Septimus Heap, Book One_ Magyk - Angie Sage [110]
Inside the dismal barracks the Matron Midwife slows her pace. She walks carefully down a steep flight of narrow steps, which lead to a dank basement room full of empty cots lined up in ranks. It is what will soon become the Young Army nursery where all the orphaned and unwanted boy children from the Castle will be raised. (The girls will go to the Domestic Service Training Hall.) Already there are four unfortunate occupants. Three are triplet sons of a Guard who dared to make a joke about the Supreme Custodian’s beard. The fourth is the Matron Midwife’s own baby boy, six months old and being babysat in the nursery while she is at work. The babysitter, an old woman with a persistent cough, is slumped in her chair, dozing fitfully between coughing bouts. The Matron Midwife quickly places Septimus in an empty cot and unwinds his bandages. Septimus yawns and unclenches his tiny fists.
He is alive.
Jenna, Nicko, Boy 412 and Aunt Zelda stared at the scene before them in the pond, realizing that what the Apprentice had said now seemed to be all too true. Boy 412 had a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He hated seeing the Young Army barracks again.
In the semidarkness of the Young Army nursery the Matron Midwife sits down wearily. She keeps glancing anxiously at the door as if waiting for someone to come in. No one appears.
A minute or two later she heaves herself up from her chair and goes over to the cot where her own baby is crying and picks the child up. At that moment the door is flung open, and the Matron Midwife wheels around, white-faced, frightened.
A tall woman in black stands in the doorway. Over her black, well-pressed robes she wears the starched white apron of a nurse, but around her waist is a bloodred belt showing the three black stars of DomDaniel.
She has come for Septimus Heap.
The Apprentice didn’t like what he saw at all. He didn’t want to see the lowlife family he was rescued from—they meant nothing to him. He didn’t want to see what had happened to him as a baby either. What did that matter to him now? And he was sick of standing out in the cold with the enemy.
Angrily, the Apprentice kicked a duck sitting beside his feet, and booted the bird straight into the water. Bert landed with a splash in the middle of the pond, and the picture shattered into a thousand dancing fragments of light.
The spell was broken.
The Apprentice ran for it. Down to the Mott, along the path, racing as fast as he could, heading for the thin black canoe. He didn’t get far. Bert, who had not taken kindly to being kicked into the pond, was after him. The Apprentice heard the flapping of the duck’s powerful wings only a moment before he felt the peck of her beak on the back of his neck and the tug of his robes almost choking him. The duck took hold of his hood and pulled him toward Nicko.
“Oh, dear,” said Aunt Zelda, sounding worried.
“I wouldn’t bother about him,” said Nicko angrily as he caught up with the Apprentice and got hold of him.
“I wasn’t worried about him,” said Aunt Zelda. “I was just hoping that Bert didn’t strain her beak.”
38
DEFROSTING
The Apprentice sat huddled in the corner by the fire, with Bert still hanging on to one of his dangling damp sleeves. Jenna had locked all the doors and Nicko had locked the windows, leaving Boy 412 to keep watch over the Apprentice while they went to see how the Boggart was.
The Boggart lay at the bottom of the tin bath, a small mound of damp brown fur against the white of the sheet that Aunt Zelda had laid underneath him. He half opened his eyes and regarded his visitors with a bleary, unfocused gaze.
“Hello, Boggart. Are you feeling better?” asked Jenna.
The Boggart did not respond. Aunt Zelda dipped a sponge into a bucket of warm water and gently bathed him.
“Just keeping Boggart damp,” she said. “A dry Boggart is not a happy Boggart.”
“He’s not looking good, is he?” Jenna whispered to Nicko as they tiptoed quietly out of the kitchen with Aunt