interesting. Something much, much more interesting …’
Again, that drumming. Again, that unnerving rhythm.
‘Oh, this is going to be champion. I mean, splendid,’ Hester breathed. ‘It will be so much better than all those spy stories about sinister Germans.’
‘Are they still around? I’ve noticed they’ve started to go out of fashion lately. Perhaps people are finally realizing that the war is over.’
‘Well, that’s the North for you,’ Hester joked. ‘We are slow to follow fashions. Some of our girls in the tailor’s workshop were still wearing Eton crops.’
‘Oh, speaking about the North – you should teach me this peculiar dialect of yours one day. It sounds very crisp.’
‘I would! But I’m afraid Her Ladyship will flay me alive for corrupting her daughter.’
‘Corrupting me!’ Lucy laughed. ‘No, Hester. I don’t think you will manage to corrupt me.’
‘Her Ladyship might think otherwise.’
‘My mother –’ Lady Lucy emphasized these words ‘– doesn’t need to know things that can distress her. I wouldn’t be a good daughter if I were to endanger her fragile nerves, would I? Unfortunately, my lady mother happens to be distressed by practically everything; therefore, I have to prevent all these things from reaching her delicate ears.’ She smiled a delightful, open smile. ‘I am a good daughter, after all.’
Hester didn’t find words to argue with that. Not that she tried particularly hard.
That afternoon, she left the room with a great stack of pages. Some of them were covered with a neat type, some with florid handwriting; some seemed to be almost fit for publishing, some were patched with ink stains and irritated cross-outs.
All of them promised sleepless nights.
Hester’s head was still slightly swimming from the exhaustion of the morning, but her hands were trembling with excitement. The future was great, splendid, champion, golden. It held irresistible new books she could be the first in the whole world to read. It held a service to … no, a company of her lady. It held the trip to the capital she had dreamt about since her childhood years.
She couldn’t imagine anything that could throw her from the Olympus of her happiness today.
***
The house was growing dark and sleepy. It was as if some complex mechanism was gradually coming to a halt, its intricate cogs slowing down.
The old silver downstairs was getting locked up. The kitchen maid was finishing the last of her chores, polishing the old pans with salt and lemon skins, so that tomorrow they would shine like burnished gold. The Countess’s own maid was brushing her mistress’s hair for the required fifty minutes, so they, too, would always shine like burnished gold.
Hester Blake tiptoed into the dimly lit library, a heavy tome under her arm. She had to return this anthology of adventure stories today; it wouldn’t do to keep other people’s books in her room for longer than was necessary. And, in any case, she now had plenty to read.
She would not start today. She had to sleep