The Stone Giant (18 page)

Beyond the shantytown was the city proper, a lacework of streets and alleys that ran along down toward the river and the harbor. The houses were two and three stories high, many with wrought-iron balconies that fronted the street, overgrown with bougainvillea and trumpet flower that seemed to grow out of any little bit of ground that presented itself. The streets were cobbled, but the cobbles had been laid a hundred years since and were crumbled and broken. Scree, swept out or washed out of the street, clogged the gutters, and here and there a vine trailed from a silty heap of it, as if one day the entire city, streets and houses and all, would vanish beneath flowering vines. Escargot rather liked it.

He wandered into the first likely looking public house that appeared, one that sat next to a shop, closed for the evening, that advertised herbs, philtres, potions, and surgery. In the window of the shop was a dusty display of coiled snakes in bottles. In front of them was a heap of dried newts, all, it appeared, strung together on thread. A scattering of fish skeletons, decoratively displayed among the dried tendrils and bladders of kelp, completed the display, and in among them, wizened and shrunken but with the tiny rags of a shirt and trousers still clinging to it, was the papery shell of what had once been a henny-penny man. It lay in a glass jar, corked and with a high enough price to make it seem that henny-penny men, in Balumnia anyway, were almost as scarce as they were in the Oriel River Valley, and that they were put to uses equally as odious.

The entire display, however, made it seem to Escargot that, henny-penny men aside, he might quite likely make a living from the sea. That afternoon, while waiting for the sun to descend, he’d found Captain Perry’s underwater suit, a loose and rubbery affair—trousers and a waistcoat—entirely seamless, and with an enormous seashell helmet, which had been trimmed and turned so as to screw onto the brass neck ring of the suit, and into which a glass faceplate had been set. A cannister-shaped contrivance hung on the back of the rubber waistcoat and generated air at the pressing of a lever.

The science of the thing was a mystery to Escargot, but no more a mystery than was the mysterious enchantment that drove the submarine itself. He’d decided to trust to the apparatus of the vessel when he’d marooned Captain Perry and launched out. He might just as well take the underwater suits into the bargain. It wasn’t worth looking too sharply at elfin marvels anyway. In Smithers, at least, they sprang as often as not from a handful of crystalline elf silver, a spray of emerald dust, and an incomprehensible incantation mumbled in the middle of a lot of wild-eyed hurrying about by elves who had forgotten their lunch or their hat or what exactly it was they were building that morning. Elves, for the most part, were a frivolous lot, who went in for larks as much as for any sort of seriousness, and, if Smithers could be believed, their inventions ended in spectacular muddled failure as often as in success. Fortunately, Captain Perry and his men had tried the suits out more than once and had lived to spend the treasure they’d accumulated—or at least to watch it sink to the sea bottom.

Escargot was halfway through a stewed chicken when into the tavern stepped a thin, bearded man in a robe. He’d come through a door that opened in the connecting wall between the tavern and the herb emporium. His robe was tied round the middle with a length of hempen rope, and a little cluster of bird skulls hung at his waist, rattling as the man walked. His beard was of the pointy sort, laboriously cut and combed, but hardly worth having for all the work it obviously required to keep it in trim. The man’s nose resembled the fleshless beaks of the birds that hung from his waist, and his eyes were dark and sunken from too much poring over ancient tomes in the lantern light. He seemed to want very much to seem worldly-wise and mysterious, as if he engaged in mystical hocum that the common man only heard dark rumors of. But the effect was ruined by his hair, which had been greased back in a gray hump, as if he’d gotten out into a stiff winter wind and his hair had been blown back and frozen there. He ran his hand over it nervously, patting it into place even though it didn’t need patting. Mussing it, Escargot decided, would have profited him more.

He called for a pint from the tavern keeper in a voice that was too loud and too hearty, and he quaffed off an inch of the ale with a great smacking of lips, as if it took a man like him to
really
appreciate a glass of ale. Then he held the glass up to a lantern, examining it, squinting his eyes. He took another gulp, smacked his lips over it again, and declaimed a half dozen lines of loud poetry—his own, quite clearly.

Escargot noticed that scattered patrons cast looks at each other, as if they’d tolerated such a show any of a number of times before and had failed to be impressed. Escargot himself didn’t much go in for heartiness. He distrusted it like he distrusted any sort of flamboyant emotion. Talking to the man would be tiresome. He drank up his ale, picked the last few bits of oily meat from the bones of the chicken, and then stepped across to where the robed man stood orating in a too-loud voice to a small tired man who looked about ready to collapse from the conversation.

‘A pint of ale for my two friends here,’ said Escargot to the tavern keeper, ‘and one for myself, thank you.’ The robed man stepped back and squinted at him in suspicion, but rushed for the ale when it was sloshed down onto the counter. The second man picked up his glass, tipped his hat to Escargot, and fled, searching out a table in a dim, distant corner.

‘I haven’t had the pleasure, Mr ...?’

‘Escargot. Theophile Escargot, of Twombly Town.’

‘Where was that?’ asked the man, squinting again as if suspicious that Escargot were fabricating things.

‘Distant place,’ said Escargot quickly. He’d forgotten himself already. Twombly Town didn’t exist in this world. He’d have to mug up a map in order to find a reasonable place to be from. Place names on Smithers’ maps might be risky—only half authentic like Lazarus Island.

The man eyed Escargot, waiting.

‘That’s two and six,’ said the tavern keeper suddenly, swabbing at the counter with a dirty rag.

‘Of course,’ said Escargot, hauling out a scattering of coins. He handed a gold sovereign to the publican and turned back to the herb merchant.

‘What’s this?’ came the publican’s voice in his ear, a bit louder than it had been a moment before. ‘We don’t want none of this trash, do we?’

Escargot looked at him and grinned. ‘What trash?’

The man dropped the coin onto the bar where it spun to a stop.

‘Gold,’ said Escargot.

‘Is that it? What kind of gold? Who’s this fat bogger on the front, some kind of joke?’

‘King Randolf of Monmouth,’ replied Escargot, understanding as he said it that the information would cause him more trouble than it would solve.

‘You ever hear of such a thing?’ asked the publican of the robed man.

‘Not entirely,’ he said, coughing into his fist. ‘That is to say, not in recent memory. Let me see it.’

The publican handed it across and watched while the herb man scrutinized it officiously. The man shoved the coin into his mouth and bit it, wincing just a little, then hauling it back out. ‘Highly doubtful,’ he said at last, shrugging his shoulders as if sorry to have been forced to come to such a conclusion.

‘That’s two and six,’ said the publican again. ‘Now.’

‘That’s the best I can do,’ said Escargot truthfully. ‘There’s nothing doubtful about the coin. It’s gold through and through and it’s worth a dozen stewed chickens and change left over.’

‘I don’t want no foreign coins, mate. I don’t want no foreigners neither. King Who-is-it! It’s two and six I want or I’ll sweep the floor with your head.’

‘Come now. Buckeridge, my good fellow. We shouldn’t take on so, should we?’ The robed man laid a hand on the publican’s wrist, and the wrist was immediately jerked away. ‘The coin is doubtful, perhaps, but this man’s integrity might be sound. Let me pay the two and six. Out of my own pocket. There it is, Buckeridge—two and six and a penny for yourself, my man. No, let me pay you for two more pints. I can scarce afford it, but I can lighten up the rest of the week. Dry bread and the rinds of old cheeses will suffice for supper.’

The publican gave the man a disgusted look, then gave Escargot a disgusted look, then took the man’s coins and turned back to his rag.

‘Very provincial, these tavern keepers,’ said the man to Escargot after they’d found a table. ‘Great mistrust of foreigners. There’s been trouble, you know, down south. And upriver there’s been no end of upheaval and ruination. Ships scuttled, robbers on the high road. All that sort of thing. Heaven knows Landsend is full of strangers, but they’re mariners, mostly, and come from lands on the map. Yours isn’t on the map, is it?’

‘Of course it’s on the map,’ said Escargot. ‘But it doesn’t amount to much. Very small. A few cabins and a general store. It’s a metalsmith across the mountain who mints the coins. It didn’t strike me when I came down that there’d be any trouble with them, but I can see now that I was wrong. They’re gold, though, like I said.’

‘Of course they are. They aren’t in the least doubtful, actually. I thought it best to step in there. Buckeridge is too quick with a truncheon, to tell you the truth, so I wanted to avoid prolonged discussions and accusations and such that might work him up. Pay the man his two and six, I said to myself, even though it’s dear to you, and your man with the odd coin will be happier for it. Another man’s happiness, I’ve always felt, is to be valued as much as your own.’

Villain, Escargot thought, eyeing the herb merchant. The truth charm, if he were to pull it out of its pouch, would convince the man to sing a different tune. But perhaps there was no call for that. Perhaps a certain amount of pitching in and playing along was what was called for here. He’d been hood-winked by smooth talk before. That wouldn’t happen again. ‘So you own the herb and philtre shop next door, do you?’ he asked of the man.

‘That I do. I’ve owned it for years, and trade with all manners of men. It’s not, alas, a profitable business, for it deals as often as not with things of the spirit, things that can’t be bought or sold for gold coins.’

‘The fish in the window, and the kelp—get those hereabouts? Easy to come by, I imagine, living on the ocean like this.’

‘Oh, vastly more difficult than you’d suppose. Just any sort of fish won’t do. Deepwater specimens, of course, fetch the most money, but they’re scarce. And the lilac kelp in the window. There’s not a hatful of it in Landsend. It’s worth a fortune to the right man.’

Escargot scratched his forehead, arched his brow, and said, ‘What if I told you I could put you in the way of six hatfuls of the kelp?’

‘I’d say you were a man with a vivid imagination. Lilac kelp grows at sixty fathoms. That in the window was combed from twenty-eight miles of beaches.’

‘I can have it by day after tomorrow.’

The herb man began to squint again. He shrugged. ‘I believe you,’ he said. ‘You have one of the twelve honest faces. Bring it round, then, and we’ll do a spot of business. There’s a man staying at the Vance Hotel on Royal Street who will buy the lot if it’s fresh enough. But he moves quickly; we’ve got to get it to him by Sunday at the latest.’

Escargot blinked at him. ‘I’ve been on the road,’ he said, ‘for a week and a half. The days just slide by. You know how it is. I’m afraid I’ve rather lost track.’

‘It’s Friday.’

‘Of course it is!’ cried Escargot, and he struck his forehead as if marveling at his own foolishness.

‘What will you do for coin in the meantime?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Escargot. ‘I haven’t had time to give it any thought.’

The man rummaged beneath his robe. After a moment he stopped rummaging, as if, try as he might, he couldn’t find a thing worth removing. He shook his head, ‘I wish I were in a way to help you more, my friend, but, as I said, the herb trade isn’t as lucrative as one might think. I have almost nothing.’ And with that he rummaged again and hauled out his coin purse. Escargot half expected to see moths fly from it when he pinched it open. There were three coins inside. ‘I can give you these,’ he continued, ‘which ought to carry you across until we meet again. If you’ll trust me with your coin, I’ll see what I can do to get you a fair exchange. Heaven knows they’ll fleece you as if they get the chance. I’m an old hand at it though. I see a lot of foreign coins, as I say, and I’ve got certain connections, if you follow me.’

‘Of course,’ said Escargot. He eyed the man for a moment, fearing that if he turned over his coins they’d go the way of his marbles. But they weren’t worth much, after all. They wouldn’t even buy him a stewed chicken. They’d nearly gotten him beaten up, hadn’t they? And this robed man—unlike the situation with Uncle Helstrom, at least Escargot knew how to find the man again. There was his herb shop, after all. If he played Escargot false, Escargot could at least have the satisfaction of taking it out of his hide. He hauled out his own pouch and handed over most of his coins, saving three sovereigns on the off chance that he’d find himself in the near future back in the land of Seaside and Twomby Town. The robed man gave him three thin coins in return.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ promised the man, dumping the handful of gold into his purse and stowing the thing once again in his robe. He smiled broadly at Escargot, favoring him with a look of trust and compassion.

‘Two more pints here,’ said Escargot to the innkeeper who swabbed a nearby table, and he thrust out one of the three coins. The innkeeper squinted at it, then plucked it out of Escargot’s open palm, satisfied, apparently.

‘That’s the spirit!’ said the robed man heartily, happy to be stood to a pint regardless of how the pint was to be payed for.

Escargot wondered at first whether the innkeeper might demand more. He had no idea what the coin was worth, in terms of pints, and was relieved to get change back with the ale. The innkeeper plunked the glasses down and dropped four coins onto the tabletop—broad copper coins stamped with the likeness of what apeared to be an ape. The transaction had netted him another pint, but it hadn’t given him much information about the coins, since he had no idea what the coppers were worth.