Alice shivered, reminding herself where she was. She had a job to do.
Hoar sat down at the table and Alice and Suzanne quickly knelt before him, resting back on their heels with their knees submissively wide.
‘Now tell me what’s been going on with the pair of you,’ he said.
Alice took a deep breath. Hoar seemed kindly enough so she would risk telling him most of the truth.
‘There were three of us on the train, Master; Suzanne here, myself, I’m Alice, and Juliet. Suzanne belongs to a merchant in Brillig, but she got lost on a trip to the edge squares and is trying to get back to him. Juliet and myself are new to Underland and don’t belong to anybody. We got to Gyre and earned money selling flowers to buy our tickets to Brillig. Sue and I travelled in the goods van, but because we had to have somebody to mind us, Juliet dressed as an ordinary girl. She travelled in a carriage. It didn’t hurt anybody and we did pay for our tickets. See, we still have the numbers on our labels.’
Hoar examined the now stained pieces of card and nodded.
Alice continued. ‘Everything was fine until a woman who we had sold flowers to recognised Juliet and told the conductor. But instead of just putting us all in the goods van, the woman bribed him to let her take Juliet as her slave. Thinking we might tell, she then had us thrown off the train! Please, you mustn’t let her get away with it. I’m frightened what she might do to Juliet.’
Hoar scowled as she concluded her tale, scratching his beard. ‘Well, you shouldn’t have done what you did, but neither should this woman have bribed members of the railway staff. That’s a serious offence. And there’s certainly no cause to throw pretty things like yourselves off a train. It’s such a waste, not to speak of the trouble it might cause if you landed on somebody. This will have to be looked into.’ He looked at them both sternly. ‘You know the penalty if you’re lying?’
‘Yes, Master. It’s all true, Master. We can prove it.’
‘Well, I’ll have to talk to this woman for a start. Do you know her name?’
Alice hesitated. ‘I don’t know if she’s using her real name because it’s very long. She might be using something shorter.’
‘Well, what might that be?’ Hoar demanded.
‘Um, Lilian Alabastrine, maybe …’
She trailed off because of the expression on Hoar’s face. He had gone deathly pale as a look of horrified disbelief spread across it.
‘Oh … no,’ he grated. ‘Not her, not here! Not after all this time …’
Alice scrambled to her feet and lunged forward. Before Hoar could stop her she grasped his cap between her teeth and pulled it off his head. Beneath, nestling on his silver-grey curls, was a platinum crown.
‘Not another one of you!’ Alice said in dismay.
The White King looked shrunken and much older as he tried to explain. As he spoke he fiddled with his cap, as though unsure whether he should put it on again.
‘I loved her the way she was,’ he said bleakly. ‘But she was never truly happy. She threw herself into the campaigns as a distraction, I think. What a strategist she was, what a warrior! But then the Boardland changed and stories of the Crown began to spread. It was a powerful thing, too much for the natives to handle. But we were different. We knew it had to be a means to break the stalemate; the last gambit of the last game. But as soon as Lilian heard of it she had a different idea. She became obsessed with tracking it down, however long it took. And so I lost her. Eventually I just left. Well, what was the point in remaining in play? The rules had changed. Nobody needed me any more. But I couldn’t go back home alone, without wife or army. So I took to living amongst the natives. It has its rewards. I like the simple regularity of trains, you know. Something you can count on. And the only battles to fight now are over first or third class tickets and lost luggage.’
‘But you still can’t take your crown off,’ Suzanne pointed out.
‘Oh, I will … someday. I mean there’s no rush, is there?’
‘As long as your wife doesn’t recognise you as she comes through here about an hour from now,’ Alice pointed out.
‘No, she mustn’t!’ the King wailed. ‘I’m sorry for what she did to you, but I can’t help.’
‘All right,’ Alice said. ‘You won’t face up to her, but can you at least get us back on the train so we have a chance to rescue our friend?’
‘But what good will it do?’ he said. ‘They’re bound to recognise you before you can save her.’
‘When’s the next train for Brillig?’
‘Not for two days.’
‘We can’t wait that long,’ Suzanne said. ‘There must be some way of disguising us.’
The King scratched his beard. ‘Well, I suppose you could travel parcel post. Nobody would see your faces then.’
‘What?’ Suzanne exclaimed.
‘It’s just started. It only operates for live packages over short distances, of course. In fact there are three girlings parcelled up for Brillig in the baggage room.’
‘Perhaps you could show us the way?’ Alice asked politely.
They peered in at the little baggage room. Amongst the other goods, propped up against the wall like brown paper mummies were three girl-shaped parcels neatly tied up with string. She could see their chests slowly rising and falling as they waited with enforced patience. They had labels tied round their necks that declared they were bound for POPERT AND PELUS PROMOTIONS, FRUMENTY STREET, BRILLIG.
Only in Underland! Alice thought. Yet it had its own mad logic and there had to be worse ways to travel.
‘Right, you wrap us up and address us to Suzanne’s master, and we won’t tell anybody who you really are,’ Alice said to Hoar briskly. ‘Agreed?’
‘Unfortunately this service is only for goods to be collected from the station,’ he explained. ‘It’ll be no help to be left in the parcel office because your master doesn’t know you’re there.’
‘Can you add us to the order for Popert and Pelus?’ Suzanne wondered. ‘At least that way we’d get collected.’
‘Yes, I could do that,’ Hoar agreed.
‘Do you know anything about these people?’ Alice asked Suzanne.
‘No. Maybe they’re also new. Though Brillig is quite a large town, so I might not have heard of them.’
‘I suppose as soon as they unwrap us you can give them your master’s name,’ Alice said. ‘No reason why they shouldn’t send for him.’
‘I think it’s our best chance,’ Suzanne said.
Alice took a deep breath. ‘Right. Find some brown paper and string, Your Ex-Highness. You’ve got two girlings to wrap.’
Until she was completely cocooned, Alice did not realise how perversely exciting being turned into a parcel would feel. The King cut a small hole for her nose so she could breathe, but otherwise she was completely enclosed.
Her arms were confined to her sides, held in place by several turns of string binding that steadily moulded the sturdy, crackling paper to the contours of her body as it was looped and tied around her. Ankles, knees, hips and wrists, waist and elbows, diagonally across her chest between her breasts, loosely about her neck, firmly over her mouth and then, changing direction, under her chin and across the top of her head. Then she was rolled onto her front and longitudinal cords were run down her back threading through the circling bindings and around her feet. Rolled over onto her back again, they were run up her front in the same way to tie to her neck loop. But even as she was constricted she was also supported. She had wondered how the other three girlings had stood so straight; now she understood the way the paper and bindings combined to brace her almost rigid. It was an absurd waste of time and string, but deeply exciting. She had entered the realm of total helplessness once again, but this time with a thin paper skin between her and the unseen outside world.
Alice felt the heavier string handles being tied through the other loops. Then she was lifted off the table. So well was she bound that she only bent slightly in the middle. The ren
egade King propped her up against the wall and went away to start wrapping Suzanne. Curiously Alice felt no urge to try to speak, even if her bindings would have allowed it. Very strange. Were her senses expanding or contracting? She was a parcel without desire. Her label said it all. She awaited handling.
A little later Suzanne was propped up beside her. She felt the warmth of her body penetrating her cocoon.
‘The train’s due soon,’ the King whispered to them. ‘Good luck to you … and don’t blame Lilian too much for what she’s done.’
Then all was quiet and incredibly peaceful.
At some point the train must have come, because Alice remembered being carried into the goods van and being placed in a rack with the other girls. Ropes were strung across their chests and knees to hold them in place. A hand briefly squeezed her breasts through their brown paper wrappings and then vanished. She had no idea if Juliet was in the cage only a few feet from her, but her strange new circumstances seemed to have induced both extraordinary patience and fatalism. She would find Juliet when she reached Brillig and not before. Meanwhile there was nothing she could do about it.
There followed a couple of hours of gentle swaying motion, ending in the clank and bustle of a larger station. She was unloaded with the rest into an unseen room with the other baggage. Soon she became aware of a conversation between faceless voices:
‘I was told there’d be three of them.’
‘Well, there’s five here. Are you complaining?’
‘No. They can sort it out. They need as many as they can get anyway.’
‘Going to be a good show, is it?’
‘One of their best. Got your tickets yet?’
She was picked up and loaded into a cart with the others, enjoying an intense tactile sensation at being carried over a man’s shoulder like a roll of carpet. Had Cleopatra got high like this? Was she wet enough for it to soak through the wrapping over her groin? How embarrassing. The cart rattled through the streets until it turned into some sort of yard. Another little high as she was hauled off to be stacked with the others, warm flesh in brown paper.
There came a man’s voice, tantalisingly familiar. ‘He said he’d send us three, not five.’
‘Has he charged for five?’ said another voice that she also thought she should know.
‘No.’
‘Well, it’s his loss, then. Let’s get them undone.’
The sound of ripping paper came nearer, then a knife cut the string about her head and fingers tore the wrapping away. She blinked in the sudden light. Two faces were peering at her, one from up high, the other low.
‘Alice Brown!’
It was Topper and Lepus.
Eight
‘YOU CAUSED US a lot of trouble back home, girl!’ the March Hare said once again. ‘After your escape the Queen never forgave us for bringing you to Underland. As news of her disfavour spread our customers deserted us. Together with scares about the revolution your friends were planning, it made it impossible to keep trading as girling brokers.’
‘But I was never really part of the revolution, Master, it was all a mistake … aah!’
Lepus had flicked the small cane he carried across the smooth swell of her stomach, causing her to flinch painfully.
‘As a consequence we had no choice but to move here,’ Lepus continued, uninterested in hearing her excuses. ‘It’s not been easy building new reputations, you know.’
‘I’m sorry, Master,’ Alice replied contritely. At least it explained why the pair were now living in Boardland under assumed anagrams.
‘You will be,’ he said.
Alice shivered. ‘Yes, Master.’
His whiskers bristled and his snout wrinkled into a frown as he peered more closely at the cowl of feathers where Alice’s hair had been. Then he reached out a small but perfectly formed hand and plucked at her pubic down. ‘Where did you get these from?’
‘It’s a long story, Master,’ Alice began. ‘You see I … uhh!’
Lepus had switched her again. ‘Then save it for another time,’ he said.
Alice wanted to ask what had happened to the White Rabbit who used to work for them, how the revolution was progressing and if her friend and one-time lover, Valerie, was safe. But now was clearly not the best time, so she merely said, ‘Yes, Master.’
The premises of Popert and Pelus Promotions appeared to be a converted warehouse. A rack of hutchlike cages along one wall housed a good two dozen girlings. Beside them were deep shelves stacked with crates, tins of paint, jars of nails, bolts of cloth and canvas, and coils of rope and chain. In addition there were racks of assorted timber and three workbenches. Off-cuts of fabric, sawdust and wood chippings littered the paint-splattered floor and several large unidentifiable objects lurked under dustsheets. The general impression was of a place of considerable activity that had just finished work for the evening, but Alice had no idea what it was all for. What did ‘promoters’ actually do anyway?
After her recent experiences she supposed she should not be surprised at running into Topper and Lepus again. The laws of chance in Underland, as with so much else, clearly did not operate rationally. Meeting two runaway kings within days of each other was proof of that. Actually, she now recalled, her fictional counterpart also met them in the book, though in very different circumstances. And had not the Hatter and Hare also made brief appearances under slightly different names? She shivered. Was every event in Underland shaped by words written over a century ago?
Alice and Suzanne, who had been identified as the other girling superfluous to order, stood with their arms stretched above them and wrists manacled to long chains dangling from roof beams. Topper – tall, powerful and surprisingly handsome despite his prominent nose – paced about, frowning at Alice in between sharp low-toned exchanges with Lepus. Alice caught a few words.
‘… and I tell you she’s bad luck …’ Lepus was saying.
‘But we’re well away from all that now,’ Topper countered. ‘We can make good use of her.’
The only hopeful sign was that, after Suzanne had given her master’s name, they had sent a messenger to inform him of her return. Suzanne leaned towards Alice and whispered, ‘They don’t seem very pleased to see you, do they? When my master comes I’ll tell him about you. I’m sure he’ll offer to take you off their hands if they don’t ask too much. You haven’t cost them anything, so they should be pleased to get rid of you at any price.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t think those two will see it that simply. Because of me they were hauled up before Queen Redheart’s court and had their reputations trashed. I think they might want a bit of revenge first before they think of selling me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll survive.’
A small door set into the larger double service doors opened and a new figure was ushered in. At the sight of him Suzanne called out excitedly, ‘Master!’
The newcomer ran over to Suzanne who twisted round in her chains, arching her back and parting her knees as though trying to kneel before him.
‘There you are at last, girl!’ he exclaimed with feeling, patting and stroking her affectionately. ‘I thought I’d lost you for good!’
Martes was, as Suzanne had said, a pine marten and evidently well to do. He wore a black top hat and well-cut tailcoat, a short waistcoat, white shirt and bow tie. Like other sentient Underland animals his snout and keen black eyes displayed that peculiar degree of mobility and expressiveness that set them above their common kindred. In addition he had a distinctly commanding and assured manner, and though he only came up to Suzanne’s nipples, there was no doubt about who was the master.
Topper and Lepus came over to the happy pair. ‘Good evening, sir, I am Mr Pelus,’ Lepus said, ‘and this is my partner, Mr Popert. I’m glad to see you received our message, and I take it this is indeed your girling?’
‘Of course she’s mine,’ Martes said impatiently. ‘I can produce my ownership documents if you doubt me.’
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‘Not at all,’ Topper said quickly. ‘Clearly she belongs to you. Now there is just the small matter of stabling, transportation costs –’
Martes cut him short. ‘I posted a reward of ten pounds for her safe return.’ He took out a wallet and unfolded a large, elaborately engraved banknote. ‘I understand she has only just come into your possession, so I should imagine that will be adequate compensation for any slight expense you have incurred.’
He’s no fool, Alice thought. She saw Suzanne looking at her master in starry-eyed gratitude, and realised that ten pounds was a lot of money here. He really did care for her.
‘Most generous of you, sir,’ Topper said, taking the note. From the faint look of surprise on his face Alice suspected he had been planning to ask for less.
‘Now release her,’ Martes said.
The cuffs were unfastened. Immediately Suzanne went down on her hands and knees and kissed Martes’s sturdily clawed feet. He patted her bowed head. ‘Good girl. Now chin up. See, I remembered to bring your favourite leash.’
Suzanne lifted her head and he clipped a leash of braided red leather to her collar ring. ‘Now let’s get you home,’ he said.
She leaned forward and whispered urgently to her master, glancing at Alice as she did so. After a moment, Martes looked round at Alice, then Topper and Lepus. He took out his wallet again. ‘I understand this girling is also recently arrived and you have no legal claim to her. I will pay you five pounds for her.’
Alice’s heart lifted momentarily and she smiled her thanks at Suzanne. Then she saw Topper’s expression set.
‘I’m afraid the girl is not for sale,’ he said. ‘Besides which we do have an old claim on her and, like your good self, we can produce the declaration she signed of her own free will. She escaped from our care after we spent considerable time and money training her, so I believe our moral right is inarguable.’
Martes looked regretfully at Suzanne and put away his wallet. ‘You will permit my girling to say goodbye to her?’ he asked.
Alice In Chains Page 15
