Path of Beasts

by Lian Tanner

  “But there’s another batch of prisoners to load. What sort of business?”

  Hope pressed her ear to the door as Old Lady Skint’s voice sank to a murmur. “It’s these rumors of plague.”

  “Surely you don’t believe them? The city is as clean as a washed plate.”

  Old Lady Skint laughed. “How old do you reckon I am?”

  “A beauteous young woman like yourself?” said the Fugleman smoothly. “Why, surely you’re not a day over thirty!”

  Hope snorted. The slaver laughed again. “I’m sixty-seven last birthday. And I didn’t get to this grand age by takin’ chances with somethin’ as nasty as plague. It was worth stayin’ for a day—that’s a good load of cargo you’ve sold me, and you did us proud last night—but now it’s time to go.”

  She raised her voice. “Come on, you lot! Get your pathetic bones out that door before I start breakin’ ’em.”

  As Hope flattened herself against the wall, the door flew open and the groaning crew members stumbled out of the banquet room, cursing and spitting and rubbing their heads. Their tattoos shone with grease, as if they had been lying facedown in their food.

  Behind them strode Old Lady Skint, her beetles gnawing at the crumbs that had fallen from her chins. And behind the slaver came the Fugleman, his sword at his side and his uniform as elegant as ever, despite the long night.

  “Your Honor!” cried Hope, stepping up beside him. “You will be pleased to hear that my trap worked. At this moment, Golden Roth lies in the hold of the Silver Lining in chains!”

  Oh, it was worth all the trouble she had gone to, just to see the slow smile that spread across the Fugleman’s face! She hurried on. “That girl will not interfere with your plans again, Your Honor. All that lies ahead of her is misery. Would you like to see her and tell her so?”

  “Hmm,” said the Fugleman, tapping the hilt of his sword. “I believe I would.”

  There were a dozen street-rigs parked close by for the trip to the docks. Hope squeezed in between two large tattooed men, keeping her face as bland as possible.

  But as she stalked up the gangway of the Silver Lining, close behind the Fugleman, she whispered, “Did you sleep well, Golden Roth? Did the chains hurt? Did your mother and father bewail their fate?”

  It was a long time since she had been so happy. Old Lady Skint and her crew were already preparing for departure. Hope beckoned to the sailor with the ruined nose. “His Honor and I wish to see the special prisoner before you leave. Please escort us to her.”

  The lower decks of the Silver Lining stank worse than ever. Hope followed the sailor and the Fugleman down the narrow ladderways, grabbing at ropes with one hand and clutching a kerchief to her nose with the other. Mice and spiders skittered past her feet, and she drew her robes closer and muttered a short prayer to the Weeping Lady.

  Most of the brats were asleep, their faces hidden in their arms. The few who were awake shrank from the light of the lantern. Their groans and whimpers got on Hope’s nerves, and she kicked them as she passed, to punish them for making her suffer. A dirty, whitish-colored mouse peered up at her, then dashed off into the darkness.

  “Vermin,” muttered Hope. “I cannot abide vermin!”

  At last the sailor pointed to a jumble of limbs. “Told ya she wouldn’t escape. She’s been tucked up in ’er comfy bed all night.” He laughed, and poked at the miserable figure with his toe. “Wakey, wakey!”

  The girl groaned but didn’t move.

  “Golden Roth,” Hope said loudly. “His Honor the Fugleman has come to see you.”

  The answering whisper was so quiet that Hope had to bend over to hear it. “I—I feel s-sick.”

  “Sick?” said Hope. She turned to the Fugleman. “Apparently the prisoner feels sick, Your Honor.”

  The Fugleman’s teeth gleamed. “She will feel sicker before we are finished with her. Make her sit up.”

  Hope gave a little sigh of happiness and kicked the Roth girl into a sitting position. Chains rattled. The brat groaned horribly and looked up, blinking at the light.

  For a moment, Hope thought the sailor must have led them to the wrong girl. “Golden?” she said uncertainly.

  “G-G-Guardian H-Hope,” the brat whispered. “I feel s-ssick.”

  Ah, so it was Golden Roth. But there was something—

  “You, sailor. Bring the lantern closer,” said Hope.

  The sailor grumbled and held the light up the brat’s face. “I don’t see what—” he began. Then a horrified gurgle came from his throat. The lantern swayed wildly. “Her skin!” he hissed. “Look! And her neck! Great Wooden save us!” And he began to flick his fingers frantically and back away.

  The Fugleman snatched the lantern from him. “What is it?” he snapped. “What are you talking about?”

  “Si-i-ick,” groaned Golden Roth. Her chained hands grabbed feebly at Hope’s robes. “And tired. So-o tired. Help me. He-elp!”

  And suddenly every child in the hold was awake and wailing. “Si-i-ck! I’m si-i-i-ick!”

  Hope felt as if she had stepped into a nightmare. The wailing and the smell were dreadful enough. But more dreadful still were the black patches on Golden Roth’s skin, and the swellings on her neck. . . .

  “Plague!” shrieked Guardian Hope as she stumbled toward the ladderway. She could see the black patches on the other brats now, and the swellings on their necks. “There’s plague on the ship!”

  The Fugleman shoved her to one side and ran up the narrow stairs ahead of her. There was no sign of the lantern—he must have dropped it. No, the sailor had it again, and he too was pushing past Hope, shouting, “Abandon ship! The cargo’s got plague! Cap’n, the cargo’s got plague!”

  Hope couldn’t bear the thought of being left down there in the darkness with a hundred diseased children. She dragged herself up one ladderway after another, trying not to breathe, her eyes fixed on the rapidly disappearing light of the lantern. “Wait for me!” she cried.

  It was not until she was on deck, and the sailors running all around her in panic, that she remembered how her foot had touched the Roth brat. She kicked off her shoes and stumbled whimpering toward the gangway.

  But the gangway was blocked. Old Lady Skint stood there, a pistol in each hand, facing the terrified sailors. Her chins quivered with rage. “Who cried plague?” she roared. “Who dares say there’s disease on my beautiful new ship? Was it you, Mince?”

  “It was!” shouted Mince in a high voice. The remains of his nose twitched. His face, beneath the tattoos, was white with terror. “I seen the black skin and the buboes! The cargo’s riddled with it!”

  “He’s right,” said the Fugleman, who had used his sword to get to the front of the crowd. “I saw it too. Let me off, Skint. I don’t care what you do with the rest of this rabble, but I have business to attend to.”

  Old Lady Skint didn’t seem to hear him. “How do you know it’s plague, Mince? Coulda been dirt and fleabites. It’s dark in them holds.”

  “I swear it’s the sickness, Cap’n!” cried Mince. “The ship’s a goner! And so are we if we don’t get outta here quick smart!”

  “Yeah, let us go, Cap’n!” cried another sailor.

  “Ya can’t make us stay ’ere and die!”

  “Don’t be crool, Cap’n!”

  Hope thought she might be able to edge past Skint while the old lady was distracted. But despite the babble of the crew, the captain stood firm, glaring at Mince. “I’m not abandonin’ a new ship on the say-so of a man who can’t even keep his nose on his face!” she roared. “I want to hear from someone with more than half a brain. Where’s Double?”

  It seemed impossible to Hope that the noise on deck could get louder, but it did. “Double!” bellowed Old Lady Skint. “Get out ’ere! Now! And the rest of you shut up!”

  Astonishingly, the sailors obeyed her, muttering prayers under their breath to Great Wooden and the Weeping Lady, and flicking their fingers in silent terror. Only the Fugleman stood alo
of from the panic, but Hope could see the pulse beating above his jaw.

  And then Double appeared.

  She looked worse than she had last night. Far worse. As she staggered across the deck, holding her stomach, she croaked, “There’s something wrong with me, Captain. I feel si-ick.”

  She grabbed at one of her crew mates, but the man backed away. Double swayed and clutched her armpit, and her eyes widened in horror, as if she had just found one of the dreaded buboes.

  Hope raised her hand and pointed. “She’s got it too!” she screamed. “She’s got plague!”

  Plague ship

  Goldie crouched in the shadows of the quarterdeck, her face dark and swollen. She had removed her unlocked shackles and followed Guardian Hope up from the hold as silently as an arrow, hoping to see the crew of the Silver Lining in a state of panic.

  She hadn’t expected Old Lady Skint’s reluctance to abandon ship, and her demand for proof. Fear clutched at her and she wished she still had Auntie Praise’s bluebird brooch to give her courage. They were so close to freedom! If they should fail now—

  But then Double stumbled out. And Guardian Hope screamed.

  That was all it took. The rest of the sailors surged toward Old Lady Skint in an unstoppable wave and pushed her down the gangway to the wharf. By then the slaver captain was as white-faced as the rest of them, and she made no attempt to retake her ship. Instead, she aimed her pistols at two of the crew.

  “Mince!” she bellowed. “Get back on board. You too, Jangle. You’re goin’ back up there with Double.”

  “No!” cried Mince and Jangle together. “Cap’n—”

  “You was both there all night,” shouted Skint. “And I won’t ’ave you infectin’ the rest of us. Get up that gangway or I’ll shoot you.”

  But it was not until a dozen more pistols were cocked that Mince and Jangle obeyed their captain.

  Goldie crept across to where Mouse was waiting beneath an open skylight, his face as grotesque as hers. In the darkness of below decks, it looked like plague. Up here it was clearly paint and papier-mâché.

  “Make sure everyone below stays quiet,” breathed Goldie. She put her finger to her lips. “No sound except for groans.”

  Mouse disappeared. The sailors on the docks scanned the water. “There’s a ship, Cap’n, right there!” cried one of them. “It’s small, but it’ll get us away from this cursed place.”

  Goldie heard Guardian Hope say, “But that’s Cord’s ship!”

  No one took any notice of her. The sailors rushed toward the Piglet, which was tied up behind the Silver Lining.

  There was a shout. “Here, git orf me boat! Whatcha doin’? Git orf!” and Pounce, struggling and protesting, was bundled over the rail onto the wharf.

  Guardian Hope’s voice floated up to the quarterdeck. “Pounce? What are you doing here? I told you to stay out of sight once you had baited the trap.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Pounce. “I couldn’t trap more than one of ’em, so I had to change me plans. Worked out all right, though. I got a prisoner for the Foobleman. So how about ya get Mousie off that slave ship like ya promised? And tell that scummy lot to give the Piglet back. It’s mine.”

  “What prisoner?” said the Fugleman, striding forward.

  The sailors threw another boy onto the wharf. His hands were trussed with rope, and his face was livid with anger and betrayal.

  “It’s the Hahn boy!” squawked Guardian Hope. “Toadspit! We have him after all!” She smiled triumphantly. So did the Fugleman.

  When Goldie saw those smiles, a deep and terrible hatred surged through her veins. In the back of her mind, Frisia was whispering about—

  —revenge! Kill them! Cut off their ears! Release the wolf-sark—

  “No!” whispered Goldie. “Not now! Go away!” And she slowed her breath and brought her mind inward and repeated, “This is me. This is who I am. This is me!” until the deck of the slave ship firmed beneath her.

  On the Piglet, Old Lady Skint and her crew were preparing for a hasty departure. The Fugleman turned to Pounce. “You want your friend? And a ship? You can have both. There.” He pointed toward the Silver Lining and the three miserable sailors who stood on her deck, as far from each other as possible. “It’s yours.”

  “Nah, that’s a plague ship.” Pounce began to edge away, talking rapidly. “All right, I’ll tell yer what. Yer friends can ’ave the Piglet, I don’t really need it. And you can ’ave the Silver Linin’. That’s all right, no need to thank me, I’ll just take Mousie and go. We’ll be outta yer hair before ya know it.”

  The Fugleman whipped his sword from its scabbard and pointed it at Pounce’s chest. “It was not an offer, boy. It was a command.” He smiled again, and the sword sang through the air toward Toadspit. “As for your prisoner—”

  In the shadows of the quarterdeck, Goldie prayed to the Seven Gods and flicked her fingers until they were sore. This was the part of their plan that she had been least sure about. “Don’t hurt him,” she whispered.

  The tip of the sword pressed against Toadspit’s throat. He winced and blood trickled down his neck.

  “As for your prisoner,” said the Fugleman, “I have one or two scores to settle with the Hidden Rock. So—”

  Goldie clamped her hands over her mouth. Don’t hurt him!

  “So he will be going with you.”

  Toadspit said nothing. But Pounce fell to his knees, his voice high with fright. “Please, Harrow, don’t send me on the plague ship! Ain’t I done good work for ya in the past? Didn’t I set the trap up, just like old Flense told me? Don’t send me to me doom!”

  Guardian Hope was hugging herself with delight. The Fugleman bared his teeth at Pounce. “You are scum, boy. Scum from the gutter. The world is well rid of you.” And he prodded his prisoners toward the Silver Lining.

  But at the foot of the gangway, Toadspit stopped. “It was just me and Goldie,” he said over his shoulder. “All that Hidden Rock stuff. You mustn’t blame the other keepers, or the museum. They had no part in it.”

  “What nonsense,” scoffed Guardian Hope. “Of course they—”

  The Fugleman held up his hand to silence her. “I don’t blame them in the slightest,” he said.

  Even from that distance Goldie could see how Toadspit clenched his bound fists. “Then you won’t use Frow Carrion on the museum?”

  The Fugleman smiled a dangerous smile. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Now get up that gangway. If the Silver Lining is not gone from here within the quarter hour, I will burn it to the waterline, with everyone on board. I don’t care where you go to die, as long as it is nowhere near me!”

  Thirteen minutes later, the Silver Lining chugged out of Jewel Harbor.

  Goldie had retreated to Old Lady Skint’s cabin, where Mouse was waiting for her. Both of them wanted to unchain the captive children as soon as possible, but they waited, crouching on the captain’s desk beneath the skylight, afraid that their ruse might yet be discovered.

  Mince stood at the wheel with his back to them. Jangle was below, in the engine room, and Double leaned silently against the rail, watching the city disappear in the distance. If Goldie craned her neck, she could see Toadspit and Pounce huddled on the main deck in pretended terror.

  Except not all of it was pretended, at least on Toadspit’s part. Because the Fugleman had lied when he said that he didn’t blame the other keepers for the actions of the Hidden Rock. Goldie had heard it in his voice and seen it in his face. At this very moment he was probably giving the orders that would send Frow Carrion clanking up Old Arsenal Hill.

  At that thought, a sense of great urgency took hold of Goldie. “Bald Thoke, Glorious Thoke, god of tricks and disguises,” she whispered. “You’ve helped me so far. Please help us to get off this ship and back to the museum as quickly as possible—”

  Mouse nudged her. Jewel was out of sight at last, the gas engines had stopped, and Mince and Jangle were frantically lowering one of the ship’s dinghies.r />
  Goldie could hear Double pleading with them. “C’mon, Mince, I’m not as sick as I thought I was. Take me with you.”

  Mince ignored her.

  “It’s not plague,” cried Double. “I just had a bellyache, that’s all.”

  “So why did she pretend it was plague?” Goldie whispered to Mouse. “I don’t understand.”

  “See?” said Double, holding up her arms. “No buboes, no nothing. Even my bellyache’s gone.”

  “I wish they’d take her,” Goldie whispered. “But they’re not going to. We’d better get everyone unchained.” She handed Mouse the keys from the hook by the door. “Try and get them to stay out of sight until we know what Double’s going to do. And keep the plague stuff on their faces.”

  Mouse grinned, and the papier-mâché on his skin cracked. In his sleeve, a dozen white mice slept soundly, exhausted by their labors.

  It had taken Goldie most of the night to get the captive children painted and dyed convincingly. At first she had been afraid that Mince and Jangle would change their minds and come to check on her. And so she had waited for more than an hour before untaping the knife from her armpit and the picklock from the sole of her foot.

  But even when she was freed from her shackles it was not easy. The younger children were so terrified that they would not stop crying. It was not until Goldie unchained Mouse and took him and his pets through the holds with her that the young captives began to listen. The white mice were comforting in a way nothing else was.

  They were quick and silent too, and could run all over the ship without being noticed. As soon as Goldie had retrieved the hidden package, she set the mice to work. They chewed paper to a pulp and plastered fake sores onto necks and armpits. They smeared black paint over skin, while the children giggled and squirmed.

  Goldie was everywhere, checking on the mice, reassuring the captives. She barely had time to talk to Bonnie or Favor. All she could do was say, over and over again, “Don’t be afraid, we’re going to get out of here!” and hope that she was right.