“Ha! Challenge me and my prison, would you? Well, then, I accept. But hear me now: unlike those flimsy hardtack crates you’ve broken out of, you’ll not master my locks or shackles, for I will strip you naked and examine every orifice and then throw you in a cell without a stitch. Then we’ll see whether or no you escape.”
Binkton paled, and the captain said, “What’s this? Do I see you blanch?”
“Never,” said Binkton defiantly, though his voice was a bit unsteady.
“Might we see this unbreachable stronghold of yours, Captain?” asked Pipper.
“Certainly,” replied the man, grinning at the apparently cowed Binkton, and he took them on a tour. Pipper seemed fascinated and bubbled over with questions, occupying the captain’s full attention, while Binkton lackadaisically lagged behind, wandering hither and yon, on the face of it completely discouraged and without purpose.
When they finally left the gaol, Pipper said, “Lor, Bink, what’re you going to do? I mean, he said they’d lock you in wearing nothing whatsoever, but for the shackles and chains.”
“Worry not, Pip, for you see, I have a plan.”
As in every town they had played so far, the Clearwater Saloon was filled to its warehouse walls with the crowd that had come to see the extraordinary and quite rare Warrows from the mysterious land of the Boskydells. Many of the spectators were common folk; others were shady wharf denizens; yet, as the Warrows had been told, the toffs and gents and their ladies and bodyguards were present in goodly numbers as well.
And they screamed and shouted in fear for Pipper’s life as he dived and swung and tumbled through the air high above, and swooped down to pass close over their heads only to fly back up and sail free through empty space to grab a bar and spin ’round, then leap and run along spidery ropes.
And then they cried out as Binkton slowly twisted and turned above tall, gleaming sharp spikes, and dropped once, then again toward the deadly points, only to drop once more, nearly to his doom.
They laughed at the antics of the mental act, and gasped as Pipper flipped through flaming hoops, and held their breath as Binkton escaped the tightly bound ropes.
At last, claiming that no gaol could hold him, Binkton challenged the captain of the city watch, and the challenge was accepted.
As promised, naked and with every orifice searched, and with his hands shackled behind him and fetters on his feet, Binkton was bundled into the cell and the door slammed shut and the lock thrown to.
The jailers then left Binkton to himself and went to the steps out front, where Pipper fretted and paced, while holding Binkton’s clothes.
Back in the cell, Binkton slipped his manacled hands under his heels and brought them ’round front. Then he sat down and peeled off the well-blended, soft leather patch from the sole of his foot, and straightened the wire within, then began shaping one end.
Outside, the captain confidently surveyed the crowd and smiled and nodded and smoothed his moustache, clearly in his element. But that self-assurance was suddenly shattered when the locked front door of the gaol opened a crack and fetters and shackles clattered out on the stoop and a voice called, “Might I have my clothes now?”
With their fortnight engagement at the Clearwater successfully concluded and their gear packed and ready for pickup and shipment, the buccen sat at breakfast in the Sturdy Oar and talked of bypassing all other towns and taking their show straight to Caer Pendwyr. They speculated that High King Ryon and Queen Dresha and their children might actually come to see their performance. But as they pondered their future, Bandy, one of the printer’s street urchins, came flying into the foyer, shouting, “Guv! Guv!” He dodged past innkeeper Oates, who had leapt forward in an unsuccessful attempt at capture, yelling, “Off wi’ y’! Off wi’ y’! I’ll nowt ha’e no-”
But Pipper recognized the voice of the lad and called for him to come to the dining room, much to the shock of Tarly, who threw up his hands and wondered what was an innkeeper to do if just anyone could let riffraff in.
Bandy rushed into the room and to the table where the buccen sat. “I seen it, guv. I seen it floatin’ by. Them what took it put it on a barge. It’s off to Rivers End.”
“What’s off to Rivers End, Bandy?” asked Pipper.
“Why, that chest of yours, guv, th’ one with th’ flames and all.”
29
Purloined
FIRE AND IRON
MID AUTUMN, 6E6
Both Warrows leapt to their feet, Binkton shouting, “ What? ”
Even though Bandy was a good head taller than either buccan, the boy flinched back, as if expecting to be hit.
“He said, Bink, that our-”
“I heard what he said, Pip,” Binkton snarled, “that some Ruck-loving, rat-eating thief has stolen our chest.”
“It’s got all of our rig in it, Bink,” said Pipper.
“I know that! I know that!” snapped Binkton. “I was there when we packed it, remember?”
“What I mean, Bink, is: until we get it back Fire and Iron is more like Ashes and Mud.”
Binkton smashed a fist to the table, setting the dishes arattle. “I know, I know, Pip.”
“Well, then, Bink, we’d better get a move on.”
“Where will you go?” asked Bandy.
“To the Clearwater,” said Pip, “and then to the docks. We’ve got to find-”
“The rat eaters who took it,” spat Binkton.
As Pipper and Binkton started for the door, Bandy muttered, “Rateatin’, he says. Wull, I say roasted rat ain’t too bad, guv.” Then he trotted after the Warrows.
“As soon as we find out what we can at the Clearwater,” said Pipper as they reached the street, “we’ve got to book passage to Rivers End and recover our gear.”
“And deal swift and sure justice to the thieves,” added Binkton.
Pipper skidded to a halt. “Hoy, now, wait.”
Binkton pattered along a few steps and stopped. “What?”
“I’ll be right back,” shouted Pipper, and he bolted into the Sturdy Oar.
Binkton fidgeted for long moments, and then started toward the steps just as Pipper came bursting out, their duffles in tow.
“I settled up with Tarly.”
“What for?”
“Just in case there’s a boat or a barge leaving for Rivers End. I mean, it’d be a shame to miss the next one out.”
“Right, Pip. Good idea,” said Binkton, and he took his duffle bag from his cousin and hefted it over his shoulder. “Now, come on, let’s go.”
Down Mudlane to Tow they hurried, Bandy jogging along at their side. Into the Clearwater Binkton charged, Pipper following, Bandy stopping just inside the door. “Tager!” shouted Binkton. “Tager Lynch!”
A few of the habitues blearily looked up from their mugs. They were well into their cups this early in the morning; it was clear they had been here awhile. Serving the shoremen of the port, the Clearwater never closed, for comings and goings across the Argon were never-ending, day and night year-round, though it slowed in flood season. And so the customers eyed this small person-Ah, yes, one of the Warrows-and it seemed he was riled. With interest they watched as Binkton looked toward the barkeep, who jerked a thumb over one shoulder. Binkton’s gaze swung in that direction, and he spotted the proprietor at a back table near the passage to the storerooms. Tager looked up from his ledger and cocked an eyebrow as Binkton stormed across the room, Pipper at his heels. “What Ruck-loving, rat-eating son of a Troll stole our chest?” demanded the buccan.
Carefully, Tager set down the pen and closed the book, as if he didn’t want the Warrows to see any entry therein. Then he looked at Binkton. “Stole your chest?”
“That’s what I said,” growled Binkton.
Tager raised a hand of negation. “I know nothing about that chest of yours.”
“Maybe Bandy was mistaken,” blurted Pipper, and he darted into the hallway and to the small compartment he and Binkton had used as a dressing room
. Moments later, Pipper was back. “It’s gone, Bink.”
Tager called to the bartender. “Jess, did you see what happened to their trunk?”
“The one with the flames?” called Jess.
“What other Ruck-loving one would there be?” snapped Binkton.
As Jess wiped a mug with a bar cloth, he strolled over. “No more’n two or three candlemarks ago, a couple of Rivermen came and took it. They said you sent them.”
Binkton cast an accusatory eye at Pipper. Pipper shook his head. “Not me, cousin.”
Binkton then glared at Jess. “And you just let them take it?”
“They said you’d sent them. And, after all, we knew you were leaving.”
Binkton’s lips thinned in anger and he spat, “Rivermen!”
“Do you know who they were?” asked Pipper.
Jess shook his head.
“What’d they look like?” asked Pipper.
“What good will that do?” growled Binkton.
“If we’re going to find our chest, we first need to find them,” said Pipper.
“Oh, right,” said Binkton, then sighed and added, “At least one of us is thinking.”
Again, Pipper turned to the barkeep. “What did they look like?”
Jess shrugged. “One was big and burly, the other small and skinny.”
“Color of hair, eyes?” asked Pipper.
Jess shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”
“Aargh!” growled Binkton. “Big and burly. Small and skinny. That describes half the people in town.”
“You’re right,” said Pipper, “but maybe the workers at the ferry docks will know who they are. Let’s go, Bink.”
Binkton shouldered his duffle and cast a glare at Tager Lynch, then spun on his heel and stalked off. Even as they reached the door, Jess called out, “Oy, now, something I just remembered.”
Pipper stopped and looked across the wide room at the man.
“One of them, the big one, called the other Caker, or Waker, or something of the sort.”
“Rats,” muttered Binkton. “That’s no help.”
“Thanks, Jess!” called Pipper, and out onto Tow the buccen went, Bandy trailing after.
Tager watched the Warrows go, and then opened his ledger and looked at the figure he had early this morning jotted within and smiled to himself.
Pipper and Binkton spent most of the day asking questions and receiving shrugs in return, but then Bandy suggested that they talk to the pier master. Judd Leeks, though, was a very busy man, and his answers were terse. But he did tell them the barge that had gone downriver just after sunup was tended by the Red Carp , a barque assigned to the task of keeping the barge in the main river current and of pushing the flat-bottomed craft to Barge Bottom Shore just north of Rivers End. And, no, he didn’t know of any flame-painted chest, nor of anyone named Waker or Caker. And, yes, there would be another craft going that way first thing in the morning, the Otter , another barge tender.
Binkton and Pipper booked passage on the Otter . They tried to give Bandy a silver for alerting them and the help he had been, but he took ten coppers instead. “That way, guv, I’m less likely to lose it all should anyone find out I’ve such wealth.”
That night on the Otter , the ship yet docked at the barge piers, belowdecks Pipper started awake in his hammock. Lightly he swung down and padded to Binkton’s canvas. “Bink, Bink,” he hissed.
“Wh-what?” Binkton wildly grabbed at the sides of the heavy canvas sling. Not being the acrobat that Pipper was, Binkton had had a perilous time first just trying to get into and then to remain in the swinging bed. And as if unwilling to upset anything, while gripping the cloth tightly he carefully turned his head and, by the moonlight seeping in, he looked at his cousin. “What is it, Pip?”
“I believe I know who took our chest.”
“Who?”
“I think the name of the small, skinny one wasn’t Waker or Caker. Instead, I think it was Queeker. Recall those two at the Black Dog, ’cause if I’m right, the burly one is Tark, and they-”
“Ruck-loving, rat-eating-!” Binkton shouted and lurched up, and his hammock flipped over, the buccan to thud to the deck.
30
River Drift
FIRE AND IRON
LATE AUTUMN, 6E6
The Otter set sail just after dawn, tending a barge loaded with sawn timber, the lumber itself from the Greatwood, that vast forest a Baeron protectorate in South Riamon.
Pipper and Binkton stood in the bow of the barque and watched as the little tender sailed about and nudged the barge this way and that to keep it more or less midstream of the mighty Argon River.
Captain Veni, an Arbalinian by birth, who had left that isle years past to become a river pilot and then a captain, came to stand beside them.
“How long till we reach Rivers End?” asked Pipper.
“The city, she be some hundred leagues down the waterway; and the Argon, she flows nigh a league each candlemark, twenty-four candlemarks a day without rest. So, if all goes as planned, we be on the drift a hundred candlemarks altogether.”
“Four days and a bit, then,” said Binkton.
“You know your ciphering, I see,” said Veni.
“We were well taught,” said Pipper, “by Uncle Arley back in the Bosky.”
“Ah, the Boskydells. I’ve ne’er dropped anchor there. Be it true a fanged barrier encircles the place?”
“Indeed,” said Pipper. “The Thornring. It’s kept the land free of trouble, all but during the Winter War.”
“Speaking of trouble,” said Binkton, “what did you mean when you said, ‘if all goes as planned’?”
“Well, they be some islands we need slip past, but now and again a defiant barge takes it in mind to land.”
“Did that ever happen to you?” asked Pipper.
“Nay. At least, not yet. But others do tell of the contrariness of the Argon.”
“Contrariness of the river?”
“Aye, some say the river decides on its own to push the barge ashore, though others tell the river serpent takes it in mind to do so instead.”
Binkton cast a skeptical eye toward the captain. “A river serpent, you say?”
“Not ‘a’ river serpent, lad, but ‘the’ river serpent.”
Binkton snorted but said nothing, while Pipper, his eyes agoggle with wonder, asked, “What does it look like, this river serpent?”
“Yellow it be, they say,” said Veni, and he waved toward the barge. “Three or four times as long as that scow, and as thick as a tree, with glowing green eyes as big as dinner plates, and a ridge of bloodred fur running the length of its black-spotted back. It has a mouth that’d swallow a cow whole, filled with long, backward-angled, pitchfork-like teeth so that once it grabs on it can’t let go. At least, that’s what they say.”
Again Binkton snorted in disbelief, but Pipper, his eyes still wide, said, “Oh, oh, I don’t ever want to see it. And I don’t want it to come in the nightmare I’m now likely to have, either.”
Captain Veni smiled and said, “Nor would I want such a thing; but be it the barge or the river or the serpent, I hope none take it in mind to do other than behave, and we’ll reach Rivers End without incident to the contrary.-Now, if you’ll excuse me, I do believe the scow needs another nudge.”
Captain Veni stepped to the stern and gave his bosun orders, and soon the ship had circled to the opposite side of the barge and gave it a slight push.
Moments later, the captain and the bosun were laughing and looking in the direction of the Warrows.
“See, Pip, I knew the captain was just making fun. There’s no such thing as the river serpent.”
“I don’t know, Bink. He seemed quite serious.”
“Argh!” growled Binkton. “You’ll believe anything.”
“Maybe it just shows I have a more vivid imagination than you, Bink.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I have a vivid imagination, too,” protested Binkton.
; “Then why don’t you think that it’s possible there’s a river serpent?”
“Because, Pip. .”
The buccen continued squabbling as the mighty Argon slowly flowed southerly. Tall, stately trees lined the shores, and small boats at anchor bobbed here and there, the fishermen within watching their red-painted corks afloat. Now and again a dwelling could be seen beyond the tree line, usually upon high ground to avoid a calamity in flood season. Occasionally, the Otter drifted between high bluffs, but mostly the land beyond the shores was one of rolling hills or rising plains. Intermittently and far to the west, they could just see the crown of one of the Red Hills, just one of the many among which Raudholl lay, and both Pipper and Binkton wondered what Brekka and Anvar and DelfLord Dalek might be doing, and they fell into speculation about the Chakia, this latter converse held in whispers, for the buccen were sworn to secrecy.
And the sun rose up and rode across the sky and fell toward evening. And ropes creaked and sails flapped, eased-off-all in the main, for only now and again did the ship have to get under way to give the barge a push. Both Binkton and Pipper lazed adeck throughout the idyllic drift, pausing from their leisurely chatter only to take a meal in the noontime, and another in the eve.
That night a thunderous rain hammered the Otter , but the storm blew up no violent wind, and so the barque maintained the barge well out in midstream.
Also that night, Binkton discovered that if instead of lying all tensed up he simply relaxed, the hammock wasn’t difficult to sleep in after all. Even so, mounting and dismounting remained a challenge for him. Pipper, on the other hand, simply hopped in and out as if it were just another bed.
The next morning dawned to high-blue autumnal skies and fresh-washed air, and the day was much like the previous one except no longer could the buccen see the crown of one of the Red Hills. Instead, beyond the river border trees, to the west lay the plains of Jugo, and to the east those of Pellar.
Once again, all day they drifted, though Pipper asked Captain Veni if he could climb to the crow’s nest and take a gander about. “Be of care, wee one,” said Veni. “I wouldn’t like you to fall splat on my deck.” Veni burst into laughter and added, “We’d be candlemarks swabbing.”
City of Jade Page 21
