The Silver Swan (7 page)

As Papa's footsteps receded into the distance, we all just stood and looked at one another.

‘None of this feels very good to me, Cygno,' said Francesco. ‘I don't like crawling underground like a cockroach.'

‘Same here,' said Jem. ‘I left home so I wouldn't have to be a miner.'

‘What about this?' I asked, pointing. A culvert, not much wider than a pipe, led upwards from a hole near the bottom of the wall. I knelt down and stuck my head inside the pipe. It was narrow, but there were rungs stretching up into the darkness.

‘Just drainage,' said Francesco.

‘We could squeeze up there,' I said. ‘If it's a drain, it must lead right into the street.'

‘You might be able to fit,' said Gideon, ‘but that's built too narrow for men to climb.'

‘Designed like that on purpose, of course,' said Ricardo. ‘Very clever. Only a chimney-sweep can fit up there, to unblock the drain.'

‘There are no weak points in this fortress,' said Francesco.

Jem sighed. ‘I wish you'd stop saying that, even though you may be right.'

‘This is the greatest city on earth,' said Francesco. ‘What makes you think the Grand Master would leave an empty tunnel big enough for you to walk through? It makes no sense.'

‘The entire city is built to keep men out,' Ricardo agreed.

‘But not girls,' I said.

‘Nobody would want to climb up the drains,' said Moggia. ‘They stink.'

‘No worse than some pirates I've met.'

Papa appeared, breathless from running, in the archway.

‘Well?'

‘Nothing. Just caverns that look like storerooms. There are no tunnels that look anything like the map.'

‘Let's go back to the ship,' said Jem.

‘But what about Carlo?' I asked.

‘There's nothing we can do for him tonight,' said Papa. ‘I'm sorry, but there's no way into the city.'

‘We can't just give up.'

‘If the boy is captive, he will probably be held in the lowest dungeons of the Inquisitor's Palace,' said Francesco, shaking his head sadly. ‘Even if we find a way into the city, we would never be able to get him out of such a prison.'

‘Give me a look at that map,' I snapped.

‘Very well.' Papa passed it to me with a sarcastic smile. ‘You see if you can do better.'

‘All right, I will. Moggia, you bring the torch.' He
was always ready for an adventure. I clomped off down the right fork, Moggia walking close behind with the torch in one hand and his cutlass in the other. We had only walked about a hundred paces when we came to a dead end. The tunnel opened out into a broad hall, just as Papa had said.

‘Blast.'

Moggia gazed around forlornly. ‘I am worried for the boy. They will shoot him.'

‘Not if I can help it,' I said. ‘You wait here. Don't tell Papa where I am, unless you think I'm not coming back.'

‘But where are you going?' he asked.

‘I'm not sure,' I said, ‘wherever is at the top of that pipe.' Another of the culverts led into the storeroom and out into a wide gutter.

I unbuckled my baldric and sword and handed them to him, then slipped the dagger into my waistband. Moggia bent down to peer up the pipe. ‘It looks very high. Are you sure you can climb so far?'

‘It can't be any higher than
Gisella
's mainmast,' I said, ‘and it doesn't rock back and forwards.'

‘At least you don't have Diablo waiting at the bottom.'

‘No, I have you, my friend.' I put my hand on his arm. ‘And Carlo waiting at the top, I hope.'

‘Go safely,' said Moggia. ‘I will wait for you until morning. I will not sleep and I will not leave.'

He wouldn't either.

I kneeled down on the cold ground and twisted my body so that I could reach up for the first
handhold, which was not much more than an iron bar sticking out of the stone. With all my strength, I pulled myself up into the stone pipe and started climbing, easily at first and then more slowly as the space narrowed and I got tired. There wasn't much elbow room, but I'd been in worse spots in my life. I guessed that this culvert would have been filled with gushing water at times, but there had been no rain for weeks. It didn't even smell.

My eyes quickly got used to the pitch-black. It's hardly ever so dark that you can't see anything at all but it was dead dark inside that drain. I felt upwards with my hands and I could see their whiteness in front of me, like fluttering puppets. This is all very clever, I thought, but next I have to find Carlo, and then he has to be able to fit down this very narrow hole. I tried not to think about Uncle Ebenezer waiting outside the walls with a musket-ball in his ribs, or of his furious argument with Papa.

Thump. I was stopped by a collision between my head and a very heavy piece of iron. It didn't move. I felt it with my fingers — it wasn't solid, more like a thick and heavy grille, perhaps to stop stuff flowing away down the drain. I braced myself with my feet and pushed upwards with both hands. No luck.

I listened. No noise on the other side. Maybe it wasn't a drain-grate at all, but just a metal blob put here to stop people like me. I'd just have to climb back down and admit defeat — even worse, I'd have to admit my father was right. One last try. I felt it budge. Not much, but enough to make me push harder. I slid the point of my dagger around
the edge of the plate in case it was sealed with muck, and pushed again, gently at first and then harder, along one edge.

It lifted, very slowly and reluctantly. I held it up an inch or so and peered out. The drain had come up in a little cobbled square, where several narrow lanes met. Nobody seemed to be around. Desperately quietly, I slid the grate across, pulled myself out of the pipe, and dropped down on the road on my hands and feet, close to the flagstones. All silent. I gently placed the grille back over the hole, but left it open, just a fraction, in case it was hard to lift off later. Then I stood up and started to sneak through the besieged city.

It seemed a bigger town even than the Old City, with massive stone buildings and fortified palaces everywhere. Houses were crammed together along streets too narrow even for a horse and carriage. Above me, windows and balconies jutted out, blocking my view of the stars. Which way was north? Where was Carlo?

It was deathly still. The foreign-born Knights of Malta had long since fled their palaces and abandoned them to the invaders. If I hadn't known the city was filled with French soldiers and Maltese hostages, I'd have sworn everyone was dead or long gone. I guessed that these months of siege and hunger had made them too weak for normal life, and the curfew forced them inside after dark. But there was a noise coming from somewhere off to the east: a regular clunking, hammering noise and a constant murmur of men's voices.

I'd never been here before, had no idea where anything was, and had the world's most useless map. I couldn't imagine how I would ever find one scared boy in this great fortified city, but I had to try. If I didn't, he would be dead at daybreak.

I turned up a steep stepped lane, turned left again, and found myself back in the jumbled square where I'd begun. Damn. There was nothing to guide me but the sound, so I walked silently towards its source, my eyes scanning the streets ahead and behind, and the shutters and doors of every house I passed. At each corner, I stopped in the shadows and waited until I was sure there was no-one else around. Then I walked on.

As I grew nearer, the noise became more distinct. It was the sound of voices, calling and singing, some chanting prayers and others crying over and over, ‘Freedom! Freedom!'

Just as they seemed to be close, only around the next corner, I glimpsed a movement in the street and shrank into a doorway. Guards. Two of them, talking and pointing, near the edge of a
piazza
.

I slipped along the street, closer, from doorway to darkened doorway. The chorus of voices grew louder. The guards separated and walked off, so I sneaked down a narrow lane and along the side of a building to the far corner, to see for myself. In the middle of the
piazza
was a cage, and inside it, in a huddle, sat a group of prisoners, calling out and banging their shackles against the iron bars. In one corner, sitting apart from the group, his arms wrapped around his skinny legs, was the
unmistakable figure of Carlo de Santiago.

I scanned the
piazza
. There were armed guards posted at each street corner, but they were ignoring the prisoners, probably sick of listening to their shouts and slogans. Each guard had a musket slung carelessly over one shoulder, and they were probably bored after long hours on duty in the dark but still ready enough for action. Between me and the cage was an open space. There was simply no way I could sprint across the square without being seen — without being shot.

Somewhere a church bell pealed. Midnight. Time for the attack.

Please, I prayed silently, please try anyway.

Nothing happened. Why should it? I reasoned. Papa and the boys would never make it to the armoury, and the partisans outside the city would sit and wait in vain for the gates to open. Who'd be fool enough to attack this fortress city with only a handful of men?

Then, right on schedule, a huge explosion lit up the sky, as yellow and red as Judgement Day.

I felt the ground tremble, but it took a few moments for the sound of the explosion to reach my ears. All around the
piazza
the guards started shouting, running towards the flames and firing muskets, even though there was nothing at all to shoot at.

Guns fired all over the city: perhaps French muskets, perhaps the Maltese rebels attacking the gates. Boots pounded along the street nearby. I made myself as small as I could, shrinking into a shadowy corner. A platoon of soldiers thundered by, bayonets fixed. Count to three, then risk another look.

The
piazza
was empty except for the cage and the prisoners, who were all standing now, shouting even louder. A few threw curses at the disappearing Frenchmen, while others called out for help.

I raced across the stones, as quietly as I could, keeping low and moving fast. Carlo saw me first. I heard him cry, ‘Cygno!'

The prisoners suddenly fell silent.

‘Keep shouting,' I whispered, ‘or they'll know something is up.'

They didn't need much encouragement. Their voices lifted again: ‘Freedom! Freedom!'

I slid across the ground near the cage, crashed into it with my feet, and began fumbling my way along to find a gate. Carlo was close, on the other side of the bars, chattering madly.

‘I knew you would come, Cygno. Don't ask me how, but I knew. I tried to tell these men, but they would not listen. Where is everyone else?'

‘There's no-one else here,' I said. ‘Just me. Where's the stupid lock?'

‘It's over here, child.' A kindly, deep voice stood out among the hoarse hollering of all the other men. I peered in. An elderly monk stood smiling, just inside the cage.

‘Bless you,' he said.

The lock was old and rusted, and about as big as a Bible. I stabbed the point of my dagger into the lock and twisted. Nothing happened.

‘Blackbeard's blood,' I cursed.

‘I'll do it,' said Carlo urgently. ‘I know all about locks.'

‘Not bloody likely,' I retorted. ‘You'll break my dagger and the lock.'

Carlo looked wounded. I'll apologise later, I thought. Hurt feelings are better than a broken blade.

‘Allow me, child,' the monk whispered. ‘I used to break into the library after dark, when I was a boy.'

He thrust both arms through the bars and took my dagger. His fingers fluttered over the lock and he bent down towards it, as close as he could, with
one ear cocked to listen to its movement. The other men kept up their chants and banged their chains, pretending that nothing unusual was happening. I cast a frantic look around the
piazza
and crouched even lower. This was all taking far too long for my liking.

The monk slid the dagger deftly into the lock, poked it back and forth a few times, and then twisted it gently to the left. It clicked open.

‘The sound of freedom,' he said. ‘What a beautiful noise.'

He handed me the dagger and reached out to grasp my sleeve. ‘One cage opens, but still we are trapped. Where shall we run to?'

I could only shake my head. ‘I'm sorry, I don't know. The gates were supposed to be opened, but we failed in that. I only know one way out of the city, and' — I looked at him and the men around him — ‘I'm afraid you are all too big to fit down the hole I came up.'

‘The child burrowed in like a rabbit,' he told the others. ‘The gates are still barred.'

They whispered the news to each other.

‘Spread out through the city and wait for the dawn,' I suggested. ‘They can't find you in the dark if you're quiet, and you have friends who will hide you.'

The monk nodded.

‘Are you ready?' I asked.

They all shouted at once. ‘Freedom!'

I let the lock clatter to the ground and pulled open the bolt. The cage door creaked open. The men burst
through the open door like a deluge, and several tripped in their haste.

‘Carlo!' I shouted over the racket. ‘Follow me.'

I put out my hand and he grabbed it. I looked back towards the old monk. ‘Farewell.'

‘God speed,' he said.

We scattered across the square like ants in a rainstorm, dashing for the dark corners, down every street and lane. It would only be a matter of minutes before the French realised the cage was empty and that their prisoners had fled.

Carlo and I sprinted back the way I'd come, running as fast as we could, with no thought of keeping quiet now. His hands were shackled, and the heavy iron must have been dragging at him, but he ran like the
sirocco
. Then we heard a shout, a shot.

‘Down here.' I pushed Carlo into an alley-way, and we ran slower now — more quietly — so we could hear if there was anyone behind us or ahead. Carlo's chains clunked and clattered.

‘Wait here a moment,' I said. He needed a rest, but I knew he'd never admit it. I darted around the corner and spotted the grate, still slightly open across the drain.

I sighed with relief. Until that second I hadn't been entirely sure I could find it again. I retraced my steps and waved to Carlo. He ran to join me; both of us crouched on the paving stones.

‘We have to climb down here,' I whispered. ‘It's not going to be easy with those chains around your wrists.'

‘I am not afraid.'

I smiled at him. ‘It's all right to be afraid sometimes, you know. I was afraid I'd never find you.'

‘How did you know I was here?'

‘Your mother asked us to come.'

‘Us?'

‘We're all here — the boys and my father,' I said. ‘They're all waiting below.'

‘Your father?'

‘It's a long story. Let's go.'

We lifted the heavy grate together, and Carlo peered down the hole.

‘It will be pitch-black and very narrow, but just take it slowly,' I said. ‘There are handholds all the way.'

‘You are starting to worry like my mother.'

‘You know what?' I said. ‘I'm sure she'd have come with us if we'd let her.'

He grinned, and I nudged his shoulder.

‘Stop talking and start climbing.'