by Alex Pheby
Gam swung his way out.
Nathan thought he might grab her, but if he did, she would snap, or crumple, or tear, so he didn’t. He bowed instead, deep and straight, like a skivvy might. The woman stepped back, her arms coming down, and when he came back upright, without his saying a word, she nodded to them and left, as if he had said all that needed to be said.
‘Upstairs, now!’
They followed Gam into the hall.
There were hundreds of them, these frail, fragile, evanescent ghost-like women, and beside them, as if chained into pairs, were men, firmer, less diaphanous, but still possessing an otherworldly refinement of form that confused Nathan. They had edges that were precise, like a statue, no ruffled pieces hanging from them, no untucked angles, just straight lines and perfectly precise forms which their clothes contained, and which nowhere bulged or tore. Nathan felt conspicuous among them – as if he were a brutish thing, as if he were an ape loose in a room full of butterflies – but they had eyes only for each other and he needn’t have worried.
He dodged and weaved and bowed, following Gam until he got to the foot of some stairs, trailing Prissy behind him by the hand, and soon they were standing on the mezzanine landing, at the foot of a nude bearing a ewer. The statue was so smooth and intricately worked that Nathan only knew it wasn’t real by its enormous size.
Two flights of stairs led off to right and left.
‘Which one?’
Gam pushed him left. ‘Padge says it’s up there, at the end of the corridor.’
The upstairs was plainer than below – simple decorations in jade, ivory and sapphires. The door handles were sculpted from a fortune in gold and platinum.
Gam fiddled with the door of the room at the end of the corridor and, for a second, Nathan thought Gam might satisfy himself by stealing one of the handles, but then he pushed the door open a crack and stuck his nose through. ‘Come!’ he urged.
Prissy stayed behind on lookout, but Nathan followed him in. There in front of them was an iron box, riveted and bolted shut, with four keyholes in a diamond shape in the centre.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Gam said.
Nathan looked at the box. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘What are you supposed to do? Write it a love poem, you tit! You’re supposed to open it.’
‘How?’
‘How should I know? Melt it, burn it, whatever you want; you’re the bleeding magician.’
Nathan started to object, but Gam put his fist up. ‘You know what Prissy’s sister will do if we don’t come back with her money? She’ll work your Prissy till she’s as worn as a dishcloth and twice as wet. Run ragged she’ll be. You want that?’
Nathan shook his head. He felt inside for the Itch, but there was nothing there, nothing to drag up. His insides were numb.
Gam smiled. ‘Wait here.’
He was back before Nathan could even look down inside himself. He had Prissy with him, drew her by the hand.
‘Look at her.’
‘Leave off, Gam.’ Prissy pulled away, but Gam renewed his grip.
‘Look at her!’
Nathan looked. Gam walked her forward until she was over him, standing above. Deep down in his bowel he could feel it. Gam pushed her forward, closer, ever closer. She was utterly beautiful.
‘You know what she’s got lined up, don’t you? Your mum’s work.’
She was scarcely an arm’s length away, then Gam pulled Prissy back. ‘Is that what you want?’
In a blur, Nathan felt the Spark burst out of him. He turned away from Prissy, lest he scorch her perfect skin, and there was the safe.
In the air are tiny things, invisible to the eye, that feed on motes of dust, and the Spark, having nowhere else to go, went into these, changed what little could be changed, and then burned this away into perfect forms, free things of energy, not ghosts but something better. These slipped across the surface of the metal like silverfish disturbed from a lifted blanket, following its contours perfectly, skittering into and out of pits in the metal, exploring the tips of the filigree decorating its edges. The more Nathan felt Prissy’s warmth behind him, the more of these silverfish bred from his Spark, until there didn’t seem to be a place they weren’t racing across.
Nathan relaxed and now there was a tugging inside the bones of his hands, as if these things were on strings, burning his bite, making him want to cry, but by wishing it, he could alter the path of the Sparks so that they ran into the keyholes. When one or two were in, suddenly the lot of them followed and Nathan had to think hard to control them. He could sense what they sensed, as if they were extensions of his nerves. They found the tumblers of the locks, filled them with life, with the urge to become themselves. The tumblers were eager to do it, shifting into living things, developing minds, arranging themselves in the proper order, then, in a twist that was as easy as a wink, he took the power away.
Before, with the lock, the metal had fallen apart as if in disappointment and dismay, but now the safe shimmered and moved, stretched and breathed. It seemed to sense Nathan and edged forward, reaching out as if to its mother.
When he turned around, Gam and Prissy were watching awestruck, bathed in the light of the Sparks. ‘What have you done?’
He turned back and, as suddenly as it had come to life, the safe died, slumping to the floor, its door opening slack and dead. Nathan grabbed at his arm, rubbed at the teeth that seemed to bite inside, gnawing from a thousand invisible mouths.
‘Whatever he did,’ Gam said, oblivious to anything but the safe, ‘it’s open.’
Inside there were things of obvious sentimental value: rings and brooches, letters with ribbons tied around them, portraits in miniature of children and dogs. Between these were things that any man might covet: rubies and ingots, cut glass and crystal, timepieces. Gam ignored all of these and grabbed a roll of parchment, brown and brittle, half-bound in silk. He turned to leave, but Nathan and Prissy were frozen, like beggars in front of a feast. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘Aren’t we going to nick stuff? I thought we were going to nick stuff. My hundred gold.’
Gam began to say something and then stopped, and then he said, ‘Right… Right. Natty, take that jewellery? Prissy, you take that candlestick there.’
Prissy for one was relieved, and, the proper order of things established, stuffed the candlestick down her corset. It protruded by a couple of inches. She looked at Gam, but he made no comment. Nathan stood, but took nothing. The bite, his hand, the wrist, the whole arm up to the shoulder felt rotten.
‘Suit yourself,’ Gam said. ‘But if you don’t need money all of a sudden, others still do, so carry what you can.’
Prissy came and slipped an ingot into his shirt, rubies. ‘Come on, don’t cost you nothing. I’ve got a few too.’
Nathan touched the safe with his good hand. It was cold and solid, just as metal ought to be.
‘Right then, we’re off out the back door then, right? Nathan, you go first.’
He walked out into the corridor, his arm crawling from the Spark, his saliva tasting of rust, the world dim in comparison. He didn’t notice as much as he had on the way up, or care, seemingly, if he got caught. He even stopped bowing.
When the three of them reached the downstairs hall, Gam overtook him, holding Prissy in an armlock. Nathan followed, not thinking too much about it, but Gam didn’t make for the back door; rather, looking back to make sure Nathan was following him, he marched Prissy to the double doors which stood open onto the ballroom. They were huge and ornate, cast in gold to resemble dolphins and mermaids frolicking in the surf. They opened onto a dance floor, where a formal dance was in progress, a hundred guests, possibly, dressed like the woman upstairs – fragile, ornate delicacies of people, diaphanous and rare – all processing in ritual modes and gesturing to the music of an orchestra. Prissy began to struggle, but Gam ran her across the threshold and barged to the middle of the dance floor.
He stepped back
and looked at Nathan.
He smiled.
‘Thief!’ he shouted and pushed her onto the ground, where the candlestick fell from her dress and clattered on the polished boards.
The dancers stopped as if suddenly paralysed. Gam winked at Nathan. Save her then, he mouthed, his tongue glistening in the light from the chandeliers.
Prissy was stranded in a forest of dancers. She looked around for Gam, who had hidden himself, and then for Nathan, who was too short to be seen from behind the rows of aristocrats. She made an odd little squeak, like a mouse in a trap. It echoed around the room in the vacuum that came with the orchestra’s stifling of their strings.
Gam urged him on, with gestures. Nathan edged forward, but his arm was agony and it threatened to invade his back, taking the route across his shoulder, down his spine. There was no Itch in any case, it having been so recently relieved.
From the dais that took up the last third of the room, a voice boomed out, ‘What is this?’
The voice was deep and resonant, like the lower octave of a cello, and its owner came down with it. A gold mask covered his eyes and nose, and its edge rested on his top lip. Fangs framed his mouth, their tips making dents in the skin below. With each step he took, the mask shifted up and down.
There was something familiar about him – not the broad bridge of the lion’s nose, but something in the eyes, in the quality of their gaze – a clarity of focus – that Nathan recognised.
He came up to Prissy, looming over her, the mask pressing harder into his skin as he craned his neck to stare into her. When they were no more than inches apart, he spoke. ‘Whose is this child?’
Prissy cleared her throat, ‘Oh help… Oh my… Oh Lord…’ she said, playing her role from the False Damsel con, but neither Gam nor Nathan came, even when she urged them forward.
The masked man put a finger to her lips, and then two. Gam came up behind Nathan and pushed him forward. ‘What are you waiting for? Spark him!’
‘Does no one claim her?’
A repressed murmur spread through the crowd, but no one answered.
Nathan turned to Gam, but he turned him back and shoved.
Nathan lurched forward, and the crowd parted for him. He fell face flat on the floor.
‘Another unclaimed youth? From where does this bounty come, I wonder? Pick him up.’
At the command, two uniformed lackeys emerged from the crowd, each one taking an arm. At their touch, Nathan’s bite throbbed. As they pulled him up, his nerves vibrated beneath the skin and the iron taste came to the back of his tongue. He grit his teeth and when his head went back, hair pulled briskly so that he faced the lion, he felt like he would Spark regardless, harder than before, harder than ever and without mercy, simply from the pain of it.
The lion shuddered to see Nathan. He stepped back, stumbled. ‘You,’ he said. He pulled up the mask, to check if he was seeing right, and the first thing Nathan saw, before his slate-grey eyes, before anything, was the fawn birthmark in the shape of a tear. Then the mask came back down.
When the man – his mother’s customer, the one who had money on account – spoke again, it was first with a dry mouth. The words seemed to stick there, as if his tongue was a barrier. ‘Well now…’ he said.
Nathan remembered what his mother had told him. Was this the day he’d need him?
The lion drew himself up and puffed out his chest theatrically so everyone could see, as if he was playing to the balcony and the cheap seats. ‘What a sad and pathetic thing I have before me,’ he said to his assembled guests in a voice resonant, and also somehow false. ‘He must know that it is a crime for a slum child to come so high into the city. And to invade here, our place of beauty, and spoil it, is a greater crime still.’
His audience seemed rapt, awestruck by his performance. Nathan couldn’t understand it, but they listened so attentively that it was as if they too were acting, playing the role of people enormously impressed by his rhetoric.
‘Some would have him flogged for it,’ this man went on, ‘but though he is so low, I will not lower myself in turn to lay hand on him. Nor will I have a servant do it, which would be no better. No. Instead,’ he said, turning to Nathan, ‘take this and leave.’ He held a gold coin between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He did not deign to stoop or bring himself down to Nathan’s level.
The guests gasped, and made conspicuous signs of approval. Some even clapped, drawing the lion’s eyes to them, which made them clap the louder and caused their companions to grip them excitedly by the arms.
Nathan could see the exact shape of his fawn birthmark, could delimit the contrast between it and the white of his skin. He could have Scratched, Scratched them all. It burned in his arm, behind his eyes in the place that he saw his mother accept the silver coin, the same place her skin peeked out from the grubby sheet. The Itch reached a pitch like a nail drawn out of warped oak.
Soon they were all clapping, the lion customer’s subjects, everyone there understanding, seemingly, that favour might be gained from their ruler if they were only appreciative enough of his gesture. He bowed, reciprocating, and then leaned forward until the coin was in Nathan’s reach.
His mother had said he’d need this man. He felt the pain of the Spark as if the bones of his arm had splintered inside, the shards entering his veins, piercing everything, but he didn’t relieve it.
Gam, coming from behind, took the coin, pocketed it, and drew Nathan and Prissy back.
‘Easy does it, you two. Slow and steady exit.’
The crowd parted twenty feet in advance of them, made a pathway, all still applauding. The children left through the golden mermaid doorway they had entered by, and the applause receded. Two footmen closed the doors on them from the inside, and the moment these clicked shut a cadre of household staff – who had gathered in response to the commotion and who recognised slum urks when they saw them – dragged them roughly out through the front entrance and chased them away from the palace.
XXVIII
‘That was too close. What the bleeding hell did you think you were doing, Gam? You could have got us all killed.’
Gam picked at his nails with his knife. ‘Never mind that; how did your boyfriend pull it off?’ He sat back in his chair, his feet on a stack of books by the fire, looking as if nothing strange had happened at all.
‘He’s not my boyfriend. And pull what off?’ Prissy paced back and forth in front of him, wringing her hands and frowning.
‘Getting us out of there, you silly mare. One minute we’re for the clink, with only Nathan’s talents to call on, which he’s not calling on, next minute we’re the benefactors of some toff’s largesse.’ Gam took a book fully six inches thick from a pile and tossed it on the dwindling fire. It fell on its spine, spreading the pages to the blaze. They crisped and curled and blackened into flame. ‘Strikes me as a little bit suss.’
Nathan clenched his fist. ‘Don’t try to wriggle out of it. What were you playing at?’
Gam smirked. ‘Nothing. Just seeing what you were capable of. Not much, it turns out.’ Down in the den, so far from the rest of the world, closeted and damp, Gam’s words seemed more real than the memories they shared of the event, already dwindling no matter how bad they were. ‘A man needs to know the skill set of his employees, right?’ Gam poked the fire with a chair leg, settled the fuel. ‘And anyway, you was so half-arsed last night, Nathan, you almost got us nicked over and over. It should be you explaining to me. Shouldn’t it?’
Nathan stopped, but before he could say anything Prissy was on again.
‘It’s alright for you boys, but how was I supposed to fight my way out of that? I haven’t got the wrists for knife work, you’ve always said it, Gam, and there were hundreds of them. You put me right in a mess. What have you got against me anyway?’
Gam waved her off. ‘No one’s got anything against you. It’s the other way around.’
Prissy turned her back on him, raised her arms to the heavens
. ‘Give me strength.’
‘What’s going on here then? We could hear you shouting halfway back to the sewers.’ It was Jerky Joes. They were standing in a doorway in the bookshelves with their coat and scarf on, looking even more flustered than usual. ‘No time for explanations, anyway. Padge has issued a summons. He wants us over at the fly yard, right now.’
Nathan turned his back. ‘I’m going home. I’ve had enough.’
‘Enough? You’ve only done a couple of jobs, and you made a pig’s ear of those.’
‘I’m not listening, Gam. It wasn’t right what you did, and I don’t know why you did it, but I’m out.’
‘You can’t not go,’ Joes stuttered. ‘Padge wants you most of all.’
‘Tell him to come and get me.’
‘No, Nathan.’ Joes stood between him and the door. They were only slight, and they didn’t mean to block Nathan physically, they just wanted to be heard. Their face was flickering between fear and pleading, as if they were on the verge of tears in both directions. ‘Sorry, Prissy, you won’t like this, but he said that if Nathan doesn’t come, he’ll take you instead. Take what Nathan owes, if you’ve got it in you. He reckons he and his men should be able to get some value out of you before you wear out, even if it doesn’t settle the whole score. He was very particular that we should pass this message on.’
Nathan kept walking, shouldering Joes aside, as if he couldn’t hear, or didn’t care. Prissy gasped when his hand touched the door handle. Nathan took a deep breath and turned.
‘Don’t worry,’ Gam said, ‘it’ll just be a spot of business. Nothing too strenuous. Eh, Nat?’
In the city, the sun was just rising. Down past the slums, the top of the Sea Wall shone, its line interrupted by the crashing of silhouetted waves and blurred by the mist. The streets were mostly empty – here and there were sullen seekers of rags, looking for dropped handkerchiefs that could be sold back to tailors for a fraction of their price, slum dirt charged with keeping the pavement clean in front of this or that shop – but otherwise the city people were still in their beds. Above everything towered the distant Manse.
