Gullstruck Island

by Frances Hardinge

  After a few moments Tomki sighed, sat down and continued cheerfully feeding roots to his bird.

  ‘We do need you,’ Hathin said gently. ‘We need some rumours spread in town. You don’t look Lace and you’re good at talking to people.’ Tomki listened attentively as Hathin explained.

  ‘So Dance wants me to do this?’ he asked hopefully.

  Hathin bit her lip, wanting to say yes.

  ‘It was my idea,’ she admitted.

  It was dusk the next day when Jimboly started to notice the mood of the town changing. Until that point she had been listening to it pop and crackle, warming her hands at it and occasionally stopping to throw another log on the fire. Now, however, there was a change of tone in its spit and roar, as if it was devouring new fuel or the wind had changed without warning.

  Her first hint of danger came when she drew near to the hideout of her new child friends and heard a whispered conversation suddenly hush. She stooped to peer under the house, and there was a sudden flurry of scuffles. She found herself looking into an empty ditch, mud gouged crazily by small bare feet.

  She walked into the market and knew that something was wrong. She could almost sense rumours weaving from mind to mind, whining like mosquitoes on the edge of her hearing. And yes, the town should have been full of rumours, but her rumours, not these strange scraps that floated to her ears.

  ‘. . . tear many city apart . . .’

  ‘. . . bird servant, send bird gofetch gossip and secrets . . .’

  ‘. . . death rattle in pack . . . can kill with thought muchas knife . . .’

  ‘. . . yesterday bewitch Bewliss . . .’

  ‘. . . flickerbird witch . . . flickerbird witch . . .’

  What? What? Jimboly’s smile faded. The great, sleepy eye of the city had suddenly turned its baleful gaze upon her. Why? How? This was rumour-magic, mob-craft, her game – and somebody was playing it against her.

  She suddenly felt exposed. It was the flickerbird making her obvious. She tried to coax Ritterbit into her coat by sprinkling seeds in her kerchief, but he was restless.

  ‘Please, ’itterbittle, I don’t want to have to wring your pretty neck. I really don’t.’ She tucked him into her collar again, and wound his leash tight about her hand.

  ‘Overthere witch!’ Jimboly’s erstwhile drinking companions, headed by Bewliss, were stamping their way towards her through the rain-churned mud. At a glance she took in their tinderbox mood, their air of resolution.

  ‘Keep away! Murderer!’ she screamed. Best to keep them on the defensive. Sure enough, the new arrivals’ pace faltered. ‘Trick me yesterday, make me join march! I no join march if know Bewliss plan climb wall to kill Superior! Murderer!’

  Bewliss’s party halted in confusion, then dissolved into simultaneous bellowing, some at Jimboly, some at Bewliss, some at those who had been drawn from their houses by the noise.

  ‘Hey! What gopass?’

  Poor Bewliss could not understand what had happened. One minute he had been the leader of a plucky gang of crusaders, and now he was surrounded by noise and dangerous faces.

  ‘Thisere woman witch!’ he shouted. ‘Can prove! Folk say death rattle in bag, fullof teeth belong-dead. Grab pack! Lookin pack!’

  ‘No let Bewliss near! Want kill me!’ A little more confusion, thought Jimboly, and I can run. But at that very moment Ritterbit’s leash unhooked from her necklace, and he flew up into her hair from which he used his tail to signal to the world.

  ‘Flickerbird! Look! Is her! Everyone talk of woman got flickerbird! Flickerbird witch! Flickerbird witch!’ The cry was taken up by the whole crowd. ‘Grab pack! Lookin pack! Empty pack!’ Jimboly was seized, and her pack rent from her shoulders. Off came the two underslung cages, and four scrawly miserable pigeons suddenly found that they were free. Out fell the children’s toys, the stones painted to look like frogs and fish. Jimboly’s tooth-pulling tools hit earth with a silvery clatter. Her hideous dolls with real teeth were passed from hand to hand in horror.

  ‘Look! Here rattle!’ The yellowing rattle was brandished aloft. ‘No shake rattle! Set down gentle, break open!’

  A man with a machete strode forward, knelt beside the rattle and then hacked it apart. There was a brief hush as everybody peered into the split husk.

  ‘True! All true! Rattle fullof teeth! Grab flickerbird witch!’

  ‘No touch!’ screeched Jimboly as she leaped away from them and stood gripping Ritterbit’s leash. ‘Bird belong-me got thread from many soul, from all soul in Jealousy, from soul belong-allyou. Take step closer, bird go free, unravel allyou! Keep back!’ And before any of them could recover their presence of mind, Jimboly was darting away between the houses. Only when she was hiding in the wreckage of a house that had been destroyed during the riots two days before did she stop to recover her breath.

  Somebody had known about her death rattle. How? Who? Had she ever told anyone about it? She chewed softly at nothing as she tried to remember, and then a gradual look of disbelief and venomous rage spread across her face. Yes. There was one person who knew.

  29

  A New Sister

  Barely a day after his rumoured death, the Superior called another meeting of his new secret ‘council of war’.

  Death transforms everybody, but in the case of the Superior the change had been very much for the better. After the initial shock, he had taken to being dead with zeal.

  At first he had blushed at the idea of erecting a tomb the equal of his predecessors’, but Hathin had kindly suggested that his grieving people would insist upon it. As if to prove her right, anonymous tributes started turning up at the gates of his palace. Scented herbs, sticks tied into man-shapes to act as servants, shards of obsidian, model carriages. So he had flung himself delightedly into devising epitaphs, commissioning statuary and assembling an interminable list of what he would require for the afterlife. It was as though he had become real to himself for the first time.

  It was a new, brisk Superior who confronted the council of war, a scroll clutched in his hand, voice raised to compete with the rumble of rainfall on the roof above.

  ‘I would like to know,’ he began without preamble, ‘what I, as a dead man, am supposed to do in response to this.’ He flourished a scroll of rich, apricot-coloured parchment and stared a challenge about him before realizing that the assembled company had no idea of its contents. ‘Ahem. This letter has just arrived from Mistleman’s Blunder, from Minchard Prox, Nuisance Control Officer, Agent with Special Powers Relating to the Lace Emergency and so forth. You know, I do wish you people had chosen your enemies better, perhaps someone who didn’t have free rein to create and enforce emergency laws.

  ‘Anyway, this letter reminds me that, according to the latest decrees, all Lace are to be placed in the new permanent “Safe Farms”, where the greater population will be safe from them and vice versa. All those harbouring or supplying Lace may be arrested and their holdings confiscated.’ The Superior did not seem to notice the Doorsy elements of the ‘council’ exchanging swift, anxious glances. ‘One of these Safe Farms already exists, near Mistleman’s Blunder, and he asks – no, demands – that my private store of Lace be delivered over to the proper authorities at this Farm. There’s even a map.’

  ‘Safe Farms . . .’ One of his deputies cleared his throat and directed a suspiciously bland look towards the Superior and then around at the assembled Lace. ‘Sir, these do not sound so very bad. Perhaps it might indeed be better . . . rather than risk more riots . . . after all, there are children here who might get hurt . . . it might even be kinder . . .’ He trailed off as Jaze translated and he felt two dozen Lace eyes fixed upon him.

  ‘Can we see the map?’ Jaze asked suddenly. After a moment’s hesitation the Superior held it out, and Jaze donned his amber monocles and unrolled it. He said nothing, but his head gave a small upwards flinch. He passed the map to Dance without a word. She did not move, but something in her whole aspect seemed to change, and Hathin thoug
ht of mountains blackening beneath a sudden sweep of cloud-shadow.

  The scroll passed from hand to hand like a spark down a fuse, and reached the gunpowder that was Therrot. The deputy who had spoken winced before a hissing, spitting onslaught of Lace swearwords.

  ‘Safe?’ Therrot spluttered into Nundestruth at last. ‘Safe? Safe Farm here.’ He turned the scroll about and held it above his head. ‘See? Here. Spearhead. High Spearhead. Just under Spearhead mouth.’ Half disbelieving, Hathin followed the jab of his forefinger with her gaze. Yes, there it was, right under the red-centred blotch of Spearhead’s crater, a green space neatly bordered with ruled lines. Something about the stark lines of it reminded Hathin of the painted maps in Bridle’s workshop, but she could not pin down why the memory left such an ominous impression on her mind.

  ‘But,’ the deputy was trying to recover his feet, ‘your people always claim to have a special relationship with the volcanoes . . .’

  ‘And our young friend over there attends upon his lordship the Superior,’ Jaze said icily, gesturing towards Hathin, ‘but she does not march into his bedroom beating a drum. No lord likes trespassers, and Lord Spearhead is unforgiving. That –’ he gestured towards the map – ‘is not a farm. It is an oven. Sooner or later it will cook hundreds of men, women and children to white ash.’

  There was a horrified hush.

  ‘And the other Safe Farms . . .’ the Superior broke the silence. ‘Are these also to be built on volcanoes, in accordance with this highly original definition of “safe”?’ The question was addressed to nobody in particular, and nobody in particular answered.

  ‘If I send back a refusal, we’ll have a militia on our doorstep in no time,’ said the Superior curtly, ‘but since I am currently dead for the sake of my health I can at least buy us time. Prox’s messenger will be made comfortable and told that I am “indisposed”.’ The little man drew himself erect. ‘I see right through their game. They mean to soften me up and scare me by turning my city against me, then bully me into giving up my supplies. But I am neither a coward nor a fool – I am the Duke of Sedrollo.’ He seemed to become aware that the simple magnificence of this statement was rather diluted by the way the long sleeves of his century-old robe drowned his hands.

  ‘Now – we all have more urgent matters to consider, do we not? This woman, this rabble-rouser . . . Jumbly . . . has she been found yet?’

  Rumours of Jimboly’s flight from an angry mob had reached the palace, and Tomki related the story with visible relish and a hint of modest pride.

  ‘Gone to ground, eh?’ said the Superior. ‘That’s good, young man, but not good enough. She’s still at loose in my town, and she must be found.’

  There were some murmurs about the difficulty of searching every house, the ease with which a single woman could hide and the dangers of sparking another riot if armed guards started beating doors in.

  ‘What the devil are you all talking about?’ The Superior waved a wild hand, which was instantly engulfed by his enormous sleeve again. ‘Beating down doors? Are you all mad? Surely the very crux of our situation, the cause of all our dilemmas, is the fact that we have a Lost. A Lost! Who can send her mind anywhere in the town she pleases!’ He stared about him at the rows of gaping faces. ‘Can she not? Am I missing something?’

  ‘No . . .’ Jaze’s startled face had slipped helplessly into a broad Lace smile. ‘No. I rather think we were. It’s . . . It’s worth an attempt, sir.’

  ‘Good. Well, put Lady Arilou on to the job immediately. And . . . And send me my tailor!’ The Superior clutched impatiently at the dragging skirts of his ancestral robe. ‘I should have had this robe taken in years ago.’

  It seemed unwise to send the Sours visitors they would not recognize, so an hour later Hathin, Therrot and Jaze were picking their way gingerly up the path to the Sour village.

  As they walked Hathin wondered at the way one could become used to certain kinds of danger. While everyone in town cringed in the face of Crackgem’s current excitability, Hathin had come to accept it. Crackgem might destroy them if they bored him, or he might not. She had grown as used to that thought as she had to the smell of sulphur.

  ‘Want see Laderilou?’ Jeljech appeared by their side. She seemed to have become an honorary member of Arilou’s ‘second family’. Hathin nodded, and the older girl took her arm and led her further up the path, to a shelf of rock where another Sour girl was sitting with her legs dangling over the edge, five or so small children seated around her.

  Hathin’s first thought was that she must have misunderstood her guide’s question. Where was Arilou?

  There. There on the shelf, dressed in the greens and yellows of the Sour village, her legs mannish in thick cloth leggings, her expression distant but radiant with delighted concentration. One of the smaller boys stood with his back to Arilou, and as Hathin watched he steepled his hidden hands together, fingertips touching. The other children watched Arilou expectantly, and after a few moments in which her jaw wobbled with effort, she clumsily moved her hands to imitate the gesture, to the delight of her audience.

  Hathin could only stand and gape. She waited for the surprised joy to come, but it did not. Instead she felt a sudden desire to sit down right there and bawl herself hoarse. This was a mockery of all the years she had spent in attendance on Arilou, trying to coax the tiniest response from her, the slightest acknowledgement of her existence.

  ‘She . . . You’re not looking after her right!’ Hathin turned on their guide, surprising herself. ‘She doesn’t like to sit like that, there’s nothing supporting her back, you’ve left her where she can fall, and . . . and the stone there is all hard edges; she’ll cut herself!’ Hathin’s tirade was met by a look of bewilderment, and she realized that she had been babbling in Lace. She dropped her gaze, face burning, took a deep breath and was glad that she had not been understood.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ Therrot jogged into view, perhaps drawn by Hathin’s shrillness. Hathin nodded mutely.

  ‘Ath’n,’ said Arilou. To judge from her face, she was still gazing at the horizon, but now she was smiling. Not a Lace or a Sour smile, a broad, loose monkey grin with a lovable shamelessness to it, a hint of childlike guile. Another instant and it pulled apart like a bow and was gone. But it was enough. Suddenly Hathin was warm from toe to tip and she forgave Arilou everything, everything.

  The smaller children made room for Hathin to sit beside Arilou. As she began to go through all the little grooming gestures that had become as much a part of her own life as blinking or breathing, she felt her restive mind fill with calm and a sense of completeness. Arilou’s hair was free of burrs, but Hathin combed it with her fingers anyway.

  Arilou. It was as if Hathin had always known she had a sister and was meeting her for the first time in this strange landscape. The combing motion was achingly familiar, but the sense of Arilou’s awareness, the spider-thread of connection, was new. Had it been quietly weaving into place as they travelled? Or had the tiniest strand of it always been there?

  It was five minutes before Hathin could bear to break the silence.

  ‘Arilou . . .’ She hesitated. For those few minutes the sense of link to Arilou had been so strong that she had quite forgotten the language gulph between them. She glanced across at her erstwhile guide, who was fidgeting at a respectful distance. ‘Um . . . Pleaseyou tell Laderilou I want her look town. Lookout Jimboly. Bird lady.’ Hathin scrabbled in her pouch and brought out the little carving that Louloss had made of Jimboly’s head.

  Arilou listened to the Sour girl’s translation, but when she was handed the wooden head the corners of her mouth drooped in a child-like expression of distress. Hathin remembered Jimboly slyly throwing a rock at the back of Arilou’s head and did not wonder at her sister’s reaction.

  ‘Tell Laderilou I no like Jimboly too,’ Hathin added, giving Arilou’s long hand a squeeze. Something in Arilou’s expression changed very slightly, and Hathin sensed that her sister’s m
ind had flitted away.

  While Therrot and a couple of the other Sours sat with Arilou, Jeljech insisted on showing Hathin around a hut, patting the blankets on the bedding mat and showing her a bone comb, a wooden water jug shaped like a bird. It took a while for Hathin to realize that these were Arilou’s living quarters, and that her guide was watching nervously to see if Hathin approved of them. She beamed as best she could, and nodded, fighting the temptation to be jealous of Jeljech in her role as one of Arilou’s new Sour ‘sisters’. Perhaps sensing her conflict, Jeljech seemed determined to defer to her, despite the difference in age.

  ‘Laderilou practise say . . .’ The Sour girl faltered, then gave the sentence another run up. ‘Practise say . . . Hhatph-hin.’

  Non-Lace often had trouble with Lace names. They were not simply based on natural sounds, they were supposed to imitate them, even in ordinary speech. Strangers were often baffled at hearing a stream of Lace interrupted by impressions of birdcalls, fire-like crackles and rushing sounds of wind and water. Jeljech’s attempt at speaking Hathin’s name made her sound as though she was choking on feathers.

  Hathin laughed to cover the mistake as she would have done when talking to another Lace, then winced as Jeljech looked offended. The Sour village was so much like her own in some ways that it was easy to stub one’s toe against the hidden differences.

  ‘No matter.’ The girl shrugged, a little hostile. ‘You got new name. We give name.’

  Hathin bit her lip as the Sour girl carefully spoke a phrase in her own language, trying to gauge whether her ‘new name’ would be a veiled insult. The names non-Lace threw at Lace were seldom kind.

  ‘Name mean . . .’ The translator bent her arms, so that her spread hands were level with her shoulders and seemed to strain against an imaginary boulder. ‘Mean push . . . push . . .’ She straightened, raised her arms and brought them down and outward, her fingers describing two symmetrical slopes. ‘Mountain. Push mountain.’