The Custodian of Marvels

by Rod Duncan

  “This is going to prick,” he hissed, in a tone of mock apology. Then he plunged his hand between the duke’s trussed body and the horse’s back. He had hardly pulled away before the animal reared up. I had to jump to escape its flailing hooves. It whinnied then kicked out at the back. We all of us retreated into the shadow of the stable wall. If there had been a moment for the guardsmen to escape, that would have been it. But they stood, open mouthed, stunned by the spectacle and the reversal of all the order they had known.

  Lights were coming on in the great house. I heard footsteps approaching at a run. Someone swore on the other side of the courtyard. Then the duke began screaming his rage. The horse reared two more times then set off towards the gardens.

  Three men-at-arms burst from the front doors of the great house. The man on the other side of the courtyard was running after the horse, flapping his arms as if trying to communicate but unable to speak. Then at last he got three words out: “It’s the duke!”

  I heard shouts in the distance. Men-at-arms who had been on guard duty around the walls were rushing back to help.

  “This way,” whispered Fabulo, gesturing our captives along the line of shadow, taking them further from the chaos he’d created. I took a last glance back and saw the horse leaping a low hedge at a gallop, leaving the pursuing servants far behind. And all the while the duke screamed orders, incoherent with rage.

  It took little time for us to reach the wall, which lay close in that direction. From the sound of shouting in the distance it was clear that they were no nearer to catching the horse.

  Fabulo took the coil of rope from his shoulder and turned to the two guardsmen. “Stand back to back, gentlemen,” he said.

  They began to move, but I held out a hand to stop them. “You can’t leave them here. What will the duke do to them?”

  “In a couple of hours the whole county’s going to be out looking for us,” said Fabulo. “We can’t take them with us.”

  “Please,” said the older guardsman. “She’s right. We’re dead men if we stay. I won’t slow you down. I’ll give you my word on that. And I know the country hereabouts. I can help you find ways that won’t be seen.”

  The dwarf swore under his breath.

  “I’ll not leave them,” I said.

  “What about you?” Fabulo growled. “You want to come too?”

  The young guardsman shook his head. He held his wrists together behind his back and turned so that they could be tied, though he seemed very afraid.

  CHAPTER 12

  September 26th

  If a cabinet has only six sides, then the trick will be found on its seventh.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  We made our way as swiftly as we could in the darkness, first to the place where I’d lain watching the house. I picked up my coat and haversack, then followed Fabulo to the site of his own camp, not far distant, where he had hidden his travelling pack in the branches of a holly tree.

  The miles that followed became a blur to me. But at last we came to the ruins of a labourer’s cottage. The rotten wood of the door gave no resistance. Inside, thin weeds grew from the earth floor towards a large hole in the roof. Here we chose to rest out the day, sheltered from the wind, though not the damp.

  The duke had surely known that I lived on a boat. His first action on rescue from the horse would have been to send out riders to search the canals and rivers of the county. Thus the Harry remained beyond our reach.

  “Leave it where you moored it,” Fabulo said, when I asked. “We’ll send men to fetch it once we’re safe.”

  I did not argue.

  The man-at-arms who had chosen to accompany us had said little as we walked. Waiting out that first day, I watched him go about disguising his uniform. With the point of Tinker’s pocket knife, he cut the stitches that held the braids and epaulettes in place. Once they were removed he dug a handful of clay from the overgrown garden and set to rubbing it into the scarlet broadcloth, softening the colour of the jacket to russet. The cut of it might still give him away, but from a distance he would look much like a working man.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Fitzwilliam,” he said, though he would not meet my eyes.

  When night came we set off once more. Our new companion said he knew a safe track through woodland that would carry us east and south. Though it went against Fabulo’s nature to trust this intelligence, all other options seemed worse. But whenever Fitzwilliam started to pull ahead that night, the dwarf would be after him, hand on knife hilt.

  When the second day dawned we left the path and climbed to the crest of a hill where the trees were thinner. From this vantage point we could look out over a small town set below in a wide valley. Fitzwilliam lay down on his side and was soon asleep. I expected Tinker to do the same, but the boy sniffed the air and set off back down the slope.

  I sat myself next to Fabulo, who kept watch, his back resting against a tree.

  “That’s a smart boy you’ve got,” he said. “You shouldn’t have sent him away.”

  “I wanted him safe.”

  “A boy like that don’t want to be safe. It’s belonging he needs more than anything. We all do in different ways. For him it’s wanting to be with you.”

  I didn’t answer. My thoughts had begun to clear through our long walk. But, despite the distance we had travelled, I had not moved beyond the darkness. A shadow still lay within me. Though I listened to the words that Fabulo spoke, I couldn’t yet feel the truth of them.

  “You weren’t in your right mind,” he said. “The boy could see it. You mustn’t blame him. Sometime soon you’re going to start thinking straight again and you’re going to figure that I couldn’t have found you without his help. That I’ve been following for a long time. And then maybe you’re going to think of casting blame. But don’t.

  “Remember that night on the Grantham Canal when I came calling and you sent me away? The next day Tinker hunted me down at my camp. He came to tell me you weren’t right in your mood. He’s been looking out for you, that’s what I’m saying. He’s been telling me your plans as much as he knew. And where he didn’t know, there was enough for me to guess.”

  “You fed him?” I asked.

  “Food’s as good as love for a boy like that.”

  “And you gave him the silver repeater.”

  Fabulo nodded.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Picked it up in London with a few other pieces.”

  He reached across to his pack, extracted a shagreen jewellery box and passed it to me.

  I turned it in my hands, feeling the weight of it, then popped the catch. Nineteen pocket watches lay inside on a bed of satin, each in its own shallow depression. There would have been twenty, but one place was empty. Gold gleamed. Small gems shone from some of the dials. Two of the cases I guessed were platinum. One was incongruously made of brass.

  “It’s our bank account,” he said.

  “You bribed Tinker?”

  “That one was a trinket. It took his fancy so I gave it to him. But everything he did was just as he would have done anyway.”

  “You rubbed dirt into the watch,” I said, feeling the pieces of an unsolved puzzle fitting together. “You made it look as if he could have found it in the path.”

  “You see, Elizabeth Barnabus – you’re smart, too. But in a different way. At least the boy knows where his heart is.”

  I slept fitfully, waking with a start to find the sun high and the sound of galloping horses in the distance. Fabulo and Fitzwilliam were crouched, looking out towards the valley, keeping low behind the bracken that fringed the hilltop. Crawling to join them, I saw a detachment of men-at-arms heading along the road towards the small town.

  “Tinker?” I whispered, in alarm.

  “Been and gone,” said Fabulo. “But don’t you worry. He’s safe enough. He said I should give you this.” So saying he reached across to where a perfect red and green apple rested o
n the ground.

  I took it, aware of the dwarf’s eyes on me.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  Instead of answering, I put the apple close to my nose and inhaled. The skin felt cold and waxy.

  The men-at-arms were riding out through the other side of the town. Trees by the roadside began to hide them from our view. The sound of them was almost gone. Fitzwilliam backed away from the edge.

  “They’ll be chasing a rumour,” he said to Fabulo. “Else they’d have stopped and talked to the folk down there. He’ll have heard a whisper from one of his spies. It’s all to the good. That’s thirty men and thirty horses not looking in any place that’s going to find us.”

  “What was the other guard’s name?” I asked.

  “Reuben,” he said, still not looking at me.

  “And you fear for him?”

  “Too late for that, miss. We’re soldiers. There’s no law for us but a court martial. And that with the duke as judge. Reuben will already be food for crows. It’s bad enough to sleep on duty. But the duke himself being treated so… They’ll put the body in the gibbet so everyone can see.”

  Bitterness dripped from his words. Still he faced away from me.

  “You hold me to blame?” I asked, believing it was certain.

  But he shook his head. “No.” The word came without hesitation, as if it was a question he’d already considered.

  “But the boy’s gone. Why wouldn’t you blame me?”

  “You had cause to do what you’ve done. I’ve been in the duke’s service ten years. So I’ve seen the way he is.”

  The full meaning of what he’d told me didn’t reveal itself all at once. First I thought that ten years was a long time. I would have been a child when he joined. Then I thought that he must have been a soldier when I fled to the Republic. And then I began to wonder what he might himself have seen of my history. I’d been staring at the earth as these thoughts tumbled, at the scattering of fallen leaves, at the tree roots that spread like veins across the hilltop. When I raised my head, I found him looking directly at me for the first time.

  “Ten years?” I asked.

  “Yes, miss.”

  “But that means… Were you… Did you…”

  “I’ve seen you before, miss, if that’s what you’re asking. Six years ago. You weren’t full grown. I was there with the duke that day.”

  “You saw our show?”

  “It was a marvel, and that’s no lie. To see that boy magicked across from one cabinet to the other. To tell the truth, you weren’t much on my mind, what with all the conjuring on stage. I hope you don’t mind me saying it.

  “But after, when we were back at the Hall, the duke was changed – skittish, like a horse before a race. He couldn’t settle. And he was asking about you. Soon enough he was back in his coach, with me riding escort. We tracked back to where the circus had been pitched. On finding it gone, we were off again, following any gossip we could find, until we caught up with the wagons. But you’ll know the rest.”

  Thoughts were coming to me so fast that I couldn’t order them. But that strange numbness of feeling was still on me. “I want to hear you tell it,” I said.

  “Well, the duke spoke with your father. Asked to see the cast of the show again, every one of them. He’d give a purse of silver if all could be lined up and brought before his coach. So it was done just like that. That’s when I mostly remember you from. I was standing next to the coach when you came up. Everyone else, he’d seen and sent away. But you, he kept standing there. Even when you started to cry. I thought it a shame that he should treat a child so.

  “After all that was done, he went to see your father again. Said what a bright girl you were. Asked how much he’d need to compensate to have the pleasure of you living in his household, a companion for the other children, he said. You’d be well fed and clothed.

  “But your father wouldn’t have it. Said he needed you for his conjuring show. To which the duke countered that he’d pay a thousand guineas. But your father must have seen his real intent, because he said he wouldn’t be parted with you for any price. At which the duke said there was a price for everything, though it might not be to your father’s liking.”

  A strange thing was happening to Fitzwilliam as he told my story. The soldier’s composure, which he’d worn so naturally through our journey, was crumbling. Or perhaps it had gone already and I hadn’t noticed because of the way he’d avoided my gaze. There was a hollowness about his cheeks and the skin sagged below his eyes.

  “You know these things already,” he said. “Why must I say them? Isn’t it enough that there’s no blame on you? The duke’s a man of evil passions, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “I could have left you there,” I said. “Tied and gagged with Reuben. You owe me this.”

  I glanced over to where Fabulo sat, looking out at the valley. He was listening to every word.

  “Did your master do such things before?” I asked.

  Fitzwilliam rubbed his hands over his face, as if trying to wake himself up after a bad dream. “The duke is a man who gets what he wants. He was always that way. Whether it’s a painting or a horse, he puts down the money and that’s it. Or a girl. But you were different, miss, begging your pardon.”

  “Different how?”

  “Just different. He liked pretty girls before.”

  “I wasn’t pretty?”

  “I’m not saying that, though you weren’t dressed up in frills and satin. The thing was, you had a way about you different from his usual girls. When the men came up on stage to see the cabinets, you looked them straight in the eye. You acted so sure of yourself. It got him all fired up somehow. Then your father denied him. That was different too.

  “No one’s ever made him angry like you did. Three times he’s thought he had you. But you got away. And each time it’s made him worse. He’s been mad with anger. I mean mad like he’s fit for the asylum. It’s not your fault. You did nothing to make him what he is. Except you got away. None of the others ever did.

  “After you, there were girls he set out to get in the exact same way. Buying debts. Bribing judges. But each time it was like he was trying to stage a show. He was going through the self-same act. Like each girl was a stand-in. But none of them was you.

  “That’s how I know Reuben’s dead. That’s why I couldn’t stay. It’s not just that the duke was brought low. But it was you that did it. You got past all of us. You put a knife to his throat. You, of all the people in the world. Every guard from that night will be flogged till there’s no skin on their backs.

  “I’m sorry, miss, for my part in it. Sorry to you. Sorry to them. And to Reuben.”

  I lay down again to rest, now knowing why he had been avoiding my gaze. It had been shame, not malice. For when he looked at me, it was his own sins that he saw.

  The tiredness just came up and took me after that. I slept with no sense that time was passing. When I woke, the trees above me were lit up in the last sun of the day and the sky between the branches was pale.

  The wind blew, causing a few leaves to fall. I fixed on one and watched it drifting down to the forest floor. All those years I had lived in exile, dwelling on the way one aristocrat had ruined my life and destroyed my family. Now it seemed that the disruption had worked both ways. It would never have occurred to me that the duke’s obsession could be corrosive to his life as well as mine.

  Fitzwilliam was up and seemed to be readying himself to leave.

  “What will you do?” I asked.

  “I’ll need to steal clothes first. Then I’ll keep on east. I’ve family in Norfolk. Farmers. Good people. They can hide me till it all dies down. After that… soldiering is all I know. I might try my hand in the navy. Or on a whaling boat. They don’t ask where you’ve come from.”

  I believe Fabulo would not have trusted him to go, but that had changed with the recounting of his tale. Before he slipped away, the two men shook hands. No words were said be
tween them.

  Having crossed the county boundary, we stopped in a copse near a river. There we found charred logs and ashes from a recent camp. Fabulo, who didn’t get on well with a diet of fruit and raw vegetables, said he was willing to take the risk if the result was a proper meal. So he sent Tinker out to buy food, whilst I gathered the driest sticks I could find and lit a fire.

  Later, when I bedded down, it was with the smell of wood smoke in my hair and an unaccustomed sense of fullness in my stomach. My body relaxed into the soft moss. The side of my face nearest the fire felt warm. Tinker had curled up near me and was fast asleep. Fabulo sat, gnawing the last of the meat from a rib bone.

  “Did you have a plan?” he asked. “For after you killed the duke? And what happened about that, by the way? You had him under your knife.”

  Fabulo hadn’t spoken of anything but practicalities since Fitzwilliam left us, but the food had animated him and he seemed more himself. I considered the question before answering.

  “I couldn’t do it,” I said.

  “By all that’s sacred, girl, you should have thought of that before you set out!”

  “I did. In my imagination it seemed a natural thing. Someone told me once that I wasn’t a killer. But that man I watched die, doing nothing to save him. So I thought… you know.”

  “Not saving someone isn’t the same as killing them,” said Fabulo. “Least of all with a knife. You might get a philosopher to say it is, or a lawyer. But only if he’d never had to stick someone himself.”

  “Have you ever killed?” I asked.

  He gave me a sideways glance. “Well, isn’t this cosy? We’re like two old lovers and this is our pillow talk, eh? Well, forgive me, Elizabeth Barnabus, but I don’t feel like sharing that kind of story.”

  “I didn’t mean to put you in danger,” I said. “I wasn’t looking for rescue.”

  “You’re crazy – you know that? The duke’s got a private army and you’ve got… what? A knife and that antique pistol. He ruined your family, that I know. But he’s an aristocrat. His kind have been doing the same for a thousand years. You’re not the only one to suffer it. What makes you so special that you need to have your own private revolution?”