The Eyeball Collector (8 page)

‘And what is it, sir?’ he called out. He spotted a figure in the mob surrounding him. On account of his odd-shaped hat, his face was obscured. He sounded older than Hector but not yet a full-grown man.

‘It is called the Landlord’s Pickle,’ said the stranger, ‘and it goes thus:

Ten weary footsore travellers,
All in a woeful plight,
Sought shelter at a wayside inn
One dark and stormy night.

“Nine rooms, no more,” the landlord said
“Have I to offer you,
To each of eight a single bed,
But the ninth must serve for two.”

A din arose. The troubled host
Could only scratch his head,
For of those tired men no two
Would occupy one bed.

The puzzled host was soon at ease –
He was a clever man –
And so to please his guests devised
This most ingenious plan.’

The fellow stopped for a moment. ‘And this is the puzzle,’ he called up to Hector before concluding the rhyme:

‘Here I stop ’fore riddle’s end
To ask, young friend of mine,
How did that landlord please his guests,
And fit ten into nine?’

Hector pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. Ten into nine? This was not a riddle he had come across. He would have expected it from his father, not from a member of this crowd. It wasn’t that southsiders lacked intelligence, but what intelligence they had was not necessarily suited to riddling.

‘I’ll need some time for this one,’ said Hector.

‘Take all the time you need. Tell me the answer when next we meet,’ came the reply.

‘When will that be?’ asked Hector. ‘Tomorrow?’

‘Perhaps,’ was all the stranger said, and, still obscured by the crowd, he began to walk away.

The crowd was as curious as Hector. ‘So what is the answer?’ shouted up a regular.

‘
Tempus omnia revelat
,’ said Hector, reverting unthinkingly to his previous persona before realizing no one knew what he was talking about.

‘He means,
Time will tell
,’ came a shout, and Hector just caught sight of the back of the mysterious riddler’s head as he disappeared down one of the alleys.

‘Yes, time will tell,’ he murmured.

Now it was snowing. Sensing that riddling was over for today his audience moved away. Hector stepped down, the pennies clinking in his purse. Some, of course, would be given to Mrs Fitch, and the remainder he would keep for himself. He went to the nearest food stall and took shelter with a hot potato and a mug of mulled ale, lost in melancholy thoughts.

In the six weeks since he had arrived at Fitch’s, summer – characterized by a rise in temperature and a proportional increase in strength of stench from the Foedus – was over and autumn, in this city merely a couple of weeks of cooler weather, was fast giving way to winter.

It had been a difficult time for Hector but he had done his best to adjust to this radical change in lifestyle. There were twenty other boys at the home, all natives of the south side and all orphaned by Fate, often in the form of gin. The first morning at breakfast Hector was greeted with suspicion, as any newcomer would be. Then as soon as he spoke he was identified as a northerner and a fight immediately ensued. Hector fell at the second punch – he was no match for his tough streetwise housemates. As he lay on the floor wondering how he could possibly come out of this alive, he noticed through his rapidly swelling eye that one of the boys was wearing his coat and hat and another his boots and watch. Quick as a flash, he pulled out his cocoon and reminded them of that night when they had helped themselves to his belongings.

As soon as Hector’s identity was established the leader (the same fellow from the night he had been robbed) called a halt to the conflict. The little lad, still wearing the cravat (now rather darker in colour than it had once been), helped Hector to his feet and begged him to retell the riddle of the liar for they all still failed to grasp the solution. Hector obliged, more than once, and henceforth was held in high regard as a fellow of learning and an entertainer. Polly’s belief in his survival instincts had been proved right. But he still had to find a way to get on outside the Home’s doors.

Deducing early on in his stay at Fitch’s that the prevailing accent was basically a matter of dropped aitches and ripe expletives, Hector adjusted his own accent accordingly. Within a week it was almost as if he had never spoken any other way. Occasionally the odd ‘By Jove!’ or ‘Splendid, old chap!’ or Latin expletive slipped out – old habits die hard – causing the boys to look at him askance and laugh, but it wasn’t long before some of his new companions, in homage to Hector, started to use the expressions themselves.

But what endeared Hector to them most was when he posed riddles or read to them – the humorous verses of Beag Hickory, or sometimes, at Polly’s particular insistence, magical stories from
Houndsecker’s Tales of Faeries and Blythe Spirits
, a copy of which one of the boys had ‘acquired’ from an unsuspecting bookseller in the City.

So life at Lottie’s was not as unpleasant as Hector had first imagined it might be. He was fed, he had shelter and he could earn money riddling. The jobs the other boys did to this end were many and varied. Some crossed the Bridge and polished gentlemen’s shoes, others swept the crossings or just begged, and needless to say they all thieved. Hector was not much of a pickpocket, so at first he had sold chicken feet door to door, but now he had his riddling.

As long as you said grace before meals, joined Mrs Fitch in prayer whenever the feeling took her (often), sang her hymns when she sang them (often and loudly) and carried out basic chores, then your life was your own. Yes, he had to put up with lice and fleas and foul smells and the danger on the streets, but this was traded for freedom. He hadn’t forgotten the long dreary days in the schoolroom with his tutor, conjugating his verbs and declining his nouns, ever wary of the cane with which his tutor seemed particularly free and easy.

But when darkness fell each evening, so too did his mood. He missed his father sorely and inside anger and an increasing desire for revenge were eating away at his heart. And he was heavily burdened by the weight of his secret past. He didn’t dare tell Lottie his family name, not now that it was blackened by its association with gin. She would have him out on the street! It was during these dark hours that Polly came to his rescue. Her cheerful and non-prying nature usually brought him round.

Hector took every opportunity, day and night, to search for Truepin. He knew in his heart that he was probably gone from the City, but he had to believe that one day he would right the terrible wrongs that had been done to his family. Often he would return late at night, cold and hungry, but Polly, who was always up and waiting for him, never said a word or enquired about his whereabouts, only fed him and put him to bed. Other times, when Hector sat with her at the kitchen table and helped her with her letters and penmanship, she would look at him quizzically, as if inviting him to answer the unasked question, but he never did.

Only once did she say something. It was after midnight and Hector was slumped across the table, pale and exhausted.

‘Hector,’ Polly began gently, ‘I don’t know who or what you seek these winter nights, and I don’t want to know, but I can see that it is doing you no good at all.’

Hector opened his mouth to protest but she put up her hand to silence him.

‘I’m your friend. I hate to see you like this. Sometimes you just have to leave the past behind otherwise it will eat you up.’

Hector knew she was right. If only I could just forget it all, he thought. But in his mind’s eye he saw again his father’s lifeless body in the butterfly house and he knew he had to continue to the bitter end, wherever it lay.

Lottie Fitch put down the leaflet and took a moment to herself in the kitchen. She still had cravings, strongest in the morning, for the gin that had been her master for so many years, but she put her hands together and prayed with all her might for the strength to resist. She ran her tongue around her mouth and felt the teeth – and gaps – within. She thought of Hector and his fine set of teeth and it caused her to smile sadly.

Hector’s arrival, near two months ago, had made Lottie think more of her own son, Ludlow. He would have been Hector’s age the last time she saw him. It pained her newfound conscience greatly to think how she and Ned had so cruelly driven him away. She hardly blamed him for going. They had not been fit parents by any manner of means. So much of Lottie’s previous life was just a blur that she even had trouble recalling exactly what Ludlow looked like. He had brown eyes, hadn’t he? Or were they green? She could ask Ned. No, he probably wouldn’t know either. If Lottie’s mind was rather addled, his was ten times worse. He had certainly out-drunk her down the years.

For most of her life, like many Urbs Umidians, God and his mysterious ways were of little interest to Lottie. But that distant winter’s night when her other half (neither better nor worse) Ned fell in the Foedus proved to be a life-changing moment for the two of them. They had arrived at the river that snowy evening simply because they were in desperate pursuit of their son, Ludlow. If truth be told, they were trying to sell his teeth. Ludlow was not at all keen to be caught, not only because his teeth were still in his head, but also because he had no illusions about his place in his parents’ affections – somewhere after gin and money. The chase culminated in Ludlow’s wrestling for his life with his father on the river bank. Ned lost his grip and fell in the Foedus and Ludlow escaped.

As soon as Ned’s head slipped under Lottie wailed and screamed, as was expected, but other than that accepted his demise rather rapidly. Fortunately for Ned people had gathered around at the commotion and, wouldn’t you know, one of them had a rope. He tossed it to Ned who, more by luck than design, managed to grab it. He was then hauled ashore.

‘I can’t feel my legs,’ he had groaned as he was dragged up the bank. Lottie didn’t believe him and kicked him sharply in the shins but he didn’t so much as flinch. In all probability they were numb from the freezing water but that didn’t explain why he hadn’t walked since that day. Lottie had been disappointed at this outcome, namely his survival, but the cries of ‘It’s a miracle!’ and ‘God be praised!’ from the assembled crowd had struck a chord with her and it was at that very moment, on the snowy banks of the Foedus, that she had her first vision.

There appeared in front of her the ghostly shape of a young child on his knees. He was crying, his thin arms outstretched searching for food in the snow, and Lottie was suddenly and unexpectedly moved to tears. In fact the child was not a vision, but flesh and bone, just particularly pale. In the crush of the crowd he had dropped a hot chestnut, which was immediately trodden underfoot, and he was scrabbling for it.

Lottie turned away to see Ned being dragged off to the Nimble Finger, a haunt of his, for a warming drink by the fire, and when she looked back the boy was gone. She thought to follow his ghostly footprints in the snow and eventually came to Hookstone Row, some five or six streets away from the river. The footsteps led directly to a large abandoned house crawling with orphaned boys. As she stood in the doorway and saw their dirty faces looking hopefully at hers, Lottie felt even more profoundly the very recent loss of her own son and vowed to come to the aid of these unfortunates. And thus was founded Lottie Fitch’s Home for Exposed Babies and Abandoned Boys.