Riverkeep Page 10

  to do?”

  Tillinghast appeared not to hear him. “Payment’s not strictly necessary,” he said, watching the stars peek through the cloud cover, “but if you’ve a few spare coins I’d not say no to ’em.”

  “You know, a person doesn’t have to be bright to figure that if I’m stealin’ food from tables, I prob’ly don’t have spare coin,” said Wull, his voice rising. “If I did, I’d have bought food rather’n lift scraps off other folks’ plates, an’ they wouldn’t be spare coins then—’cause I’d need ’em!”

  Tillinghast looked at him. “Need what?” he said, fussing with his neck-silver.

  Wull gritted his teeth and tossed the last few crusts into the bag. “I already had nothin’, an’ now you’ve ruined that! What am I meant to do?”

  “What d’you mean ‘ruined’? I saved you from that big lump—he wouldn’t’ve stopped at a punch, y’know. You’d’ve been in all kinds o’ trouble. Could you have done what I done?”

  “Could I have beaten up six grown men on my own? No, no I couldn’t,” said Wull. “That’s why I was talkin’ my way out of it when you swanned over with your ‘funny looks.’”

  “They were his funny looks, that was the point,” said Tillinghast. “He was lookin’ at me funny.”

  “Oh, really? You were actin’ like a right nugget. I was givin’ you a funny look myself. You goin’ to beat me up too?”

  “No. Well . . . no. Why are you bein’ so ungrateful?”

  “Because you haven’t helped me! I was goin’ to get some food then tie up for the night behind the ursa bars, an’ now I need to go back on the river!”

  “Why you on the river? An’ what happened to your face?” said Tillinghast.

  “The man you were windin’ up punched me in the mouth,” said Wull. “You must’ve seen it, since it was your fault. Burst my lip an’ gave me a bloody nose.”

  “He din’t hit you ’cause I was windin’ ’im up—he hit you ’cause you lifted ’is beer. That was a bad move, was that.”

  “I’d have been fine wi’out you.”

  “You wouldn’t,” said Tillinghast, lifting half an apple into Wull’s bag, “but that’s not what I was meanin’. What’s under the bandage?”

  Wull’s hand went to his right cheek.

  “Some bradai took my money. One o’ them cut my face.”

  Tillinghast furrowed his brow. “If they took your money, why’d they cut you? Wun’t normally hurt kids. You din’t try fightin’ ’em, did you?”

  “I’m not a kid,” said Wull, “and no. I . . . I called them thievin’ scum.”

  Tillinghast laughed. “That’ll do it! Oh, you’s a stubborn one; mouth like yours’ll get you in plenty trouble an’ find you plenty fun.”

  “Sure,” said Wull, “my life’s a real carnival. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m goin’ to leave—seein’ as I’ll be spendin’ the night on the river I might as well get goin’. Thanks for all your help, ruinin’ my dinner an’ all.”

  “Why you on the river?” said Tillinghast, walking alongside him.

  “I’m goin’ down the coast, not that it’s any o’ your business,” said Wull.

  “I’s from down that way. Whereabouts on the coast?”

  “Canna Bay, an’ that’s none o’ your business either.”

  “Place I’s from is no more’n a two-day walk from there! I knows the land well, or I used to at any rate. ’In’t been back in, oh, twenty years. How come you’s headed that way? ’S a fishin’ town, ’in’t it?”

  Wull sighed. “I need to get somethin’ for my pappa. He needs help.”

  “Is that your boat?”

  “Yes. Good-bye.”

  “An’ is that your pappa?”

  “Yes, please go now.”

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “She’s a stowaway,” said Wull. “Please go away.”

  “It’s a fancy boat,” said Tillinghast, running his hand along the gunwale. “’In’t it painted all pretty?”

  “It’s called a bäta.”

  “Who’s this?” said Mix. She was sitting beside Pappa in the stern, propping the thin, sleeping body against her shoulder.

  “He jumped in an’ ruined me gettin’ some food,” said Wull.

  “We’ve been over this,” said Tillinghast, holding up a warning finger. “How come the boat’s got eyes?”

  “It’s got eyes?” said Mix. She leaned Pappa against the transom and climbed into the prow.

  “To guide the tiller,” said Wull, sighing, “an’ they keep evil spirits away. It’s traditional, for protection, I don’t know.”

  “Makes sense,” said Tillinghast, nodding. “Most boats should have eyes on ’em, I reckon. Seems like some folk should have an extra pair on their foreheads for jus’ the same reason. Right, well, I likes this boat well enough, you seem like a solid, if ungrateful, young man, an’ the kid with the thick hair seems harmless enough. I reckon I will come with you after all.”

  Wull paused in climbing into the bäta.

  “What?” said he and Mix in unison.

  “I’s decided to come with you,” said Tillinghast, climbing over behind Wull and settling in the stern. “Though you’ll need to do somethin’ about these seats, they’s terrible uncomfortable. Evenin’, fella, how’s you?” he added, nodding at Pappa.

  “Get out!” said Wull. “You can’t jus’ decide to come into this boat—it’s mine! An’ don’t talk to him; he doesn’t understand.”

  “Oh? What’s wrong with ’im? Deaf?”

  Wull saw Pappa’s head swing round, felt panic grip him.

  “No, I . . . look, jus’ go away!”

  “That’s my seat!” said Mix.

  “It’s my seat now, little miss, an’ I will not go away. You might think I’s done nothin’ to help you, but you was doin’ a terrible job o’ stealin’ that food—you was gonna get caught at some point an’ slung out on your ear, or worse. If you’d touched that Ruby’s beer when I wasn’t there, who knows what might’ve happened? Could be your old man would’ve seen your sliced-up body washin’ past him on the river there.”

  “Nobody had said anythin’ to me until then,” said Wull sullenly.

  “Ha! I’d been watchin’ you, an’ that means someone else was too.”

  Tillinghast tilted his hat forward, put his hands behind his head, and closed his eyes. His hessian sack was on his lap, his ankles crossed under the center thwart, and he looked completely at peace.

  “Blue man,” said Pappa.

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance,” said Tillinghast.

  “Please get out,” said Wull. “I don’t have any room for passengers, an’ I’m in a hurry.”

  “First, you’s lyin’—this is a right big boat, an’ you’s already got two passengers. Second, you’s gettin’ nowhere in any kind o’ hurry wi’out money or decent food. Din’t you at least pack somethin’ to eat between you?”

  “I told you, she’s a stowaway—an’ yes, I did!”

  “Stowaway’s harsh,” said Mix. “You said I could come.”

  Tillinghast shrugged. “Well?” he said.

  “I had salt fish an’ biscuits,” said Wull. “The bradai took most of that an’ all.”

  “They did a right number on you,” said Tillinghast, chuckling. “What’s your big rush for?”

  “Pappa,” said Wull, “he needs . . . help. Soon. I’ve only got a few days to get there.”

  “A few days, eh? So it seems you’s in a pickle, an’ for the second time in quick succession I’s here to solve your problems. Aren’t you lucky?”

  “An’ how’s that?” said Wull. Tillinghast was as insistent as the current, and he felt his tiredness yielding.

  “’Cause I’s got plenty coin, an’ no fear o’ bradai. I’ll give you enough for now to get someth
in’ out that inn, then we can be off. It fair suits me to take the load off my wand’rin’ legs for a bit, an’ this pretty boat o’ yours shall make for a fine means of conveyance.”

  “They won’t let me back in there, an’ I don’t fancy seein’ those men again,” said Wull. “That doesn’t help me at all.”

  Tillinghast tossed him a ha’penny coin. “Slip that to the cook at the kitchen door. She’ll see you right. I shall wait here for you. An’ might I say one more time that you are very welcome.”

  Wull stood, climbed reluctantly onto the jetty, looking at Tillinghast’s weight dragging the stern low in the water. Mix shrugged when he caught her eye, and in that moment he realized he’d never seen another living person in the bäta before. Except Pappa.

  “Might be a good thing, I suppose,” he said, looking at the coin, then at Pappa. “You can give me a bit o’ help wi’ rowin’.”

  “Oh, I’s not plannin’ on helpin’ row the damn thing, lad,” said Tillinghast, settling back farther into the seat. “I’s a payin’ customer. Hurry on now. I’s anxious to be off.”

  Oracco

  Rattell, hopping on his cushion in the cobble-bounced coach, was sweating. He had bathed in unchanged milk, and its sour green aroma filled the small space. Rigby and Pent, too heavy to bounce, sat opposite, watching their employer and sweating under their greatcoats.

  The air was dust-thick and sharp, coal-heated to prickliness before the coach was sent into the night. Already the men were uncomfortable. Only the light floral note of Pent’s tobacco pierced the foul air.

  “Rosie . . . I mean, Colonel Fettiplace, is not pleased!” said Rattell, shouting over the thudding clack of wheels and hooves. “He’s furious. He wants the mandrake. It’s his, and it’s all that’s left of his beloved lieutenant. There’s no limit to what he’ll do to get it . . . remember your tongue, Mr. Pent?”

  Pent nodded and opened his vacant mouth.

  “It was Rosie who did that—did it himself!” Rattell dabbed at his lips with his own dry tongue. “Now he wants us to destroy Tillinghast and k-kill anyone who’s helped him. ‘I don’t care how you do it,’ he said. ‘I don’t care how much of your ill-got money it costs you, and I don’t care if you or any of your thick-skulled trolls die trying: get me that mandrake or I’ll break you apart and bury you while you’re still breathing!’ He’ll bury us alive! N-now, you two, remember we’re not chasing a rational person, or even a real person; Tillinghast is a damned ho-homunculus—you remember the arm?”

  “We knows, Misser Rattell,” said Rigby sullenly. Both his eyes were swollen, deep-bruised with round, purple lumps that spread across the bridge of his nose. Pent nodded mutely beside him.

  “You know what that means? A homunculus? It means he’s not even a r-real man. He’s made of straw! Straw! Like a scarecrow! R-Rosie—I mean, Colonel Fettiplace—he gave me this dossier, Tillinghast’s whole history: where he was made, where he’s been. . . . Rosie knows everything! Everything! He’s been watching us too, and he knows. . . . If we don’t bring this damn mandrake back, he’s going to have us killed and buried in the city. He has spies everywhere . . . be careful to whom you speak. Be careful. . . . Rosie is watching everything. Everything!”

  Rattell’s eye was twitching, and his gaping pupils seemed to be focused somewhere behind Rigby and Pent, outside of the coach.

  “Like a scarecrow!” he said again.

  Rigby and Pent looked at each other.

  “We knows, Misser Rattell,” said Rigby again. “You said you had stuff what would help us kill ’im.”

  A glint came into Rattell’s eye. “I do, I do!” he said. He lifted a small painted box from the coach’s rattling floor and opened it in his lap. “You’ll need these,” he whispered. “These will do the job fine and well, and then Rosie will be pleased and he won’t kill us or bury us in the city.”

  “But what is they?” said Rigby.

  Rattell looked at him with his twitching eye. “He can’t be killed by conventional weapons,” he said quickly.

  “We knows, Misser Rattell,” said Rigby. Pent clenched his fists.

  “This,” said Rattell, lifting a velvet sleeve from the box, “is a rare and expensive p-piece. I sourced this through a contact in the Central Museum. It should be part of the collection of p-preindustrial occult weaponry, but she owed me a favor. They all do, eventually.” He withdrew a short dagger of dull metal and held it aloft.

  Pent made a disjointed sound.

  “Misser Pent says it’s a hay dagger, Misser Rattell,” said Rigby.

  “And he’s quite right, named for the shape of the hilt, I’m told, like a hay bale. Doesn’t that seem apt, given our quarry? Of course, a normal dagger would simply slip through his skin and tickle his straw. He’s a homunculus, remember, like a scare—a scarecrow. . . .” Rigby and Pent looked at each other again. “B-but it’s the material of this blade that makes the difference. . . .” Rattell slipped subconsciously into his sales voice, holding the dagger up on display. “This is made from a hundred coffin nails, each of which has soaked in the ground for a hun-hundred years before being exhumed and recast with essence of hawthorn. The homunculus is full of herbs and ma-magic and potions—this beautiful knife will put a stop to all their little workings and unravel him completely.”

  “Sounds good, Misser Rattell.”

  “Doesn’t it? It must be driven between his shoulder blades—there is a seam there in his straw—the knife will reach right into his middle. There’s only one bl-blade, sadly, but I have other little treats for you.”

  Rattell handed the dagger to Rigby, reached into the box, and withdrew three dark prickly lumps.

  “These are witch balls,” he said.

  Pent made a noise.

  “Misser Pent says he din’t think witches had balls,” said Rigby.

  Rattell flicked them a twitching eye. “They’re for cursing and be-bespoiling, designed for throwing. Cat fur, mostly, boiled up with animal bl-blood and hooves to make them set. But the most important inclusion is an item of the witch’s own personal lo-loathing, and it is this that gives them their cursing power. Rare things, these. They can be made only once a year in the nineteen days prior to the Night of the Hungry Ghosts. My associate managed to find a witch whose personal lo-loathing is for homunculi, so these will melt the skin from Mr. Tillinghast’s body.”

  Rattell rolled the witch balls in his palm.

  “They were purchased for a very steep price,” he said. “Each cost me a gold bar from my vault, so throw them with care.” He passed them to Rigby, who dropped them into his waistcoat pocket.

  “Finally,” said Rattell, “this clutch of herbaceous plants contains every growth that has gone into our straw friend’s manufacture. Burn this as you approach him—the aroma will weaken and disorient him. I’m told he’ll feel like he’s on fire.”

  Rattell passed the herbs to Pent, who sniffed them, then muttered noises in Rigby’s ear.

  “Misser Pent says they smells like old milk, Misser Rattell.”

  Rattell looked at Pent, who spat on the floor of the coach.

  “Yes . . . yes, perhaps,” said Rattell, sniffing the air. “Be mindful of this item—it cost me some further portion of my gold and the promise of a returned fa-favor. And be careful of its vapors; they’ll disorient the scarecrow, but they affect real people too. I’m told the hallucinations can be quite ho-horrific.”

  They lurched round a corner, through the city gates, and into the farmland beyond. Potholed and scattered with stones, the countryside was rougher even than the city cobbles, and Rattell hopped from his seat with each shuddering crash. He parted the curtains and peered out.

  “How I hate the countryside,” he said. “It’s brown and damp and it smells, but Tillinghast mentioned Lauston. R-Rosie’s spies saw him scurry that way too, and so we must scurry after him.”

 
The coach rumbled on. A few miles outside the city, the driver was halted by a trio of highwaymen, flashing short pistols and gold-capped smiles.

  The lead highwayman, a pale, rake-thin lip chewer named Greely the Nip, rapped on Rattell’s window and leered at him through the glass. While Rattell nodded stiffly back, Pent and Rigby exited the coach’s other door.

  Greely wiggled his toes as he eyed up the coach’s contents, already shuffling through his mental list of fences and traders.

  The last thing he remembered was a tap on his shoulder and the unlanguaged whisper of Mr. Pent’s fury.

  The Danék Wilds

  The oars waggled as Wull, belly warmed by a thick meat stew, tried to recapture the current’s thread. Tillinghast, lounging contentedly beside Pappa on the stern thwart, trailed his fingers in the bäta’s wake.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” said Wull, between gasps for breath. The bäta, already heavy and slow to turn with Pappa and Mix on board, was immeasurably more so with Tillinghast’s bulk gleaming in the back.

  “An’ how’s that?” said Tillinghast.

  “You’ll freeze your fingers, or a seula’ll come and nip them off for you.”

  Tillinghast laughed. “I reckons I’ll be fine, thanks all the same,” he said, and began making little splashes.

  “I’d rather you didn’t, is all.”

  “I heard you,” said Tillinghast, patting his huge, open palm on the water.

  “All right, Paps?” said Mix from over Wull’s shoulder.

  Pappa glowered through his brows.

  Wull spat over the side. The lights of Lauston had long faded into the distance, and the pain in his shoulders had resumed its droning throb. The wintered riverscape ranged up around him in jagged and unexpected ways, every inch of it unknown and unknowable. He checked over his shoulder every few strokes; the way ahead was strewn with the trunks of fallen trees and the constant turns of the river’s meandering way, throwing up new barriers of land whenever his back was turned.