The Custodian of Marvels

by Rod Duncan

  “Could it be tested?” I asked.

  This went down even worse than had Fabulo’s question.

  “I’ll have my tools with me,” said Jeremiah. “If it won’t turn the first time, I can make adjustments.”

  Fabulo listened to the exchange, as if weighing up the risks. But, before he could speak, a creaking sound from beyond the end wall of the attic room made us turn our heads.

  Fabulo dropped the key into his trouser pocket. I saw him reach for a knife. But then we heard a knocking – three light taps followed by a pause and then two heavier knocks. It was a code that had become familiar to me over the last few days. Everyone relaxed. Fabulo rapped his knuckle on a beam of the roof, repeating the signal.

  I stepped to the partition wall, where I removed the layers to reveal the entrance hole. Ellie and Lara stood in the attic on the other side. Once I had slid the two floorboards out across the bare joists, the women ducked through into the refuge. But, even as I pulled the boards back again, I knew something was wrong. They were out of breath, their eyes wide.

  “They’re searching,” gasped Lara.

  “The soldiers,” said Ellie.

  “They’re searching over again,” said Lara. “Now, I mean. They’re doing it now.”

  “Not here,” said Ellie. “The other side of St John’s.” She pointed towards the rear of the house. “Back Church Lane. Six streets over.”

  “Slow down,” I said. “What did you see? Was it the same as the other night – men-at-arms and a carriage?”

  “Yes,” said Ellie.

  “What do you mean?” asked Jeremiah. “What carriage? What men?”

  Fabulo groaned. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing. We had a raid, is all it was.”

  “It is the same as the other night,” said Lara. “But different also. They’re taking their time. Then it was all of a race. Now they’re working slow. And they’ve got men just watching – spread up the street like gunmen waiting for a hare to bolt.”

  Men-at-arms were bound to aristocratic houses. There would have been a coat of arms emblazoned on the coach. But to ask after such a detail would have revealed too much of my fears.

  “We didn’t run,” said Ellie. “We wanted to. But we didn’t.”

  Fabulo jabbed the point of his knife into the roof beam and left it quivering there while he paced. “How long have they been searching?” he asked.

  “Since noon,” Lara said. “We walked right past them, down to the end of the street they’d already searched. Everyone was out watching. So we asked when it had started.”

  “That’s good work,” said Fabulo, though his face was grim. “How many houses have they done?”

  “Only a dozen,” said Lara.

  “Twelve in five hours? They must be going through every room!”

  “And every cupboard,” said Ellie. “That’s what folk are saying.”

  “Hold on a minute!” said Jeremiah. “When were you thinking of telling me you’d been raided?”

  “It wasn’t important,” Fabulo growled.

  “You say I’ve got to move here to do my work in an attic hotter than a bread oven. All because it’s safer, you said. And after two days of hell you let slip you’ve been raided!”

  “And I’d do the same again. It is safer with us here, all together.”

  “So, Mr Dwarf, what is it you think they’re looking for?”

  “It could be anything. A pickpocket. A runaway bride.”

  “Or us?”

  Fabulo shook his head. “That’s the one thing we know for sure. Those as know who we are, don’t know we’re here. And those as know we’re here, don’t know who we are. They’re not looking for us.”

  Jeremiah fixed me with his eyes. I tried to swallow, but the movement caught in my throat.

  “What if someone blabbed?” he demanded.

  I remembered the Duke of Northampton’s impotent rage as we bound him on the horse’s back. If men-at-arms were searching the rookery, I had little doubt it was me they were after.

  Fabulo pulled his knife from the roof beam. “No one’s blabbed. Nor will they.” He sheathed the blade. “Besides – from what the girls say, the trouble’s over the other side of the parish. That’s all to the good. We know where they are – that’s six streets away. Which means they’re not here.”

  Jeremiah beat a hand against his own chest. “Someone’s talked!”

  The abrupt change in his mood made me step back.

  “Keep your voice down,” growled Fabulo.

  Jeremiah pointed at me. “It’ll be the girl.”

  Fabulo’s face had reddened. “It is not!”

  “Can’t you see it, little man? She’s too pretty for you to think straight!”

  Fabulo bared his teeth. “You’re the one putting us in danger with your noise!”

  “I’ve done all the work! And now you’re accusing me?”

  “There’s been more work done than you know!”

  “By the King’s hand! I could do this thing alone for all the help you’ve been.”

  “You can shut your mouth right now!” Fabulo growled. “Or you can get out!”

  “Good,” said Jeremiah. “I was waiting for that. I was hoping for it! You can rot in a Patent Office prison for all I care. You can all hang! But you’ll not be seeing me again.”

  I believe Jeremiah would have crashed through the wall if he’d had the strength to do it. But as things were, he was obliged to go down on hands and knees to crawl through the low hole. There was no dignity in his leaving. I was thinking that from such a parting it would be hard for a proud man to return.

  Then Fabulo, beside himself with rage, shouted after the departing locksmith, “You’re slithering away like a coward!”

  I heard the crash of Jeremiah’s foot going through the unboarded floor of the attic room beyond. He cursed under his breath as he pulled it free. Then he was away like a departing storm. I listened to the slam of the door beyond and the stamping of his feet down the stairs.

  “That could have gone better,” I said.

  CHAPTER 18

  October 7th

  There is truth to be found in the mouths of liars, and lies in the mouths of truthful men, though they set out only to deceive themselves.

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  Fabulo’s anger quickly turned to remorse. Seeing the intensity of his emotion, I sent the others away.

  “Would you like me to go also?” I asked.

  “Go,” he said. And then, “What am I to do?”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  “It can’t be done without the locksmith.”

  “You have the key,” I said.

  “That would get us through the gate. But then we’d just be stuck in an empty plaza, waiting for the soldiers to come and get us.”

  “Then you must go to Jeremiah and apologise.”

  “I will not!” he snapped.

  We were both outsiders, Fabulo and I. But the difference that set me apart from polite society could be disguised. For him, it would always be the first and last thing that anyone saw. I supposed he grew his armour to deflect the glances that saw him as something less than human. His prickly temper. His immunity to insult. His indifference to emotion. He had always seemed indestructible to me. But in that, perhaps I, too, had been blind to his humanity. How many cares can one pair of shoulders carry? One worry at a time was the way he had described his role in leading our enterprise.

  He sat on his bedroll. Then he lay down and turned over so that his face was pressed into the blanket.

  I didn’t bother to cover the hole in the wall when I left. In the room downstairs I found Lara, Ellie, Yan and Tinker sitting on the two beds, their faces long.

  “Do we have wine?” I asked.

  “I’ll get some,” said Ellie, jumping to her feet.

  “Let me do it,” said Yan.

  “You can all go. And what else does he like? Tobacco? Hashish?”

  Lara sho
ok her head. “He’s careful with his lungs.”

  I beckoned her out of the room so that I could speak to her alone and unheard by the others. “Does he like anything else in particular? I mean to say, if we had money enough, there might be women in these parts who could… cheer him up.”

  “I don’t think so,” she whispered. “He’ll flirt if the humour takes him. But I’ve never seen him… you know. There’s once we boarded in a knocking house. He had the money. But he never did.”

  Having bought four bottles of wine and gathered all the gossip they could pick up, the crew returned to the tenement. The information was little enough. I should have liked to talk to whoever it was had been paid to secure our safety. But none of us except Fabulo knew the name. And he hadn’t been in a mood to answer questions.

  In brief the news was this: the men-at-arms who’d been terrorising Back Church Lane had left when night fell. During daylight, they’d worked their way from the thoroughfare of Cable Street up to the junction with Ellen Street. No one could say what they’d been searching for. But two men had been beaten senseless for resisting and a quantity of untaxed gin had been seized. No one had been charged with excise fraud, so the locals thought the drink not so much destined for the pound as the soldiers’ stomachs.

  None of the residents could remember such a raid. One woman said it was a good thing the soldiers had gone before dark, since some lads had been talking about getting a gun. And if one hothead took a pot shot, they’d have every door in the parish kicked in. But another said that seeing as the doors were being kicked in anyway, it might make sense to spill some blood. The soldiers needed to be told it wasn’t them that ruled St John’s. There had to be raids, everyone agreed. But those raids should be for show, so that the wealthy and the powerful of London could go on believing they were in control.

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “That’s it,” said Lara.

  “It’s not enough.”

  “How’s the dwarf?” asked Yan.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out,” I said, taking two drinking glasses and placing them over the top of two of the bottles, one of which had been opened already and was missing a couple of inches of wine.

  Lara, Ellie, Yan and Tinker were all looking up at me. There was relief in their expressions, just as there’d been panic before, when their leader had shown his weakness. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling.

  We were like a ship wallowing in heavy seas. We’d surely sink if we didn’t move forward. They might think of me as a substitute captain, but it was a job I couldn’t do. Half the soldiers in the Kingdom were searching for me and I didn’t even know what Fabulo had planned.

  “Have a bottle for yourselves,” I said. “You’ve earned it. But not too much for the boy.”

  There was no answer to my knock as I approached the attic room. The silence set the skin on the back of my neck tingling. Placing the bottles on the floor, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled through. The room would have been pitch black but for the missing slates, which allowed beams of blue-white moonlight to lance down to the floorboards.

  “Hello?” I spoke the word softly.

  At first I’d been certain that our endeavour was a work of madness. But, as the aspects of the plan had been revealed, I’d started to see it as logical, and then as possible. In that moment of silence, as I contemplated an empty attic room, a terrible thought came to me. The man who had brought us together had chosen now to walk away. I could not lead the others. The endeavour would be over. And my future would be blank again.

  “Hello?” I called again, louder this time.

  The glasses clinked against their bottles as I advanced.

  “Go away,” came a gruff voice from the darkness.

  “I’ve brought wine.”

  Fabulo’s shape sat up from his sleeping roll.

  Feeling a wash of relief, I knelt near him and poured two half glasses. He accepted his only after I’d placed it in his hand and wrapped his fingers around it. Then he lay back against his bag, which kept him propped high enough to drink.

  I raised my glass. “To Harry Timpson.”

  I wet my lips but didn’t swallow. Fabulo sipped and coughed.

  I toasted again: “To all his tricks and dreams.”

  This time Fabulo drained the glass and I refilled it.

  “What would that old rascal think if he saw us here?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t a rascal.”

  “No?”

  “No.” Then, after taking another drink, he said, “He’d have known what to do.”

  I raised my glass again. “Here’s to knowing what to do.”

  He downed his in one. This time he sat up and gestured for me to give him more. I emptied the bottle into his glass.

  “This was Harry’s dream,” he said. “What have I done? We’ll not get back from here. Locksmiths! They think they’re so…” He drained his glass. “All that secret knowledge makes them proud. And then there’s me – can’t hold my temper.”

  Picking up the other bottle, I realised my mistake. “The corkscrew’s downstairs.”

  “You’re useless!” he grumbled.

  “No more than you!”

  “Pah!”

  He lurched up onto his feet and grabbed the bottle from me. I saw him silhouetted against a beam of light, wobbling slightly. He unsheathed his knife, held it out level with the bottle, as if comparing the two unlike objects. Then he swiped. There was a crack of breaking glass and the neck fell to the floor, complete with cork still in place. Then he lifted the bottle above his head and poured a stream of wine from the jagged end directly into his open mouth.

  After he’d swallowed a goodly amount, he belched and said, “Never try that yourself, Elizabeth.”

  It was an act so perfectly characteristic of the man that I laughed.

  This time I allowed the wine to pass my own lips. It was vinegary and strong. I winced as I swallowed. “It’s good to have you back,” I said.

  “I was never gone.”

  That was a lie, but I let it pass.

  “So,” I said. “The locksmith – do you think we should go and talk to him?”

  The morning came, and with it the heat and stink returned. None of which was pleasant through the fog of a hangover, or so it seemed to judge by the reactions of the others. I’d drunk only the half glass, and was feeling as fresh as any Londoner could. The worst of us was Tinker, despite my admonition for him not to be given too much. Yan seemed not so bad, perhaps due to his size. As for Fabulo, who was smallest and had drunk the most, only the pallor gave him away.

  “I’m going to get Jeremiah,” he announced.

  “We should come,” said Ellie.

  Though she and Lara had complained of nausea, they’d cheered up on seeing their leader back on his feet.

  “It’s me and Lizzy on this trip,” Fabulo said. “You keep an eye on those men-at-arms. Careful, though. I don’t want no trouble.”

  Tower Bridge was raised when we reached the river, so we were obliged to wait. I watched as a flotilla of tall cargo steamers passed beneath. Fabulo leaned his back against the parapet and stared in the other direction.

  Out of nothing, he remarked, “Thanks for the wine.”

  “It was more like vinegar,” I said.

  “It was sweetly given.”

  I glanced down at him. “How are we going to persuade our locksmith back?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Will you apologise?”

  “I’d kiss his filthy boots if it’d help, but I don’t think it will.”

  “You may have to.”

  An engine clattered into gear within the nearest tower of the bridge and the two sections of roadway began to swing down once more.

  “You should watch this,” I said. “It’s good.”

  “I might if I could see over the damn wall!”

  From the bridge we continued south for a mile or so. As the heat grew, Fabulo declared himse
lf gripped by a powerful thirst, so we stopped in a public house on the Walworth Road. Fabulo’s temper was tested again when the landlord attempted a joke by serving him a half and me a pint. But once I’d swapped and the drink was in his belly, a more sanguine humour returned.

  The landlord waved to us as we left. “Good day to you.”

  Fabulo grumbled under his breath. “If I’d a shilling for every time someone’s thought that funny…”

  “You will be tactful when we talk to Jeremiah,” I said.

  “Tact is my middle name!”

  We approached the locksmith’s home via a yard lying behind a row of terraced houses on Cambria Road. Wheel ruts in the flagstones suggested centuries of wear. Accommodation seemed to be upstairs, with a workshop on the ground level. A giant key hung on chains below a bracket on the wall, announcing his trade to anyone who didn’t already know.

  The workshop doors being closed and the downstairs windows shuttered, Fabulo knocked and we stood back to wait.

  “Maybe he’s out on a call,” I said.

  Fabulo knocked again. “Maybe he doesn’t want to talk.”

  “Well, if a locksmith wants to keep us out, there’ll be no way…” I pulled on the handle and the door swung outwards.

  Fabulo glanced over his shoulder and then stepped inside. I followed, peering into the dark corners of the workshop. The air felt stuffy and smelled powerfully of machine oil. I could make out a small steam engine from which belts ran to a lathe and a pillar drill. Row upon row of keys hung from a rack on the wall. Stepping closer I could see that each of the bits was a blank rectangle of metal.

  “Why get our key specially forged when he had all these ready?” I asked.

  “He just wanted to sound clever,” said Fabulo.

  “I expect he had good reason.”

  A creaking floorboard made me jump and turn. Jeremiah stood, framed in a doorway on the other side of the room.

  “I know why you’re here,” he said, “but you’ve wasted your journey.”

  “Hear us out first,” said Fabulo.

  “I did hear you, Mr Dwarf. I had the key forged to sound clever, did I? You came all this way to flatter me?”