A Clockwork Fairytale

by Helen Scott Taylor

  When he gained dry land, he swiveled around to check his pursuers. The guardsmen who had tried to follow him were not so lucky. Splashing and swearing, three bluejackets floundered in the canal, their hats bobbing free like small boats. They had tipped over one of the punts and two ladies were thrashing around, their colorful dresses billowing in the water like huge jellyfish.

  Melba stood on top of her sedan chair, waving her arms at him while Vittorio was striding toward the canal with a sword in his hand. “I’ll see you broken at the bottom of The Well for this,” he bellowed.

  “You’ll have to catch me first!” Turk whooped and punched the air. His blood sang and his muscles tingled as though he could run all day and the guards would never catch him. Melba had forgiven him and life was good.

  One of the guards who had fallen into the canal swam toward Turk and many others headed for the bridge across to the second circle to pursue him. It was time for him to disappear.

  He raised his hand in farewell to Melba, then sprinted along the path beside the canal and cut between two palaces onto the service track behind them. He couldn’t return to Waterberry House, and the Royal Guards would doubtless try to cut him off from the monastery. He couldn’t risk leading them to the bunkhouse and involving Steptoe and the lads. That left him with only his bolt-hole in the third circle.

  He headed straight into the second circle, darted behind a cobbler's, and vaulted onto a wall from a trash barrel. He leaped across an alley onto the roof of a florist’s shop and then dashed along a valley gutter between two rows of shops. The guard who had swum across the canal had followed him and managed to scramble up onto the skyways.

  Turk sprinted down a steep roof and jumped over a yard filled with lines of pegged-out laundry. He landed on the brick-built façade of an importer’s office, caught his balance, then stood and darted along the narrow ledge. He leaped, grabbed a milliner’s sign, swung around, and flipped across to the shops on the other side of the street. People below paused to stare up, pointing and shouting as the Royal Guard tried to follow him. The guard chickened out of the jump and tried to halt on the steep roof, but his clodhoppers skidded. He tumbled into the yard with a cry, brought down the lines of laundry, and ended up headfirst in a milliner’s trash barrel.

  A company of Royal Guards entered the street below Turk. They climbed onto boxes and barrels, and tried to find handholds on walls to gain access to the skyways. Turk paused with his arms akimbo, and grinned, thoroughly enjoying himself. He gave a mock salute to the crowd below, grateful he had used a glamour to hide his true appearance. Then he took off, sprinting along roofs, leaping streets, and even swinging on the occasional pole and sign to put distance between himself and Vittorio’s men.

  He couldn’t enter the third circle dressed like a nob or he would attract attention. As he ran, he shrugged off his jacket and dropped it behind a chimney, hoping to retrieve it later. Then he untied his neck cloth, dragged it through the dirt in a gutter, and knotted it back around his neck. He ripped out his cufflinks, pocketed them, and turned up his cuffs. He rubbed soot into his forearms and over his shirtfront. His trousers were already ripped and dirty from his skylarking.

  But as he shed his smart clothes and headed away from the Palace into the outer circles, his euphoria faded. Melba had forgiven him. But what had he really achieved except to anger Vittorio? Melba was a princess and he was a nobody, a trash tyke of unknown parentage. Even if he left the Shining Brotherhood, Melba and he had no future together. Even worse, Vittorio might take out his anger on Melba. By the time he dropped to the ground in the third circle and wandered out from behind a disused forge, his shoulders were slumped. Like a tiny boat set adrift on the vast uncharted ocean, he was at the mercy of powers far greater than he.

  ***

  Vittorio sliced his sword through the air in frustration. The scoundrel who had been cozying up with Melba in the sedan chair was long gone and Vittorio doubted his guardsmen stood a hope of catching him. The man could be none other than Master Turk. It was clear which way the tide was running—the spymaster monk and the princess were conducting a liaison.

  Who was this blasted monk called Turk? He had the lean rangy look of a young man not yet grown into his body and was agile as a cat. Vittorio cast his mind back to the younger boys who’d been in the seminary when he left the Shining Brotherhood. The man who’d just run away had nondescript brown hair, but he had likely used a glamour to mask himself. Vittorio remembered Dante’s description of Master Turk’s dark hair and eyes. Despite the warm sun, a chill passed through him. Could this young spymaster be the southern trash tyke whom Gregorio had pledged and treated like a son?

  Vittorio kicked over a barrel and watched it roll into the canal. The filthy trash tyke had already taken the place in his father’s affections that should have belonged to him. Now he was stealing the princess. Vittorio would see Master Turk thrown down The Well before he let him steal his throne.

  Sheathing his sword, he strode back to the market square. Melba still stood on the roof of her sedan chair grinning as though this were a game. No wonder she wasn’t receptive to his advances when her affections were engaged elsewhere. Didn’t the foolish girl understand that the throne and the future of Malverne Isle were at stake here? Vittorio’s temper boiled. He would make her his wife and ensure she never saw the blasted monk again.

  “Come down from there now,” he snapped.

  Melba’s eyes narrowed and she made no attempt to obey. He bit down on his fury. Much as it galled him, she held his future in her hands. “Please,” he added tightly.

  She turned around, grabbed the edge of the roof, and, like a monkey on a barrel organ, scrambled down, flashing glimpses of her bare legs. Restraining his outrage, he reminded himself she was no ordinary princess. She’d lived the life of a petty criminal in the third circle until recently. She appeared naïve in some ways, but he wasn’t dealing with a sheltered young lady who knew nothing of life.

  The small pink silk bag attached to her wrist sagged with an object it hadn’t contained earlier. “What have you got in there?” he demanded, pointing at the purse. “Show me.”

  She hugged the pink silk to her. “No. It ain’t yours.”

  Vittorio made a grab for her arm and she ducked and twisted out of his grasp. “Leave off. You ain’t having it,” she shouted. Vittorio glanced around at the shocked and curious faces of the crowd. By fighting with the princess in public, he was sailing dangerously close to the wind. He risked destroying his carefully cultivated reputation.

  “It’s time for us to return to the Palace,” he said. He drew aside the curtain on her sedan chair and noticed a black top hat and cane on the floor as she jumped in and covered them with her skirt. Vittorio ground his teeth and yanked the curtain closed on Melba. Four members of the Royal Guard picked her up and trotted off toward the Palace.

  Vittorio instructed two of his men to finish handing out the alms to the poor before he climbed into his own sedan chair. He would rather have walked off some of his anger, but the crowd had to see him behaving normally. He mentally linked with the Jinn he had bound to the machine and made it propel his sedan chair back to the Palace. As they crept up the hill, he slapped his hands on his knees restlessly.

  By the time he arrived at the small private gate, Melba had already gone inside. A guard presented him with a note. He unfolded the paper, expecting a message from Melba, but the few lines were from Madam Cecile inviting him to an intimate dinner.

  With a flash of disappointment, Vittorio balled up the note and tossed it away. He didn’t want to canoodle with Madam Cecile. Against all the odds, he found Princess Melbaline amusing and likeable as well as beautiful. He had started to hope that when they married it could be more than a convenient arrangement. Although she had reacted badly to his flirting on the ladder, he’d thought she was forming an attachment to him. Now he knew he was wasting his time by trying to win her favor in the traditional way.

  She had left him
no choice but to use unorthodox measures to win her cooperation. He headed through the corridors inhabited by the domestic staff. After checking that he wasn’t being observed, he descended the worn stone steps into the old part of the Palace. Unlocking a door, he retrieved his oil lamp, which this time hung where he had left it. A maintenance man or nosy servant had moved it a few weeks ago. After that incident, he had added another lock to the door of his laboratory.

  When Vittorio entered his laboratory, he paused and pressed his sleeve to his nose, giving himself a moment to adjust to the smell. The two dogs he was experimenting on barked and whined but he ignored them. He went straight to the gold Earth Blessing he had recovered from Melba’s room after she had tossed it away. He had pocketed the sacred token on a whim. Now he was grateful for his quick thinking. He turned the five linked gold rings over in his hand, his lip curling with distaste. This was likely a gift from Master Turk. What a delicious irony that Vittorio would use the keepsake from her lover to poison her.

  Gold and silver were excellent metals for absorbing and holding Jinns. According to the magical texts, the Stars in gold and silver could be summoned as powerful, intelligent Jinns known as the Golden Dragon and the Silver Serpent. Vittorio had read up extensively on summoning Jinns. But the precious metals that arrived on the merchant brigs from the south were always dead, their Stars already removed.

  Vittorio didn’t want to seriously harm Melba; he just wanted to make her sick, and dependent on him. He lowered the gold Earth Blessing into a glass flask and stoppered the neck. Then he placed an apple into a glass container connected to the others by tubes. He lit a flame beneath a retort in the middle of the setup and summoned the Apple Jinn in its raw form as a small colorless twister that whirled in the glass vessel. He instructed the tiny spirit to pass along the tube and then sealed it into the heated retort. It spun faster, the transparent Jinn first clouding, then taking on a gray, smoky appearance. Apple Jinns were normally silent but the tiny spirit screamed in his mind as it burned.

  When the twister was dark and tormented, Vittorio removed a clamp from a pipe and directed the Foul Jinn into the vessel containing the gold Earth Blessing. The tortured spirit sank into the metal, leaving a smoky residue on the surface. The noxious emanations that would seep out of the cursed gold should weaken and tire Melba without making her too sick.

  But he didn’t want to risk the Foul Jinn itself escaping from the gold and entering her body. That would be a more serious contamination and difficult to cleanse. “Great Earth Jinn, birther of all life, bind this Apple Jinn to the gold.” Vittorio focused his attention on the gold Earth Blessing and inscribed a curse mark in the air over it with his fingertip. “With faith, trust, and truth, I thank you, Great Earth Jinn, for the gift of this Apple Jinn.”

  He unstoppered the flask containing the cursed gold and removed it by holding the uncontaminated chain. He dangled it in front of his face and smiled. Melba had already asked him if he’d seen her lost Earth Blessing. Perhaps she would be so grateful when he found the precious token from her young monk that she would forgive him for being angry with her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Silver bites!

  —Southern saying

  Still buzzing with excitement from seeing Turk, Melba ran into her bedroom and threw herself down on her bed with a squeal. She hugged a cream silk pillow and unfolded the note he’d given her. Just the sight of Turk’s handwriting sent a shiver of delight through her as she imagined him sitting at his desk in the library at Waterberry House composing a letter to her.

  My dear little Star,

  It was never my intention to hurt you. Please forgive me for not being honest with you. I wanted to tell you that I was a monk, but your low opinion of the Shining Brotherhood stopped me from admitting it.

  You see, the Brothers are my only family. I was shipwrecked when I was young and washed up on the coast of Royal Malverne Isle. I survived on the trash barges for nearly a year before the Shining Brotherhood rescued me and took me to the seminary at the monastery. So it was natural I should stay with them and become a monk.

  I know you were upset that I accepted the reward for your return, but please believe I took you to your father because I thought it was best for you. I grew up without my parents so I wanted to see you restored to your father. The reward coin will be used to found a refuge for the trash tykes in your name.

  I shall take pleasure from watching you blossom into the beautiful princess you were born to be.

  Your humble servant, Turk

  Tears ran down Melba’s cheeks as she reread the note, absorbing all the details. She tried to imagine Turk as a poor little boy left alone to survive. He would have come up from the south on a merchant brig. Over the years, he must have wondered about his family and his origins just as she had wondered about hers. She had far more in common with him than she’d thought.

  How could her smart, clean, wonderful-smelling Turk have lived as a filthy trash tyke? Melba hugged the letter and starlight stone to her heart. Seeing him today had only made the ache of missing him worse. She loved him and if she couldn’t marry Turk, she didn’t want to marry anyone.

  He hadn’t really chosen to be a monk. Fate had made him one. If she could persuade him to leave the Shining Brotherhood, she was sure she could talk her father into agreeing to their marriage. Her father was kind and he wanted her to be happy. She would have to hide Turk’s past from the king, though, and pretend he was a real nob. However much her father loved her, he would never allow her to marry a man who had been a trash tyke.

  A knock sounded and Melba hastily wiped her eyes on the sheet. “Yes.”

  Madam Borrelli put her head around the door. “The Royal Victualler is here to see you, ma’am.” A tiny frown flitted across the woman’s face. “If you’re not feeling well, ma’am, I’ll tell him to come back later.”

  Melba hauled in a huge breath and swallowed the tightness in her throat. All she wanted to do was lie on her bed and daydream about Turk, but if she sent Vittorio away without speaking to him, it would only make him angrier. She needed to smooth things over and persuade him that Turk was a friend, not a threat. “I’ll come out. Thank you.”

  The woman hesitated for a moment as if she would say more, then inclined her head and backed out of the room. After hiding her letter and starlight stone in the tiny drawer of her dressing table, Melba checked her face in her mirror and smoothed down her dress.

  Then she peeped out into her private sitting room. Madam Borrelli had left the suite, as she always did when Vittorio visited. For once, Melba wished the old crow had stayed. Vittorio had his back to her as he stood staring out of the window overlooking the city with his hands clasped behind him. What sort of a mood was he in now?

  As she entered, he turned and smiled. “Melba, forgive me for speaking harshly to you. I was so angry with that scoundrel who tried to take advantage of you that I lost my temper.”

  “Turk ain’t no scoundrel. We was only talking,” she said annoyed by the way he assumed the worst of Turk. Vittorio came forward and reached for her hands as if she hadn’t spoken. She stepped back, avoiding his touch to make him listen to her. “Tell your men to leave off searching for Turk. He ain’t no threat to me. He were the one who discovered me and brought me to the Palace.”

  Violence flashed in the depths of Vittorio’s eyes. “The king has entrusted your security to me, ma’am. I shall take whatever steps I deem necessary to ensure your safety.” In other words, she was wasting her breath. He was going to make Turk pay for running rings around his useless bluejackets.

  She turned aside with a jab of anger at herself. If she hadn’t sent the angry note and instead had set up a meeting with Turk, he wouldn’t have had to risk speaking with her in public.

  “I wanted to do something to make amends for losing my temper.” Vittorio angled his head to see her face and smiled. “Since we arrived back from the marketplace, I have been questioning the staff about the gold Earth
Blessing you lost.”

  “My Earth Blessing...” Her attention jumped back to him with an almost painful jolt of anticipation. “Have you found it?”

  With a mischievous twitch of his lips, he pulled a small blue silk bag from his pocket and held it out. “I certainly have.”

  Her annoyance faded. Although he had an ulterior motive to make her like him, she was still grateful he had gone to so much trouble for her. “Thank you, Vitto. Thank you.”

  She grabbed the bag from him, yanked open the top, and pulled out the Earth Blessing. Her sick sense of guilt at losing Turk’s gift lifted. The metal glinted dully, oddly tarnished. But she was just relieved to have the keepsake back. A long sigh of relief hissed between her lips as she slipped the chain over her head and dropped her precious link to Turk inside her bodice to rest against her heart.

  “I thought you’d be pleased,” he said. “I know you were disappointed to lose it.” She nodded distractedly, her mind returning to Turk’s safety. If Vittorio kept hounding Turk, she would ask her father to intervene. But that must be a last resort. If she hoped to marry Turk, she didn’t want her father believing he was a troublemaker.

  She had to think of a safe place where she and Turk could meet regularly. In the meantime, she wanted to find out more about his past.

  “Have you ever been to the trash barges, Vitto?”

  His eyebrows snapped down. “Has someone been talking about me?”

  “You? No. It’s just that I ain’t never seen them.”

  “You haven’t missed much, Melba.”

  “I want to visit the trash barges.”

  “I beg your pardon.” Vittorio stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

  “Will you take me out to South Spit Marshes tomorrow?” she asked.