Gullstruck Island

by Frances Hardinge

  ‘I have expressed myself with imperfect clarity,’ the governor cut in quietly but firmly. ‘We hope and intend that your Lady Lost should take over the duties of Milady Page immediately and read the tidings huts tonight. She will want to refresh herself, of course, and so the residence of Milady Page has been made ready for her to take possession of it. Our gathering here is the Lady’s official inauguration.’

  A bead of sweat trailed down the back of Hathin’s neck, burning like quicksilver. Her eyes darted from face to face. One young couple were dressed in deep mourning, the woman’s hair, temple and chin bound in the bandage-like Cavalcaste mourning headdress. The Pearlpit porters had said that a little girl in the town had died. Could these be her parents, staring at Arilou with acrid, black hostility? And there were the shopkeepers, arms locked across their chests like dropped door-bars. And Jimboly was here too, her face set and smileless, eyes fiercely inquisitive, Ritterbit flitting from one person’s shoulder to another.

  Something is in danger of happening. And, if I say no, it will happen here, now. If I say yes, then there’s a few hours for us to think of something . . .

  Arilou stepped forward unsteadily and put out a hand to close on the governor’s middle knuckle. Perhaps she had been attracted by his ring.

  ‘I thank you for the honour you do me,’ Hathin whispered, but it was hardly necessary. On some incalculable whim Arilou already seemed to have accepted.

  Only Hathin was permitted to stay in town with Arilou, perhaps because her presence was so negligible. Milady Page’s house smelt of the spices that had been used to sweeten the air and the resin burned to clear the premises of the taint of death.

  Lemon and cane-sugar juice in a slim glass decanter. Peaches. Stone flags with pictures on them. A clock with a hollow, pacing tick.

  Outside, the hanging heat, the black stares of the waiting townspeople. Hathin sensed their hostility and suspicion, but she did not fully understand it. Arilou’s mysterious survival must have set them all muttering. And yet they had invited her to Sweetweather.

  For that matter, what did Hathin herself suspect? She no longer knew. Skein’s letter had thrown her mind into confusion again.

  It was obvious the governor was convinced that the Lost had been murdered, and she could see why. I must continue my investigations, for the sake of Gullstruck, Skein had written. Deaths . . . disappearances . . . we are both in considerable peril. Skein had been investigating something on the Coast of the Lace and had stumbled upon a dangerous secret, one that he had not dared commit to paper even in a locked room. Could it be that he had discovered the threat that was about to wipe out the Lost?

  And if he had been killed by this great menace he described as threatening the whole island – then surely it had nothing to do with Arilou or the Hollow Beasts? But that made no sense. If none of the Hollow Beasts had killed him, then who had? Not to mention that the mooring rope of Prox’s boat was unlikely to have cut itself. But if one of the Hollow Beasts had killed Skein and loosed Prox’s moorings, then surely it could only have been to protect Arilou’s secret, with no connection to this greater mystery.

  If a Hollow Beast was responsible, who had it been? Hathin had a horrible feeling that Whish was right. The other villagers might have hesitated, but Hathin really could picture Eiven jabbing the Inspector with an urchin spine and then cutting the rope as deftly and dauntlessly as she had plucked the frayed paper pieces from Skein’s journal.

  Nobody can prove anything, she told herself. Whatever people here might suspect, there’s nobody to give evidence against any of us . . . Hathin halted mid-thought, sick at the realization that like the rest of the village she had been drawing comfort from the belief that Minchard Prox would never talk to anyone.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Prox,’ whispered Hathin into her hands as she imagined Prox’s boat overturned by the storm and his drowned body rolling along the sea floor, without the cremation that would give his soul peace. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .’

  Even while Hathin entertained these unquiet thoughts, in a little room leagues away words were spilling from the sunburnt mouth of a half-delirious man. Not far from his bedside, a quill scratched swiftly and neatly across the page, catching each and every word.

  9

  No More Names

  While the little clock gnawed away the hours, Hathin knotted kindling from the fire into a crude doll and with trembling fingers played the doll game over and over, just to give herself something to do.

  At least the Doorsy house did seem to have cured Arilou’s bad mood. From time to time her hand swung across to bat at the decanter, her way of asking for more lemon juice. After she had drunk, she would slump back droop-lidded and contented, with her tongue-tip peeping out between her lips.

  When at last there was a rap at the door, Hathin’s heart seemed to leap up and punch her in the throat. She fumbled the door open and found Lohan standing there.

  ‘I told them that the Lady Lost needed a spare attendant so that she could send for things,’ he explained as he sidled into the room. Hathin felt almost sick with gratitude. ‘So . . . ?’ He spread his hands in a tiny shrug. Is there a plan?

  ‘Perhaps . . .’ Hathin said in a small voice, ‘perhaps I will have to explain that Lady Arilou, being so new to this . . . isn’t able to find her way to the other tidings huts to read any of the news. But if I have to tell the towners that, they . . . they won’t be happy.’

  ‘It’ll do,’ answered Lohan. ‘Just until things calm down. And Lady Arilou,’ he gave a token nod in her direction, ‘would do well to remember that she is now the Lady Lost for the district, and if they don’t like what she says, they can go skin fish. If she scares them a bit, maybe they’ll back off.’

  And then Lohan would not let Hathin talk about the tidings huts any more. Instead he told fishing stories, many of them very funny, while the row of peach stones between them grew in length.

  The new Lady Lost’s escort arrived at the door just as the first stars were freckling the sky. There was no more time, and the three Lace stepped out and walked the route up towards the tidings hut, flanked by a small crowd of towners.

  At the clifftop was a stone hut with a domed palm thatch. Usually it presented a solitary silhouette against the sky, but tonight it was surrounded by a seethe of people. An unusually large number of people, even for a news night.

  Over the years Hathin had seen a little of the dance-speech of bees. This night it seemed as if the hanging lanterns around the shelter had done the same; as they swung agitated by the wind, ‘Honey this way,’ some of them seemed to say, but most were dancing ‘Trouble, trouble, time to swarm . . .’ The same bee fear was in the crowd’s movement, the waves of whisper.

  At last Arilou’s white flax gown attracted attention and the crowd moved forward. Hathin noticed the way they touched at her sleeve, reverent yet distasteful, eager but wary, their old dependence on the Lost warring with their distrust of the Lace.

  ‘Lady Arilou, find us the murderers of Milady Page, search the hills for brigands . . .’

  ‘Lady Arilou, tell us if eagles carried away the Lost Inspectors . . .’

  ‘Lady Arilou, you must see if any other Lost are alive . . .’

  ‘Who is it?’ A call from inside the shelter.

  ‘A young Lady Lost from one of the villages, Milady Lampwarden,’ came a cry from the crowd.

  Each hut was inhabited by a warden who was responsible for renewing the posters and keeping lanterns alight in the hut so that any wandering Lost could always read the messages. The lampwarden would also read aloud all of the messages in a cycle, for there were few Lost who read both Doorsy script and all the different styles of pictogram.

  ‘There’s a new young Lost? Why in the name of all that’s sweet did nobody tell me? Well then, let her come through!’

  The crowd parted, and Hathin led the unresisting Arilou up the steps into the shelter, past the hunched figure of the elderly lampwarden who stood in the
doorway. The old warden remained motionless, staring moodily out into the darkness. She seemed to be listening for something. All around her hung wooden tablets, deerskin squares carved with crude messages, pieces of painted bark. Amid the Doorsy messages there were some carved in the old, swollen pictograms, dream-like in their strangeness – birds with bunches of grapes for heads, serpents twisting around broken moons.

  Here was all the latest news of the town and surrounding villages and, most important of all, the news of the death of Milady Page and the disappearance of the Lost Inspectors. And in a moment everybody would expect Arilou to cast her mind out to all the other tidings huts and return with news from Smattermast and the rest of Gullstruck . . .

  ‘Our Lady Lost is very tired . . .’ Hathin was in no hurry to return to the crowds.

  ‘Then let her rest lest she sicken,’ whispered the old woman. ‘I think a plague has stricken the Lost, just as they say. This is the night when the mind of every Lost on the island should be passing through this hut. But none of them have visited.’

  ‘Doctor Warden . . . how can you tell?’

  ‘I can tell,’ the old woman said simply. ‘Everyone speaks of feeling a gaze on the back of the neck. Why should it matter if the gazing eyes are many miles away? I have taught myself to feel their gaze upon me. None of them have been here tonight.’

  Hathin stared at her. She had never heard of anyone who could sense the Lost’s presence and wondered if perhaps the old woman’s life alone on the clifftop had taken its toll on her wits. And yet . . . perhaps this woman could be an unexpected ally. Perhaps together they could convince everyone that Arilou was ill, needed more rest, more time . . .

  ‘A pair of eyes are now closed,’ whispered the old woman, returning to her seat. ‘Eyes like ice . . . silver, and star-staring.’ She ran her fingertips over her arms gently, as if chasing a sensation across her skin. ‘I looked into them once,’ she murmured, and Hathin realized that there were tears in the woman’s own pale eyes. ‘Once, when I was very young. He was a Lost, and although he did not seem to look at me, I felt his gaze shiver over me like an eel. And for the rest of the day I felt him watching me.’

  Hathin tried to imagine the old woman lithe and young, but it was too late to see the truth behind the jowls and pot belly.

  ‘I had to travel back to our village in the mist, and he must have lost track of me on the way. For months, every time I stood in a chill wind or breasted a wave I felt the cold of it and thought of him, and believed for a moment that he had found me again. But he had not.’

  ‘Did he . . . did he ever find you again?’ Hathin was fascinated, despite her own worry.

  ‘Yes – I made sure that he did, in the only way I could. I spurned all suitors and came to work as warden. On the first day, as I stood with my taper lighting one of my lanterns, I felt it again, like being stroked by feathers of cold. Gently stroked. I learned to feel other glances, but they were always quick, like a pat on the cheek. His was the only one that lingered.’

  You gave your life for a look, thought Hathin, unable to comprehend.

  ‘This is the first time he has missed his appointment,’ the warden said, chafing her hands together, the way Hathin had seen old women do at funerals. ‘He would not if his eyes could still open. They are closed, they are closed forever.’

  There was a sudden breeze from the doorway. One of the lanterns went out, releasing a wisp of smoke. As Hathin watched, the old woman walked from lantern to lantern, holding a hand up to each one in turn until she reached the dead one. Only as she watched her fumbling with her taper did Hathin understand the meaning of the warden’s slow, feeling motions. She was blind.

  Hathin hurried to help, guiding the taper. The warden smiled, and then her fingertips took a friendly hold of Hathin’s hand. The wrinkled fingers felt over Hathin’s twisted grass rings, then the shell jewellery on her wrists. The shadow crevasses in the woman’s face shifted and started to tremble. Abruptly she thrust away Hathin’s hand.

  ‘Get away from me! Filthy little Lace!’ Her blind eyes were like marble.

  ‘Hathin . . .’ Lohan was in the doorway, his face pinched with urgency. Still shattered by the old woman’s sea change, Hathin became aware that there was now a seethe of disquiet sounding from the crowd outside. ‘You have to talk to them. Leaving it any longer won’t make things better.’

  Shakily, Hathin led Arilou out of the hut. The noise of the crowd swiftly died, so that everyone could hear Arilou’s faint, molten incantations.

  ‘People of Sweetweather,’ declared Hathin, hearing a crack in her voice, ‘I have sent my mind abroad, and I am troubled. My spirit is weary and I could not see the lanterns of the tidings huts. Perhaps they are not yet lit . . .’

  A score or so of muted conversations began, alarmed, indignant, distrustful.

  ‘Why did you let a Lace in here?’ The old lampwarden’s voice suddenly seared through the night. ‘Why did you not tell me that a shell-fanged Lace was in my hut? Putting her filthy hands on my lanterns.’

  Buzz, buzz. Bee suspicion, bee rage.

  ‘What were you doing to the lanterns?’ somebody called out.

  ‘What did you people do to the lanterns in the other huts?’ came another cry.

  ‘Why don’t you want us to know what’s happening on the rest of the island?’

  ‘Oh, come on, children! It’s obvious why they don’t want us to know.’ Hathin would have recognized the raucous, humorous tone anywhere, even with the new bite to it. Somewhere amid the feverish crowd Jimboly was standing with her grin a-glitter, her bird dancing about her like an unquiet thought. ‘Think! Every hut dark except this one? Every Lost dead except the Lost of the Lace? What do you think they’ve been doing? What do you think Inspector Skein’s letter meant? You heard it! He knew he was going to die, that the Lace were going to kill him. Him and every other Lost on the island! He must have writ it down – that’s why they tore those pages out of his journal!’

  Jimboly knew. How could she know?

  ‘Here!’ Jimboly’s angular figure was just visible beyond the crowd, waving a piece of parchment over her head. ‘Here’s all the proof you need! Letter from the bedside of Mr Minchard Prox, washed ashore up the coast at Sapphire Hale! He says he was set adrift in that boat on purpose, his rope cut! And he says Skein wasn’t ever in that boat! So they lied! What other lies have they been telling?’

  Could it be true? Could Minchard Prox really be alive? But if he was, how had his letter found its way into Jimboly’s hand, instead of the pocket of the governor?

  Buzz, buzz, roar. Hathin felt the hatred like a blast of heat.

  ‘I am your Lady Lost!’ she shouted out against the tidal wave that seemed to be arcing over her. ‘I am your Lady Lost, and I demand . . .’

  Arilou suddenly wailed and lurched backwards. Hathin turned to look at her, saw her licking at a cut lip and realized that somebody had thrown something at her. Arilou’s voice rose from a groan to a harsh, full-lunged scream and she began to flail out with her arms, jarring the blade of her hand into the face of a man who had stepped forward to grab her robe.

  ‘My eye!’ He promptly doubled up and crouched on the floor. ‘She’s cursed my eye!’

  Desperately Hathin tried to drag clutching hands away from Arilou. The young woman in the mourning headdress lunged out of the darkness and seized Arilou by the shoulders.

  ‘Give me back my little girl’s soul!’ she screamed. ‘You took it and drank it down for its power – I can see her staring out of your eyes!’

  These were no longer people. A new expression knobbed and buckled the crowd’s features until their faces looked like fists. The tide of hands dragged Hathin and Arilou this way, that way.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Hathin screamed as she felt somebody take a fistful of her hair. ‘I am your Lady Lost! You do not know what I can do – if you do not unhand us, I will . . .’

  And as if in answer to a cue, there were a couple of screams and the c
rowd parted to show a glare of gold. Flames were licking around the doorposts of the tidings hut.

  More screams, and people rushing forward to kick dirt against the flames or slap at them with aprons or hands. Hathin felt the painful grip on her released as the crowd surged towards the hut, and she seized Arilou’s spasming arm. In a moment or two the crowd would remember the Lady Lost and notice her attendant dragging her desperately away along the dark path . . .

  Suddenly Lohan was at her side, commandeering Arilou’s other arm and pulling the older girl into a faster pace. His eternal smile still hung about his face, but his eyes had frightened sparks in them.

  ‘Let’s take the Ashlands,’ whispered Hathin. He nodded mutely, and they left the path and slipped across the undulating cemetery.

  ‘Lohan,’ Hathin whispered after they had been walking in silence for some time, ‘was it you who set fire to the hut?’

  ‘I had to distract them. They looked set to tear you to pieces. Any injuries?’

  ‘Somebody threw something that hit her in the mouth. She was bleeding, but not badly. I don’t think she’s lost any teeth.’

  ‘I was asking about you, actually.’

  Hathin shook her head numbly. ‘I can’t go back,’ she said in a tiny voice.

  ‘Nobody’s asking you to go back. The towners attacked their Lady Lost, so they don’t get a Lady Lost, and let’s see how they like it.’

  ‘No . . . I mean, I can’t go back to the village. I’ve . . . I’ve failed.’

  ‘You didn’t fail,’ Lohan muttered grimly. ‘Somebody else succeeded, that’s all. I got the chance to run around town listening to people before I came to find you. I had a good idea that someone was playing some kind of rumour game. Oh, the towners always look to us when they need someone to blame, but it’s her putting a point on their spear, it’s her giving them direction.