Childersin looked at her for a long moment and let his eyebrows rise in a Face that was half surprised, half amused. ‘What in the world made you think I was sending Cavernans up there? There is no question of letting the secrets of the Crafts out into the overground, or letting the hoi polloi romp in bringing every disease on the planet.’
‘But your speech yesterday! You said . . . a rich and varied world . . . it could be ours . . .’
‘Yes,’ Childersin answered gently and reasonably, ‘but we do not need to go out there to conquer it, do we? With our wealth it will be easy to hire armies . . .’
Armies. Yes, he had mentioned armies.
‘You can’t mean that!’ But she knew he did. He did not care if he never saw the ‘rich and varied world’ above ground, as long as he owned it.
‘We will be doing the overground a kindness,’ he answered, returning his attention to his teacup. ‘Right now it is a ghastly patchwork of petty kingdoms with short-lived monarchs, and in desperate need of a global ruler with centuries’ experience behind him.’
‘It would give the Court a better way of ending feuds too,’ one of the Childersin nephews commented. ‘We could settle arguments through battles overground, where they can do no harm.’
‘No . . . harm.’ Neverfell could not even feel shock or anger. She could only mouth the two words to herself, wondering if they actually meant the same to everybody else as they did to her.
‘And when Caverna is capital of the greater world we can expand her, start digging down . . .’
Neverfell stood unsteadily, feeling that she was going to be sick. She remembered the Kleptomancer’s words.
. . . Caverna herself is getting ready to grow or shift again, which means that everything is about to change . . .
For a second, she could almost see Caverna as the Kleptomancer did, a murky, monstrous beauty, smiling her fine-fanged smile as she prepared to stretch and grow, shaking out her tunnel-tresses as they became longer and longer. Perhaps Caverna had already known that such an opportunity was open to her. Neverfell imagined her discarding the Grand Steward like a worn-out toy, and reaching for a new favourite, a man who could extend her empire and bring her new strength . . . Maxim Childersin.
‘Neverfell!’
She did not heed their calls as she ran from the room.
‘Still a little bit mad . . .’ she heard as the door closed behind her.
Sprinting back along the passages to the main townhouse, Neverfell found that she was having trouble breathing, but not from exertion. Every moment she could remember of her life in Caverna, she had felt trapped and weighed down by the mountain above her. It had never quite crushed her mind, however, and for the first time she realized that this was because deep down she had always believed that sooner or later she would escape. Out, had been the beat in her heart. Up and out.
If Childersin’s plans went ahead, there would be no true ‘out’. In her mind’s eye she saw the little scene in the painting Erstwhile had shown her, but with a stealthy shadow creeping across the land and extinguishing the sun. Of course the overground would not really be plunged into darkness, but it would become a province of Caverna. Its people would farm and be farmed like the drudges of the Undercity, robbed of their freedom and forced to serve only the interests of the subterranean city. They would feed the armies of the Court members, dying for their intrigues like pawns on a chessboard.
Her mind was too full. It would split if it could not spill. She had to find Zouelle, talk to Zouelle. Even as she thought this, she caught sight of the blonde girl ahead of her, opening a padded door and about to step through.
‘Zouelle –’
‘I am sorry, Neverfell.’ Zouelle paused on the threshold, eyes lowered, a carefully complacent smile on her face. ‘So many new responsibilities for the family, even I find myself with so little time. I am sure Miss Howlick will be happy to help you if there is a problem.’
‘Zouelle!’ Neverfell felt as if a velvet-coated door had been neatly closed in her face. ‘I . . . I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ Zouelle turned on her. The smile was still in place. Her tone was still calm, measured and her words had nothing to do with it. ‘Don’t you understand? Not everything is about you any more. There are very important things going on. World-changing things. And those of us who have to think to stay alive, instead of just waving our face at people, are busy.’
‘What’s wrong?’ It came to Neverfell that she had been asking this question of Zouelle over and over almost since their first meeting, and the blonde girl had never answered it. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Oh, of course something has to have happened.’ Zouelle’s calm tone was crumbling, and glints of bitterness were showing through. ‘It couldn’t just be that you’re really, really annoying, and that I’m fed up with you. I’ve put up with your blundering, gawking and gushing for ages. And now you’re not my job any more.’
Neverfell’s first impulse was one of disbelieving recoil, and she nearly turned tail to run from the sting of Zouelle’s words. After a couple of breaths, however, she managed to stand her ground.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘That’s not it. Not all of it, anyway. You’re my friend, Zouelle, and . . . and I think I’m starting to understand you a little bit. You flutter when you’re upset, and right now you’re trying so hard not to flutter that your Face looks glued on. I know I’m annoying. Of course I am. But I don’t think you’re annoyed. I think you’re scared.’
‘Well, maybe I’m scared of you!’ retorted Zouelle, the pitch of her voice rising uncontrollably. ‘Everywhere you go there’s trouble, and now you’re back in this house. Do you think any of us want you here? Why don’t you just leave us alone?’
‘Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?’ Neverfell asked in desperation. ‘Is it because I can’t keep secrets? Then don’t tell me what the problem is – just tell me what I can do to help!’
‘Oh, stop it! You’re always . . . opening boxes with that big-eyed look! You’re never going to find one that isn’t full of poison. Never!’ With that Zouelle stepped through the door and slammed it.
Neverfell stared at the door, her eyes aching with tears too confused to fall. She felt as if Zouelle had reached up and snapped their friendship in two in front of her face, and she could hardly breathe for the shock of it.
But we were friends yesterday, was all she could think, desperately. Just yesterday she was helping me, looking out for me. What changed? Did I do something wrong?
Even as she thought this, Zouelle’s words came back to her, and stung her hard.
You’re not my job any more.
Perhaps Zouelle had really meant it, after all. Perhaps Zouelle had been ordered by her family to look after Neverfell, and the latter had never been more than a job to her, a tiresome, difficult, embarrassing job. Now that job was over, and Zouelle had cast her off in haste and distaste, as she might a sodden glove or muddy boot.
The house was suddenly too close for Neverfell, the rooms too neat. Even the jubilant cries of the distant Childersin children as they ran from room to room, playing with the new toys Childersin had brought back for them, jarred upon her. This was not home.
Maxim Childersin had said she could borrow one of the Childersin carriages to ride where she chose. Nobody stopped her walking out of the townhouse’s front door, though four guards immediately stepped up to accompany her, and when she spoke to a driver he started readying one of the carriages.
‘Where to, miss?’
Neverfell suddenly felt exhausted. For the first time she understood how Grandible might have felt when he turned his back on the Court. She had believed that nothing would make her want to go back to the cheese tunnels, but there was an ache in her, an ache to go home. She closed her eyes, and suddenly she could imagine herself back in its dim, reeking passages.
There before her mind’s eye were all the rinds she had painte
d with vinegar. There the floors she had swept. There the places where she had doused flames or smothered butter flies. She could almost see the thousands of days she had lost there littering the tunnels like empty eggshells, the meat of them long gone. The old panic crept up on her with panther steps, until she could feel its breath on the back of her neck.
It isn’t home any more. Where is home?
Struck by inspiration, she opened her eyes.
‘Can you take me to Madame Appeline’s tunnels, please?’
Madame Appeline. Perhaps she could find a haven with the Facesmith, who had talked to her so kindly at their last parting. Neverfell’s spirits immediately struggled to their feet, and even managed a small punch-drunk caper when at last Madame Appeline’s distinctive front door hoved into view.
She dismounted, accompanied by the guards, and gave her name at the door. Once again she was examined through the eyeholes in the painted owl.
‘I am sorry,’ the owl told her after a long pause, in the crisp, polished tones of a Putty Girl, ‘but Madame Appeline finds herself extremely busy today. Perhaps if you leave your name, she can contact you for an appointment?’
Neverfell could barely frame an answer. Somehow she had expected Madame Appeline to sense how badly Neverfell needed to talk to her.
‘Can I . . . can I come in and wait? Just tell her I’m here.’
Another pause, and then the door was opened. Two Putty Girls with matching fashionable smiles stood flanking the door to welcome her in. The guards seemed less than happy about Neverfell leaving their company, but consented when they were given assurances that the Appeline household would take responsibility for her welfare.
‘Please wait here.’ She was shown to a pleasant little parlour with finely carved walls. ‘I am afraid the mistress will probably not be free for some time – would you care for some refreshment?’
Neverfell nearly said no, then remembered that she was allowed to eat and drink what she liked now. She nodded, sat down and was brought a silver tray of tea. About half an hour of fidgeting later, the door opened, but the figure beyond it was not that of Madame Appeline. It was Zouelle’s friend, Borcas, and Neverfell blushed as she realized that disappointment must be flooding her own face.
To her surprise, Borcas glided into the room, took up a cup from the tray, poured herself some tea and sat down in a chair opposite Neverfell, her expression serene and self-important.
‘I am afraid,’ she said, stirring in the sugar, ‘that Madame Appeline is busy adding brooding to a frown right now. But at least that will give me a chance to talk to you privately.’
Neverfell was a little taken aback by the short girl’s new confidence of manner. As a matter of fact, Borcas was looking very unlike her old self, and not only because she was no longer sustaining a painful-looking grimace. Like Madame Appeline’s other Putty Girls, her hair was pulled tautly back and pinned into a bun, and her eyebrows emphasized with kohl. She had lost her nervous, puddingy slouch and as she sipped her tea her posture was upright and a little queenly.
‘Is that a new Face?’ asked Neverfell, not quite knowing where she was to start the conversation. ‘It suits you. It makes you look less f– er . . . more thin.’
‘You’re looking quite well too,’ Borcas responded smoothly, ‘under the circumstances.’ She smiled and slid elegantly through a couple more Faces, both superior, knowing and rather expensive-looking. Evidently becoming a full-blown Putty Girl had certain perks. ‘Everybody’s talking about the fact you were nearly executed after the Grand Steward’s death, and the story you told in the Hall of Gentles. And that’s why I thought we should talk.’
‘Oh.’ Neverfell stared at her, a bit nonplussed. ‘Um, thank you.’
‘You see, something has been weighing on my mind.’ Borcas’s smile, however, was not that of somebody whose mind was particularly heavy. ‘I found something yesterday, just after you’d left. And I thought you would rather I talked to you about it first, instead of telling anybody else.’ Borcas seemed to be putting a lot of pauses into her speech. Neverfell could not shake the feeling that these were meaningful pauses. After the longest and most meaningful pause of all, Borcas reached into her reticule and pulled out a small silvery object, which she placed in the middle of her own palm. Neverfell stared at it blankly for a second or two before recognizing it.
‘Oh – it’s my thimble! The one I lost last time I was here! Thank you. Was it somewhere in the guest room?’
‘No,’ said Borcas, as if delivering the punchline to a very clever joke. ‘It wasn’t.’
Silence slowly unrolled itself, and Neverfell had the all too familiar feeling that she was missing something.
‘Oh,’ she said at last. ‘So, where was it then?’
‘That’s the interesting part. It wasn’t in your sleeping quarters, or in the grove, or the exhibition room, or any of the reception rooms. It was upstairs, in the gallery above the grove. The thing is, we never let guests go up there. Madame Appeline doesn’t like them seeing the traps they use to create the “sunlight” effect. She says it spoils the mystique. But there it was –’ she turned the thimble so that the light sparkled on its dimpled top – ‘just lying on the floor. So that could only mean one thing.’
Neverfell wracked her brains. ‘That it’s somebody else’s thimble after all?’ she hazarded.
‘No, it isn’t!’ retorted Borcas, her smug demeanour cracking for a brief moment. ‘It has the insignia of the Grand Steward’s household. Besides, the rooms are swept every day.’
‘Then . . .’ Once again Neverfell suspected she had blundered into a game without any knowledge of the rules. ‘Then it probably is mine. So somebody must have . . . found it and . . . taken it upstairs?’
‘I think you know how it got there,’ Borcas answered, with a smile of creamy complacency.
‘Pardon?’ Neverfell stared at her, baffled.
‘You see the problem, don’t you?’ Borcas clasped her hands, and put on an earnest Face, No. 23, Gazelle Preparing to Leap Stream. ‘On the one hand, you’re my friend. On the other hand, I have my duty to consider. Shouldn’t I report this?’
‘Should you?’ asked Neverfell, utterly at sea.
‘Well, let’s talk about something more cheerful,’ Borcas swept on. ‘I’ve been thinking about my future a lot lately. Most Putty Girls are just Putty Girls all their lives, did you know that? Only a few get to be Facesmiths. But I was thinking, if I had private lessons from somebody with a really unusual and famous face, somebody with thousands of expressions—’
‘Ooooh!’ The light suddenly dawned. ‘I’m so stupid! You’re trying to blackmail me, aren’t you?’
Borcas promptly lost her serenity, her fan and half the tea from her cup.
‘What? I – that – no! I mean . . .’
‘I’ve never been blackmailed before.’ For a moment it was exciting, then it left a sour crinkly feeling in Neverfell’s belly. ‘So, you think I dropped the thimble up in the gallery, and you’re saying that if I don’t let you copy lots of my expressions you’ll go and tell Madame Appeline I was sneaking around up there without her permission? Is that right? Borcas, if you wanted to copy my Faces, you could have just asked.’
‘I’m not talking about reporting it to Madame Appeline,’ snapped Borcas. ‘I think the Enquiry will be much more interested.’
‘What?’ Neverfell started to develop a chill feeling in the pit of her stomach.
‘There’s only one time you didn’t have Madame Appeline or one of us with you,’ Borcas went on, ‘and that’s when you went for your “sleep”. So when we weren’t looking, you must have slipped out without anybody seeing, sneaked up to the gallery and then crept back into your room before anybody saw you. And that’s not what you told the Enquiry, is it? You told them you just slept in the guest room for a few hours.’
For the first time Neverfell was able to see the rocks under the mellow waves of Borcas’s remarks. The Enquiry had been looking for the
slightest hole in Neverfell’s account of events. Borcas’s story and the thimble in her hand might give them just the excuse they wanted to drag Neverfell off to prison and ‘interrogate’ her.
‘Oh, don’t bother with the shocked and innocent looks.’ Borcas gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘They won’t work on me. The only reason you’re not in prison is the fact everybody is convinced that you can’t lie without showing it. But this –’ she held up the thimble – ‘is proof that you can, and have.’
‘But . . .’
Borcas rose from her seat, making dainty adjustments to the gleaming pins in her hair with a gesture that reminded Neverfell of Madame Appeline.
‘I would love to stay, but I am supposed to be helping tweak a grimace for a Distasting later today. Mind you, tomorrow I have the whole day free. I think perhaps you will also be free. Won’t that be nice? I can collect you from the Childersin household at eight, and we can spend all day together.’
Neverfell only shook herself out of her daze as Borcas was leaving the room.
‘Borcas! What . . . what do the stairs look like? The ones that run up to the gallery where you found the thimble? They’re black, aren’t they?’
‘Black wrought iron,’ was Borcas’s slightly impatient response. ‘Decorated with ivy patterns, and grape bunches. Does that jog your memory?’ With that she left the room, still holding the erect posture that made her look so much older and unlike herself.
Neverfell remained motionless, staring unseeing at the blots of slopped tea as they sank into the carpet.
She had been completely honest with the Enquiry, but there was one thing she had not mentioned to them, since it had not occurred to her to do so. She had not told them of her dream whilst sleeping in Madame Appeline’s guest room. Now she trawled through the haunted fog of that slumber, trying to remember the details.
In the dream she had taken step after step up a stairway of black vines to a golden balcony . . . or perhaps a wrought-iron stairway ornamented with leaves, leading up to a gallery ablaze with hundreds of traps. Was her dream showing her the truth through a twisted glass? Was it possible that she really had sneaked out of her room and up to the gallery, dropping her thimble as she did so?
A Face Like Glass Page 30
