The Custodian of Marvels (28 page)

In that moment, it seemed I would get away. But the breath was knocked out of my lungs, for I had run headlong into the clutches of another man. Farthing freed himself, shouting his rank to cow the stallholder. Then he was looking down at me, his face severe.

“Miss Barnabus, please accompany me to my carriage.”

The man who’d caught me gripped my wrist and twisted it, sending a jolt of pain up my arm. “Walk,” he growled.

From the outside I’d not noticed the curtains covering the carriage windows. A sliver of streetlight found its way in around the edge. But not enough for me to make out the details of the interior. Farthing sat opposite, a deeper dark than the upholstery of the wall behind him. Only the side of his hat and one shoulder had any definition, being edged with grey.

“What are you doing in London?” he asked.

The abruptness of my abduction and the sudden change from lamplight to gloom had left me disorientated. But it was the cold precision of his presence that robbed me of speech. Being with him had always cast me into confusion. The effect had grown over the months of our acquaintance. Once it had disturbed only my thoughts. Now it gripped my body like an illness. I found myself pushing my hands down against the padded leather underneath me, bracing hard against the back of the seat as I tried to push myself away from him.

“Refusing to answer may constitute deliberate obstruction,” he said. Then he reached up and gave the roof of the carriage three brisk knocks. Somewhere above me, the man who’d grabbed me now sat on the driver’s bench. I heard him calling, “Walk on!”

There was a rattle of horseshoes on cobblestones and we lurched forwards. The curtain shifted and for a heartbeat there was enough light to see Farthing’s blank face. Then we were rolling steadily and the blackness returned.

I managed to say, “Where are you taking me?”

This he ignored.

“Why did you cross the border?”

“Am I to be locked up again?”

“Refusing to answer may constitute…”

“Or am I to be beaten?”

I blurted the words, trying to stop him. But he would not be stopped.

“…may constitute deliberate obstruction. As a result of which, I, a sworn and commissioned agent of the International Patent Office, am empowered to detain you pending resolution of the case under investigation.”

“You’d quote the law at me?”

“It’s your right to be informed.”

“Then inform me – what happens when
you
break the law?”

“What are you doing with this paint and brush?” he asked.

“I’m going to be an artist!”

“Don’t joke with me! Don’t you know the danger you’re facing? Baiting me isn’t going to make things better.”

His voice, so controlled at first, had grown louder. The coach slowed and I found myself thrown to the left as we turned a corner.

“Answer the question,” he growled. “Why did you cross the border?”

“I came to seek justice.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“Will everything I say be a lie until you hear what you want to hear? I crossed the border to make things right – since a sworn and commissioned agent of the Patent Office told me he’d no interest in justice!”

Again the carriage slowed and cornered – the other way this time. The curtain shifted and I caught another glimpse. This time his face was turned away from me and away from the light.

“What’s the penalty for bribing someone like you?” I asked. “Death, isn’t it? A man who did that would be hanged. But that would mean admitting the Patent Office makes mistakes.”

“I offered to investigate,” Farthing snapped.

“That was before we had enough evidence.”

“There are agents to look into it! If you wish to–”

“How many agents were hanged this year? How many have ever been hanged?”

“That’s not the point!”

“It’s exactly the point! Who’d lock you up if you broke the law? No one! Because if the Patent Office broke the law, the Gas-Lit Empire would come crashing down!”

I was leaning forwards now, my voice harsh.

“The International Patent Office–”

“Is corrupt!” I shouted it into the dark, towards the place where his face had been.

“That’s not true!”

“Yet here I am,” I said. “Forced to cross into the Kingdom to make my own justice. Where at any moment I could be taken as the property of a man you chose not to pursue. You asked me why I crossed the border. I’ve told you the truth. But you’re so blinded by faith that you can’t accept it.”

We lurched as a wheel dipped into a pothole. For a heartbeat, the interior of the carriage was lit and I could see his expression. Then the curtain had fallen back. But the afterimage remained – Farthing’s face close to mine, since each of us was leaning forwards, his teeth bared, his face racked in what could have been anger or pain.

I sensed him shifting back in his seat. I did the same, wondering what emotion my own face might have betrayed in that same moment. I found myself breathing deeply.

“Why did you cross the border?” His voice was level once more.

“I came to kill His Grace the Duke of Northampton,” I said. “Since you’d refused to do it by legal means, I would do it by murder.”

“I simply don’t believe you! The duke has an army at his call. You know it couldn’t be done. Even if you could have got in range and pulled the trigger – you’d be dead before you drew another breath. It makes no sense.”

“You’d be right,” I said. “If I’d wished to survive the act. But you must believe me, John Farthing, when I tell you that the last hope had been ripped from me. Living was never part of my plan. Nor was it my desire.”

I waited for his response, but none came. The carriage turned once more but without the curtain shifting. As in a dream, I had no sense of what time had passed. Nor could I guess how far we’d come or in what direction we were now heading. There was little to hear outside beyond the sound of the horses and carriage wheels. Gradually my mind calmed and, as it did, a question crystallized. I should have thought of it as soon as I saw him on the street.

“How did you find me?”

Instead of answering, he reached up and rapped his knuckle on the roof boards. Inertia pulled me forwards as the coach abruptly slowed. I found myself sliding on the smooth leather, inching closer to him. Then we had stopped. I heard the driver clambering down and felt the carriage sway. The door opened with a click and gaslight flooded in.

The driver’s face appeared. He held the paint and brush in one hand. “All done?” he asked.

Farthing nodded.

I took my things and stepped out, disorientated. Crowds mingled around street market stalls. In front of me three African men sat on stools, leather goods laid out on a cloth in front of them. We’d travelled in a circle. The ironmonger’s shop was barely yards away.

I turned to confront Farthing, but the door had already closed. The driver was climbing back to his place. I shifted my head, trying to peer in through the carriage window, for it seemed the curtain might have been raised. But all I could see was the reflection of the streetlamp in the black glass.

The question of how Farthing had found me tumbled in my head as I ran back towards the rookery. We might have walked for a hundred years in that vast metropolis without our paths ever crossing by chance. Had he known the precise location of the tenement, we would have been overrun by agents of the Patent Office. More likely he’d some evidence we’d been lodging in St John’s. He might have followed us back from the Grand Master’s house. Or one of the duke’s spies had been paid twice for the same intelligence.

Fearing I might lead him straight back to the others, I ducked down a cut between two low buildings, emerging after fifty paces in the next street. No one followed.

But approaching our tenement, I found the roadway packed with the ragged denizens of the rookery, who were pouring out of doorways and pressing up towards James Street. All were stirred up in angry excitement. I would not have dreamed so many bodies could have lived in such a small space.

Ellie was in the hallway waiting for me.

I had to shout to make myself heard over the uproar outside. “What’s happening?”

“It’s a fight,” she cried, then took my hand.

But instead of climbing up to our rooms, she dragged me along a narrow passage, which issued out onto the street at the back, where more crowds were pushing past. There, we set off against the tide.

When the main mass of them had passed, I leaned in close and whispered, “I must know what’s happened!”

“Have you got the paint?” she asked.

I held it up for her to see, whereupon she pulled me across the road and through a gateway to a tiny courtyard, filled almost entirely with a black carriage and four horses.

I opened my mouth to ask where it had come from, but then saw the emblem on the side-panel. Within a shield was a green oak tree, to one side of which three white stars hung, forming a triangle in a blue sky. It was the crest of the Duke of Northampton.

Yan was moving from horse to horse, whispering to each, calming them. Lara ran over to me.

“We were frightened for you,” she said. “What happened?”

But before I could decide how or if to answer, Fabulo emerged from behind the coach. He grabbed the tin and brush from me and handed them to Lara, who was immediately at work, prising off the lid. I watched as she started to paint over the duke’s emblem.

“You took it from the men-at-arms!” I said, aghast.

“They were busy kicking in doors,” said Fabulo, excitement in his eyes. “Ellie’s a smart driver. She had it turned and would have been away without them seeing, but the folk on the street started cheering her.”

“There’s a fight going on out there,” I said.

“That there is, girl! Luck’s running with us for once. The duke’s men got rough with the crowd – thought they were in on the theft. That was the last straw. St John’s has put up with enough already. Someone called riot and now everyone’s on the street.”

“It’s the Duke of Northampton’s carriage.”

Fabulo grinned. “He was after finding you so bad. And now he’s given us horses and a coach. And a riot! Everything we needed. It’s poetry, that’s what it is!”

Lara had worked her way around each side of the coach. She returned with the paint and brush. “It’s done,” she said. “It’ll pass. From a distance.”

The coach door opened and Jeremiah clambered out, followed by Tinker.

“All ready?” asked the locksmith.

“Ready,” said Lara.

“And the riot?”

“It’s the perfect misdirection,” said Fabulo. “Everyone’s looking the other way.”

“You’re certain of that, Mr Dwarf? We’re going to be safe?”

“We’ve planned for how to pass the guards. And we’re armed, ready for the Custodian of Marvels. We’re as safe as may be.”

He cleared his throat and the others turned to look at him. “In a minute, we’re going to ride out of here and do what we’ve been fixing to do. After we start there’ll be no turning back. So if anyone knows of a danger they haven’t yet said, now’s the time to tell it.”

Thoughts churned inside my head as he swung his gaze around the courtyard. Too many thoughts for me to know the balance of them. He met my eyes last of all. I nodded, readying myself to admit that I’d been followed. But he just nodded back at me and his gaze moved on. And in that moment I was glad I hadn’t put a stop to it.

“You see?” he said to Jeremiah. “The gods of chance play for us tonight.”

CHAPTER 25

October 10th

A thing may be hidden in plain sight if only the audience does not want to see it.

The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

We ran back to strip out everything from the tenement that could have been used to identify us. In the deserted roadway we made a pile of papers and other oddments, to which Yan set a match. Fabulo slipped the brass watch into his waistcoat pocket and tossed the empty Shagreen box on top of the fire.

The light from the flames made an eerie sight, our shadows dancing off walls and cobblestones. Hearing the sound of the riot in the distance, I found myself shivering. But the others seemed to see none of these omens. Buoyed up in mood by the sudden urgency, they set off back to the small courtyard.

Ellie draped herself in Jeremiah’s coat and took her place up top on the driver’s bench. With a bowler hat on her head she looked the part well enough. She would pass a first glance at least. And few people looked up at the drivers of carriages. The rest of us took our places inside.

Then I remembered something and felt my stomach clench in panic. “We forgot the water!” I cried. “The light machine won’t work without it.”

“It’s here,” said Yan, holding up a wine bottle.

“And here,” said Lara, doing the same.

“And here,” said Fabulo, showing me a third. “You see – nothing’s forgotten. We’ve done our planning well. It’s time to go.”

He rapped his knuckle on the woodwork and we lurched forwards, turning sharply out of the gate and away.

At every turn, Fabulo leaned forwards to look out of the window. And each time he sat back it was to take out the brass watch, though sometimes only seconds had passed since he’d checked it.

“It’s going to be tight,” he muttered.

Outside, I heard the whip snapping in the air, as if Ellie had sensed his thoughts. We were picking up speed. I caught glimpses of St Paul’s Cathedral and then the Guild Church of St Martin as we rattled down Ludgate.

“You’re all ready?” Fabulo asked.

“We are,” said Yan. “And won’t be more ready from fretting.”

“You have your lockpicks?”

Jeremiah nodded. “Yes – for the tenth time this hour!”

I put my arm around Tinker’s shoulder and pulled him closer, wanting to send him away but knowing he’d follow me, whatever order I gave. Fabulo had told me the boy didn’t want to be safe. He only wanted to belong. He might one day repent of such foolishness, if he lived long enough.

The coach slowed and we swayed into a tight right turn. I didn’t recognise the buildings outside, but knew we must be cutting north, looping around towards Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the back of the International Patent Court.