The Custodian of Marvels (11 page)

“Only one is going to die – and that will be you if you start to make a noise.”

I heard the duke suck air through his teeth and guessed that Fabulo had given him another cut to be thinking about.

Having my clothes on well enough, I stepped to the window of unpicked panes. The lawns surrounding the mansion were now bathed in blue white. A party of six picking its way across the wide lawn would be visible for miles. Beyond that was the perimeter wall. It seemed the duke might be right.

“Climb out,” said Fabulo.

I did as he instructed. My skirts hissed as the fabric pulled across the stone windowsill. Then I was standing in a narrow fringe of shadow next to the wall. The duke was the next one to clamber through, though he contrived to catch his elbow on the fragile edge, causing one of the diamond shaped panes of glass to drop free. My hand shot out as if of its own volition and I caught the glass a foot above the flagstones. Then my hand whipped back and was at his throat once more, this time with the edge of the glass pressed to his skin.

He came out quietly after that. Tinker was next. Then the two guardsmen. And finally Fabulo, who immediately set off along the edge of the building, heading towards the back.

There were shadows enough here, though if anyone had been looking out from one of the windows we passed, they would have seen us silhouetted. Howbeit, for all his private army, it seemed none of his men were watching.

Fabulo unbolted one of the stable doors and we all followed him inside. It was too dark to see, though I could hear movement in the stalls and I found my nose wrinkling to the smell of horses.

“I can’t ride,” said Tinker.

“All the gates are locked till morning,” said the older of the guardsmen. “His Grace is right – there’s no way out. But if you’d do a deal – some of you might be saved.”

“I’ll let one of you walk free,” said the duke. “The dwarf or the boy. The other one gets whipped. And you’ll leave little Lizzy with me.”

“Get one of the horses,” Fabulo hissed. There was venom in his voice. “Make it a mean one.”

I walked blind towards the sound of a hoof scraping on stone, my arms out in front of me. The stall door was easy enough to find. Mercifully there was a halter hanging from the end post. But as I tried to get it straight in my hands, a horse pushed me with the side of its head, sending me stumbling.

A light flared behind me. Tinker had struck a lucifer. Now I could see the animal, which was reaching out from its stall, lips drawn back as if it might bite. I stepped in quickly so that I was next to it, out of reach of the teeth, and had the head piece around its neck in one swift move. It tried to back away, but I pushed my forearm down, forcing it to drop its head below the front of the stall door. The flame died, but I’d already got the noseband in place and was buckling it fast.

Another match flared. I turned to see Fabulo tying the duke’s wrists behind his back. The rope was the end of a long coil hanging from a hook on the wall.

It took us five matches to get him up onto the horse’s back. Fabulo didn’t have the stature to help, so stood with the light in one hand and knife in the other, with which he pricked the backs of the guards.

On the third attempt, me standing on one side of the beast and Tinker on the other, we finally had the duke in place. Then, with the long trailing end of the rope, we tied him wrists to ankles below its belly.

“I’ll give one hundred sovereigns and free passage to whoever kills the boy or the dwarf,” he gasped, for most of the air was pushed out of his lungs.

Tinker struck another lucifer on the stable wall.

“There’s no way to escape,” said the older guard. “That horse is going to make one hell of a racket in the courtyard.”

“Good,” said Fabulo. He took a second coil of rope from a peg, resting it over his shoulder. Then he searched the floor for a moment before stooping and picking up something from among the straw.

He gestured to Tinker, who doused the flame.

Light slanted in as I pulled back the doors. Iron horseshoes clattered on the cobbles as we stepped out. The guard was right. We wouldn’t get twenty paces before the alarm was raised. For a moment it seemed that Fabulo had come not to rescue me but to claim the reward, that this whole episode had been a sham. But then he held up the small object in his hand and I saw that it was the head of a thistle.

“This is going to prick,” he hissed, in a tone of mock apology. Then he plunged his hand between the duke’s trussed body and the horse’s back. He had hardly pulled away before the animal reared up. I had to jump to escape its flailing hooves. It whinnied then kicked out at the back. We all of us retreated into the shadow of the stable wall. If there had been a moment for the guardsmen to escape, that would have been it. But they stood, open mouthed, stunned by the spectacle and the reversal of all the order they had known.

Lights were coming on in the great house. I heard footsteps approaching at a run. Someone swore on the other side of the courtyard. Then the duke began screaming his rage. The horse reared two more times then set off towards the gardens.

Three men-at-arms burst from the front doors of the great house. The man on the other side of the courtyard was running after the horse, flapping his arms as if trying to communicate but unable to speak. Then at last he got three words out: “It’s the duke!”

I heard shouts in the distance. Men-at-arms who had been on guard duty around the walls were rushing back to help.

“This way,” whispered Fabulo, gesturing our captives along the line of shadow, taking them further from the chaos he’d created. I took a last glance back and saw the horse leaping a low hedge at a gallop, leaving the pursuing servants far behind. And all the while the duke screamed orders, incoherent with rage.

It took little time for us to reach the wall, which lay close in that direction. From the sound of shouting in the distance it was clear that they were no nearer to catching the horse.

Fabulo took the coil of rope from his shoulder and turned to the two guardsmen. “Stand back to back, gentlemen,” he said.

They began to move, but I held out a hand to stop them. “You can’t leave them here. What will the duke do to them?”

“In a couple of hours the whole county’s going to be out looking for us,” said Fabulo. “We can’t take them with us.”

“Please,” said the older guardsman. “She’s right. We’re dead men if we stay. I won’t slow you down. I’ll give you my word on that. And I know the country hereabouts. I can help you find ways that won’t be seen.”

The dwarf swore under his breath.

“I’ll not leave them,” I said.

“What about you?” Fabulo growled. “You want to come too?”

The young guardsman shook his head. He held his wrists together behind his back and turned so that they could be tied, though he seemed very afraid.

CHAPTER 12

September 26th

If a cabinet has only six sides, then the trick will be found on its seventh.

The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

We made our way as swiftly as we could in the darkness, first to the place where I’d lain watching the house. I picked up my coat and haversack, then followed Fabulo to the site of his own camp, not far distant, where he had hidden his travelling pack in the branches of a holly tree.

The miles that followed became a blur to me. But at last we came to the ruins of a labourer’s cottage. The rotten wood of the door gave no resistance. Inside, thin weeds grew from the earth floor towards a large hole in the roof. Here we chose to rest out the day, sheltered from the wind, though not the damp.

The duke had surely known that I lived on a boat. His first action on rescue from the horse would have been to send out riders to search the canals and rivers of the county. Thus the
Harry
remained beyond our reach.

“Leave it where you moored it,” Fabulo said, when I asked. “We’ll send men to fetch it once we’re safe.”

I did not argue.

The man-at-arms who had chosen to accompany us had said little as we walked. Waiting out that first day, I watched him go about disguising his uniform. With the point of Tinker’s pocket knife, he cut the stitches that held the braids and epaulettes in place. Once they were removed he dug a handful of clay from the overgrown garden and set to rubbing it into the scarlet broadcloth, softening the colour of the jacket to russet. The cut of it might still give him away, but from a distance he would look much like a working man.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Fitzwilliam,” he said, though he would not meet my eyes.

When night came we set off once more. Our new companion said he knew a safe track through woodland that would carry us east and south. Though it went against Fabulo’s nature to trust this intelligence, all other options seemed worse. But whenever Fitzwilliam started to pull ahead that night, the dwarf would be after him, hand on knife hilt.

When the second day dawned we left the path and climbed to the crest of a hill where the trees were thinner. From this vantage point we could look out over a small town set below in a wide valley. Fitzwilliam lay down on his side and was soon asleep. I expected Tinker to do the same, but the boy sniffed the air and set off back down the slope.

I sat myself next to Fabulo, who kept watch, his back resting against a tree.

“That’s a smart boy you’ve got,” he said. “You shouldn’t have sent him away.”

“I wanted him safe.”

“A boy like that don’t want to be safe. It’s belonging he needs more than anything. We all do in different ways. For him it’s wanting to be with you.”

I didn’t answer. My thoughts had begun to clear through our long walk. But, despite the distance we had travelled, I had not moved beyond the darkness. A shadow still lay within me. Though I listened to the words that Fabulo spoke, I couldn’t yet feel the truth of them.

“You weren’t in your right mind,” he said. “The boy could see it. You mustn’t blame him. Sometime soon you’re going to start thinking straight again and you’re going to figure that I couldn’t have found you without his help. That I’ve been following for a long time. And then maybe you’re going to think of casting blame. But don’t.

“Remember that night on the Grantham Canal when I came calling and you sent me away? The next day Tinker hunted me down at my camp. He came to tell me you weren’t right in your mood. He’s been looking out for you, that’s what I’m saying. He’s been telling me your plans as much as he knew. And where he didn’t know, there was enough for me to guess.”

“You fed him?” I asked.

“Food’s as good as love for a boy like that.”

“And you gave him the silver repeater.”

Fabulo nodded.

“Where did you get it?”

“Picked it up in London with a few other pieces.”

He reached across to his pack, extracted a shagreen jewellery box and passed it to me.

I turned it in my hands, feeling the weight of it, then popped the catch. Nineteen pocket watches lay inside on a bed of satin, each in its own shallow depression. There would have been twenty, but one place was empty. Gold gleamed. Small gems shone from some of the dials. Two of the cases I guessed were platinum. One was incongruously made of brass.

“It’s our bank account,” he said.

“You bribed Tinker?”

“That one was a trinket. It took his fancy so I gave it to him. But everything he did was just as he would have done anyway.”

“You rubbed dirt into the watch,” I said, feeling the pieces of an unsolved puzzle fitting together. “You made it look as if he could have found it in the path.”

“You see, Elizabeth Barnabus – you’re smart, too. But in a different way. At least the boy knows where his heart is.”

I slept fitfully, waking with a start to find the sun high and the sound of galloping horses in the distance. Fabulo and Fitzwilliam were crouched, looking out towards the valley, keeping low behind the bracken that fringed the hilltop. Crawling to join them, I saw a detachment of men-at-arms heading along the road towards the small town.

“Tinker?” I whispered, in alarm.

“Been and gone,” said Fabulo. “But don’t you worry. He’s safe enough. He said I should give you this.” So saying he reached across to where a perfect red and green apple rested on the ground.

I took it, aware of the dwarf’s eyes on me.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

Instead of answering, I put the apple close to my nose and inhaled. The skin felt cold and waxy.

The men-at-arms were riding out through the other side of the town. Trees by the roadside began to hide them from our view. The sound of them was almost gone. Fitzwilliam backed away from the edge.

“They’ll be chasing a rumour,” he said to Fabulo. “Else they’d have stopped and talked to the folk down there. He’ll have heard a whisper from one of his spies. It’s all to the good. That’s thirty men and thirty horses not looking in any place that’s going to find us.”

“What was the other guard’s name?” I asked.

“Reuben,” he said, still not looking at me.

“And you fear for him?”

“Too late for that, miss. We’re soldiers. There’s no law for us but a court martial. And that with the duke as judge. Reuben will already be food for crows. It’s bad enough to sleep on duty. But the duke himself being treated so… They’ll put the body in the gibbet so everyone can see.”

Bitterness dripped from his words. Still he faced away from me.

“You hold me to blame?” I asked, believing it was certain.

But he shook his head. “No.” The word came without hesitation, as if it was a question he’d already considered.

“But the boy’s gone. Why wouldn’t you blame me?”

“You had cause to do what you’ve done. I’ve been in the duke’s service ten years. So I’ve seen the way he is.”

The full meaning of what he’d told me didn’t reveal itself all at once. First I thought that ten years was a long time. I would have been a child when he joined. Then I thought that he must have been a soldier when I fled to the Republic. And then I began to wonder what he might himself have seen of my history. I’d been staring at the earth as these thoughts tumbled, at the scattering of fallen leaves, at the tree roots that spread like veins across the hilltop. When I raised my head, I found him looking directly at me for the first time.