Fever Crumb (12 page)

For a while the birds, which had been scared into the sky by the gunshots, kept circling and calling, but gradually they settled again, and it grew very quiet. Fever crouched among the birches, picturing cubes and pyramids and cones and making herself recite their different properties. She had wrapped her arms tight round herself, and her breathing was quick and shallow and she was trying not to move.

Kit Solent dropped his pistol and stooped over the Skinner, feeling for a pulse amid the white stubble on his throat, as if there were a chance he might still be alive. Blood flowed steadily and sadly from him, looking almost purple as it curled into the green water.

"I think this is Creech," he said. He tried to laugh. "I think I've killed Bagman Creech...."

"Who?" said Fever.

"Old Skinner general from the riots. I thought he'd died years ago. Well, he's dead now all right. Oh, Poskitt...I've never shot anyone before. I carry the gun in case of thieves, but I never expected...Why didn't he listen to me? The stupid old fool! I told him to drop his gun, but he didn't listen! He was just going to go ahead and...The gods alone know what he was thinking!"

"What did he want with me?" asked Fever, edging closer to look at the dead man. It seemed to her that you did not need to be an imaginary deity to understand why Creech had acted as he did. It was simply that he thought Fever's death was more important than his own life, and he had thought he would be able to kill her before Kit killed him. What she still didn't understand was what it was that had made him hate her so.

"He said ... he said I wasn't human...."

"He was mad," said Kit firmly. With trembling hands he picked his pistol up and stuffed it back into his pocket. "Fever, I'm so sorry. It's my fault. I should never have brought you here. You're not ready...."

Fever looked up at him. "He said I was a Scriven. A half-breed Scriven...but there's no such thing, is there?"

"He was a mad old man. He didn't know what you are."

"But you do?"

Kit looked away, scanning the marsh for signs of movement. There was none. He left Fever alone and went to look for the Skinner's boy, but soon gave up. What could he do if he did find him? Shoot him, too? The kid hadn't looked much older than Ruan. He gave up and returned to where Fever waited. "He's run off. if he goes back to London and tells what happened here, you'll be in danger.... We both will.... People still look up to the Skinners in the cheap boroughs." He reached down and pulled her to her feet. "Fever, can you open the vault?"

The door code was as clear in Fever's mind as it had been before she met the Skinner. Her fingers knew the precise movements that they would have to make to type the right sequence on the ivory keys. But she was too scared and confused to trust Kit Solent anymore. What would happen if she did open the door for him? What would become of her when she was no more use to him?

"No," she said. "I don't know the code. I never did."

Kit stood staring at her. He was more than half sure that she was lying. When she said, "No," her voice dipped in the middle. When she said, "I don't know the code," a blush spread right across her face and her ears turned red. He wanted to drag her back inside the hill; force her back to the lock and make her open it....

But he was not that sort of man. Ruthlessness had never been his style. All his life he'd been kind; the sort of boy who came home bloody-nosed from school after standing up for smaller boys against the bullies. The sort of man who could never bring himself to smack his children when they misbehaved, or even to stay cross with them for long. He looked at Fever as she stood in front of him all trembly and mud stained, yet still trying to look poised and rational, and it was impossible to even imagine himself making her keep working at the lock. She needed help; she needed his protection; she needed, like any lost and frightened child, to be home.

And so did he. Killing Creech had shocked him. He felt sick of Nonesuch House and its secrets. They weren't worth a life, not even the life of a crazy old man. Let the Movement have them. He wanted to go home.

"Come on," he said, taking Fever's hand, and she numbly let him hold it and lead her uphill to the hidden entrance. "We'll get you back to Godshawk's Head. You'll be safe there, if that boy makes trouble."

Kit shut the secret door behind them and they went downstairs to where their lanterns waited. Fever's had gone out, but she found a box of matches among his tools and relit it and stuffed the matches in her pocket as she followed him back into the tunnel. Kit did not even look at the vault door and the lock as they passed it. Fever dimly understood how much he was giving up. Half of her, the still-rational half, wanted to turn back and find out if her hand still knew the dance it had longed to do on Godshawk's keypad. But she was afraid. Something deep and strange had stirred inside her when she stood there before. She had been overwhelmed by something, and the most frightening thing about it was that she could not find any rational explanation; it had felt as if she were possessed by some malevolent spirit.

"I'm sorry," she managed to mumble, trailing Kit back along the tunnel.

"No, Fever," he said. "I'm sorry. I should never have brought you here."

They walked on in silence and thought of the Skinner's boy haring home across the marshes, somewhere above their heads.

"Why did you?" asked Fever. "Bring me here, I mean? Why did you think I could help?"

Kit stopped and looked at her again in the lantern light. "I don't know."

"But you must have had a reason for choosing me."

He turned and walked on, so fast that Fever had to run to keep up. They splashed through a flooded section of the tunnel, sloshing shadows and wet echoes ahead of them. After another fifty yards or so Kit stopped again, turned back to her, and seemed to come to some decision. "Fever, I haven't told you the truth. Not everything."

Fever waited while he looked at the floor, the tunnel walls, the lantern, anywhere but at her, working out in his head what he had to confess to her.

"It all began when I found that notebook of Godshawk's at Rag Fair," he said. "I didn't know what those strange designs were for, and I still don't, but it got me interested in the old man. I'd heard a lot about Godshawk the king, but nothing about Godshawk the scientist. So I started asking questions, and after a while my questions led me to a girl named Katie Unthank. Her late father had been an archaeologist who'd worked sometimes with Godshawk, and she had heard things from him. She had heard about the existence of the vault, the workshop where Godshawk was supposed to have devised his most secret inventions. And she had heard about you."

"
Me
?"

"Katie didn't know much. Only that the Order of Engineers was bringing up a child called Fever Crumb, and that you were important. There had been some kind of experiment when you were newborn. Unthank believed that some of Godshawk's knowledge had been transferred into your brain."

"That's impossible," said Fever, Engineerishly.

"Maybe, but that's what Katie told me. Her father used to say, 'When that girl grows up, she'll be the key that unlocks Godshawk's secrets.' He claimed that whatever Godshawk had done to your brain, its effects wouldn't be apparent until you were an adult.

"It was Katie who told me the story of the old tunnel which was supposed to link Nonesuch with the Barbican. We spent months looking for it. We didn't find it, but while we were trying, we fell in love. After that we were so happy, and so busy with each other and the children, that we let ourselves forget Godshawk and his secrets. Then, last year, I heard about that cave-in and guessed the tunnel's course. I thought Katie would have wanted me to explore it, and use whatever treasures I found in Godshawk's vault to provide for Fern and Ruan. When I came up against his lock I remembered that strange tale she'd told me about the child who'd gone to live with the Engineers. I knew you wouldn't be old enough yet for Godshawk's memories to have surfaced, but I thought that if I took you to Nonesuch House, and exposed you to the old man's favorite scents and tastes, it might jog something....

"I shouldn't have done it. I knew all along that it was unfair to use you like that. But lately, with this news from the north...I thought it was worth trying anything that would get me into that vault before the Movement arrived. I was wrong. I'm sorry."

"I don't believe it's possible," said Fever again, after they had walked on a few hundred yards in silence. "I don't believe Godshawk could have put thoughts into my brain. That's just voodoo science, the kind of foolish story that the newspapers like to print, to make people think that the Ancients were capable of miracles...."

But she was trying to convince herself as well as Kit. Because the Ancients
had
been capable of miracles, or at least of science so advanced that it
seemed
miraculous, even to an Engineer. And did Kit's story not offer an explanation, at last, for the memories that had been gathering in her head like fog ever since she first went to Nonesuch House?

"I'm sorry, Fever," said Kit again, after another half mile.

"You should not have had to hear all this from me. I don't understand it and I can't explain it very well. You need to talk to Dr. Crumb."

"Why?"

"He must know something. It isn't usual for the Engineers to take in a baby girl. They must have known about you from the start."

"No!" said Fever. "Dr. Crumb
found
me. In a basket. And he thought it would be irrational to leave me. He told me so, and he wouldn't lie. He doesn't believe in telling lies

But as she spoke she was touching the back of her head, tracing the silvery scar that had been there since the day she was found. Could she really believe all Dr. Crumb had told her? Was that not a little too much like blind faith? And even if she trusted him, could she trust Dr. Stayling and all the other members of the Order? Katie Solent's father, who had worked for Godshawk, had been the same Master Unthank whom Dr. Crumb had gone to visit on the day he found Fever....

Had her discovery been carefully arranged? Perhaps Dr. Stayling and the other senior Engineers had taken her into the Head in the same spirit that they gave space to white rats and fruit flies and cultures of bacteria on petri dishes -- merely as an experiment to be observed.

***

It seemed a long, long way, that walk back through the tunnel. But they emerged at last into the antechamber behind the bookcase, and stood staring at each other for a moment, like conspirators, listening to the faint sound of the children's laughter from upstairs.

"That's strange," said Kit, looking relieved that he had something else to talk about besides the contents of Fever's brain. "They should be at school...."

The laughter grew louder as they emerged through the bookcase. They found Ruan in the hall, lumbering along on all fours, while Fern clung giggling to his back. "Ruan's a horse!" she shouted, when she saw them. "Fever, look, Ruan's a horse!"

"No, Ruan is a bipedal primate," said Fever helpfully, (she had still not got the hang of make-believe.)

"Children," said their father, stooping to hug the little girl as she tumbled laughing off her brother's back, "why aren't you at school?"

"School's shut!" said Ruan, looking very happy about it. "Miss Wernicke's run away for fear of the nomads attacking."

"It's true, sir," announced Mistress Gloomstove, who appeared just then from the kitchen, dusting her hands on her apron. "We found a notice on Miss Wernicke's door this morning saying as how she's gone to stay with her sister in Slugg's Pottage on account of the nomad horde, sir, and school's closed indefinitely. She apologized for the inconvenience, as if that made it any better. Why, I'd give her inconvenience if I had her here. Have you ever tried dusting and tidying this place, sir, with these two young savages rampaging around and getting underfoot? I'm glad to see you home to deal with them, sir, I do say...."

Kit Solent gave the housekeeper his most charming smile. "I'm deeply sorry, Mistress G; you know that I'd not have left them with you if I'd had the least inkling that school was off. But I'm afraid I can't relieve you of them just yet. I have to take Fever back to Godshawk's Head, you see. It will take only ten minutes...half an hour at most ..."

Mistress Gloomstove's face took on a cold, faraway look. "I don't know about that, sir. I'm employed to keep house, sir. If it's a nursemaid or a governess you're wanting ..."

"Naturally, I'll make it up to you," said Kit hastily, and hurried upstairs to his office.

Fern, Ruan, and Mistress Gloomstove all stood and looked at Fever.

"You're all muddy," said Fern at last.

"Yes. Yes I am," admitted Fever, looking down at herself. Her neat white coat was splashed and scribbled with dark sprays of Brick Marsh mud and greenish stains of moss and grass. For all she knew there was blood there, too. "I fell over," she said, rather lamely. "In some mud."

She was glad of the clatter of Kit's boots coming back down the stairs. He had Fever's cardboard suitcase under his arm, and he was rummaging in a leather purse. "Here," he said, handing a shiny coin to Mistress Gloomstove. "I hope that will be some small token of my thanks; sorry it can't be more, but I must save some for the chair fare. I shall be back as soon as I can. Don't open the door to anyone while I am gone."

He kissed the children, and suddenly Fever found herself making her quick good-byes and stepping outside after him into the sullen stormy light, and it occurred to her that she would probably never see the house or the children again. There was rain in the air. They didn't go toward Cripplegate but turned downhill instead, walking quickly through quiet and half-deserted streets and empty courts until they reached the edges of Limehouse, where Kit hailed a passing chair. The chief bearer asked, "Where to, mate?" and Kit told him, "Godshawk's Head."