The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands (21)

CHAPTER

22

A COUPLE OF MONTHS AFTER I’d turned twelve, I’d nearly broken open my skull. I’d been playing handball in Bunhill Fields when another boy tripped me, sending me sprawling headfirst into a tree. I couldn’t walk—I couldn’t even stand—so Tom had carried me all the way back to the shop. He’d laid me down on my palliasse, where Master Benedict had leaned over me.

I hadn’t known where I was. Terrified, I’d struggled to run away.

Gently, Master Benedict had held me down in the straw. “It’s all right, Christopher,” he’d said. “It’s me. It’s me.”

My senses returned. “I thought I was back at the orphanage,” I’d said, still shaking.

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Master Benedict had said. “Blackthorn is your home. It always will be.”

But that was a promise he couldn’t keep. And now everything else was falling apart, too.

My shoulder burned with the sting of a dozen hornets. Tom was probably getting it even worse from his father. I’d never be allowed to see him again. And now I didn’t have anywhere to stay. I thought about throwing myself on the mercy of the Guild, but I might not even have that option. If Grand Master Thorpe didn’t believe my story, I’d be all alone—no home, no food, and no friends, left to fend for myself against the Cult of the Archangel.

I wouldn’t have thought anything could be scarier. But if Lord Ashcombe really was looking for me, my crumbling life had got even worse.

I felt sick.

•  •  •

The man with the slate-gray eyes let me into Apothecaries’ Hall again. He looked annoyed that I’d returned. “Come on, then,” he said, waving me past him impatiently.

I stepped inside cautiously, irritating him further. “Is Stubb—uh, Master Stubb here?” I said.

The man barred the door behind me and walked away. “Hasn’t been here all day.” I was relieved, although the fact that the man knew whom I was talking about meant Stubb was a regular. He could still show up any minute. I prayed this meeting wouldn’t take too long to start.

I crossed the courtyard, planning to return to the clerk’s office on the main floor where Oswyn had told me to wait this morning. An apprentice with long dark hair lounged on the main steps to the upper levels, tossing a small dagger into the air and catching it clumsily. I watched, half cringing, sure that any minute, fingers would go flying.

The dagger thrower looked to be about sixteen. He noticed me watching him while the knife was in midair. The dagger missed his fingers and bounced off his blue apron, right in a spot you don’t want daggers to go. Flustered, he stood.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I’m here to speak to Grand Master Thorpe,” I said. “Master Colthurst told me to return at four o’clock for a meeting.”

The apprentice looked back at the windows. “Oh. All right. You can wait in Master Colthurst’s office, then.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

He slid his dagger into his belt. “I’ll show you.”

The stone steps in the courtyard led to burnished cherry floors inside. I hadn’t been up here since three years ago, when I’d gone to the Great Hall to take my entrance test. The same finely woven tapestries hung from the walls, just as they had back then. On one side was the blue shield of the Apothecaries’ Guild. On the other, a man gathered herbs while a unicorn looked on. The light of heaven shone down on him through parted clouds.

The apprentice led me past the landing that went to the Great Hall and up to the third floor. As we climbed the stairs, I had a vague impression that I’d seen the boy before. I wondered if he’d been here when I’d taken my entrance exam. He was probably too old to have tested with me, but he could have been assigned to the Hall at the time.

“Are you Master Colthurst’s apprentice?” I asked him.

“Me? No.” He flicked his hair from his face and walked me down a long hallway with chestnut paneling. At the end, we reached a simple door with the key still in the keyhole. The apprentice knocked on the door and listened for a moment. When no reply came, he opened it.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll tell the masters you’ve arrived.” I stepped inside. He closed the door behind me, the latch clacking shut.

So this was Oswyn’s office. It was tidy—I’d expect that from a Puritan—but smaller than I thought it would be. A simple desk was in the center. An uncomfortable-looking wooden chair sat behind it, its back to the courtyard window. An identical chair faced it. The desk was covered with neatly stacked papers, one sheaf stained with oil that had leaked from an unlit lantern perched on the nearby corner. The plaster walls were stark and colorless, undecorated except for a series of vellum pages pinned to them, some with writing, some with drawings of various figures and icons. A handful of empty pots were arrayed on one side, half a dozen books on the other.

I sat in the chair opposite the desk and waited. There was a curious sketch on the wall beside me. Two men and two women rode magical beasts: a griffin, a manticore, a centaur, and a winged horse. Each figure was labeled in Latin with one of the four elements, the building blocks of all creation. Aer, ignis, aqua, terra. Air, fire, water, earth.

The beasts in the drawing reminded me of the mural below the Mortimer house. I thought of the lock hidden behind it, the crypt under the sarcophagus, the statues of saints in the alcoves.

Secrets under secrets, I thought. Codes inside codes.

The Cult of the Archangel had begun its murderous campaign four months ago. One month later, Master Benedict had shown me the book of saints. At the time, I’d been confused. Catholic saints?

“It’s important to understand history,” my master had said. “You never know when you’ll need it.” And I had.

Then he gave me my puzzle cube. It wasn’t just an incredible birthday present. It was a lesson in symbols, and liquid keys. I’d seen those, too, in the mural below the crypt.

Now I understood.

He’d been training me. Even in secret, Master Benedict had never stopped training me. He’d wanted me to find the chamber in the crypt. He’d led me every step of the way. To do that, he’d taught me everything I needed, except one essential thing: what the symbols in the mural meant.

He had to know I didn’t understand them. He wouldn’t bring me to the edge and just leave me there. He must have given me the solution.

It had to be in the message in the ledger.

I put my ear to the keyhole in Oswyn’s door and listened for a moment. Hearing no footsteps, I returned to the desk and pulled the ledger paper and scrap from under my master’s sash.

That line. That one line I couldn’t understand.

JSYYAALYUFMIYZFT

What had I missed? I looked at the original message, the whole thing together.

†Δ esid. A: rapf. O set. age Htsn. oil eh. two leb. Ht4: shg. Uh. ← ↓M08→ 05142020222207201601080420210115 end.swords neminidixeris

Each line hid something different. The first, with the sword and triangle I didn’t understand, told me how to find the crypt, where I’d seen similar symbols I didn’t understand. The last line was the warning, in Latin, to keep it secret.

That left the middle line, from which Tom and I had generated the jumble of letters. The key to deciphering the symbols had to be in there. It occurred to me that we hadn’t yet figured out what “end.swords” meant. It had to be related to what came before.

End swords. How would that help me decipher the code?

I’d seen a lot of swords lately: the symbol on the first line of the message, the angel statue in the mausoleum, the mural on the iron door below. Had I overlooked something on one of them? Was there another sword somewhere I hadn’t found?

I shook my head, feeling like I was missing the point. Swords didn’t make any sense here. This line was a cipher. It hid words.

Ends words. End’s words.

End’s words? What words? What end?

Of the message?

What was special about the end of the message?

Nemini dixeris, it said. Tell no one.

I thought about it. It was a warning. It was two words, written as one. It was in Latin.

Latin?

Master Benedict, apothecary. Latin, the language of apothecaries.

Secrets under secrets. Codes inside codes.

Was the cipher supposed to be in Latin?

I frowned. Tom had already asked if the message was in Latin. I’d said it couldn’t be. The Latin alphabet had only twenty-three letters. There was no J, you used I for both. There was no U, either; V took its place. And there was no W. So JULIUS CAESAR would be written as IVLIVS CAESAR. You’d never even get a J.

I froze.

A mistake. I’d made a mistake.

You’d never even get a J. Because it’s not part of the alphabet.

I’d translated the message as if it were English. But if the message was in Latin, then the code was wrong from the start. With a different alphabet, the letters wouldn’t come out the same.

I grabbed a quill from Oswyn’s desk. I wrote out the cipher, starting as before with 08 for M, but this time in Latin.

I began the new translation. After five letters, my fingers began to shake. I had to use my left hand to hold them steady.

I got the new message. I stared at it.

ISAACCLAVEMHABET

Tom was right. It was Latin.

Isaac clavem habet, it said.

Isaac has the key.