The Accidental Highwayman (18 page)

“I won him at cards from the One-Eyed Duchess,” I said.

“Mad as a March hare,” the old gentleman said, clapping me on the other shoulder. “My sort of person.”

A short while later we arrived at the scene of Gruntle's captivity.

It was a mean place, the farm buildings as low and narrow as they could be and still serve some purpose, with stone walls piled up all around the yard. I halted the wagon out of sight around a bend in the track, and Willum and I proceeded on foot—he on my hat, to be precise. There being nobody about at that time of day, we were not accosted by the occupants, and so found our way to the piggery at the back, where a large tomcat missing half his tail was crouched in front of an overturned firkin. I shooed the cat away, upended the little cask, and there found Gruntle, as miserable a sight as one could possibly behold.

“I owes you my life, Master Kit,” said Gruntle. “I shan't rest until your kindness is repaid.”

I picked him up and placed him upon my shoulder, and we walked back to the caravan. Willum embraced his friend the entire distance.

“You made that look so easy,” Willum said to me with frank admiration. Perhaps it was my nettlesome pride working again, but I did not point out that it
was
so easy. I coaxed the unhappy Midnight back into motion and we were on our way.

 

Chapter 19

SAVED BY GILT

I
MUST INTERRUPT
the narrative, which in any case for a time consists only of our wagon lurching along narrow lanes, to describe this extraordinary conveyance. Residential caravans were common enough; they served as home and office for salesmen of patent goods, elixirs, and similar items no one would purchase from reputable premises. Gypsies lived in them their whole lives, and the more popular traveling shows had such caravans for the comfort of their performers. The troupe with which I had toured slept in barns and hayricks, but we dreamed of such luxury. However, the ones I'd seen always had canvas roofs stretched over hoops of ash or iron, being otherwise common hay wains.

This particular specimen was of a far more deliberate design, with a superstructure of wood resembling an outsized stage-coach. It had been outfitted to Uncle Cornelius' exact specifications many years before, and had remained fully stocked with all of its equipment because he had been intending for years to do one last grand tour with an imaginary team of performers which (for reasons he could not understand) never came to collect him until today. He thought the delay might be due to his conniving nursemaid, Prudence Fingers. He and I sat up in front behind the footboard on a good cushioned seat with a carved and gilded baldaquin or canopy over our heads, which kept off the worst of the weather.

During a brief stop while Willum scouted the roads ahead, I took a tour of the wagon's narrow interior. There was a door behind the driving-seat that communicated with the apartment inside: Immediately within, there was a sleeping compartment that would accommodate four people, so long as they were packed in like salted hams in a cask. The space was tall, but exceedingly narrow. Next there hung a heavy curtain, and behind that, a combination storage space, kitchen, and sitting-room, so ingeniously fitted with cabinets and hinged panels that it could be converted from one purpose to the next with little effort. There were small curtained windows in the sides, a door at the back with steps beneath it, and a bowed roof over all of it that resembled the hull of a boat. The comparison was fair: Uncle Cornelius had employed a shipfitter to construct the upper parts of the wagon.

There was one difficulty involving this fine vehicle: If either of the feyín came too close to the golden decorations, a bright spark would jump between them and the metal leafing. I learned many interesting curses while they learned to avoid this. Luckily their small size meant they could escape this phenomenon with a little care. It had no effect on Morgana. I expect this was due to her half-human heritage.

The rain slackened, but continued to fall. Poor weather was welcome: it would discourage pursuit. In any case, I was less concerned with Captain Sterne and his like than with supernatural agents at this stage of our exploits. Man, I had come to understand, was the noisiest and least stealthy creature in the world, and since my falling-in with the feyín, who seemed to possess senses as acute as nature (or supernature) could provide, I doubted our party should ever be surprised by human ambush. But those miniature arrows with their needle tips—I could not forget that every leaf might conceal a host of savage little bowmen with the power to drive men mad. I feared them almost more than goblings and trolls.

It was Lily who demanded we stop, poking her head through the front door. We were nowhere in particular, among groves of young trees spaced well apart, with glades of grass and flowers between them. I guided Midnight off the road and into a stand of woods that formed a rough ring with a clearing in the middle. There we stopped, at the edge of the trees.

“I want to see to this little one's wing,” Lily said. “It's broken, but I know not how badly, for I know nothing about wings.”

Lily's introduction to Willum had been a terrible shock, but she was a girl accustomed to shocks, and had grown fond of the Faeries almost immediately, calling them “dear wee pets” and similar sobriquets. She tenderly held up Gruntle, who despite his pain looked rather pleased.

“I'm bein' ministered to by a human lady,” he said to me, and grinned foolishly.

One of his wings—which as you will recall stuck out to the sides, after the manner of a dragonfly—was dreadfully torn, like the sail of a windmill struck by a thunderbolt. He had three more wings, but as he told us, “them's the steerin' one.” So without it he could only go in circles.

Lily thought she could devise some kind of temporary repair until a feyín
shamaan
could have a look at it; the injury was beyond the comprimaunts of anyone present to heal. Lily and Morgana consulted together on the problem in the back of the wagon, with Gruntle basking in the attention as if it were summer sunshine.

Fred the baboon ascended to the roof and watched the scenery with his close-set red eyes. He did not seem to mind the rain at all; perhaps his costume of weskit and spatterdashes
*
provided sufficient shelter. When last I had met him, his fur was already salted with age. Now his head was white and the rest of him silver—except for a single gold earring, which well suited his complexion. I didn't know how many years such creatures could expect to survive. Fred, it seemed to me, was old by anyone's standards. Except the macrobian (or long-lived) Faeries, of course.

I tended to Midnight, who required a deal more soothing than usual. His brute muscles seemed to have settled into the unaccustomed work without soreness, but his pride was dreadfully inflamed by the demotion to pack animal. I fed him a few pieces of ten-year-old sugar from the wagon's kitchen cupboard and explained to him in great detail—as horse-lovers will do—the reasons for this indignity, and why he was the true hero of our adventures, and how fond I was of him, qui-tam horse
*
or not. How much of it he understood, I do not know, but he understood the strokes and kisses upon his nose.

The tireless Willum snipped his way into the cloudy sky to look for enemies, which left only mad old Uncle Cornelius idle. He fixed his eye upon me, of course.

“François,” said he, thinking I was some long-lost colleague, “I don't like where we've stopped. There are banditti on the road. And that young acrobat in the 'van has seriously injured himself. The ladies will bind his wounds, but he might be ruined professionally. I don't see how he can put his full weight upon that limb any longer. And us here in Italy! Where shall we find a replacement, and what shall we do with the poor boy?”

“I know not, sir,” said I. “The show must go on, of course.”

“Naturally!” Uncle Cornelius said. “A fellow my age must keep busy. If I didn't have these exhibitions to put on, I daresay I'd be senile within a fortnight. If only my niece Lily was here—she's a tender nurse, and could also take the place of that unfortunate lad. But she seems to have gone somewhere.”

I thought this might be an opportunity to encourage his memory, so I said, “Why, Lily? She's right inside the wagon. You'll know her by her yellow curls, Mr. Puggle.”

But the old man shook his head, and several tears fell into his whiskers. “She's not my Lily,” he said, in the most tragical tones. “Lily vowed never to return.”

I might have tried again, but from the sky there came a piping cry, and Willum dived like a sparrowhawk faster than the rain could fall. He tumbled to the wet ground and sprang up, shouting, “Goblings aloft! Goblings aloft!” Then he flew around the back of the wagon to convey the news within.

“The bedouins, is it?” Cornelius cried. “I knew they'd find us eventually. Heathens, man! They'll take no prisoners but the women, and for them it's the harem! We must escape.”

“It's worse than bedouins,” said I. “I have a pistol within; can you shoot?”

“Can I shoot! I am an expert at trick-shooting—did I not perform for the crown of Austria this last week? Uncork a bottle, snuff a candle, and knock an egg off a showgirl's head, all with pistols, and that is just the matinee!”

I decided not to give him a weapon, lest he attempt any of these feats, and hurried him up into the caravan. He protested all the while, accusing me of showing the white feather to the enemy. Within the wagon, I glimpsed a row of pale and frightened faces; only Morgana spoke.

“The goblings have taken to the air. Hide yourselves.”

I hadn't any idea what that meant. Were not goblings assigned to the ground, and pixies to the air? But I retrieved my gun. Then I ran to Midnight and released him from the traces. I slapped his backside to get him out of the clearing. He capered away readily enough, glad to be free of the wagon. Then was I alone, with the light rain coming down, the dripping leaves of the trees, and the phantoms of mist scudding between their trunks.

I heard a sound. It was a keening, blood-stopping shriek, high in the air. If you can imagine the hunting cry of an eagle mingled with the scratch of fingernails upon a slate, but a thousand times louder, that is what I heard. It would have shivered the scales off a fish. I drew my pistol and watched the low clouds; the sound had come from directly above. A second scream followed the first, and then another, overlapping it; there were several of the things, descending rapidly. Whatever were approaching, they were large, swift, and in an evil temper.

Call it a triumph of caution over boldness, but I decided not to stand and fight them on the open ground. Rather, I concealed myself beneath the wagon, pistol trained through the spokes of the front wheel.

I fancied it was caution, but in truth it was terror—I near bewrayed myself. Nor was my fear without foundation. For I had scarcely thrown myself beneath the axles when six dark shapes resolved themselves in the clouds, increasing in density and size as they plummeted toward the earth. Great iron-gray wings were thrown wide to arrest their descent, webbed with leathery skin like those of immense bats, but fringed with long black feathers outstretched as if to claw the air apart.

The creatures were supremely cruel in appearance. They had the feathered heads and necks of eagles, with vicious yellow beaks and yellow eyes, and the limbs and trunks of lions, but dark-furred. Their tails were hairless and writhing. I thought they must be gryphons of legend. Even after they thumped to the ground—I felt the earth shake beneath me—their wings continued to beat, and would have borne them aloft again except their hooked black talons gripped the soil so deeply they were anchored where they stood.

Worse yet, they had not arrived unburdened: upon their backs rode red-clad goblings, armed with quivers of javelins slung over their backs. The foremost and chief gobling wore a crested helmet and brandished a blackened scimitar—there was something in his arrogant bearing that reminded me of Captain Sterne.