Clara stared, shocked. She’d never heard such an outburst from Lukas before, and the way he emphasised the Goldstein in Caspar’s name troubled her. “Hush,” she muttered, glancing around: for him to mouth off about Max Goldstein in the man’s own building was unwise, to say the least. “I can’t disagree with you about that last part, but it can’t be helped.”
Lukas sighed deeply and rolled his eyes. “Do you think anyone would go to these lengths if it had been you or me?”
“What?”
“I’m saying a lot of people in this city spend a lot of time running after the Goldsteins. If they’d taken me or you, no one would give a—”
“Luk!” she interrupted furiously. “What is wrong with you? You know that isn’t true. And I know you aren’t really saying that Cas is only valuable because he’s a Goldstein.”
“Aren’t I?”
She stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Come on, admit it. How did you get in with the family in the first place? It wasn’t out of any pure motives.”
“I…” she trailed off. It was true: she had presented herself for a job, presuming on her distant connection with the family to put her ahead. Granted, it hadn’t been her idea: she had done it out of a mixture of necessity and a desire to please her parents—or at least to quiet their endless “reminders” about it. But that had nothing to do with her friendship with Cas.
“How did you become friends with Cas?” she said, suddenly suspicious.
He smiled faintly. “Why, it was the most natural thing in the world. Two top autocarriage drivers—or at least, one top driver and one with a really great car. We’re of a similar age, we spend a lot of time at the track. It just happened.”
Judging from the expression on his face and his manner of talking, Clara felt sure that it hadn’t “just happened” at all. Had Lukas engineered the friendship to take advantage of Cas’s connections?
No; horrible thought. Her tiredness was making her paranoid. She shook her head and held up a hand. “Never mind this; we’re wasting time. We need to compare ideas, come up with some new places to search. Or we need to admit this isn’t working and go help Hildy.”
Lukas shrugged.
It took a huge effort of will, but she dropped the hand that supported her head, sat up in her chair, and lifted her chin. “What we need,” she said to Lukas, “is coffee.”
He sighed and sat up a little. “Coffee might help.”
Clara left a note for Albert to give to Hildy when she next stopped by, wishing once again that she had more to report. Then she and Luk stepped back out into the street, blinking in the strong sunlight. Min and her lieutenants, Bunce and Top, drifted down from some rooftop to fall in behind them, blessedly quiet for once. Clara had managed to stop at a cake shop less than an hour ago and had freely distributed it among the three of them, purely to shut them up and keep them going. So far it was working.
Min was definitely going to need a diet soon, Clara thought, eyeing her pigeon friend’s increasingly curvy contours. No matter. If she needed cake every hour on the hour to keep her focused and useful, so be it.
And they’d done a good job so far, Min’s flock. They’d earned the cake.
“I don’t know where to find a coffee house around here,” Clara said, staring helplessly up and down the street. Teahouses she could find without trouble, but like most Eisenstadters she wasn’t normally a coffee drinker. Offices and shops she saw aplenty, and a high-class eatery on the corner, but nothing that looked like a coffee house.
“We’re standing in one of the richest districts of the city,” Lukas said dryly. “There’ll be a coffee house and it won’t be far.” He stopped a passer-by to enquire. Clara could tell by the man’s shrugging and head-shaking that he didn’t know, either, so Luk moved on to someone else.
Clara backed off the street, tucking herself into the limited shade cast by the nearest building. Despite the presence of Min’s flock, she felt exposed standing motionless in the middle of the road. The knowledge that they were supposed to be under observation made her uncomfortable, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that the pigeons might miss one or two of the wily crow spies.
Her impatience building, Clara was about to call off Lukas’s quest when she realised he was coming back towards her, his expression signalling success.
“If you want to find coffee, ask a Jerian,” he said when he reached her. “There’s a coffee place a couple of streets over. It’s quite well-hidden—a bit of an elitist place, I understand, not a favourite with the Jerian community—but I have good directions.”
It would probably be full of Eisenstadt’s richest and idlest citizens at this hour, Clara reflected, and that idea didn’t appeal, but she didn’t care. Coffee, then search onward. That was the plan.
Clara followed his lead back out into the busy street. Their progress was slow; they were part of a continuous stream of pedestrians and Luk had to pick his way carefully to avoid a collision. Clara’s uneasiness grew. They might be immersed in a moving sea of people, but she couldn’t feel any real dependence on that fact to hide her and Lukas from airborne spies.
“I think maybe we should—” she began, but broke off. Over the noise and bustle of the street, her straining ears picked up the sound she feared to hear: the beating of many wings as a group of birds swooped down on her.
She spun fast, heedless of the complaints of those whose path she was blocking. Searching the sky, she expected to see a group of crows.
Instead she saw pigeons.
Min, Bunce, and Top were having an airborne conference with four other grey-winged birds. They were whirling around each other, shrieking a lot of things Clara couldn’t hear.
“What’s that about?” Lukas said in her ear.
“I’ve no idea,” she murmured. Raising her voice, she called, “Min!”
The green-and-gold pigeon whirled and headed for her. “Captain!” Min shouted back.
“What’s all this?”
“Family reunion, Captain! Top’s folk!”
“What?” Clara snapped. “Can’t you do that later?”
“There’s something about an important message, Captain!”
“A what?” Clara yelled. “Oh, for—here, come out of the street.” She headed for the large, cavernous doorway belonging to a nearby milliner’s shop, trusting to Luk and Min to follow her.
They did, though it took a few minutes for Min to get all six of the other pigeons assembled. She lined them up in a row on the pavement, marching up and down and barking orders from time to time. Top and Bunce were used to this and soon obeyed; the other four, however, took a little longer to catch on.
“Recruits assembled, Captain!” Min barked at last, pausing at Clara’s feet.
Recruits? Clara wondered how the new pigeons would feel about that. “Family of yours, Top?” she asked, looking at Min’s suitor.
“Yes ma’am,” he said smartly. “Cousins.”
“We aren’t all cousins,” said one of the new pigeons. “Just him.” He jerked a wing at a slender pigeon with brown patches standing in the middle of the row.
“What’s this about a message?” She managed to say it calmly, but she felt anything but composed. In all probability this “important message” was some nonsense between pigeons and a waste of her time. But could there be a chance—a faint chance—that it came from Cas? Her heart beat faster at the idea and she waited impatiently while the four new pigeons conferred among themselves.
Finally they formed themselves back into a row and stared up at Clara.
“We were given to understand that payment would be forthcoming from Top’s companions,” said one. “The agreement specified that the payment in question would be cake.”
“Cake,” repeated Top’s cousin, and Clara heard “Cake, cake,” uttered a few times over from the group.
Clara’s heart began to pound. Cake? Cas knew that pigeons went wild for cake. It really might be him. “I don’t have any cake with
me right this moment,” she said, “but there’s a cake shop right there. See it? If the message is what I think it is, you’ll have a whole cake each.”
Min shot her a look of poisonous hatred.
“As will Min, Top, and Bunce,” Clara added hastily, “in gratitude for services rendered.”
Min lifted her head high and nodded once. “Thank you, Captain.”
“We accept the terms,” said the formal pigeon loudly. “The message is…”
There was another moment of flurried confusion among the pigeons and Clara’s heart almost stopped beating altogether. She resisted the urge to scream at the silly creatures, her hands itching to squeeze them until they talked.
“Cas—has—escaped,” said the formal pigeon slowly.
Clara stopped breathing.
“but—has—com—pan—y,” said the next pigeon.
“Meet—him—at—Hig—bees—workshop,” said Top’s cousin.
“At—dusk—bring—help,” said the fourth.
That, apparently, was it, for they all stopped speaking and stared at her expectantly.
“That’s everything?” she said. “Are you sure?”
Four heads nodded solemnly at her.
It occurred to her, belatedly, that the message might not be from Cas after all. Somebody could pretend to be Cas—how would the pigeons know? Why would they even care? “Who gave you this message? Describe them.”
“Long,” said Top’s cousin.
“You mean tall?”
“Also thin,” the pigeon continued. “Female.”
Female? What? Clara’s hopes dissolved into ashes and she felt ready to cry. What in the world was going on now?
But another pigeon clouted Top’s cousin around the head. “Don’t you know a male human when you see one? Wasn’t female.” She fluffed her wings in irritation, clicking her beak. “Idiot,” she added.
“It had a lot of hair,” said Top’s cousin doubtfully. “The females are hairier on the heads, aren’t they?”
“Just stop talking,” said the female pigeon in a despairing tone.
Clara pointed at somebody passing by, a woman with hair of a similar tawny-gold to Cas’s. “Hair a bit like that?”
“Yep,” said two pigeons together.
Clara’s next gesture outlined a prominent nose on her own face. “Beaky?”
“Major beak,” confirmed the female pigeon.
“That’s Cas!” she said in excitement. All her despair melted away and she even bounced on her toes, her tiredness momentarily forgotten. “Give me the message again.”
The pigeons repeated it. It didn’t make much more sense the second time.
“Sadly garbled,” she sighed, “but still, a cake each. Maybe more than that. You’ve been brilliant.”
“Higbees workshop?” Luk said doubtfully. “What’s Higbee?”
“Could’ve been higbun,” offered one of the pigeons.
“It was hiffle,” said another one.
“Hindle.”
“Hillam.”
“Hirro!”
“Stop!” said Clara. “Hi-something. I get it. Hildy.”
“Probably,” agreed Top’s cousin placidly.
Clara stared at Luk. “What do you make of it? Escaped—but has company. What does that mean?”
“May mean he’s pursued,” Luk suggested.
“But why go to Hildy’s workshop? And what does he mean by ‘At dusk, bring help’?”
“He’s going to hole up at Hildy’s and expects something to happen at dusk, for which he needs help,” Lukas interpreted. “Though what kind of help he means I’ve no idea.”
“Cake,” said a pigeon. “Please.”
Clara shut her eyes briefly. “Right. One thing at a time. Cake for the messengers; coffee for you and me; then back to Max’s. We need to find out where Hildy is.”
Luk nodded, but said, “What about the bottles? Are we giving up on that?”
“I suppose so,” she replied, somewhat doubtfully. “If he’s escaped, there’s no question of a ransom anymore.”
“But that new note’s only been delivered quite recently.”
“Good point.” She turned back to the pigeons. “How long ago did you receive this message?”
The pigeons gabbled back at her, a confused mess of conflicting measurements.
“Right, new question,” she said, holding up a hand. “What was the light like?”
“Wasn’t much of it,” said Top’s cousin.
“You mean it was dark?”
“Nope. Bit of light poking about.”
“Around dawn, then,” Clara concluded. “That was hours ago.”
“So in all likelihood, Cas was already free by the time that message was delivered.”
Clara nodded. “How could they not know that their captive had escaped?”
Luk frowned. “It’s possible, if they didn’t bother to check on him first.”
“It seems unlikely. I fear we’re missing something.” A horrible thought occurred to her. “What if he was recaptured after he sent that message? We can’t ignore the new ransom note.”
“All right, that’s possible. But the kidnappers’ meeting isn’t until later tonight. So if he’s been captured again, we’ll know it when he doesn’t show at Hildy’s.”
“Right.” She nodded, taking a deep breath to calm herself. Luk talked sense, and his calm was soothing. Even if it had fractured a bit lately. “Off to the cake shop I go, and I’ll pick up coffee. Luk, can you go back to Albert? See if he knows where Hildy is, or when she’s planning to come back.”
Luk nodded and set off at once. Clara watched him go for a second, frowning. Not a word in reply, of comfort or support or even of agreement? He’d barely looked at her.
The pigeons were bouncing, Min and Top and Bunce included, forming a wiggling row of excitable bird-flesh.
Clara sighed.
“Come on,” she said. “Quickly.”
Luk was waiting for her when she made it back to the Goldstein Offices with four fewer pigeons in tow. Min had persuaded them to join her forces by mendaciously promising them a-cake-a-day in payment; having accomplished this she’d distributed them among the six groups of pigeons that had been keeping pace with Clara and Luk all day, ringing them in a circle of surprisingly ferocious defenders. Each group held anywhere from five to ten pigeons, making for an effective army.
They were even quite decent at subterfuge. Instead of following Clara around in clumps, they managed a credible appearance of nonchalance, winging their way around the city, ostensibly in search of interesting edible leavings.
Clara was almost proud of Min.
She grabbed Luk’s hand when she reached him, clutching at it a bit more tightly than she’d meant to. “Is she here?” she asked.
He nodded. “I passed everything along. She’s talking to Max now.”
Clara winced. She’d be in a foul mood when she came out, then. “Coffee,” she stated, handing him a small, steaming pot.
Luk drank half of it down almost in one gulp, heedless of the heat of it. He shook his head and blinked. “Strong stuff.”
“We’ve a lot to do.” She’d drunk most of hers already, gulping it down on her way back from the coffee house. People said it had remarkable properties for tired minds and could bestow a huge boost in alertness. She was still waiting for hers to take effect.
Albert had hitherto stood with silent stoicism, politely pretending not to be hearing anything they were saying. It was useless trying to talk to him: he was oblivious to small talk and only communicated when it was absolutely necessary.
Now he startled Clara by suddenly leaping into action. He swung open the main doors just in time for Hildy to come striding through, looking as though she’d gladly have beaten the door down if it had got in her way.
“Get in here!” she snapped. With that, she turned and stalked back inside.
Clara exchanged a look with Lukas. He rolled his eyes, shrugged and grabbed hi
s crutches. “You heard the good lady.”
Clara sighed and trotted after her mentor. Hildy disappeared inside a small, drab office and Clara followed. Inside, she found Til sitting in a chair near the window. He looked a little worn but generally in good health, and one of Clara’s several fears eased.
“Hi, Til,” she smiled, taking a seat next to him. “Good to see you up.”
He smiled back. “All’s well. Don’t be worrying about me.”
Luk caught up with them a minute later and Hildy shut the door. “Here’s what we’ve learned,” she said without preamble, slumping into a chair. “Matilda Bernat was employed at the University until recently, when she quit without notice. Disappeared altogether, as far as they know. She wasn’t a full member of the staff; just a part-time member of the history faculty, lecturing in ancient languages. She wasn’t very reliable, so they weren’t sorry when she quit.
“The address they had on record for her was apparently false. The police followed it up and found an unconnected family living there. No sign of a Matilda, Bernat or anything else. She didn’t talk about herself at all, according to her colleagues, so nobody could give us any more information about her—except the name of the eatery she often visited, the same place she met Cas. The staff there know her but they don’t know anything about her, either.
“That’s it for her. Faulkner’s even worse. A couple of people of that name turned up in various public records, but they both died years ago. The staff at Matilda’s eatery had never seen him before Cas’s meeting and nobody else has ever heard of him.” She leaned forward. “We checked the Starcaster Registry but there’s no record of any Wrede Faulkner ever existing. He’s not licensed to practice in Eisenstadt as far as anyone can tell. He wasn’t trained here. Nobody recognises his description or his name. So is it an assumed name, or does he come from somewhere else? There’s no answer to that question.”
She sighed. “Long story short, finding the probable kidnappers isn’t progressing well at all. We’ve no real leads to pursue and not enough time to go dig some up. If they’re the people responsible, they could have taken him absolutely anywhere.”
Black Mercury (The Drifting Isle Chronicles) Page 22
