“Poor Suffering Child!” Lussa grieved. “But Lorenzo, have You petitioned the Ship’s Cat? Is the Beast properly Invested?”
“Oh, she’s the model of a ship’s cat. But Sofonisba doesn’t care for any of the sailors, I’m afraid. So no, I haven’t asked her.”
“Ah, the old Boy/Cat Problem. She might care for Teodora. I presume the Cat has sniffed out her True Sex? Yar. So appeal directly to the Beast. You of all People know that Something in Cats’ Higher Natures can come forth in an Emergency.”
Renzo nodded, remembering how a cat called the Gray Lady had given her life to protect the precious Spell Almanac from Il Traditore. And during the battle in the lagoon, teams of winged Syrian cats rescued prisoners from cages in the enemies’ masts, flying them to safety on Persian carpets. And Venice’s winged lions, who’d come to life to defend their city, were nothing if not cats.
“Absolutely. I’ll try Sofonisba,” Renzo said eagerly, “soon as I can find her.”
Since Miss Uish had appeared on the Scilla, Sofonisba had kept herself hidden away as much as possible. Renzo explained to the mermaids that Miss Uish took every opportunity to grind Sofonisba’s tail with her sharp-heeled boots.
“So,” pronounced Flos, “if da estimable feline’s da sworn enemy of dat baggin’ Uish woman, then it makes sense she’ll be pantin’ to help one of her victims, woan she jest? No matter how cattishly contrariwise dat Sofonisba’s a-feeling! Now this palaver ain’t filling da floating portmanteau, is it?” Flos busied herself with inserting the coral letterforms of the Seldom Seen Press into velvet pouches.
Renzo tried to keep the plaintive note out of his voice. “How can you leave at a time like this? Aren’t you supposed to be Venice’s Protectresses?”
“We are summoned to the North, Lorenzo. And in any Case, We must leave. In this cold, Lorenzo,” replied Lussa, “my Pretty Ladies are reduced to a State of Torpor. We cannot be Vigorous Defenders of Venice if We are but Half-Conscious or Dying.”
The sleepy voices of the mermaids chanted:
“Bajamonte’s gone to sea,
Roasted wraiths upon his knee,
He’ll come back and murder me,
Bad old Bajamonte.
Bajamonte’s fat and fair,
Eats goat stew and bottled bear;
I’ll hate him for evermair,
Bad old Bajamonte.”
“I don’t believe those are quite the original words,” remarked Renzo.
“Yar,” said Lussa, and shrugged, “but at least the Frightful Naughtiness keeps some of my Ladies sufficiently Awake to prepare for our Journey.”
Renzo asked, “But why north, Lussa? Where?”
“To Britannia herself.”
“London?” Renzo leaned forward avidly. Then he paled, “But someone is killing mermaids in London, Lussa!”
“London! London! London!” screeched the parrots, waking up a few of the snoring mermaids, who shouted, “Roasted Wraiths!” and “Bottled Bears!” and “Yoiks!” before slipping back to sleep.
Lussa explained, “Seashells have arrived from our Sister-Mermaids on the Thames. The London Mermaids insist that their Troubles have a Venetian Flavor and that We must rush to their Aid. They dare not leave their Cavern after what befell the Melusine. More Shells arrive each Morning, each increasingly Desperate. Yet behold their Script, Lorenzo. Is it not strangely Languid? Almost Drunken?”
Lussa held out a scallop shell scrawled with girlish loops.
“We fear that London has already fallen to the same Baddened Magic that threatens Venice.”
“London too! Why would Bajamonte Tiepolo …? Why can’t her own magical creatures help her?”
“Since the Murder of the Melusine, it seems there’s scant other Help for London. For all her Greatness, Britannia’s own Magic has been Dulled by Decades of Severe Rationality imposed by her Human Queen.
“London once had more Ghosts per Square Mile than any other Place on Earth. But Victoria was not amused by the Idea of Fairies, Ghosts or Good Spirits. The English Queen’s little Mouth has always enjoyed a Sulky Pout more than a healthy Scream of Fright or Wonder. For the Londoners, ’Tis Manifest that Industry works, makes Money, builds Factories. They have mistaken Speed & Grand Scale for Magic.
“So Britannia’s own Magic has gradually Stilled to almost Nothing. Her Haunted Houses have been Razed to build Railway Arches. Paved over are her Plague Cemeteries & the Graves of Those who died in the Great Fire of 1666. London’s Ghosts have been Dispossessed, & have given up the Ghost, as It were. Now there are just a few Fairies at the Bottoms of Surburban Gardens.”
“My father loved London …,” Renzo began, but Lussa interrupted.
“Do not fear, Lorenzo. We would wish to take care of London, as we take care of Venice. We have already dispatched Three Dozen of our Incogniti to set up a Business selling Hot Spiced Pumpkin. The Londoners shall quickly come to love It as a Delicacy, just as the Venetians do. Our Incogniti shall ply their Wares on Barrows at populous Corners and so gather Knowledge for Us. They are also to parley with the Thousands of Italian Children who play the Barrel Organ, or exhibit Performing Squirrels, White Mice & Dancing Dogs in London.
“Meanwhile, the London Mermaids’ Shells tell Us that the imminent Death of the English Queen bodes no Good for Anyone.…”
Flos called out, “Da turtleshell shows dat da Uish woman’s gettin’ ready for to leave her party. Ye better make with da legs, Studious Son!”
Sofonisba listened to Renzo with a tolerant expression.
“Teodoro, the boy-girl?” yawned Sofonisba.
“Shh. No one’s to know that.”
“And you want me to help how?”
“Go down to the icehouse and try to warm up her body with your fur. You know Teo … is … special,” wheedled Renzo.
“Evidently,” remarked Sofonisba. “Not many girls can turn a boy that red in the face.”
“It’s just that … I …,” stammered Renzo.
“Whatever it is you’re quite unable to say,” remarked Sofonisba, “is likely to be supremely uninteresting to me. However.”
Ten minutes later, Teo awoke from her iced stupor to the sound of purring and a tickling feeling in her face. Above her, something heavy thumped across the deck.
She did not really wish to be roused back to the real world, where there was biting cold and cruelty, and no sense of hope whatsoever. It was better simply to fade away. No more floggings, no more hunger. No more fear.
A rasping feeling invaded her left hand. Teo opened one eye. Sofonisba was busily licking the feeling back into her fingers. Teo was not grateful: as the numbness disappeared, stabbing pains ran through each hand.
“Avast licking there!” she implored the cat. “Just let me be.”
In answer, the cat set to work licking some pink back into Teo’s blue feet.
When it became apparent that the icehouse was not going to kill Teo, Miss Uish freed her.
“I suppose you’re faintly more use alive than dead,” she said with a sniff the next morning, hauling Teo up by her elbows and dumping her on deck. “You’re the orphan with the best aptitude for English, apart from the St—Renzo.”
Renzo quietly approached with a blanket, while Miss Uish bent to light one of her bitter cigars with a piece of curled paper she took from a sack on the deck. It was the latest of Signor Rioba’s handbills unmasking the true situation of the Scilla’s orphans. From the look of the bulging sacks, there were none left in Venice.
Renzo, wrapping the blanket around Teo’s shoulders, pointed silently. Teo thought, “No one in Venice knows what’s happening to us. She’s made sure of that.”
Miss Uish’s attention had wandered to Rosato and Giovanni, who were struggling to position a large boarded-up crate. “Show me some speed!” she snarled. “Or I’ll show you something you won’t like.”
The thumping noise Teo had heard down in the icehouse was now revealed as the commotion of ten such crates being winched o
n deck. She knew better than to ask Miss Uish what those boxes contained. Miss Uish was too happy, purring over the cases, slapping any boy who handled his corner clumsily, all the time urging haste.
Rosato and Sebastiano were set to drilling round holes just under the stanchions of the Scilla.
“Ten inches in diameter,” shrilled Miss Uish. “Not a fraction more, and not a fraction less. Or there’ll be consequences. Bring up the supplies! And pull those chicken coops up now! Faster! We’re days behind as it is, you laggards! If I miss my rendezvous because of you …!”
Indignant squawking from below announced the arrival of fourteen crated hens, a rooster and several ducks. The “supplies,” shrouded in sacks, clinked loudly. There were also sacks of flour and flasks of vinegar.
“Why are we provisioning the ship like this?” Teo asked Renzo. “It’s as if we’re getting ready for a voyage. We’re not going anywhere, are we?”
The temperature plunged, freezing the mercury inside the Scilla’s thermometer. Stalactites hung from the Rialto Bridge. In the smaller canals, the water no longer writhed under the crust of ice, but lay stilled to the consistency of cold porridge. The crenellations of the palaces were laced with ribbons of frost.
It was not just Venice that was freezing: the Venetians themselves were chilled to their souls. On the morning of January 8, the first person had fallen ill with a mysterious new malady. By that evening, hundreds had taken to their beds, the color draining from their complexions, the skin turning stiffly waxen on their faces and hands.
Someone coined an ominous name for the sickness: the Half-Dead disease.
People with the Half-Dead disease were easily recognized. Their heads nodded pale and frail like snowdrops; they were indifferent to every suggestion, caring not a jot about what happened to them. Sufferers claimed they saw everything through a thick white veil. They hallucinated, whispering of ghosts and mythical creatures. And they were never hungry, or thirsty. Their gums blackened. They just wanted to lie down. Many would never get up again.
The old, the weak and the miserable were quickly carried off by the pestilence. By the third day, it had begun to gnaw on the feelings and the bodies of the healthy too.
The Half-Dead disease was spreading as fast as the Plague that once destroyed a third of the city’s population. The Mayor, as ever, tried to play it down. Piffle! he scoffed in a newspaper interview. Some people will do anything to get the day off work, when all they have is a simple head-cold.
Miss Uish was delighted by the advent of a new way to “toughen” her “lily-livered Venetian blanket-sops.”
“Half-Dead disease?” she purred to the boys lined up on deck. “Let me tell you my simple cure. Hard work and a light diet! I want this boat utterly seaworthy and quick smart. Anyone who snivels gets six lashes.”
The snivel froze in white trails under their noses.
Just after supper on January 10, a flock of cormorants winged blackly out of the mist and settled on the masts of the Scilla. It seemed as if they brought a new shudder of cold with them. Miss Uish walked around the deck, rubbing her hands with pleasure. She murmured to Peaglum, “At last! We’ll have our justification tonight, if I’m not wrong. If it all works out … we’ll be there at exactly the right moment!
“And the beauty of it is—the idiot Venetians will be so grateful to us for getting their orphans away from the dangerous ice!” She giggled.
The young sailors were ordered to scrub the cormorant droppings off the deck—a thankless, endless task in a rising wind. They went to sleep shortly after midnight. Three hours later, they were jolted awake in their hammocks by a loud crack, like a cannon being fired.
“What’s that noise?”
Another low banging noise echoed through the Scilla.
“It is the ice, surrounding us,” whispered Massimo.
“If the Giudecca Canal freezes over, it will crush the ship,” Emilio said in a quavering voice.
“And drag us down to the sea floor with the weight of the ice,” added Marco quietly.
Miss Uish’s voice rang down joyfully through the booby hatch, “Malfeasance! All is ready! So get those whining laggards on deck!”
“They’re sleepin’ like lambs, Mistress,” simpered Peaglum.
“Then poke them with the toasting fork till they wake. Tie every tenth child to its hammock. Make sure you get … you know the one. And we might as well keep the Nestle Tripe, as it speaks English so well. And any other remotely useful ones. Send me two strong little brutes immediately for duty. Put the others ashore. We’re setting sail!”
The Scilla crept out of the bacino in the dead of night. Sebastiano and Marco were set to bracing the yards, brailing the spanker and cluing up the mizzen-royal.
Lashed to their hammocks, the remaining sailors exchanged fearful whispers.
“Where are we going? Did Miss Uish tell the school inspectors that we were leaving?” demanded Emilio.
“And why did she put most of the boys ashore?” wondered Teo.
“So as not to have to feed ’em, I s’pose,” sighed Giovanni.
“How many of us are left,” asked Massimo, “all together?”
“There’s you, Teo, Renzo, Emilio, Fabrizio, Rosato, Alfredo and me,” counted Giovanni.
“And she’s got Seba and Marco up on deck with her. Ten. And Sofonisba,” agreed Alfredo tenderly. He loved that cat, and she had come to an understanding with him, sometimes allowing him to stroke her.
“But why us?” Rosato asked.
“I guess we’re all good for something,” realized Massimo. “I’m best at net repair and sewing, Teo and Renzo are clever at English, and just about everything in books. Renzo’s our wheelman, Giovanni’s the top parrot-trainer, Emilio’s brilliant at telling the weather, Sebastiano’s the master knotsman, Fabrizio’s got the sharpest eyes and ears, Rosato is good at woodwork …”
“Sssssh! There’s her lamp. She’s coming. Pretend to be asleep.”
“Show a leg, sack-rats!” roared the dreaded harsh voice. Each child in turn felt the rasp of her cold hands as she slit their bonds. “All hands ahoy! Amain! You lot are to be on deck in five minutes. Up the crow’s nest, Fabrizio. The others, scrubbing and seaming for you.”
“But it’s not yet light, is it?” whimpered Emilio unwisely. “Ma’am.”
“Will that matter, on your hands and knees? You can smell the dirt that close up. Put Emilio Ghezzo on my list, Malfeasance!”
“Please, ma’am, can we …?” pleaded Giovanni. His growling belly finished the sentence.
“You’ll get food when you’ve done something to earn it.”
The faintest dawn light in the porthole revealed that the Scilla had already passed into a remote corner of the lagoon. Then the mist opened in pockets to show ghostly jujube trees weighed down with rotted black berries.
“We’re heading toward open sea,” whispered Renzo to Teo at the water barrel, where they were breaking ice.
They passed islands where ragged nets hung on poles that leaned out of the water at crooked angles. Teo’s and Renzo’s eyes met sadly: they both realized that the fishermen who once tended those nets must have been drowned in the ice storm.
“Renzo!” exclaimed Teo. “Look at all those books!”
Jostling between the poles were hundreds of Venice’s lost volumes, which had been borne away by the flood.
“Can you see The Key to the Secret City?” Renzo bent eagerly over the rail.
“Too many of them to know. But look how the books are pushing the poles together,” Teo said. “It’s as if they are forming letters and words.”
“Your eyes are playing tricks on you, Teo,” said Emilio. “It’s barely light.”
“No, I’m sure I’m right.” Teo turned to Renzo, and traced the lettering below them with a silent finger.
The other boys saw it too now. They grew as pale as she was.
The poles said TURN BACK NOW. PERIL AHEAD.
Hope faded in ten young h
earts in that moment.
“It means she’s going to kill us all, one by one,” wept Sebastiano.
Miss Uish steered the ship away from the shores of the Adriatic, and as far away as possible from any passing craft. The sea seemed uneasy; sharp waves broke almost vindictively against the prow. Great hollow-fronted rollers snarled around the stern like hungry jaws.
The Scilla strained against the swell. Miss Uish showed the poor old ship no mercy. The sailors spent all their time attending to the Scilla. They patched canvas, spliced ropes and pumped the bilges. To keep her watertight, they had hacked the old oakum from the seams in the boards with a jerry iron. Then they prodded new oakum into the gaps with the caulking iron, carefully ladling hot pitch to seal it.
Miss Uish ordered Massimo and Giovanni to be lashed about the waist and ankles, then suspended upside down over the side of the ship to tar her outer seams. The boys were eventually hauled back up, soaked to the skin, numb and feverish.
Even when the swell receded, the waves whispered like malicious girls gossiping in a schoolyard. And what was down there, below them? Sometimes there were juddering noises in the water, and a sound like deep, heavy breathing. Teo overheard Emilio and Massimo talking about giant sea monsters.
“Everyone,” Emilio insisted, “said that something more powerful than water must have smashed the seawalls on Christmas Eve.”
“Quiet!” shouted Miss Uish, coming up behind the boys. “Less talk and more speed.” She muttered to herself, “The birds say the old bezzom’s fading fast.”
At dawn on January 12, a roll of drums summoned all the sailors to the deck. Sofonisba was howling in a cage, her tail puffed up like a feather duster.
“This is how I deal with ill-discipline aboard my ship,” announced Miss Uish. “This creature has spurned the rats so plentifully provided, and this evening committed the impertinent act of stealing my roast chicken supper—the supper of the representative of Her Majesty Queen Victoria!”
The Mourning Emporium Page 10