The Custodian of Marvels

by Rod Duncan

  “You think so?”

  Tinker knelt down on the lowest step and unfolded the map. Once again, he was looking at it askew. I tried to shift it around but he resisted, putting it back to the odd angle he had chosen before.

  “That’s the Patent Court,” I said, tapping the blocked out region of the map. “And that’s the road.”

  He tilted his head first one way and then the other. A look of fierce concentration had taken up residence on his brow.

  “It’s not really quite a picture,” I said, trying to think of a way to explain cartography to an illiterate boy.

  “It is,” he said. Then he pointed into the sky where, high above the rooftops, three red kites were circling, their wing feathers spread like fingers.

  “The birds?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “What of them?”

  “It’s a picture like they drew it.”

  My first thought was to correct him. But then I realised that, in a manner of speaking, he had it exactly right. I was about to ask him about the angle he had chosen to position the map on the ground when the clocks around the city began to chime the half hour. I listened, puzzled. The clock on the wall of the Patent Court put the time at nine minutes past the half hour.

  “How about that?” said Fabulo, triumphant.

  “Then it’s nine minutes fast?”

  “Nine minutes and twenty-one seconds, to be precise. Though more rightly speaking it’s the other clocks that are late.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “Then you should read the pamphlet.”

  So I did, scanning the pages until I came to the heading Timekeeping and the International Patent Court:

  Londoners know it as the Patent Court Clock. But the timepiece with its display on the high portico is more properly designated ICN2, so named because of its place within the International Chronological Network.

  Another name for it that you may hear mentioned on your visit is the Fast Clock. The reason will become obvious when you compare it to other public clocks in the city which, if they are keeping good time, trail behind ICN2 by exactly nine minutes and twenty-one seconds.

  Please be aware: These differences are not a subject to be joked about when in the Kingdom. For many Royalists it is a touchstone that reminds them of grievances remaining from their accession to the Great Accord. With the signing of the Twelfth Amendment, all other nations adopted the metric system and the Paris Meridian for the fixing of longitude and the setting of clocks. Alone in the Gas-Lit Empire, the Kingdom secured an exemption to this standardisation. Thus, it still uses the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time. But, because the International Patent Court exists within its own jurisdiction, its clock is set according to the international standard.

  Geography may have forced London’s clocks to trail behind ICN2. But in the shift to and from Daylight Saving Time, the Kingdom chose to be twenty-four hours ahead (4am on the second Saturday in March and October respectively.)

  In securing its exemption, the Kingdom burdened itself with perpetual confusion in international dealings. Visitors, not knowing the history, may find these irregularities perverse. But the Kingdom’s stance is a matter of considerable local pride.

  It would be a serious faux pas to ask why the clocks in the Kingdom are running slow. For Londoners it is quite the other way about.

  Reaching the end of the section, I closed the pamphlet. The grievance it mentioned was a powerful force in the politics of the Kingdom. I thought again about what Professor Ferdinand had told me, wondering what Fabulo would do with that knowledge. I looked down and saw that he’d been staring at me.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “It’s curious.”

  “Curious indeed.”

  “But I thought you were bringing us here to show how we could… you know.”

  “Break in,” he said, voicing the words I still felt too afraid to say. His voice had grown more serious now, and mercifully quieter.

  “Are you saying the clock running fast is important?”

  “It’s more than important,” he said. “That nine minutes and twenty-one seconds is a crack that we’re going to climb through. Right into the heart of that mighty fortress. And then we’re going to help ourselves from the treasure house.”

  CHAPTER 14

  October 1st

  To hide an elephant is easy. Simply put it where they are not looking.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  I woke to the sense of shaking and opened my eyes to see Tinker leaning over me. He was gripping my shoulders. A lantern rested on the floor. It hadn’t been there when I went to sleep. I was about to say something, but he put his fingers over my mouth. Then I heard shouting in the street outside.

  I was out of bed in one movement. The boy turned the other way as I pulled on clothes over the chemise in which I’d been sleeping. Fabulo was nowhere to be seen. I could hear fists pounding on a door in the street below. Heavy footsteps.

  “Open it or I break it down!”

  I grabbed stockings, shoes and shawl. Tinker turned the wick down and the lantern went out. I stepped to the side of the window, pulled the thin curtain an inch and looked down to the street.

  A troop of red coats were moving house to house. A man in a nightshirt was rolling on the ground, legs in the open drain, hands holding his face. A woman knelt next to him, wailing. Further down, I could see a carriage standing waiting, its horses pawing the ground where they stood.

  I felt a tug on my sleeve. Tinker was pulling me in the direction of the door. He jabbed a finger towards the ceiling. I thought of the skylight on the landing above. I was about to follow him there when an even louder banging made me freeze. Footsteps sounded in the hall below. Soldiers were in the building, trying to get into one of the ground floor rooms. Wherever Fabulo had gone, he had left his travelling pack on the other bed. My haversack lay open on the floor.

  Breaking free from Tinker’s grip, I heaped my loose clothes into it. Tinker saw what I was doing and went to grab his own meagre possessions. I shook my head and pointed to Fabulo’s bag. If we were the object of the search, we couldn’t leave the clothes of a young woman and dwarf for them to find.

  Bolts were being snapped back below. Booted feet crashed. I ran up the stairs towards the top landing, hoping the noise of our escape would be swallowed by the violence of their entry.

  The roof angled low across the top landing. Low enough for me to push at the skylight. I had escaped across rooftops before. This time all we needed was to get out quietly and hide on the slates. But the skylight would not lift. I tried again, pressing harder. The frame bent and creaked, but the wood seemed to have swollen, anchoring it closed.

  Doors slammed. I could feel the vibration of each act of violence through the rickety banister rail.

  “Let us in or we force it!”

  A door opened below. There was a scuffle. A man cried out in pain. There were but two rooms on the ground floor. In seconds the soldiers would be climbing the stairs where they’d find our room empty. But the lamp would still be hot if they thought to feel it. And the beds.

  Tinker grabbed my wrist and pulled, as if trying to get me away from the top of the stairs.

  Booted feet were climbing the stairs. I heaved at the skylight again, increasing the upward force. The frame shifted suddenly with an ear splitting shriek. A crack arced across the pane of glass above my head.

  I froze. The footsteps had stopped. In the sudden silence I could hear the beating of my own heart. Tinker heaved on my arm again. This time I stepped after him along the small landing towards a single door at the end.

  Everything in the building seemed to be holding its breath, but I could hear the raid continuing outside. There were shouts of impotent rage from the denizens of St John’s. A door was kicked in further down the street. Dogs barked. Quieter but much closer a step creaked on the flight immediately below us. We were backed up against a door and they were coming.<
br />
  Then, all in the same moment, two things happened. I felt the movement of the air on the back of my neck as if something had shifted behind me. And the cracked glass detached itself from the skylight and fell. Half of it shattered on the landing. The other half crashed on the stairs. Out of instinct, I pressed back away from the destruction, expecting a door behind me, finding only air. I started to fall into the darkness, but was caught by unseen hands. Then the door was closing after me. I could hear the soldiers hammering up the stairs.

  “After them!”

  Glass crunched under their boots on the landing. There were two men, I judged. They swore as they clambered up through the empty skylight. Whatever they said after that was in whispers. But I could hear their feet on the slates of the roof above my head as they made their way up the slope. Only when I was sure they had set out along the apex of the roof did I turn to look at my rescuers.

  But the room in which I found myself was without windows. The darkness was complete.

  “Thank you,” I whispered.

  A match flared in the air in front of me, and then a candle was lit, illuminating Fabulo’s face. There were others behind him, but the light wasn’t enough for me to see them clearly. I was about to ask for an explanation, but the dwarf shook his head, putting a finger to his mouth. Then, gesturing for me to follow, he began to pick his way across the attic room, which I now realised was only partially boarded.

  Ducking under a roof beam, I followed him along a narrow path of floorboards, themselves resting on joists that looked too thin to take our weight. I was aware of Tinker just behind me. And behind him followed the others, whoever they were.

  Questions tumbled in my mind. But, before any of them could take form, I found myself facing the end wall of the attic, at the bottom of which a small hole had been knocked through. It was only three bricks across and low enough that even Fabulo had to get down on hands and knees to pass.

  I hesitated and Tinker slipped through ahead of me, negotiating the hole with the confidence of one who had made the same journey many times before. I followed, clambering through to what must have been the attic of the next house in the row. As I got to my feet, the others were crawling through after me. The last one pulled the floorboards we’d crawled over through after him, as if it was a drawbridge being raised. Then they were filling the hole with bricks. It was all done with a quiet efficiency that spoke of practice. Finally a sheet of wood was placed over the remade wall, to stop light escaping through the cracks, I guessed.

  Tinker took my hand and led me to where Fabulo was lighting lanterns from the candle.

  “What is happening?” I hissed.

  “Men-at-arms,” he said. “Searching the rookery for something.”

  “For what?”

  “No way to tell.”

  “You said we were safe here!”

  “And so we are.”

  “But… what is this place? And…”

  “It’s a refuge.”

  “And who are these people?”

  Instead of answering he gestured for me to turn around. I did so, seeing their faces in the light for the first time. There were three of them – two young women and a giant of a man with a forked beard. I blinked as recognition hit me.

  “You might remember them,” said Fabulo. “They were your comrades in the travelling show.”

  “Ellie, Lara and Yan,” I said, reciting their names.

  “Good,” said the dwarf. “No need for introductions.”

  “What – are – they – doing – here?”

  “The same as you.”

  All three of them looked at their feet, shamefaced, as well they might be. The last time we were together they’d been storming my boat, hellbent on burning me from my home.

  “I would have told you sooner,” said Fabulo. “But…” He shrugged.

  “But we needed to make sure which side you were on!” growled Yan, his long beard quivering as he spoke.

  He stepped towards me and I saw the unevenness of his stride, a slight drag of his left foot along the floorboards.

  “We’ve been through this already,” said Fabulo. “What went before is over.”

  “Might be over for you, little man. But it wasn’t you got shot.”

  “You were attacking her boat, Yan. Remember that. She had a right to defend herself.”

  “No warning shot,” he grumbled.

  “It was night time,” I said. “No light to see you by. I didn’t know who was coming for me. I didn’t know how many.”

  “What if you had known?”

  “Does it hurt?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Fabulo was trying to catch my eye. He shook his head as if to warn me off the subject. Since the giant and I seemed to both be part of his plan, I could understand his desire to soothe our meeting.

  “I knew a trick rider once,” I said. “She was part of the circus where I grew up. One day she fell off her horse and broke her collarbone. It healed in a month. But she said it still hurt at night. Then one day – it was two years later – she was washing and found the lump in her shoulder where the bone had healed. And that was when she realised she’d forgotten all about it. The pain had stopped. That’s what she said.”

  Yan nodded. “Night time it does hurt worse.”

  “What’s it been?” I asked. “Not yet a year?”

  “Then do you think it will stop?” he asked.

  “I hope so. I think so. But even if I knew it’d hurt you for the rest of your life, I’d still have shot you.”

  He flinched as if I’d slapped him. “You would?”

  “What choice did you give me? I’m sorry. But people who break into the homes of others in the middle of the night – they do tend to get shot at.”

  I waited for his reaction, knowing it could go either way. If good, there’d be one problem less to think about. If bad, it’d be better to see things for what they were than to let the wound be hidden.

  Fabulo stood next to me, tensed as if ready to leap forwards and get between us, though nothing could have stopped the big man if he charged.

  Everyone seemed frozen. Then Yan’s shoulders dropped. I allowed myself to breathe again. Lara stepped up and took his arm. Then Ellie was at his other side. Together they guided him to an upturned tea chest on which he sat.

  “She’s right,” said Lara. “I’d have done the same.”

  “You would?”

  “We all would,” said Ellie.

  “I know that,” he said, after a pause. “Thing is, I could blame her before. But now she’s here, I can only blame myself. Truth is, I liked it better the other way.”

  Fabulo puffed out his cheeks, firing me a glance that suggested the stress of our meeting was costing him. “Glad we’ve got that out of the way,” he said.

  “So this is it?” I asked. “Or do you have more surprises hidden away in a cupboard somewhere?”

  “This is it.”

  “In which case, please tell me how you plan to do it. If the International Patent Court has a treasure house, it must be the best protected in the world. You must have found a weakness – something no one else has seen. Otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking of it. But if there is a weakness, you would have broken in already. So you must still be missing something or someone. I want to know what or who that is!”

  Everyone was looking at me. I had the sudden feeling that I’d missed something obvious.

  “That’s too many questions all at once,” said Fabulo. “And definitely too many for this time of night. But I’ll give you one answer now. You’re right – I didn’t do it before, ‘coz I was missing someone.”

  “Who?”

  “You,” he said. “I was waiting for you. You’ve been gone somewhere I couldn’t reach. But to judge by what I’ve just seen, I think you’re really back.”

  CHAPTER 15

  October 1st

  All luck is illusion. Few illusions are luck.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handb
ook

  On the morning after the raid, I woke gently to find my senses alive in a way they hadn’t been since before I set out to kill the duke. It wasn’t that I’d been unaware of my surroundings. Every detail of the journey was clear in my memory. But my feelings had been in some other place and without them all sensation seemed dull.

  I opened my eyes and saw a thread of cochineal silk snagged by a splinter in the rough bed frame. I’d noted it on the previous day, though with little interest. Now I marvelled at the intensity of its colour.

  I sat up and looked at the room afresh. Motes of dust drifted in bars of light that entered around the edges of the ill-fitting curtain. Lara and Ellie were still sleeping, lying top to toe in the other bed. After the soldiers had left, Fabulo sent us downstairs together. He and Yan were sharing the hidden attic.

  I swung my feet to the floor. The bed frame creaked, a single low note that seemed almost musical.

  Lara stretched out an arm and yawned.

  “What time it is?” she whispered.

  “The clocks have chimed for half past six,” I said.

  She smiled sleepily, making a dimple in her cheek. “It’s good to have you back, Lizzy. As one of us, I mean. Didn’t sit right having you on the outside.”

  “What do you know of Fabulo’s plan?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes again and sighed. “Near as much nothing. You know what dwarfs are like. But whatever he’s got up his sleeve, I’ll bet it’s you who’ll know before the rest of us.”

  The rookery of St John’s once provided manpower for the rope makers of Cable Street. But, with the coming of flight, this industry gave way to the fabrication of the skins of airships. On streets where hemp had once been twisted, animal guts were now cleaned and stretched – they being the only material to hold in the gases that kept the leviathans airborne.

  Perhaps the wind had changed, but the stench of the slaughterhouses and tanneries seemed stronger that morning than before. I felt my eyes stinging as I followed Fabulo through the rookery. Here and there were wrecked doors, remnants of the night’s excitement. I could make out no pattern to the destruction. It was as if the soldiers had chosen their targets without thought or plan.