The Ring of Five (18 page)

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Duddy, looking harassed, was trying to shepherd the cadets onto the bus when Danny heard Frieda's high-pitched voice rise above the general hubbub.

"Please, Miss," she said, "Cadet Caulfield stole something." The rest of the cadets fell quiet. Duddy turned toward Frieda.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"He stole these apples from one of the stalls. There was an awful fuss when the man saw they were gone. We saw it all. Danny took them and ran into a restaurant."

"Is this true?" Duddy asked sternly. "Are you a thief, Caulfield?"

"Well, kind of," Danny said, his gruff voice shaking a little. He was already in enough trouble with Devoy over being caught on the upper floors of Wilsons and releasing the siren.

"What happened?" Duddy demanded. So Danny told her about using the apples as a decoy to get through the restaurant and out the back door. Duddy stared at him, unblinking, as he stammered through the story.

"Well," she said softly as he finished, "who would have thought it." Danny fell silent. He could see Exspectre, a cold grin on his moon face.

"Who would have thought," Duddy said, "that a cadet in his first field lesson would use such a textbook example of the Bolivian bistro feint. Well done, Caulfield, we'll make a spy of you yet."

Danny bowed modestly, trying to keep the grin off his face at Frieda's and Smyck's crestfallen expressions. Then

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he remembered--Brunholm! Drawing Les and Dixie aside, he told them what he had seen. Les's face hardened at the mention of Rufus Ness.

"If I could get my hands on him," he muttered through clenched teeth.

"What about Starling?" Dixie asked. "What did you think about him?"

"I don't know," Danny admitted. "He's up to something, anyway, no doubt about that. But he didn't seem to be any friend to Rufus Ness."

"Then he's a friend of mine," Les said.

Les didn't speak all the way home on the bus. He seemed lost in memories.

"Leave him alone," Dixie said as the bus screeched into Wilsons on two wheels. "Leave him alone and he'll come home, dragging his tail behind him."

"Sometimes, Dixie," Danny said, "you're just plain daft."

"Maybe," she said, "but you do realize something--if Brunholm's carrying tales to Rufus Ness, then maybe he's told Mr. Ness about our mission. We could be walking into a trap. Bang!" Her hands snapped together in imitation of the steel jaws of a trap, making the dozing Duddy jump in the air and exclaim, "Do put the gun away, Marcus dear!" before looking owlishly around her and muttering something about a bad dream.

When they went inside the school, Duddy removed Danny's makeup and gave him a foul-smelling liquid that got rid of his voice dye. Danny was relieved to get the

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makeup off his face, but he watched carefully. He had a feeling that the gruff dwarf disguise might be useful in the future.

Back at the Roosts he sought out Les and Dixie and Vandra. He told Vandra about Brunholm and Rufus Ness.

"What do we do?" Vandra asked. "Do we go to Devoy?"

"No," Danny said, "we don't have enough evidence--and me and Les aren't exactly the apples of Devoy's eye at the moment. No, we keep an eye on Brunholm, follow him when we can, wait for him to make a mistake."

"Spying on the spy, in other words," Les said. There was a cold light in his eyes.

"It's getting dark outside," Dixie, who had been staring out the window, said in a stern voice making them all look around.

"Well, it is," she said.

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AUTUMN

The days passed quickly. The weather was blustery, the trees in the grounds of Wilsons turned gold, and frequent gales sent great clouds of leaves blowing up and down the gardens and courtyards of the old buildings. Danny couldn't believe how easily he had settled into the rhythm of life at Wilsons. In a way it felt as if he had never been anywhere else. The days were a routine of classes and study. At night they studied in the great hall, the ravens fluttering about in the rafters. They did not see Devoy at all, and Brunholm only rarely, muttering distractedly to himself as he passed them in the corridors. Danny thought this was odd--he had expected some form of special training for his mission. And all the while the thought of the Ring of Five gnawed at him, the knowledge that they were out there somewhere, scheming.

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He had the impression that McGuinness was there in the background, not showing his face. Danny tried to be wary--there had been three attempts to kill him, after all--but sitting around a warm stove in the Roosts, eating muffins with his friends, it seemed ridiculous that someone might be plotting to take his life.

He had stopped playing chess in maths class and had taken up playing Texas hold 'em with Vandra and Dixie. Les couldn't be tempted away from his game of bridge. Danny had his first class in ciphers with Bartley, working out very basic codes. But even that was maddeningly hard to get to grips with, when you had to listen to Bartley's strange pronouncements.

In his second week he had his first geography lesson with Spitfire. Danny had never seen anything like her great living map of the Lower World. The rivers were real water, and the forests appeared to be real, although the trees were in miniature. Westwald was clearly visible, as was Wilsons; you could see the great inlet separating the island from the rest of the Lower World, and a sea of darkness on the other side.

"So there is water on one side of Wilsons," Danny said slowly, "and what is this?" He pointed to the darkness.

"Don't touch!" Spitfire warned. "That is the Darkness. An unmapped void of space and time separating the Upper World and the Lower. Few know their way through it, and even if they do, the treaty forbids all but a few like Fairman from crossing it. Wilsons is unique

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among islands. Water on one side, Darkness on the other. But look. Here is Westwald."

The city of Westwald was often obscured by low cloud and smoke from its many factory chimneys, which swirled around so that it was difficult to get a proper look at the narrow streets and tall houses.

Spitfire explained that the map was kept up to date every day, with movements of forces of the Ring clearly marked, and it was increasingly obvious that Wilsons was in dire straits. As far as Danny could see, there was simply a complex system of bluffs and feints, including putting lights on at night in the watchtowers on the beach so that the enemy would think they were occupied. Danny began to see how the siren's false information would have been very valuable to Wilsons in helping to persuade the other side that the defenders were well armed.

In contrast, the Cherb positions were well manned, each division of troops indicated by a blue and brown marker.

"Top-secret info, Caulfield," Spitfire would bark. "See that you keep it to yourself!"

Every night, Danny and Les would meet with Vandra and Dixie after dinner in Ravensdale, and they would talk about the mission. Danny tried to gather as much information as he could about the Lower World from them, but it was clear that most of Les and Vandra's memories were of their families, and that it was too painful to talk much about them. Instead, the cadets tried to imagine the situations they might find themselves in. Dixie talked

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about "Cherb tickling," although Danny could see a fiercer light in Les's eye when Cherbs were mentioned.

Twice Danny was called alone to the library of the third landing to meet with Devoy. No matter how much Danny asked, Devoy would not discuss the mission. Instead, he would talk about the great spies of history. The people who had infiltrated the courts of kings, or the halls of governments. The terrible risks they ran, the loneliness and distrust, and the strain that sometimes broke them. He hinted darkly at other things as well--dungeons, and torture. But no matter how much Devoy talked about the harshness of a spy's life, Danny could not suppress a dark thrill at the idea of being at the center of a web of espionage.

Devoy did not talk about his own career much, although he hinted at missions undertaken, colleagues lost. And sometimes, Danny noticed, his eyes strayed to the portrait of Longford, who looked down on them.

Smyck and Exspectre mostly ignored Danny, or seemed to be sharing a secret joke at his expense when they saw him.

"Watch them, though," Les said, "they're not stupid." And as the days went on, Danny found that more and more of the cadets crossed to the other side of the corridor to avoid him, and sensed that a whispering campaign against him was gaining ground. A campaign with the word "Cherb" at the heart of it, he thought sourly.

On a lighter note, reports came back daily of the outrages committed by Vicky the siren on the hapless Messengers. They came down to their dance one evening

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to find that she had decorated the ballroom with stolen photographs of Messengers in full flight. To their fury, she had enchanted one of the older Messengers, and had been interrupted as she attempted, in Gabriel's words, "to pluck him like a common fowl."

For the most part, she left the cadets alone, although sometimes when she was bored she would enchant the younger boys into declaring their love to her in the most lavish terms, usually in front of their classmates. Several attempts had been made to catch her, but she evaded them with ease. There were rumors that Valant had strung nets through the trees and spread glue on tree branches so that she would stick to them.

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THE APOTHECARY OF THE SECOND LANDING

Called again to the library of the third landing, Danny found that his eyes strayed to the portrait of Suzerrain Longford on the wall.

"Could you tell me about him?" he asked Devoy. The master leaned forward and put a log on the fire before speaking.

"We were cadets together here," Devoy said finally, "cadets and friends, or so I thought. That is the great and terrible thing about the art of betrayal. It makes you doubt everything that has gone before. When did the betrayal start? When you thought you were sharing something special with a friend, perhaps that friend was secretly laughing at you."

"But why? Why did he betray you?"

"The reasons for betrayal are always the same.

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Love--whether for friend or family--or the opposite of love: hatred, money, power and pride."

Which one of them would make a parent abandon you? Danny thought sourly.

"With Longford, it was the last two, I think," Devoy went on. "He would wield more power by joining the Ring than he would ever acquire here. But there was more to it than that. He wanted to see if he could take on and defeat the might of Wilsons, as it then was. He has almost succeeded. One of his great triumphs was to take the Cherbs and change them from a disorganized rabble into a fighting force."

"But he was your friend!"

"Yes. And nightly we do battle with each other in our heads, trying to work out what the other's next move might be. His betrayal claws at my soul. As his own knowledge of what he has done must tear at his."

"I'd never betray a friend like that," Danny said indignantly.

"You think not?" Devoy turned expressionless eyes to him. "Do you really think not?"

Devoy let Danny go early that night, and he was one of the first into Ravensdale. The street was dark and deserted as he made his way toward the Consiglio dei Dieci. He sat at the table, listening to the ravens moving unseen in the rafters overhead. Often now he caught them watching him. "Ask the ravens," the Gallery of Whispers had said, but how did you ask a raven a question, and how did it reply?

The table was set for supper--there were jugs of hot

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chocolate and a plate of biscuits at each place. Just as Danny reached for a biscuit, the door opened and Smyck came in. His eyes narrowed when he saw Danny.

"What are you doing here, Cherb? Don't have to study like the rest of us?" Danny kept his head down. He didn't want a showdown with Smyck.

"I'm talking to you, Cherb. You act like you own this place." Danny could feel his face getting red. "This is supposed to be a school for the elite," Smyck went on, "not for some Upper World street trash."

Finally Danny got to his feet, fists balled. But before he could move, the door opened, and Vandra and Les came in. Les took in the situation at a glance.

"Don't do nothing, Danny, he's trying to get you into trouble. Leave him be, Smyck. I can make trouble for you like you wouldn't believe!"

Smyck gave a sneering laugh, but he turned away. As he pushed past Danny, his hand snaked out and he grabbed a biscuit from Danny's plate and rammed it into his mouth. He made his way to his seat, where his sneer turned to a snarl.

"Leave it out, Smyck," Les said, "or I'll have to ..." The snarl grew louder and turned into a choking sound. They saw Smyck reach up to his throat; then the tall boy was flung from his chair in a great spasm. He landed on the ground, his back bowed at an impossible angle, while his hands clawed at his throat, an anguished gurgling sound coming from his wide-open mouth.

"His lips are turning black!" Danny said. Les said nothing, his eyes round with horror. Danny felt Vandra