Gullstruck Island (14 page)

‘It’ll do,’ answered Lohan. ‘Just until things calm down. And Lady Arilou,’ he gave a token nod in her direction, ‘would do well to remember that she is now the Lady Lost for the district, and if they don’t like what she says, they can go skin fish. If she scares them a bit, maybe they’ll back off.’

And then Lohan would not let Hathin talk about the tidings huts any more. Instead he told fishing stories, many of them very funny, while the row of peach stones between them grew in length.

The new Lady Lost’s escort arrived at the door just as the first stars were freckling the sky. There was no more time, and the three Lace stepped out and walked the route up towards the tidings hut, flanked by a small crowd of towners.

At the clifftop was a stone hut with a domed palm thatch. Usually it presented a solitary silhouette against the sky, but tonight it was surrounded by a seethe of people. An unusually large number of people, even for a news night.

Over the years Hathin had seen a little of the dance-speech of bees. This night it seemed as if the hanging lanterns around the shelter had done the same; as they swung agitated by the wind, ‘Honey this way,’ some of them seemed to say, but most were dancing ‘Trouble, trouble, time to swarm . . .’ The same bee fear was in the crowd’s movement, the waves of whisper.

At last Arilou’s white flax gown attracted attention and the crowd moved forward. Hathin noticed the way they touched at her sleeve, reverent yet distasteful, eager but wary, their old dependence on the Lost warring with their distrust of the Lace.

‘Lady Arilou, find us the murderers of Milady Page, search the hills for brigands . . .’

‘Lady Arilou, tell us if eagles carried away the Lost Inspectors . . .’

‘Lady Arilou, you must see if any other Lost are alive . . .’

‘Who is it?’ A call from inside the shelter.

‘A young Lady Lost from one of the villages, Milady Lampwarden,’ came a cry from the crowd.

Each hut was inhabited by a warden who was responsible for renewing the posters and keeping lanterns alight in the hut so that any wandering Lost could always read the messages. The lampwarden would also read aloud all of the messages in a cycle, for there were few Lost who read both Doorsy script and all the different styles of pictogram.

‘There’s a new young Lost? Why in the name of all that’s sweet did nobody tell me? Well then, let her come through!’

The crowd parted, and Hathin led the unresisting Arilou up the steps into the shelter, past the hunched figure of the elderly lampwarden who stood in the doorway. The old warden remained motionless, staring moodily out into the darkness. She seemed to be listening for something. All around her hung wooden tablets, deerskin squares carved with crude messages, pieces of painted bark. Amid the Doorsy messages there were some carved in the old, swollen pictograms, dream-like in their strangeness – birds with bunches of grapes for heads, serpents twisting around broken moons.

Here was all the latest news of the town and surrounding villages and, most important of all, the news of the death of Milady Page and the disappearance of the Lost Inspectors. And in a moment everybody would expect Arilou to cast her mind out to all the other tidings huts and return with news from Smattermast and the rest of Gullstruck . . .

‘Our Lady Lost is very tired . . .’ Hathin was in no hurry to return to the crowds.

‘Then let her rest lest she sicken,’ whispered the old woman. ‘I think a plague has stricken the Lost, just as they say. This is the night when the mind of every Lost on the island should be passing through this hut. But none of them have visited.’

‘Doctor Warden . . . how can you tell?’

‘I can tell,’ the old woman said simply. ‘Everyone speaks of feeling a gaze on the back of the neck. Why should it matter if the gazing eyes are many miles away? I have taught myself to feel their gaze upon me. None of them have been here tonight.’

Hathin stared at her. She had never heard of anyone who could sense the Lost’s presence and wondered if perhaps the old woman’s life alone on the clifftop had taken its toll on her wits. And yet . . . perhaps this woman could be an unexpected ally. Perhaps together they could convince everyone that Arilou was ill, needed more rest, more time . . .

‘A pair of eyes are now closed,’ whispered the old woman, returning to her seat. ‘Eyes like ice . . . silver, and star-staring.’ She ran her fingertips over her arms gently, as if chasing a sensation across her skin. ‘I looked into them once,’ she murmured, and Hathin realized that there were tears in the woman’s own pale eyes. ‘Once, when I was very young. He was a Lost, and although he did not seem to look at me, I felt his gaze shiver over me like an eel. And for the rest of the day I felt him watching me.’

Hathin tried to imagine the old woman lithe and young, but it was too late to see the truth behind the jowls and pot belly.

‘I had to travel back to our village in the mist, and he must have lost track of me on the way. For months, every time I stood in a chill wind or breasted a wave I felt the cold of it and thought of him, and believed for a moment that he had found me again. But he had not.’

‘Did he . . . did he ever find you again?’ Hathin was fascinated, despite her own worry.

‘Yes – I made sure that he did, in the only way I could. I spurned all suitors and came to work as warden. On the first day, as I stood with my taper lighting one of my lanterns, I felt it again, like being stroked by feathers of cold. Gently stroked. I learned to feel other glances, but they were always quick, like a pat on the cheek. His was the only one that lingered.’

You gave your life for a look
, thought Hathin, unable to comprehend.

‘This is the first time he has missed his appointment,’ the warden said, chafing her hands together, the way Hathin had seen old women do at funerals. ‘He would not if his eyes could still open. They are closed, they are closed forever.’

There was a sudden breeze from the doorway. One of the lanterns went out, releasing a wisp of smoke. As Hathin watched, the old woman walked from lantern to lantern, holding a hand up to each one in turn until she reached the dead one. Only as she watched her fumbling with her taper did Hathin understand the meaning of the warden’s slow, feeling motions. She was blind.

Hathin hurried to help, guiding the taper. The warden smiled, and then her fingertips took a friendly hold of Hathin’s hand. The wrinkled fingers felt over Hathin’s twisted grass rings, then the shell jewellery on her wrists. The shadow crevasses in the woman’s face shifted and started to tremble. Abruptly she thrust away Hathin’s hand.

‘Get away from me! Filthy little Lace!’ Her blind eyes were like marble.

‘Hathin . . .’ Lohan was in the doorway, his face pinched with urgency. Still shattered by the old woman’s sea change, Hathin became aware that there was now a seethe of disquiet sounding from the crowd outside. ‘You have to talk to them. Leaving it any longer won’t make things better.’

Shakily, Hathin led Arilou out of the hut. The noise of the crowd swiftly died, so that everyone could hear Arilou’s faint, molten incantations.

‘People of Sweetweather,’ declared Hathin, hearing a crack in her voice, ‘I have sent my mind abroad, and I am troubled. My spirit is weary and I could not see the lanterns of the tidings huts. Perhaps they are not yet lit . . .’

A score or so of muted conversations began, alarmed, indignant, distrustful.

‘Why did you let a Lace in here?’ The old lampwarden’s voice suddenly seared through the night. ‘Why did you not tell me that a shell-fanged Lace was in my hut? Putting her filthy hands on my lanterns.’

Buzz, buzz. Bee suspicion, bee rage.

‘What were you doing to the lanterns?’ somebody called out.

‘What did you people do to the lanterns in the other huts?’ came another cry.

‘Why don’t you want us to know what’s happening on the rest of the island?’

‘Oh, come
on
, children! It’s
obvious
why they don’t want us to know.’ Hathin would have recognized the raucous, humorous tone anywhere, even with the new bite to it. Somewhere amid the feverish crowd Jimboly was standing with her grin a-glitter, her bird dancing about her like an unquiet thought. ‘Think! Every hut dark except this one? Every Lost dead except the Lost of the Lace? What do you
think
they’ve been doing? What do you
think
Inspector Skein’s letter meant? You heard it! He
knew
he was going to die,
that the Lace were going to kill him.
Him and every other Lost on the island! He must have writ it down –
that’s why they tore those pages out of his journal
!’

Jimboly knew
. How could she know?

‘Here!’ Jimboly’s angular figure was just visible beyond the crowd, waving a piece of parchment over her head. ‘Here’s all the proof you need! Letter from the bedside of Mr Minchard Prox, washed ashore up the coast at Sapphire Hale! He says he was set adrift in that boat on purpose, his rope cut! And he says Skein wasn’t ever in that boat! So they lied! What other lies have they been telling?’

Could it be true? Could Minchard Prox really be alive? But if he was, how had his letter found its way into Jimboly’s hand, instead of the pocket of the governor?

Buzz, buzz, roar. Hathin felt the hatred like a blast of heat.

‘I am your Lady Lost!’ she shouted out against the tidal wave that seemed to be arcing over her. ‘I am your Lady Lost, and I demand . . .’

Arilou suddenly wailed and lurched backwards. Hathin turned to look at her, saw her licking at a cut lip and realized that somebody had thrown something at her. Arilou’s voice rose from a groan to a harsh, full-lunged scream and she began to flail out with her arms, jarring the blade of her hand into the face of a man who had stepped forward to grab her robe.

‘My eye!’ He promptly doubled up and crouched on the floor. ‘She’s cursed my eye!’

Desperately Hathin tried to drag clutching hands away from Arilou. The young woman in the mourning headdress lunged out of the darkness and seized Arilou by the shoulders.

‘Give me back my little girl’s soul!’ she screamed. ‘You took it and drank it down for its power – I can see her staring out of your eyes!’

These were no longer people. A new expression knobbed and buckled the crowd’s features until their faces looked like fists. The tide of hands dragged Hathin and Arilou this way, that way.

‘Leave me alone!’ Hathin screamed as she felt somebody take a fistful of her hair. ‘I am your Lady Lost! You do not know what I can do – if you do not unhand us, I will . . .’

And as if in answer to a cue, there were a couple of screams and the crowd parted to show a glare of gold. Flames were licking around the doorposts of the tidings hut.

More screams, and people rushing forward to kick dirt against the flames or slap at them with aprons or hands. Hathin felt the painful grip on her released as the crowd surged towards the hut, and she seized Arilou’s spasming arm. In a moment or two the crowd would remember the Lady Lost and notice her attendant dragging her desperately away along the dark path . . .

Suddenly Lohan was at her side, commandeering Arilou’s other arm and pulling the older girl into a faster pace. His eternal smile still hung about his face, but his eyes had frightened sparks in them.

‘Let’s take the Ashlands,’ whispered Hathin. He nodded mutely, and they left the path and slipped across the undulating cemetery.

‘Lohan,’ Hathin whispered after they had been walking in silence for some time, ‘was it you who set fire to the hut?’

‘I had to distract them. They looked set to tear you to pieces. Any injuries?’

‘Somebody threw something that hit her in the mouth. She was bleeding, but not badly. I don’t think she’s lost any teeth.’

‘I was asking about you, actually.’

Hathin shook her head numbly. ‘I can’t go back,’ she said in a tiny voice.

‘Nobody’s asking you to go back. The towners attacked their Lady Lost, so they don’t get a Lady Lost, and let’s see how they like it.’

‘No . . . I mean, I can’t go back to the village. I’ve . . . I’ve failed.’

‘You didn’t fail,’ Lohan muttered grimly. ‘Somebody else succeeded, that’s all. I got the chance to run around town listening to people before I came to find you. I had a good idea that someone was playing some kind of rumour game. Oh, the towners always look to us when they need someone to blame, but it’s
her
putting a point on their spear, it’s
her
giving them direction.

‘You know why the Ashwalker’s been roaming around? Because someone went and told him that the Lost deaths were murders and that all the townspeople wanted to see him given a licence. And then, because he’d been seen around, the towners got it into their heads that the Lost
were
murdered, and they’ve been turning up daily at the governor’s door to ask why the Ashwalker hasn’t yet been hired. Then the way Inspector Skein’s letter has been repeated and misquoted . . . and somehow she got hold of his journal . . . but for the life of me I still can’t work out
why
she’s been stirring things up.’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Hathin said limply, barely caring what he was talking about. Her beaten, battered brain could hardly make sense of the wildfire accusations back at the tidings hut. But she understood one thing: Arilou had been stoned out of Sweetweather. The townspeople had rejected her. The long game had been lost, and nothing now stood between the Hollow Beasts and destitution. ‘It’s over. All I had to do was one thing, and I couldn’t do it, and now I can’t see how it can be mended. There’s no reason for me any more, and I’ve let the whole village down.’

They had reached the top of the cliff above the village, where once the Gripping Bird had stationed his jaguars of grass.

Lohan halted, biting his lip. ‘Those old women won’t give you any trouble,’ he said at last. ‘They’d better not. You’ve got more guts than all of them put together. You’ve done more than any of them would dare to protect the village – I
know
what you’ve done, Hathin. When Skein was found I worked out why you happened to be down by the water’s edge, near those rocks where my mother took Arilou. It’s the best place on the beach for urchin quills.’