Goblin Moon (8 page)

“See here,” he finally gathered the courage to ask
the others, “am I of any use here at all?”

The stout young dwarf put down his pen, tipped back
his chair and appeared to consider. “You’ve given Master Ule the
opportunity to do a good and generous deed—which there’s nothing he
likes better. That’s useful, anyway. And if you work hard and learn
all that you can, why then, he’ll find you another position just as
he promised, and there you
may
be of use,
as well as affording considerable satisfaction to the kindest heart
in Thornburg.”

Jed thought that over. “I take it, I ain’t the first
piece of river trash Master Ule’s taken up and tried to make into
something better.”

“You’re the first in the counting-house,” said the
other dwarf, looking up from his work. “But half the fellows in the
glasshouse were once ‘trash’ (as you are pleased to call yourself)
and now they are all worthy and useful members of the community . .
. thanks to Master Ule. Oh, I don’t say he hasn’t taken a scoundrel
or two in by mistake, but he’s a very good judge of character and
most of his charity cases turn out well.

“We don’t mind taking our turn and helping you to get
on,” he added. “Why should we? We are all Master Ule’s
beneficiaries, in one way or the other. Work hard and learn all you
can—that will please the Master—and if you please him, you please
us as well. But if you are too proud or too lazy to take the
opportunity he has offered you . . . why then, you will disappoint
us all.”

With the matter presented to him in that light, Jed
could only conclude that he would be a bit of a scoundrel himself,
did he refuse Master Ule’s help. He went back to his ledgers with a
good will, and a firm resolution that he
would
work hard, learn all that he could, and prove
himself one of the deserving ones.

When evening came, Master Ule took his hand and
pumped it vigorously. “You are a hard worker, and a very good boy.
I am pleased to employ you.”

Under the circumstances, Jed felt uncomfortable
bringing up the subject of money—but gratitude, and good
resolutions notwithstanding, he could not afford to work for
nothing. “We never did come to no agreement on the matter of
wages.”

“No more we did,” said the dwarf. “I thank you for
reminding me. Now, let me see—you have been out of work for some
time now, so I think I may safely assume that your financial
circumstances are . . . somewhat embarrassed?”

There was no denying that, but Jed was still
reluctant to take advantage of the dwarf’s good nature. “There
ain’t been any talk of throwing me and Uncle Caleb out of our
lodgings . . . not yet, anyways.”

Master Ule considered for a few moments more. “What
do you say to fifteen shillings a week—the first fortnight in
advance? In that way you may pay off some of your more pressing
debts, as well as buy yourself garments of . . . rather more recent
vintage.”

Jed was too dazed to answer. Fifteen shillings a
week, thirty a fortnight—that was close to a season’s pay for his
gleanings on the river, except when the moon and the tides were
particularly generous.

Master Ule continued on: “In general, we begin our
day here an hour after sunrise, but you needn’t trouble yourself
about that tomorrow. I expect you will wish to spend the morning
settling your affairs and seeing to that new suit of clothes.”

When Jed arrived home that evening, he found Uncle
Caleb waiting up for him, in the little room they shared above a
grog shop, seated in the one good chair the room could boast of: a
rocking chair pulled up by the tiny fireplace.

Even at this season, nights by the river were often
cold and damp, so Caleb had lit a little driftwood fire on the
hearth and set Jed’s evening bowl of porridge on the hob to keep
warm.

“We can save the porridge for morning and fry it up
in grease,” said Jedidiah, unwrapping a brown paper parcel he had
carried in and arranging the contents on a little table by the
fire: a side of bacon, six sausages, a pot of fresh cheese, and a
loaf of bread.

The room was not an elegant one, but it possessed a
certain broken-down charm. Besides the rocking chair, there was a
footstool and two or three less reliable chairs. The walls had been
papered some fifteen years before—during a period of comparative
prosperity following the sale of a jeweled brooch—in a pattern of
blushing gillyflowers and curling green ivy on a cream ground, but
the paper was scarred and faded now, and a large oak sideboard (the
result of another windfall) was filled with mismatched china in
blues and roses and antique golds, most of it chipped or
broken.

These amenities had been purchased to please Jed’s
mother, who had abandoned the family roof three years past, to live
with Jed’s sister and her sea-faring husband, declaring that
neither the sideboard nor the wallpaper was conveniently portable,
and she supposed young Belinda had equally nice things of her own,
anyways. The other domestic arrangements consisted of two bunks
built into the wall, two patchwork quilts in colors as faded as the
wallpaper, a hammock suspended from the ceiling (which accommodated
Jed’s nephews when they came to visit), some pots, pans, tin
cutlery, and a wash-tub which occasionally doubled as a second
table.

Jed took his chances with one of the chairs, sat
down, and began to relate the events of the day. Much to his
surprise and chagrin, Caleb greeted his new position and his
prospects for the future, not with delighted approval, but with a
burst of outrage.

“A bottle factory? Blister me if the boy ain’t gone
and thrown his lot in with the d----d Glassmakers!” Caleb pounded
his fist on an arm of the rocking chair. “Didn’t I never warn you
about the Glassmakers Guild and all their tomfool rituals and
mummery?”

“I guess you have,” Jed replied, with a sigh. “I
guess I remember it all pretty well, you being so particular about
telling me. What I don’t understand is what it—“

But Caleb was not about to spare him another recital.
He folded his arms, rocked his chair, and fixed Jed with a beady
black eye, so fierce and full of fire, the boy knew there was no
use continuing until Caleb had had his say.

“Them other guilds is mostly harmless,” said Caleb.
“Do they dress up in fancy robes on festival days and chant
nonsense? Yes, they do. Do they carry on between times with secret
handshakes and passwords, all real mysterious? They do that, too.
But the difference is: it’s mostly play-acting, just calculated to
impress ignorant folk like you and me, to keep us in awe of the
all-mighty guilds and their all-mighty craft mysteries, which even
the guildsmen they don’t hardly none of them know what they’re
about. The words and the rituals has all lost their meaning, and
you ask me: ‘tis all for the best. But them Glassmakers are
different, they take it more serious than most. Yes, and they got
good reason,
because they know what the
ceremonies is for, they remember the magic and the mystery at the
heart of them.”

By now, Caleb was rocking his chair so hard that the
floorboards creaked in protest, and the cups and plates on the
sideboard rattled and jumped, ‘til it seemed likely that the old
man would bust them all.

“What they don’t know—or won’t know—it don’t make no
difference,” Caleb continued, “is the danger in what they do.
They’re dealing in mysteries they don’t rightly understand, and I
know for a fact them guildsmen has been tampering with things they
had much better leave clean alone.”

But by this time, Jed’s patience was wearing pretty
thin. “Yes, but I don’t see what none of that has got to do with
me. I ain’t been apprenticed to Master Ule or nothing like
that.”

“
They ain’t all of them
glassmakers—I told you that afore,
” thundered Caleb. “There’s
gentlemen . . . bookish gentlemen, joined the Guild as well, hoping
to be let in on some of their secrets . . . think them guildsmen is
some kind of magicians, and if’n they join the Guild, why,
they’ll
become magicians, too.”

“I think you’ve gone plumb crazy,” Jed told him
frankly. It was not his way to give his granduncle any sass, but
Caleb had pushed him beyond all endurance. “Magic! You’re obsessed
with it, you and Mr. Jenk. But I was there at the bottle factory
all day long, and nobody said nothing about your magical rituals.
They was all too busy making bottles or shipping them out—and
there’s naught mysterious or magical about any of that!”

“Hmmph!” sniffed Caleb, though it was obvious Jed had
given him pause. The old man became thoughtful; the rocking and the
rattling gradually ceased.

“Aye . . . well, I reckon not, not likely they’d make
you a ‘prentice nor let you in on any of their secrets, you being
related to me and all,” he sniffed resentfully. “But didn’t it
never occur to you, lad, that this Master Ule of yours took such a
shine to you just because he knew you was my grandnevvy? Didn’t you
never think he might be curious to learn what Gottfried Jenk and I
been doing at the bookshop?”

Jed was aghast. “Here now . . . you don’t think it
was Master Ule and the Glassmakers who put that coffin with the wax
dummy into the Lunn?”

“Put the coffin . . .” Caleb did not immediately
remember the story Jenk had concocted for the benefit of Walther
and Matthias. “No, no, it ain’t nothing like that. I meant to say
that word might have got around, that Walther and Matthias might
not be keeping mum the way they promised. There might be folks who
got questions about the . . . wax figure . . . and what it all
means.”

Jedidiah shook his head. “If Walther and Matthias
blabbed we’d know it. And anyways, I just remembered: Master Ule
didn’t have no idea who I was when he hired me. No, he never asked
my name until the day was half done. And even then, why should he
guess—or care—that I was your grandnevvy? There’s hundreds of men
named Braun in Thornburg.”

Jedidiah did not mention that Master Ule had taken a
greater interest
after
Jed mentioned his
connection with Gottfried Jenk. He knew that Caleb was bound to
make more of it than was sane or reasonable. As for himself, Jed
had no doubts in the matter at all; after spending a day in Master
Ule’s bottle factory and speaking with his clerks, he was firmly
convinced that the dwarf was not capable of conceiving anything so
sinister as an ulterior motive.

“Aye . . . well, maybe so.” Caleb began to rock
again, but more gently this time. “And after all, this Master Ule
of yours ain’t nothing but a bottlemaker. That’s a simple craft. I
don’t reckon he stands high in the counsels of the Guild.”

He rocked a little more and thought a little longer.
“As long as the pay is good and he treats you well, I don’t see no
harm, if you want to go on working for him.”

Which was just as well, Jed thought. He knew he was
on to a good thing working for Master Ule, and he was not about to
toss it all aside just to satisfy Uncle Caleb and his wild
suspicions.

Chapter
7

Wherein Gottfried Jenk accomplishes the
Miraculous.

Not far from Venary Lane, where Dr. Mirabolo held
forth at the Temple of the Healing Arts, was a street lined with
seedy little thatched-roof shops: apothecaries, herbalists, and
chemists for the most part, though an occasional taxidermist,
lensmaker, or purveyor of scientific instruments lent a little
variety, while maintaining the philosophic “tone” of the
neighborhood.

To that part of Thornburg came Gottfried Jenk, one
breezy afternoon, late in the season of Leaves. Plainly but
meticulously dressed, from his carefully powdered wig to the highly
polished brass buckles on his blunt-toed shoes, the bookseller
walked briskly, displaying a nervous energy quite remarkable in a
man of his years.

He entered a shop meaner and dingier than any of the
rest. It resembled a taxidermy shop: the shelves displayed a
collection of pelts and bones, fins, feathers, antlers, tusks, and
horns, and other odd bits and pieces of brute creation in various
stages of preservation. And it had something of the
barber-surgeon’s establishment as well: yellowing teeth (human, and
dwarf, and gnome) collected in glass jars, hanks of braided hair
suspended from the beamed ceiling. But it smelled like nothing so
much as a slaughter-house.

The proprietor, one Mr. Prodromus, was no more
prepossessing than his establishment. A big man with a mane of wild
dark hair, he wore a dingy red kerchief around his neck and a gold
ring in one ear.

“Back so soon, Mr. Jenk?” he inquired, with an
insolent grin. “Hope you ain’t got no complaints against the goods
I sold you. Or was it more of the same you was wanting?”

“I wish,” said Jenk curtly, “to purchase more of the
same.”

The shopkeeper’s leer became considerably more
pronounced, and he winked broadly. “That’s the way, Mr. Jenk—no
need to be specific. No need for you to go naming out loud what I
shouldn’t have nor you shouldn’t want. I like a man as knows the
value of discretion.”

He led Jenk into a grimy little room at the back of
the shop where he opened a tall cabinet so deep and narrow that it
reminded Jenk of the coffin back at the bookshop.

“Well, now, ain’t that a shame and a pity?” said
Prodromus, after searching the shelves for several minutes. “Seems
I sold the last of that lot, and I can’t rightly predict when
there’ll be a fresh supply.” He shook his head mournfully. “It’s
these new laws Mr. Jenk, they’ll be the ruin of me yet. There ain’t
near so many private executions as there once was, and bribes to
the hangman is very dear. But look here . . . I got sommat else as
might please you.

Prodromus dived back into the cabinet and emerged
holding a glass jar. “The hand of a Farisee, pickled in brine. A
rare item and a fine specimen.”