Riverkeep Page 14

“Oh, it’s severed, Miss Cantwell, torn clean off. It’ll be quite all right, let me assure you. Remedie’s a right lovely name. What’s it mean?”

  “Oh, I . . . Thank you. I was named for my grandmother. It means ‘a cure,’ or ‘a solution,’ I believe.”

  “’In’t that somethin’?” said Tillinghast. “An’ here’s me, nursin’ a broken heart. . . .”

  “Right,” said Wull, “what was all that about? How were you able to do that? An’ what’s a homunculus?”

  “You’re a homunculus?” said Remedie. She looked properly at Tillinghast’s hand for the first time, at the straw leaking from the stump.

  “O’ course,” said Tillinghast. He smiled at her again. “I’s made from the parts of several men, Miss Cantwell. The best parts, let me assure you . . .”

  “What?” said Wull. “You’re made from bits of other people?”

  “You’s mibbe not as bright as I’d given you credit,” said Tillinghast. “I’s got scars on all my major joints. Did you think I was jus’ clumsy?”

  “I didn’t really think about it. There could be lots o’ folk with scars like that. It’s jus’ that none o’ them drowned in my river.”

  “It makes sense, of course,” said Remedie. “A real man would never have withstood—”

  “Whoa!” said Tillinghast. “Enough with the ‘real man’ talk, please. I’s a real man an’ quite a man an’ quite well made, see, an’ I’ll show you right now if it pleases you. . . .”

  “Absolutely not!” said Remedie, clutching her blouse around her collar. “A real gentleman would never suggest such a thing!”

  “Oh, you’s quite right about that,” said Tillinghast, winking.

  “So, you’re a homunculus?” said Wull.

  “I feel like we’s established that already,” said Tillinghast, “an’ I’s proud of it an’ all. Made o’ the best—”

  “Please don’t say it again,” said Wull.

  Tillinghast coughed, then added quickly, “Parts.”

  “Yes, I think we all get it,” said Wull as Remedie clucked with disgust.

  “How could you not?” said Mix, emerging from the forest’s edge, rubbing her eyes as though having woken from a nap.

  “Are you degradin’ my humor, little miss?” said Tillinghast, trying to force his severed hand back on.

  “You’ve done most o’ that legwork,” said Mix.

  “What’s your name, child? Are you hurt?” said Remedie.

  “Mix,” said the girl, “an’ no, I’m all right. Bit of a headache though—that smoke! Who’re you?”

  “I’m Remedie Cantwell. Wulliam and . . . Mr. Tillinghast saved me from an ursa.”

  “’S impressive stuff,” said Mix, sharing a look with Wull. She turned to Tillinghast. “Homunculus, eh? That explains the blue skin.”

  “Does it?” said Tillinghast. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Whose heart’ve you got?”

  “Boxer,” said Tillinghast proudly, “fittest man there ever was.”

  “An’ whose blood? The boxer’s?”

  “I . . . ’in’t got blood, really. . . .”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why’ve you got a heart if you got no blood?”

  “Well, shall we get goin’ then?” said Tillinghast, turning away. “Let me help you aboard, Miss Cantwell. . . .”

  “Don’t touch me, you rude man!” said Remedie, shaking off his hand.

  “No, wait! Get out!” said Wull. “I’m not runnin’ a bloody passenger service! I’m in a hurry, an’ Pappa’s missin’! Mix, you snuck on an’ even if you’s helpin’ with Pappa I need to move faster, so you might as well get out here. An’, Miss Cantwell, I’m right glad I was able to help you out an’ all, but I’m in a hurry an’ can’t be slowed down with the extra weight. I can’t help that I needs your money,” he said, turning on Tillinghast, “so we are goin’ nowhere till I find Pappa! He’s still wanderin’ around those woods, an’ who knows what’s happened to him? That ursa might still be around, so you’ve got to help me before we get on our way.”

  “Well, that’s rude,” said Mix.

  “Wulliam,” said Tillinghast, “I’ll help you find your old man, course I will. But d’you mean to say that you, protector o’ this river, is goin’ to leave a couple o’ young women—one with a tiny little baby—here alone? It’s the kind o’ thing I would do, but—”

  “The baby’s not . . . it’s not real,” said Wull. “It’s made o’ wood.”

  “What?” said Tillinghast, looking at Remedie, who held the baby closer to her. “You mean we’s been nearly killed an’ had our hands bit off so’s we could nobly protect a paperweight?”

  “That’s even ruder,” said Mix.

  “His name is Bonn, and I don’t care for him to be spoken about in that manner,” said Remedie.

  Tillinghast rubbed his eyes. “Mibbe you’s right,” he said, looking at Wull. “That’s nutty.”

  “Seems a bit rich comin’ from a homunculus what’s carryin’ a mandrake in a sack,” said Mix.

  “Who’s carryin’ a mandrake,” said Tillinghast, rounding on her. “An’ I’ll give you a right smack for lookin’ through my pers’nal belongin’s!”

  “You’ve got a mandrake?” said Remedie. “Then what can you possibly have against my Bonn? Why, he’s no different from a mandrake or even you, sir, when all’s said and done.”

  “It’s not my mandrake! An’ I’s nothin’ like that! I’s quite the—”

  “Will you all shut up?” shouted Wull. “I don’t know what a mandrake is, an’ I’m not askin’. I need to find Pappa now, so stop wastin’ my time!”

  He stormed off into the closed silence of the forest, stepping over the wrecked splinter of the one remaining oar, and walked for quite a long way through the unseeing fog of his anger before he realized he was completely, hopelessly lost.

  Lauston

  “So, Mr. Ruby—”

  “’S jus’ Ruby,” said Ruby, his battered face white-wrapped with bandages. “Here—c’n you smell sour milk?”

  “No, I can’t,” said Rattell. He blinked away some water from the corners of his eyes. “Ruby, you believe that Mr. Tillinghast was in here tonight—with his son?”

  Ruby nodded.

  “’S what he said jus’ before he nutted me. He said, ‘Tha’s my son, you blaggard.’ Din’t he say that, Errol?”

  A small man with a face like a boiled beet nodded. “Aye, ’e said that, Ruby.”

  “He called me a blaggard an’ everythin’, an’ that’s mean,” said Ruby.

  “It sure is, Ruby,” said Errol.

  Rattell dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. There was a smell of cheese, now he came to think about it. It seemed to have followed him from the coach.

  “It seems very unlikely that this was Mr. Ti-Tillinghast’s son, Ruby,” he said, “but it matters only that he was here.” He dabbed at his eyes again and took a deep breath. “Could you describe him to us?”

  “Oh, sure, he was big, nearly big’s me, an’ well built, like, strong lookin’. He’d a stupid hat an’ . . . an’ . . . what else, Errol?”

  “He carried ’n air o’ wistful melancholy, Ruby,” said Errol, finishing his drink.

  “Yeah,” said Ruby, “that.”

  “I see,” said Rattell. He turned to Rigby.

  “What color skin’d ’e have?” said Rigby.

  “I dunno,” said Ruby.

  “Azure,” said Errol. “No, more like . . . duck egg. Can I ’ave another drink?”

  “Of course,” said Rattell. “Mr. Pent, if you wouldn’t mind?”

  Pent, his craggy face impassive as ever, grunted and walked to the bar. Errol beamed on his stool.

  “Ruby,” said Rattell, “how would you like to see Mr. Tillinghast again?”

  �
�I’d like it a lot,” said Ruby. “If I’d seen ’im comin’, he’d never’ve got the better o’ me. If I sees ’im again, I’ll be ready an’ I’ll give ’im a proper kickin’.”

  “Wonderful,” said Rattell. “It just so happens that m-my associates and I are looking for Mr. Tillinghast as well. Was he carrying anything with him? A bag of any kind?”

  “I dunno,” said Ruby.

  Rattell looked at Errol.

  “He’d an ’essian sack o’er his shoulder when ’e left,” said Errol.

  “He still has that which we seek!” said Rattell, shooting a glance at Rigby. “Ruby, I’d like for you to try and find Mr. Tillinghast. Ask around, prod into the dreary little co-corners of your world, and when you do find him, you can hurt him as much as you like. But don’t kill him; it is for me to kill him! And you must ensure that his sack is returned to me, do you understand?”

  “No,” said Ruby.

  Rattell looked at Errol.

  “Kick ’is head in, don’t kill ’im, cut ’is knackers off, an’ post ’em to Mr. Rattell ’ere,” said Errol.

  “N-no!” said Rattell, wringing his hands. “Not his . . . the sack over his shoulder! It contains something of great va-value.”

  “Oh,” said Ruby and Errol together.

  Pent returned with two tankards of ale, which he placed on the table. The men lifted them and drank with grim, seasoned swiftness.

  “Can you do that, Mr. Ruby?”

  Ruby finished the ale, wiped his mouth, and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “C’n I get some money now?”

  Rattell took out his purse, counted five coins into Ruby’s palm.

  “There’s five ducats to start you off—if you do as I’ve asked, there’ll be ten times that for you.”

  “Oh,” said Ruby.

  “’S another fifty ducats,” said Errol.

  “Oh,” said Ruby. “Right then. Said he was goin’ down the coast, I heard.”

  “Then that is where we shall go—I need you to ensure this is not a ruse on his part. You should go into the hills—start in the villages on the Crissle Road, ask for him there. He’ll leave a trace wherever he’s been; he won’t be hard to track.”

  Ruby held his coins tightly in his fist. His eyes gleamed. “What’s ’e got in that bag? ’S it worth more’n fifty ducats?”

  Rattell leaned toward him.

  “It is a mandrake. Do you know what that is?”

  Ruby looked at Errol, who shrugged.

  “It’s a magical plant grown from a hanged man’s seed,” said Rattell. “Mandrakes are rumored to carry their . . . father’s . . . person, or soul. Mr. Ti-Tillinghast has the last remaining mandrake grown from the spillage of a notorious criminal much beloved of my employer. That means the most d-dangerous people in the land are now bent on its recovery, making it perhaps the most valuable item currently in existence, if one measures value in the lives it may ultimately c-cost. Should you so much as breathe on it, Ruby, these people will obliterate you utterly—so I suggest you leave it to us.”

  Ruby looked at Errol.

  “Means they’s scary sods an’ they’ll kill you, Ruby,” said Errol.

  “Right,” said Ruby, then left the inn, Errol sloping at his heels.

  “Nothin’ll come of them lookin’, Misser Rattell,” said Rigby.

  “I know, but it can hardly hurt, can it? Another person looking for that sc-scarecrow is another chance we’ve got of finding him. If it only costs me five ducats, I’m happy. Yes, I’m happy!”

  Pent made a noise.

  “Misser Pent says that’ll be the last you see of your ducats, Misser Rattell.”

  “And so what if it is?” shouted Rattell, striding past his looming henchmen and back toward the coach. “If he’s going to the coast”—he flicked through the dossier of Tillinghast’s history—“aha! Look, there, this ruin of a house is where he was born. . . . Not born—made! Gathered from the fields and knitted like a sock! He thinks he’s being so clever, leading us here—but we’re one step ahead of him now!”

  “What about this boy ’e was with? ’Is son?”

  “He has no son, you fool. He’s got no . . . none of the . . . It doesn’t matter what! If he escapes us, then Rosie will find out and I’ll be buried in the foundations of some horrid building with you two lumps in the pillars beside me, dribbling in that infuriating manner for the rest of time!”

  “Now, Misser Rattell,” said Rigby, looking at the shining black strip of the Danék, “you mustn’t worry ’bout that. I reckon Misser Fettiplace changed his mind ’bout all that already.”

  “And how would you know what ‘Mr. Fettiplace’ is thinki—No!”

  But Rigby’s knife was already in Rattell’s neck, sawing at the back of his windpipe in patient strokes until, in a shower of crimson and torn flesh, his throat tore open.

  The little man fell, crawling in agony, holding his neck together to snatch a desperate gasp with trapped, animal squeaks. Pent stood on Rattell’s hands, watched the bubbles pop in his open wound, and waited until the breath left him completely.

  “Sorry, Misser Rattell, ’s jus’ that ev’ry man’s got ’is price, an’ yours’s been paid by Misser Fettiplace. I hopes it’s a comfort to know it was more’n five ducats,” said Rigby, flipping Rattell’s body over with the toe of his boot. He laughed and wiped the dagger on his greatcoat. “Right, let’s get his—”

  Pent made a noise in his ear. Rigby’s eyes widened.

  “Gods, don’t . . .” he began, but Pent’s knife was already hilt deep in Rigby’s skull. The big man’s eyes rolled upward into whiteness, water pouring unchecked down his cheeks, pooling in the bags of his eyes, and mixing with blood from his nose. He gasped, a thin wheeze that wound to nothing as his heart stopped beating and he slumped, lifeless, in Pent’s hands.

  Pent pulled back his dagger, the blade moving through bone with the shrill jerk of scraped cutlery, a whistle of purple blood following it into the freezing air. Rigby’s body fell to the ground.

  Pent removed the coffin-nail dagger and the witch balls from Rigby’s pockets, along with the money and the sharp little trinkets that were the tools of a henchman’s trade, slipped the dossier of Tillinghast’s life from Rattell’s coat, and emptied the little man’s wallet into his own.

  He stood, swept the blood from his flat cheeks.

  First, Ruby. With a few tugs of leather, he uncoupled Colonel Fettiplace’s prize stallion from the coach and hopped into the saddle, his blade-lined coat tinkling softly.

  Half an hour later came the rattle of five ducats hitting the coins in his pocket, and Pent was riding for the coast.

  13

  Drebin Woods

  Seula: literally, “water dog.” An omnivorous, semi-aquatic, snub-snouted, fin-footed mammal common in all regions of the world. Hunted for their fur and blubber, they are considered vermin in townships dependent on the fish that even a small hurtle (defined as five or more seulas) can consume by the hundredweight, and so these peaceful creatures are often poisoned or shot on sight. Elsewhere, they are frequently woven into myth as water-dwellers who were once human; this is most likely due to their eyes, which change from gold in summer to pale blue in winter, and their immensely tactile and sensory whiskers, which give them a pleasant and anthropic face. Although they lack external ears, their other senses are acute—both on land and in water. And though largely docile, competing males use their advanced upper incisors in mating season to battle for rights to females.

  —Encyclopedia Grandalia, University of Oracco Print House

  Wull was surprised by how quickly his eyes had grown accustomed to the moonless gloom. In the hours he’d been walking—dragging his stumped feet over frozen ground and pushing aside thickets of green ice with his bruised wrist—he’d thought back to the days and nights in the bäta’s stern, watching Pappa row, hot-wrapped
with shirts of gut, tight in the skins of seula and elk, thinking himself cold.

  Pappa was right—it hurt to breathe now. The cold was an iron clamp on his head, needling through his teeth into his gums, its agony buzzing around him like a fly swarm, an insistent haze in his face wherever he turned.

  He had called to Pappa at first, then thought better of it. There could be scores of ursas around, and only one would be freshly wounded by Tillinghast’s blows—the others would pounce on him without hesitation, and he wouldn’t have an oar to buy himself time. So he’d walked and kept as keen an eye as the cold would allow, blinking through the ice crystals.

  As he’d blundered away, he’d heard Tillinghast, Remedie, and Mix shouting his name, but he’d ignored them and plowed on through his rage. By the time the tempest of his mood had calmed, they were gone and he was lost, with no way of knowing even where the river was, no way of finding his way back to the bäta, and no moon to guide him.

  And even if he did somehow find the bäta, he had no way of getting it moving with the ursa having shattered the oars, no way of getting home, and no chance of making it to Canna Bay in time to save Pappa.

  And Pappa was gone.

  Could it really be just that morning that Mrs. Wurth had come to the boathouse?

  Wull heaved his breath into the fabric of his collar and closed his eyes, walked without seeing, hands out, stump fingers grasping at the trees, his feet finding their own way through the roots.

  He should have stayed at home. Choosing to abandon the river had been madness; he had let it freeze solid for the first time in more than a hundred years, and for what? So he could hand all their money to bradai, lose Pappa in the ursa-filled forest, and set the bäta to ruin on the riverbank?

  Even in the cold, he felt the swollen heat of the bradai’s cut, felt his heart beating through the meat of his face, fingers of pain spreading out into his body like the roots of a weed.

  He had ruined everything.

  Never get out the bäta, Wull thought. And what have I done? Got out and kept going, that’s what.