“Did you ever see a nastier piece of work?” she’d ask them. “Take a good look at that face! Is it not the image of a savage pirate? I declare I’m terrified of him myself.”
The Pretender was on deck shooting gulls when the news flew in from Osborne House.
Queen Victoria had suffered a stroke. The left side of her face was sagging. The cormorants reported that she rarely spoke now, and never lucidly.
Minutes later came other welcome news, this time from the Adriatic Sea:
The lady has commenced her fund-raising activities on her way to our rendezvous. The Studious Son is playing his part famously—also, most visibly and most incriminatingly. Your part of the bargain will be fulfilled to perfection when he is delivered.
Signor Pipistrelly’s cormorants arrived on cue just afterward. They carped: “Your Ghost-Convicts cannot be restrained from stealing sheep, which draws unwelcome attention to our activities. But at least the creatures keep the barn warm. Meanwhile, I have been recruiting most successfully in the prisons of northern France on your behalf. Is the girl delivered yet?”
Harold Hoskins dispatched a reply. “She’s already aboard the Little Beauty. A matter of hours, not days, till the handover.”
The girl did not matter. For the Pretender, the important thing was that Signor Pipistrelly was mustering the promised human forces on the French border. He breathed a sigh of relief. There had been days, early on, when he couldn’t help wondering if Signor Pipistrelly really could deliver all that he had promised.
Now the Kingmaker’s Dame was speeding through oceans at a rate that could only be described as magical. It was just ten days since they had set sail from Hooroo. Yet already the Spanish coastline lay to their starboard side.
The Pretender had always been a great hunter, burying his nervous energy in the bodies of animals. In the days before his own departure for the north, no wild boar or wallaby on Hooroo was safe from his shooting parties. The Pretender’s trigger finger had also itched to dispatch a few braces of those sea-stinking Venetian seagulls that had arrived on Hooroo soon after Signor Pipistrelly, with their beaks weighed down with something that looked horribly like old bones.
Even the Pretender had been afraid of the consequences of that.
But whenever he felt a little uncomfortable about the pact he’d made with his unusual guest, well, then the Pretender had only to think of his hastily managed exit from England to feel perfectly righteous again.
How shamefully the old bezzom’s courtiers had treated him! Those weasel words from the Prime Minister: “Such a respectable position guarding Her Majesty’s most desperate criminals. A sojourn in the pleasant heat of the colonies would be just the thing for a man of your delicate health. Such an unfortunate disease!”
And the Prime Minister had dared to joke, “I hope there’ll be no bad blood between you and our dear Queen over this!”
The cabinet ministers had smirked. And those simpering politicians had given Harold Hoskins an idea.
An idea he had shared with his guest. An idea that had grown into a plan. A plan that was now thrillingly under way.
“They’ll be sorry soon,” rejoiced the Pretender. “Signor Pipistrelly shall see to that.”
Then, despite the sunshine, Harold Hoskins shivered.
Yes, Signor Pipistrelly was a terrifying ally, yet—the Pretender smiled as his rifle butt pointed toward a young albatross—how much worse to have him as an enemy?
The Little Beauty appeared to drift into the Scilla’s clutches like a particularly negligent fly into a spider’s web. The Little Beauty’s Australian officers put up not one morsel of a fight. Miss Uish waved them all off alive, taking only one captive: a haughty English girl of pale coloring.
Miss Uish seemed particularly delighted at her capture, boasting that the girl was a very rich heiress who’d come straight from a Swiss finishing school. A private interview in her stateroom lasted a very long time. Yet the girl emerged cool and composed, instead of weeping for mercy as prisoners usually did. She had the air of someone born to be petted and served the best of everything.
“This one’s a keeper,” Miss Uish remarked, presenting the blond girl to her crew. “The longer we keep her, the more she’ll be worth. She’s called Sibella. Miss Sibella to you.”
Miss Uish did not lose the opportunity to remind the sailors, “In London, of course, all children are as refined as Miss Sibella. None have felt the pinch of poverty. The boys wear moleskin waistcoats, greatcoats with velvet collars, and twenty-five-shilling hats. The girls are got up in the daintiest dresses imaginable. Everyone carries a silk umbrella, of an elegance that you shabby Venetians could barely conceive.”
Renzo’s eyes widened. The other boys and Teo stared at the blond girl. Despite being the victim of a pirate kidnap, Sibella had managed to maintain a perfect coiffure and a spotless gown throughout. Her ringlets almost tinkled with the cold. A pair of pale blue eyes swept over the line of boys coolly until they arrived at Renzo. Subtly, she cast her eyes down quickly before raising them to stare him meltingly in the eye.
Teo bristled. “The flirt! Wait till she says something: then I’ll see what she’s really like from her handwriting!”
But Sibella seemed determined to speak only with her heavily fringed blue eyes, leaving all explanations to Miss Uish: “Our guest is a hemophiliac, so cannot take part in any strenuous activity.”
“What’s hemo-o?” asked Giovanni. “If you please, ma’am.”
“Bad blood. That is, it does not clot properly. She could bleed to death internally from the slightest injury. It is a disease of the upper classes, so you’d know nothing about it, you Venetian vermin. Many of Queen Victoria’s own family are sufferers. So you’ll be treating Miss Sibella with kid gloves,” warned Miss Uish, “like royalty, in fact, or you’ll rue the day. And you’ll speak English to her at all times.”
Finally, Sibella drawled, “I don’t wish to be any trouble, I’m sure.”
Above Sibella’s head, Teo saw the girl’s words written in a tense script that seemed to wobble. She thought, “This girl is not what she pretends to be.”
Teo turned to Renzo to ask his opinion, but he was gazing at Sibella in awe. When Teo tugged his sleeve, he shook off her hand, in an absentminded way.
“I see,” thought Teo. And she didn’t like what she saw one bit.
Miss Uish had Rosato and Giovanni clear out a storeroom for Sibella to sleep in. She shared her own luxurious repasts with the prisoner.
Sibella immediately took over Teo’s hated role of decoy, apparently with pleasure. She paraded on the deck, taking tiny steps, shaded by a silk parasol decked with more lace than a wedding dress.
All Sibella’s clothes were white. Teo had not known that you could get so many shades of white, or that it came in crepe, poplin, batiste, pique and lawn, not to mention mousseline de laine, organdie, voile, gauze, dimity, tarlatan, jaconet and pompadour sateen. The new hostage changed her costume three times a day. As she appeared in each new outfit, Sibella made a point of explaining these terms.
“As if anyone cares,” thought Teo, wiping her grimy face with a tattered sleeve.
Even Sibella’s dainty shoes were white—satin slippers with a “baby Louis” heel. Her chatelaine bag, her muff and her fur necklet were all confected of the whitest rabbit fur. She wore extravagant amounts of jewelry for such a young girl. Rings flashed on her delicate fingers; pearls glowed at her throat. Pins set with diamonds or pearls secured her collars.
“Maria would love those sparklers,” thought Teo. “Even though Maria’s learned her lesson now.” Her old friend from Naples had been deceived by gifts of jewelry from Bajamonte Tiepolo. And nearly died as a result.
Maria had also shown something of Sibella’s flirtatiousness in the old days, before her final encounter with Il Traditore. Yet Maria had been childish and innocent compared with Sibella, who seemed possessed of some ancient wisdom in the art of making people do what she wanted. Even Mis
s Uish was strangely deferential toward her. Peaglum bowed to her. The young sailors dared not say a word to Sibella, but they stared at her, charmed, confused and somewhat intimidated.
Only Renzo addressed Sibella directly. Miss Uish had appointed him Sibella’s personal attendant. “You’re to do for Miss Sibella whatever her heart desires.” Miss Uish had exploded into giggles, nudging Peaglum in the ribs. “What larks!”
Renzo accompanied Sibella on her promenades, offering his arm and lifting dirty objects out of her way.
“Look at him playing the courtier,” thought Teo resentfully. “How does she do it? Belay that Sibella! She’s not royalty, even if she acts as though she is!”
The more she saw of Sibella, the less Teo believed in the hemophilia story. Sibella was fashionably pale, yet she did not look sick. There was a niggle at the back of Teo’s mind: some teasing, un-pin-downable fact that bothered her about the disease. But she could not remember which of the many books and pages stored in her memory she needed to consult.
To Teo, there was a sinister ring to that glassy laugh of Sibella’s. “She’s not playing girl-games—this is something much worse.”
Was Sibella some kind of enchantress, or even a ghost? Teo ran through all the species of ghosts she knew. Sibella did not give off an icy aura like the in-the-Cold ghosts she and Renzo had met in the past. Nor was she miserable in their way. In fact, Sibella seemed extremely smug, especially when she was with Renzo.
She was certainly not mutilated like the in-the-Slaughterhouse spirits.
“No,” thought Teo, “she’s actually repulsively perfect. And she’s not in-the-Meltings like Bajamonte Tiepolo.” She shuddered at a memory of Il Traditore’s not-quite-set skin and his fluid form. “Could she be a witch?”
In all the stories Teo had read, witches and enchantresses were usually wrinkled old women, or at least extremely grown-up.
Yet there was a kind of witchiness about the girl, in Teo’s opinion. Sibella had some horrible hobbies. She practiced wortcunning and leechcraft, and was often to be seen bending over tiny pots of herbs and a tray of squirming black leeches by the forecastle.
While the sailor boys munched miserably on cod sponge, Miss Uish opened her private stores so that Sibella could mix flour, salt, honey, water and wine into a paste she fashioned into cakes the shape of the crescent moon. These were offered to the leeches and would disappear mysteriously overnight. She carried a little red bag of salt, a stone with a hole in it, also the herbs rue, vervain, paura and concordia. She had a lemon stuck full of different-colored pins: every color except black.
“This preserves good fortune,” Sibella whispered confidentially to the circle of boys who had crept up to watch her play with her pets.
“The kind of good fortune that got you kidnapped by pirates like us?” asked Teo quietly.
Sibella appeared not to have heard. She was now busy teaching Renzo the art of “rhapsodomancy,” which turned out to be divination by opening books of poetry at random. Sibella had come aboard the Scilla fully fitted out with a traveling library of sentimental verse. She and Renzo sat comfortably on deck, surrounded by piles of gold-stamped volumes.
“How vastly dull it is,” observed Sibella, “to read a whole book. One should let Fate tell one which poems to read.” She lowered her voice to a thrilling whisper. “It is also more exciting. Plus there is more time, then, to talk to interesting people. Like you, Renzo.”
Teo, scrubbing the deck near their feet, muttered, “Who’d have thought the so-called Studious Son would ever think it dull to read a whole book?”
Sibella remarked, “There’s something detestable about the name ‘Teodoro.’ I always thought I would give it to a pig if I had a farm.”
In her mind’s eye, Teo flicked angrily through The Best Ways with Wayward Ghosts and Simple Solutions to Problem Spirits, looking for a way into Sibella’s secret. Professor Marìn’s books suggested, “Ask the suspected spirit to name Six Good Things. If he or she cannot do so, then ask for Six Evil Things.”
She strode up to Sibella when Miss Uish was below in her stateroom. But Sibella evaded Teo’s questions by simpering, “How very banal.”
Teo resolved to touch Sibella’s chest, hoping that her old skill as a Lettrice-del-cuore, a reader of hearts, would reveal something about her. But as she slipped closer to Sibella, saying, “There’s a piece of fluff on your gown,” the girl turned on her sharply.
“I think you missed a bit of the deck where you were scrubbing. I can see a smudge of tar the size of your fist, Teo.”
Fabrizio, detailed to dust Sibella’s cabin, reported to the boys that, like Miss Uish, Sibella slept on a Chinese pillow box. When Teo confronted her with this fact, Sibella smiled serenely. “Of course. I keep my leeches inside.”
Even Renzo looked somewhat squeamish at this revelation.
“I learn from them while I’m dreaming,” she explained, “and they learn from me.”
Teo whispered into Renzo’s unwilling ear, “Don’t you remember how Bajamonte Tiepolo put leeches in the statues so that they bled from their mouths? And don’t you remember how those statues tried to kill you?”
It seemed that wherever Teo went, she came across Renzo and Sibella: giggling together by the water barrel, bent over a book by the booby hatch, or, on one painful occasion, whispering confidentially in a niche by the hawse.
“Do you want something?” inquired Sibella in a chilly tone.
“We,” reproved Renzo—with an especially deliberate and hurtful emphasis on the “We”—“are talking, Teo. Can’t it wait?”
The other boys were jealous that Renzo was so favored by Sibella. They teased him at night while they lay in their hammocks.
“Renzo’s in love!”
“Did you get a kiss yet?”
“Have one for me.”
Renzo maintained a dignified silence. The most he would say was, “You wouldn’t understand. Sibella is a lady.”
“Like Miss Uish is a lady?” Teo asked.
As for the other boys, Teo burned to say, “Excuse me, but in case you haven’t noticed, Sibella’s a girl. Remember what you think about girls? I’m not going to forget everything I’ve heard you say about girls every night in my hammock; how is it that you have?”
Teo cornered Renzo alone in the galley, where he was collecting a tray of toast and jam for Sibella, who was served an English afternoon tea in her cabin when there were no vessels to lure.
“You seem uncommonly fascinated by her,” remarked Teo, “our hostage.”
“Not at all,” Renzo replied. “I have to be nice to her. I’m under orders. Now, excuse me, Sibella’s toast is getting cold. She likes it just so.”
“Miss Uish is right, you make a fine waiter,” muttered Teo. “Remember to roll those ’r’s.”
Renzo brushed past her.
Teo called after him, “She’s a vile little flirt.”
Renzo turned away, “I’m embarrassed for you, Teodora.”
“Ssssh! Teodoro, I’m a boy, remember!”
“And very convincing you are too. Hard to believe you ever were a girl at all.”
“One of you worthless wretches has been stealing fruit from my private larder,” announced Miss Uish. “It would be better for you all if that creature came forward for his punishment.”
Fear, not guilt, spread around the faces on deck.
Miss Uish tapped her fan impatiently. “How tedious you are, with your pathetic little loyalties. Do you know how I intend to repay them? Here’s my plan. Each boy shall receive one lash from Mr. Peaglum here. If the offender does not step forward after you’ve all been lashed once, then we shall go through again. And I’ll leave it to your imagination what will happen if someone does not confess after that.”
Sibella appeared on the forecastle, delicately munching an apple. The eyes of every child on deck flew to the fruit. But Miss Uish declared, “A girl of this quality has no need to steal. You’re all still under suspicion.”
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“Renzo,” hissed Teo, “did you take that apple for Sibella?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Renzo whispered back. “Of course I didn’t.”
“You’d let us all get whipped for her?”
“I told you, I didn’t do it,” insisted Renzo.
Miss Uish called out, “The Nestle Tripe to be the first one bent over the barrel!”
Fortunately, a Spanish vessel hove into view before Peaglum could give his cat an outing. The boat proved so richly laden that Miss Uish forgot all about the apple and the whipping. She was too busy counting the gold coins and emptying the stolen jewel boxes.
After the Spanish ship had been stripped of its valuables, Fabrizio sidled up to Teo.
“Renzo’s s’posed to be your friend, ain’t he?” he hissed.
Teo nodded. “S’posed to be.”
“Just about your best friend, I should think?”
“Once, he was,” she thought. “Before Sibella.”
“Well, I happened to be cleaning the keyhole to that Sibella’s cabin and I heard her saying, ‘You spoil me so, Lorenzo! Delicious! Everyone else is detestable, but you are such a gentleman. My family is sure to reward you when I am rescued.’ ” Fabrizio simpered just like Sibella. His good hearing gave him great skill in mimicking people. In his own voice, he asked, “And what do you think she was thanking him for? I’d say it was something sweet and round and crunchy, wouldn’t you?”
He whistled and walked off, leaving Teo to her lonely thoughts.
So Renzo had lied to her, knowingly lied to her? If so, he had lied fluently, without showing a wrinkle of anxiety on his face. He wasn’t even ashamed.
Teo’s stomach churned miserably. This was worse than hunger. The rest of the day, whenever Renzo spoke to her, she averted her eyes.
That night, the two turned away from one other without even saying goodnight. Curled up in her blanket, Teo felt as if someone had forced a cold, sharp-edged pellet down her gullet. Wide awake, she gulped and gulped, unable to swallow her misery.
The Mourning Emporium Page 12
