A Clockwork Fairytale

by Helen Scott Taylor

  “If you hadn’t kidnapped me and taken me to old Maddox I would talk proper.”

  Vittorio looked startled then his jaw tightened. “Dante told you it was me, did he?”

  “What have you done with Dante?”

  Vittorio averted his gaze. “Forget him. He’s leaving the island in a few hours.”

  “Even if you send away all the men I like, I still ain’t marrying you. I’d rather marry a scabby old docker who stinks of pee.”

  He slammed his hand down on the back of a chair. “You do not have a choice. I am in control now, young lady, so get used to it.”

  Swinging around, Vittorio unlocked the door, opened it partway, then turned and narrowed his eyes on her. “Take off that tat and go to bed. You have a busy day tomorrow. I’ll send you a lady’s maid in the morning to help you prepare for our wedding.”

  Dozens of insults flowed through her head, but in the few seconds the door was open she noticed the bluejacket stationed outside staring at her, his face a mask of confusion. He was the same young guard who had apologized to her for putting her in the cage.

  The door slammed shut and the key turned in the lock. She pressed her ear to the wood and heard Vittorio’s footsteps fade. She hoped the young guard could be persuaded to help her.

  “Hey, you out there,” she said.

  For long moments nobody answered, then a man cleared his throat. “Do you mean me, Your Royal Highness?”

  Melba flattened her palms against the door and eagerly leaned closer. “What’s your name?”

  More silence and some foot shuffling. “Antonio, ma’am.”

  Melba closed her eyes and prayed to the Great Earth Jinn to help her. “You heard me tell the Royal Victualler that I won’t marry him, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “When the Royal Victualler is charged with treason for poisoning the king and imprisoning me, all his men will go down with him.” She waited a few seconds for the guard to digest this information. “If you let me out now and help me, I’ll make sure you can stay on as a Royal Guard.”

  She heard his breath hitch as though he was struggling with himself. “Me pa was a Royal Guard for forty years, ma’am. We’re loyal to the Ferilli family.”

  Working for Vittorio was not being loyal, she thought, but she didn’t want to discourage him. “If you are loyal to me family, then open the door.”

  More silence. Melba’s fingers curled into fists against the wood, willing him to turn the key. At the scrape of the lock, her legs nearly gave way with relief. She stepped back as the door swung open. Pulling it wide, she poked her head out, then beckoned Antonio inside.

  “I’m acting on behalf of the king. You must do exactly what I tell you.”

  The young guard nodded. No wonder Vittorio had made him obey orders. Despite his height, Antonio was little more than a boy and he looked terrified.

  “Are there any other guards on this floor?”

  “His honor still has four men protecting the king.”

  Protecting him from his daughter and his friends, Melba thought, with a burst of anger. She wanted to go to her father, but she had to rescue Turk first. “Do you know what happened to the men who were arrested at the brothel?”

  Antonio shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about that, ma’am. I ain’t left the Palace.”

  “I need to get out of the Palace and you must help me.”

  He nodded obediently.

  Melba needed a disguise and she knew just where to find one. “We’re going down to the lower level via the servant’s stairs. If anybody sees us, you must pretend you’re escorting me. Now come on.”

  Melba poked her head out of the door again and listened. She locked the door behind her and pocketed the key, then hurried toward the stairs, thankful that she didn’t need to pass the guards outside her father’s rooms.

  When they reached the lowest floor, she made her way to the laundry room where she and Turk had found clean togs weeks ago. Towels and linen were stacked on the wooden slated shelves as if nothing had changed since her last visit. She hurried to the corner where Turk had tossed their old clothes, praying they were still there. Feeling beneath the shelves, she pulled out Turk’s old bluejacket’s disguise and her brown suit. A mouse had chewed holes in Turk’s jacket and built a nest in one of the sleeves. Although her brown suit smelled of mice and mold, luckily it wasn’t nibbled.

  She ducked behind the same shelves where she had changed last time. “Watch the door,” she commanded Antonio.

  She pulled off her old togs and stood in her underthings, her flower Jinns fluttering around her. The memory of sneakily watching Turk change crept into her mind and a wave of almost unbearable grief made her crouch and press her face to her knees. What if Vittorio had already killed him, or had tortured him so badly he would never recover? By the time the bluejackets had carried him out of the brothel he was seriously injured. If Turk died, she didn’t want to live without him.

  Sucking in a catchy breath, she pulled a towel off the stack to wipe her eyes. There was no time for this defeatist thinking. Before a thieving job, Master Maddox always said to imagine everything works out well and it will. She must believe that Turk was alive and she would rescue him.

  She yanked on her brown trousers and fastened the jacket over her underwear, making sure to transfer Turk’s silver medallion and her key to her jacket pocket. She hid her flower Jinns up her sleeve, then pulled on her stained suede skyways boots, and tugged the cap on her head, tucking up her hair so it didn’t show. “How’s the disguise?” she asked, emerging from behind the shelves so her guard could look at her.

  He squinted. “Have you been crying, ma’am?”

  “None of your business, Antonio. You just keep your mind on doing what I tell you. I want your dagger.” She held out her hand. He pulled a blade from his belt and handed it over. She pushed it into her boot as she planned what to do next. She needed help from the Primate of the Shining Brotherhood, but she didn’t want to spend time going to the monastery. Every minute she wasted, Turk was alone and in pain waiting for her. She tore a page out of a laundry book on a shelf by the door and used the old pen to scratch out a note telling the Primate that Vittorio had arrested Turk and he must come to the Royal Victualler’s office. She folded the paper and pressed it into Antonio’s hand. “You take this to the monastery and give it to the Primate, you understand?”

  Antonio tucked the note into his pocket. “What’s it say, ma’am?”

  “Ain’t your place to question me. Just make sure the Primate gets it. Nobody else. It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He saluted.

  “Off you go then, quick sharp.” Melba watched him trot away and sighed. He wasn’t the brightest spark in the fire, but she thought he would obey her orders. She grabbed a lantern off a hook and lit it, then headed down the stone steps to the old part of the Palace. She climbed down through the manhole and trotted along the crumbling corridor. When she reached the central chamber of the flood defense system, she descended the winding stairs.

  The main conduit that ran to the harbor was wider than the other five large pipes. She had traveled the route occasionally but runners and thieves tried to avoid the harbor pipe. At high tide, it always flooded and at low tide, it stank something rotten.

  She clambered up into the pipe and raised her lantern. Even this far from the harbor the wind carried the faint trace of the harbor-pipe pong. She set off at a trot, soon reaching muck deposited by the sea.

  Ahead, the end of the pipe that opened in the harbor wall was invisible in the darkness, but the hiss of the sea warned her she was nearly there. Rats scampered across her path and crabs scuttled among the washed-up seaweed and pebbles. The stink grew stronger—worse than rotten seaweed and bad fish.

  She slowed as she splashed through ankle-deep water, holding up her lantern to check the pipes branching off. Although this route was unfamiliar to her, the layout was standard. The
entrance to the pipe she planned to take had a big cross scratched in the rock above it—the traditional warning of danger left by runners and thieves. As she squinted into the side tunnel, the smell made her gag. Normally she would not dream of using a route marked as dangerous, but this was her only way of accessing the Royal Victualler’s dungeon.

  She balanced her lantern in the entrance to the tunnel, removed her jacket, and pulled off her silky underdress. Then she put her jacket back on and tied her underwear around her face to make a rose-scented mask. The stink still penetrated but it was more bearable.

  She climbed into the narrow tunnel and, pushing the lantern in front of her, crawled in the direction she hoped to find Turk. Flies buzzed around her eyes and she had to keep knocking them away.

  The stink became so bad she could hardly breathe without gagging. Sickness burned the back of her tongue. She swallowed hard and tried not to vomit. The smell was worse than anything she had known before, worse than the trash barges, worse than the Foul Jinn stink. She couldn’t imagine where it came from.

  As she crawled farther under the quay, the sound of the sea faded, to be replaced by a buzzing that sounded like millions of flies. She paused to listen, and shivered. But nothing would stop her from rescuing Turk. As she continued, the flies grew so bad she had to keep her eyes closed as much as possible and she thanked the Great Earth Jinn her nose and mouth were covered.

  She raised the lantern and saw that the tunnel led to a small chamber. The floor lay some way below. Metal ladder rungs were fixed to the rock wall. She squinted down at the bottom of the chamber, which seemed to be undulating. Extending her arm, she held out the lantern. Light fell on a bloated human face, the eye sockets empty, the tongue swollen and protruding.

  With a cry, Melba’s fingers released her lantern. She lurched back into the tunnel, her breath coming in panicked snatches. Sensing her distress, the Flower Jinns shot out of her sleeve and danced around her head, screeching in warning.

  For a few minutes she hugged herself, her teeth chattering with shock. The Jinns quieted and settled on her head and shoulders. She composed herself and peered into the pit again. Her lantern had landed upright and still burned, illuminating a horrifying heap of rotting people covered in the gray ooze of Foul Jinns. Rats clambered among the bodies, making the corpses look as though they were moving.

  Vittorio had experimented on dogs in his laboratory; perhaps he had also experimented on the poor smugglers and thieves he arrested. She didn’t want to look at the hideous bloated, rotten corpses but she forced herself to survey the heap of bodies carefully, all the while praying that Turk wasn’t down there. When she failed to see him, she leaned back and closed her eyes with relief.

  She leaned into the pit again and looked upward, scanning the trail of metal rungs into darkness. That was her route into the dungeon, but she needed her lantern. With a sense of dread, she glanced down again. She would have to climb to the bottom to retrieve the light. She instructed her Flower Jinns to go back up her sleeves so they didn’t panic and distract her.

  Melba swallowed repeatedly as she climbed out and found the lower rungs of the ladder with her feet. She descended slowly, one rung at a time, testing each to make sure it was securely bolted to the wall before she let it take her weight. The corpses contained so much Foul Jinn contamination it might kill her if she fell among them. When she reached the bottom, she looked over her shoulder. This close she could see the gray ooze of the Foul Jinns bubbling out of the corpses and sticking to the rats.

  She hung on to a metal rung with one hand and holding her breath reached back with the other. She caught hold of the loop on top of the lamp and brought it against the wall, clinging to the ladder with a flash of relief so intense it hurt. Then she started to climb up.

  Once she passed the tunnel by which she had entered, she turned down her light temporarily so as not to alert any guards to her presence. At the top, she clambered out into a small circular room at the end of a dark corridor. Leaning against the wall, she caught her breath and pushed her underwear mask down around her neck.

  She crept along the dank corridor. The sound of the sea hissed through narrow slits that must open high on the harbor wall. At an intersection she turned left, walking silently, listening for any sound. Cell doors ran along one side of the corridor, all in total darkness. A groan sounded from one and she held up her lantern to look through the small barred window in the door. A man huddled against the back wall, but the sight of gray hair told her it wasn’t Turk. She continued on, the silence unnerving.

  A strange whirring sound made her stop and listen. The moment she concentrated on the noise her Flower Jinns popped out of her sleeve and circled her head, screaming with fear. She ran along the corridor toward the sound. When she reached the noisy cell, she skidded to a halt and held her lantern against the barred window in the door.

  Turk stood manacled to the back wall, but she could hardly make him out through the swirling storm of Jinns in the cell. “Turk!” His name burst from her lips in terror.

  He gave a strangled grunt in answer. Her gaze flew down to the lock but there was no key. In panic, she rattled the door. Turk’s silver medallion pulsed inside her pocket, the Silver Serpent eager to help its master fight the Foul Jinn. She had to get through the door. With her Flower Jinns fluttering around her head, she raced along the corridor past more cells toward the exit. At the bottom of some narrow stone steps, she found a different type of door that she prayed was the guardroom where she would find the keys.

  She pressed her ear to the door but heard nothing. So she turned the handle and pushed with a vague plan in mind. The room stank of pee, ale, and other unmentionable things. She gave the place a quick look but didn’t see any keys. An ancient bluejacket sat at a small table with his gnarled hand around a tin mug. Tangled gray hair poked out beneath his cap, covered his cheeks and chin, and sprouted out of his ears. He stared at her as if she had fallen out of the sky. “Who might you be?” He squinted at her.

  “There’s a Foul Jinn loose and it’s coming this way.” She hoped he feared Foul Jinns enough to scarper.

  He didn’t run, instead he narrowed his eyes. “What you know about them things, lad?”

  “They kill you is what I know. Me Master, old Maddox, were infected.”

  The old bluejacket lurched to his feet drunkenly and stumbled closer to her. She held her ground because if she backed up he might get suspicious. Then she noticed a ring of keys on his belt. Somehow, she must get the keys from the guard, stop him raising the alarm, and she must do it quickly.

  “You ain’t no boy.” He leered revealing the rotten stumps of his teeth. “You come down ’ere looking for a good time, girl?”

  Melba would have laughed in his face if she wasn’t so worried about Turk. “I come ’cause the guard up top paid me to warn you about the Foul Jinn. He were too scared to come down ’ere.”

  “What?” The old man’s face scrunched in a frown.

  Melba stepped aside and gestured along the corridor. “I seen the Foul Jinn down there when I come in.”

  “You can’t have. His honor said ’tis locked in with a prisoner.”

  So this old man knew exactly what Vittorio did to the men in the cells. He stepped past her and stared down the corridor. She darted into the guardroom, snatched up the tin mug, and clobbered him on the back of the head with it. Without a sound, the old man crumpled to the ground.

  She dropped the mug and fumbled the key ring off his belt with trembling fingers. The metal ring bore many keys, but each was marked with lines to indicate cell numbers. She ran back along the corridor counting the doors. When she reached Turk’s cell she found the key that had five marks on it, jammed it in the lock, and turned. The rusty hinges groaned as she pulled the door open and a swirling mass of dirty straw and filth hit her in the face.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  A cornered rat always jumps at your face.

  —Princess Melbaline

&n
bsp; A sob caught in Turk’s throat at the sight of Melba. He had thought he would never see her again. Through the swirling dirt whipped up by the battle between the Foul Jinn and the Earth Jinn he had raised to protect himself, Turk saw her in the doorway. He wanted to shout to her that it was too dangerous to come in, but the effort of raising and controlling an Earth Jinn had drained the last of his energy and he barely managed to whisper.

  Melba held something up. “I have your medallion, Turk.” A flash of hope gave him renewed strength. If Melba could bring the silver to him, Gül would easily vanquish the small Foul Jinn.

  She slipped inside the cell, back pressed to the stone, and edged around the wall toward him. He clenched his fists in determination, the sharp angles of the manacles biting into his flesh. Focusing every scrap of his remaining mental energy, he directed the Earth Jinn to protect her.

  For a few seconds he forgot the pain in his head and chest as Melba drew near. She looped his medallion chain over his head and the silver disk slapped against his skin. Gül telescoped out of the metal in a silver streak, shot through the air, and sucked up the Foul Jinn in a matter of seconds.

  With a shudder of relief, Turk relaxed. The scraps of dirty straw and dust stirred up by the battle floated to the ground as Gül slithered back to him. Turk silently thanked the Great Earth Jinn for its help. Melba whispered soothing words to him as her hands grazed over his face and body, gently examining his injuries. Tears ran down his cheeks and she wiped them away. He was desperately relieved to see her, but the throbbing pain in his head obliterated the words he longed to say.

  He must have lost consciousness for a moment because the next thing he knew, Melba had a lamp in her hand. “Turk, wake up.” She cupped his chin and lifted his head. He blinked his good eye at her. “I think your ribs and nose are broke. I’m taking you to the monastery.”

  The thought fluttered through his mind that Vittorio would only come to the monastery and arrest him again. She leaned close to him, avoiding his damaged ribs, and kissed his chest. Through his aching, clogged nose, he inhaled her fragrance of roses like a breath of hope in this stinking nightmare of a place.