“No he wouldn’t!” Suddenly she felt very possessive of him and frightened that her father might try to make her marry someone else. If Turk thought that was going to happen, he might go off with other women while she was shut up in the Palace.
“Dante smelled like he’d been to a brothel. I don’t want you going near no tarts.”
Turk laughed. “Are you my master now? Shall I pledge to you so you can give me orders?”
“I ain’t joking, Turk. I don’t care what me pa says. I want to marry you.”
Turk’s laughter faded. He took her face between his hands and kissed her lightly on the lips. “I’m only teasing. I’ll not change who I am and start frequenting brothels. But I still doubt your father will give me permission to marry you.”
“I won’t marry no one but you. I’ll make me pa understand.”
Turk went quiet for a few moments. It made her nervous, since he had rejected her proposal last time. “Do you really mean that, my little Star?”
“Course I do or I wouldn’t say it.”
Turk stroked his fingers through her hair, kissed her forehead and then the tip of her nose. “Once everything is sorted out and your father regains his health, I’ll ask him for your hand in marriage.”
Relief so intense it was almost painful flooded through Melba. She closed her eyes against sudden tears and hugged Turk so tightly his breath burst out. He embraced her more gently. “Don’t worry, my love. The Great Earth Jinn will make sure everything works out well for us,” he whispered against her ear.
The clock in Sugar Street Market chimed midnight. “Now you really must go inside in case Vittorio checks your room. We don’t want him to discover you’re cleansed until you have alerted the king.”
Turk pulled up the hood on her cloak to hide her face. Then they went to the edge of the canal and he hailed a passing punt. “Take the lady across to the royal dock,” he said, tossing the man some coin.
Before she stepped aboard, he bent and kissed her quickly on the lips. “Be safe, my little Star,” he whispered. “Gregorio will come as soon as your father sends for him and I’ll make sure to accompany him.”
Melba climbed into the punt and sat, her eyes never leaving Turk as the craft floated across the waterway. After she climbed out, she looked for him again. He raised his hand in farewell. Her heart contracted sharply as he stepped back into the shadows and disappeared. She had so much stuff now she was a princess, but she would give it all away just to be with Turk.
As soon as she lowered the hood on her cloak, the liftmen recognized her and jumped into action. They opened the lift door for her to climb into the cubicle and turned the handle to raise the lift. Melba pressed her face to the wooden slats overlooking the canal and strained her eyes to see in the dark. But Turk had gone. She called a couple of her Flower Jinns from their hiding place up her sleeve because they reminded her of him.
Distracted by memories of kissing him, she climbed out of the lift on the top floor and wandered along the hall to her suite.
Even though it was the middle of the night, she expected to find Madam Borrelli sitting in the corner of the room waiting for her. But her companion’s favorite chair was empty. A flutter of disquiet passed through Melba as she looked around the room. A single gas lamp glowed to light her way to her bedroom. Everything looked normal, but her gut told her something was wrong.
She called all her Flower Jinns out of her sleeve and the ten bright flutterbys danced in the air above her head, chattering happily. Their presence bolstered her confidence. She went to her bedroom door and pushed it open.
Shock flashed through her. Still in his Earth King’s costume, Vittorio lounged against a heap of pillows he had piled before the headboard of her bed.
“The wanderer returns,” he said. “I’m almost sorry. I was imagining the wonderful headline on tomorrow’s newssheet: The Shining Brotherhood abducts Princess. Never mind. I’m sure I can think of an equally scandalous headline to discredit the Brothers.”
Instinctively, Melba stepped back, nervous of being alone with him. “Don’t know what you’re talking about. I just went out for a walk to clear me head.”
Vittorio gave her a sullen look. “Do not play me for a fool, little princess.”
“Where’s Madam Borrelli?”
Swinging his legs off the bed, Vittorio stood and stretched, purposely taking his time to answer. “Those who work against me are punished.”
An icy chill settled in Melba’s belly. “What have you done to her?”
“Nothing as yet. She’s keeping my traitorous brother company.”
Great Earth Jinn! That must be how Vittorio discovered where she had gone. “Where’s Dante?”
Vittorio strode toward her and Melba backed up to put a sofa between them. Her Flower Jinns sensed her agitation and darted around her head, chattering with distress. “Tonight’s celebration should have been a triumph for me,” Vittorio said, “but you and your friends contrived to ruin the moment.”
“You must have had too much cider, ’cause you’re talking a load of rot. I demand you release Dante and Madam Borrelli.” Melba didn’t expect Vittorio to take any notice of her demand, but it was worth a try.
“Do you?” Vittorio leaned a shoulder against the doorframe and observed her like an alley cat watching a rat before it pounces. “Pretty little Jinns you have there. If you’ve simply been for a walk, where did they come from?”
She should have known Vittorio was too wily to be taken in by such an obvious lie. She needed to escape or at least get a message to Turk. She glanced over her shoulder at the door to the corridor. She and Vittorio were equidistant from it. Normally she could scarper fast but she was still suffering the aftereffects of the poisoning, and her voluminous skirts wouldn’t help. She had to distract him so she could reach the guard outside her father’s suite. She hoped the guard was loyal to the king like Madam Borrelli and would obey her over Vittorio.
Surreptitiously she slipped off her heeled shoes. She gathered the cloak tightly around her so it didn’t flap, then commanded the Flower Jinns to attack Vittorio. The ten bright flutterbys darted at his head. The instant his gaze flicked to the attacking Jinns she took off.
Master Maddox always said don’t look back when you scarper or you’ll get caught. She put her head down and ran as fast as her legs would go. She wrenched open the door and dashed down the hallway toward her father’s suite. “Arrest the Royal Victualler,” she gasped, but as well as the usual guard, there were three men she didn’t recognize. Instead of protecting her, one of the bluejackets blocked her way while two others grabbed her arms.
Vittorio trotted up behind her a smile on his face as he batted away the attacking Flower Jinns. “Take her to the laboratory.”
“No, Vitto,” she shouted as the guards dragged her along the corridor. “Pa,” she bellowed at the top of her voice. “Help me, Pa,” she shouted again. Suddenly her voluminous cloak was thrown forward over her head and pulled tight across her face to muffle her cries. She gasped for breath beneath the thick layer of wool. She scrabbled with her bare feet, bruising her toes as she was hauled down seemingly endless stairs. Her sense of direction was usually good, but she didn’t know where they were taking her until the air cooled, and the stink of damp reached her nose.
Then she knew with bone-chilling certainty where they were going. Weeks ago, when Turk brought her through the waterways into the Palace, she had smelled the bad-fish stink of Foul Jinns in the old cellars. That must be where Vittorio had his laboratory.
A door banged, and the guards finally halted. Her poor bruised feet settled on cold slimy flagstones. The cape disappeared off her face and dazed, she gulped in a breath only to retch at the stink.
“Melba, are you all right?” Dante called.
“Dante,” she whispered. Thank the Great Earth Jinn he was well. She blinked in the dim light and noticed movement in the shadows against the far wall. Vittorio walked in front of her holding a lantern a
loft and motioned the guards to follow. They went around a wooden table covered with glass containers linked by pipes and tubes. As the lantern light penetrated the shadows ahead, Melba made out cages and saw Dante and Madam Borrelli sitting in the cramped cells.
“Oh, ma’am,” Madam Borrelli said in a quivering voice. “I am sorry I let you down, ma’am.”
“Shut up, you old bag.” Vittorio kicked the front of her cage. A small dog that had been curled in the woman’s lap sprang up and started barking. That set off another dog in the cage next door. It staggered to its feet, growling, drool hanging from its mouth.
Vittorio opened the cage next to Dante’s and used a metal hook to drag out a dead dog. “Put her in there,” he commanded the guards.
One of them pulled her forward but the man she recognized as one of her father’s usual guards didn’t move. “Get on with it,” Vittorio commanded. “We don’t have all night.”
For a split second, Melba considered fighting for escape, but she was in no shape to outrun the men.
“But, your honor, she’s the princess.” The reluctant guard’s voice wavered and Melba noticed how young he was.
“And I’m about to become her husband. Now put her in the cage.”
With an apologetic glance at her, the young guard obeyed and helped push her voluminous skirts through the small door while the other guard shoved her inside. “Forgive me, ma’am,” he said under his breath, then stepped back as Vittorio slammed the door shut and locked it.
Vittorio rounded on the young guard and backhanded him across the face. “Question me again and you’ll see the bottom of The Well.”
Then he turned to an older guard. “Ready the men. We leave for the monastery in ten minutes.” As the four guards left, he faced Melba and grinned. “I told that old fool Gregorio to get rid of your spymaster Turk, but he obviously hasn’t done the job. Now I shall have the pleasure of tossing the trash tyke down The Well myself.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Even a tart has a Star in her heart.
—Dante, the Trash King
Turk couldn’t sleep, worried about Melba. He wouldn’t be happy until he was sure she had made it safely through the night and alerted her father to Vittorio’s treachery. As dawn lightened the sky, Turk entered the monastery kitchen, prepared himself two slices of bread and honey, and took his breakfast out to the garden. He sat on a wooden bench against the high wall enclosing the grounds and breathed the scent of the rambling roses.
As he ate, shades of pink and peach trailed across the sky. He closed his eyes and licked sweet honey off his lips while memories of kissing Melba heated his body. He had always suppressed such thoughts before; now he savored them. Was it possible for a man with his unlikely background to wed a princess?
The rattle of handcarts and the murmur of voices alerted him that the city outside the wall had started to wake. A black rat crept through the garden with a piece of apple in its mouth and for some reason it reminded him of Dante. With a flash of alarm, he realized that Dante had not come to the monastery as planned. Did his failure to arrive mean something had gone wrong? Could Vittorio have discovered Melba was missing?
Turk rose and started toward Gregorio’s room to tell him his fears. He had only gone a few paces when he heard a door crash open and voices in the garden. He ducked into the shrubs as two of Vittorio’s men ran past. Shock pounded through him at the implications. Vittorio must know Melba had been here. That meant she was in trouble and needed him. He was only dressed in the trousers and shirt he had pulled on when he woke, his feet bare, but he could not risk going back to his room for boots.
The gates would doubtless be guarded so he backtracked to the wall where he had eaten breakfast. He vaulted onto a wooden barrel positioned beneath the eaves to catch the rain and then jumped up and clambered onto the kitchen roof. From there he made his way to the top of the wall and peered into the street below. Few people were about. But it would only take one bluejacket to see him on the skyways and Vittorio would track him.
If he wanted to access the Palace secretly, he would have to take the waterways. He backed up as far as he could, took a run up, and leaped across a road. Then he ran down a sloped roof and jumped to the ground. Keeping to the shadows, he sprinted along lanes and alleys until he was above one of the main flood defense pipes. He located a manhole in a quiet street and dropped down into the darkness, then pulled the grating back in place.
This early in the day, little light penetrated through the vents set in the walls and he did not have a lantern. He squinted and with his hands out in front of him, he set off toward the center of the island. His bare feet landed in wet squashy things and a couple of times he slipped. Rats scuttled along the pipe with him, but he had grown used to rats in the trash barges so they didn’t worry him.
By the time he reached the center of the flood defense system beneath the Palace, sunlight angled in through the grubby windows at the top of the circular chamber. This time he knew the route. He gave the rusty heap of the broken automaton a wide berth and went straight up the stone steps and through the small door at the top.
In the crumbling dark corridor beyond, he found the broken chair Melba had used to climb up through the manhole last time he was here. A trickle of light penetrated the grid above his head. As he climbed through, the scrape of boots on stone warned him someone was there.
A Royal Guard lunged at him, but Turk rolled aside and sprang to his feet. When the man attacked again, Turk pivoted, leg raised, and smacked him on the jaw with his bare foot. The guard dropped like a sack of grain. Turk went to him and checked his breathing. Then he pulled the man’s boots off, sniffed to make sure they didn’t pong too much, and put them on his own feet.
If Vittorio had a guard stationed down here, there must be something worth guarding. Turk went to the door at the end of the corridor and examined the double locks. The bad fish stink of Foul Jinns set him on alert. He pressed his ear to the wood and thought he heard voices.
“Who’s there?” he shouted.
“Turk?” Melba’s voice!
“Hey, Turk, there are three of us in here,” Dante shouted.
Turk ran to the guard and searched him for keys but found nothing. With a curse, he returned to the door. He set the lantern aside and pounded the wood beside the locks with his newly acquired boot. The doorframe splintered where the bolts were fixed. A few more kicks and the door slammed back on its hinges.
The stink from the room was a disgusting mix of chemicals, death, and rot. He held up the lantern. Light glinted off a strange contraption made from glass and tubes.
“We’re here, Turk,” Melba shouted from the back of the room.
“Thank the Great Earth Jinn,” an older woman’s voice said. Turk rounded the table and saw that Madam Borrelli, Melba, and Dante were locked in cages against the back wall. He went straight to Melba’s cage and crouched at the bars. “Are you all right, my little Star?”
“When I get my hands on that scabby sack ’o dung, Vittorio, he’s gonna wish he were dead,” Melba said.
Turk gripped her fingers through the bars and smiled with relief that she wasn’t hurt. “Did you see where he put the cage keys?”
“Table,” Melba and Dante said together.
Turk rose, held up the lantern and located a rusty ring bearing five small keys. He unlocked all three cages, then went back to help Melba pull her wide skirts through the small door while Dante helped Madam Borrelli out. The old woman straightened slowly, holding the small dog that had shared her cage, her gaze on Dante. “I do not know what I would have done without you to keep up my spirits, young sir,” she said to Dante.
Melba jumped into Turk’s arms. Hugging her tightly, he buried his face in her hair and whispered a prayer of thanks to the Great Earth Jinn before setting her back on her feet. She turned to one of the middle cages and pointed at a dead dog. “That poor mutt was alive when Vittorio brought me down.”
They all stared at the sti
ff carcass with its tongue protruding. “Vittorio must have been experimenting on the dog,” Dante said. He pointed at two other carcasses. “I’m guessing all three of the poor creatures were infected with Foul Jinns.”
Madam Borrelli shivered, hugging the little brown and white dog tighter. “The man is utterly despicable, harming poor defenseless creatures. And he would see the king suffer the same fate.”
“We’ll not let that happen,” Turk announced with more certainty than he felt.
“We must inform His Royal Highness why he is sick,” Madam Borrelli said.
“First I want to take Melba to safety.” Turk wished he had not returned her to the Palace after the cleansing. If she had been hurt he would never have forgiven himself.
Turk put his hand on Melba’s back and tried to usher her toward the door but she didn’t move. “I can’t just leave without warning me pa.”
“The Palace will be crawling with Vittorio’s men,” Turk said. “I doubt you’ll get anywhere near the king now.”
“Turk’s right, Melba,” Dante added. “Once you’re safe we can plan how to reach the king.”
“Her Royal Highness will not be allowed to get near the king, but there is a group of servants loyal to the Ferilli family who will help me do so,” Madam Borrelli said. “I shall stay and try to get a message to him.”
Turk reluctantly agreed to Madam Borrelli staying on condition that she left the Palace as soon as she had alerted the king. She petted the little terrier, then set him on his feet. “You will make sure the dog gets to safety, won’t you?”
Melba crouched beside it and scratched behind its ears. “Can he stay with us?”
“I know some boys who would love to have him,” Turk said. Steptoe and the lads in the bunkhouse would happily find room for a canine stray. They might even make a spy out of him.
***
While Turk escorted Madam Borrelli back to the main part of the Palace, Dante kneeled beside the unconscious guard in the corridor outside the laboratory to tie the man’s hands. Melba came up beside him and pressed her tongue on the back of her teeth in thought. “Will you help me strip his clothes off him?” she asked.
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