Lionboy: the Chase

by Zizou Corder

  As they approached the gateway, Charlie saw something that gave him a curious feeling deep inside. On the corner of the building ahead of them – a side wall of St Mark’s Cathedral, covered with an inlaid pattern of marble – stood two men, hugging each other. They were statues, he realized almost immediately, very old, made of some dark, polished stone, set right back against the wall – but looking at them, he saw that they were not just dark in colour. They were black. The one on the right, specially: worn though his nose was, it was a broad nose – an African nose. His mouth too was full and curved like an African mouth. Yes, and the one to the left too – he was black.

  Charlie smiled. These two black men, ancient warriors in their old carved stone armour, filled him with courage. It made him feel that he was a man, and his father was hugging him. It made him feel brave and proud, and it was with that feeling in his heart that he approached the huge gateway in front of him.

  The gateway was studded with carved lions’ heads – fifty, sixty of them, or more. Each had a subtly different expression. They were the same lion, but somehow not. Everywhere he looked, Charlie could see the figure of the winged lion. All that Claudio had told him about Venetians loving lions was reflected in this building. Well, Charlie just hoped they loved them enough and in the right way, because he and the Lions were never going to get out of this palace if they didn’t.

  The massive wooden door in the gateway creaked open for them and slid shut swiftly after they passed through. Looking back, Charlie saw the great metal bars and rivets that criss-crossed the back of the door, the massive bolts, the heavy black locks bigger than his father’s hands.

  Then he turned round to see where they were.

  To his right was a huge, wide, pale arcaded courtyard, dimly lit by the transient moon and a few gas-lamps. The lampposts had lions carved on them. The walls were fantastically carved: figures on pinnacles against the dim blue night, lions’ heads and more lions’ heads, round windows with fancy tracery, rows and rows of pointed Gothic arches. Directly ahead was an enormous staircase. Two gigantic figures stood on either side of a doorway at the top: two great half-naked stone men, ten metres high, strong as gods and motionless in the moonlight. Above the doorway was a massive stone lion, with wings, holding the book.

  Charlie breathed his special don’t-get-asthma breath. He was frightened – he couldn’t deny it, he was very frightened. This place stank of wealth and power, and bound up with it was this image of the lion.

  It became apparent that they were to climb the enormous staircase. Edward was disputing: Charlie could tell he didn’t want to let the Lions out of the cart yet, but the man in the suit was insisting. Charlie supposed that the Doge wasn’t going to come out into this cortile, any more than he would come round to someone else’s palazzo. No doubt he just sits on a throne, being honoured all day and all night … ridiculous, thought Charlie, and the thought made him feel braver.

  Edward and the suited man had come to an agreement. The suited man spoke to the uniformed men, Edward handed each of them a dark scarf, and they proceeded to wrap the scarves round each other’s heads as blindfolds.

  ‘Anche Lei,’ said Edward to the suited man. You too.

  The man protested.

  Edward lit another small cigar, and just looked at him.

  It was a strange scene. The tip of the cigar glowed bright and orange as Edward sucked on it. Everything else was silvered and white. The high wind had blown the clouds away.

  The courtyard was exceptionally beautiful.

  The man in the suit swore. Edward offered him a dark scarf, and helped him to tie it, fixing it firmly. Then he took him by the arm.

  ‘Let them out, Charlie,’ said Edward.

  Charlie looked to Claudio, and together they opened the side of the cart. The Lions slipped out, a stream of golden fur in the silvery moonlight, lean and long and so beautiful that even Charlie, who knew them so well, had to gasp. They roiled around him like a whirlpool of muscle and fur. The blindfolded men stood, nervous, unsure. One of them spoke, asking a question, but Edward, a look of fascinated terror on his face, swiftly shushed him.

  Charlie was murmuring softly to the Lions as he took the leads, apologizing under his breath. But there were too many leads for Charlie to hold. The Lions would have tripped over each other. So Charlie offered the Lionesses and Elsina to Claudio, who, with an expression of stunned amazement and delight, took them, two in each hand. The Lionesses looked up at him. The Bronze Lioness kind of meowed, letting him know it was all right. The blindfolded men shifted uneasily when they heard the noise, and Claudio held the leads as if – well, as if they were made of silver, and had Lionesses at the other end.

  Edward gave Claudio an amused look. ‘Better get used to them,’ he murmured.

  ‘Of course, sir,’ said Claudio. But when Edward turned his attention back to the stairs, Claudio turned to Charlie and winked. Elsina pulled a little on her lead and he looked at her. She flicked her ears at him. He gasped. Charlie could have sworn that Elsina smiled.

  And so the strange party started to climb the huge wide staircase, under the gaze of the huge stone gods and the ever-present, never-moving lion. The Lions on their leashes lead the young brown boy and the long blond Venetian boatman; Edward, pale and wary, and the gang of blindfolded flunkeys, feeling their way, clutching the balustrade, tripping and flinching, desperately nervous about whatever it was that they were not allowed to see. Whatever it was – whatever they were – that breathed, and padded, and made mewling noises.

  Even the steps were decorated: vines and leaves inlaid. Looking back, Charlie saw the domes of St Mark’s rising against the night sky, like desert tents, or great fat beetles. The people on pinnacles seemed to be staring down at him as he followed Edward and the man in the suit through the doorway and right along the wide, arch-sided balcony overlooking the courtyard.

  At the end of the balcony he could see where it met another balcony along the front of the palazzo. Beyond, through the dark silhouette made by those arches, across the pavement and across the water, he could just make out the floodlit ruins of San Giorgio Maggiore.

  Gosh, he thought, it’s really near. He wondered where the Doge had been when the great storm came and swept away his neighbouring island. Had he sat here, watching the sea swirl around the feet of his palace, wondering if he too was going to be swept away?

  Suddenly he remembered the stilt-houses on the Thames, at home; how he had admired them as he came downriver on the policeguy’s boat. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  But then they turned left through a doorway, and up another staircase. The ceiling was iced in gold (‘It’s real gold,’ hissed Claudio, when he saw Charlie staring), with paintings and statues fixed into it. And then they were led through enormous room after enormous magnificent room, dimly lit, their corners lost in shadow.

  ‘These are the Doge’s private apartments,’ murmured Claudio.

  ‘What are his public ones like, then?’ squeaked Charlie, as they crossed a long chamber whose walls were all painted with maps. In the centre of the room were two massive globes, each considerably taller then Charlie; above them two enormous but delicate chandeliers, crispy and white like sugar.

  The next room was lined with yellow silk, with a tall stone fireplace and on it a winged lion, and a baby angel riding a dolphin. The firelight flickered and gleamed on the walls. The next had a large dark painting of a black boy in turquoise and yellow tights offering something to a lot of old white men on red chairs, seated at a table. The fireplace, again, bore a lion.

  More ornate corridors.

  More fabulous chambers.

  And then they came to the room in which the Doge was waiting for them. Edward, the man in the suit, and half the guards went in first. The man in the suit took off his blindfold as he went in, not caring now if Edward told him not to.

  He didn’t turn round, though. He’s really afraid, Charlie thought. He’s more afraid than he is curious.

&n
bsp; Charlie peered through the gap between the door and the frame. Inside, just sitting there, he saw an old, tired-looking man in a deep-red robe and a small cap, on a throne of gold and red velvet, flanked by a couple of equally old-looking advisers, also in red. His face was wrinkly and his mouth was mean. So that was what a Doge looked like.

  Edward was preparing him. ‘We have for you, Your Grace, something quite extraordinary, quite magnificent and, if I may say so, extremely politically useful,’ he was saying. ‘We can give you something that can give Venice back to you. Your people – forgive my directness – do not love you. As you well know. This gift will make them love you. It will tell them that Venice is no longer cursed. All the bad luck will leave. And everybody will vote for you because you have lifted the curse. Anybody who speaks against you will be speaking against the great blessing you have brought them. You will be able to do anything you want.’

  ‘What is it, then?’ said the Doge impatiently, in a crackly papery voice. He sounded as if it would take quite a lot to impress him.

  ‘Thus St Mark,’ said Edward, ‘symbolized in the Apocalypse by a lion, returned to the Lagoon, and forever.’ It sounded like a quotation. The Doge seemed to recognize it.

  ‘San Marco?’ he said. ‘What nonsense is this?’

  ‘Powerful nonsense,’ said Edward, his eyes gleaming. ‘Charlie! Claudio! Enter!’

  The Lions, almost laughing, looked at each other. Claudio and Charlie too. Without a word they all agreed – Claudio and Charlie slipped the scarlet leashes, and the Lions, free and beautiful, leapt into the Doge’s chamber.

  Chapter Ten

  The little car was whizzing along.

  ‘We were going south before, so if we go north till we see a sign we’ll at least be going in the right direction,’ said Aneba.

  They were both feeling a bit shaky. Magdalen was glad to be in fresh air, filling her lungs with normal everyday pollution instead of the sweet, cool poisonous air of the Corporacy Community, or the fetid stink of the dump. Aneba was relieved to have her back, her mind intact. But over the past weeks both had been fed a lot of drugs, a lot of over-processed unnaturally delicious food full of strange sugars and peculiar fats, and most of all a lot of stupid ideas. Their bodies were confused and their minds were tired. It had been hard work fighting off the Motivational Management Officers, the Medical Officers and all the others. Now, for the first time in weeks, they had to think for themselves and make their own decisions. It wasn’t that they’d forgotten how, more that they were out of the habit.

  ‘I wish we could call Charlie,’ said Magdalen. But Aneba’s phone was at the bottom of the sea, and payphones were few and far between.

  ‘Money,’ said Aneba. ‘We’ll need money.’

  When they came to a small town, they had to decide whether it was safe to use the cash window, or whether it was too dangerous to risk being seen.

  ‘If only one of us goes we’ll be less recognizable,’ said Magdalen.

  Aneba parked on a quiet street, away from the security cameras of the centre of town. Magdalen walked in, happy just to be walking down an ordinary street. She hadn’t realized how much she loved the ordinary world. She found she was smiling.

  There was, as she had expected, a cash window on the high street. She held up her hand for her prints to be read, and took out all the dirhams it would give her. ‘You never know,’ she murmured. Plus, the window would make a record of the fact that she’d been here, and if people were looking for them they might check those records … So the fewer times she had to visit a window the better.

  She was reassured by the feel of the wodge of money in her pocket. Part of her had been afraid that the window wouldn’t give her any.

  ‘Petrol,’ said Aneba.

  That was harder. There were charging points for electros everywhere, even in the middle of nowhere, but you couldn’t just buy petrol – you needed a licence, and a supplier. There were black-market petrolmen, but you had to know one – it was a risky enterprise, for the dealers and for the buyers.

  ‘Not worth it?’ said Magdalen.

  They decided to dump the car. Then they changed their minds. How else would they travel? They’d be so visible – huge black man, red-haired white woman. If the Corporacy sent anyone after them – and why shouldn’t they? They’d kidnapped them before – they would be instantly recognizable. And now they were villains anyway – they’d stolen the car. The police might stop them.

  They changed their minds back. A stolen car might easily be spotted. Aneba wrote a note saying ‘Sorry – had no choice’, and left it on the front seat with some money. ‘To show our good intentions,’ he said.

  They decided to take the train. Then they changed their minds: too visible. They decided to start walking. Then they changed their minds: pointless. Far too far, they’d never get there, they’d be even more noticeable.

  Steal another car? Or a vannette, or a cycle? No! They both vetoed that.

  Buy one perhaps …

  Disguise themselves …

  Which way was Paris anyway? Where were they?

  They were beginning to feel hopeless.

  ‘Dinner,’ said Aneba.

  They went to the charging point they’d passed coming into town. At the café they were able to clean themselves up a bit in the bathroom – get the tea leaves out of their hair, and wash the smelly smears off themselves. They wiped their clothes down as best they could. They looked and felt a bit better, but votethey weren’t exactly fragrant.

  Then they sat themselves down at a plastic-topped table and ate spicy red sausages and rice and salad. At the next table was a gang of North African truckerguys who had stopped for their dinner too. They all got chatting. Several of the truckerguys were heading to Paris. All of them were happy to give a lift to this well-mannered couple. One of them had a truck with a bunk behind the driver’s seat.

  ‘I sleep all day so I can drive at night,’ he said. ‘I like to drive at night – less traffic, and I am in love with the stars. You climb behind and sleep when you like.’

  There were little curtains to pull across, bottles of water tucked behind the neat little pillow, and a Hand of Fatima to bring blessings on the lorry. There was also a mobile phone. ‘You can use it,’ the trucker said, and Magdalen’s heart beat hard as she dialled Charlie’s number – but there was nothing. Well. It would have been a miracle. She smiled bravely.

  The bunk was snug and clean. Magdalen went straight to bed and slept, the remains of the drugs in her system giving her weird and lurid dreams. Aneba sat up for an hour or so, talking politics with the driver as they hurtled across France, heading towards Paris and news of their boy.

  Rafi was following directly in Charlie’s footsteps. The Orient Express was still the quickest way from Paris to Venice. During the journey Rafi sat up in the restaurant car buying drinks for one of the guards, who was very happy to tell him stories of mad old King Boris, including where exactly his place was in Venice, and also how he for one was quite convinced that those mythical Lions everyone had been going on about were definitely on the train during the big freeze, because the boy who cleaned the bathrooms had found some most peculiar tough golden hairs all over one of the King’s bathtubs, plus he’d eaten about twelve times as much as he usually did, and most of it was steak …

  (It was on this same guard that Troy’s miraculous nose smelt Rafi’s smell the following week. Rafi’s scent had led Troy to the station and abandoned him there; the guard unwittingly led him to the right train, and the train brought him in the end to Venice, still doggedly and devotedly pursuing his mean master.)

  Rafi was feeling very happy about his discoveries when he received a phone call.

  ‘Chief Executive, Corporacy Community, here, Sadler,’ said the voice.

  Rafi stopped grinning.

  ‘The materials you delivered have disappeared,’ the voice continued. ‘Of their own accord.’

  Rafi had to think quickly. Disappeared! How?
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br />   ‘That’s dreadful,’ he said. ‘And I took such trouble to deliver them to you as instructed in good condition. How terrible that you should have lost them now.’ He was trying to make it clear that it was not his fault. Well, it wasn’t! If they lost Aneba and Magdalen after he had delivered them, it was nothing to do with him.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Chief Executive smoothly. ‘If, however, you had delivered the full consignment, we would now be in a better position to reclaim the missing materials. We’re still waiting for the next batch, if you remember …’

  Rafi remembered all right. He hadn’t really thought that the Corporacymen would have forgotten either. No doubt they’d been happy not to worry about Charlie while they had his parents, but now that they’d disappeared – had they escaped? That was pretty clever of them! – of course Charlie could be used to blackmail them.

  ‘So you just bring it straight along, all right?’ the Chief Executive was saying.

  No way could Rafi admit he had lost Charlie. They’d never employ him again. They’d paid him well for this job and what if they wanted their money back? Plus his name and reputation would be ruined. Everyone would think he was a fool, a stupid kid who couldn’t hack it …

  ‘Of course,’ said Rafi. Quick, think of a way to buy time … ‘I’m keeping the batch in a safe place, so it’ll take a day or two to fetch it, but I’ll be with you very soon. Thank you for letting me know the situation, I appreciate it. I’ll see you soon and call you with the progress. Goodbye.’ Yes, that was good. Efficient, authoritative, grown-up.

  Now he just had to get that sniking boy.

  From the Lions.

  Rafi’s heart sank. Ever since his arm had been half bitten off, he really didn’t like the Lions.