City of Lies Read online

  “But why?” By now, Goldie was shouting too, with frustration. She could see the night trickling away. At this rate she wouldn’t get anywhere near the museum, which meant she would have to leave her parents alone again, tomorrow night or the night after.

  “Because she’s too little,” said Toadspit. “She’s only ten.”

  Goldie shook her head in disbelief. “You’re just trying to make things happen your way, as usual. Well, don’t expect me to hang around while you take her home.”

  “Who asked you to hang around? Not me.”

  “Good, I’m going, then.”

  “Good!”

  They glared at each other for a moment longer; then Goldie turned and stamped off up the hill. Behind her a stone rattled across the road, as if someone had kicked it.

  Ha! thought Goldie. If he was in a temper now, he’d be in a worse one soon. She slowed down a little and waited for Bonnie’s protests to begin.

  But it was Toadspit’s voice she heard, as brittle as glass on the night air. “G-Goldie?”

  She spun around. Toadspit was standing on the far side of the bridge, staring at something on the ground.

  The night grew suddenly colder. With a sick feeling in her stomach, Goldie raced down the hill and across the bridge. And there, in the stark light of the gas lamp, she saw what Toadspit was staring at.

  In the middle of the road, Bonnie’s longbow lay abandoned. The quiver had been tossed to one side, and arrows were scattered around it like fallen wheat. One of them was stained with blood.

  There was no sign of Bonnie.

  Toadspit was so pale that Goldie thought he was going to faint. Her own skin felt like ice, and she had to force herself to scan the ground around that terrible arrow.

  “I—I don’t think the blood is Bonnie’s,” she whispered. She pointed to the telltale marks in the mud. “There were two men. See their bootprints where they ran toward her? They took her by surprise. Look at the way her prints are scuffed.”

  She broke off, remembering the men who had swaggered past them. They must have doubled back and seen Bonnie come out of hiding. They must have waited until she was close enough to grab—while Goldie and Toadspit, who were supposed to be looking after her, shouted at each other.

  She swallowed and studied the ground again. “I—I think she stabbed one of them with the arrow. It’s his blood. And look, one of them has—has picked her up. You can see where her footprints stop and his get deeper, as if he’s carrying something. Here, they went this way.”

  Their argument forgotten, they set out to track the two men through the dark city. To Goldie’s relief, Toadspit was steady on his feet again, but he clutched the bow in his fist, and there was a grimness about him that she had never seen before.

  They lost the bootprints many times. For all their skill, they could only track what they could see, and the light from the moon and the watergas lamps was never enough. Sometimes the prints disappeared altogether, and they had to search in every direction until they found a fresh smear of mud, or a pebble kicked out of place.

  It was all too easy to make a mistake. Once they followed the wrong person for nearly three blocks and had to backtrack quickly. After that, Goldie borrowed Toadspit’s folding knife and cut notches in a stick to show how long and how wide the bootprints were, so they wouldn’t be misled again.

  The children tracked the two men past the space where the Great Hall used to be, and past the gray stone carcass of the House of Repentance. At last they saw warehouses looming out of the darkness, and the newly repaired iron levees that protected Jewel from the sea. Rising above the levees were the masts of ships.

  “The docks,” Goldie whispered. It was the first time she had spoken for more than half an hour, and her voice sounded strange in her ears.

  The bootprints led the children to an old wooden wharf, where fishing boats were moored nose to tail, with their nets strung out to dry and lobster pots piled high on their decks. A mist was rolling in from the south. The stink of seaweed and fish hung over everything.

  Goldie could hear the water lapping against the piles beneath her, and the slow creak of wooden hulls. Somewhere, a chain rattled. As the mist thickened, she began to feel as if she were tracking Bonnie through a dream. A gray-spotted cat darted across her path like a puff of smoke. The chain rattled again, very close this time.

  There was a hiss of gas, and an engine struggled to life.

  The children shrank back into the shadows, peering at the boat opposite. It was small and stumpy, with a single mast and a deckhouse at the back. A coarse rope net hung over its side. Its engine belched uncertainly, then steadied.

  Toadspit’s fingers dug into Goldie’s flesh. “It’s them,” he hissed. “It must be.”

  As he spoke, the engine took on a deeper note. The water swirled and slapped against the wooden piles. The mast trembled, and the boat began to edge away from the wharf.

  There was no time to wonder if it really was the right boat. Goldie and Toadspit raced across the wharf and threw themselves over the widening gap. It was a long jump and Goldie almost didn’t make it. Her fingers touched the rope net. Missed. Touched again. Her right hand fumbled. Her left hand clung desperately. Her feet flailed in midair—

  Then, just when she thought she must fall and be swallowed up by the cold, churning water, her toes found the net. She clutched at it, pressing her whole body against the side of the boat and gasping for breath.

  Beside her, Toadspit was already crawling upward. Goldie scrambled after him, and the two of them slipped over the rail and sank down behind the deckhouse, with Bonnie’s bow between them.

  Somewhere nearby a man cried, “Half speed!” The boat surged, and the lights of Jewel disappeared into the mist. Ahead, everything was darkness.

  The Grand Protector of Jewel was at her desk when the note from Vice-Marshal Amsel arrived. She pushed her papers and her early-morning cup of hot chocolate to one side, adjusted her eyeglasses and read the hastily scribbled message.

  “You’re joking!” The words burst out of her before she could stop them.

  “It’s no joke, Your Grace,” said the corporal of militia who had brought the note. “The prisoner walked up to the Eastern Gate an hour ago. Looked as if he’d been living rough for a while.”

  The Protector gulped a mouthful of hot chocolate and reread the note, her pulse beating an angry tattoo. “He gave himself up? He wasn’t captured?”

  The corporal shook his head.

  “Well,” said the Protector. “I suppose I must see him. Tell the vice-marshal to send him to me.”

  As soon as the corporal had gone, she took her gold chain and stiff crimson robe from the corner closet and put them on. Then she sat down to await the arrival of the worst traitor the city had ever known. The man who had plotted to enslave its citizens and set himself up as dictator. The man whom everyone had assumed to be dead, lost in the Great Storm.

  Her younger brother. The Fugleman of Jewel.

  The Protector almost laughed when they brought the prisoner in. He wore so many chains that he clanked like an iron foundry. She leaned back in her chair and studied him.

  He was thinner than the last time she’d seen him, and everything about him was ragged and filthy. His hair was still black, of course, and he had a certain handsomeness beneath the grime. But his shoulders were slumped and his eyes were fixed on the floor. The fine proud Fugleman of six months ago had disappeared completely.

  At the memory of that terrible time, when the city had come so close to disaster, the temptation to laugh vanished. “Wait outside,” the Protector said to the militiamen.

  The guards backed out the door. There was silence in the office. The Protector steepled her fingers, trying to control her anger. “Well, Herro?” she said. (She would not call him brother. The word would stick in her throat.) “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “May I—may I sit down?” The Fugleman’s voice—his glorious voice, which had once sw
ayed crowds—was so weak and hoarse that he sounded like an old man.

  “Last time you were here,” said the Protector grimly, “you did not bother to ask. You put your feet up on my desk as if this office were a common beerhouse.” She bared her teeth in a humorless smile. “Perhaps you recall the occasion? It was just before you had me imprisoned in the House of Repentance.”

  The Fugleman swallowed. “You are right to remind me, sist—”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “I beg your pardon.” He bowed his head. “The truth is, I am a broken man—Your Grace. Broken on the rocks of my own foolish ambition. I am—I am deeply sorry for the crimes I committed.”

  “Is that it? You’re sorry? You try to sell the city into slavery, and all you can say is—” The Protector broke off, biting down on her fury and wishing wholeheartedly that the Fugleman had not chosen this particular moment to return from the dead.

  The last six months had not been easy for the people of Jewel. So much had changed in such a short time. The Blessed Guardians had been put on trial and cast out of the city. The House of Repentance had been boarded up. The silver guardchains that children wore to keep them safe were banned, and the heavy brass punishment chains vanished as if they had never existed.

  At first, unable to get used to the new freedoms, many parents simply tied their sons and daughters up with lengths of rope, or followed them whenever they left the house, ducking around corners so as not to be discovered.

  Gradually, however, they grew bolder. The ropes disappeared. Some families bought cats or dogs. Birds returned to the city. For the first time in her life, the Protector heard the sound of children laughing as they played in the street.

  But then, just three weeks ago, a boy had broken his leg. Six days later, a girl fell into Dead Horse Canal and nearly drowned. The accidents shocked everyone. The Protector had begun to hear mutterings. This would never have happened under the Blessed Guardians.

  And now the Fugleman, the leader of the Guardians, was back. The Protector wished she could see inside his head. She knew that he was a superb actor. Was he acting now? Was he as humbled as he seemed to be, or was it a trick? She rapped her fingernail on the desk.

  Outside the window a dog began to howl. At the same time, someone knocked on the door of her office. “Sorry to interrupt, Your Grace,” said one of the militiamen, poking his head in, “but there’s a messenger from the Museum of Dunt. Name of Sinew. He said it was—”

  “Urgent!” A tall, awkward-looking man in a long black cloak and a red woolen scarf pushed past him. “They’ve gone, Protector, vanished overnight—”

  He saw the Fugleman and his mouth snapped shut—then, quicker than a thought, split open again in a foolish grin. He threw his arms wide. “Yes, my worries have vanished overnight,” he proclaimed, “because the Fugleman has returned! And I am filled with joy!”

  He grabbed the Fugleman by the shoulders and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. The Protector’s mouth fell open in astonishment, and she was about to protest. But then she saw the uprush of blood in the Fugleman’s face, and she pinned her lips together, sat back in her chair and waited to see what would happen next.

  Sinew draped his arm around the prisoner’s shoulders. “So,” he burbled cheerfully, “where on earth have you been? The Protector here was convinced you were dead, but I said, ‘No, he’s just wandered off to do his murdering and looting somewhere else for a change. He’ll be back, never fear, like a bad smell.’ ” He wrinkled his long nose. “Speaking of bad smells …”

  A pulse throbbed in the Fugleman’s temple, but he stared at the floor and said nothing. Outside the building, the howling went on and on.

  The Protector stood up and unlatched the window. Sitting on the footpath below her was a little white dog with a curly tail and one black ear. Its head was tipped back and its eyes closed. Its muzzle pointed to the sky.

  “Arooo-oooooo-oooooooooh,” it howled. “Arrrooo-oooooooooo-oooooooooooooh.”

  “Isn’t that the—um—dog from the museum?” said the Protector. It was hard to make herself heard above the pitiful sound. “What’s the matter with him?”

  “Oh, nothing serious,” said Sinew. “He’s got fleas, that’s all, and wants the world to know about it.” He nudged the Fugleman. “Terrible things, fleas. Can’t stand them myself. Ooh, look, there’s one now.”

  Quick as a flash, his hand burrowed into the Fugleman’s matted hair. The Fugleman jerked away as if he had been burned, his face livid with anger.

  Sinew didn’t seem to notice. He held something up between his fingernails. “Got it,” he declared, with a satisfied smile. “And now we crush it”—his nails clicked together—“like the nasty little parasite it is.”

  The Protector had seen enough. She pulled the window closed and turned to the waiting militiaman. “Tell Vice-Marshal Amsel that the Fugleman—the ex-Fugleman—is to be taken to the House of Repentance.”

  “But it’s boarded up, Your Grace.”

  “Then unboard it. I want him guarded around the clock.”

  The militiaman grabbed the Fugleman’s arm. “Come on, you.”

  As the door closed behind them, Sinew’s foolishness fell away like a discarded coat. “Your Grace,” he said in a low voice. “Do you remember Goldie Roth and Toadspit Hahn?”

  “What? Who?” said the Protector, who was still thinking about the Fugleman. Then her mind cleared and she said, “Yes, of course. Such brave children. If it wasn’t for them, he”—she grimaced at the door—“would have succeeded in his vicious plans.”

  “They have disappeared, along with Toadspit’s sister, Bonnie.”

  “Disappeared?” The Protector rubbed her forehead, trying to take in the news. “Is that why the dog—I mean, the brizzlehound. I did not want to say so in front of the Fugleman, but that creature outside my window is a brizzlehound, is it not? Broo?”

  Sinew nodded grimly. “Goldie’s father, Herro Roth, came to us at first light, very distressed because his daughter was missing. Broo and I went back with him and tracked Goldie’s movements. It seems she slipped out of the house in the middle of the night and went to the Hahns’ place to pick up Toadspit. We think Bonnie followed them. They appeared to be heading toward the museum, but along the way Bonnie was abducted. Toadspit and Goldie went after the men who took her.”

  The Protector sat down very suddenly. “Slavers?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I have heard that Old Lady Skint and her crew are growing active again. It could be them.” The Protector’s brow furrowed. “Or maybe someone taking a child for ransom? There’s an army of mercenaries in the Southern Archipelago that has been snatching travelers off the road and selling them back to their families. Perhaps those mercenaries have brought their crimes north to Jewel.”

  “Whoever it was,” said Sinew, “we tracked them to the docks, and there we lost them. Four ships left overnight—the Fighting Dove, the Black Bob, the Jumping at Shadows and the Ungrateful Child.” His mouth tightened. “I have no idea which one they might be on.”

  With a shudder, the Protector picked up her pen and dipped it in the inkpot. “I’ll get those ships traced immediately, and send out names and descriptions of the children.”

  “Descriptions, yes,” said Sinew. “But let us keep their names to ourselves for now. I will ask their parents to do the same.”

  The Protector nodded toward the door. “Because of our prisoner?”

  “Yes. He has good reason to hate Goldie and Toadspit. I know he’ll be locked up, but still—the less he knows, the better.”

  “He claims to be humble and repentant.”

  “Does he indeed?” said Sinew. “Perhaps he is repentant, I cannot tell. But humble? No. The overwhelming pride is still there, just below the surface. I would watch him if I were you. I would watch him very carefully.”

  He touched his finger to his brow in an informal salute and was gone. Outside the window, Broo howled as if it were the end of
the world.

  Goldie was so cold and stiff that she could hardly move. The end of Bonnie’s bow poked into her ribs, and the salty air had stuck her eyelids together. She thought that she had slept a little, but she wasn’t sure.

  She and Toadspit had found this hiding place last night—a tarpaulin-covered dinghy, halfway along the deck of the fishing boat. Now the edges of the tarpaulin let in a glimmer of daylight. It was morning.

  Goldie licked her dry lips. Ma and Pa would have woken up by now, and found her gone. Her heart ached at the thought. How would they manage without her? What if her disappearance made Pa’s nightmares worse? What if Ma’s cough turned into a fever?

  Beside her, Toadspit lifted the edge of the tarpaulin, just far enough to see out. Goldie squirmed up to the gap and peered through it, grateful for the distraction.

  The deck of the boat was covered with nets and barrels and ropes, and a pile of glass floats like huge green bubbles. In the stern, the sharp-faced man from the night before was standing beneath an open-fronted deckhouse. His legs were braced and he held a heavy upright pole that moved back and forth with the movement of the sea. His oilskin coat flapped in the wind.

  As Goldie watched, he leaned toward an open hatch and shouted, “Hey, Smudge.”

  A muffled reply came from somewhere below.

  “Bring the snotty up,” shouted the sharp-faced man. “Let’s see ’er in daylight.”

  Heavy footsteps crossed the lower deck; then a second man, the big one with the blond hair, clambered out of the hatch with Bonnie in his arms and dumped her on the deck next to the mast. Her wrists were tied and there were bruises on her forehead.

  In the dinghy, Goldie felt Toadspit tremble with rage.

  The big man fumbled behind one of the barrels and pulled out a flat piece of wood. “Um, Cord?” he said. Despite his enormous size, there was something childlike and eager to please about him. “You want me to change the name of the boat before someone sees us?”