by Conrad Mason
He tried not to listen as they made their way down the corridor, but he couldn’t help catching an occasional ‘mongrel’, ‘stinking mongrel’, ‘bilge-brain mongrel’, and worse. But most of the abuse was directed at the troll in the dress, who was striding ahead, ignoring the prisoners entirely. Joseph was impressed, and tried to do the same. He was beginning to see how the jailer had come to like things and not people.
‘Help! Joseph!’
He spun round, his heart racing. Tabitha had ventured too close to the bars. Now an elf had got hold of her hair and was tugging at it, grinning madly, a string of dribble dangling from his lips.
Joseph leaped forward, grabbed the elf’s hand and tried to pry it away, but another hand got hold of his ear and he was tugged closer to the bars himself.
‘Won’t bite,’ someone was saying. ‘Not much …’
He yelped, flailed for his cutlass, but couldn’t reach it. More hands seized his arms and his head, pulling him closer and closer …
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
Suddenly the hands had let go, and there were wails of pain from behind the bars. Joseph stumbled away, collapsing in the centre of the corridor, out of reach of the prisoners. He looked up to see the jailer raise a cudgel and bring it down hard on the arm of the elf who had Tabitha. The elf squealed and let go, and Tabitha came tumbling down beside Joseph. Her hair was dishevelled and her big grey eyes were wide.
‘Are you all right?’
She frowned, rubbing her head. ‘I’m fine.’
The troll growled at the prisoners cowering in the corners of their wooden cells. Then he slid the cudgel down the front of his dress.
‘Careful,’ he told Joseph and Tabitha. ‘Come on.’
Shakily, they got to their feet and followed.
Joseph was starting to feel sick. He hadn’t been prepared for what a terrible, desperate place the Brig would be. They passed several large cells with ogres inside, most sitting silently and watching them. Beyond that, there was a large tank full of greenish water and merfolk, cooped up like salted fish in a barrel. And then there were smaller cells, double-layered like bunk beds, for imps. At the end of the corridor were the smallest cells of all, packed one on top of the other, for fairies – each cage no bigger than the ones for parrots at the market in the Crosstree Quarter. The fairies rushed to the front of the cages as they passed, screaming at them in a high-pitched cacophony.
The troll in the dress came to a halt. ‘So?’ he said.
‘Right,’ said Tabitha. ‘Um … right.’
‘There are so many of them,’ murmured Joseph. ‘How do we know who’ll be able to help us?’
Tabitha glanced up at the troll. ‘Is there a list we could look at? Of the prisoners?’
The troll wrinkled his nose and frowned, saying nothing. Joseph reckoned that was a no.
‘Then we’ll just have to ask questions until we get somewhere,’ said Tabitha briskly. ‘Let’s start with the ogres. At least they’re a bit quieter than the others.’
‘What about the merfolk?’ asked Joseph. ‘If anyone knows where Pallione is, it ought to be them.’
Tabitha frowned and shook her head. ‘Most merfolk only know sign language. Even if they did tell us, we wouldn’t be able to understand. Now, are you coming?’ She marched back down the corridor with the troll in tow.
Joseph was about to follow when he heard something among the fairy voices. He froze, listening hard. Could it be … ?
Yes, there it was again.
‘Grubb.’
Someone was saying his name.
Chapter Nine
NEWTON DUCKED HIS head as he followed the bosun, climbing the narrow steps to the upper gun deck. In the cramped darkness, Fayters swarmed over each and every cannon, polishing them to a sheen. Colonel Derringer’s doing, no doubt. Nothing ever seemed to be clean enough for him.
‘Thirty guns on this deck, sir. Eighteen-pounders. Enough to blow any ship out of the water.’
Newton watched a young troll swabbing at the nearest cannon. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old, but he looked so eager, as if he was actually looking forward to battle. At once his mind turned back to Joseph and Tabitha, vanished in the night. So young and so alone. If he knew Tabs, they’d have gone after that mermaid, trying to rescue her on their own. It made his blood run cold all over again and he forced the thought away.
‘How many magicians?’ he asked.
‘Beg pardon, sir?’
‘Magicians. How many?’
Even in the dim light below decks, Newton could see the bosun turn pale. He was a big, jovial man with curly white hair, enormous mutton chops and a beaming smile. But he wasn’t smiling now.
‘We don’t— Well, Mr Newton, as you know, magic is outlawed in Port Fayt, so—’
‘Aye. But it’s not in the Old World, is it? The League’ll have magicians to spare. All trained up too, most likely. All those cannons won’t mean a thing if we can’t defend ourselves against their magic.’
‘I could ask around,’ said the bosun stiffly.
Newton shook his head and turned, climbing the steps to the top deck without waiting for the bosun to follow. He’d seen enough. Even if there were magicians on board, they’d hardly be a match for the enemy’s Magical Infantry. There’d been a League magician in the zephyrum mines in Garran, twenty years ago. Newt remembered how once, when the miners had tried to fight back, that single scrawny man had dispatched ten or twelve trolls and ogres before he got clonked on the head with a spade.
A blast of fresh air greeted him as he came up onto the deck. Old Jon was leaning against the gunwale, smoking and staring out to sea, long white hair streaking in the wind.
‘I’ve made up my mind,’ Newton told him. ‘We’re going back. We’ve got to find Joseph and Tabitha. Before they get themselves into trouble.’
Old Jon puffed out a smoke ring.
‘I don’t know, Newt,’ he said.
‘We can’t go into battle, Jon. The League’ll tear us apart. If we sail back to Fayt, at least I can try talking to the governor again, make him see sense. Even if there’s a chance the merfolk might fight—’
‘Ah,’ said Old Jon. ‘You don’t know why the governor doesn’t trust merfolk.’
Newton turned to look at him. As usual the elf didn’t meet his eye.
‘Tell me.’
Old Jon knocked out his pipe and started to stuff it with fresh tobacco.
‘Henry Skelmerdale had a younger brother once. Thomas, his name was. Never had a head for business like Henry did, but he loved fishing. And one day, when Thomas was fourteen years old, he took his dinghy out into the bay not far from port. Cast out his line. A pair of merfolk were watching him, bobbing in the water …’
He paused to light the pipe, and Newton waited patiently. There was no sense in rushing Old Jon when he had something to say. The elf puffed at his pipe, and spoke again.
‘Now, he’d hardly begun to fish when a storm blew up. Thomas was a fine fisherman but a lousy sailor. He struggled, but he couldn’t bring the dinghy in. All it took was one big gust and the hull rolled over with poor Thomas tangled in the rigging. Couldn’t get free …
‘Know what those merfolk did, Newt?’
Newton shook his head.
‘Nothing. Nothing but watch him drown. Story goes that Henry was on the docks at the time with a spyglass. Sixteen years old, he would’ve been.’
There was a long silence.
‘Henry Skelmerdale won’t go chasing after that princess,’ said Old Jon at last. ‘Not even if Thomas came back from his watery grave and begged him to.’
Newt nodded, letting the story sink in.
‘So what about Joseph and Tabitha?’
‘Fayters need you here, Newt. You turn their flagship around, they might lose hope altogether.’
‘You’re saying I don’t have a choice.’
‘Aye. That’s what I’m saying.’
Newton bit his lip. Josep
h had lost his parents when he was little more than a toddler. Tabitha had lost hers when she was just a baby. Someone needed to take care of them. It wasn’t right, leaving them on their own.
‘She’s a tough one, Newt,’ said Old Jon gently. ‘And I know she don’t show it, but she loves you. You’re her father. Might as well be.’
‘Shouldn’t her father go back for her?’
Old Jon gestured around the ship. ‘You tell me.’
Newton surveyed the deck. A pair of blackcoats were sharing their lunch, chatting and joking, but every so often one of them would cast a nervous glance east, to the horizon. To where the League fleet would appear. A group of young sailors, each with the sea-green armband of Port Fayt, had gathered around an elderly blackcoat sitting on the steps to the poop deck. It looked almost like an old man with his grandchildren – except that instead of telling tales the old soldier was showing them how to load a pistol.
He sighed. As usual, Old Jon was right. He couldn’t let them down. Even if it meant leaving Joseph and Tabitha behind in Port Fayt.
‘Don’t fret,’ said the elf. Sometimes it seemed as though he could tell exactly what Newton was thinking. ‘Them youngsters can look after themselves. We wouldn’t have stopped that Arabella Wyrmwood if it hadn’t been for them. Wouldn’t have caught that shapeshifter neither, nor got back the wand he stole. The wooden spoon.’
It was true enough. The thought of them on their own made Newton’s stomach squirm, but he had to ignore that. He had to do what was best for Fayt. He had to do the right thing.
‘You think they’ll get by?’
Old Jon puffed out smoke.
‘Tabs can fight. And that tavern boy’s got sense. Reckon together they’ll get along fine.’
‘Sir?’
Newt turned at the voice. It was the bosun, hovering a few feet away as though he didn’t want to interrupt their conversation. ‘Did you want to inspect the bowchasers, sir?’
Old Jon turned, leaning over the gunwale again and staring out to sea.
Newt sighed. ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Let’s see them then.’
The bosun beamed and strode off towards the foredeck.
Newton lingered just a moment longer.
‘Jon,’ he said. ‘They wouldn’t do anything stupid, would they?’
Chapter Ten
JOSEPH SPUN ROUND, trying to locate the voice.
‘Grubb! Grubb! Over here, you stupid mongrel.’
He crept closer to the cages. There, shaking the bars with his tiny fists, was a fairy. He was glowing in the darkness, his wings twitching with impatience. He wore a tiny waistcoat, jacket and breeches, and he had spiky hair and sparkling eyes.
Joseph recognized him at once.
‘Slik!’
The last time they’d met, Slik had been peering out from inside a glass bottle, screaming insults as the troll twins took him away to the Brig. He’d been Captain Newton’s old messenger fairy until he betrayed the Watch and joined forces with a dangerous shapeshifter. In other words, he was probably the least trustworthy fairy in Port Fayt – and that took some doing.
‘Mongrel! Am I glad to see you.’
Joseph frowned. So far as he knew, the fairy had never before been pleased to see him. Not when they first met, and certainly not when Joseph and the watchmen had shown up to arrest him.
‘Hello, Slik.’
‘Come to let me out, have you? About stinking time, if you ask me. I never did anything wrong, see, just sticking up for myself. Folk like us have to do that, don’t we? Put-upon folk who aren’t treated right. Me a fairy and you a mongrel.’
‘Um …’
‘Well, come on then. Get this cage open.’
‘We’re not here to rescue you.’
The fairy’s face clouded over, and he began to mutter angrily under his breath.
‘Maybe you could help though,’ Joseph added quickly. ‘Do you know a person called Pallione?’
Slik stopped muttering and peered up at him. A sly smile spread across his face.
‘What if I do?’
‘We’re looking for her. It’s really important we find her because … Well, it’s complicated. But if we don’t find her, it could be the end of Port Fayt.’
‘Pallione the mermaid? The King’s daughter?’
Joseph felt his heart beat a little faster.
‘That’s her! You know where she is?’
‘Aye, I know where she is. And what’s more, I’ll tell you too. Right after you get me out of here.’
Joseph licked his lips and shot a look back down the corridor. Tabitha and the troll were busy talking through the bars to an elderly ogre with a wooden leg. Meanwhile the clamour from the other fairies was drowning out his conversation with Slik.
Should he do it? It would only take a moment. Slik wasn’t exactly honest, but it was clear that he really did know who Pallione was. And if he knew that, maybe he knew where to find her, just like he’d said. On the other hand, if they were caught smuggling him out … Joseph remembered the cudgel blows the troll had dealt out and shuddered.
‘Come on, Grubb,’ said Slik. ‘Look at me. Look at this cage they keep us in. Barely big enough for a rat. Fairies are meant to fly, mongrel. You know that. And the sugar they give us … Don’t get me started on the sugar. Infested with weevils, and only a lump every two days. We’re criminals? No, Grubb, this is criminal. This whole ship. And the worst of it is—’
‘All right,’ hissed Joseph. ‘I’ll do it. How do I …? I mean, I don’t have a key.’
Slik rolled his eyes.
‘Maw’s teeth, you don’t need a key. This cage is built for fairies, you idiot mongrel. You might be weedy but you’re a sight bigger than us. Just pull it open.’
Joseph took another quick glance at the troll to check that his back was turned. Then he curled his fingers around the thin metal bars of the cage and tugged. It was stiff, but he felt it give a little. He tugged harder. And harder. He looked back at the jailer.
‘Put your back into it,’ demanded Slik. ‘I’ll tell you if that crazy troll’s coming.’
Joseph gritted his teeth and pulled again. This time there was a creak as the metal came loose. He took a deep breath and pulled one last time, as hard as he could. With a rusty screech, the cage door came clear.
Before he could reach inside, Slik had darted out through the gap and dropped down into his pocket, clinging to the fabric and glowing softly. The fairy put a finger to his lips and his light died away almost entirely.
Joseph pushed the cage door back into place and walked away from the screaming fairies. They’d seen what had happened, but thankfully they couldn’t get any louder than they were before anyway.
Tabitha turned to glare at him as he approached.
‘Where’ve you been? Keep up. We got nothing from the ogres. Going to try some of the prisoners further down.’
‘Right,’ said Joseph, eyeing the troll. ‘Actually, I’m not feeling all that well. I think maybe we should leave now.’
The troll’s brow wrinkled. Tabitha scowled.
‘We can’t go. We need to find out where that mermaid is, remember? So the merfolk will fight on our side. And so they’ll let Hal and the Bootle twins go. That ring any bells?’
‘Yes, but, I mean, I’m sure we’ll find her anyway.’
He felt sweat prickle on his brow. He had always been a terrible liar.
Tabitha narrowed her eyes.
‘What’s going on?’
‘What? Nothing! I, er …’ He turned to the troll. ‘Would you, um, give us a minute?’
The troll raised an eyebrow, then turned on his heel with a swish of petticoats and strode away to break up a fight between a pair of goblin prisoners.
‘What in Thalin’s name—?’ began Tabitha, but she stopped as Joseph opened his pocket. Slik winked at her from inside. ‘This snotbag? Are you joking? He’s got to be the least—’
‘He knows,’ said Joseph. ‘I thought … Well, it’s a
lead, isn’t it?’
Tabitha looked for a moment as if she was about to hit him. Then finally her expression softened into an almost-smile.
‘All right, it’s a lead. Not bad. For a tavern boy.’
Joseph grinned. ‘Thanks. And thanks for keeping that troll busy.’
Slik sniggered and made smooching noises from his pocket. Joseph covered him up, his cheeks burning.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Tabitha quickly. She turned and called to the troll. ‘That’s enough for one day. We’ll come back later.’
The jailer cracked the goblins’ heads together and let them sink to the floor. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Time for some more tea.’
He led them back through the barred door, locking it behind them. Together they wound their way through the wooden corridors of the Brig, until at last they reached the living room. The cake still sat on the table, untouched except for the two slices the troll had eaten earlier.
‘We’ll be off now,’ said Tabitha stiffly.
‘Thanks for all your help,’ said Joseph. ‘Enjoy your cake.’
There was a sudden squirming in his pocket, and he instantly regretted saying that. Slik struggled upright and popped his head above the edge of the pocket, tiny nose quivering as he sniffed. Joseph moved his hand to conceal the fairy.
‘I will enjoy it,’ said the troll. ‘It is good cake.’
The earthy-sweet smell of it was wafting into their nostrils now. Slik leaned past Joseph’s hand and Joseph tried to push him back down into his pocket.
‘Seed cake,’ the troll carried on. ‘Very good. Lots of honey in it.’
‘Go on,’ said Tabitha, her eyes shining with hunger. Not helpful, Tabs.
‘Butter too. Eggs. Seeds. And, most important … lots and lots of sugar.’
Slik wriggled free and darted for the cake.
The troll was lightning quick. His cudgel was out in a trice and slamming down towards the fairy. The first blow struck the table, making it shudder. The second smashed the mug, scattering bits of broken pottery and splattering cold tea everywhere. Slik was on top of the cake now, and the troll raised his cudgel a third time.
