Lionboy: the Chase

by Zizou Corder

  ‘Is that how Primo …’ Charlie didn’t know how to put it. How Primo was born? How he was made?

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sergei

  ‘Oh,’ said Charlie quietly. Suddenly the world seemed much bigger.

  They were silent for a moment or two.

  ‘It’s despicable, that kind of cloning,’ said Sergei, ‘and it’s forbidden, an’ all. Some cleverclogs might manage to make something, but then it goes wrong, and the animals just suffer and die. But there was one graspole scientist at the Natural History Museum who took it upon ’imself, who decided ’e was God …’

  ‘Why did he do it?’ asked Charlie. He didn’t have to ask why it was forbidden – that, to him, was obvious. It was too unnatural, and the results – like Primo – would be sick, and lonely, with no family, and no history. It was cruel to create creatures. Creatures needed to be born.

  ‘He was curious,’ said Sergei.

  Poor, poor Primo. No wonder he felt that he didn’t exist, or … oh, all those confusing things he had said. Poor beautiful Primo.

  And tomorrow he was going to be dolled up in fake wings to be presented to the Doge.

  ‘Does Edward know who he is? How he was … how he came to be?’ Charlie asked suddenly.

  ‘NO!’ screeched Sergei. ‘And it is entirely necessary that he doesn’t ever know, not him, not nobody! The cats are fully acquainted with the whole shadoodle but the humans know nothing. What Primo needs is a safe secret location that he can inhabit, protected by good tough cats. Otherways, the humans will just want to do experiments on him, all the time, forever! They can’t leave things alone. It’s not in their nature.’

  Charlie took a deep breath.

  Should he try to stop Primo from being sent to the Doge? Should they try to get away tonight?

  But how could they? How could they possibly?

  He sighed. What a mess.

  One other thing was bothering him.

  ‘Sergei,’ said Charlie, ‘who had my parents? I worked out it might be the asthma drug people. Was it?’

  Sergei looked at him. How much should he tell him?

  ‘Because I’ve been thinking – about the asthma drug people – how they might want my parents to make things and to work for them – I don’t know if I’m right but I was thinking, if the asthma drug people made the Allergenies somehow, then …’

  At that very moment Charlie had a realization. Of course! How come he hadn’t realized long ago!

  ‘Sergei!’ he cried. ‘You’re an Allergenie, aren’t you?’

  Sergei stared. Stiffened. His milky eyes hardened and his wonky ear twitched back and forth.

  ‘So what?’ he spat.

  Then: ‘So what?’ he cried again. ‘What do you care? You of all people –’

  Sergei glared: furious and hurt. And then suddenly he was gone – out of the window, down a gutter, over the wall, slinking under the bridge by the deep and dark canal.

  ‘Sergei!’ called Charlie, jumping up. ‘Sergei! I didn’t mean – Sergei, come back! Come back!’

  But he was gone.

  Charlie clutched the iron bars. He was dumbstruck. Then mortified. He hadn’t meant to offend Sergei. He hadn’t realized that Sergei would take it like that. Oh no …

  ‘Sergei!’ he howled again, down towards the canal.

  Oh no, oh no, oh no.

  To have this friendly face appear so unexpectedly, bringing information and the possibility of help, had been wonderful. To have it disappear again, even more unexpectedly and over so foolish a misunderstanding, was almost unbearable. Charlie lay awake much of the night thinking about it, and by early the next morning he had made a decision.

  He and the Lions couldn’t go on like this, waiting around for things to be done to them. They – he – had to act, before they were carted off and imprisoned in an even grander cage. They needed an ally. And that meant they had to take a risk.

  If anybody had been watching, they might have seen Charlie waiting behind the iron grille over one of the ground-floor windows. They would have thought he was just hanging around, as he usually did, and they would have thought nothing of his greeting the unshaven young gondolier who passed that way, as he did most mornings, singing his mournful, beautiful gondolier song.

  ‘Claudio,’ Charlie called, ‘hi there.’

  Claudio looked over. He seemed to notice that Charlie’s greeting today had a different air, and brought his boat a little closer in. ‘How are you?’ he called.

  Charlie waited till he was quite close. Now or never. Did he trust him? He had to.

  He bit his lip, and looked Claudio full in the face.

  ‘Not good,’ he called quietly.

  ‘How not good?’ Claudio responded, his voice low too.

  Charlie made a quick gesture and the shining black gondola drew in close by the palazzo wall. Claudio came to the bow to be nearer Charlie, fiddling with a rope as he did so.

  ‘Did you post my letter to King Boris?’ Charlie hissed.

  ‘Of course,’ said Claudio quietly. ‘Have you not had an answer? Posts are slow …’

  ‘I can’t wait!’ blurted Charlie. ‘King Boris said he would help me to get the Lions to Africa and now Edward is saying we must go and stay at the Doge’s Palace, and –’

  ‘The Doge’s Palace!’ exclaimed Claudio, then swiftly shushed himself. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Charlie. ‘That’s the problem … We just want to get on our way, but Edward has got these wings, and I think he’s …’

  ‘Wings!’ said Claudio.

  ‘For the Lions – for Primo. He’s making him into the Lion of St Mark and taking him to the Doge … He’s going to fake a miracle, like you told us about …’

  Claudio looked aghast.

  ‘He is giving the Lion of St Mark to that stupid, greedy, wicked …’ Suddenly he remembered himself, and looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was near. ‘Charlie,’ he said, ‘this is terrible.’

  ‘But Primo isn’t the Lion of St Mark …’ said Charlie.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Claudio. ‘Listen.’ He dropped his voice very low and talked very fast. ‘The Doge is a bad man – he is so grand and important he forgets to do his own job, which is to run the city well for the people. He takes no notice of the people. He spends all the money on himself, while the hospital is falling down. He changes the law without asking, and when people protest he sends his policeguys to take them away. He owns all the newspapers, all the television, and makes them say all the time he is brilliant. He even made a law against making rude gestures at his boat – because every time he went out everybody was making rude gestures at his boat. Because everybody hates him. Hates him. Just the other day, he –’ Claudio stopped himself. His face was hard.

  ‘Oh,’ said Charlie. Now he really didn’t want to go and be locked up in this guy’s palace.

  ‘If he gets these Lions,’ murmured Claudio, shaking his head, ‘it can’t be for good. Not good for the Lions or for Venezia.’

  ‘So will you help us?’ Charlie asked.

  Claudio tightened his lips, and thought. Finally he said, ‘You will be helping us, Lionboy. I have an idea.’ He took a deep breath, and Charlie felt that he too was making a big decision.

  Claudio gave Charlie a stern look. ‘Are you brave, Charlie?’

  Charlie stood a little straighter. He knew by now that he was brave.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said coolly.

  ‘Then we will talk later today,’ said Claudio. ‘The time has come. Good. Yes. We will speak.’

  And he was off, with a twist of his oar and a swirl of water beneath his boat.

  Wow, thought Charlie. Now what had he let them in for?

  Far away, in a small town on the Barbary Coast of Morocco, somebody else was watching a boat. On the shady terrace of a café on a square overlooking a harbour, a man sat, wearing a burnoose, its hood down on his shoulders, as the day was pleasant. He looked a little like an off-duty monk, but his thoughts
were far from godly. He was drinking a small cup of sweet, very good coffee, and alongside it a glass of water with something – some drops – added.

  I believe they will come by boat, he was thinking.

  His expression was a little sleepy.

  They will come by boat, and then I will get them.

  He had been sitting for days, just thinking this.

  After an hour or so, the man was joined by another man, brown and wiry, with a country look to him, and a leather bag on his back containing some unpleasant implements: a long fork with two prongs, good for pinning something down by the neck; a small grey gun for shooting darts with; the darts themselves, long and nasty and containing drugs that, when they pierce the skin, send a creature to sleep; ropes, chains, a big whip.

  The two men talked, smiling quietly and coming to an agreement. The sleepy man – yes, it was Maccomo – gave the countryman a little money.

  Finally they shook hands, touching their fists each to the other’s heart. They had made a deal.

  Behind them, on a bowing branch of a small tree that adorned the terrace, a swivel-eyed chameleon watched the man who watched for the boat, and the man with the nasty bag. He was as green as the leaves among which he sat, as quiet as the branch he clutched with his four-toed feet, as secretive as the men he was observing. He swivelled his eyes, one east, one west.

  His name was Ninu. He noticed everything, and nobody noticed him.

  Chapter Nine

  Claudio was right about the Doge being grand. Later, he told Charlie just how grand.

  ‘Each year,’ he said, ‘for many centuries, the Doge of the time would go out in the Bucintoro, his big golden barge, and marry the sea. He’d throw it a golden ring, and so the sea would promise to Love, Honour and Obey the Doge and Venice. The Doge and Venice ruled the sea the way, in the old days, a husband ruled his wife. But now, you can see what the sea did to Venice: sucked out the roots, drowned it bit by bit. So the Doge is afraid as well. His wife has turned on him. He is nervous about the sea.’

  What Claudio didn’t know was that some years before Charlie was born, the Anna Maria, a ship belonging to King Boris, had sunk in the Gulf of Venice. Much to the Doge’s annoyance, King Boris had not been able to have it removed immediately (his marine reclamationguy was getting married that week and King Boris hadn’t wanted to disturb him). As a result, several Venetian ships bashed into the Bulgarian shipwreck. The Doge said it was an outrage to leave this dangerous wreck lying about. King Boris said the Venetian ships should look where they were going. The Doge said King Boris was to have the wreck of the Anna Maria removed IMMEDIATELY. King Boris said it would take months, as the ship was laden with extremely delicate and precious crystal. The Doge said, Really? and announced the next day that as the ship was in Venetian waters it was now Venetian property. King Boris said the Doge was a thieving old pirate. The Doge said King Boris was to take that back, and sent his own reclamationguys to start working on the ship, diving down with cushioned baskets to bring the valuable crystal bowls and plates up in, one at a time to keep them safe. King Boris said the Doge was hated by his people anyway, and stealing a load of Bulgarian treasure wasn’t going to make them love him. The Doge said that King Boris was speaking mighty freely for someone so scared of assassination. King Boris said it would take a better ruler than a thieving old Dogey-poo to assassinate him.

  The night he said that, a great storm blew up, scattering the ships of the Venetian reclamationguys, drowning six of them and burying the Anna Maria and her cargo several metres deep in mud. King Boris said, ‘Gosh, your wife’s really angry with you, isn’t she?’

  (He was sorry later that he’d said that, especially because of the guys who had died. None of it was their fault.)

  Anyway, the Doge and King Boris did not get along.

  Edward felt it would be a good idea if they did. Arguments are so tiring. Bad feeling is so depressing. It is so much more useful for a country to have lots of friends and allies to support them, rather than enemies who will louse things up for them – as the Doge always did, at the slightest opportunity.

  So when Edward, as the representative of King Boris, applied to visit the Doge, the Doge was curious. Particularly when Edward said he would like to bring something for the Doge. About time, thought the Doge. King Boris is going to apologize, and I’ll get a present. It had better be good.

  Thus it was that late that night Edward called Charlie once again to the cortile and required him to dress Primo in his artificial wings.

  ‘And these,’ said Edward. He handed him a pile of leather and chains.

  Charlie’s heart fluttered with anger when he saw what it was – collars and leashes. He’d got rid of the circus collars back on the train. Now this!

  ‘It is necessary,’ said Edward peaceably. ‘His Grace would be frightened if we brought him Lions unleashed. Do not be insulted. I know your control over them is miraculous.’ And he smiled.

  Charlie smiled back – a little thin smile. The Lions flashed their eyes at him and he could read what they meant exactly. ‘There’d better not be too much more of this!’ they were saying. ‘We’ll wear them for now but the point of this whole escapade is ESCAPE and FREEDOM!’

  As Charlie put the leads – scarlet leather, with beautiful strong silver chains – around his friends’ strong furry necks, he murmured words of apology and explanation in their ears.

  ‘It’s not for long,’ he said. ‘There’s a plan. Don’t worry. We’ll be on our way soon.’

  ‘There’d better be,’ muttered the Young Lion.

  The leads were stupid anyway: if the Lions had decided to run away, they could have broken them in seconds – bitten through them, ripped them, ignored them. But if the Lions ran away, where could they go? Major Tib had the police looking for them across Europe, Rafi was out and on the prowl, god only knew where Maccomo was – and everybody else would be looking too, because of the reward. They would be followed, chased, cornered, or worse … Charlie knew that only sheer cleverness could help them now.

  ‘I don’t think the bandages matter,’ said Charlie conversationally, as he and Edward surveyed the Lions. ‘They just show that the Lion has been wounded. Like Venice. As the Lion heals, so Venice will heal. It’s a good omen. They’ll love it.’

  Edward looked at him sharply.

  ‘Don’t you think?’ said Charlie. ‘And really, the longer we leave it on, the better his jaw will be in the long run. We can take it off later.’

  Edward, knowing perfectly well that no one but Charlie would be taking the bandages off anyway, decided to agree.

  Charlie felt cold as he and the Lions were ushered out of the back door. He made sure to greet Claudio only briefly as the Lions poured into the depths of the gondola that was waiting on the small canal alongside the palazzo. It was dark and quiet down below on the canal, but way above ragged clouds scudded quickly across the sky, and the waning moon appeared and disappeared behind them. Charlie and the Lions immediately perked up. They were outside!

  Scarcely a splash disturbed the night as Claudio rowed them quietly out on to the Grand Canal and turned to the east. Charlie admired the great white dome of the church called the Salute, held up by its big coiling snail twirls, but he looked away before the ruin of San Giorgio Maggiore slid into view behind it. Looking out over Venice, of which he had seen practically nothing that could not be seen from the windows of his prison palazzo, he wondered at it. The famous beautiful city gleamed in the intermittent moonlight, her domes and porticoes like ghosts under the pale, flickering light. The gondola moved on silently, and the cold, dark smell of the canal rose up out of the darkness. It was late, and few lights were on across the city. The great bell of St Mark’s, the Marangona, rang out. It sounded peculiar in the night air. One o’clock.

  Charlie shivered. The Lions eyed him from the bottom of the boat. Only Edward seemed relaxed. He lit a small cigar, and the hardly perceptible hiss and crackle as he smoked it added to the tiny
noises of the night. Alongside them slid black water and the pale palazzi of the Grand Canal.

  When they drew up by the Doge’s Palace, Charlie recognized the two tall columns, one of which had the bronze, agate-eyed statue of the Lion of St Mark on top. Claudio said nothing as he pulled in, but Charlie noticed him glance up at the Lion and down at Primo, and saw his eyes flicker with intelligence.

  The black covered cart was waiting for them again, with the four men – Charlie assumed they worked for Edward – to pull it. The Lions slid in. The Young Lion flicked his tail quite hard against Charlie’s legs as he went, as if to remind him that their patience was not infinite. Elsina gave Charlie one last, desperate look as she slid from view, and he felt once again the strong pang: they are depending on me. I promised them. The cart looked too much like something that might go to a funeral.

  Charlie looked back at Claudio.

  Almost invisibly, his fair hair gleaming in the moonlight, Claudio winked one of his sea-blue Venetian eyes. Charlie felt a little better.

  Edward was striding ahead. A man in a suit, accompanied by four men in uniform, had come forward to meet him. Behind them loomed the Doge’s Palace, the great pink building layered with arcades and balconies, columns all in a row.

  Edward greeted the man, ignored the soldiers, and moved swiftly round to the left, under the arcade, ushering the cart along with him. He didn’t want to lose sight of it for a moment. Glancing up at the columns as he rounded the corner, Charlie saw that each one was carved with leaves or vines or animals or heads: lions’ heads, mostly. Hurrying on, Charlie kept pace with the adults. As he caught up with them, Edward took him firmly by the arm and smiled down at him.

  ‘Come along,’ he said, as if he were an uncle taking Charlie to the fair.

  Charlie tried to smile back.

  To their left was the huge piazza that they had glimpsed on their way from the station. Near them at its edge sprang the enormous bell tower: way way up above them a spotlight picked out the Marangona, and beneath it a stone lion, winged, holding his book. They passed a massive wooden flagpole: a moonbeam caught it, lighting up a winged lion on its base. Ahead of them was the clock tower: a golden lion shone from its vivid blue frontage, wings and book standing proud. At its feet were two roaring lions carved from red marble. To their right was the great gateway through which Charlie and the Lions were to pass: above it, in pride of place, a great stone lion, with wings, holding the book.